Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety eight, twenty three year old Amy Lynn
Speaker 1: Bradley vanished without a trace while on the open water
Speaker 1: during a family cruise in the Caribbean. What should have
Speaker 1: been a relaxing vacation turned into one of the most
Speaker 1: baffling missing person cases in modern history, filled with suspicious sightings,
Speaker 1: bounched investigations, and a growing theory of human trafficking. Here
Speaker 1: we are decades later, an Amy has never been found,
Speaker 1: but the mystery around her disappearance only continues to deepen.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked Ingram,
Speaker 2: a true crime podcast.
Speaker 1: The following podcast and material intended more mature audience listeners. Us.
Speaker 2: One of our dogs is snoring. I don't think anyone's
Speaker 2: gonna be able to hear that, but I can hear it.
Speaker 1: You're probably loving it. You were just away for a
Speaker 1: few days. You're back home to hear the sounds of
Speaker 1: the home.
Speaker 2: You know. It's kind of funny because we recorded the
Speaker 2: last podcast and I literally hit the road and I've
Speaker 2: gotten home and we're recording a podcast.
Speaker 1: It's working out great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does seem to be working out. So I mean,
Speaker 2: I am like a little tired, but uh, you.
Speaker 1: Know, we're here to be fair, it is a little
Speaker 1: bit late tonight, We're recording a little bit later and
Speaker 1: normal I'm a bit tired too, but well, sorry, go ahead, no,
Speaker 1: you go ahead. I was gonna say, but we got
Speaker 1: quite the case to come up, we do.
Speaker 2: I was just going to say, yesterday I was at
Speaker 2: a hotel and at three in the morning, the fire
Speaker 2: alarm went off and we had to go be evacuated
Speaker 2: for like an hour in the middle of the.
Speaker 1: Night, which would suck hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I've never experienced something like that. It
Speaker 2: was wild, and I swear to god, not everyone even
Speaker 2: came out because there wasn't that many people out when
Speaker 2: the hotel was full. So that's also interesting.
Speaker 1: Are you sure the hotel was actually full?
Speaker 2: Well, the parking lot was like packed.
Speaker 1: Oh really okay, yeah, then people were just like fuck
Speaker 1: it most likely guaranteed.
Speaker 2: I guess, which is not saved, not save at all.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was a very jarring wake up at
Speaker 2: three in the morning.
Speaker 1: I can imagine it's like, holy shit. Well, before we
Speaker 1: get into the case and before we talk too much
Speaker 1: about fire alarms middle of the night, that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: I want to give a little shout out to our
Speaker 1: patrons who signed up this week.
Speaker 2: Let's do that.
Speaker 1: So we have Ashton Matchell. I hope I said your
Speaker 1: last name right, Rebecca Cloutsis. I hope I said your
Speaker 1: last name right. I'm gonna say that for everyone. I
Speaker 1: hope I say all your first and last names right.
Speaker 1: Cadence Davis, Leonardo Lozano, Kaylin Gwillin, Carol Ryan, and Marissa.
Speaker 2: Rash right on. That's a good list.
Speaker 1: Shout out to you guys, Thank you for joining us
Speaker 1: on Patreon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: They're going to get a patron episode here only in
Speaker 1: a few.
Speaker 2: Days, so holy shit, yes they are.
Speaker 1: You just realize it's the end of July. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: which means August, September, October, October. We got a plan
Speaker 1: er Halloween photo shoot.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we got a lot to plan actually for that,
Speaker 2: we got to start getting our button gear.
Speaker 1: No kidding, but we have quite the show. This is
Speaker 1: like the third time I've said that, and it's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is one I've actually had on my list for
Speaker 1: a little while. And uh well Netflix just dropped a
Speaker 1: big old three part docu series on it. So I
Speaker 1: was like, well, now's the time it's called Amy Bradley
Speaker 1: is Missing, which is probably what I'm going to title
Speaker 1: this episode as well, mostly for you know, seo reasons,
Speaker 1: but it's actually a really good title. Yeah, because that's
Speaker 1: exactly what it is. So before we actually recorded this podcast,
Speaker 1: I made sure that Nicole when she got home, we
Speaker 1: sat down, we watched the docuseries together. I watched it
Speaker 1: already during research, but I'm like, you know what, I
Speaker 1: think you should watch it before we do the podcast.
Speaker 2: And I had heard of this case before, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I had that saved on my list because I don't
Speaker 2: want to watch this. It is a good it was
Speaker 2: a good documentary.
Speaker 1: It is, but like, typically you don't know the cases,
Speaker 1: I just throw you into the frame, right.
Speaker 2: Occasionally I do, but mostly not.
Speaker 1: Well, this one's gonna be a little bit more fresh
Speaker 1: in your brain. Yeah, so you're prepared.
Speaker 2: To I'll call you out if shit's wrong.
Speaker 1: Do it. Do it. But I will say I have
Speaker 1: some information that was not in the docuseries, and I
Speaker 1: have omitted some of the things not in the docuseries,
Speaker 1: just for time wise, because it's a three part.
Speaker 2: Omitted things that were in the docuceries.
Speaker 1: Sorry, yes, yes, because it's like you should totally watch it,
Speaker 1: get all the information, go check it out. This is
Speaker 1: just a single episode on a podcast. We can't cover
Speaker 1: a three part documentary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be like three episodes really exactly.
Speaker 1: So I got I got my own take. I've covered
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that's in the documentary and I've
Speaker 1: covered some other stuff after this. Make sure you go
Speaker 1: watch the document docuseries as well, because it's hella good.
Speaker 2: It was well done for sure.
Speaker 1: And there's one dude in the document docuseries. He's a
Speaker 1: complete asshole. I don't know why he's in it. He
Speaker 1: was actually part of the staff on the ship at
Speaker 1: the time, and here we are, like over twenty years later,
Speaker 1: is it over twenty years nineteen ninety eight? It happened
Speaker 1: in so do the math?
Speaker 2: Oh that is over?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, he's just so arrogant, so matter of fact,
Speaker 1: and so cold in the way things were handled then
Speaker 1: in his opinion now. And I'm just like, dude, we're
Speaker 1: going to get hate on the internet hard.
Speaker 2: I even said, while we're watching it, does he realize
Speaker 2: how he is going to be coming across.
Speaker 1: I don't think he does.
Speaker 2: Because he's going to watch them and be like, oh gosh, yeah,
Speaker 2: oh gosh.
Speaker 1: So actually I do quote him in this directly. Okay,
Speaker 1: but let's dive into this, shall we. You ready?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do want to just say I didn't totally
Speaker 2: agree with you on everything. That's all him coming across
Speaker 2: as an asshole, but like later in it was evidence, Yeah,
Speaker 2: well I didn't at.
Speaker 1: That one part where we actually disagree. That's where I'm
Speaker 1: quoting them. So we'll talk about it then if you want. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's get going here. The Bradley family, they were
Speaker 1: the kind of people, the kind of close knit family
Speaker 1: that people envy. Ron and Iva had two kids together,
Speaker 1: Amy and Brad, and they were raised with a strong
Speaker 1: mix of love, independence, and no nonsense values in Chesterfield County, Virginia.
Speaker 1: Both Ron and Iva worked in insurance. Brad was the
Speaker 1: younger sibling of their two children, at twenty one years
Speaker 1: old in nineteen ninety eight and was away at college
Speaker 1: and Amy was twenty three. She was, you know, right
Speaker 1: in that in between stage of life, finishing off you know,
Speaker 1: post secondary school, and she was now getting done with
Speaker 1: basketball and standing on the edge of basically full adulthood.
Speaker 1: You could say. She had just graduated from Longwood University
Speaker 1: with a degree in sports psychology. She'd gotten through college
Speaker 1: on a basketball scholarship, and had a full time job
Speaker 1: lined up at a computer counsel or consulting firm. But
Speaker 1: for now she was working at Ruth Chris's Steakhouse. That's
Speaker 1: hard with the thhi, Yeah, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. There we
Speaker 1: go to pay the bills. You know that intermediate type position, right.
Speaker 1: But this cruise, this was meant to be her last
Speaker 1: little break before starting the next chapter in her life
Speaker 1: where she dove into those more adult quote unquote things. Now,
Speaker 1: Amy initially wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea of the cruise,
Speaker 1: so she had she had this thing about deep water
Speaker 1: and hated the idea of being far from land, and
Speaker 1: didn't love heights of massive ships like the one they'd
Speaker 1: be sailing on, the Rhapsody of the Sea. But her
Speaker 1: dad had won these tickets this trip through work. Brad
Speaker 1: was home from school and he was going to and
Speaker 1: in the end, Amy figured, you know what, why not?
Speaker 1: And she decided she was going to go. And that's
Speaker 1: when the anticipation of the excitement started to build from
Speaker 1: her when she made that decision.
Speaker 2: And honestly, I just have to say, I get it there.
Speaker 2: I have about zero percent desire to go on a
Speaker 2: cruise ship.
Speaker 1: Well, there was also that other docuseries on Netflix that
Speaker 1: you saw that the poop Cruise Cruise.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Yeah, after watching that and then this one,
Speaker 2: I'm just like, no, thank you. But I already was
Speaker 2: very much so like that, I have no interest.
Speaker 1: I get it. So for her though, for Amy, it
Speaker 1: was a chance to chill with her family, soak up
Speaker 1: some son, maybe even enjoy herself before diving into this
Speaker 1: new job and whatever, you know, life was about to
Speaker 1: throw at her. So Amy she was very bold. She
Speaker 1: was funny and unafraid to speak her mind. A natural
Speaker 1: leader too. Friends described her as someone who could light
Speaker 1: up a room or shut down a jerk in one sentence.
Speaker 1: Flat you know, that's awesome. She had strong opinions, a
Speaker 1: sharp sense of humor, and a whole lot of love
Speaker 1: for the people she cared about.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Amy also had had had come out to her family
Speaker 1: not long before the trip. She told them that she
Speaker 1: was in fact gay, and it hadn't exactly gone over
Speaker 1: super smoothly. Her ex girlfriend later said Amy's parents were
Speaker 1: a little bit disappointed, quote unquote, and her dad even
Speaker 1: admitted in interviews that it wasn't what he would have
Speaker 1: chosen for her. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: that all didn't matter. They all agreed one thing. They
Speaker 1: loved her no matter what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're very close family, which is nice. And the
Speaker 2: fact that they all went and took the time to
Speaker 2: spend together on this cruise was like lovely exactly.
Speaker 1: You know what, they might have opinions, differing in opinions,
Speaker 1: you know, different ways of living their life, but that
Speaker 1: in the end, it didn't matter. They were family and
Speaker 1: they loved each other no matter Yeah. Now the cruise
Speaker 1: was going to be a celebration, It was going to
Speaker 1: be a memory maker, a one last family vacation before
Speaker 1: life starts officially pulling them all in different directions. So
Speaker 1: on March twenty first, nineteen ninety eight, the Bradleys boarded
Speaker 1: a massive Word Caribbean Cruise ship heading for Curisow Now.
Speaker 1: Curisau is a small island in the Southern Caribbean Sea,
Speaker 1: just off the coast of Venezuela, known for its colorful
Speaker 1: Dutch colonial buildings, crystal clear waters, and it's laid back,
Speaker 1: tropical vibe. Let's say it's a popular stop for vacationers
Speaker 1: looking to soak up the sun and the culture.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The cruise ship was named the Rhapsody of the Sea,
Speaker 1: and it was huge, sleek and luxurious, and it packed
Speaker 1: on over two thousand passengers. There were pool decks, nightclubs,
Speaker 1: dining rooms, live bands, the whole deal right, and for
Speaker 1: many it was the dream vacation. I mean for Amy,
Speaker 1: she was excited, but it was still quite overwhelming. The
Speaker 1: ship had thirteen decks, thirteen decks tall, was towering above
Speaker 1: the water. Amy had always been uneasy around that deep
Speaker 1: ocean and didn't love the idea being surrounded by it
Speaker 1: for days, but she pushed those nerves down and made
Speaker 1: sure that she was going to have fun. She was
Speaker 1: still excited, after all, she was there for her family
Speaker 1: and she was determined to make the most of it. Plus,
Speaker 1: her brother Brad was there, and the two of them
Speaker 1: they were pretty close and when they were together things
Speaker 1: usually felt a little bit lighter. Now, the first couple
Speaker 1: of days went as you'd expect, sunbathing, exploring the ship,
Speaker 1: meeting other passengers, making friends, checking out the night life.
Speaker 1: Amy wasn't the type to sit still for too long.
Speaker 1: She quickly found herself on the ninth floor disco, where
Speaker 1: a band called Blue Orchid played every night. She seemed
Speaker 1: to click with the band, especially one of the members,
Speaker 1: a guy named Alistair Yellow Douglas now Brad and Amy
Speaker 1: ended up spending the evening of March twenty third dancing
Speaker 1: and drinking at the ship's disco party. It was lively,
Speaker 1: packed with music and flashing lights, and for a moment,
Speaker 1: everything felt carefree. The cruise ship photographer even snapped a
Speaker 1: few photos of Amy on the dance floor with the
Speaker 1: band's bass player, Yellow. Video footage shows her laughing, dancing,
Speaker 1: blending in like any other twenty something year old on
Speaker 1: a vacation. Right. It was around one am when Yellow,
Speaker 1: I'm going to continue calling him Yellow for the record
Speaker 1: said he called it a night, But Amy and Brad
Speaker 1: they stayed longer, riding up that vacation high and living
Speaker 1: that night life on the cruise, And it wasn't until
Speaker 1: about three thirty five am that Brad finally decided he
Speaker 1: was heading back to the family cabin. Amy followed only
Speaker 1: a few minutes later. Behind, and once she entered the room,
Speaker 1: she joined her brother out on the balcony for a
Speaker 1: little bit, chatting quietly and enjoying a cigarette. The ocean
Speaker 1: stretched out endlessly beneath them, black and still in the
Speaker 1: early hours of the morning. Brad eventually went to bed
Speaker 1: and Amy stayed out just a little bit longer behind
Speaker 1: her brother. By five point fifteen am on March twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: the ship was quiet, most passengers were still asleep. In
Speaker 1: the Bradley family suite, Ron was just waking up, not
Speaker 1: for the morning, but he just kind of opened his
Speaker 1: eyes and glanced towards the balcony and through the glass
Speaker 1: door he could see his daughter. There were Amy's legs
Speaker 1: stretched out in the lounge chair, still and peaceful. She
Speaker 1: most likely had fallen asleep outside, and Brad had went
Speaker 1: to bed. So he dozed off once again, knowing that
Speaker 1: his kids were both in the room and safe. But
Speaker 1: then something woke come up just after six am. Whether
Speaker 1: it was his internal clock telling him it's time to
Speaker 1: get up, or something else that drove him to wake
Speaker 1: in that moment, we don't really know. Ron himself even
Speaker 1: said he's not sure what will come up, but something
Speaker 1: did and as he opened his eyes he saw that
Speaker 1: chair where Amy was sitting not more than maybe even
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes ago, but it was now empty. There was
Speaker 1: no sign of Amy on the balcony or in the
Speaker 1: small cruise ship room that they were in. She was
Speaker 1: just gone. Now. At first, Ron didn't panic. Maybe she'd
Speaker 1: gone to grab coffee or take a walk around the deck.
Speaker 1: It's about six am, after all, it wasn't like Amy
Speaker 1: to disappear without saying something. But it was early, and
Speaker 1: she was independent.
Speaker 2: Well, and she probably didn't want to wake him up exactly.
Speaker 2: It could have been her leaving the door that even
Speaker 2: like woke up her dad or something.
Speaker 1: You all, it's possible. It's possible, now, I do you
Speaker 1: want to mention that the balcony door was left open
Speaker 1: approximately a foot and a foot and a half. Ron
Speaker 1: specifically mentions that. But still, as the minutes ticked by
Speaker 1: and there was no sign of Amy, Ron's concern began
Speaker 1: to grow. She started checking the common areas on the
Speaker 1: cruise ship, you know, the pools, the buffet, the lounges.
Speaker 1: But still there was nothing. By six point thirty, he'd
Speaker 1: woken up the rest of the family, and that's when
Speaker 1: things started to shift from concerned to a little bit
Speaker 1: more dread Amy wasn't the type to vanish. She was
Speaker 1: always careful, always aware of her surroundings, and she'd had
Speaker 1: no reason to go off on her own without saying word.
Speaker 1: She would have at least told someone where she was
Speaker 1: going if she was heading off for a while. It
Speaker 1: was unlike her not to leave a note or something.
Speaker 1: But something wasn't right. The ship was now already docking
Speaker 1: in Curasau and passengers were getting ready to disembark. The
Speaker 1: Bradleys raced to the pursuer's deck and begged the crew
Speaker 1: to make an announcement to keep everyone on board to
Speaker 1: search the ship before before it was too late, But
Speaker 1: they were told it was too early. The cruise ship
Speaker 1: workers didn't want to bother the rest of the passengers
Speaker 1: at seven am. In fact, in the documentary, one of
Speaker 1: the workers from the ship is quoted saying, quote, we're
Speaker 1: not going to stop everybody's cruise because there's a missing girl.
Speaker 1: That's one family's unfortunate incident. But we still have twenty
Speaker 1: four hundred people who paid a lot of money, And
Speaker 1: as cold as that sounds, that's the reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it does sound really cold, but she
Speaker 2: had hadn't been missing long, so I think everyone at
Speaker 2: that point was just assuming like they'd find her, you know,
Speaker 2: really quickly.
Speaker 1: That's true, But and I totally get it, because that's
Speaker 1: the thought that I had as well. But my counter
Speaker 1: argument to that is, how many times do we cover
Speaker 1: a case where someone reports a missing person and authorities
Speaker 1: don't take it seriously at first?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I was just going to say too, because
Speaker 2: any if she wasn't found, any evidence or whatever's also disembarking, you.
Speaker 1: Know, exactly. And so of course with missing persons, you know,
Speaker 1: the longer things go by, the less chance of finding him.
Speaker 1: And in this case, you are literally, if you let
Speaker 1: these passengers off, opening the floodgates for any potential person
Speaker 1: who did something to Amy, for Amy herself, for any evidence,
Speaker 1: all of it to just go away. Yeah, forever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And in all honesty, I'm willing to bet that that's
Speaker 1: what the ship wanted, to wash its hand clean of
Speaker 1: any incident or even potential incident.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, if they didn't let people off, though,
Speaker 2: I mean they would have people would get very unhappy, true,
Speaker 2: But I mean, and at that point they didn't know
Speaker 2: if a crime or whatever had been committed. So it's
Speaker 2: I find that part, that part's a little tough.
Speaker 1: But here's here's one thing. They're willing to like announce,
Speaker 1: we are parked, We are willing to disembark. You can
Speaker 1: now like head off onto land. But they're not willing
Speaker 1: to announce Could Amy Bradley please come to service task?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's too early.
Speaker 1: Right, So now the crews began letting the passengers off
Speaker 1: the ship without securing anything and looking for Amy. In fact,
Speaker 1: the announcement for Amy to finally contact the front desk
Speaker 1: didn't go out until seven fifty am, well after hundreds
Speaker 1: of passengers had already left. By then, Amy and perhaps
Speaker 1: whoever could have possibly taken her or known something was
Speaker 1: long gone, because let's be honest, there's there's some countless
Speaker 1: things that could have escaped in that hustle and bustle
Speaker 1: of people. Not even to say that someone else is
Speaker 1: even responsible. Let's just say, for argument's sake, that Amy
Speaker 1: slipped and hit her head and has amnesia and doesn't
Speaker 1: know what's going on, and now she just walks off
Speaker 1: the ship forever, right, Yeah, So who knows what that floodgate.
Speaker 1: Let go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's so many things. She could have been captured
Speaker 2: in something that was being taken off, or she could
Speaker 2: have been drugged or something like There's.
Speaker 1: It could have even just been a witness who had
Speaker 1: seen what had happened to her who left and departed
Speaker 1: and just stayed there and never got back in the
Speaker 1: ship and never got in contact with authorities. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: let's continue now. Once the realization set in that Amy
Speaker 1: was truly missing, the crew finally began to do something,
Speaker 1: and they began a search. This search was initiated sometime
Speaker 1: shortly after nine am, but the delay had already hurt
Speaker 1: the investigation. For hours, passengers had been allowed to walk
Speaker 1: off the ship without being questioned, without bags being checked,
Speaker 1: and without knowing a woman had been vanished or missing
Speaker 1: at all. As the ship was scoured top to bottom, allegedly,
Speaker 1: witness accounts did begin to surface, but they didn't all
Speaker 1: line up now. Three passengers later claimed that they'd seen
Speaker 1: Amy on an upper deck sometime between five thirty and
Speaker 1: five forty five am, well after her father said he
Speaker 1: last saw her. Now, according to them, she was with
Speaker 1: Alistair Yellow Douglas, the same band member she had been
Speaker 1: hanging out with the night before. They said she had
Speaker 1: a camera and that Yellow handed her a drink and
Speaker 1: apparently with some kind of dark liquid in it. Moments later,
Speaker 1: the pair were seen stepping into an elevator together, and
Speaker 1: then not long after, the same pair spotted Yellow once again,
Speaker 1: and this time alone.
Speaker 2: Not very long after, really not very long after.
Speaker 1: And here's the caveat with this sight is the two
Speaker 1: individuals who saw Yellow and Amy together they were on
Speaker 1: their way to the room, but they don't they can't
Speaker 1: confirm that it was somewhere between five point thirty and
Speaker 1: five forty five am, so it was the problem is
Speaker 1: on the ship, there's key cards on the doors, and
Speaker 1: those key cards they logged a time when someone opened
Speaker 1: the door with the key card right to enter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these two forgot their key card, knocked on the door,
Speaker 1: had someone in the cabin already let them in, So
Speaker 1: the key card was never used, and that timeline could
Speaker 1: not be confirmed.
Speaker 2: Right, And then when you're leaving it's not confirmed either.
Speaker 2: It's only when you're like swiping this.
Speaker 1: Card exactly now. Yellow had claimed that the night before
Speaker 1: he left the party around one am, well before any
Speaker 1: of that had happened, but the cruise ship's own video
Speaker 1: footage contradicts that timeline. He was clearly seen dancing with
Speaker 1: Amy well after one am, smiling and quite close. Not
Speaker 1: only that, but her brother Brad would later recall something unsettling.
Speaker 1: Shortly after Amy disappeared, Yellow allegedly approached him and said, quote,
Speaker 1: sorry to hear about your sister, but here's the problem.
Speaker 1: No announcements had been made yet, so how did he
Speaker 1: know that Amy was missing?
Speaker 2: Holy shit? Really?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Huh okay.
Speaker 1: The FBI was contacted later that same day that Amy
Speaker 1: went missing, and the agents flew down on March twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: the day after. When the FBI boarded the Rhapsody of
Speaker 1: the Seas after it docked in Curisow, they were walking
Speaker 1: into a crime scene that had already been trampled. Hours
Speaker 1: had passed since Amy was last seen, and most of
Speaker 1: the passengers had already disembarked. Crucial surveillance footage could have
Speaker 1: been lost or even overwritten, and any chance of sealing
Speaker 1: the ship off or controlled investigation it was long gone now.
Speaker 1: To make matters worse, the Royal Caribbean hadn't treated it
Speaker 1: like a case that was a possible crime, let's say,
Speaker 1: but instead of locking down like areas stopping traffic and
Speaker 1: chips routines and all this sort of stuff, people were
Speaker 1: just roaming freely and no serious action was taken.
Speaker 2: I just have to say, too, so if they were
Speaker 2: going to do like a search like they did around
Speaker 2: nine or a little bit earlier or whatever, they should
Speaker 2: have just done it right away. Really, yes, I agree,
Speaker 2: because you know, it wasn't that much longer that they
Speaker 2: decided to do this search.
Speaker 1: Well, it doesn't make any sense though you have a
Speaker 1: missing person. So what you're going to do is get
Speaker 1: rid of all the people to search for a person.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe they were probably just maybe thinking she was
Speaker 2: like passed out somewhere or something. I bet you it's possible.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, they probably weren't taking it quite seriously yet,
Speaker 2: and then at one point they're like, okay, I guess
Speaker 2: we will. But if they have done that earlier might
Speaker 2: have been helpful.
Speaker 1: It might have been helpful. Even what they could have
Speaker 1: done has had people at the ramp on the docks
Speaker 1: looking for her as she's going through. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: asking people, have you seen this girl? She's somewhere around?
Speaker 1: Her family's looking for you know, Amy can come to
Speaker 1: the service desk. It would have been super easy, but
Speaker 1: they chose not to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did.
Speaker 1: Now, back to the FBI, despite all of the run
Speaker 1: around that they're receiving, all of the mess that they're
Speaker 1: dealing with, the FBI still did their best and they
Speaker 1: interviewed the ship's crews, passengers, and those who last saw Amy.
Speaker 1: But one of the biggest issues was without a crime scene,
Speaker 1: without forensic evidence, the FBI just hit a wall. The
Speaker 1: ship's staff had even been allowed to clean the rooms,
Speaker 1: including the Bradley's family's room, and with it they wiped
Speaker 1: away any potential evidence and contaminated a potential crime scene
Speaker 1: because if someone entered the room while they were sleeping
Speaker 1: to come and get Amy, for example, fingerprints could have
Speaker 1: been possible. Right, maybe let's say, because this theory does
Speaker 1: come up that Amy went over the handrail, maybe fingerprints
Speaker 1: on the handrail or down the side, things like that
Speaker 1: could have potentially come up. But these were all wiped clean.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The fact that people that the room got cleaned
Speaker 2: just shocks me. It makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand them cleaning the rooms, but it was
Speaker 1: as if and I said it once, and I'll say
Speaker 1: it again that this cruise liner was trying to wipe
Speaker 1: their hands clean of this and just be done with
Speaker 1: it and not want to deal with it. Yeah, trying
Speaker 1: to get rid of it as fast as.
Speaker 2: Possible, which is not good. Like someone is missing and
Speaker 2: the fact, do you think that your job is to
Speaker 2: keep people safe.
Speaker 1: And their job is to make money?
Speaker 2: It's not, though, That's just this terrible world that we
Speaker 2: live in.
Speaker 1: Exactly now, the FBI were left with no signs of
Speaker 1: foul play. They had no body, no answers, and it
Speaker 1: was a frustrating start to say the least. Now back
Speaker 1: to Yellow. Yellow was also questioned with the FBI and
Speaker 1: even pasted a polygraph test and denied knowing anything about
Speaker 1: Amy's disappearance, but with his relaxed attitude afterwards, smiling giving
Speaker 1: thumbs up to his bandmates, it didn't sit right with
Speaker 1: the Bradley family, especially not Ron, who's already convinced Yellow
Speaker 1: knew more than he let on. Now, add that to
Speaker 1: a strange incident involving a waiter who had asked multiple
Speaker 1: times during the cruise if he could leave a note
Speaker 1: for Amy inviting her to go for drinks Once they hit.
Speaker 1: Once they hit shore, he's invited, he's wanting to go
Speaker 1: for drinks at a bar on shore, and everything right,
Speaker 1: and then there's also the missing photo. See every cruise
Speaker 1: photo taken by the ship's photographer was supposed to be
Speaker 1: displayed for passengers to view and purchase, but none of
Speaker 1: the ones that were taken of Amy's could be found.
Speaker 1: The staff even remembered seeing them. They're ready to go
Speaker 1: for the family because they recognize Amy. She was like
Speaker 1: the life of the party and stuff. So they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys are here to pick up your photos. We
Speaker 1: got like, Amy's right over here, here's the photos. And
Speaker 1: then they go to grab them.
Speaker 2: They're missing.
Speaker 1: They're missing. Someone had already taken the photos. And they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: did someone from your family already grabbed these? And they're like,
Speaker 1: uh no, that's creepy.
Speaker 2: This is so creepy.
Speaker 1: Someone outside of the family came and purchased or stole
Speaker 1: these photos of Amy specifically. Now, a lot of things
Speaker 1: were happening all at once, and the early hours of
Speaker 1: Amy's disappearance were critical, but instead of treating it like
Speaker 1: an emergency, the ship's crew just seemed more concerned with
Speaker 1: sticking to schedule and maintaining the happy atmosphere for the
Speaker 1: rest of the guests. The ship's internal search, conducted later
Speaker 1: that morning lasted less than an hour, not exactly thorough
Speaker 1: for a vessel with eleven decks nearly sorry, I think
Speaker 1: it was like thirteen decks. My authorogies nearly nine hundred
Speaker 1: crew members and more than two thousand passengers. And to
Speaker 1: make matters worse, surveillance footage wasn't reviewed right away, and
Speaker 1: any window of time where Amy might have been spotted
Speaker 1: leaving the ship or being taken was officially gone.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Yeah, I just feel like you could
Speaker 2: not search that big of a vessel in one hour thoroughly. Nope,
Speaker 2: there's just no way.
Speaker 1: No, Even with even if you had the exact every
Speaker 1: member of the crew nine hundred, let's say you have
Speaker 1: every single one of them searching, You wouldn't but you wouldn't,
Speaker 1: but you would not be able to search it in
Speaker 1: that amount of time, especially the way it's described in
Speaker 1: this documentary from this one guy. He's like, we're doing
Speaker 1: like checking every drawer, every closet of every room, every
Speaker 1: nook and in an hour.
Speaker 2: Fuck that, there's no way not even close.
Speaker 1: Now. Outside help didn't arrive until later. The Dutch Caribbean
Speaker 1: Coast Guard launched a search for the surrounding waters. They
Speaker 1: were desperately trying to find you know, potentially if she
Speaker 1: went overboard, right, So they're using helicopters, radar equipment and
Speaker 1: planes and it lasted four days that search. In the water. Wow, okay, nobody,
Speaker 1: no clothing, no sign of falling overboard at all.
Speaker 2: But they were pretty certain if she had fallen overboard
Speaker 2: that she would have appeared, yes, or something of her
Speaker 2: what would have appeared for sure?
Speaker 1: But before we okay, there's one thing I gotta say,
Speaker 1: just to put this in perspective to the timeframe she
Speaker 1: would have gone overboard. If she did, they were almost
Speaker 1: already at port. Like they could see the port right
Speaker 1: at suore right, so it's not like they're in the
Speaker 1: middle of the ocean. Amy is a strong swimmer, was
Speaker 1: like a lifeguard. Even she hates the ocean.
Speaker 2: Sure, m hm, but she's athletic, she's strong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she unless got injured in the fall, would have
Speaker 1: been able to swim to short no problem. But you're right,
Speaker 1: there was no like Like, they're pretty confident they would
Speaker 1: see a body or something. I say that somewhere here
Speaker 1: in my script, but yeah, one hundred percent. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what, with the currents, the winds, something of
Speaker 1: her would have washed a short guaranteed. But they found nothing.
Speaker 1: So despite all of that, though early reports painted her
Speaker 1: disappearance as a tragic incident, some even floated the idea
Speaker 1: that she had taken her own life, jumping overboard on purpose,
Speaker 1: you know, self delete. But the Bradleys didn't buy it.
Speaker 1: And the more they looked into how little the crew
Speaker 1: had done and how quickly those theories started floating around,
Speaker 1: the more it felt like someone was trying to make
Speaker 1: the problem go away. This wasn't just a case of
Speaker 1: someone wandering off or taking their own life. That much.
Speaker 1: To her family was clear. Amy had been excited about
Speaker 1: life back at home. She just graduated, had a job
Speaker 1: lined up at a computer firm, was planning to move
Speaker 1: into her own new apartment. She wasn't suicidal, she wasn't reckless.
Speaker 1: She just got a new dog.
Speaker 2: Oh that okay, right, there is a flag that you
Speaker 2: wouldn't be doing something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was a strong swimmer, former lifeguard, and this
Speaker 1: just doesn't make sense. Officials suggested that maybe she'd had,
Speaker 1: you know, too much to drink. Maybe it was an accident,
Speaker 1: but this just didn't line up. She wasn't heavily intoxicated.
Speaker 1: Her brother could corroborate that, and the family looked back
Speaker 1: at their tab. She had seven light beer from I
Speaker 1: believe it was six pm onwards that evening, so it
Speaker 1: was six pm to three thirty am when she went
Speaker 1: back to the room, and then her father seen her
Speaker 1: again at about five thirty am. Now official suggested, maybe
Speaker 1: she'd drank too much, right, but that kind of throws
Speaker 1: it out the window. She wasn't heavily intoxicated as far
Speaker 1: as we know, and she told her family she didn't
Speaker 1: even like going near the ship's railing. Plus Ron had
Speaker 1: seen her lying on the balcony lounge chair just before
Speaker 1: she vanished. Things are not adding up to whatever these
Speaker 1: theories are being put out there. There were no signs
Speaker 1: she slipped, jumped, or any sort of accident. To the Bradley's,
Speaker 1: it was simple. The cruise lines slow response cost them
Speaker 1: their best shot at finding Amy, and even though the
Speaker 1: Coastguard search turned up nothing, Amy's family refused to believe
Speaker 1: she was gone forever, and not long after they started
Speaker 1: hearing from people who claimed they had seen her. The
Speaker 1: first big tip came from a taxi driver in Curassau.
Speaker 1: It was just a month after Amy went missing when
Speaker 1: he approached the Bradleys during their visit to the island.
Speaker 1: The man said he'd seen someone matching Amy's description the
Speaker 1: morning the ship docked on March twenty fourth. He claimed
Speaker 1: that the young woman had been frantically running through a
Speaker 1: parking lot, clearly distressed and asking for a phone. What
Speaker 1: struck him were her green eyes. He said that they
Speaker 1: matched the poster the family had been handing out, but
Speaker 1: something about the account it didn't quite add up. He
Speaker 1: never mentioned her being barefoot, which she likely would have
Speaker 1: been when she left the ship that morning because her
Speaker 1: sandals were still sitting on the deck. Vanished, but still
Speaker 1: his memory felt sincere. Authorities, however, were unable to ever
Speaker 1: confirm this incident or sighting, and then came the Canadian divers.
Speaker 1: In August nineteen ninety eight, two tourists, David Carmichael and
Speaker 1: his diving partner spotted a woman on play a Mortal
Speaker 1: Marie a beach in Curroseu. She was with two men
Speaker 1: who seemed controlling and aggressive. The woman looked tense and uneasy,
Speaker 1: and when Carmichael called to his buddy in English as
Speaker 1: they were washing up their diving equipment ashore, she whipped
Speaker 1: her head around and started moving towards them, almost as
Speaker 1: if she heard English and was going towards that. But
Speaker 1: one of the men who allegedly resembled yellow or alistair
Speaker 1: Douglass from the cruise ship, as Carmichael said he believes
Speaker 1: it was him, stepped in and redirected her towards the bar.
Speaker 1: Carmichael said, he kept glaring back, sorry, she kept glancing
Speaker 1: at him, while the man kept glaring at him, making
Speaker 1: eyed contact.
Speaker 2: Just like stared him down exactly, sort of trying to
Speaker 2: intimidate him by the sounds of it.
Speaker 1: The thing is, though, what really struck him was the tattoos.
Speaker 1: Carmichael later saw Amy's photo in America's Most Wanted and
Speaker 1: instantly felt sick the tattoos. Amy had a Tasmanian devil
Speaker 1: on her shoulder, a gecko on her navel, and barbed
Speaker 1: wire on her ankle, and he remembered seeing these tattoos,
Speaker 1: the exact tattoos on this girl. They matched, Oh man.
Speaker 1: He ended up calling Ron Bradley, flying out to Virginia, Virginia,
Speaker 1: sorry and giving a full statement to the FBI. But
Speaker 1: unfortunately the sighting, just like the others, could not be verified.
Speaker 2: Because yeah, her tattoos are pretty unique.
Speaker 1: Definitely, Well, any tattoo generally does get to be unique
Speaker 1: because it can be placement size. You know what, we
Speaker 1: all have an infinity symbol? Say yeah, but where's yours? Oh,
Speaker 1: mine's on my wrist, where's yours? Oh? Minds on my shoulder?
Speaker 1: Where's yours? Oh I've got a tramp stamp like you know,
Speaker 1: it varies.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, what do you have an infinity symbol?
Speaker 1: Maybe I did have an infinity civil tramp.
Speaker 2: Stand Okay, maybe you do.
Speaker 1: If there's anyone who's gonna know, it would be you, do,
Speaker 1: I say, okay, I my need to check the mirror. No, don't. Anyways, Still,
Speaker 1: the Bradleys, they weren't ready to give up on the search.
Speaker 1: They weren't. These weren't random tips coming in. It seemed
Speaker 1: like they were very consistent. A young woman, green eyes,
Speaker 1: distinct tattoos, all spotted in curisou, all looking anxious, all
Speaker 1: seeming to try and reach out and if Amy was
Speaker 1: in fact still alive, that meant that she hadn't drowned,
Speaker 1: she hadn't jumped, and she had been in fact taken.
Speaker 1: In January nineteen ninety nine, nearly a year after Amy
Speaker 1: had vanished, a new tip surfaced, one that felt impossible
Speaker 1: to ignore. A US Navy petty officer named William Hefner
Speaker 1: was stationed in curisout when he visited a local brothel,
Speaker 1: a place he wasn't supposed to be. In fact, he
Speaker 1: reportedly wasn't there for nefarious reasons, but rather just looking
Speaker 1: to find a place to have a fucking beer.
Speaker 2: A beer, yeah, that's what he said.
Speaker 1: Anyway, that's what he said. So while he approached the bar,
Speaker 1: there were two guys that questioned him outside with guns,
Speaker 1: like what are you doing? What do you want? He's like,
Speaker 1: I just want a beer. They're like, okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1: So he goes inside and while he sits in the bar,
Speaker 1: he struck up conversation with two different women. Now these
Speaker 1: two women were accompanied by again two men. Now they
Speaker 1: were having a casual conversation when one of the women
Speaker 1: left the table for a moment, leaving him alone with
Speaker 1: the second girl and that's when she began to talk.
Speaker 1: She told him her name was Amy and that she
Speaker 1: needed help. She claimed that she'd been taken. She's stuck
Speaker 1: there and unable to leave because she owes these guys
Speaker 1: two hundred bucks and she can't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: She said that she'd been on a cruise and that
Speaker 1: things went wrong and now she's being held against her will,
Speaker 1: and apparently she left that cruise to go buy some
Speaker 1: drugs in here she is now. According to Hefner, the
Speaker 1: woman spoke quickly and seemed terrified, but just as quickly
Speaker 1: as the conversation started, it ended once the other girl returned,
Speaker 1: she shut down. Hefner said that he had heard it
Speaker 1: all before, though reasons why sex workers or someone would
Speaker 1: need money to get out of situations. He thought it
Speaker 1: was all just a tall tale at the time, a
Speaker 1: way to try and get some money out of him,
Speaker 1: And he didn't report the interaction right away because of that,
Speaker 1: also because he was at a place he shouldn't have
Speaker 1: been because career wise, right h So, he was in
Speaker 1: the military and worried that admitting he was inside a
Speaker 1: brothel could have some serious consequences. So you have a
Speaker 1: military guy in a brothel in a rough situation with
Speaker 1: a potential sex worker who's potentially most likely just spinning
Speaker 1: a story trying to get free two hundred bucks and
Speaker 1: armed guys outside the door. So he kind of like
Speaker 1: just finishes his beer and wants to put this story
Speaker 1: behind him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but can you imagine if that like was her
Speaker 2: and here she is pleading for help and just like
Speaker 2: that can't get it.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing, because it wasn't until years later,
Speaker 1: in May of twenty twenty, sorry, two thousand and two
Speaker 1: to be exact, that Hefner saw Amy's face in a
Speaker 1: magazine and he felt the weight of not talking because
Speaker 1: he said, that was her, That was the girl who
Speaker 1: he talked to that night, that was the one who
Speaker 1: was asking him for help, and he realized what his
Speaker 1: silence meant. Yeah, So from there he quickly came forward,
Speaker 1: contacted the Bradleys and shared everything he remembered. The FBI
Speaker 1: looked into it, but by then that brothel, it had
Speaker 1: supposedly burnt down. There were no records, no physical evidence,
Speaker 1: there was nothing to follow up on, of course not Yeah,
Speaker 1: Hefner has never wavered in his report, adamant that was Amy,
Speaker 1: Whether you believe him or not. For her parents, this
Speaker 1: was a gut punch. The possibility that Amy might be alive,
Speaker 1: that she was asking for help, and that it never
Speaker 1: came was unbearable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like as them as a parent, you just couldn't
Speaker 2: imagine hearing that.
Speaker 1: So this was starting to feel less like a mystery
Speaker 1: and more like a nightmare for them. And by late
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, the Bradleys they were desperate. They had
Speaker 1: followed every lead, scoured the Caribbean, worked with private investigators,
Speaker 1: pleaded for help through the media, and then finally, a
Speaker 1: man named Frank Jones reached out and he claimed to
Speaker 1: be a former Navy seal with a tactical team who
Speaker 1: was ready to go and rescue Amy. See this, Frank
Speaker 1: Jones said that he had a team with actual eyes
Speaker 1: on her. They were watching who had her. So, according
Speaker 1: to him, Amy was alive and being held in a
Speaker 1: heavily guarded house, surrounded by armed Colombian men and barbed wire.
Speaker 1: He even described her tattoos perfectly small, unique in the
Speaker 1: right spots. He said he heard her humming a lullaby,
Speaker 1: and that lullaby happened to be the same one that
Speaker 1: her mom had sung to her. He kept the family
Speaker 1: in the loop with updates, photos, surveillance details, reports as
Speaker 1: they were getting close. But the rescue, he said it
Speaker 1: was expensive and needed funding. Over time, The Bradley sent
Speaker 1: Jones over two hundred thousand dollars to support the mission,
Speaker 1: who they were told a rescue attempt was imminent, and
Speaker 1: then nothing. The phone stopped bringing, email stopped coming. There
Speaker 1: was no raid or no Amy.
Speaker 2: Seriously, Okay, was this in the documentary? No it wasn't,
Speaker 2: And so this was they just like conned. This was
Speaker 2: his person conned the family. This was a con No,
Speaker 2: people are so disgusting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Frank Jones wasn't a Navy seal. He he had
Speaker 1: no team, no mission, no contact with Amy. He made
Speaker 1: it all up to scam grieving parents out of their savings.
Speaker 2: Wow, you're literally scum of the earth to be able
Speaker 2: to do something like that.
Speaker 1: Now, there's not a whole lot reported on who this
Speaker 1: Frank Jones is, or the piece of shit or the situation. However,
Speaker 1: the FBI did catch up with him, and in two
Speaker 1: thousand and two he pled guilty to mail fraud and
Speaker 1: was sentenced to five years in federal prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not enough.
Speaker 1: No. So I'm not sure if the family got money
Speaker 1: back or what, but he was he was arrested for
Speaker 1: his crimes brutal. Yeah, way to pray on them, Like,
Speaker 1: holy fuck yeah that.
Speaker 2: To just like hear a story like this and then
Speaker 2: come up with some sort of plan to just try
Speaker 2: to get money from a grieving family, right, I just like,
Speaker 2: how awful are you?
Speaker 1: That is the low of the low. Yeah, you are
Speaker 1: right down there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't get much worse really.
Speaker 1: Now, for the Bradleys, the emotional damage was worse than
Speaker 1: the financial loss. They weren't just scammed, they were emotionally
Speaker 1: gutted over this. They had let themselves believe Amy was
Speaker 1: finally coming home and just for a moment they felt
Speaker 1: like they had her back, only for her to basically
Speaker 1: slip away again. Now, even after the scam, though, the
Speaker 1: sightings of Amy didn't stop, and each one kept the
Speaker 1: Bradleys hoping. In two thousand and three, in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: a couple reported seeing a woman who looked like Amy
Speaker 1: in a crowd watching a street performer. She wasn't alone,
Speaker 1: two men flanked her. The couple claimed that once the
Speaker 1: woman noticed she was being watched the men grabbed her
Speaker 1: and disappeared down the street. Now she was pulled away,
Speaker 1: she supposedly locked eyes with the witness, giving them a
Speaker 1: described as pleading look. The FBI released composite sketches based
Speaker 1: on descriptions, but that was it. No follow up or
Speaker 1: confirmation of identity was ever done. Then, in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, a woman named Judy Maherer said to have
Speaker 1: had a disturb being encounter in Barbados in a department
Speaker 1: store restroom. She was in a stall when a woman
Speaker 1: walked in surrounded by four men. They were talking business,
Speaker 1: something shady, something sketchy sounding, let's put it that way. Now,
Speaker 1: Judy heard the woman ask softly, can we stop and
Speaker 1: see the children? And the men are like, well, will
Speaker 1: you behave will you listen? And then she's like yes.
Speaker 1: So after the men stepped out, Judy came out of
Speaker 1: the bathroom stall and was then face to face with
Speaker 1: this woman in the bathroom and she said her name
Speaker 1: was Amy, and she's pretty sure she said she was
Speaker 1: from West Virginia. She looked anxious, scared, and she couldn't
Speaker 1: say anymore. And when Judy saw Amy's photo later, she
Speaker 1: was convinced This was the same Amy. Composite sketches were
Speaker 1: made once again, but still, just like the other times,
Speaker 1: nothing came of it again. In two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: a chilling tip surfaced, one that brought a new wave
Speaker 1: of hope, also horror and heartbreak, one that really made
Speaker 1: those closes to Amy have both hope and heartbreak. It
Speaker 1: started with an email that was sent to Amy's parents.
Speaker 1: Attached were two images. These images were pulled from an
Speaker 1: adult website by a member of an organization that tracks
Speaker 1: victims of human trafficking. In the photos was a woman.
Speaker 1: She has these vacant eyes and a blank expression, sitting
Speaker 1: stiffly on a bed what looks kind of like a
Speaker 1: dingy hotel room. She has a smile, but it's a
Speaker 1: half hearted one, and she's wearing heavy makeup. Her posture's tents,
Speaker 1: and everything about the image feels wrong. The woman calls
Speaker 1: herself jos Jas. But it wasn't the nickname or the
Speaker 1: setting that made the Bradley family's blood run cold. It
Speaker 1: was the resemblance. The woman in the photo looked exactly
Speaker 1: like Amy, the same bone structure, the same green eyes,
Speaker 1: but not the same tattoos. And I say that because
Speaker 1: the photos were taken with woman posed in ways that
Speaker 1: seemed to specifically avoid showing the areas where her tattoos
Speaker 1: were located. So you can't even see if the tattoos
Speaker 1: are there or not.
Speaker 2: No, you can't.
Speaker 1: Now. Amy's parents took the photos seriously. They handed them
Speaker 1: over to the FBI, hoping that advanced facial recognition might
Speaker 1: give them an answer. Now, at the time, technology was limited,
Speaker 1: but one former FBI consultant who reviewed the images said,
Speaker 1: without hesitation he believed the woman was in fact Amy Bradley.
Speaker 1: Now the agency investigated, but nothing could be definitively proven
Speaker 1: with the photos, though Special Agent Aaron Sheridan told the
Speaker 1: media that one of the biggest issues was verifying whether
Speaker 1: the photos had been doctored or altered. Oh okay, see
Speaker 1: the images had been circulated online and they weren't in
Speaker 1: their original form.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I see, so.
Speaker 1: Has shared and put it. The difficult part is back
Speaker 1: then information such as that or pictures such as that,
Speaker 1: you can't tell when they're altered. Direct quote.
Speaker 2: I feel like those wouldn't have been altered, though.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say because you have someone who already
Speaker 1: tried to scam true, right, And so you have someone
Speaker 1: else who's just trying to fuck with the families for
Speaker 1: whatever reason.
Speaker 2: Well, I know, but would they've been able to do
Speaker 2: that good of a job, because I've seen I sell
Speaker 2: those photos and they looked like they wouldn't have been altered.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, but I'm not a professional, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not a professional like analyst of bone structures and stuff,
Speaker 1: or to say if a photo has been altered, like
Speaker 1: I can do a bit of photoshop work, but that's
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just mean, like it was quite a few
Speaker 2: years ago. I'm like, would anyone be able to do
Speaker 2: that good of a job or have the means of
Speaker 2: doing that good of a job?
Speaker 1: Well, it's possible. Put it this place.
Speaker 2: It's possible if you.
Speaker 1: Do doctor an image and you upload it to the
Speaker 1: internet and then it's downloaded by someone else they uploaded
Speaker 1: and someone else downloads it, and you have this image
Speaker 1: it's been uploaded and downloaded like three four times, and
Speaker 1: the resolutions all mismashed and fucked up, and it's a
Speaker 1: terrible image. Yeah, it hides those things, right, But that was.
Speaker 2: One part of the documentary I feel was pretty convincing
Speaker 2: showing you know how closely these two people, like comparing
Speaker 2: photos that the parents had and then this photo how
Speaker 2: closely these two women looked.
Speaker 1: That's true. But the one thing the documentary didn't say
Speaker 1: was that the FBI never said for certain. They said,
Speaker 1: un FBI agent believes it was her, okay, but they
Speaker 1: do not say that they weren't sure.
Speaker 2: They can't know for sure.
Speaker 1: They can't know for sure, But they also don't say
Speaker 1: that they can't be sure the photos aren't doctored. They
Speaker 1: don't even touch on the doctor part. So there's something
Speaker 1: I got they don't. Oh my god, Now this is seriously,
Speaker 1: this is why you should listen to this episode and
Speaker 1: watch that, because they're talking about stuff and I'm I'm
Speaker 1: talking about stuff there not.
Speaker 2: And well, yeah, there's been a few times I'm just like,
Speaker 2: was I notping attention? But yeah, it's just new stuff
Speaker 2: that you have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're probably thinking, oh, you cut out a
Speaker 1: little bit of that part because it's just, hey, this
Speaker 1: is one episode.
Speaker 2: Ryeah.
Speaker 1: Now, the idea that she may be alive out there
Speaker 1: somewhere against her will is becoming a strong possibility at
Speaker 1: this point, and in twenty eighteen, a man named Anthony
Speaker 1: Willis may have helped lend a lot of credibility to
Speaker 1: this theory when he took his obsession with Amy's case
Speaker 1: and turned it into something very tangible. See, he's a
Speaker 1: true crime person like you and I, and he spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time looking into Amy's case. So much though,
Speaker 1: that he thought he would create a place for all
Speaker 1: the information and tips to be located at once. So
Speaker 1: he launched a website. And that website is available. You
Speaker 1: can go visit it. It's called Amy Bradley is Missing
Speaker 1: dot com, a dedicated space to collect everything tied to
Speaker 1: her disappearance, photos, known sightings, timeline, old newspaper clippings, and
Speaker 1: even theories. His goal was simple but important, make sure
Speaker 1: that Amy's story wasn't lost to time. But you know
Speaker 1: it's remembered because when stories like this fade from the headlines,
Speaker 1: tip stopped coming in, and that's when hope really dies.
Speaker 1: But what started as an awareness tool turned into something
Speaker 1: else entirely. Anthony began noticing something strange in the site's
Speaker 1: analytics dashboard, a pattern in the IP traffic. Using standard tools,
Speaker 1: he tracked visitors and their general locations. He realized that
Speaker 1: the site was getting repeated hits from very specific places Bridgetown, Barbados,
Speaker 1: and Curasou, the same areas tied to Amy's last known
Speaker 1: location and later alleged sightings. Even more chilling were the
Speaker 1: timing and behavior of those visits. These weren't random one
Speaker 1: time clicks. It was the same IP addresses that would
Speaker 1: show up over and over again. This person with this
Speaker 1: IP address would visit the website on holidays, birthdays, anniversaries,
Speaker 1: dates that matter deeply to Amy and her family, and
Speaker 1: those visitors weren't just skimming the homepage. They were dwelling
Speaker 1: for long stretches of time on these pages and photos,
Speaker 1: sometimes up to forty five minutes, and often focused on
Speaker 1: very personal content family photos, memories, pictures of Amy's old
Speaker 1: car or the dog. It was as if someone, or
Speaker 1: maybe even Amy herself, was watching from afar, silently checking in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, see, that's like wild that part of the story
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's one of the ones that gets me the most.
Speaker 1: Yeah now, Iva, Amy's mother was moved by the possibility
Speaker 1: that it could potentially be Amy. But why do they
Speaker 1: keep coming back? She wondered this aloud in the documentary,
Speaker 1: right like why on Christmas? Why? Thing giving why stare
Speaker 1: at a picture of our dog. It opened up a
Speaker 1: new haunting theory that maybe it was in fact Amy.
Speaker 1: Maybe if she was alive, somewhere hidden, trapped, or otherwise
Speaker 1: cut off, this was her only way of contact, you know,
Speaker 1: a virtual lifeline window into the family that she left
Speaker 1: behind or could no longer contact, or a family that's
Speaker 1: still looking for her now. The FBI was aware of
Speaker 1: the site and its analytics, but once again without jurisdiction
Speaker 1: in these countries and no clear way to trace the
Speaker 1: exact person behind the IP addresses, the trail stayed frustratingly cold. Still,
Speaker 1: it left the family and many online sleuths with the
Speaker 1: same nagging feeling somebody is in fact watching. The only
Speaker 1: question is who, I guess and why?
Speaker 2: Ah. I just hate that because there's it seems like
Speaker 2: it's a little bit of a I don't like, what
Speaker 2: would be like a light right at the end of
Speaker 2: the tunnel or something, but then you just you can't
Speaker 2: reach it. Yeah, exactly, You're just running and it's just
Speaker 2: not getting any closer.
Speaker 1: Now. The flip side of that coin of it's Amy
Speaker 1: looking at the site is maybe it's the people responsible
Speaker 1: for Amy disappearing, and they're keeping up with the site
Speaker 1: as you know, a means of seeing how close authorities
Speaker 1: are to catching them more updates, right, Yeah, now, I
Speaker 1: mean that being said, maybe it's just very dedicated internet
Speaker 1: sleuths out there who are really attached to the case, right,
Speaker 1: like you or I or Anthony who set up the site. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she did go missing there.
Speaker 2: It's weird that it's on such important dates.
Speaker 1: That is very weird.
Speaker 2: Yes, And then I feel like the people if someone
Speaker 2: did this to her, that they wouldn't be It's also
Speaker 2: wouldn't be going on specific dates, and like would they
Speaker 2: be looking and staying on there that long and like
Speaker 2: really paying that much attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I firmly believe it is Amy. But the uestion is, Okay,
Speaker 1: if she's looking at these photos, if she's going on
Speaker 1: the website looking at these, she clearly has internet access
Speaker 1: in some capability, So why isn't she sending an email
Speaker 1: to someone her family authorities asking for help reaching out.
Speaker 2: Well, she could be having permission to look at the
Speaker 2: site though too right.
Speaker 1: She could be, But if she has the site open
Speaker 1: in front of her, all it takes is for a
Speaker 1: moment for someone to look away, and she, you know,
Speaker 1: types quick emails.
Speaker 2: I don't know, she don't need a freaking email account
Speaker 2: and shit and that stuff takes time to create.
Speaker 1: It's true, but there are other theories with it too,
Speaker 1: and I kind of touched on it with I believe
Speaker 1: it was the woman named Judy who had the encounter
Speaker 1: in the bathroom where she ran into someone named Amy,
Speaker 1: and she was talking to those guys who were like,
Speaker 1: you better behave right, and she's like, well, can we
Speaker 1: go see the kids? What if Amy does have kids
Speaker 1: now and whoever had captured her also has her kids
Speaker 1: and are using her kids as leverage. So it's like
Speaker 1: she can't say anything because if she does, how can
Speaker 1: she save her kids?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and she's not She probably doesn't want to
Speaker 2: leave her kids exactly. If she runs away, like gosh
Speaker 2: knows what they're going to do to the kids, or
Speaker 2: she'll never see them again.
Speaker 1: Right, she might be able to get herself saved, But
Speaker 1: what if she doesn't have control over her kids. Sounds
Speaker 1: like she doesn't get to see your kids all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's either she saves herself or she stays and
Speaker 1: saves her kids or tries to save her kids, you.
Speaker 2: Know, or make sure that they're at least safe.
Speaker 1: Right, So she's I mean, this is only one theory.
Speaker 1: There's so many of them, but it's as if she's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's very much lord of the rings. You
Speaker 1: stray but a little and it shall fail. Right, you're
Speaker 1: running on the edge of this knife, and it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a fine line that you're walking. Now. More than
Speaker 1: two decades have passed since Amy vanished, and the mystery
Speaker 1: still haunts her family and the world alike, especially with
Speaker 1: this new documentary that has come out. With no physical evidence,
Speaker 1: no confirmation, confirmation on any of these sightings rests her
Speaker 1: disappearance remains a frustratingly open case. The theories haven't stopped spinning,
Speaker 1: but some do believe that she was murdered on the
Speaker 1: ship and thrown overboard, but there's no proof of that.
Speaker 1: There's no body or struggle, nothing to support the idea
Speaker 1: beyond speculation. Even local law enforcement and search and rescue
Speaker 1: say that with the tides, here's the tide thing, the
Speaker 1: tide and the waters, they would have brought in a
Speaker 1: body or at least remains of one to the shores,
Speaker 1: but nothing has ever washed ashore. Nothing's been found.
Speaker 2: Okay, but if she was weighted down, that could be
Speaker 2: a different story too, Right if the body was thrown
Speaker 2: overboard and weight like it was weighted.
Speaker 1: Not necessarily because a body will decompose, right I guess.
Speaker 1: And as a body decomposes, it falls apart. So we
Speaker 1: covered this in the shoe the shoes that wash ashore
Speaker 1: in Vancouver in British Columbia here with the feet in them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's because people are being like ugh, weighted down in
Speaker 1: the waters and their feet with the shoes pop off
Speaker 1: their bodies and the shoes float and wash ashore.
Speaker 2: Okay, but what about like if you were in a
Speaker 2: garbage bag or something, I mean potentially that I don't know.
Speaker 2: If you were in something and was weighted, I feel
Speaker 2: like it could stay down there. That's sometime that's true,
Speaker 2: like Dexter. So I bring up Dexter so often I feel.
Speaker 1: So it was like a fifteen thirty minute window where
Speaker 1: she was seen in the bedroom on the balcony to
Speaker 1: when she was gone. So you're suggesting someone killed her,
Speaker 1: stuffed her in a garbage bag, weighed her down, thrown
Speaker 1: her overboard, and cleaned up the crime scene in that
Speaker 1: amount of time.
Speaker 2: Well they probably they would have had more time to
Speaker 2: clean up the scene for sure, But sometimes depending on
Speaker 2: where it was down or not, they don't have to
Speaker 2: be like, really gross, that's true. It could just be
Speaker 2: someone strangling someone, that's true. Especially what kind of messes
Speaker 2: that clean up really.
Speaker 1: Especially because housekeeping dead the cleaning forum later.
Speaker 2: Anyways, I'm not saying that out of experience, but I'm
Speaker 2: just saying that wouldn't create a huge mess.
Speaker 1: WHOA, I got to watch out.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Now. Other people cling to the early theories that she
Speaker 1: did fall overboard on her and took her own life,
Speaker 1: potentially one or the other. But for anyone who knows Amy,
Speaker 1: these never made me sense. She disliked the ocean, the
Speaker 1: unknown nature of the heights and the railings. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: but she was a strong swimmer, she was cautious by nature,
Speaker 1: and she was excited about her future just days before
Speaker 1: she even landed a new job and had big plans.
Speaker 1: What's more plausible to many and most terrifying, is the
Speaker 1: theory that Amy was indeed trafficked, that she was targeted
Speaker 1: while on board, lured or forced off the ship, and
Speaker 1: sold into a life that she never chose. The witness accounts,
Speaker 1: the brothel claims, the desperate eyes, and the online photos,
Speaker 1: they all point to that possibility. This is a theory
Speaker 1: her family never stopped believing. Now, one thing that I
Speaker 1: do think they really needed to have in this documentary,
Speaker 1: but they omitted for one reason or another, is the
Speaker 1: fact that in twenty ten, twelve years to the day
Speaker 1: since Amy disappeared, she was officially declared deceased.
Speaker 2: Oh really, yes, Oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Her case remains open, but she has officially been declared deceased.
Speaker 1: There is no body, no trace of her, no information,
Speaker 1: no nothing, but she is officially declared deceased.
Speaker 2: The family doesn't want that. They want to be They
Speaker 2: want this hope because she could still be alive.
Speaker 1: They do not believe she's dead. It's not to say
Speaker 1: that people aren't hunting for her. They just believe they're
Speaker 1: hunting for remains in what happened.
Speaker 2: You know. I do want to say one thing too,
Speaker 2: because at one point it was someone said she left
Speaker 2: the cruise ship to go get drugs or something. So
Speaker 2: is it like possible that she could have taken drugs
Speaker 2: on the balcony or something. That made her go a
Speaker 2: little mad or something, and then she jumped off like
Speaker 2: I don't know maybe, but then again like yeah, her
Speaker 2: body would have most likely been found.
Speaker 1: So now accounts of her family were to say that
Speaker 1: she doesn't do drugs or anything. Yeah, And also with
Speaker 1: that waiter who was like leaving a note like let's
Speaker 1: go on shore or in party, Amy was like, no,
Speaker 1: we're not going ashore. That's not happening.
Speaker 2: She wasn't interested.
Speaker 1: So according to her family, no, she wasn't going ashore.
Speaker 1: And know she wasn't into drugs.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, why would she be out on the deck, like,
Speaker 2: you know, doing drugs alone like that.
Speaker 1: So now, even now, the FBI still lists Amy as
Speaker 1: a missing person, offering up twenty five thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: reward for information. Her family offers up even more, up
Speaker 1: to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for her safe return.
Speaker 1: Her name is etched in every missing person's database. Her
Speaker 1: face has been shared on shows like Unsolved Mysteries, Doctor Phil,
Speaker 1: America's Most Wanted and Disappeared, and even as just of
Speaker 1: recently with the new three part Netflix documentary that came
Speaker 1: out just like a week ago. It brought a lot
Speaker 1: of attention back to her and her story, and social
Speaker 1: media has helped with the renewed interest. Good people are
Speaker 1: sharing their stories, dissecting the the evidence, they're they're talking
Speaker 1: about theories, they're posting clips of the documentary. There's even
Speaker 1: a YouTuber Ethan Klein. He's quite a big, big name
Speaker 1: out there. He's jumped in and just a few days
Speaker 1: ago he offered a staggering one million dollars for information
Speaker 1: that leads to Amy, or the possibility of leads to
Speaker 1: finding her children.
Speaker 2: Curiously, Yeah, okay, that is like so amazing for the family.
Speaker 2: Hey yeah, oh man, that I hope that makes them, like,
Speaker 2: you know, feel good and like maybe there's there's a
Speaker 2: chance there's still Yeah.
Speaker 1: Regardless of all this, one thing is certain. Amy Lynn
Speaker 1: Bradley's story is far from forgotten. Her memory is still
Speaker 1: quite lingers, especially right now with this renewed interest on
Speaker 1: that cruise ship on the beaches of Curassow and in
Speaker 1: the first hand accounts of photos that surface online. Her
Speaker 1: name is still there. I'm confident that someone out there
Speaker 1: does know the truth and maybe, just maybe, if we
Speaker 1: keep talking about Amy's story, she can be brought back
Speaker 1: home to her family and say from whatever horrors that
Speaker 1: may have stolen her. But for now, this is an
Speaker 1: unsolved story, and that is the story that we know
Speaker 1: of of amy Lyn Bradley.
Speaker 2: I just have to say, it's such a piss off
Speaker 2: because she was just like a gem, like a light
Speaker 2: in this world and got noticed right for just being
Speaker 2: freakin amazing. Yeah, and someone just decided that they needed
Speaker 2: that for themselves for whatever reason. I guess that's what
Speaker 2: it seems like, yeah, which is oh, just so maddening,
Speaker 2: so disgusting. I have a feeling, I do have a
Speaker 2: feeling that one day it will be known what happened
Speaker 2: with this case.
Speaker 1: I really hope so.
Speaker 2: But we are like approaching thirty years here. Soon we
Speaker 2: are what it would be in twenty twenty eight, yeah,
Speaker 2: which is wild that that is like soon.
Speaker 1: But it is well in all honesty though, with like
Speaker 1: the money that's being put out there, the renewed interest, yeah,
Speaker 1: the publicity it's getting nowadays, I think it's a high
Speaker 1: possibility that there will be some new developments in the
Speaker 1: next year, maybe even the next couple months. I do
Speaker 1: think there will be some new information coming out on this.
Speaker 1: So I do want to keep my own eye on this,
Speaker 1: and I think you guys should do the same.
Speaker 2: Kine really quickly. I was gonna call him Lemon Frick.
Speaker 2: But his name yellow or what the hell ever?
Speaker 1: Well, apparently he dyed his hair yellow or something, and
Speaker 1: so we got a nickname yellow and it just stuck,
Speaker 1: which is the dumbest way to get a nickname.
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, call me Beard Beard Ben. In the documentary,
Speaker 2: his daughter actually is on there speaking, which is like wild,
Speaker 2: and they're at one point even like calls her dad.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't think he knew that it
Speaker 2: was like being recorded.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but yeah, you know, I'm going to
Speaker 1: assume that he did know, just because the fact it's
Speaker 1: released on like Netflix. I they, well, no, because he's
Speaker 1: another citizen of another country, they could probably just get
Speaker 1: away with not asking for permission. Just do it anyways,
Speaker 1: because what's he going to do?
Speaker 2: But like right there, even his own like flesh flesh,
Speaker 2: whoa flesh and blood? Flesh and I can't speak right now,
Speaker 2: lesh and flesh and blood questions him.
Speaker 1: Yes, Well, reportedly he came home with like off this
Speaker 1: cruise with like a bunch of photos of women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we know that there was photos of Amy missing.
Speaker 1: We know that there is human trafficking. There is some
Speaker 1: human trafficking in the area of this world, it is reported,
Speaker 1: but he claims to have nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2: See. I go back and forth big time with this
Speaker 2: case of whether I think that you know, she's alive
Speaker 2: or not, and this sad thing is gosh, if she's alive, like, well,
Speaker 2: either way, it's sad, but I just think that her
Speaker 2: life has probably not been very easy. No, definitely, it's
Speaker 2: really sad. And yeah, the poor family, like, yeah, the
Speaker 2: family's in this dock and they just talk about it,
Speaker 2: just the effects of this of their life, right, you know,
Speaker 2: for the last almost thirty years.
Speaker 1: So they her parents still keep Amy's car polished and
Speaker 1: ready to go in the garage when she gets home.
Speaker 2: So yeah, oh my god, I forgot about that. It
Speaker 2: just like breaks your fucking heart.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, on that note, I guess.
Speaker 1: On that note, you guys should definitely watch this documentary.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, I believe it's Amy Bradley is Missing.
Speaker 1: I close Netflix. I got to open up again just
Speaker 1: to confirm that that's what it's called. But yeah, check
Speaker 1: it out. It is really good. They talk about a
Speaker 1: couple different angles that I decided to not dissect on
Speaker 1: my own. So it's it's worth the watch for sure.
Speaker 2: And then after that you can watch Poop Cruise and
Speaker 2: then you can just never go on another cruise in
Speaker 2: your whole entire life.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you like it, you like it, but
Speaker 2: I just ah. Yeah. Also, the ocean terrifies me. I'm
Speaker 2: sure I've talked about that before. I love the freaking ocean,
Speaker 2: but from a shore.
Speaker 1: Really I want to look at it. I want to
Speaker 1: I want to hear it, but we have.
Speaker 2: No idea some of the stuff in there. I am
Speaker 2: certain it's like some terrify.
Speaker 1: It's like over eighty percent of the ocean is like
Speaker 1: discovered or explored or something like that. Most of it's
Speaker 1: just unexplored.
Speaker 2: Yeah. See, one day I do want to live by
Speaker 2: the ocean, and I like love paddle boarding, but I
Speaker 2: would have trouble. I think paddleboarding and the freaking ocean, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think you'd probably get used to it until you
Speaker 2: were like come across a freaking whale or shark, and
Speaker 2: you'd never do it again.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You see those videos where people think that's awesome. And
Speaker 2: I would literally be shitting myself on the paddle board.
Speaker 1: I showed you a video of today. If someone just
Speaker 1: fishing in the ocean in a whale shark just swims
Speaker 1: up by the boat, I mean, they're completely harmless, but
Speaker 1: they're gying enormous key.
Speaker 2: But on a boat, I feel like I'd be a
Speaker 2: little more better. Imagine that, and you were on a
Speaker 2: paddle board.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my gosh, the ocean would be a little
Speaker 1: more brown.
Speaker 2: The ocean. I don't know, I think I would. I
Speaker 2: would probably end up doing something stupid and fall in
Speaker 2: and just okay, that's it, I'm done.
Speaker 1: Just accept your fate and just sink. Just take me world.
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, this freaking shark literally wanted nothing to do
Speaker 2: with you, But you were just by.
Speaker 1: The shark's talking to his buddies later that just this bitch.
Speaker 1: You should have seen her.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's so scary.
Speaker 1: Ocean is terrifying. But anyways, thank for being here. Go
Speaker 1: watch that documentary you know the drill. There's a whole
Speaker 1: description of stuff down below. We're an independent podcast and
Speaker 1: with your support we can keep doing this. So thank
Speaker 1: you very much. We appreciate you and until next time,
Speaker 1: stay wicked,