Amy’s family realized she was missing between approximately 6:00 and 6:30 a.m. They immediately reported it to the crew. At the time, the ship was preparing to dock in Curacao’s port.
“When we discovered Amy was missing, we begged the ship’s personnel to not put the gangway down, to not allow anybody to leave the ship. And we told them that if Amy had left the room for any more than 15 minutes, she would have left us a note. And they put the gangway down anyway. People left the ship in Curacao,” Iva Bradley, Amy’s mother, told NBC News in 2005.
In total, there were 2,000 passengers on the ship. The crew did not begin searching for Amy right away because they were preparing for their arrival in Curacao. Later, officials conducted extensive searches on the ship and at sea. The Netherlands Antilles Coast Guard spent four days looking for Amy. Their search ended on March 27.
Brad was the last person to see Amy alive. In a video shared by the FBI, he said, “Myself and my parents have had to endure a lot of sadness, but the last thing that I ever said to Amy was, ‘I love you,’ before I went to sleep that night. Knowing that’s the last thing I said to her has always been very comforting to me.”
At first, authorities suspected that Amy had fallen overboard, was pushed, or had taken her own life. But this seemed unlikely since Amy was a strong swimmer and a trained lifeguard. Her body was never found in the water. Plus, the ship had been close to shore, so if she had fallen into the water, there would’ve been multiple witnesses to observe the incident.
Another reported sighting of a woman matching Amy’s description was from a cab driver who stated that a woman approached him, urgently asking to use a phone. The sighting remained unconfirmed.
Amy’s family members believe she was forced to leave the ship and was abducted by a person she befriended on the cruise. At the time of her disappearance, rumors of a maritime pirate operation in Curacao had been circulating, so Amy may have been abducted as part of a human trafficking scheme.
Amy’s loved ones claim that she had no reason to run away. She had a new job and home back in Virginia and would never voluntarily abandon her family and pet bulldog, Bailey. She also had no history of ever running away.
In August 1998, a computer engineer from Canada accurately provided a description of Amy’s tattoos to investigators. He had reportedly seen Amy with two men on a beach in Curacao. This happened five months after she went missing.
Another possible sighting occurred in January 1999. A U.S. Navy Petty Officer claimed that a woman identified herself by name and asked for help at a brothel in Curacao.
The officer did not report the incident when it happened because he was afraid of getting into trouble with the Navy for visiting a brothel. After retiring and seeing Amy’s picture in a magazine, he contacted Amy’s family. His report has never been confirmed.
