MISSING: Amy Bradley

In March of 1998 Amy Lynn Bradley and her family set off on what was to be the trip of a lifetime, a full week-long cruise around the Caribbean. But little did they know their dream vacation would turn into a nightmare when Amy went missing from their stateroom in the early morning hours of March 24, 1998. Over 20 years have passed, and clues of her fate are few and far between, but there have been credible sightings to suggest that Amy is alive and being held captive.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ashley Flowers?

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• 0:42Ashley Flowers?

  When you're out in nature, you learn to trust your instincts. You pay attention to the trail, your surroundings, and you stay alert to protect yourself from harm. But what if the biggest threat isn't the environment at all? On Park Predators, host Delia DiEmbra explores true crime cases that happen in national parks and remote wildernesses, the places we usually think of as safe and peaceful. Each episode reveals what happened and how much more there is beneath the surface. Listen to Park Predators now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, crime junkies. You are all asking me, did I watch Amy Bradley is Missing on Netflix? Do I watched all three episodes before lunchtime on the day it came out? No one can out-crimejunkie the crime junkie.

• 1:27Ashley Flowers?

  And listen, I have thoughts. I actually even met with the team that put out the doc at Netflix like the day before it came out, and even they were divided on what happened. So I get why all of you are talking about this, debating this. And I actually noticed that our old episode on Amy's case has spiked over the last week. People are going back and digging in the archive for it. So I wanted to make life super easy on all of you who haven't been with us since the beginning and put it at the top of the feed. Now, listen, be kind. Our episode is like six years old. We were baby Crime Junkies, but it holds up, and may this be the lesson to you. If you want to know about the most interesting cases years before the rest of the world is talking about them,

• 2:09Ashley Flowers?

  Crime Junkie is the show to follow. Jodi Hooz and Truett doc on Hulu already covered it. Yogurt Shop doc coming out on HBO Max already covered it. Let me be your Crime Junkie guide. So, re-listen to our episode, then go watch the Netflix doc because there is a little bit of new information around what was going on in Amy's life leading up to her disappearance, and then some real interesting stuff about website pings that show someone where Amy went missing is real interested in her case. All right, everyone, enjoy this blast from the past. Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  And I'm Britt.

• 2:48Ashley Flowers?

  And today, I want to talk about a type of case that terrifies me to my core, and that's when someone goes missing from a cruise ship.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  That seems pretty specific. And like, I know I have like my ride or die freaky case of Tanya Ryder, but why cruise ships? Why, out of all the dark things that we talk about, cruise ships are your thing?

• 3:10Ashley Flowers?

  Because if you are going to go missing, literally the worst place it can happen is in international waters on a moving vessel. The search area is just so vast. There are so many possibilities, many of which-

• 3:23Speaker 01

  And it's no one's responsibility.

• 3:25Ashley Flowers?

  Right. And it's, it can all be dead ends. Nobody knows who's supposed to like, take charge. I've been on two cruises myself, and don't get me wrong, they are fun, they are. But I don't think people realize how common it is for people to go missing from ships and then never be found. Since the year 2000, there are over 200 people that have just disappeared from cruise ships. And I could probably do an entire series just on that. In fact, we're releasing this episode on our main feed today, this Monday, but tomorrow, we're releasing an entirely different kind of cruise ship mystery. And

• 4:05Ashley Flowers?

  these two cases don't even begin to scratch the surface. So, I hope no one has a cruise ship vacation planned anytime soon, because after you hear the story of Amy Lynn Bradley's disappearance- You might just be a little extra paranoid on your trip.

• 4:54Ashley Flowers?

  Amy's story begins in March of 1998. Amy was just 23 years old and a recent college graduate, who just got her own apartment and was about to start life really out on her own. Amy had just secured a full-time job and her family decided, before she started, they should all go on one more family vacation. Amy, her mother, Iva, her dad, Ron, and her 21-year-old brother, Brad, who was still in college. This was going to be one last trip for the family to remember, like their life together before their kids started having their own lives and becoming adults and having their own kids. You know what I mean? Like that last family trip.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. My, we went to Niagara Falls.

• 5:35Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, and my family did the same thing. Like, we had this, you know, everyone's kind of growing up and like, let's just do one more family thing together. So they board their cruise ship, Rhapsody of the Sea, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The ship was massive and held almost 2,000 people. It had fine dining, pools, entertainment. It looks like a blast, but the Bradleys had no way of knowing that what they expected to be the most fun, relaxing part of their year would actually turn out to be the worst, most devastating time of their lives. And a trip I'm sure they've thought back on 100 times, wishing they wouldn't have taken it. Wishing maybe they would have listened to Amy's instincts,

• 6:18Ashley Flowers?

  because Amy didn't want to go. Amy was incredibly apprehensive of going on the cruise. Even though she was a strong swimmer and had been on the swim team in high school with her brother, she didn't like the idea of going out on the open ocean in this big boat. Something wasn't sitting right with her. And- This is where like it catches me. I wonder how much of her fears were just general anxiety, the kinds of things that a lot of people have to push through to experience new and wonderful things in life. Like my husband, he is deathly afraid of flying every single time. But he pushes through and some of our best memories are on trips that we've taken together. But what if what Amy was feeling was something more? What if

• 7:01Ashley Flowers?

  she had some kind of sense of something bad that was going to happen, but no one knew how to interpret that? And her family didn't. They thought her fears were completely unfounded. And her brother pushed her hard, telling Amy this was going to be an amazing trip. Nothing bad would happen. People take cruises every single day and they're totally fine. Amy finally relented, agreeing to take the trip. And so she, with a smile across her face, boarded the cruise ship. And when she got on, she saw what all the fuss was about. The ship was gorgeous. The cabin she and her brother shared with their parents was spacious and beautiful with a balcony overlooking the ocean. For the next two days, Amy had

• 7:42Ashley Flowers?

  the time of her life, soaking up the sun, swimming, dancing, and spending time with her family. The second night the Bradleys were on the ship, they got totally decked out for a fancy dinner. Like, Britt, I don't know if you've been on a cruise, but they

• 7:56Speaker 01

  always have like- I have. I've been on a couple.

• 7:58Ashley Flowers?

  Okay, yeah. So they have their like fancy dinner nights where you-

• 8:00Speaker 01

  The formal night, yeah.

• 8:01Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, you're like going to prom, basically. Amy and Brad were even photographed together on this fancy dinner night by the cruise ship photographer. And this is one of the most infamous pictures in Amy's case, because it was the last still photograph taken of Amy on the ship. After dinner, the family went to their room, changed out of their dress clothes, and went to the upper deck of the ship for this calypso party. There was this live band, people were dancing and drinking. It was a blast. Around 1 o'clock in the morning, Amy's parents, Iva and Ron, decide that it's time to throw in the towel. They find the kids, say goodnight to each of them before heading off. Now, after Iva and Ron leave, Brad and Amy decide to follow the young crowd down

• 8:46Ashley Flowers?

  to the ship's nightclub. They went together at the same time, but they weren't really like hanging out together. Brad had met some girls, Amy was kind of doing her own thing, too. It doesn't seem that Amy hung out with like just one person the whole time. It seemed like she kind of mingled with a number of different people that night, some other ship passengers, some of the crew members, and specifically at least one of the members of the ship's band called Blue Orchid. And this guy was their bass player named Alistair Douglas, and his nickname was Yellow. Now, around 3:35 ish in the morning, Brad decides that he's gonna call it a night, and he goes back to the room alone, leaving Amy dancing in the club. When he gets back to the cabin, he decides to sit on the balcony for a while, and it's

• 9:31Ashley Flowers?

  not too long before he hears the door open, and he knows Amy is in as well. She joins him on the balcony, and they start to talk for a little while about their plans for the next day, or I guess actually it'd be the same day, since it was around 4:00 in the morning at this point. Like, I miss being young and staying up that late. I need so much sleep now. So, that day, the ship was scheduled to be docking in Curacao for the day, and there's gonna be a ton of new things to see, they're talking about their day on the island, they chit chat for a little bit, and then Brad decides to go to bed, but Amy says she wants to stay out in the fresh air. Now, it's amazing how much this next part gets misreported, because I've seen at least five different timelines of what happened, but the best I can piece it together, sometime

• 10:16Ashley Flowers?

  before sunrise, Amy's dad wakes up in his room, and from his bed, he can see out onto the balcony. And he sees Amy still sitting there, and he thinks, like any dad, like, oh, good, the kids are back, everyone's safe, I don't have to worry. And he falls back asleep. He closes his eyes for what feels like just a couple of minutes. But realistically, it could have been a little bit longer. You know how sometimes you wake up early before your alarm and you're like, great, more time?

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 10:45Ashley Flowers?

  And then, yeah, you close your eyes for what feels like 20 seconds and it's like 45 minutes.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:49Ashley Flowers?

  So we don't know exactly how long he closed his eyes for, but it didn't feel like long when something woke him back up. He doesn't know what it was. Maybe he heard something, maybe he just woke up on his own. He couldn't be sure, but he knew he was startled awake. This time, he peeks at the clock and it's about 6 o'clock in the morning. When he looks out onto the balcony, Amy isn't there. He gets up, he checks his kids' room, and Brad is in the bed, but Amy isn't. The only thing missing is her cigarettes and her lighter, and even her shoes are still in the room. And this is also where I see a lot of misreporting. Many articles say that she left the room with her cigarettes and lighter and no shoes,

• 11:32Ashley Flowers?

  but we don't know that for sure. We just know what's missing. Maybe it's the sound of the door closing that woke her dad. Maybe she left, but we just don't know. So Ron decides to go look around for her. Even though he said he wasn't super worried at the time, he thought maybe she'd gone to one of the upper decks for a smoke or to take some pictures. Now, to me, this is a little bit weird. And before I go into why I think it's weird, I don't think her family had anything to do with her disappearance. I think maybe, deep down, he was a little more worried than he actually put on. Because the ship is massive, there are no cell phones. So to just walk around and try and locate someone, to me, seems almost impossible.

• 12:17Ashley Flowers?

  Like I said, I went on a cruise recently with my family back in like 2014-ish, and we couldn't find each other even when we were looking for each other. And we were on a ship that was like half this size.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, on one of the cruises that I went on, it was with my entire extended family. And one of my cousins had gone back to the room with a parent, and a bunch of cousins were napping in one, in one room. And this cousin woke up and walked out, and she was only like five. And... We had no idea she was even missing until her name got blasted over the big speaker. And we all went running for her because no one knew where anybody else was.

• 12:56Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, you cannot find people. And like, I mean, because if you imagine you're walking, they're walking, you could literally just be doing circles. So unless-

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, and miss each other every single time.

• 13:06Ashley Flowers?

  Right. So unless he knew she hung out somewhere very specific, I just don't get it. But he walks the ship, he doesn't see her on the deck, doesn't see her in the halls. Minute by minute, he's getting more panicked. And while he's looking, he runs into the head of security for the ship, and he tells them that his daughter is missing. Now, this is about an hour in. Again, I have to think there is some kind of parental instinct kicking in because I don't think I would tell the head of security right away, especially if I hadn't been back to the cabin. But Ron knew something was wrong. He alerts security and then goes back to the stateroom and wakes up Iva in a panic. She said that when she opened her eyes,

• 13:45Ashley Flowers?

  she could barely even recognize him. He was so frazzled. She hops out of bed, puts on some clothes, and starts to help him look. But she's like, this is crazy. The ship is huge. We need help. We have to go tell someone. They go to some of the officials on the boat and ask them to make an announcement that they're looking for her, a lot like they did for your little cousin. But Amy was not a little five-year-old girl. She was 23. And the ship officials refuse. They say that they don't want to panic the other passengers.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  So it's like the runaway versus missing person dilemma we have here on land?

• 14:23Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, but I feel like it's a little bit worse. Like, I mean, they won't even tell anyone. I feel you have everyone there who could see her, like, all in one place, and they won't make an announcement like, hey, everyone just look around you and see if you see this girl.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  It might just be because I'm a crime junkie, but I feel like I wouldn't panic that much. I would just want to try to help participate in finding this girl, right?

• 14:44Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, like, this does not drop a bomb to me on anyone's vacation. It's just saying, like, hey-

• 14:49Speaker 01

  I would just be more excited and sorry.

• 14:51Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, like, if we can help out, but like, hey, just look around. Because, again, I would want someone to do it for me. I would be happy to look around for someone else.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  100%.

• 14:59Ashley Flowers?

  But the ship officials weren't having it, and things were about to get much worse.

• 15:08Ashley Flowers?

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• 16:11Ashley Flowers?

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• 16:54Ashley Flowers?

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• 17:25Ashley Flowers?

  At the height of the family's panic, when the ship officials won't announce that Amy is missing, the ship is already docked at the next stop in Curacao. They were about to lose total control of the situation. If something happened to Amy on the ship, they needed to search everywhere. They needed to question everyone. But if they were gonna let everyone off the ship to dock and like go explore the island, they could lose Amy and any hope of finding her. They beg the officials, "Please, please do not let people off. We have to find our daughter." But at the end of the day, these people had a business to run. They don't have to follow any kind of US laws. The jurisdiction is really super fuzzy.

• 18:08Ashley Flowers?

  And this is what is most terrifying to me. There are no law enforcement on the ships. They have security, but no one is concerned with preserving a crime scene. At the end of the day, that security works for the big business. And thousands of passengers disembark off the ship to the island of Curacao. While they're gone, ship officials do conduct a formal search of the ship, but they find no sign of Amy. So the family's like, "What now? Can we stay here and question everyone when they get back on?" And again, like the people are like, "No way. We have a schedule to keep. Like, we're gonna keep going stop by stop by stop. But if we know she's not on here, maybe she got off. So if you want,

• 18:51Ashley Flowers?

  you guys can get off here and find your own way home."

• 18:54Speaker 01

  What a decision to make. You have to get back on the boat, right?

• 18:58Ashley Flowers?

  Well, the Bradley family is just kind of looking at themselves. And like, there's no instruction book for this. What do you do? So they decide, if they're telling them they've completely searched the ship and she's not here, then maybe someone has taken her off and she's on the island. So they gather their things. They leave the ship. And it's the most tragic thing. Like, I heard an interview from her dad, Ron, and he said, "You know, we're in the island of Curacao. Our daughter is missing. We have our bags. We have no clue how to begin looking for her. And we're just like looking out at the end of the night at this boat after everyone's redocked. There's lights, and you can hear music, and everyone's having a good time. And these poor people are just totally lost and totally devastated in a totally foreign country."

• 19:45Speaker 01

  You have no idea if she's still on that boat or not. I mean, it has to be in the back of your mind, right?

• 19:53Ashley Flowers?

  Absolutely. So they decide to find the local American embassy to ask for some help. They can at least begin to search the ocean because of course, this is one of the many possibilities looming in everyone's mind. Amy was last seen on the balcony. Maybe, maybe she fell overboard. Maybe she went to have a smoke and fell overboard somewhere else on the ship. But if anyone thought this was going to be a simple search, they were sorely mistaken because there wasn't even a time that they could pinpoint as to when she went missing. We know she was seen around like the early morning dawn hours. Then we know she's not in her room around six. But if she did leave her room and maybe fell overboard somewhere else, like this search window is much, much wider.

• 20:38Ashley Flowers?

  And a cruise ship can cover vast distances in that time. They bring in helicopters and boats and the coast guard to search the path of the ship, but nothing is found, just empty ocean. During the search, the FBI was also brought in to investigate more sinister possibilities. Did someone do something to Amy on the ship? Or is it possible someone was able to take her off? The family learns from the FBI that perhaps they made a mistake by getting off the ship. They found out that there really wasn't a thorough search done. Really, all security had done was to look in the common areas and in the bathrooms.

• 21:22Ashley Flowers?

  But they left all of the other nooks and crannies on the ship untouched. So the Bradleys decide they need to get back on that ship, and they want the FBI with them. So they hop a flight to St. Thomas to meet the FBI, where the cruise ship had its next scheduled stop so that they can all get back on together. They know that they are running against a clock here. At least everyone is still in one place. But they don't have long before the cruise is over and all of their witnesses and potential suspects scatter back to their lives all over the world. The FBI does eventually get on the ship to do their own search and a very fuzzy outline of Amy's last movements comes into picture.

• 22:06Ashley Flowers?

  A man comes forward who was filming a promotional video for the cruise liner. He was in the nightclub that night and had what we now know is the last footage of Amy on the cruise ship. And she isn't alone. He gives this footage to the security officers on the ship. And what we see is Amy. She's dancing at the nightclub. She is very near to a man whose name we've heard before, Alistair Douglas, AKA Yellow. He was the one who was a member of the band. And the video confirms what people had been hearing from other witnesses, that Amy was

• 22:47Ashley Flowers?

  seen with him, dancing, seen with him over and over through different parts of the night. And there's something a little bit hinky about this tape. So, like I mentioned, the guy who took it gave a copy to the cruise ship's security. And he gets this call from them that's like, "We want the original." And he's like, "I don't give the original to anybody, ever. Like, that's not something I'm gonna do." And he's like, they're like, "Well, the FBI are gonna want the original." And he's like, "That's fine, you have the FBI." The FBI can ask for it. Right. You have them contact me. Well, the FBI never contacts him. He never hears from anyone again. And years later, to fast forward a little bit, he sees Amy's story on TV a couple of times.

• 23:30Ashley Flowers?

  And the tape that he took, the last tape of her dancing with this guy, who she was last seen with, is never shown, never even mentioned. And so he finally makes contact with the family and finds out that a year later, the family had never heard about this footage. And it seems very suspicious, almost like the cruise ship was trying to bury it because one of their employees was seen with her. Yeah. Now, while nothing nefarious happens on the tape, This guy, Yellow, becomes someone of interest in the FBI's mind because they are seen dancing closer and closer together throughout the night, and at one point, they're seen holding hands.

• 24:11Ashley Flowers?

  Now, Amy's seen on this video on and off with Yellow around 3:00 a.m. The last time Amy is seen, we get a quick shot of her dancing alone near the elevators, and it looks like she's waiting for the elevator. And this is around 3:35, the same time her brother is getting into his room, and just five minutes later, Amy's key swipes into their room as well. Now, the FBI are looking closer at Yellow. They bring him in for questioning and a polygraph, and his story isn't lining up. He tells the agents that he last saw Amy around 1 o'clock, they had a drink at the nightclub, and then he took the staff elevators to his room to go to bed. But we know from that video that that's a lie. He was dancing with her around 3 o'clock in the morning.

• 24:56Ashley Flowers?

  Now, when Brad learns that the FBI is looking at Yellow, he gets chills when he remembers an encounter he had with him. Something that didn't stand out at the time, but looking back, he should have realized was all wrong. The very morning Amy disappeared, in the height of the family's panic, Brad was sitting at a table by the pool when Yellow came up to him and told him he was sorry to hear about his sister. Now, at the time, Brad didn't think anything of it, but now that the FBI are interviewing people and Yellow's name keeps popping up, something strikes him as really odd.

• 25:37Ashley Flowers?

  How exactly did he know something had happened to Amy? Yellow had approached Brad in the early morning hours, before any announcements had been made, to the ship's crew. Yellow would later say that a staff member had woken him up very early to ask him if he knew where she was, since he was with her the night before. But no staff even knew Amy was missing, except her dad. He said someone came to his door at 6:00 a.m. The only person who knew she was gone then was her dad. Her mom and her brother didn't even know. And, security didn't start going around asking crew members about Amy until closer to 7:30 or 8:00. So again, we know this is a lie.

• 26:19Ashley Flowers?

  To compound suspicion, two girls found the Bradley family after they had gotten back on the ship to tell them that they saw Amy and Yellow together around 5:45 in the morning. They were getting off of an elevator and actually going back into the nightclub where Yellow gave Amy a dark drink, what they suspected to be Coke or maybe coffee. So, maybe she did leave her room. And, maybe Yellow was with her around 5:45 or 6:00 in the morning. But either way, he was definitely lying. And Brad kept thinking back to that interaction. How did Yellow know something had happened to his sister before everyone else?

• 27:01Ashley Flowers?

  Now Brad wasn't the only one looking back on circumstances from earlier with a new lens. The family remembered something that happened at their fancy dinner. And at the time, it seemed like a total fluke and totally harmless. I mentioned that the family had had their pictures taken by a professional photographer before going to dinner. Well, if you aren't familiar with cruise ships, they basically take your picture and then while you're eating, they print all of them out and post them up on board. So when you come out, you like find your picture, maybe buy it for a souvenir if you want. Well, the family comes out to look at their pictures, and every single picture that had Amy in it were missing. Wait, seriously? Yeah, every single one.

• 27:46Ashley Flowers?

  And the photographer said that he distinctly remembered printing them out. So someone had to have come and taken them. But the FBI and the family were never able to determine who, to this day.

• 28:02Ashley Flowers?

  The FBI questioned multiple people on the ship and they interviewed Yellow extensively, but they never had enough information to determine what happened to Amy or to make any kind of arrest. Eventually, the ship docked and everyone left, going back to their normal lives, but the Bradleys never could. How can they go home when their daughter, their sister, was still missing? A month goes by, and back in Virginia where the Bradleys live, they've made a website for Amy, they've tried to get national news attention for Amy, but nothing seems to help. Brad and Ron make trips back to Curacao to search, and truthfully, they don't even know if they're searching in the right place. It's just one place they know to start.

• 28:46Ashley Flowers?

  And they wouldn't know if they were on the right track until May of 1999, when a new lead comes in that gives the family new hope. America's Most Wanted featured Amy's case and a hot tip comes in. A Canadian scuba diver named David calls in and says that in August of 1998, just five months after Amy went missing, he was on the beach in Curacao and he saw this girl being walked along the beach by two tough-looking men. And he said that like, there was this weird interaction where she, he felt like she wanted to tell him something, but these men intervened. And he said that it looked exactly like the picture of the girl on America's Most Wanted.

• 29:31Ashley Flowers?

  And I'm sure at first, whoever was taking this tip was a little bit skeptical, but the caller went on to describe Amy's very distinctive tattoos. She has this Gecko tattoo on her stomach, she has one on her ankle, she has this Tasmanian devil that she designed herself on her shoulder blade. And the FBI said that it was the most credible lead that they had gotten, and they send their local people out to canvas looking for her. But again, this call came in eight months after David had actually seen her, and the FBI weren't able to find whoever this woman was, if it was Amy. When August of 1999 rolls around, the family decides to take A more proactive approach.

• 30:14Ashley Flowers?

  They are introduced to a private investigator, a man named Frank Jones. Frank says he is an ex-special forces and he has a team of men who specialize in these recovery kinds of missions, like getting people out who've been captured, who are kidnapped. But he says, let me do some poking around first. Let me see if I can find out anything about Amy and whether or not she's really even here. Not too long after, Frank comes back to them with amazing news. Amy is alive and she is on the island. She's been seen on the beach in the company of a couple of like scary dudes, which fits exactly with what the other stories that they've been hearing. Now Frank says he can hire a team to get her out, but he needs $24,000 to put this plan into action.

• 30:59Ashley Flowers?

  The family sell their car, they like raise the money, they give it to Frank and his team go away for a while. And then they report back to the family that he's made contact with the men. They do have Amy and now they're demanding a ransom for her return. He's like, listen, we aren't playing their ransom games. I think I can go in with my team and do recovery operation and get her out, but it's going to be pricey. I need about $100,000 to make this happen. Of course, the Bradleys are going to pay anything to get their daughter back, but they're no dummies. And so they say, we want proof of life. Give us something so that we know you have eyes on her. So Frank gets them some pictures.

• 31:42Ashley Flowers?

  What we see in the pictures is this woman walking the beach. You don't see her face. She has a hat on, but she has the same tattoos as Amy. And this is enough for the family. They send Frank the money and he lays out this plan and then tells the Bradleys, all right, what we're doing is dangerous. So I need you to be ready to take Amy as soon as we get her. I need you to get to Miami and wait for my call. When I call, have a jet ready to come and get her out. We won't have any time to waste. So the Bradleys pack a bag for Amy. They're thinking they're going to see her for the first time in years. Her mom sets up doctor's appointments for when she gets back.

• 32:26Ashley Flowers?

  They fly to Miami, they wait by the phone for the call that they've literally waited for, for years. And they wait and they keep waiting. An entire week they wait in Miami before getting a call from Frank Jones. Something terrible had happened. He had to abort the mission because a gunfight broke out when they were trying to get her and some of his men were injured. The Bradleys are absolutely devastated. They didn't know what to do, where to turn, or if there would ever be another opportunity for Frank to rescue their daughter. As they're packing up their bags to head back for Virginia, they get another phone call that changes everything.

• 33:12Ashley Flowers?

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• 33:56Ashley Flowers?

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• 34:15Ashley Flowers?

  Do me a favor. Put all five fingers up. Now, put one down if you have workout saved on Instagram that you haven't gone back to. Put one down if you were gonna go to a workout class this week, but there's just none that the times worked out for. Put one down if you don't like working out at home because you don't know what to do and you need someone to push you. Put two fingers down if you want to stop this game. Babe, we are the same. I don't have a lot of time and honestly, I'm not even someone who likes working out. But ladder actually changed. I literally had to waddle into the studio to record this because my butt is so sore. Ladder is quick. I'm not wasting time wandering around or doing reps of something that won't matter. I'm in, I'm out. I have a coach along the way who can help me make 30 minutes with

• 34:55Ashley Flowers?

  weights feel better than two hours of whatever I was doing before. And it's $1 a day. So if price was ever stopping you before, you're officially out of excuses. Remove the guesswork with Ladder and get a real coach in your ear telling you exactly what to do for every workout. No thinking, everything planned for you. If you have an iPhone, head to ladder.fit/crimejunkie and take a quick quiz to find your perfect ladder plan. Use my link and get a free seven day trial with no credit card and $10 off your first month if you join.

• 35:30Ashley Flowers?

  A man the Bradleys had never met calls their hotel and tells him, hey, look, I'm working with Frank Jones and I think he's scamming you. I just overheard a conversation he had with you telling about all this stuff he's been doing, about us watching all these people. We haven't done any of that. And from what I can tell, this guy is just using your money to live the good life here on the island.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Oh, I was so scared of this and it sounded like it wasn't going to go in this direction.

• 36:01Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, unfortunately, this isn't the first time I've heard of this happening on a missing persons case. This is actually all too common and con artists will come out of the woodwork to prey on and get money from desperate families. And there better be a special place in hell for a person who would take advantage of a family at their absolute lowest.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, they're awful for taking the family's money when they're hurting, but honestly, that's not even the worst part to me. Like, how much time was lost jerking around with this guy? You think he's finding your daughter, but maybe you're looking in the wrong place altogether and your daughter is a completely different place and is actually needing help.

• 36:43Ashley Flowers?

  That is exactly what the family said. Like, yeah, he robbed them, but money can be replaced. There is nothing more critical in a missing persons case than time. And they can never get that back. Did Frank ever have any repercussions for what he did to the family? Yes, he was prosecuted for fraud and sent to jail and ordered to repay the family their money. But the family was more distraught than ever after this, at least before they had some kind of hope that she was alive, that maybe they had a chance of getting her. Now they weren't even sure if Amy was alive anymore. And they didn't get another solid lead until May of 2002. This is when a young American man comes forward.

• 37:27Ashley Flowers?

  He had been in the military and was in Curacao years before at a brothel. When a woman came up to him after she noticed him speaking English and she said, I'm Amy Bradley and I need your help. And this guy is super confused. He doesn't know what this is about and he's like, you know, there's like a Navy ship just down the way. Like if you need help, go ask them. And she's like, you don't understand, I can't leave. I need you to help me. But the woman got pulled away by some men and the guy never reported this. Did he just not take her seriously? Well, the reason he said he never came forward before was because he was on active duty and he wasn't supposed to be in a brothel.

• 38:08Ashley Flowers?

  He could have gotten in a lot of trouble and you know, it's, it's everyone else's problem. I think that's like a bad attitude everyone has. This woman is specifically asking him for help. He doesn't want to get in trouble and I'm sure someone else will help her. He didn't realize how important what he saw was until he got back to the States and saw a story about Amy. And he remembered her name because of that interaction and that's when he alerted authorities. But this was years after he saw her. By the time they were even able to check this out, the brothel had burnt to the ground and they were no closer to finding Amy.

• 38:47Ashley Flowers?

  Years keep ticking by slowly until another lead comes out of the Caribbean in 2005. There is an online advertisement for sex workers in the Caribbean. And there's a woman on there called Jazz who looks so much like Amy. And Britt, I'm going to send you these pictures so you can describe for our listeners like the comparisons between the two. Oh, wow. You can definitely see the similarities to the cheekbones. Both women have really high defined cheekbones and almost a square chin, I think I'd say. And even the shape of their noses is similar. It's a very nice, thin nose. I envy the nose, honestly.

• 39:31Ashley Flowers?

  Great nose, but like even the shape of her eyebrows are the same, which is like something you can't change drastically without like the help of a ton of makeup. And in the first picture, she's not wearing any. And like the height of the forehead, too. Yeah. Like the distance from the eyebrow to the hairline. Her, like, her lips look the same. This is, I mean, it's very, very similar. Granted, the woman who's from the Caribbean website, she looks a little bit older. She looks like she's been through some stuff, which, I mean, this is years later. And if we're to believe Amy had been sold into some kind of sex slavery, this is very close to what you would imagine that she looks like. So the family had this picture sent to a specialist who now works for the FBI.

• 40:13Ashley Flowers?

  And he said he would literally bet his career on the fact that this was Amy. But even if it was, picture in hand, they weren't able to track it back to any person or any specific location. This picture is just shy of being 15 years old now, and there have been no solid leads since then.

• 40:39Ashley Flowers?

  The prevailing theories I think you'll hear online is maybe it's possible that she fell over the balcony. But I highly doubt it. What people have said is they were so close to Curacao that the waters weren't treacherous. She could have probably kept swimming until those search parties came for her. She was a strong swimmer. She had been on her swim team in high school. And more than that, the railings on a cruise ship are at least three and a half feet high. They are designed so that you can't just tumble over them. That would be a disaster if anyone near the railing just fell over. The only way people tend to fall over is if they're climbing the railing. And everyone says that Amy would have never done that. Even if she was intoxicated, she's not going to climb the railing.

• 41:25Ashley Flowers?

  So the other theory is maybe something happened to her on the boat and that was covered up, but there was no sign of that. There was no blood. There was no crime scene. So the most widely accepted theory is that Amy was sold into sex trafficking. A lot of people think that perhaps she was drugged by Yellow that morning when those girls saw him give her a drink. Maybe he transported her in the staff elevator. And her family even thinks like the reason that all of her pictures were missing is that she was targeted somehow. But I always wonder what made her a target. Like she was there with her family who would notice that she was missing. And it was at the very beginning of the trip.

• 42:06Ashley Flowers?

  But maybe these people knew what they were doing because if that was her fate, they have been able to get away with it for over 20 years. There are over 200 other people who are missing from these ships. And that's all we know right now. But this is the beauty of podcasts, everyone. TV might have a bigger audience sometimes, but it doesn't reach everyone everywhere. Our show can be downloaded by anyone, anywhere. Someone in Curacao could be listening right now. Someone who's seen Amy where they live or where they were on vacation. Her family is still looking for her every day, waking up, hoping that

• 42:48Ashley Flowers?

  today will be the day that someone finds her. So don't wait years to report something. We always post pictures of the missing people we talk about on our blog. Please take a minute and go look at those. Have those pictures in the back of your mind as you go about your life. You might be the person who runs into Amy or Bryce Lepisa or Caitlin Akins. Don't forget about these people because their families need you looking. And if you have any information, we are going to post a link to the FBI's tip site on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com.

• 43:37Ashley Flowers?

  Again, you guys can go to our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com to see all of the photos that we talked about in today's case and to get the link to the FBI's tip site. You can also follow us on social media. On Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast and on Twitter at Crime Junkie Pod. And if this episode interests you, if you want to learn more about these cruise ship disappearances, again, we're doing another episode that we're dropping tomorrow on Patreon. That's patreon.com/crimejunkie, or you can get to it from our website. And we will be back next week with a brand new episode.

• 44:27Ashley Flowers?

  Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?

• 44:35Speaker 02

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir, and that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather around, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Growing up in a small town, I know how deeply a crime can shake a local community. And I know that what makes the headlines is rarely the full story. That's what Kylie Low explores on her show, Dark Down East. She digs into cases from Maine and New England using original reporting, archival records, and conversations with the people who knew them best. Each episode takes you inside the communities these stories shaped and the families who never stopped searching for answers. Listen to Dark Down East wherever you get your podcasts.