Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of Wives and Knives a true crime podcast with your hosts Dani & Kelly.
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This week’s case is an unsolved one and it is the case of Amy Lynn Bradley who disappeared in 1998 on a cruise ship.
We’ve seen the horror shows that have happened over the years, crashes, sinking’s, accidents, illnesses, and people going overboard. Then there are the true crime cases that come from cruise ships, you may have heard of Rebecca Coriam, but have you heard of Dianne Brimble, Shirley McGill, or George Allen Smith?
Literally hundreds of people have gone missing off cruise ships intact between 2008 - 2018 250 people disappeared never to be seen again.
That’s a huge number really isn’t it?
I know, now before I dive into Amy’s case, I want to make one thing clear - cruise ships are not governed by a single set of laws. It depends entirely on where the ship is registered. Most companies based in the US or UK will choose to register their ships to another country to avoid larges taxes and so they can use that countries employment laws. When a crime is suspected on a ship the only countries obligated to do anything are the country the boat next docks in and the country the boat is registered to. This can make investigating crime of a cruise ship extremely difficult.
Yeah, and I do think that’s relevant and worth bearing in mind for Amy’s case.
So, let me tell you about Amy. Amy Lynn Bradley was born May 12, 1974 in Petersburg, Virginia, U.S. to father Ron Bradley and Mother Iva. Amy had one older brother, called Brad.
His name is Brad Bradley!
Amy’s father Ron Bradley was an insurance executive, working for a large company. The family were well known and liked within their community. They were affluent and more than comfortable financially which provided Amy and Brad with an enviable childhood.
Amy was described as being a vivacious, outgoing, take-charge kind of person, who was well known and popular in her local town. Extremely sporty, she was a trained lifeguard and a swim coach who had been awarded a full basketball scholarship to Longwood university in Virginia, where at the time of the cruise she had recently graduated from.
Amy loved animals and had an English Bulldog called Bailey; she had just adopted another bulldog called Daisy to keep Bailey company; especially whilst she was on the planned weeklong holiday. She was about to start her first full-time job, which was scheduled for the Monday of her return from the cruise.
At the time she disappeared, Amy Lynne Bradley was 23, 5'7" tall, weighed 120 pounds, had short brown hair and green eyes. She had a Tasmanian Devil tattoo on her left shoulder blade, a Chinese symbol tattooed on her right ankle, a green and blue gecko lizard tattoo around her navel, navel ring and multiple ear piercings.
This holiday was actually a prize that Amy’s dad had secured through his job and it’s said that Amy wasn’t super keen on the idea of a cruise initially but came round to the idea thinking that it might be the last big family holiday as both her and her brother were growing up.
That’s an impressive prize. Cruises aren’t cheap!
I know, I’m happy if I win a free coffee!
On March 21, 1998, Amy Lynn Bradley, her parents Ron and Iva, and her brother Brad, left for a weeklong cruise on Rhapsody of the Seas. A typical cruise ship, housing more than 2,000 people According to Iva, when the four of them boarded the Rhapsody of the Seas, she noticed almost immediately that other passengers and crew were paying a lot of attention to their young, attractive daughter. “I remember watching people watch her admiringly,” she said, “I felt proud.”
They were staying on the eighth deck in a plush state room which was like two separate connecting rooms each with a private balcony. The family had a great time on their first night and in general their first three days went smoothly. On the morning of Monday, March 23, the Bradley family disembarked the ship to explore Oranjestad, Aruba —their first port of call. Before leaving, they marked the occasion with a family photo. On the second night, the family got dressed up to have a fancy dinner. A photo of Brad and Amy was taken by the cruise ship photographer.
This is a super well know photo and if you google the case you are sure to come across it.
After dinner, the family headed to the upper deck of the ship for a party. At 1 a.m. Amy’s parents retreated to bed and Amy and Brad headed to the ship’s nightclub. At 3:30 a.m. Brad left the club and headed back to their room, leaving Amy at the club. Amy returned to their room shortly after. The ship's computerized door-lock system recorded Brad's return to the suite at 3:35 A.M. and Amy's arrival five minutes later. Brad said he and his sister sat on the suite's balcony and chatted for a bit about plans for the next day. He then headed to bed and went to sleep inside their room while Amy stretched out on a lounge chair on the balcony. Amy’s Dad woke up sometime before sunrise and briefly saw Amy sitting on the balcony as his room was in the eyesight of theirs. When he woke up again sometime later around 6 a.m. he noticed Amy was no longer sitting on the balcony. Ron got up and went to their room to find Brad sleeping, but not Amy. He noticed Amy’s shoes still in the room but not her cigarettes or lighter. Thinking Amy was up and around the ship, Ron went to look for her. He later said, "I left to try and go up and find her thinking she was on deck. When I couldn't find her, I didn't really know what to think, because it was very much unlike Amy to leave and not tell us where she was going." During that time, the ship was en-route to being docked in Curaçao a Dutch Caribbean island (Netherlands Antilles) 40 miles north of Venezuela. At about 7:00 a.m., Ron said, he ran into the ship’s security chief, Lou Costello, and alerted him. He then woke his wife. The family asked the crew to make an announcement that they were looking for Amy, but the ship refused, as they did not want to panic other passengers.
I don’t understand that – I mean surely there was a way of making some kind of an announcement “could Amy Bradley please report to the purser’s office” or whatever or a code to the crew. They aren’t handling the situation or the family well.
And It gets worse - The Bradleys pleaded with the ship’s officers not to lower the gangway until their daughter was found, but the gangway was lowered; and 3,000 people left the ship.
It’s interesting to note that an internal Royal Caribbean report claimed that Ron Bradley did not notify Costello of Amy’s disappearance until 7:35 a.m. This contradicts the Bradleys’ account, as by that point, the ship had already docked, and passengers were disembarking.
Isn’t this when the family asked to hand out pictures of Amy to all the passengers, but the captain refused?
Yeah, the captain didn’t want to alarm the other passengers. The family aren’t happy with how her disappearance is being handled. Staff have suggested that Amy has left the ship of her own accord, disembarked with none of her belongings. They suggest she could have fallen overboard or even committed suicide. None of these suggestions sit well with the Bradley’s and they aren’t just going wait for their daughter to show up. So, they speak to people and try to retrace Amy’s last steps.
The family left the ship to look for Amy. But by then, all government offices were closed. There was nothing they could officially do. They then called the FBI, who informed them it would take at least 24 hours for them to get someone on the island. By 5:00 p.m., the Bradleys had yet to find any sign of Amy.
The Cruise ship Captain told the family that the planned schedule must be kept to and that if more time was needed on the island, the family should stay behind to do what was necessary. With the ship ready to leave for its next port of call, the Bradleys, who had grown frustrated with the ship’s officers and a company lawyer, decided to stay behind, and continue searching for Amy.
It must have been such a hard decision to make?
I can only imagine how torn they were, they had no idea if Amy had left the ship or not, if they were making the right decision? Do Iva and Brad stay on the ship and Ron in Curacao?
It’s a tough one. Now we need to introduce someone else into the picture, a man who was known as Yellow and who seemed to have taken quite a shine to Amy.
In the early hours of March 24th, Amy had been drinking with the ship's band, Blue Orchid, in the dance club. One of the band members, Bassist Alister Douglas, also known as Yellow, claimed he had parted ways with Amy at about 1 am.
There’s a few really good documentaries about this case available on you tube, we’ll link them in the usual place, and they all speak about Yellow. He’s an interesting character – but back to the Bradley’s.
The Bradley’s who were effectively stranded on Curacao are joined by the FBI and together they meet the ship in St. Thomas, the ship’s next destination.
On March 26, the FBI conducted an extensive two-day search of the ship, they used dogs but found no trace of Amy. The family are still on the ship and continuing their own investigation, and this is where the two passengers tell the Bradleys about seeing Amy with ‘Yellow’ first thing in the morning; and Brad tells the FBI about Yellow coming to him about Amy before he technically could have known she was missing.
The FBI interview Yellow and he swiftly changes his story, they polygraph him but there is insufficient evidence to charge him. Extensive searches on the ship and at sea produced no signs of her whereabouts.
The Netherlands Antilles Coast Guard conducted a four-day search that ended on March 27, and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines chartered a boat to continue looking for her, but they ended their search on March 29.
The family are still not satisfied and at this point who can blame them because there are a few things that have happened that are a bit odd, we mentioned earlier that the family had posed for a considerable number of photos, something that is normal on a cruise – the usual cringey posed ones. Investigators discovered that the ship’s photo service, which takes and sells pictures of all its passengers, had somehow lost every single photo of Amy. Out of everyone on board, Amy’s photos were the only ones missing. It seems as though the pictures were taken about nine hours before Amy vanished. Meaning, they would have been of who she was spending time with while on board. The family are at a loss and it must be awful, but they return home, but distance from the event is only a physical thing because they are still 100% invested in their investigation and the search for Amy.
Weeks after the cruise ended, the Bradleys hired private investigators to board the ship undercover. They did not find any evidence of Amy. The family also consulted psychics and offered a $260,000 reward.
Her family majorly dispute the theories that she would have killed herself. And I do too, but only because I can find no evidenced reason that she would be in the frame of mind to be considering that or the type of person who would do it as a one-off act. They also dispute that she would have run off under her own volition to start a new life, and much like we said about Claudia Lawrence, Amy had no history of running away in the past and she had a new job and home. Did she have an accident, I could believe that she went up onto the deck for a smoke, her feet were sore from dancing, so she left her shoes and padded bare foot upstairs. Had she had a few and got up on the railings to do a ‘titanic’ solo pose. Did she slip and fall? – I could believe that. A common rebuff to this theory is that Amy as we mentioned earlier was a trained lifeguard and experienced swimmer. I don’t think that would have mattered if she were sober and had fallen overboard, she could have banged her head etc. what I do find weird is that the ship was docking at the time this would have happened and so It’s unusual she wasn’t spotted or that her body didn’t resurface.
That’s totally a possibility but I think it’s one of many.
A Norwegian government inquiry (the ship is registered in Norway) found no sign of foul play. The FBI found marks on the ship’s balcony, which suggested that someone, at some point in time, had sat on it. Investigators say there is no evidence Amy fell overboard, was pushed, or committed suicide.
So, if Amy is alive, like the Bradley’s still believe. Where is she? No one saw Amy leave the ship, although a Curacao taxi driver would later tell her father that she approached his taxi on the morning of her disappearance and said she needed to get to a telephone. Other people have come forward to say that they too had seen Amy.
One of the best leads came from David Carmichael, a Canadian computer engineer and avid scuba diver. He is certain he saw Amy with two men on a beach in Curaçao in August 1998—just five months after she disappeared. He said she had two tattoos: one of a Gecko and the other of a Tasmanian Devil. The woman he saw walked towards him staring and looking like she was about to say something. I’ve got a quote here “She looked frightened, one of the guys motioned her away and gave me a menacing look,”.
His description of her is spot on and he speaks super convincingly about seeing her.
it is a compelling sighting.
And the Bradleys thought so too, they alerted police and the area where Amy was spotted was searched but nothing - no one has been found.
David Carmichael eventually flew to Virginia to meet the Bradleys. “I am haunted by that encounter with Amy. I know it was her.”
Was she kidnapped by someone sold into slavery?
It’s a recognised theory in this case and you can see why, because when you research specifically white slave sex trafficking across the world you see that the victims are usually women and girls. (although young boys are also targeted). Depending on the geography, age and sex of potential victims, there are common methods used to lure or force them into slavery, these vary of course but the main ones pertinent to our case are being sold or traded by a partner or lover and being kidnapped by human traffickers.
Regardless of the method used to get a victim once they have them it’s a living hell. They face the prospect of continual rape, beatings, emotional abuse, lack of proper food and medical care, the forced consumption of drugs and alcohol, and other vile punishments.
It's horrific and it’s happening!
But I have to question that while sex traffickers or slavers could have kidnapped Amy, would they really want to take such a well-recognised member of a prominent family? Someone that would immediately be noticed missing and reported as so? There must have been easier targets surely?
I agree but The Bradley family are convinced she is being held against her will and in 1999 it would seem their fears are realised when a cook named Judith Margaritha contacts the family, she tells them that Amy is being held by heavily armed Colombian guards in a fortress style housing complex protected with barbed wire. She also said that she regularly saw Amy shopping at a grocery store and working out at a gym, and that she was often with a man with long blond hair and tattoos all the way down one arm. Margaritha also gave the family an accurate description of tattoos that Amy had, and hummed a lullaby that Iva Bradley used to sing to her daughter when she was a baby. The family were convinced she was telling the truth.
Again, a credible sighting like Scuba David’s earlier one
URGH - This part sucks balls.
Soldier of fortune! He makes me think of a shit version of the A-Team.
Before your time.
Oh yeah Self-proclaimed Soldier of fortune (& absolute wanker) Frank Jones. He contacts the family and seems like the answer to their prayers.
Jones told the family he was a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer and has a team of Army Rangers and Navy Seals at his disposal to rescue Amy.
He told Iva Bradley that he'd put Amy on his own back and swim her out of there,"
Jones sent two of his men down to Curacao to check out the account given to the family by the witness, Margaritha, and to scope out the situation.
Bit of reconnaissance
Eventually Jones tells the Bradleys that it’s time to attempt a rescue — but that he needs more money. The Bradley’s have funded his reconnaissance so far with the help of a charity and the total with this final payment is $210,000. To break it down it was $24,000 from their own pocket, plus $186,000 from a fund set up for Amy's search by the Nation's Missing Children Organisation. The Bradley’s aren’t daft, and they demand proof that the woman Jones's men were tracking was Amy.
Jones sent them some photographs of her sitting on the beach with the blond-haired man. I’ve a quote from Iva her mum "When I got the pictures, I knew Amy was OK, and it was just a matter of time," So the family are convinced, they recognised their daughter’s tattoos. Can you imagine how happy they would have been?
and anxious and nervous about her retrieval from that situation.
The family flew down to Florida and waited in a hotel, with a private jet provided by Ron's employer, standing by. Serious money and perks in that role!
They’re there for a week, waiting for a call to say that they have Amy. As the days go by one of Jones's men, a former Special Forces sniper called Tim Buckholtz, who was assigned to watch the house where Amy was supposedly being held, began to wonder whether Jones was telling the family the truth. He never saw any sign of Amy going in or out of the house, nor the blonde-haired man. Instead, he discovered that the residents of the house were ordinary people and who Jones had led them to believe.
Buckholtz later claimed to have overheard Jones tell the Bradleys from a bar that his "people" were watching the house at that very moment, he realised it was all a lie and good on him – he came clean and called the Bradley’s.
Another member of Jones's team, Jono Senk, later told the media that the photographs supposedly showing Amy on the beach with her blond-haired captor were in fact taken by Jones on a beach in Pensacola. Senk said he had in fact posed as the "captor," wearing a blond wig, while the woman in the picture was an acquaintance of Jones.
and it was all a lie wasn’t it? Jones had never served in the Special Forces and had made the whole Amy story up.
Yeah, absolute bastard to give that family false hope like that.
Purely driven by Greed, no consideration for their feelings and all that false hope. Absolute bastard.
Well, he gets his because In February 2002, federal prosecutors in Richmond charged him with defrauding the Bradleys of $24,444 and the Nation's Missing Children Organization of $186,416. Jones pleaded guilty to mail fraud in April and was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to repay the money.
Margaritha, the cook who claimed to have seen Amy numerous times, was also a fraud, according to her son, Giovanni. But maintains that she did see Amy in the shops and the gym.
And there’s more sightings - When all hope seemed to be fading a member of the U.S. Army reported that he saw Amy at a local Curacao brothel. He said she told him her name was Amy Bradley and asked him for help. He told her there was a Navy ship just five minutes down the road and she could go there to get help. She replied “You don’t understand, I can’t leave. Help me. Please help me.” The sailor dismissed her pleas; perhaps because he didn’t know who Amy was, and maybe because he wasn’t supposed to be visiting a brothel. No matter what the reason, he didn’t report the incident and only contacted the Bradley family after he had retired and saw her picture on the cover of People magazine. The brothel has since burned down.
In 2005 An image of a young woman resembling Amy was emailed to her parents anonymously and it suggests that she is a sex worker called Jazz. It was the first lead the family had in nearly eight years. forensic artists looked at the picture and said it was possible it was Amy. we’ll put the links in the usual places and put get the comparison pictures up on Instagram too. We both agree It looks a lot like an age progressed Amy. There are similarities in her cheekbones, hairline, and chin. Her mother pointed out: a freckle below her eye. Iva believes it is Amy. What do you think?
Sadly, she was declared dead in absentia in 2010 but that doesn’t mean the family are giving up - there have been appeals and updates on her case as recently as 2017 and there is currently a $250,000 reward offered by the Bradley family for information leading to Amy’s return along with one from the FBI.
And sadly, that’s all we have, the family haven’t given up on her and I doubt they will until we know what happened to her.
What do you think happened to Amy?
The most accepted theory is that Amy may have been assaulted, murdered, and thrown overboard while still on the cruise ship. This possible explanation for her disappearance is said by some to be the most obvious and, therefore, the most likely explanation for her disappearance.
As much as I love a rabbit hole, I would have to say I agree that’s the most plausible – specifics wise I think Yellow, and Amy hit it off and she perhaps agreed to meet him probably after her family were asleep. He’s a shady character and he’s not telling the truth because he says he left her at 1am but there is video of him dancing with her in the club, so he left her after that time, according to Brad and the key cards that’s at 3.30am. her and Brad chat for a bit and then he goes to sleep let’s say what 30-45mins? 4.15am Ron says he sees her on the balcony around an hour- hour and a half later? He can’t be sure so it could have been earlier, what if she goes to meet yellow – a pre-arranged rendezvous of sorts – like were getting it on tonight I just have to wait for my bro to pass out meet you outside the club when I can? She meets him and they go back to his room - If the women are to be believed that they saw her at 6am what if they are going up to the deck.
If Amy wanted to shag yellow – why didn’t she do it there and then?
There are so many theories – we’d love to know what you think.
Sources.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/31/grace.coldcase.bradley/
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/16/us/for-missing-woman-s-family-no-answers.html
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21146961/the-akron-beacon-journal/
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8289068
https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=131968&page=1
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/amy-lynn-bradley
https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/true-crime/amy-lynn-bradley-case/
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/31/grace.coldcase.bradley/
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/16/us/for-missing-woman-s-family-no-answers.html
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21146961/the-akron-beacon-journal/
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8289068
https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=131968&page=1
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/amy-lynn-bradley
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