Ron Bradley won the cruise as a commendation from the company he worked for. And on March 21, 1998. with his wife Iva, daughter Amy and son Brad went on the liner on a week-long Caribbean cruise.
They will remember this seemingly fabulous journey for a lifetime.
Happy Bradley family at the start of their vacation.
Amy graduated from Longwood College with a degree in Physical Education 2 years before this cruise and wanted to become a teacher. Amy was a sports star: she ran multiple distances and played basketball for Providence High School. Sadly, Amy was never able to reach her full potential when tragedy struck during their family vacation.
Almost until the early morning of March 24, Amy had fun at the cruise ship's dance club with the Blue Orchid, her brother, and the new friends she made during her vacation. At about 3 am Ron woke up and realized that the children had not yet returned from the disco. He dressed and led them to the cabin. They sat on the balcony for a while, then Brad and Ron went to bed. Amy said she would sit on the balcony a little longer because she was a little sick. Fresh air will do her good. The last time her father saw her was around 05.15, sleeping on the balcony in a sun lounger. A pack of cigarettes lay next to her, and the sliding door was closed.
View from the cabin to the balcony.
Ron woke up an hour later to find that his daughter was no longer on the balcony. He noticed that the cigarettes were gone and the sliding door was open. Amy's shoes were standing still, and Ron thought she had just come out for a drink or a snack. When she didn't return, Ron went up to the deck to look for Amy. He could not find her and became more and more worried. By the time they were convinced that Amy was missing, the ship had docked on the island of Curacao, north of Venezuela.
Curacao island.
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The Bradley family pleaded with the officers not to open the ladders and not allow people to disembark from the ship before the entire ship was searched. They assumed that if someone was holding Amy hostage, they could easily get her off the ship without being noticed. Despite the family's pleas, the ship's doors were opened and the officers told the Bradley family that they had searched the ship thoroughly and found no sign of Amy.
A few days later, the FBI joined the search for Amy, then the officers admitted that they had not searched the ship in good faith, but only partially. The FBI conducted an air and water search for the girl, but they were unsuccessful. The investigation found there was no evidence that anyone fell overboard, dispelling rumors that Amy had committed suicide. Her father already said that Amy is afraid of heights and would not come close to the balcony. Moreover, she was an experienced lifeguard and knew about the dangers of the sea. The suicide theory was immediately rejected by Amy's family. She had no reason to settle accounts with her life: Amy was having a great time on vacation, recently rented an apartment and talked to her boss about changing working hours.
Amy was doing fine at the time of her disappearance.
While the search was underway, 2 women who met Amy on the cruise told investigators that they saw her on the ship just minutes before it docked at 6 am. She was in a glass elevator that went up to the upper deck. They said Amy was with a man they knew as "yellow," he is a musician in a band that played on the ship. A taxi driver from Curacao also confirmed seeing Amy that morning. He said he was parked next to the ship when passengers disembarked in the morning. Amy approached him and said that she urgently needed to call. He pointed to the nearest payphone, but she walked in the opposite direction.
Sketches of men seen with Amy Bradley.
The main theory is that Amy was kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery, and several eyewitness accounts support this theory.
In 1998, David Carmichael was relaxing on the beach in Curacao, and reported that he saw a girl who looked a lot like Amy. He was sure that she had the same tattoos as the missing Amy: a Tasmanian devil on her shoulder, a sun on her lower back, a Chinese symbol on her right ankle, and a lizard. He said that she was walking along the beach with two guys: black and white. When she heard that David was talking to his friend in English, she turned around and stared into his eyes. “Just as she was about to say something, a black guy appeared in my field of vision and motioned for her to step away. She dropped her eyes, turned and walked away,”he said. The black man turned and looked at David. It was one of those "leave her alone."
David thought it was all strange. A few months later, he saw America's Most Wanted Show, which featured Amy's story.
Amy's parents are asking for help in finding their daughter.
He sent an email to the show, but never got a response. Then, in March 1999, he saw Amy's story about "Unsolved Mysteries." This time, he contacted Ron Bradley directly. While investigating the case, he found a photograph of "Yellow", the man with whom two guests reportedly saw Amy on the morning of her disappearance. If this "yellow" has a double in the world, then that day he was a man on the beach.
A shot from a disco on a cruise ship.
William Hefner said he was with the destroyer crew when he visited Curacao in January 1999. One evening while drinking at a local brothel bar, he began talking to two black men who were sitting with two women, allegedly sex workers. After chatting a bit, one of the men went upstairs with one of the women. Another man walked away from the bar for a few minutes. Left alone with William, she grabbed his hand and said that she was in trouble: "They have my documents, and I cannot leave the island." She said her name was Amy Bratley, with a t, not a d. He told her that if she was a US citizen, then all she had to do was board the ship to the port and ask for help. Before she could answer, another man appeared and she fell silent. Hefner forgot about this woman,until a few years later I saw a picture of Amy on the cover of People magazine. When he saw the photograph, he immediately remembered that night in the brothel and that strange woman.
While Alistair "yellow" Douglas was considered a person of interest, the FBI was silent about their dialogues with him, and he was never accused of her disappearance. He admitted that he danced with Amy at the disco the night of her disappearance, but last saw her at 1 am.
Photos from the site for adults.
In 2005, the aforementioned photo was sent to Amy's family by an organization that tracks potential sex trafficking victims on adult sites. In an episode the family took with Dr. Phil, several forensic experts analyzed the woman's face in the photograph, pointing out the similarities between her and Amy. Amy's parents are convinced that the woman in the photo is their daughter. This was the last clue to Amy Lynn Bradley's disappearance.
Despite the $ 25,000 reward, she is still missing.
While this is one of the most famous and widely reported cases, it is unfortunate that Amy's case is not an isolated one and she has joined hundreds of others who have disappeared aboard cruise ships in the Caribbean. Why do so many people disappear aboard cruise ships in the Caribbean? What forces are at work here, and is there any connection between them? This is something to think about the next time you find yourself on a cruise ship, bathing in the tropical sunshine and staring out at this inviting azure water, something that casts a shadow of uncertainty over a sun-drenched paradise and makes you wonder if you can. whether you will be next.