One family's dream vacation turned into a living nightmare full of mystery and unanswered questions when their daughter suddenly vanished without a word.
In 1998, 23-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley had been enjoying a break with her family aboard the Royal Caribbean cruise liner Rhapsody Of The Seas.
In the early morning hours of March 24, 1998, her father - Ron Bradley of Virginia - became the last person to see her.
Ron had won the cruise as part of a competition at work, and took his wife Iva, son Brad, and daughter Amy along with him.
The family had been enjoying a Royal Caribbean cruise. Credit: FBI
What followed was one of the most talked-about and chilling missing person cases in US history.
After partying into the early hours of the morning, Amy and Brad returned to their cabin at approximately 3:30AM, per their electronic key logs.
Ron woke up around 5:30AM and saw his daughter slumped in a chair on the cabin balcony after she had been smoking cigarettes. When he checked on her 30 minutes later, she was gone.
Her shoes were still there, but her cigarettes and lighter were gone.
Amy had been partying the night before her disappearance. Credit: FBI
Authorities say that Brad was the last person to definitely see his sister alive. He later revealed that the last words he said to his sister were "I love you".
"Knowing that that's the last thing I said to her has always been very comforting to me," he one said, per CBS Austin.
Believing that Amy would have left a note to her family to say if she was going anywhere, Ron started searching the ship's common areas. Thirty minutes later, he woke his wife and son to inform them that something was wrong.
As the ship started docking in Curaçao, the family stressed to staff that they needed to lock the cruise down. However, their pleas were not reciprocated.
The Rhapsody of the Seas in 1997. Credit: Alain LE BOT / Getty
Speaking to NBC News, Mom Iva said: "When we discovered Amy 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."
The ship's crew did search the common areas, but not the passenger and staff rooms. At 7:50AM, an announcement was made to those onboard -- but the family says most people had already disembarked.
In an interview with Dr. Phil, mom Iva revealed: "There was a tremendous amount of attention toward Amy from the crew members" -- a quote that stood out after the family says one of the ship's staff had asked Amy out on a date, which gave her the "creeps".
Credit: FBI
Additionally, the family says that photos taken by the cruise photographer of Amy had disappeared.
Over the next few days, the Netherlands Antilles Coast Guard searched the waters, but found no trace of Amy or any suggestion she had fallen overboard. Royal Caribbean also chartered their own search vessel to try to find Amy, but to no avail.
A trained lifeguard, Amy was also a very strong swimmer, and it was deemed unlikely that she could have drowned with the ship so close to the Curacao shore.
Amy Lynn Bradley was never found, with the official search being called off on March 29. But what followed was a series of conspiracy theories about what happened to her.
The most prevalent theory was that an intoxicated Amy fell overboard and drowned. But her family has disputed this claim, as they question whether or not foul play was involved.
Beliefs that Amy survived the cruise stem from possible sightings amid a subsequent FBI investigation.
Per The Express, a day after Amy's disappearance, a taxi driver claimed to have been approached by a panic-stricken woman who matched her description. The driver says the woman was trying to find a pay phone before she ran away.
Credit: FBI
Later that year, a Canadian engineer named David Carmichaelsaid he was "100%" certain he was a woman with Amy's distinctive tattoos on a beach in Curacao. Carmichael said the woman looked afraid, but before he could say anything, she was led away by two men.
Speaking to PEOPLE, Carmichael says he has been left "haunted" by the alleged encounter.
Then, a year later, a US Navy sailor recounted an encounter with a woman at a brothel who identified herself as Amy Bradley and disclosed that she was being forcibly detained. However, the sailor hesitated to report this sighting due to fears of facing disciplinary repercussions for his visit to the brothel.
And in 2005, another potential sighting of Amy occurred when a shopper reported seeing her in a restroom at a department store in Barbados. According to the witness, three men accompanied Amy into the restroom, issued threats, and then departed, leaving her unaccompanied the entire time.
The shopper claims that the woman said her name was Amy and she hailed from Virginia.
The Bradley family's concerns that Amy had been sold as a sex slave continued to grow after they receiving an email in 2005.
Attached were photos of a woman known as "Jas," wearing lingerie. These images, initially found on a defunct website promoting "all-inclusive Erotic Vacations" in the Caribbean, bore an uncanny resemblance to Amy.
The discovery sparked renewed optimism within the Bradley family, reigniting the possibility that Amy could still be alive. Their hopes were further fueled when an independent forensics expert, featured on an episode of Vanished, confirmed that the woman in the photos was indeed a "perfect" match for their missing daughter.
The photo emailed to the Bradley family. Credit: FBI
Reflecting on the unsettling discovery, Iva Bradley expressed her initial reaction to the images, saying: "When I first looked at the picture, it wasn't the Amy I know. The picture looks like a harsh and tormented Amy."
Tragically, with no further evidence of Amy being alive, her parents had her declared legally dead in 2010.
The FBI is still offering a $25,000 reward for any information that leads to Amy Lynn Bradley's discovery.
