Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / DEAD ON VACATION: Beautiful red-head poet vanishes from cruise - UNSOLVED

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DEAD ON VACATION: Beautiful red-head poet vanishes from cruise - UNSOLVED · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:07
Speaker 1: Summer is upon us and many people turn their thoughts
0:10
Speaker 1: to vacation, specifically cruises. But before you answer that port call,
0:18
Speaker 1: I want you to take a listen to this. It
0:20
Speaker 1: is a story, a cautionary tell. Marian Carver, gorgeous young
0:26
Speaker 1: mom of a little girl, goes through a getaway aboard
0:30
Speaker 1: an Alaska, a Royal Caribbean cruise on the Mercury, and
0:34
Speaker 1: she's never seen alive again. First of all, take a
0:45
Speaker 1: listen to our friends at crime Watch Delhi. Marian Carver
0:49
Speaker 1: was a former investment banker from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was
0:53
Speaker 1: divorced and her thirteen year old daughter was spending the
0:56
Speaker 1: summer with her ex husband in England when she decided
0:59
Speaker 1: to take cruise to Alaska. Marian was a serious person
1:04
Speaker 1: in her short lifetime. She was very successful. Her parents
1:09
Speaker 1: didn't even know she was on a cruise that faithful
1:12
Speaker 1: August in two thousand and four until they got a
1:15
Speaker 1: frantic call from Marian's daughter, who hadn't heard from her
1:18
Speaker 1: in a week. When they couldn't reach her, they filed
1:21
Speaker 1: a missing person's report in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she lived.
1:26
Speaker 1: The Cambridge police lowcuted a credit card transaction which assured
1:31
Speaker 1: the airplane ticket going to Seattle, the cruise ticket and
1:35
Speaker 1: the return fleet. Marian never made the flight home. Clearly
1:40
Speaker 1: a last minute decision to jump on this gorgeous cruise
1:45
Speaker 1: line with Royal Caribbean and take off her daughter spending
1:50
Speaker 1: the summer with dad in England, so why not? But
1:55
Speaker 1: she's never seen again? With me an all star panel
1:58
Speaker 1: to make sense of what we know about Mom Marian
2:01
Speaker 1: Carver's disappearance. Michael Winkleman maritime lawyer, and he is a
2:07
Speaker 1: practicing lawyer at Lipkin, Margulis and Winkleman a real expert
2:12
Speaker 1: not only on maritime law but cruise ship law, and
2:15
Speaker 1: you can find him at lipcoon dot com and on
2:18
Speaker 1: Twitter at Cruise Ship Law. Karen Stark, renowned psychologists joining
2:24
Speaker 1: us out of Manhattan, and you can find her at
2:25
Speaker 1: Karen Stark dot com. That's Karen with a CE. Cheryl McCollum,
2:29
Speaker 1: director of the Coldcase Research Institute, forensics expert, and you
2:33
Speaker 1: can find her at Coldcasecrimes dot org. J H. Moncreeve,
2:39
Speaker 1: true crime documentarian of Cruise Ship Killers, also author of
2:45
Speaker 1: Dragonfly Summer. She's especially familiar with this case. Jamie Barnett
2:52
Speaker 1: joining US Jamie the President of International Cruise Victims ICEV
2:56
Speaker 1: at International Cruise Victims dot org. Straight to you, JH. H. Moncrief.
3:02
Speaker 1: It's my understanding that her thirteen year old daughter, while
3:05
Speaker 1: at her dad's home, had been calling mom and speaking
3:09
Speaker 1: to her practically every day. So she doesn't hear from
3:13
Speaker 1: mom for a week. That really is what sounded the alarm. Yeah,
3:17
Speaker 1: and unfortunately, because the cruise ship didn't alert the family,
3:21
Speaker 1: they didn't even have any idea that they'd gone on
3:23
Speaker 1: a cruise. She hadn't told her daughter or her father,
3:26
Speaker 1: so they really had no idea until her father reported
3:30
Speaker 1: her missing and they started going through the credit card statements.
3:33
Speaker 1: That's how they found out that she'd been on a cruise.
3:35
Speaker 1: Otherwise they never would have known. And Karen Starr, she
3:38
Speaker 1: probably thought of it as a lark because she didn't
3:42
Speaker 1: have the daughter to take care of. The daughter was
3:44
Speaker 1: away with dad in England, and she is a beautiful,
3:49
Speaker 1: redheaded poet and investment banker. That's quite the dichotomy. But
3:55
Speaker 1: she suddenly was free and I think on a law
4:00
Speaker 1: decided to go on this cruise, so didn't tell anybody,
4:03
Speaker 1: and it seemed like she had a history in doing that.
4:06
Speaker 1: Nancy that it wasn't the first time that she would
4:10
Speaker 1: just go off and spend some time. It was something
4:13
Speaker 1: that she liked to do and understandable with her daughter
4:16
Speaker 1: being away right her, so she wanted some time to herself.
4:20
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting, you know, Karen, Ever since I've
4:22
Speaker 1: had the twins, I don't want any time to myself.
4:24
Speaker 1: I really want to be with them, but there are
4:27
Speaker 1: times when we are forced apart, when they go for
4:31
Speaker 1: a spend the night, or they go for a visit.
4:35
Speaker 1: Somehow I feel that Marian Carver has somehow been judged
4:41
Speaker 1: for her decision to go solo on a cruise. When
4:46
Speaker 1: you said this is something she had done before, it
4:48
Speaker 1: almost sounds like it's a bad thing. So and I
4:53
Speaker 1: don't like the way that it's been made to sound
4:55
Speaker 1: like she goes on a cruise without telling anybody. I mean,
4:59
Speaker 1: as far I know, women still have the right to
5:02
Speaker 1: vote and we can move about freely. But some how
5:07
Speaker 1: women are I don't know, somehow scorned when they decide
5:11
Speaker 1: to go on a girl's trip or they go off
5:14
Speaker 1: on their own. Have you noticed it's the same thing
5:16
Speaker 1: when women joggers are attacked she was jogging in a
5:21
Speaker 1: jogging brawl, or she had all shorts. Of course she did.
5:24
Speaker 1: She's out in the elements and the sun running. I
5:28
Speaker 1: just feel that women get judged no matter what they do. No,
5:31
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that women get judged. We know that.
5:34
Speaker 1: We know that all the time because we hear about
5:36
Speaker 1: how people dress. But I mean, have you ever heard
5:38
Speaker 1: of a guy care and start going, oh he went
5:41
Speaker 1: on a trip by himself. Well, and we never brought
5:44
Speaker 1: it up. Is because this is a very independent woman
5:46
Speaker 1: and it seems as though she did do this and
5:50
Speaker 1: it was something that she liked to do to be
5:52
Speaker 1: able to spend time. Not all mothers are with their children.
5:56
Speaker 1: Twenty four seven. She's divorced and her daughter was with
5:59
Speaker 1: her X in England, so a perfect opportunity for her
6:03
Speaker 1: to just take some time and go up. You know what,
6:06
Speaker 1: I don't accept it. I don't like it, Cheryl McCollum.
6:10
Speaker 1: But I accept it, and as a matter of fact,
6:13
Speaker 1: I recognize it and talk about it in depth and
6:16
Speaker 1: don't be a victim when it comes to all of
6:19
Speaker 1: the travel or whether you're going on a cruise and
6:22
Speaker 1: r you're camping, you're going out of the country. You're
6:25
Speaker 1: in a hotel. Women are victimized more than men do.
6:31
Speaker 1: I like it, no, Is it true? Yes? So this
6:35
Speaker 1: is something we have to think about. You have a
6:37
Speaker 1: whole chapter on it, Nancy, And I'll tell you what
6:39
Speaker 1: a big one. What she actually did was smart if
6:44
Speaker 1: you think about it from a safety standpoint. She was
6:47
Speaker 1: not going to have to check in and out of
6:49
Speaker 1: CD motels. She was not going to have to travel
6:51
Speaker 1: alone by car or plane. She was not going to
6:54
Speaker 1: have to go in and out a restaurant for bars alone.
6:57
Speaker 1: She was in one place with one steward. You know,
7:02
Speaker 1: she thought probably she was doing the safest, most responsible
7:06
Speaker 1: thing to travel so low you know, you're right, Cheryl McCollum.
7:09
Speaker 1: And I mean, maybe we need a shrink to weigh
7:12
Speaker 1: on this. Weigh in on this. But let me go
7:13
Speaker 1: to maritime lawyer. He's a cruise ship law expert. And
7:19
Speaker 1: maritime law is a whole another animal. It's like if
7:24
Speaker 1: you want to have open heart surgery, you don't go
7:28
Speaker 1: to a podiatrist a foot doctor. Same thing here. Maritime
7:33
Speaker 1: law like criminal law, contracts, it's its own entity. It's
7:39
Speaker 1: very very complex. But Michael Winkelman joining me maritime lawyer.
7:45
Speaker 1: I think that when people get on a cruise ship
7:49
Speaker 1: they feel safer than when they, let's just say, go
7:53
Speaker 1: to another country or another city they've never been to
7:56
Speaker 1: and they're walking up and down the streets. You're kind
7:59
Speaker 1: of lulled into a sense of complacency on a cruise ship.
8:02
Speaker 1: Have you noticed that about cruise ship victims all the time, Nancy,
8:06
Speaker 1: People have this bizarre false sense of security. They think
8:09
Speaker 1: they're in this safe bubble on a cruise ship, when
8:11
Speaker 1: in reality there's a lot of factors that really make
8:13
Speaker 1: it the opposite. The tremendous over service of alcohol that
8:16
Speaker 1: people indulge in, I think rightly so, because they don't
8:19
Speaker 1: have to drive anywhere. But I think one of the
8:21
Speaker 1: biggest parts of it, Nancy, is that there's no true
8:23
Speaker 1: independent law enforcement there. There's just higher private security guards
8:28
Speaker 1: that are basically shills for the company. So if and
8:31
Speaker 1: when something bad happens, you have this terrible situation where
8:35
Speaker 1: there's going to be no real independent law enforcement investigating
8:37
Speaker 1: or helping you. If you're on the high seat, that
8:39
Speaker 1: could be dates. So I think because of that, there's
8:42
Speaker 1: a really unique essence to cruising that when people let
8:45
Speaker 1: their guard down. They're really putting themselves in danger. And
8:48
Speaker 1: that's why one of the things I always say is, hey,
8:50
Speaker 1: don't leave your common sense at the ports. Keep an
8:53
Speaker 1: eye on yourself, keep an eye on your kids, keep
8:55
Speaker 1: yourself in safe situation. Crime stories with Nancy Grace, What
9:09
Speaker 1: happened to this gorgeous young redhead, this mom of a
9:14
Speaker 1: little girl spending this summer with dad in England? Marion
9:19
Speaker 1: Carver And you just heard Michael Winkelman, maritime lawyer cruise
9:25
Speaker 1: ship specialists, say something really interesting. And all of us one, two, three, four,
9:30
Speaker 1: all five of us have discussed before. Guys, you know,
9:36
Speaker 1: on sleuthing mysteries on TV or movies, very often you'll
9:42
Speaker 1: see a murder stage on the high seas. Why because,
9:47
Speaker 1: just like Winkleman just said, there's not any real police.
9:51
Speaker 1: You have a cruise ship employee. And I'm not knocking
9:55
Speaker 1: the cruise ships because i love Disney cruises and I've
9:58
Speaker 1: taken my children on su several of them and we've
10:01
Speaker 1: loved it. But there's a reason those mysteries are set
10:05
Speaker 1: that way. It's arn't imitating life. Because j H. Moncrave,
10:10
Speaker 1: the documentarian of Cruise Ship Killers, there is no police,
10:15
Speaker 1: there is no medical examiner. They're not on the high season.
10:19
Speaker 1: You may be days away from anchoring somewhere. Yeah, Nancy,
10:24
Speaker 1: I've actually seen it referred to as the wild West
10:27
Speaker 1: of the Sea because there is there is no law
10:30
Speaker 1: like we'd expect. Whatever flagged the cruise ship is sailing under,
10:34
Speaker 1: those are the laws they're governed by, whether it's Granada
10:37
Speaker 1: or some obscure country that the people going on the
10:40
Speaker 1: cruise ship might not even have heard of. So the
10:43
Speaker 1: laws are very different before these new I believe Ken
10:46
Speaker 1: Carver was able to pass the new bill or help
10:49
Speaker 1: pass the new bill, But before that they didn't even
10:52
Speaker 1: have to alert the FBI if a crime had happened
10:55
Speaker 1: on American waters. So wow, Yeah, is that true, Jamie Burnett,
10:59
Speaker 1: President CV International Cruise Victims. That is true. Um, it
11:04
Speaker 1: absolutely is UM And that was a wonderful thing that
11:07
Speaker 1: that law passed in two thousand and ten. Cruise Vessels
11:11
Speaker 1: Safety and Security Act was the first of its kind
11:15
Speaker 1: that really was able to UM improve security and safety
11:21
Speaker 1: for passengers on cruise ships. UM. It was something that
11:26
Speaker 1: he was devoted to and dedicated to and his organization
11:30
Speaker 1: carried on that work even now, still trying to improve
11:33
Speaker 1: on what we have So happened happened to the beautiful CWD.
11:45
Speaker 1: The cruise line confirms she was on the ship, but
11:47
Speaker 1: they didn't notify family or contact law enforcement when she
11:51
Speaker 1: went missing. Marian would have vanished in thin air if
11:56
Speaker 1: we'd waited for the cruise lines to contact us on
12:00
Speaker 1: from the beginning that Marian was missing, and yet stonewallis
12:05
Speaker 1: In contacted the FBI until a week after we finally
12:09
Speaker 1: contacted them. The Carvers searched for ten months, hunting down clues,
12:14
Speaker 1: even hiring international investigators and attorneys like they spend seventy
12:19
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars trying to find out what happened to
12:23
Speaker 1: their daughter. The first question we asked when we realized
12:28
Speaker 1: Marian was nothing on the ship was their video, And
12:32
Speaker 1: they kept saying there was a confinder on the tape.
12:35
Speaker 1: First they said there wasn't old tap that arrested all
12:38
Speaker 1: the tape was broke. The Carvers never received any security tapes,
12:44
Speaker 1: just one blurry shot of Marian boarding the ship. Well,
12:47
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, we've gone on Disney cruises. There
12:50
Speaker 1: are video cameras everywhere. I noticed it when Lucy and
12:55
Speaker 1: I were going on a walk all the way around.
12:59
Speaker 1: They have them almost as like a jogging path all
13:02
Speaker 1: the way around one of the decks, but at a
13:04
Speaker 1: certain point on either end you're inclosed at the front
13:08
Speaker 1: and the back of the ship. I noticed that it
13:11
Speaker 1: was covered with not only emergency phones, but video cameras.
13:18
Speaker 1: That's not all. How can we figure out her movements
13:23
Speaker 1: before she disappeared? Listen to our friends at crime online
13:26
Speaker 1: dot com. An investigation showed that Carver never used her
13:30
Speaker 1: sea pass that is an onboard credit card which also
13:33
Speaker 1: serves as identification. She never bought a drink on board,
13:37
Speaker 1: and is not recorded as having left the ship on
13:39
Speaker 1: any of its stops. The ship does not keep records
13:42
Speaker 1: of passengers getting off at the final destination. She disappeared
13:47
Speaker 1: somewhere on that ship and her body has never been
13:52
Speaker 1: found either or it was taken off that ship or
13:56
Speaker 1: thrown overboard. Joining me, Cheryl McCollum, forensic expert, Director of
14:04
Speaker 1: the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute at Coldcasecrimes dot org.
14:10
Speaker 1: So what does that tell you that her c pass
14:14
Speaker 1: was never used? You know on the cruise. As I've
14:17
Speaker 1: taken the twins on, they give you a bracelet that
14:20
Speaker 1: you're supposed to wear all the time, like a little
14:22
Speaker 1: plastic watch looking thing, and you just hold that up
14:26
Speaker 1: as id And I guess that's what they're talking about,
14:29
Speaker 1: accepting a card form, right, So what she would use
14:32
Speaker 1: that card for is if she wanted to pay for
14:35
Speaker 1: something extra that was not included, So she wanted an
14:38
Speaker 1: alcoholic beverage, or she won an excursion. So what that
14:42
Speaker 1: kills us is she didn't make a plan to do
14:45
Speaker 1: something once they got to catch a can or sinka.
14:48
Speaker 1: She didn't go to you know, ride with the sled
14:51
Speaker 1: dogs or you know, look at the you know, some
14:54
Speaker 1: of the activities that they had on land, so to speak.
14:57
Speaker 1: They have no record of her leaving ship at all
15:01
Speaker 1: or re entering. You know, I'm thinking about her being
15:04
Speaker 1: a poet Cheryl McCollum, and I may be projecting, but
15:08
Speaker 1: I have a little niece and that is a poet,
15:11
Speaker 1: and she's published. She's wonderful, and she will go on
15:18
Speaker 1: I think they call them fellowships or and they take
15:24
Speaker 1: you out of your environment where you live. So it's
15:29
Speaker 1: like a sabbatical. I guess for professors, it rejuvenates your creativity.
15:34
Speaker 1: You're out of your rut, so to speak, and it
15:38
Speaker 1: ignites your writing. So I'm just wondering if that's the
15:42
Speaker 1: reason she didn't plan a trip to go dog sledding
15:47
Speaker 1: or to see a glacier because she was focusing on
15:50
Speaker 1: a getaway where she could look out her window and
15:54
Speaker 1: see the ocean and work on her poetry. I think
15:57
Speaker 1: that's entirely possible. Plus, Cheryl, this was a spur of
16:00
Speaker 1: them of a decision. She didn't have her daughter, she
16:03
Speaker 1: could take time off, and she took off on this curse.
16:06
Speaker 1: She didn't even talk to anybody about It was the
16:08
Speaker 1: last minute purchase on her credit card. She barely packed
16:11
Speaker 1: a thing and took off. So given that scenario, Cheryl,
16:17
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised she didn't plan to, you know, go
16:20
Speaker 1: what do you say, ziplining somewhere on a short excursion. Well,
16:24
Speaker 1: I think you're making an excellent point. But again, it
16:27
Speaker 1: seems like she would have gone in and out of
16:29
Speaker 1: her room because up on the Lido deck you can
16:33
Speaker 1: see whale, you can see puffin, you can see all
16:36
Speaker 1: of these incredible animals, eagles, seals. It seems like she
16:41
Speaker 1: would have still gone in and out of her room
16:43
Speaker 1: at nauseam to experience just things on board. Well, you're
16:48
Speaker 1: right about that, and I'm wondering about that sea pass.
16:52
Speaker 1: Does it open and shut your door as well or
16:57
Speaker 1: is it just for things that you have to buy?
17:00
Speaker 1: But you would have a record of her entering her
17:03
Speaker 1: room because it's still going to be electronic. She never
17:06
Speaker 1: left that. Yeah, you're right, guys, take a listen. I
17:10
Speaker 1: find this very very telling. This is Matt Durannic Crime
17:14
Speaker 1: Watch Daily. Private investigators eventually learned the last activity on
17:18
Speaker 1: her shipboard account was for room service the second night
17:21
Speaker 1: of the cruise. The steward reported Marian missing two days
17:26
Speaker 1: into the cruise and says she wasn't using her room
17:30
Speaker 1: and kept reporting her daily. When the Carver's investigators finally
17:34
Speaker 1: tracked him down, the cabin steward revealed that on the
17:37
Speaker 1: final day of the cruise, after all passengers had left
17:41
Speaker 1: the ship, he was told to pack up Marian's belongings
17:44
Speaker 1: and take her handbag and put it in storage. It
17:49
Speaker 1: would have been so easy for the cruise lines to say, hey,
17:53
Speaker 1: here's the steward doctor, and I want to do that.
17:57
Speaker 1: I think you'll go away. Marian's phone asked Royal Caribbean
18:01
Speaker 1: for her belongings to be returned, but never got those either.
18:05
Speaker 1: We finally got an email saying that they took her items.
18:09
Speaker 1: So we're in the room and disposed of crime stories
18:21
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. For those of you just joining us,
18:25
Speaker 1: we're talking about the highly unusual disappearance of Marion Carver
18:30
Speaker 1: and a young American mom who goes on a cruise
18:33
Speaker 1: solo and has never seen alive again. Are you telling
18:36
Speaker 1: me that the steward. A steward is a guy or
18:40
Speaker 1: a woman that comes to your room on and off
18:43
Speaker 1: all day and all night to check on your room
18:45
Speaker 1: to see if you need anything, to kind of not
18:48
Speaker 1: just clean your room up, but take care of you
18:50
Speaker 1: and your family if you want to arrange something on land,
18:56
Speaker 1: or if you want a special meal, or you want
18:58
Speaker 1: to make a reservation. So the steward reported she had
19:02
Speaker 1: not been a room since day two. Yeah, that's one
19:04
Speaker 1: of the sad things about this case, man. See, one
19:07
Speaker 1: of the many sad things is the stewart actually seemed
19:09
Speaker 1: to really care about her. He reported her missing every
19:13
Speaker 1: single day from the time he noticed she hadn't been
19:16
Speaker 1: in a room and hadn't slept there and Finally, we
19:19
Speaker 1: was just told by a supervisor to shut up and
19:21
Speaker 1: do his job. So he actually really tried. The steward
19:25
Speaker 1: actually really tried to get help and raise an alert,
19:28
Speaker 1: and he would just rebuff. You know, isn't it true
19:32
Speaker 1: to Cheryl McCullum that the most critical hours after someone
19:39
Speaker 1: is kidnapped are the very first hours where this steward
19:44
Speaker 1: kept saying something's wrong. She hasn't come back to her room,
19:48
Speaker 1: she's not in here, she's not using her key card.
19:51
Speaker 1: Why are those first hours so critical, Cheryl? Is the
19:55
Speaker 1: verse three. There's no doubt if somebody is going to
19:59
Speaker 1: be murdered, those first three hours are the most critical
20:03
Speaker 1: when someone goes missing. Here, what is so devastating to
20:08
Speaker 1: me is not just for evidentiary value, but for what
20:11
Speaker 1: her family would have gathered just because it belonged to her.
20:17
Speaker 1: You think about what's in your pocket book. You've got pictures,
20:20
Speaker 1: you've got keys, you've got maybe a work id. All
20:24
Speaker 1: of these things are going to become sentimental, like with
20:27
Speaker 1: your dad's idea from the railroad. You've cherished those things.
20:32
Speaker 1: So for somebody to take it and just discard it,
20:36
Speaker 1: that to me is sickening for that family. Take a
20:40
Speaker 1: listener friends at Primetime Lost at Sea. He made this
20:43
Speaker 1: videotape on the ship demonstrating the route from Marian's room
20:47
Speaker 1: to the nearest deck where she could have gone overboard.
20:51
Speaker 1: My report became, you know, kind of empty of content,
20:55
Speaker 1: but full of questions, questions as to why I couldn't
20:58
Speaker 1: interview these security manager for this camera system, of question
21:04
Speaker 1: after question why to Michael A. Winkleman Maritime Law, your
21:09
Speaker 1: cruise ship law specialist, you're hearing the voice of a
21:12
Speaker 1: private investigator. The family has to really deplete their life
21:17
Speaker 1: savings to hire an investigator to try to find out
21:22
Speaker 1: what happened, and instead a fine namely thing you get stonewalled. Well,
21:26
Speaker 1: I think, unfortunately that's relatively commonplace occurrence, and I think
21:30
Speaker 1: that has to do with the fact that this happened
21:32
Speaker 1: on a cruise ship. Did this happened in a hotel
21:34
Speaker 1: or this happen on land, You would have FBI, law enforcement,
21:38
Speaker 1: local regional, etc. That would be on the scene. But
21:40
Speaker 1: because this happened on a cruise ship, you just can't
21:43
Speaker 1: get on there without them giving you access. So there's
21:46
Speaker 1: this gigantic information in balance between what the cruise line
21:49
Speaker 1: knows and what the cruise line has versus what the
21:52
Speaker 1: general public knows. Now, that's up an ideal with on
21:54
Speaker 1: a daily basis. Our law firm has been doing it
21:56
Speaker 1: for fifty years. I've been doing it for fifteen years,
21:59
Speaker 1: so we're very well, you know, we know what to
22:01
Speaker 1: do in order to get the information. What happened to
22:04
Speaker 1: Marian happened about almost twenty years ago, so fortunately things
22:07
Speaker 1: have changed. One of the big things is the fact
22:09
Speaker 1: that the video cameras are everywhere. Nancy, in all the
22:11
Speaker 1: cases that I have Farrow, probably about seventy five percent
22:14
Speaker 1: of them have video footage of a fall, an assault,
22:18
Speaker 1: things of that nature. So that really helps you put
22:20
Speaker 1: together the pieces better. But the fact that you have
22:24
Speaker 1: international crew members that are the crew members, it is
22:27
Speaker 1: often very hard to find them. For years, you would
22:29
Speaker 1: hear all these stories about if a crew member was
22:31
Speaker 1: a cruise of a rape or a crime or a
22:33
Speaker 1: sexual assault, before they were even turned over to the FBI,
22:36
Speaker 1: they were sent back home to the Philippines or to
22:39
Speaker 1: India or Indonesia and to never be found again. And
22:42
Speaker 1: you have an element in this story. So this is
22:45
Speaker 1: one of the big issues with one of the uniquenesses
22:47
Speaker 1: of maritime while because you have so much of an
22:49
Speaker 1: international nature to it, that definitely makes solving unsolved mysteries
22:54
Speaker 1: like Marian's that much harder, which is still unsolved to
22:58
Speaker 1: Jenny Morenette present International Cruise Victims ICV, and you can
23:03
Speaker 1: find her at International Cruise Victims dot org. That doesn't
23:07
Speaker 1: seem right. In the US, you and typically across the world,
23:12
Speaker 1: you have a police force and you don't have to
23:15
Speaker 1: pay them to investigate what happened to your loved one.
23:20
Speaker 1: They're paid by taxes. Here, this family had to run
23:24
Speaker 1: through their life savings for a private investigator to try
23:29
Speaker 1: to find out what happened to Mary. And that's not right, No,
23:32
Speaker 1: it is not. And there's such murky jurisdictional circumstances at
23:41
Speaker 1: see with you know who's in charge of the investigation. Well,
23:45
Speaker 1: you know, let's say if you're an American and it's
23:48
Speaker 1: the FBI, the FBI is not going to get on
23:51
Speaker 1: that ship typically until it comes back to the United States. Meanwhile,
23:56
Speaker 1: you know, all kinds of evidence is washed away, up,
24:00
Speaker 1: trampled over, what have you. So then when the FBI
24:04
Speaker 1: gets on the ship, they go, hey, we don't have
24:06
Speaker 1: enough evidence to convict anybody or to you know, open
24:09
Speaker 1: a case, and it's just gone, not at all like
24:13
Speaker 1: it would be on land. You know. That's that's one
24:16
Speaker 1: of the things that is most alarming about a crimate
24:21
Speaker 1: sea and Karen's Stark psychologist joining us out of Manhattan.
24:24
Speaker 1: It puts the family in even more devastation. The little
24:28
Speaker 1: girl loses her mother, the parents lose their daughter, and
24:31
Speaker 1: in the midst of all this morning they're going to
24:34
Speaker 1: have to run through everything they have saved for a
24:38
Speaker 1: lifetime trying to find out is she still alive, where
24:42
Speaker 1: is she and what happened? And I think about this
24:44
Speaker 1: little girl, that's she will never have an answer about
24:48
Speaker 1: what happened to her mom and the things that she
24:51
Speaker 1: could imagine about did she lead me, did she love me?
24:56
Speaker 1: And no, no kind of keepsake. As Cheryl said that
24:59
Speaker 1: you have stuff from your dad, I have stuff from
25:02
Speaker 1: my dad, and she's not going to be able to
25:05
Speaker 1: have anything that reminds her of her mother, which is
25:08
Speaker 1: something that most of us really treasure. Just thinking about
25:11
Speaker 1: what you said, of course, I'm just a JD, not
25:15
Speaker 1: an MD, not a shrink, but never knowing what happened
25:19
Speaker 1: to your mother, never knowing is she dead or is
25:23
Speaker 1: she alive? Did she just leave and leave me and
25:27
Speaker 1: leave our family and maybe she's got a whole new
25:30
Speaker 1: life in some exotic country. Those are the kind of
25:34
Speaker 1: thoughts this little girl maybe having I on the other hand,
25:38
Speaker 1: and having thoughts like did they just not preserve the
25:41
Speaker 1: evidence or did they actually cover up evidence? Take a
25:45
Speaker 1: listen to our friends at ABC's Prime Times. You kind
25:50
Speaker 1: of a rather basic thing. If you put two thousand
25:53
Speaker 1: people ownership, you ought to know of two thousand people
25:56
Speaker 1: cut off the ship. They didn't know that. They couldn't
25:59
Speaker 1: tell us. A Carver became more alarmed when they casually
26:02
Speaker 1: explained that Marian stopped using her room after the second night,
26:06
Speaker 1: and that her belongings remained in her cabin after everyone
26:09
Speaker 1: else got off the ship. They got rubed, most of
26:12
Speaker 1: her stuff, a goal wristlands, all of her clothes. We're
26:15
Speaker 1: gone Vannies. In effect, Marian Vannis from the Earth Royal
26:20
Speaker 1: Caribbean gave Marian's clothes to charity, and worst of all,
26:24
Speaker 1: told no one she was unaccounted for, not the police,
26:28
Speaker 1: not the family. She was gone and the purse in
26:32
Speaker 1: her name, So scurity numbered and everything. They just put
26:34
Speaker 1: it in stories, did nothing. That is amazing to me
26:39
Speaker 1: that all of her belongings would be given to charity
26:44
Speaker 1: and no one was ever notified, not the family, not
26:48
Speaker 1: the police, climb store with Nancy Grace. For those of
27:02
Speaker 1: you just joining us, you're hearing Marian Carver's dad say
27:06
Speaker 1: that doesn't make sense. You know, two thousand people got
27:09
Speaker 1: on the ship. Shouldn't you make sure that two thousand
27:12
Speaker 1: people get off the ship? I mean, it's this true
27:15
Speaker 1: to JH. Moncrief, documentarian of cruise ship Killers and author
27:20
Speaker 1: of Dragonfly Summer City of Ghosts, JH. There's no duty
27:26
Speaker 1: for the cruise line to alert family that their family
27:30
Speaker 1: member never made it off the cruise ship. There wasn't
27:33
Speaker 1: definitely when Marion disappeared. And I'm also it's not just
27:37
Speaker 1: about lots, also about morals. I'm wondering about like the
27:41
Speaker 1: supervisor of the steward that gave him trouble for always
27:44
Speaker 1: raising this. Apparently he asked for some of the belongings
27:48
Speaker 1: to be brought to his room fairly early and putting
27:51
Speaker 1: a storage locker, and when he was fired, he just
27:54
Speaker 1: disappeared with them. So there was a Manila envelope which
27:58
Speaker 1: we don't know what was in it, probably her writing,
28:00
Speaker 1: I'm guessing, and some money that she had that was
28:04
Speaker 1: never recovered. So, even just from a moral stamdpoint, how
28:07
Speaker 1: can you live with yourself knowing that you've at least
28:11
Speaker 1: participated in some sort of cover of So at this point,
28:15
Speaker 1: Sheryl McCullum, director and founder of the Cold Case Research Institute,
28:19
Speaker 1: how do you go about investigating a crime but all
28:23
Speaker 1: the evidence has been lost or given a charity, and
28:28
Speaker 1: possibly the perpetrator moved to another shape or another country. Naze.
28:32
Speaker 1: This is so mind boggling to even try to start,
28:37
Speaker 1: you know, from this time of you know when this happened.
28:41
Speaker 1: But here's the deal. You have got a crew line
28:45
Speaker 1: that already lied to you as for that the minute
28:50
Speaker 1: they told you that the tap taped over itself. After
28:54
Speaker 1: three days and you find out no, in fact, it's
28:57
Speaker 1: a month. Well, now you have to yourself, are they
29:01
Speaker 1: part of it? Is this a bigger cover up? Are
29:04
Speaker 1: they an accessory? After the fact? Did somebody do something
29:08
Speaker 1: to her? Because you look at little things like she
29:11
Speaker 1: bought a round trip ticket. Why would you do that
29:14
Speaker 1: if you weren't going back home? There you know, she
29:17
Speaker 1: had future plans. She was doing things because she enjoyed them,
29:21
Speaker 1: not because anything pointed to her ending rome. There's no
29:24
Speaker 1: evidence of that whatsoever. The only evidence is that she
29:29
Speaker 1: was planning to come home. She had a return trip.
29:31
Speaker 1: She was planning to see her daughter continue her work
29:35
Speaker 1: as a poet and an investment banker. Now this was
29:39
Speaker 1: on Alaskan Royal Caribbean Cruise line. But Michael A. Winkelman,
29:45
Speaker 1: maritime lawyer, an expert in cruise ship law, isn't that
29:49
Speaker 1: the same thing as celebrity weren't you telling me that before?
29:53
Speaker 1: I sure was, Nancy. You know, Celebrity Cruises is just
29:56
Speaker 1: a different brand within the Royal Cribbean umbrella, and that's
29:59
Speaker 1: very common in the industry. Royal Cribbian has Celebrity ships,
30:03
Speaker 1: will Caribbean ships, Regions seventies, and the same with Carnival.
30:07
Speaker 1: Carnival has like ten brands underneath its umbrella. So it's
30:10
Speaker 1: very common in the industry for their people. Okay, now
30:12
Speaker 1: wait a minute, Michael Winkleman, hold on, what did you
30:17
Speaker 1: just say, start with their So essentially you'll have the
30:22
Speaker 1: Royal Cribbian group, which they just renamed themselves and under
30:25
Speaker 1: that umbrella, there's a handful of different cruise lines. You've
30:29
Speaker 1: got Royal Cribbian Cruises, which are that gigantic ships. You've
30:32
Speaker 1: got Celebrity Cruises, which are slightly smaller ships. You've got
30:36
Speaker 1: Azamara Cruises, which is supposed to be more of like
30:38
Speaker 1: adventure type cruises. And it's the exact same thing with
30:41
Speaker 1: Carnival Corporation. They've got Carnival, They've got Princess, They've got
30:45
Speaker 1: Holland America, they've got Seaborn. So that's nothing new in
30:49
Speaker 1: the industry. Wow, did you know all of those crews? Okay,
30:53
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, So I'm learning. And what that
30:56
Speaker 1: says to me as a lawyer is there are more
30:59
Speaker 1: layer you have to go through before you finally get
31:02
Speaker 1: to the top or you finally get to the truth.
31:05
Speaker 1: And speaking of the truth, I want you to take
31:07
Speaker 1: a listen to our friends at A and E Cruise
31:10
Speaker 1: Ship Nightmare Journeys. Ken Carver is founder of ICV International
31:15
Speaker 1: Cruise Victims, a group of people who have been directly
31:19
Speaker 1: affected by crime, accidents, and poor medical practices on cruise ships.
31:25
Speaker 1: Ken began the organization after his daughter Marian disappeared from
31:29
Speaker 1: a Royal Caribbean cruise to Alaska under sworn deposition. Her
31:35
Speaker 1: cabin steward said that for five days he reported her missing,
31:39
Speaker 1: he was told to continue to make up her room.
31:42
Speaker 1: They took her belongings at the end of the cruise,
31:44
Speaker 1: and the steward said to his boss, what should we
31:47
Speaker 1: do with the items in the room. He said, just
31:49
Speaker 1: put them in a bay and put them in my locker,
31:53
Speaker 1: at which point they got round of them. So her
31:56
Speaker 1: items were put in a bag and put in a
31:59
Speaker 1: locker and ultimately disappeared. Do I have that right? JH moncrief,
32:04
Speaker 1: what more can you tell us? Yeah? You do. Sadly, Nancy,
32:08
Speaker 1: It's really hard to fathom what was going through this
32:11
Speaker 1: person's mind when he decided to give away her belongings.
32:16
Speaker 1: Another thing we know is that she only apparently packed
32:19
Speaker 1: one dress and one pair of shoes, so she had
32:23
Speaker 1: very minimal items with her. She had no suitcases, she
32:26
Speaker 1: only had two hand eggs. So this is what allowed
32:30
Speaker 1: the cruise ship to say that, oh, she didn't plan
32:32
Speaker 1: to ever return because she didn't pack that much, which
32:35
Speaker 1: I find very ludicrous. It wasn't that long a cruise.
32:39
Speaker 1: If she just did this spur of the moment, and
32:42
Speaker 1: it hadn't put a lot of planning into it, just
32:44
Speaker 1: decided the last minute to go. She wouldn't necessarily have
32:47
Speaker 1: brought that much. I don't think that that really proves
32:49
Speaker 1: anything as to her mindset. Now, I don't think that
32:52
Speaker 1: proves anything as well. JH. As a matter of fact,
32:55
Speaker 1: Cheryl McCollum, my family laughs at me a lot because
32:57
Speaker 1: we'd go on trips and Lucy, my little girl, takes
33:00
Speaker 1: his huge She's the smallest one. She weighs maybe one
33:04
Speaker 1: hundred pounds. Wit soaking wit. She takes his huge bag.
33:10
Speaker 1: Then my husband takes a regular bag, John David takes
33:13
Speaker 1: a little Duffel bag. I put everything I'm carrying and
33:17
Speaker 1: a backpack with my laptop on my back. That's it.
33:21
Speaker 1: That's the whole thing. So this means nothing to me
33:25
Speaker 1: that she packed so lightly. As a matter of fact, Cheryl,
33:30
Speaker 1: take a listen to our cut seventeen, our friends at
33:34
Speaker 1: lost at Primetime, Lost at Sea. All along the way
33:40
Speaker 1: they've been lying to us, you know, and leading this
33:43
Speaker 1: down path. And I said, it's comfortable to lose a
33:48
Speaker 1: carter damning with the cover up. Carver says, these Royal
33:54
Speaker 1: Caribbean documents are evidence of a cover up. This shows
33:58
Speaker 1: the company taking great pains to make sure that Domingo
34:01
Speaker 1: did not speak with anybody in this memo. Royal Caribbean
34:06
Speaker 1: checks with fourteen different employees to make sure Domingo hasn't
34:10
Speaker 1: spoken to outside sources. We showed the document to Royal
34:14
Speaker 1: Caribbean's attorney, Jeffrey Maltzman. He says it's no big deal,
34:18
Speaker 1: so chery will call again. Alaskan and Royal Caribbean Cruise
34:22
Speaker 1: Line denies any and all wrongdoing. But if you're listening
34:27
Speaker 1: to what the father says, Marian's father, not only was
34:30
Speaker 1: evidence lost, it was covered up. How are you going
34:33
Speaker 1: to ever put that together again? It's like humpty dumpty.
34:37
Speaker 1: The first time they lied, they did something wrong. When
34:41
Speaker 1: they got rid of her belongings, they did something wrong.
34:45
Speaker 1: They knew there was going to be no connection between
34:48
Speaker 1: them and the last movement of this young lady. They
34:53
Speaker 1: knew it. There's no video except her entering the ship.
34:58
Speaker 1: There's no other video of her one down the hallway,
35:01
Speaker 1: for going to the deck to observe the views, or exiting.
35:05
Speaker 1: They don't have any of that. They don't have herself
35:09
Speaker 1: where maybe she wrote something down or they said she
35:12
Speaker 1: left a generous tip. I mean she was clearly involved
35:16
Speaker 1: in talking to this steward and enjoying his company, and
35:19
Speaker 1: he knew you know that she didn't want to go
35:21
Speaker 1: to the cafeteria or the Studdenhall whatnot. So to me,
35:25
Speaker 1: there are factors here that they not just ignored, but
35:30
Speaker 1: they purposely got rid of so that DOT could not
35:35
Speaker 1: be connected to jash Moncrief. Where does the case stand now? Unfortunately,
35:40
Speaker 1: there are no answers in this case. There were remains
35:44
Speaker 1: that washed up in Canada and for a time it
35:47
Speaker 1: was believed it might be Merriam, but that's never been confirmed.
35:50
Speaker 1: So as of now, we really still have no answers
35:53
Speaker 1: about what happened to her. And I can't even imagine
35:57
Speaker 1: what this has been like for her family, what was
35:59
Speaker 1: like for her father before he passed away with the
36:01
Speaker 1: light for her daughter, it's heartbreaking. Before you leave this
36:05
Speaker 1: summer on a cruise, I implore you go to International
36:09
Speaker 1: Cruise Victims Dot Org. We wait as justice and fols
36:18
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace Crime story signing off goodbye friend,