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"Amy Bradley" redirects here. For the American educator, see Amy Morris Bradley. For the American politician, see Amy Bradley (politician).



Amy Lynn Bradley
Born(1974-05-12)May 12, 1974
Petersburg, Virginia, U.S.
DisappearedMarch 24, 1998 (aged 23)
While on board a Royal Caribbean cruiseliner, the Rhapsody of the Seas, she disappeared during the leg of the cruise while en route to Curaçao.
StatusMissing for 26 years, 7 months and 18 days
Parents
  • Ron Bradley (father)
  • Iva Bradley (mother)


Amy Lynn Bradley (born May 12, 1974) is an American woman who went missing during a Caribbean cruise on the Royal Caribbean International cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas in late March 1998 while en route to Curaçao.[1] Her whereabouts remain unknown to this day. She was a 23-year-old Longwood University graduate at the time of her disappearance.[2]

After midnight on Monday, March 23, 1998, Amy and her younger brother, Brad, headed to the ship's nightclub to go dancing. Records show that Brad decided to return to his cabin earlier than Amy. The ship's door lock records show that Brad had entered his cabin at around 3:35 AM,  and Amy soon followed five minutes later. The two chatted before heading to bed. Amy's father, Ron, awoke around 6:00 AM to check on his daughter, only to find her missing from the balcony she had slept on earlier.

When authorities were alerted that Amy was missing, the Netherlands Antilles Coast Guard conducted a four-day search in the surrounding waters and along the cruise lines to no result. Authorities began to speculate that she may have fallen overboard and drowned, but investigators have rejected this theory, as Amy was known to be a strong swimmer, and searches turned up no sign of her. There have been possible sightings of Amy in Curaçao. In August 1998, tourists saw a woman resembling Bradley on a beach, and in 1999, a member of the U.S. Navy claimed a woman in a brothel said she was Amy and asked him for help.

New evidence has surfaced over the years since Amy’s disappearance, which has led to theories of Amy potentially being sold into human trafficking. Speculations concerning this possibility have received media coverage, including on the Dr. Phil talk show in a segment titled “The Search for Natalee: Amy Bradley,” and also on America's Most Wanted.




Background
[edit]


Amy Lynn Bradley was born on May 12, 1974, in Petersburg, Virginia. She was a resident of Chesterfield County, Virginia. She attended a local college, Longwood University, and graduated with a degree in Physical Education. She attended with a scholarship in basketball, and was known for her strong swimming abilities, as well as having previously worked as a lifeguard.[2] Amy was planning to start a new job at a computer consulting firm after she graduated from college.[3]

As a celebratory event, Amy decided to join her family on a cruise vacation on the Royal Caribbean International cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas, en route for Curaçao, a Dutch Caribbean island under the Kingdom of the Netherlands.[4]



Prior to the disappearance
[edit]


Rhapsody of the Seas, shown in 2018.


On March 21, 1998, Amy and her family boarded the cruise destined for Curaçao.[2][3] Prior to the time of the disappearance, Amy and her brother, Brad, decided to stay up late dancing at a Mardi Gras nightclub party on the ship, and drinking alcohol with the ship's band, Blue Orchid.[3][5] One of the band's members, Alister “Yellow” Douglas, was drinking with Amy that night, and claimed that he left the party at around 1:00 AM.[5] At the time, a videographer named Chris Fenwick captured a moment when Amy and Yellow were dancing.[5][6]

After a couple of hours, Brad decided to retire for the rest of the night at the family cabin at around 3:35 AM. The ship's computerized door lock system recorded that Brad returned to the cabin at 3:35 AM, where Amy followed five minutes later. Brad reported that he and his sister sat on the suite's balcony and talked before he went to sleep, while Amy stayed awake for a while longer before she fell asleep shortly after.[3][7][8]



Disappearance
[edit]


Between the times of 5:15 AM and 5:30 AM on March 24, 1998, Amy's father, Ron, woke up and got up to check on the status of his children, where he saw Amy still sleeping on the lounge chair of their cabin's balcony. Ron told local papers that he “could see Amy's legs from her hips down. […] I dozed back off to sleep. The balcony door was closed, because if it hadn’t been closed, I would have gotten up and closed it.”[9][10] When he reawakened at 6:00 AM, however, Amy was missing, along with her cigarettes and lighter. Ron later recounted, “I left to try and go up and find her. When I couldn't find her, I didn't really know what to think, because it was very much unlike Amy to leave and not tell us where she was going.”[11] After Ron unsuccessfully searched the common areas of the cruise for his daughter, he woke up the rest of the family at 6:30 AM, and informed them that Amy was missing.[3][5][8][9][10]



Investigation
[edit]


Amy's family immediately reported the missing case to the onboard crew, where they continued to plead with the crew members to keep the 2,000 passengers from disembarking the cruise, and to make an announcement to assist in finding Amy. However, the team at the purser's office informed them that it was too early to make a ship-wide announcement. The crew agreed to issue an announcement at 7:50 AM, after a majority of the passengers had left the ship, and announced, "Will Amy Bradley please come to the purser’s desk?"[10] Between 12:15 PM and 1:00 PM, the cruise staff searched throughout the ship, but could not find Amy. The ship’s crew may have inadvertently lowered the chances of finding Amy by delaying the search, in addition to disregarding the pleas of the Bradley family imploring for passengers not to be allowed to disembark.[6]

The Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard conducted a four-day search that ended on March 27, 1998, and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines chartered a boat to continue looking for her. The Coast Guard used three helicopters and a radar plane to assist in the search.[12]



Possible sightings
[edit]


Initially, the authorities suspected that Amy had either fallen overboard or died by suicide. However, this speculation was soon discredited, as Amy was known to be a strong swimmer, and there was no evidence of foul play or her body in the water.[2][10][9][11]

On the morning of the disappearance, two passengers told Ron that they saw a woman matching Amy's description taking an elevator to the ship's deck with cigarettes and a lighter. However, this did not lead to any findings.[10]

Another witness was a cab driver, who stated that a woman matching Amy's description approached him, and said she urgently needed a phone. This sighting was never confirmed by authorities.[10]

In August 1998, a Canadian computer engineer claimed to have seen Amy walking with two men on a beach in Curaçao, five months after the disappearance was made public.[3][6][13] The witness noticed that the woman was constantly trying to get his attention until he lost sight of her at a nearby café.[12] The woman's tattoos were reportedly identical to Amy’s, and the man recalled that he was "two feet away from her," and he was sure it was her with complete certainty.[11]



Cruise liner moves into Curacao, pictured in January 2021.


In January 1999, a U.S. Navy petty officer claimed to have seen a woman who claimed to be Amy Bradley at a brothel in Curaçao. He stated she told him that “her name was Amy Bradley, and [she] begged him for help,” explaining that she was being held against her will, and not allowed to leave.[11][14] However, the petty officer did not report the incident sooner, as he feared that admitting to visiting a brothel would have jeopardized his Naval career at the time. The witness only contacted Amy's family after he retired, and saw her picture in a magazine. There was no evidence to support the witness's claim.

Another potential sighting took place in March 2005, when a witness named Judy Maurer claimed to have seen Amy in a department store restroom in Barbados. She claimed a woman entered the restroom accompanied by three men, who proceeded to threaten her if she did not follow through on a deal. Maurer alleged that after the men left, she approached the distraught woman, who said that her first name was Amy and that she was from Virginia, before the men re-entered and took her away. Maurer called authorities, and they created composite sketches of three men and the woman based on her account.[1][15]



Events after the disappearance
[edit]


In the fall of 1999, Amy's parents received an email from a self-proclaimed Navy Seal soldier named Frank Jones.[16] Jones told the family that he was a former US Army Special Officer with a team of experienced soldiers who might be able to rescue Amy.[16] Jones had claimed that his team had seen Amy being held by heavily armed Colombian personnel in a housing complex surrounded by barbed wire. The team also gave an accurate description of Amy's tattoos, and sang the lullaby that Amy's mother used to sing for Amy.[10] Over the next few months, Jones would feed news to the family, and provided reports on sightings of their daughter. When Jones told them they were going to attempt a rescue, he added that more funds were needed. The Bradleys sent Jones a total of $210,000 to fund the set up for Amy's search, and had expected a call from Jones and his team for the results of the rescue mission that never came. Jones had fabricated the story as a ruse to scam the Bradleys out of money. In February 2002, federal prosecutors in Richmond, VA charged him with defrauding the Bradleys of $24,444 and the National Missing Children's Organization of $186,416. Jones pleaded guilty in April 2002 of mail fraud, and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.[16]

In 2010, another notable incident occurred on Aruba when a human jawbone was found by an American tourist after it washed ashore on the beach.[1][17] Initially, it was thought to be the jawbone of Natalee Holloway, a teenager from Alabama who had disappeared in 2005 while on a trip to Aruba. However, forensic testing determined that the jawbone did not belong to Holloway. Subsequently, once the jawbone was confirmed as not belonging to Holloway,[18] authorities ceased any further testing—despite the fact that there were nine other Caribbean vacationers that were said to be missing. No DNA testing was done on the material. Law enforcement authorities concluded that the bone is human as it contained a wisdom tooth, and was likely from a Caucasian origin.[1][18]

Ron and Iva Bradley appeared on the November 17, 2005, episode of Dr. Phil. During the program, a photo that had been emailed to the Bradleys via their personal family website was revealed to the public for the first time.[19] The photo depicted a young woman who resembled Amy; the woman was scantily clad in lingerie, and her facial expression appeared somewhat dazed and withdrawn as she posed suggestively while laying on a bed.[20] The content and provocative nature of the photo caused the Bradleys to fear that Amy might have been sold into sexual slavery.[21]  The photographs were observed by a member of an organization that attempts to track victims on sites that feature sex workers. The woman in the photo has been said to appear "distraught and despondent,"[18] and was a sex worker known as Jas.[13]



Theories on the disappearance
[edit]


There are some theories that are circulating the internet in regard to the disappearance of Amy Lynn Bradley. One of these theories was that she was kidnapped and sold into the illegal human trafficking industry in the Caribbean.[10] This theory is supported by various sources of evidence including a key witness from a U.S. Navy Officer[2][3][22] claiming that he heard a worker at a brothel in the Caribbean claiming to be Amy and a 2005 photo that was emailed to Amy's family. Another piece of evidence would include the inconsistencies of the witnesses on the night of the disappearance. In People Magazine, Amy's mother stated, "I remember watching people watch her admiringly" and later goes on to say "Amy would have been a trophy."[9] This theory also includes suspicions of the staff/band members on the cruise on the night of the disappearance; one of these suspicions being the inconsistent story that the band member ‘Yellow’ presented to the authorities as opposed to what CCTV has captured that night.[5][10] Many people suspected that a waiter was also involved with the disappearance. Throughout the night, Amy's family was approached by the same waiter asking to pass on a note to Amy for him involving an invitation for her to go drinking with him once they reach shore.[10] In addition, the professional photographer had printed out all photos taken throughout the cruise to sell at a stall, but the family could not find any of Amy's photos, making them believe that the photos had been removed by somebody.[10]

Another theory authorities considered was that Amy was murdered on the ship and thrown overboard. However, the only evidence supporting this is the discovery of a jawbone which washed ashore on a beach in Aruba.[1]

The final theory includes Amy falling overboard or dying by suicide as initially suggested by the authorities.[2][3]

Amy Lynn Bradley was declared legally dead on March 24, 2010, twelve years after the disappearance with no witnesses and no body found.[22]



Aftermath and rewards
[edit]


Amy Lynn Bradley Wanted Poster. FBI


The FBI is currently offering a reward of up to $25,000 for any information that could potentially lead to the recovery of Amy Lynn Bradley or leads to an arrest or conviction of the person(s) responsible for Amy's disappearance.[23][24] On top of this, the family is awarding $250,000 for information leading to her safe return and the family also has a reward of $50,000 for information leading to her current location.[1][16]

Her case was featured on America's Most Wanted[24] and the television show Disappeared.[25] Her case was also the subject of episode 59 of the Casefile podcast and the podcasts Crime Junkie[26] and The Casual Criminalist.[27]

Renewed attention was paid to her case after the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in 2005.[21][28][29]



See also
[edit]



References
[edit]


    

  1. ^ a b c d e f Mikkilineni, Rupa (January 3, 2011). "Jawbone rekindles cruise ship mystery". CNN. Retrieved October 1, 2015.

    2. 

  2. ^ a b c d e f Serena, Katie (December 3, 2021). "The Mysterious Case Of Amy Lynn Bradley, The 23-Year-Old Who Vanished From A Cruise Ship". All That's Interesting. Archived from the original on March 13, 2018. Retrieved December 17, 2021.

    3. 

  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Disappeared (September 29, 2021). "Amy Lynn Bradley". Disappeared. Archived from the original on September 25, 2020. Retrieved December 13, 2021.

    4. 

  4. ^ Zaken, Ministerie van Buitenlandse (May 10, 2017). "About Curaçao - United States - Netherlandsandyou.nl". www.netherlandsandyou.nl. Retrieved January 8, 2022.

    5. 

  5. ^ a b c d e Fenwick, Chris (March 1, 2001). "Amy Bradley Is Missing". One on One. Archived from the original on December 1, 2010. Retrieved December 2, 2021.

    6. 

  6. ^ a b c Suzzane, Victoria (September 1, 2021). "Vanished: What Happened to Amy Lynn Bradley?". Medium. Archived from the original on January 10, 2022. Retrieved December 10, 2021.

    7. 

  7. ^ Grande, Todd (October 21, 2021). "Amy Lynn Bradley Disappearance Analysis | Complex Conspiracy or Simple Explanation?". YouTube. Archived from the original on January 8, 2022. Retrieved December 2, 2021.

    8. 

  8. ^ a b The Charley Project (October 24, 2008). "Amy Lynn Bradley". The Charley Project. Archived from the original on April 4, 2018. Retrieved December 16, 2021.

    9. 

  9. ^ a b c d Mysteries, Unsolved (May 10, 2017). "AMY BRADLEY". Unsolved Mysteries. Archived from the original on June 6, 2017. Retrieved December 17, 2021.

    10. 

  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Howe, Callum (October 5, 2021). "The Disappearance of Amy Lynn Bradley". The Casual Criminalist. Archived from the original on December 10, 2021. Retrieved December 17, 2021.

    11. 

  11. ^ a b c d "The Search for Natalee: Amy Bradley". Dr. Phil. November 17, 2005. Retrieved January 2, 2017.

    12. 

  12. ^ a b "Amy Bradley, 23". People (magazine). September 23, 2016. Retrieved January 9, 2017.

    13. 

  13. ^ a b Moran, Michael (November 27, 2021). "Family fear daughter was sold as sex slave after disappearing from cruise ship". Mirror. Archived from the original on November 27, 2021. Retrieved December 10, 2021.

    14. 

  14. ^ Van Zandt, Clint (June 20, 2005). "Who's taken our daughter?". The Abrams Report. Retrieved January 2, 2017.

    15. 

  15. ^ "Vanished, with Beth Holloway - Amy Bradley, Pt. 5". A&E Television Networks (Lifetime). Archived from the original on December 21, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2017.

    16. 

  16. ^ a b c d "Con Man Dupes Family in Hunt for Daughter". ABC News. June 26, 2003. Archived from the original on January 13, 2017. Retrieved January 12, 2017.

    17. 

  17. ^ Bowes, Mark (January 4, 2011). "Parents of missing Chesterfield woman skeptical that jawbone found in Aruba is their daughter's". Richmond Times-Dispatch. Archived from the original on June 26, 2024. Retrieved June 26, 2024.

    18. 

  18. ^ a b c Gibbons, Phil (September 23, 2021). "Shocking Facts About Amy Lynn Bradley, The Woman Who Disappeared At Sea". Ranker. Archived from the original on July 3, 2019. Retrieved January 6, 2022.

    19. 

  19. ^ "Amy Lynn Bradley's family fear she is a victim of sex trafficking after cruise disappearance". The New Zealand Herald. June 25, 2024. Archived from the original on June 27, 2024. Retrieved June 27, 2024.

    20. 

  20. ^ Banim, Julia (September 1, 2023). "Chilling mystery of woman who disappeared from cruise ship—but didn't fall overboard". Daily Mirror. Archived from the original on June 27, 2024. Retrieved June 27, 2024.

    21. 

  21. ^ a b "The Search for Natalee and Amy". Dr. Phil (TV series). November 17, 2005. Retrieved October 1, 2015.

    22. 

  22. ^ a b Shelton, Jacob. "The Disappearance Of Amy Lynn Bradley: Everything We Know". History Daily. Archived from the original on August 30, 2020. Retrieved January 6, 2022.

    23. 

  23. ^ "Wanted by the FBI: Missing Woman Amy Lynn Bradley". FBI. March 22, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

    24. 

  24. ^ a b "Amy Lynn Bradley". America's Most Wanted. Archived from the original on October 17, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2012.

    25. 

  25. ^ "Amy Lynn Bradley". amybradley.net. Retrieved July 12, 2012.

    26. 

  26. ^ "MISSING: AMY LYNN BRADLEY". Crime Junkie Podcast. March 4, 2019. Retrieved March 5, 2019.

    27. 

  27. ^ "The Disappearance of Amy Lynn Bradley". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 21, 2021. Retrieved May 27, 2021.

    28. 

  28. ^ "Striking Similarities in Two Disappearances". ABC News. January 7, 2006. Retrieved October 1, 2015.

    29. 

  29. ^ Van Zandt, Clint (November 17, 2005). "Why some say Natalee may still be alive". NBC News. Retrieved October 1, 2015.

    30. 



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