Woman dies after celebrating honeymoon in Dominican Republic

A Louisiana woman has died less than a week after she celebrated her honeymoon with her husband in the Dominican Republic, WWL-TV reports.

Luling couple Susan Simoneaux and Keith Williams, who had been together for nearly a decade, went to Punta Cana after marrying on May 11. Things, however, took a turn for the worse when the two returned from their trip — Simoneaux was almost immediately rushed to the hospital with fluid in her lungs.

"I would have never went if I would have known," Williams said. "I did not know to be honest with you."

Simoneaux is one of at least 10 Americans who have fallen ill on the Caribbean island and subsequently died, although a family member told the station that Simoneaux's doctors are not sure whether her trip to the Dominican Republic has anything to do with her death at all.

Regardless of what Simoneaux's cause of death may be, her passing has left her husband reeling.

"I'm taking it a little bit hard with losing her," Williams said.

In the past few months, several Americans have mysteriously died in their resorts. In many of the cases, Dominican authorities concluded that the victims died of respiratory failure and pulmonary edema. Yet family members have remained skeptical, claiming that their loved ones were healthy prior to their trip to the island. The list of the deceased include Ohio resident Jerry Curran, California resident Robert Turlock, Pennsylvania psychotherapist Miranda Schaup-Werner, Maryland couple Edward Nathaniel Holmes and Cynthia Day, and New York resident Leyla Cox.

Most recently, New Jersey resident Joseph Allen was found dead in his room at the Terra Linda Resort in Sosua after he complained of being too hot in a pool the day before. According to preliminary findings of Allen's autopsy, a medical examiner determined that he may have died of cardiac arrest.

The FBI is currently investigating several of the deaths, as Dominican officials have sought to ease concerns over their country's safety. At a press conference earlier this month, Francisco Javier Garcia, the Dominican Republic's minister of tourism, suggested that the deaths were coincidental.

"Sometimes in life there can be a law of sequences," he said. "Sometimes, nothing may happen to you in a year. But in another week, three things might happen to you."