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Welcome to Off the Record. I'm your host Nick Crime. >> It's good to be seen and it's good to
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see you. Off the record. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. >> True Crime podcast.
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>> Be good. Be kind. And don't live. >> Gather around. Grab a chair. Grab a beer. Let's talk some True Crime.
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>> Welcome to True Crime Garage or Off the Record. You heard that fantastic guitar
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riff there, the intro put together by the captain for Off the Record. We're going off the record this week and
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bringing in a good longtime friend of the garage to join us here today to talk about a story that everyone seems to be
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talking about. Amy Bradley has been missing for over 27 years. Her family and many others suspect foul play.
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During the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 24th, 1998, Amy went missing from a Royal Caribbean
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cruise ship. She was only 23 years old at the time. Her family has never stopped looking for Amy. They have
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spared no expense trying to find their daughter and sister, and they will never give up until she is located. This
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missing person case has recently found renewed interest, I would say, worldwide because of the recently released Netflix
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three-part documentary series titled Amy Bradley is Missing. Longtime friend of the garage, we go back before The Garage
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even existed. We have true crime author and podcaster. He's been on TV. He's done it all in the world of true crime
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and even has some really good fiction books out there as well. His name is James Rener. He's joining us here in the
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garage. James, how are you doing today? >> I'm great. I'm great. I'm happy to be
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back in the uh the true crime garage. Thanks for uh thanks for having me. I I'll shut the door behind me.
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>> And of course, we got the captain sitting here. He's going to hold down the fort and keep me in line. I want to
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go into the timeline for this. As said, this is a podcast that you can listen to
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whether you've seen the documentary or not. We're going to set the table for you here so you can understand this
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mystery and the three of us are going to try to dissect it along the way and add
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some thoughts here at the end. Amy Lynn Bradley was born on May 12th, 1974. The Bradley family is a family of four.
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Amy is the oldest of two kids. She has a younger brother. His name is Brad. He's
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about two years younger than Amy. Brad and Amy's parents are Ron and Iva. They are growing up in a nice house in a nice
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community in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This is Chesterfield County. Amy graduated from Elsie Bird High
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School. Amy was one hell of an athlete. She competed and excelled in volleyball,
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soccer, softball, swimming, and baseball. She went to Longwood University on a full basketball
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scholarship, graduating in 1996. During college, Amy came out to her family. Amy was working as a waitress
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just before this cruise excursion and she got a new job with a computer company. So, it sounds to me, guys, like
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she was transitioning from this waitress job into working for this computer firm
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right around the time that this cruise takes place. Now, why are they on this cruise? That's because Amy's father,
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Ron, well, he's good at his job. He wins an alexpense paid trip on the wraps of the sea of the seas. This is a seven-
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night voyage on Royal Caribbean International Cruise Line. Brad comes home from college because of this trip
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because Ron is taking his wife and the kids on this awesome vacation. The kids are all grown up, but they are close.
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They are very close family of four, and they are going on this trip together. The only part about this right out the
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gate from the kids standpoint is sharing a room with mom and dad. You know, you're an adult. Even when you're a kid,
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you don't want to share a room with mom and dad, but anybody that's been on a cruise ship, I've been lucky enough to
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go on two. The captain's been on a bunch and captained a few of those ships as I
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understand it. And Mr. Rener has been on more cruises than I have. My experience,
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gentlemen, has been that those the rooms are very small, like significantly smaller than your traditional hotel
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room. >> For sure. Yeah, it's uh it's close quarters. They had a uh a larger room on
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the eighth floor of the cruise ship. The parents had a bed and then there was a foldout couch that Brad and Amy shared
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and sometimes Amy would also sleep on the balcony. The night that she disappeared into that early morning, she
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was on the balcony sleeping. >> Yeah. So, let's start on Saturday, March 21st. We have the Bradley family of four
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boarding the ship. They will embark in Puerto Rico, flying from Virginia to Puerto Rico and then hit the high seas.
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The ship was bound for several stops in the Caribbean, including Carousel. According to FBI.gov, gov. On Saturday,
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March 21st, the vessel departed San Juan, Puerto Rico, and traveled to its first port of call, the island of Aruba.
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Day two is Sunday, March 22nd. This is typically, for me anyway, the time when I would really start to explore the
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ship. And these ships are huge. It's like a high-rise building in a shopping mall had a big huge overweight baby that
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floats and scoots about in the ocean. Day three, this from the FBI is Monday, March 23rd. They departed Aruba and they
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were traveling in international waters to the next island port of Carouso during the early morning hours of
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Tuesday, March 24th, 1998, Amy Lynn Bradley went missing. Now, gentlemen, before we get into the
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known events and timeline of late in the day, March 23rd and the early morning hours of March 24th, let's talk about
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the complications of investigating a crime that takes place on a cruise ship that
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is in international waters. James, we'll start with you. >> Oh, it's a it's a headache. you know,
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where people from the United States take for granted the the freedoms and protections that they have here in in
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our country, and those don't apply on cruise ships. And and it's weird. Uh it's it's kind of all messed up because
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of the way that these major cruise lines hide their money uh for tax purposes. So, the ships uh find a home port um and
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that's where all their like that's where they they file their taxes and you know
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the the money kind of loops through that home port and not a single cruise ship of these major cruise lines like Royal
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Caribbean, uh Carnival, things like that. None of them consider a United States port their home port. So, they're
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all like weird countries. And at at the time, Rapsidy of the Seas was flying the
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flag of Liberia. So when something goes wrong on the ship, you know, if if nothing goes wrong
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on a cruise ship, you're going to have a great time. Uh on the off chance that something goes terribly wrong on a
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cruise ship, you're you're in a lot of trouble because >> who's investigating that crime? Uh it
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supposed to fall to that home country. Now, at the time that Amy went missing, that was Liberia, and Liberia was in the
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middle of a very violent civil war, so they could care less. Sometimes it falls to the jurisdiction of the port, if
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you're lucky enough to be close enough to a port. In that situation, it's Kiraasau, which is an island under
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control of the Netherlands. So, the Netherlands had some sort of uh authority. The Dutch had some sort of
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authority over it. The FBI had no jurisdiction, but they do have uh a an office in um San Juan, and that office
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is kind of in charge of any sort of uh American citizen getting into trouble in the Caribbean. So, they sent out a
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couple agents, but those agents had to get permission from the cruise line to even enter the ship. And there was they
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were very limited in what what they could do. If if they if they interviewed a suspect in Curissau and he confessed
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to the crime, they couldn't arrest him on the spot. Uh if they got that lucky, they'd have to get have to go through
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the whole extradition process and uh it it gets very complicated very quickly. So, the first line of defense is the
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security team aboard the cruise ship. And because of the nature of that, they're beholden to the corporation,
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Royal Caribbean, and what they're looking to do is is, you know, um you you cover your ass type of thing. So
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yeah, when Amy went missing, the Bradley's found out pretty quickly that there was little to be done in the way
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of a proper investigation. >> This was borderline shocking to me because when you the cruises I've gone
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on went out of Miami, right? So I'm on I'm on US soil stepping onto this boat. The all the commercials that you see for
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Caribbean cruises are on American television. They have American names. >> Yeah.
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>> Most of the passengers are American. The crew appear to be American. And then you
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learn that no that there's a lot of reasons that make a whole lot of financial sense for these cruise liners
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to not have anything really to do with the United States other than picking up a whole bunch of passengers there
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because it's it's a way to save money not just on their taxes but also they can avoid certain like other countries
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don't have the employment laws, rules and regulations that we have. They also can skirt around certain wages for those
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employees that are on their ships. So, it's like everything else sadly. It comes down to the old bottom line and
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how much money can you make? And this is just a really good way for them to make
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a whole bunch of extra money. And what we don't realize boarding that ship is that it's putting us in a vulnerable
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more than normal vulnerable situation. >> Well, I also think just the size of the
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ship Yes. >> comes into play and the fact that it is a ship. So, it's it's not just like this
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wide open building. There's all these nooks and crannies because you have to be creative when you're coming up with
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storage solutions. And then I think the other the other thing in play here is the staff. Like James said, these this
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staff, this is their livelihood. And so they have to protect that in some uh capacity. But also there's some very
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strict rules for these staff members. And so let's just say you you did hook up with a guest on the ship, but you
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took them to your room. Well, that's grounds for firing. So if something bad happens to them, and let's say you're
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not involved at all, there's reasons to lie and protect yourself if you did something that would cause you to lose
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your your career. The majority of the staff at least on the rap city of the seas comes from they come from other
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countries around the world. There was several from uh you know India, you know, many from the Caribbean islands
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themselves and they're they go on these tours that are like you know six months or so and then they go back home and the
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money they make in those six months is equivalent to like a couple years worth of salary for a menial job back in their
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home country. So it's very important for them that they that they not get fired.
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But yeah, if they do get caught, for instance, hooking up with a passenger, that's that's immediate and automatic
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dismissal, >> even if the passenger gave a fivestar review. >> But I've had a lot of friends that have
00:13:01
gone on these cruise ships because you don't have to pay room and board and your meals are taken care of and then
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things like alcohol or cigarettes, you get those at a discounted cost. So, it it was a way for a lot of my musician
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friends to get out of college, do 6 months to to maybe a year on a cruise ship to save up a bunch of money and so
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they could come back to the States and and move to New York or Nashville or LA to start their music careers. Day three,
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detailed information here. This from the Richmond Times. So, at the Aruba stop, Amy and her brother Brad spent some time
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ashore and later visited the ship's nightclub, the Calypso Lounge. Amy was seen dancing with members of the band.
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Their band name is Blue Orchid. Especially a crew member named or nicknamed Yellow. This is one of the
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band's members, the bass player. Real name is Alistister Douglas, but better known to everyone, especially after this
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documentary, as Yellow. He was seen drinking and dancing with Amy Bradley. So, the two, this is brother and sister
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Amy and Brad, stayed up late dancing and drinking at the disco party on the 9inth
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floor deck. Multiple sources confirmed that Amy was drinking and smoking but not heavily intoxicated that night. the
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photo, the now infamous formal photo. This is the one where we see it on the documentary. I've seen it on other
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shows. I've seen it all over the internet well before the documentary came out. This is of Amy standing solo
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in a black a very nice regal looking black dress. This I guess would be at the formal dinner. And if you go digging
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a little bit more, you can see photos of her standing with her brother Brad who's
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in a tuxedo. These are from my understanding the photos that the crew the cruise ship takes and they will try
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to sell them to you later. Like I these are the photos that I hate taking because usually there's somebody there
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directing you and they're like oh stand closer you know hold her like this or you know use stand there with this
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posture in a in a manner that I would never stand but it's the photo that we see a lot throughout the documentary and
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that is known well to everybody listening to this. This photo, from my understanding, guys, was taken
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approximately 12 hours before she disappeared. So, this would make sense that this would be around dinner time on
00:15:49
that day. Some of the very key details here that we will get into, this was compiled from a few different sources.
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So, we have tab.com and from a Reddit thread. So, tab.com reporting their timeline is according to ship records
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and family accounts. And then the Reddit post, the post is Amy Bradley is missing
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cutting through Netflix's narrative is compiled from multiple sources. So we kind of mash those two together to come
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up with this. We are at Tuesday, March 24th here in the small hours at around 100 a.m. to
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1:30 a.m. Amy and Brad are still at the club. Ship photographers snap pictures of Amy dancing. This account states that
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these photos later appeared in the ship's gift shop without the family's consent. This statement from the FBI
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files. Yellow later claimed that he left this party, left the disco around this time. And again, that's 1 to 1:30 a.m.
00:16:54
This next one, guys, is new to me, but it was on one of the timelines that I found. And it states that at 3:30 a.m.,
00:17:02
Ron Bradley, so this is Amy's father, reportedly checked on Amy and Brad, who were still at the disco, and walked them
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back to their cabin. This is published and it's according to where I found it, according to family statements. It
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doesn't seem to ring true with what's on the documentary. So, um, yeah, the the timeline is a little wonky, uh, because
00:17:25
of of how things have been reported and and when they've been reported. And over
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27 years, it's it's changed a little bit. I've been reporting and researching the story for about a year and a half,
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working on a book uh, on the case that'll come out next summer. I met with the Bradley's at their home in Virginia
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last summer. Spent I think five or six hours with them. We spoke for a while and then we had lunch. Iva made some
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very nice pulled pork sandwiches and uh and then we we talked some more. And at that time, what I was told is
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that uh yeah, around 3:30, Amy and Brad were still at the uh the Disco Tech up at the Viking Lounge at the the back of
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the ship. And that's when they decided to come back to the room. And Brad's key card shows that he entered about exactly
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3:30. And then Amy came in five minutes later. Now, at no point during the hours
00:18:24
and hours of conversation with the Bradley's did they mentioned that that Ron, their father, came up and and
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checked with them, which is odd, and that's not at all to suggest the family had anything to do with what ultimately
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happened, but um I'm I'm a little disappointed that that wasn't mentioned at the time. The the reason we found out
00:18:43
about that is some Redditors have dug up early early newspaper reports and that's
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how we and then Brad himself has has talked about this on TikTok since the those newspaper reports were found. And
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that's how we learned that that Ron, their father, woke up, I think it was closer to 3:00 a.m. and came up to the
00:19:04
disco. I don't believe he even talked to Amy. I think he talked to Brad and said,
00:19:09
"Hey, look, it's it's late. why don't you guys come come down to bed? And then Ron went down and then about 20 minutes
00:19:16
to a half an hour later, Brad uh and Amy came came down. So that's kind of how that played out. So there's some
00:19:25
discrepancy, too, about Alistair Douglas, who was the bass player for Blue Orchid. He was up there. He's
00:19:32
caught on video. Actually, there was a videographer up there who was taking B-roll for a corporate event. um where
00:19:40
another business, Vanstar, brought a bunch of their employees on the cruise and hired this videographer to take like
00:19:48
uh what he called happy face videos so that anybody from that corporation could have this video after the cruise and see
00:19:55
what a great time they had. So, he just accidentally happened to catch images of
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Yellow and Amy dancing in the the disco. And at first they're dancing kind of far
00:20:05
apart, but then a after a time they're very very close together and Alistair's kind of grinding on her from behind. Uh
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which you know the the '9s kids uh what we would call twerking I guess. And uh so they were very close. He says he
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came down at 1, but it's I think his key card shows that he came back to his room
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a lot later than that. So yeah, there's some and he should not have have been up
00:20:35
there and should not have been dancing so close as uh he was actually considered an officer on the cruise ship
00:20:43
because of his position with the band. So he had a he he had a pretty decent room, but he shared it with a guy named
00:20:48
Oscar Alexander. So, you know, he he had a roommate that was there when he checked back into his room. But if he
00:20:56
would have been caught by, you know, a higher ranking officer, he would have been in some trouble. Or you're allowed
00:21:03
to socialize with with passengers, but you're not allowed to like like fraternize with them. You're not
00:21:08
certainly not allowed to twerk with them. So >> you're you're encouraged to socialize
00:21:12
with them because the whole what you're selling is fun. You're selling the experience and you want you don't want
00:21:17
somebody sitting there bored like, "Oh, I had to read a magazine the whole time because there was nothing to do." And
00:21:22
some people just aren't overly social or have a hard time getting into the mix of
00:21:27
things. You can disarm them and really get people into the vibe if just by, hey, how's it going? Oh, you having a
00:21:34
good time? There's a dance over here. And yeah, so I think that there are there's a high percentage of truths in
00:21:41
these these following statements and things that I know you've already covered, but from the timeline in front
00:21:46
of me says 3:30 a.m. Ron Bradley reportedly checked on Amy and Brad. Okay. >> I think it was a little bit before that,
00:21:54
but yeah. Yeah. >> So around that time, he's checking in and as you said, probably just made
00:22:00
communication with Brad, touch base with him. And you're right, like these two, Amy and Brad are in their early 20s.
00:22:07
>> One thing that I've learned the older I get on vacations or, you know, you go on
00:22:12
a golf trip with the boys, the amateurs, they go very hard night one or they go very hard night two or three and then
00:22:20
they are spent for the rest of the trip. They they are no good the rest of the trip. And this is dad just checking in
00:22:25
like, "Hey guys, it's late." And these these cruise liners, they have a whole bunch of fun stuff that you can do
00:22:32
during the daytime. So, it's in your best interest not to sleep the day away. And yeah, I have 330 to 338 Brad returns
00:22:42
to the family cabin. Now, one thing that is very interesting and really will turn
00:22:49
some speculation into absolute fact is that we have his key card entry, >> right? Each passenger has a key card and
00:22:58
when they go to get back into their room, they have to put that key card into the door and that is going to
00:23:05
trigger a catalog. It's it's going to catalog his return to the room. And then Amy, all reports say that, like you said
00:23:14
there, James, she was roughly about 5 minutes behind her brother. She enters their room and then at some point the
00:23:22
two of them, brother and sister, are sitting having a nice night together talking on the balcony, but Brad goes to
00:23:30
bed before Amy and Amy decides to stay out on the balcony for some time long. >> How long were they out on the balcony
00:23:37
for >> together? Well, um the the report is that what Brad has said is that when he
00:23:44
came back, he did go out to the balcony and they talked for a little bit and then he went to bed and she stayed on
00:23:50
the balcony. And then her father says he woke up around 5:30 in the morning and saw that Amy was still sitting on the
00:24:02
balcony and decided to go back to sleep. wakes up about a half an hour later around six and she's gone and and then
00:24:13
he immediately starts to search for her. At first he thinks she's gone up to like
00:24:18
a higher deck to grab a smoke or um to see the ship pull into Curissowl cuz they have to go up this channel under a
00:24:28
huge bridge and then uh up to the dock. So he thought maybe she'd gone up to take some pictures and grab a smoke, but
00:24:36
he couldn't find her up there. >> So on the chair in the room, we find this yellow shirt that she was wearing.
00:24:42
So we we feel like she came back to the cabin. She took off her shirt, but she had a white undershirt on. She had jeans
00:24:51
on or >> jean capries. And then she has these sandals. I'm guessing she is wearing the
00:24:59
sandals when she's at the nightclub. But those sandals are also found on the balcony as well.
00:25:05
>> So that that's that's the crux of the mystery. And you know the the big question is what happened? Where did she
00:25:11
go from there? And in some ways, this is this is why this this case attracted me.
00:25:18
Um because like the Moa Murray case, the disappearance of Moa Murray, there's so
00:25:24
many possibilities of of what happened according to every everybody's different stories. Did she
00:25:30
even did she even leave the balcony? Did she go overboard? What did she fall? Did
00:25:35
she intentionally go over the side? Um, and then if she did leave the the room, what happened to her then? Was it foul
00:25:44
play? Was it was it walk away? I mean, every possibility is is technically still on the table.
00:25:55
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Treat yourself today. Check out quint.com/g. [Music] Yeah. And so the the reports I have fall
00:31:16
in line with what you're saying there, James. It's it's sometime in that 5 to 5:30 a.m. Dad wakes up and he says in
00:31:23
his statements that he recognized two things. Brad is sleeping in the room and from what he can see, Amy is lying down
00:31:33
outside. I think he says something like he could see her leg through the glass door and he's thinking that she's laying
00:31:42
positioned as that she would be lying down on the chair out there or you know some fixture out there and then wakes up
00:31:51
approximately 30 minutes to maybe even 45 minutes later and then notices that Amy was gone. back to what the captain
00:32:00
was questioning earlier that all reports I've seen including the Netflix information was that according to Brad
00:32:07
they sat out there talking that night for anywhere from about 25 minutes to maybe 45 minutes before he goes to bed.
00:32:15
She stays inside >> or she stays on the balcony. Yeah. >> Yeah. Stays on the balcony. And then
00:32:21
later Ron wakes up and says that her sandals are still there. Her room key is still there. Balcony door is slightly a
00:32:31
jar. He noticed that Amy's cigarettes and lighter were missing. >> But also, don't they find her wallet as
00:32:39
well? >> I think they found everything but Amy. The clothes on her back and her cigarettes and lighter.
00:32:45
>> Not to jump too far ahead, but you did mention what I think becomes a very important clue there, which is that the
00:32:52
balcony door was a jar. Uh when Amy was missing, the family seems to think that she left the cabin without waking them
00:33:02
up. If you've ever been on a cruise ship, which I I think we all have, inside the room, are notices um and and
00:33:12
you learn this through experience, too, that you're not supposed to open the cabin door with the balcony door open
00:33:19
because the air in the hallway is pressurized. And what happens when you have the balcony door open and you open
00:33:28
that cabin door is uh a vacuum. And uh it creates a wind tunnel through the room that is very loud and in fact it
00:33:39
causes the cabin door to slam shut. And there are reports of crew members who have opened the cabin door to clean to
00:33:48
and the balcony door was open and it slams the door shut so hard they've lost a finger in the door. So I I'm
00:33:58
that to me is a very important clue that to me suggests that she did not leave the cabin that morning. You know, other
00:34:07
people will argue, well, they're, you know, the the ship's going very slow up the canal if in fact that's where they
00:34:15
were at the time. And so the the it wouldn't be so much of a an issue. Um, but I don't I don't know that that I
00:34:24
necessarily buy that. >> Yeah. The FBI says to this day there's no proof that she left. One of my
00:34:32
problems with that and and not my problem with the FBI, the FBI, especially these two agents, would know
00:34:39
way more about this than any of us. When the FBI gets onto the cruise ship, we go, "We're looking for Amy. She's not in
00:34:47
this room. Let's search every nook and cranny." Nope. She's not here. So, now let's go look at security footage.
00:34:55
And nowhere on the documentary do they tell you how many cameras or anything, but the cruises I've been on, there's
00:35:02
been a decent amount of security cameras. So, one would think if we know where her room was and we can just
00:35:12
assume that she got out of the room and that she was going to get off at port, there would be only so many locations
00:35:20
that she would then pop out from. If she went down the hallway to the left, she would have been picked up on this
00:35:27
camera. Or if she went to the elevator and got off at floor number four, we would see her on this camera there. So
00:35:36
to me, and they they don't really dive into this in in the documentary, but how much was that footage investigated
00:35:44
>> right there? There were, you know, it's 1998, so there weren't as many cameras
00:35:50
>> then as there are now. From my understanding, there were not cameras that would have u been focused on the
00:35:58
sides of the ship to to show if she fell off the balcony. But you're right, there
00:36:02
were definitely cameras in like the main pool area, which is it's usually where you would cross over to like the
00:36:11
breakfast area, the where this um Adal Vice dining hall. Um you have to kind of pass an easy way to get there is to pass
00:36:19
through the pool area. So, there are a number of common areas that have cameras and uh if the FBI is saying they have no
00:36:28
proof she ever left that room, that to me says she was not on caught on camera in any of these common areas. So, that
00:36:36
idea that she went up to the decks and to see the ship pulling into port um doesn't really work because she she
00:36:44
definitely would have been caught on camera somewhere. And also the debarcation area certainly had cameras
00:36:50
showing people coming on and off. Um, and it appears that she she wasn't on those either.
00:36:58
>> But at the same time, they're saying we don't have proof that she something happened to her on the balcony or that
00:37:06
she went overboard as well. It's it's kind of, you know, they're they're a little bit forced to deal with somewhat
00:37:14
in absolutes where they're like, you know, until until we find the body, we don't even know that she's dead. Until
00:37:20
we have evidence that this occurred, we don't know that anything happened. And I
00:37:26
feel like the Dora jar is one of those, it's one of those line items in any story, not just this one, any story,
00:37:35
that I absolutely hate. Why? Because the only person that the only person that saw this was her father.
00:37:43
>> Mhm. >> Could he be misremembering? Yes. Slightly a jar. I hate that. What kind
00:37:49
of description is that? >> Yeah. >> Slightly a jar could those sliding glass doors. It's so easy to not close them
00:37:57
all the way. Slightly a jar could mean that it's open half an inch or it could mean it's open three feet.
00:38:02
>> Yeah. Yeah. Amy's family does not believe that she committed suicide, that she jumped off of that
00:38:10
balcony, that she jumped into the water. They don't believe that. While I am on their side, if that is they're hurting,
00:38:18
they lost a loved one. They want to find out what happened to their loved one. And I agree with their statements that
00:38:24
they don't think that she jumped off the side of that that balcony. I I don't find everything that's been presented to
00:38:31
me about Amy's character tells me that that's not a high possibility. Not a high percentage on that.
00:38:40
>> I agree with you, but I I disagree with this idea, and we see this in a lot of
00:38:44
true crime cases or missing person cases where they go, "She absolutely wasn't suicidal." Well, she doesn't have to be
00:38:54
leading up to six months before that day. >> Correct. >> She could have she could have been
00:39:01
having depressed thoughts >> in that 60 seconds. >> Right. And her brother Brad is saying,
00:39:07
man, she was afraid of heights. She wouldn't even get near the rail. So, >> that's the part that steers me away from
00:39:14
the idea that she would have jumped in. And and look, jump in. There were other people that said that something to the
00:39:20
effect of, well, she was a really good swimmer. And didn't somebody say like she was going to jump in and swim to
00:39:26
port before the boat could get there? >> Yeah. She was uh overheard um by a witness, I think maybe even at the
00:39:33
disco. Um, but sometime that that evening saying making a joke about when she saw the lights of Curissau, she was
00:39:41
going to jump because she thought she could swim there faster than the than the boat could get there.
00:39:46
>> Yeah. And I think there's just a lot more possibilities. Let's just say she was depressed in that moment and
00:39:54
decides, hey, I'm going to jump off the boat. So then she jumps off the boat and
00:39:59
okay, she committed suicide. She's dead. And then but there could be all these other things like what if she had a
00:40:08
moment of weakness and decided to jump off the boat and then by the time she hits the water she goes hey I don't want
00:40:17
to die and I swim ashore or is it as simple as she told somebody I'm going to jump off the boat but I've been on those
00:40:26
boats to be on the eighth level that's pretty high up you might not be so worried worried about swimming to the
00:40:34
port, but to me, you'd be more worried about the fall. You know, one statistic that I
00:40:41
I thought was pretty shocking uh that I learned while researching the story is um once you go over the side of a cruise
00:40:51
ship, whether it's on purpose or accident, and no matter how decent of a swimmer you are, the chance of survival
00:41:01
once you're in that water is 20%. Which is is shocking. You know, even you would
00:41:08
think that once once you're over, you know, because of the the currents, because of the water, because of all,
00:41:14
you know, you fall down. Sometimes people get sucked under the boat and into the propeller, and then you're
00:41:20
gone. You know, the chance of survival is very, very low. Many people say that Amy was not suicidal and that's probably
00:41:29
true. But she was at that moment in her life in a very stressful situation because when she came home from that
00:41:38
cruise, she had a very important decision to make. And um that was to either live her life the way she wanted
00:41:48
to be, which is open and gay, which is how she identified. She identified as gay. She identified as lesbian. She did
00:41:56
not identify as by with her friends. So, um, she had just gotten back together with her girlfriend Molly.
00:42:05
And so, when she came home, she could either live that life and she felt that if she did, she would disappoint her
00:42:12
conservative parents, >> right? >> Um, and that family was very, very tight, but they did not support Amy
00:42:18
being gay. or she could continue to, you know, go against her nature and try to date men to appease, you know, to make
00:42:29
things calm and and easy. So, she there were a there was a lot going on inside her mind at that time. She was changing
00:42:38
jobs. She had just moved into an apartment. This is a very stressful moment in her life. And um, Captain, I I
00:42:46
think you were touching a little bit on this idea. She doesn't have to be suicidal to be on that balcony and feel
00:42:51
that urge. Um, it's what the French, there's a fancy French term called lapel duvid, but in English we call it the
00:42:59
call of the void. Even Freud talked about this, you know, hundred years ago, he called it the oceanic feeling. When
00:43:07
you're when you're faced with um, you know, that infinite horizon of the ocean, there is this kind of call that
00:43:14
you feel on a very instinctual level. And so I wonder if she wasn't sitting out there and the thought came in her
00:43:23
mind, well, let me just see. Let me see what happens. You know, by taking that action, by going over the railing, she
00:43:32
would have been forcing some sort of decision. you know this is going to you know either be the ultimate solution
00:43:39
which is which is death or you know it's going to cause action and um you know I don't know would they accept her in
00:43:50
the face of you know uh we almost lost her but now she's living I don't know um but you know it's just that idea that
00:43:58
this decision is going to cause some sort of action some sort of decision and my life at least won't
00:44:05
the way it is at this moment. >> Yeah, I I agree with you. I mean, when watching your interview with Yellow, I
00:44:12
think he points out some interesting things and I think later we can dive deeper into that
00:44:18
interview, but he he's saying she's chain smoking. I believe her bar tab was seven beers, seven light beers, and I
00:44:29
think that started at 6:00 p.m. So, that's not a ton of drinks. But, I think one of the things we're not taking into
00:44:38
account is there's not that many young people on this cruise ship. >> That's true, too. Also, consider this.
00:44:48
you know, the the uh beverages that they're counting are the beverages that she bought herself. And
00:44:55
>> exactly. >> How often are um you know, how often do men buy women the drinks that they're
00:45:02
having throughout the course of the night? >> A 23year-old female is going to get some
00:45:06
free drinks. >> Well, and I think that that's another thing that the family is saying, "Hey,
00:45:11
look, the weight staff was just paying her a lot of attention." I think a lot of that had to do with well the staff is
00:45:19
normally of a younger age and she's one of not many 20some attractive females on
00:45:27
that cruise ship. >> Mhm. >> So again, how many drinks did she have, >> right? >> Don't know. And I don't think that's
00:45:34
something we'll ever know. And that alters your mind state. And I think as much as the parents want to say, well,
00:45:43
part of us not being okay with her living a gay lifestyle or being gay is, oh, it was the '9s. And so, I do
00:45:53
sympathize with them on that. But they also make, I think, interesting statements. if she was engaged to be
00:46:02
married and she always talked about wanting to have kids and blah blah blah, maybe you would say, uh, you know, we
00:46:10
didn't get to share certain experiences with our daughter. We're never going to meet our grandkids, especially in the
00:46:18
'9s. Not every state could even get married. >> Mhm. >> To have a gay marriage, let alone to be
00:46:26
able to uh adopt kids or have kids. in in another way. So I I I find that statement by them to me, as much as
00:46:36
people can look at this story and go, well, she was openly gay and yes, her parents weren't supportive, but that's
00:46:44
not that big of a deal. I think there's little statements that they say during the documentaries
00:46:51
almost 30 years later that you go, "No, no, this was a this was a huge deal in in Amy's life." It was um you know and I
00:47:00
waited until the end of our interview to even bring it up. Um the Brad Iva Bradley was very helpful in getting me
00:47:08
in touch with one of Amy's good friends and uh you know even during that conversation you know it it didn't come
00:47:16
up that Amy was gay and I I had to do some more digging on my own to find her other friends who were supportive of her
00:47:25
being gay and those sources were not given to me by the family and there was an effort to keep that information from
00:47:38
seeing the light of day. I knew at the time Netflix was doing a documentary. We were kind of overlapping on our sources
00:47:44
and chasing after the same information. And I had a conversation with their producer when I found out that Amy was
00:47:51
gay. And I, you know, we talked about how they were going to handle it because they they found the same information I
00:47:57
did around the same time. And you know, we we talked about how to uh come at it respectfully as as best we can, but I
00:48:06
was the first one to bring it up with the family. And Iva did not want that in there. She didn't want it known in
00:48:14
either my book or the documentary. She said it had nothing to do with anything that it was, you know, it doesn't
00:48:20
matter. And I do think it's uh I think it could be the crux of actually what happened to Amy. I think it does relate
00:48:30
to whatever happened to her. >> Well, when you have so many possibilities still sitting on the
00:48:36
table, some of those being she walked off and started a new life. One of those being she jumped off the side of a boat.
00:48:43
You have to keep that in mind because that's something that is real. That's something that's going on in her life at
00:48:48
that time. that's something that's going on her in her family and in her mind constantly. I was a little surprised. I
00:48:56
mean the with the time period I think part of that being you know growing up in Columbus, Ohio especially in the the
00:49:04
late 90s early as we had a much higher gay population than most major cities. So, it's it seemed like a little I don't
00:49:15
know. I I hate to say use the word normal, but going back to '989, that's the word I would have used. But I think
00:49:22
the captain is absolutely right. When you hear mom say something like, "Well, we didn't even get to experience our
00:49:28
grandkids." To me, that's not just, "Well, we're not okay with this." This is refusing to accept it.
00:49:36
>> Yeah. >> Right. Like, if you lose a leg, you don't get over it. You don't get over
00:49:42
losing your leg. You learn to accept it. And those that don't learn to accept it,
00:49:46
they're they have a whole different life than anybody else. This is refusing to accept it. This to me implies that it's
00:49:55
mom and dad having a conversation. And if they choose to share that information with anybody else, the conversation is
00:50:01
this. Well, it's probably just a phase. You know, she was off at college and you
00:50:05
know, she'll she'll grow out of this. She'll get into the real world. And that's what I gather from this that a
00:50:12
statement like we didn't get to experience our grandkids. >> I think you're absolutely right.
00:50:16
>> That's why I was telling you earlier, James, I I really do think these interviews that you've been putting out
00:50:22
on your YouTube channel are so important because here we are. We're in the garage. Three white, mostly straight
00:50:31
men. >> Mostly white, mostly straight men. mostly white, mostly straight men talking about
00:50:39
this young 20some year old woman coming out to the world in the '9s. And I really think your interview with Cat,
00:50:51
a woman that Amy had a relationship with, is is very important to understand this this conflict in Amy's life.
00:51:01
Because I couldn't imagine how much relief one would feel by just saying, "This is who I am. This is my
00:51:10
sexuality, and this is how I want to live." and and how how much pride they should have in coming out and how and
00:51:18
how freeing it would be and hoping that your support system then doubles down the love on you where she had
00:51:28
individuals in her life going, "Okay, finally she's going to live her best life and be her best self and her truest
00:51:36
self." But then you have this big support system of her family going, "We're we're not all okay with this."
00:51:45
And >> yeah, >> be hush- hush about this. I mean, I'm I'm sure that she even was told by her
00:51:52
family like, "Well, we support you and we love you, but we might want to not tell everybody in the family about
00:51:59
this." Well, and that that's why I was coming down so hard on the statement of well, I woke up and I noticed that the
00:52:09
balcony door was slightly a jar and then I noticed Amy was missing. Because to me, what I'm what I'm pointing out here
00:52:17
is just like with her coming out, okay, we've we've all seen it, experienced it at some point, I believe. I know I have.
00:52:26
I can't speak for the both of you, but at some point in our lives, a friend comes out, they talk to their parents.
00:52:32
It's sometimes it's mom or dad reacting and going, I just don't know where we went wrong. We, you know, we had a nice
00:52:39
house. We grew up at, you know, we raised her in a nice neighborhood. We raised him in a sent him off to nice
00:52:44
schools and we did everything we could. Where what did I do wrong? You know, they they look inward and they blame
00:52:50
themselves for something that's really not a problem. And to me, I think let's double down on the idea of child commits
00:52:58
suicide. They're they're naturally going to think that as well. And if this is the reaction to her coming out, I I
00:53:05
guess what I'm it's a really long- winded way of me saying that that statement, I have an issue with it
00:53:10
because it seems like it aligns with mom and dad's best interest that Amy left the room walking out the front door
00:53:19
rather than jumping off the balcony. and the door, the balcony glass door being slightly open is an indicator that she
00:53:26
came back into the room and left. However, the flip side of that coin is this is not a dumb kid. If her room key
00:53:35
remained inside that room, I can make up a million reasons why she left that room. The hurdle that's hard for me to
00:53:42
clear is her room key being in there. If that if that part of the statement is factual and true, I think that's more
00:53:49
suggestive that something else happened. I I do want to say, you know, since we brought up Cat, um just a a couple
00:53:55
things that I thought were interesting that that Cat talked about. You know, Cat was her partner throughout college
00:54:02
or at least for a time in college. They started out as uh friends and then roommates and and then it became, you
00:54:08
know, something more. And uh you know, Cat still has love for her after all these years. Um it was her first love.
00:54:17
Uh Amy was and you know they were very close for for a time and uh you know Cat talked about staying with Amy's family
00:54:26
one summer and you know had to keep everything on the down low. She also says she loves the Bradleys. They're
00:54:32
very tight family that you know and that's that's one thing when you meet the Bradley's they really pull you in
00:54:37
that you you feel the love there. you know, there is kind of that disconnect with um you know, if you go on the
00:54:42
social media and see the types of things that come up on Iva or Brad's page. I mean, they're they're deep deep into
00:54:50
MAGA culture and, you know, there are some homophobic things that have popped up on Brad's social media accounts and
00:54:58
what I would call uh you know, o over the line things. And especially if Amy is out there still living and she sees
00:55:05
those social media posts, I I wouldn't know what she was thinking. Um or how that would affect her. But um you know,
00:55:12
Cat talks about specifically Amy's identity. And you know, the the the family said over and over, oh, she was
00:55:18
by she was by uh that's what she told us. And you know, I you know, in some way, I think that's trying to downplay
00:55:26
her sexuality. Um you know, >> soften the blow a little bit. She was >> she knew it was going to be difficult.
00:55:33
>> Um >> you she wasn't looking forward to having that conversation. >> No. And and so it came out in college
00:55:38
that their their secret was kind of exposed through their friends and they realized that word was probably going to
00:55:46
get back and so they had to come out to their families and you know uh so they both Cat and a Amy went back home one
00:55:54
weekend and Cat told her family and the reaction they got she got was essentially like yeah okay. But Amy went
00:56:02
home and it it was very difficult. And her father wrote this three-page letter about how disappointed he was when she
00:56:09
sent to Cat. And that really affected Cat. That really hurt her. >> But that's freaking bizarre.
00:56:14
>> Yeah. >> In high school and college, if I broke up with somebody and I was a little
00:56:21
down, my mother or father was, you know, they'd go, "Oh, yeah. I'm sorry you're down. I'm sorry it didn't work out." But
00:56:28
I had a conversation with my dad one time where he's like, "I feel bad for you and you know, you're just going to,
00:56:35
you know, every day you wake up, it's going to get better." And then he said, then he asked me, "What was her name
00:56:40
again?" And so the fact that he and and I understand that Cat stayed with him for
00:56:47
a time period, but it it's bizarre to write a three-page letter to Cat to explain your thoughts and feelings on
00:56:59
this matter. >> Again, it's an indicator that they are refusing to accept that this is who she
00:57:04
may be. They're looking at it more as something as something she is experiencing or
00:57:09
going through and a lot of outside uh persons or players h have their hands on the reigns of of what she's going
00:57:18
through. >> And we don't know what kind of conversations the parents were having
00:57:23
with her. If you're going to do something so bizarre as to write a three-page letter and I'm going to like
00:57:31
Ross Geller would say front and back, but you go, what is he saying to his daughter? What is the mother saying to
00:57:41
the daughter? Or is is it a situation that every time they're around her, they're trying to convince her to live a
00:57:50
different lifestyle? And so when you have in one interview Yellow the bass player of the cruise ship band saying
00:58:00
well she was saying how she didn't really want to come on the trip. Is that because this issue hasn't been ironed
00:58:07
out and did she feel like well if we're on this cruise are the parents going to try to convince me otherwise to live
00:58:16
otherwise? And one of the things I find interesting, and I'd love your take on this, James, to me, you have to connect
00:58:23
the dots. You have to there has to be some story that makes some sense. And so, I think sometimes with these
00:58:32
family members, obviously, they want their loved one to still be alive and to still be out there. a lot of the
00:58:41
stories, like just a simple one of, okay, well, maybe she did go out of the room and decide that she was going to go
00:58:49
off port um go off the boat, go on the island, and maybe try to get some marijuana.
00:58:58
>> And and then you'll have the family go, absolutely not. This is a family that's
00:59:03
very um wrapped up in the the image that remains of of Amy and and I can understand that because she's she's
00:59:14
gone, you know, even if she's alive that Amy she they knew is is long gone, long
00:59:21
gone. Um, and so they're protecting her legacy and her image and they want to portray her as um as as great as as they
00:59:32
possibly can. So I I think when you get into the idea that she might have gotten
00:59:36
off to get drugs or gotten wrapped up in something like that, they're very protective of that. Um, and you know
00:59:42
they you mentioned these sightings and to this day the Bradley's believe she is alive that she was forced into some
00:59:50
situation beyond her control, human trafficking. Um, and the the Netflix documentary brought that up and you know
01:00:00
did their narrative in a way to make it seem more likely I think than it actually is. But there are a number of
01:00:08
these sightings of her that occur after the disappearance um on Kurissowl um and
01:00:16
also these pictures that show up on an escort website out of Margarita Island uh years later. So um they they believe
01:00:26
that uh these these sightings are uh legitimate and they're hanging a lot of hope on on that fact. Well, I we've seen
01:00:36
this with a lot of missing person cases. My deep dive into the Brian Schaefer case, his father was trying to control
01:00:45
the narrative. That distorts the actual details of this person and hinders people looking into investigating what
01:00:56
happened or could have happened. And I think the same thing happened in Amy's case. I think the same thing happened in
01:01:01
Mar's case as well. And but I don't fault the family. I don't want to seem like I'm just piling on the family
01:01:08
because I'm I understand why they're doing it if they're even conscious that they're doing it.
01:01:14
>> Cuz I I think sometimes it's not like they're the family sitting behind this wall of secrecy and and um masterminding
01:01:24
some plan. >> Yeah. I think it's and we'll move on here, but I think it's a bit human
01:01:29
nature because for the parents, especially the parents, but also for loved ones and people that are very
01:01:35
close to the person that vanishes, that person is frozen in time for them, >> right?
01:01:41
>> Kind of like what James was talking about that this is 27 years later. Brad is, you know, well into his 40s. The
01:01:48
parents are are probably in their late 60s, mid60s by this. And so for them, some stuff has moved on and and some
01:01:57
things in their lives have changed obviously, but for them, their loved one is frozen in time. And whatever was
01:02:05
going on in that loved one's life around the time of their disappearance is such
01:02:10
a small percentage of what they know that person to be for the entirety of the life that they knew them for. And so
01:02:18
I think they weigh and lean toward the majority of their experience and understanding of that person rather than
01:02:26
what was going on right at that time. And in that short time leading up to their disappearance,
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