The documentary features interviews with family members of the 23-year-old who vanished
The story of missing woman Amy Bradley is featured in a new Netflix documentary, but who is she and was she ever found?
A three-part documentary titled Amy Bradley Is Missing was released on the streaming service on Wednesday morning (July 16).
Members of Amy’s family, authorities and other figures connected to the case were interviewed for the series.
Delving into theories on what might have happened to her, the documentary is shining a light on a case that began 27 years ago.
23-year-old Virginia native Amy Bradley disappeared on March 24, 1998, while she and her family were on a Royal Caribbean cruise.
Three nights into their holiday, Amy and her youngest brother Brad were seen dancing in the ship’s nightclub, with Brad returning to his cabin at around 3.35am.
Amy, who returned to her cabin five minutes after Brad, was last seen asleep on a chair on her private balcony. Her father Ron woke up to check on Amy at around 6am that morning, only to discover she was nowhere to be found despite being seen hours earlier.
With Amy nowhere to be seen, the majority of passengers had already disembarked from the vessel for the day before they could be made aware of the situation.
Declared missing by authorities, the Netherlands Antilles Coast Guard conducted a four-day search in the surrounding waters and along the cruise.
Despite the extensive search, including on the ship, authorities initially believed she had fallen overboard. Witnesses claimed that on the morning of her disappearance, Amy was seen talking to crew member Alister ‘Yellow’ Douglas, who later passed an FBI polygraph test.
During the documentary, Alister receives a phone call from his daughter Amica as they discuss what happened on that night.
“They brought the FBI on immediately and then he said to me that they’re trying to find this girl [and] I was seen dancing with her. Everybody that had anything to do with cleaning her room, serving her drinks, we were grounded.
“When they realised nothing was involved, we continued to work. And I continued to work on the cruise ship until two years later,” he said.
Following a lengthy investigation, it was determined by the authorities that there was no evidence to suggest Amy fell overboard, was pushed or took her own life.
Legally declared dead in 2010, Amy’s whereabouts and fate remains unknown to this day in spite of a number of reported sightings which failed to lead to her discovery.
Back in 2005, Amy’s dad Ron and her mum Iva Bradley appeared on an episode of Dr Phil to discuss receiving a photo of a young woman involved in sex trafficking, who physically resembled their daughter.
“It is like a stab in the heart. I’ve never thought that she wasn’t out there. Neither has her dad. Neither has her brother. We gotta get to her,” Iva said.
Discussing the photo in the documentary, Erin Sheridan, an FBI special agent said: “The photograph itself has been on a particular website that dealt with prostitution down in the Caribbean and Venezuela area. The individuals in the photographs, they’re women, and they’re in risqué attire.”
In 2004, a woman named Judy Maurer believed she saw Amy in a store’s bathroom while on holiday in Barbados. Recalling what she heard, Judy said she heard a man tell someone: “The deal’s at 11 o’clock and I’m warning you, you better be ready to go.”
Once she left the cubicle, Judy saw a woman with ‘real long, dark hair’, who said her name was Amy, only realising it may have been the missing woman when she saw the Dr Phil episode.
After receiving the story from Judy, FBI agents travelled to Barbados to see if they could finally locate her, but sadly she remained nowhere to be seen.
Amy Bradley Is Missing is on Netflix now