2 Canadian women found dead in Thailand hotel room

The two Quebec women found dead Thursday night in a hotel room on Phi Phi Island in southern Thailand do not appear to have been murdered, police said Sunday. Instead, accidental poisoning may have caused the death of Noemi Belanger, 26, and her sister Audrey Belanger, 20, at the Phi Phi Palm Residence Hotel. An analysis of their stomach contents will help determine the true cause. The sisters were well known and popular in their hometown Pohenegamook, Que., a rural community of about 3,000 near the border with Maine, the local mayor said. "They were two brilliant young girls, very involved in the community," Mayor Louise Labonte said Saturday. She said they were always active in town events and worked in a grocery store owned by their father, Carl. She said the sisters attended the local high school, Ecole secondaire du Transcontinental, where Labonte was a librarian. The school has about 250 students. The young women were studying at Universite Laval. Carl and his wife, Linda, have an older daughter, Elena, she said. "This must be so hard for them," said an emotional Labonte. "We'll support them any way we can." Claudette Levasseur, a waitress at Restaurant du Moulin, said Noemi worked for her when she was in charge of the municipal beach. "She was always smiling, in good humour. They were both energetic, helpful. Everyone here is shaken. It's given us all a chill." The Belanger sisters were found in their room by a hotel maid. Both had been dead for about 24 hours, police said. There was blood on the women's faces and a lot of vomit in the room — possible signs of a toxic reaction. There were no signs of robbery or a fight. The deaths evoke two similar and unsolved deaths three years ago on the same resort island, when two women, an American and a Norwegian, were found poisoned in their adjoining rooms. There were signs of vomiting. Their boyfriends also became ill but survived. The island is a popular holiday spot for young people where bars stay open until dawn and binge drinking out of "buckets" is said to be a popular pastime. Claude Rochon of the Department of Foreign Affairs media office in Ottawa refused to disclose any information other than to say, "our thoughts are with the family and friends of the Canadian citizens who passed away in Thailand." She added that "Canadian consular officials in Bangkok are providing consular assistance to the family and are in contact with local authorities." According to the Thai newspaper Phuket Gazette, the sisters checked into the hotel Tuesday. They planned to stay only one night but later asked to extend their visit through Wednesday night. The paper quotes one Thai police officer saying that the sisters arrived at the hotel Tuesday and "went out and came back to their room that same night, but stayed in their room all day on Wednesday." The sisters were found Thursday after a maid became concerned that they were not responding to her knocks. "A maid knocked on the door to clean the room on Thursday, but there was no response, so the maid thought the women needed more rest and left," a police officer said. Thursday evening the maid tried again. When she got no response, she grew concerned and used a master key to enter the room, where she discovered the bodies. The hotel alerted police at 9 p.m. "We rushed to the hotel with medical officers from Koh Phi Phi Hospital and a rescue team," police told the newspaper. Police also said the young women had skin lesions, had been bleeding from the gums and their fingernails and toenails were blue. Police told the newspaper that the women died 12 to 20 hours before their bodies were found. Isabelle Soucy, a high school art teacher who taught both girls when they were students at Ecole secondaire du Transcontinental, said that whole town is badly shaken up by the deaths. The Belanger family, which includes an older sister, is well known and well loved in the small town, Soucy said. "They were very engaged, social girls, really good girls. This really touches everyone here so deeply," Soucy said. While Audrey had just begun an undergraduate degree at Universite Laval, Noemi had completed a degree in psychology and had just been accepted in Laval's school of dentistry. The girls apparently were taking a short holiday in Thailand to celebrate the school year ending, before returning to Pohenegamook for the summer, as usual, to work in their father's grocery store. "They are a very strong, close family who often travel together," said Soucy, noting a recent trip to New York City by the parents and three sisters. She said Noemie also had travelled to several developing countries to do humanitarian work. "I don't understand what happened. It seems from the television news that the hotel they were staying at was a nice hotel, not a dump. I don't understand if they were sick why they didn't ask for help. They are girls who know how to look after themselves, they can speak French and English . . . I just don't understand why it happened so fast and why nobody else was sick," at the hotel, she said.