I think it's really easy to think about 1998 and assume a lot of the same technology and "progress" we have experienced since then. It's not like immigration and international travel was "paperwork free" before 9/11, but things were not aggressively tracked prior to 9/11 and the technology existing to make that kind of tracking possible.
I think the "she was a party girl" angle is like that too. I'm a bit younger than Amy, and while I know that there were "drugs" available, the stuff that a 23yo lesbian party girl from VA would be into in 1998 vs. now is pretty different. They meant she drank and went out a lot. I thought she looked like she was having a good time in the disco. I could imagine a scenario where if his idea of a good time was different than hers, a fight ensued. To me, it just sounded like Amy likes to have a good time. I can't imagine her as a person whose good time so required hard drugs that she'd sneak off a cruise ship at dawn to procure them. Just drink another 7 light beers, girl, be for real. Also, everyone up thread keeps talking about her being "petite" - she is listed as 5'6" or 5'7" and as a 5'6.5" woman, I would never identify as petite, even when I was 23 and thin like Amy. |
+1 She played college basketball FFS. Bolded is my assessment exactly. I think the drug angle makes sense if you want her to have disappeared instead of just falling or jumping off, but it makes no sense with who she seemed to be as a person. |
I thought she looked like she was on E while dancing. |
On a cruise ship with a bunch of olds and heteros? Nah. She wasn't doing E or other drugs during the cruise. |
I'm sorry you went through that, and I hope you're in a good place now. Her family still seems to struggle to this day with her being a lesbian. From the outside, they look like a tight knit family, but they didn't appear supportive when she came out to them, writing a three page scathing letter to her girlfriend. |
Agree. That funny swaying and holding onto her body didn't seem light beer-induced. |
She definitely looked like she was on E at the club. If you watch the actual video, not just the zoomed in footage of her and Yellow, you can see that the music is fast and everyone around her is bopping around while she’s moving in a slower, trance like state. She’s not acting drunk in my opinion. |
I agree I have known two people who committed suicide. I saw each of then within one week of their death, and they each seemed relatively happy, with no outward sign of distress. |
+1 me too |
I don’t think she committed suicide. She had just reconnected with her girlfriend. What I don’t understand is her relationship with drugs. Was she an addict? If she wasn’t much of a user then why wouldn’t they have her brother, friends, girlfriends say that. The only person in the whole doc that said that she wouldn’t leave the ship to score drugs is her mother. But then again there were no witnesses that saw her leave so that’s tricky too. It’s just crazy to think that Yellow somehow smuggled her off, sold her to traffickers and then got back on the boat in a matter of hours?? This was before cell phones too. |
I don't think she was a hard drug user, just light recreational drugs like E and weed. But, originally convinced by the trafficking theories, I now think she fell overboard and almost certainly by accident. I think the eyewitness accounts were well-meaning but mistaken and the sailor, in particular, was just being hustled by a working girl. Also very telling all the new tips pouring in are from random locations, not the Caribbean. |
But she looked happy hours before she went missing. You really think that she spent the night dancing, chatting, smoking with her brother and then 3 hours later chose to jump? With no catalyst? It’s not like she had a phone and could’ve seen her gf cheating or something else that would’ve triggered her. |
before watching the documentary, i had read a lot about the case and thought she had been trafficked. after watching the documentary, i doubt that she was trafficked and likely fell overboard. end of story. |
I agree with this. Very sorry for her family, but the girl is dead. |
The catalyst happens long before the act, and in between there's a peace that a decision has been made to do it. Clearly you have very little first hand experience of people who go through this. |