Crime Weekly - S3 Ep330: Amy Bradley: The FBI’s Most Disturbing Lead Yet (Part 3)

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

In the early morning hours of March 24, 1998, 23-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley vanished from the balcony of her family’s cabin aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. Just a few hours earlier, she had been at a party, joking with her brother, dancing with the ship’s band, and planning out the next day’s adventure in Curaçao. By sunrise, Amy was gone. Her sandals were still on the balcony. Her cigarettes were missing. Her key card and license were gone too, but everything else had been left behind. What began as a family vacation quickly turned into a nightmare, and the moments leading up to Amy’s disappearance would raise questions that remain unanswered to this day. 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 ADS: 1. https://www.RocketMoney.com/CrimeWeekly - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and MORE today! 2. https://www.SimpliSafe.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 50% off a new system with a Professional Monitoring Plan! 3. https://www.SKIMS.com - After placing your order, let them know we sent you! 4. https://www.FactorMeals.com/CrimeWeekly50Off - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY50OFF for 50% off and FREE shipping on your first box! 5. https://www.ZipRecruiter.com/CrimeWeekly - Try ZipRecruiter for FREE!

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And I'm Derek Lavasser. Today we're diving into part three of the Amy Bradley case, and it's really heating up. Heating up in the actual case, but also you guys are just, this Amy Bradley series just on the internet. It happened on Detective Perspective, too. Like, for as much as the information that's out there, there's a lot of people asking a lot of questions because everybody's still searching for it because this part two blew up even as far as our algorithm is concerned. So that's the reason why you cover it, right?

There's a need for it. People are not satisfied with the Netflix series. They want more information. They really weren't. If that's something I've seen from the comments, they really weren't satisfied. And even the people who thought they were now or not. And I know some people have, and we expected this, some people have pushed back as far as Brad Bradley. And, you know, he's out there doing a lot of interviews.

And he's trying to get information out there. And some people are with him. Some people are a little weary of him. He has not reached up. I'm a little wary. I'm a little wary of him. I think I think it's natural to be weary of everyone. We just covered that Crime Weekly news earlier this week where the cousins were, you know, you have to question everything. That's part of it. You never can just take it for granted. We don't know these people personally. And so we're going to get a certain narrative that's conveyed to us publicly.

It doesn't necessarily mean it's true. We have nothing to suggest that Brad or his father or Amy's mother is involved in anything nefarious here. But it's important to try to find areas where we can back up what they're saying from impartial people, right? And unfortunately with this case, there's not a lot of that. Any witnesses we do have, it's 6 o'clock in the morning. They've been drinking all night. And so it's a little cloudy. But we're trying our best. We're putting everything out there.

I think the big takeaway from part two, based on the comments on YouTube, was the whole balcony door being open. I did. I saw that. Yeah. A lot of people, a lot of people were like, I, always when I'm on a cruise ship, sleep with my balcony door open. And I'm like, listen, I once again, never been on a cruise ship. Wait, you saw, see, this is.

I saw a lot of comments, yeah. I saw a lot of people saying the opposite, saying you wouldn't leave that door open if you wanted, unless you wanted to wake people up. I saw a ton of people saying, I like it. You get a nice breeze, like the ocean sounds. And I was like, listen, I can't test this theory out because I'm not going to, I'm not going to go on a cruise ship. Well, you are if I'm going in the conjuring house, but that's a different story for a different

day. But one thing maybe they would still agree with this on is if you had the balcony, door open, it would be very difficult to open your cabin door because of the kind of the vacuum it creates where this pressure on the backside of that door, I didn't see anybody disagreeing with the notion that if you were sneaking out of the room or you were just leaving the room without any, you know, malicious intentions or trying to, you know, be undetected, you would shut that balcony door as a courtesy to the people still sleeping in the room. I suppose if you were sleeping in your room with the balcony door open, by the time you left to go on to the

cruise ship, you would most likely close your balcony door before leaving. So maybe there's just not a lot of people who have opened the door while the balcony door is open at the same time to kind of notice that wind tunnel thing, right? Because... Yeah, I would definitely recommend from the detective side of it, don't leave your balcony door open because someone could enter your cabin while you're sleeping just from the next door, the next balcony over. Also, just to combat anybody saying, oh, it could have been a normal occurrence. Don't forget, it was Amy's father who actually said when he woke up, Amy was out on the balcony and the door was closed. So if any point you would have that balcony door open, it would be while you're out on the balcony, not once you

leave it. I would agree. So that's the big thing you have to consider here is that the balcony door, according to the people who last saw her, was closed behind her. So the fact that it was now open, I think most people would deduce that if she was out on the balcony and decided to come back inside and go somewhere, she would have shut the balcony door, she would have opened it to come off the balcony, shut it behind her, and then left the cabin. And yet that balcony door was open. I also saw a lot of comments about, oh, how Amy's dad, Ron, how his boss did way more for that family and to help find Amy until they kind of arranged things for them than

what the Caribbean ever did. And I agree. Financial support as well. Yeah, I was getting the private plane, getting them a hotel room staying with them. Yeah. And I thought I said something along those lines because that's exactly what I was thinking when we were filming last week because I was like, man, Royal Caribbean could have gotten them a hotel room. Royal Caribbean could have arranged for the travel.

Yeah, they didn't handle it right. They didn't handle it right. Two things can be true, right? They may not be anything or there may be something with Royal Caribbean or their crew members, but either way, they didn't handle this whole situation appropriately. They definitely put their bottom line above a missing person, for sure, yeah. Yeah, I agree. And also the optics of it, right, the optics of it.

So one final thing I want to mention a lot of comments as well about Amy's sexuality and whether it's important or not important. I can only speak for myself why I was interested in it. Obviously, Stephanie wrote the script and did the research, but for me, the reason it's interesting is because one of the theories is that she went to meet up with yellow or someone else. If she's gay, she's probably not going to meet up with yellow to hook up. That's just my assumption.

Unless they were just meeting his friends or to hang out more, but why would you want to hang out more at that time? I don't know. And I also wouldn't understand, like, she's a grown woman, right? She's 23 years old. She can go do whatever she wants. Brad left her alone at the bar. So she could have stayed out and then came back to the room later.

There would be no need to come to the room, make it seem like she's going to be in for the night, and then sneak out later. If she's just hanging out, having a couple drinks or. Unless Yellow was like, she was like, I'm going back to my room with my brother. Because maybe at that point when Brad saw them, he was like, all right, let's go. And she's like, I'm going back to the room with my brother. And Yellow was like, well, you know, if you can't sleep later is where I'll be. It could have been something like that. Maybe.

It almost goes back to the crime. weekly news right like what's more likely what's more likely i don't see her coming back to the room and then sneaking out back later and not shutting the balcony but i just wanted to say the reason that we even talked about amy sexuality it's for the it's from the perspective of why would she have left her room she had her own cigarettes they were that's not the only reason we talked about it no i mean for me it's it's the most important i'm just talking about me it's one of the most important things because i don't really care about her sexuality what the only reason it becomes important here is I'm trying to think about why she would have left the room.

And I kind of go down a list. The first reason would be she's not feeling well. I don't think that would be the reason because she had the balcony. She was out on the balcony. She wanted to go smoke a cigarette. Wouldn't need to do that either. She can smoke it on the balcony. She had cigarettes on her.

Supposedly those are missing now, but she wouldn't need to go get cigarettes. From what I've read and what I've seen, she wasn't heavy into drugs. So I don't think she'd be sneaking out to use drugs at six in the morning. So the only other reason I could see her leaving the room would be to meet up with someone. So either it was yellow or someone else that she met while Brad was gone.

Or it has nothing to do with meeting up with someone and she couldn't sleep and she was still hyped up because she had alcohol in her system. She's like, let me go get some coffee. Yeah, let me go get some coffee. Let me sober up. Let me go watch the sunrise from the top deck or something, you know. Could have nothing to do with meeting anybody. She was just restless.

Like, I get restless on vacation. I don't like being. She wasn't. Well, allegedly, allegedly. I mean, I have no reason not to believe Ron. So she was sleeping. sleeping so she wasn't he could have he could have woken up saw her laying out there with her eyes closed she could have just been laying out there with her eyes closed because she wasn't feeling alone or just like

rest you know like i'd rather i'd want to get some more detail on what ron saw that day from directly from him how long did he stare at her for 10 minutes no it was probably a brief like look up oh she's laying there she's still her eyes are closed or maybe her face was even turned toward the ocean and he wouldn't even known whether her eyes were closed or open he assumed she was sleeping because of the time but i you know she very well i get antsy i don't like being in the hotel or when I'm on vacation. So I am not an early riser typically or naturally. When I'm on vacation, I'm up.

I want to go out and sit by the ocean, watch the sunrise. I want to take pictures. I want to be there, experience it. I paid money to be there. I'm not in my normal. I'm more like dopamine activated. I'm more mentally active because my normal surroundings are not there. It's like a new thing and I'm excited and I want to get out and get going.

I love how you have jazz hands as you're explaining your experience. Get out and get going. I'm very restless. So even if I'm sitting on the balcony, I'm like let me chill here for a minute, have a cigarette and then I'll go to bed. I'm going to be like, I can't freaking go to bed. Like, what else? Let me go see what else is out there.

I would be somebody who would go and want to watch the sunrise or get some coffee and just sit there and enjoy the piece and people watch. You're sitting on your balcony. It's just water. That's boring. Maybe she wanted to see them pull up to carousel. You know, I don't know. But it could be meeting, could be meeting no one.

Could just be her choice to walk out. Here's my thing, though. If she was going to get a coffee, we would have documentation of that. We'd have a purchase receipt on our card. If she made it there, yeah. Aren't they all inclusive? Doesn't... No, you have to still swipe your card.

And it's Starbucks on the cruises now. Like for Royal Caribbean, there's a Starbucks there and you have to get a coffee. Or you could go to the breakfast area, but you still have to scan into that area. So, again, we could do all the hypotheticals. I'd be interested to know what kind of coffee breakfast places they had that were open at that time. It wouldn't be a lot. She could have gone out and been like, oh, nothing's open yet. I'll go on the top deck, watch the sunrise and wait for the coffee place to open.

And then I'll go back to the cabin while everyone else is waking up. It's not impossible. not very probable as far as I'm concerned. And one more point before we move on, we are also talking about her sexuality because of the way her family reacted to it and how they weren't really, you know, huge fans of it. So I think that's also important in context.

But why is that important to you? Can you elaborate on that? Because for me, I'm not seeing it be, are you talking about a possible motive? Yeah, there could be a possible motive. Yes, there could be, right? But why wait till a cruise ship? If we're going to, let's explore that.

We're not trying to be offensive to anybody. Okay, can I, can I actually? explore it? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, I'm allowed to explore it. I mean, listen, I think we can do it in a respectful way, but I think, I think Amy's family wants to know what happened to Amy. And people have to explore all options. And that includes the last people with them. I don't think that's like a far stretch. Okay. So theoretically, hypothetically, hypothetically and theoretically, Amy and Brad leave the club that night. Okay. They're walking, yeah, they're walking back. They've had some drinks, you know, you know, what having some drinks does to you. It's like a weird,

aggressive truth serum and Brad's like hey I saw you talking to that guy like I thought you were a lesbian and she's like yeah I'm just talking to him like he's a cool guy whatever and he's like I don't think you're a lesbian and like I think like this is just something stupid you know like you got to really think about this and then they start arguing maybe somebody gets shoved maybe something gets physical she goes overboard and he's like oh shit allegedly theoretically supposedly right and now now there's uh you know some and And of course, maybe he's got her card then. Like, who knows?

But anything could have happened. Like, they were walking. She set her purse down or whatever. They're arguing. It's late. They've had drinks. Yeah, from that perspective, I think it's important to know that really this family was a little bit, not estranged, but there was tensions there based on on Amy's sexuality and her being honest with her family. And she didn't feel great about the way they reacted to it.

And there was kind of a little bit of, I guess, like, denial on behalf of the Bradleys as to whether or not this was actually true or whether it was a phase or whatever. But I think they were kind of hoping, like, it was a phase and it would just go away. And, you know, somebody who is truly understanding of their own sexuality and having their family members like, oh, it's a phase. You don't really mean this, blah, blah, blah. It can get kind of aggressive. It can get kind of like. I mean, from what we hear, he wrote a three page, the father wrote a three page letter about his disapproval of this. Yeah.

And you got Brad now even coming out. being like, oh, she wasn't a lesbian. She was bisexual. Which may be true, which may be true. Maybe true. But it's like, okay, if they're still talking about it, why shouldn't we? Right. No, I think, I think I have no issue as your partner in all of this bringing that up. I think we would be doing a disservice if we didn't mention it. I think you would agree with, as of right now, there's nothing tangible that suggests that to be the case. There's nothing tangible to suggest anything to be the case, Derek. I completely agree with you. I completely agree. You took the words out of my mouth. So I'm with you on that.

I don't think that's the most likely scenario, but I do think it's a possibility. There's nothing to rule it out. I would even go a step further and say, what if they're down at the bar? And she comes back to the room after and he's like, oh, I thought, you know, I thought you were gay or whatever and all this. And there's an argument in the room. Yeah. Oh, but I see you talking to this guy. Like, yeah.

There's a million scenarios. There was a couple people in the comments who said, oh, she definitely left the room alone because her cigarettes were out of the room. and no, her cigarettes could have been in her pocket and she went overboard, right? This could be, at the end of the day, a tragic accident where there's no one responsible for her death other than just an unfortunate set of circumstances. So I have no issue with you bringing it up. And listen, I'm not going to say that if this happened between Brad and Amy that it was intentional, I don't believe that at all, but we know what happens when we drink.

Not intentional, not premeditated. No, no, no, gotcha, at worst case, an accident potentially. these tensions that were sort of under the surface coming up after, you know, you've been in close quarters with each other for a few days. Maybe there's some like comments being made, then the whole thing and you got alcohol in you. And all of a sudden you're kind of like pushing and shoving and yelling at each other. And someone slips. Well, we have to take it a step further then because we can't just go halfway in this marathon, right? If we're going to explore it, we also have to talk about the fact then that if that happened, right, either scenario, something happens outside the room on their way back.

That Ron says he saw her outside sleeping. Ron says he saw her. So if we're going to say that, then we also have to acknowledge the fact that by saying that, either Ron is just completely wrong, which I don't think he is, or Ron is covering for Brad. Or he could be mistaken or. He gave that statement like I saw her a couple hours ago, literally that morning. Yes, it would probably be that Ron was covering for Brad. Or Brad said, oh, I saw her sleeping out there and kind of maybe planted that in.

I don't know. This wasn't a month later that he recalled. seeing her at 5.30. That morning he was like, yeah, I saw her on the balcony. The door was open. She was sleeping on the balcony. So I think he's, so it's either he's, that's what actually happened or he's, he's covering something up. And so those are the two scenarios. I will say, after saying all that, and maybe you agree with me, maybe you don't, I think that Ron did see her on the balcony. I think she was out there sleeping. I think Brad was in bed sleeping. We're in part three now. I think you guys know where I'm going with this, especially if you watch Detective

perspective. I think this was a tragic accident. And we're going to get more into it why I think that I don't really know if he saw her sleeping out there I really don't it's such a weird rando thing like I woke up saw her sleeping fell back asleep just you could have dreamed that like it sounds like you woke up opened your eyes saw something with all this vivid detail fell back asleep it's just it's hard for me to really believe that you could have I mean it could have been her shirt laying out there or a towel he said he saw her legs like he saw her legs out there allegedly I don't know man did he did he I have no reason not to believe him Did he think he did after?

Because he's trying to figure out, like, when did I last see her? Oh, I think I saw. I don't know. I don't know. But we should dive into the actual. Yeah, we spend 20 minutes just on that. Should we take a quick? Let's take a quick break before we dive in so I can have a little like separation.

Yeah, probably a good idea. Let's reset the deck. Yeah, we're going to reset the deck. Okay. We'll be right back. All right, true confession time. So I recently found out, even though I've had rock of money for a while, But I recently found out that I was still paying for a subscription.

I have not used in, I mean, a ridiculous amount of time. And I'm not talking like this cheap $1.99 thing either. It was a how did I let this slip for so long kind of subscription? Like, how did I miss this for so long? And the reason I missed it for so long is because I'm not checking rocket money as much as I should be. You know that moment when you scroll your bank statement and just feel your soul, leave your body? That was me. And that's when I decided I have to get my life to gather financially or at least pretend to.

I downloaded Rocket Money a long time ago, and honestly, it's like having a personal finance assistant who actually knows what they're doing and doesn't judge you for your choices. But me, I have to take the proactive step to actually check it more. And they just happen to send me my weekly spending report today. So not only does Rocket Money gather out your subscriptions, bills, and expenses in one place so you can see exactly where your money is going, but if you see something you don't need, like that free trial, you forgot to cancel, Rocket Money will help you cancel it in just a few taps. awkward phone calls, no please hold for the next available representative for 55 minutes of your workday, none of it. And it's not just about cutting out waste. They can even help you negotiate lower bills. Rocket Money does the work. You save the money and you get to feel like a responsible adult without actually having to do the responsible adult thing. I also love that Rocket Money

keeps track of when my bills are due, my income. It lets me set custom budgets without making me feel like I'm being punished. Plus, if you've got savings goals, like for a trip, rainy day fund, or just because I deserve nice things account, Rocket Money helps you reach them faster by figuring out the smartest times to talk a little extra way. Rocket Money does so much, but it only works if you work with it. So you got to check it. Stephanie, you have to check it. I'm going to check it every week from now on every Monday so that I can be in a bad mood when I get on to record with Derek. And Derek is going to tell you how you can check Rocket Money out for yourself. That's right. cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with rocket money.

Go to rocketmoney.com slash crime weekly today. That's rocketmoney.com slash crime weekly one more time. Rocketmoney.com slash crime weekly. All right, we're back. Did you see what I did there, by the way? I don't think you picked up on the wittiness. Reset the deck? No, reset the deck.

Yeah, I got it. Okay, cool. Just making sure, because you didn't acknowledge it. I was a little disappointed by that. Okay, okay, okay. All right. You're so clever. I would have like, yeah, I needed that. I needed that affirmation.

You're so punny. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. No, I'm glad we did do that, though. It wasn't planned. I've been wanting to get off my chest for the last two parts, okay? Yeah.

Well, some people will be like, how dare you, their victims? I know. I know. I know. It's just possible. We can't ignore possibilities because of the relations. Well, it's like when crimes happen, it's a lot of the time, not just some random stranger, a lot of the time someone who knows you and is close to you.

And there's like passion, like anger and betrayal behind it. So it would be stupid of us and honestly, a blind of us to not even acknowledge that possibility. And listen, I don't mean anything disrespectful when I say what I'm about to say. I'm just talking about myself. Brad's going to hear this and be pissed off by me saying it, but I'm going to say it anyways because it's how I truly feel. When I initially heard this story and I heard that Brad went back to the room and his sister was left down, there with these random people that she doesn't know and that she had told brad that he had

came onto her yellow had came on to her me personally and i've been on cruises with my sister i just went on with one i think you know me well enough to know if it were you and you're not even my sister i'm not leaving you down there alone it it ain't happening we're going back to the room together so either i'm sitting down there like my but it's like my personal security guard when we're out you're like yeah i'm not doing it and i'm not maybe i'm i don't think that that's an anomaly i think most people like that but we're on a cruise A lot of people, it's three in the morning, drunk dudes everywhere. There's water around you.

Yeah, I'm not leaving you downstairs, even if you're cool with it. I'm going to be the annoying brother sitting in the corner. I wouldn't let you leave me anywhere on a cruise ship. Right. And so even if you're like, I'm good. I'm like, eh, are you though? You've done that before, absolutely. 100%.

So I see this directly to Brad. Brad, I mean, no offense. And maybe if you and I had the chance to sit down and talk, you may tell me that you acknowledge that and you have guilt over that. I'm sure you do. But those are things that we think about in hindsight. that we have to talk about and it doesn't suggest that you did anything wrong. We want as much as you want to find out what happened, Amy.

There's a lot of people with a lot of theories out there. I believe in my heart, after seeing a few interviews with you and interviews with your parents, you guys want nothing more than to know the truth. If that's an accident, great. That's an accident. But right now with the unknown, it leaves even more anguish than knowing what happened. And I think we all deserve to look at every corner of this case, and I know if something happened to someone that I care about, although it would bother me if detectives came to me and questioned me, as long as they didn't make it the main storyline, I would have no issue with it because I know it's something they have to do to cross things off the list. So that's all we're doing. We're not going to spend an entire episode on it, but I think we would be doing a disservice to this case if we didn't at least acknowledge it. I'm interested to hear what you guys think about that possibility.

Oh, man, yeah, for sure, for sure. All right, so let's kind of recap what we talked about in part two. In the early morning hours of March 24th, 1998, Ron Bradley awoke to find his 23-year-old daughter, Amy Lynn Bradley missing from the family's cabin on the Rhapsody of the Sea's cruise ship. The balcony door was open, her sandals were still outside, but her cigarettes, key card, and ID were gone. Now, from the moment her family began searching the ship, it was clear something was wrong. Yet, the crew refused to delay the disembarkment into Curacao or make more than a brief low-volume announcement.

The search that eventually followed was inconsistent at best. The captain told the Bradley's the ship had been fully searched, but later they learned passenger cabins hadn't been checked at all. The family got off in Curacao to search there, but by the next morning, they were convinced Amy might still be on board the ship, so they intercepted the ship the following day and FBI agents were allowed on board. agents looked through the Bradley cabin, they searched the ship, interviewed passengers and crew, and they began investigating reports that Amy and the musician Alistair Yellow Douglas had been seen

going up the glass elevator between 5.30 and 6 a.m. on the morning she vanished. Real quick before you continue, I just want to address something because a lot of people were talking about it and something on my notes. Things that were missing, we have key card, ID, and cigarettes. So what we know with 100% certainty is that someone, brought the key card into the room, her key card, right? And either Amy left with the key card and went somewhere else, or that key card went overboard. I won't even elaborate on how it went overboard,

but it didn't leave that room. It went over the balcony. Whether that was with Amy or thrown over the balcony, those are your only two options. Over the balcony, out into the ocean, or Amy walked out of that room. Or someone took it from her and it just never has turned up again. No, but hear me out.

her key card was used to enter that cabin at 345. So entered the room. So allegedly she left again. So the key card goes into the room. So once the key card's in the room, either she walks out with it or someone who's in that room takes the key card and throws it into the ocean because it was never found again. So that's my point is that her cigarettes, key card, and ID were not in that room. So either she took it with her or someone threw it overboard or she went over with it.

Or, because there's other theories here, like the whole trafficking angle, she was kidnapped, abducted, and her belongings were taken from her, and then who knows what happened. Well, you're missing my point, though. That would go under the whole her leaving the room voluntarily. Like, she left the room before being trafficked if that's what happened. So that's what I'm saying. The two scenarios is, back out the cabin door or over the balcony. Or over the balcony. Yeah.

That's it. Okay. All right. So meanwhile, multiple searches on land and at sea turned up no sign of Amy Bradley or her belongings by the 27th. The Bradleys were certain that she wasn't on the ship, and she had not gone overboard or off the ship willingly. They had to return home to Virginia without her, but they were determined to keep searching. So as soon as the Bradleys were back in Virginia, Amy's parents, Iva and Ron, turned their home into a command center, adding extra phone lines and internet connections so they could expand the search beyond the United States. At that point, all they knew for sure was that Amy had banished sometime between 530 and 6 a.m.

on the 24th, and that two witnesses had seen her with Yellow around that time. And those are the two girls who allegedly claim they saw Amy going up in the glass elevator with Yellow. Now, the Bradley's needed more leads, so they offered a $100,000 reward for information that would bring Amy home. They spoke to media outlets and local legislators, hoping to keep her story in the public eye. They sent mass emails to thousands of addresses in the Caribbean and South America and contacted police, FBI offices, and cruise ship officials throughout the region. They also did some digging

online, and at one point came across a post on a bulletin board published two weeks before their cruise. Now, this post warned female passengers on the Rhapsody to stay away from Yellow. So Yellow's the musician guy, Rhapsody at the seas, same ship that the Bradleys were on. As the weeks passed with no sign of Amy, the Bradleys raised the reward to $220,000. They also launched two websites dedicated to her case and set up a hotline with English and Spanish-speaking operators. By mid-April, there still weren't any solid leads. So Ron, Brad, Brad's uncle, and Amy's quote-unquote boyfriend, the guy she was allegedly dating, they flew back to Kira Sao to search and hold a press conference.

Iva, Amy's mother, she stayed home to man the phones and she also couldn't bring herself to go back and possibly have to leave a second time. without Amy, which I can 100% understand. And listen, I also wish, oh, man, there's so many people. I wish we could get this boyfriend and her ex-girlfriend on a joint episode because here's the reality. One of them's lying or Amy was lying to both of them. That's the only scenarios, right?

Because there's so much chatter about this online. Was she gay? Was she by? Was she straight? The girlfriend says, without a doubt, she was gay. well the girlfriend also said yeah we both had boyfriends as like covers kind of like a front and now the boyfriend if this is his boyfriend to be fair to him he may have been under the impression that she was his girlfriend because again to your point it could have been a shield

where things were just being put out there for optics to help hide who she truly had feelings for but i would love to get these people in a room and really just break this down and get to the bottom of it once and for all i find the whole boyfriend thing very sketchy very like i'd like to know this boyfriend's connection to Amy's family. Was he a family friend? Was he a friend of Brad's? How did she meet him? Because how close

were they? Because it kind of seemed like she was telling him, I want to slow things down. Like, I don't really want to go too fast with you. But he's still flying to Curacao with her family when she goes missing to like sit and help them with a press conference. Like they weren't engaged. They weren't going

steady. They hadn't even, it sounds like really gotten that deep because she was holding back. So that's weird to me. Like was it a media thing like Brad or the Bradley's were like, hey dude, like sit next to us. That way in case any, you know, talk about Amy's sexuality comes out later. We can just be like, her boyfriend was with us. She definitely was straight. What's the relationship there?

Yeah, I'd want to go down that rabbit hole for sure. At the press conference in Curacao, Ron and Brad spoke to reporters, making sure the public knew that Amy was still missing and sharing their frustrations over how. Royal Caribbean had handled her disappearance. The media pressed for details, as they do, including whether Amy had been drinking the night she vanished. Ron said, yes, of course, everyone on the ship had been. It's a cruise ship. It's like mainly what there is to do. And according to the family's tab, Amy had seven light beers between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., which didn't seem excessive in his mind. In my mind either. That's not, especially because they had dinner that night, too. So she probably had a few things to drink it.

dinner, but... She's not the biggest person in the world. But, yeah, I mean, six beers over that period of time, 12 hours. Have you ever known anybody to get that drunk on light beer? I mean, I'm not a big beer drinker, so I'm the wrong person. Same. I know. I don't like it, especially light beer.

All right. So before the end of the press conference, Brad, which is Amy's brother, he pleaded directly for Amy's release, saying, quote, if someone has her, please let her go. Leave her somewhere in the middle of the night, blindfolded. we won't ask any questions. You can remain anonymous, whatever. We just need her back. End quote. So afterward, Ron and Brad stage talk with reporters and hand out flyers. And that's when a man approached, holding one of Amy's flyers in his hand. He introduced himself as Deshi, a taxi driver, and asked Ron if he was Amy's father. When Ron said yes, Deshi pulled him aside and said,

your daughter did not fall from the ship, your daughter did not jump from the ship, your daughter was not thrown from the ship. And allegedly he knew this because he had seen Amy on the island. Deshi went on to explain that on the morning of March 24th, he was sitting in his taxi outside the cruise port in Curacao. And this is a plausible story, right? Because the taxi drivers on Carousar are going to be very familiar with the schedule for when these cruise ships come in.

This is how they make their living. This is a huge time, right? People are going to want to maybe take a taxi somewhere else on the island so they can, you know, enhance their short time there, so him and a bunch of other taxis are probably waiting. And he said as passengers were disembarking, he saw Amy. According to Deshi, she frantically knocked on his window and asked where to find a phone. He pointed her in the right direction, but instead of going that way, he claims, she turned and walked off in the opposite direction.

Deshi told Ron that Amy was still on the island and he hoped that they would find her. He said, quote, you need to go to a place called coral cliffs. You need to go to a place called Kadushi Cliffs. When you go to these places, you want to look around. Don't talk to anybody. Just look, observe. End quote. Now, Deshi's statement marked a pivotal moment in the Bradley search for Amy as it was the

first time anyone claimed to have seen her after 6 a.m. Also, it's kind of the first time where I think the Bradley's are going to be like, oh, hey, like, there could have been something that made Amy get off the ship against her will. Something could have happened. And she could be in the hands of someone else. You know, I think this was kind of when the trafficking feelings started happening. So on top of that, Deschi's statement reinforced what the Bradley's had believed all along that Amy was still alive.

What do you think about this taxi driver thing? Yeah, so I didn't get the chance to interview him. So I'm going to tread lightly. But it's a little contradicting to me because if Amy had the ability to go up to this taxi driver and knock on the window and appeared to be alone. Desh, she didn't state that she was with someone else. Then that would mean that Amy got off the boat voluntarily, unless we're going to go down the hole of she was captured,

she got away briefly, ran up to the window, and then said, where's a phone? But to me, everyone in the comments, come at me if I'm wrong, if you were held against your will and you get off the boat and somehow you break away for a second, me, I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, I'm staying around people, I'm not going to be asking where the nearest phone is.

I'm going to be yelling in the middle of that area while everyone's getting off the boat to go to their excursion saying, help, help, help, I just got away. Someone grabbed me. I'm going to be, everyone's going to know who I am in seconds. And yet, Deshi is saying that she came up to the taxi card, said, hey, where's your nearest phone, then goes in the opposite direction.

And just looking at what you said here, he doesn't just say what he saw, which I always like with a witness where they just say, listen, I don't know what it means. I was sitting here, but your daughter, came up to me, knocked on the window, I told her where the phone is she went the opposite direction, that's all I saw.

But instead he starts elaborating on where places to explore and what he should do while he's there and don't talk to anyone, just observe. How would you know that, Deshi? If you're just an impartial witness who saw what you saw and you're just relaying what you saw to the family, how do you know about all these extracurricular things

and locations where she could be? It sounds to me just on the surface like you want to be part of the story or you know more than you're letting on, but if you know more than you're letting on, why are you ingraining yourself in the story where you can be implicated in something? So I have a lot of questions here.

And that skepticism is not coming from a place of wanting to prove what I believe true. I read the statement before, and it bothered me then. So to hear it again right now, the way even you're describing it, it still sounds the same way I read it the first time. So I have some concerns about it

and even the narrative that if I believe everything he said to think that's what Amy's behavior would be if she got off the boat, and was being held against her will, that would be her reaction. Hey, let me find a phone when there's hundreds of people standing within arm's reach of her.

Also, there's no indication that she was unhappy with her current circumstances. She had at least one girlfriend and at least one boyfriend at home. She was excited to get, she has everything back home, right? She got an apartment,

she's got a new pet. She's not trying to get away from anyone. So what is it, guys? What are we going with? You know what else? There's no confirmation of that this Deshy dude even exists. Oh, so this statement,

So Deshi was never interviewed by police officers. I didn't know that part. I'm not anywhere that I can find. So the only account of Deshi is from the father. Yes. Okay, that's interesting. I did not know that. That also hurts.

Now, because not even that Ron's lying, but did he get the information correctly, right? Like, what's his account of what Deshi told him? Is that exactly what Deshi said? And why hasn't Deshi come forward since? It's giving me very much like John Bonnet Ramsey ransom letter, foreign faction. you know, kind of weird, like, you should look at these cliffs and these bluffs and, you know, just don't talk to anybody while you're there, like very, like cloak and dagger, kind of like Liam Neeson taken movie kind of stuff, like very, somebody fabricated this. Was it, was it

Deshi? Is Dashy even his real name? Was it potentially, allegedly, Ron Bradley? Because he wants to make people. Not that I think that this would be once again to cover anything up, but hey, We believe Amy's here on this island, so we're going to tell people that some dude approached us and told us Amy was on this island. To make sure the search enhances over here. And that's why the story seems kind of like, you know, fictional. Let me ask you something. If you're Amy's mom and someone approaches you, a Deshi approaches you, gives you all this information. What's the one thing you're doing before Desi leaves?

I'm going to, I don't know, get his information, his license, his, I'm going to at least take the picture or be on his taxi. I'm going to tell you right now, he ain't leaving my site. until I'm holding him. I'm getting Brad or someone else to go get a police officer. That dude is my new best friend. Because guess what? Oh, you're a taxi driver. You got to go.

Here's $1,000. You're driving me around for the day. You're not going anywhere. You bring me to these places. You're not going anywhere until a law enforcement officer or an FBI agent sits down with you and talks to you. Yeah, they didn't say, hey, you got to talk to the FBI. You got to talk to the police.

Like, they just kind of were like, thanks for the info. Bye, Dashie. Yeah. And by the way, if someone says, oh, he didn't want to talk to law enforcement, he wouldn't be approaching you publicly if that was a case. He would have made a phone call or whatever. If this person exists and they were exactly the way they were described, they're coming forward to help.

Well, then help. But to just take Deshi at face value for now, the story itself, it bothers me. You know, if you're going to the traffic route. It sounds weird. She would have been incapacitated in a storage bin, in a car, whatever it might be. She would not be walking around the square or this common area where taxi cars are waiting to pick up passengers, able to go up to a car and say, hey, where's the nearest phone? She's already found a person.

There's your source of help right there. Help me. I'm being held captured right now. I just got to wait for a second. Please, please help help. Simple, right? Scream it at the top of your lungs. Or even if you thought someone was following you, you would say that.

I think someone's following me. And the people that are following you are going to immediately turn around and run. Yeah. Can I get in your car and call my mom or something? Right. Right. You got people right there in front of you. There's people from the cruise.

There's passengers. There's usually a common area when you get off the boat where just like everyone's there. It is usually like little shops and souvenir stands. And no one else saw her getting off the boat either? It's sketchy. It's questionable at best. But I'm not ruling it out. I have no reason not to, but we're not ruling it out, but we're putting it in that kind of middle of the road box.

I would need more concrete proof. Could have happened. Could not have happened. Yeah. I would need Deshi to come forward. And Deshi could just be some weird opportunist, right? We've seen them. It's just somebody who really has.

has no motive. It's not like they even get anything from it. They just want to, I don't know, insert themselves and be weird and feel like they're a part of something. It's weird. What did I say a couple weeks ago? I had a case that I was covering where they knew the victim was dead but didn't tell the public. And the mother knew the secret. After she found her daughter, they found her jawbone, she received a dozen tips from witnesses who wanted to help saying, I just saw your daughter at the corner store. And now the mom at this point is taking these calls, knowing that her daughter's dead. So yes, it happens all the time.

And there's people that just confess to being serial killers who aren't the serial. Like, it's just, I don't know. I can't, the psychology of it, I'd have to look more into it. Listen, we're going down a lot of different corridors here. It also could be as simple as a misidentification. Everything Deshi said could be true, but the woman he saw looked similar to Amy, but was not her. Yeah, I agree. That's also as simple as it could be.

All right, we're going to take a quick. break, and then we're going to talk about what the Bradley's did after hearing Deshi's random account. You know, when you cover true crime cases every week, like Derek and I do, you start to think about safety a lot more and a lot differently than most people. I used to think a solid lock on the door and maybe a louder alarm was enough, but here's the thing. Those only kick in after someone's already inside, which is a scary thought.

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That's simplysafe.com slash crime weekly. There's no safe like SimplySafe. Okay, we're back. So after meeting with Deshi, the Bradleys went to Kira Sau's Harbor Police Chief John Mentor. And they told him what they'd learned. Now, they wanted to search the island for Amy, but Mentor warned it wasn't safe without law enforcement. He later explained to Netflix that I'll live. Outside the tourist areas, locals could be violent.

He said the island had a lot of drug trafficking as well as sex work and sex trafficking. And he believed it was possible Amy had been lured off the ship and trafficked. So to help keep the Bradley family safe, Mentor joined as they searched the areas that Deshi suggested. All of the places turned out to be isolated, upscale beach areas with almost no guests, only staff. Which, by the way, wouldn't John Mentor have known that when they were telling him like, oh, we want to go to court? cliffs and the Kudushi cliffs, wouldn't the harbor police chief, John Mentor, if he knows about all these violent areas, kind of know, like, hey, these are like upscale beach areas with almost no guests, only staff.

You would think so. Wouldn't that have ring a bell for him? Yeah, you would think so. Well, Brad said, these areas felt eerie and unsettling, but there was no sign of Amy. So they kept searching, checking everywhere they could think of. One night while they were sitting at a busy intersection, Brad heard someone call his name in a voice he instantly recognized as Amy's. The street was chaotic with cars, pedestrians, and noise all around.

But Brad was certain it was her. The group tried to follow the only car that could have been the source of the voice, leading to a fast-twisting pursuit through the streets. This is getting more, like, hard to believe as we go through. How did you know which car could have been the only source of the voice? You said there's cars everywhere. It's chaotic. Like cars, pedestrians, noise all around.

But now you're like, but definitely, her voice definitely came from that car. We're going to pursue. And now we're going to have a wild chase, a wild car chase through the streets, the busy, crowded streets of Curacao. This is getting more and more like taken every time we get further in it. Like, where is this coming from? Remember I gave a disclaimer at the beginning where I was like, some of the things that we're going to talk about are not in my episode. This is one of those things where I just, I couldn't substantiated. And I've been trying to give a little bit of leeway with everything when I was covering it to put the witness statements out there and all that stuff. But overall, for me, it's exactly the way you're describing it. Like, they're on this island. And coincidentally, this woman who's been trafficked, you just happen to be in an area where she's driving by and she yells out, Brad. And then you know, you know, listen, if it's true and we always have to, you know, acknowledge it could be, man, what a story. What a story and what a series of, of, of, uh, a series of, uh, of, of, uh, of,

just missed opportunities and bad luck should be a movie it will be at some point probably it already was it's called taken and taken too anyways that's true brad says when they finally caught up to the car amy wasn't inside and he later said quote so either we followed the wrong car or i heard what i wanted to hear i don't know end quote and it's like why if if there what if amy wasn't in the car and this car is nothing to do with you why are you like chasing it through the streets and why is it like running away from you. Yeah, and to be honest, I believe this occurred. But I also acknowledge that I think he probably heard what he wanted to hear.

I think this actually, the situation actually took place. I just don't think it was Amy who was yelling his name. Or it wasn't as like dramatic as it's being described. Like maybe they just saw a car and started following it. Right. And it wasn't like that car didn't even know they were following it. And then it got parked somewhere to like stop and get a pack of cigarettes or something. And they were like, where's Amy?

And the car was like, what? What? It's Deschi. We've been following you for 20 minutes. I had no idea. It's Dashy in the front seat. Hey, guys. It's Dashy. So I do also want to note that the Netflix series ended up portraying this scene is happening on a quiet, isolated road. But Brad says, no, that's not true. They had been at a red light in a busy part of town surrounded by traffic people and businesses, which once again, how are you identifying which car her voice is coming from then? I don't know.

Yeah, it's, I believe it happened. think he's right in the fact that he probably just heard what he wanted to hear. If he's looking for his sister, he's hoping for anything and your mind can play tricks on you. Yeah, I could totally see that happening. So after nearly a week of searching the island, Amy still hadn't been found. Feeling like they'd exhausted their options, the family headed home empty-handed again. During a layover in Miami, Ron and Brad learned that chief mentor had called Iva to say a body had been found on the island. A woman with brown hair, they believed, could be Amy, but it was going to take 24 hours to confirm and Mentor would call back once he knew. When the call finally came,

the family learned it wasn't her, which at that point, I don't know what's worse, like thinking it could be her and thinking, okay, finally we'll have some movement, we'll be able to find out what happened to her, and then finding out it's not her and knowing you're in the same place you were before you got this call, we've talked about this before. I'd rather know, I'd rather know than not know. I'd rather have some, even if it's horrible news, that she's gone than to know that she's out there missing and anything could be happening to her.

Yeah, the unknown's the worst. And that's why covering the unsolved cases, some people don't even want to hear them because just for the listener or viewer, they don't like leaving the episode with that lack of resolution. So yeah, if it's tough on you, the listener or viewer,

imagine what it's like for the families. Yeah, I agree. And I mean, I think that sometimes listeners don't like it because there's a lack of closure, but that lack of closure, that cold case, that open case is important to talk about more than a wrapped up case because this person's still out there or their murder's not solved or they're still missing. And the more eyes, the more ears, the more awareness, the better we have in moving this case

towards a closed one. Couldn't agree more. That's why we do it. That's why you have to do it. And it's tough. It's not easy. And I think we're so conditioned you were joking about taken multiple times. But in those movies, there's always a happy ending.

Always a resolution, yeah. There's a resolution. And so we're conditioned for that. And when you don't get that story arc like you do in these fictional movies, you can be left unsatisfied. Your brain, yeah, your brain is like, wait. Yep, that's not how it goes. Yeah, exactly. I need to know what happened.

And that not knowing for even us, just consuming this, we have that feeling. So knowing that your loved ones out there somewhere and you don't know if this was just an accident or something much more nefarious, That's something that you have to think about every single second of every day. I can't take it. The stories of mothers with missing children, the children have been missing 20, 25 years, there's still no answers. That is, I think, the worst possible personal hell someone could live through. Just absolutely, it is my greatest fear. So, yeah, I can't do it.

So the search continued with the Bradleys telling the FBI about Deshe's account. So now we know, at least according to the Bradley's, that they, They have told the Harbor Police, John Mentor, and also the FBI about what this dashy guy said. So agents tried to corroborate his story, but they were unable to. Hoping to find more people who might have seen Amy on the island or somewhere else, the FBI partnered with America's Most Wanted to get the word out. And at first, the broadcast didn't bring any strong leads. And over the next several months, there were very few developments. The Bradley's gave interview after interview, hoping to keep her story alive in the public's mind.

When they weren't speaking to the media, they were conducting. their own investigation. Their home remained the center of the search, and any time the phone rang or an email came in, they rushed to answer day or night, never knowing if it might be the break they were waiting for. By November, Amy had been missing for eight months. The FBI gave an update saying they hadn't been able to determine what happened to her. They said, quote, we pursued every angle from whether there was foul play, a suicide, or an accident, and we have basically not gotten anywhere. End quote. In December, America's most wanted. re-aired their segment on Amy, and this time, a Canadian scuba diver named David Carmichael was watching.

When David Carmichael saw Amy's photo, along with details about her tattoos and piercings, he immediately recognized her as a woman he had seen four months earlier in August on Playa Porto-Marie in Curiselle. David later testified about the sighting at a grand jury hearing, saying, quote, we had just returned from a late afternoon dive in a dive location called Port of Maria. It's a dive location that's set up for divers and for people to go out and sort of swim, and they have a small cafe there. We were in the process of taking off our dive gear when I noticed three people walking up the beach. There were two guys and a girl, a white guy, a black guy, and the girl was trailing them.

As they passed us, I turned around to my buddy, who was maybe 15 or 20 feet away from me, and I yelled to them and asked him if he had a piece of my dive gear. gear. And just as I did that, they had passed me. This girl spun around, came right back towards me. She had her sunglasses up on her head. She stared right at me. And just as she was about to say something, the black fellow came into my field of vision and motioned her away. He didn't touch her. He motioned her away. She turned around, put her head down, and followed them over to a small cafe area where they sat and ordered drinks. They were actually by the bar. She was facing outwards towards us. So every once in a while, she would sort of look over towards me and then

look back down at the ground. At that point in time, my buddy and I went and got a beverage and sat down. End quote. David Caramichael said that they were far enough away from the woman and her group, that they couldn't hear what they were talking about. David and his friend ended up leaving first, and he never saw the woman again. Now, I find this sort of account to be more possible because he testified about this in front of a grand jury. So it's not like Deshi, who we don't even know exists. We know David Caramichael's a real person. If he's in front of a grand jury, it's very likely that law enforcement and, you know, the prosecution, the DA, whatever, verified that he was actually where he said he was in Curacao at the time he said he was

there. Yeah. Verified that there is this place for diving. There is this small bar, et cetera, et cetera. So these are all things that you can track and make sure that he's telling the truth about that. Now, it could have been Amy, could have been a completely different girl who looked like Amy. My issue has always been the scenario, just like with Deshi and now with David, maybe my opinion or my perspective on what human trafficking would look like, even though I've had human trafficking cases, is skewed. My opinion, based on, we did a case a very long time ago, it was a massage parlor, and they were bringing women over from Asia.

Oh, you told me about this, yeah. This was many years ago, and so they sent me in as an undercover. I went in there to pose as a John getting a massage. It was illegal massages. If you know what I mean, you know what I mean. And the women that were being held against their will were not walking around freely. They were held in the basement. They weren't allowed to leave.

And when they left at the end of the day, they were all put into a van, brought to an apartment where they were not allowed to leave or walk around public areas. The only time they ever interacted with the public was for that short window where they were in the room with a John. and they were under constant observation. So there wasn't really anyone at that moment that could save them. So to think that if Amy had been captured and was being held against her will, that she would be allowed to go out in public with an opportunity for her to get away, for her to get someone's attention, or for her to notify an authority figure in one of those instances, it seems highly unlikely to me.

But I want to hear your opinion on it. And I definitely want to hear what people listening or viewing this thing, because maybe I'm wrong, but it just seems like if she was being held against her will and those individuals knew how many people were out looking for her, their families all over the news, this is not the person that they would let out in public, because she could be seen by someone who saw one of the flyers. Yeah, I mean, this would have been several months after she went missing. That's what I'm saying.

So they know how publicized it is. Is it possible? Maybe they were meeting a John there. Maybe they were meeting somebody that they were selling her to. So that's why she was out in public and nobody had seen her before or after that in Carousel. Again, maybe I'm so conditioned by movies, but if I know that the world is out looking for the, and that her family is out there with a $100,000 reward on the line, I'm not letting her walk through this public area because all it takes is one person to go, hey, Amy, I know you.

Are you okay? And the jig's up. It's over. Yeah, but I mean, at this point, listen, I don't think traffickers are super like. Smart. Oh, yeah, or even, you know, I think they're kind of braeful. reason in general. I think that's kind of part of the way that they're able to do what they do. And they're thinking, yeah, okay, someone sees her. And even if she's like, yeah, it's me, Amy,

by the time they get a hold of her family, by the time they get a hold of law enforcement, we'll be long gone. Who cares if they see her? And what? And what they see her. And then even if they know what we look like and they happen to find us, they question us, say, were you with this girl? Nope. I have no idea what you're talking about. So, you know, they're not super worried, I guess. I guess it could all be different. And I don't know these traffickers if they exist like personally and their their MO could be different. But I remember the interview with one of the victims and there was a Walgreens or CVS like 10 feet away from this house that they were being held in for these massages. And one of the women had described

the fact that like she needed products, certain products, women products. And they wouldn't even allow her to go there to get them. They would say, hey, we'll go get them for you. But it would take them like a week to get them. You're also talking about Rhode Island, the United States. Yeah. So like, yeah. Might be a little bit more loose over in a foreign country. Now this person's going to go, yeah, the person's going to go to CVS for feminine products and tell the person I'm in the count of call the police right now.

I'm being traffic. Right. Whereas in Curisow on some random like dive location, if somebody can even, even has the, you know, forethought to call the police and say they think they saw Amy Bradley, by the time the police get there, no one's there anymore. Yeah. No, you're not, you're not wrong. Listen, I'll acknowledge this because I'm not trying to skew any of you.

If you're in the camp that she was trafficked or captured or taken against her will, whatever you want, the fact that you have two accounts now of people who had seen her and this isn't going to be the only ones, the more you have, the more ground I give you, because it's like, okay, well, one person could have been wrong. Two people could have been wrong. You also had the people on the cruise ship that said they saw her in the morning. Are they all just mistaken? Or the sightings on Curacao because it was so highly publicized because the flyer with her face on it was everywhere. Because there was a $100,000 reward, and there's people out there who don't have money. $220,000. Now it's $2.20. Yeah. And also, hey, we're seeing her face everywhere, right? So now we're going to see her face everywhere, even on girls that aren't her.

Right. But I acknowledge that, you know, you're going to go to the end of this episode and say, oh, come on, Derek, all these people saw her, but you don't believe any of them. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just acknowledging that there's evidence to me that's more suggestive of her. never leaving the boat. But I do concede the fact that these, you know, multiple accounts of people seeing her is, is interesting. Well, speaking of the reward, so at the time, David, who's the diver guy, he hadn't heard about Amy's disappearance when he saw her at that cafe. But the encounter stuck with him because of the aggressive way the man had intervened on the beach, which the

way he described, it didn't really sound aggressive. He literally said he didn't touch her. He just motioned for her. You know, that could be just like a possessive boyfriend, like, why you, why are you about to talk to some other guy kind of thing? It didn't sound that aggressive, but then David said when he saw the America's Most Wanted segment that December, he was certain the woman on the beach had been Amy. David believed it so strongly that he flew to Virginia to meet the Bradley's in person despite not wanting the reward. Yeah, that's compelling. I read that and I was compelling. Yeah, he said he sat with the Bradley's and he described Amy in detail, her green eyes and her Tasmanian devil tattoo, which is like, yeah, all those details were on her missing person's

poster. It's not like, yeah, you didn't, you could have gotten those from the poster. He even identified a very specific watch she'd been wearing. Now, this was a detail that had never been shared publicly. Okay, so the segment re-aired in December. And he said this was about four months prior. And remember, Amy had short hair when she boarded the Rhapsody of the Seas. So had her hair grown or were her captors making her keep it short the way that she had looked when she went missing and the way she looked on her missing person's posters? I'd be curious about that because I'm pretty sure they'd be like, yeah, we're going to let your hair grow. We're not going to let you keep it in the same style. You had it when you went missing. No, I agree. At that point, her hair would

have grown slightly. I don't think they would want her to look similar to her posters. More than slightly. It's been months. Yep. Make her wear sunglasses or something to try to disguise her a little bit more. If you're going to bring her out in public, again, my biggest issue is, I don't see them bringing her out in public like that. I just don't. What do you make about the, him describing a specific watch she'd been wearing, which was a detail that had never been shared publicly? Yeah, no, that's, this is what you're going to hang your hat on. I don't have an answer for it. I don't.

The only answer would be that he saw something that, you know, was accurate and that it was Amy. I'm not going to hang my hat on it, honestly, because that could have been planted in his head. I don't know, like, he could have gotten that from anywhere. They could have, he could have sat down and met with the Bradley's and they were showing him pictures of Amy. They could have been showing him pictures of Amy that they took on the cruise ship altogether. I mean, they could have asked him, did you see her wearing this type of watch? But if you're in that camp, this is compelling information. I acknowledge it.

I'm not trying to discredit it. I wasn't there for the initial interaction and interview with the Bradley's and David. But like you said, because it wasn't done by a professional, which would do things a lot differently, you don't know what was. said and how it was portrayed or how it was presented to David, which could have influenced some of his answers. And about the watch, according to the family's website, Amy's quote-of-quote boyfriend managed a restaurant and one of his suppliers had given him the Dosaki's watch. Dosakis is a drink.

Yeah. It's like, isn't that the Dosakis man? Like, he's this interesting man in the world. Exactly. So Amy had brought this watch on the cruise and she was wearing it when she disappeared. The Bradley's also said David's description of the black man on the beach. beach matched yellow. So once again, man, do we know that she brought the watch on the cruise? Do we know she was wearing it when she disappeared? It's a Dosaki's watch. Like, what's it

even look like? I would really, this whole watch thing, all of these things are suddenly, you know, we'd never heard about this watch before. When they're describing Amy and her being missing, was the watch a factor then? Or did it just kind of like get woven into the narrative afterwards? words. Yeah, I mean, listen, first off, if we were able to prove that this information was 100% accurate, meaning what David saw is without a doubt the truth, that I think we would all agree that Amy was trafficked and being held against her will. The problem is the source. And I'm not questioning David. I'm questioning all witnesses. We talk about it all the time. We don't know what he initially reported. Was there any confirmation bias on the part of the Bradley's? There's so many

variables here so yes on one hand very compelling stuff on the other hand if this information was obtained in a way that may not be as accurate then that's that's where the problem lies but this is the this is the this is the thing that i struggled with on my series as far as do i do i acknowledge this and put it put it at face value and say yep it's true i'm going to roll with it because if i did then i would have come to a different conclusion. I ultimately decided that, although I think David's heart is in the right place, it may have been a case of mistaken identity. I've kind of looked online just trying to see about this watch.

And a lot of people said, listen, she was described as wearing a different watch when she went missing. But now they were saying she was wearing this dozaki's watch. See, these are all the little things. And I also, by the way, if Yellow was involved, if he was like the conduit to get this woman off the boat to partners on the island. The last thing he's going to do when he knows he's being looked at is go hang out with her on the beach and Carousel where they could be seen together. That would be really freaking dumb. Yeah. And is he from Carousel? Does he live on Carousel? Why is he spending time why isn't he working? Even if he does. He's not going to be anywhere near her. Yeah, he would kind of

just sort of be the go-between guy, right? The guy in the cruise ship who delivers the girls to the people who are then going to, yeah, why is he still with her? He's not going to go hang out. out with her and allow someone to say, hey, not only did I see Amy, but I saw her with one of your suspects, because he knows at that point, if there's a, imagine someone takes a photo or something. Now detectives bring that to him. He's done. No way he would do that if he was involved. I agree. It's weird. The whole thing is weird and it keeps getting weirder. Well, that's why we're covering it, right? Yeah. All right. So let's take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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Again, that's skims.com. Go check out my favorite thongs. We're back. So, okay, the, the information that the Bradley's got from David Carmichael, they passed that on to the FBI, who now had two separate witnesses placing Amy in Curacao. They now had to consider multiple questions. Was it really Amy being seen? And if so, how had she gotten off the ship and onto the island with no one else seeing her? Had she walked off willingly or been smuggled off? So the FBI

looked into David's account just as they had with the cab drivers, but in the end, they weren't able to corroborate either sighting. So months later, the Bradley's received a tip from a woman named Judith, who lived in Curacao. She claimed Amy was being held on the island inside a barbed wire compound guarded by heavily armed Colombians. Judith described Amy's tattoos in detail and said she was often seen with a man who had long blonde hair and a full sleep of tattoos on one arm. The FBI and Curacao officials looked into Judith's claim, but once again found no evidence of a crime. And without any evidence, they couldn't just storm the property looking for Amy. The Bradley's felt powerless about this tip until they received an email from a man named

Frank Jones. So Frank Jones introduced himself as a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer with a team of ex- Army Rangers and ex-Navy SEALs who conducted special operations in the civilian world. He told Amy's mother, Iva, that they could rescue Amy from the compound. He said he would put Amy on his own back and swim her out of there if he had. to. And obviously, it's Liam Neeson. It's exactly what the Bradley's wanted to hear. It's exactly what they needed. Some guy who has the skill set and the knowledge to break into this armed Colombian compound, barbed wire compound, and rescue Amy from all of these bad guys, shoot his way out of there, whatever he's got to do. So according to the family's website,

Jones suggested they hire him in a private investigator role. He'd gather intelligence, from the guarded compound and report back. He seemed legitimate, so they agreed. Jones was initially paid $24,000 to send operatives to Curiselle. He claimed a two-man team had located Amy and her captors, but after following them to another location, they came under fire from about 10 armed men and lost track of her. Jones said that she'd been moved after that and he needed $86,000 to keep searching.

So here's what I think happened. I think this lady who called and said, oh, this Judith lady, she called and said, oh, Amy's being held in this barbed wire compound by armed Colombians. Her and this dude, Jones, are working in concert with each other. She plants the seed and he comes in as the perfect answer to their problems and just starts milking money from them. Yeah, they're scammers, no doubt about it. And then this is the problem, this is the problem with offering these big rewards, right? Because now all these opportunists know you have money. And I know a lot of you who are good people are saying, why would anybody do that?

Trust me. There are many people that would that see a family that's desperate and will do anything to find their loved one. And that's why you also, to a lesser degree, have to question these witness statements because it could be someone who wants to believe they saw. her because they're looking for a lottery ticket, you know, so they're out there hoping, hey, listen, if this is right, if I'm right, I could be rich. $100,000 back then, if you're living on an island, like you yourself, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money.

So, yeah, this guy, but these people are straight up scammers. I think they must be, yeah. Oh, no doubt. It reminds me of Annie, you know, when a rooster and then his little blonde girlfriend pretended to be Annie's parents so they could, yeah, it's just the same thing. like there's con artists out there and they work in teams and in groups to run the ultimate con and that's what was happening there. That's exactly what's happening here.

I can't speak to the witnesses before that, but definitely these guys. Yeah. And they already, he got 24,000. And then what does he ask for next? 86,000. Which would exactly 100 grand. Yeah. Coincidentally, just exactly what, you know, 100 gram, which was the initial reward.

And obviously it went up from there. At this point, the Bradley's asked for proof that Amy was still on the island. Jones then sent a photograph of a woman on a beach with a man who had long blonde hair and tattoos. The woman's wide-brimmed hat obscured her face, but her tattoos, a Tasmanian devil on her shoulder, and another on her ankle, appeared to match Amy's. This woman really appeared to be Amy. I have a later recalled, quote, when I got the pictures, I knew Amy was okay, and it was just a matter of time. End quote, I feel so bad because they could have faked those tattoos so easily. Oh, so easily. I mean, obviously, you, took $24,000 from them initially so you could send operatives out there to monitor the compound. And those operatives are obviously going to be taking pictures. That's the only picture

you got to confirm that Amy was there. You said you confirmed she was there, right? But then you got into some wild shootout and they moved her because they knew you were there for her apparently, not any of the other women they have there at this huge armed wire rimmed compound. It's ridiculous. And now they're moving, Amy, and you need more. You don't have any other pictures from when you're all the time your operatives spent there taking pictures and gathering intel just ridiculous so the bradley said to be 100% sure that the photo was of amy before they sent more money especially that much more so they had the photo examined and in the end they were told it appeared to be authentic that doesn't mean that the tattoos are authentic but convinced that jones

was being truthful they sent him another 100,000 dollars which came from the amy bradley fund at a nonprofit that managed restricted funds for search and recovery costs. After that payment, Jones told the Bradleys that he and the team were ready to carry out their mission and rescue Amy. He directed the Bradley's to travel to Florida and wait for his call. Ron's boss had a jet on standby to fly them to Curiselle the moment the mission was complete. Shout out to Ron's boss again. Yep.

He's a real one. Yep. The Bradley stayed in Florida for a week, but you know what? A call from Jones. Yeah, a call from Jones never came. Oh, he didn't call. He ghosted. Oh, shocker.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. Meanwhile, in Curisal, one of Jones's team members, Timothy Buchholz, a former Army Special Forces sniper, began to question the operation. He'd been assigned to watch the compound where Amy was supposedly held, but he only saw what looked like a normal family living there.

Then, while at a bar, Buckholz overheard Jones on the phone telling the Bradley's that his men were actively watching the house, and Buckholes realized it was a scam and contacted the family directly. Obviously, the Bradley's were devastated. The amount of money that they gave this guy that they could have used for true and genuine search and rescue. So a federal investigation Indy Jones began and agents learned that he had never served in the special forces, surprise, only in the Army reserves as a chemical corps captain and staff officer. His employees confirmed that everything Jones had told the family was a lie. Even Judith's story was false. She'd been paid about $8,000 to claim she'd see Amy in the compound. So he gets $100,000. She gets $8,000.

Yep. She probably got a little piece of the $100,000, too, maybe. Who knows? I doubt it. Her part was already done. Yeah. One phone call, $8,000? Yeah, disgusting. So investigators further learned that when the Bradley's asked for photographic proof, Jones had to fake it. So he convinced a woman to get temporary tattoos matching Amy's and then posed her on a beach near Pensacola, Florida, not even Curacao, and photographed her from behind while a male acquaintance stood nearby in a blonde wig posing as the supposed kidnapper. Yeah. So that's the links people will go to. So it's not when you're like, oh my God, I can't believe it.

Yeah, people out there will do this. It happens. After the investigation concluded, Jones was charged with defrauding the Bradleys and the nonprofit. He ultimately pleaded guilty to mail fraud and was sentenced to five years in prison. prison. The experience obviously left the Bradley's emotionally wrecked. When asked why they had trusted Jones and given him so much money, Ron said they had no choice. He asked, quote, I mean, what else do you do? If it was your child, what would you do? So I guess we took a chance and I guess we lost. End quote. Yeah, of course. They're desperate. That's why these people target them. Not only are they desperate, but you've advertised to the world. And at no fault of

the Bradleys, they want their daughter back, but you've advertised to the world, you have enough money to offer a very large reward. Usually rewards don't start off at 100,000. Yeah, and I do want to point out, and it's not 100% guaranteed, but I do think this is an indication that the Bradleys didn't have anything to do with what happened to Amy.

I know we entertained that idea, but they would be able to quickly discern that this guy's... Not Ron and Iva, yeah. Not Ron and Iva, definitely, because this would be really going above and beyond to sell this story. You don't need to give this guy

random money. You could have given him a couple grand and said, oh, you know what? We don't believe you. There's something not adding up here, but they were really into him. They believed that that was Amy, and that's why they got the money together and gave him a ton of cash to bring their daughter home. And they were, they were misled and they were taken advantage of. But even though we entertained it in the beginning, that's why I said, Ron saying that he saw Amy on that balcony, either he's completely wrong, or he's telling the truth. And that's what he saw. And so, So that's where I'm at on this. But yes, all this money, all the resources, all the time, all the effort that's being put into this.

That's why I think most people have already come to the conclusion that the Bradley's are not involved with this. Now, I know Brad's a little bit more different. I know you're still entertaining that. I don't think he's involved either. I really, really don't. I think they're telling the truth. And I think they maybe believe that Amy's still on the island somewhere, but that may be coming from a place where they want to believe it. And that's why they were taking advantage of here.

And I mean, seeing her sleeping on the balcony could also come from a place of wanting to believe it. So what I'm saying is you said you believe that Ron saw her sleeping on the balcony. But Ron also said that the door to the balcony was open when he got up, right? Which would indicate what? Which would indicate that she left the balcony and left the room. I would argue that she was out on the balcony after coming back inside and then going back out there. And she went out there for a brief moment and never came back in. Okay. So you believe the door was open when Ron woke up?

I believe the door was open when Ron woke up, which he said. When they woke up, the door was open, and she was gone. Okay. All right. So I believe that she was in the room, didn't feel great or whatever, for whatever reason, ran back out onto the balcony, and the door was left open behind her. All right, we're going to take our last break because we're kind of delving into a different path here. And we'll be right back. You know, between digging into old case files, chasing down court updates, trying to send out FOIA requests, and also just trying to keep up with real life, I feel like I barely

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And in 2001, a retired naval officer named Bill Heffner contacted Amy's family and said he'd been in Curisout in January of 1999. While there, he visited the Stolaris Hotel, which had a bar on the first floor. and hotel rooms on the upper floor. The hotel and its bar were off limits to sailors because of its reputation for illegal prostitution. Bill went anyway, and while there, he struck up a conversation with two black men who were with two women, he assumed, were sex workers. Eventually, the men and one of the women left, leaving Bill alone with the other woman. He said they kept talking, and she told him her name was Amy Bradley, though he thought she said, Bratley, with a T and not a D.

She said she'd been on a cruise with her family before ending up on the island. She said, me and my brother were partying, and I went ashore to go get drugs, and now I'm stuck here with these guys. She told him she couldn't leave because they had her papers. Bill told her to go to a U.S. ship in the port, and they would help her, but she said that wasn't possible. Before she could say any more, the second woman returned, and Amy then went quiet, clearly trying not to draw attention to their conversation. Bill left the hotel, not realizing Amy was a missing woman, and returned to his ship. He was concerned about Amy, but he was also unwilling to report what he'd seen. He was only two years away from retirement and didn't want to risk trouble by admitting he'd been at the hotel.

You were just told by this woman that she was on a cruise with her family. She left the cruise, and now she's stuck with these guys and she doesn't want to be, but they took her paper. She's basically telling you, I've been abducted and I'm being hold hostage against my will. And you're like, you know what? I'm not going to report. I'm two years away from retirement. Like, we'll just let this fly. He could have said he saw her outside the hotel and talked to her then,

like at least something to get some help to this girl who clearly needs help. But he doesn't say anything to anyone. That's weird, right? Yeah, it's a scumbag move, not to say anything. I do remember addressing this and saying for him to come out and admit this, everyone's going to have the same visceral reaction that we're having, where it was just really looks bad on his part. And so to me, that gives a little bit more credibility to the story

because there's really nothing to gain in this. It just makes him look horrible. First off, he's in there soliciting for prostitution. He has a woman who tells him that she's being held. That's not necessarily what he was doing. Allegedly. He just wanted to go to the bar. Yeah, he just wanted to go to the bar, sure.

And, you know, this woman tells him that she's being held against her will, all these things. And he goes, well, you know what? I don't really care. I'm getting back on the boat. So all on your own, kid. He just looks really, really bad. So why?

I mean, he could have just grabbed her and been like, Like, we're leaving. 100%, which is why I don't necessarily discount his story. I don't want to get ahead. But there's something that could explain this where he is telling the truth for the most part. And I promise you guys, it's coming. I just don't want to jump ahead in the story. But there is a world here where he's telling the truth and it's still not Amy.

But let's say for the sake of this conversation, it was Amy, I'm always going to go back to it's a lot of risk. Amy at this point is plutonium for the traffickers. Yeah, you think they want to get her out of Curis out at the very least. Bring her to another island, yeah. I don't want to be crass or just kill her. And that way the heats off of them. But are they going to risk leaving her alone with these Johns where they could say, yep, I want to buy her for an hour.

Who's a, what, a Navy, a sailor? So he works for the United States government from which she belongs to the United States. And they're going to be like, have fun, you two. I just don't see it happening. Like if they're trafficking her, they're bringing her somewhere else to a higher authority that's not going to have her out in public, they're not just going to have her out there sitting at a bar like an escort when every time she encounters someone, she could relate. Now when she's an abducted American woman. No, she could relate to them, hey, I'm being held against my will. And

even though, oh, they have my papers. You don't need your papers to get help. You could go somewhere, get help. That's not an option. So some of the story, in every case that we have, it just doesn't make sense. If you're being held against your will, you can get away. Are we being led to believe? Because they keep saying Amy had her identification. I kept thinking of that as her driver's license. She also disappeared with her passport? Yeah, she got off the boat with her passport, apparently, which is another problem with this story because her family has come out and said that she

wasn't really into drugs. So let's say for this conversation she was. Well, she was getting, they were planning on getting off the boat anyways. So why wouldn't you get off the boat with your family, then sneak away for a couple minutes, go grab what you need and then meet up with them? You're going to get off the boat without telling them, cause all this concern, raise all these suspicions just because you need drugs. she's not some addict.

So to me, that story doesn't line up, which is why I do believe that this woman may have said, I'm Amy Bradley, I was taken from a cruise ship, all this bullshit. But then the story as far as like, oh, I got off the boat to get drugs, that's this person making up those stories and filling in the blanks to give the reason why. So you think the woman was not Amy Bradley. And I'm going to explain more why. And there's a reason why she would. There's a reason why she would.

All right, so two years later in 2001, Bill saw Amy's photo on People Magazine and immediately believed the woman in the hotel had been her. Now that he was retired, he was more willing to talk. He contacted the FBI, recounted what he knew, and passed a polygraph. But when shown a photo of yellow, he said he wasn't sure if he'd been one of the men there. The only thing he was certain of was that he'd seen Amy. The FBI later traveled to Curacao to follow up on Bill's statements, but by then the hotel had burned down, taking any leads with it. So the search continued, and in 2003, witnesses reported seeing a woman in San Francisco who matched Amy's description.

On April 18th, the woman was spotted at Pier 33, which is near Fisherman's Wharf. The sighting happened close to the ticket area for Alcatraz, where a street musician was performing. According to the witnesses, the woman was with two men they described as her handlers. At one point, one of them gave her foreign coins to drop into the musician's case. But then the men realized witnesses were looking at the woman, so they grabbed her and ran. As they dragged her away, the woman looked over her shoulder and pleaded silently with the witnesses. She stumbled and fell at one point, but the men kept pulling her along. So the witnesses contacted the FBI and provided detailed descriptions.

The FBI believed the citing was valid enough that they sent a forensic artist from Quantico to create sketches of the two. men. When the sketches were done, the witnesses said that they were so good they were like photographs. The sketches were released, but unfortunately, it doesn't appear that the men were ever identified. So the Bradley's continued to collect tips and pass along leads. Then in 2005, they received their most disturbing lead yet. An email containing explicit photos of a Caribbean sex worker known as jazz, JAS. The images were found by someone working with an organization that searches sexual websites for potential sex trafficking victims. They had been posted on an escort site called Affordable Adult Vacations, which featured multiple women using nicknames and posing suggestively,

some without clothing. According to the site, the woman worked for an escort resort on Margarita Island in Venezuela. It was marketed as an all-inclusive resort with 24-7 access to escorts. Vacation packages included the customer's choice of escort or multiple escorts, who would stay with them at all times, even on excursions. Guests could select their escort in advance by browsing the photographs online. Now, when the Bradley saw the photos of Jazz, they thought she could be Amy, though she looked very different from when they had last seen her. The woman had long, teased hair and heavy makeup. Iva said, quote, when I first looked at the picture, it wasn't the Amy I know. The picture looks like a harsh and tormented Amy, end quote. The tipster sent

several images, some of which have been released publicly. Brad said that in his opinion, many of the photos bore a striking resemblance to his sister Amy while others did not. He noted that in many of the pictures, the woman's body was positioned in a way that hid Amy's known tattoos. In a few where tattoos should have been visible, they weren't, suggesting they may have been covered with makeup or digitally altered and removed. The Bradley's gave the images to the FBI, who conducted a forensic facial analysis. Agents measured features that don't change with age, like a widow's peak, ear shape, or arm proportions, and matched them to known photographs of Amy. Now, in the Netflix documentary, they show the comparison points, and admittedly, these

similarities are striking. The FBI ended up concluding that the photos were likely of Amy Bradley. The FBI's next priority was to find out where the photos had been taken, so they examined everything in the background from the bed frame to the mattress pattern and contacted every adult vacation or escort agency they could find in the Caribbean and surrounding regions. They even tried to arrange meetings with jazz through undercover investigators. Every lead went nowhere. Agencies claimed they had never heard of her, even when shown the images. Brad said it's unclear if they were telling the truth or simply covering for someone.

So with nowhere else to turn, the FBI and the Bradleys decided they needed to release the photos publicly in hopes of generating more leads, and so they decided to do this while appearing on the Dr. Phil show. but that and everything that followed will have to wait until the next episode. But I know Derek wants to talk about these photos. Yeah. So first off, that's the thing I was referring to earlier

where I believe more than likely the woman seen at the bar or the hotel, I should say, was jazz. I think this woman has a striking resemblance to Amy. I will push back a little bit. I haven't found anything. And if I'm wrong, I'll be sure to admit it in the comments or the next episode.

I haven't seen anything conclusively that says the FBI said, yep, it's definitely Amy in those photos. They acknowledged that, from my understanding, it could be Amy. It could be. Not that it wasn't. And I'm going to show you, I just sent the photos to Stephanie. And we're going to put them up on the episode as well. And I will caution all of you just a little bit of a warning.

We're going to blur some of these photos out. But the first photo you're going to see right here is actually from a tweet from Brad Bradley. It was recent where he put up the exact photo of Amy's tattoo. You can see it's not a brown Tasmanian devil, it's dizzy devil, and he's purple and he's spinning a basketball on his finger. So you can see it here. So everyone's been reporting it's a Tasmanian devil. Here it is right here for you to all look at it. If you're on YouTube, if you're listening on audio, jump over real quick. You can check it out. You can mark the timestamp. There's the actual tattoo. And the next photo that I'm going to show you is the photo of the close-up of this woman, who they use to make the comparison. And there are a lot of similarities to aim. Bradley. I've seen the comparisons on Reddit. I get it. However, if you remember a couple episodes, I told you that Netflix and everybody else can skew it by not showing you everything. They're not lying, but they're just leaving certain details out. Well, these next couple

photos I'm going to show you, like I said, this is the same woman. I actually found the website that this was posted on, which, by the way, I don't think they would have Amy posted on the website, but that's a different story for a different day. That'd be pretty brazen to do that. But here's the other photos from this exact photo shoot of this same exact woman who's reported to be Amy. And in the first photo you're seeing here, there's a photo of her back left shoulder. And what do we not see? A tattoo. There's no tattoo.

The only argument I could make is that these photos are inverted. And this is actually her right shoulder, not her left. I have no indication that that's the case. But there's no tattoo here. And this is the same woman. You can tell it's the same background, same hairstyle. there's a couple more photos. Her hair is kind of covering that shoulder

a little bit in those other photos. And then there's one photo that's more of a frontal but it's a little further away. But overall, when you look at these other photos, you can see how the narrative can be skewed. But to me, if you take these photos with the way they look, that is 100% not Amy Bradley.

Unless she had, like you said, they were digitally altered or she had the tattoos removed, which I don't believe either are true. So I believe that this woman we're seeing is this woman, Jass. And I think that jazz, which there are some reports on Reddit, take that with a grain of salt, that say jazz was actually on record somewhere just talking to people saying, yeah, I was doing this to kind of get more money, to raise my price because people were into it. Like, oh, the American woman that had been held captive, like they all wanted to sleep with me.

So she was kind of playing up this character in order to have more people want to purchase her time. And there's a world. And I think it's a real strong possibility that she was telling the story to this gentleman. I should even call him a gentleman because she was hoping that would turn him on and he would be more likely to buy her time to want to spend time alone with her. And you said there's reports of her telling people this?

Yeah, that she would use that too. Again, it was only on Reddit. I have nothing substantiated. So did she, do you think she like put the fake tattoo on there for some of these pictures? I don't. This is the photos right here. I don't think she ever had this photo.

I know some people say they saw a tattoo. I don't know. I don't know if they saw it or not. But these are the photos from that same photos shoot that everyone's passing around in the Netflix dock and online and they're making the comparison to Amy. So you're saying that, yeah, and none of these pictures that are like zoomed out that show her face actually show a tattoo and there's only this one that looks like a completely

different lighting. Yes, that's a photo that Brad posted. I think it's something where he like, he got it from a video or something and he posted it for everyone to see. That is not just some random drawing that was made to look similar to her tattoo. That is her tattoo. Where did he get this picture from? It looks like to me it's from a video capture, not an actual photo.

I think it's probably a video where the camera was spanning and he happened to get it real quick. It looks like she has earrings in and the necklace on. Where is this alleged video playing? I don't know. Because then wouldn't you say that that would be Amy then? That is Amy. That is Amy.

My interpretation that the one that Brad posted you're talking about is it. It's a dizzy devil. He said it's not a brown Tasmania devil. It's a dizzy devil. He is purple and spinning a basketball. on his finger. Yeah, so that's the tweet. That's what I read earlier.

So, yes, to make sure it's clear for people, because I might have misunderstood your question. Yeah. The first photo that I showed you guys is of Amy Bradley. The second photo we're looking at, we can do them again right here, is the photo that everyone's making the comparison to. This is jazz, yeah.

But then you see the same photo shoot, but just with a different angle, one, jazz doesn't look as much like Amy anymore, and there's no tattoo on that left shoulder. To me, that rules are out. I think this person does exist. I think she happens to look very similar to Amy in certain light with certain makeup. And I think she knew that.

And she played that up. That's my opinion. I mean, it's not the craziest thing I've ever heard. Right. It's more likely than it being Amy and just the tattoo being removed. And let's just step back for a second here. There's $200,000 reward out there for this American woman that everybody and their brother's looking for. The traffickers are going to put her on a website.

come on hey here she is but yeah don't come get her they were also unable to determine the authenticity of the images or trace the IP address of the website right yeah so to me again because I know some people like to go back to the FBI confirmed in this photo it was her hey listen I haven't seen that anywhere but let me ask you this what's their explanation for the tattoo not being on her shoulder the FBI said it could likely it could likely be Amy Bradley meaning like the facial features matched, but since they couldn't actually determine the authenticity of the pictures or even trace the IP address of the website where they were allegedly found and they questioned all these people in different agencies and nobody had seen her or heard

of her. Yeah, I don't know. Well, I say all this to say, be careful what you consume because if these other photos didn't exist and what I found here wasn't like deep detective work. It was right online. But big show like Netflix didn't include these other images. Why? I think we all know why. Yeah, because they show that she doesn't have the tattoo. I mean, yeah. So you have to be because if these photos didn't exist, everyone would be telling me in the comments, Derek, you're an idiot. That photo is of her. She's older, but that's definitely her. I guarantee you some of those same people are now going, oh yeah, it's not her. You're right. It's not her. And I don't take pride in saying that. I got to be careful how I say this. I mean, I wish it was her because

that would say she's still alive. But I also am glad it's not her because to think that she was being held against her will and being forced to do these types of things is terrible. They never found jazz, right? That's the other issue here. I looked and I looked and I looked and I can't find this woman anywhere. Like you would think someone would have found her. But I do believe there's a scenario where some of these Amy Bradley's sightings are actually jazz with her handlers because she is a sex worker. And all the stories, all the accounts we're hearing could have some validity to them with the fact, the little caveat that it's not actually Amy, it's just someone who looks like her. And I think in passing, seeing her very quickly, you could make that mistake as well. Oh,

yeah, that's Amy. A lot of people resemble each other. So that's not crazy. And if you're, what you're saying is true. And this person was like, let me capitalize on this. The first thing she would have thought of is I kind of look like this girl. Yep. I saw it on Reddit. You can go look yourself, it's all over there. Some people were saying that Jass had said to some people, there were some reports, although I haven't any official documents where she was out there basically playing this up. We see it all the time, by the way. Young girls or, you know, kidnapped women and children where they pretend to be them because there's sickos out there that will pay more because of it. And, you know, the most prolific case of this is, is Anastasia Romanov. How many

women over history have come out claiming to be her because they never found Anastasia's body, right? So, but now they recently did. I mean, not recently, but a few years ago. So that obviously put a stop to all those focuses. But for, for many, many years, women randomly were coming forward. Like, that's me. I'm Anastasia. That's me.

I'm Anastasia Romanoff. And they made a whole, like, movie, a cartoon movie about people pretending to be her. It was so widespread. So, yeah, I, unfortunately, but I just don't know why if she was doing it to like up her business, why she would now be so hard to find, I guess. Well, she could have some problems, I guess. Or maybe she was like, oh shit, I didn't expect like the FBI to get involved. Let me sort of go under the radar now.

Yeah. And one other thing I want to point out because I really want to make sure we cover these photos extensively because I think they're really important because a lot of people out there truly believe that these photos are of Amy Bradley. This whole website's dedicated to it. And the one other thing that I want to point out here as you go through these photos is let's say you are in the camp that believes this photo is inverted. and this is actually her right side of her body, okay?

I'm going to pull up a photo here first that shows the tattoos that she had. We talked about the dizzy devil. She also had a tattoo above her right ankle, right? So you can see this photo here. This is just a drawing of it, but I don't even know it's like a little cross with the line. So we have a tattoo on her left shoulder

and then we have a tattoo on her right ankle, okay? So go back to those photos. Let's say you're in the camp. You're like, Derek, nope, they're inverted. that's her right shoulder. Well, you know what that means? That's also her right ankle. And what do you not see there?

No tattoos. So there you go. Yeah. I'm going to go out on a limb and it's a rare thing. I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm 100% sure that these photos are not of Amy Bradley. And that's why I wanted to wait until we got to that point in the story. But there's no doubting the fact that this woman looks very similar to Amy, not disputing that, which gives more credence to the witness testimony that we have had. Yeah, definitely does.

a woman that looked like Amy Bradley, but it wasn't Amy. No, I think you're, I think you're right, unfortunately. So that's where I'm at on it. And I mean, this is not the only thing that I'm basing my opinion off of. Occam's Razors, a lot of this as well, where there's things about what the last known whereabouts. Everything that Brad and Ron have conveyed to us can all be true. And it's very possible that she just fell overboard. Couple that with the discrediting of these sightings, that's really the only conclusion.

conclusion you're left with. We know Yellow wasn't off the boat. He was in his room at 6 a.m. The director went down there. He wasn't with her taking her somewhere. No. He was sleeping in his room. So it had to be a counterpart. It had to be someone else. And yet we have the taxi driver saying she was alone at the port saying, hey, I need to know where a pay phone is. So she wasn't being held in a bin or a cage or a car or a van. She was walking around. And then we have these other people saying that allegedly she's seen with Yellow afterwards in Curacao where it's like what would he go back to the island? Does he live on the island?

Wasn't he working on the cruise ship? Why would he be on the island? So, yeah, there's a lot of issues, yeah. We haven't talked about this, but I think you feel comfortable with it. You know, we're not going to reach out to Brad. He's going to probably hear about this and see this series. It's getting a lot of attention. If he does, I want to offer the invite to come on here and let's talk about it.

We want what you want. We're not pointing the fingers at anyone. If he wants to come on here and talk about Amy's case and maybe push back on some of the things that I said, he knows this case better than me. And we're not going to run from that. We want to get to the truth. We want to find Amy or at least figure out what happened to her. And there is a world we won't if she did go overboard. The invite is out there. I know that people who are close to this case who know Brad, he's very available online. He's out there. He's talking on Twitter. He's on all these different podcasts. We're open to it.

If he wants to do an episode where we'll sit down and talk about it. We can do that. It's not something we normally do. We did it with Darley because we were really hard on her. We wanted to give someone an opportunity to discredit what we were saying. This is a little different. The words out there, the Netflix is out there, our series is out there. If Brad wants to come on and talk about it, we're all for it. I think you're okay with that, right? Yeah, of course. Of course. So that's where we're at. That's where I'm at. I know we're going to have one more part of this to go. I just want the truth. I'm not trying to, you know, poo on anybody's theories, but you got to call it how you see it, and this is how I see it. And I wanted you to come in and look at it,

but I won't even ask you, as we end this episode, how you're feeling. I want to wait until the whole thing's out there, let you finish your research, and then let you come to your own conclusion, because to me, it's pointing in one direction, and it's not the one that most, I guess some people believe in, but I got nothing else. All right, so let's wrap it up and we'll be back next week and then we'll give our final thoughts after we put down all the evidence and all the facts that we know, at least. Yeah. And, yeah.

We'll go from there. Yeah, we'll go from there. Let us know what you think about this episode. Please. Because we have a lot of weird, we had a lot of unexpected discussions here. I'm curious in the comments. Let us know how many of you had seen the photo that I put up of Amy, you know, the facial photo and thought it was her.

How many of you didn't know about the other photos and have now changed your mind? Derek wants to know how many of you did he change your minds. Basically. Yeah. And but it's not even about changing minds. It's about proving a point that these documentaries and these series may have an intention of just presenting another theory, but if there's information that disputes or discredits that theory, they'll conveniently leave it out to enhance the story that they are telling.

It's not technically lying. It's not being completely transparent. And that's the way they get around it. That's the ethical conundrum that they're just like, oh, we didn't have enough time to show all the other photos. even though those other photos would discredit the initial photo you showed. So that's my problem. And that's why we're here because even a lot of people have said,

I watch a Netflix series, but this is a lot better. This is better than that because it's showing all sides. We're not trying to do that. And I think Netflix does a lot of good things as well. Their documentaries are always skewed. I'm sorry. It's not just Netflix. Every documentary.

What did I say, and it was part two or part one, if it was a simple series where they wanted to make a documentary saying, Amy fell overboard accidentally. No one would buy it. Nobody would watch it. This is a much more salacious story. I mean, they would watch it. They would watch it if Netflix ended with that.

Like, oh, despite everything we've shown you. They'll hook you in. But they don't want to do that. They still don't want to do that. And there's a lot of good people out there who want to find her and are going down this human trafficking trail. And maybe I'm wrong. And you know what?

Keep pursuing what you're pursuing. I would love for someone to find. her and be like, this is where she was. Derek, you're an idiot. I would have no issue with that. But let us know what you think. Way in down in the comments below. Like, comment, subscribe.

If you're on audio, please leave a review. Leave your comments. We've been getting a lot more. I think next week we'll announce the CrimeCon kind of giveaway because it's getting to that point now. So actually, let's just do it right now. If you want to leave your comments, we'll start to pick someone because it is getting close. We're looking at August 11th right now as we're recording this. So with this week, it'll give you some time to play.

if you're in that area or you have to book flights to crime con tickets for free on Stephanie and I weigh in down in the comments section make sure you're leaving a review on audio Spotify or Apple Podcasts you can leave a comment on Spotify it's not necessarily a review tell us your story there's also people who've gotten creative and have started making I don't know if you've seen them like Instagram stories where they're posting their review but then also promoting our show oh that's awesome pretty good It's pretty good. I'm not going to lie.

So get creative. We're going to pick one person for two tickets. We look forward to seeing you guys. It's going to be great. Until then, we'll see you next week. Everyone be safe out there. Have a good night. Bye.