Today's story has a very surprising ending, and I do sort of tip off what actually happens, you know, early-ish on in the story, but I'd be very surprised if people actually picked up on it and put it together before I reveal what actually happened. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Delivered in Story format, then you've come to the right place, because that's all we do and we upload once a week.
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Early on the evening of June 12th, 2012, a 25-year-old woman named Noemi Balanger opened up the door to her hotel room on Phi Phi 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 flop down on the bed and just lay there for a little while. But she had also become a fairly experienced traveler
by this point. And she knew before she did that, she just wanted to make sure that the bed was cleanly, 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, Andre, who very likely was also feeling all the symptoms of travel over so many weeks. 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. 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 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 on 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 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 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 Audre. She'll be fine. And Audre kind of played the role of younger sister and was like, yep, I'll do what my big sister says. And so Noemi sort of felt like she 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 gonna 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'd been on this big vacation, is sort of constantly updating her parents to assuage their concerns that anything was wrong with their two kids. Noemi wanted her parents to see that she was doing everything she could
to keep her and her sister safe. And so she pulled out 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 gonna be waking them up and they're gonna have loads of questions. Like, why are you calling in the middle of the night? And probably you're gonna have to tell them about, you know, how we're going out tonight with these two guys
and they're gonna worry,. They don't need to know what we're doing tonight. Everything is fine. And Noemi was thinking, you know what? She's right. This is a bad time to call. Noemi actually 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. tonight's gonna be just fine. I just gotta 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 Audre left their hotel room and they headed out to the beach.
And sure enough, there right outside of a beachfront bar were 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 sandcastle 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 gonna 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 was 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 Andre 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 girls asked, you know, like, well, what is it? What's inside of the drink? What makes it so special?
And the guys kind of looked at each other and laughed, and they were 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, you can't just jump into this. We don't know what this stuff is. But after a couple of chugs, Audrey lowered the bucket
and looked at her sister, and she just grinned, and she handed it back to her guy and then she told Noemi like, these taste 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?
This was not just these two guys. Everybody's drinking this thing. So Noemi's thinking, okay, well, if they think it's okay and it's sort of normal 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 beachfront bar. They were actually dancing right outside of it
because now there was a DJ blaring some music and there 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 that 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 Audre 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 1 a.m. at this point to her, hey, do you wanna head back to the hotel room together? And Noemi's like, yeah, let's go back, but hold on, I wanna talk to my sister first. And so Noemi kinda stumbles her way over to Audre, who's in the middle of this big dance routine with her guy, and she stops Audre, and she whips around, and Audre's all smiles too. And Noemi's like, hey, do you wanna go back
to the hotel room? And Audrey's like, no, I wanna stay here. I'm having too much fun. This is awesome. We're just gonna keep on dancing. You guys should stay too. But Noemi was like, no, I gotta go. You know, we're gonna go back. So you sure you wanna stay? And Audrey was like, yeah, we'll stay.
We'll see you at the hotel soon. Now, typically, Noemi and her sister really rarely separated, when they were out drinking and partying, you know, 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 bye 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. Hey guys, just want to remind you that year-round we have amazing Mr. Ballin merch available all the time. It does not sell
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You can go right now and get anything you want at shopmrbaland.com. Year-round, it's available. Ballin' Basics. Check it out. Three days later, on the evening of June 15th, a member of the housekeeping staff at the hotel where Noemi and Audre 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 gonna have to unlock the door
and just go in there. And so one more time, they knocked on the door and called out housekeeping, 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 seconds later, that staff member was literally running out of the hotel room, screaming for help. At 9 p.m. 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 saw it for themselves, he wasn't shocked. When they got in there, they found two women inside. It was Noemi and Audre Belanger.
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. Samboon estimated that these two women had been dead for between 12 and 20 hours. And his 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 Sambhun looked more closely at the bodies, he noticed a confounding detail.
There was all this dried blood on the girls' gums and also under their fingernails. And so that was not consistent with alcohol poisoning. And so Sambhun thought, okay, well, you know, maybe the reason they have blood in these parts of their body is because those are defensive injuries. And so Samboon 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, Samboon 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, Som Boon 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, Som Boon 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 1 a.m. They came back to the hotel. And then at 4 a.m., the other girl came back to the hotel, also with an unidentified man.
And so there are Noemi and Audreyudre and these two unidentified men that are in the hotel room, presumably, from 4 a.m. until 6 a.m. when both of these unidentified men left the hotel room together and the two girls were presumably left
inside the hotel room. Lieutenant Samboon reviewed some security footage from the hotel, which confirmed this entire timeline was correct, which meant Samboon 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 Andrei's deaths, as well as a public call for help in identifying these two unidentified men. And shortly after making this announcement, the 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, Sambun finally got a call
from Interpol. They had found these two men, and they had interviewed About a week later, Sambun finally got a call from Interpol. They had found these two men and they had interviewed them. And they told Sambun 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, 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. Tell us how you left them when you left the hotel at 6 a.m. And the two guys, they said, look, like they did seem like maybe they were already hungover or sort of sick from 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 their night out with Noemi and Andre, that 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. Sambun thanked the Interpol officer and then hung up. And even though Sambun couldn't help but feel still pretty suspicious of these two Brazilian guys, he now was thinking, okay, well, if they said they got really sick after, you
know, spending time with Noemi and Andrei, 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, Son Bun began to think of, you know, what type of illnesses could they have contracted. And the first thing that Son Bun 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 just 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 Somboon 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 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 Samboon 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, Samboon'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 Samboon 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 coroner in Quebec whose name was René Roussel. 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 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 deep 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. What, there's no warnings at this beach bar about
how dangerous this drink is? Shouldn't there be like 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 cause, and our daughters did. Like that doesn't add up either.
This whole thing feels like laziness, you know, at best, or at worst, a coverup. 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 Rene Roussel to go ahead and do another autopsy on these girls' remains. Let's really see if it was Diet that killed them or maybe if it was something else. And when Rene checked Noemi and Audrey's bodies, she did discover there was DEET in their system. However, not nearly enough to kill them.
So while it seemed plainly obvious that yes, they must have consumed those 4x100 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 DEET, but that was basically it. And so Rene, she's thinking like there's gotta be some explanation here.
And so Rene 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 Rene Roussel's additional research, Noemi and Audrey were far from the first tourists to die this way in Thailand. Between 2009 and 2015, at least 20 tourists have been found dead under very similar circumstances.
Now René believed that what must have happened here is all these people, including Noemi and André, 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 metabolized 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 bed bugs. So there were no bed bugs. 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 bed bugs was by spraying the sheets with pesticide, specifically phosphine gas, which is highly toxic to bed bugs, so it gets rid of the bed bugs, 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, Audre, 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 in through 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 at 6am. 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 Audre 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 bedsheets 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 girls' deaths.
Thank you so much for watching. Let me know what you thought of today's episode in the comments. And remember, we have hundreds of videos for you to binge right now. But if you're looking for a recommendation from me of that one video that's worth your time, But if you're looking for a recommendation from me of that one video that's worth your time, well, it's this one right here. So give it a watch. All right, until next time. See ya.
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