Amy Bradley is Missing | Part 2

0:00Rebecca Lavoie:I'm Rebecca Lavoie and this is You Can't Make This Up.

0:14Rebecca Lavoie:You Can't Make This Up is the podcast where we uncover the true stories behind your favorite Netflix documentaries and films. On today's episode, we take an even deeper dive into the Netflix documentary series Amy Bradley is Missing. Because unless somebody knows something, please give us that one thing that we need. Today, we're talking to Anthony Willis, who created the website amybradleyismissing.com. When Amy Bradley vanished from a cruise ship in 1998, the early belief was that she went overboard. But as time passed, sightings throughout the Caribbean of a woman who looked like Amy gave the family hope she was alive.

0:56Rebecca Lavoie:Now, a new generation of investigators is asking if she somehow got off the boat undetected, where has she been and why hasn't she contacted her family? On the second part of our look at the Netflix documentary series, Amy Bradley is Missing, we hear from an online sleuth hoping to locate the vanished American. Who are the suspects who could have kidnapped her? Are the sightings of her credible? Do the forensics prove the sex-trafficked woman in that photo is Amy? And does the online habits of a user fixated on the investigation's website suggest they may have an answer to where Amy Bradley is?

1:31But I never had nothing to do with Amy Bradley. Nothing. She just was the girl next door in the room.

1:48Rebecca Lavoie:And I'm joined now by Anthony Willis. Anthony, welcome to You Can't Make This Up. Thank you, Rebecca. Thanks for having me. So last week, we talked to Phil Lott and Ari Mark about the making of the Netflix documentary series, Amy Bradley is Missing. Today, we want to hear more about the investigation into what might have happened. So tell me how you got started. Were you an online sleuth before you heard about the Amy Bradley case? Yes, I definitely was. I had been very active in the online forums for many years since about 2013, since I was about 15. I first became aware of Amy's case. Actually, I remember the night vividly.

2:25It was a school night. I was watching TV, the Investigation Discovery Channel ID, and the Vanished with Beth Holloway program featuring Amy's case was airing that evening. I was completely and utterly shocked with what I was hearing about the case. I had never heard of Amy's case before, and I found that very interesting because I had looked into cases regarding human trafficking. So I was very surprised that I had never heard of Amy's case before. And I was even more shocked that Amy's case had never been solved all these years later. I remember after watching that program, I was very moved by that program vanished.

3:02And I remember racing to the computer. I think I was up till about 3 a.m. on a school night, researching pretty much everything I could find about Amy's case online. I was reading every single news article that was archived. I had went down the rabbit hole on WebSleuth. There had been so many threads over the years, which I was surprised that, you know, I was never there for. You know, Amy's case wasn't really actively being discussed at that point. So that was really how I got started.

3:32Rebecca Lavoie:So Amy was last spotted on the balcony of her cruise ship by her father around 5.30 a.m. on March 24th, 1998. And at about six, it was discovered she was no longer there. The most direct inference I think most people would make only knowing that was that she fell overboard. And as you look at the case, do you agree that that's a zero chance possibility or greater than zero chance possibility that she actually just had an accident? That's something that I think most people immediately assume when they first hear about the case. The fact that Amy was last seen on the balcony, well, she was last seen by her father, that wasn't her last known location.

4:09We have been able to narrow Amy's movements down on the ship quite a bit. We know that from 5.15 to 5.30 a.m., Amy's father, Ron, briefly awoke and observed Amy rest on the chair of the balcony. He distinctly remembers that the balcony door was closed at the time. At this time, he decided to go back to sleep because it was 5.30. The ship was going to be docking in about 30 minutes, so he wanted to get as much rest as he needed to get before they were going to go up to have breakfast and disembark. Around 6 a.m., the timeline is that Ron Bradley, her father, awoke to find the balcony door open.

4:46It was previously closed. Amy was not on the balcony. He noted that her cigarettes and lighter was gone. He also noticed that she had also left her yellow polo shirt on the chair. So we assume that she did change clothes and took her lighter. That's where the mystery begins. I figured that by leaving myself and letting him sleep

5:06Rebecca Lavoie:that I would find Amy, you know, in just a few minutes. And then everything would be good. But when I didn't, that's when I came back and told Alba, you know, I was, I can't find Amy. We do know that she did leave the balcony and we do have witness statements of witnesses who have actually testified in front of federal grand jury that they had seen Amy after that. Yeah. So what do you make of the fact that she left behind her shoes? Did she also leave her behind her key card? I don't know about the key card. I do know that Amy did bring quite a few pairs of shoes with her on the ship. I have had many conversations with Ivor, and I do know that Amy did go barefoot quite a lot.

5:49I don't know if that was the case here, but she could have also took another pair of shoes with her.

5:56Rebecca Lavoie:Tell us about the theories of how Amy could have left the ship. Doesn't Curacao require a passport or ID to disembark the ship and enter that country? What we believe happened was the sightings on the ship that took place, We know that at 5.45 a.m., Crystal Roberts and another woman, Laurie Rennick, who was two college-aged girls who were on the cruise, they testified that they had seen Amy and Alistair Douglas enter the glass elevator and go up into the disco, which is located on the 11th deck. At the disco area, there is a bar area. About 10 to 15 minutes later, they said that Alistair Douglas returned from the disco by himself without Amy.

6:37Rebecca Lavoie:We're alone on this top deck. You know, he just walks right by us. Doesn't even look at us. You know, I just kind of got a bad vibe. You know, immediately I thought, well, where's Amy? It's very important to mention that Alistair Douglas was not seen leaving the disco area. So we had that very short period of time that something happened to Amy. So the FBI did turn their focus to this crew member, Alistair Douglas. He was a bass player in the band. His nickname was Yellow. How did he originally come into the frame? Was it because of that sighting? Alistair Douglas was videoed dancing with Amy in the disco area prior in that evening.

7:20I think it was about 1 a.m. I do know that Amy had made a comment to her brother that Alistair Douglas seemed a bit of a jerk. You know, he kind of was dancing a little bit close to her and Amy had to tell him to back off a little bit. There wasn't anything other than that, but we do know that he was the last person to be seen with Amy. It's very important to really understand the fact that he was the last person known to be with Amy. We know that Amy and Alistair Douglas entered the glass elevator. Crystal and Laurie saw them go up and step into the disco. Another thing that hasn't been discussed very much is the testimony by another woman named Elizabeth Lewis.

7:59she was able to corroborate the information that crystal and laurie gave and she stated that she was actually in the disco bar area on the 11th deck around that same time she also testified in front of the federal grand jury that she saw alistair douglas and amy enter the disco area from the glass elevator she saw them walk over to the bar area uh yellow turned up the music and handed amy a dark colored drink which could have been coke or coffee it was at this time However, that Elizabeth actually, that was the last thing that she saw. She left the disco area to disembark for Curacao because she had an excursion booked for the island.

8:38That would have been around probably 6 a.m. at the time that the ship had completely docked.

8:44Rebecca Lavoie:So I've been on a cruise before and I've done those excursions from the boat to shore. And typically there aren't a bunch of crew members with you when you do it, just other passengers. So is the idea that Amy could have gotten off the ship the same way or with the crew? that got off the ship? It's possible. Look, I don't think that that's what happened. As we know, that Crystal and Laurie was pretty adamant that they saw Amy go up into the disco and that Alistair Douglas returned about 10 to 15 minutes later alone. So a lot of people would think, well, what happened to her? You know, she didn't just evaporate in the disco bar area.

9:23I think that it's very, could be likely that the drink could have very well have been drugged. Amy could have been incapacitated. There's also something else that hasn't been discussed very much, but there is actually a service ride elevator that is located at the back of the bar on the 11th deck. It actually connects the upper deck and the disco to the cargo hold. This was an elevator that was a service elevator that was used only for employees. I believe that it's not at all a stretch for me to believe that Amy could have easily been drugged at that point and possibly placed in that service elevator and taken down to the cargo hold.

10:00Rebecca Lavoie:Do you think it's fair to say, given that the crew did this so-called Charlie drill, that she was definitely no longer aboard the ship when it departed Carousel? I don't think that Amy was most likely removed from the ship at the earliest convenience. We know that Amy was not seen coming up out from the disco area. Her last known location was on the upper deck on the 11th deck in the bar area. So the fear had been at one point that Amy may have died aboard the ship either by accident or by violence. And then came David Carmichael. Can you talk about how his sighting, what he saw on the beach, changed the contours of this case?

10:39Oh, absolutely. The Port-au-Marie sighting that took place in August of 1998, what had happened was David Carmichael was a Canadian computer engineer. He had went down to Port-au-Marie in August of 1998 with a buddy. He was scuba diving at an area of Curacao, Court Port-au-Marie. At the time that they were washing off their equipment, he noticed a woman being flanked on the beach by two men. David stated that as soon as the woman heard that he spoke English, she started putting distance between the two men that were flanking her. At some point, she's hurried up and got right in his face. And she's just about to say something to me when the person who was on the inside comes up.

11:24I'm looking right at him. He stared at me. Doesn't say a word. And motions her away. At that point, David Carmichael thought that this was quite alarming and he followed them into a nearby cafe. He noticed that Amy appeared to be pointing out several tattoos that she had had. She was almost kind of discreetly pointing them out. The tattoos that he had seen was the Tasmanian devil that was located on her left shoulder blade. He saw the Chinese symbol on her ankle. You know, it was an unusual thing that he had seen, you know, but at the same time, you know, he didn't really understand what to make of it.

12:03He thought that it could have possibly been a domestic situation. So everybody left. Another thing that hasn't really been discussed that much, and I think it is a very important detail, is the fact that Amy was actually wearing a blue-coloured men's watch that a boy that she was dating had given her prior to the cruise. Now, it's very important to mention that this information about the blue men's watch that Amy was wearing had not been mentioned anywhere in the media before. It was information that had been held back. David Carmichael accurately described the watch to the FBI and the Bradleys, as well as the federal brand jury.

12:36He has no doubt that he saw Amy in Portemarie.

12:40Rebecca Lavoie:Now, sex trafficking, unfortunately, is not uncommon in the Caribbean. And maybe it's not surprising that someone from the Navy like Bill Hefner would have a sense of where to go on an island to find that kind of activity. What parts of Bill Hefner's story are most interesting to you? The interesting thing about this sighting, it has commonly been referred to as the brothel sighting. However, it really actually wasn't an official brothel. It was called the Stellaris Hotel. It was a hotel first and foremost. It did have a bad reputation and it was off limits to US military personnel. However, it wasn't an official brothel.

13:16However, what is interesting about it, it is actually located directly across from the old cruise ship docks that are still used when the other piers are full. It's literally just blocks away from where the ship docked on March 24th, 1998 and where Amy disappeared. The sighting occurred in January of 1999. Hefner had entered the bar area of the hotel. He had noticed two women sitting together. One woman was Caucasian, the other was Hispanic. The Caucasian woman actually walked over to him, leaned in onto his table and said that, my name is Amy Bradley and I need help. And then she told me she got off that ship

13:52Rebecca Lavoie:and she left on her own because she was going to score drugs. She said, me and my brother are partying and I went ashore to go get drugs and now I'm stuck here with these guys. She was trying to keep it on the down low that she told me anything. She didn't want the guys or the other girl to know that she told me. Hefner did identify that, you know, he could recognize that the woman was American. So he said, you know, there was a naval ship that was docked five minutes down the dock where she could go for help. The woman replied, no, you don't understand. I cannot leave. My name is Amy Bradley.

14:26At that point, two men motioned her away and told her to go upstairs. Now, this is also something that has kind of been miscommunicated. A lot of people think that Hefner actually withheld this information because he didn't want to get in trouble with the Navy. The reality is that he didn't know who Amy Bradley was at the time. He did not know that anybody was missing on the island. He did not know about Amy until he saw her face on the cover of the July 2001 edition of People magazine. Once he saw her face, he recognized who he possibly may have seen. And that's when he came forward.

15:00Rebecca Lavoie:The whole case was upended in a sense when photos of a sex worker who looked a lot like Amy were forwarded to the Bradley family. Can you talk about the steps that were taken to verify those photos? This is another part of the case that is still a head scratcher for me, even to this day. It's a level of panic. All I could keep thinking is, is that my daughter? It's a pretty unsettling set of images. Just sickening. I mean, it's certainly not somewhere Amy would want any part of. The photographs of the infamous jazz photographs of a woman who strongly resembled Amy Bradley, they were actually discovered on the website of the Adult Affordable Vacations website.

15:48This was a website of our escort resort that was located in Playa El Laga, Margarita Island, Venezuela. The discovery was actually made in 2005. The photographs of Jazz, however, can be traced back as far as December 6, 2002 on the Wayback Machine. The interesting thing about this is the photographs obviously look identical to Amy. I know that the Bradleys, when they received this information, they immediately contacted a man named Wesley Neville. He is a forensic detective who I know that Aaron Sheridan, the FBI agent who was investigating the case, said in the Disappeared program in 2018. He actually worked for the FBI now.

16:28He did do a forensic evaluation of the photographs and he determined that hairline, facial structure, and multiple ear piercings made the woman in the photograph a perfect match for Amy. In fact, he even stated that he would bet his career that the woman was Amy.

16:45Rebecca Lavoie:I think the woman looks just like Amy. What are your thoughts on the photo? I have a lot of thoughts on the photo, actually. I definitely do believe it is Amy. And another thing that a lot of people kind of miss when they look at the photographs, people are just looking at the facial resemblance. People aren't also looking at the fact that the woman in the photograph is strategically posed in positions to conveniently cover all the areas where Amy has her tattoos. I know that the first photograph, which kind of shows her on the bed, it's not as explicit. It doesn't reveal a whole lot her left ankle is showing.

17:18However, Amy's Chinese symbols located on her right ankle, that is completely out of frame the other photograph which shows her kind of to the side this photograph is more revealing which is why it has been censored when we have posted it on my site amy's hair is completely covering the left shoulder blade where she has her tasmanian devil tattoo the hair does look quite carefully placed and another thing that you can see by looking at the uncensored image is that amy is kind of partially wearing kind of like a blue velvet underwear and it's it's just resting on her lower back. She's not even correctly wearing it properly.

17:54It's just resting on her lower back exactly where the sun tattoo is. The interesting thing about that, the photographs almost look like a taunt to me. I know that the FBI did send agents down to that resort in Venezuela. I know that they investigated, sourced the photographs. I have been led to believe and told that the owner of the resort claimed that the images came from a source in a sale and that the woman was never available as an escort at the resort. The thing about that is the photographs that were posted on that site, a lot of them were actually photographs of porn actresses that had had their photographs taken and stolen.

18:35A lot of them were actually, there was even a photograph of Tyra Banks that was actually being advertised as a escort for the resort.

18:42Rebecca Lavoie:Like a bait and switch situation, right? Yeah, it was. It was definitely, yes. The interesting thing about that is we just don't understand why that photograph was posted in the first place. We know that the woman, the escorts that worked at that resort were all local Venezuelan women. There were no American women. There were no women that were Caucasian that worked at that resort. I know that the FBI did try and find the woman that appeared in that photograph, but she was never an escort actually at the AAV resort.

19:15Rebecca Lavoie:There was actually an incident on Barbados that a woman named Judy Maurer talks about. Can you talk about that incident? What happened was in March of 2005, Judy Mara and her husband had went on a cruise. The ship docked in Bridgetown on March 1st, 2005. They decided to go downtown and do some shopping. While Judy Mara was using a restroom, as she was getting into the store, she heard men's voices. Her response was obviously to hide, you know. So she put her feet up on the toilet and kept as quiet as she could. As she heard the men come into the restroom, she heard what sounded like an illegal deal taking place.

19:56One of the men had said to somebody, the deal's on at 11 o 'clock, you better be ready to go. And I'm warning you, you better cooperate. This is my deal and you better not screw it up. And he kept saying it and saying it. At some point, the men's voices left. She didn't hear the men's voices anymore. At that time, she decided that it might be safe to come out of the restroom. by the time she got out of the restroom out of the store she noticed that she wasn't alone there was a woman that was kind of cowering by the sink as Judy was you know washing her hands she you know tried to talk to her because she could tell that she was very distraught the woman talked so softly that she could barely hear her but she asked you know where are you from and the response she thought she heard was Virginia and then what she said next was well what's your name and the woman said very softly, Amy.

20:50Rebecca Lavoie:And I have a daughter named Amy and she's just about your age. And when I said that, she starts walking towards me, getting up in my face and she backs me into a wall and I just froze. At that point, the woman got very quite agitated. Her mouth flew open. She kind of did like a pivot, but she kind of pivoted towards Judy, kind of like she was getting up in her space. And she did that kind of like a couple of times. I think she was probably trying to get Judy to be quiet because she had said that out loud that, you know, my daughter's name is Amy. At that point that I think Amy realized that the men had likely heard what she had just said.

21:36Rebecca Lavoie:Yeah. So we have three stories here, David and Bill and Judy. What's the likelihood you think that all three of these are Amy and not two or three different women being trafficked? Well, the thing about this, I understand that in missing persons cases, you know, sightings are commonplace, you know, but I don't think you can really talk these sightings up as mistaken identities. In each case, you know, I don't know how many other American women were missing in the Caribbean that had the exact same tattoos as Amy, the same name. We're talking about cases, about incidents where a woman, you know, has identified herself as Amy Lynn Bradley or as Amy with the same tattoos and had asked for help.