California Man Died in April at Dominican Republic Resort After Drink From Hotel Room Minibar

Dominican authorities have said either preliminary or final autopsies indicated they all died of natural causes, and that they were isolated incidents, but the families said they had doubts. Some have hired lawyers and planned additional autopsies and tests in the United States.

U.S. officials have been restrained in their comments, only confirming deaths when asked. Neither the State Department, Bahia Principe, nor Dominican authorities have responded to repeated questions by Fox News about how many tourists from the U.S. and elsewhere have died in their rooms, or anywhere in resorts, in recent years.

Nearly half of the roughly 5 million tourists who visit the Dominican Republic each year are from the United States, statistics have shown.

While saying little publicly, however, teams of experts and inspectors from several international agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, conducted tests Thursday at the Bahia Principe properties where U.S. tourists died. It was unclear whether they inspected other resorts. The FBI confirmed to Fox News on Friday it was assisting Dominican authorities in investigating the deaths.

The testing and the FBI’s involvement marked the first public indications that officials in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic have considered the possibility of something other than natural causes.

Dominican officials said Schaup, Holmes and Day had pulmonary edema, a condition in which the lungs fill with fluid. They said Schaup, 41, who collapsed after having the minibar drink at the Luxury Bahia Principe Bouganville — which is adjacent to the sister hotel where Holmes and Day died — died of a heart attack, though her family said she was healthy.