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A Young College Graduate Sets Sail With Her Family

Cruises are supposed to be a vision of paradise.  But for the family of 23-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley it was their worst nightmare. 

Amy was a vibrant, beautiful and intelligent young woman.  Her friends and family say she had a very promising future. 

Amy was a 1996 graduate from Longwood College where she was a star basketball player.  She was living back at home with her family in Richmond, Virginia and working as a waitress.  She had planned to start a job with a computer consulting firm.

But the lives of Amy and her family were changed forever when, in March of 1998, her family took a vacation cruise.  Amy, her parents and her brother set sail to enjoy the blue waters and sandy beaches of the Caribbean. 

Amy Vanishes At Sea

While aboard the ship, Amy got to know some of the crew members and spent some social time with a few of them.

In the early hours of March 24, 1998 Amy's parents retired to the family's suite leaving Amy and her brother Brad dancing in the ship's disco. 

The ship's computerized door-lock system recorded Brad's return to the suite at 3:35 A.M. and Amy's arrival five minutes later. Brad said he and his sister sat on the suite's balcony and chatted. He then went to sleep inside while Amy stretched out on a lounge chair on the balcony. 

Her father saw Amy - and her ever-present cigarettes and lighter - on the balcony of the family's cabin about 5:15 or 5:30 a.m. By that time, he said, the ship had entered the inland channel that leads to the harbor at Port Willemstad on Curacao.

Ron Bradley dozed and awoke again about 6 a.m. Amy and her cigarettes and lighter were gone. The sliding glass door to the balcony was partly open. Her shoes were on the balcony, but she had many pairs with her and could have worn others when she left the cabin, her mother said.

Bradley went on deck to look for his daughter and became alarmed when he could not find her. He alerted ship's officers and his own wife and son.

FBI Gets Involved But Case Grows Cold

By that time, the ship was docking in Curacao. The Bradleys said they pleaded with ship's officers not to lower the gangway for disembarkation until their daughter was found, but the gangway was lowered.

Shortly before the Rhapsody departed that evening, the Bradleys left the ship in hopes of finding Amy in Curacao. A search of the harbor at Curacao and the surrounding water that first day and the next did not turn up a body, leaving the Bradleys convinced Amy had been abducted.

The FBI has had little success. "We've pursued every angle, from whether there was foul play, a suicide or an accident, and we have basically not gotten anywhere," said James K. Weber, special agent in charge of the office in San Juan, Puerto Rico. FBI agents with trained dogs searched the ship Friday and Saturday but turned up no trace of Bradley, FBI spokeswoman Sara Lema told television reporters.

The agents took deck furniture and other objects from the cabin for testing, Steck said. FBI officials and family members said they never received any ransom demands.

They believe she left the cabin and was kidnapped somewhere on the ship.

"You do not just fall off a cruise ship," said Marianne Noblin, Amy's aunt. "She did not commit suicide. There was foul play here."

On Saturday, family members returned home on a private jet sent by the insurance company that employs Ronald Bradley. The family had been on the cruise with other company employees.

Amy's Case Grows Cold

As the years pass, tips have come in but nothing has panned out.  Amy is still missing and her case has grown cold. 

Since the disappeareance of Natalee Holloway, an Alabama teen who went missing on the small neighboring island of Aruba, Amy's case has recieved renewed attention.

 

"Imagine if you have a child. You brought that child into the world and every waking moment is geared toward your children," said Iva Bradley, Amy's mother. "You go on a trip and come home without one of them and you get no help. It's a pretty devastating 24/ 7 situation."