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

[mysteriew]

Many embarked on the cruises for happy occasions. A few were on their honeymoons; one man had just graduated from college. An elderly Vietnamese-American couple was on a Mother's Day treat after a hard life as refugees.

But the joy would suddenly turn tragic. They all vanished, leaving their families to forever wonder what went wrong.

The most recent case is the disappearance of George Smith IV of Greenwich, who vanished on his honeymoon while aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise of the Mediterranean. Blood stains running from the balcony of Smith's cabin to life boats, as well as a hand print on the side of the ship, have prompted a Turkish prosecutor to ask Smith's family to provide blood samples for comparison.

Smith was reported missing when the ship docked at Kusadasi, a resort area in the Aegean region of Turkey. He's one of at least 12 passengers who have vanished on cruises in the past six years.

Several of the cases involved Carnival, the largest carrier with about 3 million passengers annually. None involved foul play, according to de la Cruz, who said the incidents typically involve suspected suicides or accidental falls over board, such as when passengers climb over rails.

"Generally, the people put themselves at risk," de la Cruz said. "That's how it can happen accidentally."
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/new...,0,4239104.story?coll=hc-headlines-local-wire

 

[luvbeaches]

I thought it was said that the wifes X boyfriend was on the cruise? Maybe I was wrong but I thought I read that.

I heard this on one of the news channels (can't remember which one). They said it was "rumored" that the X was on the cruise. If true, how odd is that?

I also heard that the grooms family wasn't giving DNA (so the bloody palm print could be identified). I don't know if that's true or not, but what reason is there for his family not to cooperate?

At any rate...this whole story stinks. I don't believe that she woke up and didn't know where he was. There were reports that someone heard screams. There's blood in the cabin. She said they returned to the cabin, and when she woke, he was gone. So did she sleep through someone tossing him off the balcony? If he cut himself (somehow), did she not hear a thing? Maybe she wasn't involved, but knows what happened. Or maybe she doesn't...who knows. We may never know what happened...I'll bet this family has lawyered-up and that's the end of it...John & Patsy Ramsey style.

 

[Bobbisangel]

I heard this on one of the news channels (can't remember which one). They said it was "rumored" that the X was on the cruise. If true, how odd is that?

I also heard that the grooms family wasn't giving DNA (so the bloody palm print could be identified). I don't know if that's true or not, but what reason is there for his family not to cooperate?

At any rate...this whole story stinks. I don't believe that she woke up and didn't know where he was. There were reports that someone heard screams. There's blood in the cabin. She said they returned to the cabin, and when she woke, he was gone. So did she sleep through someone tossing him off the balcony? If he cut himself (somehow), did she not hear a thing? Maybe she wasn't involved, but knows what happened. Or maybe she doesn't...who knows. We may never know what happened...I'll bet this family has lawyered-up and that's the end of it...John & Patsy Ramsey style.

It was said today on Catherine Crier that the husband's family still refuse to give DNA samples so that the blood in the cabin and patio can by checked to see if they match. That baffles my mind. Why would his family not be willing to do everything they could to find out what happened to their son? We hear absolutely nothing from the groom's family or from the blushing bride. What is up with that?

The female scream that the woman and her daughter in the cabin next door to the honeymooners heard was around 6 a.m. if I remember correctly.

It was also said on CC today that a retired cop was in a cabin by the honeymooners too and he said that during the night it sounded like there was a party going on in the cabin next door. The noise woke him and his family. He said a little later it sounded like people arguing and then there was a sound like furniture being drug across a floor and then a real loud thud.

It sounds like the honeymooners were both doing a lot of heavy drinking day and night and a lot of arguing. The wife wanted to hang out with a table of guys while her hubby sat at another table and he didn't like that. He tried to get her to come back to their table and she wouldn't. That created a fight.
She went up to their room before he did that night. Both were having a problem walking when they went to their room. This was also talked about on CC today.

I just don't see how the wife can't know what happened to her husband. It was a woman who screamed in the middle of the night according to the people next door. Must have been her. The FBI is getting a lot of statements from a lot of people on the ship so they should be able to figure this out sooner or later.

Can't they get a court order to get DNA from the husband's parents? That just doesn't make any sense. Don't they care...don't they want to know what happened to their son? Big difference between these parents and the Twitty-Hollidays.

 

[LaurenD]

This is the first I've heard about the family not giving DNA samples. Too strange. The only thing I can figure out is that they just don't want to know. Sometimes avoidance is much easier than reality.

 

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

They're getting ready to talk about this on FOX News channel after the current commercial break, (in case anyone reads this in time). The teaser didn't sound like anything new; just that the FBI says that the circumstances seem suspicious.

 

[fran]

That just doesn't make any sense. Don't they care...don't they want to know what happened to their son? Big difference between these parents and the Twitty-Hollidays.

Could it be the family does know and doesn't want anyone else to know? I mean, the couple had had alot to drink. Perhaps this was a pattern,...... or the young man had a drinking problem and they don't want it to get out. Maybe he really committed suicide by jumping overboard.

Perhaps the family would prefer that everyone just drop it and they'll grieve behind closed doors. Their silence tells me, .......they know what happened.

JMHO
fran

 

[PaperDoll]

I'd like to know more about this story as well. Something fishy about the x-boyfriend being on that ship with them, if this turns out to be true. I wonder how many people went back to the couples room.. maybe this couple were into group sex or what have you and it turned sour.

People heard a woman scream, if this was the wife and she knew something was wrong, she should have sent for help. This tells me that she is guilty, unless the husband brought another woman back to the room while the wife was elsewhere?????? :waitasec: :waitasec:

 

[Jeana (DP)]

No one has been charged, but Connecticut's top federal prosecutor said Tuesday that the 26-year-old's disappearance is being aggressively investigated and reports of blood on the ship raise concerns. The comments are the first by a U.S. prosecutor on the case and the strongest indication yet that officials suspect foul play.



http://www.courttv.com/news/2005/0726/cruise_ap.html

 

[GOLDHEARTNUMB]

I saw something on the news last night about a one of the cruise patron's daughter had taken a picture of the blood on the lifeboats. Looked like a lot of blood to me...

 

[Bobbisangel]

I saw something on the news last night about a one of the cruise patron's daughter had taken a picture of the blood on the lifeboats. Looked like a lot of blood to me...

That was the woman and her daughter who were staying next door. The daughter took a picture of the blood. I guess it is a good thing that someone was taking pictures because it doesn't sound like much investigating was going on by any authorities.

They are still locating people that were on the ship in order to question them and they are trying to locate the men who were in the couples room. They were either employees or people on the cruise. The retired LE officer said that it sounded like there was spanish being spoken. That should make it a little easier.

 

[Bobbisangel]

Could it be the family does know and doesn't want anyone else to know? I mean, the couple had had alot to drink. Perhaps this was a pattern,...... or the young man had a drinking problem and they don't want it to get out. Maybe he really committed suicide by jumping overboard.

Perhaps the family would prefer that everyone just drop it and they'll grieve behind closed doors. Their silence tells me, .......they know what happened.

JMHO
fran

The family probably know whatever their new daughter-in-law has told them.
The LE think there was foul play and the investigation is going on whether the family wants it to be dropped or not.

I can't imagine not being involved in the investigation and not doing whatever I'm asked to do. If that were my son I would have to know what happened to him. I have a hard time understanding these parents. If they think they know what happened then they should be upfront with LE. This case is in the paper and on the news regardless of what they may want.

I hope a judge signs an order that forces them to give DNA so that blood can be matched. LE needs to know if that is the husband's blood or not. What if it is someone elses blood and this husband got off of the ship when it was docked in Turkey or where ever it was? Maybe the husband, in his drunken state, accidentally killed someone that was in the cabin? Probably didn't happen that way but LE needs to know whose blood that is in the cabin...on the awning, and whose hand print that is on the side of the boat.

 

[Shadow205]

Picture of the blood stain on the awning. There was a very interesting update on O'reilly tonight. They showed a picture of the blood found on the awning below his cabin. It was very large. According to the reporter, he has spoken to the occupant of the cabin next to the Smiths who just happens to be a Police Officer in Calf. He said that there were loud voices in the Smith cabin. He said he heard more than one male voice. What is really disturbing is that the FBI has yet to interview the Police Officer about what he may or may not have heard that night.

 

[Shadow205]

I heard this on one of the news channels (can't remember which one). They said it was "rumored" that the X was on the cruise. If true, how odd is that?

I also heard that the grooms family wasn't giving DNA (so the bloody palm print could be identified). I don't know if that's true or not, but what reason is there for his family not to cooperate?

At any rate...this whole story stinks. I don't believe that she woke up and didn't know where he was. There were reports that someone heard screams. There's blood in the cabin. She said they returned to the cabin, and when she woke, he was gone. So did she sleep through someone tossing him off the balcony? If he cut himself (somehow), did she not hear a thing? Maybe she wasn't involved, but knows what happened. Or maybe she doesn't...who knows. We may never know what happened...I'll bet this family has lawyered-up and that's the end of it...John & Patsy Ramsey style.

The first thing that comes to my mind on why they would not to submit a DNA sample is that maybe they know that it would not match George's. Maybe no one else knows that he isn't their biological son.

 

[Sassygerl]

The first thing that comes to my mind on why they would not to submit a DNA sample is that maybe they know that it would not match George's. Maybe no one else knows that he isn't their biological son.

That's what I was thinking...that he was adopted. It's certainly weird the family won't cooperate.

 

[mysteriew]

Despite many unanswered questions, a top federal official said yesterday he was optimistic that authorities will solve the mystery of a Greenwich man who vanished from a Mediter-ranean cruise ship.

"I feel like we have the right team on this," Kevin O'Connor, the U.S. attorney for Connecti-cut, said in his first public comments on the case.

"For the family's sake, I think we can find out and give an answer to them about what happened to their son. Obviously that is our goal, is to be able to tell his parents what happened to their son, and to his wife, what happened to her husband," he said.

Three weeks after George Smith IV, 26, of Greenwich, was reported missing while on a honeymoon aboard a Royal Caribbean International cruise ship on July 5, investigators are busy conducting interviews and reviewing evidence, O'Connor said.

"I don't want to detail what the strategy of the investigation is, but certainly a significant amount of information is being collected and analyzed," he said.
http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/l...6562953.story?coll=green-news-local-headlines

 

[gatetrekker44]

the wife was described as "falling down drunk"-according to witnesses who spoke with the media. So there is a very real chance that if she was that intoxicated that she MAY not have heard anything. I find the part about the family not cooperating very interesting-is it just possible that their son was not legally adopted-perhaps taken? That would certainly explain why they are trying so hard to keep the lid on all of this(just a thought!)

 

[luvbeaches]

The first thing that comes to my mind on why they would not to submit a DNA sample is that maybe they know that it would not match George's. Maybe no one else knows that he isn't their biological son.

That's something I hadn't thought of...and makes sense. Why else refuse to give DNA?

 

[texasgirl]

I have been trying to keep up with this story through A Current Affair but wasn't able to watch yesterday's (with the cop on) until tonight. I found what he had to say very interesting.

He says that he heard a bunch of people in the cabin next door playing what sounded like a drinking game (Two times he heard this as a kind of whooping)! What if at that time, one of the guys was trying to do something to the wife and the other guys were egging him on. She is passed out in the bed, and George already was said to be "unconciously drunk". He wakes up, and that's when the cop next door hears the guys starting to talk loud to each other. They go out in the hall and then all of a sudden he hears them out on the balcony arguing. At this time, the guys take the girl out of the room to rape her (she might not have realized what was going on, maybe she was slipped something? But this also factors in a scream in case she woke up in the middle of an attack and screamed just not in her own room!?) The cop doesn't say anything about a woman's scream so maybe she was in another room when she screamed. George is alone in the cabin with one of the guys (his wife is gone because they have taken her away before she sees what's going on...) he cuts him, or whatever...George is unconcious (speculating because the cop said that after he heard the guys and a girl in the hallway, someone was moving furniture in the room (or what sounded like that) and THEN there was furniture moved around on the balcony---possibly to stand on to get George over the railing?

This is the scenario that keeps going through my head. After watching all of the shows I tivo'd regarding the story---I heard that authorities actually found the wife somewhere on the boat passed out and woke her and asked her where her husband was. She said she didn't know. Sounds to me like someone could have taken advantage of her and then put her somewhere to sleep and that she wasn't in the cabin at all that morning. I had always heard that she was in the gym but that didn't make sense to me. I either heard this on ACA, Greta or on OF....not sure which as I was trying to get all the tivo'd shows in. I saved the ACA one though to refer back to....it gave me so much to think about.

I know this probably sounds jumbled but I wanted to get y'alls opinion on this. The cop's recollection gave me the chills....when he said that it sounded like they were playing a drinking game I imagined it might not be what he thought it was going on in there. :waitasec:

 

[LaurenD]

This may already have been posted, but a report on GMA this morning stated there was definately a woman's screm, at least one 'other' male voice in the room, and a thud.

The blood stain did appear very large, like dragging smears rather than splatters. The new wife was described as tremondously intoxicated. They also mentioned an agrument that ensued in the bar that night.

They stated the wife was not talking but is being cooperative.
Hmmmmmm.......getting very interesting.

 

[bugaboo]

I'm liking Texasgirl's theory. I hadn't heard the part about there possibly being several people in the couple's room that night. There could be a very good possibility, if the wife was as intoxicated as she was, and the husband was also quite drunk, that there was some sort of altercation or incident that escalated and resulted in George being dumped or pushed overboard. The blood smear that I saw was quite large, and was definitely not a splatter. I didn't see a handprint, but I believe the girl only took that one picture of the pool of blood. It could quite possibly have been due to a head wound, since it seemed pretty concentrated in a circular shape, and not too spread out.

Originally, before I heard about the possible other parties in the room, I thought that maybe George had passed out and hit his head, accounting for the blood in the room, then went onto the balcony to get some air, and possibly fell over board while vomiting or he slipped and went under/through the railing.

Very interesting story, though.