Criminology - Rebecca Coriam

Episode Date: May 29, 2022

Rebecca Coriam, a crew member aboard the cruise ship, the Disney Wonder, vanished in 2011 and has never been found. 24-year-old Rebbeca or "Becks", as she was known to friends and family, disappeared on March 22nd, 2011. From the very beginning, the investigation seemed lacking including jurisdictional disputes on who should lead the investigation. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance of Rebecca Coriam. The ship had a lot of cameras and Rebecca was seen on CCTV footage early that morning. But not a single camera captured what happened to her. A search ensued but no sign of her was found. The Royal Bahamas Police was the investigating agency and their investigation has led many to question its thoroughness. Did Rebecca Coriam end her life, get swept overboard by a rogue wave, or was it a love triangle that led to murder? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true-crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodunit.

We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to moms and mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 209 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, man. How are you? I'm good. I just got unpacked in my new home and got everything organized or semi-organized.

And now I'm just sort of getting back into the groove of working. How about you? Well, you know, let's talk about that. for a minute. Getting a new house, that's great. The packing, the moving, not so great. That's something that I don't look forward to. A lot of times my wife and I think about moving. And then every time we think about what's involved, we say, nah, no, that's not worth it to us. Yeah, and our family, we're the type of people that move like every 20 years. So hopefully this is, this is it for moving for a well. Well, that would be good. That would be good. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon. shoutouts. We had Catherine Knapp, Amanda Cannon, Dory Young, and Kimberly Dister. So that's a lot of

great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much for going out of the way and helping support the show. It means a lot to us. And for anyone that would like to help support criminology, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. You know, morph before we jump into this episode, there's been some pretty incredible true crime news that has come out in the past few weeks. I think the first one that caught my eye was around the Oklahoma Girl Scout murders, which is an episode that that we did, a case that we covered. You know, that Gene Lee Roy Hart, I think for most people has been the prime suspect for many, many years, but them coming out saying that, you know, they've matched the DNA and this and that,

you know, to me is a big deal. Yeah, I think it really, the DNA evidence, it just goes to show that years later, even after a suspect is dead, that DNA will tell the truth. And I think, like you just said, a lot of people have long believed he's been the killer in that case. I know I did. And hopefully this can give the family some kind of peace and knowing for sure. sure once and for all.

And I do think when you're talking about unsolved cases, those ones where there is a very viable prime suspect, police believe, the public believes, but there's just not enough evidence to move forward with a charge, a trial, a conviction. Those are some of the most frustrating to me. Yeah, it's almost like you know the outcome or you know the truth. you know who was involved, but there's just nothing there to prove it. So anytime you can sort of put something to rest with physical evidence, it's really a great outcome.

And then I think the second one was the Brittany Drexel case. You know, they've come out and named a suspect, charged a suspect. That person led the authorities to Brittany's body. So, I mean, this one's still in the early stages. We're going to hear more as it unfold. But again, just these older crimes being solved, you know, it really gives a lot of hope to many cases. Yeah, and getting those answers is important because I know in Brittany's case, for example, that we're going to cover coming up on criminology, there was a lot of speculation and hearsay and people coming forward to say she was in an alligator pit or something along those lines. and it seems like that wasn't the case at all.

So when you can get answers and clarity, that's a really big thing. Yeah, and kind of put the speculation to rest. All right, buddy, let's go ahead and jump into this episode of criminology. You know, recently there has been news about three Americans who died at the Sandals Emerald Bay Resort in Great Exuma in the Bahamas and a fourth who became seriously ill and was airlifted to a hospital. As far as we can tell from media reports, the fourth victim is still in serious condition

at a hospital in the United States. While it seems as if the deaths were likely caused by some sort of accident, maybe something in the environment, and not the result of anything sinister, the news has many people thinking about mysteries that happen in places that are supposed to be, you know, these kind of getaway space,

spots, little pieces of paradise. Now, we're no strangers to mysteries happening at vacation resorts and island getaways. Sometimes those mysterious happening seem to include foul play to people seeking fun and exotic destinations, like the disappearances of Madeline McCann or Natalie Holloway. But not all of these cases happen on land. Some happen on cruise ships. Those ships in the crews aboard those ships help get vacationers and travelers to their getaway spots. And most of the time, everything goes off smoothly. But every once in a while, something goes wrong and a mystery is born. And it's not always the vacationers at the center of the mystery.

Sometimes it's the crew tasked with getting people to their vacation spots. In this episode, we'll be talking about Rebecca Coriam. a crew member aboard the cruise ship, the Disney Wonder, who vanished in 2011 and has never been found. In 2011, the Disney Wonder, the second ever ship in Disney's fleet of cruise ships, had been in service for 12 years with a mostly impeccable record. 24-year-old Rebecca Quorum from Chester, England, had been working for Disney's cruise line since June 2010. She had trained for her position at their Florida location and had been sailing with Disney pretty much ever since. She had taken a two-week break to go back home to England after her grandfather passed away

before returning to work aboard the Wonder. She continued to work on board for another six weeks with nothing of note happening. It was just a normal cruise with Rebecca or Bex, as people called her, entertaining and doing activities with children as a youth worker on the ship. On March 21, 2011, the Disney Wonder set sail from port in Los Angeles, California. Rebecca sent her parents a message on Facebook, letting them know that she would be calling them the next day. Now, this may seem odd to some to schedule a call, but Los Angeles and London have an eight-hour time difference. So it would take some coordination on both ends in order to make sure everyone was on the same page as to when that call would take place.

Rebecca was working after all. So she could only call on her time off. And she had to schedule that call to London for her downtime. After Rebecca's mother and Maria responded to that Facebook message, she waited for Rebecca's call. But it didn't come. After 12 hours, Anne Maria became worried. Rebecca had been very good about keeping in contact with her family,

never missing a call by more than a few hours. She always found time to get in contact, even if she had missed the scheduled time. At 9 a.m. on March 22nd, Rebecca didn't clock in for her shift. The ship was already off the coast of Mexico and set the dock in Cabo San Lucas in Porto Viarda. Rebecca was paged using the ship's public address system, but she didn't show up or respond to the page. Crew searched the ship for her, but she wasn't in her cabin, and she couldn't be found in any of the employee areas or the area she usually worked. worked in. Crew even searched the ship's camera footage to try and figure out where she may be on the ship to no avail. Although the video didn't lead to Rebecca being found, they did spot her in the

footage. The last sighting of her was at 5.45 a.m. in an employee-only area. At the time, Rebecca was using one of the ship's phones and seemed to be upset. In the video, someone walked up to her and asked her if she was okay, and you can see that in the video she replies something to the extent of, yeah, I'm fine, and then hangs up the phone. and walks away. She pushed her hair back, put both hands in her pockets, and walked away, never to be seen again. In still images from this footage, she looks pretty upset. Who Rebecca spoke with on that phone call that upset her so much apparently was never looked into. The crew continued to search the wonder in case Rebecca was still on board, but they didn't find her. Some passengers

aboard the ship would later report that the crew, while looking for Rebecca, didn't seem to have much of a sense of urgency, which was something that really stood out to some of them. It seemed quite possible that Rebecca had somehow fallen. Or, given her apparent state of mind into time, jumped off the ship. The United States Coast Guard, as well as the Mexican Navy were called, and began to search the waters behind the wonder,

where the ship would have been when Rebecca was last captured by CCTV foot. footage, the search continued for hours, but the search of the waters came up empty and officials found nothing in the water to suggest that Rebecca had fallen overboard, none of her clothing or personal belongings. Of course, they searched a relatively narrow swath of water, but unless she went overboard with something to cling to to keep her afloat, there wouldn't necessarily be much to find and more if I have taken a number of cruises. I don't know if you've been on any cruises or not. Now I haven't. I'm actually hoping to go on one in the near future. Yeah, there are a lot of fun. My wife loves them. My kids love them. The one thing that I will say that I have noticed on the

three or four cruises that I've been on in my lifetime is that at least the ships that I've been on, yes, obviously there are railings, but I wouldn't say that the railings on some of these ships are all that tall. There definitely is the ability to jump over these railings. And that kind of always stuck out at me as we were on the cruises. And I think probably more so because, you know, I'm into true crime. I've heard about a number of either unsolved or solved crimes that have happened to board cruise ships. I think on top of that, you add the fact that there's a lot of alcohol on some of these cruise ships. A lot of people go to have fun, to drink. I don't know. It's just always something that has run through my mind. Yeah, I know when I was doing some research to go on my own cruise

and to look into this case, I came across some videos of people that may have jumped or dropped off accidentally. You know, I saw a case of a child that unfortunately went over the edge. So I guess although they have precautions in place, if someone somehow is determined enough, they can find a way to get over around those safety precautions. Yeah, there's no doubt. I'm sure there's a required height. but like with most things, if somebody really wants to do something, they can find a way. And we're going to talk about a couple theories that involve some of that coming up later in the episode.

On March 24th, the wonder returned to port, Los Angeles. When Rebecca's parents were notified that she was officially missing, they immediately flew to California from England to be there while things unfolded. What they found when they arrived was sort of chaos. Despite being in L.A., the L.A. police had no judge. jurisdiction over the case, and since Rebecca vanished in international waters, the FBI also didn't have any jurisdiction. Her parents were worried as they wondered who would head up the investigation into their daughter's case. Eventually, it was determined that the Royal Bahamas Police Force would be the investigating agency, and Superintendent Paul Roll from the Royal Bahamas Police Force was assigned

the case and flew to California to conduct interviews with crew and guests. Later, some doubts were on the effectiveness and strength of his investigating. And it was reported he only interviewed six people out of the more than 2000 who had been on board the ship. Okay. So let's break that down. If that is true, only six people out of more than 2000 were interviewed. That's a cause for concern in my eyes.

I mean, I think more if it's pretty hard to say that you're doing a thorough investigation when you're interviewing that small a number of people. Now, the one thing I will say is, and what I don't know, is how easy it was to find these people. You know, obviously, once you disembark from a ship, people have a plan. And a lot of times that plan involves getting to an airport, getting, you know, back in their car, getting home. Yeah, that seems like it could be a pretty hard task, but at the same time, I don't know what the itinerary is if they keep a good accurate track of guests on the ship that they could contact later on because you could always follow up with them when they get back home or whatever.

But at the very least, the crew should be easily round up. In my opinion, that would be someone that the investigator would want to go straight to as the crew, because they're the people that work with Rebecca that talked with her that might have known her state of mind. So it seems like there would be a lot of clues there. And I don't know how many crew members are on a ship that big. I would imagine at least a couple hundred. But six people out of 2000, that's very, that's pretty weak. Well, we don't know the exact number, but we know the number of crew is a lot more than six. But I think this is where the jurisdiction part comes in, right?

This guy flies to California. Okay. So he's interviewing people in California. does he have the ability? Because we know that cruise ships have a record of everybody on board. They know who they are.

They know where they live. They have contact information. Does this guy have the ability to go see some of these people who may have come from all over the United States? Just me, I'm thinking if I'm a family member and my loved one's gone missing

and I know that the FBI is not looking, into it and instead the Bahamas police department is, I don't know how confident I am in that, not a slight against that police department, but if you have the FBI with all their history and power, I don't know that an investigator coming from Bahamas, police is going to be able to match what they might be able to do. No, absolutely not.

And I think we do need to talk about the jurisdiction of the investigators here a bit more. It may seem odd that a detective from the Bahamas would be investigating Rebecca's disappearance, but actually this is quite common. This is a business practice called flag of convenience. This is a way for the owner of a ship to sort of skirt some rules, regulations, taxes and things imposed by the country you live or operate in, while still allowing you to register your vessel with a country as required.

So basically what this meant for Rebecca's worried family was that they were calling from London about Rebecca's disappearance from an American cruise line ship that left from Los Angeles sailing off the coast of Mexico. But the jurisdiction of the police force responsible for investigating her disappearance was the Bahamas because that was where the ship was registered. It may have been a flag of convenience for the owners. It was anything but for her family. And even flying out to Los Angeles, being there in person, didn't really help simplify things for them at all. Some listeners may be familiar with this kind of long-distance jurisdictional nightmare from past high-profile cases. The most well-known case of this kind would probably be the disappearance of Natalie Holloway. She was just 18 years old when she disappeared from Aruba in the Caribbean.

As soon as her family became aware that Natalie missed her flight home, they flew from Alabama to Aruba to investigate. The locals immediately pointed at three men who had last been seen with Natalie, and one of them, Dutch national Jorn Vanderslupe, eventually admitted that he knew exactly what happened to her. They were all merely questioned and released. It wasn't until the most likely public suspect in Natalie's disappearance. Yorin van der Sleut was suspected of a murder in Peru that things really started to heat. up in Natalie's case. Though Natalie was an American citizen, the United States officials, none of them, had the power to actually investigate her disappearance. Natalie's mom, Beth,

spent thousands of dollars trying to find Natalie, going back and forth from the United States to Aruba, making flyers, creating ads, and $25,000 was even extorted by Vanderslute for a potential full confession. And still, Natalie's family have no concrete answers and certainly no justice for Natalie. Their only solace here is that someone who may know what happened to her slipped up and made the decision to take the life of a woman in Peru for which he was held accountable. Vanderslute claimed that the woman he murdered, Stephanie Flores, had been using his laptop without asking and had intruded into his private life. Many people believe that Stephanie found something about Natalie Holloway on his computer.

Like Natalie's family, the Corioms had to travel at their own expense if they wanted to investigate, but the place that Rebecca was last seen, the wonder, was constantly moving locations. This difficulty is something that could be changed by law, giving the country of the victim's origin, jurisdiction, to investigate crimes that happen to them. With no hard evidence of any kind indicating where exactly Rebecca disappeared from, there was only speculation to go on. Journalist John Ronson initially believed that Rebecca most likely fell overboard while jogging on deck four because the railings in that area around the jogging track were low enough that it wouldn't

have taken much for her to have accidentally been pitched over them. considering that, and that Rebecca was actually known to jog on that deck, that was a pretty easy conclusion to come to. Some crew members, however, believe that she was swept overboard by a large wave called a rogue wave while in the crew pool area on deck five. While no one has claimed to have seen Rebecca there or witnessed her going overboard, flowers were reportedly placed as a memorial tour by company officials on the wall next to the crew pool on deck five. This is said to be due to a pair of flip-flops found on the deck. But colleagues who saw them thought they were the wrong size and too feminine to be Rebecca's. And the quariums claim that the pair of flip-flaps given to them

with Rebecca's belongings had someone else's name written in them. No one felt rough waters the night that Rebecca disappeared. It wasn't until 2019 that a scientific study explained the steepness of some rogue waves, also known as freak waves or killer waves, which are not necessarily the largest waves in the ocean, but are much larger than anticipated in the current area. The study was able to create a wave with a peak that increased vertically as the wave broke. But crew member that John Ronson interviewed for an article in The Guardian, a woman he called Melissa said that Rebecca loved deck five and that it was where they always used to go to relax. What makes the most sense to her is that Rebecca went to deck five early in the morning for

some alone time, but the high walls around the pool did not give that freeing, mind-clearing feeling of seeing the open ocean. She told Ronson, I bet she climbed onto the wall and sat on the ledge in a, I need to feel like I'm off the ship for a second way. She also described Rebecca as a bit of a risk taker who would have absolutely climbed onto one of those high walls. In this scenario, Rebecca could have simply fallen overboard. Melissa and her theory seemed to suspect that the ship's crew may have had some type of inkling of what happened to her and perhaps tried to cover it up. If this were the case, would it make sense to be evasive about what happened? According to Melissa, maybe.

She said, if it was 6 a.m. and they were doing their job and watching the front, someone must have seen her go over. Or if they didn't, they're covering up why they didn't. Just having a high wall that someone can access to get into the position to fall off of it seems like a bad idea on a cruise ship, especially when alcohol is available on board. This could explain to some why a company would not want to admit fault. It's a lot of work and money to find and make inaccessible. All of the spots someone might one day want to climb. especially in crew areas where the employees are supposed to be on the clock and well trained. Again, in this particular theory, there's no solid evidence pointing to this outcome.

And morph to me, this is the thing about cases like this. You are going to have a lot of theories. And I think many of them are plausible. I mean, when you think about what Melissa said to the newspaper, okay. could it have happened that way? Sure. Absolutely it could have happened that way. But again, it's just a theory. You could say a lot of things that on the surface makes sense or plausible, but when you have nothing to kind of back it up, what does it really mean? And to me, one thing that jumps out is would Rebecca, you know, take that risk? Obviously,

this woman that was interviewed felt she would. but working on a cruise ship and knowing the dangers of climbing up in areas where you're not supposed to be, I wonder if Rebecca would have risked doing that. It seems dangerous, and you think a trained crew member wouldn't take that chance. The International Maritime Organization's International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea changed their international code for fire safety systems following the deaths of 159 people, aboard the MS Scandinavian Star in 1990, due to an intentional arson on board, though it was later found likely that several members of the crew deliberately sabotaged

any effort to put out the fire in an act of insurance fraud by propping open fire doors that would have helped contain a fire, as well as having started the fire in an area they knew would have a supply of air to keep the fire growing. Changes were still made for safety. We don't know to what extent the International Maritime, Time Organizations International Convention for In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency?

We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get. your podcasts. The safety of life at sea, monitor or oversaw places that people could climb up on ships and possibly fall overboard.

But it seems like there would be some kind of precautions taken to prevent that. It seems like this organization has some power to change code and rules about things that will make things safer on a ship. So, you know, access points and things where someone could fall off or jump off, you think they'd have some kind of ability to oversee. that as well. Rebecca's case became a popular one to discuss for online sluice. Some of them pointed out about how working for a cruise line could be a serial killer's

dream. And, you know, obviously more if that does make some sense. With the murky jurisdiction, miles of red tape, a steady supply of people from many different countries, people who have no idea who you are and no reason to care enough to recognize you and the ability to dump bodies in different waters all over the world. It is a kind of a perfect potential feeding ground for the right kind of person. But as inviting as that environment might sound, for a serial killer, there's no evidence to support that outcome for Rebecca.

Even if a serial killer wasn't roaming the decks of the Disney wonder, someone that perhaps accidentally or without intending to could have harmed. Rebecca and thrown her body overboard to hide the evidence. There were rumors that a love triangle of sorts existed within the crew, and according to the newspaper The Mirror, because Rebecca didn't agree to some sort of open bisexual relationship that other crew members killed her. For their part, Rebecca's parents feared some sort of violent assault as well, because when they received her belongings back, Rebecca's favorite pair of shorts had been ripped. In the last footage of her from deck one, she's seen wearing a t-shirt and jeans that look quite baggy.

Many people believe that they belong to someone else, possibly a man on the ship. Bill Anderson, a maritime investigation coordinator, told the Hollywood reporter that he is fully convinced that a sexual assault took place, and they were aware of it on board the vessel. Adding to the mystery, Rebecca's credit card was used about two months after she disappeared. It was never returned to the quariums, along with Rebecca's other personal effects. Was it taken by an opportunistic coworker before things were handed over? Or was it stolen by someone who harmed her? Or could it have simply been some kind of automatic withdrawal?

We don't have any additional details on this transaction, but it's certainly of interest. Well, and to me, Morp, this is very interesting. Again, we don't have details around the transaction. We don't know exactly what type it was. But if it was someone actually using her, her credit card somewhere and not some type of, you know, automatic withdrawal, something like that. Well, now you really have an avenue that you need to go down.

We don't know the extent that it's been investigated, but a lot of crimes have been solved over the years by someone using a victim's ATM card, credit card, debit card, things like that. Yeah, I can't tell you how many cases we've done over the years were, We mentioned that police have monitored their bank account or their credit card and they were never touched. But here we have an instance where the card is used. So that's a pretty big red flag, it seems like. Well, and also because of the time frame.

I mean, this is fairly recent. This is not, you know, the 1950s or the 1960s. Most likely wherever that card would have been used, there would have been possibly some, CCTV footage, at least, you know, transactional reports from where it was used, you know, just things like that. But to me, that's where, you know, some of these cases are tough because when the details aren't out there, the only thing you can do is speculate and talk about, okay, what if, what did they do? We don't know. But I do think one theory we need to explore is suicide. many people have mentioned how easy it would be to take your own life on a cruise.

I already mentioned, right? The cruises that I've taken, some of the railings are not that high, not that hard to traverse. And on top of that, if someone were to jump under the cover of darkness, well, chances are pretty good that maybe no one is around to see them or hear them, which means that there would be nobody to try to throw you a life preserver or to alert the crew to send out a rescue party. But there was no real history of Rebecca having depression or any indication that she would harm herself. She had been a member of the British Army cadets when she was a teenager. Cadets learned survival skills, navigation, first aid and how to use firearms.

Even before Rebecca had interviewed with Disney. for their cruise line, she had gone to school for youth studies and had taught sports at Camp America in Maine for four months. She was very much in her element as a youth worker on the cruise and she seemed to be happy in that job. Two months earlier when her grandfather passed away. We mentioned it. Rebecca took a couple of weeks leave to deal with his passing, but then she came back to the ship. But one thing we cannot forget about is that last surveillance video of Rebecca. It seems to show her upset about something. So many people have asked the question.

Was it something she was so upset with that she chose to end her life? Again, another question that we can't answer, but something that we have to ponder. Over three hours past between Rebecca's last known whereabouts on CCTV, footage and her not clocking in for a shift. Had she been a single guest on the cruise, her absence may not have been noticed until the ship docked and her things were left behind. This is exactly what happened to a 40-year-old investment banker, Marion Carver in 2004, during a Royal Caribbean cruise to Alaska. Two days into the cruise, Marion stopped using her room. The steward assigned her room did notice that she wasn't using it and reported it to the

superior for five days in row, but they, were ignored. Staff on the Royal Caribbean seemed to brush off. Marians being missing, thinking that many people sleep in other people's rooms on a cruise, they also thought she could have gotten off the ship in Vancouver. There was no record of who left the cruise and where, apparently. None of Marion's family was contacted and neither were authorities. At the end of the cruise, when all of Marion's things were still in her room untouched, Royal Caribbean simply packed them up. The cruise line also told her family that security footage on the ship was only kept for two weeks. So by the time anyone officially noticed she was missing 26 days later, they said that no footage of her existed.

The family's own investigation would later reveal that the footage was kept for 30 days, not two weeks, meaning that the footage should have still existed for review at the time. For whatever reason, it wasn't reviewed, or the company chose to pretend that it wasn't, Marion remains missing to this day. Marion's father, Kendall Carver, founded an organization called International Cruise Victims Incorporated, which, according to their website, advocates for the safety of cruise ship passengers, increases public awareness of the potential risk of going on a cruise and the rights and protections you give up when you take one. They also provide support for passengers who have been the victims of

crime, violence, negligence, or other tragedies while on a cruise voyage. The ICV website details many stories of sexual assaults, suspicious cases of people going overboard, and delayed searches for missing people, sometimes amounting to negligence on various cruise lines. Former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott stated to the BBC that the lack of information about Rebecca Coriam's disappearance was almost like a conspiracy of silence. Looking into more maritime incidents, though, it almost seems like this is common practice. Rebecca's family didn't even receive the final copy of the investigative report and their freedom of information act requests were denied. because the report supposedly contains confidential personal information. This takes us back to the American tourists who recently died at the Sandals Resort.

No one knows what killed three people and caused another to be critically ill. Could it have been something in their rooms, their food, or even the resort's water or air conditioning? Right now, the answer is maybe. But still the resort is fully. booked. Given, you know, all of these incidents that have happened over the years, it seems as though the tourism industry is still thriving. It's a question of a balance of personal safety and freedom. Despite the danger, people still want to flock to these exotic locations. One final theory we need to discuss about Rebecca is that she left the boat somehow and did make

it off the ship safely and some other misfortune befall her. For all the theories of rogue waves or murder, there are even more theories out there about kidnapping and sex trafficking. Almost exactly a year after her disappearance, just one day shy. A possible citing of Rebecca in Venice, Italy was emailed to Mike Coriam. The senator stated that he or she was 85% sure that they had seen Rebecca in Venice in August 2011. And I'm not sure how you can be 85% sure on something, but according to this person, they were 85% sure. It does seem like a strange figure, a strange number. I'll give you that.

Yeah, I could see someone saying, you know, 50, 50 or, you know, I'm almost confident 90%, but 85, that's, that's pretty weird. Yeah, when people are really confident, you hear them say 99.9, you know, which, okay, I get it. But 85, it's almost like, you know, you pick that out of a hat. You picked that percentage out of a hat. Strange. But Morph, what does that do to the Corium family? When somebody sends them information saying that they believe Rebecca was cited in Venice, Italy, it's got to give the family some hope.

And I think as a family, you latch on to that, right? You want to believe that what this person is saying is true because if it is true, then that means that your loved one is safe, they're alive. Now, you still want to know what's going on with them, but there's got to be hope there. And there's not any details about how seriously they took this claim or if they investigated it, but it seems like you'd want to, on the off chance that it's hurry, you'd want to dispatch some kind of private investigator there or the police there, someone to sort of check it out. But how do you really confirm that, you know, someone, you know, anonymously coming forward saying, I think I saw her there, how do you really

get to the bottom of that and determine if the person they saw was Rebecca, it could just be a random person who happened to look like Rebecca. I think one of the big issues with this information morph is that it was sent six or seven months after the sighting. So, you know, as a family, you get this information, okay, what do you do with it? Is the thought that she would still be in Venice six or seven months later, it's tough. If you got it the next day, well, you know, me as a father, I'm probably on a plane to Venice, Italy, and I'm walking around looking for her. But what do you do with information that is six, seven months old? And we don't know, like you said, we don't know what they did with the information. I just think the timing of it

is a little bit odd, but it could be that the person who saw her didn't know about it until months later. We just don't know. This kidnapping or sex trafficking theory is not unique to the disappearance of Rebecca Coriam. In fact, it may even be bolstered by the disappearance of a woman named Amy Lynn Bradley. Amy was 23 years old when she disappeared from the Royal Caribbean Ship Rhapsody of the Seas in March 1998. The ship was headed to Curacao in the Netherlands when Amy was last seen. Amy and her brother had been at the ship's nightclub together, but he headed back to the family's room a bit earlier than she did with the ship's door log showing her entering the room five minutes after he did at 3.40 a.m. Brad and Amy talked a bit before they went to bed and by 6 a.m. when their father Ron woke up, she was missing.

Ron remembered seeing her legs on the balcony when he was. woke up less than an hour earlier. It was sometime around 515, 530, and he believed Amy had been sleeping on the balcony's lounge chair. He remembered that the balcony door was closed because he didn't have to get up and close it. But by 6 a.m., when he woke up, Amy was gone and her cigarettes and lighter weren't on the balcony either. The Netherlands and Tilly's Coast Guard searched for Amy in the water for

four days, but found no sign of her. The most obvious scenario was that Amy had fallen overboard, or even jumped overboard to take her own life. But Amy, like Rebecca Quorum, was in good health and was a strong swimmer, so many people had their doubts. Amy's disappearance was complicated by reported sightings of her. Multiple witnesses claimed to have seen Amy with different men in Curacao, some who believe she was desperate for their attention, trying to signal them for help. One witness who was reported to be very credible was a U.S. Navy Petty Officer who claimed to have seen Amy in a corsel brothel in January 1999. Though this man had no evidence to support his claims, he stated that he had met a woman who said she was Amy Bradley, and she was being held against her will and needed help. This man, though, took no action because he was afraid of the consequences that came with visiting a brothel until he saw Amy's photo in a magazine and then contacted her family.

There's also a photograph of a woman that many people believe is Amy taken in 2005, six years after her disappearance. There was a reward of up to $75,000, but no witnesses ever came forward with anything definitive. The theory that Amy was somehow kidnapped and forced into sex work is a very popular theory online, which kind of makes people hold on to hope that somehow Rebecca could be out there somewhere, also trying to get the attention of different tourists and might one day be saved. In March 2010, Amy Lynn Bradley was legally declared dead. Whatever the reason for Rebecca Coriam's disappearance, there are a number of lingering questions.

If she was distraught and took her own life by jumping, is there anything that Disney could have done in their screening or training processes to realize that she may have been an at-risk employee? If she fell overboard, got swept off the ship by a rogue wave, is there anything that can be done to improve the safety conditions on all decks for gas and crew? And if Disney truly has no idea what actually happened to Rebecca, because her disappearance was not caught on their extensive system of security cameras, does that not mean that there are very obvious blind spots on the ship that need to be fixed and monitored

to prevent something like this from happening again. In 2015, Disney and the Quorium family settled a lawsuit, with Disney paying them an undisclosed amount of money, basically for Rebecca's wrongful death. This settlement came after her family reached out to President Obama and the FBI, asking them to investigate. But no help came for the Quoriums. Many British officials believe that the Bahamian response was very lacking,

and that officials there made little to no attempt at investigating Rebecca's disappearance. In 2017, a woman named Tracy Medley, who was also a crew member on The Wonder with Rebecca, claimed that she and Rebecca had been in a romantic relationship. When Tracy's boyfriend, a man named Devin Hyde, returned from his leave and came back to the ship, Rebecca was upset that he and Tracy were still together. Tracy claimed that on the night Rebecca disappeared. The three were drinking together and then had a threesome in Devon's cabin. Tracy claimed that Rebecca and Devin went to the bathroom by themselves for a while

before Devin came back into the room and started paying attention to her. A bit later after taking a shower, Rebecca came out of the bathroom and didn't look happy. to see the two together. She went to leave to take a walk, and it was the last time Tracy ever saw her. Tracy claims that no investigators ever talked with her about Rebecca's disappearance. All of this information was told by Tracy to the Daily Mail.

And we go back to people not being talked to. If this statement from Tracy is correct, it seems like something that officials would have wanted to check and see if there's anything to this and if it played any role in Rebecca going missing. But according to Tracy, she was never talked to. Well, and I kind of have this thought morph that if you're doing a real investigation, how hard would it have been to find out that Rebecca was having some type of romantic relationship with Tracy? and then from there you would talk to Tracy.

You would learn about Devin. You would learn about what happened that night. So to me it does kind of go back to this talking point that the investigation didn't seem all that robust. I think a lot of people will agree with that point. And if you agree with that point, then the whole. case becomes pretty scary because without a real investigation, well, then what's going on? I think the takeaway is if you're planning a cruise, our advice is be careful and aware of your surroundings. But then again, that goes without saying whether you're on a boat or not.

If you do wind up taking a cruise, perhaps you can breathe a little easier, knowing that the International Cruise Victims Association, Kendall Carver's organization, successfully lobbied for requirement for all cruise ships to install man overboard detection systems once the technology became available, which it did in 2018. This requirement is just one part of the larger cruise vessel security and safety act, which passed in 2010, and hopefully it will help prevent future mysteries at sea like that of Rebecca Corioms. So Morph as we wrap up this episode, obviously this is a real mystery. We don't know what happened to Rebecca Coriam.

Now, I don't want to put people off from going on cruises. I enjoy them. I think they're a lot of fun. I think for the most part, they are safe. Now, you can make the argument, and we did kind of touch on it. You're on kind of this floating city. And I don't think there's any doubt that over the years, there have been a large number of incidents, crimes, sexual assaults that have occurred on cruise ships. But like you said,

you should be careful. You should be aware of your surroundings. It doesn't matter if you're on a boat. You're at a resort. You're in another country. You're in another city of the United States. All of that should still apply. Yeah, no doubt. And I think anytime you get a bunch of people together, strangers, thousands of people in one place together like that, you really don't know who you're coming in contact with. You know, while most of these people are probably just people looking to get away and have a fun vacation, there could be some criminals or people that have something shady in mind.

So I think you can't let your protection down. Yeah. And I would make the same argument about basically going anywhere. Are most people good? Yes. I truly believe that. Is there a chance that someone in a group or someone, you know, at a hotel or on a cruise or at a convention has nefarious thoughts in mind?

Yeah. That chance absolutely exists. Now, what I think is frustrating here is that there's no evidence to point to any one person playing a role in Rebecca going missing. You know, there's simply not. thing clue-wise that points in any direction. I think it's safe to say that she's no longer on that ship because I think her remains would have been found.

So I think she made it off that ship one way or another, whether that means going into the water, being sex trafficked, whether she jumped or fell. I think it's clear that she got off that ship somehow. But unfortunately, we just don't know what happened and where she went when she got off. But here's my problem. if the investigation was shoddy and there are a lot of signs that point to that being a real possibility well that could be the reason why you know there's no clues if you don't do a thorough valid investigation you're not going to uncover the clues that you need to solve a case i have a

real issue with that if things played out the way that many people believe that they did with the investigation. Yeah, I think it goes back to, you know, Police 101, the more dots you connect, the more eyes you, tease you cross, and so on, the more work you do, the more effort you put in, the more chance you're going to find the truth. And, you know, we said it early on. The investigators questioning six out of 2,000 people, it doesn't seem like the best investigation in Rebecca's case was done. Well, if it's true and they only talk to six people and they never talk to Tracy Medley, how can you possibly hope to connect any dots?

I just don't think you can. Thanks because of the Sunny Lannon for help with writing and research in this episode. As always, if you love the show, but you haven't done it yet. Please take a minute. Go out. Give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends. That word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way.

If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans. So more if that is it for our episode on Rebecca Corium, I feel for her family because, number one, they're missing their loved one. but it also seems as though they were done a real disservice, as was Rebecca, you know, if this investigation kind of played out the way that most people believe it did. That's a very sad ending and no real ending, which is what's unfortunate. They don't have any kind of answers. But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with an all new episode of criminology.

So until then, for Mike. And Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.