Mother issues devastating warning after daughter suddenly died on holiday
Rebecca Turner died while on holiday in Bangkok after unknowingly consuming a deadly mix of nine drugs, believing it was cocaine. Her heartbroken mother, Anita Turner, has now issued a warning to others
A heartbroken mum has urged British holidaymakers to steer clear of drug dealers abroad, following inquest into her daughter's shock death.
A toxicology report found evidence of heroin, codeine, diazepam and trazodone in her bloodstream, and assistant coroner Laura Bradford said Rebecca died as a result of " drug toxicity". Speaking after the inquest in Lewes, Rebecca's mother, Anita Turner, 64, said: "It's so, so dangerous out there. There are loads of drug deaths all the time. It's shocking. I would warn people to stay away from recreational drugs out there because you simply don't know what's in it."
Rebecca and her boyfriend, Sam Melnick, were both found dead in their hotel room in the Thai capital of Bangkok in March 2024. Rebecca, 36, believed she was taking a line of cocaine, but tests later revealed the substance was a lethal cocktail of nine different drugs.
Afterwards, her mother, Anita, told of how she'd visited Thailand three times since her daughter's death last year in a desperate attempt to uncover what happened. She plans to travel over again in June to help provide assistance for children in schools in Bangkok, which had been a cause close to Rebecca's heart.
Anita added: "I want to go back and help the schools for the sake of Rebecca, to raise funds and equipment for them. It was something Rebecca really wanted to help with, so I'm doing it for her as well. But most of all, I just want to say: 'Please don't do drugs out there'. It's so dangerous, and you don't know what's in it. It's just not worth it'. Rebecca was a lovely, caring person. She was happy-go-lucky, really, and we loved her. We are absolutely heartbroken."
The mum, who is a retired delivery driver, has encouraged young people to resist the temptation to give in to dealers on holiday. Rebecca had been in Thailand a few months when she died on March 15 2024 - and was due home on April 16. Inquests into the deaths of Rebecca and Sam, a self-employed gas engineer and plumber, were held this week.
The inquest heard the 36-year-old had occasionally taken cocaine and once sought treatment for problems with alcohol. However, her family said she was in good spirits before she travelled to Asia to go to a wedding last year.
Rebecca sent a message to a friend to say she'd bought cocaine on March 15. But she and Sam died hours later, it is understood.
Assistant coroner Ms Bradford said: "I have no evidence to suggest she was intending to die on 15 March, and in addition, I have evidence from Rebecca's family that her mental health was stable and her mood was in fact good."
As reported by BBC News, Rebecca's mother remembered her daughter as "fun, bubbly, always partying, always laughing, always smiling".
The couple had been due to check out of the hotel when friends discovered 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."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
7 hours ago
- Spectator
Has deporting illegals become illegal?
The circus around Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia – whose full name the New York Times likes to trot out as if citing an old-school English aristocrat – speaks volumes about the immigration battle roiling the US. Our friend Kilmar is what we fuddy-duddies insist on calling an illegal immigrant. The Salvadoran crossed clandestinely into the US in 2012. As for what he's done since, that depends on whom you ask. According to his GoFundMe page, Kilmar is a 'husband, union worker and father of a disabled five-year-old'. Left-wing media portray 'the Maryland man' – a tag akin to Axel Rudakubana's 'a Welshman' – as an industrious metalworker devoted to his family. His wife has rowed back on the temporary protective order she once requested, claiming she'd been over-cautious. Yet according to the Trump administration, Kilmar is a member of the notoriously violent street gang MS-13 who's derived his primary source of income from smuggling hundreds of illegals over the southern border for several years. Choose A or B. In 2019, Kilmar was arrested for loitering along with three other men, one a suspected MS-13 member. He was carrying marijuana, for which (of course) he wasn't charged. From his clothing, tattoos and, more persuasively, a 'past proven and reliable' confidential source who verified he was an active gang member using the moniker 'Chele', police adjudged that Kilmar was a gangbanger, for which (of course) he wasn't charged. He was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement – whose acronym, ICE, reinforces its rep as cold-hearted – which moved to deport him. Kilmar (of course) contested his removal. The immigration judge hearing Kilmar's case concurred that the defendant was indeed a gang member and deportable; the Salvadoran (of course) appealed the decision, which nevertheless was upheld. Kilmar (of course) then filed for asylum, as well as for a 'withholding of removal'. A subsequent immigration judge stayed his deportation to his home country, where his wellbeing might be endangered by local gangs. Now, you might suppose that putting yourself in the way of other famously rivalrous gangs would come with the territory when you join one yourself. Like, inter-gang violence seems a natural hazard of this line of work. But it's not only British immigration judges who are soft touches. Only mass round-ups and swift group trials could effectively address the millions of gate-crashers Kilmar (of course) remained in the US. In 2022, he was pulled over for speeding while driving eight other Hispanic men of uncertain immigration status in an SUV altered to add a third row of seats for extra passengers. The officers suspected human-trafficking; Kilmar's driving licence had expired; a run of his number plate through the database turned up a federal note on likely membership of MS-13. Yet when the patrolmen contacted the feds, ICE (of course) declined to pick him up. So Kilmar was (of course) released without charge. Even so, his claim that he was merely transporting construction workers between jobs did not, under investigation, hold up. Fast-forward to 2025 and why this otherwise obscure Salvadoran who is or is not a thug merits such a detailed lowdown. Meaning (of course) that this case has to do with Donald Trump – whose evil minions in March flew more than 230 purported criminals to a Salvadoran prison, including none other than Kilmar, whom ICE did finally pick up (no 'of course' there). The flights' timing was judicially dodgy. The planes did or didn't take off after a federal judge ruled that the flights could not proceed until the deportees were given the opportunity to challenge their removal. The administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which directed Trump to 'facilitate' Kilmar's return to the US. Because, remember, there was only one country to which he could not be deported because of that credulous 2019 decision: his own. Hence the Justice Department's acceptance that Kilmar's deportation was an 'administrative error'. During this proxy war with Trump, Democrats have pretended to hair-tear over poor Kilmar, mouldering away in a nasty foreign prison and deprived of due process. But the story I just laid out has due process, not to mention leniency or even dereliction on the part of the authorities, up the wazoo. Meanwhile, after slyly getting their jurisprudential ducks in a row, last week Trump and co finally got Kilmar flown back to the US, only to arrest him immediately for human-trafficking – with every intention of convicting the guy and then deporting him right back to El Salvador. What do we make of this farce? The American commentariat has focused on a potential showdown between Trump and the judiciary, claiming to fear a flat-out executive refusal to follow court orders but secretly rather hoping that Trump does defy the courts and thus reveals himself as an unconstitutional tyrant. I view this absurd tale through a different lens. All these trials and flights for a lone illegal alien are expensive. The amount of 'due process' the American justice system affords every single illegal makes deportation at any scale impossible. There isn't enough time and money and there aren't nearly enough judges to make any but a token gesture toward the mass deportation of illegals that Trump has promised. That amounts to a victory not just for Democrats but also for disorder. I'd assess the odds that Kilmar is a thug at about 90 per cent. But proving membership of unofficial allegiances in court is a bastard. If every individual deportation case must be adjudicated according to exacting evidentiary rules and appeal procedures, America's drastic, undemocratic demographic change will proceed inexorably. Only mass round-ups and swift group trials could effectively address the staggering ten million gate-crashers during the Biden administration alone. What are the chances of that? In New York at the weekend, ICE raids were impeded by LA-style crowds of righteously indignant protestors screaming: 'Let them go! Let them go!' The officers just doing their jobs looked beleaguered, tired, numb and pre-defeated. After all the ICE agents' thankless labours, what proportion of their detainees will still get to stay in the country in the end? I'll take another stab at 90 per cent.
Spectator
7 hours ago
- Spectator
My plan for Prevent
In the autumn of 1940, British cities were being bombed every night by large aeroplanes whose provenance was apparently of some considerable doubt. While the public almost unanimously believed the conflagrations to have been caused by the Luftwaffe, the authorities – right up to the government – refused to speculate. Indeed, when certain members of the public raised their voices and said 'This is all down to Hitler and Goering and the bloody Germans!', they received visits from the police who either prosecuted them for disturbing the peace or put their names on a list of possible extremists. The nights grew darker. The number of towns and cities subjected to these nightly bombardments widened. Very soon everybody in the country knew somebody whose home had been destroyed or who had themselves been killed. The government was forced to take action, and so in November 1940 it came up with what it called its 'Prevent' strategy, which aimed to protect British cities from further destruction. In the introduction to this new policy, civil servants listed possible vectors for these bombing raids and top of the list, by some margin, were the Slovaks. A senior intelligence officer told the public: 'The greatest threat to our nation today is from the Slovaks. We must train our people in how to spot Slovaks and report them to the police whenever they can.' The Germans were also mentioned, further down the list of possible perps, but the wording here was heavily caveated. Yes, some Germans may have been involved, but over all the German population was utterly devoted to peace and regretted the nightly infernos every bit as much as did the people who suffered under them. Our own air force was directed to drop its bombs on Bratislava, Kosice, Poprad and (the consequence of an understandable confusion over the names of the two countries) Maribor. And yet for some mystifying reason, the raids on Britain did not lessen. This seems to me exactly the response of our government(s) and most importantly of Prevent to the threat from Islamic terrorism. Let me be clear: I am not remotely comparing Muslims with Germans or Islam with National Socialism – I am simply saying that, in effect, this is what our government would have done in 1940 if it had been gripped by the same cringing witlessness and outright lying that possesses seemingly all of our authorities today when it comes to terrorist attacks upon the British people. You may be aware of the manifestly stupid quote from the Prevent halfwits that people who believe that 'western culture is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups' are cultural nationalists at risk of becoming the kind of extremists who end up murdering people. People who believe the above probably consist of 70 per cent of the British population and, if his latest speeches are anything to go by, include the Prime Minister. And yet this stuff pervades everything Prevent puts out, while at the same time exonerating Islam and in some cases even those Muslims who do become terrorists (because they have suffered, you see). If people who support Brexit or worry about immigration are extremists, you're going to get pretty high figures So, for example, Bolton council's useful 'Prevent' handbook singles out 'right-wing extremists' as being at the forefront of terror attacks in the UK, and these extremists include people who are cultural nationalists: 'Cultural nationalism is ideology characterised by anti-immigration, anti-Islam, anti-Muslim, anti-establishment narratives, often emphasising British/English 'victimhood' and identity under attack from a perceived 'other'.' Islamic terrorism is also mentioned – but, again, heavily caveated. Then there's Prevent's own list of people who were picked up under its guidelines: 45 per cent were related to extreme right-wing radicalisation (230); 23 per cent were linked to Islamist radicalisation (118); the rest were related to other radicalisation concerns, including incels and those at risk of carrying out school shootings. But then I suppose if people who proclaim their support for Brexit or worry a bit about immigration are extremists, you are going to get pretty high arrest figures. If you add into the mix the fact that simply to associate Islam with terrorism you are guilty of Islamophobia, then you can see why we're in the state we're in. Incidentally, when she was Prime Minister, Theresa May, to her credit, drafted a new introduction to the Prevent guidelines which made it clear that the biggest threat to British security was al Qaeda, not Tommy Robinson et al. But that message does not seem to have sunk in with those in Prevent. It seems almost pointless to run through the facts. The truth is that almost every fatal terrorist attack in Britain since 2001 has been perpetrated by Islamists. All bar three. Have these people got a twisted or perverted understanding of Islam, as Prevent insists? I haven't a clue. I am no Quranic expert. I'm just, y'know, taking their word for it. Further, 80 per cent of the Counter Terrorism Policing network's investigations are related to Islamism (2023). Some 75 per cent of MI5's surveillance cases are Islamists. There are around 40,000 potential jihadis being monitored by our security services. There is not the remotest doubt as to the provenance of the gravest terror threats to our country. It's not the shaven-headed nutters with swastika armbands. It is Islamists. Nigel Farage's answer is to sack everyone working in Prevent. That seems a perfectly reasonable suggestion. But I may have a better one. Scrap Prevent entirely and initiate a new network of monitoring and reporting which focuses solely on Islamic terrorism. Junk the sixth-form philosophising over what is meant by the term 'extremist' and locate the problem precisely where it is: somewhere within our Muslim communities, even if we accept that our Muslim communities may not want them there. In short, get real and tell the truth. This kind of approach worked pretty well 85 years ago.
North Wales Chronicle
11 hours ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Mike Lynch's sunken superyacht to be lifted in late June as debris is found
Maritime and investigatory authorities in Sicily approved the final recovery plan following surveys of the seabed and wreck. The stern section of the Bayesian will be temporarily lifted using Hebo Lift 10 — one of Europe's most powerful sea cranes — allowing crews to attach the straps needed to raise the entire yacht later this month. The vessel is expected to be brought to the surface on or around June 26, subject to no further delays, it is understood. It was originally expected to be raised last month but salvage efforts were delayed after a diver died during underwater work on May 9, prompting greater use of remote-controlled equipment. To lift the 56-metre (184ft) vessel, eight steel straps will be attached beneath it, with four messenger lines already fed under the front. The 72-metre mast will be removed using precision cutting tools and the yacht will be rolled upright and lifted using a custom steel cable system. A full underwater survey around the wreck using remote-operated equipment found 17 possible pieces of debris, including a life raft casing and deck furniture, which have been recovered and brought to nearby Termini Imerese – a town where Italian prosecutors investigating the sinking are based. Marcus Cave of British firm TMC Marine, which is overseeing the salvage efforts, said: 'Following detailed engineering assessment and discussions with the authorities, the works on site are now progressing towards the recovery of the wreck. 'The salvage teams will now hopefully be able to make more systematic progress in preparations for the ultimate safe recovery of Bayesian, whilst ensuring that safety of those working on this very complex lifting and recovery operation and environmental protection continue to be prioritised.' Billionaire Mr Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah, 18, were among seven people who died when the Bayesian sank off the coast of the Italian island on August 19. About 70 specialist personnel had been mobilised to the fishing village Porticello from across Europe to work on the recovery operation, which began last month. Inquest proceedings in the UK are looking at the deaths of Mr Lynch and his daughter, as well as Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his wife, Judy Bloomer, 71, who were all British nationals. Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) investigators said in an interim report that the Bayesian was knocked over by 'extreme wind'. The yacht had a vulnerability to winds but the owner and crew would not have known, the report said. The others who died in the sinking were US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo, and Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, who was working as a chef on the vessel. Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, were rescued. Mr Lynch and his daughter were said to have lived in the vicinity of London and the Bloomers lived in Sevenoaks in Kent. The tycoon founded software giant Autonomy in 1996 and was cleared in June last year of carrying out a massive fraud over the sale of the firm to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011. The boat trip was a celebration of his acquittal in the case in the US.
