Disappearance of Amy Bradley

**Theories** |  · Suicide · Murder · Runaway · Hoax

The **Disappearance of Amy Bradley** was a strange disappearance that allegedly happened on March 23, 1998.

The victim in question was 23-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley, who disappeared without a trace aboard the Royal Caribbean International cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas while it was on a trip from Puerto Rico to the island of Curaçao, located in the southern Caribbean Sea in the former Netherlands Antilles. (mysteriousuniverse.org)

## Description

Amy was a bright, outgoing young woman who had just finished college and was on a Caribbean cruise vacation with her mother, father and younger brother. Amy had joined the cruise rather reluctantly, as although she was a trained lifeguard and strong swimmer, she had always been afraid of the open ocean, but had been ultimately persuaded to go on the trip by her family. Even with these reservations, once aboard Amy quickly found herself enjoying the cruise, and on March 23, 1998, on the third night of their trip, as the ship was docked in Curaçao, she and her family attended a dinner party on the upper deck and she stayed with her brother partying after hours, not returning to their cabin until 3:40 AM. At 5:30 AM, after having initially fallen asleep on her room’s balcony, Amy woke up, changed clothes and stepped out with her cigarettes and a lighter, obviously planning to return shortly because she did not put on shoes. Her family would never see her again.

When Amy failed to return to the cabin, her understandably worried family urged the ship to page her over the ships speaker system, but they refused on the grounds that it was too early in the morning to use the loudspeakers. The crew also refused the family’s pleas to back the ship away from the dock or to secure the gangways to prevent any potential kidnapper from whisking Amy away. It was not until around 8 AM that the page was finally carried out, but by that time most of the passengers had already disembarked for the day. Since Amy had still not returned to her cabin, the captain ordered a thorough search of the ship, scouring all 10 decks and 999 rooms of the massive ship in search of the missing young woman, but there was no sign of her. It was as if she had just vanished into thin air. Even then, the Captain of the cruise would not post pictures of Amy or inform the ship’s passengers of her disappearance, as he felt the news would upset the other guests. All in all, the cruise line was extremely uncooperative during the entire process and adamantly denied any responsibility for the family’s missing daughter. (mysteriousuniverse.org)

## Theories

* A suicide
* Murder
* She ran away
* It was all just one great, big hoax
* possibly abducted and sold in to slavery or became a victim of the human trafficking trade one way or another or was abducted by aliens
* She escaped to the Islamic Republic of the Koudeiland Islands, converted to islam, and married a man with 2 other wives

## Trivia

* Things got weirder the following day, when the FBI informed the family that cruise security had in fact only done a cursory search of the common areas and the restrooms, and not a thorough room by room search as had been claimed. The concerned family returned to the ship and was met with who was described as the ship’s “risk management agent,” who turned out to be in actuality the cruise line’s attorney representing the company in any legal action taken by Amy’s family against them. The FBI stepped in and engaged in several interviews with this attorney during which the family was not allowed to be present, yet the attorney attended all of the the family’s meetings with the FBI. (mysteriousuniverse.org)
* One witness by the name of Crystal Roberts claimed to have seen Amy shortly after she left her cabin with a bass player named Alister Douglas and known as “Yellow,” who was in the band Blue Orchid, which had been playing at the dinner party the night before, and who other witnesses claimed had been flirting with her at the party. Video footage from the party even shows them slow dancing with each other and appearing to hold hands. There are a few things that would transpire during this encounter with Douglas on the morning of Amy’s disappearance that seem highly suspicious. It was claimed that after meeting up with him in the early morning hours, Amy was seen going off with Douglas to another area of the ship and the bass player returned 10 minutes later alone. Additionally, Amy’s brother Brad said that the bass player had come to him the morning of the initial search and said he felt bad about his sister, even though the family and security were the only ones who knew of the disappearance at the time. Nevertheless, authorities could find no evidence to directly link the bass player to the disappearance and he was not detained or considered a suspect. (mysteriousuniverse.org)
* In 1998, two Canadian tourists claimed to have seen Amy walking along a beach in Curaçao flanked by two men, and when the missing woman heard them speaking English she allegedly tried to approach them, after which the two men with her grabbed her and guided her into a nearby café. The couple was able to describe very distinctive tattoos that Amy was known to have, including a Tasmanian Devil spinning a basketball on her shoulder, a sun on her lower back, and a Gecko on her navel, in addition to a navel ring. These details, which the eyewitnesses could not have possibly otherwise known, have led many to believe that the sighting was authentic. (mysteriousuniverse.org)

## Gallery

### Photo Gallery

A photograph of AmyAmy Bradley with her family on the cruise