The boyfriend of one of the three Americans who died in an Airbnb in Mexico City from suspected toxic gas inhalation has opened up about up about her final worrying text messages.
Kandace Florence and Jordan Marshall, both 28, and 33-year-old Courtez Hall were vacationing in Mexico City in late October to celebrate the Day of the Dead.
According to an autopsy report obtained by Bloomberg, the trio died after inhaling dangerous levels of carbon monoxide.
Victor Day, the 30-year-old boyfriend of Florence, told People on Wednesday about a series of text messages his late girlfriend sent him from around 2:00 AM.
"Everything was good. She just said that they were out, they were drinking, everything was fine," he said.
Day had seen from Florence's social media activity that she and her two friends were at a rooftop bar where they were drinking wine.
Just hours later, their dead bodies were found in an Airbnb in the La Rosita neighborhood of Mexico City.
Police told El País that an investigation into the incident is ongoing and that they believe the tourists died of "carbon monoxide poisoning."
Day told People that at some point, Florence's messages had become concerning, with the American tourist hinting that her drink may have been spiked.
"I write her, 'What's wrong?' and she says, 'I'm just not okay. I wanna go home,'" Day said. "And I write her, 'You're not enjoying it. What's wrong though?' She says, 'I feel drugged.' And I say, 'Where's Jordan? Are you home or out?'"
Florence had just returned to the Airbnb, telling her boyfriend that although she hadn't taken any drugs, the symptoms she was experiencing were similar to that of being under the influence of MDMA.
"I'm literally in pain," Florence said, according to Day. "I'm like, shaking."
"Three minutes later, she FaceTimes me," he continued. "And that's when I clearly see she's vomiting. She's been crying. I mean her whole face was wet, crying or vomiting or maybe she splashed water on her face."
Day said the conversation went on before he fell asleep for "probably about five, 10 minutes." When he woke up, their phones were still connected.
"But now the phone screen is pitch black as if she put the phone down or the phone fell. But the camera side is facing the ground," he told the outlet. "So I don't see anything. But I could hear something going on in the background and I put the phone to my ear, and it sounds like her vomiting or dry heaving, or both."
Day said he recalled telling himself, "Everything's going to be okay."
"She'll go to sleep. She'll wake up the next morning and she'll tell me all about what could have happened," he remembered thinking. "And so that to me is what eats me up. Because knowing that I could have helped a little bit more, knowing that at that moment I probably could have called the police. I could have done something but instead I went to sleep."
The following morning, Day tried to check in with Florence over message. "How are you feeling? Is everything okay?" he wrote. "About 30, 45 minutes pass, I don't get anything. And I started to think, I was like, Well, it seemed like she did have a night. She's probably just oversleeping."
When another hour passed, he began to worry. "Something definitely wasn't right," he recalled thinking.
"And then that's when it clicked," Day added. Florence had shown him the Airbnb listing a month before her trip with Marshall and Hall, so he used it to contact the host.
"Something is terribly wrong. I need someone to check on the apartment," he said he wrote to the host through the site. "And we go back and forth for a little bit and eventually she tells me, okay, she's sending her security into the apartment."
Day said that 10 minutes later the host wrote back, "saying that they found all three of them in the apartment unresponsive without vital signs" and that the emergency services had been alerted.
On Monday morning, the host told Day: "They were all pronounced deceased."
"I refused to believe that they were dead. It seemed so surreal, it didn't feel real," he said. "And so I began to ask her, I'm like, 'Did the police do anything? Did y'all, did they try in Mexico to save their lives?' And she assured me. She was like, 'Oh, of course. Of course, they tried. And unfortunately it's just, it's too late. They've all passed.'"
