Three American students were mysteriously found dead inside their Airbnb home while vacationing in Mexico City last week. Kandace Florence, Jordan Marshall, and Courtez Hall, all 28 years old, went to Mexico in late October to celebrate Dia De Los Muertos, often known as the Day of the Dead. Instead, the three were found dead on October 30.
The families of the three are now demanding answers after more than a week as police continue to investigate. According to a DailyMial.com report, the office of the attorney general told the outlet that they may have died from inhaling carbon monoxide inside their Airbnb home.
Mysterious Death
According to NBC affiliate television station WAVY, Florence of Virginia Beach and Marshall from New Orleans had come together to meet up with Hall, a friend of Marshall’s who also lived in New Orleans, to participate in the Day of the Dead celebrations.
The station reported that Florence’s boyfriend, who did not travel with the group, was talking to her on the phone on October 30 when she started to feel unwell and told him something was wrong.
The call was subsequently disconnected, and the boyfriend was unable to contact Florence. The boyfriend then asked the Airbnb host to conduct a welfare check out of concern for her security.
According to the Mexico City prosecutor’s office, security at the apartment complex called the police after smelling strong gas coming from the trio’s flat.
That evening, when local police arrived on the scene, they discovered Florence, along with Marshall and Hall, dead.
The grieving relatives claimed they had spoken with the US Embassy in Mexico and gone to Mexico City in person in search of an explanation for what had happened, but they were unable to determine how their loved ones had died.
However, according to the latest reports, the three likely died from inhaling carbon monoxide, DailyMail.com reported. “According to the [forensic] expert studies carried out, the three people referred to died of carbon monoxide poisoning,” the attorney general’s office told the outlet.
Tragic End
It is not known if the families of the three deceased friends have been informed about the cause of death but they have been claiming that Mexico City police haven’t been forthcoming. “The Mexican police were not very forthcoming with information,” Jennifer Marshall, Jordan’s mom, told the station WTKR. “Also, the language barrier was incredibly difficult as well.”
The wallet and laptop that Jordan Marshall left behind, along with other personal items, are still missing. Kelvin Florence, Florence’s father, said that no one in Mexico had attempted to contact or tell the deceased’s family members back in the US.
In the upcoming days, Marshall and Florence’s bodies were planned to be flown back to the US.
Marshall and Florence have been close friends since high school. Florence ran her own candle business, while Marshall and Hall worked as teachers in the New Orleans public schools.
“To lose your child is one thing, but in a whole other country and having to maneuver language barriers and travel and trying to get his body home, it’s been a lot,” Marshall’s mom, Jennifer Marshall, said.
She traveled to Mexico City and waited for a translator at a police station for several hours. She was unable to get hold of his personal items because they were being kept by the police. The embassy was unable to send interpreters to accompany Chad Florence and his wife on their visits to the morgue and police station while they were in Mexico, according to Chad Florence.
Hall had traveled to Mexico City on October 29 and had last spoken to his mother that evening, according to his mother Ceola Hall, who spoke to NBC station WDSU.