Welcome back to the Path. When Julie, I'm Robin, I'm Jules,
and I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. May twenty seven,
two thousand, Negril, Jamaica. We'll traveling to Cuba for an assignment.
Twenty nine year old travel writer Claudia Kershock is denied entry into the country,
so she's rerouted to a Sandals beach resort in Jamaica in order to wait
for a flight back home to New York. After last being seen walking along
a beach, Claudia vanishes without a trace, and most of her personal items
are left behind in her hotel room. The investigation leads to a resort bartender
whom Claudia went out with prior to her disappearance, but there's not enough evidence
to implicate him, and Claudia continues to remain a missing person. After that,
the Path went chilly. So today we've got another missing person's case to
cover, which was once featured on Unsolved Mysteries, the two thousand disappearance of
Claudia Kershock. The victim in this story was an American travel writer from New
York who was supposed to be traveling to Cuba for a junket, but after
she was denied entry into the country during a layover in Jamaica, Sandals Resorts
Incorporated offered her a complimentary stay at one of the resorts, which was named
Beaches and a Grille. She was scheduled to remain there for nearly a week
until a flight back home became available, but something happened to her before she
could leave. Most of you are probably familiar with the disappearance of Natalie Holloway,
another young American woman who went missing during a trip to the Caribbean island
of Aruba. Natalie's disappearance became one of the most highly covered missing persons cases
of all time, and while Claudia's disappearance didn't receive nearly as much attention,
you can definitely see some parallels between these two stories. Prior to her disappearance,
Claudia went out on a date with one of the resort's bartenders, and
there's been speculation that he may have been involved in what happened and a cover
up was orchestrated to protect him. However, no body has ever been found,
and the local authorities do not believe there is enough evidence to make an
arrest. After two decades, Claudius cases pretty much faded from the spotlight,
so we thought now would be a good time to revisit it. On the
Path went Chili. Missing persons cases always leave me with chills, because how
does someone just up and vanish when they go out people you care about them,
They're interacting with people, they're socializing, their things are in their room,
and literally Claudia walks out of her hotel room and is never seen again.
It boggles my mind how we can have human beings that leave with no
trace. We don't find them, we don't link them to a Jane Doe.
And I'm so glad you guys brought up Natalie Holloway the moment you started
talking about this vacation turned to a missing persons That's the exact case I pictured.
And I'm wondering what it was about Natalie. Was it her family?
Was it her socioeconomic status. I always wonder when I see these cases on
the news, what is it about this kid, this person who garners all
this attention, And then you have poor Claudia and her family who don't get
that attention. And we know that media coverage and that kind of need for
answers is one of the leading things that will lead to an arrest or answers
in a case. Do you think it's some combination of pretty privilege, white
privilege, and socioeconomic privilege, kind of all converging together to create this perfect
storm of this beautiful blonde woman, young, very young woman who goes missing
and her family is wealthy, they're affluent, and somehow it just captures the
nation, just like we saw with Gabby Potito. But then in contrast,
we see all these cases with Hispanic women or black women and they're missing,
and it doesn't cause nearly the same amount of a stir. Yeah, Claudie
Carshock is also like a very attractive, young white woman, and she did
get a decent amount of coverage for a while. But as we're going to
talk about later on, once Natalie Holloway started dominating the headlines, this case
was pretty much pushed to the side. And that's why you don't hear too
many people talk about it today, even though it is still unsolved. And
I just want to add that if it sounded like I was saying that Natalie
Holloway didn't deserve that attention, that's not at all what I meant, and
most of our listeners will know that. It's just that what I'm saying is
she absolutely deserved it, but other people deserve it as well. So it
is surprising in a case like this when we see very little attention paid in
sharp contrast to what we saw with Natalie. Oh, You're absolutely right,
Jewels. And when I work with families, that's one of the things that
is so difficult. It is kind of vying against other families for coverage because
they say the same thing. I don't want to take coverage away from this
case. I just want to know why my loved when either stops getting the
attention, like Robin pointed out, or doesn't get the attention at all.
And so it is interesting, Jules, you named a lot of factors that
play a role in that, and I think you know, the family carries
a big burden of fighting to keep that case alive and that's utterly exhausted.
I'm really interested to hear more about this case and how her family played a
role in it as well. So our story begins in the year two thousand
and our central figure is twenty nine year old Claudia Kershock. Claudia originally hails
from Morristown, New Jersey, and graduated with a degree in political science from
Washington and Lee University. She would spend years working as a freelancer while living
in Morristown with her parents Bred and Mary Ann Kershock, but in April nineteen
ninety nine, Claudia was hired as a writer and assistant edit for Framers Travel
Guides. She would work at their office in Manhattan and pretty much consider this
to be her dream job since she loved traveling. In December of that year,
Claudia finally decided to move into her own apartment in the Historian neighborhood of
Queens in order to be closer to her place of employment. Within months,
she was selected to participate in a travel junket sponsored by Sandals Resorts Incorporated.
This would allow her to attend the opening of one of their new resorts in
Havana, Cuba, and researched the local tourist destinations for an upcoming travel guide
about the country. On May twenty fourth, Claudia and some other travel writers
boardered a plane and flew to Montego Bay, Jamaica for a layover, where
she was scheduled to board another flight to Havana the following day, but after
spending the night there, the writers were informed that they were going to be
denied entry into Cuba since the country had tense political relationship with the US of
the time. All flights back to New York were fully booked up until June
first, but those resorts offered to reroute Claudia and another travel writer named named
Tanya Grossinger to Beaches Negro, an all inclusive resort located on seven Mile Beach
in the town of Negro. They would be allowed to stay there at the
company's expense until they managed she got a flight back home. Claudia accepted the
offer, and after traveling to Beaches Negril, Claudia phoned or supervisor and parents
to inform them about what was going on. During their stay there, Claudia
became acquainted with Tanya Grossinger, who got the hotel manager to use his influence
to book Tanya on earlier flight to New York on May the twenty seventh.
However, Claudia was willing to remain at the resort for a few more days
and informed Tanye. Ever plans to travel to other popular Ja make in tourist
destinations such as the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston. On the evening of May
the twenty sixth, Claudia met Tanya for dinner and told her that she had
spent the previous night going out on a date with one of the resort's bartenders,
Anthony Grant. Anthony was in his twenties, lived in the town of
Green Island with his mother and sisters, and had been employed at Beaches n
a Grille since they opened three years earlier. Claudia and Anthony seemed to bond
over their love of reggae music, so he offered to take her to a
seaside nightclub to see a local reggae band. Afterward, Claudia said they smoked
some marijuana and went skinny dipping together before Anthony took her back to the resort,
though he may try to keep his distance from the entrance when he dropped
her off, since the hotel had a strict policy against staff members dating the
guests well. Anthony asked Claudia out again the following night. She turned him
down before they went their several ways. After, Claudia met Tanya for breakfast
on the morning and made the twenty seventh. They said goodbye before Tanya headed
to the airport and boarded her flight to New York. Here's what's scary about
this. You have somebody in Claudia who is like a little jet setter.
She's incredibly independent. You can tell as a world traveler, right. She's
somebody who wants to meet new people. She wants to experience new cultures.
When they tell her you can't go into Cuba and you can have this alternative
experience, She's one of those kinds of people that says, yes, I
actually have a best friend named Dale who's the same way. She's young and
beautiful, never meets a stranger, never says no to an opportunity, And
so when you can put someone you know in that kind of context and say,
like, I know someone like Claudia, it's incredibly scary because she's doing
what any young, fun, adventurous person would do. She's diving into the
culture. She's taking advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity. She's meeting
people, going out with them and really kind of saying I'm in for whatever
this adventure holds. And then she says goodbye to Tanya, and we Tanya
is never going to see her again. It blows my mind. I love
to travel, but one thing that I don't have is the spontaneity like you
describe with your friend, like somebody who never says no to an opportunity.
But I've got plenty of friends that are like that. Right, something will
come up, They'll be like, Hey, I want to back back to
this country or I want to jet to this country, and wow, I
never had that, but I really admire those who do. I'm like the
type of person and you probably are asked the same way. They really like
to plan their trip down to like the last detail. So when I see
somebody's like super spontaneous, like just throw something at a map and they're like,
yeah, I could go there, I'm like, wow, I really
need more of your energy in my life. Because Tanya's kind of more like
you. Because she was an older woman, she had a lot more experienced
traveling. So when she got the opportunity to leave Jamaica and go back home
to New York a few days early, she was like, yeah, I'm
gonna go because I've been to places like these before. I'm not very spontaneous.
I don't want to spend like all this time here when I don't have
to. But Claudius and she loved traveling. She was the exact office and
said, no, it's okay, I'm going to stay here for a couple
more days and then go home on June the second. And it is kind
of a sad situation because I think if Tanya and Claudia had been there together
this entire time, and maybe things would have turned out differently. But because
Claudia was just so spontaneous and just wanted to see everything from Jamaica that she
could, she decided to stay there. How old was Claudia again, twenty
nine? That explains it, right, That's totally the energy of your twenties,
that like need to have new experiences and like totally open to everything.
You hit your thirties. Well, I can speak from my own personal experience.
I became a lot less spontaneous. Yeah, smoking weed and skinny dipping.
I'd need to sleep for a week, you know. It's like Claudia
is doing though, like what I said, it is Jules. I'm like
you, I need to plan. I'm a huge yes person to travel,
but it's going to be planned. My mom says, like Oh my god,
I can't believe how brave you are, Like you're willing to go on
your own to New York City and these kinds of things, and it's been
this incredibly blessed experience. But it's planned. Claudia sounds like exactly you described
it. Like my friend Dale, I jump on Instagram and I'm like,
girlfriend, when do you work? Like you're always in Europe and then you're
in Australia and then you're in a wedding in Rome, Like okay, this
is crazy cool. She's like that, and like you said, she's young,
she's carefree, she's doing her job. How fun and honestly, Claudia
has a good head on her shoulders. I'm sure. So meeting Anthony and
saying, that's another young kid who I bond with over this love of reggae
music. It's an incredible opportunity to have a local take you to like a
local dive bar or a local cultural experience and say this is my home,
this is what we do. Let's go have fun on the town. How
romantic and fun is that, even if it's just for those five days.
She's young, she's fun, she's single, Like what an ideal situation because
when you experience a culture through the locals. One time, my husband and
I when we went to Morocco, we went to Marrakesh and we met this
guy on the plane. He ended up owning a bunch of businesses there,
and him and his best friend took us out all over to all these places
that we would never normally have gone, and restaurants we wouldn't normally be able
to get tables at because unless you know somebody, you're not getting in.
And it was just such a cool experience to be able to see it through
the eyes of somebody who's from there. So I bet Claudia was just like,
Wow, okay, like I'm going to experience Jamaica through somebody that lives
here, and this is like the real Jamaica, the Jamaican's experience. Claudia
was scheduled to return to her office in Manhattan on the morning of June second,
but she didn't show up and never contacted anyone. Claudia's parents, Fred
and Mary Anne, also grew concerned after she failed to return several phone messages
from them. After learning about their daughters no show at her workplace, the
Kershawks decided to contact Beach's Negro and were alarmed to learn that Claudia had never
officially checked out and was now missing. It turned out that the last confirmed
sighting of her took place at around one pm on May twenty seventh, when
a lifeguard thought that he saw her walking along seven Mile Beach. Over the
next few days, when maids went inside Claudia's hotel room lean it, they
noted in their logs that the bed had not been slept in, the towels
were not used, and all of her personal items, including her clothes packed
inside her suitcase, remained untouched in the same place. Did you guys watch
the documentary about the murders It's Starved rock An I didn't, no, okay,
so that that one the same kind of thing. It's three older women
who actually they go to this resort and they check in, they put their
bags down, and they leave on a hike and a snowstorm comes in.
It's two or three days before one of their husband's getting you know, is
calling and calling and saying like this is not normal. A snowstorm came,
they would have come back at this point, where are they? They should
have called every night to check in and they didn't, and when they're looking
into their rooms, same kind of thing. It is immaculate. They had
literally dropped their bags and gone off on this adventure, so they said.
There are suitcases weren't open um, nothing had been unpacked. The beds were
kept super neat. And it reminds me of that where you go, oh
my god, it's like it's frozen in time, that there's two different things
happening. This person out on an adventure, having fun, doing all these
things. Their room is pristine, and yet they should have been in that
room, and then they should have been home, and they weren't. After
Claudia's checkout day passed, hotel security decided to drill into the room safe and
found Claudia's passport, return plane ticket, credit cards, cell phone, and
one hundred and eighty dollars in cash inside. The only items which appeared to
be missing were Claudia's bikini, one of our T shirts, and a portable
radio. This prompted the staff to contact the Jamaica Constabulary Force and officially report
Claudia missing. Upon learning this, Fred and Marianne immediately contacted the United States
Embassy in Kingston before traveling to Negril to search for their daughter. They later
learned that Claudia had managed to book a new flight to New York on May
the twenty ninth, which would have allowed her to return home two days earlier
than expected, but she obviously never did it. Since the last reported sighting
of Claudia took place on seven Mile Beach, police looked into the possibility that
she could have drowned, but did not find that likely. Since the water
along the beach was not that deep and the current not that strong, they
believed that the tide would have eventually caused her body to wash up on shore.
So guys, when you look at what was missing from the room,
you have a bikini, a T shirt, and a like a little portable
radio. It is very clear Claudia has a direct plan. I'm going to
go hang out on the beach. I'm going to have a little bit of
a party or just enjoy life with myself or with somebody there. To me,
it's a purposeful composition of what was actually missing from that room, Like
there was a plan that day and she didn't come back. Yeah, that's
why I think the eyewitness sighting of her on the beach is credible because it
totally fits the profile of the evidence that all of her items are left behind
in her room besides her bikini, T shirt and radio. So she was
clearly going out to relax on the beach for a while before something happened.
And you expect a resort to kind of raise all these red flags that they're
going to be reaching out and in this situation where you're the parents and you're
like, Okay, well where's my daughter because she hasn't contacted anybody, and
they're like, well, you know, she's missing. But I think we
see that time and time again with any incidents that seemed to happen in tourist
destinations or on cruise ships. There's this effort to minimize it because we don't
want to hurt tourism. Oh yeah, as we're going to talk about,
there was a lot of shady behavior from this resort. Oh guys, that's
absolutely true, even here in the United States. Like I remember there was
a case in Orlando. I worked with a family down in Orlando and they
said they could not get the media to cover their child's murder because they knew
in their gut this is Disney World, right, This is where everything's like
this picture perfect dream. And if you start to advertise that young people are
being murdered, that there was going to be a publicity problem and there was
going to be a tourism problem. And so when we think about that,
it's disgusting that you can really equate the amount of coverage, the amount of
effort, the amount of attention something gets so that we don't upset or distract
financially from the businesses there. It's very disturbing, but it's it's not an
abnormal trend. I think you see that in major cities. I think you
see that in high tourist populations here. I mean, I've worked with family
so have said, it's very clear why we didn't get any help. You
saw that with the Rebecca Quarium case where she went missing. She disappeared off
of the Disney cruise ship which she worked on. There were some sketchy individuals
involved. At the end of the day, though I believe that it was
some kind of accident, and the problem is there was no proper investigation.
Disney, it appeared allegedly tried to, you know, either cover things that
minimize distance themselves from anything happening, and even if they would have like looked
over the footage or like really done this thorough investigation that the parents wanted,
then it would have probably exposed that it was an accident. That's just my
personal opinion. But they look so shady, and they look like they're covering
up a murder because they're saying nothing. So sometimes, you know, actually
you often talk about institutions and how institutions will protect themselves. In that situation,
they just all closed ranks because that was allegedly what was expected of them
by Disney. And I also think you've got to You've got to consider what
this institution is. It's a resort. It's a place you come and you
escape and you get to enjoy vacation. They are not your babysitter. This
is a grown woman. So I think in their mind literally the biggest problem
would be get your stuff out of your room. You were supposed to have
checked out, you know. I don't think their mindset is like we need
to monitor where our guests are, you know, we need to make sure
that they return to their room. I think in a business sense, like
if I don't know if this makes but I think they're thinking I get people
in and out of the room, and I let them have a good time,
and that's about my responsibility for adults that are here. However, investigators
would soon learn about some odd events which occurred at Beach's Negro when Claudia went
missing. Even though the license plates of all vehicles which entered and left the
resort were recorded in a log book as a security precaution, the logbook for
the month of May went missing before it could be examined, and the staff
offered an explanation that one of the security guards must have accidentally misplaced it or
threw it out. Even though there was a surveillance camera mounted near Claudia's room,
the footage from the week of her disappearance was taped over before police could
look at it, and before the room could be processed as a potential crime
scene. Housekeeping and hotel security took Claudia's personal items to the manager's office and
the room was rented out to other guests. In addition, Claudia's cell phone,
which had been left behind in her safe, also inexplicably went missing before
it could be examined. Claudia's camera was also in her room, and the
resort's staff actually went to the trouble of developing the film on their own.
They claim that no photographs were found on the role, but the kerr Shocks
were skeptical of this and believed that the staff had either confiscated or exposed the
film. Okay, so there's a lot to unpack in that. When you
look at this, it's basically what I was saying. Their frustration would have
been, you were here, you were supposed to check out this day,
have housekeeping clean up that room, bring their stuff here, and run it
out again. It's money, right, Like you're wasting money not having that
room available for the next runtal. But then you start looking at these other
behaviors and they're not necessarily quote business savvy and about the bottom line. I
would love to know what the typical protocol is for these cameras and the idea
of like how frequently were they recorded over is it normal? It's possible that
when they went to look for camera footage it was the normal routine kind of
re record loop that happened at that resort, and therefore I wouldn't have a
problem with it. But if you saw an abnormal kind of rush to cover
up that footage, I would be really perplexed about why that happened. I'm
also highly bothered by the idea that these people went in found her camera and
said we're going to develop the film. That makes no sense to me,
especially when you're kind of question marking where this girl is. I don't think
you would go to the extent of going out of your way to develop these
photographs and then saying, oh, by the way, they recorded nothing,
they had nothing on there, and where's her cell phone? I could see
someone stealing that because it's an item of value, like when they're cleaning the
room. But that's a very dangerous thing to do when you've been sent to
go collect the items of someone who's not returned. What is the standard of
investigation in Jamaica with regards to a missing person, especially a foreigner like that
is a an adult, Yeah, exactly. That's a question that I'm really
curious about because we see in multiple different countries, a lot of Western countries,
even when somebody goes missing there and they're a foreigner, it really isn't
taken that seriously, and sometimes it's even really minimized and parents have to fly
across to that country. Clause A big stink. And even then they could,
law enforcement is reticent to really do anything actionable. So in this case,
it's a country that's really quite poor. They don't have the resources allocated
that law enforcement does in the US or Canada or you know, many other
different places Australia wherever. And so I just don't know how much they would
be taking this seriously, because, like you said, Ash, they're gonna
be like, this is an adult woman who knows maybe she just ran away
with somebody, and if she didn't do that, it's a huge inconvenience for
us on many different levels. And the weird thing about the photographs and Claudia's
camera is that this wasn't the police taking the initiative to develop the role of
film. It was the hotel security and the hotel's staff, and they're coming
up with this story that, oh, there were no pictures taken, even
though it's like literally her job to go to tourist destinations and take photos and
document everything. So you know that that story isn't true, And you have
to wonder was there something on the film, a photo that they just did
not want anyone to see. During the initial stages of the investigation. Leo
Lambert, the head of corporate public relations for Sandal's Resorts, told the Kershaws
that he had seen Claudia at the resort on me the twenty eight, the
day after she was spotted on the beach, and that she also failed to
show up for her scheduled ride to the airport on the twenty nine. Lambert
would soon hold a press conference and take everyone by surprise by betraying Claudia as
an adventure seeker who had gone on a partying bench during her stay at nick
Rille. He said she smoked marijuana and had sex with one of the resort's
employees because she quote unquote doesn't mind screwing around sometimes. Lambert implied that Claudia
might have run off on her own in order to with a new Jamaican lover
and for yourself from her quote unquote oppressive American lifestyle. We'll leaedless to say
the kerr shots were taken completely aback by Lambert's comments. The information about Claudia's
encounter with Anthony Grant had been faxed to Lambert by tanyak Rosinger, but Tanya
was outraged about how Lambert misrepresented her story. Stating, quote, this is
pure character assassination. Is blamed the victim end quote. Tanya maintained that Claudia
had told her she only went skinny dipping with Anthony but specifically denied having sex
with him. Robin Okay, So Dania nails it right, Tanya nails it.
This is total victim blaming and shaming her for her behavior. You look
at what she did, right, She smoked weed, oh my goodness,
and she went skinny to being oh my goodness at age twenty nine. Right.
The fact that her sexuality and this desire to just have fun with somebody
was demonized is so sad. But the reality is is that it's not rare.
You know, she even set these boundaries where Tania is like, I
got to really advocate for her here. She said she would not have sex
with him. Right, there was a boundary there to me as a woman,
that is incredibly empowering. Right, I have, and I raised my
daughter to tell people what your boundaries are. Right for my daughter, she's
eight, so it's like, hey, I would prefer not to hug or
like I want to high five you instead. But when she gets older,
like I remember being sixteen and saying I will do X, Y and Z
with you, but I won't do A, B and C. And there's
power in that as a woman. There's pride in that as a woman,
and the fact that her sexuality, her kind of adventurous a nature was demonized
like this because she quote doesn't mind screwing around is makes me mad. If
you can't tell it makes me really mad. She's just a twenty nine year
old kid who had a really fun friend that she met, who wanted to
go have fun, and she went did that. It should have never resulted
in any harm to her. You could just like smell this whiff of of
internalized misogyny within law enforcement, within the institution of that beach is the staff
there. I'm not saying that all people who working beaches have internalized misogyny.
It exists everywhere. But when you shame a woman for these choices, which
she's single, she's young, she's fun, she's successful. Why shouldn't she
be out there enjoying her time? What else is she supposed to do?
Sit by herself. I think she had a great time. She did exactly
what should be expected of a woman who's been kind of thrust into this situation
unwillingly, but she's making the best of it. And the fact that they're
shaming her for smoking weed, Like it's not like she had a brick of
cocaine and was like sitting and doing it until it was done. This is
like seriously, so ridiculous. But you know that they would not be judging
a male travel writer if he did the same thing with a female bartender.
Not at all. Yeahs, I was looking forward to seeing your reaction to
this because I knew it would piss you off because it is. Yeah,
I'm sweating a little bit, but it's fun. I'm gonna get it together.
And the fact that Lambert would take this limited information he heard about Claudia
and say, well, she went smoking marijuana and she went skinny to pingle
with a guy. That made you that she ran off on her own with
a new lover and is just hiding out voluntarily, Like how do you jump
to that conclusion? It just reeks of a guy who's trying to like blame
a victim so that there's no negative publicity surrounding the resort. And they don't
make it sound like, oh, this is a dangerous place and she might
have run into foul play. It's lazy. It's like when there used to
be missing kids or teenagers and you know, like when we were kids,
and it would be like, oh, they ran off to start her new
life, and it's like did you even look into it? Now there's all
these rules in place for you know, investigating missing kids and teenagers miners,
but before there wasn't and it would be like, well, they you know,
a way to join the circus. They ran away to do this,
and it's like you're just guessing, you're not actually investigating, and so you've
taken this this data here, and then you've kind of extrapolated that Claudia is
now running off like it just isn't in line with who she is and what
her life is like. Just because she's cutting loose on vacation doesn't mean she's
ready to leave her life entirely. I love how she had an oppressed life
too, like what travel writer. And to hearken back to a previous episode,
they were seduced by the romantic allure of the carnival and ran away.
That's another guy were going to bring that up. Yeah, I thought of
you when I said it. Well, once Claudia's disappearance made news around the
island. Numerous eyewitnesses would report having seen her in various nightclubs and villages.
In some of these sightings, Claudia was supposedly in the company of a Rastafarian
man. However, Claudia's parents did not believe she took off on her own,
because, even though she did love to try will and go on adventures,
she always made sure to phone them and let them know where she was.
Indeed, even after investigating over four hundred tips, the authorities were unable
to confirm any of the alleged sightings of Claudia or uncover any evidence that she
was still alive. The founder of Sandals Resorts Incorporated was Gordon Butch Stewart,
one of Jamaica's wealthiest and most influential residence. He personally called the Kerrshocks to
apologize for Lambert's comments at the press conference and assured them he had reprimanded his
staff for how they handled Claudia's disappearance. He also chipped in twenty five thousand
dollars towards a reward fund, and in total a reward of fifty thousand,
roughly twenty times the average annual income in Jamaica was offered for information. So
here. I mean, it's really great that Gordon Butch Stewart, he reaches
out and he apologizes for the comments that were made, But the reality is
that I don't care how much you reprimanded your staff at this point, I
need you to dive deep and I need you to help me figure out what
happened to my daughter, Like there should be an accountability there. For Gordon,
I have a feeling this was a business and for the Kurtshafs, this
was a daughter who's gone missing. Like I need you to go beyond an
apology. That doesn't help me. It doesn't give me any information. I
do appreciate the reward fund right fifty thousand dollars, which in Jamaica was going
to be a life changing amount. But I just feel like he could have
done more. He could have helped dive into like answering questions about where the
heck was her phone? Where was the camera? Like did you really do
an investigation with your staff or did you simply hold a meeting and say,
guys, this wasn't handled well, please don't do that again. I think
it feels like he's trying to play kate the public. And it's easier to
ask for forgiveness than for permission right to write at the beginning, be like,
hey, we're not going to do a proper investigation. Better to do
like Amya Kalpa. And I've got to wonder how much is actually genuine and
how much is for optics and for protection of the integrity of the brand and
of the resort. I mean, I can't speak to who he is as
a person, but I agree Ash, I think more could have been done
and more should have been done well for a clarification. The Kershawks would later
say good things about Gordon book Stewart. Apparently he did treat them well.
But I do think he probably could have done more considering how badly the staff
at his resort botched things up. Yeah, and I would just want answers
from him, like he had direct access to this staff, what did he
do? And he might have done want more than we know, right,
he really could have pulled people in. He could have sat down and questioned
them. He could have you know, gone through all of the information by
himself and said like, oh my god, my people really messed up,
and how do you fix that, but man, when it comes to people
that own these resorts, I don't know. I might just be cynical,
but I feel like at the end of the day, again, like Jules,
you mentioned the institutional protection, I really feel like that's hard to get
away from when you look at these kind of financially driven institutions. I'm with
you, and if you put up a reward and you're one of the most
influential people there and you know that somebody could come forward with something that could
be damaging to your brand, I think you're going to make sure that they
don't or that person will be dissuaded from doing so. So are you putting
up a reward that's genuine? Are you trying to get outside information when I
feel like you have access to all of the people that would have had information
at your fingertips, and somehow you're unable to come up with anything. And
I'm not saying he's a bad guy, but I'm like you, Ash,
I'm just super cynical when I hear that somebody's that rich, that powerful,
that plugged in, and yet we have no answers, And it seems clear
that whatever happened happened either at the property or with somebody related to that property.
So the fact that there's no information, no one's come forward, I
think is strange. The Kershots expressed their dissatisfaction towards the investigation from the Jamaica
Constabulary Force, claiming that the local authorities were uncooperative with them and would not
let them examine Claudia's investigative file. They actually managed to lobby a congressman into
contacting the Jamaican government, where he informed them that he was attaching a rider
to a new bill giving funds to their country. The riders stated that the
funds would be withheld if the government did not allow the FBI to assist with
the investigation, so the government agreed to the request, marking the first time
the FBI had ever investigated the disappearance of an American citizen in Jamaica. They
arrived in July and were accompanied by canine handler Harry Oakes Junior, the head
of International Canine Search and Rescue Services, who brought along his tracking dog,
Valerie. Valerie wo attract Claudia sent along seven Mile Beach, as well as
a gate leading to the street and a nearby wooded area, but most Disturbingly,
she also picked up Claudia's scent in the trunk and back seat. Anthony
grants Toyota Corolla, and a strand of what appeared to be Claudia's hair was
found in the backseat as well. When Valerie searched for Anthony's house, claudias
scent was picked up on a pair of boots as well as a pair of
gloves inside a suitcase underneath Anthony's bed. Okay, let me ask you this.
I'm pretty sure that that scent is like decay, human decay, But
is it? Could it just have been that he was with her, like
we know Anthony was with her, or does it have to be after death
of these canines are picking up that scent. That's a good question. I
don't know how it applies with this particular dog, but I do agree with
you. Her scent showing up in Anthony's car is not all that unusual,
because they did go out a couple nights earlier. But her scent paying picked
up in the trunk, though, is more disturbing because I don't think she
would climb in there voluntarily, And also the fact that her scent was on
some gloves, which Anthony would probably not be wearing on a date. So
regardless of whether or not it was a decaying sent, the fact that claudias
scent was there at all is a bit distressing. True, But I'm wondering
if like you could mix that, like I don't know how it works,
and like you said, it could be with this dog, how it works
if it's just Claudia's presence. This is when I'm watching like a true crime
show where I'm reading a case and someone's like, I've never been with her.
I'm like, oh, you just screwed yourself bad. You should have
said, yeah, I've had her in my car before, Yes, I've
been in her home before. That way, when you have a link to
her with some kind of scientific evidence, it's like, well, I can
explain that I told you I've been with her before. So I'm wondering,
could there be any kind of trance first sent? Could they have folded up
blankets they were laying on or kissing on, or these kinds of things in
the trunk gloves little weird unless there was some kind of transfer there, But
overall, just having Claudia link to Anthony with some kind of what we've proven
to be somewhat faux science. I'm not completely going yep, Anthony's guilty,
but I mean, obviously it doesn't look good for Anthony. Well, sort
of like bite mark evidence or whatever, right, like, there are times
what it is correct or polygraphs, it's something that can point you in the
right direction, but we do have false convictions, and you know, dog
evidence won't stand up in a quart of law because there isn't any standardized test
across the US, even for you know, cadaver dogs or for scent dogs,
and they train them in different ways, some on pseudocent some on like
the smell of chickens, some on actual decaying human flesh in certain places.
So there's a varying degree of ways that they train these dogs. So if
you don't have a standardized approach and standardized tests for these dogs across all states,
how could you ever bring that evidence to court because then it comes down
to the handlers as well. It's so subjective, just like polygraphs. So
yeah, it is compelling. I am really interested in why those gloves would
have been a strong scent and they're underneath the bed that's a little weird,
and the trunk as well. I mean, it is possible, like what
you said, Ash, there could have been some think but I think that
they would have been able to rule that out, or they would have mentioned
that, like, hey, it was on a piece of clothing in the
trunk, but the fact that it was just in the trunk is very strange.
But the fact that her hair is around doesn't seem all that odd because
it is established already that they were spending time together. But yeah, you're
right, not ivory cadaver dog is one hundred percent reliable. And of course
one of the most controversial examples is the Mattel in the Can case, where
a dog detected madelin scent in the trunk of her parents rental car, except
the car was not rented until several weeks after she disappeared, So that's always
been taken as an unreliable piece of evidence. So for all you know,
the same could ring true here. Yeah, and that was one of the
top dog handlers in the world, Martin Grimes, who still I believes works
with the FBI, and he is excellent. So you can't ever get one
hundred percent degree of certainty with something like that, even when you're dealing with
some of the best dogs in the business and one of the best handlers in
the business, So we don't know what type of training this dog had and
what sort of special sophicity or its area of expertise, so it is hard
to go off of that entirely. When he was first questioned by the Jamaica
Constabulary Force, Anthony denied ever meeting Claudia, and they pretty much took him
at his word. But it turned out that Anthony had called in sick at
his bartending job on May twenty eighth, the day after Claudia was last seen,
and he did not return to work for four days. He was reinterviewed
by the FBI and given a polygraph, which he wound up failing. Upon
learning this, Anthony finally admitted to having gone out with Claudia on May twenty
fifth, and said that he only lied because he had another girlfriend at the
time and his employer had a strict policy against dating guests. Anthony claimed that
he had sex with Claudia and went out with her again a second time on
the evening of May twenty six, but he never saw her after that.
However, his story was contradicted by Tanya Grossinger, who maintained she had dinner
with Claudia on the of the twenty sixth, and that Claudia denied having sex
with Anthony. Even though Anthony failed a number of questions on his polygraph.
When he was directly asked if he killed Claudia and responded no, the results
indicated that he was telling the truth. The mad from Anthony's car trunk,
as well as the boots and gloves, were given to the FBI Response team
and taken to their forensic laboratory in the US. DNA testing on the items
proved inconclusive and no evidence of foul play could be found. A knife was
also taken from Anthony's residence, which appeared to have a small amount of blood
on the blade, but the sample was too small to perform a thorough analysis.
The Jamaica Constabulary Force have since stated that they do not consider Anthony to
be a suspect in the disappearance, but he would still be fired from Sandals
Resorts, who considered his unprofessional conduct with a guest to be a breach of
company policy. Anthony hired an attorney who has continually maintained his client's innocence and
publicly questioned the credibility of Valerie the tracking dog. I would be in the
same boat even as the family of Claudia. I would be going wait dog
tracking evidence. That's the only thing we have. Because you've got to remember,
a dog is trained by a human being. It's an incredibly subjective science.
It is a very highly influenced science by the handlers and those kinds of
things, even when there's no purposeful control of the dog. Right, that's
their baby, that's the dog that they trained, and they trained it,
like you said, jewels, and in many different ways. There's no standard
training. So even like stances and looks and reactions from the owner can change
the way that the dog behaves. So I would be intrigued. Perhaps my
ears would perk, but that would not be something I would hang my hat
on. I also have to go back to where Tanya says, like,
listen, I'm guarantee you that they did not have sex. Right, that
Claudia confided in her that she and Anthony had not had sex. I don't
know how important that is, Like why is that important? You have Anthony
who says we did to me, that's a pretty self incriminating big claim where
there would be no reason for him to lie about that, Like, I
feel like at this point, he's like, Yeah, I was with her,
Yes, I hung out with her, we smoked weed, I had
sex with her. I completely violated a company policy which landed him in hot
water. But he's being transparent. It sounds like, and then you have
Tanya who's saying that did not happen. If I was with an older lady
at a resort who was trying to book her butt home and I was sitting
there hanging out and kind of feeling the bartender, would Tanya be somebody that
I confided in about my intimate relationship, or would I try to persent myself
in a little bit different way, like I'm on a work trip. I
don't want her to know I'm having sex with a bartender. I could see
that being the case as well. So I'm wondering, how does it bene
in him to lie and does it even play into this whether they were intimate
or not. Everyone knows they were together. Okay, but what if they
found her body and let's just say that Anthony allegedly had raped her and he
knew if they come across the body, they're going to find semen inside her,
so I better set up a situation where we had consensual sex. So
it then explains the way whatever evidence they find on her body. Yep,
Okay, you win. Yep, that's totally true. So I feel you
there, Tanya would be in your mind. Tanya saying I know for a
fact she had set her boundaries to where I'm gonna have fun with you,
but there's not going to be anything sexual with you, and then Anthony saying,
oh, no, no, no, we had sex in a way
to almost preserve and protect himself when what we talked about earlier, when you
do find evidence that we were together, when you do find my DNA,
I'm going to make sure you know I was very present in that situation.
I do think one of the biggest holes in Anthony's story is that he says
they went out together on the evening of May twenty six, whereas Tanya saying,
no, Claudia was having dinner with me on the evening of the twenty
six. I mean, I guess it's possible that Claudia could have gone out
with Anthony after the dinner was completed, but I think that's one of the
reasons that Tanya is adamant that Claudia was telling me the truth when she said
she didn't have sex with them, because she was referring to a date from
the night before when they had gone skinny dipping together on the twenty fifth,
But Anthony is making it sound like they also went out again for a second
time, even though Claudia said that she turned him down. I don't think
either of them are very reliable narrators when it comes to knowing exactly what Claudia
chose to do sexually. Because I agree with you Ash, I don't think
that she's going to tell Tanya this is a colleague, somebody who she works
with. She may want to have this appearance of being like more chaste,
I mean, because sometimes as people get older, they can judge those that
are young and more carefree. And maybe she didn't feel comfortable disclose details such
as that. But then we also could have Anthony, who's got a million
different reasons to lie and say, yeah, we had sex when maybe he
forced himself upon her. And I'm not saying that happened, but you know,
there obviously is that potential there. The FBI would also question Leo Lambert,
who admitted that he lied to the Kerrshaks about having seen Claudia at the
resort on May the twenty eighth because he wanted to protect Sandal's reputation and save
his job. Interestingly enough, it turned out that Lambert took four days off
from work at the exact same time as Anthony Grant and even tried to obtain
a new passport on short notice. And another odd turn of events, on
the same weekend Claudia disappeared, two men apparently showed up at the front desk
at Beach's Nigrill and asked for her by name. Investigators were able to track
these men down, and one of them happened to be a jet ski instructor
of the resort, but they denied being there that particular weekend or having asked
for Claudia. In June of two thousand and one, the Kerrshaks received an
anonymous her which stated that Claudia had gone to a party with Anthony Grant where
a date rape drug was slipped into her drink, causing her to go into
convulsions and fatally overdose. Fred and Mary Anne hired a private investigator to look
into all the different tips they received, but he never found anything to substantiate
them, and the investigation hit a brick wall. So let me ask you
this. In Natalie Holloway's case, wasn't that one of the claims that she
had been at a party and had had a drug overdose and so then they
quote hit her body. Oh yeah, there have been just so many different
theories. That is one of the most prominent ones. But the big problem
is that the prime suspect you're on, Vandersloot, has changed his story so
many times. But some people do believe that's what happened to her, that
she just took a date rate drub An, overdosed and they tossed her body
into the ocean or something. Isn't he serving time for killing another woman?
Though? Oh yeah, We're gonna talk more about him in part two.
But yes, he's a very unreliable narrator to see the least. Well,
I wouldn't put this past people. You know, you're down in Jamaica.
You have you young American women coming to these local bars, like we saw
that Claudia actually went into these kind of more local and exclusive bars where she
wasn't at tourist spaces. So I could see where locals would target someone who's
out of their element, someone who doesn't have any protection around them, and
someone who really does seem to be more of a easy target to take advantage
of. I mean, it's often assumed United States citizens carry more money on
them that you know there's something prestigious or special about them, Like I could
see that being a very common occurrence. You come to our place, We're
going to do what we want with you. Because you're out of kind of
your your space. You should have stayed in those tourist spaces. In May
two thousand and two, at the request of her parents, Claudia was declared
legally dead by a superior court judge who ruled that it was unlikely she disappeared
of her own volition. This opened the door for the Kershocks to buy a
lawsuit against Sandals Resorts, Incorporated, where they alleged that the employees from Beaches
Negro withheld information about what happened to their daughter and purposefully destroyed evidence in order
to impede the investigation. This would have required the resort's employees to be deposed
and answer questions about this case while under oath, and the civil trial was
scheduled to take place in December two thousand and five. That same year,
Claudia's disappearance would garner some additional attention when eighteen year old Natalie Holloway went missing
from Aruba and the case became a worldwide media sensation. A number of media
outlets would make comparisons between the two cases, and at one point a Jamaican
caller phoned an American radio station to say that two men had once told him
the Claudia was buried in a fifty five gallon drum, and they knew where
it was buried. But once again, this lead never went anywhere. Anyway,
We've been unable to find any information about whether or not the civil trial
between the Kershocks and Sandals Resorts Incorporated actually took place and what might have happened
there. But according to a memoir published by Tanya Grossinger, in which she
devoted a chapter to this case, the two sides ultimately reached a confidential settlement
in two thousand and seven. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there have been
any further developments in this case since then, and after two decades, Claudia's
disappearance continues to remain unsolved. So I guess you could say the path went
chilly. Well, when you look at this case, it's one of those
where I feel like a civil case would be an obvious like I'm pretty sure
that Sandals knew this was coming if there was a civil trial, because to
the family, you had a responsibility to provide a safe environment. Now I
could see Sandals saying, well, when you leave our property, we no
longer can keep you safe, like we don't have that accountability. But then
the family, he has many many things to look at here and say you
messed up, Like once you knew our daughter was missing, once you knew
she was not in her room, that she did not check out when she
was supposed to, you had a responsibility to communicate that, to preserve some
of the information in her room, to not steal her cell phone, to
not develop those photos, to maybe grab the surveillance cameras and look at them
in regards to why she didn't show back up to check out, and they
didn't do that. I think one of the reasons you see Gordon act so
quickly to say, let me give reward money, let me make sure that
you know how sorry I am is because he was trying to thwart this idea
that you know, maybe she'll show up, Maybe the family will think we've
done the best we can and they won't bring a civil case. But to
me, that's a no brainer. You better show me how you did everything
to provide us not just the safety of our daughter, but then to help
us find where she is. No money would ever bring back their daughter,
but at least it would be something to say, I'm going to hold you
accountable. Well, so hopefully the next kiddo that comes here, the next
young woman that comes here, the next travel blogger that comes here, any
guest on your property is never going to walk off your property not come back.
And you kind of handle it in the way that you did right.
It's an accountability and saying you could do better, you will do better from
here on out. And that's why I wish there was more information about the
civil trial, because I really would have liked to have seen some of the
employees testify and try to justify some of their actions, particularly Leo Lambert,
because he was the one who pushed forward the cover story that Claudia was cremiscuous
and had run off with a Jamaican man. And then you got this incriminating
information that he tried to get a new passport right after she went missing,
almost as if he felt, well, there might be a time I need
to leave the country, so he had to wonder did he know something?
What was this guy hiding? But unfortunately, it doesn't look like this civil
trial uncovered any new information that would help them learn the truth about what happened.
So I think that about brings an end to part one. But join
us next week as we present part two of our series, The Disappearance of
Claudia Kershock Robin. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the
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