Do Not Disturb

early-ish on in the story, but I'd be very surprised that people actually pick up on

“it and put it together before I reveal what actually happened at the end of the story.”

But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange darkened mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload four times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursdays and Fridays. So if that's of interest to you, please offer it to make the follow button a nice fresh bowl of oatmeal, except don't use milk, use glue.

Okay, let's get into today's story. Early on the evening of June 12, 2012, a 25-year-old woman named Noemi Bellon-J, opened up the door to her hotel room on PP Island, which is a major tourist destination in Thailand. Once the door was unlocked, Noemi pushed it open and she held it for her little sister, 20-year-old Audrey, who came in, wheeling all their suitcases.

Noemi and Audrey were both from Quebec Canada, and they were also both college students, and they were on this big, month-long vacation to celebrate the end of the school year. They had been in Vietnam for the past three weeks, and today they had arrived in Thailand,

and their plan was to stay here for a bit before finally heading back to Quebec.

But for right now, Noemi in particular was feeling really exhausted. I mean, there was a lot of travel getting here today, and you know, the past three weeks had been loads of travel, and Noemi was kind of hitting a wall. And so as soon as she got into the room, all she really wanted to do was just flopped down the bed and just lay there for a little while.

But she'd also become a fairly experienced traveler by this point, and she knew before

“she did that, she just wanted to make sure that, you know, the bed was cleanly, you know?”

I mean, make sure there were no bed bugs, or, you know, unclean sheets or something, and so she went over and pulled the sheets back and checked, and the sheets were pristine. It was beautiful, the room felt super nice, and so she just flopped down on the bed and just enjoyed the air conditioning. And at the same time that she was doing this, Audrey, who very likely was also feeling

all the, you know, the symptoms of travel over so many weeks. I mean, she likely was very, very tired, but she instead of laying down went right into the bathroom and started getting ready for the night, and Noemi sort of understood why. So while the girls were in Vietnam, they had met these two really nice guys who were from Brazil, and they had kind of hit it off, and, you know, they had left today to go to Thailand,

and wouldn't you know it? It turned out those guys, their itinerary included them coming to Thailand today. And so it was kind of like this revelation at the end of their time in Vietnam that they

would not have to say goodbye, basically forever.

But instead, you know, the good times could keep on rolling in Thailand. And so the plan was that night, they would meet up with these two guys, these Brazilian guys out in the beach, and basically party with them and just have a fun night. Now Noemi was looking forward to this night out with these two guys, but she also had a little bit of apprehension about it, I mean these guys were perfectly nice, and she and

her sister had spent time with them in Vietnam, and really things had been fine. But, you know, Noemi felt like Audrey was a little bit more naive and sort of like easier to be taken advantage of than she was, I mean she was younger than her by five years, and also when the sisters had gone on this trip, their parents had been really apprehensive about, you know, two young women traveling alone together all over the world, I mean they

were sort of vulnerable, and so the way Noemi had sort of played it to her parents is, you know, don't worry, I'm the big sister, I'll keep my eye on Audrey, she'll be fine, and Audrey kind of played the role of younger sister, and was like, yeah, I'll do it my big sister says, and so Noemi sort of felt like she had a responsibility to keep Audrey safe. And so she was feeling a bit apprehensive about whatever they were going to do that night with

these guys, it just sort of seemed like things were sort of moving quickly with these two guys, you know, they should have maybe just stopped in Vietnam, but they're here, and so who knows what was going to happen? And so Noemi, as she's laying there and Audrey's getting ready, Noemi decides to just give her parents a call, because one of the things Noemi had been doing over the past several weeks, they had been on this big vacation, it's sort of constantly updating

her parents to assuage their concerns that anything was wrong, you know, with their two kids, you know, Noemi wanted her parents to see that she was doing everything she could, you know, to keep her and her sister safe. And so she pulled that her phone, and she was about to call her parents, when suddenly Audrey appeared from the bathroom and said, stop, and she told her

“like, hey, remember, it's evening for us, but back home in Canada, it's the middle of the night,”

so you're going to be waking them up, and they're going to have loads of questions, like, why are you calling in the middle of the night, and probably you're going to have to tell them about, you know, how we're going out tonight with these two guys, and they're going to worry like, don't do that, spare them, we will talk to them tomorrow, they don't need to know what we're doing tonight, everything is fine.

forgot, you know, the time change was so significant, and she also, you know, wasn't sure what she

“would say to her parents about, you know, going out with these two guys, because it would raise some”

red flags, and so Noemi put her phone down and decided, you know what, tonight's going to be just fine, I just got to let things go. And so she actually climbed off the bed, and she joined her sister in the bathroom, and began also getting ready for their big night out. A little bit later, Noemi and Audrey left their hotel room, and they headed out to the beach, and sure enough, they are right outside of a beach front bar where the two Brazilian guys they were meeting up

with that night. And as the two girls approached, they saw that each of these guys were holding these big buckets, they almost looked like, you know, a toy that a child would use on the sand, you know, to fill it up and make a sand castle with, like, a big, you know, beach bucket. And, you know, the girls, as they're walking over, they're wondering what these buckets were for, and they thought it was maybe like some joke, these guys were going to play, or they didn't know

what, but as they got closer, they realized that these buckets, these guys were holding,

“were filled to the brim with ice and liquid. There were some sort of drink in these buckets.”

And so the girls walked up to them and they said, "Hello!" and very quickly, the conversation turned to these big drinks they were holding, and Noemi and Audrey were like, "What are those?"

And the guys told them, "These are like these amazing cocktails that you can only get in this

part of the world." The girl's asked, you know, like, "Well, what is it? What's inside of the drink? What makes us so special?" And the guys kind of looked at each other and laughed and they're like, "I don't know. Just try it. It's really good. It'll make you feel great." Now, Noemi being the sort of more responsible one did not immediately begin drinking either of these drinks. Instead, she sort of paused and thought about it, but Audrey, on the other hand, was totally sold. She reached forward,

grabbed one of the buckets, and just began chugging this drink. And so Noemi's looking at her like, "Come on. Like, you can't just jump into this. We don't know what the stuff is." But, you know, after a couple of chugs, Audrey lowered the bucket and looked at her sister and she just grand and

“she handed it back to her guy and then she told Noemi, like, "These tastes great. This is awesome.”

Like, you gotta try it. Loosen up." And so at this point, Noemi, you know, she's considering the situation, you know, they were in Vietnam with these guys and these guys were out partying with them. They were drinking with them and, you know, they seemed perfectly trustworthy and they were clearly drinking from these buckets and it didn't seem nefarious. And also, Noemi looked around the beach and suddenly

realized that basically everybody had these big buckets, you know, and this was not just these two

guys, everybody's drinking this thing. And so Noemi's thinking, "Okay, well, if they think it's okay, and it's sort of normal, you know, in this part of the world, then it's gotta be okay." And so, she reached forward, grabbed the other bucket from the other guy, and took a big sip. Several hours later, well after the sun had gone down, Audrey and Noemi were having a great time with their Brazilian friends. They were still near this beach front bar. They were actually dancing

right outside of it because now there was a DJ, blaring some music and they were all these people, and actually the sisters had sort of broken up and were sort of doing their own thing with their respective guy, but they were sort of near enough each other. They could kind of keep tabs on each other, and they were just having a great time. You know, by this point, they had jumped in the ocean and gone swimming, they had eaten a ton of local food, and Noemi had lost count of how many of these

big bucket drinks they had all consumed together. But they were really just having a blast. I mean, Noemi's vision was a bit blurry, and she was kind of stumbling, and she'd look over at Audrey, and she was kind of in the same state, you know, as were the two guys they were with. I mean, they're buzzed, they're having a great time. And so, the two girls and their guys are just out there dancing doing their thing. It's about one am at this point, and Noemi's guy says to her, "Hey,

do you want to head back to the hotel room together?" And Noemi's like, "Yeah, let's go back."

But hold on, I want to talk to my sister first, and so Noemi kind of stumbles her way over to

Audrey, who's in the middle of this big dance routine with her guy, and she stops Audrey, and she whips around and Audrey's all smiles too. And Noemi's like, "Hey, do you want to go back to the hotel room? We're going back now. Do you want to come?" And Audrey's like, "No, I want to stay here. I'm having too much fun. This is awesome. We're just going to keep on dancing. You guys should stay, too." But Noemi was like, "No, I gotta go. We're going to go back. So, you sure you want to stay?"

And Audrey was like, "Yeah, we'll stay. We'll see at the hotel soon." Now, typically, Noemi and her sister really rarely separated, especially when they were out drinking and partying, because of all the inherent risks of being alone at night, potentially intoxicated. And so, you know, this was kind of a rare thing for her to break away from her sister and separate. But it just seemed like this was okay, it was safe, and you know, these guys they were with,

they really seemed like stand up guys. And again, they were just having a blast here and Noemi didn't really want to stop her from having a good time. And so ultimately, she did say, "Buy to her sister," and said she'd see her soon. Noemi turned, and with her guy, she headed back to the hotel, and Audrey kept on dancing with her guy in front of the beach bar.

where Noemi and Audrey were staying, walked up to the girls' room, and they knocked.

“And like it had been the past two days, they didn't get a response.”

Because over the past couple of days, the housekeeping staff had not seen anybody come in or out of this room, and now it had gotten to the point where they really had to get in there to clean the room,

and basically if they didn't get a response, this staff member was going to have to unlock the door

and just go in there. And so one more time, they knocked on the door and called out, you know, housekeeping, you know, just in case somebody was in there. But again, there was silence, so the staff member put their card into the door, they unlocked it, they opened it up, and stepped inside. And second, later, that staff member was literally running out of the hotel room screaming for help. At 9pm that night, a team of police officers led by Lieutenant Colonel

Rat Somboon arrived at the hotel room. Somboon was an experienced police officer, and he'd already been briefed on what was found inside the hotel room. So when he and his team walked inside and

“sought for themselves, he wasn't shocked. When they got in there, they found two women inside.”

It was Noemi and Audrey Belange. And both of them were lying in their respective beds, tucked up in their sheets, lying perfectly still, and each of them was completely surrounded by vomit. Somboon estimated that these two women had been dead for between 12 and 20 hours,

and as first theory as to what might have killed them was alcohol poisoning. I mean, that would

explain the vomit. This was also a big tourist destination and clearly these people were tourists, and so maybe they were out partying and they died from alcohol poisoning. However, when Somboon looked more closely at the bodies, he noticed a confounding detail. There was all this dried blood on the girl's gums, and also under their fingernails. And so that was not consistent with alcohol poisoning. And so Somboon thought, okay, well, you know, maybe the reason they have blood in these

parts of their body is because those are defensive injuries. You know, maybe somebody attacked

“these girls, and that's how they've been killed. But after doing a cursory check around the hotel room,”

there was no sign of a struggle or any sort of break-in or anything like that. And so, you know, if there had been some sort of lethal struggle in here, it certainly didn't show. And so, Somboon and his team really didn't have any idea what had happened here. I mean, they had some ideas, but clearly they needed more information. Specifically, they needed to do an autopsy and a full toxicology report on both women. That would be the only way to really see what happened

here. But that would take time. And so while they waited for those results to come in, Somboon decided that what he would focus on instead is trying to figure out what these girls were doing in the hours before they died. You know, where were they, what did they eat, what did they drink, and who were they with? Over the next couple of days, Somboon and his team interviewed several of the hotel staff. And from those interviews, they learned that

Audrey and Noemi were visiting Thailand from Canada. And on the first night they were here,

the two women went out early in the evening, and then one of them came back with some guy some unidentified man at one AM that came back to the hotel. And then at 4 AM, the other girl came back to the hotel, also with an unidentified man. And so there are Noemi and Audrey and these two unidentified men that are in the hotel room presumably, from 4 AM until 6 AM, when both of these unidentified men left the hotel room together, and the two girls were presumably left inside the hotel room.

The tenant Somboon reviewed some security footage from the hotel, which confirmed this entire timeline was correct, which meant Somboon really needed to speak to these two unidentified men, because they clearly were the last ones to see these girls alive. And so the police department put out an announcement about Noemi and Audrey's deaths, as well as a public call for help in identifying these two unidentified men. And shortly after making this announcement, he police learned that these

two men were Brazilian, and unfortunately, they had already left Thailand on their way back to Brazil. And so obviously Brazil is outside of his jurisdiction, and so he had to appeal to Interpol, which is an international police organization and appeal to them to find these two Brazilian men and interview them. About a week later, Somboon finally got a call from Interpol. They had found these two men and they had interviewed them, and they told Somboon that when they informed these two

guys that Noemi and Audrey had died, the two men seemed genuinely shocked. And then when they were asked, "Why were you so quickly on a flight out of Thailand back to Brazil?" They said, "No, no, no, no, there's nothing suspicious about it. We already had booked those tickets way in advance. We just got on the flight and left. There's nothing more to it." And so Interpol said they continued to press these guys and ask them, "You know, hey,

you were the last ones who were with these girls before they died. Tell us about their condition.

like they did seem like maybe they were already hungover sort of sick from, you know,

partying the night before. They definitely did seem a little bit down, but they were basically fine.

However, Interpol said it was fairly interesting that the two men did admit that following, you know, they're night out with Noemi and Audrey. But the next two days, they were stuck in bed themselves, totally sick vomiting ill, they didn't know what from, but they said they were very, very sick following their encounter with these two girls. Some boom thank the Interpol officer and then hung up. And even though some boom couldn't help but feel still pretty suspicious of

these two Brazilian guys, you know, I was thinking, "Okay, well, if they said they got really sick after, you know, spending time with Noemi and Audrey, maybe what happened here is, you know, all four of them got sick with something, some illness and the guys survived it and the girls didn't."

“And so some boom began to think of, you know, what type of illnesses could they have contracted?”

And the first thing that some boom began to think about that could have been an illness that all

four of these tourists could have contracted was food poisoning. You know, tourists come to Thailand and try the local food and sometimes it makes them really, really sick. In particular, there were two types of food in Thailand that were sort of notorious for giving tourists the worst food poisoning. One of them was a particular type of mushroom and another was blowfish. And these two items, you know, if your body reacted badly enough to them, it could be lethal. However, when some boom got back

the autopsy reports and the toxicology reports, he realized his theory about food poisoning was definitely wrong. So it would turn out those drinks that the girls had with the guys in those big buckets, they were unique to Thailand. Those are not drinks that are served really anywhere else in the world.

And that's because those drinks are just not safe. And for whatever reason, it's sort of blossomed in Thailand

“and it's sort of an accepted thing. But when you hear the ingredients of what's in this drink,”

you'll understand why it's not like a sanctioned or more popular thing outside of this small part of the world. So there is no alcohol in these big buckets of liquid. Instead, it includes crushed up narcotics, it includes cough syrup and Coca-Cola and in some cases, pesticide in fact, specifically "deet," which is the main ingredient in mosquito repellent. And wouldn't you know it in the reports that Somboon got back, he saw both of these girls clearly had ingested "deet,"

which again is a highly toxic chemical. However, despite learning this, even though this seemed to be clearly what happened here, this is a "deet poisoning case," Somboon's thinking to himself, how could this have happened? I mean, these drinks which are called 4x100s are pretty popular in Thailand and people are not just turning up dead left and right. It's a dangerous drink, no doubt, but, you know, people do not die with any regularity from drinking it. And so Somboon thought,

you know, what must have happened here is whoever mixed this particular batch of 4x100s must have accidentally included too much "deet." And so that would explain how, you know, the two girls died from "deet poisoning," you know, too much "deet" in their drinks, and that very likely the guys as well consumed the same batch which had tons of "deet" in it, but, you know, their bodies were able to withstand it and they survived it, despite getting very, very sick. And so,

nine days after the two girls had died, their bodies were sent from Thailand back to Canada, along with the Thai police's official findings that this was an accidental "deet poisoning." However, when Noemi and Audrey's remains arrived in Canada, they did not go straight to their family. Instead, they went to a leading corner in Quebec whose name was Renee Russel. So, by this point, the girls' parents were obviously heartbroken, but more than that, they were furious.

The way they found out about the deaths of their daughters was on the media. I mean, despite the fact that the police were immediately called when the girls were found dead, the Thai police did not get in touch with the family. They only got in touch after their investigation was done, and they're like, "Hey, by the way, your daughters are dead." And it was a "deet poisoning," it is what it is, "Good luck."

“And so, the parents felt like, "Are you kidding me? Like, you didn't loop us in at all?”

We're spending days trying to get in touch with our daughters, and you knew all along, they were already dead?" Like, so, the parents have no faith, no trust in the Thai police, and then to find out, wait a minute. So, they drank this drink that apparently is sold at this beach bar all the time. And, oh, yeah, it killed them, no big deal. Well, there's no warnings at this beach bar about how dangerous this drink is. Shouldn't there be a tourist warning or something?

And also, it's kind of a lazy explanation that, well, you know, the two guys they were with drank the same poison, but they didn't die just because, and our daughters did.

or at worst, a cover-up. You know, maybe this looks really bad for Thailand that these tourists

“have died, and it could have been prevented. And so, the parents felt like, "We can't just take”

their explanation at face value, like clearly something is going on here, something's wrong." And, apparently, the Canadian government felt the same way as the parents. You know, this case was all over the news, and they also felt like, "Wait a minute, guys, like, we haven't looked closely enough at this. What's really going on here?" And so, it was actually the Canadian government who told Renee Russell to go ahead and do another autopsy on these girls' remains.

Let's really see if it was deep that killed them, or maybe if it was something else. And when Renee checked Noemi and Audrey's bodies, she did discover there was deep in their system. However, not nearly enough to kill them. So, while it seemed plainly obvious that, yes, they must have consumed those four by 100 drinks that couldn't have been the thing that actually killed them. However, Renee didn't find any other poisonous substances in these girls' bodies,

“like there wasn't another explanation. It just showed there was deep, but that was basically it.”

And so, Renee, she's thinking like, "There's gotta be some explanation here." And so, Renee really began to do some serious research into this whole case, and eventually, she found something. And it horrified her, it horrified the family, it horrified the world.

It would turn out, from Renee Russell's additional research, Noemi and Audrey were far from the first

tourist to die this way in Thailand. Between 2009 and 2015, at least 20 tourists have been found dead under very similar circumstances. Now, Renee believed that what must have happened here is all these people, including Noemi and Audrey, must have been poisoned, but the common denominator did not appear to be food or drink. It had to be something else that was poisoning them, something that was damaging blood vessels that would account for the blood under the fingernails and the gums,

but also metabolize so quickly that after death, this particular poison could not be detected.

“And Renee figured out, she was correct. So, when Noemi and Audrey first arrived in Thailand,”

they went to their hotel room, and one of the first things that Noemi did is she pulled back her sheets to check for bedbugs, you know, she wanted to make sure her bed was clean before she laid down and relaxed. And when she looked, it appeared clean. And it was because the sheets were clean, they had actually just been treated for bedbugs, so there were no bedbugs. However, the way this hotel and other hotels, not just in Thailand, but in other parts of the world,

the way they were treating for bedbugs was by spraying the sheets with pesticide, specifically, phosphine gas, which is highly toxic to bedbugs, so it gets rid of the bedbugs, but it's also highly toxic to people. For reference, it is illegal to do this. You're not allowed to spray sheets with pesticide. And so based on all the evidence, it's believed that what actually happened to Noemi, Audrey, and the two Brazilian men they were with is that they climbed into

those beds on the night they came back, and you know, the men were in there with them for some time, and all four of them were being exposed to this phosphine gas. It was going into their skin, they were breathing it in, and they likely had no idea. And so they're getting sicker and sicker,

and then finally the two men, they get up out of the beds, and they leave it 6 a.m.,

they've now been, you know, totally contaminated by this poison, but not enough to kill them, so they go home, and over the next couple of days, they get really sick from their exposure to this gas, but Audrey and Noemi, they didn't leave their bed. They stayed in those beds all night, and unfortunately as they laid there, their bodies continued soaking in all of this poison, and their bodies just could not handle it, and so it eventually killed them.

But despite learning this, and despite the fact that clearly something illegal was done here, you cannot spray your bed sheets in a hotel with pesticide to get rid of the bed bugs, it's incredibly hazardous, you can't do it. Despite that, to this day, no one has been held accountable for these girl's deaths. A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms

to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballenpodcast, strange dark and mysterious stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballen. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bohn, research and fact checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Calhan, research and fact checking supervision by Stephenier.

Audio editing and post-produced by Whit LaCassio, Jordan Stittum, and Cole LaCassio,

artwork by Jessica Klugst and Keiner, theme song called "Something Wicked" by Ross Bugden.

“Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballenpodcast, and just a reminder, every new and exclusive”

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