The disappearance of Amy Bradley

Amy Bradley was 23 when she went missing. Amy was on the Royal Caribbean International cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas in March 24, 1998.  

Photo provided by the Wikipedia page on Amy Bradley.

Amy was never fond of cruise ships or traveling of any kind, but when her parents won tickets for the Royal Caribbean, they decided it would be a fun trip for the family. So Amy, along with her brother Brad, dad, Ron, and mom, Iva left on for the week long cruise on March 21,1998.

The night before Amy went missing, she and Brad spent the night at a party the cruise was hosting. During this party, Amy was seen dancing with a member of the live band, Blue Orchid, that was playing at the party. His name was Alister Douglas, but he went by his nickname, Yellow. At around 1 a.m., Amy and Brad departed from the party and headed up to their room.

Brad was the last family member to speak with Amy before she went missing, his last words being, “I love you,” and then falling asleep.

Around 5 a.m., Ron went into Amy and Brad’s room just to check in the two were fast asleep. When Ron went to check in again at 6 a.m., Amy was gone. She had left her shoes and had taken her cigarettes and lighter with her.

Her family would never see her again.

Her family acted quickly and asked the ship to call her name over the speaker system. At first, the cruise refused, claiming it was too early in the morning to use the speakers. The cruise also refused to keep the ship away from the dock to prevent people from leaving the ship, in order to  not worry their passengers. It’s pretty clear that it would be hard to locate Amy when the cruise would not cooperate until 8 a.m. when they decided to page Amy through the speakers. At this point, the ship had already been docked at Curacao, and many people had disembarked to explore the island.

Something else I find interesting is that the night of the party on the cruise, pictures were taken and posted on a wall for people to come see and collect for memories. There were a few photos of Amy that were posted on a wall, but when her family came to look for them the next day – to see who she was hanging out with – all the pictures of Amy were gone.

Another thing worth noting: the guy Amy was seen dancing with at the party, Yellow, came to Brad and told him that he felt bad about what happened about his sister. However, before the announcement for Amy was made, the family and security were the only ones to know about the disappearance To me, it seems like Yellow definitely knows something; it’s clear he is very suspicious. However, he did agree to a lie detector test by authorities and passed, and there was no evidence found linking him to Amy’s disappearance.

There had also been some details about how the cruise crew members were acting toward Amy. Her father claimed they were being flirty toward her and had invited her to come to the shore. This seems creepy and uncomfortable – especially after seeing that Amy went missing in such little time.

In the 19 years Amy has been missing, there have been claims of various sightings of her throughout the Caribbean islands. A woman believes she encountered Amy in a department store restroom. The woman claims to have heard three men’s voices and when she left the restroom, saw their faces. Later, these faces were taken into account and sketched by the FBI.

photo by AmyBradley.net

In 2005, Amy’s family went on the Dr. Phil show and they were presented with new and shocking information. There had been pictures of girls posted on a website, and one of the girls had a striking resemblance to Amy. One of the detectives even bet their career that it was her. Unfortunately, the FBI was unable to track an IP address down, and that lead ended there.

To me, I think it’s pretty clear what happened to Amy. There obviously was a lot of shady activity at play from the beginning, from the crew members of the ship, to Yellow’s comment, to all these sightings of her with these men. With all the information I could gather, I believe that Amy was abducted.  

It’s so heartbreaking that this is a reality, and that is most likely what happened to Amy. All she wanted was to enjoy this trip with her family, and it cost her life. To this day, she still hasn’t been found.

Hopefully more evidence will come up for Amy and her family’s sake.

But until she is found and brought home, this case remains unsolved.