Police are looking for a seventh Vietnamese national who may be able to shed light on the mysterious deaths of six compatriots, whose bodies were found in a room of a hotel in Bangkok’s central Ratchaprasong district late yesterday afternoon.
According to the police, there were seven room bookings made at the unnamed luxury hotel for the Vietnamese group, but only five of them checked in, in two groups, one on July 13th and the other on the following day. A sixth person joined them later. They took four rooms on the seventh floor and one room on the fifth floor.
Yesterday, six people were found dead in the fifth floor room by a maid, leaving the seventh who made a booking, but did not check in.
According to the hotel, the four Vietnamese nationals staying on the seventh floor planned to check out Monday afternoon, and they all moved their luggage to a room on the fifth floor.
Police assume that the five hotel guests knew each other, but they did not check out because they appeared to be waiting for someone to pick them up. They had also not yet settled their hotel bills.
The group ordered six plates of Thai food for lunch, to be eaten together in the same room on the fifth floor. The food was found untouched, except for six coffee and tea cups which were emptied, leaving some residues.
Police say that they found two thermos flasks, several tea and sugar bags, a bottle mineral water and a bottle of honey in the room.
There were no signs of a struggle or of the room being ransacked. No wounds were immediately apparent on the bodies of the six victims, except for a small mark on the face of one, apparently sustained in a fall.
According to Pol Lt-Gen Thiti Saengsawang, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, two of the victims, a man and a woman, tried to get to the room’s door, which was locked from inside, but collapsed before reaching it.
The maid managed to enter the room via the rear door to the villa zone. It was the maid who alerted the hotel’s management.
Pol Lt-Gen Thiti said that, if the seventh Vietnamese national exists and was responsible for the deaths of their six fellow countrymen and women, the rear door access to the villa zone could have provided an escape route, but there is only one lift.
He also said that the police have been trying to discover the occupations of the six decedents and the purpose of their visit to Thailand, adding that they are also looking for a Vietnamese tour guide, who is not the guide who showed up at the hotel yesterday evening to take the group to the airport.
Pol Lt-Gen Trairong Piewpan, commissioner of the Police Forensic Science Office, said that they will test all items collected from the hotel room for poison and other trace evidence.
