Lt Col Jongrak Pimthong, head of the Investigation Department in Krabi, told The Phuket News last Thursday (October 4) that autopsies on the Belanger sisters had revealed “a high dosage” in their bodies of the insecticide Deet.
It is agreed that the two girls suffered a massive reaction to some kind of toxin. They were found dead in their hotel on June 15, all the signs being that they had died a particularly unpleasant death, vomiting and bleeding.
But Canadian state-owned TV company CBC reported on its news website yesterday (October 10) that Coroner Renée Roussel had told French-language Radio Canada that the concentration of Deet in the sisters’ systems was not enough to be fatal.
That contradicts the conclusion of Thai authorities, who performed autopsies on the bodies of the sisters after they were found dead on June 15 by hotel staff.
A Thai pathologist determined that the women likely ingested Deet, a principal ingredient in bug repellent, which police theorised might have been added to see koon loy, a mildly euphoric cocktail popular among young people in Thailand which normally contains prescription cough mixture, the banned drug kratom, cola and ice.
Dr René Blais of Quebec’s Poison Control Centre was quoted by CBC as saying that the Deet concentration reported by the Thai pathologist was not high enough to be toxic, “let alone a concentration that would be fatal.”
Secondary autopsies were conducted in Montreal, but the results have not yet been released.