The resort in Mexico where an American couple was found dead in their room has announced its closing as an investigation continues.
John Heathco, 41, and Abby Lutz, 28, were found dead in their rooms at the Rancho Pescadero hotel in El Pescadero on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula on June 13.
Hyatt manages the luxury resort and released a statement confirming that the hotel has suspended its normal operations while authorities investigate the incident, PEOPLE reported.
Hyatt will also conduct its own investigation into the deaths, which will be led by a third party.
“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,” the company said in its statement.
Authorities have not released the official cause of Heathco and Lutz’s deaths, but Lutz’s stepsister Gabrielle Slate wrote on Lutz’s GoFundMe page that the family received a phone call saying the couple “passed away peacefully in their hotel room in their sleep” and that their deaths were “due to improper venting of the resort and could be Carbon monoxide poisoning.”
However, Local police initially said gas inhalation was to blame for the couple’s death, the Associated Press initially reported.
Ricardo Carbajal, a former manager at Rancho Pescadero, claimed the hotel’s carbon monoxide detectors went off for three months last year, signaling a possible gas leak, but says 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.”
“Housekeepers reported gas leaks, security reported gas leaks, maintenance workers reported gas leaks,” another employee told the publication, noting that a housekeeper cleaning their room fell ill before their stay due to suspected gas poisoning.
The victims had been dead for about 10 or 11 hours when they were found by housekeepers. The Mexican state’s attorney general reported no signs of violence and that the cause of death was intoxication by an unspecified substance.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson says they are “closely monitoring local authorities’ investigation into the cause of death.”
