MEXICO CITY (AP) — Authorities in Mexico have confirmed that an American couple died from inhaling gas emitted by a faulty heater at an apartment in the colonial city of San Miguel de Allende.
The prosecutor's office in the north-central state of Guanajuato said Friday that the victims were found Nov. 17 after police were alerted by an acquaintance who had stopped by the dwelling and smelled gas. There was apparently no working carbon monoxide detector in the unit.
The office identified the victims only by their first names, Edward and Barbara. A GoFundMe page set up to bring their bodies back to the United States linked to stories identifying them as Edward Winders and Barbara Moller, a couple living in New Orleans, Louisiana.
It was the latest in a series of deaths of vacationers in Mexico due to faulty gas installations. Last March, an Iowa couple and their two children died from a gas leak in a water heater at a rented condo in Mexico's Caribbean coast resort of Tulum. In 2010, an improperly installed gas line caused an explosion at a hotel in the nearby town of Playa del Carmen that killed five Canadian tourists and two Mexicans.
