00:00:00
Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. >> And I'm Elena. >> And this is a morbid in the morning. >> morbid.
00:00:06
>> Early morning afternoon. >> [music] >> Exactly, [music] it's brunch morbid. Early afternoon.
00:00:23
>> Yeah, [laughter] yeah. It's Oh, I would love some brunch right now. >> me too. I'm really hungry.
00:00:27
>> Yeah, she just said at 11:30 a.m. not even that she wants a burrito. [music] >> Yeah, there's
00:00:32
honestly burritos are for any time because there's also breakfast burritos. >> actually just going to say. I was like,
00:00:38
you know, what? That is valid because breakfast burritos are in fact a thing. >> burrito
00:00:42
could >> All encompassing, really. >> space and time. >> Oh. >> And I really want one.
00:00:48
>> And my mouth is kind of watering now. I want a burrito. >> [laughter] >> Maybe we can get some for lunch.
00:00:54
>> get a burrito. >> Okay, girl. >> Maybe I'll order one while you're talking. >> to get Taco Bell?
00:00:57
>> Maybe. >> get Taco Bell today. >> sick nasty. >> We've been eating so much fast food
00:01:02
lately and my stomach is like, "Bitch, would you just eat a vegetable?" [laughter]
00:01:06
>> Cuz I also just moved and I don't have an oven right now. So, it's like >> takeout. Oh my god, I yeah.
00:01:12
>> Breakfast, lunch, dinner, takeout, takeout, takeout. [laughter] Like my I'm not functioning. Every food that I'm
00:01:17
eating right now is beige. [laughter] It's not good. >> You're like a toddler. >> No, I'm on a I'm on a beige toddler
00:01:24
diet. >> Damn. >> It's no bueno. >> No way. >> Oh, you know what I did get last night?
00:01:29
>> What? >> A fear from like I think it Is the 99 only a New England thing? >> No.
00:01:34
>> I think it is. >> I think it might be. I think it was invented in Boston. Not invented, but you know what I'm
00:01:41
saying. >> Headquarters is Woburn. >> Woburn. Yeah, I got the 99 last night. If you're
00:01:47
ever in the East Coast area >> in New England >> doing good in specific, you got to get
00:01:52
the 99. I got >> Yeah. >> You can get a side of a biscuit and gravy. >> Oh, damn.
00:01:57
>> So, it was so beige and so delicious. >> beige-eous. >> And then I got the gold fever wings,
00:02:02
which are kind of orange. >> No, the gold fever wings and they're buffalo wings are A plus.
00:02:09
>> Next [ __ ] level. So good. >> Yeah. >> So >> good. Recommend. >> And then I and I got sweet potato fries.
00:02:16
>> Oh, hell yeah. >> I went nuts. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, you got color in there.
00:02:19
>> That's me eating. >> And that's a sweet potato. >> Yeah. >> Period. >> you go.
00:02:23
>> So, they say. >> They Sure. >> Yeah. It was a sweet potato at some point down there.
00:02:27
>> It [laughter] was. >> But, I can't wait until my oven gets delivered and I can cook in it and like
00:02:33
eat >> Yeah. >> I was like, Drew, we need vegetables so badly [laughter] and he was like, no. He
00:02:37
was like, we really do. I'm going to be making the most delicious home cooked [ __ ]
00:02:41
>> Hell yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um >> So, that's a little about me. >> So, yeah, go to the 99. We need to eat
00:02:46
better food right now. Uh >> I want Is there a 99 in New York City? Cuz maybe you could go to the 99 if you
00:02:53
come see us at Radio City Music Hall. >> I was That was a good segue. I I don't think there is one in the New York area,
00:03:00
but >> If you road trip >> Yeah. >> from somewhere >> stop at a 99. >> You can stop at Massachusetts and you're
00:03:04
bound to find a 99. >> Yeah. >> The 99 Restaurant. Great meal, great deal. Of the [laughter] best. We would like go
00:03:13
there like like after before dances all the time. Just so good. Just so good. >> they have like kids eat free if the Red
00:03:21
Sox win. >> It's the most it truly is the [laughter] I was like, this is such a New England
00:03:25
thing like for sure. >> sense. Uh but yeah, come to our New York show at Radio City Music Hall.
00:03:31
>> Got some New York City >> tickets left that you could purchase. >> It's um it's a one night only.
00:03:37
>> One night only. We just are about to finalize merch. >> Yeah. >> And there is some good [ __ ] We got you
00:03:43
guys options this time around. >> really excited for the merch. >> I'm stoked. >> And it's going to be a fun time. It's
00:03:49
going to be a cool atmosphere. We're going to make it very fun, very, you know, interactive.
00:03:54
>> Yes. >> All that good stuff. So, do it. It's going to be fun. >> And don't forget we also, not to like
00:03:58
make this like super businessy, but we also just dropped a [ __ ] ton of merch. Um, you can get that on the SiriusXM
00:04:03
store or if you're international on Podswag. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I was looking at my knee.
00:04:09
>> Podswag? >> Podswag, question mark. Podswag. The links are in our bio and stuff.
00:04:13
>> Yeah. It's some fun stuff. >> Fun stuff. Also, somebody's mowing the lawn, so hopefully you don't hear that.
00:04:18
>> And also, uh, if you want a signed edition of The Butcher Legacy cuz some of you Ooh, I didn't get some of
00:04:25
[laughter] you were looking for >> You looked surprised. You were like, "If you want a signed edition
00:04:31
I was like, "Is this part of the bit?" >> No, it's a hiccup snuck up on me. >> You're funny.
00:04:34
>> Uh, but I know some people were looking for signed copies cuz they ran out at,
00:04:38
uh, Barnes & Noble for now. >> Um >> For now. >> There's a limited run of signed copies.
00:04:45
They are signed. Like, I'm signing them in the pod lab. >> Period. >> Of The Butcher Legacy that's going to be
00:04:51
on premierecollectibles.com/butcher. Uh, the link is in our bio. Go get them. >> Get them.
00:04:59
>> And if you go go pre-order them, and then I'll try to sign more if you want more.
00:05:05
>> Yeah. >> So, keep keep pre-ordering them and I'll keep signing them. >> And either way, buy the book cuz if not,
00:05:10
you might be a loser. >> Do it. >> Yeah. >> Do it. >> Do it. >> Do it. >> Okay. People like Patricia Cornwell and
00:05:17
Richard Chizmar liked it. >> That's the thing. Like, don't you want to be at the same table as them?
00:05:20
>> [laughter] >> I do. >> So, let's go. >> Let's G O. L E T S G O, let's go. Let's
00:05:26
go. It brings me back to our softball days. >> There you go. >> Okay. All right, to bring it to a place of
00:05:31
morbid. We're going to be talking about a very famous case. I would be surprised
00:05:35
if a lot of people hadn't heard about this one. I think most of you probably have. Um, this is the disappearance of
00:05:40
Amy Lynn Bradley. >> Yes. >> I actually, the first time that I heard about this disappearance was around like
00:05:47
last year sometime when the documentary came out and I devoured all three parts of this and I find this case just to be
00:05:56
like I got so sucked in. It is a crazy case. I just have to say off the bat, right off the bat, I do not believe that
00:06:04
she jumped off or fell off the boat at all. >> I don't either. >> I do not believe it in any way, shape or
00:06:10
form and I honestly, like I respect everybody's opinion and like everybody have your own but I don't know how
00:06:16
anybody could think that she did. >> your opinion but >> It just baffles me. >> That's the thing.
00:06:21
>> Yeah. >> So let's get into it and if you don't know this story, hold on to your butt
00:06:26
because this is twisty and turny. >> A true hold on to your butt moment. >> It is.
00:06:30
So we're going to start off in the winter of 1998 when Ron Bradley, who's Amy's father, got a pretty surprising
00:06:37
phone call at his home office where he worked as an insurance agent. As it turned out, he was one of the top 35
00:06:43
agents with the company who sold over $145,000 that year in premiums. >> Look at that.
00:06:48
>> So they said, "Honey, guess what? You have won an all-expense-paid family cruise on Royal Caribbean."
00:06:55
>> Damn. >> Yeah. >> Good for him. >> I know, right? Okay, Ron, snap, snap. >> Yeah.
00:06:59
>> And now here's the thing, too. That call could not have come at a better time. It
00:07:03
had been a super dark, super cold winter in Virginia. So Ron and his wife Iva saw
00:07:08
the cruise as one last opportunity to take a vacation with their kids cuz their kids were getting older. They were
00:07:13
about to start living their own lives, strike out on their own. At the time that like I'm saying right
00:07:18
now, the dynamic of their family was starting to shift a little bit. Their daughter, 23-year-old Amy, had just
00:07:23
graduated college and moved into her own apartment. And their son, 21-year-old Brad, was also just about to finish
00:07:30
college. By the way, Brad, his uh he's Ron Jr. but he goes by Brad. >> Okay. >> So Brad is not his first name. Brad
00:07:37
Bradley. >> Brad Bradley. >> middle name. >> Good call. >> Yeah. So the Bradleys, they'd always
00:07:42
been a really close family. So, while everybody was very excited for Brad and Amy to start these new chapters in their
00:07:47
lives, the shift into adulthood was a little bit bittersweet for their parents. >> There were just 2 years between Amy and
00:07:53
Brad, so they had been best friends their entire lives. And whether it was neighborhood basketball games or the
00:07:59
school swim team, they were both incredible athletes. They both loved sports growing up. They
00:08:05
were really, really good at pretty much all of the ones that they tried. But, it
00:08:09
was Amy who managed to leverage her success into something more than just a hobby. Her mom, Iva, said,
00:08:14
"Amy was the only girl on the boys basketball team, and she always had a tremendous amount of confidence because
00:08:20
we raised her that there really wasn't anything she couldn't do if she wanted to do it."
00:08:24
>> Hell yeah, which is how you should raise your kids. >> Hell yeah. So, after graduating from
00:08:28
L.C. Bird High School in 1993, Amy got a full scholarship to play basketball for
00:08:34
Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. And at that time, this is crazy, she was the only student in the
00:08:40
school's history to ever receive a full athletic scholarship. >> Holy [ __ ] >> Yeah. Like, in the school's history?
00:08:47
>> Can you imagine that being your kid? >> No. >> Like, the level of proud that you would
00:08:51
be? >> Yeah. >> So, after graduating college in 1998, Amy had a lot to look forward to. She
00:08:55
had a job lined up for herself. She was going to be working with her uncle at his electronics company. She, like I
00:09:01
said, had moved into her own apartment, and she got a brand new bulldog that she
00:09:04
named Bailey. >> Bailey! >> A little dog named Bailey. There's pictures of Bailey. She's so cute.
00:09:10
>> A bulldog. >> Things did get a little tense between her and her parents when Amy came out as
00:09:14
bisexual a few years earlier, but they had really worked on their relationship. They had talked a lot about this, and
00:09:20
they were easing into this new relationship with Amy as an adult being able to make her own decisions.
00:09:25
>> Mhm. >> Now, when Brad and Amy heard about the free Caribbean cruise, they said, "Hell
00:09:30
yeah. Let's have one last big family vacation. Like, that's going to be awesome." Yeah, why not?
00:09:35
>> But, while Amy was excited, she did have some reservations about being on a boat.
00:09:40
>> Ooh. >> She was a champion swimmer on her high school team, and she also served as an
00:09:44
assistant to the swim coach at Longwood, but she found the idea of being out on the open ocean a little more frightening
00:09:51
than just like your typical body of water. >> I understand that cuz I also have that
00:09:55
same fear. >> Yeah, being out in the middle of nowhere is when you're on a cruise and you just
00:10:00
look out into the vastness of the ocean and you don't see >> land >> for as far as your eye can see, that's a
00:10:07
freaky feeling. >> Yeah, I have a healthy respect and a healthy fear of the ocean.
00:10:11
>> Same. >> Yeah, I don't like to [ __ ] with that. >> Yeah, yeah, absolutely not. And also,
00:10:15
like whenever you look over the balcony, it's just like the freakiest feeling in
00:10:19
the world. >> get that weird like um >> It's called something. Like it's like a sensation or like an intrusive thought,
00:10:26
I guess. >> intrusive thoughts that like literally you're like, what if I just fell?
00:10:30
>> Right. >> what if I just jumped? >> Yeah. >> Like ah. >> Like you're not going to, but you're
00:10:34
like, oh my god. >> that weird like primitive like psychological thing in your brain that's
00:10:38
like, when you're holding like a knife chopping something and you're like, what if I just chopped off my hand? Like, why
00:10:43
do we do that? [laughter] >> Yeah, cuz we're weird creatures. >> We are. >> Now, according to journalist Richard
00:10:48
Foster, Amy quote wasn't crazy about swimming in the ocean. Mainly, she was afraid of what else might be swimming in
00:10:53
it. >> Honestly, so very fair. >> I think she was super valid in all of these fears.
00:10:58
>> valid fear. >> Fortunately, though, Brad stepped in and convinced Amy that cruise ships were
00:11:02
incredibly safe and the trip would be fun, so she agreed. And that's the thing, they're supposed to be very safe,
00:11:08
but the ocean is lawless. >> But like, why would anyone think something like this would happen, you
00:11:14
know? Like you go on a cruise, it's supposed to just be a fun time. >> That's the thing, and you also have to
00:11:18
think this was the '90s. Like we don't have I feel like now there's a lot more stories that come out about things that
00:11:24
happen on cruise ships, but there weren't as many back then. >> No, definitely not.
00:11:27
>> So, a week before they set sail, Amy and her mom and her aunt Mary, they all went
00:11:31
out shopping, they got their hair, their nails done together. And while they sat
00:11:35
together getting their nails done, Amy told her aunt how excited she was to go on this trip, which was going to start
00:11:40
in San Juan, and then it would take them to Aruba, Curacao, and St. Martin and St. Thomas, and then it would return
00:11:48
back to Puerto Rico. She also told her aunt how excited she was to get home and start working with
00:11:53
her uncle Mike when she got back. And at the time she was just waiting tables at a steakhouse, so this new job
00:12:00
it really felt like she was finally taking a step in her professional life, like starting to build it.
00:12:06
>> yeah. >> So things to look forward to, that's the the key here to remember. >> Yeah.
00:12:11
>> At 7:00 a.m. on March 21st, Amy and Brad boarded a flight at Richmond International, and about 5 hours later
00:12:17
they met their parents in Puerto Rico. They all spent the night in Puerto Rico before they boarded the gigantic ship
00:12:23
that was the Rhapsody of the Seas. They spent the afternoon before that, Amy and Brad together, walking through
00:12:29
the neighborhoods of San Juan, and Amy bought a bunch of rolls of film and postcards to send back home. I think she
00:12:35
also was in a photo competition, or she was going to enter one from like the pictures that she was taking on the
00:12:41
cruise. >> Now the next morning, the Bradley family arrived at the dock, and they were
00:12:46
stunned by how huge this ship was. The ship was 11 stories high and over 900 ft long.
00:12:53
>> Holy [ __ ] >> And on this particular voyage, it was going to be carrying over 2,000 guests
00:12:58
and more than 1,000 employees. >> Woah. >> So this is like a city on the sea. [clears throat]
00:13:03
>> Yeah, village on the sea. >> Yeah. So the Bradley's opted to to share a single cabin on the 10th floor with a
00:13:09
private balcony overlooking the ocean, very lovely, but it was a smaller room. Now the first couple of days on the ship
00:13:15
passed pretty casually, they were doing cruise things. There was dinner and drinks by the pool, dancing in the
00:13:20
nightclubs. Amy and her mom went to an art auction, just you've been on a cruise, you know.
00:13:25
>> Yeah. >> It's cruise life. >> Cruise life. >> Cruise life, baby. Now, on March 23rd,
00:13:29
the ship docked in Aruba and the passengers disembarked to spend some time on the island. After spending some
00:13:34
time shopping in the downtown area, the family decided to skip the guided tour and instead they rented a Jeep to
00:13:40
explore the island on their own. This did not turn out to be an awesome decision because they found themselves
00:13:45
kind of lost at one point. >> Oh, damn. >> But eventually they found their way back
00:13:48
to civilization and they decided to spend the rest of the day at the beach not too far from the boat.
00:13:54
Ron even managed to convince Amy to join him in the water and remember like she does not like swimming in the ocean.
00:13:59
Uh so she was just kind of clinging to him the entire time. But it was like a cute little memory that they had
00:14:04
together. So back on the boat that night, everybody went back to the cabin to shower and change for what was going to
00:14:10
be the formal dinner. There's always a formal dinner when you're on a cruise. >> Of course, you got Is it the captain's
00:14:15
dinner? >> I think it is. It's something like that. You get all dolled up. The men wear
00:14:18
tuxedos, you wear gowns. And that was sort of the point. So they got to this dinner and that was sort of
00:14:25
the point where Ron and Iva started to notice how much attention Amy seemed to attract on the ship wherever she went.
00:14:32
After dinner, they were having drinks with one of Ron's business associates who was also on the cruise and a waiter
00:14:38
came up to them. And earlier that they recognized him cuz earlier that night they'd seen him talking to Amy and he
00:14:43
seemed to just be gushing over her. >> Mhm. >> He came over though and asked her
00:14:48
parents to see if Amy wanted to join him and some of the other crew members that
00:14:51
night at a bar Carlos and Charlie's. That might sound familiar to you. >> to say, why does that sound familiar?
00:14:58
>> Because coincidentally that was the last place that Natalee Holloway was seen.
00:15:02
>> Wow, that As soon as you said that, I was like I you I I like looked up at you
00:15:06
like, wait, do I know this? >> Isn't that chilling? >> That's >> really chilling. That hadn't happened
00:15:12
yet, obviously, but Carlos [clears throat] and Charlie's would become famous for that. I think it's
00:15:16
closed now. >> Yeah. >> So Iva passed along the message to Amy, but Amy was like, "Hell no, I'm not
00:15:22
getting off the boat with like a bunch of people I don't know. Absolutely not. She was kind of weirded out too at this
00:15:27
point by all the attention she was receiving. At the more formal dinner earlier that
00:15:31
night, the staff had been so attentive to her that her family actually started to joke that if anybody needed anything,
00:15:37
they should just say that Amy needed it and it would be there like in the blink of an eye.
00:15:41
>> Yeah. >> Like it was over the top. >> It's like what's going on here? >> Exactly.
00:15:45
>> That would make me uncomfortable. >> Yeah. Well, this would make you even more
00:15:49
uncomfortable. They ran into another weird occurrence that night when Amy and her mom Iva went down to the photo area
00:15:55
to pick up some pictures that they they had taken earlier that night. Cuz remember they're all dressed up. I think
00:15:59
Amy was in like this black spaghetti top um like dress and you know, she looks all nice and Brad was dressed up. So
00:16:06
they took pictures together and then Amy took some just on her own. But when they got to the shelf where
00:16:11
their pictures should have been, they were gone. >> What the [ __ ] >> Yeah. >> This would alarm me
00:16:19
in a big way. >> Yeah. >> And you have to when you put it together with all the attention.
00:16:23
>> That's the thing. >> I just feel like what's going on here? >> It was unsettling for sure. So they
00:16:28
thought it they definitely thought it was weird, but they were like okay, like can you just reprint them? And the
00:16:32
attendant was like yeah, for sure. >> Yeah. >> But looking back on it, Iva remembered
00:16:35
yet another weird occurrence that same night at dinner. A man was just staring at their table and at first she thought
00:16:42
he was staring at their family. And then she realized he was just intently staring at Amy. So this guy's
00:16:47
just staring so intensely at their table that Iva put out her hands and basically
00:16:52
was like, "What do you want?" Like hello, like kind of looking at the guy like what?
00:16:56
But she the group was getting up from the table and as she bent down to get her her purse or whatever she had, she
00:17:02
looked up and the guy was gone. >> Okay. >> Now looking back after Amy's disappearance, those were all blazing
00:17:06
red flags. >> Yeah, but during it obviously it's much easier in hindsight to be like
00:17:12
>> In the moment those things didn't seem as dire. They just seemed like Also like
00:17:16
no offense, you run into weird people on cruise ships. >> Of course you do. >> You cuz you run into weird people in
00:17:21
life. >> Anywhere that a bunch of people are gathered, you're going to get a whole [ __ ] crop
00:17:27
of strange. >> Yeah, you got a medley of weirdos people. >> that it's like unfortunately just human.
00:17:32
>> I met a woman on an elevator one night in a cruise and she was literally just
00:17:35
staring at my tattoo and then she finally got said, "Who's that?" And I told her she should have said, "It's
00:17:41
you." >> I wish I [laughter] had. >> And then just stared at her the rest of the time until she left.
00:17:45
>> I would Missed opportunity. >> just like, "Uh it's just a leaf." >> It's you.
00:17:49
>> Like what? I don't know. She was like, "Oh, it's not anybody?" I was like, "Just stop talking to me. Just
00:17:54
stop it." >> I feel like I've been waiting to meet you. >> Oh my god, you're so weird.
00:17:58
>> Thank you for coming to me. >> such a weird [laughter] girl. Like I'm pretty weird and like
00:18:04
like obnoxious, I would say, but you're just deep down [laughter] a weird [ __ ]
00:18:10
And I and I love that. >> You are [gasps] correct. >> I love it. >> very correct.
00:18:14
>> [laughter] >> But yeah, you you meet weird people and you see weird things going on so you're
00:18:18
just like, "I don't know. Like I'm going to stick to myself." >> Yeah. >> So the night went on and their parents
00:18:23
relaxed after dinner with some drinks and Amy and Brad changed into more comfortable clothes and then they went
00:18:28
to the casino. They played some slot machines and then they went to the top deck for the Calypso party which
00:18:34
featured the house band Blue Orchid. >> Okay. >> Nancy and Ron finally made their way up
00:18:38
to that deck and they found Amy and Brad in the middle of this big limbo contest
00:18:42
going on. Uh Brad of uh eventually won the contest >> Brad. >> and he gave his crown to Amy. It was
00:18:49
literally like a prom king crown. >> Oh, that's cute. >> were just like really having a nice time
00:18:53
together. >> doing the cruise thing, man. >> Yeah. Now while they were at the party
00:18:57
like on this top deck, the boat was leaving Aruba and heading to Curacao. Uh Curacao, excuse me. So Brad chatted
00:19:03
with some of the other passengers after the limbo competition. They were like, "Hey limbo king."
00:19:07
>> Hey limbo king. >> And Amy struck up a conversation with Blue Orchid's bass player, a man named
00:19:13
Alister Douglas, and his nickname was Yellow. >> Okay. >> So, she danced with him for a while,
00:19:19
they chatted, whatever. Around 1:00 a.m., Ron and Ivor were like, "Hey, we're going to bed for the
00:19:24
night." And a few hours later, Brad headed back to the cabin alone, but he had motioned to Amy that like he was
00:19:29
going to go down. Like she knew that she was by herself. >> Yeah. >> And she was just finishing her drink on
00:19:34
the top deck. So, she got back to the room about half an hour later, and she and Brad decided to have one more drink
00:19:40
together on the balcony before calling it a night. So, they're back at their cabin, but in their on their private
00:19:45
balcony. >> Okay. >> So, they they're drinking, they're looking out at the ocean. They talked
00:19:49
about their plans for the next day, about what they were going to do when they got home. Amy did mention during
00:19:55
this conversation that Alister Douglas from the band had made a pass at her while they were dancing.
00:20:00
>> Oh. >> Which like I think she didn't she wasn't super comfortable with that, but she
00:20:04
wasn't super upset, either. >> just kind of like, "Yeah, I'm not into it, but whatever."
00:20:08
>> What the hell? Kind of just like people on the ship are wild kind of you know?
00:20:13
>> they need to chill the [ __ ] out. >> Now, a short time later, just before 5:00 a.m., Brad finally ran out of
00:20:18
steam, and he was like, "Okay, I'm going inside." >> Damn. >> So, he said good night to his sister. He
00:20:22
said he loved her, and he would see her the next day. And she was like, "Okay, I'm I'm going to be in shortly." But she
00:20:26
wasn't feeling great, so she wanted to just experience some more fresh air >> Yeah.
00:20:30
>> before she went into bed. So again, he said, "Love you, see you in the morning." And that was the last time
00:20:36
anybody in their family spoke to Amy. >> What the [ __ ] >> So, the noise of Brad coming back into
00:20:41
the cabin woke Ron up very briefly from his sleep, and without sitting up, he just glanced around the room to kind of
00:20:47
check in on things. And he checked out on the balcony, and he saw Amy's legs and her drink in her hand. So, he knew
00:20:52
she was out there. >> Just sitting there. >> Yep. He was very comforted by the fact
00:20:56
that both of his children were back at the cabin, so he went back to sleep. And he said later, "It seemed like just
00:21:01
a few minutes, and then something woke me up again close to 6:00 a.m., and I looked out on the balcony, and Amy
00:21:06
wasn't there. >> Okay. >> So, he looked over and he saw Brad sleeping in his bed, but remember this
00:21:12
is a very small room. He's scanning the room and Amy's nowhere to be seen. At first, none of this struck him as
00:21:18
that unusual because he saw that Amy's yellow polo she was wearing the night before was laying on the chair in the
00:21:23
room. He saw that the balcony door was slightly open and her cigarettes weren't out there. So, he was like, "Okay, maybe
00:21:29
she got dressed, went upstairs to grab a coffee or take some pictures as we pulled into port in Curaçao."
00:21:35
>> Yeah. >> So, who knows? So, he got dressed himself and headed out to find Amy. He checked all the
00:21:40
places he might have found her, but he didn't find her in any of them. So, then he started to grow a little more
00:21:45
concerned, and he started to wander the ship's outer decks, the hallways, other open spaces hoping just to bump into
00:21:51
her. But after an hour, he still hadn't found her and his concern was now growing into panic. It was not like Amy
00:21:58
to just wander off without telling anybody where she was going. >> Yeah. >> And Ron was sure that if she was
00:22:02
planning to go somewhere that morning, she would have told him or her mom. >> Hm.
00:22:06
>> So, walking back to the cabin, he actually ended up running into the ship's head of security and explained
00:22:12
that he couldn't find his daughter. The security officer tried to calm him down.
00:22:15
He was like, "This is a big ship. This kind of thing happens, but I will help you look for her. Like, what what does
00:22:20
she look like? Let's check it out." So, they looked around, they didn't find her.
00:22:24
So, Ron went back to the cabin and he woke up Brad and Iva. He didn't want to scare them. He just wanted to let them
00:22:29
know that he needed help trying to find Amy, but he apparently was not very good
00:22:33
at hiding his own concern. >> Which I don't blame him. >> No. Iva said later, too, "I've known him
00:22:37
since I was 13. I've known him 32 years and I've never seen him look like he looked. I didn't have any idea what was
00:22:43
wrong. He just said, 'I can't find Amy.'" >> Cuz the pan- And it's like at first they were chill about it cuz
00:22:50
it's like she's 23 years old. So, it's not like this is like a 7-year-old that is now not in your room. You know what I
00:22:55
mean? So, at first it's like, "Okay, yeah, like they're 23, whatever." >> are gone. Maybe she went to get a
00:23:00
coffee. >> Yeah, but then walking around the ship and still not finding her and having
00:23:04
security help, like I can't imagine that sudden realization of like, "Oh, shit."
00:23:09
>> Well, and then over the course of a couple hours, like that's starting to set in that you're still not finding
00:23:13
her. That must feel like you're trapped in a nightmare. >> Oh, that makes my stomach hurt.
00:23:18
>> So, the family threw on some clothes and they went to speak with one of the senior administrators on the ship to
00:23:22
report what was going on and to ask if somebody else could help them look for Amy.
00:23:27
It was very clear that the family was pretty distraught, but the admin didn't seem super concerned.
00:23:32
They didn't suspect foul play and they were like, "Amy probably just went off to explore the ship, so there's no
00:23:38
reason to be that worried." He explained it was still very early and that the family at this point was like, "Can you
00:23:43
just make an announcement? Like, 'Hey, where Amy? If you're on the ship, come to this area.'"
00:23:48
>> to this part. >> But they didn't want to make any announcements that would unduly alarm
00:23:52
the other passengers and they felt like it was too early to do so. >> Here's the thing, that's stupid as [ __ ]
00:23:59
>> Yeah. >> That's just objectively stupid as [ __ ] >> Yeah. >> Because it's not going to alarm the
00:24:06
other passengers in a way that is detrimental to have them keeping an eye out for someone you can't find.
00:24:12
>> Exactly. >> isn't dangerous. It's not like you're saying like, "Hey, hello passengers, there's a psychotic
00:24:19
serial killer that's running around. Can you keep an eye out for him?" >> Right.
00:24:22
>> No, you're being like, "Hey, there's this girl, her name is Amy. This is what
00:24:26
she looks like. We're just looking for her. >> Yeah. >> Can you keep an eye out? If you see
00:24:30
>> her, >> tell her we're looking. >> Exactly. >> stress me out as a passenger. I'd more
00:24:34
be like, "Oh, I want to keep an eye out for this lady." >> thing, it would it would help people be
00:24:37
vigilant. >> on a cruise, I feel like, they get all like familiar, you know what I mean? Like
00:24:43
they all feel like they're on this like community together. >> It's true, you make friends with people.
00:24:48
>> these people looking for something, >> They're going to find something. >> for her.
00:24:51
>> Yeah, they're going to find something. >> Like I've heard things like this happen
00:24:54
before, like they'll look out. So, it's like I think that's the the part of this
00:24:58
case that drives me the craziest. >> Yeah, there's a there's a lot. >> So, they just refused to do it. They
00:25:04
>> And the thing is, I was just saying >> I was saying to Alena before we started
00:25:08
this, when I watched the documentary, there was a woman in the in it who she lost her daughter on a cruise ship and
00:25:14
she became like an advocate for families that go through things like this and like an advocate for cruise
00:25:21
cruise safety. >> Yeah. >> And she was saying, when you're on a ship like this, there's you're in the
00:25:26
middle of international waters. So, there's no police or anything like that. The best you have is the security on the
00:25:32
ship, but they're hired by the cruise line. So, it's like it's all it's tough. >> Yeah. [snorts]
00:25:38
>> That's tough. >> So, discouraged and frustrated, the Bradleys just went off on their own and
00:25:42
kept looking for Amy. >> Yeah. >> Ron and Iva searched the outer decks and Brad went to the pool to ask the other
00:25:47
passengers around if they had seen Amy. At one point, he was sitting at a table just kind of like thinking over what was
00:25:54
going on and what to do next. And he was approached by Alister Douglas, the bass
00:25:59
player from the night before who had made a pass at Amy and she had mentioned it.
00:26:03
>> Alister came by and told Brad he was sorry to hear about his sister and asked
00:26:07
what happened. And he also said he was feeling guilty. The comment didn't necessarily register
00:26:14
with Brad at the time because he was just so anxious in the moment. >> Yeah. >> But he said later, "I was just kind of
00:26:18
overwhelmed by the thoughts I was having and I was just like, yeah, you know, thanks." But later, after they were off
00:26:24
the ship, he realized the announcement about Amy hadn't gone out over the loudspeaker yet.
00:26:29
>> Yeah. >> So, it seemed weird that Alister already knew Amy was missing. >> Sure is weird.
00:26:33
>> Yeah, he comes up in this a lot. >> Hm. >> Now, when a few hours had passed and they
00:26:38
still hadn't found Amy, they went back to the admin desk and insisted, "You need to make some kind of announcement."
00:26:43
>> Yeah. >> And finally, they did, but kind of begrudgingly. So, they waited at the desk hoping that
00:26:48
Amy would have heard the announcement and would meet them there. And another message came over the loudspeaker that
00:26:53
they were they were about to be docking in Curacao very shortly. So, the message
00:26:58
sent a jolt of panic through Iva, and her mind went to the worst possible scenario.
00:27:03
>> Of course. >> If someone had taken Amy and was like hiding her in their room or something
00:27:08
like that, allowing everybody to disembark the boat would give them the opportunity to get away, and they might
00:27:14
lose their daughter forever. >> Of course. >> But the admin on the boat wouldn't
00:27:18
listen, and they were like, "We have a bunch of other paying customers, and we can't disrupt their vacation, so we're
00:27:23
allowing them off the boat." >> We can't disrupt their vacation for a possible like for a missing person This
00:27:30
is where I'm talking like the lack of humanity that we have as a species is really gross.
00:27:38
>> And it really is like all money cuz it's like, "Well, they paid for this." And
00:27:41
it's like, "Yeah, okay." Personally, >> I don't give a [ __ ] >> if I found out a family is missing their
00:27:46
daughter, I'd be happy to stay I'd be happy to stay on the boat a little longer.
00:27:50
>> I'd be happy to stay on the boat which offers endless entertainment. You can drink, you can go You can go to
00:27:56
the casino, you can go see a show, you can get a spa treatment. Like, there is a myriad of everything at your disposal.
00:28:04
[ __ ] >> That's the thing. It's like it's not like you're dooming these people to a
00:28:08
shitty vacation cuz I have to stay on the the floating city for a couple more hours. Exactly. I just think it's like
00:28:16
the way this was handled was so callous to the idea that they are literally missing a member of
00:28:22
their family. This would piss me off if I was outside of this family on that ship on that ship
00:28:28
cuz I'd be like, "You were letting me go about my life and like letting me jump off this ship
00:28:33
and then get back on with a potential dangerous person >> Yeah. I'm there. >> Exactly.
00:28:39
>> warn any of us. >> Yeah, I'd be pissed, too. >> pissed. >> You're not worried at all about your
00:28:43
reputation [laughter] here. Like on like the the gnarliest level, you're not worried about your reputation?
00:28:49
>> Right, exactly. >> Now later when they were interviewed by the American authorities, officials from
00:28:54
Royal Caribbean told investigators that they didn't believe any crime had been committed and they were very convinced
00:28:59
that Amy was still on the ship. So they said there was no reason to keep everybody on board.
00:29:04
>> Okay, I mean it's like you don't know that. >> Well, it's [laughter] like like did your gut feeling tell you that?
00:29:12
On what basis did you just didn't believe them? >> That's the thing, like I don't I know
00:29:16
it's like not obvious that a crime has been committed here. Like you don't have >> But it's also not not obvious.
00:29:23
>> physical evidence that says something happened here. Like there's no, you know, signs of foul play. That's the
00:29:29
thing, but then but you do have circumstantial evidence that's saying something happened here.
00:29:36
>> And also it's not like she like this was a concern at 7:00 a.m. and then you found her and you when everybody went on
00:29:42
their merry way. She's been missing since since 6:00 a.m. >> It's now hours later.
00:29:46
>> That's the thing. >> had people help the family search, the family's been searching and she's
00:29:50
nowhere. Like >> Like that should >> I think something happened here. >> That should ring a little bit like,
00:29:55
"Hey, maybe we should start locking stuff down a little bit and figure it out." >> Obviously like there's a lot that goes
00:30:01
into it that we're not even aware of, I'm sure, but it's hard to >> Hindsight makes it like, "Come on."
00:30:07
>> Exactly. So hoping to appease the family while the passengers were off exploring
00:30:11
the island, the captain did agree to gather the security crew and search the ship from top to bottom. And he assured
00:30:17
the family that if Amy was still on board, they would find her. >> Okay. >> Now the thing here is that the family
00:30:21
was basically told to go sit in their room and wait. So they really didn't have any way of knowing if the ship
00:30:27
really was searched top to bottom, which is a little tough. I'm not here to say that they didn't, but I'm I also can't
00:30:33
promise that they did. >> And you can understand that the family would be a little like uh
00:30:37
>> Yeah, I would want to be >> following along. >> Yeah, and I I'm sure they did.
00:30:41
>> So they waited anxiously hoping that the ship staff would find Amy, but several
00:30:45
hours later after they said they searched every inch of the ship, the captain returned to the family and said
00:30:50
they didn't find Amy anywhere. Now, they couldn't keep the ship docked any longer
00:30:55
than planned because remember the ship is going to other islands. >> Yeah. >> So, the captain gave the Bradley's two
00:30:59
options. They could get back on the ship and leave with the boat or they could stay in Curacao to look for Amy there.
00:31:06
>> Oh. >> Not really knowing what to do or even where to look for Amy at this point,
00:31:10
they chose to stay on the island. >> Okay. >> So, Royal Caribbean did pay for their
00:31:14
hotel and Ron's friend and co-worker Mike and his wife also stayed behind on the island to just try to help.
00:31:21
>> Yeah. >> Now, now completely alone on the island other than their their family and their
00:31:26
friend here, Ron, Iva, and Brad did not know at all where to begin. >> Yeah. >> So, Ron later said, "When they put us
00:31:33
off on the island, we didn't have any instructions. It was just you're off the ship, so you kind of have to fend for
00:31:38
yourself." So, they checked into the Otrobanda, which is a casino hotel on the island,
00:31:44
and then they went straight to the American Embassy to explain what happened, which is a really smart first
00:31:48
step. >> It was the first time that somebody took their concerns seriously that day, but
00:31:54
they were very disheartened by the response. It is incredibly rare, but passengers do go missing from cruise
00:31:59
ships, usually by jumping or by falling overboard, and that's what the staff at the Embassy believed happened to Amy.
00:32:05
They said either she jumped or she fell most likely. >> Which obviously you can understand why
00:32:09
that would be a first thought. >> Well, it's the >> From people who don't know her.
00:32:13
>> Unfortunately, like exactly from people who don't know her, it is the most logical thought.
00:32:18
>> Of course, cuz what else are you thinking? >> Yeah, like there's there's very little
00:32:23
other options here. >> Right. >> So, at 6:00 a.m. the following morning, Embassy security coordinated with local
00:32:28
officials and started developing a grid using the ship's coordinates between the
00:32:32
last time that Amy was seen and when she was discovered missing. So, this was really interesting.
00:32:37
>> They used three helicopters, a British warship, several low-flying planes, several small boats. Like, the Navy was
00:32:44
involved here. It was intense. Yeah. So, they searched that whole area where the
00:32:49
boat had been, like that whole grid area. But, by the end of the afternoon, there was still no sign of Amy Lynn
00:32:55
Wetsel. >> And the thing is, in that area, the current is really strong. So, had she jumped off the boat or
00:33:03
been pushed off the boat, >> It was >> it was likely that she would wash up at some point because of how strong the
00:33:09
current is, especially like where it would have happened. >> Okay. >> So, the fact that she never has is very
00:33:15
interesting. Now, having little success with the local authorities and virtually none
00:33:19
with the ship's captain, the next morning, Ron called his brother in the US and had his brother get in touch with
00:33:24
the FBI to report Amy's disappearance. >> Good. >> And that's when the investigation truly
00:33:29
got moving. But, at that point, it's 2 days later. We've all seen the first 48. >> So, a liaison from the FBI got in touch
00:33:37
with the captain of the ship and several agents, along with the Bradleys, ended up flying to St. Martin to reboard the
00:33:44
ship. >> Oh, wow. >> So, the involvement of the FBI made the ship's captain and Royal Caribbean much
00:33:49
more cooperative. But, because they were docked in foreign territory, the FBI didn't have jurisdiction.
00:33:55
>> Oh, Jesus. >> And they weren't able to make all the demands that they might have been able
00:33:58
to make if they were on our soil. >> Yeah. >> But, still, the captain agreed to let
00:34:02
two agents board the ship to conduct interviews as long as they were inconspicuous and dressed in regular
00:34:08
clothing. >> We're so worried about freaking everyone out here. >> They they really were.
00:34:13
>> Which I I'm not a cruiser, so I don't know the ins and outs of this, but >> I mean, obviously, it's going to create
00:34:19
some kind of spectacle, but at the same time, like you said earlier, if I find out the situation, I would be happy that
00:34:25
the FBI was involved. >> be like, I want to look for this girl. >> But, on the other hand, I obviously can
00:34:29
see how it might lead to like ma- pandemonium of people wanting to get the [ __ ] off that ship.
00:34:34
>> sword for sure. >> can see that side. >> Because you don't want the mass chaos,
00:34:37
but you also want people being informed and being able cuz also is some is a dangerous person on the
00:34:43
ship? >> Well, I think that's the biggest thing, exactly. >> Yeah, more alert here.
00:34:48
>> It's It's messy. >> It is. >> So FBI agents immediately searched the Bradley family room and they started
00:34:53
interviewing the staff and the passengers on the ship, speaking to as many as the almost or maybe over 3,000
00:34:59
people on board as they could. >> Wow. >> One major issue that they ran into immediately was that the cabin the
00:35:04
family was staying in had already been cleaned. >> Oh. >> Yeah. So any hope of finding any
00:35:10
evidence was gone. It was unlikely, obviously, because the entire family was in the cabin at the time that Amy
00:35:16
probably disappeared, but still you might be able to find something on the on the balcony even.
00:35:21
>> Yeah, I mean anytime you're missing a piece of the puzzle now, it makes it a hundred thousand times harder.
00:35:26
>> It does, exactly. One thing was that Amy's shoes, her Birkenstock sandals or Birkenstock style, were still out on the
00:35:34
dock. >> Mhm. Or out on the uh the balcony. >> thank you. Now, in interviewing a group that size, they
00:35:40
actually were surprised that several people remembered seeing Amy the night that she went missing.
00:35:45
>> Oh. >> Uh most of the passengers in the dance club that night remembered seeing her
00:35:49
with Alister Douglas, the bass player. >> Including two young women who remembered
00:35:53
seeing the two of them together in the elevator. And they weren't completely sure about the time, but they were
00:35:58
fairly confident that it was after 4:00 a.m. and before sunrise. >> Okay. >> Now, that was significant because the
00:36:04
last time that Amy used her key card to get into the family cabin was 3:40 a.m. and her father had last seen her out on
00:36:11
the balcony sometime around 5:00 a.m. >> Okay. >> So the fact that these two girls think
00:36:18
they saw her between 4:00 and sunrise >> Yeah. >> means she could have left the room
00:36:23
>> Yeah. >> and been seen with Alister. popping >> Right. So after conducting countless
00:36:28
interviews, the one solid lead that agents had was that Amy had been spotted with Alister. So, they brought him up to
00:36:34
the captain's office for an interview. This is where it gets a little weird. >> Okay.
00:36:39
>> He acknowledged that he spoke to Amy on the night of the party, but he denied
00:36:42
having been with her in the early morning hours, and he said he knew nothing about her disappearance.
00:36:47
Which is weird, because if you remember, he approached her brother and said he was sorry to hear about it, and he was
00:36:53
feeling kind of guilty. >> Huh. [snorts] Yeah. >> According to Douglas though, he said
00:36:57
they danced, they talked for a while that evening, but that was that. And he agreed and ultimately passed a polygraph
00:37:04
examination, which like you know how we feel about that. >> Hot dog in a trench coat.
00:37:07
>> But because of that, he was ruled out as a suspect. But, when he left the office
00:37:12
after the interview, he was seen smiling and giving thumbs up to his friends and
00:37:16
bandmates. >> Like >> went well. >> Like did it. >> Yeah. Like I mean like did it like
00:37:22
passed it. >> Yeah. Which that's the thing. It could be like whoo, like we're in the
00:37:26
>> I have nothing to do with this and I'm so relieved, or it could be like hey, I
00:37:29
had something to do with this and like hell yeah, I just got out of it. Could be either two of those things.
00:37:33
>> it could be like like looked at as either of those two things. >> Exactly. So, when agents finish up their
00:37:39
investigation on the ship by the next morning, they were not any closer to finding Amy than they had been when they
00:37:45
boarded the previous day. So, with nothing else to do on the ship, the agents and the Bradley family
00:37:49
disembarked the boat for the last time without their daughter. Iva [clears throat] said later, "None of
00:37:54
us wanted to leave. That's one of the single most difficult things. I don't really have words to describe what it
00:37:59
was like to leave as I flew over the island and I didn't have Amy beside me." >> Oh, that's horrific.
00:38:04
>> My whole entire body just got chills. Like you flew there together, and you had all this time together on the
00:38:12
cruise, and then suddenly she's just gone, and you have to go home without her. >> And now you just go home and like live.
00:38:18
>> And you're like is she on an island? Is she like where is she? She could be anywhere.
00:38:22
>> She's in the middle of the ocean? Like what's going on? >> Right. >> So based on what little they learned on
00:38:26
the ship, the agents didn't quite know what to make of the situation. On one hand, they did know, like we've been
00:38:31
saying, that most cruise ship disappearances are the result of accidental death or sometimes suicide.
00:38:37
But on the other hand, the family insisted that Amy's fear of the ocean meant she never would have gone close
00:38:42
enough to the railing to even fall overboard. >> Yeah. >> And on top of that, her psychological
00:38:46
profile was that of somebody future-oriented with healthy supports, a positive outlook on life. She's going home to all
00:38:53
these different opportunities. She didn't necessarily match the profile of somebody who was depressed and
00:38:59
considering ending things. >> Yeah. >> And she was she went into this being concerned about
00:39:05
the ocean and worried. >> That's not someone who who's going to jump into the ocean.
00:39:11
>> Yeah. There was this this I think this is insane, but there was this rumor that
00:39:15
she was telling people at a party while she was on the cruise that she was going to
00:39:21
jump into the water and try to outswim the boat to the dock with like the next dock. Which like But I think that's just
00:39:28
people talking [ __ ] because if you remember, one like you just said she was terrified of the ocean anyways. And two,
00:39:33
at the beach, she was literally clinging to her dad like afraid of the water. I just think that's like
00:39:39
>> Yeah. >> what? >> But that's the thing here is like you interview all these people and you start
00:39:43
hearing all these different things. So it does influence the investigation. >> of telephone.
00:39:47
>> Exactly. Now under the circumstances, agents were inclined though to agree with the Bradley family that Amy had met
00:39:53
with foul play and was likely kidnapped or something similar. >> Mhm. >> But any theory beyond that was just
00:39:59
speculation. The best lead they had, Alister Douglas, had passed a polygraph test and aside from unreliable
00:40:05
eyewitnesses, there wasn't anything exactly tying him to the disappearance. And to make matters worse or more
00:40:12
complicated, there was a significant chunk of time that couldn't be accounted for.
00:40:16
>> Yeah. >> Which sucks. >> Right. Now, Brad had been the last person to see Amy around 4:00 and then
00:40:21
nobody noticed she was missing until like 6:00 7:00 a.m. like around there. And as far as FBI agents were concerned,
00:40:28
anything could have happened in those 3 hours. >> Yeah. >> So, on March 28th, the FBI agents and
00:40:34
the Bradley's returned to Virginia to continue their search from home. Ron and Iva were continued to keep the momentum
00:40:40
going. So, they set up a website to receive tips and they started speaking to anybody in the media who would
00:40:45
listen. Amy's aunt Mary told a reporter on March 28th, "It has to be an abduction because
00:40:51
no other scenario works. And now the real question is, are we going to find her? Are we going to find her alive? Are
00:40:57
we going to find her dead?" >> Ugh. >> Knowing it was going to be the first thought on everybody's mind, she went on
00:41:02
to preemptively cut off any suggestion that Amy had ended her own life. Her aunt said, "She was getting herself all
00:41:07
excited for the glamorous nights that you have. Those aren't the actions of somebody who might consider suicide."
00:41:12
And that's a quote. She also addressed the possibility that it could have been an accidental
00:41:16
drowning, something that the Netherlands Coast Guard had suggested to the Associated Press. Mary said, "There's no
00:41:23
indication she was heavy drinking, either. As far as she was concerned, there were two possibilities. One,
00:41:28
somebody threw her off the ship, or two, somebody has her." Which is horrifying.
00:41:33
>> going to say, which are just the most horrifying possibilities. >> Yeah. And also, just for anybody, I'm
00:41:38
sure people are wondering like aren't there cameras on the ship? There were cameras, but they were really in like
00:41:42
common spaces. They weren't I mean >> like now. >> They're not armed like with every angle.
00:41:47
>> Yeah. >> So, while the family worked tirelessly just to talk to the press and get
00:41:51
everything out there, the FBI started interviewing Amy's friends and her co-workers in an effort to definitively
00:41:57
rule out suicide as a possible explanation. >> Mhm. >> Special Agent Bradley Bryant said, "I
00:42:02
found that Amy was very outgoing, a very friendly person. She had an upbeat personality. Pretty much everyone I
00:42:08
interviewed said she had a lot of friends. She was the kind of person who would strike up a conversation with
00:42:12
anyone and often did. And the same thing was said to them a lot during the investigation that
00:42:18
actually happened on the boat. A lot of people they talked to said that they recognized Amy on the boat, like she was
00:42:24
the life of the party. People loved her. >> So the interviews unfortunately didn't
00:42:28
turn up a lot of useful information like necessarily. >> of hearsay and >> Yeah. But they and they provided even
00:42:34
more evidence to support the belief that she hadn't faked her own death, she hadn't ended her own life, nothing like
00:42:38
that. >> Yeah. >> So that meant she'd fallen overboard or she'd been kidnapped now.
00:42:41
>> Yeah. >> If she fell overboard, it was highly unlikely that investigators were going
00:42:45
to find her remains in the vastness of the ocean, they felt. But there were people in the area that said, like the
00:42:52
people the authorities in that area said, "If there's a body that fell overboard or ended up in the ocean, it
00:42:58
would wash up because of the current." So it's kind of like a back and forth there.
00:43:02
>> But if she'd been kidnapped, enough time had passed by then that she could have
00:43:05
been transported literally anywhere in the world. >> Yeah, which is horrible. >> a nightmare.
00:43:11
>> By the end of the month, the family had announced a reward of $100,000 for Amy's
00:43:15
safe return. And in the weeks that followed, they increased that amount to $250,000.
00:43:21
The reward prompted a seemingly endless stream of tips pouring in from all over North America. But none of those tips
00:43:28
led to any significant discoveries and by the end of the summer, they weren't any closer to finding Amy.
00:43:34
On May 12th, 1998, Ron and Iva held a party to celebrate Amy's 24th birthday. >> Aw.
00:43:40
>> Friends and families brought gifts, they shared stories, just hoping that Amy was
00:43:44
going to walk through that door at any moment. But days later, the gifts were all packed away in what was once Amy's
00:43:50
bedroom and they put the cake in the freezer. >> Aw, that's so sad. >> By that time, the tips and reports of
00:43:55
potential sightings of Amy had considerably slowed, but the FBI agents kept putting in work on the case and
00:44:00
they followed up on every single tip, no matter how trivial or unrealistic it seemed. Agent Jay Perry Smith told
00:44:07
reporters, "The investigation is very thorough and we're not done yet. We have an unexplained disappearance which may
00:44:12
be a crime on the high seas and we will investigate until we're satisfied as to what happened." That was in 1998.
00:44:18
>> It's like, let's go. >> However committed they were to finding the truth though, the fact remained that
00:44:22
investigators had virtually no leads to follow and no evidence that a crime had even been committed. Like obviously it
00:44:29
seems that way and I do believe that a crime was committed, but there's no evidence whatsoever.
00:44:34
>> the thing. >> So eventually they were just hitting dead end after dead end. With the FBI's investigation into Amy's
00:44:40
disappearance in danger of going cold, Amy's family stayed very committed in their pursuit of any evidence or leads
00:44:47
that might help them find her. That summer Ron and Brad actually went back to Curacao to hand out flyers and that
00:44:54
had like all the details about the disappearance and they just tried to talk to anybody they could who might
00:45:00
know something. >> The helplessness that that family must feel is so immense. I can't even
00:45:05
comprehend it. >> You also have to think like they're from West Virginia or from Virginia. They get
00:45:11
this opportunity to take this really awesome vacation. >> happens. >> They all fly out together and it's this
00:45:16
super fun thing and then the next time you're flying out to that area is to follow up on leads about your missing
00:45:22
daughter and sister. >> And he like the the family like the father worked really hard for this and
00:45:28
this was like he >> It was supposed to be like a prize. >> for working his ass off and being good
00:45:33
at what he did. >> Mhm. >> That sucks. >> It does. >> Like in so many different ways.
00:45:39
>> Exactly. So they're in Curacao now and it was while they were handing out flyers one
00:45:44
afternoon that Ron got approached by a local taxi driver. This is when the story takes a wild turn. This taxi
00:45:49
driver came over and told him, "I want you to know your daughter did not fall from that ship. She's here on this
00:45:55
island and I hope you can find her." >> What? >> Yeah. >> Why would you say that, sir? And Unless
00:46:05
you know. >> He claimed that one night a few days after the cruise ship left Curacao, a
00:46:11
woman who matched Amy's exact description came up to his cab and seemed to be in distress. She said she
00:46:16
was in trouble and asked where she could find a payphone. So he pointed her in the direction of a payphone and he never
00:46:22
saw her again. >> Oh. >> He claimed if Amy had been kidnapped and was still on the island, she would
00:46:27
likely be in one of three places and he gave them directions to all three of those places.
00:46:32
They ended up reaching out to a an officer named John Mentar who worked with the harbor police and something
00:46:38
about the tip compelled him. So he offered to help them get around to these three different locations, this officer.
00:46:45
So that he literally said he was like if they weren't with an officer, it would have been real bad for them because the
00:46:50
areas areas that this man said she may have been in were super dicey. Yeah. So the first location was a large old
00:46:57
resort on the outskirts of town just at the edge of the island. But when Ron and
00:47:01
Brad arrived, there was almost no one there to speak of aside from a handful of employees and nothing came of it.
00:47:08
They checked the other two locations the cab driver mentioned, but they also proved to be dead ends.
00:47:14
Now this particular trip to the island would set a seriously heartbreaking pattern where the Bradleys would get
00:47:19
their hopes up only to have them dashed a few days later when the latest and most exciting lead would just fall
00:47:25
apart. >> That makes me so sad for them. >> This is so chilling, this next part. So
00:47:30
John Mentar drove them around the entire island one night following up on another
00:47:34
lead. And as they were driving in the car just like in the these dicey areas looking around for Amy or any sign of
00:47:41
her, Brad swore that in the night as a car passed them, he heard Amy call out to
00:47:48
him. >> [gasps] >> He swore. >> My whole body just [ __ ] went crazy. >> He said, "I heard Amy call my name
00:47:56
pretty distinctive all my life, the way she would say my name and call me. And like to this day, it seemed when I
00:48:03
watched this part of the documentary, he's still convinced that he heard that. >> I believe him.
00:48:08
>> I believe him, too. And so did >> You know. >> You did Well, that he said, he's like,
00:48:12
"I've heard her call my name my whole life." >> very close. It's like, I believe him.
00:48:18
>> So, they believed him, too. John Menter did and his father. So, they chased down
00:48:22
the vehicle that Brad thought the call had come from. And they finally caught up with them at
00:48:27
a light, but when they reached the driver's side window, the driver was alone and nobody had yelled out the
00:48:32
window. >> But maybe it was the wrong car. >> It could have been the wrong car, yeah.
00:48:36
Or maybe she was in the brush somewhere. Like, I don't know. >> Yeah, you don't know.
00:48:40
>> So, 2 days later, Ron and Brad had to board a plane and return home to Richmond again without Amy.
00:48:46
While they were at the Miami Airport waiting for a connecting flight, Iva called Ron and said she'd got a call
00:48:51
from one of the FBI agents. They had found a body on a beach in Curaçao and it matched Amy's description. She said,
00:48:59
"I can remember immediately starting to vomit." >> Yeah, I don't blame you. >> Once again, it seemed like the case was
00:49:04
about to break wide open, but when the medical examiner finally conducted the autopsy, the body was not Amy Bradley.
00:49:11
>> Which is obviously the outcome you want. >> Of course. But for a brief moment, at
00:49:19
least the unknown was taken away. >> Yeah. But replaced with something catastrophically
00:49:26
>> tragic that you would never recover from. >> Exactly. >> like, what a what a horrifying,
00:49:31
harrowing situation all the way around for her family. >> conundrum of grief. >> good outcome there. I mean, this is a
00:49:37
good outcome, but then it keeps opening up the outcome of >> Well, okay, if that's not
00:49:42
still don't know what happened. >> Exactly. >> Ugh. >> So, almost a year went by with no new
00:49:47
information. Then, after the story appeared in a segment on America's Most Wanted, investigators got a call from a
00:49:54
man in Canada with a pretty compelling tip. A man named David Carmichael had been
00:49:59
vacationing in Curacao in August of 1998 when he saw a woman who he firmly believes was Amy Bradley on the beach.
00:50:08
According to him, the woman was walking on the beach flanked by two men he described as aggressive.
00:50:13
They seemed to be manhandling her and almost pulling her along. And he said the moment she heard I spoke English,
00:50:20
she picked up her pace and was putting distance between her and the two people flanking her.
00:50:24
>> Oh. >> He followed them for a while hoping to get a chance to check on the young
00:50:28
woman, but eventually they entered a restaurant and he lost sight of him. What made this tip different from the
00:50:33
others was that David Carmichael described tattoos on the woman's back including a Tasmanian devil on her left
00:50:40
back shoulder. >> It's so 90s. >> It's so 90s and it's pretty >> distinct >> distinct, exactly. It matched Amy's
00:50:46
tattoos. So either he had seen a woman with tattoos remarkably similar to Amy's who was in trouble who was in trouble or
00:50:54
Amy had been on the island several months after she disappeared from that same island. But here's the thing, if
00:51:00
she had been there the previous summer when David Carmichael saw her, she may have still been there now.
00:51:05
>> Yeah. >> Absolutely. >> Not like [clears throat] like now >> When when they were there.
00:51:09
>> So because Curacao is a Dutch territory, I think I mentioned earlier, the FBI
00:51:13
does not have jurisdiction there. So they had to work with the assistance of a governmental attache to continue their
00:51:19
investigation. >> doesn't that sound so fancy? >> Even with their assistance though, the
00:51:24
FBI agents still clashed with local authorities because people going to people. >> Always.
00:51:29
>> are going to agency. And after a few weeks of investigation, there was nothing to show for their efforts and
00:51:35
they left the island. So by summer of 1999, the search for Amy had basically stalled out. With no new
00:51:42
leads, the FBI couldn't do much and while the case was still technically open, the agents assigned to Amy's case,
00:51:49
they just had to turn their attention to more current cases, unfortunately. >> more leads for.
00:51:54
>> Right. The family, though, had no intention of giving up their search, obviously. And
00:51:59
in August, they found themselves turning to an unusual source for help. One afternoon, that summer, Iva got a
00:52:06
call from a friend who heard about a local man named Frank Jones, who ran a kind of private detective agency that
00:52:12
dealt with cases like Amy's, where the kidnapped individual might have been trafficked. Desperate, Ron and Iva
00:52:18
contacted him and set up an initial meeting. After that meeting, things started to
00:52:22
move very quickly. He told the Bradleys he had a team of men who were very skilled at finding and returning people
00:52:28
who had who were trafficked. >> That kind of sounds like Taken. >> It does. I have a particular set of
00:52:32
skills. >> Exactly. That's immediately what I thought of. >> Exactly. So, the Bradleys were
00:52:37
convinced, and they cut him a check, and he and his team traveled to Curaçao. Now, within days, Jones contacted Ron
00:52:44
and Iva to he did believe that Amy was still alive and being held against her will on the island.
00:52:49
>> Oh, I hate it. >> He said he received several reports of a woman matching her photo that had been
00:52:54
spotted on a local beach in the company of various men. >> Oh. >> He felt very confident that he could get
00:52:59
Amy off the island, but in order for the operation to continue, he would need more money, several thousand more
00:53:05
dollars. >> how this pans out right now. And in my brain, I'm screaming. >> I know.
00:53:12
>> I don't want people to people here. >> I know. So, he needed several more thousand dollars if he was going to to
00:53:18
get this done. So, Tim Buckholds, a member of his team, later said, "What we had was a list of
00:53:23
hunches and clues that and past history on the island, supposedly, and we checked out all the
00:53:29
locations that were on those." A few days later, Jones called Ron and Iva again and said the team had learned
00:53:35
that Amy was being held on the island in a house occupied by known drug dealers in the area.
00:53:40
>> Okay. >> They found the location of the house. They identified some of these men, some
00:53:44
of these dealers, and Jones believed that the men were holding Amy for ransom, and he was about ready to start
00:53:50
the rescue operation, but he needed more money to pay his crew. Ron, Iva, and Brad had been disappointed
00:53:58
several times by then, and they were starting to feel like he was leading them down another dead end. Yeah.
00:54:03
>> Yeah. >> So, before they were willing to pay him any more money, they insisted on seeing
00:54:08
proof that Amy was still on that island, and >> Mhm. >> a legit hunch. A short time later, he
00:54:12
sent them a photograph showing a young woman on the beach with unidentified men. The photo was kind of blurry, and
00:54:18
it was shot from far away, but that was also to be expected because he can't get
00:54:23
like right up and be like taking pictures. In the photo, the young woman Jones claimed was Amy can only be seen from
00:54:30
the back. >> Oh. >> It wasn't super compelling evidence that their daughter was still alive, but in
00:54:35
the photo, the woman did seem to have tattoos on her back in the same spots that Amy did.
00:54:40
>> Okay. >> So, who knows? So, Ron, they they felt compelled, and Ron wired Jones an
00:54:47
additional $100,000 to finish the job and get his daughter back. >> I feel this is not They should not be
00:54:55
having to pay this much to do this. Like, I feel really bad for this family. >> So, weeks passed with no word from
00:55:01
Jones, and then finally, in October 2000, a few weeks later, he contacted Ron and Iva to say that they were ready
00:55:08
to move on the house where Amy was being held, and he told them to fly down to Miami to Miami, excuse me, and be ready
00:55:15
to fly to Curacao to pick Amy up when he gave the word. They booked the flight. They waited to hear anything. Iva said
00:55:21
it was a sleepless, exciting, but terrifying nightmare that any minute we were going to have Amy.
00:55:26
>> is literally destroying my heart. >> Ron and Iva spent the following week in a Miami hotel room just anxiously
00:55:32
awaiting any word from Frank. When finally, he called with some distressing news.
00:55:37
They had started the rescue operation, he said, just as he'd planned, but they had to abort the mission when some of
00:55:43
his men were, quote, injured in a gunfight with Amy's captors. He insisted that they would try again,
00:55:49
but now they needed to regroup and let some time pass because the kidnappers were alerted now.
00:55:55
Disappointed, they started packing up and were just going to return back to Richmond, and that's when the hotel
00:56:01
phone rang a second time. This time it was Tim Buckholt, who I mentioned before, a member of Frank's agency.
00:56:07
With very surprising and very devastating news. >> Oh, no. >> He had been working with Frank on what
00:56:13
he believed to be a genuine human trafficking case, but in recent days he discovered that Jones was nothing more
00:56:20
than a con artist who was using the Bradley family's money to fund a lavish vacation in Curacao.
00:56:27
>> If that is true, >> It is. >> He is the epitome That is so evil. >> Yeah. >> I can't even
00:56:36
I can't even. >> It gets so much worse. >> These grieving parents >> You have them fly to Miami.
00:56:42
>> You make them and give you hundreds of thousands of dollars claiming that you
00:56:47
are res- you know their daughter is alive. >> Mhm. >> You know she's being held in this
00:56:53
horrific situation, so putting that in their heads that every night they're going to sleep being like she's there
00:56:58
being God knows what's happening to her. >> Yep. >> And then telling them I'm going to get
00:57:02
her out. >> You just have to pay me more money. >> I'm so close. Book a trip to Florida and
00:57:08
just wait for my word that that's how close I am. >> fact that that family, like, the
00:57:12
hundreds of thousands of dollars is one thing in and of itself, but for some reason, for me, it's the fact that he
00:57:18
had them fly out and sit in a hotel room and wait for his word. >> Oh, yeah. >> And it was all a lie.
00:57:24
>> And just excited to see their daughter. Like, I can't my I don't know how you have that in you.
00:57:32
Like, I don't know how It makes me so sad that the human species has the capacity for
00:57:40
this kind of [ __ ] Like >> to just be like on an island living it up on money that a family spent trying
00:57:47
to get their daughter found. >> And you're out there getting their daughter back.
00:57:51
>> And you're just like tossing back my ties? Are you [ __ ] kidding me? You got to be devoid of anything.
00:57:58
>> There's so many things that I hope happen to that man that I could never say out loud on this show.
00:58:02
>> The dead [ __ ] that is inside where your heart should be is should be studied.
00:58:06
>> Yeah. So they were obviously devastated to learn that they had been completely
00:58:10
taken advantage of. >> I'm so [ __ ] angry for them. Like I have such a rage for this fam Like I
00:58:15
want to [ __ ] throw hands right now. >> Me, too. >> Like [laughter] I'm so mad for them.
00:58:20
>> Yeah, I can't imagine what this must have felt like. Iva said he had taken time away from us being able to search
00:58:25
for Amy because we put all of our eggs in that basket. >> wasted time. >> That's the thing. And for her to say
00:58:30
that it's it wasn't about the money. It wasn't about the fact that they flew somewhere. It was just about the fact
00:58:34
that it was a waste of [ __ ] time. >> They contacted the FBI immediately to tell them what had happened and they
00:58:41
immediately began investigating Frank Jones. When he got word that he was under investigation, he fled Curacao and
00:58:48
went back to Virginia. By the way, he's from the same place as them. >> What a >> Like you're supposed to be
00:58:54
You're supposed to be a homie if you're from the same place as me. That That leads to trust.
00:58:58
>> Yeah. >> But agents arrested him on the tarmac at the airport >> Good. >> when he was trying to get back to
00:59:03
Virginia. >> Good. [ __ ] >> Days later, he was indicted on charges of mail fraud and wire fraud. In their
00:59:09
interview with him, he learned they learned that he had convinced a female friend to pose for the pictures that
00:59:15
were supposedly Amy. They had been taken in Florida. Not They weren't even in Curacao.
00:59:22
>> And And also who's the girl that agreed to do that? >> Yeah. >> Cuz also scoop that [ __ ] up. Scoop her.
00:59:29
And the photos were taken, quote, while a male acquaintance stood nearby wearing
00:59:34
a blonde wig. >> Yep, get that guy, too. >> too. Find them all. Scoop him up and
00:59:38
toss them in jail and throw away the [ __ ] key. >> That when we've said this before,
00:59:47
I don't know how these people find each other. I don't I have no idea. >> know how these kind of rotten ass people
00:59:52
find each other. >> But they do. But you know what? I say that but lately, with the way everything
00:59:57
is, I can see it now, how they find each other because there's a lot of them floating out there.
01:00:03
>> Unfortunately, there >> really sad. There's really just exceptions to the to the rule.
01:00:09
>> Yeah. >> a lot of these people are just pigs that exist. >> very upsetting. >> In a statement to the press, US Attorney
01:00:15
Greg Navales said, "Mr. Jones has been clearly been living in something like a fantasy world, and he concocted an
01:00:20
elaborate lie to steal nearly $200,000 from the Bradley family and the nation's missing children organization in
01:00:28
Phoenix." >> Oh. >> Yeah. >> See you later, goodbye. >> Yeah. >> Like that is What the [ __ ]
01:00:35
>> Like what the [ __ ] >> piece of dog [ __ ] >> Ew. >> You're a piece of dog [ __ ]
01:00:40
>> I hate this. >> In April 2002, Frank Jones pleaded guilty to mail fraud and was sentenced
01:00:45
to 5 years in prison for what he did. >> on, guys. >> 5 years is not enough. He was also
01:00:51
ordered >> Everything is so broken. >> It is. It really [ __ ] is. He was ordered to pay back those he defrauded,
01:00:57
as well. >> Well, good. Did he though? >> [laughter] >> Like let's be real. >> Couldn't couldn't be sure. After his
01:01:04
sentencing, Iva told a reporter, "What he's done to our family is horrible and has caused a lot of misery."
01:01:09
Of course. >> I really hope he has the life he deserves. >> Same. >> Not long after he was sentenced in the
01:01:16
fraud case, a naval officer contacted the Richmond FBI to to that 4 years earlier, not long after Amy went
01:01:23
missing, he encountered a woman in a Curacao brothel who he believed was was Amy.
01:01:28
According to the officer, he had gone to the brothel with several other sailors,
01:01:32
and while there, a young woman approached him and said, "My name is Amy Bradley, and I need your help."
01:01:38
>> Oh, so that's why he thought she was Amy Bradley. >> Yes. >> That makes sense.
01:01:41
>> He said he didn't report the interaction at the time because he was afraid he'd
01:01:45
be punished by his superior officers because they were not obviously supposed to be in a brothel.
01:01:49
>> Yeah, but she's a missing woman. Man, [ __ ] that. >> I know I know [laughter] you're not. I'm
01:01:55
saying [ __ ] everyone. >> Yeah, like come on. >> Get it together. >> But, he was reminded of the incident
01:02:01
when he saw a story about Amy on the news, and he said he finally wanted to do the right thing.
01:02:05
>> Thanks. >> Agents interviewed him and got as much detail about the interaction as they
01:02:09
could, but by the time they arrived in Curacao to investigate the brothel, it had burned down, and the women who had
01:02:15
worked there were just dispersed around the island. >> Oh, lord. >> They tried to get more information about
01:02:19
the brothel, but if there was any more to get, the authorities in Curacao were not
01:02:24
interested in cooperating. >> I was going to say, I'm sure it's a little difficult to get the the reports
01:02:28
from those kind of places. >> Not sure if you know, but brothels are usually kind of underground.
01:02:32
>> Kind of secretive. >> So, throughout the next few years, other leads came in that unfortunately did not
01:02:36
lead to much. But then, in 2005, this is the part of the case that chills me to my [ __ ]
01:02:43
core. The family received a series of photos of a woman posing for a sex work site in
01:02:48
the Caribbean area. The woman bore a striking resemblance to Amy, which is why they were sent to the
01:02:54
family in the first place. >> pictures are >> The pictures are You got to Google them
01:02:59
if you're listening and it's safe to Google right now. It's insane. >> Yeah. >> As soon as Iva saw those photos, her
01:03:05
first thought was that could be Amy. >> Oh. >> It's It actually like I've been having
01:03:09
nightmares lately about the pictures just because of it's just so chilling. >> Yeah.
01:03:14
>> That that's possibly what could have happened. >> she was on a ship with her family and
01:03:18
now that's what happened. >> I can't stop thinking about this case. I can't I'm ever since I watched the
01:03:24
documentary it's been haunting me. I want this case to be solved so badly and I so badly want her to be reunited with
01:03:30
her family because I firmly believe she's alive. Yeah. So the family reached out to their
01:03:36
contact at the FBI and a forensic analysis was done on all of the photos. Obviously the Bradley's had tons of
01:03:42
pictures of Amy throughout the years all at different angles for comparison. So the analyst spent time with those photos
01:03:48
measuring features like Amy's ears, her chin, the length of her arms, etc. All things like that. And then he did the
01:03:55
same thing with the new photos that had been sent. When the analysis was complete the analyst believed that based
01:04:01
off of all of the measurements the woman in the photos from the sex work site was
01:04:06
Amy Bradley. >> Holy [ __ ] And that's the FBI analyst, right? >> firmly believed that, yes.
01:04:13
>> Okay. >> So that confirmed the theory that had been floating around for years that Amy
01:04:17
possibly could have been sold into sex trafficking against her will. >> Horrifying.
01:04:21
>> So that gave the family hope that she was still alive. So to spark more interest and get their story out there
01:04:27
again they made an appearance on the Dr. Phil show and the photos were shown. A woman watching the show immediately
01:04:33
recognized the woman in the photos as a woman who she had had a strange and very
01:04:38
unsettling experience with in a bathroom in Bridgeport, Barbados. >> Oh. >> Now Judy Maurer was on a cruise with her
01:04:45
husband when the ship stopped in Barbados and they decided to do a little shopping on the island.
01:04:50
While shopping Judy went to use one of the restrooms in the little stores and while she was in the stall she suddenly
01:04:56
heard men in the bathroom at the door. >> Oh. >> So obviously that got her attention. She
01:05:00
said they were speaking to a woman about some kind of deal that she needed to be
01:05:04
ready for and they were upset with her. They were like, you better be ready. We don't want to hear it. You better not
01:05:09
try anything. La la la. So when the men left the bathroom, Judy exited the stall and she saw a woman
01:05:15
standing at the sink. And she said this woman looked very upset, like she'd been
01:05:18
crying. She was dressed in a short skirt and a tube top, and she said her hair was wild, which if you look at the
01:05:24
pictures >> Mhm. >> the woman's hair is just like everywhere. >> Yeah. >> So she just started talking to her and she
01:05:31
asked her name, and the woman said her name was Amy. She kept talking to her, Judy did,
01:05:37
thinking that she was cheering her up maybe. And she realized, Judy did, that the
01:05:41
woman had a Southern American accent, she said. So she asked where she was from, and she answered so low that Judy
01:05:47
thought she said West Virginia. Amy's from Virginia. >> Holy [ __ ] >> So she may have just said Virginia, but
01:05:52
it was low, so she couldn't tell. The interaction got really strange when the woman kind of started getting in
01:05:58
Judy's face, not really saying anything, but just like staring at her. Judy wanted to get the hell out of there
01:06:03
cuz this all felt weird. >> So she opened the bathroom door to leave and was suddenly face-to-face with two
01:06:09
men who just wouldn't move out of her way. So she kind of inched around them. She
01:06:13
said she played dumb to her. She was like, "Oh no, excuse me." >> like I got to go.
01:06:18
>> So she got out of there. And she find she found her husband in the store and she told him how strange
01:06:23
all of this had just been. And as she was telling him, she saw the two men leading the woman out of the store with
01:06:29
their arms looped through hers, so she couldn't >> Oh [ __ ] >> really like make a break for it.
01:06:34
So she was like, I we have to help that girl, like something's up here. But her husband said there wasn't anything they
01:06:39
could do. >> They needed to get back to the ship. But Judy couldn't stop thinking about
01:06:44
it. Like she went back to the ship and she said she looked out at the island and it's all she could think of. Like
01:06:48
she wanted to do something to help. So, you know, the thought kind of left her mind a little bit, but it was always
01:06:54
with her. And then she's sitting watching the Dr. Phil show that day, and the pictures come up, and she says, "Oh
01:07:01
my god, that's the woman." >> Holy [ __ ] >> Amy Bradley, or it's at least a woman
01:07:05
named Amy. >> Yeah. So she called the FBI to report everything. But unfortunately, there was nothing
01:07:12
that they could use in the pictures to track down the location of that woman or even confirm if it was 100% Amy Bradley.
01:07:20
Everything in the photos was very generic like the bed frame. Woman is posed in a way that all of
01:07:25
Amy's tattoos would be hidden. But that was not the last time that Bridgetown, Barbados would come up in
01:07:32
the investigation, which is interesting. At some point an online investigator named Anthony Willis became really
01:07:38
interested in this case and he started a website where he compiled every photo, every sighting, theory, tip, anything
01:07:45
that had been recorded throughout the years since Amy's gone missing. And it's Amy Bradley is missing.com.
01:07:51
>> Which is good to have like one single place for all that stuff, you know. >> That's the thing, he couldn't believe
01:07:55
that there wasn't. There was just like everything kind of floating everywhere. So he gathered up everything.
01:07:59
>> Damn, that's bad ass. >> Now he ended up connecting with David Carmichael, the man I mentioned earlier
01:08:04
who believed that he had seen Amy on the beach in Curaçao right after she went missing in '98.
01:08:10
>> Mhm. >> David is a telecommunications networking specialist. So they kind of started
01:08:15
working on the website together. And that's when they realized that they could use string data and IP tracking
01:08:21
from the website to kind of work on the case and get some more leads. Actually pretty genius.
01:08:25
>> That is actually very smart. >> So they started looking for patterns and they realized that there was a lot of IP
01:08:31
activity coming from Bridgetown, Barbados, the last known sighting of Amy. >> Huh.
01:08:37
>> Now specifically a lot of these a lot of the activity from the IP specifically
01:08:42
coming from Bridgetown is on family birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, and Thanksgiving.
01:08:50
>> Huh. >> These IPs in Bridgetown will spend 45 minutes or so on these pages. >> Really?
01:08:55
>> Now they specifically linger on the pages two of the site that feature updated family photos,
01:09:00
>> [gasps] >> pictures of Amy's car. She had got like this brand new red car before like right
01:09:06
around the time that she left, and pictures of her dog that have been put on the site.
01:09:10
>> Really? >> Yeah. >> That's interesting. >> It is. David Carmichael says his theory
01:09:16
is that it's either the people that are involved in this are curious and they want to know how close they are to being
01:09:20
caught. The second thing is it's Amy. >> Yeah. >> Like wanting to see how her parents are
01:09:26
aging and what her family is doing on these days. >> That's honestly soul-crushing.
01:09:32
>> It is. >> To think of. >> Now with the last sighting in Barbados, that's where the public credible leads
01:09:37
kind of end. The FBI does report that Amy's case is still very active and it's a very it's very much in a open
01:09:44
investigation. They follow up on every lead and the Bradley family does continue to hold out hope that they'll
01:09:49
find Amy alive despite nearly 30 almost 30 years having been passed. >> They promote the case whenever they have
01:09:55
the opportunity. Iver recently said in the documentary that I've mentioned, "Something happened to Amy. We don't
01:10:01
know what that is, but we've got to have answers. If you know something, please give us that one thing that we need.
01:10:07
Please do that for us and do that for Amy." >> Ugh. >> And Brad echoes the same sentiment. In a
01:10:14
video released by the FBI, he said, "Myself and my parents have had to endure a lot of sadness, but the last
01:10:19
thing I ever said to Amy was I love you before I went to sleep that night. Knowing that's the last thing I said to
01:10:24
her has always been very comforting to me." >> That just destroys me. >> Yeah. So, if any we always say at the end of
01:10:33
these cases a cold case is never cold whatsoever. >> So, if anybody has any information about
01:10:40
the whereabouts of Amy Bradley, they are encouraged to contact the family through
01:10:44
the website amybradleyismissing.com or to contact the FBI at tips.fbi.gov. >> Anything.
01:10:53
Cuz there's stuff. There's pieces. >> There's a lot here. >> There's strings, there's pieces, there's
01:10:59
leaves, it's just needs a couple more little things. >> I've never heard a missing person's case
01:11:04
quite like this. >> No. >> Where there's many sightings. >> Yeah. >> And like somewhat credible.
01:11:11
>> That's the thing. >> You know what I'm saying? Like I'm not saying somewhat to be an [ __ ] I'm
01:11:14
just saying like obviously you have to take sightings with a grain of salt, but like
01:11:18
a lot of these do feel credible. >> And the pictures are and for the FBI analyst to say we analyzed these and
01:11:26
that this seems to be Amy. >> If you look >> You guys should really watch the documentary. I I definitely recommend
01:11:32
it. It's three different parts and I think the third part is when they go over the pictures. They literally morph
01:11:39
a photo of Amy into that new photo. Like they kind of like progress it. It looks so much like her.
01:11:47
>> Oh yeah, when you look at it, it's shocking. And I'm not saying that people can't look like other people obviously.
01:11:52
Like that's >> No, but these measurements >> But the measurements and then the place
01:11:58
that these are taken and how that is also being connected to certain things and now the website hits are coming from
01:12:04
like >> Exactly. >> That's something. >> And one thing they do say in the documentary is like cuz I know obviously
01:12:10
people are like why would that be her if she has access to the internet? That's not that likely. One, yeah it is.
01:12:17
And two, she might have children now that she's unfortunately, you know, been in a position to maybe have had.
01:12:25
>> Wow. >> So or she might be like that that might be what's tying her to the island and
01:12:29
like why she's not reaching back out. Or she might be being told we'll kill your
01:12:33
whole family if you try to reach out. Like she's being told if she's alive and if that is the case, she's being told
01:12:40
horrible things and that's why she's not reaching out. So it's not that crazy to think that
01:12:46
>> Of course. >> that could be what's happening. >> For sure. >> It's horrifying. This case haunts me.
01:12:53
Yeah. >> Truly. >> It really does. >> matter what the outcome is, it's horrific.
01:12:59
>> That she's endur- If she is alive, she's enduring something horrible. >> And it's like I I just wanted to have a
01:13:06
a period on the end of it. >> And you want that for the family. >> Yeah, that's all I want for that family
01:13:12
is for them to have know what's going on and be able to either move forward with the information
01:13:18
or do something about it. >> Exactly. Or hopefully like I just hope that they can be reunited one day.
01:13:24
>> You know? Cuz this is also one of those families that like has never even let up
01:13:29
for a minute. >> No, never. >> So it's like I just want it to pay off for them. >> I know.
01:13:34
Me, too. So sad. >> So here's my fun fact. >> Okay. >> Dragonflies shoot water out of their
01:13:41
butts. >> What? >> Um it's used for jet-propelled escapes when they're tired. >> That's iconic.
01:13:49
>> It's just like pretty sick. >> You just shoot yourself up with water. >> I'm just going to propel myself through
01:13:55
the air. >> They're just like, "I need some water." >> What the hell? [laughter]
01:14:00
>> It's like a reverse enema. Wow. >> Right? >> I don't want to think about that too
01:14:05
much. >> I love that. >> But I can't stop thinking about that. >> I love it. It's honestly one of my
01:14:09
favorite facts. >> It's a good one. >> Cuz now every time I see a dragonfly, I'm going to be like, "Are you tired? Or
01:14:14
are you just >> You burst into the air with water coming out of your butt. What's going on?"
01:14:17
>> What if that's landed on you? Like you know when it's like about like trickle
01:14:20
rain you're like, "Op, I felt a drop." What if that was actually just water coming out of a dragonfly's ass?
01:14:25
>> [laughter] >> Might be. >> That's crazy. >> That's crazy. >> That's crazy. Well, think about that for
01:14:29
sure. And with that being said, we hope you keep listening. >> And we hope you >> keep
01:14:35
>> weird. >> But not so weird that if you know something you don't say something.
01:14:39
>> Yes, if you know anything contact [music] the things we have in our show notes.
01:14:44
>> Say it. >> Do it. >> Let's get this case solved. Let's go. >> [music] [music]
01:15:23
[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music]