On March 21, 1998, Amy Lynn Bradley, her parents Ron and Iva and her brother Brad, left for a week long cruise on Rhapsody of the Seas.  On the morning of March 24, Bradley had been drinking in the dance club with the ship’s band, Blue Orchid. One of the band’s members, Alister Douglas, known as Yellow, said he parted ways with Bradley at about 1 am.  Some time between 5:15 and 5:30 am, Bradley’s father, Ron, saw her asleep on the cabin balcony. When he got up at 6 am, she was no longer there. He later said, “I left to try and go up and find her. When I couldn’t find her, I didn’t really know what to think, because it was very much unlike Amy to leave and not tell us where she was going.”

The ship was en route to Curaçao, Antilles, at the time she was last seen.  The ship docked in Curaçao shortly after she was discovered missing. Extensive searches on the ship and at sea produced no signs of her whereabouts.  The Netherlands Antilles Coast Guard conducted a four-day search that ended on March 27, and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines chartered a boat to continue looking for her, but they ended their search on March 29. Bradley was a trained lifeguard and investigators said there was no evidence that she had fallen overboard or died by suicide.

There were possible sightings of Bradley in Curaçao in 1998 and 1999. Two Canadian tourists reported seeing a woman resembling Amy on a beach in Curaçao in August 1998. The woman’s tattoos were reportedly identical to Bradley’s. Bradley’s tattoos included a Tasmanian Devil spinning a basketball located on her shoulder, the sun placed on her lower back, a Chinese symbol located on her right ankle, and a gecko lizard on her navel. She also had a navel ring. I would find it even more odd if another woman had these exact tattoos/piercing as she did..

In 1999 an American sailor reported that he went to a brothel on Curaçao and was approached by a young woman. She told him her name was Amy Bradley and begged him for help,” explaining that she was not allowed to leave. At this point, two men in the bar escorted her upstairs. By the time the witness reported this to police several months later, the brothel had burned down. Why on earth this sailor didn’t report it sooner is beyond me. I mean if I saw an American girl who was asking for help I’d probably call the cops right away. If he hadn’t have been worried about staying at that brothel maybe they could’ve found her in time.

There was another potential sighting in 2005, when a witness named Judy Maurer claimed to have seen Bradley in a department store restroom in Barbados. The witness claimed a woman entered the restroom with a couple of men, who were threatening her if she did not follow through on a deal. When she approached the distraught woman after the men left, she claimed the woman said her first name was Amy and that she was from Virginia before the men re entered the bathroom to take her. Maurer called authorities, who created composite sketches of three men and the woman based on her account.

Bradley’s mother and father appeared on the November 17, 2005, episode of Dr. Phil. An image of a young woman resembling Bradley that was emailed to her parents was shown on the program, and it suggests that she might have been sold into sexual slavery.

There is a $250,000 reward offered by the Bradley family for information leading to Bradley’s return and a $50,000 reward for information leading to her verifiable location. The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to her recovery. Her case has been featured on America’s Most Wanted and by the television show Disappeared. It was also the subject of episode 59 of the Casefile podcast. Sex trafficking is a very real and awful crime but I feel like no one talks about it. It’s just not something people want to except happens, but it definitely does.

If you have any information regarding this case please contact your local police department.