Amy Bradley is Missing: A complete timeline of Amy Bradley's disappearance, revisited

Amy Bradley Is Missing, Netflix’s new three-part docuseries, investigates the 1998 disappearance of 23-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley, who vanished without a trace while on a Caribbean cruise with her family. The show does not waste time with dramatics; it focuses on the real people who were there, the family who never stopped looking, and the leads that were either ignored, lost, or never fully explained.

Directors Phil Lott and Ari Mark use interviews with Amy’s parents, brother, FBI agents, and witnesses to walk viewers through every major development in the case, from the initial moments of confusion to the years of unconfirmed sightings. What sets the series apart is how it balances the emotional toll on the family with the messy, often contradictory evidence.

Amy was last seen early in the morning of March 24, 1998, on the balcony of her family’s cabin aboard Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas. Her father saw her sleeping there around 5:30 a.m., but when he checked again half an hour later, she was gone.

Her shoes were still there. Her cigarettes and lighter were not. Over the next 27 years, multiple people have claimed to have seen her alive. Yet not a single sighting has ever been confirmed.

Timeline of Amy Bradley’s disappearance from Amy Bradley Is Missing

Amy Bradley boarded the Rhapsody of the Seas with her family on March 21, 1998. It was a work reward cruise for her father, Ron, and they were headed for Curaçao. Amy had just graduated from Longwood University, was a strong swimmer, and had plans to start a new job when they got back.

On the night of March 23, Amy and her brother Brad went to the ship’s nightclub, danced with other passengers, and spent time with members of the cruise band, including Alister “Yellow” Douglas. A videographer captured Amy and Douglas dancing together that night.

Brad went back to the cabin around 3:35 a.m. Amy followed five minutes later. They talked briefly on the balcony. Brad went to bed. Amy stayed outside. At 5:30 a.m., their father, Ron, woke up and saw her asleep in a lounge chair. By 6 a.m., she was gone. Her cigarettes and lighter were missing. Her shoes and the yellow shirt she’d worn were still in the room.

Ron searched the ship alone for over an hour. By 7 a.m., the Bradleys asked crew members to delay disembarkation. No announcement was made until 7:50 a.m., after most passengers had already left the ship. The family begged staff to search immediately, but they were told it was too soon. Security began searching the ship only after that. Nothing turned up.

Two passengers later said they saw Amy and Douglas on an elevator headed to the top deck between 5:30 and 6 a.m., and one claimed Douglas returned alone shortly after. Brad remembered Douglas approaching him that morning and saying, “Sorry about your sister,” before news had spread. Douglas was questioned, passed a polygraph, and was not charged.

Weeks later, a taxi driver in Curaçao said Amy had approached him asking for a phone on the morning the ship docked. In August 1998, Canadian diver David Carmichael claimed he saw Amy on the beach with two men. He described her tattoos in detail, including a Tasmanian devil and a gecko. One of the men, he said, resembled Douglas. The FBI investigated, but the sighting was never confirmed.

In 1999, Navy Petty Officer Bill Hefner claimed he met a woman in a Curaçao brothel who said her name was Amy Bradley. She told him she left the ship for drugs and was now trapped. Hefner didn’t report it until years later when he recognized her in a magazine. That brothel was later destroyed by fire.

In 2005, the family received anonymous photos of a woman named “Jas” from a Caribbean adult website. FBI analysis suggested it could be Amy, but they couldn’t trace the IP address. That same year, a witness named Judy Maurer said she saw a distressed woman in a Barbados restroom who identified herself as Amy and asked to see her children.

The last potential lead came through IP logs from Barbados that accessed the Bradley family’s missing persons website during birthdays and anniversaries. No one has been able to verify who was behind the visits.

Trending

Follow for more updates.

×

Was this article helpful?

Thank You for feedback