A distraught mum has begged holidaymakers not to buckle under pressure from drug dealers following the death of her daughter in Thailand.
Anita Turner spoke out following the death of her daughter Rebecca, who passed away a short time after taking what she believed to be cocaine.
The 64-year-old said she has been “just broken in two” by the 36-year-old’s death, after she was found dead alongside her boyfriend Sam Melnick in their hotel room in Bangkok.
The Mirror reports it is believed it was actually a combination of nine drugs and now Anita, who is from Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, wants more done to stamp out the pestering of tourists to buy substances in tourist hotspots, like places in Bangkok.
Anita said: “Please, whatever you do, please don’t take something. It’s really not worth the risk. This is happening so much. There is a massive drug problem out there and you just don’t know what you’re getting or how strong it is; you need to be really careful.”
The mum, who is a retired delivery driver, has encouraged young people to resist temptation to give in to dealers on holiday. Rebecca had been in Thailand a few months when she died on March 15 – and was due home on April 16.
Inquests into the deaths of Rebecca and Sam, a self-employed gas-engineer and plumber, will resume in January. Fighting back the tears, Anita said: “My heart is just broken in two – I can’t believe I’ll never see her again.
“Every morning I wake up and see a picture of her and just cry and cry. It’s killing me. The pain of losing a child is indescribable. You can’t imagine such pain until it happens to you.
“People are always coming up to you offering you drugs. It’s all over the place. I know before this she had bought weed out there but said what she had been given was definitely not weed.
“That road is particularly bad – a boy died of the same thing just a day before. And the police station is right on the corner. So many people are dying and people need to know about this.” On March 15, Rebecca messaged a friend to say she’d bought cocaine.
But she and Sam died hours later, it is understood. Anita said officials told her there were nine drugs in her daughter’s system – including opiates, morphine, codeine, noscapine, benzodiazepine, tamazopam, noriazepines, diazepam and mono acetylmirohine.
The couple were supposed to be checking out of the hotel, and friends found their bodies when they went looking for them later that day. His body was found in bed, and Rebecca’s on the floor – it is thought she was trying to get to the bathroom, her mum said.
Anita was sent an autopsy report from Thailand but said parts were blacked out. She said: “The Thai authorities were useless and unhelpful. They said I could have all her stuff back in three months but it took over six.
“I’m sure they blacked out the bits where it said what drugs were in her body. They don’t want people to know how bad the problem is out there.”
Bec’s travel insurance covered the cost of bringing her body home ahead of a funeral on May 10. She had a Buddhist memorial in September, and money was raised for a school where she volunteered, in Thailand.
Anite added: “Bec is just so so beautiful. She loved to help others. This is such a trauma: so painful and so shocking. I just want to tap people on the shoulders and tell them: just please don’t take anything.”
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