Death of 2 Americans in Mexico resort hotel room now attributed to 'undetermined substance'

MEXICO CITY — Prosecutors in Mexico's Baja California Sur state said Thursday that autopsies on two Americans found dead in their luxury hotel room suggest they died of “intoxication by an undetermined substance.”

Local police initially said gas inhalation was suspected as the cause of death.

The state prosecutors' office said the bodies bore no signs of violence. The office did not say what further steps were being taken to determine the exact cause of death.

Prosecutors said the victims were from Newport Beach, California. Local media gave their names as Abby Lutz and John Heathco. The nutritional supplements company LES Labs, based in Covina, California, lists Heathco as its founder.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City was not able to immediately confirm the names or hometowns of the victims due to privacy considerations.

Prosecutors said the two had been dead for 11 or 12 hours when they were found in their room at a luxury hotel near the resort of Cabo San Lucas late Tuesday.

Police said Wednesday that paramedics had received a report that the Americans were unconscious in their room. They were dead by the time paramedics arrived.

Police said then that the suspected cause of death was inhalation of gas.

There have been several cases of such deaths in Mexico due to poisoning by carbon monoxide or other gases. Proper gas line installations, vents and monitoring devices are often lacking for water heaters and stoves in the country.

In October, three U.S. citizens found dead at a rented apartment in Mexico City were apparently victims of gas inhalation.

In 2018, a gas leak in a water heater killed an American couple and their two children in the resort town of Tulum, south of Playa del Carmen.

In 2010, an expolsion traced to an improperly installed gas line at a hotel in Playa del Carmen killed five Canadian tourists and two Mexicans.