TURKEY - George Smith, 26, missing from cruise ship, July 2005

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Hi Tristan,

I heard that right out of the gate, and it was 2 Russian men and a young American man from San Diego. On LKL I heard there were 4 men, and that is the first I had heard that. I know this is all being kept quiet, as for one thing, the guy from San Diego lives with his parents as I remember, and he lawyered up right away. We have heard nada about or from him. I'm sure that is exactly how they want it!

I also read at the same time that George had won big that night in the casino. He had a lot of money on him. It was said on LKL that this is one theory that LE is looking into, that it was a robbery! But then I get confused, as I hear after George went over the balcony and was gone and Jennifer came back and was raped. I never heard that part early on. Does anyone think that is really true?

Scandi

Scandi
 
There was blood found on a tissue and on a towel in the bathroom. There was also blood on the sheets.

According to the cruise employees who helped the wife back to the cabin at 4AM or so, they didn't notice the blood on the sheets because the bed was "made".

Those who have been on cruises will probably remember that the cabin attendant comes into the stateroom during the evening to tidy up, replace towels and to turn down the bed .

It seems almost certain (unless the cabin attendant is negligent) that the towels were replaced sometime during the evening, probably while the couple was at dinner or in the casino. And the bed would have been turned down at the same time. So the towel and the tissue must have gotten the blood on them from about 9-10 o'clock on. And someone must have pulled the spread up over the sheets after that time also.

Who pulled that bedspread up after 10 and before the wife was put back on the bed in the early am? Was it the husband? Was it the teenage boy and the Russians? Or was it the wife?

It seems to me that there is a clue in there somewhere....
 
Morag, It could be the blood on the tissue and sheets was Jennifers, that is if she really was raped after George went over the balcony. I just can't quite see cleaning up any blood though with a tissue, unless it is for a bloody nose. Tissues are for dabbing at wetness. If George was really drunk when he got back to the room with the 3-some, I doubt he would be pulling down sheets to do anything! LOL

The was also blood on the carpet, and I'd give a little guess that belonged to George. Bet the Turkish lab had a field day with the diversity of the blood!

Scandi
 
Ok, please don't anyone think I'm nuts, but I just have to ask.. Whenever I see them air that photo of the blood splotch on the overhang of the cruise ship, I could swear I see two very distinct footprints in it. Anyone else seeing this??? I have conjectured that maybe someone killed him, tried to throw him overboard and he fell on that overhang, so maybe they had to use the access ladder, climb down there , roll him off and they didn't realize they stepped in it while they were there. I could be wrong.
 
Scandi (Hi!), the blood, while interesting, does not fascinate me--but the idea of the "made" bed does. I cannot imagine the four guys (five counting George) pulling the spread up in a way that could be described as "made". I am thinking that Jennifer would be much more likely to have done that. I read somewhere that Dr. Lee was measuring the distance from the place where she was found sleeping or passed out, to the cabin.

In the matter of the blood, I heard some defense attorney (the one who says axe instead of ask) and Greta saying that the blood could have been deposited there anytime since the cabin was made up the day before. When you are cruising, your room gets made up two or more times a day --that's part of what makes it nice!
 
Apparently when the bride was on Oprah, she said that she thought George was possibly sleeping in "Paul and Galina's" cabin. Galina is a fairly common name for Russian women.
Hmmm. I wonder if this could mean that the previous evening(s) when he had slept out, that he was in the company of some of the Russian family(ies) who were traveling together...five of whom were apparently kicked off the ship in connection with the alleged rape and sex tape incident.
Did anyone see or tape this Oprah show (January 18)? I confess that I am just repeating what someone on some other site has said--the Oprah summary does not mention names, and the transcripts must be ordered and paid for. IF this is accurate, it might make another connection between the Smiths and the mysterious Russians.
 
Bumping....Has anyone heard anymore news on this case. Hopefully!
 
Tonight on one of the shows the attorney....I believe he was the attorney anyway...who represents the 20 yr old boy said that the boy didn't lawyer up until after he had talked to the FBI several times. The other men did lawyer up right away. He said that the boy didn't think that he needed an attorney because he hadn't done anything wrong. He went on to say that the first time the kid talked to the FBI they were real nice. The times after that they kept telling him that they knew that the guys had done something to George. They were in his face...so close that their spit would hit him in the face.

This attorney went through what the 20 yr old had told the FBI. He had gotten to know George and Jennifer shortly after boarding the ship. They had went to the casino, etc together. He said on the night George disappeared they had been drinking. There was another guy with them. He talked about Jennifer kissing some guy and George going over there...them fighting and her kicking George in the crotch. She left and later George was so drunk that he fell off of his chair. The boy, the other guy sitting there and two other guys helped him back onto his chair. Later they talked about helping George to his room. He was so drunk that he could barely walk. The 3 guys helped him walk to his room. After they got there George asked if they would help him go find Jennifer. They did help him. They walked around looking and went as far as the pool but didn't see her anywhere. He said they took George back to his room and helped him get into bed. He thanked them and told them that he was going to buy them some type of drinks the next night. The kid said that they left George in bed and went to his room. Once there they ordered room service and had several orders brought to the room. The attorney said that they have pictures that are time dated of being back in the kid's room and of their room service orders.

He said that they arrived at his room that morning about 4:00 am. They left the bar with George around 3:00 am when it closed. Room service delivered at 4:20 am. He also said that two of the guys that helped George back onto his chair and to his room had never met or talked to George before then. They were just asked to help.

If George was as drunk as this boy says he was there is no way he could have stood on that chair on the deck, sat on the railing and fallen off onto the awning. There may have been a foot print on the chair but you can bet it wasn't Georges.

I hope this case gets solved. I still don't know what I think about Jennifer.
How could she have slept in the bed for at least 4 hrs. and not see any blood on the sheets....not seen the bloody towel, etc. She had an appt. for 10 am but showed up for it at 8:00. Why was she laying in a hallway when she was found? Right where she was laying was a door for the employees.

Dr. Bauden was on one of the shows tonight and he said that if they tested Jennifer's hair they would be able to tell if she had been drugged that night. He explained how they can tell by the hair. It was really interesting. I can't see a person being so drunk that they lay down in the hallway and sleep. That is pretty pitiful. The boy said that a staff on the ship had followed her around all night. I wonder if he slipped her something and took her to his room that might have been through that door where she was found sleeping or passed out or whatever she was.

Maybe Dr. Lee will be able to get some info from his tests. Maybe him and the FBI can put their heads together and figure out what happened. To me it is obvious that someone murdered George for some reason...but who?
 
Bobbi, about the sheets! Greta said the other night that it was more like there were a couple of little smudges, and they weren't sure if the blood was his or Jennifers, but there wasn't very much. It had been reported earlier that it was "bloody fingerprints" so I'm thinking small sized smudges.

If room service delivered at 4:20, I wonder how long before that the order would have had to have been placed. Maybe 20-30 minutes previous to the delivery? That leaves about an hour during which they had time to bring George to his room, leave the room looking for Jennifer, then return to the room. Ample time for foul play, I'm thinking.

On the other hand, I've seen stupendously drunk people do stupendously stupid and illogical things before. This guy I knew was so drunk he couldn't stand up on his own, and all of a sudden he got it into his head that someone had "disrespected" him and he became an out of control fighting machine. Jumping, kicking, punching.....it was horrible. If George decided that Jennifer had left him (particularly if she'd been kissing someone else earlier) he may have decided life wasn't worth living. Alcohol is a depressive, it can cause people with sadness to feel even more sad and hopeless. I can't rule out suicide at this point.

Did the lawyer address the bloody towel, bloody tissues? If there wasn't alot of blood on the towel, it may have been folded in a way to hide the stain. Tissues in the wastebasket, I wonder, or strewn about the floor?

I don't know if this was foul play or not, but the cruise lines need to address this "man overboard" crap. This happens way too often.

SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC: Did anyone catch a show the other day-I think this was whatever early morning news show comes on ABC--there was a man who'd gone overboard on a cruise? He swam for like 17 hours before he was rescued by a foreign ship?

This guy says he was drinking, that's the last he remembers. (I was half asleep, I can't remember if he was gambling or listening to a band or just in the ship's bar) Then he suddenly comes to and he is in the ocean. He's wearing his shirt and boxers and socks. His pants and shoes are missing. He does not believe he jumped or fell overboard, he believes there was foul play. His pants and shoes were not in his cabin, which tends to support his theory. His story, and I only caught half of it, makes me wonder if there are employees/passengers on cruise ships that maybe slip a date-rape type of drug into the drink of someone who's flashing money around. It'd make a big guy easy to rob. Then just dump them overboard if they think the person might recall something about the robbery?
 
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2005/06/06/story1.html?page=1

This link provides information on how cruise ships handle these cases. Information about Tim Sears, the man I spoke of in my previous post is on page 3 of the article.


http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1546015

The second link deals solely with Tim Sears. It is an amazing story.

The foreign cargo ship heading for Texas — named "Eny" — plucked Sears from the water, ending his ordeal at the last possible hour.

"It actually brought me to tears when I was sitting there," he recalled. "I was asking God to send me any ship and here 'Eny' ship had rescued me and it just did, it brought me to tears."
 
kgeaux said:
SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC: Did anyone catch a show the other day-I think this was whatever early morning news show comes on ABC--there was a man who'd gone overboard on a cruise? He swam for like 17 hours before he was rescued by a foreign ship?

This guy says he was drinking, that's the last he remembers. (I was half asleep, I can't remember if he was gambling or listening to a band or just in the ship's bar) Then he suddenly comes to and he is in the ocean. He's wearing his shirt and boxers and socks. His pants and shoes are missing. He does not believe he jumped or fell overboard, he believes there was foul play. His pants and shoes were not in his cabin, which tends to support his theory. His story, and I only caught half of it, makes me wonder if there are employees/passengers on cruise ships that maybe slip a date-rape type of drug into the drink of someone who's flashing money around. It'd make a big guy easy to rob. Then just dump them overboard if they think the person might recall something about the robbery?
Click to expand...

I saw that and thought the story was amazing. I don't know how he kept swimming for so long.

One thing I have learned since following the Smith case is that if someone wanted to off someone - doing it on a cruise ship is the way to get away with it. The security personnel aren't really well trained, the crime scene could easily get contaminated or ignored, and the cruise lines don't go out of their way to investigate anything - well - seems like an easy way to get away with a murder.
 
cricket said:
I saw that and thought the story was amazing. I don't know how he kept swimming for so long.

One thing I have learned since following the Smith case is that if someone wanted to off someone - doing it on a cruise ship is the way to get away with it. The security personnel aren't really well trained, the crime scene could easily get contaminated or ignored, and the cruise lines don't go out of their way to investigate anything - well - seems like an easy way to get away with a murder.
Click to expand...


You are so right. One of the links offered when reading the Tim Sears links concerns Annette M. (Sorry, I'm zoning out on her last name.) Her MOTHER is the one who discovered that a struggle had taken place since beads from Annette's purse were found scattered on deck. Her FATHER took crime scene photos because no one from the ship was doing so. It is pitiful. I guess the lesson is "Take a cruise at your own risk."
 
If room service delivered at 4:20, I wonder how long before that the order would have had to have been placed. Maybe 20-30 minutes previous to the delivery? That leaves about an hour during which they had time to bring George to his room, leave the room looking for Jennifer, then return to the room. Ample time for foul play, I'm thinking.
Click to expand...

I was listening to Geta's interview of one of the boys 'who brought George back to his cabin' lawyers. What strikes me as strange is this same thing. They had to have a exact date and number on the room service they said was brought in at 4:20 am.

I also am confused :confused: :confused: about the time frame. The four young men said that they took George back to his room at 4 am. The other story is that part of the ship's crew took Jennifer back to her room at 4 am. Neither one of these participants saw the other honeymooner at that time.

What gives???
 
I thought they took George to the room at 4, but his wife wasn't found until 4:30 and it was almost 5 before they took her to the room.
 
This story seems absolutely beyond belief to me. They have video of these men going into the room with George, and then people heard shouting, and then a half hour later ship crew took his drugged/drunk/passed out in the middle of the cruiseship hallway wife back to her room.

This isn't rocket science. Am I missing something? The men who are seen going into the room tossed George overboard.

And this case has been very very confused because it appears someone drugged the wife so they could have sex with George who is a gay man.

I've only paid kind of peripheral attention to this case, but isn't all that right?
 
KatherineQ said:
They have video of these men going into the room with George
Click to expand...
I also have not paid real close attention to this case but if the above is true and they have video of them entering the room, do they have video of these guys leaving the room? Suspicious activity?
 
Well, sorry, maybe I have missed something.

I thought it was clear, from video approaching the hallway that those men entered George's room, and I thought it was fairly clear that he was gay and had married to cover up his orientation.

It does seem fairly clear that the wife was drugged, why else would she be lying prone in the hallway. She's got normal social skills, and behaves normally. For a woman of her age to drink herself into falling over unconscious in the hallway is a bit unbelievable.
 
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