In the heyday of true crime podcasts, there was one case that simultaneously fascinated and terrified me — the missing person case of Amy Bradley, a woman from Petersberg, Virginia, who hasn’t been seen in more than two decades.
In March 1998, 23-year-old Amy joined her family on a Royal Caribbean cruise. The vessel, the MS Rhapsody of the Seas, set sail from San Juan in Puerto Rico, and head to Aruba, Curaçao, St. Maarten and St Thomas before returning to the port at San Juan.
On March 23, Amy and her brother Brad went to a party at the ship’s nightclub. Around 3am, they came back to the room, but Amy decided to step out to the cabin’s balcony to soak up the fresh sea air.
She was never seen again. While she was ruled dead by absentia by American authorities in 2010, the mystery of her disappearance still haunts her family.
Last week, a Netflix documentary about her disappearance called Amy Is Missing hit the streaming platform, with new, never-before-seen interviews and information.
The documentary has sparked fresh interest in the case, with the Bradley family hoping that new information about her fate or whereabouts might come out of the woodwork.
“For 27 years, my family has searched for Amy. We will not stop,” wrote Brad on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The Netflix docuseries Amy Bradley is Missing is shining a light on her story and we need your help to follow leads and find answers.”
What happened to Amy Bradley?
Tragically, no one knows for sure.
The Amy Is Bradley Is Missing documentary series examines first-person accounts and evidence about what happened on the cruise, and the investigations that have been carried out since.
Why has it captivated the internet for so long?
While many people suspect that Amy Bradley is dead, her body or body parts have never washed up on shore. As a result, her family still hold out hope that she is alive.
In the years since her disappearance, people have claimed to have spotted her in various locations in Curaçao, the Caribbean island near where Amy went missing. With the true crime boom of the early 2010s, her case frequented podcasts, YouTube videos and true crime Reddit threads.
For 27 years, my family has searched for Amy. We will not stop. The Netflix docuseries “Amy Bradley Is Missing” is shining a light on her story and we need your help to follow leads and find answers. Please consider donating and sharing. ❤️https://t.co/1NNA7O1WXf
— Brad Bradley (@BradRad5Bradley) July 20, 2025
A sighting by David Carmichael, 1998
In 1998, a Canadian tourist named David Carmichael claimed that he saw Amy in Curaçao walking along a beach with two men. He says he noticed Amy’s distinctive tattoos and claimed that she was about to speak to him until these men “motioned” her away from him after they clocked him looking.
“If he had not stared at me, I would have forgotten everything, but I can’t,” Carmichael said.
“I think about this every day. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t.”
David later identified one of these men as person of interest Alistair ‘Yellow’ Douglas. More on him in a minute.
A sighting by Bill Hefner, 1999
In 1999, a US Navy Officer named Bill Hefner claimed to have seen a woman who resembled Amy in a brothel in Curaçao. She told him her name and said that she was being held against her will.
“She told me she got off that ship and she left on her own, ’cause she was going to score drugs,” he said in the Netflix documentary.
“She said, ‘Well, me and my brother were partying, and I went ashore to get drugs, and now I’m stuck here with these guys’.”
Hefner said that he wasn’t aware she was missing until years later.
An anonymous tip-off, 2005
In 2005, the Bradley family received a tip-off from an anonymous person featuring photos of a woman going by the name Jas, who they claimed was Amy. The photos came from an adult website based in the Caribbean which showed sex workers for hire.
“Seeing the photos, it was a terrible thing,” Amy’s mother Iva said in the documentary series.
“A level of panic. All I could keep thinking is, ‘Is that my daughter?’ We all looked at it — the nose, the chin and the hair — it took my breath away.”
While FBI agents analysed the photos and believed that it was Amy in the photos, agents weren’t able to trace the website’s IP address.
What theories do people have about Amy Bradley’s disappearance?
Theories about what happened to Amy Bradley have been swirling for decades. Here are the long-running, leading theories.
She fell or jumped overboard
One of the main theories surrounding Amy Bradley’s disappearance is that she either jumped or fell overboard. The last time Amy was seen was reclining on the balcony of the family’s shared room.
Her shoes were placed neatly on the balcony while police noticed the table had been moved from its initial position. However, Amy’s family doesn’t believe she jumped.
Alister ‘Yellow’ Douglas
When Amy was at the nightclub with her brother Brad, she was seen on camera dancing with a man named Alister ‘Yellow’ Douglas. He was a bass player in a band on board the ship.
As one of the last people to see Amy alive and well, he became a leading suspect. While he denied any involvement, Yellow was investigated by police and sat for a polygraph test, but the results were inconclusive.
Despite saying he had nothing to do with Amy’s disappearance, his daughter Amica Douglas isn’t convinced and confronted him about the case during the documentary.
From a scroll through Brad’s X account, he appears to believe that Yellow had some involvement in Amy’s disappearance.
She was taken against her will and trafficked
Thanks to the eyewitness accounts over the years and the photos sent to the family in 2005, many believe that Amy’s disappearance was due to sex or drug trafficking.
So, what now?
Amy’s case has circulated true crime hubs of the internet for years, but her family hopes the Netflix documentary will bring new light to her whereabouts.
You can watch Amy Bradley Is Missing on Netflix.
