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The International Cruise Victims (ICV), a group of concearned relatives wants greater accountability for cruise lines. Due to the rash of disappearances of which the cruise industry claims is a relatively small number, “ICV says the industry is neglecting its duty to protect passengers from crime and to assist those who are victims of crime.”
Brett Rivkind, a lawyer representing alleged murder victim George Smith’s family, agrees. “When you serve passengers alcohol and encourage them to party, you’ve got a duty to protect those passengers,” he said.
(London Times)
February 18th, 2006 at 07:04pm
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Crime/Murder, Cruise ship, George Allen Smith IV, Lynsey O'Brien, Missing |
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“We have truth on our side,” Mrs Smith says firmly. “My son’s life is not going to be in vain.”
Another detailed account of the George Allen Smith IV account and the may other incidents that have occurred within the cruise ship industry that casts much speculation on safety issues and jurisdiction of investigations.
But however horrific the Smiths ordeal might sound, it is in no way unique. In the past two years alone, 14 people have gone missing from cruise ships. Disappearances at sea are not tracked by any governmental or industry body and crime appears to be rife.
Between 1994 and 1998, for instance, the operator Carnival Cruise Lines received 108 complaints of sexual assault. Royal Caribbean reported 58 sexual assault cases over the same period. Anecdotal evidence abounds of thefts on-board.
(London Telegraph)
January 22nd, 2006 at 11:14pm
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Cruise ship, George Allen Smith IV, Missing, Missing Adult |
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Will renowned forensic scientist Henry Lee be able to shed new light or recreate what may have happened to George Smith? From what reports have previously stated, Henry Lee will be given less time on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship that some media types have had access. He may also be given certain restrictions. It is hard to imagine after all this time since July, when George Smith went missing that new clues will surface. Especially when the carpet from the state room that George Smith was in. One can only wonder how sanitized the room has become?
Forensic scientist Henry C. Lee plans to board the cruise ship Brilliance of the Seas in Miami Monday to look for evidence in the disappearance of George Smith IV of Greenwich during his honeymoon cruise last July.
Despite Lee’s almost supernatural ability to reconstruct a crime scene and detect what others have missed, the degree of difficulty for this assignment is high.
Royal Caribbean Cruises has tentatively agreed to allow Lee a two-hour visit, and during a lengthy interview Friday, he detailed his investigative strategy.
Lee has three focal points for gathering evidence:
- Stateroom 9062, the Smiths’ cabin, where obscure bloodstains were detected on the carpet. The room has been cleaned virtually daily and its carpet may have been replaced.
- The balcony outside the Smiths’ stateroom, also cleaned and exposed to the weather for nearly seven months.
- A metal canopy that covers lifeboats and is beneath the stateroom balcony. A significant amount of blood was seen and photographed on the canopy by passengers on the Mediterranean cruise on the morning of July 5, the day Smith disappeared. The canopy was power-washed later that day and has since been subjected to weather and rough seas. Lee said he still is not clear on whether the canopy was later repainted.
(Hartford Current)
January 22nd, 2006 at 10:43pm
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Rita Cosby, Live & Direct, January 6, 2006
We are now joined by Captain Bill Wright of Royal Caribbean cruises. He is the Royal Caribbean senior vice president of operations. Captain, I thank you for being with us. This new development that her attorney—this is Jennifer Hagel’s attorney—saying she may have been drugged…
CAPT. BILL WRIGHT, ROYAL CARIBBEAN SR. VP OF OPERATIONS: Right.
COSBY: Is there any evidence that there was drugs on the ship, legal or illegal?
WRIGHT: Absolutely none. From our perspective, we have heard nothing that indicates there was any drug usage by the Smiths or there were any drugs on board the vessel.
COSBY: No evidence at this point at all?
WRIGHT: Nothing we’re aware of.
COSBY: Would you know if there was something in there, even if it’s, say, in the bathroom, in the room, in the cabin?
WRIGHT: We did not collect the evidence from the cabin. So whatever was in there that the police have collected, that’s with the police. But there was nothing that we indicate that we have had any forms of drugs on the ship and being used.
read the rest here…
January 10th, 2006 at 10:43pm
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First it was George Smith’s family discussing their belief that George Smith was murdered aboard a Royal Caribbean ship and accusing the Royal Caribbean cruise line of trying to cover-up the crime to protect its image. Now comes the rebuttal from Royal Caribbean Chairman and CEO Richard Fain.
“Never told us about the blood in the cabin. Never told us about the blood on the overhang,” Bree Smith told The Early Show’s Hannah Storm. They told us “our brother was missing. We don’t have any further information.”
The captain of the ship has said that George and Jennifer drank heavily that night, something George’s family acknowledges.
In a report filed by the ship’s captain, he wrote: “probably lost his balance and fell overboard. Probably under the influence of alcohol.”
The Smiths hired attorney Brett Rivkind to sue Royal Caribbean.
Richard Fein responds to the families allegations.
But there was blood in the cabin?
“There was nothing that a normal observer could see when they came in,” Fain said.
“There was quite a bit of blood on the overhang. You yourself said it was a security problem. People were leaning over to try to take pictures,” said Storm.
“There was blood on the canopy and that blood appeared to have come, at least to a lay person — we’re not the investigators,” Fain said. “We turned this over to the FBI. We turned this over to the authorities. We gave them all that information. The blood on the canopy was consistent either with foul play or with a perfectly innocent accident. And he — and I am sorry that he speculated, but it didn’t affect the investigation in any way.”
(Read the full CBS The Early Show interview)
January 9th, 2006 at 05:29pm
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The search continues for the Dublin teenager Lincey O’Brien who is said to have fell off of a cruise ship near Isla Mujeres, a Caribbean island near Cancun.
The Costa Magica cruise ship was 26 miles away from the island in the pre-dawn hours Thursday when the teen fell into the Caribbean, according to the ship’s captain, Guisseppo Russo.
Russo identified the victim as Lincey O’Brien and did not divulge her hometown. Newspapers in the missing teen’s native Ireland spelled her first name Lynsey, however, and reported she was from Dublin.
Rough sea conditions had slowed the search, said Genaro Medina, a federal official at the office of the port captain on Isla Mujeres. While air rescue efforts continued via Mexican coast guard helicopters, officials were no longer optimistic about finding the victim alive.
“It’s really difficult (to believe) the young woman is alive,” Medina said. “The impact could have caused an instantaneous death since the distance between the railing from where she fell and the water is 30 to 40 meters.”
A spokesman for Carnival confirmed that a passenger had gone overboard, but referred calls for further comment to Costa Cruises in Hollywood, Florida, where no one could immediately be reached for comment.
(CNN)
January 9th, 2006 at 02:12am
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Lynsey O’Brien, from South Dublin is missing from a cruise ship during her family’s vacation in the Caribbean.
It is feared Lynsey O’Brien, from South Dublin, has drowned after she disappeared while on a family holiday in the Caribbean.
A family member raised the alarm on Thursday morning after the 15-year-old was discovered missing from her cabin.
Update: Irish teen vanishes from cruise ship on trip from Port Everglades to Mexico
The passenger, who was traveling with her family, was aboard the cruise ship Costa Magica, which left Fort Lauderdale on New Year’s Day for a weeklong Western Caribbean itinerary. It is due back on Jan. 8.
At about 2 a.m. EST Thursday, as the ship was making its way toward Cozumel, Mexico, the teenager was reported to have disappeared. “We have a full investigation going on,” said Lynn Torrent, president of Costa Cruise Lines.
At least in this case the cruise ship did the right thing and circled the area until further help was provided.
The cruise ship then circled the area until Mexican Navy vessels arrived to aid in the search. The cruise line said the ship’s staff is trying to console the parents. “They’re devastated,” Torrent said.
The search continues for Lynsey O’Brien who reportedly fell overboard.
A search operation is continuing off Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula for an Irish teenager who fell overboard from a cruise ship in the early hours of yesterday morning.
It is understood Ms O’Brien was on the top deck of the ship with her 11-year-old sister, Imelda, when she fell overboard. Her sister then alerted her parents and a search was initiated.
Schoolmates distraught as cruise girl disappears
Distraught classmates of an Irish teenager missing from a cruise ship in the Caribbean were gathering at her school today to comfort each other.
Lynsey O’Brien, from south Dublin, is feared drowned after she disappeared early yesterday while on a family holiday.
Students were coming in to the school this morning to offer comfort to Lynsey’s classmates, Ms Cogan said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said Irish Embassy staff in Mexico were offering consular assistance to the family of a girl who had disappeared from the boat.
Update (1/7/06): Mexican navy combs Caribbean for missing Irish girl
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican navy rescuers combed waters off the country’s Yucatan peninsula in boats and helicopters on Saturday for an Irish girl thought to have fallen off a cruise ship, authorities said.
The cruise ship, operated by Carnival Corp., was off Mexico’s Islas Mujeres islands when the teenager fell overboard in the early hours of Thursday, said Mexican navy officer Genaro Escalante.
He said bad weather had hampered the search.
“They haven’t found anything yet but the search continues,” he said. “The wind has been very strong.”
January 6th, 2006 at 02:32pm
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FOR THOSE LOOKING FOR THE GREGERSON STORY, CLICK HERE.
Brett Rivkind, the lawyer for George Allen Smith IV’s parents, is suggesting that Jennifer Hagel-Smith may have been drugged. The same night that George Allen Smith went missing, Jennifer Hagel-Smith was found in a corridor, unconscious and far from their cabin.
Brett Rivkind, the lawyer for George Allen Smith IV’s parents, said he does not have any evidence to prove his theory about why crew members found Jennifer Hagel-Smith sleeping in a corridor July 5, the night her husband disappeared on their Mediterranean honeymoon cruise between Turkey and Greece.
Rivkind said at a news conference that it has been difficult to get information about the case because Royal Caribbean has not been forthcoming. But William Wright, the cruise line’s senior vice president of marine operations, said in his own news conference that the company has cooperated with investigators, including the FBI.
Here are some of the latest allegations from the different sides in the disappearance of George Smith.
read the rest here…
January 5th, 2006 at 11:06pm
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Cruise ship, George Allen Smith IV, Jennifer Hagel Smith, Missing, Missing Adult |
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George Smith’s family has been searching for answers since they first heard that their son went missing. From the beginning the Smith’s state that Royal Caribbean offered very little detail.
Royal Caribbean called the Smiths that first day, but they say the representative offered few details.
“No news. Never told us about the blood in the cabin. Never told us about the blood on the overhang,” says Bree.
She says all the cruise line told them was that George Smith IV was missing and that they didn’t have any further information.
The issue of what happened to George Smith and a perceived cover up of what transpired that last evening that he went missing seem to be coming to a boiling point.
The mystery of a newlywed who vanished last July from his honeymoon cruise is heating up. As The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm reports, the captain of the ship said Wednesday night that George Smith IV and his wife Jennifer had been drinking heavily the night he went missing and that Jennifer was found passed out.
The Smith family says the captain’s comments are just the latest example of the cruise line trying to deflect criticism of how it handled their son’s disappearance.
Read the entire CBS-TV New York article with video interview of the Smith family.
January 5th, 2006 at 06:13pm
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Cruise ship, George Allen Smith IV, Missing, Missing Adult |
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George Smith, IV disappeared July 5, 2005 while on his honeymoon with his new wife, Jennifer Hagel, aboard The Royal Caribbean Cruise Line “Brilliance of the 
Seas”. For the most part George Smith’s family has remained relatively quiet regarding the loss of their son.
The discussions into the disappearance of George Smith have ramped up lately as well as Congressional hearings on the Cruise industry in general. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-CT has spearheaded the investigation in to not only Royal Caribbean but the cruise industry in general. The disappearance of George Smith, IV obviously being the catalyst into these hearings.
“Like small cities, cruise ships experience crime — from petty to profoundly tragic,” said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chair of one of two congressional subcommittees hearing testimony Tuesday.
George Allen Smith IV vanished from a Royal Caribbean Cruises ship in the Mediterranean 10 days after his wedding last summer. His family says he was a victim of foul play covered up by the cruise line to avoid bad publicity.
Company officials say the cruise line acted properly after Smith’s disappearance.
Royal Caribbean Cruise Line Statement regarding George Smith, IV
All of us at Royal Caribbean extend our deepest sympathies to Jennifer Hagel Smith and the whole Smith family. They have suffered an inconsolable loss, and it is totally understandable they want answers and some measure of closure regarding Mr. Smith’s disappearance.
As in all corporate statements like this there is always a “however”. This one is no different.
However, there has been a lot of inaccurate and unfair speculation about our company’s response to the incident, and the time has come to set the record straight.
read the rest here…
January 5th, 2006 at 02:16pm
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