S3 Ep323: Amy Bradley Is Missing | New Netflix Doc

Amy Lynn Bradley was just 23 years old when she vanished from the cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas on March 24, 1998. Last seen asleep in her cabin, Amy was gone just 30 minutes later. Despite searches by the crew, coast guards, and FBI, she was never found, but eyewitnesses have reported sightings of her over the years... We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets! https://www.crimecon.com/CC25Try our coffee!! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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

• 0:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derrick Levasseur.

• 0:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:19Derrick Levasseur?

  We're gonna dive right into it. You can tell by the title of this episode. Amy Bradley just came out on Netflix as a docu-series on it and I actually just covered it on Detective Perspective. So that comes out this week, but before we started recording, I asked Stephanie, I said, "Man, I just covered this really fascinating case, Amy Bradley." And she's like, "I know that case." She's like, "I wanna cover it." I already started diving down the rabbit hole and now this Netflix series came out and we're seeing everybody talk about it on X. So I was like, "Oh, maybe we should cover it." So we're gonna talk about it a little bit today, but we're 100% planning on doing the whole Crime Weekly deep dive on it, but just for anybody...

• 1:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  If you guys want. We'll see. We'll check your temperature.

• 1:03Derrick Levasseur?

  If you want, we'll see what your response is, but if it's any indication online, what I'm seeing, they're gonna definitely want us to cover it. So do you wanna give a rundown real quick for anybody who's not familiar with the case? Cause it's a doozy.

• 1:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  I got deep into Amy Bradley years ago when I covered another cruise ship disappearance and Amy Bradley's name obviously came up and I started looking into it. And I was like, "Wow, there's a lot here." And now the new Netflix documentaries come out. I haven't watched it yet, but I will be this week. So here's the basic rundown. Amy Bradley, she disappeared on March 24th, 1998 while on a Royal Caribbean cruise with her family. The cruise ship, Rhapsody of the Seas, was traveling between Aruba and Kirasau. And her father last saw her sleeping on the balcony around 5:30 a.m., but then she was gone by 6 a.m. So this was the Rhapsody of the Seas. Like I said, March 21st, 1998, it departed San Juan, Puerto Rico for Aruba. March 23rd, the ship departed Aruba, headed towards Kirasau.

• 1:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  And on this evening, Amy and her brother Brad were socializing. They were at the nightclub. They were dancing.

• 2:04Derrick Levasseur?

  Disco.

• 2:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm, the disco club. Now, the early morning hours of March 24th, 1998, that's when Amy's father, Ron, saw her on the balcony around 5:30 a.m. She was gone by 6. After 6 a.m., the ship's crew was alerted about Amy's disappearance. They started searching. Later that day, the ship arrived in Kirasau. The search continued and over the next few days... Um, the, the Coast Guard in the, the Netherlands, um, they conducted a four day search.

• 2:31Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, there was a warship out there looking for them. They had, it was all hands on deck.

• 2:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  There were things that, that didn't go the way they should have.

• 2:38Derrick Levasseur?

  Correct.

• 2:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  You know, the, the passengers were let on and off the.

• 2:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Specifically on the ship, yes.

• 2:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, they were not locked down, which obviously we know not, not a great thing if you're, if you have someone missing.

• 2:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Uh, so listen, this is why we have to do this deep dive because we're going to give you a little taste here, but Stephanie and I are not going to agree on this one. I definitely want you guys to listen to Detective Perspective. I give you my opinion on what I think happened. Stephanie knows we're not in agreement on it. And even this little thing that you just said, as far as the ship's handling of the initial alert of a missing person, we can actually dive into that today because you make an interesting point and a lot of people agree with you. So everything you just said, we're caught up there. The Bradleys get up and Ron goes downstairs to the help desk and I believe Brad was with him as well, although he might've went to the pool deck.

• 3:29Derrick Levasseur?

  But either way, they go down to the help desk and they say, listen, our daughter, we haven't seen her in about an hour. We, we can't find her. Can you help us? And their initial response is, because it's very early in the morning, is it's too early. They don't want to put an announcement over.

• 3:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 3:45Derrick Levasseur?

  And they do eventually put that announcement over, but it's not till about 7:50 a.m. And the, and the announcement was more generic, like, hey, Amy Bradley, if you're hearing this, please come to the help desk. Your family's looking for you, right? And what you just said there where they were at Curacao and they were letting people disembark, they, the Bradleys were like, please don't let anybody off the ship because obviously now you're opening a can of worms. So if there's anything going on, people can get away. And I don't disagree with that, but this is our first question I'll pose to you guys because although I understand it, I've been on a few cruises. I'm sure there's a lot of people who are listening or watching right now. They've been on a lot of cruises and just step back.

• 4:29Derrick Levasseur?

  Let's take emotion out of this for a second. Some adults come downstairs. They say their adult daughter was in the room and then she's, they can't find her right now. There's no indication that she's in any harm or that she's being held against her will at this point. Are you capable, are you as a business, going to shut down the whole cruise ship where all of thousands of these people who are on the boat, who are planning on getting off in Karasau just for this, are you locking down the boat? And I'm not trying to sway you, I'm asking you Stephanie, but also everybody listening and watching right now. With that limited information, we're not talking about a child, we're talking about a grown adult who could be

• 5:07Derrick Levasseur?

  off with someone in their room. I'm not trying to be crass here, but there's a lot of reasonable explanations why Amy at this point may not be answering them.

• 5:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, yes, that's why the announcement should have been made immediately.

• 5:20Derrick Levasseur?

  Agreed.

• 5:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  That way, before you even docked in Karasau, you've had, you know, Amy could have emerged and been like, oh, you're looking for me? Or someone who had seen her, that should have been done immediately. And now you have the issue and it's not even, oh, was she abducted? And did somebody smuggle her off or whatever?

• 5:35Derrick Levasseur?

  At this point, no, you're right.

• 5:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  What if she was killed and somebody threw her overboard and now this person disembarks at Karasau and doesn't even get back on the ship? Obviously, why would they?

• 5:44Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that's, you're not wrong.

• 5:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now you have that issue. So, anybody who could have potentially, you had your person who could have potentially done it there? And then you let everybody off. So like, yes, are people going to be pissed? Of course. As a company who makes their money off of, you know, giving people the time of their lives, is that going to be good for you? No. But it's just what you have to do. At least for a few hours, you can gather everybody and document who's there. So that you know if somebody got off at Karasau and didn't get back on, now that's an immediate red flag. You can take the time to get everybody's name, make sure everybody's present and accounted for, and then let everybody off. And now if somebody doesn't come back, you've got a potential suspect because they had a reason to not get back on the ship and to disappear.

• 6:27Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, everyone scanned, everyone, and I know you hate cruises, but when you get off these cruise ships, you have an ID card. And that's part of Amy Bradley's story as well, where they were able to show that she scanned into her room at 3:45, never exited. So when you get off a cruise ship, and this may sound like mansplaining, I know I get hit for that, but I'm only saying it because Stephanie hates cruises and it's not her thing, but. For anybody who hasn't taken a cruise, when you get off, there's only two exits usually that you're allowed to take. There's crew members right there. You have to go through security and you have to scan your ID card to show that you got off the boat.

• 7:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Where do you scan it?

• 7:01Derrick Levasseur?

  It's like a little computer machine. Now, we're talking a few years ago, we're talking 1998.

• 7:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, you could technically like not scan it and just go out behind someone else technically.

• 7:10Derrick Levasseur?

  You could. I can't, I can't dispute that. You could. So, but as far as passengers, there's an egress point where it's now, it's like this big line. Everyone's all lined up like a pack of sardines and you're going out one by one and they're going through your security, making sure you're not

• 7:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hey cruises.

• 7:23Derrick Levasseur?

  smuggling a person off, smuggling a person on. But there is some, it's not like it's a free for all where you can just walk off the boat and there's no, no paper trail. But if you're doing something malicious and you want to avoid detection, am I a big enough cruise expert to say it's not possible? No, I'm not.

• 7:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Especially if you were potentially a crew member, right?

• 7:44Derrick Levasseur?

  You would know the in and outs.

• 7:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  And the crew members probably have different exits off the boat or they don't have to go through the same process. And in this case, some of the theories surround potential crew members or employees who could have been, you know, at fault for this. So yeah, there's a lot of holes here.

• 8:00Derrick Levasseur?

  I can't wait till you get into this because there's going to be a specific guy we're going to talk about. His name's Alistair Douglas and he goes by Yellow.

• 8:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 8:07Derrick Levasseur?

  And I'm only putting his

• 8:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  The band guy, right?

• 8:09Derrick Levasseur?

  He's, he's a member of the band Orchid, I believe is the name. And listen, I'm not saying anything you guys aren't going to find out on your own. Brad is active on X right now.

• 8:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  That's Amy's brother.

• 8:20Derrick Levasseur?

  He's put in photos and a lot of tweets out there about Alistair. He's not holding any punches back.

• 8:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, Brad saw his sister Amy dancing with Alistair at the nightclub that night.

• 8:31Derrick Levasseur?

  And they said he got a little quote unquote, too close.

• 8:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's something suspicious that Brad feels is going on here. So yeah.

• 8:38Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, so he's been very vocal about it now. You guys will learn and we're going to, we're going to definitely do this because there's going to be a lot of things that we agree on, but definitely some other areas that we don't. But Amy was gay. That was a whole different can of worms that we'll save for the deep dive, but parents weren't fond of it at first. They, they, they basically said they were disappointed in her. So there's some issues there where we don't know what the, the dynamic was amongst the family members at that point. And I say this also because Alistair was allegedly coming on to Amy and She clearly wasn't interested for the obvious reason that I just said, right? She's, she wasn't attracted to him. And there is definitely documentation, or at least accounts from Brad and Ron, that she left him.

• 9:22Derrick Levasseur?

  She, Alistair went one way, she went another. They, nobody is disputing the fact that she made it back to the room after being with Alistair, or at least hanging out with him in the band. And she got there around 3:45. What's really crazy about this story is that we're talking about a 30-minute window.

• 9:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, very, very fast, yeah.

• 9:42Derrick Levasseur?

  Sees her, she's sleeping on the balcony.

• 9:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, some people have said maybe, see, that's not, some people have said maybe that wasn't Amy.

• 9:49Derrick Levasseur?

  No, Ron said it was. Ron said it's his daughter.

• 9:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  I know, but some people say maybe it wasn't her, maybe he just saw her in flip flops, yeah.

• 9:56Derrick Levasseur?

  I, that's mind blowing.

• 9:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Maybe her, like, bathing suit was laying out there in her flip flops, so he, like, kind of, because he just woke up, thought he saw her, so, yeah.

• 10:04Derrick Levasseur?

  But there's even an issue with that, because when he wakes up, and again, we're going off witness accounts, which I always say is, you gotta take them with a grain of salt, because even if there's nothing nefarious there, people make mistakes. But according to him, when he wakes up, the sliding glass door to the balcony is open. He sees Amy out there, and she, he actually describes a pack of, like, cigarettes on her, like, left side, while she's laying out there sleeping. Brad's in the bed. That's at 5:30. But then he wakes up at 6:00, and now, and I'm, and I apologize, at that point, the sliding glass door was closed. She was out on the balcony, the sliding glass door was closed. And then when he wakes up at 6:00, the sliding glass door is open.

• 10:46Derrick Levasseur?

  The clothes that she was wearing when he woke up initially are laying over the chair that she was sitting in, and she's nowhere to be found. And so that's where, like, that's the mystery here. Did she come back inside? Did she change up? Did she leave the cabin and go to meet someone? Did she fall over the edge? Why would she change her clothing? And there's so many theories out there and I go over a lot of them. But with detective perspective, I'm more going over the facts of the case and giving what I think the most likely scenario is. I don't go into all the-

• 11:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  You're not deep diving, yeah.

• 11:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Not deep diving into the trafficking theory, although I do discuss it, but there's so much that even during my research, I was thinking about you because I do an hour episode, it's a soundbite, right? It's something on your way to work. We do seven part series. We could spend an entire episode on just the trafficking theory-

• 11:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 11:37Derrick Levasseur?

  Because there's multiple witness accounts that say they saw her in Curacao.

• 11:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  The pictures like-

• 11:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes, there's so much.

• 11:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's crazy.

• 11:45Derrick Levasseur?

  This case is crazy.

• 11:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, it is. So we, we should cover it. If you guys want us to, let us know, give us a vote in the comments. Uh, let us know if you've seen the Netflix special, let us know if you kind of want to know more. I would love to do this because like I said, I've already got notes, I've already been-

• 12:00Derrick Levasseur?

  And now, and now you're gonna go probably at some point, listen to my episode, wherever my counters are, you can be like, okay Derek, I got you.

• 12:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  I kind of feel like knowing you, I know what your counters are, so- They will be easily demolished, I'm not worried.

• 12:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, I'm sure, yes, you're just so amazing, you're so amazing. No, I think, I think it's a good thing that go over, listen to the episode, you're gonna hear the surface level stuff. I give a lot of the facts, but then we're gonna break down all of those individual theories with a lot more detail because there's four or five. You have the trafficking theory, you have the foul play theory that involves someone else that we don't even know that she meets up with. You have the Alistair Douglas, uh, you know, quote unquote, yellow is also known by yellow. And then you also have some people, like you said, saying that she wasn't out there at all on that balcony. And there's even a few people, which I don't subscribe to, who say, how do we know Ron and Brad are telling the truth? Did something happen in the room? And then there's the obvious one. Is this a tragic accident?

• 12:55Derrick Levasseur?

  Because I don't want to give everything away, but there was some evidence that may suggest there was an accident on that balcony. This is just a tragedy, but we'll save some of that.

• 13:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  So yeah, the, the options are basically, it was an accident, she went overboard on accident.

• 13:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Yup.

• 13:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  She, somebody intentionally threw her overboard before killing her or to kill her.

• 13:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 13:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or she was smuggled and taken off the boat and, you know, then there, there's a variety of things that could have happened after that. There's also theories that she left the boat on her own, of her own free will and didn't get back on.

• 13:27Derrick Levasseur?

  Because of this whole disappointment, if you will, air quotes, disappointment from the family, which they acknowledge.

• 13:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  So we'll, we are gonna, we can explore all of that.

• 13:34Derrick Levasseur?

  So much to cover. I'm actually looking forward to it. It was an organic thing. It wasn't on our schedule. I was doing it for Detective Perspective, mentioned it to you, and then you're like, oh, I know a lot about that case. And I'm like, well, let's do it. Especially, it'll be a little different for you and I, because 99.9% of the cases we cover, I'm hearing about it for the first time. So it'll be interesting to have that dynamic where we're both kind of knowing the case and going back and forth.

• 13:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 14:00Derrick Levasseur?

  That'll be fun, too. So, pause the video real quick. Let us know, have you heard of this case? And if you're on audio as well, you can leave a comment or a review. Let us know if you've heard of this case. And what do you think? What do you think happened to Amy Bradley? Have you watched the Netflix documentary yet? And has that changed your opinion? What are your thoughts? Do you want us to cover it? We want to hear from you. Anything else for this Crime Weekly news, Stephanie?

• 14:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, I think that's it. And I'm actually really looking forward to seeing the comments and seeing, you know, do people want to talk about this? I hope so.

• 14:31Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm pretty sure you guys are gonna be like, yes, absolutely. We also saw your-

• 14:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  We'd have to do some shuffling of the schedule, but yeah.

• 14:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes. Well, we also saw their comments about Amelia Earhart. And we're gonna do that one more than likely as well. It may be pushed out a little bit. We have Crime Con coming up and all that. But it's good. It's good to hear what you guys want to talk about, what you want to learn about, because it makes us more engaged as well. If it's something you're interested in, we get fired up by that. We feed off of that. So I think it'll be fun. We're seeing all the comments, reviews. Thank you so much. Keep subscribing. Turn your notifications on for the Crime Con giveaway. Jackie has gotten in touch with us. So Jackie officially has those tickets. But we're gonna be giving away two more. So if you're not already subscribed with notifications on, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please go do so. We'll be back later this week with Titan Part Three. We're not gonna even tell them

• 15:19Derrick Levasseur?

  the title yet. You're very excited about this title. She called me. What time did you call me at about this title?

• 15:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  I must, it was early, because I was at work. I'd just gotten, and I was, I'd just started writing Part Three last week. And then I found this, like, It was this little hidden kind of interview with Stockton Rush in a three-part series of somebody who actually talked to Stockton and went on the support ship and even went in the submersible for a little bit, but Stockton said something in there. And then I was like, oh my God, I cannot believe this guy said this. And then I came up with the title of the episode. And so, yeah, I'm excited.

• 15:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Derek, I have to tell you this.

• 15:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  And then you were like, whoa. So I had validation.

• 15:58Derrick Levasseur?

  That was pretty good. That's pretty good. And we weren't sure if this was going to be two or three parts, but this will be the third and final part of the series.

• 16:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Third and final, yep.

• 16:05Derrick Levasseur?

  People, again, thank you for the comments on it. It seems like you guys are, I hate to use the word enjoying, but getting something out of it, I guess would be the proper way of describing it. So we really appreciate it. We'll be back later this week. Until then, everyone stay safe out there. Have a good night.

• 16:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bye.