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A NEW Netflix documentary about a woman who mysteriously vanished from a cruise ship 27 years ago points the finger at the wrong man, an expert has claimed.
Amy Lynn Bradley, then 23, vanished in March 1998 after boarding the Royal Caribbean Rhapsody of the Seas with her family.
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On March 23, just three days into the trip, she went missing.
She was last seen on the balcony of the cabin she shared with her parents, Ron and Iva, and her younger brother, Brad, after partying at the ship’s nightclub.
There was no evidence that she jumped or fell from the high railing, but she was not seen again on the ship’s security cameras.
Despite this, her family still believes she could have left the room and been kidnapped and sex-trafficked.
Amy was captured on security footage dancing with a bass player who played at the club, Alister “Yellow” Douglas, earlier on in the night, who has always denied knowing what happened to her.
The Netflix documentary, Amy Bradley is Missing, featured alleged witnesses who claimed to have seen the recent college graduate with Douglas after the club closed, and on a beach after she was reported missing.
The sightings have never been confirmed, and although a lie detector test came back inconclusive, the FBI ruled Douglas out.
Many social media users claimed they were “sure” he played a part in Amy’s disappearance after seeing the three-part series.
Douglas’s daughter, Amica, also told filmmakers she is suspicious of her father’s story, having been bombarded with messages about the case, and called him to comment while being interviewed on camera.
He was unaware the phone call was being filmed and is not thought to have been approached for further comment.
YouTuber, journalist, and author James Renner recently took the same trip as Amy and went to meet Douglas, who is now an exorcist and reverend at a small church in Granada.
Douglas granted Renner a rare interview after years of trying to stay out of the spotlight.
In the filmed interview, Douglas claimed he never saw Amy after they danced together at the ship’s nightclub before she retired to her cabin to be with her family.
Renner is set to release a book, A Cruise to Nowhere, next summer about Amy’s case, having previously met with her family and investigators who spent years tirelessly trying to find her.
In an exclusive chat with The U.S. Sun, Renner said he feels desperately sorry for Douglas, whose life was turned upside down by the case, and believes he is innocent.
He feels the reverend may sue after the Netflix series heavily focused on him as a suspect who could have sex-trafficked Amy, and after the show set up the phone call with his daughter.
Renner told The U.S. Sun, “I think it was just like a week or two after that happened that I talked to him.
“When I talked to him, he said he was ready to take [legal] action if they made him look [bad].
“I certainly think he has a case. I would do it if I were him.”
Renner said he had not spoken with him since the release of the documentary, and The U.S. Sun has made several attempts to reach him for comment.
“I would imagine by now he has [watched it] or has somebody that’s told him what’s in it,” Renner continued. “He keeps up, he knows what’s going on.
‘SINCERE & CANDID’
“I think the documentary certainly did a disservice to the investigation and to what happened to Amy. Because you go online now, and people just assume that he’s guilty.”
The U.S. Sun spoke to filmmaker Ari Mark about Douglas being a suspect, to which he replied, “I feel awful for the Douglas family and what they’ve had to endure all these years.”
They did not comment further on how he was portrayed in the series.
Discussing his meet-up with Douglas, Renner said he has remarried and tried to make peace with the fact that his name is still linked to the case.
But he still gets upset when trolls attack him and his family online, and he has received death threats over the years, despite using another name on Facebook.
“I found him to be very sincere and candid,” Renner said.
“If he was involved, there was really no reason for him to grant me an interview. He had nothing to gain from it.
“But this is an event that he’s had to think about a lot. I think he was looking for an opportunity to tell his side of the story.
“He admits that, as an officer on the cruise ship, he definitely crossed the line with dancing close with Amy.
“But he says he didn’t have anything to do with what ultimately happened to her. And I believe him.
“He’s an active member in his community there. He doesn’t have any other history of violence.
“He has a beautiful wife and kid on the island, and they were at church with him and were involved there and seemed well-adjusted.”
Asked if the Bradleys had ever met with Douglas to hear his side of the story, Renner said, “I don’t believe he ever met with the family. I think, from what I understand, the last time they saw him was when he was coming out the first time he was questioned by the FBI on the cruise ship.”
Timeline of Amy Lynn Bradley’s last hours before her disappearance
March 23, 1998, evening Amy Lynn Bradley and her brother, Brad, attended a dance party at the ship’s disco, where they were seen with members of the ship’s band. The ship was sailing from Aruba to Curaçao.
March 24, 1998, 3:35 a.m. Brad Bradley returned to the family cabin, followed five minutes later by Amy, after a night of dancing and drinking. They sat on the balcony and talked before Brad went to sleep.
March 24, 1998, 5:15 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. Amy’s father, Ron Bradley, woke up briefly and saw Amy asleep on a lounge chair on their cabin’s balcony. This is the last confirmed sighting of her by her family.
March 24, 1998, 5:30 a.m. to 5:45 a.m. Three witnesses later claimed to have seen Amy on an upper deck of the ship with Alister “Yellow” Douglas, a member of the ship’s band, and said he was seen leaving alone shortly after 6 a.m.
March 24, 1998, 6:00 a.m. When Ron Bradley woke up again, Amy was no longer on the balcony, but her shoes were still in the cabin, and her cigarettes and lighter were missing. He began to search the ship for her.
March 24, 1998, 6:30 a.m. The family reported Amy missing to the ship’s crew and asked that passengers be prevented from disembarking, but their request was denied. The ship had already docked in Curaçao.
March 24, 1998, 7:50 a.m. The ship made a public announcement for Amy to come to the purser’s desk, but by this time, many of the passengers had already disembarked. A full ship search was conducted later in the day, but no sign of Amy was found.
March 24-27, 1998 The Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard conducted a four-day air and sea search for Amy around Curaçao and Aruba, but no trace of her was ever found. Authorities initially considered the possibility that she fell overboard, but this theory was later dismissed.
Renner said Douglas met again with the FBI just a few years ago, and they believed he had nothing to do with her disappearance.
An alleged witness featured in the Netflix show claimed to have seen Douglas going up to the club in an elevator with Amy before returning alone after the last time she was seen in her cabin.
Another claimed to have seen him walking along a beach with a woman matching her description and acting suspiciously, but neither has ever been backed up with real evidence.
Renner said, “You just look at the statistics on people who have been wrongfully convicted, and the majority of them were convicted based on witness testimony that was false.”
Douglas’ work as an exorcist in Granada has also raised eyebrows, with some critics claiming he’s doing “satanic rituals.”
Renner insists his work is a fairly normal practice on the island.
He explained, “It has a long history of what’s called Obeah, which is what we might think of as akin to voodoo or witchcraft.
“Obeah is technically outlawed on Grenada, but people still practice it all the time. And it’s such a tradition that people those beliefs.
“So, he’s essentially, through this church, working as an exorcist in the tradition of Obeah. It’s not that out of the ordinary for Grenada.
“It would be a little weird, you know, if he was doing that in like Ohio.”
LAST MEETING
In his interview with Renner for the YouTube channel, True Crime This Week, Douglas recalled playing until midnight with the band, after which he began talking to Amy, the night she vanished.
He claims the pair talked about music, and she later met him at the lounge at the top of the ship, where he grew uncomfortable with her chain-smoking.
She allegedly told him it was because her father found out she was gay, a claim backed up in the documentary, which also featured interviews with past girlfriends.
Douglas admitted he didn’t know how to respond as he’s a religious man, but took pity on her and suggested they dance to a few songs before he had to leave at 12.55 am.
“I said, ‘Look, I have to go, I have to be out of [the] passenger area’, and I left,” he claimed. “That was my last conversation [with her], last time I saw her.
“The person I am, I like to console people, I like to talk with people. There was not enough time, maybe the following day, if I had seen her, I would have.”
He further claimed he had a key card for his cabin that recorded what time he arrived back at his room.
The ship’s security allegedly called him the following morning and quizzed him on whether he had a woman in his room, explaining Amy was missing.
He claims he was told not to leave his cabin, where other musicians were also sleeping.
He insisted he hadn’t seen her since their chat, and it was forbidden to have passengers in his room or to be outside past 1 am.
Douglas said he was questioned for hours by authorities, but later cleared, insisting he wasn’t worried but was nervous to have his name “mixed up” in something he didn’t know about.
Tearing up, he admitted, “I’ve lost so many opportunities because of this,” explaining that people Google his name and believe he had something to do with Amy going missing.
“My inbox, my Facebook, people have been writing me horrible stuff for years.”
Speaking about the phone call with his daughter, he said, “I said, ‘Amica, listen, if you want, you can let people know that I’m not your father because I can’t explain this.’
“I said, ‘The truth will come out, and when the truth come out I will sue the people who have been making documentaries about me’.
“For now, it’s just in the hands of those investigating. Somebody knows something, and somebody will speak at some point.”
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