New Delhi: A 41-year-old American national, Mitchell Brian Lee, was found dead in his room at Marriott Executive Apartments in Hyderabad’s Gachibowli area on Thursday. Police have registered a case of suspicious death and launched an investigation. The cause of death has not been established.
Lee, a California resident, arrived in Hyderabad on November 2 for a business visit with his business partner, David Wu. Both were staying at Marriott Executive Apartments in SLN Terminus, according to the Times of India.
Police said Lee had stopped responding to telephone calls from Wednesday evening. After repeated attempts to contact him failed, hotel employees entered Room 1218 on the 12th floor with a master key at about 6.30pm the following day.
Staff found him lying unconscious on the bed and immediately called the 108 emergency ambulance service. Medical staff examined Lee and confirmed that he had already died, NDTV reported, citing preliminary police information.
Gachibowli police, under the Cyberabad Commissionerate, reached the hotel, inspected the room and registered a case to investigate the death. Investigators are awaiting postmortem findings to establish the exact cause.
Officials suspect Lee may have suffered a cardiac arrest, the Times of India reported. But this is unconfirmed, and police have not reported any evidence of criminal involvement.
The Hyderabad incident comes days after two foreign nationals died in a separate case at Bengaluru’s Conrad Hotel on October 30. Alexander Maximilian Theiss, 57, a German Lufthansa crew member, and Juraj Horvat, 45, a Slovak national employed by IBM, died after a suspected electrical incident in the hotel’s swimming pool, as RNA Media reported earlier.
An American guest, Mathew Desantis, 41, and an Indian pool attendant, Rahul Tiwari, 28, were injured while trying to rescue them. Both were hospitalized and later reported to be stable.
Bengaluru police questioned hotel management and technical staff as they investigated the suspected electrical leakage. The wife of one of the men who died also filed a complaint alleging negligence, although forensic findings on the precise cause were still awaited.
The two incidents involve different hotels and circumstances, and there is no evidence linking them. In Hyderabad, the investigation is focused on establishing the cause of Lee’s death through medical examination and other evidence.