A luxury hotel in Mexico where an American couple was discovered dead earlier this month has temporarily suspended its normal operations.
Abby Lutz, 28, and her boyfriend, John Heathco, 41, were found unresponsive on June 13 inside their room at the Rancho Pescadero. Authorities said they’d been dead for 11 or 12 hours when their bodies were discovered at the hotel, located in the community of El Pescadero on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.
“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,” a spokesperson for Hyatt, which owns and operates the Mexican hotel, said in a statement to CBS Los Angeles.
An initial forensic examination indicated the couple died of “intoxication by a substance,” which authorities did not identify. Prosecutors have since said their bodies showed no signs of violence.
Lutz’s family previously said the couple fell severely ill days before their death, but believed their symptoms were linked to food poisoning. The pair spent Sunday night in a Mexican hospital where they were treated for dehydration, her family said.
“Abby and her boyfriend thought they had food poisoning and went to the hospital to get treatment,” according to a GoFundMe campaign for funeral costs. “We were told they were feeling much better.”
A short time later, the family received a phone call from the U.S. State Department, alerting them to the couples’ death.
According to the same GoFundMe page, police told Lutz’s loved ones that she and her boyfriend may have died of carbon monoxide poisoning due to improper ventilation.