It’s a five-star luxury hotel like many others in the Thai capital of Bangkok, replete with a grandiose marble foyer, resort-style villas and free-flowing cocktails.
But the Grand Hyatt Erawan has now become the scene of something sinister, after the bodies of six people were found in a hotel suite in an alleged cyanide poisoning plot.
The door was locked from the inside. Security footage showed there had been no visitors. Room service ordered earlier that day was left untouched.
The bodies of six people were discovered on Tuesday in the Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok, a lavish hotel at a central intersection in the capital flanked by malls and government buidlings.
Two of the dead were US citizens of Vietnamese descent and the other four were Vietnamese nationals, according to Thailand’s prime minister Srettha Thavisin.
Thiti Saengsawang, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, said the bodies discovered were those of three women and three men, aged between 37 and 56.
The Vietnamese and US embassies have been contacted about the deaths, and FBI investigators are travelling to the scene.
The six had last been seen alive when food was delivered to the room on Monday afternoon. A maid discovered the bodies after the group failed to check out on Tuesday.
Staff confirmed seeing one woman who received the food, and security footage showed the rest arriving one by one to the room shortly after.
There were also initial reports in Thai media they had been shot dead in the hotel room, which police quickly denied.
By Wednesday morning, traces of cyanide had been discovered in the cups of the six victims.
Initial post-mortem results showed traces of the rapidly acting chemical in each of the victim’s bodies, doctors at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital said.
Forensic experts also confirmed that a CAT scan showed no signs of blunt force trauma to any of the victims, supporting the theory that they had been poisoned.
Four bodies were found in the living room and two in the bedroom, according to Bangkok police chief Lt Gen Thiti Sangaswang.
Two of them appeared to try and reach for the door but collapsed, he added.
The Metropolitan Police commissioner said that as of now, police have concluded that none of the victims harmed themselves.
Police said the case appeared to be personal. Among the dead are a husband and wife who had invested money with two of the other victims.
The couple invested about 10 million baht (£214,000) to fund the building of a hospital in Japan, AP reports, and it is believed the group may have been meeting to settle the matter.
Officers said a seventh person whose name was part of the hotel booking was identified by police as a sibling of one of the victims, who left the country on July 10.
Police believe the seventh person had no involvement in the deaths.
A mass suicide has also been ruled out for now because some of the victims had arranged future plans for their trip, such as guides and drivers.
The bodies were not grouped in the same place – some were in the bedroom, or in the living room – suggesting that they did not knowingly consume poison and wait for their death together.
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