Police believe one of six Vietnamese people found dead at the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel in Bangkok on Tuesday evening poisoned the others and then committed suicide.
Pol Maj Gen Theeradet Thumsuthee, investigation chief at the Metropolitan Police Bureau, said at Lumpini police station on Wednesday morning that police had questioned the daughter of one of the victims, and other witnesses.
Their accounts were useful, he said.
“The case likely stems from a debt problem. There are no other possibilities. The culprit is among the six (dead) because they were the only people who entered the room. There were no others,” Pol Maj Gen Theeradet said.
Investigators had yet to identify the poison used, he said.
Six Vietnamese people were found dead in a room on the fifth floor of the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel in downtown Bangkok on Tuesday evening. Two had American citizenship and the others were Vietnamese nationals.
An informed source said forensic police detected a cyanide-like substance in used cups in room 502 where the bodies were found. It was naturally occuring and more powerful than cyanide, and extremely lethal, the source said.
A seventh Vietnamese person had booked the next door room. Police believe she was a younger sister of one of the six victims.
The woman had left the country on July 10, and was unlikely to have had anything to do with the deaths. The killer was believed to have poisoned the five others before taking her own life, a source said.
Police forensic science chief Pol Lt Gen Trairong Phiewphan said on Wednesday there was a poison in a drink which looked like black coffee found in two flasks in the death room.
The six Vietnamese are seen with their luggage in the following security camera screenshots, apparently heading to room 502 on the fifth floor of the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel in the Pathum Wan district on Monday afternoon. They were found dead at the room on Tuesday evening. (Photos supplied)
