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

[browneyes]

I’m in the fell overboard camp. Passengers and crew cannot get on or off a cruise ship without going through security and showing ID, with photo. Ports of call have lots of security as well. I just can’t realistically see how she could have been kidnapped. JMHO

 

[fridaybaker]

A small piece of info from the documentary.....Brad came back inside and closed the sliding door behind him. When Dad woke up and went into the kids room, Brad was asleep and the sliding door was open about 14 inches or so. Enough room for Amy to come through, change and leave.

Another small thing I noticed. In the documentary they say Amy took her yellow polo shirt off and was wearing a white shirt that is missing. She was wearing a white short sleeve shirt while dancing with yellow. Was the yellow polo shirt with her at the bar or did she put it on to go sit on the balcony?

Nannymo, I think that the shirt she was wearing while dancing was yellow, it just looks white in the photos. Perhaps I’m wrong, though.

 

[EspressoBean]

I’m in the fell overboard camp. Passengers and crew cannot get on or off a cruise ship without going through security and showing ID, with photo. Ports of call have lots of security as well. I just can’t realistically see how she could have been kidnapped. JMHO

I think there are options outside of general cruise embark and disembark avenues. Supplies and cargo can get unloaded and loaded at ports of call. The documentary talked about unusual interactions with crew. Human traficking can be quite sophisticated and if crew are involved, I would expect that there are ways to get things off of a ship. The number of sightings and both the missing photos on the ship and the photos that resurfaced later give far more evidence to this happening than any intentional or accidental overboard incident. IMO

 

[Quill]

Having watched enough "unsolved mystery" documentaries, they often leave out or don't address critical things to enhance the "mystery."

Let me give you a few examples from this...

1. Who let the witness girls back into their cabin and what is their testimony about the time?

2. The only and I mean only evidence that Amy and Yellow didn't both go back to their cabins and not leave again is the testimony of those 2 girls.

3. And this is probably the most baffling and unexplored element from the NETFLIX doc, not a single other passenger or crew member saw Amy, Yellow, OR the girls. That's pretty hard to believe. A cruise ship at 5:30 AM isn't hopping, but there is activity. Crew is up preparing for docking. Housekeeping staff is getting ready, maybe cleaning public areas... dance club? Kitchen/Galley staff is preparing for breakfast. Security walking rounds. Early rising passengers having coffee (that's what her Dad though she might've done), a morning walk/jog, getting up to take sunrise photos... or even getting ready for early excursions (my cruise in '99 had me on a motor boat at 7am skipping over waves to those pyramids in Mexico).

^This is really hard to reconcile, if you're going with any of the kidnap/murder theories. You've also got to believe that with the ship only docked for probably 8 hours and the crew on alert and having performed that all-hands search, she was still smuggled off the ship in front of the eyes of everyone watching. I know it all fits a Hollywood movie scenario, but it sounds wildly risky and about 1000 different ways such a plan could fail.

If there was a single bit of proof that she left that cabin, I'd feel differently about this. I think she fell/jumped and the Dad heard something and woke.

They addressed your #1, FWIW. The girls said their mother opened the door and let them in, in which case it went unrecorded. Amy's mother states in the doc that she has not ever found in any documentation that the girl's mother was ever interviewed.

I really can't see how she jumped and wasn't found. It has been said by many who know far more than I about the area that if she had jumped she either A) could have swam to shore or B) would have washed in with the tide. Even if a shark attacked her, some part of her remains would have washed ashore. I have to take those words into consideration along with the FBI investigation that concluded that they did not believe she went overboard.

 

[crussell821]

It seems like her parents were not supportive of her life choices, so I can see why they would cover that up to protect their image and daughters.

It’s easy to judge them now but I was a kid in 1998 so I don’t know the in’s and outs back then on if it was that bad to be “out”.

IMO

I thought this was interesting for them to use ‘it was the 90s’ as an excuse. I was in 10th grade in 1998 and I knew teenagers who were out. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Of course, I was in Southern California not Virginia.

 

[RickC]

I’m in the fell overboard camp. Passengers and crew cannot get on or off a cruise ship without going through security and showing ID, with photo. Ports of call have lots of security as well. I just can’t realistically see how she could have been kidnapped. JMHO

Then what is your explanation for the guy who saw her at a bar and she said her name is Amy Bradley and she’s being held without her consent. What about the guy who saw her on the beach and saw her exact tattoo, or the woman who saw her in the bathroom and she said her name was Amy. Why would these people lie and why would they continue to lie years and years later?

 

[crussell821]

My husband and I both felt the cruise director guy was suspicious. He was so cold and dismissive of everything. It makes me wonder if he was aware of the ship being used to find women to traffic. I don't think he was directly involved in Amy's disappearance but it felt like he knew more than he let on. Either that or he had been directed by the cruise line to squash rumors or something. I don't know - he just had such an off-putting vibe.

He really was awful, wasn’t he? No empathy, no humanity. MOO

 

[fridaybaker]

I’m in the fell overboard camp. Passengers and crew cannot get on or off a cruise ship without going through security and showing ID, with photo. Ports of call have lots of security as well. I just can’t realistically see how she could have been kidnapped. JMHO

What was security like for staff in the 1990’s? Because from what I’ve seen, there wasn’t much of it. Few security cameras. IF staff had to “show ID”, so what? Why would that be a problem? They worked there. And I really can’t see a security checkpoint where every box and container going off the ship is searched. I also can’t see any of those ports of call having “lots of security”.

The only cruise I’ve been on was a year or two after Amy’s, although not in the Caribbean. However, it had nothing like you describe.

 

[Quill]

There are many, many people lost at sea who never wash up. It’s a much smaller percentage that do. Especially off shore.

You are correct, but as I understand it the odds of washing up versus never washing up will depend upon the location and the tides. When the officials are explaining that, I feel people are ignoring these details.

 

[crussell821]

I just watched the Netflix documentary Amy Bradley is missing and I thought it was excellent. They interviewed several people who have reported seeing Amy several years after she was reported missing.
One was a US Navy veteran who was in an illegal bar that had prostitutes in it and was guarded with an armed guard. He said one of the girls working there identified herself as Amy Bradley and she was being held against her will and needed help. He was afraid of being found out about being in the bar and never reported the incident until years after the fact. He said Amy told him she left the ship to get drugs for her and her brother and now she was stuck there.

That sighting I’m not sure of. She told him she owed her captors $200 which is very specific- I assume local working girls would know of Amy Bradley and could use her name and disappeared as a quick way to get a sympathy buck from a John. MOO

 

[fridaybaker]

“Lost as sea” isn’t really helpful here. The ship was in docking procedures.

Air and sea searches did focus on the area between Aruba and Curaçao, as they happened only a few hours after she was reported missing. However, soon afterward, it became evident that she’d been in the cabin/balcony well after leaving Aruba, and that her disappearance happened very close to shore.

 

[DustysMom]

I found it interesting that one witness said that Amy told him she left the ship to buy drugs. That, to me, makes much more sense than a planned abduction.
AD could have told her he could sneak her off the boat via the gangway that the crew uses (and would be open before the passenger one), she could make her purchase and get back on the boat before anyone knew she was gone. They agree to meet at 5:30 am, he gives her a cup of coffee and walks her to the gangway. So what happens when she gets off the boat? Did AD assure her that a specific person would meet her? Or, did he instruct her to go to a well known place where tourists were known to cop?

 

[avob00]

I’ve read, can’t remember where now, that Amy dated both men and women, only recently rekindling a relationship with a young woman she’d has a short relationship with previously. There have been conflicting reports of Amy being excited for the cruise, but hesitant as well. I’ve always thought it likely that both of these things are true, as is often the case in life. Her reasons for being hesitant have been described as being due to her fear of the open ocean despite being a good swimmer and trained lifeguard (sharks) and also that she was on the precipice of her “adult life” starting: new job, new apartment, etc. We can now add “new relationship” to those things.

I’ve also wondered, since we learned about that new relationship, if she was also anxious because she hadn’t had time to break up with her boyfriend before leaving. Don’t know, of course, but it was always presented as they were still together at the time and, wasn’t she still wearing his watch?

Thank you for that! They had said she came out as gay but didn’t specify bisexual or lesbian so I was unsure.

The watch is visible in photos on the cruise and also detailed on the Amy website, but not in the documentary. I’ve no idea why as this would put to bed the redditor theories that David’s sightings of her in Curcao beach in 1998 was false or unreliable. He couldn’t have possibly known the detail of the watch whereas the tattoos had been described from the get go to the media.

I still believe his sighting had also Judy’s. A bit on the fence about the second bloke’s… think he’s not entirely truthful despite how many years have passed.. didn’t feel he was taking it seriously.

 

[DustysMom]

New to forum. Just watched doc last night. My question to anybody who still thinks she fell overboard or jumped is how do you explain all the eye witness sightings, especially the one where where the guy said she told him her name was Amy Bradley and she’s being held against her will, and then the woman in 2005 who said she saw her in the bathroom and she said her name was Amy. What purpose would these people have to make something like that up. Their lives didn’t benefit whatsoever for coming forward. Why would they lie?

I think anyone who has been on a cruise knows that accidentally falling overboard is NOT easy. Prior accounts of ABs disappearance stressed that she was afraid of the open water - making it even more unlikely that she would be close to the railing.

 

[avob00]

I found it interesting that one witness said that Amy told him she left the ship to buy drugs. That, to me, makes much more sense than a planned abduction.
AD could have told her he could sneak her off the boat via the gangway that the crew uses (and would be open before the passenger one), she could make her purchase and get back on the boat before anyone knew she was gone. They agree to meet at 5:30 am, he gives her a cup of coffee and walks her to the gangway. So what happens when she gets off the boat? Did AD assure her that a specific person would meet her? Or, did he instruct her to go to a well known place where tourists were known to cop?

The drugs thing does make sense. I think the majority of people experiment with drugs at some point in their early to mid twenties. Maybe she wanted to try something or agreed to help AD.

I don’t believe she was grabbed from that balcony or that an altercation occurred there. I think something went wrong somewhere on the ship hence the fact she ran towards the taxi driver nearby (if that is true).

 

[GreyPhantom]

The drugs thing does make sense. I think the majority of people experiment with drugs at some point in their early to mid twenties. Maybe she wanted to try something or agreed to help AD.

I don’t believe she was grabbed from that balcony or that an altercation occurred there. I think something went wrong somewhere on the ship hence the fact she ran towards the taxi driver nearby (if that is true).

Previous documentaries said the taxi cab driver was lying and trying to collect a reward

 

[DustysMom]

Previous documentaries said the taxi cab driver was lying and trying to collect a reward

Really? That’s interesting

 

[GreyPhantom]

Really? That’s interesting

Yup, it's been largely discredited. I can't imagine her handlers allowing her to get loose for even a minute.

 

[thebedbug]

New to forum. Just watched doc last night. My question to anybody who still thinks she fell overboard or jumped is how do you explain all the eye witness sightings, especially the one where where the guy said she told him her name was Amy Bradley and she’s being held against her will, and then the woman in 2005 who said she saw her in the bathroom and she said her name was Amy. What purpose would these people have to make something like that up. Their lives didn’t benefit whatsoever for coming forward. Why would they lie?

purpose?

people have been known to lie, embellish, or remember events through a certain lense simply to insert themselves into a story.

prostitutes tell stories - Amy Bradley was a well-known story at that point - this one could've been spinning a tale to see if she could get a $200 handout from the Navy guy.

many times you just have genuine mistakes, events weren't quite how they remember them, or people have their memory influenced by something the find out afterwards. memories are not perfect. i have memories of a lot of things, that if you could somehow see a real video of the actual events... they wouldn't quite match.

"Yellow" probably wasn't the only guy with his build, skin coloring, and short hair on the cruise. I'll admit that Amy was more distinct looking - with her short hair - but witnesses can mistakes in the dark and misremember times - especially when there is no other evidence to confirm their sightings.

 

[thebedbug]

You can make anything fit your theory if you look at it that way, IMO. I'll choose the experts analysis anyday,

I think another issue with the Jas pictures is that there are more of them than what was shown on NETFLIX... and in others... the resemblance isn't as strong as it is in the 2 with the 80's hair and makeup.

An example of a TV show putting out the "mysterious" side of the story... but maybe leaving out other information.