Last week, media outlets started to pick up on a worrying trend coming out of the Dominican Republic: Americans are mysteriously dying while on vacation. According to original reports, three people — all of whom were staying in the same resort area — had died since April. In recent days, that number has increased. On June 10, the U.S. State Department confirmed that, weeks before the three reported incidents, another American had suddenly died on the island — a revelation that has sparked an FBI investigation into the four suspicious deaths.
Are the deaths connected? Is there reason to be concerned? Below, here’s everything we know so far.
What do we know about the deaths?
Let’s walk through them chronologically.
April 14: This is the death that came to light most recently. On April 14, Robert Bell Wallace, 67, “passed unexpectedly while vacationing,” according to his obituary. In an interview with Fox News, Wallace’s niece shared more details: Her uncle, who had been staying at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, became critically ill after consuming a drink from his hotel room’s minibar three days before his death.
“We have so many questions,” Chloe Arnold said, adding that the family still doesn’t know the cause of Wallace’s death. “We don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
May 25: The same day she arrived at the Luxury Bahia Principe Bouganville hotel in La Romana, Miranda Schaup-Werner, 41, died of a heart attack after having a drink from her room’s minibar, the New York Post reports. (Per her husband, Schaup-Werner did suffer from heart problems.)
May 30: Just days after checking in to the Playa Nueva Romana hotel, Edward Nathaniel Holmes, 63, and Cynthia Ann Day, 49, were found dead in their hotel room after missing their scheduled checkout time, CNN reports. Per a preliminary autopsy conducted on the island, the couple suffered respiratory failure and pulmonary edema.
And those are just the deaths in the past two months. Per CBS News, the number of American deaths increases to six if you go back an entire year.
So the FBI is investigating.
On June 5, before revelations of Wallace’s death, the Bahia Principe Hotels & Resorts — which owns the hotels where Schaup-Werner and the couple died — released a statement saying there are “no indications of any correlation” between the first three deaths to be reported. Nevertheless, a State Department official told the Washington Post the FBI is partnering with authorities in the Dominican Republic to provide “technical assistance with the toxicology reports” concerning the four most recent deaths.
… Is it safe to go to the Dominican Republic?
Paola Rainieri, president of the Dominican Republic Hotels and Tourism Association, recently stressed at a news conference that the DR is “a safe destination.” But, understandably, some people have been so alarmed by the reports, they have canceled their trips to the island.
“It was pretty much like a no-brainer,” Marci Hudson, who had plans to go to Punta Cana with her boyfriend, told CBS News. “They don’t really have a clear explanation as to what’s happening … we’re not even gonna risk it. We don’t want to be next.”
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