Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Cruise ship catastrophe/Death on the high seas. 'Don't Be A Victim'

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Cruise ship catastrophe/Death on the high seas. 'Don't Be A Victim' · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We now have information that
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Speaker 1: post COVID cruise lines are back in business, at least
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Speaker 1: some of them. And I've got to tell you, some
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Speaker 1: of the best vacations I've ever been on was taking
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Speaker 1: the children, my twins, John, David and Lucy on Disney cruises.
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Speaker 1: But here's the butt, don't be a victim fight back
0:35
Speaker 1: against America's crime way. When you set sail and you
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Speaker 1: push off from port and had out on your adventure,
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Speaker 1: you need to know how to stay safe on a
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Speaker 1: cruise ship. The very first story I mentioned in Cruise
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Speaker 1: Ship Catastrophes in this knee book proceeds going to National
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Speaker 1: Center Missing Exploited Children. The first name I mentioned is
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Speaker 1: George Smith. And here's why. Take a listen to our
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Speaker 1: friend at CBS. Maureen and George Smith have grieved for
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Speaker 1: a decade ever since their twenty six year old son
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Speaker 1: vanished on his honeymoon cruise in the aganc He left
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Speaker 1: behind a huge bloodstain beneath his balcony and a boatload
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Speaker 1: of intrigue. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever
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Speaker 1: that my son was murdered on that cruise ship. The
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Speaker 1: story of George Smith's last hours began with a shipboard
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Speaker 1: police interview. Turkish police had gathered the last men known
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Speaker 1: to see George alive. The men claimed that after a
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Speaker 1: night of partying, they had tucked George into bed and
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Speaker 1: left his cabin after we dropped him off. Never saw
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Speaker 1: again and said star a story. I never saw them again.
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Speaker 1: No one has ever been charged in connection with George's death.
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Speaker 1: This past January, the FBI announced it was officially closing
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Speaker 1: the case. They just closed it without an answer. I
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Speaker 1: just I guess what got tired of working on it.
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Speaker 1: Look at this picture. I love this picture. This is
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Speaker 1: a George Smith and his bride. Oops, I lost it.
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Speaker 1: Jennifer Hegel and that is just before he's never seen again.
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Speaker 1: There it is, let me try it again. Just she's beautiful,
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Speaker 1: he's handsome. I have met repeatedly with his mother and
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Speaker 1: sister who have sought justice for all this time, and
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Speaker 1: now we learned the FBI is just dropping the case.
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Speaker 1: What because the cold, so they just drop it. Cruise
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Speaker 1: ships can be wonderful or they can be frightening. With
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Speaker 1: me an all star panel to break it down and
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Speaker 1: put it back together again, joining me Troy Slayton, renowned
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Speaker 1: criminal defense attorney joining us out of LA Doctor Angela
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Speaker 1: Arnold Psychiatrists joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. You
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Speaker 1: can find her at Angela Arnold MD dot com. Cloyd
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Speaker 1: Steiger thirty six years Seattle, pt. Twenty two of those
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Speaker 1: on homicide. Author of Seattle's Forgotten serial Killer, Gary Jane Grant.
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Speaker 1: He's at Cloyd Steiger dot com. Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University,
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Speaker 1: author of Blood Beneath My Feet, and the new star
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Speaker 1: of a hit series on True Crime Network Poisonous Liaisons
3:47
Speaker 1: Crime Online dot com. Investigative reporter Levi Page. Kathleen and
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Speaker 1: Michael Castenellis mother and father of cruise ship victim Beautiful
3:58
Speaker 1: Young Girl Aki casttion Ellis. But first to special guest
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Speaker 1: Jamie Barnett, the mother of Ashley Barnett, cruise ship victim
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Speaker 1: and the President of International Cruise Victims at International Cruise
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Speaker 1: Victims dot Org, the group founded by George Smith after
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Speaker 1: his son died on a cruise ship. First to you, Jamie,
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Speaker 1: I know you are intimately familiar with the George Smith case.
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Speaker 1: Just twenty six years old, I still remember the name
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Speaker 1: of the ship. It was a brilliance of the Seas, correct.
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Speaker 1: I believe you're right, and it was a really upscale
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Speaker 1: cruise line. I mean, when I'm shopping for cruises with
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Speaker 1: the twins, I go with Disney, of course, because it's
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Speaker 1: all kid related. It's not singles who were drunk and
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Speaker 1: ready to mingle. You get on with mostly with children,
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Speaker 1: So I like that atmosphere for the children. But I
5:01
Speaker 1: looked at other cruise lines and some of them are
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Speaker 1: tens of thousands of dollars more expensive, So you you
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Speaker 1: the Brilliance of the Seas was a top end cruise line.
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Speaker 1: What happened, Jamie, when George goes missing? The only thing
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Speaker 1: left was a trail of blood, you know. And as
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Speaker 1: tragic as George's story is the fact that the the
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Speaker 1: FBI closed the case and they have no closure, no answers,
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Speaker 1: is in itself not unusual for any of us who
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Speaker 1: have lost loved ones on cruises by suspicious activity. Are
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Speaker 1: unknown incidences, that is just a mystery. We're all left
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Speaker 1: like that, every one of us. I almost really happened.
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Speaker 1: I almost did a let me just say, bitter ironic
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Speaker 1: laugh when I heard our friend Robert Schlessinger at CBS
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Speaker 1: say the Turkish police, right, Really, that's like saying the
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Speaker 1: Mexican police, dai, Yeah, nothing's going to happen. They do
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Speaker 1: not care about a dead American on an expensive cruise ship.
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Speaker 1: Don't care the passengers and the George Smith case. Where
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Speaker 1: all let go the events surrounding the night George Smith
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Speaker 1: was murdered. His body has never been found. Can you
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Speaker 1: even imagine that? I mean, doctor Angela Arnold psychiatrists. I
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Speaker 1: know what happened to my fiance, Keith. He was murdered.
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Speaker 1: He left a work site on a construction crew at
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Speaker 1: lunch to go get everybody's soft drinks to go with
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Speaker 1: their lunch at I guess seven to eleven comes back
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Speaker 1: and a guy that was fired off the work site
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Speaker 1: before Keith started working there. It was waiting at the
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Speaker 1: gate and unloaded when he saw the company truck come
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Speaker 1: back in and he shot Keith five times in the head,
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Speaker 1: the neck, the face, and the back. I know what happened,
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Speaker 1: at least I know if that's any conspiration. The Smith
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Speaker 1: family has no idea what happened to their son, George,
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Speaker 1: who's about the age of Keith. When he's murdered on
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Speaker 1: a cruise ship. All they have is a trail of blood,
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Speaker 1: nobody know nothing. How awful is that? And you're hearing
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Speaker 1: Jamie Burnette with International Cruise Victims dot Org say that's
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Speaker 1: what happens. You never get answers right, and I mean
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Speaker 1: imagine Nancy, you never have any closure either. There's always
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Speaker 1: got to be that thought in your head that maybe
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Speaker 1: they're out there somewhere. You never have. It is so
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Speaker 1: unfair to happen to a family because they can never
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Speaker 1: fully recover from that and move on with their brief
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Speaker 1: process the way they should and get and get to
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Speaker 1: the point of acceptance, because there's always that hole that's missing,
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Speaker 1: that unknown of what happened, and where is thought that
8:00
Speaker 1: I might still be out there somewhere with amnesia or
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Speaker 1: god knows what to leavipage Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter.
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Speaker 1: We're starting with George Smith. There's so many cases of
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Speaker 1: people being murdered at sea and the investigation falling through
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Speaker 1: the cracks because think about it, the US authorities are
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Speaker 1: not in control. This is an international waters or on
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Speaker 1: another country's borders, so we're not in charge, so we
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Speaker 1: can't guarantee the safety of the victim or the police
8:36
Speaker 1: investigation crime stories with Nancy Grace, or starting off with
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Speaker 1: the story of George Smith. Today to you Leavi Page,
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Speaker 1: I want to go through what happened to George. But
9:01
Speaker 1: in the new book, don't be a victim fighting back
9:04
Speaker 1: against America's crime way. It's not to scare you, is
9:07
Speaker 1: to arm you with evidence. My very first tip after
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Speaker 1: telling George Smith's story, and this is not casting blame
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Speaker 1: on anybody. You're on a ship in the middle of
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Speaker 1: the sea. What's going to happen? But first, don't get drunk.
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Speaker 1: I've given this tip more than once, but it bears repeating.
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Speaker 1: Think back to missing Groom. This is this honeymoon dream
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Speaker 1: honeymoon George Smith. While we're not exactly sure what happened,
9:35
Speaker 1: we know at least every witness account includes heavy drinking
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Speaker 1: that night, specifically Absinth Jess Goot Morgan once Absinthe Absence
9:46
Speaker 1: is actually a liquor that was originally developed in the
9:49
Speaker 1: Al Saints Lorraine region of a Swiss of Switzerland and France,
9:54
Speaker 1: and was derived from a plant called the wormwood. Some
9:56
Speaker 1: people actually call it being visited by the green fair,
10:00
Speaker 1: and in the past they would put little drops of
10:02
Speaker 1: opiate in it, and what it does is it gives
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Speaker 1: this real euphoric feeling, Nancy, where you're real loose and
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Speaker 1: malleable to things that are around you. And it has
10:13
Speaker 1: previously been a very scary drink in some company some countries,
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Speaker 1: is actually outlawed for people that's try but was not
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Speaker 1: outlawed on Brilliance of the Seas. What happened to Levi
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Speaker 1: Page that night? You got a groom? He's left his wedding.
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Speaker 1: He's left for his dream honeymoon with his wife, Jennifer,
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Speaker 1: beautiful girl. What happened so Nancy. It's July two thousand
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Speaker 1: and five. He is on the Royal Caribbean International Cruise
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Speaker 1: ship MS Brilliance of the Sea. He married his wife,
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Speaker 1: Jennifer Hegel, eleven days earlier. They're both in their mid
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Speaker 1: twenties and they're on the ship. There were stops in Greece, Turkey, Italy,
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Speaker 1: and he vanished. There was blood found in his cabin
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Speaker 1: as well as on the side of the ship that
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Speaker 1: indicated foul play. We know that the night that he vanished,
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Speaker 1: he had a fight with his new wife. She was
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Speaker 1: seen with him at the Starquest Disco and she left him.
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Speaker 1: She passed out on a deck hallway. Security officers found her.
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Speaker 1: They woke her up by pressing ice cubes to her face,
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Speaker 1: and they had to return her to their cabin in
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Speaker 1: a wheelchair. And George was not there. And The New
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Speaker 1: York Post reported in twenty twelve Nancy that the matter
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Speaker 1: had been referred to the Mafia division of the FBI,
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Speaker 1: and some had speculated that this was a robbery gone
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Speaker 1: bad because George had been gambling, and we know that
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Speaker 1: there was an American named Josh Askin. He was looked into,
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Speaker 1: along with two Russian men, Greg Rosenberg and Zach Rosenberg.
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Speaker 1: He'd been dreaming heavily with them gambling. But the Connecticut
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Speaker 1: FBI in twenty fifteen they closed the case and are
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Speaker 1: no longer investing. That is a heartbreak. Jamie Barnett, mother
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Speaker 1: of Ashley Barnett, another cruise ship victim, and president of
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Speaker 1: International Cruise of Victims dot Org. The thing is, it's
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Speaker 1: not the victim's fault. He was on his honeymoon, His
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Speaker 1: wife and he had been drinking at the bar with
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Speaker 1: their new friends on the Brilliance of the Seas. She
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Speaker 1: could not take the absent and she passed it. They
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Speaker 1: had a fuss, which often happens when everybody's drunk. They
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Speaker 1: have a fuss. She stomps away. She passes out from
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Speaker 1: the absinthe, and somebody finds her hours later, still passed out,
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Speaker 1: same clothes she had on at the bar. They have
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Speaker 1: to wheel her back to the room. This significance of
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Speaker 1: this is she is not a suspect at all, period
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Speaker 1: end of story. And she gets back, it's wheeled back.
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Speaker 1: He's already gone, it's over. He's already dead. The next morning,
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Speaker 1: looking for him, she sounds the alarm. Where is he?
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Speaker 1: And when you look out their window, there's a balcony.
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Speaker 1: It's high up for safety reasons. Look down and Jamie Barnett,
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Speaker 1: isn't it true that you see a trail of blood?
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Speaker 1: A lot of blood? Is George Smith's blood? Correct? Correct
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Speaker 1: and age go ahead. No, I just I can't imagine
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Speaker 1: the scene and what she the kind of thoughts that
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Speaker 1: must have been going through her head, and what all
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Speaker 1: she knew and didn't know the reality is that the rail.
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Speaker 1: You'd have to be an Olympic gymnast, you have to
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Speaker 1: be naughtya komanichi get over that rail, or for her
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Speaker 1: to throw him over that rail. So someone strong enough
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Speaker 1: to throw George Smith over that reil, I think pushed
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Speaker 1: him over, and then he hit a series of objects
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Speaker 1: as he went into the sea. That is the thinking
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Speaker 1: body never recovered what happened. Don't get drunk too always true,
14:25
Speaker 1: but bears repeating. Be careful who buys or brings you
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Speaker 1: drink drinks. Never take a drink from a stranger. Always
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Speaker 1: get your drink directly from the bartender and guarded at
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Speaker 1: all times. Never agree to be walked to your room
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Speaker 1: by someone you've just met, especially after you've been drinking.
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Speaker 1: Keep your wits right, your deck and cabin number on
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Speaker 1: a piece of paper and put it in your pocket
14:50
Speaker 1: in case drinks impair your memory. Can I tell you something,
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Speaker 1: Royce Layton, You're never going to believe this, But when
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Speaker 1: I took the twins on a Disney crew, you know, John,
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Speaker 1: David and I got separated. This is what happened. We
15:06
Speaker 1: incidentally met a friend from school who's in the twins class,
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Speaker 1: a little boy, and they all wanted to go to
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Speaker 1: the tween hang out. Troy. Can I tell you how
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Speaker 1: many times I said, they cannot leave until I come
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Speaker 1: get them Okay. It was written in and they have
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Speaker 1: all the safety watches on and everything. You can't come
15:28
Speaker 1: in or come out unless you hit a button and
15:31
Speaker 1: it shows your room and your name and all that.
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Speaker 1: So that was understood. My husband egged me on to
15:38
Speaker 1: let them be free for a couple of hours. So
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Speaker 1: I'm like, okay. Lucy had been there for about an
15:45
Speaker 1: hour and call me on the ship walkie talking that
15:49
Speaker 1: she was ready to come home. I went and got hurt.
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Speaker 1: John David stayed with his little friend, a guy to
15:54
Speaker 1: be ten o'clock. That's when they were supposed to be
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Speaker 1: done Troy. So I called the Tween Zone place and
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Speaker 1: there's no John David there. Well, you know, I nearly
16:08
Speaker 1: did a back flip. I had on my Pj's T
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Speaker 1: shirt and Jim Schwartz barefoot. My husband he said, I'll
16:16
Speaker 1: go because he knew he was in hot water. So
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Speaker 1: he goes, and I couldn't. I couldn't take it. I
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Speaker 1: could just imagine someone luring him into their room and
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Speaker 1: him being thrown over like George Smith. So I grabbed
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Speaker 1: little Lucy and I'm dragging her. We're running up and
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Speaker 1: down this huge Disney ship looking for John David, and
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Speaker 1: I'll never forget the moment when I saw him at
16:42
Speaker 1: a distance. I'll never get over that scare. And this
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Speaker 1: is what had happened, Troy. The other mother came and
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Speaker 1: got her son, and John David said, oh, I'm gonna
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Speaker 1: go too, and he walked with them to their room.
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Speaker 1: And it wasn't that far to our room. But I
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Speaker 1: knew none of that, and the employees thought that was
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Speaker 1: his mom. That's how it happened. But Troy, on cruise ships,
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Speaker 1: people let their guard down. They're not cognizant of what's
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Speaker 1: happening around them. They think it's everybody's there just a party,
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Speaker 1: just like them and have a good time. That's not
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Speaker 1: always true, Troy. It's not a booze. Cruise can get
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Speaker 1: very dangerous. You're out there on the high seas, and
17:27
Speaker 1: everybody needs to be villad vigilant and look out for
17:31
Speaker 1: themselves so that way we don't have a tragedy like
17:35
Speaker 1: happened here. Troy, Can you just get real for one moment, please,
17:39
Speaker 1: And you know you're a very successful defense lawyer, but
17:42
Speaker 1: take off your defense hat just for one moment and
17:44
Speaker 1: tell the people the truth. Would you really trust Let's
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Speaker 1: just say the Turkish police or the Mexican police investigating
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Speaker 1: the disappearance of your child. Absolutely no, absolutely no. But
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Speaker 1: I do have more faith in the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
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Speaker 1: the FBI, who was involved here, who heavily investigated the kid.
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Speaker 1: I do have more faith than them. But the problem
18:08
Speaker 1: with their investigation is they had to rely on what
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Speaker 1: the Turkish police did at the scene at the time.
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Speaker 1: They weren't there, So they're basically screwed because the Turkish
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Speaker 1: police mess the whole thing up. Crime stories with Nancy Grace, Guys,
18:36
Speaker 1: we're talking about staying safe while on a cruise. It's
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Speaker 1: the mindset. You're out there with all these people to
18:43
Speaker 1: have fun, a lot of drinking going on. You're a
18:47
Speaker 1: little careless because the same rules in your mind don't
18:51
Speaker 1: apply like when you're home. That is so wrong. And
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Speaker 1: I tell you all about it, and don't be a victim.
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Speaker 1: Fighting back against America's crime wave not to scare you,
19:01
Speaker 1: but to arm you with facts to help you stay
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Speaker 1: safe and protect your children. Take a listen, but first
19:12
Speaker 1: hold on. Let me go to Kathleen and Mike Castnellis,
19:15
Speaker 1: who have been through hell and back. How did your
19:21
Speaker 1: daughter Jackie end up performing on a cruise ship. Well,
19:26
Speaker 1: she was in the New York City waitressing, waitressing on
19:32
Speaker 1: her way to becoming a star, and yep, no, she
19:37
Speaker 1: went to some open call auditions and this was one
19:41
Speaker 1: of them for this high end cruise line, and lo
19:46
Speaker 1: and behold, they called her back. They liked what they
19:48
Speaker 1: saw on her and booked her onto the first of
19:53
Speaker 1: what turned out to be three cruises over the course
19:59
Speaker 1: of the next a year and a half. And that
20:04
Speaker 1: was her really her first big break doing what she
20:07
Speaker 1: loved doing, which was singing and performing. You know, it's interesting.
20:11
Speaker 1: I remember after Dancing with the Stars, I was invited
20:15
Speaker 1: to go in and Dancing with the Stars cruise, which
20:17
Speaker 1: I thought would be awesome fun. But the children had
20:20
Speaker 1: already been away for a year living in LA and
20:23
Speaker 1: it was time for school to start, and so we
20:27
Speaker 1: ki boshed the cruise. But I found out that a
20:30
Speaker 1: lot of stars and stage performers start on cruise ships.
20:37
Speaker 1: You know what I heard just then, Cloyd Steiger. I
20:40
Speaker 1: heard mister Castronellis say, Jackie's dad say it was a
20:44
Speaker 1: high end cruise line. So is George Smith's. So are
20:49
Speaker 1: the ones that we're talking about and I noticed that
20:52
Speaker 1: when people talk about neighborhoods like it was a gated community,
20:55
Speaker 1: crime happens everywhere. Cloyd Steiger. Yeah, you're right about that.
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Speaker 1: The fact that it's a high end cruise ship, maybe
21:02
Speaker 1: a person booking enter these, but you know it's maybe
21:06
Speaker 1: it's also again getting into the complacency that it puts you,
21:10
Speaker 1: so you trust too much when you go on those cruises.
21:13
Speaker 1: If you were on a kind of a cheesier cruise,
21:16
Speaker 1: you might have your your alert up a little higher.
21:19
Speaker 1: But yeah, just because it says high end people, people
21:22
Speaker 1: do things. A matter of fact, they may target critters
21:25
Speaker 1: may target those kind of ships. That's a good point,
21:27
Speaker 1: Colloyd Steiger. Back to Jackie, Back to Jackie's parents, let
21:35
Speaker 1: me ask you, guys, how did you find out your
21:38
Speaker 1: daughter had died? Well, actually got a phone call from
21:44
Speaker 1: Gene and Ryan from Gene and Ryan Productions, which is
21:47
Speaker 1: the talent agency that m did the auditions for Region
21:52
Speaker 1: Cruise Lines. So it was Gene and Ryan and we
21:56
Speaker 1: were out for the evening and she all our home
22:01
Speaker 1: and she tried ourselves that it was noisy in the restaurant,
22:03
Speaker 1: so we didn't pick up. So unfortunately, my oldest son
22:07
Speaker 1: took the phone call and called us and told us
22:10
Speaker 1: to get home. So that was about ten thirty at
22:13
Speaker 1: night that we got that call, and gene Anne Ryan
22:19
Speaker 1: didn't really know any more details except that Jackie was dead.
22:25
Speaker 1: You know, that feeling of helplessness because she was so
22:29
Speaker 1: far away and you were not getting enough information about
22:33
Speaker 1: what happened. I cannot even imagine that now you were
22:37
Speaker 1: given information that she died a young girl of natural
22:43
Speaker 1: causes in her sleep. She's just twenty four years old.
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Speaker 1: The information that you were given about how your daughter died,
22:50
Speaker 1: does it match up what you know? Regent being a
22:54
Speaker 1: high end cruise line, she had to undergo each contract
22:58
Speaker 1: a full physical, I mean so in depth, blood work,
23:04
Speaker 1: cart checks, echo, cardiogram check everything. And there's no signs
23:13
Speaker 1: on the sheets or the bed that she passed there.
23:18
Speaker 1: It was clean. I mean, she's tucked in, which is
23:23
Speaker 1: unlike her and and the cabin access records, which are
23:28
Speaker 1: the only objective evidence they had that they didn't seem
23:31
Speaker 1: to have any video. Do not agree with the storyline
23:34
Speaker 1: that they've put in the record. There's absolutely no agreement there.
23:39
Speaker 1: That sounds very unusual to me. Joseph Scott Morgan, you're
23:41
Speaker 1: the professor of forensics. She was in perfect health, a performer,
23:46
Speaker 1: age twenty four, no history of ailments, nothing at all.
23:52
Speaker 1: And they say she died in her sleep by herself,
23:56
Speaker 1: in her bed. The sheets were perfectly she was tucked
24:01
Speaker 1: in like you would do a child, no sign of struggle, nothing.
24:08
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense to me, Joe Scott Morgan, No,
24:11
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Young healthy people don't just drop over dead.
24:15
Speaker 1: They just don't, as we used to say, wake up dead.
24:18
Speaker 1: For instance, it's not something that you walk into a
24:21
Speaker 1: room and you think that things are normal. In this
24:24
Speaker 1: instance where you have this vibrant twenty four year old,
24:27
Speaker 1: it's obviously physically capable of traveling around the world on
24:30
Speaker 1: a cruise ship and performing, and then suddenly she's dead,
24:33
Speaker 1: that would bring us to ask questions. First off, was
24:36
Speaker 1: there any trauma to her body? Whatsoever? Was it noted?
24:39
Speaker 1: Did anybody make note of that. I'm not just talking
24:41
Speaker 1: about the bed, I'm physically talking about her body and
24:44
Speaker 1: what was going on with her From a chemical standpoint,
24:48
Speaker 1: what did she have in her system? Was a thorough
24:50
Speaker 1: toxicological examination done? And then probably finally I want to
24:55
Speaker 1: know at autopsy did she have any kind of congenital
24:57
Speaker 1: problems luck with her heart for instance, was there something
25:00
Speaker 1: going on with her heart that Sudley would bring about
25:03
Speaker 1: her death. I want to know if she had been raped,
25:06
Speaker 1: which is what you find out in an autopsy, which
25:08
Speaker 1: of course is going to be very difficult to do
25:11
Speaker 1: on a cruise ship. Back to the Castrinellis family with
25:14
Speaker 1: me Jackie's parents, Kathleen and Michael, either one of you,
25:20
Speaker 1: what more can you tell me about how she was
25:22
Speaker 1: found and the condition of her body. She was found
25:27
Speaker 1: From all appearances, she passed away in her sleep, in
25:31
Speaker 1: her her cabin, by herself, with no signs of any
25:37
Speaker 1: type of struggle or anything like that. Again, that's what
25:42
Speaker 1: we were told in the information we have from the
25:44
Speaker 1: initial crime scene photos and things like that that we
25:49
Speaker 1: do actually have now we've been assured by the people
25:54
Speaker 1: that have looked at that for us, Yeah, it appears
25:57
Speaker 1: that she passed peacefully in her sleep. But the initial reports,
26:03
Speaker 1: and this is what we kind of were hanging on to,
26:06
Speaker 1: and that was that she had hit her head a
26:09
Speaker 1: couple of days before, and that that was the situation
26:12
Speaker 1: that there was some type of head injury that went undetected,
26:17
Speaker 1: and that's what the press had been carrying in the process,
26:22
Speaker 1: and it turned out to be false. So everything they're
26:25
Speaker 1: learning to you, Jamie Barnett, mother of Ashley Barnett, another
26:29
Speaker 1: cruise ship victim, and the president of International Cruise of
26:33
Speaker 1: Victims dot Org, everything they're told turns out to be
26:37
Speaker 1: a lie. I find it very difficult to believe that
26:41
Speaker 1: this young girl just died by natural causes in her sleep,
26:45
Speaker 1: and then they find out everything else in the report
26:47
Speaker 1: is wrong. It's not unusual, though, Nancy, and that's what's
26:51
Speaker 1: so frightening. I'm listening to this story and it just
26:54
Speaker 1: horrifies me on one hand, but it also has an
26:59
Speaker 1: echo of so many cases that I know of where
27:03
Speaker 1: where the information is incomplete, inaccurate, and totally lacking. It
27:09
Speaker 1: is nothing like an investigation on land. If you if
27:13
Speaker 1: this had happened to her on land, it would have
27:15
Speaker 1: been an entirely different scenario. That is what is so frustrating,
27:20
Speaker 1: and the cruise line to do it over and over
27:23
Speaker 1: and over. As a matter of fact, Kathleen castan Ellis,
27:27
Speaker 1: there are discrepancies about who went in and out of
27:30
Speaker 1: your daughter's room. Right, Detective Henryson his first report to
27:34
Speaker 1: the coroner. There when he gave or whoever did to
27:38
Speaker 1: the autopsy doctor, and the way back of the report,
27:41
Speaker 1: I found his initial report that he handed to the
27:45
Speaker 1: autopsy doctor and said she swiped into her room at
27:49
Speaker 1: ten of one, and then there's an unaccounted for swipe
27:52
Speaker 1: at one forty am. Yeah, an unaccounted for swipes. So
27:58
Speaker 1: he called the second one counted for in his first
28:02
Speaker 1: like unexplained and unexplained swipe going into your daughter's room
28:07
Speaker 1: and they say it was natural. Causes crime stories with
28:23
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. Guys, please don't be a victim. Fight back
28:31
Speaker 1: against America's crime wave. I want you to have fun
28:35
Speaker 1: on your vacation like we do, but I want you
28:38
Speaker 1: to go on your trip with your eyes wide open.
28:44
Speaker 1: Money proceeds from this book going to National Center Missing
28:47
Speaker 1: Exploited Children. It is full of information to protect you,
28:52
Speaker 1: not scare you. Specifically, well, today we're talking about how
28:56
Speaker 1: you could be safe on cruises. Don't make it obvious
29:00
Speaker 1: you're alone that you've gone to your cabin alone. If
29:04
Speaker 1: you're traveling alone, make a friend early on. Who would
29:07
Speaker 1: notice if you're not around? It's the law of the jungle.
29:11
Speaker 1: Predators try to isolate prey from the herd then attack.
29:14
Speaker 1: There is safety in numbers. Don't wander around isolated or
29:19
Speaker 1: hidden areas of the ship by yourself. I was just
29:23
Speaker 1: on a cruise two years ago with the twins, and
29:26
Speaker 1: when we would go jogging or walking around the full deck,
29:29
Speaker 1: there's was one area on the far end where there
29:34
Speaker 1: would be nobody. It was inside, the rest was outside.
29:39
Speaker 1: But I noticed that Disney had put up cameras and
29:42
Speaker 1: emergency phones all along to a very short area for
29:45
Speaker 1: that reason, because it was isolated. Double your safety measures
29:50
Speaker 1: when walking at night. Just because you go to your
29:53
Speaker 1: cabin doesn't mean you're safe yet. Not all the room
29:57
Speaker 1: doors shut completely or automatically. There's so many things to
30:03
Speaker 1: keep yourself safe that you may never think of joining
30:07
Speaker 1: me an all star panel. To Jamie Barnett, mother of Ashley,
30:13
Speaker 1: a cruise ship victim, guys, take a listen to our
30:17
Speaker 1: friend David woll at CBS two Ellie. One day after
30:21
Speaker 1: Jamie Barnett's daughter departed Long Beach for a three day
30:24
Speaker 1: Mexican cruise with her boyfriend Jeff Ginsberg, she got a
30:27
Speaker 1: horrifying call from the ship's nurse. I was out of
30:32
Speaker 1: town when I got the call and it was from
30:36
Speaker 1: the nurse telling me that Ashley had passed away. Ashley's
30:40
Speaker 1: boyfriend told authorities that she went to bed at about
30:43
Speaker 1: two am the first night of the cruise. Twelve hours
30:46
Speaker 1: later he found her lifeless in bed. Did you ask
30:50
Speaker 1: to speak with Jeff, her boyfriend? Yes, I certainly did,
30:54
Speaker 1: and what happened? Then? They said that he couldn't write.
30:57
Speaker 1: Then he was being questioned. After a cruise ship doctor
31:00
Speaker 1: tried in vain to save Ashley. Her body was left
31:03
Speaker 1: in Mexico while her boyfriend continued on the cruise. Back
31:06
Speaker 1: to Long Beach as the ship dock. Jamie Barnett was
31:10
Speaker 1: there hoping for some answers. She was met by a
31:13
Speaker 1: Carnival official. I'm so and so, I'm from Carnival Cruises.
31:17
Speaker 1: I'm terribly sorry about your loss. Let me see if
31:19
Speaker 1: I can find someone to help you. And that was
31:22
Speaker 1: the only contact we had in four hours of standing
31:26
Speaker 1: in the rain. Four hours standing in the rain trying
31:33
Speaker 1: to find out information about her. Girl with me is
31:38
Speaker 1: Ashley's mom, Jamie, Miss Barnett. It's just so hard for
31:44
Speaker 1: me to even take in that a ship nurse calls
31:48
Speaker 1: you and tells you Ashley's passed away, and very little else,
31:54
Speaker 1: just that she had been found in her cabin and
32:00
Speaker 1: had passed away, and that was all they knew. And
32:04
Speaker 1: you know, I can remember most vividly thinking, this is
32:08
Speaker 1: a cruel joke. This is just a joke. Somebody is
32:12
Speaker 1: you know, this is wrong. It just can't be true.
32:16
Speaker 1: And that loop of that conversation, that conversation plays over
32:22
Speaker 1: and over in my head to this day, in such
32:24
Speaker 1: a loop. You know, it's just something you don't ever
32:26
Speaker 1: get over. Ever, it took a long time for us
32:31
Speaker 1: to find out her cause of death, but we never
32:36
Speaker 1: found out the manner of her death ever. You know.
32:41
Speaker 1: Carnival Cruise Line, in a written statement says, the crisis,
32:47
Speaker 1: the crisis being your daughter's death was handled quote and
32:50
Speaker 1: I'm reading it appropriately. Do you believe that, No, not
32:55
Speaker 1: in the least, Not in the least. It took um
33:01
Speaker 1: from from what I have gathered, and I have to
33:03
Speaker 1: say that it is very hard, very difficult to gather
33:07
Speaker 1: information when your loved one dies on a cruise ship.
33:11
Speaker 1: The cruise ship is not gonna readily divulge it to you.
33:15
Speaker 1: And uh, the FBI at that point hadn't been on
33:18
Speaker 1: the ship there in Mexico. The Mexican authorities are now involved. Yeah,
33:24
Speaker 1: it is. It is so difficult. And what happened with
33:27
Speaker 1: her is they took her off the ship in Mexico,
33:30
Speaker 1: as as as your news clips indicated, and left her there.
33:37
Speaker 1: I mean, no single person in the group she was
33:40
Speaker 1: with or from Carnival stayed with her as she was
33:44
Speaker 1: taken to a morgue in Mexico and had to be
33:49
Speaker 1: autopsied there, and then for her to go back into
33:53
Speaker 1: the United States, she had to be embalmed. So after that,
33:58
Speaker 1: the the coroner's office in LA wouldn't touch her because
34:03
Speaker 1: you'd already been embalmed. And thank god I had friends
34:06
Speaker 1: who knew, well, you got to hire a private forensic pathologists.
34:10
Speaker 1: I didn't even know such thing existed. And a week
34:15
Speaker 1: it took a week almost to get her back to
34:18
Speaker 1: LA and to this private pathologist who had precious little
34:22
Speaker 1: to work with at that point. And why is that
34:25
Speaker 1: to you, J Scott Morgan? Why is it the laws
34:29
Speaker 1: are that the body could not come into the US
34:33
Speaker 1: prior to being embalmed, and once you embalm the body.
34:35
Speaker 1: You lose evidence, explain, yeah, you do, well, there's health
34:38
Speaker 1: concerns relative to customs, Okay, moving a body from one
34:42
Speaker 1: country to the next, the body has to be embalmed.
34:45
Speaker 1: But back to the point right here that it's critical
34:49
Speaker 1: once the body has already been autopsy down there in Mexico.
34:53
Speaker 1: First off, you don't know what kind of job they did.
34:55
Speaker 1: Was it sufficient to the task? I would guess that
34:58
Speaker 1: it probably wasn't. You've lost to all of those tissues, Nancy. Listen,
35:02
Speaker 1: what we're dealing here with is an element of time,
35:05
Speaker 1: every minute, every second that clicks off of that clock.
35:08
Speaker 1: And by the time this poor girl's body makes its
35:13
Speaker 1: way back to the United States, the forensic mythologists gets
35:16
Speaker 1: their hands on her remains to examine her, the body
35:19
Speaker 1: has passed through a myriad of points along the way.
35:23
Speaker 1: So you're losing evidence, and you've also lost this critical tissue.
35:27
Speaker 1: If we're talking about things like heart tissue in particular,
35:29
Speaker 1: brain tissue, lungs, all those sorts of things that you
35:32
Speaker 1: want to look at, that's gone, Nancy, which means you
35:35
Speaker 1: will never get the truth. The reality is there is
35:41
Speaker 1: the Death on the High Seas Act, which somewhat regulates
35:48
Speaker 1: investigations of deaths on the high Sea, But the reality
35:51
Speaker 1: is that the local law enforcement wherever you may be,
35:56
Speaker 1: are the ones that are going to investigate in addition
35:59
Speaker 1: to the ship detectives. Here a nearby volunteer firefighter heard
36:05
Speaker 1: a ruckus, runs out and performs CPR on Ashley. This
36:10
Speaker 1: was a birthday cruise. She was going to celebrate what
36:13
Speaker 1: was soon to be her twenty fifth birthday. Jamie Barnett,
36:18
Speaker 1: who was Ashley's mom and president of International Cruise Victims
36:21
Speaker 1: dot Org, Jamie, you said that there is a loop
36:24
Speaker 1: that keeps playing through your head. What is the loop? Well,
36:28
Speaker 1: just that the phone call that every parent dreads, every
36:35
Speaker 1: parent and to actually get it, you know, for someone
36:39
Speaker 1: to call you and say, I hate to tell you this,
36:41
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that your daughter passed away today. Just
36:47
Speaker 1: is there forever every parent's nightmare. Ye know, that the
36:54
Speaker 1: loop that call, that call over and over and over.
36:59
Speaker 1: Miss Barnett, Can I ask you when you think about Ashley,
37:04
Speaker 1: what is your most vivid recollection of her? Oh? M
37:13
Speaker 1: Ashley was um one of these kinds of people that
37:19
Speaker 1: when she walked into a room, you knew she was there.
37:22
Speaker 1: Because she just filled it up. You know, she was
37:28
Speaker 1: so outgoing and the kind of person you just immediately
37:33
Speaker 1: took a like to, the kind of person who was
37:35
Speaker 1: never never felt uncomfortable, whether she was with princes or paupers.
37:42
Speaker 1: She was just delightful, and she was an aspiring young actress.
37:49
Speaker 1: And um was coming back to have um uh conversations
37:55
Speaker 1: with several different agents because she was lucky to have
38:00
Speaker 1: many agents that were interested in her. And she was
38:04
Speaker 1: cheerful and happy and in great spirits when she left.
38:11
Speaker 1: So I you know, that's just kind of a thumbnail
38:14
Speaker 1: sketch of who she is and what a wonderful young
38:18
Speaker 1: woman she was. So much to live for, so much
38:21
Speaker 1: ahead of her, so much exciting. And you have spent
38:25
Speaker 1: the rest of your life fighting for justice, not just
38:28
Speaker 1: for Ashley, your daughter, but for everyone else. It takes
38:32
Speaker 1: a cruise, guys. Please, I'm going to spend the rest
38:36
Speaker 1: of my life protecting my children. Yeah, don't be a victim.
38:42
Speaker 1: Fight back against America's crimeway. Nancy Gray's Crime Story signing
38:47
Speaker 1: off Goodbye Friend,