A Mexican hotel owned and operated by Hyatt has suspended normal operations following the deaths of an American couple.
via People:
“Our top priority is the safety and wellbeing of guests and colleagues and the property will not resume normal operations until our investigation is complete,” a Hyatt spokesperson wrote in a statement.
Abby Lutz, 28, and her boyfriend John Heathco, 41, were found dead in their hotel room last Tuesday.
Prosecutors in Mexico’s Baja California Sur state said Thursday that autopsies suggest Lutz and Heathco died of “intoxication by an undetermined substance.” Local police initially said gas inhalation was suspected as the cause of death.
The state prosecutors’ office said the bodies bore no signs of violence. The office did not say what further steps were being taken to determine the exact cause of death.
Prosecutors said the two had been dead for 11 or 12 hours when they were found in their room at Rancho Pescadero, a luxury hotel near the resort of Cabo San Lucas late Tuesday.
Lutz’s family told CBS News that days before their deaths the couple was treated for what they thought was food poisoning. They spent Sunday night in a Mexican hospital where they were treated for dehydration, her family said.
It should be noted that the hotel was having carbon monoxide issues prior to the couple’s stay.
Ricardo Carbajal, who worked as a manager at Rancho Pescadero until March, claimed to the Los Angeles Times that the hotel’s carbon monoxide detectors rang for three months last year signaling a possible gas leak, but he said that management disconnected them in January after several guests complained.
“They knew there were problems with gas leaks,” said Carbajal. “Everyone was aware of the alarms and that the detectors were off.”
That sounds like potential for a lawsuit to us.
