And while those were murders - three American women in their 20's died under unexplained circumstances in a San Pedro hotel room. They were found in an unresponsive state on Saturday inside their rooms at Royal Kahal Beach Resort. While there were no visible signs of injuries, there was evidence of drugs and alcohol in the room. Today the ComPol told us that they may have been dead long before they were found.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"This is one of the cases where we we invited the pathologist to come on the scene as well, so that they could assist the police in navigating the scene and with a view to see what can be found of evidential value."
"That was done, the police did a thorough search of the scene along with the pathologist and scenes of crime and there was nothing of substance that could have been found other than alcohol and some gummies."
"As you may recall a couple years ago we had some gummies that were disposed of from the police exhibit room and they were found by somebody at the dump site and sold and then we saw where people who consumed those gummies had to be rushed to the hospital."
"So we found some of those gummies inside the room. Now we're not saying at this time that the gummies cause the death but we're looking at every possibility. I know that today the post-mortem examination is going to be conducted by the National Forensic Services and we are anxioustly awaiting that result to see if they will be able to unearth anything to assist us in determining the cause of death."
"There is also a theory that they could have died from carbon monoxide and so again a test will be done hopefully today or tomorrow with the National Fire Service who have the equipment to test the level of carbon monoxide in a building and again that should be done like I said either today or tomorrow and we're hoping that that will give us some insight, but we are at a stage where we cannot definitively see what the cause of death is."
"It's a tragic incident certainly for us and the families of those young women and I'm hoping that we will be able to arrive at a definitive cause of death. I can see that the police have also viewed the surveillance footage from the hotel that they were staying and the surveillance footage showed that they went to the hotel room Thursday evening and they were not seen leaving that room again and nobody was seen going into the room."
"On Friday the housekeeping department went to the room to do the usual housekeeping but when they knocked on the door no one answered and so they just left. We're trying to do as best as we can including to see where they may have gone on Thursday before they went home, what if anything they consumed, all these things were looking at and again the post-mortem will be looking at stomach content again with a view to determine if it was something that they digested."
"Based on what the pathlogist said when he visited on Saturday evening is that they could have been dead 20 hours prior, so that would take us back to Friday or Thursday. that they eventually died."
"So those gummy bears are not produce in Belize, certainly. We will be doing our investigation to see if they brought those into the country with them."
The victims are: Kaoutar Naqqad, 23; Imane Mallah, 24; and Wafae El-Arar, 26.
A post mortem has confirmed that they died of pulmonary edema - basically an excessive buildup of fluid in the lungs - but a toxicology test now has to be performed.
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