Bonus episode: The Disappearance of Amy Bradley

In March 1998, 23-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley disappeared from a cruise ship while traveling with her family in the Caribbean. Despite rigorous searches, international investigations, and reported sightings in the years that followed, Amy has never found. In this episode, we look at her disappearance, the main theories, and the questions that remain unanswered.

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Sources:

• Cindelshade, Lyra . The Disappearance of Amy Bradley: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from a Cruise Ship Without a Trace. (Function). Kindle Edition. 
• http://www.adultlock.com/maxwell/amateurs/amat0013.htm x-rated pictures of Randee Lee 
• https://cruising.org/about-cruise-industry/history-cruise-industry
• https://www.netflix.com/watch/81781094?trackId=14170287
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqXX-zPfz_Y
• https://profcruise.com/14-emergency-codes-you-never-want-to-hear-on-a-cruise-ship/#alpha
• https://usearch.com/dataset/walmart-stores-closing-list
• https://people.com/is-amy-bradley-alive-what-her-family-says-after-netflix-docuseries-11793391
• https://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/31/grace.coldcase.bradley/index.html
• https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/inside-the-disappearance-of-amy-lynn-bradley-on-cruise-ship/news-story/e76b2967c3e5c119a2de3099f1559583
• https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2023/02/22/cruise-ship-overboard-detection-system/11172790002/#
• https://www.law.com/article/almID/900005529005/?slreturn=20250829200443
• https://www.newspapers.com/image/837222792/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Tina, and I'm Rich. Welcome to love.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Mary Kill just the facts.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
In the early morning hours of March twenty fourth, nineteen
ninety eight, as Royal Caribbean's newest showstopper, Rhapsody of the
Seas glided quietly through the dark vast ocean, nearing the
shores of Kirosaw, the first streaks of sunlight broke across
the horizon. Inside the cramped cabin of Room eight five
sixty four, Ron and Iva Bradley slept alongside their twenty

(00:42):
one year old son Brad. Ron startled awake at six
a m. For reasons he's never been able to explain.
His wife dozed next to him, and he could just
make out Brad's shape on the pullout sofa in the
dim light. But he wondered where was his twenty three
year old daughter Amy. He peeked out onto the balcony
and spotted only her sandals, sitting beneath the chair where

(01:05):
he had last seen her staring out at the endless sea.
Believing that she had gone to watch the sunrise, Ron
rose from bed and decided to join her. He searched
the ship, but Amy was nowhere to be found what
began as an ordinary morning soon dissolved into a nightmare,
a mystery that would haunt Iva, Ron and Brad for

(01:26):
the next twenty seven years. So you have not watched
the Netflix documentary, no, and you don't know anything about
this case.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
I know nothing about it. I do know a lot
of bad things happen on cruise ships, so it is
a scary thought.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
There are larger, more impressive boats today, but when Royal
Caribbean's Rhapsody of the Seas launched in May nineteen ninety seven,
it was considered one of the most impressive luxurious cruise
ships of its time. Spanning nine hundred feet long, one
hundred feet wide and eleven stories tall, it was among
the largest vessels in the fleet. The Rhapsody had capacity

(02:02):
for over two thousand passengers and nearly eight hundred crew members.
The ship had a variety of dining options, casual, formal,
and of course endless all you can eat buffets that
cruises are famous for. There was a night club, Calypso Disco,
where guests could drink and dance the night away, a
small casino of rock climbing wall, six whirlpools, and two

(02:25):
swimming pools. The Rhapsody of the Seas has since been
refurbished and still sails today. In the nineteen nineties, cruise
ships weren't as safe and monitored as they are today.
Security was lax. There were few, if any security cameras,
and protocols weren't yet in place to deal with the
dangers of unregulated international waters or a missing guest. Amulin

(02:49):
Bradley was born on May twelfth, nineteen seventy four, to
Ron and Iva Bradley in Petersburg, Virginia. Petersburg is a
mid sized independent city in the southeastern part of the state,
about twenty five miles south of Richmond, known for its
significance during the Civil War and its diverse population. Amy
has one sibling, a brother named Ronald Junior, also known

(03:11):
as Brad, three years her junior. I think a lot
of people don't realize that Brad is a nickname, and
a lot of you know Brad Bradley, who names their
kid Brad Bradley, But he was actually named after his dad.
Sports were a big part of Amy's childhood. She excelled
at every sport. She played volleyball, basketball, softball, soccer, and swimming.

(03:32):
She lettered in all five sports in high school, Amy
was a very strong swimmer, even working as a swim
teacher and lifeguard. She graduated from Longwood College in Farmville,
Virginia in nineteen ninety six, where she was on a
full basketball scholarship. Averaging ten points a game. Amy set
a school record when she shot seven three pointers in

(03:54):
one game. Can you imagine watching that game? That must
have been so exciting. That's a lot of free pointers
right now.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
A former coach called Amy the best ball handler she'd
ever seen. At Longwood, Amy majored in physical education. After graduation,
she lived with her parents while working as a waitress
at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Everyone at the restaurant loved Amy,
but after the cruise, Amy was excited to start a
new job as a graphic designer and move into a

(04:22):
new apartment. I think at this time it was harder
to get a job as a teacher. I think the
market was just saturated, and she really did want to
be a teacher and a coach, but she couldn't find
a job, so she took this job. I think it
was a family friend and they hired her until she
could find I think a job in the teaching field, gotcha.

(04:44):
Amy had also recently adopted a new English bulldog puppy
that she'd named Bailey. Things were going well for Amy.
She and her brother Brad were extremely close. They considered
each other best friends. Self expression was important to Amy.
She wasn't afraid to stand out. She was confident in
her own skin, her style bold and edgy, her ever

(05:05):
changing hair color, her distinctive fashion sense to the music
she loved. Amy also had several tattoos, each carried a
special meaning to her. On her left shoulder was a
purple baby Tasmanian devil also known as Dizzy Devil, spinning
a basketball on its finger, a nod to her love
of the game. Above her right ankle, she had a

(05:25):
black Japanese symbol. On her lower back a primitive Japanese
sund and around her belly button, where she also had
a piercing curled a blue and green gecko. Each design
was intentional, a small window into who Amy was.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Amy's story has long fascinated the true crime community, but
it wasn't until the three part Netflix documentary Amy Bradley
Is Missing that her sexuality became widely discussed. Whether it
has any direct bearing on her disappearance is debatable, but
it remains an important piece of the puzzle in understanding
who Amy was. During her junior year of college, Amy

(06:03):
began questioning her sexuality after developing feelings for her close
friends Shannon Kat Lovelace, a fellow basketball player and sweet mate.
When their friendship deepened into a romantic relationship, Amy hesitated
to share the truth with her family, worried their conservative
values might lead to rejection. To keep up appearances, Amy

(06:24):
and Kat dated brothers as boyfriends while secretly staying committed
to each other.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
I heard an interview with Kat and she said that
these men or boys never even made it to first
base with them.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Amy even invited Kat to spend the summer with her family,
under the guys that she needed a place to stay.
The Bradleys warmly welcomed Kat as Amy's friend, but when
Amy later revealed that Kat was actually her girlfriend, their
opinion shifted.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
In this interview I heard with Kat, she talked about
how much she loved the Bradleys and they were a
really great family, but they couldn't wrap their heads around
Amy being gay.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Okay Ron Bradley went so far as to write Kat
a three page letter expressing his disappointment. When Amy came
out to her parents, Kat realized she should do the
same and also chose to come out to her own family,
but she had a much better experience. Despite the couple's
love for each other, Amy's family's disapproval weighed heavily on

(07:24):
their relationship, and Kat would later say it played a
part in their eventual breakup after two years. Kat, on
her substack, described Amy as vibrant, magnetic, complicated, brave, funny, passionate, flawed.
She called their relationship a gift and a storm. Brad
has done a lot of interviews and said that Amy

(07:46):
was bisexual and had a boyfriend named Tom at the
time of her disappearance, but friends say this isn't true.
A journalist named James Renner interviewed Tom. Tom was a
manager at Ruth Chris's steakhouse, where Amy worked. He described
their relationship as more of a buddy relationship. They would
drink beers and shoot pool together.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
This man, James Renner, he has a YouTube channel and
I watched a lot of his videos about this case.
The Netflix documentary coincided with him writing a book about Amy.
So at this time the same time, they're both doing
this research and some of their sources overlap. Okay, James
Renner's book is not out until next summer, but he's

(08:31):
done an extensive amount of research. Sounds like a pretty
good guy. He sat down with the Bradley family. He
had been exchanging emails and messages with them for months,
and finally they invited him to their home, which was
kind of a big deal for the Bradley family because
they didn't trust every journalist. They've been cautious understandably over
the years.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Well, it should be an interesting read.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
So, like we said at the beginning of this section,
Amy's sexuality had never really been discussed publicly, and when
James Rudder went to meet with the Bradley family, he
was very cautious about this because he was pretty sure
that they didn't want to talk about it. Okay, Yeah,
but then he broached the subject, like right before he left,
and he said, the mood completely changed in the room

(09:16):
and Iva, who in the documentary, if you've watched it,
really does seem like a nice woman who's very loving.
But as soon as he brought up the thing, the
rumors about Amy being gay, she shut him down okay.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
In January nineteen ninety eight, Amy was dating a woman
named Molly McClure. They were very much in love and
planning a future together until Amy met and kissed another
woman after a night of partying. It didn't mean anything,
and she instantly regretted it. Amy was racked with guilt
when she admitted what happened to Molly. Molly ended the relationship.

(09:52):
She told Amy she needed time and space to process
the news, refusing to see her or talk to her
on the phone. Amy was harp broken and wanted to
show Molly how important she was to her. She decided
to write her a love letter, A message in a bottle.
It said, quote, Molly, I hurt you deeper than you
can ever forget. I just wanted to ask you if

(10:13):
you could find it in your heart to forgive me.
I feel like there's an ocean between us, like I'm
on a desert island waiting for you to rescue me.
A message in a bottle my only hope. I miss you, Molly,
save me. Please stranded Amy.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
So we can talk about the symbolism of her writing. Yeah,
a letter in a bottle.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
It's quite a coincidence.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yah, it is. I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but
it is ironic.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, she sent the letter a month before she disappeared.
Molly was touched by the gesture, and they decided to
reunite after the cruise and discuss their future. So it
sounds like they were on the path to getting back
together but never had the opportunity. Sadly.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, I heard interviews with both Kat and Molly, and
they both seem like lovely women who really cared about
Amy very much.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
On March twenty first, nineteen ninety eight, the Bradley family
left their home in Chesterfield, Virginia, and flew to San Juan,
Puerto Rico, where they boarded the Rhapsody of the Seas
to begin their seven day crews with port stops in Aruba, Curasau,
and the Virgin Islands. Ron and Iva both worked for
the insurance agency Illinois Mutual. The cruise was a reward

(11:27):
trip for Illinois Mutual's top salespeople, with about two hundred
employees and their families on board. Seizing the opportunity for
a family trip, the Bradley's paid extra so that Amy
and brad could join them. The trip, in part was
to celebrate the beginning of Amy's professional life. Amy and
Brad took a slightly later flight than Iva and Ron.

(11:49):
Once they were all together, they were still too early
to board the ship, so they went shopping. Amy bought
fifteen rolls of film for her camera and some postcards
that she sent before boarding the ship, So she was entering.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Some sort of photo contest. I'm not sure if it
was a contest that was going to be aboard the
cruise or something after the cruise, but that was why
she had bought so many roles of film and was
going to be taken a lot of pictures, Okay.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
The Bradley's cabin was on Deck eight, a prime location
with nice views of the sea and a small balcony
made of clear glass for unobstructed views of the ocean.
It was close quarters, but the Bradleys didn't think sharing
the stateroom would be a problem. With so much to
explore on the ship and the port cities, they would
only be in the room to sleep. Although Amy was

(12:36):
a strong swimmer, her brother said she feared heights and
deep water and avoided going near the railings.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
So Brad and Amy were sharing the pullout sofa to
sleep on.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Oh, okay, that doesn't sound ideal.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
I think our kids are similar ages to the Bradley kids,
and I can't imagine our kids sharing a pullout.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
Oh, they would not be cool of that. The Bradley's
had a great time the first two days of the cruise.
As two of the youngest passengers on board, Amy and
Brad drew plenty of attention from the crew for their
fun loving nature. On day three of the trip, March
twenty third, the Rhapsody stopped in Aruba. The Bradleys rented
a convertible to explore the island, but got lost for hours.

(13:20):
Sunburned and exhausted, they barely made it back to the
ship before departure. That evening aboard the ship was formal night,
Amy and Brad posed for pictures with the ship's professional photographer.
After dinner, Iva and Amy searched for the photos but
couldn't find them. The photographer said he had printed them,
yet they had vanished from the display, though reprinted later.

(13:42):
The incident was strange and unsettling. You always have to
take your picture on all of these things, right, whenever
you go on a ride, you go on a cruise,
you go on whatever.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
In case it's your last ride cruise?

Speaker 3 (13:55):
Is that why they do it? I think they do
it to make money, But it is a little bit there.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
It is funny like that happens to us all the
time whenever a runt one of these tourists trips, and
a lot of times I'm a little rude and I
just keep walking because there's no way I'm gonna buy
this picture. So let's save the film yep.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
After dinner, the Bradleys changed into more casual attire for
a pool party. Brad surprised himself and his family when
he won the limbo contest. He was given a crown
as a surprise, which he promptly placed on Amy's head.
At one am, Iva and Ron called a night, just
as the ship left a Ruba's port for the next stop, Curosau,

(14:34):
just seventy miles away. The family all embraced and exchanged
I love yous before the elder Bradley's returned to their cabin.
We'll be back after a break.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Amy and Brad were in no hurry to return to
the tiny stateroom. Instead, they went to the Calypso Disco
to dance and have a few drinks. Crew members were
allowed to social lies with guests aboard the ship until
about one am. Witnesses recalled seeing Amy dancing and having
a drink with the bass player for the ship's band,
Blue Orchid Alistair Douglas was his name, although most people

(15:13):
called him Yellow. He was dejaying that night and Amy
and Brad requested several songs. Between changing songs, he danced
with Amy, sometimes grinding up against her, which definitely was
against the rules. Amy and Brad were much younger than
the typical guests on the cruise ship. They were both attractive,
fun loving, and had good personalities. They became friendly with

(15:35):
several members of the crew. The night before Amy disappeared,
they even invited her to a bar, Carlos and Charlie's.
She declined the invitation, thinking it was a little odd.
Carlos and Charlie's that is the bar in Aruba where
Natalie Holloway was last seen. Oh around three am, Ron
Bradley woke to find Brad and Amy missing and went

(15:58):
to look for them to make sure they were okay.
They told their dad that they would be back to
the cabin soon. Do you think that's odd that he
went to look for them.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
A little bit. Yeah, I would think. You're on a
cruise and you know they're young people. They're going to
stay out till they stay out, Like, where are they
going to go?

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Brad returned to the cabin about three thirty am and
sat on the balcony. Amy followed ten minutes later and
joined Brad outside. So, in this entire case, the only
objective data that we have is that Amy returned to
the room at three forty. And we know this because
you had to swipe your key to get into the room, gotcha.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
But there's no record when someone leaves the room.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Right, Okay, you don't have to swipe your key, you know,
you just exit the room, just like in a hotel.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
And Brad confirmed that Amy came in at three forty
and that they sat on the balcony together.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yes, so Amy enjoyed sitting on the small balcony facing
the sea, feeling the breeze while smoking. While sitting together,
Amy confided to Brad that Yellow had made several unwelcomed
anss towards her, but she let it go and said
it wasn't a big deal. They sat on the balcony,
chatting and rehashing the night until Brad turned in a
little after four a m. Leaving Amy outside. With a

(17:12):
combination of the long day the alcohol in the fresh air,
Brad quickly fell into a sound sleep. Amy stayed on
the balcony. She was feeling a little nauseous, and the
cool sea breeze soothed her. At five thirty Ron jerked
awake with alarm. Later he said he didn't know what
had aroused him. He quickly panned the room and noted
Bred and bed, but not Amy. He peered out on

(17:34):
to the deck and saw Amy lounging on a deck chair,
and went back to sleep, satisfied that all was well.
But when he woke up again just after six a m.
He noticed that the sliding door to the deck was
ajar about a foot. The small table had been pushed
up against the railing. Amy's cigarettes and lighter were gone
from the table, but her sandals were neatly lined up

(17:55):
under her chair. The yellow polo, sued that Amy had
worn to the night club, was draped over a chair
inside the cabin. Ron assumed that Amy had gone out
to seek a cup of coffee, and then he left
the room hoping to find her and join her to
watch the sunrise. When he didn't find her, he returned
to the room to rouse Iva and Brad to help
look for Amy.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
So he saw her at five thirty on the balcony,
and then just a half hour later he came back
and she was gone and the door was ajar exactly.
That's a very narrow window of time.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
Interesting, very good observation, something that I'm wondering. So it's
five thirty the first time, and he doesn't know what
woke him up, but he said he saw Amy on
the balcony. But it's five thirty. The sun isn't going
to rise until I think just after six, okay, so
it must be pretty dark. The room is cramped, and

(18:50):
Brad is closer to the deck door than he is, okay,
so would he be able to how clearly would he
be able to see onto the deck?

Speaker 3 (19:00):
I mean, I think it really depends on whether there
was a full moon out. I mean, sometimes even before
the sunrise moon, okay, and sometimes even before the sunrise
it starts to get at least a little bit lighter.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
But at five thirty am, and it's in March, yeah,
I mean, I know it's you know, it's a different
It's the Caribbean, so maybe it's a little different.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah, it's hard to say.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Around six thirty am on Tuesday, March twenty fourth, Ron
and Iva approached the purser's desk and inform them that
Amy was missing and asked for their assistance. The staff
didn't seem too concern, suggesting that she maybe eating breakfast
or sleeping on a deck chair. Someone we don't know
who called Yellow's room to see if Amy was there.

(19:42):
She wasn't.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
I get the.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Impression that Yellow bringing a woman back to his room.
It might be a frequent occurrence, okay, even though he
had a roommate. Later, Yellow's room and the rooms of
his fellow bandmates were searched, but nothing was found. The
crew told the Bradleys to keep looking and to let
them know if Amy didn't turn up Soon. The Bradleys
took another lap around the boat, but there was still

(20:05):
no sign of Amy.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
It's a little surprising to me that they reported her
missing so quickly. I would think it would be very
possible that she was just up getting a cup of
coffee or taking a walk to see the sunrise and Also,
I would think there are probably a lot of nooks
and crannies on a ship like that that it would
be very difficult to find someone just by walking around

(20:27):
the ship.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
I think there were a fair number of places that
she could have been, but they checked them all fairly quickly.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
The Bradleys went door to door, pleading with fellow passengers
and asking them to search their rooms. Their desperate efforts
were halted after security stepped in and ordered them to stop.
The boat was about to dock and Ciros out for
the day. Kirasau was an island of the Netherlands about
forty miles north of Venezuela. Passengers lined up excitedly to

(20:55):
explore the port city, Willhelmstad. The Bradleys knew Amy wouldn't
have gotten off the boat without telling them something was
definitely wrong. It was unlike Amy to worry her family.
I'a told People magazine quote, She's not going to leave
the room and not come back without leaving a note.
My intuition was something is terribly wrong. They pleaded with

(21:17):
the staff of the Rhapsody to lock the ship down,
make an announcement, and not to let anyone off the
vessel until Amy was found, but disembarkation continued helplessly. They
watched just hundreds of passengers streamed off the ship, no
records kept, no effort made to track who or how
many left for the day or who returned.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
That's really surprising to me. I would think if there's
a passenger missing, even if they haven't been missing for
that long, you would want to make sure everyone was
accounted for. If they did let people off the ship,
I would think they would be really careful to track
exactly who was leaving the ship as well.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
I wish you would have been in charge of security.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah, he too.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah. I think today you have of bracelets or badges
that you know, they keep track of and they know
who is on and off the ship at all times.
But back in nineteen ninety eight, that was not the case.
It was infuriating. Iva said in an interview. They didn't
act like this was an emergency. They acted like we
were an inconvenience cruise. Director Kirk Dattweiler said in the

(22:21):
Netflix documentary, We're not going to stop everybody's cruise because
there was a missing girl. That's one family's unfortunate incident.
But we still have twenty four hundred people who paid
a lot of money, and as cold as that sounds,
that's the reality. We still had a couple of thousand
people to entertain feed. They were still on vacation, so

(22:42):
we went back to you know, normal operating procedure. Life
goes on, cruises go on.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
Oh he's right, that sounds pretty cold.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
When I was watching the documentary and he said that,
my jaw like hit the floor. I couldn't believe how
cold hearted he was. I think he is one of
those situations where he was interviewed for hours. I feel
a little bit of empathy for him because I think
they just took that one chunk out of his interview
and he got to say a few other things in
the documentary, but he I think he's gotten a lot

(23:12):
of hate online, understandably so for what he said.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
But I think so too. I mean, and may be
part of its hindsight, because at this time they didn't
know that anything serious was wrong. Right, But still, if
somebody's missing, I would think you would take that very
very seriously.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
If we were on a cruise and a passenger was missing,
I would say, inconvenience me, it's okay, exactly like, you know,
finding Amy was more important than anything else.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
By nine am there was still no sign of Amy.
The crew agreed to page her finally, and they initiated
a Charlie drill, which is a full scale search in which,
in theory, every inch of the ship is combed. For
an hour, crew members scoured every inch of the vessel,
but there was still no sign of Amy, although later
the Bradleys learned that it really wasn't a full scaled

(24:01):
Charlie drill. They did not search the guests cabins.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Oh yeah, I would think every inch of the ship
would include the guest cabins.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
I think, yeah, most of the ship is the guest cabins. Right.
The captain delivered devastating news to iva Ron and brad
He was sure that Amy was no longer on board.
Panic set in. It made no sense. The Bradleys were
beyond frustrated that a lockdown hadn't been ordered. Anyone could
have slipped off the ship unnoticed. Amy could have been

(24:30):
smuggled away as a prisoner in a suitcase or a
garbage bag, or you know, there's so many things that
are coming on and off the ship. You know, at
every port they take the garbage off, and you know
they're getting an influx of you know, supply and food
and so any of those carts they could have hidden Amy.

(24:50):
Ron watched helplessly as people came and went all day
long hoping to see Amy. From early on, the Bradleys
were sure that she had been kidnapped and taken off
the boat. They did not believe that she went overboard
accidentally or intentionally. Adamantly denying Amy would have taken her
own life. Quote she didn't vanish into thin air. Ron said,

(25:11):
someone knows something, and we are going to find out.
An odd interaction occurred when Yellow approached Brad that morning
and said, well, I'm sorry to hear about your sister.
That was before I had really been announced that she
was missing. Yellow quickly became suspect number one, and I
I'm not sure why he would say this to Brad

(25:31):
if he did something to Amy.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
Well, and didn't you say earlier that someone called him
early that morning when they started looking for her. Yeah, yeah,
so he would have known.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
So he would have known. But I don't think maybe
Brad didn't realize that someone had called him at that point.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
But he has been very and he has had some
suspicious behavior too.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
Okay. It took local authorities in Kirasaw at least twelve
hours to be informed about amy vanishing. Helicopters, boats, dive
teams and dogs were dispatched to search the waters and
coastlines between Aruba and Curasau, about two hundred square nautical miles.
It was up to twenty hours after Amy had disappeared

(26:11):
that the search got underway.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
So that's almost a full day after Amy disappeared until
these searches were started.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, once again, does not seem to be the level
of urgency that I would expect.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
We're going to talk about this in just a minute,
but I think a big problem was jurisdiction because they
are at sea.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
It was the largest air and water search ever performed
in Curasau. The Navy, the Marines, the Venezuelan Coast Guard,
and even local fishermen joined the search. Authorities believed that
if Amy had jumped or been pushed off of the boat,
her body would have eventually washed ashore due to the
strong current. Even if a shark had gotten to her,

(26:53):
clothing or body parts would be left behind.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Although I think there aren't many sharks in these waters.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
The City of the Seas was sailing in international waters
when Amy disappeared, a place where no single nation has jurisdiction.
The ship flew under the flag of the Bahamas, which
meant US law enforcement, like the FBI, had no automatic
authority on board to conduct searches, interviews, or even board
the vessel. They first needed cooperation from both Royal Caribbean

(27:23):
and Bahamian officials. That red tape caused delays during the
critical first hours of the investigation. Cruise ships carry security
personnel but no sworn law enforcement officers, leaving initial control
in the cruise line's hands. When the FBI finally boarded
the next day, they began interviewing staff, but their scope

(27:44):
was limited. With a foreign flagged ship and an international crew,
much of the investigation depended on the cooperation of the
very people employed by the cruise line. The waters were
scoured for five days before the search was eventually called off.
Royal Caribbean charted a boat and continued to search for
an additional twenty four hours to no avail. Rumors aboard

(28:08):
the ship began to circulate about a missing passenger. Some
people claimed they saw Amy disembark the ship at the
Kirasau Port with a beach bag in her hand, although
she had not brought a beach bag with her. Some
guests believed she had jumped intentionally, while others thought she
might have tried to swim ashore given her athleticism. Swimming

(28:29):
ashore makes no sense because even like those cruise ships
are so high up that jumping off of a cruise
ship you would be killed. Right.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
I think that's a really good point, and people don't
realize that that. You know, she was jumping from the
eighth or ninth floor or whatever it was, and yeah,
I think most you would die from that impact hitting
the water.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Right, Yeah, it's like jumping onto concrete when you're jumping
from that high into water. Two young teenage passengers swore
that sometime between five point thirty and six am they
saw Amy with Yellow in the ship class elevator. About
fifteen minutes later, they claimed that they saw only Yellow
walk by them in a hurry and he didn't acknowledge them.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
So it's impossible to corroborate this time. And it's nineteen
ninety eight. We don't have cell phones in our pocket.
You know, so like now, I feel like I have
a good sense of what time it is all the
time because i'm you know, either well, I have a watch,
but you know a lot of people don't. But you
always have your cell phone with you. But I wonder
if they have this time wrong, right, And.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
These are teenagers. They may have had watches, but they
a lot of teenagers probably didn't wear watches at that point.
And they're on a cruise ship right right.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
And staff should not have been on the glass elevator
at any time. There was a special staff elevator. And
I guess Yellow did break some other rules because he
wasn't supposed to be, you know, with a guest after
one am, and he was definitely dancing with Amy after
one am, so he could have been in the glass elevator.
But I do question the timing of this because it
was never corroborated. The girls when they went back to

(30:02):
the room. I think they were eighteen years old, okay,
And they went back to the room, like one of
their moms let them into the cabin and she said
that it was after six am. But I just I
questioned it because they didn't have to swipe their card,
is what I was trying to get at there.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
Okay. Well, like we see in so many stories when
someone gets reported missing, you know, I always think back
to the Lacy Peterson case. All of a sudden, you know,
all these people come out of the woodwork. Oh I
think I saw her. You know, I saw this person.
And they're always very specific with their information, and it's
just you know, not that I doubt them, but a
lot of.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Times I think testimony is the weakest evidence.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
You want. You want to have seen her, and so
you you tell yourself that you saw her.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
Well, hold onto your hat, because we have a whole
lot more of that coming up.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
Oh boy. The Royal Caribbean didn't announce Amy's disappearance or
distribute flyers with their picture to passengers until forty eight
hours after her disappearance. News reached the US by the
next morning. Amy's friends and family were shocked and felt helpless.
The crew were adamant that the crew is needed to
continue for the sake of the other passengers. The Bradleys

(31:10):
were encouraged to disembark in Currasau in case Amy turned up.
Iva and Ron's boss rented them a hotel room. The
Rhapsody sailed off as planned on the evening of March
twenty fourth to Saint Thomas. It was a surreal feeling
for the family. I can imagine how surreal that would be.
It's like, you don't know is she on the ship?

(31:31):
Is she in the water? Is she on Curasaw?

Speaker 1 (31:34):
And the heartbreaking and real Caribbean did seem like they
were like, yeah, you guys should probably get off the
ship and wait, I'm sure they're going to find her,
so you want to be here in Cirasau.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
They just wanted to be done with it and move on.
Many guests weren't even aware that a passenger had gone
missing when they awoke the next morning. The Bradleys began
having second thoughts and decided to fly to Saint Martin
to meet the Rhapsody at its next location to search
the ship more thoroughly and ask more questions. They were
met by Royal Caribbean executives. Although the ship had forty

(32:09):
surveillance cameras, they were only used for live monitoring. They
didn't record, leaving no footage to review after Amy vanished.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Super frustrating right yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
The morning after Amy disappeared, Dutch authorities and the FBI
came aboard the ship to begin their investigation, but by
then the Bradley's cabin had been cleaned. There were no
fingerprints on the Bradley's deck railing.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Which is crazy to think about, right, Yeah, Like I
would think that there would be. It would surprise me
that they would clean the room and then they would
go out to the deck and clean the deck.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Yeah, that does seem like I would.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
Think that the balcony would get cleaned every now and then,
but not every.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
Day, right, that is very strange.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Although journalist James Renner claims that there were some palm
prints on the railings and maybe some footprints on the door.
So if you think if Amy was sleeping on the deck,
like to sleep and a chair is really uncomfortable, like
I think you would have to prop your legs up
on something. So I would think that she would, you know,
prop them up on the railing or you know, like

(33:13):
maybe on the door or something.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
Yello was questioned, but authorities didn't believe he had anything
to do with Amy's disappearance. He said that he returned
to his room around three thirty am and went to bed.
His key card confirmed.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
This, although originally he claimed that he was back to
his room at one am. If you remember, it was
the ship's rules that all staff should be back in
their rooms by one am and not socializing with guests
any long. Okay, So there were definitely some things that
he was dishonest about.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah. However, because the ship was in international waters, the
FBI had no domain on the Rhapsody and couldn't detain
anyone and could only question people who agreed to cooperate.
Yello did pass a lied toctor.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
I read varying reports that it was either inconclusive or
he passed.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Okay, Iva, Ron, and brad were all interviewed by the
FBI and quickly eliminated as suspects. We'll be back after
a break.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
On March twenty eighth, the Bradley's left the cruise ship
early and flew home from Saint Thomas on a private
plane chartered by Iva and Ron's boss. I don't know
this man's name, but he really helped the family out. Yeah,
where Royal Caribbean should have been stepping up to the
plate and helping them. But you know, Ron's boss really
made sure.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, it really seems that way.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Yeah. Back in Virginia, neighbors had adorned the trees in
the Bradley's neighborhood with yellow ribbons for Amy. Once they
were home, they set up a command center in their house.
Friends and family pulled their money together to offer a
one hundred thousand dollar reward. Eventually it was I think
over two hundred thousand dollars for any information. Royal Caribbean

(35:03):
has also offered a two hundred thousand dollar reward for information,
and the FBI two have offered a twenty five thousand
dollars cash reward. The Bradleys also set up the Find
the Amy Bradley Fund, accepting donations from community members and
people around the world. A man named Wayne Brytagg stayed
in the room next to the Bradleys and shared their balcony.

(35:24):
He enjoyed traveling alone and often observed the world around him,
including Amy as she sat outside smoking. He had been
at the ship's nightclub that night, quietly watching others rather
than joining in. Investigators considered him unusual, but ultimately he
was cleared.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
When you say the balcony was shared between the two rooms,
was there like any kind of barrier, like a wall
between them, or was it truly open between It.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Was not open. There was something between the two balconies,
but they would like, you know, kind of peer around
the little partition.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Okay, but it wouldn't be easy to go from one
balcony to the other or possibly even.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
I think it would be possible, but definitely not safe.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Oh yeah, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Another passenger, Chris Fenwick, had been hired to document the
trip for a different company. Aboard the ship, Fenwick had
about fifteen to twenty hours of video footage. After Amy's disappearance,
he went through the tapes, hoping that he had caught
her on video, and sure enough, he found the video
from the nightclub that captured Amy dancing with Yellow. Someone

(36:31):
claiming to be with the boat security called him and
told him that they needed his master copy. He refused
to turn over the tapes. Good for him, however, he
made a copy and handed it over to the FBI.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
Did they have that footage on the Netflix documentary?

Speaker 1 (36:45):
They did?

Speaker 3 (36:45):
Okay, interesting to see.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yeah. Two weeks after Amy's disappearance, on April fourth, her father, brother, uncles,
and her alleged boyfriend Tom returned to Carouseau for a week.
They held a press conference to spread the word word
about Amy and distributed over seven five hundred flyers with
her picture. They met with police, hospitals, morgues, churches, and

(37:08):
the media. It was during this trip that they met
a cab driver named Dshi. We'll come to this in
a few minutes. Royal Caribbean was under fire, but they
tried to skirt responsibility and keep Amy's disappearance out of
the media. A missing passenger was very bad for business.
The Bradleys believed they knew more than they shared with them,

(37:29):
and they were slow to provide them with a passenger
manifest or surveillance video. Ron said, we were met with
more concerned for their reputation than for our daughter. That
ship sailed before anyone even lifted a finger, and that
does seem to be the case. It quickly became a
nightmare to investigate because international laws limited US involvement. We

(37:52):
felt like we were screaming into the wind. Iva said.
One agency would say we can't do anything, it's not
our territory. Another would say, we're waiting for permission from
the cruise line, and meanwhile, our daughter was missing.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
AH so frustrating.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
In February nineteen ninety nine, a judge declared Amy legally dead,
so the Bradleys could pursue two lawsuits against Royal Caribbean,
one for negligence and the other for wrongful death. The case, however,
was later dismissed after the family was accused of fraud.
The family had concealed eye witness statements suggesting that Amy

(38:28):
was alive and well, and instead presented only three accounts
that supported the narrative that she had gone overboard.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
So these statements that she suggesting she was alive and well,
you mean after she disappeared? Yeah, oh okay, Like where
were they? Where did they see her?

Speaker 1 (38:46):
We're going to get to that, Okay. In twenty ten,
a jaw bone with one wisdom tooth attached washed ashore
on a beach in Aruba. Authorities said the bone belonged
to a Caucasian female, at first thought to belong to
American Natalie Holloway, who vanished in two thousand and five
during her senior class trip to Urbuba. The Bradleys provided

(39:08):
Amy's dental records to the FBI, but it's unclear in
my research if the jawbone was ever tested. The bone
may have been too degraded to test, Okay. Since I
wrote that, my research has actually told me that that
jawbone was tested and it was not Amy's. So the
Bradleys are sure that Amy met a foul play and
seemed to actively dispute any evidence that she fell or

(39:31):
jumped overboard, but they are seemingly able to accept that
she may have been thrown overboard. In the years following
Amy Bradley's disappearance from The Rhapsody of the Seas in
March nineteen ninety eight, there have been numerous reported sightings.
Just weeks after Amy vanished, her father, brother, uncles, and
alleged boyfriend returned to Carouseau. That's when they received their

(39:53):
first disturbing lead. A taxi driver named Dshi claimed that
he had seen a young woman matching Amy's description and
visibly distressed not long after the ship docked in Cirasau,
wearing jeans and a white T shirt, which her family
thought was what she would be wearing. The woman asked
him where to find a payphone. He pointed to the payphone,

(40:15):
but she went in the opposite direction. Deshi pointed them
to a couple of points on the island where he
thought Amy could have been taken including a luxury hotel
called the Coral Reef, but they began to suspect that
Deshi was sending them on a wild goose chase. During
that desperate search, Brad thought he heard someone calling his
name from a car in traffic on the street. It's

(40:37):
haunted him ever since. He swears that it was Amy's voice.
They tried to follow the car, but when the car stopped,
Amy was not inside. Amy's case went cold until five
months later, when Canadian engineer David Carmichael reported seeing a
woman escorted by two men on a Cirosau beach. He
thought that one of the men was yellow. She looked frightened,

(41:01):
like she was about to say something when one of
the guys motioned her away. Carmichael said he even remembered
her two distinctive tattoos, a gecko and a Tasmanian devil,
which match ones Amy had quote, if a man had
not stared at me, I would have forgotten everything. But
I can't. I think about this every day. There isn't

(41:21):
a day that goes by when I don't. After Carmichael
spotted them, he said that Amy and the two men
went to eat an outdoor cafe while investigators immediately went
back to search, they found no trace of Amy. So
he said that one of the men looked like Yellow.
But at this time Yellow was still working for Royal

(41:42):
Caribbeans and he was on a ship.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
So interesting.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
A member of the US Navy reported seeing Amy and
a Curisow brothel in nineteen ninety nine, although he didn't
report it until years later, after he'd left his job
in the military. She told me she got off that
ship and she left on her own because she was
going to score drugs. She said, well, me and my
brother were partying and I went ashore to get drugs,

(42:10):
and now I'm stuck here with these guys. The woman
told him that her name was Amy before she was
escorted away. Amy's family said that she drank, but she
never took drugs, so they did not believe that part
of the story.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
Oh and yeah, she was an athlete too, right, So
not that that doesn't mean you can't take drugs if
you're an athlete, but I think a lot of athletes
they really want to take care of their body.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
So right, But in nineteen ninety eight, she had already
graduated college, and she wasn't really okay.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
She moved down from that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
Another sighting occurred in two thousand and five, when an
American tourist, Judy Mauer, claimed to have met a distraught
woman in a department store restroom in Barbados. She said
that the woman told her that her name was Amy
and that she was from West Virginia and needed help
before two men barged into the restroom and whisked the

(43:00):
woman away.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
You said West Virginia, but Amy was from Virginia.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Right exactly. The most chilling lead came in two thousand
and five as well, when a series of photographs were
sent to Amy's family by a tipster. The images, published
on a Caribbean adult website, adult vacation dot Com, appeared
to show a woman named Jazz with a striking resemblance
to Amy in a sexual exploitation setting. Even the FBI

(43:29):
could not rule out that this was Amy. Oh, I'm
going to show you the picture really quick, okay, and
then you can give me your opinion. Okay, I forgot that.
I sent this picture to our family chat THEE Yeah
you did, and I think everyone in her family chat
was like it, it's gonna be the same person.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
It's intriguing I mean, I can definitely see the resemblance,
and it looks like you know, I think when you
sent the picture, I said, it looks like it could
be the same person after several hard years in between.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
And that's a really good point, because it's been seven
years in two thousand and five since Amy's been missing.
To me, she looks older than Amy would be thirty.
She looks older than thirty to me. And yeah, I mean,
you know, if she was in this sexual exploitation business.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
That would aid you quickly for sure. But the facial structure,
like just their cheekbones, and there is definitely a strong
resemblance there.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
There is. Iva said, when I first looked at the picture,
it wasn't the Amy. I know, the picture looks like
a harsh and tormented Amy, but it was still something
for the Bradleys to hang on to and give them
hope that Amy was still alive. People online have identified
Jazz as a woman named Susan from Daytona. There are
other pictures of her where she looks less like Amy,

(44:46):
and I've heard some people say that her ear lobes
are attached and Amy's appear unattached, or vice versa. And
in the pictures of Jazz, you can't see the tattoos,
and if they're from two thousand and five, our photoshop
abilities were what they are today and the picture is grainy,
so I can't see any evidence of the tattoos. It

(45:09):
doesn't mean that they aren't there. This Susan from Daytona
is just like a couple of people have said this,
it's not We've never found this woman. It does make
me wonder though, all these sightings of Amy, could they
have been this other woman. We've maintained from the beginning
that someone saw Amy and took Amy from that ship

(45:31):
in some way. Ron told NBC, Well, none of these
sightings have ever been conclusively verified. The consistency of reports
over the years has fueled suspicions that Amy was abducted
and forced into sex trafficking, keeping her case painfully alive.
Decades later, a man named Frank Vernon Jones Junior was

(45:52):
arrested and charged with mail and wire fraud. He told
the Bradleys and the Nation's Missing Children Organization that he
was a former US Army Green Beret Special Forces officer
and would help them find Amy. Between September twenty eighth,
nineteen ninety nine and July twenty eighth, two thousand, the
Bradley sent him a total of two hundred and ten

(46:13):
thousand dollars to pay for costs associated with finding Amy.
At one point, Joan sent the Bradley's a photo he
claimed was of Amy. The woman was actually an acquaintance
of his, and the photos had been taken on a
Florida beach, complete with temporary tattoos matching Amy's. He'd lied
and claimed that his team had engaged in a gunfight

(46:34):
with Amy's captors, killing some of them.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
That's so disgusting to take advantace of a family like that,
That's disgusting.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
I think most of the people who reported seeing Amy
had the best intention. Yeah, I'm sure, but we talk
about this all the time that eyewitness testimony is the
least convincing testimony. Yeah, So what happened to Amy? Brad
I'm going to go over when I racked my brain,

(47:03):
like all the possibilities that I thought of, she jumped
intentionally meaning to take her own life?

Speaker 3 (47:09):
Right?

Speaker 1 (47:10):
I don't think that's the case. I think that things
were going pretty well in her life. There's something called
the call of the void. Have you heard of this
turn before.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Totally. Yeah, yeah, I totally know that. What that feeling too.
It freaks me out, really yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
I had that feeling.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
All the time, like really yes, when I'm like when
I used to work in downtown Detroit, you were in
like a building and I would be on the fifteenth
floor and there was a balcony. I couldn't stand on
that balcony because not that I thought I was going
to do it, but you just like you just have
this feeling like what if I did, What if I
just I could just jump over that right now, and

(47:48):
it just freaks you out. It's a really weird feeling.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Okay, Well, I don't know if I've ever had that.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
That's good.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Some people think that, you know, Amy could have had
that experience. She fell overboard accident while she was trying
to vomit. The room was really cramped and if she
was feeling ill, you know, the combined effects of being
at sea and you know, having had several drinks. But
I don't think I have said this yet. She either

(48:14):
had six or seven light beers between dinnertime, which was
at six pm, until she went back to the room.
Like on the Bradley's Bill, that's how many drinks that
she had. I don't think that doesn't mean that someone
could could have bought her drinks or shots or something.
And Amy was friendly with the bartender, so I think
it's possible that she had more to drink, and the

(48:36):
room was really close quarters, and if she could have like,
you know, vomited overboard rather than you know, like just
gone back to the bathroom and then everyone would have
heard her. Sure, you know, it's possible that she could
have done that. The railings did come up pretty high.
I think they were forty two inches and Amy was
five feet six, so a lot of people say that, Yeah,

(49:00):
but there wasn't like the ship. The side of the
ship seemed like a straight like there wasn't any like
decks that were protruding. So she you know, could have
had a direct shot if she leaned over far enough.
And the table was depending on who you believe, the
table was pushed up to the railing. So in my head,
you know, I think it's possible that she could have

(49:20):
been kneeling on the table or use the table to like,
you know, get up a little higher. Remember Amy in
the fifteen rolls of film Sunrise was at six thirty
seven am that morning.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
You know.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
Could Could she have been trying to get a picture
of the sunrise, although Brad said her camera was in
the room in the safe Okay. Could someone have slipped
something into Amy's drink and caused her to hallucinate and
she would have ended up overboard? Could something have happened
between Brad and Amy on the balcony or did Amy
wilfully walk off the ship wanting to start a new life.

(49:56):
Was she murdered and taken off the ship in a suitcase?
Was she taken against her will off the ship and
sold into sex trafficking? A lot of people think that
is the most plausible thing that happened to Amy. One
more possibility that I haven't mentioned yet. During Amy's last
night aboard the ship, she was seen in conversation with
two black women wearing uniforms that didn't match the ship's

(50:19):
crew nady skirts with light blue, buttoned up shirts. Her brother,
Brad later researched and noted that these matched the attire
of staff from the Sea Org ship Free Winds, docked
nearby and operated by the Church of Scientology. The following
night after Amy's disappearance, two officials from Scientology knocked on

(50:42):
the Bradley's hotel room door, introduced themselves as from the
Free Winds, and asked strangely specific questions about Amy, details
like her favorite snacks, cigarettes, and drinks. Brad initially entertained
theories that Amy might have been lured aboard the Free Winds,
but after speaking with former Sea Org members, he recanted,

(51:04):
acknowledging that involvement was extremely unlikely. One last possibility is
could Amy have been used in a drug trade? Did
someone on the ship convince her to deliver a package
to someone? In my head, this seems like maybe a
fairly likely scenario. She was very familiar with a lot

(51:24):
of the crew members. Remember they asked her to go
to the bar with them, and she would sit at
the bar and talk to the bartenders. And then she
was friendly with the yellow guy. And I feel like,
you know, she was just starting her life. They could
have offered her, you know, a pretty good amount of
money to take a package and deliver to someone. Maybe

(51:46):
she could have been killed during a drug trade.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
Interesting, So let me just make sure I understand the
timeline here. So she disappeared at around six am something
like that, right, her dad got up and she wasn't
there at six am, Right, the ship was docked in
Curus Out at that time or not not yet.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
That's a good question. The doc it was reaching curas Out,
was almost to Curius Out at six am. I think
by seven am they were docked, and that's when passengers
were getting people.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
We're starting to get off, like yeah, seven Okay, interesting
because I was just thinking that her family started searching
for her right away, so before the ship was actually docked.
So she would have had to have been if she
left the ship voluntarily for whatever reason, she would have
been evading them during that time, basically trying to make
it so they wouldn't find her.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Yeah, that's a really good point. She would have had
to have been in someone's room. Yeah, probably hiding.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
Okay. Interesting.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
The Bradleys are adamant that Amy is alive. Quote. We
think what happened to Amy was that she was targeted.
She was seen, taken and removed from the ship, and
we believe she was trafficked into some kind of sex
trade situation. I have a Bradley set. Amy was the
kind of kid who knew who she was even when
she was little. She had this spark iner. She was strong,

(53:06):
not just physically but mentally. Amy loved to dance, to create,
and be active. She was fiercely loyal and looked out
for her friends and family. She was adventurous in the
life of the party. Iva said that she wakes up
every day and thinks, maybe today is the day they
will find Amy. Each night before she goes to bed,
Iva and Ron say to each other, maybe tomorrow. Amy's car,

(53:30):
her red mass Demara, remains in the Bradley's garage, where
Ron still maintains it. She's not just missing, Iva once said,
she's missed. The Bradleys have appeared on numerous TV shows
over the years, including Oprah, Doctor Phil, Unsolved Mysteries, and
America's Most Wanted. In hopes of getting Amy's picture and
story out to the public, they've pledged to never stop

(53:52):
looking for her as long as they are alive. The
Crew's Vessel Security and Safety Act was signed into law
in twenty ten. It was created to improve safety standards
and transparency within the cruise industry after a series of
high profile disappearances and crimes at sea. It enforces safety
regulations on ships operating outside of the US. It states

(54:14):
that incidents that occur aboard cruise ships must be reported immediately.
The law requires cruise ships that dock at US ports
to implement specific safety measures, such as higher guard rails,
peepoles and cabin doors, and security latches. It also mandates
that ships maintain equipment for the prompt preservation of evidence

(54:35):
in cases of serious crimes, and provide medical staff trained
to treat sexual assault victims. In addition, cruise lines must
report alleged crimes to the FBI and the US Coast Guard,
and those reports are made available to the public. Cruise
ships must also report crimes to the Department of Transportation
to maintain statistics. The act was designed to protect passengers,

(54:58):
ensure better accountability from cruise companies, and give families and
investigators more access to critical information when crimes or accidents occurrency,
but with ships sailing under a variety of foreign flags,
investigating crimes is still often difficult. It shouldn't take such
a tragedy to make people safe, Ron Bradley said, But

(55:20):
if Amy's story helped just prevent just one more family
from going through this, then she didn't disappear for nothing.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
Definitely seems long overdue to have those kind of regulations absolutely.
I mean, like you mentioned at the beginning, these ships
are basically floating cities, and so there's going to be crime,
there's going to be accidents, there's going to be medical issues.
They really need to be prepared for those things.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
Yes, most cruise ships today have overboard detection systems. According
to an article in USA Today, between twenty nine and
twenty nineteen, there were two hundred and twelve overboard incidents
globally involving passengers and crew, and only forty eight of
these people were rescued. Do you remember the story just
this summer. I think it was a Disney cruise line

(56:03):
when a little girl fell overboard. Yeah. Wow, make me
cry thinking about her father jumped overboard and I think
treaded water for twenty minutes until they were rescued and
they were both rescued and safe, and that was a
wonderful story.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
So Brad Bradley, now forty eight, told People magazine people
can't understand the level of hope that we've maintained. We're
still waiting for that call. Brad has been tireless, especially
since this Netflix documentary came out. There's just a click
around on YouTube. He's given so many interviews. He really
is hopeful that she's out there.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
And heartbreaking not knowing.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Yeah, so what do you think happened to Amy?

Speaker 3 (56:45):
Oh? I wish, I wish I knew. It's such a mystery.
I mean, it seems to me like when I think
about it, the most likely scenario is that she somehow
went overboard, either fell or was pushed overboard, because just
the fact that she hasn't been seen. I mean, I
know there have been a lot of sightings, but.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
The best one was in two thousand and five.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
Yeah, that's interesting, but I just don't, you know, I
just don't know how many of those are really credible.
The photo that you that you looked at was the
one I was like, Oh, that really looks like you're
with them. You mentioned the tattoos and everything. Even though
you can't be one hundred percent sure, it does seem
like it's maybe not so likely that that was her.
But I don't know, I really it's a real mystery

(57:28):
for sure.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
The whole the thought of her being trafficked. A high
profile American from you know, a relatively wealthy family isn't
taken off a cruise ship to be trafficked.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
Yeah, I don't know a lot about sex trafficking and
how that normally works and how common that is. But
that was my first thought as well, is that it
just doesn't seem that likely to me. But I really
don't feel like I know enough about how these people
go about what they do and who they target and
things like that to really have a valid opinion on that.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Most people forced into sexual exploitation don't look like Amy Bradley.
Traffickers prey on the vulnerable children, women in poverty, people
without support systems, who can be easily manipulated and controlled.
Victims are usually isolated, stripped of identification, and washed constantly.
They aren't free to stroll through shops or cafes, places

(58:24):
where they could be recognized or ask for help, and
practically speaking, without a passport or papers, moving them across
borders is nearly impossible. So Amy allegedly has been seen
in Kirasau, Barbados, Aruba. Yeah, I don't know how you
know she would get from place to place.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
Yeah, it does seem a little unlikely.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
Amy was twenty three, healthy, educated and deeply loved by
her family. Women aren't plucked from cruise ships and forced
into sex trafficking. It's true high profile Amy was strong.
She would have not gone quietly get over the years.
Witnesses swore they saw in hotels cafes, even begging strangers
for help. None of this fits how trafficking works. She

(59:04):
didn't match the profile, and her supposed captors didn't behave
like traffickers. That's what makes her disappearance so unsettling. Nothing
about it makes sense. Amy sandals were under her chair,
and the balcony table against the railing suggests that she
was barefoot, leaning or sitting on the edge. With only
minutes between when her brother went to bed and when
her father noticed that she was gone, It's hard to

(59:26):
believe that she wandered the ship. The ship or was
taken during this time. Just seems like it's too convenient, right.
The simplest answer to me is there was an accident.
She slipt overboard, unseen and unheard before anyone realized it.
If Amy's still alive today, she would be fifty one,
and I think that she would have aged out of

(59:47):
sex trafficking. I think it's highly unlikely that she's never
tried to contact her family In all of these years.
It's far more compelling to believe Amy is still alive,
whether traffic are living somewhere in secrecy, then to accept
that she slipped into the sea nearly thirty years ago.
But holding on to that hope can also be cruel,
keeping her family suspended between possibility and loss, unable to

(01:00:11):
fully grieve, move forward, or find peace in their remaining years.
That's what breaks my heart about this case, is that
her family is just clinging to hope that she's alive.
And you know, the Bradleys are I think in their
mid seventies now, and you know, I just wish that
they could have some peace.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
Yeah, it would be great for them to have closure
in one way or another. I tend to agree with
you that that seems to be the most logical explanation
that she somehow went overboard, maybe accidentally, because like you said,
the window of time is narrow, and when people fall
overboard on a cruise ship, you're out at sea. It's

(01:00:49):
a huge area and it's pretty likely that you're not
going to be found. I know they said that. You know,
even if there were sharks or whatever, there would be clothing,
But you know, the sea is a really big place.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
It really is, although the boat was nearing the short
of cures out. Yeah, so it was you know, more
limited in its scope, but almost twenty four hours had passed. Yeah,
until you know, they got into the water and search.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
For it, right, so I do. It does seem weird though.
It does seem like it would be hard to accidentally
fall overboard as well, you know, just because the railings
are fairly high, you know, and I can't I can't
imagine you would get up on a table, you know,
next to the balcony to try to lean over and
get a better picture, so that I don't know, It's

(01:01:33):
really really baffling to me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
One piece of the story that I have a hard
time with is people believe that Yellow had something to
do with Amy being trafficked. She'd already rebuffed his advances
in the club the night before, right, I don't think
that she would have gone up to meet him at
six am.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
Yes, I was thinking the same thing. She was seen
at five thirty am. Their night had ended a few
hours earlier. So yeah, it doesn't make any sense that
she would go see him, or that he would you know,
he couldn't have come into their room.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Some people said that, well, maybe he was going to
show her the best place to take a picture of
the showers of Kirasaw. It's a beautiful port. Yeah, that
maybe he but I yeah, that's hard to believe.

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
It seems hard to believe that I.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Haven't mentioned this yet. There was a female bartender that
Amy enjoyed talking to, and her name was Caitlin, So
I could see that more as a poll, like maybe
she wanted to meet Caitlyn. But even that seems unlikely.
Because Amy wanted to see Caitlin. I think that they
would just would have stayed, Yeah, like to go back
to her rooms.

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
I'll meet you in three hours at six.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Albums mostly front out. Yeah, I have a hard time
with you too. Do you think that Royal Caribbean is
culpable somewhat?

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
Yeah. I think they really did not have good procedures
in place to handle this when somebody went missing, Like
we talked about it earlier, But someone goes missing, even
if you're even if it's only for a short time time,
you should stop everything. You know, you shouldn't let people
off the ship. You shouldn't it. People could be a
little inconvenienced for a short time before you find someone.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
I imagine if you were on that trip, you would
have a little PTSD from being involved in that and
you know, racking your brain. Did I see Amy? You
know what?

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Could I have known?

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
I would hate the fact that she's never been found,
and it was because you know, I have to go
off on the port city.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Yeah, I think that. I think Royal Caribbean definitely did
a very poor job of managing the situation.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
Well, let us know what you think about this baffling case.
It's one of those cases that, sadly, I don't think
we will ever truly know what happened to Amy Bradley,
but we're thinking of her family and friends. And I
didn't want to say rest in peace because you know
she still might be out there. Had a hard time
if I should use present tense or past tense, But
you know, I hope that she has found someday. Yes,

(01:04:06):
thank you so much for listening to this episode of
Love Mary Kill.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Please rate, review, follow and subscribe, find us on social media,
or send us an email at Lovemarykill at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
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Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
Join us next Monday for another episode of Love Mary Kill.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
The company with the