Case Closed On The Deaths Of Canadian Sisters Audrey And Noemi Belanger: Krabi

[further101]

Maybe the family & embassy just want the thai police to stop sending out unsubstantiated, incorrect info about the case? Doesn't sound as if this poor family really are ready to forgive & forget. Or accept Thailand's conclusion. A couple of interesting articles here...

http://www.theenterprisebulletin.com/2012/08/31/sisters-in-thailand-died-of-insecticide-poisoning-cops

http://shakespearestremor.com/tag/audrey-belanger/

[cosmont]

You are young, healthy and come in amazing Thailand for vacation. Later you go back in farangland in a plastic bag. CLOSED CASE.

This is Thailand....

[sunshine51]

Unbelievable..! Truly unbelievable...! I do not believe what they are saying at all..... ! <deleted> is going on here...??

“We have been asked by the Canadian Embassy and the [belanger] family to not reveal anything about the case

That's whats' going on

Yeah...this is a travesty in many ways...however...we who are on the sidelines

and we who have speculated and we who are just nosey really have no real

need to know what actually killed those two girls.

Do we?

We should honour what the family's wished...nothing more to be made

public knowledge.

We can only hope those who do have the need to know and who can

act on the case know what actually happened and take all measures

to prevent this from happening again.

Yeah...it is a mean ole world out there...in more ways than we can imagine.

[mrdome]

The Wild Wild East.

You're on your own in Thailand, kids.

So keep off Thailand, kids ... as simple as that !

Not sure where you live and how many times you have been to Thailand but in the face of hundreds of thousands of younger visitors having a reasonably good time in Thailand and making it back home safely, your conclusion is quite an exaggeration.

Be on your guard and don't do anything stupid, I'd say but we have not yet reached 'code red' yet.

[techboy]

Know nothing, know nothing and more no nothing speculation. Here are even junk comments that indicate that the uninformed poster did not read the information in the original story.

[lizardtongue]

Someone somewhere has either at the request of someone or on their own volition laced drinks with what amounts to poison.

However, Krabi Police will continue to check the drinks being served at night entertainment venues.

“If we find anything suspicious, we will report it to Krabi Public Health Office to investigate,” Col Jongrak said.

It will be interesting to see how they check the drinks? I guess if you visit the bars in the morning and see dead cops lying on the floor then the bar was serving laced drinks?

Or it could be an angle to have a few free nights on the piss?

[Maestro]

Must be some pretty heavy duty players in Krabi / Phi Phi to put the lid on this in such an effective manner.

Maybe a question to the family via a facebook link which surely must exist ( don't all youngsters have one ) may result in a forthright answer.

Annabell. I believe you are Canadian, maybe you have had contact somehow with the embassy from the past which may give an opening.

Just thinking aloud.

Isn't it the Canadians who put the lid on it?

[mok199]

^{as a canadian and a compastionate human,my prayers go out to the familly for their loss Noemi and Audrey,such beautyful young woman...}

[Maestro]

Keystone cops at it again. Bring on Inspector Clouseau

Are the Keystone cops Canadian? After all, it is the Canadians who do not want details released, do not want any further investigation, do not want any further search of the man last seen with the two women. Isn't this strange?

[Maestro]

Yet another whitewash by the "Royal Thai Police' ...

Whitewash by the Canadian embassy and family of the deceased.

[Maestro]

Guess the police found out something the family does not want to become public. So they close the case and in a few days nobody will talk about it anymore. Problem solved. And this happens not only in Thailand na

Looks like it.

[F4UCorsair]

I think there are too many people looking too hard for something that probably isn't there.

It could easily be that the sisters were involved in drugs, that's been established by the police, and the parents don't want it publicized. I can't imagine why parents wouldn't want any person involved in the deaths of their daughters hunted down.

It seems the Canadian embassy has been in the loop, and they wouldn't be watching it all happen if there was any irregularity. Toxicology tests were apparently also done in Canada, if I read it correctly.

[kruangfaifar]

I am starting to think that a lot of TV posters automatically post anti Thailand posts based solely on thread titles because I can't see any way that a reader could turn this news post into a negative about Thailand. If this wasn't a true statement surely. The Canadian government and family would object publicly.When the deaths occurred I dared to suggest a pact and got slagged off for it.

Posted with Thaivisa App http://apps.thaivisa.com

[Maestro]

It was not stated that the Canadian family decided there should be no further action

From the news article in the OP:

"...the two sisters’ relatives requested that we did not question him after seeing the CCTV records,” Col Jongrak said.

It has also not been stated that the Canadian family wanted further action. They have received the investigation results through the embassy and have requested that no details be released. Is perhaps one of those details a statement from the family that they are satisfied with the results and want no further investigation? Nobody knows, nor will ever know, if the family's request for secrecy continues to be honoured.

[Maestro]

Maybe my first post was not clear enough. There is a very good chance that the DEET was in something the sisters consumed. That something is illegal and the guy in the CCTV footage sold that something to the sisters. Thus the DEET killed the sisters but it was not in the cocktails it was in something else. If the police investigate the case further everyone will know what that something else was and then the image of the sisters will suffer damage.

That's an interesting hypothesis: "The man in the CCTV footage sold the girls some illegal substance. DEET killed the sisters. The family of the deceased to not want the man in the CCTV footage found and questioned"

Now consider another possibility:

From the OP: forensic police identified that both women had ingested an undisclosed amount of the insecticide DEET

From the OP: The cause of death in the police report to the embassy is “Unknown”

From earlier news reports: An autopsy was also performed in Canada.

Hypothesis: The family knows exactly what killed their daughters; it was not DEET and the family does want this information to be released.

[Maestro]

Of course. If someone, anyone asks the Thai Police not to continue their murder investigation or question vitnesses or suspects, the Thai Police obliges and closes the murder case!!! The Thai Police and the entire judicial system is lower than pathetic and worse than a joke.

Does not the way the embassy and the family want this hushed up lead to the suspicion that the Thai police, the embassy and the family know the cause of death and it is something the family does not want publicised? It has been said that the Thai police does not normally acquiesce to such demands, but is not possible that in this particular case they did, for reasons we shall probably never know?

[Maestro]

You have obviously missed the fact that many rats die at much lower doses. So humans can also die taking less. 50% won't always die. That's just an average. Other things come into play, such as alcohol ingested, state of health, etc. Did you check for experiments where rats were given DEET and alcohol. You obviously don't understand how these tests work.

I suggest that we can stop talking about the lethal or non-lethal effect of in the case of these deaths, given that the Thai forensic report states that the two woman had ingested DEET and the police report says the cause of death is unknown. That's as clear a way of saying that DEET did not kill them as you can get.

[Maestro]

Not that I believe the claim the police are making for one second, but the fact that a family member, or anyone, can tell the police to not investigate a possible homicide shows the incredibly rudimentary level of policing and investigating that exists here. I knew it was bad, but not that bad.

I think you have missed the point completely. Obviously neither the family or police think it was homicide, otherwise the case wouldn't be closed. The family haven't told the police not to investigate a possible homicide. So don't make up things that aren't true.

It looks very much like this, doesn't it?

[Maestro]

couldn't it just be that the family are just a very private family and not wish to share with the world the loss of their daughters and the circumstances sarrounding the loss ?

Didn't the family go public about it in the Canadian newspapers and criticise the Thai police? Would they be too shy now to insist on a continuation of the investigation if they were not satisfied with it? Food for thought.

[Jayman]

Are you saying this was a accidental/intentional suicide?

My thoughts are that if the family is happy that the case be closed and don't want info disclosed, then it could be that enough has been discovered to point back to the poor girls themselves.

I don't think a Canadian family would lie down on this if they thought someone else was responsible.

It really is unfortunate.

Perhaps the girls knew that DEET was going in some of these party drinks and tried to make their own.

If I had lost my children to intentional consumption of poison then I would want to start an education campaign and publicize it as a lesson to any other young adults that might think to do the same thing. I would not be trying to cover it up but rather try to make certain that my children did not die in vain. Of course, that is just me.

People make mistakes. We are human. But what is gained from a cover up? At least take this opportunity to educate others not to make the same mistake. Maybe then you could save some lives.

[lovetotravel]

Seems somebody from Canada thinks DEET was the problem:

The death earlier this year in Thailand of two sisters from Quebec was caused by drinking a cocktail that contained the insect repellent DEET, an autopsy concluded.

Results of the autopsy at a Bangkok hospital have not been publicly released, but they were shown to reporters for CBC's French-language news network.

According to the report, 20-year-old Audrey and Noémi Bélanger, 25, had DEET in their bodies that they had ingested.

Though the chemical is a potentially neurotoxic mosquito repellent, it is used as an ingredient in a euphoria-inducing cocktail that is popular among youth in Thailand. The drink contains cough syrup, Coke, DEET and ground up kratom leaves, which are a mild narcotic indigenous to Thailand.

It is thought that an overdose of DEET was accidentally mixed into the young women's drinks.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/08/31/montreal-sisters-die-thailand-insecticide.html

[maidu]

This is bigger than the family's request. It can be compared to a girl being raped. The raped girl's family doesn't want anything done about it, because they want to find closure as soon as possible, and they don't want their and their daughter's reputation being tarnished further. That's understandable to a point. But the public, and in this case, future tourists deserve better. There have been at least half a dozen mysterious unsolved cases which are similar to the tragedy which happened to the Canadian sisters. - the real number could be over 20, just in the Phuket/Krabi region. ....and most are ordinarily healthy young farang dying quickly. My sense is the family was pressured to adopt a hands-off response due to pressure by Thai authorities worried about damage to Thailand's tourist image.

The result of such blanket mishandling, delay of action, and cover-up will do more harm to Ko Phi Phi and surrounding tourist areas - in the long run, than if authorities had done a professional open adept job. If you have staph infection on your forehead, you can cover it up with a cap, and that will work for awhile. But the infection will probably get so bad that no amount of covering up will hide it. Better to lance it and be honest about it. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Thai crime investigations are immersed shadows, deception and ineptitude.

[Whidbeyboy]

Cause of death was determined and family requested no further action. What more do you want?

The Truth.

Next time this happens.........

[GOLDBUGGY]

so case closed.. police claiming they died from DEET ingestion from a cocktail called 4 x100 that normally doesn't contain DEET. Am I missing anything else here?

No need to investigate who put this deadly DEET in their drink? Since they drank it that means they are at fault? Amazing Thailand indeed.

I don't think you're missing anything.

Someone added a lethal quantity of poison to the cocktails and after they drank the drinks they died.

That sounds like a classic case of poisoning.

Now everyone including the family are covering it up for some reason. That's the strange part.

Good Point! Although the Canadian Embassy is held back from saying much, due to "Federal Privacy Laws" they did say this after the investigation.

Sounds to me that these girls did not knowing drink something they thought would be special. DEET has only been suggested as the drug as the autopsy from Canada has never been released.

It is also not so strange that in Canada they are Hush Hush about it as the police their will never reveal information in an ongoing case. The case has only been closed in Thailand and not in Canada. Not sure how it will turn out except to say that "The Mounties Always Get There Man!"

[indyuk]

“We did not question the man since he does not live in Thailand, and the two sisters’ relatives requested that we did not question him after seeing the CCTV records,” Col Jongrak said

This statement suggests that the Parents of the Audrey and Noemi Belanger recognized the man .in the CCTV images.

[crazydrummerpauly]

To me, (as to indyuk above) this is the strangest paragraph -

“We did not question the man since he does not live in Thailand, and the two sisters’ relatives requested that we did not question him after seeing the CCTV records,” Col Jongrak said.

What could this indicate ? What on earth was it about 'the man' that (apparently) led to the relatives requesting that he not be questioned ? As a non-Thai, was he perhaps Canadian, and known to them ? Any information on this ... ?

[annabel]

The Wild Wild East.

You're on your own in Thailand, kids.

Must be some pretty heavy duty players in Krabi / Phi Phi to put the lid on this in such an effective manner.

Maybe a question to the family via a facebook link which surely must exist ( don't all youngsters have one ) may result in a forthright answer.

Annabell. I believe you are Canadian, maybe you have had contact somehow with the embassy from the past which may give an opening.

Just thinking aloud.

You know what that is an excellent idea and why the hell didn't I myself think about this ... Yup!! Yup!! Yup! dam_n it I will be on that now ... I have very FRENCH CANADIAN Friends who can do a little leg work on this .... Thanks for waking me up ....!!

An addition... I had contacted the Canadian Embassy when this happened and although I was not expecting an answer I did get one... saying basically that they are involved and doing their nest to solve this but CANNOT DIVULGE PRIVATE INFORMATION WITHPUT THE PERMISSION OF THE FAMILY....

[Beetlejuice]

Of course. If someone, anyone asks the Thai Police not to continue their murder investigation or question vitnesses or suspects, the Thai Police obliges and closes the murder case!!! The Thai Police and the entire judicial system is lower than pathetic and worse than a joke.

Does not the way the embassy and the family want this hushed up lead to the suspicion that the Thai police, the embassy and the family know the cause of death and it is something the family does not want publicised? It has been said that the Thai police does not normally acquiesce to such demands, but is not possible that in this particular case they did, for reasons we shall probably never know?

Yes, absolutely.

It appears that the girls may have been partying and whatever they were doing it was out of their depth and suffered fatal consequences, therefore, it would not be in the family’s or the girls benefit to make public and publish the details.

What we do know is that 2 lovely young girls died a terrible needless death and now it should be left at that.

[skorchio]

Whatever the details are, if the family don't want a media circus at a time of mourning, fair enough. But what about a heads-up for the thousands of kids who arrive in PhiPhi every month? Their safety has to be given a thought here. I want to know how those ladies died.

[cdnski12]

I hate to inject facts here when speculating is so much fun but consider this: The dose of DEET that is required to kill 50% of the rats treated is over 2 grams DEET per kilogram body weight of the rat (source: USEPA). Assuming that htese unfortunate women weighed 60 g, they would each have had to ingest 120 grams of DEET to have a 50% chance of dying from the exposure. This would be about 4 ounces of pure DEET. However, the most concentrated form sold commercially is 41% meaning that they would each have had to drink at least an 8 ounce tumbler of the straight product. I don't think it is possible for anyone to get drunk enough not to notice that they were drinking a glass of mosquito repellant.

So, as convenient as it is to blame all ills on chemicals, it does not seem plausible in this case and the the cause of justice is ill served by accepting this at face value.

Very perceptive ... if your facts are correct. The family seems a bit wierd. I suspect thier reticence may be due to the Double Indemnity Clause on most Insurance Claims. If they were insured by a North American Insurance Company, their estate(s) may be able to claim the 2X Indemnity Clause where the Insurance COmpany has to pay out 2-5X the insured rate; if death results from an accident. Perhaps an insurance expert has an opinion@