In March of 1998 Amy Lynn Bradley was 23 years old, a recent college graduate who set out on the holiday of a lifetime with her family. Her brother Brad, her father Rod and her mother Iva decided to go on a cruise in The Caribbean. Amy was at first reluctant to go because although she was a trainer life guard, the open ocean made her nervous. Amy had gotten her degree in sports science and was planning to start her masters, this holiday was the perfect way to relax and spend some downtime with her family before continuing with her studies. Ron Bradley had actually been awarded the cruise holiday as his job from while he was working with an insurance company.
On the evening of March 23rd the family went out for dinner where the dress code was black tie, before having their meal Amy and Brad had their photo taken by the on board photographer. While they were having their photo taken their parents were sitting at the table as it was being set. Iva noted to Amy when she returned that one of the waiters had asked if she would be willing to leave the ship and go onto the mainland with some of the crew later the following night. It was a rather bizarre proposition for a waiter to put forward to a young woman but while Amy was uncomfortable with the the attention and told her father it gave her the creeps she shrugged it off and assured her parents that she would remain on the ship and the family continued with their evening.
The following day the family enjoyed a day in Aruba and a group of dancers and band performing calypso music were welcomed aboard the ship as that evenings entertainment. That evening Amy and Brad went to check out their pictures and realised that their pictures were missing from the photographers selection from the previous night. While many people claim that this was a deliberate attempt to hide the photos but it seems to me to have been a genuine mistake by the photographer. When Iva Bradley questioned the photographer he agreed to have them redeveloped.
That night Amy and Brad went to the nightclub on the ship which was opened 24 hours and spent the night dancing and having a good time. At some point during the night Amy got talking to the bass player from the band that was playing that night, Blue Orchid. Alistair Douglas went by the name of Yellow and video footage emerged afterwards of him dancing with Amy. Yellow claims that he and Amy parted ways at about 1 am. CCTV would later show that he was with her until after 3 am.
The ship locking security system records when people use the key cards to enter the rooms, Brad was recorded going into the room at round 3.30 am and Amy was recorded 5 minutes later, at 3.35 am. They went out onto the balcony of the room and sat there to smoke a cigarette before turning in for the night.
A few hours later, sometime between 5.15 am and 5.30 am, Ron Bradley awoke to find Amy sleeping on the balcony, he realised that his two children were back safely in the cabin and nodded back off to sleep. He awoke again at 6 am and got out of bed to go and check on Amy, he discovered that she was no longer on the balcony. Realising that only her cigarettes and lighter were gone he assumed she may have gone to have a cigarette on one of the upper decks to watch the ship come into shore. He decided to go and locate her. He looked in the common areas of the ship and grew alarmed when he could not find his missing daughter.
Ron Bradley notified the crew on the ship that his daughter was missing and it was unlike his daughter to go off unexpectedly without letting somebody know. As Amy was 23 years old, the head of security was not alarmed. Ron returned to the cabin around 7 am to wake Brad and Iva and tell him about the missing Amy. Iva claimed that she knew right away from looking at Ron's face that something was wrong.
At 8 am that morning the ship docked in Antilles and the crew were preparing for disembarking passengers. The Bradleys wanted to keep everybody on the ship to search for their daughter, rather than give a possible kidnapper a way off. The ship's crew were also reluctant to draw attention to the fact that one of the passengers had gone missing and the Bradleys were desperately pleading with them to make an announcement to help find Amy, this never happened. They did however put out a call for Amy Bradley to contact the office rather than cause alarm or panic among the other passengers. When filing out at the port customs agents would check the passengers but in 1998 in South America, I can assume that customs and security would have been quite lax, especially as it was per 9-11.
Brad claimed that Amy had mentioned wanting to go and get cigarettes and this may possibly have led to some confusion in whether Amy had gone missing or possibly gone onto the mainland ahead of everybody to get cigarettes. Amy's shoes were found in the cabin and her family believed that she would not have gone far and she almost definitely would not have left the ship without her shoes. Regardless of what the family or crew thought was the right decision under the circumstances, the 3,000 passengers began filing off the ship to enjoy their day. Brad remained on the ship looking for Amy and he claims that he bumped into Yellow, Amy had been dancing with him the night before. Brad claimed that Yellow said he was sorry to hear about his sister and continued to walk away.
The Bradleys alerted the police officials on Curacao and requested the assistance of the FBI, who said they would help in the search but it would be 24 hours before they would be able to get to the island. The Rhapsody Of The Seas crew began to search the ship and failed to find any sign of Amy. When the FBI arrive they are given full access to the cruise ship and the crew cooperate in handing over any CCTV that was requested. They begin to conduct interviews with the staff. It was during this time that the FBI uncovered that a full search was never carried out. They had only checked the common areas and public toilet areas.
The FBI searched the room of Yellow, the bass player. He told them that his room had already been searched by staff on the morning of the disappearance but he claimed that this happened at around 7 am and this seems to be a unlikely in my opinion. Amy had not been reported missing at this time and the crew were certainly not looking for her until after the ship had docked after 8 am. Yellow agreed to a polygraph test which he passed and as he exited the room, he smiled to Ron Bradley and gave him a thumbs up, which is extremely bizarre behaviour given that his daughter is missing and he was one of the last people to see her.
The Bradley family were told that with or without them, the ship would be leaving and continuing with the cruise, they were forced to make a tough decision, either stay in Curacao to search for Amy or get back on the ship with the other holiday makers. The family decide not to get back on the ship and continue to search for Amy from land. The search in the water for Amy was called off on the 27th of March but Royal Caribbean carried out their own search using vessels and it was on March 29th that they too decided to call off their search efforts. The Bradley family were forced to return back to Virginia without Amy.
A website and hotline were set up when they returned. Just four days after the hotline was set up they got a call from a taxi driver in Puerto Rico who claims to have seen a woman matching Amy's description being forced into a taxi by a man in a baseball cap. The FBI waited a year to follow up on this lead and the taxi man is able to positively ID Amy but at this stage her photo had been widely distributed and it seems it would have been easy to pick her photo from a collection when shown. The Bradleys offered a reward of $250,000 to anybody with information that leads to the safe return of Amy. The money for the reward was partially guaranteed by Ron Bradleys boss.
Since her disappearance in 1998 numerous sightings of Amy have been reported most noticeable was a photo that surfaced of a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Amy in 2004.
This fueled the idea that Amy had been abducted and sold into sex slavery.
The photo was taken from a sex holiday website but further investigation failed to determine where the photo had originated from. The photo does look similar to Amy, just possibly an older and harsher looking version. A navy officer who was stationed in Curacao also told a story of a sighting of a woman while he was in a brothel of a woman he claims told him that her name was Amy Bradley and she asked for help. Unwilling to help and afraid to come forward with information in fear of being reprimanded for being in a brothel while on duty, he waited to come forward and by the time investigators went to the address provided by the officer, the brothel had burnt down.
While Amy Lynn Bradley is still missing the FBI released an aged photo of what Amy may look like on the 20th anniversary of her disappearance.
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