Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Season Six: Overboard Part Three: Waterlawwed
0 Plays1 second ago
Part three of our crime on cruise ships series.
http://www.cruisejunkie.com/Senate2012.pdf
This podcast was made possible by www.labrottiecreations.com Check out their merchandise and specifically their fun pop pet art custom pieces made from photos of your very own pets. Use the promo code CRIMEXS for 20% off a fun, brightly colored, happy piece of art of your own pet at their site.
Music in this episode was licensed for True Crime XS. Our theme song is No Scars from slip.fm
You can reach us at our website truecrimexs.com and you can leave us a voice message at 252-365-5593. Find us most anywhere with @truecrimexs
Thanks for listening. Please like and subscribe if you want to hear more and you can come over to patreon.com/truecrimexs and check out what we’ve got going on there if you’d like to donate to fund future True Crime XS road trip investigations and FOIA requests. We also have some merchandise up at Teepublic http://tee.pub/lic/mZUXW1MOYxM
Sources:
Various News Sources Mentioned by Name
Ad Information:
New Era Caps: https://zen.ai/dWeCYLHxxANOaZ6NcKocEw
Liquid IV: Link: https://zen.ai/45lYmDnWl1Z3cR66LBX5mA
Zencastr: Link: https://zen.ai/SFkD99OGWGNz_plc2c_Yaw
Recommended
Transcript
Listener Discretion Advised
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Introduction to True Crime XS Series
00:00:25
Speaker
This is True Crime XS.
Mysterious Cruise Disappearances
00:01:00
Speaker
ah We were doing this overboard series and, you know, I, I went through a couple of things with this cause we, we covered two pretty specific cases.
00:01:12
Speaker
I started to wonder what happens to people who just vanish. and And I specifically, i started to have questions about cruises in general. i can't, I know I asked you this earlier in the series. Have you ever been on a cruise?
00:01:27
Speaker
No. my um My in-laws are big on cruises, river cruises, and and other smaller cruises, and they sometimes go on the big boats. And I just can't. ah just It's not something that I make a priority to to go with them.
00:01:42
Speaker
And I sometimes feel bad about that. But have like two stories left to kind of tie all this together, and then I have like this interesting part of one of the stories I want to talk to you about.
George Alan Smith IV Case
00:01:54
Speaker
I don't know what order it's going to come in. But I can see myself being... the guy in this story. Had you ever heard of George Smith, specifically George Alan Smith the fourth?
00:02:08
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So this is a different place in time than the other stuff. This is 2005 we're talking. It's specifically, he goes missing July 5th of 2005.
00:02:20
Speaker
Now the way that this works is he's just gotten married. I'm sorry. Yes, of course I've heard of him. I'm so sorry. He's just gotten married 11 days earlier.
00:02:31
Speaker
Where had you heard of him from? um I believe that this was, ah well, I believe the aftermath was like on what? 48 hours? Dateline? Dateline, I think. I think it was one of the mainstream media.
00:02:49
Speaker
Well, okay. So we haven't gotten into all that yet, but I feel like his name was like national mainstream media. Right. For a minute it was, yeah. Just a minute, right. But yes, I do know who he is. I'm sorry that I said no.
00:03:03
Speaker
I was trying to run through my Rolodex really quick, but this was actually sort of a big deal at this point in time for a variety of reasons for me personally. it I don't know that it was that big a deal for me. It was like,
00:03:16
Speaker
Interesting because there was this whole connection to a famous actress. i don't know if you saw this. I'll get to that a second. but So this is July 5th, 2005. Eleven days prior to this, ah George Smith had just gotten married to a woman named Jennifer Hagel.
00:03:33
Speaker
They're on their honeymoon. And that's the part that makes me think like I could see myself like if my significant other really wanted to go on a honeymoon. ah where there was a cruise ship involved, I might be into that.
00:03:49
Speaker
Their honeymoon is supposed to be a two-week trip on this Mediterranean cruise. They end up on Royal Caribbean International. The cruise ship specifically is the MS Brilliance of the Seas.
00:04:02
Speaker
So Brilliance of the Seas is a Radiance-class cruise ship with a maximum capacity of about 2,500 people and around 1,000 crew members to take care of those 2,500 passengers.
The Cruise Ship's History
00:04:17
Speaker
It was completed back in 2002. It had been ordered up from 1998, which I found interesting because it takes like four years to build these things. The ship is ends up being launched December 1st of 2001.
00:04:30
Speaker
It is delivered officially to Royal Caribbean July 5th, 2002. So this is taking place on the seventh anniversary of this ship sailing the seas.
00:04:41
Speaker
it's It's had some issues in recent years, so it's actually come back into the news. And There's been a couple of different incidents on here. One of the incidents is known as the the healing incident, which is H-E-E-L-I-N-G.
00:04:57
Speaker
ah December 11, 2010, leaves Rhodes, Greece. And it's going on a cruise around the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and it is experienced very high seas and 80-mile-per-hour wind gusts.
00:05:10
Speaker
At around 2.15 in the morning, it was reported that a cluster of ships were rushing to enter the port of Alexandria, and a freighter turned in front of the brilliance of the seas.
00:05:22
Speaker
And the ship's captain was this guy named Eric Tangleton. He was forced to slow the ship down ah below... nine knots and apparently nine knots or 10 miles an hour is a necessary speed in order for the ship's stabilizers to continue to function so the ship started to heal like and it was to their port and then starboard violently so it's basically like
00:05:55
Speaker
Like it's almost turning over. So passengers were thrown out of their beds, furniture and other unsecured objects as tossed around in the state rooms, which is where you stay on a cruise ship.
00:06:06
Speaker
They had two grand pianos that broke free of their bracing and they were demolished during the incident. They had windows and mirrors smashed. They had spa basins that were damaged. 138 passengers needed medical treatment for injuries that happened during this incident, the most serious of which were two guests sustained broken bones.
00:06:26
Speaker
It lasted multiple minutes, and the captain acknowledged it had been a horrifying experience. He reported to news outlets that he was taken surprise by the force of the storm and that weather reports had suggested it would be a much lighter storm.
00:06:40
Speaker
Then it was still a serious storm, but not as serious. ah They end up with Royal Caribbean International giving some level of refund for this. There was some pretty substantial vocal outrage and internet outrage at the time. So passengers end up getting a full refund on their stateroom fare.
00:07:01
Speaker
There's a lawsuit brought by the husband of a woman who fell into a coma. Three days later, she fell into a coma and then later she died. This was the textbook example of an act of God. Yeah, it is.
00:07:14
Speaker
But I do understand that, ah you know, there's information out there that could allow a captain to... be aware of it ahead of time, right? Yeah, yeah. the The ship is also known for this refugee rescue in 2025 where they pulled in 11 refugees in the Gulf of Mexico.
00:07:35
Speaker
It's an interesting boat, is my point, but it has this one bizarre thing that happens, and that's the George Allen Smith the Forte. So it's in the early morning hours of July 5th, 2005.
00:07:47
Speaker
They find bloodstains in this guy's cabin, and it appears that he might have been thrown off of the ship or perhaps fallen overboard and
Investigation into George Smith's Disappearance
00:07:56
Speaker
drowned. According to the police that investigated, they suspected it was potentially a homicide.
00:08:01
Speaker
And on July 29th, 2005, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation... announces that they're investigating his disappearance. And if you go on the Wayback Machine, there's a single page about it.
00:08:13
Speaker
It says a statement of U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor and FBI Special Agent in Charge Michael Wolfe on the George A. Smith IV investigation. For the past several weeks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut have been conducting an investigation into the disappearance of Connecticut resident George Smith from the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line vessel, Brilliance of the Seas, and the Mediterranean Sea.
00:08:40
Speaker
We believe that the circumstances in this matter warrant a thorough investigation, which is active and ongoing. The families of both Jennifer Hagel Smith and George A. Smith IV have been fully cooperative.
00:08:51
Speaker
We have no further comment on this investigation at the time, and it's signed by the U.S. Attorney and by the FBI Special Agent in Charge, Michael Wolff. That comes up. Then Gerardo Rivera, who like if people don't know who Gerardo is, he used to do the craziest stuff for attention.
00:09:08
Speaker
And some of it was really informative and some of it was just bizarre. He airs a news story covering this guy, Josh Aiken, who is one of the last people to be seen with George Smith.
00:09:20
Speaker
There were two men that are allegedly involved of Russian origin. a man named Greg and a man named Zach, both last named Rosenberg. On June 29th, it was announced that the Royal Caribbean International had agreed to pay some type of compensation to the estate of George Smith.
00:09:41
Speaker
I'm just going to go ahead and tell you that like that is going to drag on for a while. I think i had the last article I found on it was sometime in 2009 where i the settlement is upheld.
00:09:54
Speaker
Well, and there was problems with that because his wife settled, but because they had only been married for 11 days or whatever, his family, like, they were challenging certain things.
00:10:11
Speaker
Right. Yeah, she got $1.1 million, dollars and then the family challenged the terms of the settlement as well as the amount um because it went to her.
00:10:21
Speaker
So the investigation... takes a couple odd turns over the years. and You can read more about this online, particularly the New York Post reported that for some reason, the particular branch or division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, that was investigating this was the mafia division.
Public and Media Response
00:10:44
Speaker
ah Dateline sheds new light on a theory that It was believed that his death was some type of robbery gone bad, which it's the strangest thing to me to think of robbery on a cruise ship because then you're trapped.
00:10:58
Speaker
it's not It's not a great plan. No. Jennifer Hagel Smith, she's going to get remarried in 2009. Smith's family is very critical of her. She has always contended that she believed his death was an accident that had potentially been caused by her late husband being intoxicated.
00:11:16
Speaker
But she did accept the money for it. The story itself is not the focus of today. Obviously, we're doing this series on weird things that happen um on cruise ships. what What comes out of it is interesting.
00:11:30
Speaker
So his disappearance, like captures, like you said, national attention. And 2013, the Cruise Lines International Association, or the CLIA, they decide they're going to do something about this. And they start working on like a Passenger Protection Act or a Bill of Rights.
00:11:53
Speaker
And you can find this today. Cruise Junkie has a link to it. So cruisejunkie.com is a thing. And they talk about some of the weirder things in cruise news over the years.
00:12:06
Speaker
If you just want a great rabbit hole, you just have some time on your hands. That's a great path to go down. One of the things that was interesting to me is this 81 page document.
00:12:18
Speaker
That comes out of basically the Senate, the Committee of Commerce, Science and trust but ah Transportation. They bring in this guy, Ross Klein, who's a PhD. And if I'm understanding it, he is a part of cruisejunkie.com.
00:12:33
Speaker
or may be cruisejunkie.com. Does that make sense? Like it may be a website. Of course. ah So they present this. It says, hearings on cruise industry oversight. Recent incidents show need for stronger focus on consumer protection.
00:12:47
Speaker
it says Thursday, July 24, 2013, in the Russell Senate office building, room number 253 is where this is taking place. And it's an 81-page document with a table contents.
00:12:57
Speaker
Now, if you want to go read the whole thing, that's fine. I just... um I realized in the course of all of this, I had some questions about cruise ships. And specifically, I'm not going to read you everything that he's saying here, but I wanted to focus on a couple of things that he brings up.
00:13:15
Speaker
And this guy genuinely... Like in his oral testimony, he seems to completely understand what is happening on cruise ships. And he has his pulse and the connections that he knows so much about things that occur on these boats.
00:13:34
Speaker
And i bring all of that up because of the Amy Bradley thing and because of Rebecca's case. Like it's interesting to me when an expert really like is so into their thing, they don't realize how into their thing they are.
00:13:49
Speaker
Sure. Um, forests for the tree yeah so I pulled up his testimony and I'm skipping around in here. ah he mentioned some things I had never thought of.
00:14:01
Speaker
um this is around page 19 as testimony. They're kind of talking about how the different organizations can come together for passenger protection. This thing is so well cited, by the way. I'm going to say some names that feel like they're coming out of nowhere.
00:14:15
Speaker
But their names are not the point. The point is the words that he's talking about. It says, with no solution from collaboration between ICV and CLIA, hearings were reconvened September 2007. So this is After George Smith, the day before the subcommittee reconvened, September 19, 2007, Representatives Matsu and Shays, with 23 co-sponsors, introduced a House resolution to call attention to the growing level of crime on cruise ships and the lack of federal regulations overseeing this industry.
00:14:49
Speaker
The purpose of the reconvened hearings was to receive an update on the status of discussions between ICV and CLIA to determine whether the security practices and procedures aboard cruise ships are adequate to ensure the safety of all passengers.
00:15:04
Speaker
As before, it received testimony from the FBI and the Coast Guard, which discussed the implementation of the reporting framework announced at the previous hearings. ICV and several of its members which included parents of a 21-year-old who fell overboard while throwing up over a railing, two sexual assault victims, a surviving family member whose father died in a cruise ship fire, and they also heard from the cruise industry.
00:15:33
Speaker
Not surprisingly, the cruise industry painted a picture that said everything's under control, that is working diligently to improve situation raised as sources of concern by critics, and that cruises continue to be safe.
00:15:45
Speaker
The claim of safety was based in large part on the FBI receiving from cruise ships only 41 reports of sexual assault and 28 cases of sexual contact between April 1st and April 23rd, 2007.
00:16:00
Speaker
Together, these numbers give an annualized rate of abuse for CLIA member cruise lines of 172 incidents, which is a rate per passengers,
00:16:12
Speaker
several fold higher than the rate claimed in the 2006 hearings. Okay.
00:16:19
Speaker
They're talking about rapes and other sexual assaults on these cruise ships. That's a pretty high number.
Cruise Safety Concerns
00:16:25
Speaker
I think the sexual contact instances are complete strangers who don't have actual anything beyond a public battery or intimate partner relationship issues.
00:16:36
Speaker
And then the others are actual assaults that occur either between passengers or passengers and crew on these. Right. And so... You know, one of the things about cruise ships, it I've never been on a cruise, but ah it's no secret that, like, the food is supposed to be spectacular and there's a lot of alcohol. Correct.
00:16:57
Speaker
And then there's also the rooms aren't designed to stay in. um There's lots of social interaction places, clubs, dance floors, that kind of thing. And ah it's Right.
00:17:10
Speaker
for ah a mixture. and Now, I would never blame a victim. You should be able to i go and partake in the facilities, dancing, drinking alcohol, and not be assaulted or touched inappropriately. or I'm not really sure what the allegations are, but since we live in the real world, we You should always be on guard for that.
00:17:38
Speaker
I mean, it sucks, but that's life. I feel like if we're going to have cruise ships and they're going to be what they are right, it's not a free-for-all and it's not necessarily always the cruise line or the ship's fault.
00:18:00
Speaker
Correct. It's some some personal accountability. And I'm not really sure why that needs to be discussed by the United States Senate.
00:18:12
Speaker
Okay, so the whole reason I'm bringing up the Senate part of this is it's maybe a little bit of a fallacy on my part. In my opinion, I felt like the Senate has a certain amount of power that while they might receive a rosily painted picture I felt like we were going to get a glimpse into kind of the darker side of Cruise stuff with his accurate a paintbrush as could be painting that picture.
00:18:44
Speaker
And so that's why i relied on this document in today's episode. But I kind of agree with you in a couple of ways. Like, why are we here for this?
00:18:56
Speaker
And then I started reading it, and I was like, now I know why we're here for this. Because I have been misunderstanding the safety and security of cruise ships. Well, sure. And, you know, we start by talking about George Alan Smith IV, who had been married for 11 days and was on this cruise with his bride.
00:19:18
Speaker
Right. They were newlyweds. And on their honeymoon. And ah the reason why it struck a chord with me personally was because that is the time i got married. Right.
00:19:29
Speaker
And I had very similar things going on in my life. And when it came across as national news, like, I sympathized or empathized.
00:19:40
Speaker
I sympathized with the the wife left behind, the widow, i guess. And I empathized with the situation because it can be...
00:19:50
Speaker
When you first get married, like your entire world changes. And then like for this to happen, it was horrifying. And I wasn't, and you know, I had no involvement in it, but I could definitely sympathize with what she was going through.
00:20:04
Speaker
And the interesting part about this is if you think back to July 2005, so we're on the cusp of ah the very, very early stages of social media, right?
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, it's going to be a little while ah before it really becomes the force to be reckoned with that it is now, right?
00:20:29
Speaker
And so, again, mainstream media had this. People voiced opinions, but we were in the very beginning part of the true crime genre, right? Yes, very much so.
00:20:44
Speaker
And because keeping in mind before this, we've already had Amy Lynn Bradley. And this is another American citizen who has disappeared on a cruise ship.
00:21:02
Speaker
And so it's not as like social media is not ah like it is now, but it's enough to where it gets some traction. Right. And somehow,
00:21:14
Speaker
from his disappearance on the cruise ship in July of 2005 until I believe he said 13 is when um the Senate is having this hearing.
00:21:26
Speaker
Like we are now talking like about a, it's testimony being given for a bill that is talking about the number of sexual assaults that occur on cruises. And it's supported by ah George Alan Smith, the fourth,
00:21:42
Speaker
family. And I'm not really sure how we got there. Okay.
Advocacy and Legislation for Victims
00:21:46
Speaker
I know it sounds crazy, but I just got so into this. Here's how we get here. There's this passage on page 22 of this document says from hearings, the legislation, and it says that a key advocate for legislation for something related to cruise ship safety, like this passenger safety act that they're trying to push forward at the time,
00:22:05
Speaker
is the International Cruise Victims Association. I'm just going to say this off the cuff. If you've got enough people to form an association, you should probably be talking to the Senate because a lot of the stuff that I'm about to say, I didn't know before.
00:22:18
Speaker
And it was so fascinating to me. And this all comes because you watched that Amy Lynn Bradley thing, which I've already concluded Amy Lynn Bradley fell overboard, which comes up in a second.
00:22:29
Speaker
But it' This association forms when its founders okay meet at 2005 hearing in front of U.S. reps.
00:22:43
Speaker
So we've got Ken Carver. You ever heard of Ken Carver? Yeah. So Ken Carver's daughter disappears. She's 40 years old when she goes missing. we She goes missing in 2004 from the Mercury, which is a celebrity cruise ship.
00:22:59
Speaker
We have Bree Smith. She's part of this group whose 26-year-old brother mysteriously went missing on his honeymoon in 2005 from Brilliance of the Seas.
00:23:10
Speaker
So Bree is George's sister. We have Michael Pham. Wait, i just want I just want to be sure that we um are clear that that's the same person.
00:23:26
Speaker
The missing person is is the same George. Yes. Yes. Yes. So it's not two of them. you know with No, I brought him up to say his sister is part of the founders of the international group. If I wasn't clear, I'm sorry. no no. I don't know that you weren't clear. I'm just saying like if there were two different guys, right that would be something else. But it's two perspectives, right? The wife and then the sister. So it's the same guy that disappeared.
00:23:54
Speaker
Correct. So then we have Michael Pham. Now, Michael Pham's parents, aged 67 and 71, they mysteriously go missing in 2005 from the Carnival Destiny.
00:24:08
Speaker
And then the parents of Amy Lynn Bradley are also part of founding this group, as are...
00:24:18
Speaker
ah James Scavone's parents. So James Scavone's parents, he's another Connecticut kid who mysteriously went missing in 1999, also from the Carnival Destiny.
00:24:30
Speaker
So we're having these hearings. They have this cruise ship passengers, you know, security and safety thing they're doing. a lot of stuff comes up here. So a number of provisions of the act are changed. So it's introduced in 2008. Then we have 2009 until we get forward to 2013.
00:24:50
Speaker
But I'm pulling from the old section here. So the second part of this, part one is just explaining who those people are. The second part of this is just titled Persons Overboard.
00:25:02
Speaker
So wanted to throw some numbers at you. This is the part to pay attention to. The number of people going overboard from cruise ships is significant, between 20 and 25 a year since 2009.
00:25:16
Speaker
It is known that in 9.5% of those cases, the person fell overboard. However, if we trust cruise industry claims, they often say a passenger has fallen or jumped overboard, even if the assertion cannot be independently corroborated.
00:25:32
Speaker
then that percentage is much higher. With that in mind, it's curious that in the original version of what's known as the CVSSA, that's this legislation, it stated the vessel shall be equipped with ship rails that are not less than four and a half feet above the deck.
00:25:49
Speaker
However, the legislation passed the height one foot lower at 42 inches. In retrospect, it would appear the original provision of 54 inches may be more reasonable as an impediment to passengers falling overboard.
00:26:05
Speaker
Well, yeah, because you're talking, so just to put that in perspective, we're talking about knee height versus chest height, like sort of roughly. Well, 42 inches is pretty high.
00:26:19
Speaker
Like think about your inseam for a second. My inseam is... Oh, yeah. that That would actually be like more like waist height. Right. so it's like it's like 54 inches, four and a half feet tall is chest height.
00:26:33
Speaker
And then for for taller people, I don't know. I mean, it is. But 42 inches, the lower, one foot lower, is like your waist or a little over your waist.
00:26:46
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Um, like if you have 32 inch inseam figure, couple inches below, a couple inches above, like for your, you know, your feet and then somewhere in the middle of, you of your abdomen is where that one's going to fall. It's, it's, it's not as high as you would think it is, but so they're saying that this would be a more reasonable way to keep people from falling into the ocean.
00:27:11
Speaker
Right. and But it's also like a massive cost to retrofit or whatever they have to do, right? Right. And a second part of the legislation is also a cost.
00:27:22
Speaker
It says, "...the vessel shall integrate technology that can be used for detecting passengers who have fallen overboard to the extent such technology is available."
00:27:32
Speaker
And then it says such technology is available, but there are cost implications. The revised legislation stated the vessel shall integrate technology that can be used for capturing images of people or detecting passengers who have fallen overboard to the extent that such technology is available.
00:27:49
Speaker
And then it goes on to expound a little bit and say, while closed circuit television or CCTV technology can be used to capture images of people or persons going overboard,
00:28:00
Speaker
It may be effective if it were monitored in real time. It is of little use when tapes are reviewed only after it is known a person has disappeared. In addition, there are issues with whether CCTV cameras cover all relevant areas where a person may go overboard and whether images are readily made available when requested.
00:28:17
Speaker
In a recent case in which I was retained as an expert witness, we found that CCTV images were recorded using older technology, which was not in an easily viewed format. and when converted, the images were of limited probative value.
00:28:30
Speaker
Again, it would appear that the original legislation proposed in 2007 was more effective in identifying when a person goes overboard and then causing a response that is more likely to lead to live rescue.
00:28:42
Speaker
Many of the 16.7 cases where a person is rescued alive is when their disappearance is observed and reported to officers who immediately asked execute rescue procedures.
00:28:54
Speaker
Okay, so... Of all those people going overboard between 20 and 25 people a year during this time period they're talking about, they're only rescuing live 16% of them.
00:29:06
Speaker
Is that 16% or 16 people? Percent. Percent.
00:29:14
Speaker
So if 100 go over, they rescued 16. That's not good. Well, right, but so since 25 people went over, they rescued like four?
00:29:27
Speaker
That's what i'm saying. They only they only got... like So basically, if you fall off a cruise ship, it's highly unlikely you're being found. Why are you falling off of a cruise ship to begin with?
00:29:39
Speaker
I can't believe how high these numbers are. Well, and so, you know, i I totally, I get it. I get where, um, I, and I imagine not all of them are a mystery.
00:29:54
Speaker
that part of this? um Right, right. Like, because people saw it it happen and they may have said, Hey, this person went over. It's just, they don't get to them in time or whatever. Right. Yeah.
00:30:10
Speaker
And so, I don't know about you. i can't remember the last time I saw any news about anybody falling overboard. Do you No. So is it is it real? Yeah.
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah. It's real. That's why we're talking about it. that's It's real. All of this is real. um In fact, like I'm only going to scratch the surface of this stuff today.
00:30:37
Speaker
But, you know, it's it's serious. It's overboard the series for a reason. Um, it, it, There's more to this part of it that I want to tell you, but then like the overboard is not the more.
00:30:50
Speaker
like The overboard is bad. like And they throw in here like interpretations of the FBI. This is interesting to me. I don't know how you'll feel about this. It says data also indicates there is insufficient number of cases of persons going overboard when they are – there is a sufficient number of cases of persons going overboard when they are intoxicated.
00:31:11
Speaker
In two known cases, the person was bending over the railing while throwing up over the side of the ship. So two people that went overboard were puking because they drank too much.
00:31:23
Speaker
And these people's solution here is to make the railing higher.
00:31:32
Speaker
Well, I'm not sure that's going to help. There is further reason for raising railing height, but also reinforces the need of stringent rules for the responsible service of alcohol, not just training, but practice.
00:31:44
Speaker
Okay. I'm starting to think that maybe we as people have not evolved to the point where we should be allowed to drink on boats. Like, well maybe that's just facts.
00:31:54
Speaker
I mean, okay. So... it But I haven't been on a cruise ship. I am aware for some reason or another. i mean, I know people who have gone on cruise ships and they're like towns.
00:32:09
Speaker
Okay. Like, you know, lots of people moving through the ocean.
Safety Comparisons and Investigations
00:32:14
Speaker
Right. Yes. And like when you accidentally leave the town, you are then in the ocean.
00:32:22
Speaker
Correct. Okay. That is literally the difference between a cruise ship and like anything else you could possibly be doing. And that is the variable that makes it dangerous.
00:32:35
Speaker
Not unlike when you are flying in an airplane. And you could think of that as any room you would be in with a group of people, right? Because there's less people on airplanes typically than there are on cruise ships.
00:32:53
Speaker
However, when you leave the room, you are in midair. Right. Correct. Okay. And so that's the variable there, right?
00:33:03
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't know why we put ourselves in these positions. I fly. I don't do a lot of cruise stuff, but like boats and planes are similar to me. And like, I've always thought to myself that it's basically a jail in the air or a jail on the water.
00:33:17
Speaker
A jail. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it is. I mean, honestly, the only thing that you have to do on a cruise ship, I actually knew somebody who died on a cruise ship and like, he didn't fall overboard. He just dropped dead, which was crazy. Right. yeah But like the only thing you have to do, unless your death is going to be natural, like the man that I knew, I knew like what happened to him
00:33:50
Speaker
is not fall off the ship. Correct. That's the only thing you have to do to stay alive. Okay, the other crimes that come up, that's different.
00:34:01
Speaker
Okay. But, like, it's just, like, the one goal. And I don't know. I'm thinking perhaps instead of having the Cruise Passenger Bill of Rights passed by the ah the United States Senate...
00:34:16
Speaker
We should perhaps explore an introductory class ah for the passengers that gives them that thought that like the only thing you have to do to survive this cruise is not fall off the ship.
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah, this is all a little nuts for me, but I just couldn't not dig into this. And I'm going to keep doing that because I agree with you. But I'm telling you, you would never take and like set up a beer garden inside of a jail.
00:34:51
Speaker
I don't know that we should have it on a boat. But neither here nor there. They wouldn't. If they didn't have it Less people would get on the boat. I mean, people, i'm I'm not going to, like, my imagination tells me that you're in a, except for the ocean, you're in a perfect scenario to drink as much as you want because you literally can't drive.
00:35:17
Speaker
i don't disagree with you. I just, you know, it this is what it is. And it's about to get worse. So I just want to point out that like I'm here for it. Okay. So one other concern that they have here is the way the FBI interprets this passenger safety act.
00:35:36
Speaker
The International Cruise Victims Association reports that they have been told by the FBI that a person overboard is not necessarily a crime, which is true. It will not be investigated and not included in the FBI's official statistics, so we know very little about this because they're not tracking when people go off the boat.
00:35:55
Speaker
It is difficult to understand how a determination can be made about whether a case of a person going overboard is not a crime if the FBI is not investigating it. That's a very true sentence.
00:36:09
Speaker
So they pick and choose which overboards they investigate based on people going overboard not necessarily being a crime. So even if CCTV videotapes show a person falling overboard, an investigation may be warranted to determine the conditions surrounding the incident. For example, whether intoxication is an issue and whether the cruise ship was responsible in serving the alcohol.
00:36:32
Speaker
But current wording of the CVSSA, this act, does not classify a person overboard as a crime. Just throwing that out there. so yeah What would the crime be?
00:36:46
Speaker
You don't know if you don't open the investigation. Okay. that's I feel like... So sometimes when the police show up, they will detain you for investigative purposes, whether you've done anything wrong or not.
00:37:01
Speaker
while they figure out if a crime has occurred.
00:37:06
Speaker
And I would not be opposed to that. I would say that if the person falls off a ship and they are overboard and they're gone, that could be more of a criminal type situation.
00:37:21
Speaker
Well, in my mind, you don't have to, you just, people who are overboard and can't be accounted for, you just count them as a missing person and and you investigate that. Well, yeah, I was going to say, like, if they if they show back up on the boat because somebody threw them the little life ring thing that might or might not be there, and, you know, they get them back on board, okay, no, no crime, no need, I don't think, I don't know, to investigate probably.
00:37:48
Speaker
But if they're gone, well probably need to open the investigation. So that was a kind of a, that wasn't a real answer, right?
00:38:00
Speaker
Well, the 83% of people not recovered alive, I'm guessing, like is some combination of the alcohol and swimming don't mix adage. you know Because if you're drunk enough that you're puking over the side of the boat and you go overboard, maybe you're not going to be treading water while they figure out you're there.
00:38:24
Speaker
but Well, yeah, that's exact. That's yes. like That is exactly because that's a contributing factor to all of this. If you, if you're at a party on land and you aren't going to drive and you drink to excess, and then you stumble out of the house to throw up in the bushes, you are not in the ocean.
00:38:47
Speaker
That is the difference between being on a cruise ship and, drinking to excess, stumbling out of the club, and throwing up over the side of the boat, and, like, you get, like, very sick, and your heave hoes you over the side.
00:39:08
Speaker
Yes. And so that's the difference, right? that's the ah That's the factor that comes into play here, and that's what makes it different on a ship is because you're in the middle of the ocean. Right.
00:39:21
Speaker
My point is, it's human behavior happening here that requires the modification. oh i'm I'm not arguing with you. I'm about to add one more factor to what you just said.
00:39:33
Speaker
Okay. So... You're correct. And I thought about this along the way. We really can't teach people how to act like we can't get them to behave. A hundred percent. Yes.
00:39:45
Speaker
But I want to mention this last part and then I'm going to, we're talk about this and then we're to about some of the questions I have.
Crime Prevention on Cruise Ships
00:39:52
Speaker
And then truthfully, we're going to come back. And I think,
00:39:57
Speaker
The next episode is going to have to be where I put the rest of these stories so that people can understand like how wild just the cruise ship part of this is. We called this overboard.
00:40:08
Speaker
And my original intention was there were some other crimes that take place on the ocean I was going to talk about. you know We're already deep into this. I'm running with this part. I want to talk about this next thing because to be quite frank, it was shocking to me.
00:40:21
Speaker
And when I read it, I was like, okay, well, that could also... be a part of it. Because one of the things about the Amy Bradley case that people are hung up on is the concept that she was sex trafficked, right?
00:40:33
Speaker
Yes. Ever how we get there, I guess a girl in a suitcase taken off the boat kind of thing, If that's what people want to believe, which if you've gone online to read about this, you can go on Reddit and there are a lot of people that will give you so many theories in these different boring subreddits who are for and against the concept of her. And she's what sparked this whole series.
00:40:58
Speaker
I was curious what this Senate report of in all its 81 pages had to say about sexual assaults. And they give us some statistics and they are not good.
00:41:10
Speaker
So here's the section in the middle here. They're talking about sexual assault. It says, contrary to cruise industry claims, sexual assaults are an ongoing problem on cruise ships. Just in the past couple of months, there have been media reports of a 12-year-old girl groped on Celebrity Century, which is a boat, by a 30-year-old male passenger and an 11-year-old girl molested by a crew member on the Disney Dream.
00:41:38
Speaker
In neither case was a perpetrator arrested or prosecuted. In the latter, the crew member was offloaded by the cruise line in the Bahamas and flown home to India at the cruise line's expense.
00:41:53
Speaker
Data from the FBI for October 2007 through September 2008 reveals that at least of sexual assault victims are younger than The data was secured through a Freedom of Information request.
00:42:10
Speaker
Unfortunately, and this is still the case today, even though they're saying it 12 years ago at the time they're putting all this together, reliable data is hard to come by. No comprehensive FBI data has been available since 2008.
00:42:23
Speaker
The only other data available for analysis was provided in the discovery phase of lawsuits, yielding incident reports from 1998 through 2002 for a single cruise line,
00:42:36
Speaker
1998 through 2005 for another. In recent lawsuit involving the sexual assault of a minor, a cruise line was ordered by the judge to disclose to the plaintiff's attorney all reported cases of sexual assault for the previous five years.
00:42:51
Speaker
The cruise line then settled the case out of court in order to avoid complying with that particular court order. Now, look,
00:43:02
Speaker
I'm not saying that this information is accurate here. i am just saying that is what is stated in a report to the United States Senate. It says, there is much to be learned from incident reports of sexual assault. We know that the most frequent perpetrator among crew members, between 50% and 70% of sexual assaults on passengers are perpetrated by a crew member, is a room steward. 34.8% of sexual assaults on cruise ships are perpetrated.
00:43:30
Speaker
are perpetrated by a room steward. And then second is the dining room waiter. And the third is a bar worker. So 34.8% for the room steward or the people who are attending to rooms, cabins, state rooms, the dining room waiter accounts for 25% and bar workers account for 13.2%.
00:43:49
Speaker
We also know that the most frequent location for the assault is a passenger cabin. 36.4% of sexual assaults on cruise ships take place in a passenger cabin.
00:44:00
Speaker
And alcohol is a factor in 36% of incidents involving minors. Having detailed data permits identification of risk and of potential solutions or means of ameliorating the problem. Big word for this thing.
00:44:16
Speaker
However, changes to the CVSSA between the first versions to the versions past make this data much more difficult to access and na thus more difficult for proper prevention and intervention.
00:44:28
Speaker
The following discussion will be organized around the concepts of prevention, intervention, investigation, and prosecution. So they talk about prevention and the best ways to deal with sexual assault, which largely focuses on making passengers aware of the risk.
00:44:45
Speaker
Then they talk about The idea that this act should require reported cases of sexual assault committed on a cruise ship be displayed online, broken down by cruise ship and cruise line. i don't know how helpful that all is, but that's what they want.
00:45:00
Speaker
um Secondly, they go through provisions where... They need to revisit the relationship of the crew having access to passenger cabins, which is weird because you have the guys who need the access, particularly if it's both like the, you know, the food people, the alcohol people and the room people.
00:45:22
Speaker
All of those people reasonably could have like access to the rooms, if nothing else, to prepare the room for the passengers, to take care of room service and housekeeping, and and to bring them the drinks that they're going to be drinking. Hopefully they're not drinking them all in their room. but um He says, while this provision is ah clear in its intent, it may not be but specific enough in the statement that it's making. He's referring to how they can limit the access here.
00:45:52
Speaker
He says, I'm not sure it effectively addresses certain incidents of sexual assault. Take, for example, a teenage daughter left in her parents' cabin who was walked in upon and assaulted by a crew member gaining access with a room key, or an adult woman returning to her room in the middle of the afternoon who walks out of a shower finding a crew member in the room who rapes her, or a woman who wakes in the middle of the night and finds a crew member standing over her and is assaulted.
00:46:16
Speaker
And it says that for the purposes of what we're doing here, these cases are not anomalies, even if they were to demonstrate why there is clear need for strict restrictions on crew member access to passenger cabins.
00:46:30
Speaker
So this is a complicated thing they're going into here. go ahead. All they have to do is make it a rule that they can't be in the cabin when the passenger's in there. Right. And if ah and if you are, you're fired.
00:46:42
Speaker
But the immediately. Correct. Immediate dismissal. It's it's not acceptable. But the thing is here, again, the modification of human behavior,
00:46:55
Speaker
indicates that they're just... spotlighting the cruise ship here, perhaps because you're like voluntarily trapping yourself in the middle of the ocean, i guess.
00:47:08
Speaker
But you can say that nobody is allowed to do their duties in a room when there is a passenger ah in occupants, right? Correct. Okay.
00:47:23
Speaker
But the criminals... We'll still ignore that. The criminals that are going to sexually assault whoever, like, it won't matter, right?
00:47:34
Speaker
And so the solution is, like, don't have criminals working on the boat. Right. But, again, like, you know, that is...
00:47:47
Speaker
unfortunately sort of a nuanced situation who knows why people do some of the things they do I've heard you know it's entire I mean obviously they wouldn't hire somebody that had a known background but what if this was the beginning right correct there was no priors and so in those situations I get where it is a threat just as much as anywhere else where similar things are happening. It's not different on a cruise.
00:48:17
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So they kind of move on from the prevention part to intervention. And that the the intervention is essentially they want counselors and trained emergency medical personnel on board every boat, including like the equivalent of like SANE, which SANE is a sexual assault ah nurse examiner,
00:48:38
Speaker
where I'm from, I don't know where what they call it in all the other places, but they basically want sexual assault professionals on board as part of the crew. So that's where they get to the intervention.
00:48:49
Speaker
Then they move on to investigation. We're going to talk about these two things kind of together. With investigations, they want each cruise ship to have either a team of or a agent of some type of criminal and investigative expert.
00:49:07
Speaker
And they give an example of the wholly independent ocean rangers that are placed on cruise ships by the state of Alaska who monitor discharge of waste streams when the ship is in Alaskan state waters, which is, this is all fascinating to me, but then they also want a staff person on board who can be adequately trained in the facets of crime scene preservation and the collection of evidence.
00:49:33
Speaker
And look, if I'm bringing up those two things because they're part of this massive thing that's going on here where they're trying to get more safety and security for passengers and cruise ships.
00:49:45
Speaker
Right. And, you know, honestly, I don't know. i It's not out of the realm of what we should expect because cruises are a huge industry, right?
00:49:56
Speaker
And ah because they travel the ocean, there's only so much the United States can even do, Right, right. The laws vary um because, you know, a lot of maritime laws apply.
00:50:11
Speaker
the United States does have some oversight anytime a ship ports here. right. ah But if you ever notice, like usually on cruise ships, they have a flag of the country of origin and like none of the ships originate from the United States.
00:50:28
Speaker
Correct. Because of that because of tax implications and things like that. There's more incentive to be from a different place, but they come to the United States and they take United States passengers because people in the United States like to go on cruises, right?
00:50:46
Speaker
And it's a huge industry. It's not beyond the realm of possibilities to think, okay, so we need like the cruise police or something, but like, where is that ah jurisdiction if a crime is found to be committed, like where do they have the proceedings? Where's the person held? Like that kind of thing.
00:51:08
Speaker
And it seems like that could be something that was, could be added on to one of the agencies that already works in the ocean. Right. Right.
00:51:21
Speaker
But it requires a lot of cooperation And it also is not a great look to, i mean, I'm not against intervention, but at the same time, it's it becomes pretty depressing when these factor into this like carefree vacation environment, right?
00:51:48
Speaker
Right. it It just, it brings everybody back to reality. Right. So there's 81 pages here. I'll put the link in the show notes so people can check it out. This is what caught my attention.
00:51:59
Speaker
And this is what will be in the next episode. Because I want to like just give you this summary to think about for a
Summary and Next Episode Preview
00:52:05
Speaker
second. We'll talk about it for a minute. But it's really part of the next episode. it's and It's listed as App Index 3. I think it's in the um I have it all, unfortunately, remarked and not well. It's either 64 or 65, depending on the version that you read.
00:52:21
Speaker
But it says, Summary of Persons Overboard January 1995 to June 2013. It says the gender of those people. Now, the number appears to be 210, by the way, which is lower than I thought it would be based on the other numbers they gave us.
00:52:35
Speaker
But the gender appears to be 73% male.
00:52:41
Speaker
27% female, roughly. um They're broken down into ages. The male median age is 38, but range is 14 90. The female median is 42. The range is 15 to 79. passengers versus crew is 75% of these people that went overboard passengers. Only 25% them are crew.
00:52:57
Speaker
the passengers versus crew is seventy five percent of these people that went overboard are passengers only twenty five percent of them are crew They talk about different vessels, and 92% of this is cruise ship related.
00:53:10
Speaker
The other percentage ferry related, which is interesting that they include that number. 16.7% 210 people were rescued. in 11%. 9.5% were rescued. alcohol was involved in at least six percent of these cases suicide was involved in eleven percent nine and a half percent
00:53:31
Speaker
were Overboard by fall. And so these last three are interesting to me. 7% are overboard by fight. Two and a half percent are overboard by casino loss.
00:53:46
Speaker
What does that even mean? That they couldn't pay their casino tab and they tossed them over? That is yeah wild that they would blow them over. I don't know. I don't that.
00:53:59
Speaker
Why is that not just suicide? I don't. ah Well, they didn't die. Oh, okay. I don't know. I don't know what the answer to that is. So they jumped because they lost. I guess. But then they were rescued. Doesn't seem like that should be a reason at all, but somehow it's 2.5%, which is not zero.
00:54:17
Speaker
But here's the most interesting one for me. Out of those 210 people, 3.3% of them go overboard by murder And I wanted to know, who is that?
00:54:30
Speaker
Who are those people? Who is murdered on a cruise ship? Well, they're not. So my guess is if they're not a George Smith and Amy Lynn Bradley.
00:54:43
Speaker
ah Right. And Rebecca Coriam. but If they're not these people, right, I presume that they know exactly who did it And it's not world news because it was a murder that occurred and it was clearly whatever happened happened.
00:55:04
Speaker
They weren't thrown overboard. They were murdered on the cruise ship. Right. Right. And it's just like any other murder. The compelling true crime part of overboard is where there's this person who was on the ship and then they weren't on the ship and it's not real clear what happened.
00:55:27
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And so I think that's that 3%. Okay. Well, next episode, we're going to tell some stories of the people who have also disappeared on cruise ships that don't have their own documentaries. In some cases they were murderers.
00:55:50
Speaker
Special consideration was given to True Crime XS by LabradiCreations.com. If you have a moment in your favorite app, please go on and give us a review or a five-star rating.
00:56:01
Speaker
It helps us get noticed in the crowd. This is True Crime XS.
00:56:15
Speaker
I break things like guitars.
00:56:23
Speaker
No scars We're in trouble We took it too far
00:56:34
Speaker
I want to go, but it's cause I'll disappoint ya. It's all I've ever dreamed of, something I cannot let go of.
00:56:45
Speaker
I hate the competition. This culture's like a Jimin. I lost the motivation to get fit in your expectations.
00:56:56
Speaker
True Crime Access is brought to you by John Meg. It's written, produced, edited, and posted by John and Meg. You can always support True Crime Access through Patreon.com, or if you have a story you'd like them to cover, you can reach them at TrueCrimeAccess.com.
00:57:14
Speaker
Thank you for joining us.