US woman ‘insisted SHE make tea before lacing pot with cyanide & poisoning family she’d lured to luxury Thai hotel’
THE WOMAN who allegedly killed five relatives with cyanide insisted on brewing tea for the poisoned drinks herself, reports claim.
Sherine Chong, 56, reportedly refused a hotel worker’s offer to make the beverage as she lay in wait in a luxury Bangkok hotel room.
The American-Vietnamese woman is believed to have dosed five cups of the tea before giving them to three men and two other women on Monday.
They were found dead inside the room, locked from the inside, by a maid on Tuesday when they failed to check out.
Chong ordered room service food and tea to room 502 as she waited for the five others to arrive, the Bangkok Post reports.
She had apparently lured them there to hammer out an argument over some £200,000 of debts that they were due to settle in court in two weeks time.
Chong had reportedly persuaded a married couple and two others in the group to invest in a hospital build in Japan, which saw them lose £215,000.
When a hotel staff member offered to make the tea, Chong reportedly refused and insisted on brewing the deadly drinks herself.
Haunting pictures from the crime scene later showed five teacups and two thermos flasks next to a teapot in the hotel room.
Thai police found cyanide traces in all the flasks and cups, just feet away from six dead bodies.
Chong took her own life with the same beverage after allegedly killing the other five.
Post-mortem results confirmed cyanide was present in the cups and bodies of the victims.
Four of the bodies were found in the living room and two in the bedroom.
Two appeared to have reached for the door but collapsed before they could make it, cops revealed.
The Bangkok Post claims all six had travelled to Bangkok at different times and were staying in separate rooms at the five-star Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel ahead of their court date.
Despite checking out, Chong allegedly invited them back for a crunch meeting.
Haunting CCTV footage now shows the final moments of the tourists who died, including four Vietnamese nationals and two Vietnamese- Americans.
Suspected killer Chong had both a Vietnamese and US passport and had visited Thailand five times before.
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said the FBI are heading over to investigate.
Police said a mass suicide was unlikely because some of them had arranged future parts of their trip, such as guides or drivers.
On top of that the bodies were in different parts of the hotel room, suggesting they did not knowingly consume poison and wait for their deaths together.
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller offered condolences to the families of the dead.