Three American tourists died from natural causes in the Dominican Republic, according to the FBI

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Click here to share on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window)
• Click to email a friend (Opens in a new window)

(CNN) - FBI toxicology tests determined that the deaths of three US tourists in the Dominican Republic were due to natural causes, a US State Department official said Friday.
The findings are consistent with those presented by the Dominican authorities.

The FBI helped with the toxicology tests of three of at least nine Americans who died there in recent months. The avalanche of deaths has had vacationers wondering if they should cancel their trips to that Caribbean tourist destination.

The agency helped investigate the deaths of Nathaniel Holmes, Cynthia Day and Miranda Schaup-Werner last spring.

• How did the three Americans die in a resort in the Dominican Republic?

Schaup-Werner, a 41-year-old Pennsylvania resident, died in May at the Grand Bahia Principe hotel in La Romana, as did Holmes, 63, and Day, 49, a Maryland couple.

"Our condolences are with families during this difficult time," the State Department official said in a statement, adding that relatives of the deceased have been informed of the results of the FBI tests.

There was no immediate response from family members.

The State Department official said the deaths were tragic, but he described them as isolated and unrelated cases. The United States has not seen an increase in the number of deaths of US citizens in the Dominican Republic, he added.

Schaup-Werner died in his hotel room after taking a drink from the minibar, family spokesman Jay McDonald told WFMZ, a CNN affiliate. He suffered a heart attack, pulmonary edema and respiratory failure, according to a preliminary autopsy cited by the Attorney General's Office of the Dominican Republic.

Holmes and Day were found dead days later in their hotel room on May 30. Both had internal bleeding, even in their pancreas, according to Dominican authorities. Holmes had an enlarged heart and liver cirrhosis, both signs of a significant preexisting disease, Dominican authorities said. De Day said they had fluid in the brain.

Holmes and Day also had fluid in their lungs, attorney general Jean Alain Rodríguez Sánchez said in a statement at the time.

The Dominican Republic is one of the main tourist destinations in the Caribbean, with more than 6 million tourists in scale last year, including 2.2 million Americans, according to the Caribbean Tourism Organization.

DeathTurists