Police in Zanzibar are holding an American citizen whose partner died under mysterious circumstances following a dispute at the hotel where they were staying.

Joseph Isaac McCann, 45, was questioned by police on Monday, four days after his partner, Ashly Robinson, better known online as Ashlee Jenae, was found dead in her room.

Investigators said they are holding McCann's passport until autopsy results are complete. Authorities previously told local media that he was not suspected of wrongdoing.

The Deputy Director of Investigations in Zanzibar, Zuberi Chembera, refused to comment on Thursday, saying that investigations were ongoing.

Police said witness accounts indicate that the couple arrived at Zuri Hotel in Zanzibar on April 4 and had been quarreling frequently until the night of April 8, when hotel management separated them and asked McCann to move to a separate villa about a 10-minute walk away.

A few hours later, a hotel worker found Robinson unresponsive in a closet, with a belt around her neck, police said. She was taken to a hospital, where she died the following day.

Her family told CBS News that they are seeking transparency, adding that their daughter appeared happy in the days leading up to her death.

"They were in a gorgeous place in Africa and happy," her mother, Yolanda Endres, said. "Everything that we knew was that she was supposed to be happy. She was engaged, she celebrated her birthday thereafter, and then she's just gone."

The family said they first learned something was wrong when McCann called to say Robinson was in the hospital, but details were limited.

"I asked him when it happened and where it happened, and he told me that something had occurred 11 hours prior to when he was reaching out to me," Endres said.

They said communication then stopped. The next update, they said, came from the hotel, which informed them their daughter had died.

"The fiancé did not reach out to us at all. We found out from the hotel," Harry Robinson said. "That's devastating when your daughter's halfway around the world. We just wanted to know where she was at, who she was with, and that she was OK. Just give us something."

Robinson's mother told news outlets that hours before her daughter was rushed to the hospital, she and McCann reportedly had an argument that led hotel staff to move them into separate rooms.

"There's cameras everywhere at a resort and that will match the timeline," Harry Robinson said. "Just do the investigation and let us know."

The State Department says it's monitoring the case.

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