The investigation into the deaths of a mother and daughter who were found inside their West Hollywood apartment last Friday has been closed after coroner’s officials ruled the deceased women were not homicide victims.

The women were found around 6:00pm after a maintenance worker at the apartment building in the 1100 block of N. Fuller Avenue was investigating a gas leak and could not contact the people inside the apartment. Deputies from the West Hollywood Station responded to the apartment, forced entry after smelling natural gas and found the two women. The sheriff’s department originally reported that the case was a possible murder/suicide, but officials from the department’s Homicide Bureau closed the case after the coroner’s office determined otherwise.

Capt. John Kades, with the L.A. County Coroner’s Office, identified the women as Byong Soon Kim, 87, and Bok Ki Mo, 53. Kades said Kim had died of a heart attack and Mo had hanged herself in the shower.

“It doesn’t appear to be foul play, it was just an unusual circumstance,” Kades said. “The mother died of natural causes some time ago, and it appears the daughter committed suicide.”

Lt. Lawrence Delmese, with the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station, said investigators believe the mother died a week prior to the bodies being discovered, and that the daughter may have been suffering from mental illness and did not report the death. Police believe the daughter may have originally turned on the gas in the apartment in an attempt to kill herself. Officials did not know how long the two women had lived at the apartment.

“I wouldn’t say this is something that happens frequently, but I don’t think it is as unusual as you might think,” Delmese said. “Being a child of the victim and having some type of mental illness, these types of things do happen.”