Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series on the
unsolved disappearance of Claudia Kershak Robin, do you want to catch everyone up on
what we talked about in our previous episode? Well, Claudia Kershok was a
twenty nine year old woman from New York who had just gotten a job as
a travel writer, which was her dream job because she was now getting paid
to travel the world and write about it. She was supposed to go to
a resort opening in Cuba, but during a layover in Jamaica, she was
denied access to the country because of tensions between Cuba and the US, so
she got to spend a couple of days staying at an all expenses paid trip
at a resort in Jamaica alongside another travel writer named Tanya Rosinger, because they
had to wait a couple of days in order for her to get a flight
back to New York. According to Tanya, Claudia told her that she had
gone out in a date with a resort bartender named Anthony Grant and that they
had smoked some marijuana and gone skinny dipping, and then Tanya took an earlier
flight back home Claudia said she was going to return home in a few days,
but she never did, and they checked her room at the resort.
All her personal items were still there, and the last confirmed sighting of her
she was seen on a beach, so it seemed like she had gone to
go sunbathing or something before something happened to her, and there was a lot
of shady behavior by the resort. They lost some of her personal items,
They did not seal off the room as a crime scene. They tried to
do a lot of victim blaming and a press conference saying that she was promiscuous
and that Claudia ran off on her own, probably to cover up the fact
that she was a likely victim of foul. The FBI brought in to do
a search of Anthony Grant's residence and his vehicle, and a tracking dog detected
Claudius sent in the trunk and also traces of her sent on Anthony's boots and
a pair of gloves she owned, and eventually got to the point where he
stopped talking to the authorities. He hired an attorney and he wound up failing
a polygraph to test, but they did not find any evidence to implicate him
in Claudia's disappearance, and sadly, here we are twenty three years later,
no trace of Claudia has been found. They suspect she was the victim of
foul play, but there just isn't enough evidence to implicate anyone, so it
remains an unsolved cold case after twenty three years. So even though all missing
persons cases are a traumatic experience for the victim's loved ones, it's particularly difficult
when the victim goes missing in a foreign country that they are not familiar with,
because this can lead to all sorts of additional issues with red tape and
the local authorities. But the ironic thing about this story is that Claudia went
missing from a country she wasn't planning to visit to begin with. Remember,
her original assignment was to attend a travel junket in Cuba, where things were
pretty tense at that time. So when she contacted her parents to let them
know she was being denied entry there, they actually breathed a sigh of relief,
never imagining that she would go missing from an entirely different country instead.
Jamaica has always had serious issues with violent crime, but it also relies heavily
on its tourism industry, which generates over a billion dollars per year. This
is why the attempt to betray resort areas like beaches n grill as safe zones,
and tourists are generally discouraged from leaving these areas for their own safety.
But the problem with Plaudius cases is that she was last seeing at one of
these supposedly safe resorts, and one of the resort's employees was suspected of potentially
being involved in her disappearance. That's the kind of thing which can scare tourists
away. Oh boy, can it right? That is exactly what these kinds
of large tourists driven industries can't have, right. We talked on episode one
about places like Disney World in sandals resorts and beaches. They can't have a
headline that says young American tourist vanishes right from our resort or our last seen
at the resort. So in this case, like you said, the family
is not just battling a demand for answers. In a typical case, they're
trying to figure out what are the laws, what are the investigative practices,
what are the practices of this resort she was last at. Right, there's
all these things that they're battling as barriers to answers in the disappearance of their
daughters. So whereas if Reagan went missing right here, I would know Berryville
Police Department, Carroll County Sheriff's Department, and perhaps like the FBI and things
like that, right, but larger institutions would come and respond. Here.
I know how our neighborhoods work. I know the people involved. This family
was kind of at a loss and fighting so mightily for any indication of what
happened to their baby. Like you have publicity that an American tourist goes missing
at one of your resorts, Like that's a very bad thing because you rely
on America for such a large chunk of your tourism industry. So it seems
very very obvious that the resort was trying to push forward any sort of narrative
so that they wouldn't have to admit that Claudia might have met with foul play
on their property. It seems so political, such a shame in these countries
when something like this happens and there seems to be pressure from politicians the institution
in this case a billion dollar tourism industry. What almost feels like the conclusion
of not having any answers is the foregone conclusion, right, Like, it's
better to have some kind of ambiguity than to find out that a guest an
American guest husband murdered in a resort, Right. I think that is the
absolute worst case scenario because they've listened to so many different cases that are overseas
where you have either Americans, Canadians, Australians, whomever traveling in countries that
you believe that they would take it seriously. But it seems like there is
like zero motivation to actually look into these things, and it's shocking, and
especially in this situation, we can kind of understand why they're doing it because
there probably is a lot of outside pressures and when you're trying to protect something
like a very poor country that is worth over a billion dollars, that is
something that people will go to great lengths to protect. One of the most
controversial moments in this case was when Leo Lambert, the head of pr At
Sandals resort, held a press conference in which he portrayed Claudia as a wild,
promiscuous woman and tried to push forward the idea that she just wanted to
run away and start a new life by living in the hills with some Jamaican
lover, but of course that idea was completely ridiculous, since Claudia always maintained
a close relationship with her family and had recently moved into a new apartment and
was pretty much work her dream job as it allowed her to travel the world
and get paid for it. And even if Claudia did have a reason to
run off, she left all of her personal items behind in her hotel room
and literally had nothing on besides a bikini t shirt and portable radio. This
was an obvious attempt to protect the public image of Sandals, resorts and the
Jamaican tourist industry, as they wanted to dispel the idea that American tourists might
have been abducted and murdered, and instead pushed forward the narrative that Claudia just
took off voluntarily. If you guys think about media coverage of several missing persons
and murder cases, you'll see really negative things about the victim. That victim
blaming and shaming that we always talk about. So you'll have a story that
has nothing to do with the fact that an individual was let's say a dancer,
an exotic dancer, or an escort. Right, let's say her boyfriend
murders her. Well, the fact that she was an escort means nothing.
But you'll see that in a headline like escort murdered, you know, and
it causes you to stop and go why why are those factors put in this
story? Why was Claudia portrayed as a scandalous kid who messed up and therefore
kind of deserved what was coming to her? And the reality is that if
you don't behave the way Claudia did, you're safe. So they want to
paint a picture that, you know, you don't engage in drugs, you
don't have sex, you're not promiscuous, you're not kind of ignorant to your
surroundings, so you're safe. Here's why Claudia would have been a victim.
They paint this kind of isolated picture where I can read a news story and
separate from it and say, oh, that wouldn't happen to me because I
don't do these things. It's like the true crime equivalent of an urban legend,
where it's trying to stop kids from wanting to have sex and act wild.
And it's one of those things where it's like, well, if you
remain chaste in your a quote unquote good girl, then things like this won't
happen, which is so ridiculous because these factors play in those cases. But
we see it again and again. You read publications like the Daily Mail,
for example, and you'll see things like stripper is murdered or escort is murdered,
and it's like ash said, absolutely zero to do with the job that
they did. It'll be something completely random, but yet that splashed all over
the headlines because it's delacious and it allows people to feel safe. Oh,
you're so right. I mean, like, think about the way we teach
sexual assault prevention, right, We're like, don't wear scandalous clothes, don't
drink at the party, don't do these things. And it's like I will
always tell kids that I'm talking to, I'm like, if someone wants to
hurt you, they will like, there are definitely ways you could be quote
safe, but when someone wants to victimize you, right, it is their
choice and their power that somehow gets to you. There's really not a way
to say that couldn't happen to me because all of us are not immune.
None of us are immune from being somebody's victim if they decide they want to
take advantage of us or they want to heard us. It always strikes me
too that it's like young women are told so much about what they should do
for sexual assault prevention, but I feel like the education really needs to start
with young boys, and it really needs to start with children, right,
But the owners shouldn't and the responsibility shouldn't have to be put entirely on women,
and men shouldn't be treated as these creatures that are unable and incapable of
controlling themselves, because that just isn't true, and it's just so damaging to
both sexes when that narrative remains the pervasive one. Anyway, we've already made
comparisons between this case and the disappearance of Natalie Holloway. Claudia story did receive
a lot of coverage from the media at the time it originally happened, and
was even featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, but of course it was
nowhere near as big as Natalie's story and pretty much got pushed out of the
Spotlight after two thousand and five, I know that Fred and Mary Ann Kershaw
supposedly reached a confidential settlement with Sandel's resorts after they filed their lawsuit against so
I wonder if this has prevented any new information about the case from being released
over the past decade. Now, if for any reason you're not familiar with
Natalie Holloway's disappearance, here's a brief synopsis of the parallels with Claudia's case.
Natalie was an eighteen year old high school graduate from Alabama who went on a
school trip to Aruba in May of two thousand and five, but was reported
missing after she failed to make her flight home. She was last seen leaving
a nightclub with a local seventeen year old named Haran Vanderslout and two of his
friends, but was never seen again. And like Claudia, Natalie left behind
all of her personal items in her hotel room. Well. As you probably
know, most people suspect that Haran Vanderslut was responsible for Natalie's disappearance, and
he is currently serving time in a Peruvian prison as he murdered another young woman
named Stephanie Flores Ramirez on the exact five year anniversary of what Natalie went missing,
and much like Claudia's case, there have been complaints about a corrupt or
in Compe police investigation and allegations that a cover up took place. But while
Harod Vanderslout hailed from a prominent and influential family, the primary person of interest
in Claudia's disappearance, Anthony Grant, was just a resort bartender without any powerful
ties. However, there is compelling evidence to suggest that his employer took steps
to cover up what happened to Claudia, though this may have been done for
reasons which extended beyond protecting Anthony, who still wound up losing his job just
for going out on a date with Claudia. While Harod Vanderslout's self destructive exploits
following Natalie's disappearance are very well documented, I have no idea what happened to
Anthony Grant or what he's up to today. You're absolutely right. When we
look at the difference between Anthony Grant and your Ron Vander's salute, it is
a stark difference. Yes, they were both acquainted with this individual who went
missing, but Anthony Grant seems like he's trying to be somewhat forthcoming while not
telling the whole is how I feel in my gut where he's saying, yes,
I was with her, Yes I was intimate with her, Yes I
broke protocol, But I didn't kill her, right Like, I'm not the
one responsible for this. So Anthony, the biggest thing I think he was
facing was that we know he's going to lose his job because he was hanging
out with a tourist. But then you get this dog sniffing evidence and it
goes from a you've lost your job to you could literally lose your life to
a prison sentence. So I would love to know if there's more pointing to
Anthony Grant or if at this point that's all we have this dog sniffing evidence
and that he was obviously taking her beyond that safe gate of the resort.
Well, we'll talk more about this later on, but I definitely think there's
evidence to the points that he knows more than he's letting on, but may
not have necessarily been the one who killed her. So here's what we do
know. The last person who can confirm having spoken with Claudia before she went
missing is Tanyu Grossinger, who had breakfast with her on the morning twenty seventh.
Claudia was then seen walking down the beach later by a lifeguarded around one
thirty pm that afternoon, and while eye witnesses and missing persons cases can often
be mistaken, I'm inclined to believe this one might be legitimate. Since the
only items missing from Claudia's room were a bikini, T shirt and portable radio,
that definitely suggests she was heading to the beach before something happened to her.
Of course, the simplest explanation would be that Claudia walked into the water
and drowned, but it seems like this theory has been completely discounted because everyone
believes her body would have washed up on the shore at some point. The
Jamaica can Stabulary Force have even dismissed the idea that Claudia drowned, and given
how certain people from that area seemed to have an interest in getting away from
the idea that she was a victim of foul play, the police probably would
have pushed the drowning theory much harder if there was any possibility of it being
true. It's very clear here what Claudia was going to do that day,
so I don't think it's a question mark, right. She has breakfast with
Tanya and then she's going to out to the beach. They assess her room
and they see, obviously nothing's missing except her bikini, this T shirt,
and a portable radio. To me, that's a typical young woman who's going
to let's say sunbathe she'd be going to sit and have drinks with friends on
the beach. But it was very purposeful. Do you guys think she could
have also had her cell phone or do we know that it was recovered in
the room and then later went missing. I think they established that they did
find it in the safe, but it went missing later on for a completely
different reason. I have a question, how do they know what was missing
from her room. It's not like they had an itinerary of all of her
belongings prior to her disappearing, So it just seems strange that they're like,
only these three items were missing. How would anybody know? Yeah, that
is true, that's a good point. I don't know how they were able
to determine that, say, she didn't have an extra pair of clothes on
her at the time, because how are they going to know how much clothing
that she brought with her on the trip. I mean, obviously she left
most of her important items behind, like her passport and cell phone, but
I don't know how they could be certain that these were the only items that
she was carrying at the time she went missing. No, I didn't mean
itinerary, meant itemized list of Okay, itinerary. That did not make any
sense. Now. Most of the information we know about the relationship between Claudia
and Anthony Grant is from a third hand source, Tanya Crozinger, who was
simply relaying the information that Claudia shared with her. According to Tanya, Claudia's
stories that she went to a nightclub with Anthony on the evening of Made the
twenty fifth and smoke some marijuana with him before they went skinny dipping. However,
she apparently maintained that she did not have sex with Anthony, and when
he asked her out again the following night, she declined. Of course,
Anthony denied even knowing Claudia for months until he was questioned by the FBI,
but he then claimed he did have sex with Claudia and that they went out
for a second time. I unmade the twenty sixth. Now, Tanya claims
this isn't true because she had dinner with Claudia on the evening of the twenty
six But I guess we can't completely discount the possibility that after they parted ways,
Claudia could have met up with Anthony later that night. But if she
did, she never mentioned this to Tanya when they had breakfast together on the
morning of the twenty seventh. Now it must be stated that it really doesn't
matter whether or not Claudia actually had sex with Anthony, because either way it's
her own business. But if they didn't have sex and she turned out Anthony
asking her out a second time, then this could have given him a potential
motive to go after her on the twenty seventh. So y'all are definitely on
the path here. I remember in episode one, I'm like, well,
listen, he could actually be being very honest right that, yes, I
had sex with her, and Claudia could have actually been being very respectful of
Tanya and saying, like we're on a work trip. I respect to you.
I want you to view me in a very clean and pure light on
a work outeam and I didn't have sex with the He just wants you to
know that, right, Like I could see telling my friends like, oh,
by the way, I didn't do anything with him, right to have
that kind of reputation kept up. But then when you start to talk about
she goes missing, and you guys very correctly, we're like, wait a
minute. By planting that Seamen could have been found, right, or his
DNA might be found had her body ever been recovered, he could have also
been covering his tracks, which then makes this a very different scenario. Looking
at this and the way that Tanya says Claudia had gone out with him and
then denied him the next night almost makes me feel in my gut that maybe
something did happen where he was asking her to take it further or was trying
to force himself on her, making her therefore uncomfortable. And then like you
said, now Anthony has a motive to say I want Claudia, she said
no, it's now this quest to go get what I want and or be
with a a people who helps me kind of facilitate that social dynamic. Robin,
let me ask you a question. Do you think that there's a possibility
that like Anthony in the situation could look super guilty and that there is this
other nefarious force, maybe like sex traffickers on the island. Who then maybe
even though Anthony may have done something to her, maybe he slept with her,
maybe he didn't, Maybe he took it too far, Maybe he was
afraid of what made happen, and maybe he tipped off somebody that he knew
about this woman who was staying there, who's this attractive travel writer who's there
for a short period of time, and maybe she could be in line with
the type of women that they may be looking to abduct, given that I'm
sure there are certain people that would like an American woman. Has that ever
been listed as a possibility. I haven't heard anything about sex trafficking, But
as we're going to talk about, there have been other rumors that Anthony may
not have been directly responsible for what happened to Claudia, but may know what
happened, like he could have been involved in the cover up, or he
could have witnessed her death. And as we're going to talk about, there
was the anonymous letters saying that she went to a party and consumed a date
rape drug and then wound up convulsing and dying. So there aren't a number
of possibilities other than Anthony being the killer and maybe a thing where maybe he
had no idea that she was going to be harmed, but he did something
like maybe pointed her in the direction of the wrong person, so that he
kind of is indirectly responsible. And obviously, even if he didn't actually kill
her, he doesn't want to admit his culpability because he thinks it might look
bad for him. We talked about in part one that he took a polygraph,
and we all know that polygraphs are not admissible, they're not very reliable.
But it is interesting that when he was asked a bunch of questions he
failed. The one question that he did pass, was he directly responsible for
Claudia's death? And he answered no, and it appeared that he was truthful.
Yeah, exactly, Here's what I wonder, you know, like she's
going to all these local places where Anthony's really to me take care on this
very romantic, kind of culturally based experience where shoot, if I was single
and I was in a foreign country and I found someone that I really bonded
with and felt very safe with, I would absolutely want to go and experience
his family, his neighborhood, his hangouts. Who knows who else she met
at those locations. So, like you said, Anthony likely has more information
or at least is a bigger link to this story than we're aware of.
But I don't know that it's Anthony per se, or was it someone Anthony
exposed her too. I'm almost leaning more towards like a bigger story and a
bigger I don't know a bigger acquaintance group to investigate than just Anthony, because
it is powerful that he passed that question did you directly impact the disappearance of
Claudia? And he passed that question. Of course, even if he had
no involvement in Claudia's disappearance, I can still understand why Anthony would have felt
the need to lie about having gone out with Claudia, since he apparently had
another girlfriend at the time and it was a fireable offense for employees to date
guests. Obviously, you can't put a lot of stock into the results of
polygraph tests, like we just said, since they're not completely reliable. YEA,
Since he had another girlfriend at the time and it was a fireable offense
for employees to date guests. Claudia's parents have always expressed their belief that even
if Anthony did not directly harm her, he may have introduced her, like
ashe just said, to someone else who did and at the very least knows
exactly what happened and is withholding information or at least has names like that's really
where my gut is, right, like who did you bring Claudia around?
Now? The problem, like you said, is he has a lot of
reasons to keep his mouth quiet. Right. Anthony is up against law enforcement
who's invest seating him for the disappearance. He has a girlfriend, and he's
skinny dipping and smoking weed and going on this kind of romantic rendezvous with Claudia.
That's a problem. He has an employer who if he's caught with this
guest, which he was obviously with, he's going to be fired. That
is a problem. When you look at Jamaica and you look at the economy
of Jamaica, there's many families who if they have a family member who's steadily
employed like Anthony, would have been at a sandals resort right or a beach's
resort. That's critical for more than just Anthony, Right, he could be
feeding several people in his home. He could be the breadwinner of the entire
family. So you have law enforcement, your employer, your girlfriend, the
community, everyone's looking at you for answers. Right, that's a lot of
stress on him. But I think he knows names of Like listen, when
we were at this bar, my friends, you know, X, Y
and Z were there and they took particular interest in Claudia. Does he have
it in him to give up the people he exposed her too? Or is
he too scared for all of the collateral damage that comes with that kind of
information. And you're correct about Anthony's job, because he was living with his
mother and sisters at that time, and for all we know, he may
have been supporting them because getting a job as a resort bartender would be pretty
high class, like pretty lavish in Jamaica. So I'm sure he felt that
if I lose this job, I could be living in poverty, and that
could have given an ulterior motive to lie. Oh for sure. Think about
a sandals resort or a beach's resort, like I went to one one time,
and it was like, if you're going to invest in that it is
kind of like we're going to really spoil ourselves and be incredibly luxurious in this.
And if you're in that situation to make that decision, you know,
his tips were great. You know that he was incredibly personable. Look at
how he got Claudia away from the resort and got her to trust him.
So people with that kind of personality, that kind of genuine connection with the
people, they're Surrey drinks too. You know, people were tipping big time,
they were really enjoying having Anthony as their bartender. And so I am
pretty convinced that this was not just a job for him, this was a
way of life to provide for many more people than just himself. Oh can
you imagine, like most jobs that you'd be, you'd probably just make what
like ten dollars American a day at the time, twenty dollars American a day
at the time, Max, And being a bartender. I remember, you
know, I've gotten to Mexico so many times more than I can count,
gone to Dominican and done all inclusives, and even when you're staying at a
really nice place and you don't have to pay for drinks. I remember picking
my favorite bartenders and then being like, you know, here's fifty bucks,
just keep the drinks coming today type of a thing. So if you have
that happened from several guests, you could be walking out with hundreds of American
dollars per day on top of what you're making at the resort. So yeah,
I would think that would be a pretty lavish life where you would be
able to support your sisters and your mother and potentially a partner as well and
children like that would be incredible money for somewhere like Negrille. I think one
of the biggest flaws with the original investigation by the Jamaica Constabulary for US is
that they automatically believed Anthony when he denied knowing Claudia and did not push him
harder like the FBI did. One of the local detectives was interviewed on Unsolved
Mysteries and stated that Anthony is not considered a suspect, which I find a
bit odd, but I guess the wording might have been a bit ambiguous,
and that doesn't necessarily mean that they've eliminated him as a suspect. I certainly
don't believe there's enough evidence to actually make an arrest. But even if you
discount Anthony's lying, I believe there's enough reason to be suspicious of them.
A strand of Claudia's hair was found in Anthony's vehicle, and a tracking dog
detected or sent there, which might not be suspicious on its own, since
by his own admission, he did drive Claudia to a nightclub. However,
it's a bit more troubling that our scent was detected inside the trunk. The
scent being detected on a pair of Anthony's boots could be explained away, since
he could have warned them on the night he went out with her. But
it's a bit more troubling that it was detected on a pair of gloves.
Why would Anthony be wearing those on a date he wouldn't be, so in
my core, I have to ask, like, what was this dog detecting?
Was it trained to pick up like let's say a bloodhound and a missing
child, where they smell, you know, their clothes and their hair brushes
and their teddy bears, and they get that scent of the familiar person,
right, and they chase the scent of that living person. If that's the
case, I truly believe it's very, very possible that a dog would hit
on transferable sense. Why those gloves would have been mixed up. Maybe they
were in the trunk, maybe they were folded up with towels that were in
the car. I don't know. I'm not saying it's not possible that this
dog is very accurate. But for some reason, dog sniffing evidence really bothers
me, And so when I think about it, I have to know,
like, if it's detecting decay, like in the Kaylee Anthony case, right,
in Casey Anthony case, then we have a problem, right, like
we have a death smell that that dog's trained to detect. But if it's
simply transfer smells of familiarity, then how much would that really tell us?
Could those gloves have been caught up in other things that had Claudia sent naturally
on them? And then there's the fact that Anthony called in sick on a
date after Claudia was last seen and did not return to work for four days
on its own. That might not look so suspicious, but it seems like
one hell of a coincidence that Leo Lambert, the resort's head of public relations,
just happened to be absent from work on those exact same days. And
I'm not trying to imply that Lambert himself personally harmed Claudia, but I get
the impression that there had to be more than one person involved in what happened
to her. It's really tough to know what to make of Lambert because he
intentionally twisted information Tanya Grossinger provided to him at the press conference about Claudia's disappearance.
In fact, he pretty much devolved into victim blaming when he pushed forward
the idea that Claudia ran off with a secret lover. Lambert then admitted to
lying to Claudia's parents about having seen her at the resort after the last confirmed
sighting of her. But you have to ask was he doing all this just
to protect the resort's reputation and dispel the idea that violent crime might have taken
place there, or did he actually have direct knowledge or involvement in what happened.
I think here what's really kind of crazy is Leo Lambert. Didn't he
apply for like a passport or yes, tried to leave the country right when
all of this happened. Yeah, like it didn't get that far. But
he said he was trying to apply for a new one. And that really
gives off the impression that if something is about to go down, I have
to leave the country really quick. Yeah, and that's more than just like,
hey, I kind of feel bad about what happened here. I'm the
PR person. I could be at risk, like the fact that your PR
stunt was to spin this, right, like a PR person is a spend
doctor. I studied that. That was my major in college, So I'm
going to spin it to benefit my institution, right, Jules like thing we
harp on all the time. But he went dirty, he went low,
and he made sure that everyone who knew about Beaches Resort knew that if you
are not a scandalous drug induced, sex craved woman, that you are not
going to be harmed at our institution, right, Like that our resort is
safe unless you're like this woman. And so then you see him lying,
covering, victim blaming and in this idea of like I'm chasing a passport,
what were you running from? Why? Other than just like I mean,
so you see Gordon Butch here take a stance where he's like, listen,
I am sorry for what happened. I I'm going to get the reward money.
I have chastised my employees. I am trying to make changes. Do
I think he did enough? I don't know. I don't have enough information
to decide that was he protecting his brand absolutely, but at least he stepped
forward and said I am sorry for what happened. If nothing else, the
humanity and that for the family was huge. And then you have Leo Lambert
who literally takes exactly what Butch had said and kind of throws it in the
family's face of your daughter is accountable for what happened to her, And I'm
going to run away from that. I don't know. There's something about me
that wants to grab Leo Lambert and just kind of shake him and say,
what is wrong with you? Like the damage you do to this family and
to your business looks really bad. So one day we have to take a
trip to Jamaica just so you can track him down and shake him. Leo,
I am coming for you, for you the victim blaming. I'm coming
well. The fact that potentially important evidence happen to go missing from Beaches a
Grille gives off the impression that something sinister took place Sharikap once the hotel staff
realized that Claudia was missing and rented it to other guests before the police had
a chance to process it as a potential crime scene, and they recorded over
footage from a surveillance camera which overlooked a room. Now, I have my
doubts that something actually happened to Claudia inside the room. But let's combine this
with the other odd mistakes the resort made. They lost that particular month's log
book, which kept a record of all the vehicles that went in and out
of the hotel. They somehow lost Claudia's cell phone after collecting it from a
room, and they took the initiative of developing the film inside or camera without
consulting anyone and likely destroyed it. I know they claimed there were no photographs
on the role, but I find that very unlikely, as Claudia's entire job
involved traveling to tourist destinations and documenting them, So there's no way she would
have spent a couple days in Jamaica without taking any pictures. No, not
at all. And I'm just in my head, like white year, was
this that we took this camera? Okay, at that time, I'm assuming
they still were taking the film into the like into a Walmart or into a
Walgreens or a photo development place, right I think? So, yeah,
like this is still old school film where you would have to get it developed.
You could just like pull it up like on a cell phone camera.
Okay, So at that point, that's a lot of effort in my opinion,
you have a room that your boss is basically saying, this room should
have been vacated. It wasn't gathered the belongings. Move them to the front
desk and we'll figure out what happened. Who in their right mind said one,
I'm going to take our cell phone and two I found this camera.
I'm going to give the film to my boss, or two you know management,
and we're actually going to take the step to go outside of the property
developed the film, look at it and do this assessment. That is not
your place. It is absolutely questionable. Why this resident, why did this
visitor not check out? There's a problem. Whether she attentially ran off,
whether she disappeared, whether she was killed, something happened. So in my
head, I'm just I cannot fathom who sat back and said, hey,
take this film and go get it developed. It seems very very questionable,
and in my opinion, it would show Anthony. It would show that local
bar hang out. If I was me and I was sitting there traveling finding
these new experiences with people going to local culture. If that's who I am,
I'm a travel blogger. I'm going to take so many pictures because it
takes one hundred pictures to get that one photo worthy magazine spread to say this
is my experience in Jamaica. There's no way that film didn't contain information about
her last whereabouts. There's no way, and who, like where on the
chain did it get kicked out to these employees to make this concerted collaborative effort
to obviously, it seems like they're concealing evidence, Like why are they so
invested and so involved? It feels like somebody further up the chain had to
instruct them to do this, unless they themselves were personally involved or had knowledge
as to what had happened to Claudia exactly. I mean, it'd be one
thing if the police took the initiative to develop the photographs, because that's technically
potential evidence. But I just don't know why, like a hotel staff would
go to that trouble on their own, and it seems very likely that there
was something on that film they didn't want anyone to see. And same thing
with the cell phone, like they could have lost it by accident, but
maybe Claudia made a phone call to someone prior to her disappearance or received a
call, and they did not want that person's name showing up on Claudia's call
logs, So that's why they made her cell phone disappear. So if only
one or two of these mistakes had occurred, we could probably just write them
off as sloppy or incompetence. But when you combine all of these things together,
it seems pretty deliberate. Now, I'm not trying to say that Sandals
Resorts Incorporated perpetuated some mammoth conspiracy in order to cover up what happened. In
our last episode, we mentioned that the owner of Sandals, Gordon Butch Stewart,
is one of the wealthiest, most influential people in Jamaica, and Fred
and Maryann Kershok had nothing but good things to say about how he treated them.
Stewart covered all their travel expenses, contributed to the reward fund, paid
for radio ads which helped spread the word about Claudia's case in the media,
and he seemed just as disappointed as the Kerrshaks by how Beach's Negro handled her
disappearance. However, even though Leo Lambert was supposedly reprimanded for how he conducted
himself during that press conference, a Google search revealed that Lambert was still working
as Sandals corporate pr director for years afterwards, so it doesn't look like his
actions cost him his job. Again. More details about how the lawsuit between
Sandals and the Kershaws turned out might shed more light on how complicit the resort
was. For sure, it absolutely would. And I'm with the Kershaws where
you look at this fact that Leo Lambert took your daughter's character and he slandered
it in the media. Right, he's presenting that your daughter's the reason that
this happened. Your resort has no responsibility in the issue. And then,
like you said, you see that he's actually still in the same position.
I remember, like you, you see this at institutions like the military or
universities where a student comes forward and says, you know, a dean assaulted
me or a dean abused me, and then you look after this claim has
came out and the dean is promoted to a vice president position, right,
and you rack your brain of saying, where was the accountability? Where was
the punishment? Because the victim is going to hold all of those consequences.
And it's almost as if Leo Lambert's rewarded or slapped on the wrist for what
he did, and what he did was very damaging. When you say Claudia
caused her disappearance, Claudia's behavior holds her accountable for what happened, you are
basically saying like, I don't care, we are not responsible, and so
for me, it causes a community to look at that and say, well,
neither are we. Why would we care? Why would we come forward
when Claudia's to blame and I don't behave in that scandalous manner that Leoso presented.
So if you want to go to Jamaica and track him down and shake
him, you at least know that he's still working for Beaches and a Grille,
so it won't be hard to find him. Well, I need them
to pay for my trip, okay, but go fund me, you guys,
start to go fund me for me. But you have to ask if
the resort was complicit, would they really have gone to all this trouble just
to protect a bartender like Anthony Grant. Well, this is why some people
have speculated that even if Anthony was not directly responsible for what had happened to
Claudia, he might have introduced her to the person who was, And perhaps
this person was much higher on the food chain and exerted enough influence to compel
the resort to dispose of evidence which pointed to their involvement. But how would
these events have played out? Well, we know that Claudia was last seen
on seven Mile Beach, but like its title suggests, this was a very
large beach which was seven miles long. We have no idea what exact spot
she was planning to settle down at, or if it was isolated enough that
she could have been attacked in broad daylight without anyone seeing anything. Now it's
possible that nothing even happened at the beach and Claudie instead wound up meeting someone
and left with them voluntarily. Even though all the sources described the exact items
which were missing from Claudia's hotel room, one detail which isn't clear is if
she took any footwear with her. If she was only planning to walk along
the beach, she might have decided to leave barefoot, But I'm not sure
if she would have willingly gone somewhere else without returning to her room get some
shoes as well as change your clothing, since all she had on was a
bikini and a T shirt. I guess it kind of depends on what the
layout of that space was like. If you left the resort and walked straight
onto the beach and she, in my opinion, she could have very easily
been going to meet people that she had met, like locals that were going
to be on the beach, other resort goers that were going to be on
the beach, and or she was hanging out by herself and met people they
were out of the beach. Claudia does not sound like somebody who's going to
sit there and just be isolated from socialization. Right. She's my dale,
my friend who makes a friend in a grocery store at the mall. Right
Like wherever she goes, she's going to make a friend. That's how Claudia
sounds to me. So if Claudia was then going to come back to a
resort room or go to a quote, another place to just kind of hang
out. If she thought she was being led to just another beach area,
or if she thought she was going to go back to kind of a more
resort hangout area with sand and things like that, I could see her not
needing to go change. She's in the same environment. But the fact that
if she was going to be going out later that night, I do think
she would have come back and changed. I think you would have found her
wet bait ensued and her kind of beach clothes, and you would have seen
a different kind of outfit missing. However, would Claudia have even left with
someone else voluntarily since she supposedly turned down a second date with Anthony Grant,
I don't know if that would imply that she wanted nothing more to do with
him. We also have the odd account of these two men, one of
them a Hotel jet Ski instructor, who supposedly showed up at the front desk
asking for Claudia after she went missing, but then denied that this ever happened.
Details about this whole situation or sketchy. But if they're not telling the
truth, does that mean Claudia became acquainted with these guys or any other men
during her stay there. Well, she was at the resort for at least
three days, so that definitely could have happened. But as far as I
can hell, she never told Kanya Grossinger about any encounters with any men besides
Anthony Grant. Now, the Kershaws eventually received an anonymous letter which claimed that
Claudia died because she had a fatal reaction to a date rate drug which was
slipped into her drink at a party. This has also been pushed forward as
a potential theory for Natalie Holloway's disappearance, and it's certainly plausible here. Whoever
was responsible may never have planned on killing Claudia, but once she reacted badly
to the drug, they had to cover up the whole thing and dispose of
her body. If one or more employees from the resort were complicit in this,
then it would definitely explain their need to destroy potential evidence and orchestra to
cover up. I'm with you, I mean, Anthony Grant alone was not
worth covering all of these things, having this kind of conspiracy theory going against
Claudia and her family. But if you had multiple people at the resort who
were complicit in this act. Right, we also went out with this client.
We also went out with this customer, and we were the ones who
slipped with the drink, right, Like I could easily see this being a
group effort that kind of wolf packs Claudia and kind of convinces her that she's
in the safe group that came from the resort. And even as high up
as Leo, like, I wonder what caused him to take such a negative
view towards Claudia instead of following Bush's lead, his boss's lead and saying like
this is tragic. We messed up. I'm so sorry. Was he in
some way related to, very close to or knowledgeable of what was happening.
Maybe he had a role to play though, do you know what I mean?
Like, it's easy for the top guy to take the role. And
I'm not saying this is what happened here, but it is easy for the
person who's the figurehead, he's the wealthy guy, to be the quote unquote
good guy and to have somebody lower down the food chain do the dirty work
and say those things and then see how it lands. And then when it
doesn't lad. It's easy to step forward and be like, I'm very disappointed
by the way that was handled. But would that have been the same reaction
if her parents didn't kick up a stink and the media in the US some
outlets didn't catch on to this and make it a big deal. Is it
more for optics or was it a genuine response? That's true, There is
a good possibility that if this had been some other woman who didn't hail from
such a prominent family, who didn't have a family who were such an activists,
that the general public would have just accepted this explanation that she ran out
voluntarily in this case would have faded from the spotlights. So that may have
been their intention all along and went a backfire. They were like, Okay,
now we have to try to be helpful to the family in order to
improve our optics. But how or when did Claudia wind up at this party
mentioned in the letter? If the sighting of her on the beach is accurate,
did she really go from there to a party dressed to nothing more than
a bikini in a T shirt. Well, if the party took place on
the beach, then I guess that's a possible explanation, but we have no
idea of Claudia's exact whereabouts after one thirty pm on the app noon of May
twenty seventh. However, if the scenario outlined in the letter is the truth,
that I would not be surprised if Anthony Grant was involved in some way,
even if he was not directly responsible. He could have brought Claudia to
this party and introduced her to the individual who slipped a date rate drugs into
her drink. Wherever did this could have enlisted Anthony's help to get rid of
Claudia's body, which would explain why her scent was detected inside his car trunk.
But overall, without a body or any evidence that a crime took place,
we can only speculate. The only thing I know for certain is that
Claudia did not take off voluntarily and go off to live with some Jamaican lover.
She definitely became the victim of foul play, and it's very likely that
multiple people were involved or at least have knowledge about what happened. Given that
two decades of past and there was so much red tape holding up the investigation,
we may never know the actual truth and Sadly, I'm not sure if
Claudia's loved ones will ever get full answers. All that being said, should
you happen to have any information on the unsolved disappearance of Claudia Kirshock, please
contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley. Any final thoughts on this case,
I guess the only final thoughts I have is it again when we look at
a missing person's case. Claudia was twenty nine years old. She was a
successful businesswoman who got deterred and derailed away from a trip to Cuba to cover
a resort. And she gets put onto this resort in Jamaica where she's going
to spend a week, and she says, yes, yes, I'm going
to take this chance. I'm going to have this opportunity, and I'm going
to just enjoy life, right like any twenty nine year old would do.
She meets this bartender who's incredibly charming, who's kind, who convinces her he's
safe enough to take on this kind of backyard tour of where he grew up
and people he cares about and places he loves, and she says yes.
And so I feel like, as a young woman or used to be a
young woman. Yeah, you know, I'm not that old, but I
can relate to that. I can relate to the thrill and the charm that
would have come with being in a different location, finding someone who found an
intrigue with me and saying, I'm going to show you my life. There's
an honor in that, right and a kind of a charm in that,
And so she says yes and goes and it's never seen again. It blows
my mind that no one knows what happened to this girl, and no one,
with the passages of time, has said I'm not connected to these people
anymore. I'm not scared of these people anymore. The consequences are not big
enough for me to keep my mouth shut anymore. That's basically all we have
going for us is that time will eventually be a benefit where Claudia's case and
Claudia's legacy will be honored because the passage of time allows someone to have the
guts to say I know what happened. I think Anthony's the most likely to
know what happened. I don't know that he's responsible, but I do know
that Claudia's family is at a standstill of saying how do we grieve? How
do we process? How do we heal when we don't know what happened to
Claudia? Who hurt her? Is she's still hurting? Or are we just
missing our baby? Like is she deceased in somewhere where we can't hold her
and have her in a place to honor her one day? So my prayer
is time becomes a tool in this case. It becomes a powerful thing where
someone says, I'm willing to talk now because Claudia and her family deserve answers.
This case, it just breaks my heart because Claudia is this young woman
who's so vibrant. She's out there living her best life, and she meets
this guy on vacation. She goes out, which one should do. Reminds
me of when I went to Hawaii when I graduated high school. I went
with one of my best friends. My aunt lived in Hawaii, and we
went there for like eleven days. We met these two guys. One was
a proser for one was a model, and we saw them as much as
we could until my aunt finally was like, no more, you're grounded.
On the last night, you're not allowed to go out, And we were
like screw it, We're gonna go out anyways. And at that point in
time, we're at this random person's house. You're in this strange place.
Anything could have happened to us. So I envisioned a situation for Claudia where
do I think that Anthony Grant is the one that's responsible? Personally? I
don't think he is directly responsible, because I do think it's really telling about
the one polygraph question. But I do think that he introduced Claudia somehow to
the individuals that are responsible. Whether or not it was overdosed because somebody slipped
her the date rape drug. That does sound like a really plausible situation.
Then several people would be kind of incahoots trying to cover this up. And
I don't know what Leo Lambert's connection was why he was trying to Basically,
he was trying to slutch shame Claudia, saying she ran off with this guy
she was out there with, kind of like implying that she had loose morals
and that this was her fault, and then being like, she just ran
off with a random men, which there would be no reason for her to
do because she seemed really happy in her job she kept in close communication with
her parents at all times, and she always came home. What does she
have to run away from. She literally travels for a living, writes about
it, and she gets paid. So I just don't see any situation where
she would leave willingly. But if she wasn't her bathing suit in the middle
of the day, I think it's likely that she was lured away to some
party. I don't know if it was like ashe said that they were had
the intention of wolf packing her. But I think if you're going to date,
rape, drug this foreign this girl from a foreign country, knowing that
she's going to be leaving soon, I think there could have been nefarious intentions
on the part of several individuals, because it seems like this cover up was
really far reaching, And I don't know that it was far reaching because of
certain individuals or because of the institution, or somebody high up in the institution
then instruct these individuals to destroy evidence, to get the camera film developed,
and then basically being like there was nothing on there, there was no pictures,
when we know that just isn't true. It seems like they went to
a great deal of effort to do all of these things. There must have
been somebody who was pulling the strings there and instructing them to do so,
because who would do that of their own accord. You know, no one's
going to on their spare time dig into this unless they actually had the intention
of finding out what happened to Claudia. If they already knew and it was
just this big cover up, then they're playing a role. They're just pawns
in this greater scheme. Whether or not Butch knew, I'm not sure.
I think that it could go either way, that maybe he really did just
innocently stumble upon this resort that handled everything poorly. But maybe because I'm cynical,
I'm more inclined to believe that he was far more plugged in and more
aware of the situation than the public and the Kershaws might have been aware of.
But that's just my own opinion that's obviously not based in fact. We've
got nothing to substantiate that. But overall, I really just hope that somebody
at some point really feels bad about this. So many years have gone by
that I wish somebody would come forward, and I really hope that I get
to see the day that Ashley goes and shakes Leo Lambert exactly. That's our
number one goal here. Yeah, I'm coming guys. I'm feeling like a
crowdsource thing. We make this happen. But yeah, like we've talked about
this before, how missing persons cases in which someone vanishes in a foreign country
are just like the absolute worst nightmare for their loved ones because not only do
you have to go through the trauma of having someone you care about disappear with
that explanation, but you also have to go through a massive red tape.
You have to learn the new customs and the way investigations are handled in a
country you're not familiar with. And that's what happened with Natalie Holloway. It's
one of the most high profile missing persons cases of the modern era, and
pretty much everyone knows who did it, but even after all these years,
they've never found her body and it's technically still unsolved because the original investigation was
so badly mishandled and there was likely a cover up. And the same thing
may apply to Claudia Kershock, where we know she was last seeing on a
beach, and we suspect that she was murdered, but we don't have any
evidence. We don't know how this scenario would have unfolded. We have a
promising person of interest and Anthony Grant, but it's possible that even though he
probably knows what happened, he's not the one who directly caused her death.
But this pretty much the same thing that applies here is that there are probably
multiple people who do know, and we're multiple people involved, but no one
has ever come forward and revealed the truth. I mean, we've had anonymous
people come forward. We've had like the anonymous letter about how a date rate
drug was slipped inside Claudia's drink at a party which caused her death. We
had this anonymous caller who said that two men once told them that they sealed
Claudia's body inside an oil drum and disposed of it. I mean, we
have no idea if these scenarios is true, but it does suggest that rumors
and hearsay have gone throughout the island and that there may be people out there
whose conscience has got to them and know what happened, but they just are
reluctant to come forward. And that's why I'm hoping that with the passage of
time, someone will finally speak, because this was a pretty big deal in
the early two thousands, but it seems once they had the civil trial with
Claudia's parents and the resort, it has disappear from the spotlight and there have
not been any new developments. And quite frankly, I'm not even a hundred
percent sure if Claudia's parents are still alive after all these years, but it
would be nice if they finally received justice and learn the truth about what happened
to her and recovered her body, because I definitely think this is one of
those cases in which someone knows something. All it might take for this case
to break wide open is for the right person to come forward. Robin,
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