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

[fran]

LOL, I have to admit, this was on my tv last night, but I slept through it.

Thank you for the link. Interesting.

Just what I've always thought. One of those four boys now men, know what happened. Hopefully, one day, the FBI will figure it out.

Of course, it could have been someone else, other than those four. I didn't realize George and one of the boys had gone back to his room during the evening to get the Absinthe and more money. Scary that there was a rumor on the ship George had between $17K to $50K. That seems like a motive to me.

Wonder who messed up their room in between the ship personnel investigation and the Turkish authorities going on-board? Obviously, someone was looking through the couple's belongings.

fran

 

[mijamawi]

I watched this show also. I think they said Jennifer was found passed out in a hallway and was not considered a suspect. I had always thought she was slipped something. They also said there were no records of the room service the four guys stated they had. Interesting. I had completely forgot about this case until I watched this.

 

[arielilane]

Fascinating new evidence and clues. The new pictures are instrumental for the case. This case is solvable, and the evidence they have I believe will lead them to the person(s) responsible. I used to think Jennifer was involved somehow. I no longer feel that way. The show is a must watch for anyone interested in this story.

 

[redheadedgal]

I watched this show also. I think they said Jennifer was found passed out in a hallway and was not considered a suspect. I had always thought she was slipped something.

i never meant to imply i thought she was involved in any way... sorry if you or anyone took my words to mean that. i just found it strange she would never tell dateline where she was... guess she was embarrassed about being passed out in a public location - drugged or not?

my hinky meter went right up with all of josh's "i chose to invoke my fifth amendment right" responses while being questioned. if he has nothing to hide, why say that a dozen times? i can't remember-- what was said about him and the polygraph?

as mijamawi says, the room service is now hinky as is the one russian's initial statement that he went straight to bed after dropping george off in the cabin and later changing his story telling about about a room service party. for me, these men seem most the likely suspects.

i'm so glad the attorney was able to get those records from the cruise line b/c weren't they less than cooperative in the beginning - or am i thinking of another case?

 

[pittsburghgirl]

LOL, I have to admit, this was on my tv last night, but I slept through it.

Thank you for the link. Interesting.

Just what I've always thought. One of those four boys now men, know what happened. Hopefully, one day, the FBI will figure it out.

Of course, it could have been someone else, other than those four. I didn't realize George and one of the boys had gone back to his room during the evening to get the Absinthe and more money. Scary that there was a rumor on the ship George had between $17K to $50K. That seems like a motive to me.

Wonder who messed up their room in between the ship personnel investigation and the Turkish authorities going on-board? Obviously, someone was looking through the couple's belongings.

fran

I fell asleep, too, even though the show was interesting. I can't stay awake on friday night. It was good to more or less eliminate the new bride as a suspect.

 

[wasnt_me]

I was curious about the bed.

They said they put the wife on top of the bedsheets in her clothes. If anyone here has been on cruises, they know that the cabin steward is constanty cleaning up your cabiin. At least that's how it's been on the 3 Carnival cruises I went on. My Stewart wrapped up my curling iron, would pile things neatly about, etc. He kept it cleanier that I ever could.

So I was intrigued when I saw a picture the cruiseline took of the room before the authorities went into it. It was of the bed and it looked as if both sides of the bed had been pulled back, as if two people had exited the bed. I was thinking that wouldn't be possible if the Royal Caribbean's stewards are like Carnivals. If Royal Caribbean's stewards are like Carnival's, then I'd expect that the bed would have been perfectly made when George had arrived in the room.

So that would mean that he had to get in on his side of the bed and then decide to get out of it while Jennifer still was not in the room. Maybe that would lend to the Russians putting George in bed, like they said they did. But then I'd have to ask if tucking George in bed meant undressing him and putting hum beneath the covers.

That goes to my next question, which is were the clothes he'd been wearing the night before in the cabin or not?

I really can't see the Russians taking so mich care as to undress him and then put him beneath the covers.

 

[wasnt_me]

I watched this show also. I think they said Jennifer was found passed out in a hallway and was not considered a suspect. I had always thought she was slipped something. They also said there were no records of the room service the four guys stated they had. Interesting. I had completely forgot about this case until I watched this.

I'm very new to this case and I considered the drugging, but then I couldn't figure out how that would actually work. If I wanted to get someone's wife alone to have my way with them, I don't know how likely it is that I can really separate her from her husband. It is very coinciendental that the couple fought and she stormed out. But apparently, she did it alone and was in a hallway passed out.

Then, for my plan to work someone would have to distract the husband and cause him not to look for her or have her name blarred over the PA system. If all 4 Russians were helping George, who was the 5th person they were trying to aid in this rape? Well, then there's also the cop who says only 3 of them were helping George. Would be nice to see some CCTV footage, but I believe the cop. Because he's a cop. He's trained to see what's what. So if he said 3 were in the hall, then 3 were in the hall.

I am distrubed as well about how the blood pooled on the awning. If the lifeboats were directly over the water, maybe he woke up and then he slipped. Maybe he laid there for a long time and the boat rocking caused him to slide off. I don't think anyone could get to the awning to push him all the way off, but I'd have to see how high the lifeboats are in comparison to the awning, but I'm thinking some dangerous climbing would be involved.

 

[Mikebr]

i watched the dateline show last night and have a question for anyone...in regards to the room service order alledgedly by the russians and the american kid who befriend george...ok the ship records do not show an order but calls to the kitchen...well i have worked in hotels with room service and such...what if the people working that early morning shift and the room service waiter and cashier steal cash orders...i don't know exactly what type of equipment used on the ship..but i do know restaurant kitchens..cashier takes order, rings it into the register, it usually prints for the cook, waiter picks up and delivers...usually no hand written checks these days...so what if cashiers asks customers how they will pay? will they sign to their room or pay cash..if they say cash, cashier just writes order on paper..cook makes the order, waiter delivers and collects and they split the cash...just one way to explain an order not accounted for....so the question i would ask the russians, how did you pay for that food? then i would search thru the phone logs and see if other people call room service but no record of an order is found..then contact them and ask if they ordered and how they paid...it would not be the first time restaurant personnel found a way to steal...lots of thing could be done..like track cash deposits by that cashier...an overnight room service crew would be very small...so maybe 3 or 4 people total...just a thought..
i think it might be an accident...the noise the neighboring cabin heard of searching might have been george looking for something..perhaps the money he supposedly had..maybe the russians stole that but did not kill him..george may have become despondent when his wife was not back, and he could not find the money..maybe he thought in his drunken state she left and took his money..not that he committed suicide, but maybe he went out on the balcony, still drunk, now angry and did something stupid like sit on the railing...don't know why the russians would toss his body out if they had killed him..no need to take that risk...just close the door and leave him...

 

[wasnt_me]

You don't pay for room service on ships. You don't pay for food on ships generally. I think you pay for liquor, coke, and maybe orange juice, but nothing else, unless there's a specialty restaurant on the ship, like a coffeebar or something.

Then, whatever you do buy that's food is put on your bill, which they slip under your door on the last night of the cruise. You don't ever have to pay or tip until the very end. At least that's how the cruises I went on worked. If you do not buy alcohol and you drink the free non alcoholic beverages, eat in the regular dining halls, etc, then you can actually get off the boat with only paying your tips at the end.

So unless RC cruises makes a dramatic departure from that program, I don't see why the kitchen would purposely lose the roomservice ticket. I'd like to know, if roomservice does NOT have that ticket, then do they have ANY ticket for that much food being ordered at any time after that by those guys? Maybe they altered the time on their camera to make an alibi and actually ordered the food the night after GS disappeared?

 

[wasnt_me]

Earlier, they had the dinner, went to casino, Josh and GS go drink in Josh's room, stop by GS's room to get money. To me, this means GS might have been drunk, careless, and showed Josh on accident or on purpose what was in that safe. Josh might have seen the combination also.

Josh and George apparently grab a table with three of the russians. (where is russian 4, jeffrey rosenburg?)

the three russians and Josh take George to his room. (where is russian 4?)

According to locklink records:

352 am George's key unlocks the room.

Hyman hears cheering two times, as if there's a drinking game.

401 am George's key unlocks the room.

Then couple on other side of cabin hear a young voice saying settle down to George. Then Heyman hears someone curtly and repeatedly saying good night. He says you can hear the voices move to the front door as the good night is being said.

Hyman sees three men leave Smith's room.

Noises continue after a lull:

Single man speaking conversationally but no replies.
Sudden loud noises like cabinet doors opening, searching.
Noises concentrated on balcony.
three minute lull.
Horrific thud. GS falling two 1/2 stories.

457am Jennifer to wheeled into the room.


All boys return to own rooms between 501 and 517am.


Whatever happened, I believe GS fell on the awning, causing the head wound. He laid there for a long time and the wound bled and created an outline around his body. The wind was drying the blood, but as the boat rocked, the picture looks like GS's arms might have been shifting, making the blurring slide marks in the outline. at some point, with the blood drying or dry, and the boat shifting or rocking, he probably started sliding down and eventually fell off.

I think if someone had looked out at 6am, or even 7am, they might have seen GS half hanging off the side of that thing.

 

[wasnt_me]

Here's a video with a picture of the room before the investigators entered.

At 4:15 you can see that the bed looks peeled back on both sides. The window is open.

Dateline NBC: Overboard [4/6] - YouTube

 

[No Stone Unturned]

I also agree that this case is solve-able. Especially if we can get a bunch of our heads together.

The main person being interviewed in the Dateline is Josh Askin's attorney. How much can we believe his version of events?

Right now, my money is on Josh. He was interviewed by Turkish authorities and immediately began pointing fingers at the Lloyd, who was an employee of the ship.

His attorney says HE gave him a polygraph and that he passed with flying colors. But, that is not how it is done. FBI or LE have to give it.

FBI gives Josh Askins a poly and he fails miserably. In the civil suit, Josh invokes his 5th amendment rights even for questions as simple as "Were you on a Royal Caribbean Cruise?"

Then, the Smith family says that Josh's attorney pulls them aside and tells them off the record to look for the 4th Russian, Gregory.

Josh's attorney denies it.

 

[Mikebr]

thanks for clearing up the room service check issue for me. I knew food was free in the restaurants but did not know room service was free. so you are right, the staff would have no reason to destroy the tickets. the question is, why would the russian men and josh need to lie about the food? i am wondering if they stole the money which gave them all a guilty conscience so they lie about everything. I would also want to know if they served a large room service order to the russian on any other night. other questions i have is, can you easily get to where george's body would have had to land? is it possible some struggle happened or he was toss, landed on the deck, then the attackers made their way down and chucked him off the ship? i really think it would be hard for just one of these men to accomplish an attack or even just getting an unconscious george over the railing. i am not sure about the small drops of blood on the sheets...maybe from a smothering? not sure. wonder if any of the workers in room service can remember the order. its probably a long shot now, but sometimes things stick out in our memory and delivering to a room of drunken russians might stand out for someone. they made several calls to the kitchen according to the report...surely the room service order taker would recall that...i am most disturbed by the fact the russians apparently need to invent that alibi, if there was never a room service order.

 

[wasnt_me]

I know the answer to most the question, except it was two stories down that he fell. And it looked as if where he fell, those cabins didn't have balconies. I'm not sure that laymen to the layout of the ship could figure out how to get down those two stories in the middle of the night in the dark and push him off without falling off themselves. I do not believe you can open cabin windows that have no balconies.

As far as the room service, yeah, on my first cruise, that's EXACTLY what I worried about, was that they'd charge me! LOL but once I found out they wouldn't, it was ON! lol

I believed they ordered it. Don't believe everyone was there in the room, though. If their phone records for the cabin showed them calling for room service, then I believe they did it to get the food, so food was brought. There's no other reason to keep calling roomservice.

 

[CanManEh]

You know in some way's you have to take the show dateline or 48 hours with a grain of salt for the fact that they make it a point to say at the very end the key is the huge meal the 4 kids had and maybe one left only to later say that the cruise **** had no listing of even making a meal at that time of the night or am . Take from that i guess we are sapose to think the 4 boys are lying about being together and having a huge feast .My problem is you don't have to look to hard where you will find these same tv shows on the cruize ship and talking about how bad crime is on these ships so in one show you want the public to believe everything the ship staff are saying and in other shows its one huge crime waiting to happen and no one should use these kind of cruise ships I don't know I guess i just find it hard that you can have a stand on one side saying this is what to believe and yet have a foot on the other side and also saying no this is what u should believe ..

 

[redheadedgal]

You know in some way's you have to take the show dateline or 48 hours with a grain of salt...

are you saying that these shows are not credible? and these people who have been investigating the disappearance of GS for years now... people like the smith's attorney who read those 6000+ pages are not credible?

the two shows are not the national enquirer and i find them highly credible, but please do feel free to find a source/link that states otherwise.

dateline is asking questions to try to get to the truth. nothing wrong with that. there's nothing wrong with stating what they've uncovered and what hunches these findings lead to.

as for crime and cruise ships? i believe it to be under-reported much like crime on college and university campuses... just like this report "crimes against americans on cruise ships" states:

(this report was specific to sexual assault, sexual battery, etc. not theft or murders as is theorized re: GS)

The cruise lines have a long history, continuing to this day, of failing to properly disclose the incidents of sexual assaults, sexual batteries and similar incidents.

In a 16 page report, Krohne found, among other things, that “improper activity occurs frequently aboard ships but goes unreported and/or unpunished”.

http://www.cruiseshipassault.com/CONGRESSIONALPAPER.htm


and of cour$e the crui$e line$ and their employee$ will not tell the truth. it'$ their livelihood at $take:

"The industry is committed to reporting all crime onboard and doesn’t try to hide anything," remarks Sauleau.

http://www.worldcruise-network.com/features/feature1700/


"doesn't try to hide anything"? that's not what the first link states.

tell me, who's more believable?*


*please tell me if i've misread your post and none of this is what you meant

 

[joedotnet]

i'm on the fence about josh. his attorney said he made him take a polygraph himself and he passed. then the fib told josh that he failed. what makes it hard for me to know if he really/passed or failed is that it is a common tactic used and seen numerous times to tell someone they failed a polygraph to try and get more information. in this show, the fbi had no official statement on the matter regarding the polygraph.

 

[Mikebr]

i tend to believe it was an accident but might have been preceded by the russians stealing the money...the person heard opening cabinets talking aloud to himself might have been george looking for his stash...maybe he became more erratic and somehow fell off his railing..he was very drunk. drunks can do very stupid things..the dateline story never revealed whether there was a large stash of money did they? surely george's wife could tell us if he had the money and if it was still there.

 

[wasnt_me]

You know in some way's you have to take the show dateline or 48 hours with a grain of salt for the fact that they make it a point to say at the very end the key is the huge meal the 4 kids had and maybe one left only to later say that the cruise **** had no listing of even making a meal at that time of the night or am . Take from that i guess we are sapose to think the 4 boys are lying about being together and having a huge feast .My problem is you don't have to look to hard where you will find these same tv shows on the cruize ship and talking about how bad crime is on these ships so in one show you want the public to believe everything the ship staff are saying and in other shows its one huge crime waiting to happen and no one should use these kind of cruise ships I don't know I guess i just find it hard that you can have a stand on one side saying this is what to believe and yet have a foot on the other side and also saying no this is what u should believe ..

I think I understand you. It is NOT in the cruise lines best interest to deeply "investigate" these disappearances. But at the same time, it is because it's a public safety issue. So they want to "appear" to be concerned, investigating and taking it seriously. At the same time, they want to bury it under the rug so too many people don't hear about it and get scared off cruising.

This isn't an isolated incident. people fall off these boats -- one way or another-- more times than people think. I still think that for the percentage of cruisers, the numbers of cruise lines and the many, many, many sailings, it's a tiny fraction of people who actually fall off. Most, believe it or not, are crew members who disappear. I think if they have to live with each other for months on the same boat, maybe they find a way to get rid of those who get on their nerves....? Sorry to be cynical, but I don't believe every falloff if an accident.

Here's a site that keeps up with these "fall offs." this guy was interviewed for George's case on some news shows back when it happened.

http://www.cruiselawnews.com/2012/0...aribbeans-brilliance-of-the-seas-cruise-ship/

If you scroll through here, you will see a lot of stories of people who fell off boats or disappeared off cruise ships.

http://www.cruiselawnews.com/articles/disappearances-1/

 

[wasnt_me]

i tend to believe it was an accident but might have been preceded by the russians stealing the money...the person heard opening cabinets talking aloud to himself might have been george looking for his stash...maybe he became more erratic and somehow fell off his railing..he was very drunk. drunks can do very stupid things..the dateline story never revealed whether there was a large stash of money did they? surely george's wife could tell us if he had the money and if it was still there.

Only rumors about cash. I don't recall anyone saying for definite what was in the safe. Like I said in an earlier post, from Josh's tale, we know that Josh was with George the last time he opened the safe before being "helped" to his room.