Miranda Schaup-Werner died on May 25, while Edward Nathaniel Holmes and Cynthia Ann Day were found dead May 30.
Days before the bodies of a Maryland couple were found in their room at a hotel in the Dominican Republic, a Pennsylvania woman collapsed and died at a sister resort, devastated loved ones said.
Miranda Schaup-Werner, 41, and her husband, Dan Werner, checked in to the Luxury Bahia Principe Bouganville on May 25 to celebrate their ninth wedding anniversary, but by the end of the day, the Allentown woman would be dead.
“At one point, she was sitting there happily smiling and taking pictures and the next moment she was in acute pain and called out for Dan and she collapsed,” family spokesman Jay McDonald told WFMZ-TV. The couple was enjoying a drink from the minibar in their room when Schaup-Werner collapsed.
“[Her husband] was understandably in shock but the whole thing was just so stunning,” McDonald said, noting Schaup-Werner was healthy before her death.
That same day, Edward Nathaniel Holmes, 63, and Cynthia Ann Day, 49, checked into the nearby Grand Bahia Principe La Romana hotel.
The Maryland couple appeared to enjoy their time away, posting to social media to document their excursions and adventures while vacationing.
“Boat ride of a lifetime!!!” Holmes wrote on Facebook. He appeared to be all smiles as he hugged his fiance.
“Can somebody please loan me $250,000 [because] I don’t want to come home!” he wrote earlier.
The couple’s time away was scheduled to come to an end on May 30, when they were set to check out and fly home, loved ones said. When Holmes and Day missed their scheduled checkout time, hotel employees went to their room and found them dead, officials said.
An autopsy concluded the couple had respiratory failure and pulmonary edema, a condition caused by excess fluid in the lungs, the Dominican Republic National Police told CNN.
Various medications meant to treat high blood pressure were found in the room, police said. There were no signs of violence.
But Schaup-Werner’s family notified the State Department of her death and the deaths of Holmes and Day, noting the similarities and requesting an investigation.
“What we thought was a freak event, now we don’t know,” McDonald said.
The State Department and FBI are looking into the deaths.
"We offer our sincerest condolences to the families for their loss," a statement from the State Department obtained by CNN said.
In a statement released after the deaths of Schaup-Werner, Holmes and Day, Bahia Principe Hotels said: “We are deeply saddened by the incident at one of our hotels in La Romana, Dominican Republic, and want to express our deepest condolences to their family and friends.”
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