Today 7 months after the deadly incident in May 2009 investigators still haven’t found an explanation for what killed Karina Refseth’s friend Norwegian Julie Bergheim, 22, and fellow tourist Jill St. Onge, 27, from Seattle.
What was intended a holiday in paradise turned fatal when Julie Bergheim and Jill St. Onge died shortly after having experienced breathing-difficulties and terrible stomach pains in their rooms at the Laleena Guesthouse on Phi Phi island. The two women died only hours apart.
Mysteriously enough the two young women didn’t know each other at all. In fact the only thing that links the two is that they lived next door to each other at the same guesthouse.
Karina Refseth, who is now speaking out, and Jill St. Onge’s American fiancé also fell ill but survived – Karina Refseth narrowly.
Jill St. Onge’s fiancé has from day one said that he noticed some kind of chemical gas when he and Jill checked in at their room at the guesthouse.
Karina‘s recollection seems to be disturbingly the same.
“The third night when we got home that evening I felt a kind of strange smell in the room, but we thought nothing more of it. I am sure that we were exposed to some kind of gas, and I think Julie died of this gas,” she says to Nettavisen.no.
She adds: “I am very disappointed with both Norwegian and Thai police. It would have been a big help to myself and Julie’s family if we weren’t left wondering what really happened,” she told the Norwegian newspaper.
There have been numerous theories to what caused the deaths of the two young women including theories such as food poisoning, gases from the water treatment plant (only 20 meters away from the guesthouse), the air-condition or the insect spray at the guesthouse.
Unfortunately, forensics in both Norway and Thailand haven’t been able to determine a certain cause of death.
