92: Wealthy Newlywed Murdered On Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship?
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Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Now, most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yes, I know you are. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you are not in some kind of moving vehicle, there is something else you can be doing right now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what.

Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. Do you think George was murdered? That's a good question. What do you think?

I guess we'll see. Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serial Asleep.

Hey everybody, welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly, where we are going to talk about a true crime case that is really, really wild and has been on my mind. And honestly, it's probably, it is one of like the ones where, I don't want to say the craziest one that I've heard in a while, but it's one where I definitely thought I knew the outcome before it ended, and I definitely didn't.

So if you are watching this on YouTube, what I want you guys to do is comment along with all of the red flags that you see as they happen. Maybe even put the timestamp with it because you might actually be really shocked at how the events in this case really unfolded as things started to become more clear and what you thought you knew really wasn't at all what was actually reality.

um before we get into it i also wanted to make just a quick announcement that season two merch is officially here we have named it the make it make sense collection because that is kind of the overarching theme with the entire drop um so if you want to get any of those items you know we all say the make it make sense the math ain't math and all the different things so we've got great giftables for the

apparel you name it so hopefully we're not completely sold out by the time you hear this or see this because we do have very limited quantities so if you do want to snag something make sure you head over to shop tentalife.com i will also put it in the show notes and the description of this episode but some really exciting stuff over there and if it is sold out i'm sorry i'm sorry i promise that i will try to have more as we go forward with the drops um

more inventory stacked up and make sure you're just following along or you opt in to be notified of season three merch drops so that you don't miss out that time. So without further ado, I want to get into this case because like I said, it has a lot of twists and turns. Yes, but more so it's like you think you know where the case is going and the direction that

And as everything starts to unfold, it's really not at all like that. So without further ado, guys, let's just jump right into it. Their first media reports were that there was a drunk honeymooner and there were no suspicious circumstances and the captain had outruled foul play. Well, this is not true. This is not true. And they lied to the media.

-Treats lax approach to dealing with violence on their ships. They're testifying on Capitol Hill today, explaining what happened and how they were treated. -Well, they could not keep that ship under control. -Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Michael. May I get your attention, please?

George Allen Smith IV was born on October 3rd, 1978. Now, growing up in Connecticut, George had a very tight-knit family. It was just his mom, his dad, and his sister, Bree. His mother, Maureen, was from the UK, and his dad's side of the family had a long history of roots in the Greenwich, Connecticut area, where George grew up.

George's father, George III, was an accountant who later purchased a liquor store actually. Far different from bookkeeping, right? Now it turned out that running this liquor store proved to be an extremely lucrative business and it was a great business venture for this family. So after high school, George went to college in Massachusetts and then after graduating with a degree in business computer science, he ended up finding a job in Boston.

George was doing well at work and really was thriving for a couple of years. However, despite his success, George decided to make a major career move and he ended up moving back to his hometown in Greenwich, Connecticut, and he went to work in the family business at that liquor store.

So at the time, his dad couldn't have been more thrilled about this, for his son to finally join him in the family business, eventually be the successor and run the business one day, run the store himself. So he was really excited for everything that this meant would happen for the business and for all of the things that George could help with, because in the early 2000s, it was pretty brand new with some of the technology.

So things that George was going to help out with included things like digitizing the liquor store, creating a website, really building an online presence. And George was really eager to help and to do these things. Now, speaking about George as a person,

He was very handsome and very charismatic. He was kind and also had just like a really good true sense of humor. So this really helped liven up the liquor store, the liquor store that just his dad and his parents had run. Now this younger guy who's tech savvy, who has a little bit more of a personality is entering the scene. And it really did help liven the place up. Now while living back in his hometown, George was single.

In the past, George had had a few casual relationships, but he was always pretty tight-lipped about his dating life. However, all of that changed when he met a beautiful blonde woman named Jennifer Hagel. George and Jennifer's love story began in 2002, when George, along with some of his friends, rented a rundown house in Newport, Rhode Island for the summer.

When George's shower broke one day, he went to an upstairs apartment to see if he could use that shower. And this apartment actually happened to be occupied by Jennifer's brother, Johnny. So later on, George and Johnny became good friends, which then later extended to George meeting Jennifer. And the rest was history, as they say. They hit it off after meeting each other. They were just absolutely smitten with one another. And their relationship got serious pretty quickly, too.

Now, Jennifer grew up in a town nearby to George's hometown, where her father, who also happens to be a former policeman, ran a construction business. And her mother worked there as well as a real estate agent. When she met George, Jennifer was pursuing her master's degree in education, and she planned on becoming a teacher.

So before the Smith family had realized it, Jennifer had actually moved in to George's apartment, and they became absolutely inseparable. They were both super attractive, they were fun-loving, kind, and they were really just those types of people that everyone naturally wanted to be around.

couple goals the couple that everybody aspires to be they just had this way about them this great personality they never argued they were both you know attractive and successful and everything just really seemed perfect

So they continued dating for a few years, and then eventually, George asked Jennifer to marry him. George's family could tell how happy George was in this relationship and how much he truly loved Jennifer, and they were really excited to welcome Jennifer into their family because they loved her as much as their son did.

So fast forward a couple of years, and on June 25, 2005, George was now 26 years old, and Jennifer was 25 years old. They both tied the knot at Castle Hill Inn and Resort in Newport, Rhode Island.

Their wedding was a lavish wedding and truly a beautiful celebration. And everyone who was in attendance could really see their love for each other, that George and Jennifer just had this special kind of bond, this special kind of love, because it was literally just radiating off of them. You could feel how much they cared for each other through just watching their faces, their interactions with each other. They were just smitten. So

So the very next day after the wedding, they were ready for their two-week honeymoon. They flew to Barcelona, Spain, where they were planning on boarding a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. And this specific cruise ship was called Brilliance of the Seas.

The cruise started off in Barcelona, and it had stops in Greece, Italy, Turkey, and some other Mediterranean countries. Now back in 2005, the Brilliance of the Seas was one of the biggest cruise ships in existence. It had 12 passenger decks, and it could hold up to 2,500 guests and 850 staff members. I mean, this was a mega cruise ship.

The cruise ship also had three different swimming pools, several restaurants, a disco, which we obviously now call a club, and a casino, a spa, and just so much more. Like, it was massive, massive, massive. So beyond excited for this honeymoon and the journey that they were about to embark on, both literally and figuratively, the new couple settled into their room on the ship, cabin room 9062.

Everything was absolutely perfect. Jennifer and George were having just this amazing time together and enjoyed all that the ship really had to offer while on the way to their first destination.

Early on in their cruise, they also met another couple, who also happened to be newlyweds. So they became fast friends with this couple, frequently having dinners together, going to the pool together, going to shows, and having drinks late night on the ship. And then after they spent time with this new couple, this new friendship they had, George and Jennifer would party until the early morning hours, either at that disco or gambling at the casino on board, sometimes even both.

There was even one night when the couple's next door cabin neighbor could hear Jennifer and George having a get together in their room, which kept that neighbor awake until 3:30 in the morning. I mean, they were just living their honeymoon to the max, living their best life.

partying, drinking, gambling, dancing, just being in love, bringing guests back to the room till 3.30 in the morning. I mean, what young newlywed couple wouldn't do that if given the opportunity, right? I mean, their partying and their fun even got so loud that one of these nights on the next day, that neighbor called the guest relations desk on the cruise to complain about how loud the couple's cabin was.

So at one stop in Italy, George and Jennifer shared a taxi into Florence from a family called the Askin family, who happened to be from Laguna Hills, California. Dr. Jerry Askin, his wife Bonnie, and their children, including their son who was a college student named Josh, all were part of this taxi ride.

Now, Josh and George seemed to somewhat hit it off, and they actually became friends. Then, while exploring through Florence, Josh purchased a bottle of absinthe. Now, if you're familiar with cruise ships and their regulations, they are very strict about prohibiting alcohol on board, especially outside alcohol, and you can't really ever bring it on unless you're smuggling it in, which

side note I definitely did that in my early 20s and I have a very tip-top secret way to do that but I'm not going to say it here but slide into my DMs if you want to know but they are very anti-bringing alcohol on board they want you to obviously pay for things and their beverages while you're on the ship

However, Josh was set on bringing the absinthe back with him, so he asked George if he could help him sneak it in. And George said yes. So after Florence and getting back on the ship, the ship continued its voyage from Italy, making its way to the popular Greek island of Mykonos.

On July 4th, George and Jennifer enjoyed the day exploring the island's whitewashed villas and then returning to the ship in the evening. And Jennifer had reported that they had been on a high after they were returning to that ship that evening because they had spotted the actress Tara Reid, who was actually filming her show, Paradise, on the island.

Now, if you don't know who Tara Reid is or wondering why they were so excited to see her and then on this high, she's nowadays pretty much a lower profile and not many people know her. She's been on a couple D-list things. I think she was actually in that movie Sharknado. But back in the early 2000s when all of this was going on, she was like at the pinnacle peak of her fame and she was an it girl through and through.

In fact, Tara Reid was probably regarded as one of Hollywood's biggest sensations back in the late 90s and the early 2000s. She had a hit role in the movie American Pie and truly captured the attention of the country because of her beauty and girl-next-door type nature. Now, that is a side note, but the reason I'm bringing it up is for a reason, and it's all going to make sense later. So later that night, they planned to go to a romantic dinner on the ship, just the two of them.

George smoked a cigar on the balcony before dinner, and then they went to Chop's Grill, the ship's steakhouse.

Following their dinner, they decided that they wanted to try their luck at the ship's casino. So there, they planned to meet up with their newlywed couple friends. However, when they got to the casino, they saw their new friend Josh, that 20-year-old from California, and a group of four young men who were dubbed the Russians. These men's names were Greg, Zachary, Jeffrey Rosenberg, and another friend named Rusty Kaufman.

Now, the reason that they were grouped as just the Russians and referred to it as that is because for a long time, their identities weren't actually known to the public. All of the men were Russian Americans and in their early 20s, and they were on the cruise with a very large group of family members.

Their behavior on the ship had already caused some disturbances though, including inappropriate behavior by the pool, obnoxious interactions with room service, different things like that. On one occasion, a security guard found them drinking and smoking by the main pool as well. Greg was acting arrogant and shouting obscenities and making prank phone calls, which ultimately resulted in a visit from security.

So at this point, they were annoying to a lot of people on the ship. But there wasn't much that the cruise ship staff could really do because they were on this excursion. They had paid for it. So eventually, they told the room service operators to not answer the phone if they ever received a phone call from their cabin, which was room 3004.

According to people on the cruise that saw George and Jennifer that night, the couple appeared to be in very good spirits, like everything was normal, just having fun, letting loose like they had been doing that entire cruise up until that point.

George and Jennifer weren't necessarily extremely rich, but anyone at the casino may have believed that they were, primarily because of the way that the couple looked. They looked well put together, dressed very nicely, George had on a very nice watch, and he was even seen going back to their room on more than one occasion to get Jennifer more cash. Just different things like that. You may see this couple and think, oh, they're obviously well off or they're comfortable.

Even though George and Jennifer were at the casino together, they weren't right next to each other the entire time. And this was common when they were at the casino on previous nights as well. Jennifer was always at the blackjack table, and George was always at the craps table. So as the night progressed, everyone was drinking very heavily. The group was seen taking shots, and once the casino closed at 2:30 a.m., the night didn't stop there. Not by a long shot.

The newlywed couple ended up going back to their room, but everyone else hanging out with Jennifer and George headed to the disco for the night, where not only the partying continued, but everyone was getting really, really drunk. People at the disco reported seeing the group at a table taking shots from a liquor bottle that they had brought there, which happened to be the absinthe bottle.

So, let's talk about that really quickly. Because absinthe has often been portrayed as a very dangerously addicted, psychoactive drug and hallucinogen. In the past, the chemical compound, thujone, which is presented in trace amounts, was blamed for its alleged harmful effects. Typically, absinthe has an alcohol level of around 80-90%, where other liquors like vodka and whiskey are around 40%.

The kind of absinthe that is sold in the U.S. today does not have any Thujone in it. However, in most of the EU, real absinthe may be sold as long as it stays at the 35 milligram limit of Thujone. And as I'm sure you guessed, that is the type of absinthe that they bought in Florence, and that is the type of absinthe that they smuggled aboard. And allegedly, some of the men were even said to have bragged about having the real deal absinthe.

So it was clear to anyone with eyes on this cruise ship that at this point in the night, everyone was just like extremely intoxicated. And unfortunately, this was when the versions of what happened next start to really differ and take different forms, all depending on who you ask.

Josh said that while they were at the casino earlier, Jennifer was flirting with a casino manager named Lloyd, and that that had been going on all night, starting at the casino and then carried over to the disco. According to Josh, when the casino closed, the Smiths, Josh and Lloyd rode the elevator up to the disco together. On the elevator, Josh said that he noticed that Lloyd had his arm around Jennifer. In fact, several passengers reported that Jennifer appeared to be flirting with Lloyd.

Josh said that he witnessed Jennifer and Lloyd sitting next to each other and cuddling up on a couch. However, nobody else reported seeing that. Other witnesses that saw Jennifer that night said that she was so intoxicated that she couldn't stand up straight and that she was hanging on another man. This man was interviewed and said he thought that Jennifer was just drunk but not flirting with him at all, just needed a little bit of stability, hanging on him, couldn't really walk straight or stand.

A bartender at the disco remembered seeing that group of who was dubbed as the Russian boys, also Josh and George and Jennifer, all together talking near the bar around 3 a.m.

Greg ordered four more vodka shots, which he gave to George, Jennifer, and someone else. Then around 3.30 a.m., George confronted Jennifer about her behavior that night, which apparently led to a very heated argument. And it ended with Jennifer kicking George in the crotch and then storming out of the disco.

Now, some passengers apparently heard George call Jennifer a hussy. That is a direct quote, direct word. Other witnesses said that the argument and the kick was playful and that it wasn't that big of a deal. However, when Jennifer left, Josh said that Lloyd, the man that she had allegedly been flirting with, followed after her. So now it was just George, Josh, Greg, Zachary, and Rusty.

And I know there's a lot of names that are confused in that. So to paint it simply, it was the Russian group, Josh, the friend that they had met, the one who bought the absinthe in Florence, and it's from Laguna Hills, California, and then George, the newlywed.

So around 3:30 a.m., the disco ended up closing. Josh said that everyone realized how drunk George was and that he was having trouble walking, so they decided to help George get back to his room. They all walked him to his room, and when they got there, Jennifer, his bride, was not there.

And now George, of course, wanted to find Jennifer. Josh said that George changed his shirt and the group of men then went out and looked for her. Unfortunately, they weren't able to find her anywhere, so they ended up just going back to George's room. Rusty said that he remembered that the group left George on his bed and that George was grateful and that he actually kissed one of the boys and promised to buy them a round of drinks the following day.

After that, Josh said that he and the group of Russians went back to Rusty's room, and he was back in his own room by 5.15 a.m.

The next morning, another passenger on the cruise, a 16-year-old girl named Emily, went out onto her balcony at around 7:30 a.m. with her camera. She was hoping to take some pictures of the sunrise and the beautiful ocean views. While out on the balcony, she noticed something on the overhang of one of the ship's lifeboats, something that was about to turn this entire cruise ship into a living nightmare.

Emily saw something horrifying, and as she took a closer look, she began to see what she could only describe as what looked like someone had died on there. The canopy on the ship had a large amount of blood on it, and as weird as this sounds, all of the blood looked as if it was in the shape of a human body. However, there wasn't a body at all, just a lot of blood.

Cruise ship security was immediately notified and upon investigating the location of the canopy, they determined that it actually looked like it was possible that the blood may have come from room 9062, the newlyweds' cabin, George and Jennifer Smith's cabin. Later on, the captain of the cruise made a very grim announcement. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is Captain Michael. May I get your attention, please?

As some of you may notice today, we have been a bit of unusual activity aboard the ship. The crew and I have been working with the local authorities and some guests on board to investigate whether a person may have gone overboard last night, or I can say early this morning.

We hope to have the issue resolved shortly. So the biggest question here is what the hell really happened after they left the disco? And we're going to get into all of that after we take a quick commercial break.

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So if you remember, Jennifer was nowhere to be found after the disco. According to various witnesses, Jennifer was seen leaving the disco at around 3:15 a.m., just moments before George and his friends left the disco as well. Now, logistically, it should have taken her no more than five minutes to return to her cabin. But as we know from Josh, when they got to their room, Jennifer wasn't there.

So the next morning when security was knocking on the newlyweds cabin door and nobody was answering, they became increasingly worried. Why weren't they waking up? Why weren't they coming to the door? So finally security opened up their door and nobody was in the room at all.

The cruise ship started paging for both of their names using the cruise audio system. Josh, who could hear the paging in his room, saw a ship attendant and said, "Hey, you might want to go into the room because he probably can't hear the paging if he's sleeping." But the ship attendant said they had already done that and that he wasn't there at all. So as all of this was happening, on the other side of the ship, that newlywed couple that Jennifer and George had been hanging out with and had befriended got a visit to their room.

When they opened the door, they were startled to see ship personnel there and asking when they last saw George. They asked what was going on and finally someone told them that George was missing. At this point, crew staff asked them to come down to the guest relations area and when they got there, they saw Jennifer. And apparently, Jennifer had been at the spa when the staff was trying to enter her room, but she was finally located once the system began paging her and once all of that began.

So, you might be wondering, where the hell was Jennifer all night? It's kind of weird to just be totally gone and then at the spa for a scheduled massage, right? Like nothing ever happened. Surely she would have had to have gone to her room at some point and noticed that George wasn't there, right?

So Jennifer's timeline even the next morning wasn't all that reliable. Royal Caribbean officials said that Jennifer arrived an hour and a half early for her massage and that she was in the treatment room when crew members came in looking for her. Jennifer said she didn't remember anything that happened the night before after the casino and that she just remembered waking up in her room.

So her whereabouts that night ended up coming from surveillance cameras at the casino and from people that saw her the night before, staff incident reports, and her door entry timestamps. It didn't come from Jennifer's recollection herself. And here's the timeline that all of those pieces of information began to build.

Around 4.30 a.m., Jennifer was found unconscious on the floor by a maintenance store. Witnesses from the disco figured that Jennifer was trying to get back to her room, but because of how drunk she was, they think that she became disoriented, and rather than turning right to where her room was, Jennifer accidentally went left and then eventually passed out.

The crew members who found her searched for George back at their cabin, but upon entering and not finding him, they decided to put Jennifer in a wheelchair and then roll her back to the room. Once she was in the room, she was laid out onto the bed. Staff members didn't notice anything out of the ordinary or unusual in their room, and they left her there to sleep on her own. While she didn't remember the night after the casino, Jennifer said that she did remember waking up as the ship docked.

Now, even though George wasn't in the room, Jennifer apparently wasn't overly concerned, thinking that he was probably in a friend's cabin partying and fell asleep, especially since he had already done this apparently a couple of times during their cruise. So that morning, she remembered that she had a massage scheduled at the spa and pretty much just went on like business as usual.

Later, when talking to the cruise ship staff, Jennifer tried to explain how odd it was that she really couldn't remember anything and even suggested that maybe she was drugged and then led down the wrong hallway by someone intentionally. And then they just left her there.

The crew members told Jennifer that George wasn't in anybody else's cabin, and after searching for a few hours, plus seeing that blood-stained lifeboat canopy, they actually believed that he was no longer on the cruise ship at all, and that he might have actually gone overboard.

During this, Jennifer kept saying that she didn't understand, that she couldn't remember anything, and then hearing that George may have gone overboard, this was truly just putting her brain into overload. It just wasn't computing for her, and nothing was making any sense.

She kept saying she wanted to call her dad over and over and over again. And finally, she was able to call, and she told her dad that George had gone overboard. And her dad delivered that news to George's family. In the immediate aftermath of everything that was going on on the cruise, Turkish police came aboard the cruise ship to investigate what was going on.

Royal Caribbean documented part of their investigation too, taking pictures inside the Smith's room as well as on the balcony. And they also searched the room for any forensic evidence, such as handprints, footprints, all of those things. While doing so, they found small droplets of blood on the bed inside the room.

The Turkish police also gathered Josh, Zachary, Greg, and others involved, and they gathered them into the ship's lobby and then questioned all of them together to ask what happened the night before. In a videotape earlier obtained by CBS News, the Russians insisted to Turkish police that Smith was still alive when they left his room. I closed the door. We never saw him. Never saw him again. He said a story. Basically, he was sitting across the

And then they got up and they went to the bar. And then they were sitting with other people at the bar. And then they were sitting at the bar talking over there. And he came back. He was stumbling around. So he came back to sit with us and talk. And she disappeared. And then he's stumbling around. He's dead in the chair. He's barely leaving. So we helped him back to his room. And when we got to his room, she wasn't there. We tried to find her. We brought her back. And we passed her down to the bathroom.

We never saw him. That was the last time we saw him.

I'm serious. That's ridiculous.

In this audio, you can hear Greg shocked that there was blood on that canopy. But all of them had the same story. That Jennifer left after the disco. That George stayed there for a little while longer, but then around 3.45 a.m., George was so drunk that they decided it would probably be best to bring George back to his room.

Once they got to the cabin and realized that Jennifer wasn't there, they searched for about 10 minutes, and when they weren't able to find her, they went back to George's room by 4 a.m., where they reportedly left him to sleep it off, and they all went off and did their own thing. Crew staff was actually able to verify the time that they got back, too, using timestamps from when George's keycard was scanned. The door was opened at 4.02 a.m., corroborating this part of the story.

According to Josh's story, the other men had taken off George's shoes and had put him to bed when he had gone to use the bathroom. Then they stayed in George's room for a while before going back to their rooms. Once there, they say that they ordered room service and then ended up falling asleep. Neighbors on both sides of cabin 9062 spoke up about the sounds that they actually heard coming from the Smiths' cabin the night before.

The neighbor in room 9064 was a man named Cleet Hyman, who happened to be a California deputy police sheriff. He said that there were loud noises coming from the room next door and that the noises were around 3 a.m. He said that at first it sounded like a party or a loud drinking game of sorts.

and that it wasn't really that surprising to hear the Smiths up late partying since he was that same neighbor who had already made that noise complaint on the cruise's excursion. Well, our first contact with a couple next door was the second night of the cruise. They appeared to be having quite a party in their room. It lasted from about 11 o'clock at night till well past 3 in the morning.

Our next time, we'd only pass them in the hallways. We really had no contact with them. However, early on the morning of the 5th at about 4:00 in the morning, we were awakened about 4:00 in the morning by loud yelling coming from the cabin. It sounded like people cheering, like a drinking contest type thing. There appeared to be numerous people in the room.

This went on two separate times that we know of. The one that woke us up and then one about a minute later. Then all we could hear was loud talking in the room for oh, probably three minutes. At that point we heard people just outside of the door of the cabin. It sounded like people maybe saying goodnight and it sounded like maybe three or four people. At that point we heard

talking in the room off and on for the next about five minutes. But then all of a sudden there became some very loud arguing out on the balcony. This went on for a couple of minutes and then we heard someone saying goodnight, goodnight just repeatedly like they were trying to usher people out of the room.

After about 30 seconds of that, we did hear the cabin door open and some male voices outside. And then the males went down the hallway. After the young men left the room, for the next about five minutes, you could hear someone going about the cabin and opening and closing cabinet doors. And it also sounded like they were actually moving furniture around.

That went on for, like I said, five to seven minutes and then it went out into the balcony. What time was that, Cleet? A little after approximately 4:20 in the morning. So they're cleaning up the place, somebody was cleaning up the place at 4:20 in the morning? Well, that was the assumption I made that maybe that they were straightening up a little bit.

However, the noise went out onto the balcony and you could hear furniture being moved and then at times it sounded like furniture was being actually picked up and dropped. That they weren't too careful about the way they were moving the furniture. I only heard one voice in the cabin at that point.

This outside the movement went, was sporadic. Stuff would be moved, then there'd be some silence, then furniture would be moved again. Then there was just total silence. This was probably maybe two minutes or so of total silence and then that horrific thud. Talk about that horrific thud.

Well, the thud, originally, my first thought was someone had fallen on the balcony, but it was way too loud for that. So that night, you thought somebody may have been either fallen overboard or been thrown overboard and hit the balcony?

No. At no point did I really, that didn't go into my mind because it actually reverberated in the room and on our balcony. So I thought maybe someone had literally fallen on their balcony or that they had thrown furniture overboard. Because of the impact, it sounded like something very heavy and my first thought was maybe throwing furniture overboard.

So what happened the next morning when you woke up? Obviously you heard the loud thud, went to sleep, woke up the next morning. What did you do then? Well, a little after 7 o'clock in the morning I had gone out to look at the scenery on our balcony as we were pulling into port.

And I did look around the partition between our balcony and the balcony of the Smiths. And I was curious whether in fact the furniture had been thrown overboard. However, everything was still on the balcony. I noted that the door going into the room was open, but there didn't seem to be anything of any importance.

So the furniture, all the furniture was still up there accounted for, so obviously the thud you heard was not a piece of furniture from the balcony. Josh, Greg, Zachary, and Rusty all claim that they left George alone in his room shortly after putting George to bed. However, Cleet says that he only saw three men leave the room at that time through his peephole, not all four. According to some sources, Cleet actually called to complain about the noises going on in the Smiths' room on that night, too.

Later on, when security knocked on the Smith's door, Cleet opened his door and said, you better get in there because it sounds like someone trashed the room or something to that effect. But apparently, security never even opened the door.

The neighbors on the other side of the Smiths had a similar story, but they say that they didn't hear any arguing. That night we were obviously in the cabin next door, and this was the early morning of July the 5th. We were having a wake-up call early because we were on a day trip that day. Normally that's what we did on the cruise. We went to bed early, got up early, probably a little different schedule than what you saw of the Smiths.

We never saw them, we never ran into them, and we only really knew what they looked like after we got back and really saw them on the media.

But about, I would say, 3:30 in the morning, that fateful morning, there was some voices outside, and it sounded like it was maybe in the hallway. I heard what I would consider to be an American-accented voice of a male, and he said something to the effect of, you know, "Take it easy, George," or "Take care, George." And my wife heard more clearly some other male voices, and I'll let her describe a little bit about those. What were they saying, Pat?

Well, all of the voices were very kind. That was the first thing that I noticed. The young boy sounded like a teenager. He did sound like a young voice. And I heard two voices that were a little quieter. I perceived them to be

police officers or somebody from the cruise ship because I did not see them but I perceive them to be somebody that was helping someone to the room and they also were speaking very kindly there was no type of altercation and my perception at the time was that they were taking someone who was possibly drunk back to their room and getting them settled down and the words we heard were settle down George and that was that and that was the last

thing that we heard. Four o'clock though, about 30 minutes later though, everything just exploded and you started hearing things being thrown around the room. Is that right? Exactly right. What happened maybe 15 minutes, maybe 30 minutes later after those voices basically stopped, it sounded like somebody in the cabin next door was trashing the room. It sounded to me like somebody was in there just throwing furniture around. And the curious thing about that during that short period of time was there was no voices during that

that episode it just was a lot of thumping and throwing things around and that period of time ended with one big thump and it sounded to me like somebody picked up the couch and threw it against the wall and then it went quiet and then it went absolutely quiet. Go ahead Pat, I'm sorry, go ahead, we have a delay here, go. I was going to say the thing that was unusual too because we were looking at each other and we were thinking boy do we have to report this

because it was getting a little noisy and I was saying what in the heck are they throwing around but there was not one voice there was no grunt there were no grunts there were no sounds of pain there was

was no form of altercation in terms of verbalization. It was just physical. Yeah, it didn't sound like a fight was going on. I'm wondering though, you just said, Greg, that it sounded like around 4:15, 4:20 that somebody threw a couch up against the wall. In retrospect,

It sounds an awful lot like what Cleet Hyman said around 4:15. He heard a sickening thud. In retrospect, do you think that may have been George's body hitting the deck?

Yeah, I think it probably could have been because I think our stories are consistent in that area about the same time and about this one big thud. So I think they're consistent there. Now the timeline of both of the neighbors stories match up and it cooperates with Josh, Zach and Greg's timeline of the night. Noises started around 4 a.m. and ended around 420 to 425 a.m. when they apparently heard what they describe as a sickening thud of something really heavy.

Now going back to Jennifer, the cruise ship staff reported finding her sometime around 4.30 a.m. in the morning and then taking her back to her room. That would mean that whatever happened in that room to George happened right before Jennifer was brought back.

Does that make sense? And you're telling me that the staff inside didn't notice anything out of the ordinary? No furniture misplaced. Did they also not hear anybody or not see anybody? Or what about that loud thud? How was everything just not out of the ordinary? Josh was also taken to the police station in Turkey, where his father, Dr. Jerry Askin, recorded the interrogation.

When Josh believed Turkish authorities might suspect Jennifer in George's disappearance, Josh told the police, she has no idea what happened. I'm not letting her go to jail. One last thing I thought was interesting that in your pre-interview, you talked about that the Turkish authorities told your clients that they were going to arrest Jennifer for the murder of her husband.

Yeah, they had the Baskins are going off the boat for their daily tour thinking that it's over and all of a sudden they're taken into custody by the Turkish police, brought down to the Turkish police department, interrogated. Josh is asked to sign a statement written in Turkish. The Baskins had the port agent call the boat two times to ask for help, some assistance. They were ignored.

Josh signed the statement and after signing it was told that they were going to go out and arrest Jennifer now for murder. Josh then insisted that investigators needed to interview that casino manager that Jennifer was last seen with, Lloyd. Remember the one that she was accused of flirting with?

However, it's unclear if authorities took Josh seriously because Turkish police quickly wrapped up their investigation and said that they believed that no foul play was involved and that this was just a tragic accident or even a suicide. They also told cruise ship staff that they could wash the blood off of the canopy, which was the most crucial piece of evidence at that point. Clearly, they didn't seem to be worried about preserving that evidence.

Normally, when someone falls off of a ship at sea, there's not much blood left behind. However, some people believe that this blood pattern hinted that George was already bleeding significantly before he hit that canopy and then slipped off into the ocean. So then when the Turkish police got off of the cruise ship and basically closed their investigation, the cruise continued on to its next destination like nothing ever happened.

Which, call me crazy, but if I was on that cruise ship, I would be freaked out. Because, in my mind, accident, maybe, suicide, possibly. But the other theory and the other thought that would cross my mind is that this person was murdered. Which would mean that there was a murderer on board. And that would freak me out. But this cruise just continued on like nothing ever happened.

George's family was of course absolutely devastated after learning that George most likely went overboard somehow, and that he was of course now because of this no longer alive, and even worse, that his body would likely never even be recovered.

George was a very loyal person. He was a real family guy. He was hysterically funny. And I think everyone that knew him loved him because he had so much to offer. And he was just genuinely kind. And it really is a terrible loss to all of us that love George so much.

George was very athletic. He played a lot of sports and he was always out with his friends and being sociable and he was also very family oriented. We used to go on vacations together and you know, he was always calling us. He just really was the all-American boy that everyone wishes that they could have in their family. I have interviewed George's family in person extensively.

and they are convinced that George was murdered. When we went to Greece, what is it, a week later? We really still thought that maybe he was somewhere. And we went to the Coast Guard, we went to the hospitals, we went all around the hospitals, we put flyers out, didn't we? And we went searching for him ourselves at night time. And we left after about a week because my daughter was alone at home.

We still just couldn't believe it. We couldn't believe that he was gone. And to this day, we still can't believe it. I mean, if we had the information about what happened to him or if we had him, then we could sort of move on, but we don't have that. And it's just the uncertainty is what really eats away at us, I think. Now, Royal Caribbean was adamant that this must have been an accident, that George was drunk and then fell overboard all by mistake, by pure accident.

Even the cruise ship captain agreed and suspected that George might have climbed up to sit on the balcony railing, then lost his balance and then fell overboard. However, the Smith family felt that Royal Caribbean and the Turkish police didn't adequately investigate what actually had happened.

and that George randomly going overboard just did not make sense, especially after learning that Turkish police supposedly only spent an hour and a half to two hours documenting the entire crime scene. After that, the ship didn't secure the crime scene properly in Turkey either. Passengers and crew members were able to come and go and leave, possibly even taking evidence with them. So about nine days later, the FBI became involved.

During their investigation of cabin 9062, they found biological evidence on the balcony, and they also noticed signs on the overhang suggesting that something or someone had been dragged over it.

There was a concentrated blood spot, possibly from a primary wound, and also a bloody handprint. So they wanted to conduct a test of a life-size dummy falling from that balcony to see what kind of trajectory would happen if someone accidentally fell. However, Royal Caribbean wouldn't let them do this since there were still passengers on board.

Okay, well we're looking at the picture right there and they're moving the chair up by the balcony rail and we certainly heard from Royal Caribbean about maybe, you know, he scooted a chair up and that was the way it was found. Later on, Jennifer met with the FBI and agreed to provide blood and hair samples and she also took a polygraph test claiming that she passed. When the blood results from the ship came back, the blood on the canopy and the droplets found on the bed were from George, not Jennifer.

Still, a lot of people felt like Jennifer knew way more than she was letting on. But there really wasn't anything solid that pointed to her involvement in any single type of way. This led the FBI to look more into the Russians and into Josh.

When the FBI spoke to Josh, he allegedly failed a polygraph test after passing the first one. The FBI also was apparently given photographs of the room service that the men had ordered that night. And on these photographs, it had timestamps on them. Because that's not suspicious at all, right? On July 6th, just a day after George disappeared or went overboard, the Russians, Jeff, Greg, and Rusty were involved in another situation on the ship.

This time when a young woman reported to crew staff that she had been raped and thought that she might have even been recorded. She mentioned three guys in this claim as well. Jeff, Greg, and Rusty, saying that they were all involved. She said that she was drinking vodka in the hot tub with the guys, and once she began feeling the alcohol, she decided to get out of the hot tub.

Jeff and Greg offered to walk her back to her cabin, but they took her to a cabin belonging to one of the Russians instead. There, according to her, Jeff raped her while Greg recorded it.

She described being forced into sex with Jeff, Greg, and Rusty. All three of them. Greg even told her to talk into the camera, naming him as the executive producer, as if he wanted some kind of evidence in case she claimed rape. I mean, these guys are just disgusting and complete morons, in my opinion.

She says that she blacked out when Rusty became involved in all of this. And she also said that Josh was there too, but did not take part in the assault. And I'm going to come back to that in a little while, and you'll see why.

So on July 9th, while docked in Italy, the three Russian men and the Askin family were removed from the ship in Naples. They were removed for questioning about this rape claim. They admitted to the sex and admitted to filming it, but insisted that it was all consensual. However, Italian authorities eventually dropped the case, saying that it wasn't within their jurisdiction. After George vanished, his family repeatedly asked the cruise line for information, but they got little to no response.

Initially, they weren't told about the Turkish criminal investigation or the suspicious nature of his disappearance, nor did they know about the blood that was found in his cabin and below his balcony as well. As a matter of fact, a lot of the information that they found out was through the news. On June 29, 2006, George's family sued the cruise line, accusing them of misrepresenting the incident as an accident and delaying a proper investigation.

This investigation was horrible. I mean, from the beginning. The Smiths have hired attorney Brett Rivkin to sue Royal Caribbean. We know that this company should have communicated all the information they had, and the FBI should have been told, listen,

We may have a murder here. We may have a murder, not, you know, we may have a person missing. We may have had an accident. Rivkin claims Royal Caribbean washed and painted the blood-stained overhang that morning before the FBI could investigate. Then, seven years after George's death, the Smiths' lawyer, Michael Jones, later got a hold of that video that the Russians had taken while they allegedly sexually assaulted that girl on the cruise ship.

Something all the men said was consensual, if you remember. And in this video, there was something very disturbing that was found that flipped this case upside down completely. And we are going to go through all of that after we take one last quick commercial break.

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Would you believe us if we told you our podcast is haunted? We didn't intend for this to happen. No, we did not. But apparently spirits like listening to ghost stories too. We bring you the creepiest, most unusual, and sometimes heartwarming encounters with the paranormal. Stories so chilling and so shocking that even the spirits can't help but hop on our mics and give us an occasional EVP. But we aren't the only haunted ones. Listeners of this podcast report increased levels of paranormal activity.

Our podcast brings all the ghosts to the yard, and hopefully it brings you too. Tune in to Two Girls, One Ghost wherever you listen to podcasts. It's the most haunted podcast in America. Very spooky. So it's now seven years after George's disappearance or mysterious overboard fall. This video was discovered of the Russians allegedly sexually assaulting this girl. And in the video, you can hear the men joking about George's death right after he disappeared.

One of the men said, "Told you I was gangster." And the other said, "We gave that guy a paragliding lesson without a parachute." Hmm, seems pretty incriminating and guilty if you ask me. The tape in the FBI's possession contains something else: a lunch meeting filmed by the Russian Americans just hours after George went overboard. Josh Askin was not present. They pass a video camera around

filming themselves commenting about George's death in a very callous way. And they're laughing and joking very callously about him being wealthy. And certainly the way they were talking, they either knew or they had a pretty good sense of what had happened. Now, during depositions for the lawsuit, Josh invoked the Fifth Amendment. His lawyer suggested questioning Greg, who had mysteriously left their cabin when they ordered room service, hinting that Josh knew more than he admitted to.

He also took a polygraph by the FBI that came back as inconclusive. When he was deposed, he invoked his Fifth Amendment. Josh, in the video, also says, quote, I'm not letting her go to jail, end quote. Is he referring to Jennifer? I'd like to invoke my Fifth Amendment right. Do you have any idea why he would be so adamant about protecting Jennifer? I'd like to invoke my Fifth Amendment right. When Zachary was deposed, he, too, invoked the Fifth Amendment.

Rusty underwent a deposition as well, but the details of his statement and the results of his polygraph test remain undisclosed due to a deal that was made with his lawyer. In 2010, Greg received a three-year prison sentence for oxycodone trafficking, which he said he only did because it was an easy way for him to make money and be able to buy expensive clothing, jewelry, and watches, which that's not really a good excuse in my book because isn't everybody dealing drugs for money if they're dealing? So that, like...

I only did it because I wanted expensive clothes, jewelry, and watches. Like, okay, get a better excuse. But whatever, he was arrested for it and was serving time. Now relating to George, Jennifer later spoke out about what happened on many major media outlets, as well as on Oprah. George really was the all-American guy. George had it all. He was funny and romantic and handsome. He was a good friend. He's a loyal person. He's the type of person that

you're proud to bring home to mom and dad do you uh you think the fbi is going to solve this case i hope so let me let me let me ask you do you think do you think george is murdered that's a good question what do you think i guess we'll see um i'm looking forward to ending this investigation what can you tell us about that night um i know you're doing your job and you have to ask um but again

My number one priority, and I'm going to say this again and again, is just doing what the FBI has told me. And basically, there's nothing that I'm going to release that happened to me that night. I'm excited in the future to be able to talk freely and openly, because that will mean that the FBI has solved their case. So we get through the night. You wake up in the morning. And there are two different stories about where you woke up.

One said you woke up in the room. The other said you woke up three flights up. Can you tell us where you woke up? It's nothing scandalous. I can't say that, if that's what people are wondering. Did they tell you he was dead? He'd gone overboard and died? They said he'd gone overboard and they found blood. Actually, I had found out from them that they believed he went over in Greek waters. And here we are in Turkey, so...

And as you can imagine, you just, you play back in your mind at that time, just the wedding and just everything just flashes. And you think, this is a sick joke, right? Because we just got married, right? You're kidding me.

Jennifer was reportedly very upset with the Smiths after George went missing because apparently they wanted to use a picture that he had taken with Tara Reid with Tara cropped out of it. And they wanted to use that as the picture for his missing persons poster instead of a picture with Jennifer in it. And that really pissed Jennifer off apparently, which I literally don't even know what to say about that. I kind of want to roll my eyes to where I can roll them so far back in my head that I see my brain because who's

What picture, what does it matter what picture they use of your missing husband? Don't you just want the photo used to get all eyes looking for him? What does it matter if you're in the picture or if it's a picture that Tara Reid was once in where Tara was cropped out? Make it make sense. Then a few months after George's presumed death and disappearance, the Smiths were apparently starting to get suspicious of Jennifer.

Later in the investigation, they stopped communication with her altogether because she refused to talk about what happened that tragic night. Jennifer claimed to not remember anything about that night, but the Smiths, they didn't believe it. Jennifer was also supposed to file a lawsuit with the Smiths, but she later settled with Royal Caribbean for $1.3 million.

Jennifer stated shortly after receiving the settlement that George likely died as a result of a drunken accident. Jennifer's attorney spoke on her behalf and said her husband's relatives refused to acknowledge the possibility that George Smith's intoxication from alcohol and prescription drugs may have been a factor in an accidental death.

George's parents and sister filed a lawsuit challenging it as inadequate, alleging that it was reached in part to avoid embarrassing disclosures about Jennifer's conduct during that cruise. It would have been a loyal father and husband to Jennifer Hagel for many years.

And unfortunately, I am 100% convinced he was betrayed. The split between Jennifer and her in-laws seems to be irreversible. Two and a half months after my son is dead, she comes to our house and has dinner, and across the table she says to me, "I want to get on with my life." I looked at her like, "How can you do this to your husband?"

Two and a half months after his death, you don't want answers. You want to get on with your life. It's clear that Jennifer's hiding something. So I think that in this case, it was in Jen's best interest to settle so that the truth did not come out. Now, to this day, no arrests have ever been made in connection with George's death.

The FBI ended their investigation into the case in 2015. Over the years, people who have analyzed this case have come up with three main theories on what could have happened to George. The first one being suicide. Now, this theory is apparently most unlikely to be possible, according to George's family. They can't find any reason to believe that he would ever do something like that, ever want to take his own life.

The next theory is that this was, of course, an accident, that on the night of July 5th, George was reportedly very drunk, as confirmed by witnesses and cruise ship CCTV footage. It's a possibility, as often it does happen on cruise ship fatalities. People slip, people fall, they fall over the balcony railing, and they think that this may have happened leading to his death before slipping off of that canopy cover into the sea.

Some people point to evidence that one of the balcony chairs was pushed up to the railing and believe that the placement of the chair would make sense if George had used that chair to help himself get onto that balcony rail. Now, the major problems with this theory is that it doesn't exactly explain why there was blood inside the room or the bloody handprint. Also, it doesn't explain the body dragging marks.

It also doesn't explain how George's room had the balcony door shut and the curtains closed after, unless, of course, someone shut it later. It's possible, yes, that the cruise ship staff that helped Jennifer into the room later shut it, but if they did, nobody ever reported doing so.

George's family also does not consider it an accident and they don't think that that is a logical theory whatsoever and they firmly believe that George was murdered. However, it is corroborated by statements from Josh, Greg, Zachary, Rusty, and even Jennifer. That is if you find their statements and behavior credible.

Now, of course, the last theory is murder. That George's fate on the night of July 5th might have involved a confrontation with one of the men who stayed behind. Remember, that neighbor in the cabin next door reported only seeing three men leave, not four. However, that neighbor wasn't able to identify which men he saw leaving. Because when he watched them leave, he was only looking through the peephole, which had very limited visibility. Perhaps George Smith...

by whatever means went over the balcony two floors down he crashes on top this metal awning he lays there for a while he's already bleeding he bleeds out a little bit and then he starts to crawl does he pick himself up does he zig when he should have zagged or does someone

come up on the body and help it over the side. But even then, who would want to hurt George? Is it possible that George wasn't meant to be hurt in the first place? What if it was a robbery gone wrong? Because like I mentioned earlier, while gambling at the casino, it's possible that the people around George may have targeted him if they thought that he was extremely wealthy, as people indicated they did think.

On the night of July 4th, though, before George vanished, while at the casino, George met up with Josh, the absinthe kid, the one that they had shared the taxi with and went in Florence, bought the absinthe, and then they all hung out with the Russians. Josh went with George back to his cabin to get more money for Jennifer to bring it back to the casino to her.

Josh and George were seen coming back to the casino around 2:20 a.m. Another passenger who had become friends with the Smiths, a man named Walter, who also happened to be a police officer, later said that George told him that he had $50,000 in cash with him.

Apparently, there were also other passengers that also had similar stories, saying that George and Jennifer told them that they had anywhere from $14,000 to $50,000 in cash in their cabin, but that has never been verified. George's family, however, finds it unlikely that they actually had that much money with them, but believes that it didn't really matter if they did or they didn't, because people believed that they did. That is what matters. That is what would create motive.

George's family believed that the couple looked like they were wealthy because Jennifer wore a huge diamond wedding ring and George had that very expensive watch. However, in their cabin, nothing appeared to be stolen. The room was messy, but investigators didn't believe that it looked ransacked.

Not only that, but the Russians and Josh seemed to have an alibi because of those pictures of the room service that they had ordered. Even though according to the ship's logs, there was no record of any room service being ordered or delivered to that room that morning. George's family also thinks that the droplets of blood on the bed could have come from somebody ripping George's watch off of his wrist.

Now, Lloyd, that casino manager, the one that Jennifer was accused of flirting with, was another person considered to be a suspect. However, his room card and timestamps, along with his girlfriend's account of the night, confirmed that he was back in his room quickly after leaving the disco, and he actually didn't follow Jennifer. He has also denied any sort of sexual involvement or inappropriate relationship with Jennifer during the cruise.

Now, I have a little bit of a theory, or not a, yeah, a little bit of a working theory, which I'm going to explain in just a second here. But first, I want to talk about George's family with these theories, because George's family has never given up hope, and they still believe that George was murdered. And there is more than enough evidence that suggests that he was murdered.

On a post to the family's Justice for George Facebook page, it says George was murdered on Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas on July 5, 2005, after reportedly winning thousands of dollars in the cruise ship casino. George's newlywed wife was seen by multiple witnesses leaving the disco with Lloyd Boltha, Royal Caribbean trainee casino manager.

A knockout drug may have been slipped into George's drink in order to incapacitate George so that his casino winnings could be stolen from his cruise ship cabin without a struggle. Unfortunately, a struggle is exactly what ensued, ending in George being thrown overboard, possibly by Royal Caribbean crew members. Now get this, in 2014, the Smiths announced a $100,000 reward for information in connection to George's death, hoping for people to come forward.

And then right before Christmas in 2019, a couple of years later, Greg, one of those Russian guys, was murdered on the doorstep in Berwyn County, Florida. This happened on December 23rd, just before 9 p.m. Investigators said that he was sitting in his car in his driveway when he was ambushed, saying he returned home from a day of Christmas shopping for his family. And when he returned home, he was ambushed in his driveway, shot multiple times, and the suspect fled the area.

Police also said that they believed that Greg was killed in a hit, saying, At the time, police said that there might be a link in his death and George's death, but at that point in the investigation, they were really looking into all avenues of why this could have happened, not necessarily because they found something that led them to believe that.

However, a lot of people do feel that Greg may have died with some answers about George's disappearance and ultimately George's death. So with that, I want to just kind of share not even my working theory, but my thoughts on this.

To me, I think it speaks volumes that when Josh was questioned, who was the younger boy, the one that they had met in Florence and all those things, that when he was questioned and when it was insinuated that Jennifer may have been involved, he said, "Jennifer has no idea what happened. I'm not letting her go to jail." To me, that statement is very bold. "I'm not letting her go to jail."

How would you give permission or allowance of her to go to jail? Do you know something and you know it was somebody else? So you're saying I'm not letting her take the fall? Is that what you meant? Why else would you say she had nothing to do with it? I'm not letting her go to jail for a stranger who you don't know if she was involved or not. It takes some ownership over the situation. You see what I mean? And it doesn't sit right with me. Not only that, but Josh also invoked his Fifth Amendment right. And I get that that's not to like he didn't want to incriminate himself, but

I just can't help but wonder what information he knew. I think that he was perhaps a bit younger than these other men and maybe witnessed something and was scared. And then when he knew that Jennifer might be blamed for it, that's why he said, I'm not letting her take the fall, but then didn't share and speak and cooperate because he was scared of retaliation. And when you talk about motive, could it have been...

that they were trying to rob him, that they were trying to sexually assault Jennifer, or that was the goal and he got in the way and he tried to protect her. Maybe she was blacked out. Maybe she doesn't remember. And maybe that's what happened because we know that they apparently recorded that with another woman not long after. And then they joked about sending him off without the parachute.

There's something more to this that makes me think Josh knows more. And I could be wrong, but there are also some people who think that Jennifer knows more because she was coincidentally missing that morning for so many hours and then went to her spa treatment 90 minutes early and

There's a lot of pieces of this puzzle that don't make a whole lot of sense, which is my belief as to why it is still unsolved. And this case truly is crazy because it just has so many questions and so much of it has to do with the cruise line trying to cover its own ass.

It's way easier and way more convenient to believe that what happened to George was some type of accident and not something that made the cruise ship liable or something that would lead the public to believe that cruises are unsafe, that you could get murdered on a cruise ship and that the person or the people responsible would just get away with it.

So a lot of people have wondered if there was more surveillance footage that could have captured the hallways of the ship, or even on the exterior of the upper decks. And that is a great question. Back in 2005, cruise ships did have cameras, but at the time it was 2005 in terms of how cameras are used and the quality and what they do, where they're pointed.

Unfortunately, the cruise line industry was almost figuring it out as they went in regards to passenger safety. And not only that, while some cruise lines invoke the laws of certain countries regardless of whatever territory of the sea they are in, it really used to be like the Wild West on cruise ships back in the early 2000s. So I'm really curious to know what you guys think about this case. Do you think it was an accident, murder, or do you think it was suicide, like some people suggest?

Something just doesn't smell right to me. Where there's smoke, there's fire. And there's so much smoke in this case, I can't even see through it. All right, guys, and don't forget to go snag all of those amazing deals from today's sponsor, Masterclass, which has been helping out my makeup, the super soft sheets from Miracle-Made, Shopify if you're starting your online store, and of course, nuts.com for holiday gifts for others or snacks for yourself during all of your binging of Christmas movies. So let me know what you guys think.

Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Serialistly. Don't forget, we will be back on Thursday with headline highlights, breaking down everything going on this week in the true crime world. Existing cases, new cases, all of it. It's a quick little summary of everything going on so that you can stay up to date and get your true crime fix week to week so you're fully caught up. So that comes out first thing Thursday morning. All right, guys, thanks again. And I will see you and speak with you again very, very soon. Until then, take care. Bye.

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