April 23, 2026 • 67 mins
In tonight's Classic episode, Ben, Matt and Noel return to a case that still haunts them: at just 24 years old, Rebecca Coriam had her whole life ahead of her. Her love of physical fitness and knack for teaching made her perfectly-suited for her job in Youth Activities aboard the Disney Wonder, an enormous, high-class cruise ship. On March 22nd, 2011, Coriam vanished from the vessel. The distraught parents and friends of Rebecca puzzled over the cruise line's official explanation -- that a rogue wave had swept her overboard. Over a decade later, the mystery remains: What happened to Rebecca Coriam?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realist, it's your boys. We're back with another
standout classic episode of stuff they don't want you to know.
At just twenty four years old, woman named Rebecca Quorium
had her whole life ahead of her.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, and she and her family, like a lot of
families out there, decided to do something fun and exciting
and go on a cruise. They couldn't have expected what
came next.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
That's right. On March twenty second, twenty eleven, Quorum vanished
from the vessel, and her distraught parents and friends puzzled
over the cruise lines. Official explanation this idea of some
sort of rogue waves sweeping her out to see. But
there's more to the story than met the eye.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul
Mission Control decades. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Today's episode is about a disappearance, and it's a disappearance
that you may or may not have heard of before.
(01:39):
We learned about it through an early edition of Listener Mail,
and as you know, we flag some of these topics
when they warrant further investigation. The thing about disappearances is
that they happen around the world all the time, every
single day.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
There are probably, if you look at the.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Entire human population, there are a couple of people that
are disappearing in the time it takes you to listen
to this episode. And the thing is, while these tragic,
unexplained disappearances aren't uncommon, the question changes depending on the context. Like,
it's pretty easy, even in the age of cell phones
and surveillance, it's alarmingly easy to disappear for a little
(02:22):
while in the US. But how do people disappear when
they're on a heavily populated, isolated, continually monitored thing like
a cruise ship. How do people disappear on cruise ships?
Why do so many of these cases remain unsolved. We'll
get to those answers in part in today's investigation, the
(02:43):
disappearance of Rebecca Quorum. Here are the facts. Yeah, So
who is Rebecca Qureum. She was born on March eleventh,
nineteen eighty seven, in Chester, England. Had a pretty unremarkable
for the purposes of this story childhood. Her parents, Mike
(03:04):
and Anne Marie who was known as Anne, raised Rebecca
with her biological sister Rachel and two foster brothers.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yes, and like a lot of the other kids who
grew up in that area in Chester, she worked at
the local zoo. What how cool would that be to
work at as zoo? She at least worked there for
a time that we're aware of. When she was, you know,
in her teenage years, she joined up with the British
Army Cadets. It's kind of like the rotc or the
(03:32):
Junior rotc here in at least the US. And then
after high school she went to a place called Plymouth University.
She was studying sports science and this was this is
something she was very much interested in. She was good
at athletics and interested in athletics. She studied that further
at Liverpool Hope University and she ended up teaching sports
(03:53):
abroad in Maine in the United States, and eventually she
graduated at from University Exeter University with a degree in
sports science, so she clearly had a track that she
was going down.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Wouldn't sports science be the equivalent of that what we
would call sports medicine here, like you know, kinesiology or
something like that, or you know, to be like a
sports massage therapist or in some way like a medic
or physical educationist.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
That's right, Yeah, sports education might be another equivalent. It's
almost like this reminds me a lot of the careers
of pe teachers we call them here in the US.
So shout out to any of any teachers of ours
listening to the show. I can't believe he's stuck with
us through grade school.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
So congratulation the new career.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So in twenty ten, Rebecca Quarium takes an opportunity that
comes along every so often. Disney Cruz is interviewing p
and they're interviewing hundreds of people. Quorium is hired. She's
got the bona fides and the experience they're looking for
(05:10):
in the position of youth entertainment. Someone who kind of
is on the cruise ship taking care of the kids
and engaging with them so the parents can go.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
To the bar or you know, whatever they're doing.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
It is kind of a glorified babysitter, but I've heard
it referred to as almost like a counselor situation, where
there's like activities and crafts and things like that. And
apparently this was Rebecca's dream job. She was a big
Disney fan and love working with kids, and you know,
her parents have said that she was thrilled to land
this keg.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And just to put it out there, that position also
requires a good amount of performance ability to entertain the kids,
to keep them, you know, excited, because the one of
the main things about Disney cruise ships is to keep
kids in that magical spirit all and adults, but just
to keep that flowing at all times.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, that's a good point. You have to always be on.
This is a demanding job. I wouldn't I would not
call it remotely like glorified babysitting because they're just like
I don't think they can just turn on a movie
and leave the kids with some snacks.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
I misspoke there.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Good, that's what this guy's doing right now.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
And I say that having never worked on a cruise ship.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So this this is, like you said, No, it's her
dream job, and right when she's hired, she is flown
out to the headquarters to Florida and she's there for
four days for her intro onboarding training, and then she's
off to the Disney Wonder. There are a couple notes
(06:47):
we need to make here, as we've established in earlier episodes,
after hearing from a lot of people working in the
cruise industry, life on a cruise ship could be a
little bit debauchrous. It could be a little bit spicy,
which will will will definitely be important later.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Hold on, Ben, Ben put a link into the outline here,
So I'm just gonna go ahead and take a moment.
Oh oh oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
That's how you're supposed to hear spicy.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's a it's a clip from Stephan I believe from
SNL Okay, we continue.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Okay, so this this will be important later. The the
to the duality of the two lives, that every crew
member is living the life as as you guys said,
the life in front of the passengers, and then the
life below deck are on the crew pool, which is
the only place that could really hang out unobserved.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, and then that just that is not to describe
every crew member's experience. That is just something that we
have noticed.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Right, right, exactly. So after she works for four months
and cruises throughout the Bahamas, she goes back to the
United Kingdom for two months off, catches up with friends,
catches up with her family. She's very close to her family,
talks to them regularly through the phone and electronic means.
And then when she comes back, she's on board the
(08:11):
Disney Wonder and it's based in Los Angeles when she embarks, correct.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
And while she was working on the ship, she would
often sail in the Mexican Riviera, which passes through the
Panama Canal. And when her father passed away, Quorium came
back to Chester for two weeks and that would be
the last time that anyone in her family ever saw
her alive.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
In person, at least, right, correct.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So let's talk a little bit about the cruise ship
in question. You know, we've talked about some Disney conspiracies
and the idea that you know, no one can actually
be declared dead at Disney World, or that's not true.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
But there's a lot of.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Interesting things that this company goes to great lengths to
maintain a squeaky clean image. Very important to Disney, especially
when it comes to their theme parks, the idea that
no cast member can ever be seen without their head on,
their costume on or whatever, because it would disrupt the
illusion and could potentially traumatize kids.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
So let's talk a little bit about.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
The Disney Wonder.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
This is huge.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
It's a massive, massive cruise ship. She was one of
about nine hundred and fifty crew members on this ship,
and that's just you know, a portion of the twenty
four hundred passengers that it can carry.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
All told.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
The ship's nine hundred and sixty four feet long and
has eleven public decks with you know, all the all
the belt and whistles that you would expect on a
cruise ship, because the idea of a cruise ship is
just supposed to be able to unplug completely. Everything is
taken care of, no expense is spared. It's all inclusive,
as people like to say. And the ship began service
(09:53):
in August of nineteen ninety nine, so it had already
you know, put in some some miles on the high
seas when Korum started her her tenure there.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And like many of the younger people who were working
in the cruise line industry, We got to keep in
mind Quorium was only twenty four at this point in
your life. She found romance. You know, you're working these
crazy hours. I mean, the folks in these crews are
working seven days a week, and it doesn't matter if
(10:25):
you're off your shift or whatever. If a passenger sees you,
you're back on immediately. So it's stressful and you form
close bonds with your colleagues. She found romance, beginning a
relationship with a colleague named Tracy Medley. Tracy Medley was
a US resident who was also working on the Disney Wonder.
(10:49):
Medley will later become the one of the last known
people to see Rebecca Quorum alive. This is a little
but we're not at the crazy part yet, so stick
with us. Six weeks after returning to the Wonder, Quorum
sends a message to her parents via Facebook. And this
(11:11):
is on March twenty first, twenty eleven, and she says,
you know the stuff you say to your parents when
you're far away. I love you, I hope you're okay.
I'm going to call you tomorrow. On March twenty second,
the Wonder was off the coast of Mexico and was
heading toward Puerto Vieta and Cabo San Lucas. Kureium misses
(11:32):
the start of her shift, so people start searching for her.
She's not in her cabin, she's not anywhere. She doesn't
respond to calls in the ship's PA system, and people
start to escalate the search, right because, like you guys said,
the Wonder is a world class ship, and part of
(11:54):
being world class means you have a lot of security,
right mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
So they start scanning the CCTV so they can see
if they can get a beat on her whereabouts, and
they find something pretty troubling.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yes, they caught her on camera at five point forty
five in the morning, So this is actually March twenty second,
not March twenty first, I guess chronologically. If you're looking
at the time stamp and it's in the morning, it's
very early. And in the video you can see her
on the phone. And you know, this is only gleaned
(12:24):
from body language that you can see in the video,
it's not gleaned from audio. But it appears that her
body language would show that she's upset for some reason,
or she's a little out of sorts. There is a
young man that can be seen on this video that
approaches her and he appears to ask her a question
of some sort. It seems like he's he's asking about
(12:46):
how she's doing, like whether or not she's okay, And
again no audio, so we don't we don't know exactly
what he said. She then appears to just give the
affirmative like I'm fine, everything's okay, then hangs up the
phone and walks.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Out of frame.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Two things though we can see her face visibly when
she says yeah fine, so you can you can. Lip
readers have looked at this and they know we know
what she said. And she's also dressed in baggy clothes
that look like a dude's clothes, maybe not what she
would normally wear.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Yeah, there's a still.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Frame in an article that I am looking at that
is she's kind of got her head in her hands,
like very distraught looking.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
She pulls her Her parents have identified the two two
physical things that she does after the call, which is
to pull her hair back and put her hands in
her back pockets. That is something that that's something that
she does often, so it's definitely her. And she does appear,
as you said, Matt, she appears to be agitated. But
(13:47):
when they find that tape, let's be clear, that's all
they find.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
According to the official story.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Accord, Yeah, there it is.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
According to the official story, there's also a pair of
flip flops found and then later moved back to her
room by Disney. But the search intensifies. Disney does the
you know, the right chain of escalation. They contact the
US Coast Guard, They contact the Mexican Navy. They say, hey,
we were at international waters. This coordinates where we're heading.
(14:19):
And so these two organizations search the path of the
wonder and just in case there would be a trace
of as horrible as it is to think of it,
there might be a trace of someone going overboard, and
they also don't find anything.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
That alone is troubling, just thinking that anyone could fall
off of a cruise ship and the crew of the
ship would be unaware, the people who are monitoring cameras,
the people who are you know, running the ship. It's
if she did in fact fall off in that moment,
just that nobody saw it, nobody heard anything. It just
happened and she was gone. If that's what occurred, that's
(14:59):
pretty terrifying in itself. But then it gets even weirder
as you go deeper into this thing, because then you
look at what kind of investigation can occur when something
happens on international waters and who gets jurisdiction. Is there
some kind of special police force that looks at, you know,
matters of disappearances on international waters?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Police police have dolphins?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
God, no they don't. The yeah, I don't. I don't know.
Maybe the aquonauts could come out and help.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
And it makes me think of that story we I
think we covered it on the show at some point
of the scientists at the research stations and Antarctica and
there was like a murder or a death and and
there was this huge kerfuffle as to who had jurisdiction
over that because it was like between two scientists from
different international research stations. And this is not exactly the same,
(15:58):
but it's it's so in that it's a super sticky
question as to, you know, where the jurisdiction lies when
you're international waters, because who knows when the actual event happened,
and maybe that jurisdiction could shift since you're in motion,
right and you're traveling through different jurisdictions. And the case
has been made often by you know, folks who claim
(16:19):
that cruise ships are a really great place to commit
the perfect crime. That this is exactly why that's the case.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
The problem is complicated to in a way that might
seem counterintuitive. Despite the fact that Disney is a US company.
This boat is registered in the Bahamas under something that's
called flags of convenience. It's kind of a thing for
tax purposes, and it's very common. But this complicates the
investigation immediately, and it goes directly to that jurisdiction question.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
And just really quickly last thing to your point, the
whole flags of convenience.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
I hadn't heard that term, but.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
It's the same argument that came up when the cruise
industry just took ald absolute nose dive when COVID hit
the argument that they shouldn't be given bailout money because
they don't pay taxes to the United States.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Well, there you go something to think about. Well, in
the case of the wonder, it is, like we said,
registered in the Bahamas. So a detective from the Royal
Bahamas Police Force, a man named Paul roll ro O
l l E. Flew all the way from the Bahamas
over to Los Angeles to investigate. Once the ship arrived
at port there because that's where that's where it came
(17:32):
back to. And this was three days after the initial disappearance.
And presumably it's not like they moored the ship instantly
after finding that she had disappeared. No, they kept on,
keep it on.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
And also Coream's parents also flew out to LA and
I saw an interview with them. I'm sure you guys
caught this one too. It's a dateline episode British Dateline
where her parents are interviewed extensively, and they said they
were shocked to find out that the FBI would not
be involved and that this detective from the Bahamas was
(18:09):
flown far out of his jurisdiction to quote unquote investigate
and to interview people on the ship. Apparently he just
spent a day on the ship interviewing a handful of people,
like the very definition of phoning it in.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, no forensic evidence collection. He interviewed six crew members again,
of the approximately nine hundred and fifty or nine hundred
and forty nine if we want.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
To be brutally accurate.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
And he didn't interview any passengers at all whatsoever. The
parents also started taking issue with some of Disney's actions.
And this is not us accusing Disney of anything yet,
this is what the parents said. They said they were
kept in a car with all blacked out windows, and
(19:00):
they wanted to go and talk to passengers, right and
they had wanted to talk to crew members, but they
were not admitted to the ship until all the passengers
from that cruise had disembarked and left, and then they
were kind of ushered in through a little used side entrance.
They met with the detective, they met with Paul, they
(19:20):
met with the captain. The captain expressed his profound condolences,
and then the captain is the first one who floats
a theory. This is before the investigator does anything, because
the investigator has to finish a report and make conclusions.
But the captain says something along the lines of, you know,
I it's heartbreaking to say it, but I've been thinking
(19:42):
of this and the only thing that could have happened
was that your daughter, Rebecca Quorium was washed overboard by
a high wave while she was out by the crew
pool on deck five. As I mentioned earlier, the crew pool,
and you can see pictures of this. The krupole is
isolated from the rest of the public decks, and it's
(20:06):
one of the only spacious places where the crew can
hang out without being at work, you know. So that's
a place where a lot of people spend their free time.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
And this is a thing, I mean, it's called a
rogue wave. It's this idea of a very very large
wave that picks up momentum, you know, on the open
sea and can be really really dangerous even for large
fortified cruise liners like this. But it would I would
think it would register on some instruments, or there would
(20:39):
be proof that such a thing happened, or it would
be you know, on the surveillance tape. We see her
on this surveillance tape shortly before it disappears. You would
think if such a wave happened, they would have footage
of that too, or it would you know, make a
real mess on the deck, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, I raise two interesting points. This didn't seem plausible
to the Quorum family, they noted, and they were physically
at the area. They noted that the pool was surrounded
by high walls over six feet tall. So they had questions,
and these questions just became more profound as time went on.
(21:16):
The number one question was, and is what happened to
Rebecca Quorium. We'll explore this after a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy, the theories about Okay, the
official investigation concluded the same thing that the captain said
(21:41):
to the parents. The official investigation by the police in
the Bahamas said that Quorum went overboard accidentally, possibly due
to a rogue wave, sometime between the hours of six
and nine am on March twenty second. But the Quoreums
and their legal team and the private investigators that they
worked with later never received a copy of this final report,
(22:05):
despite the fact that that detective did promise them one.
British detectives received a copy of this report, but they
said it's horrible.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
They said it's botched.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
It's not like it's not meeting a bare minimum of
detective work. And furthermore, they said they couldn't release it
to the quariums because it contained restricted personal information about it.
That's personal, I guess.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Just to add on to this, when we were talking
about the possibility that Rebecca Quorium went overboard sometimes between
the hours of six and nine am on that day,
right they last saw her just before that five point
forty five. Then it seems that that's when she would
have gone. I just want to talk about the speed
of the Disney wonder when you're just imagining this in
your head, you've got a cruise ship traveling along, perhaps
(22:53):
a wave comes up and washes somebody in, Like how
far away do you get? How quickly is that cruise
ship moving away from a person that is then in
the water. The operating speed, the service speed is what
it's known as, is around twenty one and a half knots,
which is about twenty five miles per hour or about
(23:14):
forty kilometers per hour. So that's how quickly this massive
ship is moving away from you. If you happen to
fall into the water, you can't swim to that. You
cannot swim to that. And also they would be they
would be gone rather quickly.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Well, and that also means that this would have to
be the most monster of rogue waves ever for it
to not just kind of pass it by, right, Like
if you're moving at twenty five miles an hour and
this massive way like it's I don't know, like it's
just waves crash pretty slowly.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
You know what I mean, Like, I don't know it
would have to be It would have to be big, and.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
I mean it would just have to be huge, to
the point where there would have to be video evidence
of it, if you know all of these cameras were
in service, which they appear.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
To have been.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
That's that's another question. We're getting to it right now.
At least one British politician takes an explicit issue with
the official story and has gone on record against the
official explanation. Labor MP Chris Matheson, who since twenty fifteen
is represented the city of Chester. Oh, we didn't mention
(24:21):
that Chester for a no. One is not familiar. It's
like a little bit south of Liverpool, so that's where
it's located. He believes that Quorium did not go overboard
in accident. He believes that she was a victim of
crime and possibly assaulted or murdered, and said, the more
you look into this, the more it smells rotten, the
(24:42):
more it smells like a crime has taken place. And
those kind of statements, or the sentiments rather were shared
by many people. That's why the quariums hire a private
investigator named Roy Ram, which is a great name. He's
a former specialist of Scotland yard. He knows his way around,
and they also sought the aid of that MP Matheson.
(25:04):
They also sought the aid of the former Deputy Prime Minister,
Lord Prescott. And Ram's investigation reveals several key pieces of
information that don't they don't conclusively prove what happened to Quarium,
but they do, I tried to put this very diplomatically,
(25:26):
they do challenge the official explanation from both the Bahamas
and from Disney the Mouse. So first that rogue wave question,
here's the answer. Any wave capable of washing a person
of Quarium's size, and think of her as like average
person size overboard from that deck five pool, that wave
(25:49):
would have to be at least one hundred feet high,
you would notice when it hit. Secondly, the weather and
sea conditions in this part of the ocean where they're
at at the time. If you look at all the
monitoring done by various agencies, it there wasn't a storm
like what what would have made this wave occur? A
(26:11):
wave of this size?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, And you know, perhaps even more damning, in my
opinion at least, is that the CCTV footage that was
accessible to both the investigation from our friend there from
the Bahamas, as well as what was known to be
aware to the family. It seems to have been cropped
to obscure the timestamp and the location and some of
(26:37):
the information that would actually be embedded into that footage.
That is, that's weird. That shouldn't happen. There should be
a raw file that is, you know, given to any
investigator looking a yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Mean, even knowing what we noticed about like the way
video recording works, it's like you you it's either it's
either gone or it's like it's supposed to be. Like
this detail is very troubling, like someone and it's also odd,
like a weird way of trying to obscure something to
go in and crop the footage as opposed to just
getting rid of it and blaming it on a glitch,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It's very strange, very unusual.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
And also you know, I was trying to think through
the possibilities, just like chain of chain of custody for
this footage. Did Rob get this directly from Disney or
did he get it directly from the detective in the Bahamas,
or did he get it from British law enforcement? And
depending on where the what the providence of it was.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
It is possible.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
It is possible that somebody between Disney and this PI
had done something with the tape.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
But Disney, I would say, in that era, like twenty eleven,
twenty twelve, around this time, it was a little more
difficult than it is now to just bring in a
piece of video to an editing software or export piece
of video and do it correctly without messing something up
when it trying to aspect ratio. I'm serious, like, no,
you're totally right.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
No, yeah, Matt, I was there with you when you
were doing this stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I just mean, especially if you're not a power users,
it's more difficult to get it completely correct. So that
is a possibility.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
So we're being overly fair.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
That is a possibility, but Disney's story makes it suspicious. First,
I want to describe a little bit about these cameras,
and we'll get we'll get further into this, But these
cameras are disguised so that the passenger, like everything is
about maintaining that magic feeling of the magic Kingdom on
(28:43):
the deep Blue seas. So the closed circuit TV cameras
are hidden in things like they're hidden in these long
tubes on deck five. But they also they blend in
with the outdoor nautical and safety equipment. You have to
be purpose looking for them to find them. And so
(29:03):
Disney says, okay, this footage, we have the screenshot we've
described in that phone conversation that happened inside or on
deck five, but Rom and other investigators now believe it
was shot on deck one, which is nowhere close to
deck five. The family has been denied access to copies
of the video as well as the final report. They
(29:26):
saw the footage, they were not allowed to have a
copy of it.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Got it, got it? Okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
So there's a bit of a almost a Cinderella trope
here too. They're forgotten shoes or in this case, sandals,
flip flops might call them, depend on what part of
the world you live in. This was allegedly discovered on
deck five, and officially the ship's management concluded that this
(29:56):
sandle belonged.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
To Rebecca Quarium. However, it had.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
The name and cabin number of a different person, and
both the Quarium family and members of the crew who
are friends with Rebecca said the sandal was first off,
not her style at all, not her vibe, not something
she would wear. And then secondly it was the wrong size.
They got the wrong shoe because again there's not any
investigation of the disappearance until at least three days afterwards.
(30:21):
The sandal gets moved by The sandal gets moved by
management of the ship, and they return it with the
rest of Rebecca's things to her cabin and her family.
Like when her family gets there, one of the things
they do is collect her stuff from the cabin.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Can I I just point this out? That is something
that goes down on a lot of cruise ships, even
if a person hasn't officially disappeared or anything like that,
if there are any personal personal effects that are anywhere
else on the ship, especially if they are a crew
members and they are specifically marked as so, they will
be returned earned to the cabin of that crew member,
(31:03):
which can make it very difficult to trace things when
an investigation needs to occur about a person who in
fact has gone missing.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, and this so these answers are already They're not
proof of a cover up, to be clear, but they're
they're disturbing and this prompts, this prompts a flurry of
speculation and prompts some some really great investigative journalism. We'd
especially like to shout out John Ronson over at The Guardian.
(31:34):
He sailed aboard the Wonder as a civilian about seven months.
I want to say after Quarium's disappearance as Altober I think, yeah,
and while he was on this, While he's on this cruise,
he started, you know, quietly befriending and talking to the
crew about this and this is when he hits a
(31:55):
little bit of a stone wall with some chinks in it.
We do also want to want to shout out Ronson
in particular. He's done some great work with the Builderberg
Group as well, and he appears on one of our
peer podcasts that just came out called Labyrinths, made by
a friend of the show, Chandler Mays.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Did you guys check this out? The sound design is
top notch. It's excellent.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah. I actually had the fortune of working with Chandler
to make it kind of early nineties hip hop sounding
track that was used in an episode of the show.
But it's top notch stuff. Amanda Knox and her partner
investigating kind of stories of people getting lost and found,
and Ronson also was the guy who wrote The Men
Who Stare At Goats If you remember that film with
(32:40):
George Clooney about kind of like this almost a remote
viewing type program that was in the military, the.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
One that we've spoken about many a time on this
show Stargate, I believe.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Hmm, well, we should speak about that more again. You
know what we should do. We should get a goat
and stare at it. We always talk about it.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
But we never get together and do it.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
We got to just put our money where a Sorry,
but but you're right, you're right. We we like labyrinths
and there's a great interview with Ronson about his surreal
experiences investigating the Builderberg Group wherein he interviews one of
the co founders too in that process.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
So do check that out.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
That's out now, you can check that out now.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah. First, but how interesting is it that Amanda Knox
is a host of a show we we've we've spoken
about her, I believe once or twice on this show,
just with her ordeal that she went through and what.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Makes sense I mean a story of like you know,
kind of people going through transformative events and perhaps coming
coming back out on the other side, which definitely happened
with her.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
So we just wanted to let you know Ronson has
his bona fides.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
Yeah, he's not just.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Some guy who is like, what's an interesting thing I
can do on this cruise. He was there on a
mission for reason. He had a motive.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
So there's this. You can read the article in full.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
We wouldn't give you some some of the pivotal moments
of his investigation. So he's talking to a bartender, I
believe it was a crew member, and he asked, hey,
what about that quarium disappearance? And this person ends up
saying at first they say, oh, it didn't happen. Sorry,
(34:23):
you know, that's what I have to say. And so
he doesn't have luck with that person. He goes to
another crew member and one crew member is talking to
him about that phone call. Right, the phone call is
a big mystery, or was for a time. And this
crew member says, Disney knows exactly what happened that phone
call she had. It was taped. Everything here is taped.
(34:44):
There's CCTV everywhere. Disney has the tape.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yikes. You can imagine, right, you'd think that a company
like Disney operating a cruise ship would want to have,
you know, evidence of everything, just in case they're going
to get sued for one reason or another. You've got
it on tape, You've trained your employees there. You know
you're probably not going to get into an issue with
an employee, you hope or you believe, right, if something
(35:12):
goes wrong on your ship that costs millions of dollars
to operate that you've got so much investment in of
your image and everything, you'd want to be able to
prove that the person who was on your ship, who
paid to be there, did something wrong and it wasn't
your employee or something to that effect, right, just to
cover yourself. Yeah, it makes sense. So logically you'd think,
(35:35):
just like this person is saying that, there would be
CCTV of every inch of that place.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
I mean, can you imagine the liability alone, Like this
can end a cruise ship if the wrong thing happens
and it's not.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
Carnival, so oh it it can end a company. I
mean if it's not Carnival or COVID.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Well, okay, fair enough. Fans of the HBO series Succession,
might I remember a plot line in that it's about
a giant company that sort of a multi lateral company
that has theme parks and obviously big television and film interest,
and also a cruise line. And there's a story about
kind of a cover up involving a sexual assaults and
(36:19):
falling overboard passenger. And in the show, this is not
a spoiler, really, if it is, maybe fast forward ten seconds.
They have copious evidence of all of these things that they.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Do keep yeah, and this, and there's no reason that
fiction that fiction show might not have at least partial
basis in real events. So Ronson reaches out to Disney directly,
and he's in a conversation with a spokesperson for the corporation,
(36:52):
and when Ronson asked the spokesperson whether or not that
telephone call is taped, he gets he gets a.
Speaker 5 (36:59):
Very weird reply.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
They say that pertains to specific details about the investigation,
and so it's not appropriate for us to share that
kind of information, which is a matrix dodge that it's
not even that's like, well, I can't that's not even
a question that can exist in this conversation. Yes, maybe yes,
(37:22):
that's not a yes. But then the spokesperson adds, we
wish we knew what happened as much as anyone. So
the implication there, or the way you're supposed to feel
from that statement, is that Disney is on board with
learning the truth.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
They just they can't.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Their hands are tied, is what they're arguing, which is
maybe not completely accurate. So they he also found Disney
claims to have no footage of quarium going overboard, and
while they admit they have CCTV right, they refuse to
disclose the number of cameras or their locations anywhere on
(38:02):
the ship for security reasons, which I understand. I understand
that's something you don't want people to find with a
quick Internet search or whatever. But you would think law
enforcement should be able to get that information, right.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Yeah, you know what you would do. I mean, you
would have you would have Disney wonder export every moment
of CCTV footage from every camera on the ship and
from the hours of five thirty am, maybe even five am,
until the moment that she was found to not be
on the ship. That's what you would do, and you
(38:38):
could you could comb through every moment of it, as
you know, a third party investigator, and you could find
out what happened to her in all likelihood. I mean
that's all it would take.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
I think, yeah, And maybe, I mean, maybe it's a
thing where they feel they should have more cameras and
don't want people to know how few they actually have.
I'm not sure, but Ronson's conclusion is that the only
way Quorium could have fallen is from a jogging track
the deck below. On deck four, he said that the
(39:08):
railings everywhere else, just like the Quorium's parents pointed out,
the railings everywhere else, are just too high. And he says,
maybe after this early morning phone call, Quorium went on
a jog, which checks out. She's an athletic person, and
maybe she slipped and somehow fell overboard. While he was
on the Disney wonder, he explored deck four and he
(39:31):
found four different CCTV cameras, two on the port side,
two on starboard, and so he thinks there was something.
But every time he asks crew members about the disappearance,
he received some version of the same answer. She fell
overboard from deck five at the crew pool. There's nothing
darker sinister, they say, not here at Disney. But what
(39:54):
else did the crew say? You know, when they got comfortable,
I'll tell you after a word from our response.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
And we're back. Before we left, we were discussing just
the fact that the crew told John Ronson that the
same story right, that she fell somehow overboard and on
that deck five by the crew pool. That is, again,
if you believe that the only way that she got
(40:26):
off of the ship was by her own volition, by
falling off or jumping off, rather than being pushed or
you know, someone forcing her off, or even as dark
as it is, her body maybe was thrown off. That's
a possibility. We have to keep all of these things
as possibilities as we go on. So let's get into
(40:49):
some of the other crew speculation that been alluded to.
Right before we left, there was a single crew member,
one of Koram's friends, who says that Koreum was having
a fight with her romantic partner. That person that we
mentioned earlier, I believe it is miss Medley. There's another
crew member that disputed this claim. This This other person
(41:11):
was saying that Korium was on the phone with a
mutual friend of Quorium and Melodies and not not Melody herself.
But again, that's kind of a one person said. The
other person said, So it's difficult to know what to
believe there. But there's another another crew member that stated
that after this phone call, Quorum may have taken a walk. Well,
(41:33):
we'll get into a little further about why this person
believes that maybe she had taken a walk. And at
this point, this person says, perhaps she wasn't pushed over
or swept away by some wave, but by the wind.
A possibility, but again, it just it's tough to believe,
but it's a possibly.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
All that's excuse in the book it was only the wind,
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Yeah, And they have a they you know, you can
you can read in full their quote, but they're they're
saying that they know the deck by the crew pools
specifically was very windy and slippery, and that management had
called everybody to get inside and not be on deck,
and that Disney took this very seriously. One guy violated
(42:18):
that and he got sent home. So that's that's their
argument that there was something to the wind. But many
crew members believe the company's not sharing everything it knows
and may also be actively covering something up. At this point,
we have to say, rumors abound in this kind of
work environment, you know what I mean, there's there's a
(42:40):
lot of drama. There's a lot of intrigue going on,
from everything from like preferential treatment to who is partying
too hard to who hooks up with whom you know,
So it's not at all strange that something we might
call a conspiracy theory could arise or Germany in this soil. Anyhow,
(43:02):
outside of the crew, people like Steven Moseley, another MP
over in Britain, also came out and said that they
have problems with the investigation. Mosley said specifically that Disney
seemed more interested in getting the ship back to sea
than in the case of a missing crew member, and
also noted it is appalling that only one policeman from
(43:25):
the Bahamas and authority internationally recognized these are his words,
not ours, as almost toothless was called to investigate this crime,
and it is it is weird to your to our
earlier point, there was a law passed after the passage
of Rebecca Aquarium that gives the FBI jurisdiction for cruise
(43:50):
ship investigations if it's a US resident who has gone
missing or murdered. So that's some kind of progress. But
the flag of the convenience countries, you know, the odds
are stacked in favor of the cruise line in this case.
You know, the lawyers that they have and the interlinking
jurisdictional territorial things. Matt, you mentioned, you mentioned the girlfriend.
(44:17):
We mentioned the romantic partner a couple times, but she
was silent about this for about six years, and then
she came forward and shared some new information that casts
the disappearance in a bit of a different light.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yes, her name is Tracy Medley. It's a romantic partner
of Quoreum. She stated that she and Korium had apparently
had a threesome with another person working on the ship,
another crew member, a man named Devin Hyde, and they're,
you know, through these private investigations that happened after the disappearance.
(44:56):
They claimed that this alleged threesome took place in this
man Devin hides cabin, who by the way, was a
married a father and a married man. And this was quote,
the first time Miss Quorium had had sexual relations with
a man, which apparently, according to this investigation, left her
(45:16):
quote distraught and traumatized. This certainly is a wrinkle in
something like this, and we know that crimes of passion
a lot of times, you know, occur quickly, and you know,
we've talked about this many times in the past. When
there when there is a sexual relationship involved in any form,
it increases the chances that that person perhaps is involved
(45:41):
in a disappearance. When you know, when disappearances occur, very
often the romantic partners are looked at as the prime suspect.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
What's that trope? It's always the husband, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yes, and sometimes the wife or the you know, whoever else.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
It's it's gonna be it's going to be someone who
knows you statistically.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
But the other wrinkles that this kind of puts in
the in the story is that Medley has come out
and spoken relatively recently on the matter, and she's now
married and has a child, and she denies that she
had anything to do with the disappearance and believes that
(46:24):
Rebecca was actually like depressed and was taking drugs and
was suicidal and had made claims or threatened to jump
off the side of the ship, which would hold up
given how much effort it would have taken to do that,
you know, knowing how high those walls were and how
it's absolutely unpractical. It seems for like a wave to
have lifted somebody up or the wind or whatever. So
(46:45):
this this definitely tracks and she believes this because the
night that she went missing, Coream was incredibly upset with Tracy,
was drinking heavily and was telling her girlfriend that she
quote felt like a failure because she wasn't brave enough
to jump off the ship. And you know after the threesome.
(47:06):
And I'm not being flip here, but threesomes are complicated too.
They're very complicated if they if there are already emotions
at play, and you do it, maybe because you think
it will make someone like you better or you feel
put on the spot, and then you do it and
then there's a shame factor. I'm not speaking from personal experience,
just it makes sure, you know. But it's true, like
(47:28):
it's a thing where all of a sudden, now you've
compounded your insecurity and you've complicated the matter even further emotionally.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Yeah, that's that's part of the issues. So the implication
here is that Medley and Koreum had a bit of
inequality in what they wanted from their relationship. Tracy Medley
was being casual, you know what I mean, why be constrained?
I want to be free, which is a very understandable thing.
(48:00):
And she had a relationship with his fellow David Hyde,
who was a married father. By the way, she had
a relationship with him before things got romantic with Rebecca Quorium.
And while Hyde is on shore leave, this romance kind
of sparks, right, and Rebecca Quorium is saying, you know,
(48:20):
I want to take this the next level. I want
to let's commit to each other, and Tracy Medley's saying, hey,
let's not put chains on ourselves if we don't have to. Essentially,
and when Devin Hyde returns, I may have said David earlier,
but it's definitely Devin Hide. When Devin Hyde returns to
work as a bartender on this ship, Tracy says, Okay,
(48:42):
this is the guy I was dating and he's back,
so I'm going to keep doing this. And there's a
strong implication that Quorum felt, as you alluded to, no
Quorium felt somehow pressured into this sexual act because she
thought it was the only way she could continue romantic
relationship with Medley. And so after You're right, the night
(49:06):
before the disappearance, she did say that she felt like
a failure because she wasn't brave enough to jump.
Speaker 5 (49:12):
When the.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Wendy threesome occurs the next evening, Quorum asked Tracy, hey,
will you go on a walk with me? And Tracy declines,
but she says, hey, you're coming back, right, And Devin
gives Quorum clothing to wear, some of his clothes. That's
what she's wearing in the CCTV footage of that phone call,
and they leave the door unlocked in case. You know,
(49:36):
Quorum wants to come back to that cabin after she
takes a walk, but instead she goes, makes a phone call,
walks away, and disappears from history.
Speaker 5 (49:47):
There's a big.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Question, though, who is she talking to on the phone, Matt,
you mentioned earlier one of the crew members said it
was Tracy Medley, but that doesn't make sense necessarily. I mean,
it's an internal phone system, right, so maybe, but it's
somebody else. Came forward one Tracy O'Brien from Liverpool, and
(50:10):
she said that Quorium was calling her, and furthermore that
Quorium kind of always called her in these situations.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah, she was almost the go between. And this is
what miss O'Brien told investigators. She said, she called me crying.
She said they'd asked her to do a threesome. I
told her not to go back to them and to
go to bed. O'Brien then continued saying she stopped crying.
I told her I'd talked to Tracy about it in
(50:38):
the morning, as I always had to talk to her
when they were arguing with each other. So essentially just
acting as a friend as you would if you're supporting
Rebecca Quorium there and also supporting Tracy and just being
a go between. It's really interesting to me that a
lot of this information, or some of this information at least,
(50:59):
comes from a man named Mark Rotherham, who was the
i think head of security on on Disney.
Speaker 5 (51:06):
Wonder at the time. I think yeah at the time.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
But he he is the one who is giving that,
you know, or is giving us that quote of Qum.
The only way that Quoreum was to be able to
be with her girlfriend was to have a threesome with
mister Hyde, and that she was very uncomfortable with it,
but she did it anyway. I think this is her
first time sleeping with a man. It's interesting to have
that person who's security on the ship giving us that
(51:31):
information through this investigation. I mean, I guess he'd be
the right person to do it, but that feels like
that feels like a very important piece of information to have,
and you know, it feels like something you would continue
to dig into a little bit further, maybe rather than
taking it at face value.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
But well, there's so many things that should have been
dug into further rather than taking it face value in
this story. I think that's the biggest trouble with the
whole thing. And and it just seems like Disney was
not being above board. And let's pivot back to the parents' perspective,
because you got to think, I mean, it's just like
your child has vanished, you know, promising young woman, you
(52:15):
know who had, like you said at the top of
the show, Matt had a real career path and goal
oriented and all that stuff. And obviously just like the
love of their life to just be kind of strung
along in the way they seem to have been and
not really given any answers, and for there to be
all these loose ends, I can't imagine. And in the
dayline piece that I saw, they said of this that
(52:37):
it never gets easier. In fact, the more time that
goes by it, they feel like it gets harder because
they just ruminate on all these questions and this official
story is just just doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yeah, it might be official, but it doesn't feel legitimate,
does it. So Yeah, from the parents' perspective, there's I
would say, there's one thing that we've been alluding to,
but we haven't. We haven't called head on into yet
because it's a very painful and harrowing subject, not just
for this case, but for a lot of us listening
(53:09):
along at home wherever home is. And that is the
question of suicide. Could it be possible that Quorium, distressed, traumatized,
chose to take her own life in those early hours
of March twenty second. She's athletic enough, she's in good
enough shape that she would have been able to climb
over anything preventing someone from falling off the ship. But
(53:34):
her parents do not believe this is possible. To them,
their daughter always seemed upbeat, positive, very family oriented. She
had recently bought them tickets so they could all go
to Disneyland Paris together. When they take that as evidence that,
you know, she was looking forward to the future. She
(53:56):
had plans, some of the crew members argue that the
parents were not aware of the extent, maybe of Quoreums partying,
and said that you'll see a quote often that says
they felt she was sunny and cheerful, but haunted by
an underlying sadness. However, I would argue, the truth is
(54:18):
and applies.
Speaker 5 (54:19):
To most people.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
The truth is that we are so many different people
at any given time. You know the person the you
that your parents know, is not the you that your
friends know. And there's a good argument to be made
that we are only stories we tell ourselves. Matt, I
think I'm plagiarizing my own story from thirteen days, but
it's true.
Speaker 5 (54:40):
It's true. I'll stop over using that line.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
So after she went missing, something happens that further convinces
the Quorums to your point, Noel further convinces them that
something is a miss. Here two of her friends that
she was hanging out with when she went back to
the UK for a while. Two of her friends visited
the Quoreum parents and they said while she was hanging
(55:06):
out with them, Rebecca had voiced fears of being assaulted,
sexually assaulted, or attacked while she was on the ship
and that led the quariums now to their stances. They
well back when they could still talk about it. That's
the twist at the end here. The Quorums strongly suspected
(55:26):
that Rebecca was murdered following an attack of a sexual nature.
And this is something echoed by other professional investigators like
Bill Anderson.
Speaker 3 (55:35):
Yes, Bill Anderson is a thing called a maritime investigation coordinator,
but you'd think that would be like the jurisdiction of
a maritime investigation coordinator.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
And see police Boom exactly.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
And he is one of these in the UK who
has been assisting the Quoreums in their case, in their
search for the truth, and he says he is fully
convinced that a sexual assault took place and that they
were aware of it on.
Speaker 5 (56:02):
Board the vessel. It's a heavy claim.
Speaker 3 (56:06):
It's a heavy claim, and it makes me again, all
this stuff is conjecture at this point. Well, we'll get
to the next step. But I do feel like the
episode or the theme in Succession was definitely based on
this exact case, because it's a similar type of company
to Disney the Dynasty representing that show.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
I would just say, no, there are so many cases
like this, No it's true.
Speaker 3 (56:32):
I think it's the Disney angle and the type of
company that is in that show that makes me kind
of think that they're looking at this one.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
But there is a settlement.
Speaker 5 (56:41):
Yeah, I do want to say.
Speaker 1 (56:43):
It's like the SVU game Freddy Fans of Law and
Order SVU.
Speaker 5 (56:47):
I watch it.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
I'll admit it. There's no shame in it, but one
of the games you can.
Speaker 5 (56:52):
Play with SVUS.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
You watch the episode and you think, Okay, what real
world case is this loosely based on? And it gets
it gets increasingly surreal as sv gets more and more
on the nose with their responses or with their episodes.
Speaker 5 (57:08):
But you're right, nol there.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
This is what we're talking about when we say the
quorums had this view before, back when they still could
talk about it, because now they can't. In twenty fifteen,
Disney and the Quarreums settled out of court for an
undisclosed amount. And this settlement seems to have ended any
legal challenge in the US, but there are you know,
(57:32):
there are multiple countries involved, right, so there could still
be in question in querries in the UK. As a
condition of this settlement, the quoreums are prevented from discussing
the case.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
That's crazy, right, You can't talk about your daughter's disappearance
anymore because here's some money.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
Yeah, and I mean, to be Devil's advocate.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
They had to agree to it.
Speaker 3 (57:56):
You know, they could have kept pressing it and not
received any money. But I mean, I guess, I mean,
money is no resolution, but it certainly makes it, I guess,
easier to go on with.
Speaker 2 (58:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (58:06):
I would have a hard time if my This is
Please no shade or any judgment on the Quorean family,
But I think I feel like maybe if my child
went missing and then I accepted some money and it
changed my quality of life, I think I would always
kind of in the back of my mind associated with
this horrible event.
Speaker 5 (58:25):
I was thinking about this too.
Speaker 1 (58:27):
It might have been this is terrible, but it may
have been an economic necessity. Remember this is this is
a family. There's two people going up against one of
the most powerful corporations.
Speaker 3 (58:38):
That's a really good bro which makes it even more icky,
doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
At least for years after they disappeared.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
That's like, we've bankrupted you in fighting us, and now
the only way you're going to be able to call
your way back is if you settle with us and
then we make you sign a gag order.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
I'm not saying that's what happened, I know, but I
think that's really that's.
Speaker 5 (58:56):
Smart, Ben.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
I'm saying it's it's possible being very careful not to
get the mouse on usually don't.
Speaker 5 (59:02):
Nobody wants the mouse after you. Nobody wants the mouse
after no.
Speaker 2 (59:07):
He found us.
Speaker 1 (59:09):
Well, then let's get this through before we have to,
before we end and go officially on the run from Disney.
Speaker 5 (59:16):
Quoriums disappear it.
Speaker 1 (59:18):
That's where we're at now. There's been a settlement signed.
The official explanation is still washed overboard by a rogue
wave on deck five near the crew pool. That official explanation,
as I think we've proven, doesn't add up for a
lot of people, but it also takes us to a
larger phenomenon. You see, the disappearance of Rebecca Quorium is
(59:41):
unfortunately far from the only example of people going missing
on cruise lines, passengers as well as crew members. How
many people disappear on cruises? What happens out there in
the gray area, you know, not just the gray area
of the deep blue sea, but that legal no man's
land of international water. There's flags of convenience, the halls
(01:00:02):
of corporate power.
Speaker 5 (01:00:04):
You know, it's bizarre.
Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
If you go back to the Guardian article that was
that was written by mister John Ronson, he mentions that
it was something like one hundred and seventy one disappearances
across all cruise lines from two thousand until two thousand
and what eleven, so eleven years, one hundred and seventy
(01:00:29):
one roughly disappearances on all cruise lines. That's not a
ton if you think about the number of human beings
that are traveling on all of these ships. But it's
way more than zero.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Yeah, And of course, you know, we're not trying to
vilify cruise lines because the open ocean is a dangerous
place and a lot of times people.
Speaker 5 (01:00:53):
Who are not familiar with the risk.
Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
Looking in passengers who are not you know, who are
maybe a little too camp of it, ignoring the rules
that are there for a reason, can land you in
a dangerous situation very quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Or passengers who take advantage of the now widely available
packages where you can drink everything you want on the ship.
That's right. You just pay a little fee there and
you got open bar while you're at sea. Yikes, but
also gay.
Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Well, I wanted to say too, like, you know how
the cruise ships sort of gently trying to come back
to life. I saw a commercial for it that was
very COVID centric without actually saying the word about how
like everyone needs an escape from all that's like language,
and at the end they're I'm sorry, I'm not laughing
at the plight of a major industry. But at the
end there was in the fine print like free open
(01:01:45):
bar for any ticket holders. So they are really doubling
down with this open bar thing and trying to track
people back to cruise ships.
Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
And perhaps we end on a note for the survivors
these tragedies, the quariums, and all the other relatives and
friends who have a who now have an absence in
their life. Several relatives of people have gone missing from
cruise ships have formed a loose community of sorts monitoring disappearances,
(01:02:14):
pushing for investigations where they think the original investigation doesn't
add up. But here we are now years later, and
several cases, multiple cases like Rebecca Quoriams, have official conclusions
that don't seem to tell the whole story. We want
(01:02:34):
to know what you think. Is there a cover up afoot?
If so, what and why? How does a place with
with a lot of CCTV footage, how does it miss
you know, footage of someone slipping overboard? How likely is
a wave?
Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Is it possible that someone knew where there were holes
in the CCTV footage when something went down, It's put
it out there. We've discussed that as a possibility in
other cases where somebody was aware of cameras and where
they were located.
Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
Is there a situation where the FBI could get involved
or is that really kind of just the nature of
the beast with this type of travel.
Speaker 5 (01:03:19):
Yeah, it can.
Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Again to reiterate, there was a law pass after the
disappearance of Quarium that allows the FBI jurisdiction for investigations
in these kind of disappearances, so long as the person
who disappeared is a US residence. So it wouldn't have
helped in this case because this is a UK wrest.
Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
Well, that's true, but that's still a big step in
the right direction. I've glossed over that entirely. Ben, Thanks
for reiterating that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
By the way, that we mentioned a group, you know,
people who've been affected by disappearances on cruise ships, who've
gotten together. If you want to check out something called
International Cruise Victims, we would recommend you do so. You
can find it at International Cruise Victims dot org. You
can read there a lot of information. There are a
(01:04:07):
lot of contacts and resources for you or anyone else
there on that website.
Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
And while you're on the internet, if you would like
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Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
Just Facebook, you mean in general or.
Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
No page on Facebook? Just that page. That page is
keep in Zuckerbergen Business. Sorry everyone awesome. If you don't
want to do that, head on over to YouTube find us.
We are conspiracy stuff on that thing, and you can
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(01:05:02):
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We've actually been up in the rankings at least.
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A little bit lately, so perhaps these desperate please for
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We have T shirts? Is that crazy?
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Stuff They Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realist, it's your boys. We're back with another
standout classic episode of stuff they don't want you to know.
At just twenty four years old, woman named Rebecca Quorium
had her whole life ahead of her.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, and she and her family, like a lot of
families out there, decided to do something fun and exciting
and go on a cruise. They couldn't have expected what
came next.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
That's right. On March twenty second, twenty eleven, Quorum vanished
from the vessel, and her distraught parents and friends puzzled
over the cruise lines. Official explanation this idea of some
sort of rogue waves sweeping her out to see. But
there's more to the story than met the eye.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul
Mission Control decades. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Today's episode is about a disappearance, and it's a disappearance
that you may or may not have heard of before.
(01:39):
We learned about it through an early edition of Listener Mail,
and as you know, we flag some of these topics
when they warrant further investigation. The thing about disappearances is
that they happen around the world all the time, every
single day.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
There are probably, if you look at the.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Entire human population, there are a couple of people that
are disappearing in the time it takes you to listen
to this episode. And the thing is, while these tragic,
unexplained disappearances aren't uncommon, the question changes depending on the context. Like,
it's pretty easy, even in the age of cell phones
and surveillance, it's alarmingly easy to disappear for a little
(02:22):
while in the US. But how do people disappear when
they're on a heavily populated, isolated, continually monitored thing like
a cruise ship. How do people disappear on cruise ships?
Why do so many of these cases remain unsolved. We'll
get to those answers in part in today's investigation, the
(02:43):
disappearance of Rebecca Quorum. Here are the facts. Yeah, So
who is Rebecca Qureum. She was born on March eleventh,
nineteen eighty seven, in Chester, England. Had a pretty unremarkable
for the purposes of this story childhood. Her parents, Mike
(03:04):
and Anne Marie who was known as Anne, raised Rebecca
with her biological sister Rachel and two foster brothers.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yes, and like a lot of the other kids who
grew up in that area in Chester, she worked at
the local zoo. What how cool would that be to
work at as zoo? She at least worked there for
a time that we're aware of. When she was, you know,
in her teenage years, she joined up with the British
Army Cadets. It's kind of like the rotc or the
(03:32):
Junior rotc here in at least the US. And then
after high school she went to a place called Plymouth University.
She was studying sports science and this was this is
something she was very much interested in. She was good
at athletics and interested in athletics. She studied that further
at Liverpool Hope University and she ended up teaching sports
(03:53):
abroad in Maine in the United States, and eventually she
graduated at from University Exeter University with a degree in
sports science, so she clearly had a track that she
was going down.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Wouldn't sports science be the equivalent of that what we
would call sports medicine here, like you know, kinesiology or
something like that, or you know, to be like a
sports massage therapist or in some way like a medic
or physical educationist.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
That's right, Yeah, sports education might be another equivalent. It's
almost like this reminds me a lot of the careers
of pe teachers we call them here in the US.
So shout out to any of any teachers of ours
listening to the show. I can't believe he's stuck with
us through grade school.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
So congratulation the new career.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So in twenty ten, Rebecca Quarium takes an opportunity that
comes along every so often. Disney Cruz is interviewing p
and they're interviewing hundreds of people. Quorium is hired. She's
got the bona fides and the experience they're looking for
(05:10):
in the position of youth entertainment. Someone who kind of
is on the cruise ship taking care of the kids
and engaging with them so the parents can go.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
To the bar or you know, whatever they're doing.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
It is kind of a glorified babysitter, but I've heard
it referred to as almost like a counselor situation, where
there's like activities and crafts and things like that. And
apparently this was Rebecca's dream job. She was a big
Disney fan and love working with kids, and you know,
her parents have said that she was thrilled to land
this keg.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And just to put it out there, that position also
requires a good amount of performance ability to entertain the kids,
to keep them, you know, excited, because the one of
the main things about Disney cruise ships is to keep
kids in that magical spirit all and adults, but just
to keep that flowing at all times.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, that's a good point. You have to always be on.
This is a demanding job. I wouldn't I would not
call it remotely like glorified babysitting because they're just like
I don't think they can just turn on a movie
and leave the kids with some snacks.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
I misspoke there.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Good, that's what this guy's doing right now.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
And I say that having never worked on a cruise ship.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So this this is, like you said, No, it's her
dream job, and right when she's hired, she is flown
out to the headquarters to Florida and she's there for
four days for her intro onboarding training, and then she's
off to the Disney Wonder. There are a couple notes
(06:47):
we need to make here, as we've established in earlier episodes,
after hearing from a lot of people working in the
cruise industry, life on a cruise ship could be a
little bit debauchrous. It could be a little bit spicy,
which will will will definitely be important later.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Hold on, Ben, Ben put a link into the outline here,
So I'm just gonna go ahead and take a moment.
Oh oh oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
That's how you're supposed to hear spicy.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's a it's a clip from Stephan I believe from
SNL Okay, we continue.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Okay, so this this will be important later. The the
to the duality of the two lives, that every crew
member is living the life as as you guys said,
the life in front of the passengers, and then the
life below deck are on the crew pool, which is
the only place that could really hang out unobserved.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, and then that just that is not to describe
every crew member's experience. That is just something that we
have noticed.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Right, right, exactly. So after she works for four months
and cruises throughout the Bahamas, she goes back to the
United Kingdom for two months off, catches up with friends,
catches up with her family. She's very close to her family,
talks to them regularly through the phone and electronic means.
And then when she comes back, she's on board the
(08:11):
Disney Wonder and it's based in Los Angeles when she embarks, correct.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
And while she was working on the ship, she would
often sail in the Mexican Riviera, which passes through the
Panama Canal. And when her father passed away, Quorium came
back to Chester for two weeks and that would be
the last time that anyone in her family ever saw
her alive.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
In person, at least, right, correct.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So let's talk a little bit about the cruise ship
in question. You know, we've talked about some Disney conspiracies
and the idea that you know, no one can actually
be declared dead at Disney World, or that's not true.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
But there's a lot of.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Interesting things that this company goes to great lengths to
maintain a squeaky clean image. Very important to Disney, especially
when it comes to their theme parks, the idea that
no cast member can ever be seen without their head on,
their costume on or whatever, because it would disrupt the
illusion and could potentially traumatize kids.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
So let's talk a little bit about.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
The Disney Wonder.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
This is huge.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
It's a massive, massive cruise ship. She was one of
about nine hundred and fifty crew members on this ship,
and that's just you know, a portion of the twenty
four hundred passengers that it can carry.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
All told.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
The ship's nine hundred and sixty four feet long and
has eleven public decks with you know, all the all
the belt and whistles that you would expect on a
cruise ship, because the idea of a cruise ship is
just supposed to be able to unplug completely. Everything is
taken care of, no expense is spared. It's all inclusive,
as people like to say. And the ship began service
(09:53):
in August of nineteen ninety nine, so it had already
you know, put in some some miles on the high
seas when Korum started her her tenure there.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And like many of the younger people who were working
in the cruise line industry, We got to keep in
mind Quorium was only twenty four at this point in
your life. She found romance. You know, you're working these
crazy hours. I mean, the folks in these crews are
working seven days a week, and it doesn't matter if
(10:25):
you're off your shift or whatever. If a passenger sees you,
you're back on immediately. So it's stressful and you form
close bonds with your colleagues. She found romance, beginning a
relationship with a colleague named Tracy Medley. Tracy Medley was
a US resident who was also working on the Disney Wonder.
(10:49):
Medley will later become the one of the last known
people to see Rebecca Quorum alive. This is a little
but we're not at the crazy part yet, so stick
with us. Six weeks after returning to the Wonder, Quorum
sends a message to her parents via Facebook. And this
(11:11):
is on March twenty first, twenty eleven, and she says,
you know the stuff you say to your parents when
you're far away. I love you, I hope you're okay.
I'm going to call you tomorrow. On March twenty second,
the Wonder was off the coast of Mexico and was
heading toward Puerto Vieta and Cabo San Lucas. Kureium misses
(11:32):
the start of her shift, so people start searching for her.
She's not in her cabin, she's not anywhere. She doesn't
respond to calls in the ship's PA system, and people
start to escalate the search, right because, like you guys said,
the Wonder is a world class ship, and part of
(11:54):
being world class means you have a lot of security,
right mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
So they start scanning the CCTV so they can see
if they can get a beat on her whereabouts, and
they find something pretty troubling.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yes, they caught her on camera at five point forty
five in the morning, So this is actually March twenty second,
not March twenty first, I guess chronologically. If you're looking
at the time stamp and it's in the morning, it's
very early. And in the video you can see her
on the phone. And you know, this is only gleaned
(12:24):
from body language that you can see in the video,
it's not gleaned from audio. But it appears that her
body language would show that she's upset for some reason,
or she's a little out of sorts. There is a
young man that can be seen on this video that
approaches her and he appears to ask her a question
of some sort. It seems like he's he's asking about
(12:46):
how she's doing, like whether or not she's okay, And
again no audio, so we don't we don't know exactly
what he said. She then appears to just give the
affirmative like I'm fine, everything's okay, then hangs up the
phone and walks.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Out of frame.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Two things though we can see her face visibly when
she says yeah fine, so you can you can. Lip
readers have looked at this and they know we know
what she said. And she's also dressed in baggy clothes
that look like a dude's clothes, maybe not what she
would normally wear.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Yeah, there's a still.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Frame in an article that I am looking at that
is she's kind of got her head in her hands,
like very distraught looking.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
She pulls her Her parents have identified the two two
physical things that she does after the call, which is
to pull her hair back and put her hands in
her back pockets. That is something that that's something that
she does often, so it's definitely her. And she does appear,
as you said, Matt, she appears to be agitated. But
(13:47):
when they find that tape, let's be clear, that's all
they find.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
According to the official story.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Accord, Yeah, there it is.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
According to the official story, there's also a pair of
flip flops found and then later moved back to her
room by Disney. But the search intensifies. Disney does the
you know, the right chain of escalation. They contact the
US Coast Guard, They contact the Mexican Navy. They say, hey,
we were at international waters. This coordinates where we're heading.
(14:19):
And so these two organizations search the path of the
wonder and just in case there would be a trace
of as horrible as it is to think of it,
there might be a trace of someone going overboard, and
they also don't find anything.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
That alone is troubling, just thinking that anyone could fall
off of a cruise ship and the crew of the
ship would be unaware, the people who are monitoring cameras,
the people who are you know, running the ship. It's
if she did in fact fall off in that moment,
just that nobody saw it, nobody heard anything. It just
happened and she was gone. If that's what occurred, that's
(14:59):
pretty terrifying in itself. But then it gets even weirder
as you go deeper into this thing, because then you
look at what kind of investigation can occur when something
happens on international waters and who gets jurisdiction. Is there
some kind of special police force that looks at, you know,
matters of disappearances on international waters?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Police police have dolphins?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
God, no they don't. The yeah, I don't. I don't know.
Maybe the aquonauts could come out and help.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
And it makes me think of that story we I
think we covered it on the show at some point
of the scientists at the research stations and Antarctica and
there was like a murder or a death and and
there was this huge kerfuffle as to who had jurisdiction
over that because it was like between two scientists from
different international research stations. And this is not exactly the same,
(15:58):
but it's it's so in that it's a super sticky
question as to, you know, where the jurisdiction lies when
you're international waters, because who knows when the actual event happened,
and maybe that jurisdiction could shift since you're in motion,
right and you're traveling through different jurisdictions. And the case
has been made often by you know, folks who claim
(16:19):
that cruise ships are a really great place to commit
the perfect crime. That this is exactly why that's the case.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
The problem is complicated to in a way that might
seem counterintuitive. Despite the fact that Disney is a US company.
This boat is registered in the Bahamas under something that's
called flags of convenience. It's kind of a thing for
tax purposes, and it's very common. But this complicates the
investigation immediately, and it goes directly to that jurisdiction question.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
And just really quickly last thing to your point, the
whole flags of convenience.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
I hadn't heard that term, but.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
It's the same argument that came up when the cruise
industry just took ald absolute nose dive when COVID hit
the argument that they shouldn't be given bailout money because
they don't pay taxes to the United States.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Well, there you go something to think about. Well, in
the case of the wonder, it is, like we said,
registered in the Bahamas. So a detective from the Royal
Bahamas Police Force, a man named Paul roll ro O
l l E. Flew all the way from the Bahamas
over to Los Angeles to investigate. Once the ship arrived
at port there because that's where that's where it came
(17:32):
back to. And this was three days after the initial disappearance.
And presumably it's not like they moored the ship instantly
after finding that she had disappeared. No, they kept on,
keep it on.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
And also Coream's parents also flew out to LA and
I saw an interview with them. I'm sure you guys
caught this one too. It's a dateline episode British Dateline
where her parents are interviewed extensively, and they said they
were shocked to find out that the FBI would not
be involved and that this detective from the Bahamas was
(18:09):
flown far out of his jurisdiction to quote unquote investigate
and to interview people on the ship. Apparently he just
spent a day on the ship interviewing a handful of people,
like the very definition of phoning it in.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, no forensic evidence collection. He interviewed six crew members again,
of the approximately nine hundred and fifty or nine hundred
and forty nine if we want.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
To be brutally accurate.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
And he didn't interview any passengers at all whatsoever. The
parents also started taking issue with some of Disney's actions.
And this is not us accusing Disney of anything yet,
this is what the parents said. They said they were
kept in a car with all blacked out windows, and
(19:00):
they wanted to go and talk to passengers, right and
they had wanted to talk to crew members, but they
were not admitted to the ship until all the passengers
from that cruise had disembarked and left, and then they
were kind of ushered in through a little used side entrance.
They met with the detective, they met with Paul, they
(19:20):
met with the captain. The captain expressed his profound condolences,
and then the captain is the first one who floats
a theory. This is before the investigator does anything, because
the investigator has to finish a report and make conclusions.
But the captain says something along the lines of, you know,
I it's heartbreaking to say it, but I've been thinking
(19:42):
of this and the only thing that could have happened
was that your daughter, Rebecca Quorium was washed overboard by
a high wave while she was out by the crew
pool on deck five. As I mentioned earlier, the crew pool,
and you can see pictures of this. The krupole is
isolated from the rest of the public decks, and it's
(20:06):
one of the only spacious places where the crew can
hang out without being at work, you know. So that's
a place where a lot of people spend their free time.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
And this is a thing, I mean, it's called a
rogue wave. It's this idea of a very very large
wave that picks up momentum, you know, on the open
sea and can be really really dangerous even for large
fortified cruise liners like this. But it would I would
think it would register on some instruments, or there would
(20:39):
be proof that such a thing happened, or it would
be you know, on the surveillance tape. We see her
on this surveillance tape shortly before it disappears. You would
think if such a wave happened, they would have footage
of that too, or it would you know, make a
real mess on the deck, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, I raise two interesting points. This didn't seem plausible
to the Quorum family, they noted, and they were physically
at the area. They noted that the pool was surrounded
by high walls over six feet tall. So they had questions,
and these questions just became more profound as time went on.
(21:16):
The number one question was, and is what happened to
Rebecca Quorium. We'll explore this after a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy, the theories about Okay, the
official investigation concluded the same thing that the captain said
(21:41):
to the parents. The official investigation by the police in
the Bahamas said that Quorum went overboard accidentally, possibly due
to a rogue wave, sometime between the hours of six
and nine am on March twenty second. But the Quoreums
and their legal team and the private investigators that they
worked with later never received a copy of this final report,
(22:05):
despite the fact that that detective did promise them one.
British detectives received a copy of this report, but they
said it's horrible.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
They said it's botched.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
It's not like it's not meeting a bare minimum of
detective work. And furthermore, they said they couldn't release it
to the quariums because it contained restricted personal information about it.
That's personal, I guess.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Just to add on to this, when we were talking
about the possibility that Rebecca Quorium went overboard sometimes between
the hours of six and nine am on that day,
right they last saw her just before that five point
forty five. Then it seems that that's when she would
have gone. I just want to talk about the speed
of the Disney wonder when you're just imagining this in
your head, you've got a cruise ship traveling along, perhaps
(22:53):
a wave comes up and washes somebody in, Like how
far away do you get? How quickly is that cruise
ship moving away from a person that is then in
the water. The operating speed, the service speed is what
it's known as, is around twenty one and a half knots,
which is about twenty five miles per hour or about
(23:14):
forty kilometers per hour. So that's how quickly this massive
ship is moving away from you. If you happen to
fall into the water, you can't swim to that. You
cannot swim to that. And also they would be they
would be gone rather quickly.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Well, and that also means that this would have to
be the most monster of rogue waves ever for it
to not just kind of pass it by, right, Like
if you're moving at twenty five miles an hour and
this massive way like it's I don't know, like it's
just waves crash pretty slowly.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
You know what I mean, Like, I don't know it
would have to be It would have to be big, and.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
I mean it would just have to be huge, to
the point where there would have to be video evidence
of it, if you know all of these cameras were
in service, which they appear.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
To have been.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
That's that's another question. We're getting to it right now.
At least one British politician takes an explicit issue with
the official story and has gone on record against the
official explanation. Labor MP Chris Matheson, who since twenty fifteen
is represented the city of Chester. Oh, we didn't mention
(24:21):
that Chester for a no. One is not familiar. It's
like a little bit south of Liverpool, so that's where
it's located. He believes that Quorium did not go overboard
in accident. He believes that she was a victim of
crime and possibly assaulted or murdered, and said, the more
you look into this, the more it smells rotten, the
(24:42):
more it smells like a crime has taken place. And
those kind of statements, or the sentiments rather were shared
by many people. That's why the quariums hire a private
investigator named Roy Ram, which is a great name. He's
a former specialist of Scotland yard. He knows his way around,
and they also sought the aid of that MP Matheson.
(25:04):
They also sought the aid of the former Deputy Prime Minister,
Lord Prescott. And Ram's investigation reveals several key pieces of
information that don't they don't conclusively prove what happened to Quarium,
but they do, I tried to put this very diplomatically,
(25:26):
they do challenge the official explanation from both the Bahamas
and from Disney the Mouse. So first that rogue wave question,
here's the answer. Any wave capable of washing a person
of Quarium's size, and think of her as like average
person size overboard from that deck five pool, that wave
(25:49):
would have to be at least one hundred feet high,
you would notice when it hit. Secondly, the weather and
sea conditions in this part of the ocean where they're
at at the time. If you look at all the
monitoring done by various agencies, it there wasn't a storm
like what what would have made this wave occur? A
(26:11):
wave of this size?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, And you know, perhaps even more damning, in my
opinion at least, is that the CCTV footage that was
accessible to both the investigation from our friend there from
the Bahamas, as well as what was known to be
aware to the family. It seems to have been cropped
to obscure the timestamp and the location and some of
(26:37):
the information that would actually be embedded into that footage.
That is, that's weird. That shouldn't happen. There should be
a raw file that is, you know, given to any
investigator looking a yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Mean, even knowing what we noticed about like the way
video recording works, it's like you you it's either it's
either gone or it's like it's supposed to be. Like
this detail is very troubling, like someone and it's also odd,
like a weird way of trying to obscure something to
go in and crop the footage as opposed to just
getting rid of it and blaming it on a glitch,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It's very strange, very unusual.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
And also you know, I was trying to think through
the possibilities, just like chain of chain of custody for
this footage. Did Rob get this directly from Disney or
did he get it directly from the detective in the Bahamas,
or did he get it from British law enforcement? And
depending on where the what the providence of it was.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
It is possible.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
It is possible that somebody between Disney and this PI
had done something with the tape.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
But Disney, I would say, in that era, like twenty eleven,
twenty twelve, around this time, it was a little more
difficult than it is now to just bring in a
piece of video to an editing software or export piece
of video and do it correctly without messing something up
when it trying to aspect ratio. I'm serious, like, no,
you're totally right.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
No, yeah, Matt, I was there with you when you
were doing this stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I just mean, especially if you're not a power users,
it's more difficult to get it completely correct. So that
is a possibility.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
So we're being overly fair.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
That is a possibility, but Disney's story makes it suspicious. First,
I want to describe a little bit about these cameras,
and we'll get we'll get further into this, But these
cameras are disguised so that the passenger, like everything is
about maintaining that magic feeling of the magic Kingdom on
(28:43):
the deep Blue seas. So the closed circuit TV cameras
are hidden in things like they're hidden in these long
tubes on deck five. But they also they blend in
with the outdoor nautical and safety equipment. You have to
be purpose looking for them to find them. And so
(29:03):
Disney says, okay, this footage, we have the screenshot we've
described in that phone conversation that happened inside or on
deck five, but Rom and other investigators now believe it
was shot on deck one, which is nowhere close to
deck five. The family has been denied access to copies
of the video as well as the final report. They
(29:26):
saw the footage, they were not allowed to have a
copy of it.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Got it, got it? Okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
So there's a bit of a almost a Cinderella trope
here too. They're forgotten shoes or in this case, sandals,
flip flops might call them, depend on what part of
the world you live in. This was allegedly discovered on
deck five, and officially the ship's management concluded that this
(29:56):
sandle belonged.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
To Rebecca Quarium. However, it had.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
The name and cabin number of a different person, and
both the Quarium family and members of the crew who
are friends with Rebecca said the sandal was first off,
not her style at all, not her vibe, not something
she would wear. And then secondly it was the wrong size.
They got the wrong shoe because again there's not any
investigation of the disappearance until at least three days afterwards.
(30:21):
The sandal gets moved by The sandal gets moved by
management of the ship, and they return it with the
rest of Rebecca's things to her cabin and her family.
Like when her family gets there, one of the things
they do is collect her stuff from the cabin.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Can I I just point this out? That is something
that goes down on a lot of cruise ships, even
if a person hasn't officially disappeared or anything like that,
if there are any personal personal effects that are anywhere
else on the ship, especially if they are a crew
members and they are specifically marked as so, they will
be returned earned to the cabin of that crew member,
(31:03):
which can make it very difficult to trace things when
an investigation needs to occur about a person who in
fact has gone missing.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, and this so these answers are already They're not
proof of a cover up, to be clear, but they're
they're disturbing and this prompts, this prompts a flurry of
speculation and prompts some some really great investigative journalism. We'd
especially like to shout out John Ronson over at The Guardian.
(31:34):
He sailed aboard the Wonder as a civilian about seven months.
I want to say after Quarium's disappearance as Altober I think, yeah,
and while he was on this, While he's on this cruise,
he started, you know, quietly befriending and talking to the
crew about this and this is when he hits a
(31:55):
little bit of a stone wall with some chinks in it.
We do also want to want to shout out Ronson
in particular. He's done some great work with the Builderberg
Group as well, and he appears on one of our
peer podcasts that just came out called Labyrinths, made by
a friend of the show, Chandler Mays.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Did you guys check this out? The sound design is
top notch. It's excellent.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah. I actually had the fortune of working with Chandler
to make it kind of early nineties hip hop sounding
track that was used in an episode of the show.
But it's top notch stuff. Amanda Knox and her partner
investigating kind of stories of people getting lost and found,
and Ronson also was the guy who wrote The Men
Who Stare At Goats If you remember that film with
(32:40):
George Clooney about kind of like this almost a remote
viewing type program that was in the military, the.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
One that we've spoken about many a time on this
show Stargate, I believe.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Hmm, well, we should speak about that more again. You
know what we should do. We should get a goat
and stare at it. We always talk about it.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
But we never get together and do it.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
We got to just put our money where a Sorry,
but but you're right, you're right. We we like labyrinths
and there's a great interview with Ronson about his surreal
experiences investigating the Builderberg Group wherein he interviews one of
the co founders too in that process.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
So do check that out.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
That's out now, you can check that out now.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah. First, but how interesting is it that Amanda Knox
is a host of a show we we've we've spoken
about her, I believe once or twice on this show,
just with her ordeal that she went through and what.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Makes sense I mean a story of like you know,
kind of people going through transformative events and perhaps coming
coming back out on the other side, which definitely happened
with her.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
So we just wanted to let you know Ronson has
his bona fides.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
Yeah, he's not just.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Some guy who is like, what's an interesting thing I
can do on this cruise. He was there on a
mission for reason. He had a motive.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
So there's this. You can read the article in full.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
We wouldn't give you some some of the pivotal moments
of his investigation. So he's talking to a bartender, I
believe it was a crew member, and he asked, hey,
what about that quarium disappearance? And this person ends up
saying at first they say, oh, it didn't happen. Sorry,
(34:23):
you know, that's what I have to say. And so
he doesn't have luck with that person. He goes to
another crew member and one crew member is talking to
him about that phone call. Right, the phone call is
a big mystery, or was for a time. And this
crew member says, Disney knows exactly what happened that phone
call she had. It was taped. Everything here is taped.
(34:44):
There's CCTV everywhere. Disney has the tape.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yikes. You can imagine, right, you'd think that a company
like Disney operating a cruise ship would want to have,
you know, evidence of everything, just in case they're going
to get sued for one reason or another. You've got
it on tape, You've trained your employees there. You know
you're probably not going to get into an issue with
an employee, you hope or you believe, right, if something
(35:12):
goes wrong on your ship that costs millions of dollars
to operate that you've got so much investment in of
your image and everything, you'd want to be able to
prove that the person who was on your ship, who
paid to be there, did something wrong and it wasn't
your employee or something to that effect, right, just to
cover yourself. Yeah, it makes sense. So logically you'd think,
(35:35):
just like this person is saying that, there would be
CCTV of every inch of that place.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
I mean, can you imagine the liability alone, Like this
can end a cruise ship if the wrong thing happens
and it's not.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
Carnival, so oh it it can end a company. I
mean if it's not Carnival or COVID.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Well, okay, fair enough. Fans of the HBO series Succession,
might I remember a plot line in that it's about
a giant company that sort of a multi lateral company
that has theme parks and obviously big television and film interest,
and also a cruise line. And there's a story about
kind of a cover up involving a sexual assaults and
(36:19):
falling overboard passenger. And in the show, this is not
a spoiler, really, if it is, maybe fast forward ten seconds.
They have copious evidence of all of these things that they.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Do keep yeah, and this, and there's no reason that
fiction that fiction show might not have at least partial
basis in real events. So Ronson reaches out to Disney directly,
and he's in a conversation with a spokesperson for the corporation,
(36:52):
and when Ronson asked the spokesperson whether or not that
telephone call is taped, he gets he gets a.
Speaker 5 (36:59):
Very weird reply.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
They say that pertains to specific details about the investigation,
and so it's not appropriate for us to share that
kind of information, which is a matrix dodge that it's
not even that's like, well, I can't that's not even
a question that can exist in this conversation. Yes, maybe yes,
(37:22):
that's not a yes. But then the spokesperson adds, we
wish we knew what happened as much as anyone. So
the implication there, or the way you're supposed to feel
from that statement, is that Disney is on board with
learning the truth.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
They just they can't.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Their hands are tied, is what they're arguing, which is
maybe not completely accurate. So they he also found Disney
claims to have no footage of quarium going overboard, and
while they admit they have CCTV right, they refuse to
disclose the number of cameras or their locations anywhere on
(38:02):
the ship for security reasons, which I understand. I understand
that's something you don't want people to find with a
quick Internet search or whatever. But you would think law
enforcement should be able to get that information, right.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Yeah, you know what you would do. I mean, you
would have you would have Disney wonder export every moment
of CCTV footage from every camera on the ship and
from the hours of five thirty am, maybe even five am,
until the moment that she was found to not be
on the ship. That's what you would do, and you
(38:38):
could you could comb through every moment of it, as
you know, a third party investigator, and you could find
out what happened to her in all likelihood. I mean
that's all it would take.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
I think, yeah, And maybe, I mean, maybe it's a
thing where they feel they should have more cameras and
don't want people to know how few they actually have.
I'm not sure, but Ronson's conclusion is that the only
way Quorium could have fallen is from a jogging track
the deck below. On deck four, he said that the
(39:08):
railings everywhere else, just like the Quorium's parents pointed out,
the railings everywhere else, are just too high. And he says,
maybe after this early morning phone call, Quorium went on
a jog, which checks out. She's an athletic person, and
maybe she slipped and somehow fell overboard. While he was
on the Disney wonder, he explored deck four and he
(39:31):
found four different CCTV cameras, two on the port side,
two on starboard, and so he thinks there was something.
But every time he asks crew members about the disappearance,
he received some version of the same answer. She fell
overboard from deck five at the crew pool. There's nothing
darker sinister, they say, not here at Disney. But what
(39:54):
else did the crew say? You know, when they got comfortable,
I'll tell you after a word from our response.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
And we're back. Before we left, we were discussing just
the fact that the crew told John Ronson that the
same story right, that she fell somehow overboard and on
that deck five by the crew pool. That is, again,
if you believe that the only way that she got
(40:26):
off of the ship was by her own volition, by
falling off or jumping off, rather than being pushed or
you know, someone forcing her off, or even as dark
as it is, her body maybe was thrown off. That's
a possibility. We have to keep all of these things
as possibilities as we go on. So let's get into
(40:49):
some of the other crew speculation that been alluded to.
Right before we left, there was a single crew member,
one of Koram's friends, who says that Koreum was having
a fight with her romantic partner. That person that we
mentioned earlier, I believe it is miss Medley. There's another
crew member that disputed this claim. This This other person
(41:11):
was saying that Korium was on the phone with a
mutual friend of Quorium and Melodies and not not Melody herself.
But again, that's kind of a one person said. The
other person said, So it's difficult to know what to
believe there. But there's another another crew member that stated
that after this phone call, Quorum may have taken a walk. Well,
(41:33):
we'll get into a little further about why this person
believes that maybe she had taken a walk. And at
this point, this person says, perhaps she wasn't pushed over
or swept away by some wave, but by the wind.
A possibility, but again, it just it's tough to believe,
but it's a possibly.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
All that's excuse in the book it was only the wind,
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Yeah, And they have a they you know, you can
you can read in full their quote, but they're they're
saying that they know the deck by the crew pools
specifically was very windy and slippery, and that management had
called everybody to get inside and not be on deck,
and that Disney took this very seriously. One guy violated
(42:18):
that and he got sent home. So that's that's their
argument that there was something to the wind. But many
crew members believe the company's not sharing everything it knows
and may also be actively covering something up. At this point,
we have to say, rumors abound in this kind of
work environment, you know what I mean, there's there's a
(42:40):
lot of drama. There's a lot of intrigue going on,
from everything from like preferential treatment to who is partying
too hard to who hooks up with whom you know,
So it's not at all strange that something we might
call a conspiracy theory could arise or Germany in this soil. Anyhow,
(43:02):
outside of the crew, people like Steven Moseley, another MP
over in Britain, also came out and said that they
have problems with the investigation. Mosley said specifically that Disney
seemed more interested in getting the ship back to sea
than in the case of a missing crew member, and
also noted it is appalling that only one policeman from
(43:25):
the Bahamas and authority internationally recognized these are his words,
not ours, as almost toothless was called to investigate this crime,
and it is it is weird to your to our
earlier point, there was a law passed after the passage
of Rebecca Aquarium that gives the FBI jurisdiction for cruise
(43:50):
ship investigations if it's a US resident who has gone
missing or murdered. So that's some kind of progress. But
the flag of the convenience countries, you know, the odds
are stacked in favor of the cruise line in this case.
You know, the lawyers that they have and the interlinking
jurisdictional territorial things. Matt, you mentioned, you mentioned the girlfriend.
(44:17):
We mentioned the romantic partner a couple times, but she
was silent about this for about six years, and then
she came forward and shared some new information that casts
the disappearance in a bit of a different light.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yes, her name is Tracy Medley. It's a romantic partner
of Quoreum. She stated that she and Korium had apparently
had a threesome with another person working on the ship,
another crew member, a man named Devin Hyde, and they're,
you know, through these private investigations that happened after the disappearance.
(44:56):
They claimed that this alleged threesome took place in this
man Devin hides cabin, who by the way, was a
married a father and a married man. And this was quote,
the first time Miss Quorium had had sexual relations with
a man, which apparently, according to this investigation, left her
(45:16):
quote distraught and traumatized. This certainly is a wrinkle in
something like this, and we know that crimes of passion
a lot of times, you know, occur quickly, and you know,
we've talked about this many times in the past. When
there when there is a sexual relationship involved in any form,
it increases the chances that that person perhaps is involved
(45:41):
in a disappearance. When you know, when disappearances occur, very
often the romantic partners are looked at as the prime suspect.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
What's that trope? It's always the husband, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yes, and sometimes the wife or the you know, whoever else.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
It's it's gonna be it's going to be someone who
knows you statistically.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
But the other wrinkles that this kind of puts in
the in the story is that Medley has come out
and spoken relatively recently on the matter, and she's now
married and has a child, and she denies that she
had anything to do with the disappearance and believes that
(46:24):
Rebecca was actually like depressed and was taking drugs and
was suicidal and had made claims or threatened to jump
off the side of the ship, which would hold up
given how much effort it would have taken to do that,
you know, knowing how high those walls were and how
it's absolutely unpractical. It seems for like a wave to
have lifted somebody up or the wind or whatever. So
(46:45):
this this definitely tracks and she believes this because the
night that she went missing, Coream was incredibly upset with Tracy,
was drinking heavily and was telling her girlfriend that she
quote felt like a failure because she wasn't brave enough
to jump off the ship. And you know after the threesome.
(47:06):
And I'm not being flip here, but threesomes are complicated too.
They're very complicated if they if there are already emotions
at play, and you do it, maybe because you think
it will make someone like you better or you feel
put on the spot, and then you do it and
then there's a shame factor. I'm not speaking from personal experience,
just it makes sure, you know. But it's true, like
(47:28):
it's a thing where all of a sudden, now you've
compounded your insecurity and you've complicated the matter even further emotionally.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Yeah, that's that's part of the issues. So the implication
here is that Medley and Koreum had a bit of
inequality in what they wanted from their relationship. Tracy Medley
was being casual, you know what I mean, why be constrained?
I want to be free, which is a very understandable thing.
(48:00):
And she had a relationship with his fellow David Hyde,
who was a married father. By the way, she had
a relationship with him before things got romantic with Rebecca Quorium.
And while Hyde is on shore leave, this romance kind
of sparks, right, and Rebecca Quorium is saying, you know,
(48:20):
I want to take this the next level. I want
to let's commit to each other, and Tracy Medley's saying, hey,
let's not put chains on ourselves if we don't have to. Essentially,
and when Devin Hyde returns, I may have said David earlier,
but it's definitely Devin Hide. When Devin Hyde returns to
work as a bartender on this ship, Tracy says, Okay,
(48:42):
this is the guy I was dating and he's back,
so I'm going to keep doing this. And there's a
strong implication that Quorum felt, as you alluded to, no
Quorium felt somehow pressured into this sexual act because she
thought it was the only way she could continue romantic
relationship with Medley. And so after You're right, the night
(49:06):
before the disappearance, she did say that she felt like
a failure because she wasn't brave enough to jump.
Speaker 5 (49:12):
When the.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Wendy threesome occurs the next evening, Quorum asked Tracy, hey,
will you go on a walk with me? And Tracy declines,
but she says, hey, you're coming back, right, And Devin
gives Quorum clothing to wear, some of his clothes. That's
what she's wearing in the CCTV footage of that phone call,
and they leave the door unlocked in case. You know,
(49:36):
Quorum wants to come back to that cabin after she
takes a walk, but instead she goes, makes a phone call,
walks away, and disappears from history.
Speaker 5 (49:47):
There's a big.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Question, though, who is she talking to on the phone, Matt,
you mentioned earlier one of the crew members said it
was Tracy Medley, but that doesn't make sense necessarily. I mean,
it's an internal phone system, right, so maybe, but it's
somebody else. Came forward one Tracy O'Brien from Liverpool, and
(50:10):
she said that Quorium was calling her, and furthermore that
Quorium kind of always called her in these situations.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah, she was almost the go between. And this is
what miss O'Brien told investigators. She said, she called me crying.
She said they'd asked her to do a threesome. I
told her not to go back to them and to
go to bed. O'Brien then continued saying she stopped crying.
I told her I'd talked to Tracy about it in
(50:38):
the morning, as I always had to talk to her
when they were arguing with each other. So essentially just
acting as a friend as you would if you're supporting
Rebecca Quorium there and also supporting Tracy and just being
a go between. It's really interesting to me that a
lot of this information, or some of this information at least,
(50:59):
comes from a man named Mark Rotherham, who was the
i think head of security on on Disney.
Speaker 5 (51:06):
Wonder at the time. I think yeah at the time.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
But he he is the one who is giving that,
you know, or is giving us that quote of Qum.
The only way that Quoreum was to be able to
be with her girlfriend was to have a threesome with
mister Hyde, and that she was very uncomfortable with it,
but she did it anyway. I think this is her
first time sleeping with a man. It's interesting to have
that person who's security on the ship giving us that
(51:31):
information through this investigation. I mean, I guess he'd be
the right person to do it, but that feels like
that feels like a very important piece of information to have,
and you know, it feels like something you would continue
to dig into a little bit further, maybe rather than
taking it at face value.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
But well, there's so many things that should have been
dug into further rather than taking it face value in
this story. I think that's the biggest trouble with the
whole thing. And and it just seems like Disney was
not being above board. And let's pivot back to the parents' perspective,
because you got to think, I mean, it's just like
your child has vanished, you know, promising young woman, you
(52:15):
know who had, like you said at the top of
the show, Matt had a real career path and goal
oriented and all that stuff. And obviously just like the
love of their life to just be kind of strung
along in the way they seem to have been and
not really given any answers, and for there to be
all these loose ends, I can't imagine. And in the
dayline piece that I saw, they said of this that
(52:37):
it never gets easier. In fact, the more time that
goes by it, they feel like it gets harder because
they just ruminate on all these questions and this official
story is just just doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yeah, it might be official, but it doesn't feel legitimate,
does it. So Yeah, from the parents' perspective, there's I
would say, there's one thing that we've been alluding to,
but we haven't. We haven't called head on into yet
because it's a very painful and harrowing subject, not just
for this case, but for a lot of us listening
(53:09):
along at home wherever home is. And that is the
question of suicide. Could it be possible that Quorium, distressed, traumatized,
chose to take her own life in those early hours
of March twenty second. She's athletic enough, she's in good
enough shape that she would have been able to climb
over anything preventing someone from falling off the ship. But
(53:34):
her parents do not believe this is possible. To them,
their daughter always seemed upbeat, positive, very family oriented. She
had recently bought them tickets so they could all go
to Disneyland Paris together. When they take that as evidence that,
you know, she was looking forward to the future. She
(53:56):
had plans, some of the crew members argue that the
parents were not aware of the extent, maybe of Quoreums partying,
and said that you'll see a quote often that says
they felt she was sunny and cheerful, but haunted by
an underlying sadness. However, I would argue, the truth is
(54:18):
and applies.
Speaker 5 (54:19):
To most people.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
The truth is that we are so many different people
at any given time. You know the person the you
that your parents know, is not the you that your
friends know. And there's a good argument to be made
that we are only stories we tell ourselves. Matt, I
think I'm plagiarizing my own story from thirteen days, but
it's true.
Speaker 5 (54:40):
It's true. I'll stop over using that line.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
So after she went missing, something happens that further convinces
the Quorums to your point, Noel further convinces them that
something is a miss. Here two of her friends that
she was hanging out with when she went back to
the UK for a while. Two of her friends visited
the Quoreum parents and they said while she was hanging
(55:06):
out with them, Rebecca had voiced fears of being assaulted,
sexually assaulted, or attacked while she was on the ship
and that led the quariums now to their stances. They
well back when they could still talk about it. That's
the twist at the end here. The Quorums strongly suspected
(55:26):
that Rebecca was murdered following an attack of a sexual nature.
And this is something echoed by other professional investigators like
Bill Anderson.
Speaker 3 (55:35):
Yes, Bill Anderson is a thing called a maritime investigation coordinator,
but you'd think that would be like the jurisdiction of
a maritime investigation coordinator.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
And see police Boom exactly.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
And he is one of these in the UK who
has been assisting the Quoreums in their case, in their
search for the truth, and he says he is fully
convinced that a sexual assault took place and that they
were aware of it on.
Speaker 5 (56:02):
Board the vessel. It's a heavy claim.
Speaker 3 (56:06):
It's a heavy claim, and it makes me again, all
this stuff is conjecture at this point. Well, we'll get
to the next step. But I do feel like the
episode or the theme in Succession was definitely based on
this exact case, because it's a similar type of company
to Disney the Dynasty representing that show.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
I would just say, no, there are so many cases
like this, No it's true.
Speaker 3 (56:32):
I think it's the Disney angle and the type of
company that is in that show that makes me kind
of think that they're looking at this one.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
But there is a settlement.
Speaker 5 (56:41):
Yeah, I do want to say.
Speaker 1 (56:43):
It's like the SVU game Freddy Fans of Law and
Order SVU.
Speaker 5 (56:47):
I watch it.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
I'll admit it. There's no shame in it, but one
of the games you can.
Speaker 5 (56:52):
Play with SVUS.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
You watch the episode and you think, Okay, what real
world case is this loosely based on? And it gets
it gets increasingly surreal as sv gets more and more
on the nose with their responses or with their episodes.
Speaker 5 (57:08):
But you're right, nol there.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
This is what we're talking about when we say the
quorums had this view before, back when they still could
talk about it, because now they can't. In twenty fifteen,
Disney and the Quarreums settled out of court for an
undisclosed amount. And this settlement seems to have ended any
legal challenge in the US, but there are you know,
(57:32):
there are multiple countries involved, right, so there could still
be in question in querries in the UK. As a
condition of this settlement, the quoreums are prevented from discussing
the case.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
That's crazy, right, You can't talk about your daughter's disappearance
anymore because here's some money.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
Yeah, and I mean, to be Devil's advocate.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
They had to agree to it.
Speaker 3 (57:56):
You know, they could have kept pressing it and not
received any money. But I mean, I guess, I mean,
money is no resolution, but it certainly makes it, I guess,
easier to go on with.
Speaker 2 (58:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (58:06):
I would have a hard time if my This is
Please no shade or any judgment on the Quorean family,
But I think I feel like maybe if my child
went missing and then I accepted some money and it
changed my quality of life, I think I would always
kind of in the back of my mind associated with
this horrible event.
Speaker 5 (58:25):
I was thinking about this too.
Speaker 1 (58:27):
It might have been this is terrible, but it may
have been an economic necessity. Remember this is this is
a family. There's two people going up against one of
the most powerful corporations.
Speaker 3 (58:38):
That's a really good bro which makes it even more icky,
doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
At least for years after they disappeared.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
That's like, we've bankrupted you in fighting us, and now
the only way you're going to be able to call
your way back is if you settle with us and
then we make you sign a gag order.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
I'm not saying that's what happened, I know, but I
think that's really that's.
Speaker 5 (58:56):
Smart, Ben.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
I'm saying it's it's possible being very careful not to
get the mouse on usually don't.
Speaker 5 (59:02):
Nobody wants the mouse after you. Nobody wants the mouse
after no.
Speaker 2 (59:07):
He found us.
Speaker 1 (59:09):
Well, then let's get this through before we have to,
before we end and go officially on the run from Disney.
Speaker 5 (59:16):
Quoriums disappear it.
Speaker 1 (59:18):
That's where we're at now. There's been a settlement signed.
The official explanation is still washed overboard by a rogue
wave on deck five near the crew pool. That official explanation,
as I think we've proven, doesn't add up for a
lot of people, but it also takes us to a
larger phenomenon. You see, the disappearance of Rebecca Quorium is
(59:41):
unfortunately far from the only example of people going missing
on cruise lines, passengers as well as crew members. How
many people disappear on cruises? What happens out there in
the gray area, you know, not just the gray area
of the deep blue sea, but that legal no man's
land of international water. There's flags of convenience, the halls
(01:00:02):
of corporate power.
Speaker 5 (01:00:04):
You know, it's bizarre.
Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
If you go back to the Guardian article that was
that was written by mister John Ronson, he mentions that
it was something like one hundred and seventy one disappearances
across all cruise lines from two thousand until two thousand
and what eleven, so eleven years, one hundred and seventy
(01:00:29):
one roughly disappearances on all cruise lines. That's not a
ton if you think about the number of human beings
that are traveling on all of these ships. But it's
way more than zero.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Yeah, And of course, you know, we're not trying to
vilify cruise lines because the open ocean is a dangerous
place and a lot of times people.
Speaker 5 (01:00:53):
Who are not familiar with the risk.
Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
Looking in passengers who are not you know, who are
maybe a little too camp of it, ignoring the rules
that are there for a reason, can land you in
a dangerous situation very quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Or passengers who take advantage of the now widely available
packages where you can drink everything you want on the ship.
That's right. You just pay a little fee there and
you got open bar while you're at sea. Yikes, but
also gay.
Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Well, I wanted to say too, like, you know how
the cruise ships sort of gently trying to come back
to life. I saw a commercial for it that was
very COVID centric without actually saying the word about how
like everyone needs an escape from all that's like language,
and at the end they're I'm sorry, I'm not laughing
at the plight of a major industry. But at the
end there was in the fine print like free open
(01:01:45):
bar for any ticket holders. So they are really doubling
down with this open bar thing and trying to track
people back to cruise ships.
Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
And perhaps we end on a note for the survivors
these tragedies, the quariums, and all the other relatives and
friends who have a who now have an absence in
their life. Several relatives of people have gone missing from
cruise ships have formed a loose community of sorts monitoring disappearances,
(01:02:14):
pushing for investigations where they think the original investigation doesn't
add up. But here we are now years later, and
several cases, multiple cases like Rebecca Quoriams, have official conclusions
that don't seem to tell the whole story. We want
(01:02:34):
to know what you think. Is there a cover up afoot?
If so, what and why? How does a place with
with a lot of CCTV footage, how does it miss
you know, footage of someone slipping overboard? How likely is
a wave?
Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Is it possible that someone knew where there were holes
in the CCTV footage when something went down, It's put
it out there. We've discussed that as a possibility in
other cases where somebody was aware of cameras and where
they were located.
Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
Is there a situation where the FBI could get involved
or is that really kind of just the nature of
the beast with this type of travel.
Speaker 5 (01:03:19):
Yeah, it can.
Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Again to reiterate, there was a law pass after the
disappearance of Quarium that allows the FBI jurisdiction for investigations
in these kind of disappearances, so long as the person
who disappeared is a US residence. So it wouldn't have
helped in this case because this is a UK wrest.
Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
Well, that's true, but that's still a big step in
the right direction. I've glossed over that entirely. Ben, Thanks
for reiterating that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
By the way, that we mentioned a group, you know,
people who've been affected by disappearances on cruise ships, who've
gotten together. If you want to check out something called
International Cruise Victims, we would recommend you do so. You
can find it at International Cruise Victims dot org. You
can read there a lot of information. There are a
(01:04:07):
lot of contacts and resources for you or anyone else
there on that website.
Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
And while you're on the internet, if you would like
to share your thoughts with us, as well as more
importantly your fellow listeners, you can find us on Facebook.
You can find us on Instagram, you can find us
on Twitter. We like to recommend Here's where it gets crazy,
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of the best memes on the net. Once again voted
(01:04:32):
the best site on the Internet four times in a row,
running now arbitrarily by us on the show The Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
Just Facebook, you mean in general or.
Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
No page on Facebook? Just that page. That page is
keep in Zuckerbergen Business. Sorry everyone awesome. If you don't
want to do that, head on over to YouTube find us.
We are conspiracy stuff on that thing, and you can
watch all kinds of videos that we've been making for
(01:05:02):
a long time. You can see videos of these podcasts
of our faces saying words, yeah, you can, you can
see it.
Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Do I look like Noel? Does Noel look like Ben?
Who knows?
Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
You'll never know unless you go to YouTube dot com
slash conspiracy stuff. And while you're at it, While you're
on the internet, why not leave us today it tunes
review or what do they call it these days? Apple
podcasts super helpful to help people find the show and
to get it up in the ranks.
Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
We've actually been up in the rankings at least.
Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
A little bit lately, so perhaps these desperate please for
reviews are working.
Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
Yeah, and so is the radio ee Vast Radio Network. Hey,
and if you don't want to do that stuff, please
leave us a voicemail. We have a number, that's right bet.
Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
You can contact us any old time or any new
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Speaker 5 (01:05:54):
They're all yours.
Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
All that we ask is that you let us know
if it's okay to you your name and or nickname
and or voice on air, and if you hate doing that,
if you just heard that and you thought what a
terrible idea using a phone social media cheepers you guys, Well,
we do have good news for you. There's one other
(01:06:16):
way you can always reach us. It's our good old
fashioned email address.
Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
And it's weird that we don't mention this as often
as we should.
Speaker 5 (01:06:27):
We have T shirts? Is that crazy?
Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
We have t shirts, We've got mugs. I should have
one on air now, and they're all on sale.
Speaker 5 (01:06:36):
That's right. Tea Public is having a holiday sale.
Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
All of the stuff that I want you to know
swag is thirty percent off, but act now because it's
only for a limited time.
Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
That's right. It's thirty percent off until December seventeenth, which
is just around the corner. So get over to the
store right now and get some cool stuff from stuff
they don't want you to know before the holidays. So
just head over to Public that's t EE Public, p
U B l I C and search for stuff they
(01:07:06):
don't want you to know. You'll find it there. You
can get all kinds of great things, like the Doc
Rendezvous T shirt or our official tinfoil T shirt.
Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
Yeah, you can even get a version of our logo
with the hand that looks like a.
Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
Turkey, and we have more designs on the way, So
do check it out.
Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
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