CHIANG MAI: Police have yet to verify whether a Japanese woman committed suicide as her husband said after she was found dead in their hotel room on Monday.
The Japanese husband of Ami Hosoe, 25, told police that she suffered from depression and had tried to strangle herself with the cord of a hairdryer in their hotel room on Sunday night.
At the time, he said, he was able to save his wife and then hid the hairdryer, according to Pol Maj Gen Thawatchai Pongwiwatanachai, commander of Chiang Mai police.
The Japanese man denied having had any dispute with his wife, Pol Maj Gen Thawatchai said on Tuesday.
The couple briefly left their hotel room for a convenience store at 3.45am on Monday, the husband reportedly told police.
When they returned to their room, he went to bed. When he woke up on Monday morning, he said, he found his wife dead in the bathroom.
He told police that his wife was lying face down in a bathtub, with a phone charging cable around her neck. He reportedly moved the body and left it face up on the hotel room floor before calling hotel staff.
Police were checking the woman’s medical records to determine if she suffered from depression. They are also waiting for an autopsy report from Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital, said Pol Maj Gen Thawatchai.
The couple had a business in Bangkok and were in Chiang Mai for a vacation. They checked into the Parc Borough hotel on Mahidol Road in Muang district on Saturday.
Pol Maj Gen Thawatchai said security video showed that no one else entered the couple’s room before the report of the death.
They has been scheduled to check out at noon on Monday, he added.