October 30, 2025 • 50 mins
Right now in true crime: Didd release date, Jennifer Kesse update, Melodee Buzzard update
In 2005 George Smith IV and his new wife Jennifer set sail on a 12 day cruise but when the unthinkable happened, it left everybody with way more questions than answers. We are going to dig in to George’s last night, who he was with what possibly could’ve happened and where the case stands today. It’s important to know that all witnesses and people discussed in this episode are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Sources for episode:
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/pictures/timeline-the-disappearance-of-george-smith/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_George_Smith
https://internationalcruisevictims.org/stories/george-allen-smith-iv/
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/murder-at-sea-the-case-of-missing-honeymooner-george-smith/
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2020/09/11/critical-clue-released-in-unsolved-davie-murder-from-last-christmas/
In 2005 George Smith IV and his new wife Jennifer set sail on a 12 day cruise but when the unthinkable happened, it left everybody with way more questions than answers. We are going to dig in to George’s last night, who he was with what possibly could’ve happened and where the case stands today. It’s important to know that all witnesses and people discussed in this episode are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Sources for episode:
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/pictures/timeline-the-disappearance-of-george-smith/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_George_Smith
https://internationalcruisevictims.org/stories/george-allen-smith-iv/
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/murder-at-sea-the-case-of-missing-honeymooner-george-smith/
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2020/09/11/critical-clue-released-in-unsolved-davie-murder-from-last-christmas/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All witnesses, suspects, and purses of interest are considered innocent
until proven guilty in a court of law.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Warning.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
This episode contains graphic crime scene detail as well as
talk of sexual assault. Please listen with discretion. Welcome to
Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now
on true crime, and then together we're going to work
on warming up some cold cases.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hey, guys, welcome to this week's episode of Primetime Crime.
It's Kylie. We are going to go ahead and get
into right now in true crime. A couple little things
that I want to talk about that have been developing
within the last week. So first things first, they went
ahead and put a date on Diddy's release, and that
is going to be May eighth of twenty twenty eight,
(00:46):
which is the day after my birthday. So that's a
really bad birthday gift for twenty twenty eight. I honestly
don't know if he's going to get out before then.
I think it's possible that he might end up getting
out before then, but I guess we are just going
to have to stay tuned and see. So I will
(01:07):
keep you guys updated on all things Diddy. You know
there's going to be different appeals in such coming through,
So we have not heard the last Viti for sure,
and I will be sure to keep.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
You updated on it. Next thing I want to talk
about is there has been.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
A little bit of an update in the Jennifer Kessei case.
So Jennifer went missing in January of two thousand and
six from Orlando, Florida, and we are coming up on
the twenty year anniversary of her disappearance and her case.
Due to the fact that it happened when it did,
(01:43):
there weren't the advancements of technology that there are now
as far as DNA goes and as far as AI
and all of that goes. Because there is this grainy
video of the alleged suspect in Jennifer's case, but it
again was two thousand and six, So this was an
update that her dad Drew put out on October twenty
(02:05):
first of twenty twenty five. So just last week, Hello
to all, and thank you for visiting Jennifer's page. We
wanted to share a brief update with you on the
latest developments concerning Jennifer's case. As many of you know,
we are approaching twenty years since Jennifer was last seen
or heard from in or around her Orlando home. This
is an incredibly long time. However, we, her family and
(02:28):
friends have never given up on finding Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
We have not backed down.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
If anything, we have always ratcheted things up in hopes
of finding the right lead or clue to bring us
to Jennifer. With that said, a few important things have
happened since our last update in May. We recently met
with the FDL E special agents who led Jennifer's case. First,
they have advised us that Jennifer's case is no longer cold.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
This is huge.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
We are told that the work has presented itself through
NonStop investigation by the team. A lot has opened up
for the investigation through active work being done on the case.
We are thrilled at the news, yet guarded as we
have been there many times before. However, this seems different
with the renewed focus. We are also informed that there
was DNA found within evidence that was never tested. Again
(03:20):
huge for the investigation. Hopefully that will lead to more
factual information leading to Jennifer. We were also told that
the list of people of interest has been greatly reduced
and down to a few individuals they are working heavily on.
We knew this would happen once a team truly started
to investigate the case. This again is great news. We
(03:42):
can hear it and see it in our investigative team
at FDL. They are definitely hyped up and moving forward quickly.
It's exciting to see, and we are letting them do
their work uninhibited by us. We simply don't want to
get in the way at this point. Finally, all good
things are happening. On another note, recently we were approached
by a few production companies in an effort to bring
(04:05):
a documentary of Jennifer's story to the television market. We
are now working with a documentary team to bring Jennifer's
story to the world in a meaningful way through a
television series. Please stay tuned for more as the production
company continues their work. So even though almost twenty years
has passed, we still fight the good fight on a
(04:26):
daily basis to bring Jennifer home. We thank those who
have supported our efforts for so long and continue to.
We are grateful, thankful, and humbled by your continued love
and support for Jennifer and our family. We are blessed
to have so many on our side helping in any
way you can. We have always said, together we will
bring Jennifer home. Thank you for all of you have
(04:49):
done to help this family try and find their loved one.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
More to come.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Please check back soon. Drew and Joyce Kesse so Jennifer's
mother and father.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So that is the update. I think that that's great.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
They finally have the case in the right set of
hands because Orlando finally handed it over to the State
of Florida.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
They are now doing what they need to do to.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Try to find out a what happened to Jennifer and
b who is responsible.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
The DNA is huge.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
The advancements in technology are huge, and I say it
all the time. Time is running out for people who
have been getting by flying under the radar and blending
into society without having to take any responsibility for bad
things that they've done because DNA technology is rapidly advancing
(05:44):
and time is running out for these people. Also, like
I said, with the advancements in artificial intelligence and the
way that they are now able to use that technology
enhancing the video of the alleged perpetrator is huge, huge, huge, huge.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
For this case.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
So I really think that things are going in the
right direction. It has almost been twenty years, but just
like Drew said in the post, it's never too late.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
They have not stopped.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
They have really gathered a crew of people around them
that have become the biggest supporters and people that the
family has been leaning on for support. And that is
why we're here today, because you never stop searching, you
never stop looking for answers, and you never let your
foot off the gas when you're dealing with a missing
(06:43):
loved one or a murdered loved one whose case has
gone unsolved. And this is a prime example of that.
And I truly can't wait for the day that they
have a little bit more resolution in Jennifer's case.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And I'll continue to keep you updated.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
But if you do want to follow along, the Facebook
page that I belong to is help Find Missing Jennifer
Kessi and that is spelled k e ss E, And
that is, like I said, the Facebook page, and you
can follow along. Drew does a really good job at
updating it and anything that is ongoing.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
In the case that he can share, he is sure
to share it there.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So I do have a small little update on the
melody Buzzard missing child Front. I told you about her
in last week's episode, and her mom had taken her
on a road trip, so to say, and then when
she returned, she returned without her daughter, Melody. And Melody's nine,
(07:43):
so she's a young child.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Now.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
There was a video surveillance video that was picked up
and it's basically just security footage and it shows a
young girl wearing a gray sweatshirt with her hood up
and what they could tell she had straight black hair.
And investigators believe that the girl in the photos is
Melody and that she is wearing a wig, possibly to
(08:10):
conceal her identity. Now she has very pretty brown, curly hair,
and apparently her mother, Ashley, is also known to wear wigs.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It's all very interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Apparently, allegedly Ashley has some mental health issues. Ashley's family
reported that a lot of her mental health issues really
started after Melody's father died when she was just six
months old, and it's just kind of been a spiral
from there. And the family said that they haven't seen
(08:44):
Melody in at least the last four years and said
that Ashley is extremely mentally unstable, which I think is
just so sad. Overall, because obviously this little girl is
in the care of her mother and now she has
not been in school for months and months and months,
she is now missing after this road trip. It's all
(09:07):
just extremely odd and Ashley is not, as from what
I've seen, being cooperative with investigators, but that in itself
is not a crime. So they are very much trying
to piece everything together. I'm sure they're trying to really
get a handle on all the different places they went
on this road trip and try to track down CCTV
(09:32):
footage and really just trying to piece everything together before
they make their next move. So that is kind of
where things stand today, and that is where we're at.
So with all of that, we are going to go
ahead and get into today's episode. All right, guys, Today
we are jumping into a brand new case, and it's
(09:52):
one that I remember happening.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I remember it pretty well, but I.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Really hadn't looked it up or really thought about it
in quite some time. And once I dug into it,
I realized, holy moly, there is so much here. So
this happened in two thousand and five, so it's been
twenty years, and I decided to dig back into it.
So today we're going to be talking about the disappearance
(10:17):
and presumed death of a Connecticut man named George Smith,
and he was aboard the Royal Caribbean International Cruise Ship
at the time of his disappearance and alleged death. As always,
we're going to talk a little bit about George and
the circumstances surrounding him taking this trip on this cruise ship,
(10:38):
and then we're going to get into what exactly happened.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Now.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I will say that George's body has never been recovered,
but he is presumed deceased, so we're going to talk
about all of that and what led to that assumption.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
My sources for this episode are going to be linked below.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
My primary source was a CBS News article that really
went through everything in a detailed timeline, and they did
a really good job of kind of bringing everything together.
So I did want to go ahead and mention that
most of what I'm going to talk about is from
that CBS News article, and that.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Will be linked below as well.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
George Alan Smith fourth was born on October third of
nineteen seventy eight to his parents, George Smith third and
Maureen Smith. He also had an older sister, named Brie.
In this CBS news article, Maureen Smith described her son
as a fine young man, handsome, hardworking, He was just
a great all around kid. George Smith the third.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Said that his son was the funniest guy.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
He said that he would sit and have a couple
of beers with him, and George would make.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Him laugh the whole night.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And he also said that he was so good looking
that the girls just fell all over him, and he
was just a lot of fun and a great guy.
When George met his future wife, Jennifer hagelge which was
twenty three and fresh out of college, he had plans
to take over his father's liquor store. He met twenty
two year old Jennifer in Greenwich, Connecticut. Jennifer was the
(12:10):
daughter of a cop and had hopes of becoming a teacher.
They were a small town All American couple. They dated
for about two years before becoming engaged in Aruba.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
A year later.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
On June twenty fifth of two thousand and five, they
said I Do in a cliffside ceremony in Newport, Rhode Island.
They had spent a year planning their wedding, a lot
of hard work and for their honeymoon, they decided a
cruise was in order. It would be a twelve day
cruise and George himself spent a lot of time planning
(12:42):
the strip for the couple. They set sail on June
twenty ninth of two thousand and five. As they hopped
aboard Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas, which set sail
from Barcelona, Spain. George booked a midship stateroom with a
balcony for the couple so they could sip champagne and
enjoy the sunrise and sunsets every day and night. No
(13:04):
money was spared and the couple was planning for the
vacation of their lives, but unfortunately everything would change for
the Smith family on this trip. So at the time
of this trip, George was twenty six years old and
Jennifer was about twenty five years old, both young twenty
somethings enjoying a time of their lives that they'd never
(13:24):
get back, and the couple was.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Very very social.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
They made friends with another newlywed couple that was also
on the ship, and a few days into it they
were practically old friends with this couple. They also befriended
a twenty year old named Josh Askin.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
He was on the cruise with his family.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
And despite the fact that he was on this cruise
with his family, he very much loved hanging out with
George and Jennifer, and he even spent an afternoon going
around Florence, Italy with the couple. On July fourth, after
five days of the trip, the boat went head and
docked in Mikonos Grease for the day and Jennifer and
(14:04):
George very much decided that they wanted to spend this
day together, just the two of them, see the island
and explore a little bit. They were having the best
time and George ended up sending an email to his
family to update them on the trip, and he told
them he was having the time of his life. Not
to worry about being in touch unless somebody died. Basically,
(14:25):
unless it's an emergency, don't bother us. So after they
spent the day exploring the island, they get back to
the ship around six pm. This is still on July fourth,
they decided to shower and get ready for dinner. Now,
although they did want to have dinner with just the
two of them, they did decide that after dinner they
(14:45):
were going to meet up with their newlywed friends. They
finish up dinner around eleven and they head off to
meet their friends. So they went to the casino, which
is pretty much anyone over the age of twenty one
that's on a cruise ship is going to be the
casino if they enjoy gambling. So they go to their
casino to meet their newlywed friends, and they also meet
(15:07):
Josh there. So once they get there, Jennifer and George
kind of split up. Jennifer went to the blackjack table
and George went to play craps, and like I said,
they meet up with Josh. So while they are there,
Josh introduces them to some other friends that he's met
also while on the cruise. And these guys were Russian
(15:27):
American and they were all in their twenties and from Brooklyn.
Their names are Gregory Rosenberg and his cousin Zach Rosenberg,
and their friend Rusty Kaufman. Now, Jennifer and Josh were
described as very fancy dressed to the nines. They had
fancy watches and jewelry, and while they were playing at
(15:49):
the casino that night, it was noted that they were
dropping money left and right, and they very much gave
the impression to people that they had money. There were
also several people on the ship that did overhear George
talk about the large sums of money that he had
in his room.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And George was young.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
He was twenty six years old and it was two
thousand and five, so it was a different time. In hindsight,
of course, bragging about the money probably wasn't the best
thing to do, but you never think that something bad
is going to happen to you and that people are
going to take advantage and target you. Because of this,
George and Jennifer were truly a gorgeous couple, and you
(16:31):
can look at them and just kind of give the
impression that they have nice things and that they possibly
could have some money. George was always dressed very nicely,
same with Jennifer. They just gave off the aura that
they had nice things. At one point in the evening,
George went back to his room to get more money
(16:52):
for he and Jennifer to gamble with. So they spent
some more time at the casino, and then the casino
finally closed and they went ahead and went to the
disco and they partied into the early morning hours of
July fifth, of two thousand and five. Now, both George
and Jennifer had been drinking quite heavily, which is what
(17:12):
you'd expect from newlyweds on their honeymoon.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
There's nothing wrong with this.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So Paul, who is the guy that was one half
of the other honeymoon and couple, had told George at
one point of the night, I think it's time to
call it a night and we need to all just
turn in and meet.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Back up tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And little did he know, two hours later George would
be gone. So around three thirty am, witnesses told investigators
that Jennifer and George had some type of disagreement.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
We're going to get into that a little later.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Jennifer then left the disco and was found passed out
in the hallway and was assisted back to.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Her room around four thirty am.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Now, Jennifer does not have any recollection of what happened
that night, and has no recollection of what happened as
far as ending up in the hallway, So when Jennifer
was returned to her cabin, George was not there. Neighbors
had said that they did hear George and three other
men in the cabin a little bit earlier, and they
(18:14):
said that they were loud and at one point it
sounded like they were moving furniture around, and security at
one point had also been called.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Around four twenty a m.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
One of the neighbors saw three men leave the cabin.
These three men were questioned and said they had taken
George to his room and put him to bed because
he was very intoxicated. So the next morning, July fifth
of two thousand and five, a sixteen year old girl
named Emily stepped out on her balcony. She wanted to
get some photos of the sunrise in Turkey. She noticed
(18:48):
on the overhang canopy of the lifeboats that there was
a huge bloodstain, and of course this was alarming because
it was a substantial amount of blood. She was thinking
something bad must have happened here. So it ended up
being reported and the ship then of course realized that
the occupants of room ninety sixty two were unaccounted for,
(19:11):
and they began to overhead page Jennifer and George Smith.
They did end up tracking down Jennifer, who was up
and was in the spa going for a scheduled massage
that she had that morning, and they told her that
they thought that George had gone overboard. Now, Jennifer said
she doesn't have any memory from the night before, but
(19:33):
when she woke up and saw that George wasn't there,
she didn't really think anything of it. She thought that
he just crashed with the other two newlywed friends.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That they had made.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
She couldn't believe what she was being told that George
fell overboard. She ended up calling her dad, who then
called George's parents with the news. But at this point,
the Smiths didn't know about the bloodstain that had not
been shared with them. They just knew that George had
to be on the ship somewhere. He was just maybe
off sleeping off his alcohol intoxication from.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
The night before.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It was from there that the Turkish police came in.
They boarded the ship and they began questioning everyone. They
end up tracking down Josh and the three Russian American guys.
So this is where things get interesting and why people
have their reservations about these guys. We are going to
get into their account of things because their account has
(20:30):
pretty much stayed the same over the years.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
They haven't wavered in things.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
During one of his later interviews, Josh has quoted us
saying that he didn't know what was going on. He
knew that he did nothing wrong and that's really all
that mattered to him. Now, there was a video that
was recorded at some point. I don't really know the
context of this, but I think it's when initially they
let Rusty know that there was blood found, and Rusty
(20:58):
is shocked when he heard of out the blood being found.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
He just didn't really know what to think about it.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
So as a group, the men tell Turkish authorities that quote,
after we dropped him off the second time we closed
the door, we never saw him again.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Never saw him again. End quote.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
So Josh said around two point thirty, when the casino closed,
they ended up leaving the casino to go to the disco,
and when they were on the elevator, they noticed that
the casino manager was kind of acting odd, and there
was even an awkward moment where Josh said that the
casino manager had put his arm around Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
So whether that's true or not, we really don't know
at this point in time.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And Josh said that they had snuck a bottle of
pretty hardcore liquor onto the ship, and they were all
at this disco just taking shots of this liquor, so
they were all getting pretty intoxicated, and Josh recalls that
there was a moment where Jennifer and George got into
a bit of an argument, which I talked about earlier,
and Jennifer ends up storming off and the casino manager
(22:04):
followed her. And then they said by three point thirty
the disco was closing and George was in pretty bad shape.
He could hardly even stand up, and they said he
was kind of slumped over in a chair, very highly intoxicated,
and they knew that they had to get him back
to his room, so they said that they essentially all carried.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Him back to his room.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
At three point fifty two am, the guys entered the
smith's cabin. The ship's key entry log records this time,
but Jennifer was not there at this time. When they
end up getting back to the room, of course, there
is no sign of Jennifer, like I said, and they
said that George was insistent that they go search for Jennifer.
(22:48):
The guys then said that they had a very loud
discussion with George about whether or not they should go
and try to find him. And this is what they
are saying, is the arguing that the passengers heard because
they were having a very loud conversation.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
George is very intoxicated. They're intoxicated.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
He wants to go find Jennifer, and they were having
a discussion about that. So they said that they did
decide to go look for Jennifer, and they headed out
again and they searched briefly for her and then returned
to the cabin at four h one am. They say
that they lay George down on the bed, they take
off his shoes, and he tells them how thankful.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
He is for them, He hugs them, and then they leave.
That is their story.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
But shortly after four am, a couple that are in
the cabin next to the Smith's here yelling, and it's
pretty loud from the smith cabin, and it's not just the.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Cabin, but particularly the balcony.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And these boys have all said that they never went
out to the balcony. They denied that they were ever
out there. But the neighbor says that the argument appeared
to be between three or maybe four individuals, which we're
going to get into that a little bit later, because
there is some theories about what potentially could have happened there. Now,
(24:10):
this is a quote from one of the Smith's cabin neighbors.
After about two minutes of the argument, we heard one
lone male voice repeatedly saying good night, good night, like
they were ushering someone out of the room. I looked
out and saw three male individuals walking away.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
From the room. End quote.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
So if we have these four guys and George, so
five people in total, George's very intoxicated, supposedly lying down
on the bed, you have argument going on on the
balcony between three maybe four people, and then three people leave.
Keep that in your mind because this, in my opinion,
(24:51):
witness account is very crucial to this case and kind
of piecing together what happened. He says he saw three
people leave the room, and I fully believe that he
saw three people leave the room. And we're going to
get into why I believe that is true in a
few minutes. So those same neighbors, recall quote, at this point,
we heard just one lone voice in the room. We
(25:14):
heard what sounded like the cupver doors being closed loudly,
and also sounded like furniture being moved. Again, keep that
in the back of your mind, because when we get
into the theories of what potentially could have happened, this
all is going to circle back and make a huck
of a lot of sense. So the cabin neighbors that
were on the other side said that they heard the
(25:34):
exact same thing.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
They said that there was what they would.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Call thrashing of room sounds, and he said that he
thought somebody was throwing furniture around, either mad or having
a good time. So he said at that point they
just kind of dismissed it, and after about two minutes
of total silence, there was a large, horrific thud And
they do believe that this thud was the sound of
(26:00):
George Smith hitting the canopy around four thirty am, So
this is around the same time that Jennifer was found
passed out in the hallway, and then shortly thereafter she
was returned to the cabin, and of course when she
got there, George was nowhere to be found. The guy
said that after they left George's cabin, they went back.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
To their one of their rooms and they ordered room service.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
So that is their account of what happened, and then
there's also the eyewitness accounts from the neighbors on either
side of the Smith's cabin.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
So I could sit here all day.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
In poke holes in everything that they said, because in
my opinion, there are a lot of holes in their story.
But we're going to get into that because as luck
would have it, everyone else had the same thoughts and
wanted to poke holes in their story as well, because
it just wasn't adding up now. Unfortunately, Jennifer did come
(26:58):
under quite a bit of scrutiny because she didn't, unfortunately
have any recollection of what had happened that night, and
people thought that she could have potentially been involved, and
in my opinion, I do not think that this is
the case. I think Jennifer was a victim in all
of this as well, and we truly don't know what
transpired that night and what she really truly went through,
(27:21):
And because she doesn't have any recollection of that, it
just kind of so happens that everything transpired the way
it did. They were both very intoxicated, and they were
not together. They were separated for the majority of that time,
so individually, we don't know what George and Jennifer both
(27:43):
experienced and Unfortunately, I think the people on the ship
took advantage of that. It almost to me makes me
wonder if they purposely try to keep them apart that night,
not necessarily for anything nefarious, but to have made a
better chance at getting them alone so they could see
(28:04):
what all they maybe had in their cabin.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
If they had. There's rumors that George was talking about
how much.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Money he had, so maybe their plan and their mo
was to kind of isolate them from each other, so
there was a higher chance of maybe taking advantage of that.
I don't know, I'm just theorizing there, but it just
seems nowadays we always hear don't leave your buddy, and
I know two thousand and five was a completely different time.
(28:31):
But when there's alcohol involved and you let your guard
down and.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
You're talking with people that you really don't know, you
just met them, you just never know who.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Is out for nefarious reasons and who wants to take
advantage of a situation. So the FBI ends up getting
involved and they started their investigation. Now this would actually
end up being years in the making, and at this
point in time, the captain of the ship was just
saying that this was just a simple accident. George was intoxicated,
(29:04):
he sat on the railing and then he fell off,
which I think cruise ships have to do some type
of damage control when something like this happens, because they
don't want people turned off by going on cruises. We
saw the same thing in the Amy Bradley case, where
it was just a simple oh, she must have fallen
overboard versus something nefarious happening. But if we're gonna take
(29:30):
this case, George's case and look at all of the evidence,
it really doesn't make sense in my opinion, that George
fell overboard on his own accord, whether it was an
accident or not. And one of the main reasons I
don't think that he fell overboard is because of the
blood that was out there.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
And it wasn't just the blood that was out there.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
There was also blood in the Smith's room on the
blanket on the bed. So there were photographs that were
taken by the Royal Caribbean and that revealed that there
were two small lines of blood on the sheets, and
this blood apparently belonged to George.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Smith, which is a sign that something.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Started in the room and then went out to the
balcony and kind of ended out there and ended up
with George loosing his life. We also have these two
accounts of people saying that they heard yelling and what
sounded kind of like a struggle furniture moving around in
the room. That doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.
Why would people be in there moving around furniture. I'm
(30:31):
going to tell you.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Why in a minute, because it's going to make sense
when I lay it all out.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
So the Smiths hired a lawyer named Mike Jones, and
he basically wanted to do everything he could to try
to uncover everything that was going on, and he wanted
to get his hands on whatever Royal Caribbean has as
far as what's going on in the case. So he
gets involved and his first order of business is he
(30:58):
wants to sit down individually with all of the guys
that were last seen with George. When he attempts to
question Josh, he basically just said that he was going
to plead the fifth to everything, including his name and birthdate.
And both Josh and Rusty's lawyers said that the reason
for this is because when this first happened, they were
(31:19):
very open and cooperative. They were very willing to talk
in the beginning, but the more that they were questioned,
the more that the lawyers and the guys themselves felt
that they were basically being pushed into a corner, and
they were accused more and more of foul play in
the death of George. So they decided that from here
on out they were just going to plead the fifth
with everything. When Rusty was questioned by Mike, he acted
(31:43):
like he didn't have any recollection of anything.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
He completely had no idea what had happened.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
They talked about him helping the guys put George to bed,
and they talked about Josh having to use the restroom
while he was in the smith's cabin, and he basically
said he had no recollection of either of those things.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Zach Rosenberg also did choose to.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Invoke his fit Amendment right, but the only one who
was forthcoming was Greg Rosenberg when he sat down with
Mike Jones, and at the time of his questioning, he
was serving time in a Florida prison for trafficking drugs,
specifically oxy codone, and the following is a conversation between
(32:25):
Mike and Greg Greg Rosenberg. I'm a fanatic with clothes, jewelry, watches,
That's why I'm here, man, Mike Jones. But murder is
a different deal, Greg Rosenberg, Murder is a different deal, man.
I don't have it in my heart to kill nobody, man,
Mike Jones.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Did you have anything to.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Do with George's death? Greg Rosenberg? No, never did, never would,
never thought about it.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
No.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
They then talked about the room service aspect, and Mike asked.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Greg what they ordered. What did you order from room service?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
And he said, tune of fish, sandwiches, and cheeseburgers and
basically just fast food type of food. And he said
that they were just so impressed that they could order
anything they wanted at any time of day or night
and that.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
It was just going to be delivered to them. So
they loved using the room service service.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Mike Jones said that this just didn't make sense to
him because they were almost saying that there's no way
that they could have harmed George because they were too
busy eating all of the room service food.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
But it just didn't add up. And I agree one
hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So in twenty ten, Mike finally got his hands on
the Royal Caribbean documents and all of these were very
telling because, as we know, on a cruise ship, everything
is recorded when you enter your cabin, when a phone
call is made from your room, when room service is
ordered and delivered, and the ship's records show that there
(33:59):
were several short calls that were made from Zach and
Rusty's cabin to room service around four thirteen a m
All that morning, but there isn't any record of any
type of order or orders being delivered to the boy's rooms. Now,
the boys' lawyers insist that that is not a sign
of guilt by any means, because the food was allegedly
(34:23):
delivered after George went messing. So in this case, these
four boys really only have an alibi of each other
for that night because the room service thing does not
pan out. And although they do tell the same story
and they have been consistent with it, there are so
many different holes that can be poked in the stories,
(34:46):
just from other witnesses, the neighbors of the smiths on
either side, and the fact that they one of them
saw three men leave the smith room and then.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Heard an altercation. It just doesn't make sense. Now.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
There also was an account that George and Jennifer got
into an argument and Jennifer went to run off, and
then the casino manager followed Jennifer and went off with her. Now,
this is a statement that Josh had originally given, and
this was proven to be false in these documents because
it was recorded that the casino manager went into his
(35:24):
girlfriend's cabin at three twenty five am while George and
Jennifer were still at the disco. So this whole story
with him chasing after her never happened. Now, there were
several witnesses that said they did witness Jennifer leaving the
disco at three point thirty am, but this casino manager
(35:46):
chasing after her is impossible.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Even though it's a short window.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
He was back in his girlfriend's cabin at three twenty
five am. They did polygraph Jennifer and the casino manager,
and they both passed their polygraph tests. And I know
that polygraph tests aren't always super reliable, but I do
think in this case that we can trust that what
Jennifer and this casino manager said is probably accurate. Now,
(36:12):
my personal opinion allegedly is that Josh and the Russian
American guys were trying to deflect the tension away from
themselves and put it on this casino manager, and he
was around that night, and maybe he did put his
arm around Jennifer in the elevator and things got a
little awkward. But I think they thought that this was
a perfect distraction from them, so they wanted to bring
(36:36):
him into the story. But unfortunately for them, the records
do not lie. He wasn't even there when the Smiths
left the disco. Now, in some of these Royal Caribbean documents,
there was a lot of talk about different complaints being
made against these four men as they were on the cruise. Now,
I do want to say Josh unfortunately surrounded himself with
(36:59):
these the three men, and they were not the best.
I don't think Josh did any of these things. I
think he was just kind of guilty by association because
he hung around them. But there were complaints against these
men for smoking, sneaking alcohol bottles on the ship, verbally
abusing employees, yelling, dropping curse words at the room service employees,
(37:22):
and so on and so forth. So two days after
George's apparent death, there was a woman on the ship
that came forward with a sexual assault allegation against the boys.
She said she was in one of their cabins, and
there was a quote unquote group sex type of assault
that happened, and there was even videotaped evidence of it.
(37:45):
Now they of course the boy said that this was consensuble,
but she said the opposite. The girl said that she
was very highly intoxicated and pretty much blacking out.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
And of course Josh's lawyer.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Said that, you know, Josh was there, but he didn't
take part in anything, and he said that it was
clear that this girl was taking advantage of the situation
and passing blame. But let me just say, two thousand
and five was a different time. But if a girl
is borderline blacking out, she cannot give consent. So I
(38:20):
have no other comments other than nothing ended up happening
with this. We're going to get into it. But if
a girl is blacked out drunk, she cannot give consent.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
So take that for what it's worth. But it's interesting
to me.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
This is the third person now that these boys have
had contact with.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
That has a not so great story.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
We have Jennifer who was passed out in the hallway
with no recollection of what happened. We have this girl
who was allegedly sexually assaulted in my opinion, she was
sexually assaulted, very intoxicated to the point of being.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Blackout during part of it.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
And then we have George Smith, who is presumably deceased,
evidenced by the blood and the different things that the
neighbors on either side heard. So what is the common
factor here? Again, this is just my opinion, but it's
these individuals.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
So from here.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
After this sexual assault allegation came forward, the four men
and their families that accompanied them on the cruise were
taken from the ship in Naples, and the Italian police
got to work looking into the sexual assault and basically
they said, there's nothing they can do. They have no jurisdiction,
so there has never been anything that happened in the.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Sexual assault case.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
And the lawyers think that the videotape pretty much proved
that it was consensual. But I personally think that it
has everything to do with the fact that when you
are on a cruise ship there isn't that jurisdiction. And
I remember it so well in the Amy Bradley documentary
that was on Netflix. I think it was one of
(40:00):
the gals that worked on the cruise ship she said,
if you want to commit a murder, do it on
a cruise ship, and apparently the same goes for sexual
assault because the hands of law enforcement are tied because
you're on international waters.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
So not only did.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
This videotape contain, in my opinion, the alleged sexual assault
of this woman, but it also contained a whole little
home movie that was made by the boys after Josh's death. Now,
Josh was not present for this conversation. It was just
the Russian American boys, and they were basically passing around
(40:36):
the camera and talking very horrendously about George's death. They
were joking about George being wealthy, and Rusty makes.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
A comment about George going parachute.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Riding and said, quote, we gave that guy a paragliding
lesson without a parachute, which, even if you don't have
anything to do with this, it's like really freaking tacky
and rude and disrespectful to say something like that. And
then at one point in the video, one of the
guys stands up and kind of flashes some like twenty
(41:10):
year old gang signs and says, quote, told you I
was gangsta end quote. And this was right after George's death,
So why would you insert yourself in something like that
and make this home video and be really tacky and
gross when you know you're being questioned by authorities, like
(41:33):
what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
So the boys.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Lawyers all declined to comment on the video, and in
twenty thirteen they did try to get Rusty Kaufman to
comment on it, and he basically just said, you're gonna
have to contact my lawyer. One of the boys lawyers
said that Greg when he made the video, didn't even
know that George was dead at that point and it
(41:56):
was just making funny comments and I don't know. In
my opinion, one common theme I see in this is
just deflect, deflect, deflect. Mike Jones very much believes that
the motive for all of this was money and robbery.
These boys knew that George and Jennifer had a large
sum of money back in their cabin. They knew that
they dressed really well, George had a really fancy, expensive watch,
(42:20):
and they thought that they could potentially take advantage of this.
So Mike's theory is that they brought George back to
his cabin. George was obviously very drunk, he wasn't really
able to fight back, so he thinks that the boys
went out to the balcony and they are discussing amongst
themselves who's gonna do what.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Josh goes in to use the bathroom.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
And the three other boys are out on the balcony
arguing about if they're all going to look for the money,
if it's just going to be one of them.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
They decide it's just going to be one of them.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
The three leave and one stays behind, and that's when
all hell breaks loose. He also believes that the couple
of streaks of blood on the bed could be from
the one guy that was in there trying to get
the watch off of George's wrist. Maybe it pinched him,
maybe he flinched, maybe he tried to fight back. George
might have woken up from that and was trying to
(43:15):
figure out what was going on, and then a fight
ensued and George ended up being thrown overboard. Mike does
not believe that Josh was involved in the actual crime,
but does think that he knows more than he is saying,
because Josh was overheard allegedly talking to a friend on
an elevator and basically he said something to the effect
(43:40):
of the Russian Americans almost got him arrested in Turkey.
Josh and Rusty both failed their polygraph tests. Greg Rosenberg's
results were inconclusive, but they do believe that Greg's answers
and everything that was said on the polygraph test, they
do believe that there was some exception at times, and
(44:01):
it's not really what he said, but what he didn't say.
There was a lot of times he said that we
didn't do it versus I didn't do it. And that's
a really interesting thing when.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
You think about it, because.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
If you're accused of something like that, as a group,
you're going to protect yourself.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
You're number one.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
He doesn't have any really loyalty to these other guys,
although they are one of them is his family, one
of them is his friend.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
He doesn't technically have loyalty to them.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
So they thought that his answers were very interesting in
that way. One thing he did say, and this was
Greg Rosenberg, during the light detector, he said, George Allen
Smith did not disappear or kill himself or hurt himself
or slip and fall off of the boat at six
foot four or forever.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Tall he is and just dive off. I know that.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Didn't happen, so something crazy went down that night, and
I hope one day they find out the truth.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
So that is kind of where the case stands today.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Jennifer did end up remarrying, and she had children and
has very much tried to move on from this horrific
time in her life. The Smiths still struggle daily, of course,
with the loss of their son, the awn answer questions,
the lack of accountability, and they very much remained hopeful
that one day they would get answers and there was
going to be somebody that'd be held accountable for George's death.
(45:29):
And they held out that hope until twenty fifteen, when
the FBI announced that they were officially going to close
the case of George Smith, ten years after his death.
The FBI basically said there wasn't sufficient evidence to keep
the case open and continue investigation into his death. George's
family still obviously wants justice for him, and they are
(45:51):
not going to give up. His sister said that she
is going to fight until the end of time to
get justice for her brother.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
No charges have ever.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Been fired in this case, and I do want to
kind of say, this is my opinion a PSA. If
you go on a cruise you were on international territory.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
That cruise ship.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Will not protect you and will not protect your rights.
If something bad happens, they will not help your family.
And that's exactly what happened in this case. Time and
time again we see it. We saw it with Amy Bradley,
and I know that there's so many others out there
that are probably just like this. And although it wasn't
a cruise we saw the same thing happen in the
(46:31):
Natalie Holloway case. In December of twenty nineteen, George Rosenberg
was shot and killed outside of his home in Davy, Florida,
and his case remains active and open at this point
in time. I do want to get into his death
a little bit because I think it's an interesting.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Layer to the story.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
So Greg Rosenberg was killed in his driveway in California.
He had been out Christmas shopping for his family and
when he got home, he basically ambushed in his driveway.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
There is video of this.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
They have released surveillance video that's showing the vehicle that
police believe was involved in Greg's murder, which happened right
before Christmas of twenty nineteen. On December twenty third, investigators
believe the car that they are searching for is a
white SUV BMW X three or X five series, and
(47:28):
they do believe that there might have been a person
driving and then a person that carried out the shooting
of Greg. Now, they were very clear to say that
this was not a robbery gone wrong, and it did
seem to them that it was targeted and it was
a possible hit. Now given Greg's history and everything that
he had been involved in, if you remember, he's the
(47:50):
one that was previously in prison in Florida for trafficking drugs.
So I just think this adds a whole extra layer
to things. But his murder at this point in time
still remains unsolved. And unfortunately, given the fact that he
is no longer with us, he took whatever he knows
to the grave with him, So we likely will not
(48:12):
get any more answers than we had before in regards
to George's death because Greg was the one that kind
of would share information here and there, and when Mike
Jones went to question him, he was willing to talk.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
So it is a very interesting layer to this case.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Nonetheless, and I did want to bring it up, so
that is kind of where things stand today. George's case
has been officially closed per the FBI. His family, like
I said, still holds out hope that there is going
to be something that happens, somebody that comes forward that
will change the fact.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
That it's a closed case.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
So if you do have any information related to George
Smith's disappearance, you are asked to call one eight for
four six' five on one nine three six or send
an email To George smith tipline at gmail dot.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Com i'll be, HONEST i.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Knew none of all the stuff THAT i covered in my.
RESEARCH i remember his death and that's really the LAST
i heard about, it is that he died on a cruise.
Ship he was maybe thrown overboard by, somebody BUT i
never really knew the. Details and it was very interesting
trying to unravel.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
All of, this try to make sense of all of.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
It because there were four people that were with him that,
night so there was five of them, together and one
of them did not make it off of that. Boat
AND i think that there is a lot more questions
That i'm Sure george's family, has and there's a lot
more to.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
THIS i really do think. That so thank you guys so.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
Much for tuning in and listening To george's. STORY i
will be back next week with a brand new unsolved
case and prayers To george's family and To, jennifer because
even though this happened so long, ago it happened twenty years,
ago it still has to deeply affect them on a daily.
Basis and they've also had to try to navigate not
(50:15):
getting justice For, george which has to make it even,
harder especially knowing that there is kind of these lingering
questions that remain and kind of are this dark cloud
and shadow over his case and getting. Resolution SO i
will see you guys next. WEEK i hope you have
a great weekend ahead AND i will see you.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Then. Bye
All witnesses, suspects, and purses of interest are considered innocent
until proven guilty in a court of law.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Warning.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
This episode contains graphic crime scene detail as well as
talk of sexual assault. Please listen with discretion. Welcome to
Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now
on true crime, and then together we're going to work
on warming up some cold cases.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hey, guys, welcome to this week's episode of Primetime Crime.
It's Kylie. We are going to go ahead and get
into right now in true crime. A couple little things
that I want to talk about that have been developing
within the last week. So first things first, they went
ahead and put a date on Diddy's release, and that
is going to be May eighth of twenty twenty eight,
(00:46):
which is the day after my birthday. So that's a
really bad birthday gift for twenty twenty eight. I honestly
don't know if he's going to get out before then.
I think it's possible that he might end up getting
out before then, but I guess we are just going
to have to stay tuned and see. So I will
(01:07):
keep you guys updated on all things Diddy. You know
there's going to be different appeals in such coming through,
So we have not heard the last Viti for sure,
and I will be sure to keep.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
You updated on it. Next thing I want to talk
about is there has been.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
A little bit of an update in the Jennifer Kessei case.
So Jennifer went missing in January of two thousand and
six from Orlando, Florida, and we are coming up on
the twenty year anniversary of her disappearance and her case.
Due to the fact that it happened when it did,
(01:43):
there weren't the advancements of technology that there are now
as far as DNA goes and as far as AI
and all of that goes. Because there is this grainy
video of the alleged suspect in Jennifer's case, but it
again was two thousand and six, So this was an
update that her dad Drew put out on October twenty
(02:05):
first of twenty twenty five. So just last week, Hello
to all, and thank you for visiting Jennifer's page. We
wanted to share a brief update with you on the
latest developments concerning Jennifer's case. As many of you know,
we are approaching twenty years since Jennifer was last seen
or heard from in or around her Orlando home. This
is an incredibly long time. However, we, her family and
(02:28):
friends have never given up on finding Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
We have not backed down.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
If anything, we have always ratcheted things up in hopes
of finding the right lead or clue to bring us
to Jennifer. With that said, a few important things have
happened since our last update in May. We recently met
with the FDL E special agents who led Jennifer's case. First,
they have advised us that Jennifer's case is no longer cold.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
This is huge.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
We are told that the work has presented itself through
NonStop investigation by the team. A lot has opened up
for the investigation through active work being done on the case.
We are thrilled at the news, yet guarded as we
have been there many times before. However, this seems different
with the renewed focus. We are also informed that there
was DNA found within evidence that was never tested. Again
(03:20):
huge for the investigation. Hopefully that will lead to more
factual information leading to Jennifer. We were also told that
the list of people of interest has been greatly reduced
and down to a few individuals they are working heavily on.
We knew this would happen once a team truly started
to investigate the case. This again is great news. We
(03:42):
can hear it and see it in our investigative team
at FDL. They are definitely hyped up and moving forward quickly.
It's exciting to see, and we are letting them do
their work uninhibited by us. We simply don't want to
get in the way at this point. Finally, all good
things are happening. On another note, recently we were approached
by a few production companies in an effort to bring
(04:05):
a documentary of Jennifer's story to the television market. We
are now working with a documentary team to bring Jennifer's
story to the world in a meaningful way through a
television series. Please stay tuned for more as the production
company continues their work. So even though almost twenty years
has passed, we still fight the good fight on a
(04:26):
daily basis to bring Jennifer home. We thank those who
have supported our efforts for so long and continue to.
We are grateful, thankful, and humbled by your continued love
and support for Jennifer and our family. We are blessed
to have so many on our side helping in any
way you can. We have always said, together we will
bring Jennifer home. Thank you for all of you have
(04:49):
done to help this family try and find their loved one.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
More to come.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Please check back soon. Drew and Joyce Kesse so Jennifer's
mother and father.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So that is the update. I think that that's great.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
They finally have the case in the right set of
hands because Orlando finally handed it over to the State
of Florida.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
They are now doing what they need to do to.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Try to find out a what happened to Jennifer and
b who is responsible.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
The DNA is huge.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
The advancements in technology are huge, and I say it
all the time. Time is running out for people who
have been getting by flying under the radar and blending
into society without having to take any responsibility for bad
things that they've done because DNA technology is rapidly advancing
(05:44):
and time is running out for these people. Also, like
I said, with the advancements in artificial intelligence and the
way that they are now able to use that technology
enhancing the video of the alleged perpetrator is huge, huge, huge, huge.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
For this case.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
So I really think that things are going in the
right direction. It has almost been twenty years, but just
like Drew said in the post, it's never too late.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
They have not stopped.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
They have really gathered a crew of people around them
that have become the biggest supporters and people that the
family has been leaning on for support. And that is
why we're here today, because you never stop searching, you
never stop looking for answers, and you never let your
foot off the gas when you're dealing with a missing
(06:43):
loved one or a murdered loved one whose case has
gone unsolved. And this is a prime example of that.
And I truly can't wait for the day that they
have a little bit more resolution in Jennifer's case.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And I'll continue to keep you updated.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
But if you do want to follow along, the Facebook
page that I belong to is help Find Missing Jennifer
Kessi and that is spelled k e ss E, And
that is, like I said, the Facebook page, and you
can follow along. Drew does a really good job at
updating it and anything that is ongoing.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
In the case that he can share, he is sure
to share it there.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So I do have a small little update on the
melody Buzzard missing child Front. I told you about her
in last week's episode, and her mom had taken her
on a road trip, so to say, and then when
she returned, she returned without her daughter, Melody. And Melody's nine,
(07:43):
so she's a young child.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Now.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
There was a video surveillance video that was picked up
and it's basically just security footage and it shows a
young girl wearing a gray sweatshirt with her hood up
and what they could tell she had straight black hair.
And investigators believe that the girl in the photos is
Melody and that she is wearing a wig, possibly to
(08:10):
conceal her identity. Now she has very pretty brown, curly hair,
and apparently her mother, Ashley, is also known to wear wigs.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It's all very interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Apparently, allegedly Ashley has some mental health issues. Ashley's family
reported that a lot of her mental health issues really
started after Melody's father died when she was just six
months old, and it's just kind of been a spiral
from there. And the family said that they haven't seen
(08:44):
Melody in at least the last four years and said
that Ashley is extremely mentally unstable, which I think is
just so sad. Overall, because obviously this little girl is
in the care of her mother and now she has
not been in school for months and months and months,
she is now missing after this road trip. It's all
(09:07):
just extremely odd and Ashley is not, as from what
I've seen, being cooperative with investigators, but that in itself
is not a crime. So they are very much trying
to piece everything together. I'm sure they're trying to really
get a handle on all the different places they went
on this road trip and try to track down CCTV
(09:32):
footage and really just trying to piece everything together before
they make their next move. So that is kind of
where things stand today, and that is where we're at.
So with all of that, we are going to go
ahead and get into today's episode. All right, guys, Today
we are jumping into a brand new case, and it's
(09:52):
one that I remember happening.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I remember it pretty well, but I.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Really hadn't looked it up or really thought about it
in quite some time. And once I dug into it,
I realized, holy moly, there is so much here. So
this happened in two thousand and five, so it's been
twenty years, and I decided to dig back into it.
So today we're going to be talking about the disappearance
(10:17):
and presumed death of a Connecticut man named George Smith,
and he was aboard the Royal Caribbean International Cruise Ship
at the time of his disappearance and alleged death. As always,
we're going to talk a little bit about George and
the circumstances surrounding him taking this trip on this cruise ship,
(10:38):
and then we're going to get into what exactly happened.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Now.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I will say that George's body has never been recovered,
but he is presumed deceased, so we're going to talk
about all of that and what led to that assumption.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
My sources for this episode are going to be linked below.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
My primary source was a CBS News article that really
went through everything in a detailed timeline, and they did
a really good job of kind of bringing everything together.
So I did want to go ahead and mention that
most of what I'm going to talk about is from
that CBS News article, and that.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Will be linked below as well.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
George Alan Smith fourth was born on October third of
nineteen seventy eight to his parents, George Smith third and
Maureen Smith. He also had an older sister, named Brie.
In this CBS news article, Maureen Smith described her son
as a fine young man, handsome, hardworking, He was just
a great all around kid. George Smith the third.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Said that his son was the funniest guy.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
He said that he would sit and have a couple
of beers with him, and George would make.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Him laugh the whole night.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And he also said that he was so good looking
that the girls just fell all over him, and he
was just a lot of fun and a great guy.
When George met his future wife, Jennifer hagelge which was
twenty three and fresh out of college, he had plans
to take over his father's liquor store. He met twenty
two year old Jennifer in Greenwich, Connecticut. Jennifer was the
(12:10):
daughter of a cop and had hopes of becoming a teacher.
They were a small town All American couple. They dated
for about two years before becoming engaged in Aruba.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
A year later.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
On June twenty fifth of two thousand and five, they
said I Do in a cliffside ceremony in Newport, Rhode Island.
They had spent a year planning their wedding, a lot
of hard work and for their honeymoon, they decided a
cruise was in order. It would be a twelve day
cruise and George himself spent a lot of time planning
(12:42):
the strip for the couple. They set sail on June
twenty ninth of two thousand and five. As they hopped
aboard Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas, which set sail
from Barcelona, Spain. George booked a midship stateroom with a
balcony for the couple so they could sip champagne and
enjoy the sunrise and sunsets every day and night. No
(13:04):
money was spared and the couple was planning for the
vacation of their lives, but unfortunately everything would change for
the Smith family on this trip. So at the time
of this trip, George was twenty six years old and
Jennifer was about twenty five years old, both young twenty
somethings enjoying a time of their lives that they'd never
(13:24):
get back, and the couple was.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Very very social.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
They made friends with another newlywed couple that was also
on the ship, and a few days into it they
were practically old friends with this couple. They also befriended
a twenty year old named Josh Askin.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
He was on the cruise with his family.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
And despite the fact that he was on this cruise
with his family, he very much loved hanging out with
George and Jennifer, and he even spent an afternoon going
around Florence, Italy with the couple. On July fourth, after
five days of the trip, the boat went head and
docked in Mikonos Grease for the day and Jennifer and
(14:04):
George very much decided that they wanted to spend this
day together, just the two of them, see the island
and explore a little bit. They were having the best
time and George ended up sending an email to his
family to update them on the trip, and he told
them he was having the time of his life. Not
to worry about being in touch unless somebody died. Basically,
(14:25):
unless it's an emergency, don't bother us. So after they
spent the day exploring the island, they get back to
the ship around six pm. This is still on July fourth,
they decided to shower and get ready for dinner. Now,
although they did want to have dinner with just the
two of them, they did decide that after dinner they
(14:45):
were going to meet up with their newlywed friends. They
finish up dinner around eleven and they head off to
meet their friends. So they went to the casino, which
is pretty much anyone over the age of twenty one
that's on a cruise ship is going to be the
casino if they enjoy gambling. So they go to their
casino to meet their newlywed friends, and they also meet
(15:07):
Josh there. So once they get there, Jennifer and George
kind of split up. Jennifer went to the blackjack table
and George went to play craps, and like I said,
they meet up with Josh. So while they are there,
Josh introduces them to some other friends that he's met
also while on the cruise. And these guys were Russian
(15:27):
American and they were all in their twenties and from Brooklyn.
Their names are Gregory Rosenberg and his cousin Zach Rosenberg,
and their friend Rusty Kaufman. Now, Jennifer and Josh were
described as very fancy dressed to the nines. They had
fancy watches and jewelry, and while they were playing at
(15:49):
the casino that night, it was noted that they were
dropping money left and right, and they very much gave
the impression to people that they had money. There were
also several people on the ship that did overhear George
talk about the large sums of money that he had
in his room.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And George was young.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
He was twenty six years old and it was two
thousand and five, so it was a different time. In hindsight,
of course, bragging about the money probably wasn't the best
thing to do, but you never think that something bad
is going to happen to you and that people are
going to take advantage and target you. Because of this,
George and Jennifer were truly a gorgeous couple, and you
(16:31):
can look at them and just kind of give the
impression that they have nice things and that they possibly
could have some money. George was always dressed very nicely,
same with Jennifer. They just gave off the aura that
they had nice things. At one point in the evening,
George went back to his room to get more money
(16:52):
for he and Jennifer to gamble with. So they spent
some more time at the casino, and then the casino
finally closed and they went ahead and went to the
disco and they partied into the early morning hours of
July fifth, of two thousand and five. Now, both George
and Jennifer had been drinking quite heavily, which is what
(17:12):
you'd expect from newlyweds on their honeymoon.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
There's nothing wrong with this.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So Paul, who is the guy that was one half
of the other honeymoon and couple, had told George at
one point of the night, I think it's time to
call it a night and we need to all just
turn in and meet.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Back up tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And little did he know, two hours later George would
be gone. So around three thirty am, witnesses told investigators
that Jennifer and George had some type of disagreement.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
We're going to get into that a little later.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Jennifer then left the disco and was found passed out
in the hallway and was assisted back to.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Her room around four thirty am.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Now, Jennifer does not have any recollection of what happened
that night, and has no recollection of what happened as
far as ending up in the hallway, So when Jennifer
was returned to her cabin, George was not there. Neighbors
had said that they did hear George and three other
men in the cabin a little bit earlier, and they
(18:14):
said that they were loud and at one point it
sounded like they were moving furniture around, and security at
one point had also been called.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Around four twenty a m.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
One of the neighbors saw three men leave the cabin.
These three men were questioned and said they had taken
George to his room and put him to bed because
he was very intoxicated. So the next morning, July fifth
of two thousand and five, a sixteen year old girl
named Emily stepped out on her balcony. She wanted to
get some photos of the sunrise in Turkey. She noticed
(18:48):
on the overhang canopy of the lifeboats that there was
a huge bloodstain, and of course this was alarming because
it was a substantial amount of blood. She was thinking
something bad must have happened here. So it ended up
being reported and the ship then of course realized that
the occupants of room ninety sixty two were unaccounted for,
(19:11):
and they began to overhead page Jennifer and George Smith.
They did end up tracking down Jennifer, who was up
and was in the spa going for a scheduled massage
that she had that morning, and they told her that
they thought that George had gone overboard. Now, Jennifer said
she doesn't have any memory from the night before, but
(19:33):
when she woke up and saw that George wasn't there,
she didn't really think anything of it. She thought that
he just crashed with the other two newlywed friends.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That they had made.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
She couldn't believe what she was being told that George
fell overboard. She ended up calling her dad, who then
called George's parents with the news. But at this point,
the Smiths didn't know about the bloodstain that had not
been shared with them. They just knew that George had
to be on the ship somewhere. He was just maybe
off sleeping off his alcohol intoxication from.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
The night before.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It was from there that the Turkish police came in.
They boarded the ship and they began questioning everyone. They
end up tracking down Josh and the three Russian American guys.
So this is where things get interesting and why people
have their reservations about these guys. We are going to
get into their account of things because their account has
(20:30):
pretty much stayed the same over the years.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
They haven't wavered in things.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
During one of his later interviews, Josh has quoted us
saying that he didn't know what was going on. He
knew that he did nothing wrong and that's really all
that mattered to him. Now, there was a video that
was recorded at some point. I don't really know the
context of this, but I think it's when initially they
let Rusty know that there was blood found, and Rusty
(20:58):
is shocked when he heard of out the blood being found.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
He just didn't really know what to think about it.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
So as a group, the men tell Turkish authorities that quote,
after we dropped him off the second time we closed
the door, we never saw him again.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Never saw him again. End quote.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
So Josh said around two point thirty, when the casino closed,
they ended up leaving the casino to go to the disco,
and when they were on the elevator, they noticed that
the casino manager was kind of acting odd, and there
was even an awkward moment where Josh said that the
casino manager had put his arm around Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
So whether that's true or not, we really don't know
at this point in time.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And Josh said that they had snuck a bottle of
pretty hardcore liquor onto the ship, and they were all
at this disco just taking shots of this liquor, so
they were all getting pretty intoxicated, and Josh recalls that
there was a moment where Jennifer and George got into
a bit of an argument, which I talked about earlier,
and Jennifer ends up storming off and the casino manager
(22:04):
followed her. And then they said by three point thirty
the disco was closing and George was in pretty bad shape.
He could hardly even stand up, and they said he
was kind of slumped over in a chair, very highly intoxicated,
and they knew that they had to get him back
to his room, so they said that they essentially all carried.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Him back to his room.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
At three point fifty two am, the guys entered the
smith's cabin. The ship's key entry log records this time,
but Jennifer was not there at this time. When they
end up getting back to the room, of course, there
is no sign of Jennifer, like I said, and they
said that George was insistent that they go search for Jennifer.
(22:48):
The guys then said that they had a very loud
discussion with George about whether or not they should go
and try to find him. And this is what they
are saying, is the arguing that the passengers heard because
they were having a very loud conversation.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
George is very intoxicated. They're intoxicated.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
He wants to go find Jennifer, and they were having
a discussion about that. So they said that they did
decide to go look for Jennifer, and they headed out
again and they searched briefly for her and then returned
to the cabin at four h one am. They say
that they lay George down on the bed, they take
off his shoes, and he tells them how thankful.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
He is for them, He hugs them, and then they leave.
That is their story.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
But shortly after four am, a couple that are in
the cabin next to the Smith's here yelling, and it's
pretty loud from the smith cabin, and it's not just the.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Cabin, but particularly the balcony.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And these boys have all said that they never went
out to the balcony. They denied that they were ever
out there. But the neighbor says that the argument appeared
to be between three or maybe four individuals, which we're
going to get into that a little bit later, because
there is some theories about what potentially could have happened there. Now,
(24:10):
this is a quote from one of the Smith's cabin neighbors.
After about two minutes of the argument, we heard one
lone male voice repeatedly saying good night, good night, like
they were ushering someone out of the room. I looked
out and saw three male individuals walking away.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
From the room. End quote.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
So if we have these four guys and George, so
five people in total, George's very intoxicated, supposedly lying down
on the bed, you have argument going on on the
balcony between three maybe four people, and then three people leave.
Keep that in your mind because this, in my opinion,
(24:51):
witness account is very crucial to this case and kind
of piecing together what happened. He says he saw three
people leave the room, and I fully believe that he
saw three people leave the room. And we're going to
get into why I believe that is true in a
few minutes. So those same neighbors, recall quote, at this point,
we heard just one lone voice in the room. We
(25:14):
heard what sounded like the cupver doors being closed loudly,
and also sounded like furniture being moved. Again, keep that
in the back of your mind, because when we get
into the theories of what potentially could have happened, this
all is going to circle back and make a huck
of a lot of sense. So the cabin neighbors that
were on the other side said that they heard the
(25:34):
exact same thing.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
They said that there was what they would.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Call thrashing of room sounds, and he said that he
thought somebody was throwing furniture around, either mad or having
a good time. So he said at that point they
just kind of dismissed it, and after about two minutes
of total silence, there was a large, horrific thud And
they do believe that this thud was the sound of
(26:00):
George Smith hitting the canopy around four thirty am, So
this is around the same time that Jennifer was found
passed out in the hallway, and then shortly thereafter she
was returned to the cabin, and of course when she
got there, George was nowhere to be found. The guy
said that after they left George's cabin, they went back.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
To their one of their rooms and they ordered room service.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
So that is their account of what happened, and then
there's also the eyewitness accounts from the neighbors on either
side of the Smith's cabin.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
So I could sit here all day.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
In poke holes in everything that they said, because in
my opinion, there are a lot of holes in their story.
But we're going to get into that because as luck
would have it, everyone else had the same thoughts and
wanted to poke holes in their story as well, because
it just wasn't adding up now. Unfortunately, Jennifer did come
(26:58):
under quite a bit of scrutiny because she didn't, unfortunately
have any recollection of what had happened that night, and
people thought that she could have potentially been involved, and
in my opinion, I do not think that this is
the case. I think Jennifer was a victim in all
of this as well, and we truly don't know what
transpired that night and what she really truly went through,
(27:21):
And because she doesn't have any recollection of that, it
just kind of so happens that everything transpired the way
it did. They were both very intoxicated, and they were
not together. They were separated for the majority of that time,
so individually, we don't know what George and Jennifer both
(27:43):
experienced and Unfortunately, I think the people on the ship
took advantage of that. It almost to me makes me
wonder if they purposely try to keep them apart that night,
not necessarily for anything nefarious, but to have made a
better chance at getting them alone so they could see
(28:04):
what all they maybe had in their cabin.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
If they had. There's rumors that George was talking about
how much.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Money he had, so maybe their plan and their mo
was to kind of isolate them from each other, so
there was a higher chance of maybe taking advantage of that.
I don't know, I'm just theorizing there, but it just
seems nowadays we always hear don't leave your buddy, and
I know two thousand and five was a completely different time.
(28:31):
But when there's alcohol involved and you let your guard
down and.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
You're talking with people that you really don't know, you
just met them, you just never know who.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Is out for nefarious reasons and who wants to take
advantage of a situation. So the FBI ends up getting
involved and they started their investigation. Now this would actually
end up being years in the making, and at this
point in time, the captain of the ship was just
saying that this was just a simple accident. George was intoxicated,
(29:04):
he sat on the railing and then he fell off,
which I think cruise ships have to do some type
of damage control when something like this happens, because they
don't want people turned off by going on cruises. We
saw the same thing in the Amy Bradley case, where
it was just a simple oh, she must have fallen
overboard versus something nefarious happening. But if we're gonna take
(29:30):
this case, George's case and look at all of the evidence,
it really doesn't make sense in my opinion, that George
fell overboard on his own accord, whether it was an
accident or not. And one of the main reasons I
don't think that he fell overboard is because of the
blood that was out there.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
And it wasn't just the blood that was out there.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
There was also blood in the Smith's room on the
blanket on the bed. So there were photographs that were
taken by the Royal Caribbean and that revealed that there
were two small lines of blood on the sheets, and
this blood apparently belonged to George.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Smith, which is a sign that something.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Started in the room and then went out to the
balcony and kind of ended out there and ended up
with George loosing his life. We also have these two
accounts of people saying that they heard yelling and what
sounded kind of like a struggle furniture moving around in
the room. That doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.
Why would people be in there moving around furniture. I'm
(30:31):
going to tell you.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Why in a minute, because it's going to make sense
when I lay it all out.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
So the Smiths hired a lawyer named Mike Jones, and
he basically wanted to do everything he could to try
to uncover everything that was going on, and he wanted
to get his hands on whatever Royal Caribbean has as
far as what's going on in the case. So he
gets involved and his first order of business is he
(30:58):
wants to sit down individually with all of the guys
that were last seen with George. When he attempts to
question Josh, he basically just said that he was going
to plead the fifth to everything, including his name and birthdate.
And both Josh and Rusty's lawyers said that the reason
for this is because when this first happened, they were
(31:19):
very open and cooperative. They were very willing to talk
in the beginning, but the more that they were questioned,
the more that the lawyers and the guys themselves felt
that they were basically being pushed into a corner, and
they were accused more and more of foul play in
the death of George. So they decided that from here
on out they were just going to plead the fifth
with everything. When Rusty was questioned by Mike, he acted
(31:43):
like he didn't have any recollection of anything.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
He completely had no idea what had happened.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
They talked about him helping the guys put George to bed,
and they talked about Josh having to use the restroom
while he was in the smith's cabin, and he basically
said he had no recollection of either of those things.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Zach Rosenberg also did choose to.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Invoke his fit Amendment right, but the only one who
was forthcoming was Greg Rosenberg when he sat down with
Mike Jones, and at the time of his questioning, he
was serving time in a Florida prison for trafficking drugs,
specifically oxy codone, and the following is a conversation between
(32:25):
Mike and Greg Greg Rosenberg. I'm a fanatic with clothes, jewelry, watches,
That's why I'm here, man, Mike Jones. But murder is
a different deal, Greg Rosenberg, Murder is a different deal, man.
I don't have it in my heart to kill nobody, man,
Mike Jones.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Did you have anything to.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Do with George's death? Greg Rosenberg? No, never did, never would,
never thought about it.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
No.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
They then talked about the room service aspect, and Mike asked.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Greg what they ordered. What did you order from room service?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
And he said, tune of fish, sandwiches, and cheeseburgers and
basically just fast food type of food. And he said
that they were just so impressed that they could order
anything they wanted at any time of day or night
and that.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
It was just going to be delivered to them. So
they loved using the room service service.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Mike Jones said that this just didn't make sense to
him because they were almost saying that there's no way
that they could have harmed George because they were too
busy eating all of the room service food.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
But it just didn't add up. And I agree one
hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So in twenty ten, Mike finally got his hands on
the Royal Caribbean documents and all of these were very
telling because, as we know, on a cruise ship, everything
is recorded when you enter your cabin, when a phone
call is made from your room, when room service is
ordered and delivered, and the ship's records show that there
(33:59):
were several short calls that were made from Zach and
Rusty's cabin to room service around four thirteen a m
All that morning, but there isn't any record of any
type of order or orders being delivered to the boy's rooms. Now,
the boys' lawyers insist that that is not a sign
of guilt by any means, because the food was allegedly
(34:23):
delivered after George went messing. So in this case, these
four boys really only have an alibi of each other
for that night because the room service thing does not
pan out. And although they do tell the same story
and they have been consistent with it, there are so
many different holes that can be poked in the stories,
(34:46):
just from other witnesses, the neighbors of the smiths on
either side, and the fact that they one of them
saw three men leave the smith room and then.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Heard an altercation. It just doesn't make sense. Now.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
There also was an account that George and Jennifer got
into an argument and Jennifer went to run off, and
then the casino manager followed Jennifer and went off with her. Now,
this is a statement that Josh had originally given, and
this was proven to be false in these documents because
it was recorded that the casino manager went into his
(35:24):
girlfriend's cabin at three twenty five am while George and
Jennifer were still at the disco. So this whole story
with him chasing after her never happened. Now, there were
several witnesses that said they did witness Jennifer leaving the
disco at three point thirty am, but this casino manager
(35:46):
chasing after her is impossible.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Even though it's a short window.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
He was back in his girlfriend's cabin at three twenty
five am. They did polygraph Jennifer and the casino manager,
and they both passed their polygraph tests. And I know
that polygraph tests aren't always super reliable, but I do
think in this case that we can trust that what
Jennifer and this casino manager said is probably accurate. Now,
(36:12):
my personal opinion allegedly is that Josh and the Russian
American guys were trying to deflect the tension away from
themselves and put it on this casino manager, and he
was around that night, and maybe he did put his
arm around Jennifer in the elevator and things got a
little awkward. But I think they thought that this was
a perfect distraction from them, so they wanted to bring
(36:36):
him into the story. But unfortunately for them, the records
do not lie. He wasn't even there when the Smiths
left the disco. Now, in some of these Royal Caribbean documents,
there was a lot of talk about different complaints being
made against these four men as they were on the cruise. Now,
I do want to say Josh unfortunately surrounded himself with
(36:59):
these the three men, and they were not the best.
I don't think Josh did any of these things. I
think he was just kind of guilty by association because
he hung around them. But there were complaints against these
men for smoking, sneaking alcohol bottles on the ship, verbally
abusing employees, yelling, dropping curse words at the room service employees,
(37:22):
and so on and so forth. So two days after
George's apparent death, there was a woman on the ship
that came forward with a sexual assault allegation against the boys.
She said she was in one of their cabins, and
there was a quote unquote group sex type of assault
that happened, and there was even videotaped evidence of it.
(37:45):
Now they of course the boy said that this was consensuble,
but she said the opposite. The girl said that she
was very highly intoxicated and pretty much blacking out.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
And of course Josh's lawyer.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Said that, you know, Josh was there, but he didn't
take part in anything, and he said that it was
clear that this girl was taking advantage of the situation
and passing blame. But let me just say, two thousand
and five was a different time. But if a girl
is borderline blacking out, she cannot give consent. So I
(38:20):
have no other comments other than nothing ended up happening
with this. We're going to get into it. But if
a girl is blacked out drunk, she cannot give consent.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
So take that for what it's worth. But it's interesting
to me.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
This is the third person now that these boys have
had contact with.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
That has a not so great story.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
We have Jennifer who was passed out in the hallway
with no recollection of what happened. We have this girl
who was allegedly sexually assaulted in my opinion, she was
sexually assaulted, very intoxicated to the point of being.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Blackout during part of it.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
And then we have George Smith, who is presumably deceased,
evidenced by the blood and the different things that the
neighbors on either side heard. So what is the common
factor here? Again, this is just my opinion, but it's
these individuals.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
So from here.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
After this sexual assault allegation came forward, the four men
and their families that accompanied them on the cruise were
taken from the ship in Naples, and the Italian police
got to work looking into the sexual assault and basically
they said, there's nothing they can do. They have no jurisdiction,
so there has never been anything that happened in the.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Sexual assault case.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
And the lawyers think that the videotape pretty much proved
that it was consensual. But I personally think that it
has everything to do with the fact that when you
are on a cruise ship there isn't that jurisdiction. And
I remember it so well in the Amy Bradley documentary
that was on Netflix. I think it was one of
(40:00):
the gals that worked on the cruise ship she said,
if you want to commit a murder, do it on
a cruise ship, and apparently the same goes for sexual
assault because the hands of law enforcement are tied because
you're on international waters.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
So not only did.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
This videotape contain, in my opinion, the alleged sexual assault
of this woman, but it also contained a whole little
home movie that was made by the boys after Josh's death. Now,
Josh was not present for this conversation. It was just
the Russian American boys, and they were basically passing around
(40:36):
the camera and talking very horrendously about George's death. They
were joking about George being wealthy, and Rusty makes.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
A comment about George going parachute.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Riding and said, quote, we gave that guy a paragliding
lesson without a parachute, which, even if you don't have
anything to do with this, it's like really freaking tacky
and rude and disrespectful to say something like that. And
then at one point in the video, one of the
guys stands up and kind of flashes some like twenty
(41:10):
year old gang signs and says, quote, told you I
was gangsta end quote. And this was right after George's death,
So why would you insert yourself in something like that
and make this home video and be really tacky and
gross when you know you're being questioned by authorities, like
(41:33):
what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
So the boys.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Lawyers all declined to comment on the video, and in
twenty thirteen they did try to get Rusty Kaufman to
comment on it, and he basically just said, you're gonna
have to contact my lawyer. One of the boys lawyers
said that Greg when he made the video, didn't even
know that George was dead at that point and it
(41:56):
was just making funny comments and I don't know. In
my opinion, one common theme I see in this is
just deflect, deflect, deflect. Mike Jones very much believes that
the motive for all of this was money and robbery.
These boys knew that George and Jennifer had a large
sum of money back in their cabin. They knew that
they dressed really well, George had a really fancy, expensive watch,
(42:20):
and they thought that they could potentially take advantage of this.
So Mike's theory is that they brought George back to
his cabin. George was obviously very drunk, he wasn't really
able to fight back, so he thinks that the boys
went out to the balcony and they are discussing amongst
themselves who's gonna do what.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Josh goes in to use the bathroom.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
And the three other boys are out on the balcony
arguing about if they're all going to look for the money,
if it's just going to be one of them.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
They decide it's just going to be one of them.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
The three leave and one stays behind, and that's when
all hell breaks loose. He also believes that the couple
of streaks of blood on the bed could be from
the one guy that was in there trying to get
the watch off of George's wrist. Maybe it pinched him,
maybe he flinched, maybe he tried to fight back. George
might have woken up from that and was trying to
(43:15):
figure out what was going on, and then a fight
ensued and George ended up being thrown overboard. Mike does
not believe that Josh was involved in the actual crime,
but does think that he knows more than he is saying,
because Josh was overheard allegedly talking to a friend on
an elevator and basically he said something to the effect
(43:40):
of the Russian Americans almost got him arrested in Turkey.
Josh and Rusty both failed their polygraph tests. Greg Rosenberg's
results were inconclusive, but they do believe that Greg's answers
and everything that was said on the polygraph test, they
do believe that there was some exception at times, and
(44:01):
it's not really what he said, but what he didn't say.
There was a lot of times he said that we
didn't do it versus I didn't do it. And that's
a really interesting thing when.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
You think about it, because.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
If you're accused of something like that, as a group,
you're going to protect yourself.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
You're number one.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
He doesn't have any really loyalty to these other guys,
although they are one of them is his family, one
of them is his friend.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
He doesn't technically have loyalty to them.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
So they thought that his answers were very interesting in
that way. One thing he did say, and this was
Greg Rosenberg, during the light detector, he said, George Allen
Smith did not disappear or kill himself or hurt himself
or slip and fall off of the boat at six
foot four or forever.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Tall he is and just dive off. I know that.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Didn't happen, so something crazy went down that night, and
I hope one day they find out the truth.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
So that is kind of where the case stands today.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Jennifer did end up remarrying, and she had children and
has very much tried to move on from this horrific
time in her life. The Smiths still struggle daily, of course,
with the loss of their son, the awn answer questions,
the lack of accountability, and they very much remained hopeful
that one day they would get answers and there was
going to be somebody that'd be held accountable for George's death.
(45:29):
And they held out that hope until twenty fifteen, when
the FBI announced that they were officially going to close
the case of George Smith, ten years after his death.
The FBI basically said there wasn't sufficient evidence to keep
the case open and continue investigation into his death. George's
family still obviously wants justice for him, and they are
(45:51):
not going to give up. His sister said that she
is going to fight until the end of time to
get justice for her brother.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
No charges have ever.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Been fired in this case, and I do want to
kind of say, this is my opinion a PSA. If
you go on a cruise you were on international territory.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
That cruise ship.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Will not protect you and will not protect your rights.
If something bad happens, they will not help your family.
And that's exactly what happened in this case. Time and
time again we see it. We saw it with Amy Bradley,
and I know that there's so many others out there
that are probably just like this. And although it wasn't
a cruise we saw the same thing happen in the
(46:31):
Natalie Holloway case. In December of twenty nineteen, George Rosenberg
was shot and killed outside of his home in Davy, Florida,
and his case remains active and open at this point
in time. I do want to get into his death
a little bit because I think it's an interesting.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Layer to the story.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
So Greg Rosenberg was killed in his driveway in California.
He had been out Christmas shopping for his family and
when he got home, he basically ambushed in his driveway.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
There is video of this.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
They have released surveillance video that's showing the vehicle that
police believe was involved in Greg's murder, which happened right
before Christmas of twenty nineteen. On December twenty third, investigators
believe the car that they are searching for is a
white SUV BMW X three or X five series, and
(47:28):
they do believe that there might have been a person
driving and then a person that carried out the shooting
of Greg. Now, they were very clear to say that
this was not a robbery gone wrong, and it did
seem to them that it was targeted and it was
a possible hit. Now given Greg's history and everything that
he had been involved in, if you remember, he's the
(47:50):
one that was previously in prison in Florida for trafficking drugs.
So I just think this adds a whole extra layer
to things. But his murder at this point in time
still remains unsolved. And unfortunately, given the fact that he
is no longer with us, he took whatever he knows
to the grave with him, So we likely will not
(48:12):
get any more answers than we had before in regards
to George's death because Greg was the one that kind
of would share information here and there, and when Mike
Jones went to question him, he was willing to talk.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
So it is a very interesting layer to this case.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Nonetheless, and I did want to bring it up, so
that is kind of where things stand today. George's case
has been officially closed per the FBI. His family, like
I said, still holds out hope that there is going
to be something that happens, somebody that comes forward that
will change the fact.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
That it's a closed case.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
So if you do have any information related to George
Smith's disappearance, you are asked to call one eight for
four six' five on one nine three six or send
an email To George smith tipline at gmail dot.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Com i'll be, HONEST i.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Knew none of all the stuff THAT i covered in my.
RESEARCH i remember his death and that's really the LAST
i heard about, it is that he died on a cruise.
Ship he was maybe thrown overboard by, somebody BUT i
never really knew the. Details and it was very interesting
trying to unravel.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
All of, this try to make sense of all of.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
It because there were four people that were with him that,
night so there was five of them, together and one
of them did not make it off of that. Boat
AND i think that there is a lot more questions
That i'm Sure george's family, has and there's a lot
more to.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
THIS i really do think. That so thank you guys so.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
Much for tuning in and listening To george's. STORY i
will be back next week with a brand new unsolved
case and prayers To george's family and To, jennifer because
even though this happened so long, ago it happened twenty years,
ago it still has to deeply affect them on a daily.
Basis and they've also had to try to navigate not
(50:15):
getting justice For, george which has to make it even,
harder especially knowing that there is kind of these lingering
questions that remain and kind of are this dark cloud
and shadow over his case and getting. Resolution SO i
will see you guys next. WEEK i hope you have
a great weekend ahead AND i will see you.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Then. Bye
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