VA - Amy Bradley - missing from cruise ship, Curacao - 1998 #3

[Wakefield6042]

I'm so curious if anyone else heard anything...there were people above and below their cabin, did no one hear or see anything? If she fell in, would she have bounced off of any part of the ship as she fell? But if she left the cabin, she must have stopped for a different pair of shoes in her luggage...did no one else sleeping in the room hear her rummaging around or the door opening/closing? Did she not use the toilet, after drinking all night? Had the parents been drinking also, or did they take sleeping pills at night?

The thing is, if you have had a few drinks it can really make you sleep very heavily. Perhaps that is why people in other cabins didn't hear anything. In particular if people had been at bars, dances, dinners or shows having a good time and quite a few drinks.

 

[lohrtabitha]

Could someone clarify...was Facial Recognition Technology used in the comparison of Amy and "Jaz?" It was used in the comparison of the Anglin Brothers (Alcatraz escaped inmates) and a photo brought forward of two men living out of the country suspected of being them. The technology is fascinating and I'm not sure if it was used in Amy's case...

Im not sure about the new technology but there was a certified Forensic artist named Wesley Neville that looked at the photos of Jazz and compared them to Amy's. He claimed that Jazz was Amy.
Here is the link:

Amy Lynn Bradley is still missing

Website dedicated to spreading accurate information regarding the 1998 disappearance of Amy Lynn BradleyForensic Evaluation - Amy Lynn Bradley

amybradleyismissing.com

Also here is the website where an abundance of info has been posted:

Amy Lynn Bradley is still missing

Website dedicated to spreading accurate information regarding the 1998 disappearance of Amy Lynn BradleyAmy Lynn Bradley Information - Amy Lynn Bradley

amybradleyismissing.com

 

[TizerisT]

The whites that were born there are going to me more connected and aware of which areas to not go in. Much harder targets and more streetwise than a foreign girl 'having a blast' on holiday and not keeping her guard up.
No amount of referring to Venezulas population are going to stop these things being true.

 

[lohrtabitha]

The issue is that there is no evidence of a high-risk sex trafficking ring that operates by abducting tourists operating in Curaçao. The sex trade on that island operates with women who come voluntarily enough from neighbouring countries, Amy was not uniquely beautiful much less unique as a white woman (there were something like ten million white people next door in a Venezuela that was starting to have hard times), and the different sightings including the ones of her in California and Barbados are not credible. (Why, if she was a sex slave, would they smuggle her across international frontiers so that she could see street performers and walk on the beach?)

Something unlikely happened to her. A fall--the sort of accident that can easily happen, especially if you have been drinking a lot--is intrinsically more likely than an abduction that serves no obvious purpose but only creates massive liabilities for the perpetrators, and which runs against what we know of their established practices. (And, I should note, even if there was an abduction, the liabilities would still exist. Amy would not have lived long afterwards.)

As I and other people have noted elsewhere, the whole sex trafficking line of argument is best understood as the family working through their apparently unresolvable concerns about Amy being a lesbian. We did not know this at the time--some people may have suspected, but I am pretty sure this was not mentioned often--but knowing this now helps us make sense of this.

I disagree with your post. Human trafficking can happen anywhere, at any time, and to anybody. Make no mistake about it. It also happenst to men and children and not just women. Travelers need to always stay on high alert and be educated about such occurences. The FBI would have never investigated this case if they didn't suspect human trafficking or murder could have happened in this case. Anyone can be drugged and then be kept addicted to drugs for others to capitalize on them. Read the following FAQS to become better educated about the topic. Anyone can become prey and that includes AMY. Human Trafficking FAQs

 

[lohrtabitha]

No, I am not.

Attention translating into ... ?

They may be in the minority, but there are absolutely very large numbers of white people in the Caribbean, including many people who would be much more likely targets for sex trafficking than a white American woman travelling with her family.

There were something like five million white women next door in a Venezuela that, circa the 1990s, was beginning its breakdown; there are millions more white women in a Cuba that has been hemorrhaging population since the 1960s; there are millions more white women in the Caribbean basin beyond these two countries. Amy was not rare. A minority, yes, but not rare.

Moreover, we actually know a fair bit about the sex trade in Curaçao and elsewhere. We know that the prostituted women are drawn overwhelmingly from poorer countries in the Caribbean basin, Venezuela becoming more prominent as things have gotten worse. From what we know of the sex trade's operations

Travelling white American women might well get more attention, quite probably more negative attention. That sort of attention would translate most readily into attacks against women, like what probably happened to Jacqueline Vienneau in Syria back in 2007. That would not translate into the abduction of random women and their coercion into a sex trade that is well known.

Sources please. Where did you get your statistics from and please dont cite AI

 

[TizerisT]

^ ^ I asked countless times yesterday.

Let's not forget too, that when Bradley thought he heard Amy call his name, he was in an area of ill repute which has a reputation for this sort of thing, and he was told about this place by locals. The angle that Curacao doesnt have this underbelly is stopped dead right there.

 

[lohrtabitha]

The problem with doing this continuously for the past thirty years is that it has hidden key elements of what was going on.

The idea that the family has been pushing, that Amy was so attractive that men were constantly coming up to her, lay the seeds for the idea that she was abducted and sexually trafficked. She was a perfectly normal woman, and I do not think I ever got why Amy was such a focus of attention. Now that her sexuality is evident, this insistence makes much more sense as an artifact of the family still not dealing well with the fact that Amy was not interested in men as sexual or romantic partners. Even with her gone, her family is still trying to make her heteronormative--get her dressed up nicely, talk about her boyfriend, try not to talk about the girlfriends--and to downplay Amy's sexual orientation and their bad reaction to said as much as possible.

This all, in turn, feeds into some significant misreadings of what could have happened. Hiding her sexual orientation for so long complicates the story that they were telling. It seems pretty unlikely that Amy's interest in a man was a significant factor, now. It also seems clear that this goes a long way towards explaining why she drank so much, a combination of college freedoms and her reactions to her problems with her family. Someone with substance issues could easily get in trouble, whether you are talking about someone who accidentally fell off the balcony or someone who (much less likely) ended up getting abducted.

All of this does relate, of course, to the family's trauma. If Amy had come back from her cruise, then they would have been able to move forward in their lives, the family getting used to the idea that Amy was out and definitely not straight. She did not, and they have remained caught up in the denial that they were still in that night. I feel for them, but they really hampered a proper understanding of what happened to Amy. Out of a combination of their desperate desire to believe that Amy was still alive and their continuing troubles with her sexual orientation, they promulgated a myth of Amy as uniquely sexually attractive to men and an obvious target for sexual trafficking. Lots of people still believe this myth. They failed to separate their perceptions from the reality, creating this mystery.

Incidentally, while Curaçao was in the late 1990s definitely more conservative than the Netherlandss, it was then and still is one of the most LGBTQ-friendly places in the Caribbean.

LGBTQ rights in Curaçao - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Is Curaçao a queer-friendly Caribbean paradise?

Things are changing in the Caribbean and if you know which islands are welcoming, you are likely to discover paradise The post Is Curaçao a queer-friendly Caribbean paradise? appeared first on Attitude.

uk.style.yahoo.com

It is not clear to me that being less private about Amy's sexual orientation would have harmed the search for her there, whether you are talking about the search for a body or a search for a living person.

To suggest that only beautiful people get sex trafficked is completely ludicrous.

 

[Torchless]

I want to start this off by saying I was disappointed in how Amy’s family reacted to her coming out. That takes a lot of courage, and it’s not something you choose. Which is why I think this case bothers me to the degree it does. Also, the Cruise activity director was an AH. Absolutely empathy-less person who should’ve never had the position he had.

I feel she left the ship for drugs with yellow. Maybe to deal with her situation or just to try it with someone she thought she could trust. I don’t think she jumped. The letter she wrote/sent to her ex the day before she disappeared was uplifting and hopeful, which tells us where her head was at.

Timeline-wise.

She was in Curacao on March 21, 1998

She was seen at the beach Porto Marie, August 1998

Brothel in Curaçao, January 1999

Music festival in San Francisco, CA, in 2003

Store bathroom, Bridgetown, Barbados 2005

(The last one is where that woman hears the conversation between Amy and another man about a deal. she asks to see the kids, which leads me to believe she has either a child or children. Which could be being used as a threat to keep her from running or talking to anyone.)

Now, let’s fast forward.

Her family creates a website, and someone sits on family photos for a while during times when it would’ve been important dates. 17 November 22, 19 November 22, and 22 March 23.

The IP address leads to a gas station (possible device login from the parking lot.) Esso Black Rock Tiger Market Convenience Store / Sol Gas Station in Barbados, Saint Michael

(Google: Latitude: N: 13.1333 Longitude: W: 59.6333)

This location is a popular place for university students to use the free wifi. (A university not far from this location).

It's 2025, she was born in 1974, so she would be 51. If she had a child or children, they might be about 20-25? (Estimates bc I don’t have any facts regarding them) I don't think it would be them looking at photos of her family for that long. And I don't think she used anyone else's cell phone bc she doesn't know who she can trust.

That’s the last known location I can find, but I would love it if someone has information on other events where she was seen.


I want to start this by saying how courageous I find Amica Douglas for making that phone call. That takes courage, and it couldn’t have been easy. She’s amazing, I hope she knows that.

Now onto Alister “Yellow” Douglas, but I’m not going to talk about the past him as much as the current.

He currently lives in Saint George’s, Grenada. He is a minister at a church called the Church of the Nazarene in Saint George, Grenada. He was ordained as Reverend Christopher Douglas in April 2013. Which is the name he goes by now.


But here’s where things get twisted, guys.

He is the “Managing Director” at Mountain Peek Group Ltd from 2013 to current and has been Managing Director at Throne Room Enterprises since 2023.

Thone Room Enterprises LLC is based out of Miami, Florida, and the status is currently active. The company was incorporated on January 27, 2017. The business Owner is registered to Sean Wheeler or Sharaun s Wheeler. Or what I have found.

Now I have read that Alfred Cotton was seen twice with Amy. And that man and his wife, Jennifer, were arrested in 2016 and sent to jail for 5 years for sexual tourism. That would’ve meant they would be out in 2021? (BTW 5 years for Sexual Tourism is so light imo) If I understood correctly is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Okay. So now the twisted question I’m scared to ask. Thone room enterprises & events LLC… Any chance that “business” could be shady?

The FBI was warned about Alister before what happened to Amy happened with a similar incident. He knows this trade. I have a hard time believing he would just turn a new leaf.

You can take a man out of a business, but you can’t take the business out of a man.


Thoughts? I can provide screenshots/sources if I have them or if it is necessary.

 

[RandyMcDonald]

The whites that were born there are going to me more connected and aware of which areas to not go in.

I am really skeptical of this.

It is a well-known fact that there are plenty of human trafficking corridors in Atlantic Canada, connecting Atlantic Canada to major cities in central Canada, as well as connecting Quebec to Alberta, northern Ontario to Winnipeg, and so on.

The Daily — Trafficking in persons in Canada, 2023

In 2023, 570 human trafficking incidents were reported to police, a slight decrease from the 597 reported in 2022. There was also a decrease in the rate of human trafficking (1.4 incidents per 100,000 population in 2023 compared with 1.5 in 2022).

www150.statcan.gc.ca

https://www.canadiancentretoendhumantrafficking.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Human-Trafficking-Corridors-in-Canada-Report.pdf

The boyfriend pimp method is a very common route, the classic story of the older boyfriend isolating the younger women and eventually forcing her to "help him out."

These corridors and these methods have been known for decades. No one should be ignorant of them. Yet, people are; the corridors remain in active use. I suppose a lot of it comes from the belief that bad things could not possibly happen to them.

Much harder targets and more streetwise than a foreign girl 'having a blast' on holiday and not keeping her guard up.

That would be relevant if Amy had actually gotten to Curaçao and disappeared there, and had not disappeared from her family's cabin before she had a chance to get to the island.

No amount of referring to Venezulas population are going to stop these things being true.

Human naivety is a thing.

Beyond that, Venezuela and the rest of Curaçao's neighbourhood is quite relevant, especially since Venezuela is a top source of migrants to Curaçao including of sexually trafficked women.

Hidden and Afraid—Venezuelans Without Status or Protection on the Dutch Caribbean Island of Curaçao - Refugees International

Displaced Venezuelans in Curaçao live hidden and afraid with no real opportunities to obtain protection.

www.refugeesinternational.org

Technical Difficulties

White Venezuelans might be better off than their non-white counterparts, white Cubans similarly, but in cases where economies are stagnant or breaking down that might just mean the white people have the money and connections that would help them leave. This money and these connections might well not be enough to let them avoid bad destinations.

Amy was just not rare. There would have been, even in the late 1990s, plenty of desperate white women coming to Curaçao, much easier prey for sex traffickers than a white woman travelling with her family on a cruise ship. They might even be volunteering themselves. What would be the point of undertaking the sort of abduction that seems not to happen?

 

[RandyMcDonald]

To suggest that only beautiful people get sex trafficked is completely ludicrous.

Yes, vulnerable people get sex trafficked. Teenagers on poor terms with their families, runaways, migrants looking for options, desperate people.

Amy was none of that.

 

[Wakefield6042]

I disagree with your post. Human trafficking can happen anywhere, at any time, and to anybody. Make no mistake about it. It also happenst to men and children and not just women. Travelers need to always stay on high alert and be educated about such occurences. The FBI would have never investigated this case if they didn't suspect human trafficking or murder could have happened in this case. Anyone can be drugged and then be kept addicted to drugs for others to capitalize on them. Read the following FAQS to become better educated about the topic. Anyone can become prey and that includes AMY. Human Trafficking FAQs

I did wonder about FBI involvement, my understanding is they only get involved in missing persons if they think it has been a kidnapping, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[otto]

well exactly, lol that was my point in asking. i'm not outright discounting ANY theory i'm just curious why some seem to lean more towards a jump or fall because maybe i missed something like neighboring rooms hearing a scream, thud, etc. I wonder what exactly the "commotion" was that her dad had heard

absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence absolutely, but also, weighing one theory more than another simply based on statistics ('more likely to have fallen than been ST') doesn't hold up for me at all.

MOO

To discount that Amy went over the railing because there was no scream seems to presume that, as with the movies, everyone screams - rather than takes in a deep breath - when shocked.

People also discount that she went over the railing because her remains did not wash up on the Island. Natalee Holloway went into the ocean at the Aruba beach and did not wash up on shore - most likely due to riptides. Remember the years of speculation that she was being trafficked on nearby Islands?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. No scream and no remains does not mean it did not happen.

We have as factual evidence:

• table pushed against glass railing (safety regulations should require that cleaning staff place table away from railing; use standard balcony furniture layout for all balconies after cleaning),
• shoes placed side by side next to table and balcony railing,
• sound from balcony at approx. 6 AM that caused sleeping father to wake up and look at balcony (father immediately saw that Amy no longer on balcony),
• father did not assume that Amy went to bed - obvious assumption since she stayed up all night, and
• father got up, left room, searched for Amy, reported her missing within the hour.

Amy was last seen on the balcony at 5:40 AM. Her father heard a sound and looked at the balcony at 6:00 AM - presumably because that is where the sound originated. He then assumed that something happened to her at a different location, not where she was last seen, and not where he looked and expected to see her when he heard a noise that woke him up. Why?

 

[RandyMcDonald]

Sources please. Where did you get your statistics from and please dont cite AI

These are public domain statistics. The relevant Wikipedia pages do a good job of providing their sources.

Venezuelans of European descent - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

White Cubans - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

40% of 30 million is a bit over 12 million, not 10; my bad. Two-thirds of 10 million is 6.5 million.

The main problem with Cuban and Venezuelan demographic statistics is not a matter of data collection or self-identification, but rather a matter of population movements. So many Cubans and Venezuelans have left their homelands that total population sizes are askew, and we know that in many cases people have used their ancestries to make their migration easier, further putting population balances askew. In the middle of the 20th century, for instance, at a time when Venezuela was as rich as West Germany, hundreds of thousands of people came from southern Europe--Spain especially, also Italy and Portugal--to find a new life. Now that Venezuela is collapsing, many of these people have been leaving, returning to their home countries and taking their families with them.

Venezuelans escape to Spain and ask to return old favour

Decades ago, Spaniards fled the Franco dictatorship to build new lives in Venezuela. Times have changed.

www.bbc.com

 

[TizerisT]

I am really skeptical of this

You dont think that a girl from a Spanish family that migrated decades ago, that knows the area, knows locals, knows what time to be inside, is going to be a harder target than a foreigner who knows nothing about the area?

Just to clarify: all this is based on the idea that she made it to the island, as you said. I'm not 100% convinced that she did myself, considering that being at sea is probably the easiest way to disappear someone.

 

[Chypre]

No, you are deliberately trying to misquote me, and you'll be called out every time you try to do that.
They receive a higher degree of male attention than at home, maybe even much more depending on the region.
This is not breaking news. And again, caucasian people are very much in the minority out there, as we know.

I agree with you. I am going to take a big leap here, you may or may not agree with where I'm going.
I think the point is that in the "adult entertainment" world, in, general, white women have the highest perceived value, get the most clicks. I’m not saying that's ok.
The photo of Amy or her doppelganger was used on an "adult vacation" website. What better proof Amy was attractive enough to be recruited?

 

[RandyMcDonald]

Let's not forget too, that when Bradley thought he heard Amy call his name, he was in an area of ill repute which has a reputation for this sort of thing, and he was told about this place by locals. The angle that Curacao doesnt have this underbelly is stopped dead right there.

I am not sure what you are responding to. I have pointed out that Curaçao does have an active sex trade, making use of women mostly migrants. I have provided links, even.

 

[otto]

Based on all the so-called sightings, AB was somehow in a brothel, on a beach, in a bar bathroom, and asking a taxi driver for help, all while never managing to actually get help or be found. It’s like everyone saw just enough to make a dramatic story, but not enough to make a difference. At some point, it stops sounding like evidence and starts sounding like imagination. You can’t be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I believe she went overboard from the family’s cabin balcony that morning. But if something else did happen to her, the hard truth is she likely didn’t survive more than 24 to 48 hours. imo

Imagine being a kidnap victim and finally seeing a taxi while having the freedom to speak to the taxi driver. What is the most likely thing a kidnap victim would do:

• ask for a phone, or
• jump into the taxi and request emergency help?

Definitely imagination to choose option one.

 

[RandyMcDonald]

You dont think that a girl from a Spanish family that migrated decades ago, that knows the area, knows locals, knows what time to be inside, is going to be a harder target than a foreigner who knows nothing about the area?

I think that a girl from a Spanish family in Venezuela trying to escape the collapse of her country, going to a seemingly familiar island next door, could easily find herself in lots of trouble.

I agree with you. I am going to take a big leap here, you may or may not agree with where I'm going.
I think the point is that in the "adult entertainment" world, in, general, white women have the highest perceived value, get the most clicks. I’m not saying that's ok.
The photo of Amy or her doppelganger was used on an "adult vacation" website. What better proof Amy was attractive enough to be recruited?

What proof is there that the person there _was_ abducted? Why couldn't she simply have been desperate?

 

[Chypre]

What proof is there that the person there _was_ abducted? Why couldn't she simply have been desperate?

Even if the woman was desperate, she was attractive to pimps. We have both agreed Amy could have quickly become desperate.

 

[TizerisT]

And a middle-class girl from suburbia could find herself in trouble even easier still. And quite often does.