Featured Image Credit: FBI
Topics: True crime, Cruise ship, Netflix
Emily Brown
In the early hours of March 24, 1998, Virginia woman Amy Bradley went missing from the Royal Caribbean cruise ship where she'd been vacationing with her family.
Her dad, Ron, last saw his daughter, then 23 years old, when she was sitting out on the balcony at around 5.30am.
Half an hour later, he woke up again to see Amy was no longer there.
Advert
In the new Netflix documentary, titled Amy Bradley Is Missing, Ron recalled the scene on the day Amy disappeared, saying: "Something woke me up again, I don't know what it was but when my eyes opened, I looked out again and she wasn't there.
"The balcony door was open about 12-14 inches, I noticed her cigarettes weren't out there and the shirt she was wearing that night was laying on the chair in her room.
"The first thing I'm thinking is she's changed her clothes and went up, getting a cup of coffee, taking pictures because we were coming in to port."
Ron and the rest of Amy's family began to look for her on the Rhapsody of the Seas cruise ship, but they never saw her again.
Amy's mom, Iva, recalled the last time she spoke to Amy in the documentary, saying: "I said 'I love you', she said 'I love you too mom, I'll see you in the morning'."
Three decades on, Iva, Ron and Amy's brother, Brad, remain hopeful that Amy is still alive, despite the fact they've never heard from her.
Advert
The family's hope comes from a 'gut feeling' they have about their daughter and sister, combined with stories from witnesses who claim to have seen a woman they believe to be Amy.
So, what evidence supports their theory?
After Amy's disappearance, Ron and Brad continued their search in Curacao - the Caribbean island the ship had been traveling to when Amy went missing.
Advert
The police held a press conference, after which they were approached by a taxi driver who claimed he had spoken to a frantic-looking woman who he believed to be Amy.
He claimed she had asked for directions to a phone box, and told Ron: "You need to go to Kadushi Cliffs and look around but don’t talk to anybody because it was dangerous."
While still on the island, Brad had been driving at around 1.00am when he claims he 'distinctly heard Amy’s voice say, ‘Brad!’'. The voice seemed to come from a passing vehicle, so Brad quickly started following the car into a backstreet.
Advert
He recalled: "[We were] fully expecting we were going to pull the guy over and she would be in the car, but it ended up being just an old dude by himself."
However, Brad remains certain of what he heard, saying: “I know what it sounds like when Amy calls me. This was very distinct. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life that that’s what I heard.”
Another early witness account took place six months after Amy's disappearance, when a man named David Carmichael believed he saw her on a beach in Curacao.
Advert
Carmichael recalled what he saw, saying: "I see three people walking towards us, there's one guy, a girl in the middle and then another guy who looked like he was from the island. As they came closer to me, she comes right up to me... I see a tattoo that looks like a Tasmanian devil."
The tattoo is a key element of this account, as it matches ink Amy was known to have.
Carmichael continued: "She was just about to say something to me, when the person who was on the inside comes up, he stared at me, doesn't say a word. He motions her away. If he had not stared at me I would have forgotten everything. I think about this every day."
Another chilling account came from a man named Bill Hefner, who was in the navy when he says he saw Amy at a brothel in Curacao.
Advert
Hefner claimed the woman told him she'd left the cruise ship to buy drugs, and was being held 'against her will'.
"That's when she said, 'my name is Amy Bradley' then she told me she got off that ship and she left on her own because she was going to score drugs... 'and now I'm stuck here with these guys'," he claimed. However, Hefner said he left shortly afterwards.
In 2005, almost a decade after Amy's disappearance, her family received a series of images of a woman from someone who had allegedly found the photos on a sex website, and claimed it was Amy.
Advert
The photos were forensically analyzed, after which experts came to the conclusion that the woman could indeed be Amy.
At a similar time to the arrival of the photos, a woman named Judy Maurer had an encounter with a woman in a bathroom while in a souvenir shop in Barbados.
She described hearing a man talk about a 'deal', and saw a 'young woman standing by the sinks'.
Advert
"She had an awful look on her face, kind of crying. I walked over to the sink and I said 'hi, are you on vacation here?'," she recalled.
When Judy asked the woman for her name, she responded: "Amy."
However, it wasn't until Judy saw Amy's family on Dr Phil that she realized the woman she saw could have been Amy.
Almost three decades on, Iva has made clear the family 'won't stop' searching.
Advert
If you have any information about Amy Bradley, you can contact the family’s tip line by calling (804)-789-4269 or by emailing [email protected].