My sister accidentally took lethal cocktail of nine drugs on holiday – her devastating death has torn our family apart
THE devastated sister of a Brit tourist who died after unwittingly taking a lethal mix of drugs in Thailand has told how it has torn her family apart.
Rebecca Turner, 36, was found dead with her boyfriend in a Bangkok hotel room after taking what she believed to be cocaine.
But it later transpired Rebecca, from Bexhill, East Sussex, had taken a deadly cocktail of nine drugs.
Horrified friends found her and her partner’s bodies when they went looking for them.
Rebecca and boyfriend Sam Melnick, 32, had decided to stop in Thailand on her way back from a wedding in Laos.
She was due to return to the UK just a few weeks after she died on March 15 last year.
Her heartbroken sister Lois, 36, has implored tourists to think twice before taking drugs abroad.
She told how Rebecca’s death has pulled her family apart.
Lois told The Sun: “Some of the family don’t really speak anymore. It’s taken its toll.
“Everyone deals with grief differently and the way things are handled.
“Some people don’t want to deal with it, some people want to get everything done like the funeral and so on.
“We’re all struggling in our way.”
Lois told how her world came crashing down when she learnt a lethal combination of drugs and killed her “free-spirited” sister.
Authorities said nine drugs were found in Rebecca’s system – opiates, morphine, codeine, noscapine, benzodiazepine, temazepam, lorazepam, diazepam and monoacetylmorphine.
Lois said: “I was in Brighton at the time at a jiu jitsu class and I when I finished I had so many missed calls from my sister’s friends and my mum.
“My mum messaged saying ‘come to my house as soon as possible, don’t go anywhere else’.
“Initially, I thought there was something wrong with my stepdad.
“Then when I got there, it was horrendous.”
Describing Rebecca as a “free bird”, Lois told how her beloved sister spent her life travelling.
Lois added: “She lived in Ibiza, lived on a boat for a bit and then she travelled around Asia.
“She ended up living in Laos for about four years.
“She was a free spirit, loved going out partying and always keeping busy.
It’s not worth risking one night of partying to potentially ruin your whole life, and your family’s lives.
“You could never really pin her down until lockdown happened, she actually came back over to visit and lockdown happened and she got stuck here.
“And then she stayed for a few years, and it was only last year that she went back to Laos for a wedding and coming home she stopped in Thailand.”
Lois has urged tourists travelling to Thailand to avoid buying drugs – even if they are regular users.
She said: “Don’t do it.
“I think this is the prime time, Christmas, January, February, when people go to Thailand.
“When people get drunk, they might want to try something else, and I just don’t think it’s worth risking that one time, whether it’s your first time, or whether you usually do it but you’re in a different country.
“It’s not worth risking one night of partying to potentially ruin your whole life, and your family’s lives.
“I don’t hear of many other places that have this much of a problem as Thailand does.
“Thailand is quite corrupt from what we’ve experienced.
“I don’t know if it’s because it’s a country where everything is so cheap that this is a bit more of a recurring problem over there.”