http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1992955,00.html

Death on the high seas

When the QE2 docked at Southampton on January 2, the liner was one
passenger short: a 62-year-old German woman was missing. She is just one
of a growing list of people who have disappeared from cruise ships in
mysterious circumstances. Some of these deaths may be suicides, writes
Gwyn Topham, but others appear more sinister. And of course there are no
police out on the ocean . . .
Gwyn Topham
Thursday January 18, 2007
Guardian

In the last days of the Vietnam war, Hue Pham and his wife Hue Tran
spent two perilous weeks on a cramped container ship, adrift with no
food and little water in the South China Sea. The couple survived this
desperate flight from Vietnam, built a new life in America, and then,
three decades later, decided to take a Caribbean cruise on a ship called
the Carnival Destiny. This was the boat journey that they would not
survive.

The facts of the couple's disappearance, as the Destiny sailed between
Barbados and Aruba on May 12 2005, are few. After a fruitless on-board
search, the ship eventually retraced its path, joined by the US
coastguard. No trace of their bodies was ever found.
For the relatives, the deaths left a terrible, insoluble puzzle. Their
son, Son Michael Pham, maintained that his parents had no reason to take
their own lives and were in fact planning a trip back to Vietnam, and
were looking forward to meeting relatives again. "Two American citizens
with no personal or financial problems, no serious health problems,
living the happiest time of their lives, both vanished without a trace
or witness," he later told an inquiry.

The cruise had been a Mother's Day gift to the couple, and they were on
board ship with their daughter and granddaughter. "I immediately flew
down to California, went through their home, and tried to find one clue,
something unusual. I could not," Son Michael says now.
Since then, with the help of two other bereaved families, Son Michael
has helped establish a group called the International Cruise Victims. In
the past weeks, he has been offering his help to yet another family,
after the QE2 sailed into Southampton on January 2 this year one
passenger short.

Officially, Hampshire police are still investigating how a 62-year-old
German woman, so far identified only as Sabine L, disappeared from a
new-year cruise aboard the QE2 somewhere off Madeira. Her family has
launched its own website appealing for help (www.qe2missing.de). But the
full truth of Sabine L's last moments on the luxury Cunard liner is
unlikely ever to be firmly established - beyond the cold fact that she
joins more than 30 passengers who, in the past four years, have
mysteriously disappeared from cruise ships worldwide.

Last year the cruise industry reported that 24 passengers had
disappeared between 2003 and last March. The information emerged after a
US Congressional subcommittee found itself with an unlikely task: to
examine the threat posed to citizens by booking a cruise holiday. Since
then, at least 10 more passengers and two crew have been reported
missing or overboard, including one Scottish pensioner lost in the
Atlantic last November. These figures do not include known suicides and
those who, for one or reason or another - a drunken argument, perhaps,
or misplaced bravado - are known to have deliberately jumped. Of those
who have gone mysteriously missing, some may have killed themselves;
other incidents may be alcohol-related mishaps; but in at least one
case, the death of a 52-year-old woman on the Island Escape in Italy,
something more sinister may have gone on. The FBI is still investigating
that case.

After hearing details of those who had gone missing on board ships,
subcommittee chairman, Christopher Shays, a Republican congressman,
warned of a "growing manifest of unexplained disappearances, unsolved
crimes and brazen acts of lawlessness on the high seas". Like small
cities, he said, cruise ships experienced crimes. "But city dwellers
know the risks of urban life - and no one falls off a city never to be
heard of again." Going on a cruise was, he said, perhaps "the perfect
way to commit the perfect crime".

There was no evidence of foul play in the disappearance of "M", a
40-year-old woman, from Celebrity Cruise Line's Mercury. But then, there
was precious little evidence at all - and what did emerge was largely
due to the persistence of her father, Kendall Carver, a former company
CEO, who spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees and private
investigators in an attempt to discover the truth about her
disappearance. (Carver has asked the Guardian not to use his daughter's
name, to protect the privacy of other family members.) Carver says it
was on the second day of the Mercury's cruise to Alaska in August 2004
that a cabin steward realised that M's room had not been slept in and
reported her absence to his boss, who told him he would deal with it.

Throughout the cruise, the steward continued to place chocolates on the
pillow of the unused bed, as he was ordered to do, but no one saw M
again. At the end of the cruise, when the ship docked in Vancouver and
all passengers disembarked, M's belongings were packed away. No one
notified the police or her family. It was only after her father filed a
missing person's report that police discovered that she had disappeared
from a cruise ship.
Kendall Carver's loss was, he says, made worse by a lack of cooperation
from the cruise line. At one point, Celebrity Cruise Line issued a
statement in which it called the death a horrible tragedy, and added
that "regrettably, there is very little a cruise line, a resort or a
hotel can do to prevent someone from committing suicide". As Carver
points out, the case is still open and his daughter has not been
declared dead by the family or the FBI - in his belief, suicide is
neither the only nor the most likely explanation.

Celebrity Cruise Line, however, now says: "There is probably nothing we
or any company could do that would make the parents feel the company had
acted sensitively enough." Today, all the company's passengers pass a
computerised checkout at the end of a cruise.
Whatever the truth of what happened, M's case starkly underlines a fact
that cruise passengers, potentially thousands of miles from home, should
be well aware of: out at sea, there are no police.
It is extremely difficult for any detective to piece together a murder
case without a body, and chances of finding a passenger dumped into the
ocean are slim indeed. And while all cruise ships employ security
officers, they do not always seal off crime scenes, detain suspects and
interview witnesses in the manner that might be expected of them.

Two cases in particular have gripped the US and Australia respectively:
the disappearance of honeymooner George Smith [see below] and the death
of mother of three Dianne Brimble. The story of Smith, presumed to have
gone overboard from the superliner Brilliance of the Seas less than 10
days into his married life, was lapped up by US television networks.
First there was the young, well-connected victim and his telegenic,
grieving widow opening up on talkshows; then family rifts and
media-friendly forensic investigators added to the drama. The details of
Brimble's end, left drugged and naked to die on P&O Australia's Pacific
Sky, emerged in the more low-key surroundings of a New South Wales
coroner's court. But both cases have been marked by questions over how
well initial investigations were handled, by angry allegations from
families and rebuttals from cruise lines, and an increased public
perception that something was seriously amiss.

Unlike many in the grim litany of victims' tales, Dianne Brimble did not
disappear. Brimble, 42, from Brisbane, had saved for two years to go on
a cruise with her sister and their daughters. But by the end of the
first night of her holiday in September 2002, she was lying naked,
drugged and dying on the floor of a cabin, ignored and ridiculed by the
men who had left her there.
A toxicology report would later show that Brimble had died of an
overdose of gamma-hydroxybutyrate, a party drug also known as fantasy,
GHB, GBH or liquid ecstasy, and often described as a date-rape drug.
Brimble, her family told Australian TV, didn't even like to take
Panadol.

By the time police met the boat in the South Pacific island of Noumea to
investigate, the male passengers had been back in to the cabin to tidy
up. No one has been charged in relation to her death, and it took more
than three years for the details of her story to emerge at the coroner's
inquest, which reopens next month in Australia.
Eight men were identified as "persons of interest" in the investigation.
Photographs retrieved from a digital camera would reveal that before her
death at least one man had sex with Brimble; photographs were taken even
when she was passed out naked on the floor.
The Brimble inquest highlighted a cruise culture far from old-fashioned
ideas of shuffle-board, after-dinner dances and G&Ts at the captain's
table. At one point an advert for P&O cruises was produced in court: a
postcard showing a line of sunbathing women and bearing the slogan,
"Seamen wanted". P&O's lawyers protested that the cruise line was not on
trial. But the coroner ruled it was admiss- ible evidence; Brimble, she
said, did not die in a vacuum.

If the behaviour of eight "persons of interest" had attracted complaints
- a photo of one showed him running naked through the ship on the night
of Brimble's death - ship security officers would reveal that finding
drunk, naked people on deck was a relatively common occurrence.

It is just not deaths and disappearances that are a problem on cruise
ships. According to crime statistics supplied to the Congressional
hearings by 15 of the biggest lines, covering around 85% of cruise
holidays worldwide, there were 178 reports of sexual assault on cruise
ships between 2003 and 2005. FBI representatives testified to their
belief that the figures were under-reported - and further documents
recently obtained under court order by a Miami lawyer, James Walker,
show that Royal Caribbean alone, which carries around 25% of cruise
passengers, recorded more than 100 complaints of sexual assault and
sexual battery within that time span.
Some British and American security officers claim that the real picture
is even worse. Geoff Furlong, an ex-detective from Liverpool who worked
for six years as a security officer for two cruise lines, says: "It
doesn't matter what the class of ship is. Young women are particularly
susceptible - particularly from crew members. They hunt in packs."

He claims often to have discovered crew targeting young female
passengers. "Say I came across the situation: the guy would be up before
the captain at the next port of call and thrown off the ship at his own
expense, to repatriate him to Costa Rica, or wherever," he says. "That
was all that happened - there was never any police involvement." If
passengers complained, they were bought off, he says, "given champagne,
free holidays, told about the consequences of going to court, how it
would bring shame on their families". Such complaints, he says, would
frequently not even be logged.

"The cruise companies just want it to go away," says Randy Jaques, an
American security officer. He claims personally to have dealt with more
than 50 complaints, and says hundreds of women have signed "Jane Doe
agreements" - meaning they have reached an out-of-court settlement with
the cruise lines and signed a confidentiality clause.
Passengers can find themselves in a complex legal situation, potentially
under numerous jurisdictions when sailing abroad. With many cruise ships
registered under flags of convenience with relatively slack tax and
labour regimes, the relevant laws might be those of Panama, the Bahamas
or Bermuda.

Prosecuting, say, a sacked crew member who has returned to his own
country brings a whole new dimension of complexity. Charles Lipcon, a
Miami lawyer who has built a 30-year career on suing cruise lines, says
his firm does not normally take on cases without a clear jurisdiction.
"What I've seen over the years is that it's a hot potato for everyone,
and nothing much gets done," he says.

In the US, Son Michael Pham's victim-support organisation has persuaded
two members of congress to sponsor a bill, the Cruise Line Accurate
Safety Statistics Act, to put more of an onus on cruise lines to prevent
and report crimes at sea. James Walker believes that many are
unreported, and points out that crew members are far more at risk than
passengers. "You don't have young Filipino women who have been sexually
abused calling in to the guest claims department," he says. In fact,
convictions of either employees or passengers are virtually unheard of.
"People call and say they are confident that the FBI can solve their
crime," he says. "We say, 'Well, if it happens with this cruise line, it
will be the first time in their history.'"

Cruise lines, meanwhile, have been at pains to stress that ships are
inherently safe, self- contained environments. In the context of
millions of passengers each year, the number of missing people and
reported sexual assaults compares well with statistics on land, they
say; crimes such as robbery are negligible.
William Giddons, director of the UK's Passenger Shipping Association,
representing the cruise industry, says: "The occurrence is so rare,
anything that happens on a cruise ship is news. Because we're such a
high-profile industry, it's something we have to live with. Compare us
with a resort or a hotel, where there is virtually no security at all.
"I can't sit here and tell you that all crimes are reported - but the
rules are very strict that they should be. They certainly will be now,
if [they weren't] in the past."

Changes are indeed being made. Drug- and terror-related concerns have
seen airport-style security introduced at ports, complete with x-ray
machines and sniffer dogs. The on-board culture on "fun ships" may be
changing, too: in Australia, a beleaguered P&O has increased CCTV,
stopped 24-hour drinking, and scrapped its notorious "schoolies
cruises", which often saw unruly passengers expelled on South Pacific
islands. Its ill-fated ship, the Pacific Sky - now linked to four
premature passenger deaths through accidents and illness in as many
years - has been sold off.

The industry still has some PR work to do, though: disappearances and
assaults aside, it has been beset by a roll-call of blights in recent
years. Last year one man died when fire swept through cabins on a
Caribbean cruise, and passengers feared for their lives as another
cruise ship blazed in the English Channel. Cunard's Queen Mary 2 was
recently the scene of a very public passenger mutiny after propeller
troubles cut every stop from the cruise itinerary. Other cruises have
been hit by the norovirus: a highly contagious sickness with symptoms
including diarrhoea, stomach cramps and violent projectile vomiting.
Some older British people had to be stretchered off one ship when it
returned to Hull, and at one point successive outbreaks of the virus
confined the world's newest, biggest megaliner, the Freedom of the Seas,
to port. In late 2005, the luxurious Seabourn Spirit even found itself
having to face down pirates with rocket launchers.

The industry has also run into problems on environmental grounds. In
Alaska, where only ships with advanced waste purification systems are
allowed to sail, a referendum has led to the tightening of controls and
a rise in taxes on cruise ships. Meanwhile, Californian ports, under the
newly green leadership of Arnold Schwarzenegger, are forcing ships to
reduce their fuel smoke emissions. More large fines have been levied on
cruise ships for dumping untreated waste.

But despite it all, passengers continue to flock to the ships. The
Passenger Shipping Association estimates that there was a 17% rise in
Britons taking cruises last year - with 1.25m of us taking a trip - and
predicts that 1.55m will be on board by 2008. Worldwide, the figure is
expected to pass 15m people going on a cruise annually. Bigger ships
with astonishing facilities are intermittently unveiled - and monster
ships to dwarf today's megaliners are under construction. With these
huge ships boasting theatres and shopping malls larger than those found
in many towns, passengers need hardly know they are at sea at all. So
long, of course, as they don't go overboard
Profile: George Smith, a young man who went missing on honeymoon
Young, handsome and wealthy, George Allen Smith IV, a 26-year-old from
Connecticut, went missing on a honeymoon cruise in the Mediterranean
with his new wife, Jennifer Hagel Smith.

After a lavish wedding in Rhode Island, the couple had fl own to Europe,
and in Barcelona boarded Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas, a
large resort ship that caters for the younger and more active end of the
market.
On the seventh day of the cruise, July 5 2005, Smith was reported
missing. The newlyweds had spent the previous evening in the bar and
casino with acquaintances from the cruise, drinking heavily. Hagel Smith
said she remembered nothing after leaving the bar, allegedly after
rowing with her husband. At around 3.30am, Smith, intoxicated, was
helped back to his cabin. His wife was not there.

The next morning, a passenger noticed a large bloodstain on a canopy
below the Smiths' cabin, and called security. Jennifer was tracked down
to the ship's spa, where she was having a massage. George was missing
without a trace.
Turkish forensic investigators were called in, as was an FBI agent
holidaying in the area. By evening, the bloodstain was cleaned away and
the ship continued on its voyage. If anyone had been responsible for
Smith's death, that person was on the cruise: in the words of the dead
man's sister, Bree Smith, who is convinced that there was foul play,
"the Brilliance of the Seas sailed off into the sunset with the
murderers on board".

In June 2006, Smith's family filed a lawsuit against the cruise line.
Hours later, Royal Caribbean announced that the widow, Jennifer Hagel
Smith, separately from the family, had agreed to a settlement.
Hagel Smith told the press: "As many great peace and spiritual teachers
have said, through great suffering comes great awareness." Details of
the settlement were revealed last week: Hagel Smith received a payment
worth one million dollars.
Profile: Annette Mizener, a mother who disappeared on a cruise she won
as a prize
Annette Mizener, 37, from Wisconsin, was reported missing on the last
night of a nine-day cruise to the Mexican Riviera on the Carnival Pride.

Both her parents and daughter were accompanying her on the cruise, which
she had won as a prize in a competition. On the evening of her
disappearance on December 4 2004, Mizener performed Britney Spears' Baby
One More Time at a karaoke night with her daughter, then went to the
casino. Later than evening she was due to meet her parents again for
bingo. But she never made it.
Her parents, Wally and Heidi Knerler, were immediately concerned. When
an announcement came over the Tannoy that her purse had been found, they
rushed to find cruise staff . The damaged purse had been discovered near
a railing on the lower deck.

The local coastguard led a fruitless search of more than 800km2 of water
well into the next day. The FBI later investigated, but no explanation
was ever forthcoming. A CCTV camera nearby had been obscured - covered
up by a map of the ship.
Finally a judge declared Mizener offi cially dead, but the family - who
rule out suicide and suspect foul play - still have no answers. Carnival
have since agreed an out-of-court, confidential settlement with
Mizener's husband, John.

· Gwyn Topham is the author of the book Overboard: The Stories Cruise
Lines Don't Want Told, published by Random House Australia