Crime Weekly - S3 Ep323: Amy Bradley Is Missing | New Netflix Doc

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

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/CC25 Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod 

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Lavassar. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Lavasser. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. We're going to 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. She's like I know that case. She's like I want to cover it I there's I already started diving down the rabbit hole Yeah, 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 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. If you guys want, we'll see. We'll check your temperature. 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 the case because it's a doozy 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. 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 in 1998 while on a Royal Caribbean cruise with her family.

The cruise ship, Rhapsody of the Seas, was traveling between Aruba and Curaçao, 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 Curacao.

And on this evening, Amy and her brother Brad were socializing. They were at the nightclub. They were dancing. Disco. 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 six after 6 a.m. The ship's crew was alerted about Amy's disappearance. They started searching later that day.

The ship arrived in Curacao. The search continued. And over the next few days, the the Coast Guard in the Netherlands, they conducted a four day search. Yeah, there was a warship out there looking for them. They had it was all hands on deck. There were things that didn't go the way they should have. Correct.

You know, the passengers were let on and off the ship. Specifically on the ship, yes. They were not locked down, which obviously we know, not a great thing if you have someone missing. So listen, this is why we have to do this deep dive, because we're gonna 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 were 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 have went to the pool deck.

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 can't find her. Can you help us and their initial responses because it's very early in the morning is it's too early They don't want to put an announcement over Yeah, and they do eventually put that announcement over but it's not till about 750 a.m. 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

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. 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 Carousel 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 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. So yes, that's why the announcement should have been made immediately. That way before you even docked in Curacao, you've had, you know, Amy could have emerged and be 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. At this point no you're right. What if she was killed and somebody threw her overboard and now

this person disembarks at Curacao and doesn't even get back on the ship obviously why would they? Now you have that issue so anybody who could potentially you had your person who could have potentially done it there and then you let everybody off so like yes, 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 Curacao 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. Everyone scanned everyone. 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 345 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 that's not her thing But for anybody who hasn't taken a cruise when you get off There's only two exits usually that are you're allowed to take there's crew members right there 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. Where do you scan it? It's like a little computer machine. Now we're talking a few years ago. We're talking 1998. Yeah, you could technically like not scan it and just go out behind someone else. Technically. 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 Smuggling a person off smuggling a person on but there is some guy 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. Especially if you were potentially a crew member, right? You would know the in and out. 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 at fault for this. So yeah, there's a lot of holes here. 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. And I'm only putting his name.

The band guy, right? 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. That's Amy's brother. He's put in photos and a lot of tweets out there about Alistair.

He's not holding any punches back. Well, Brad saw his sister Amy dancing with Alistair at the nightclub that night. So- And they said he got a little quote unquote too close. Yeah, there's something suspicious that Brad feels is going on here. So yeah, yeah, so he's been very vocal about it now You guys will learn and we're gonna we're gonna definitely do this because there's gonna 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 will save for the deep dive, but Parents weren't fond of it at first 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 wasn't attracted to him. And there is definitely documentation, or at least accounts from Brad and Ron,

that she left him. Alistair went one way, she went another. 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

where Amy's father sees her, she's sleeping on the balcony. Well, some people have said maybe, see, some people have said maybe that wasn't Amy. No, Ron said it was. Ron said it's his daughter. I know, but some people say maybe it wasn't her, maybe he just saw her flip-flops. Yeah.

That's mind-blowing. Maybe her bathing suit was laying out there and her flip-flops, so he kind of, because he just woke up, thought he saw her, so yeah. 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 They're sleeping Brad's in the bed. That's at 530 but then he wakes up at 6 and Now 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 six the sliding glass door is open 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 you're not deep diving 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 sound bite, 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. Because there's multiple witness accounts that say they saw her in Curacao.

The pictures, like. Yes, there's so much. It's crazy. This case is crazy. Yeah, it is. So we should cover it. If you guys want us to, let us know. Give us a vote in the comments.

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 been 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 and so now I kind of feel like knowing you I know what your counters are yeah they will be easily demolished I'm not sure you're just so amazing you You're so amazing. No, I think, I think it's a good thing that go over, listen to the episode.

You're going to hear the surface level stuff. I give a lot of the facts, but then we're going to 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 involves someone else that we don't even know that she meets up with you have the Alistair Douglas 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? Because I don't want to give everything away, but there was some evidence that may suggest there was an accident on that balcony and this is just a tragedy, but we'll save some of that. So yeah, the options are basically it was an accident. She went overboard on accident. She somebody intentionally threw her overboard before killing her or to kill her right or she was

Smuggled off the boat and you know then 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 Quotes disappointment from the family which they acknowledge so we'll we. So we can explore all of that. 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. Yeah, I agree. That'd 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 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? No, I think that's it and I'm actually really looking forward to seeing the comments and

seeing if people want us to talk about this. I hope so. I'm pretty sure you guys are going to be like, yes, absolutely. We also saw your- We'd have to do some shuffling of the schedule But 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 down 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 going to be giving away two more. So if you're not already subscribed with notifications on an Apple podcast or Spotify, please go do so We'll be back later this week with Titan part three. We're not gonna tell him the title yet

You're very excited about this title. She called me. What time did you call me out about this title? I must say it was early because I was at work. I just got and then I was I just started writing part three last week and then I found this like It was is this little hidden kind of interview with Stockton Rush in a three part series of somebody who actually, you know, 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. She called me, Derek, I have to tell tell you this and then you were like, whoa So I had validation. I was pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty good And we weren't sure if this could be two or three parts

But this will be the third and final part of the series 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.