(NewsNation) — A private investigator is sharing details of a $50,000 deal to locate Amy Bradley that he says collapsed when the man claiming to know her whereabouts balked at taking a check.
Bradley, a 23-year-old Virginia woman, vanished in March 1998 during a Caribbean cruise with her family on the way to Curaçao. The unsolved disappearance, the subject of a Netflix docuseries, has spawned several theories, including speculation she was kidnapped and trafficked. Over the years, witnesses have said they’ve seen Bradley.
Along those lines, PI Jim Carey tells “Banfield,” a police clerk from Curaçao contacted Bradley’s family in 1999 and said he’d seen her, alive. The individual demanded $50,000 to lead them to Bradley, Carey said, but the deal that was set in motion did not come to fruition.
Carey said the Bradley family agreed to pay the ransom and worked with Interpol, which transported a cashier’s check for them. But the police clerk would not take a check, even though the visitors explained they couldn’t fly to the island carrying $50,000 in currency, Carey said.
“He broke into the Interpol agents’ hotel room. He got in there and ransacked the room, looking for the money. So, the Interpol guys left the next day. That’s the kind of guy we’re dealing with,” he said.
PI believes man’s story that Amy Bradley is alive
Last year, Carey said he and two other investigators tracked down the former clerk and asked him if he was telling the truth.
“We gave him the opportunity to tell us what he wanted to tell us, and he said, ‘She’s alive. I seen her a couple of years ago.’ … I asked him 20 times and he says, ‘She’s alive.’ So, he continues to say that.”
Carey said the individual has told some lies and seems to be playing some kind of “game.” But as to his story about seeing Bradley, the seasoned PI said, “I believe him. Why would he want to be involved 28 years later? He’s still implicated.”
Another theory: Amy Bradley fell overboard
Another theory about Bradley’s disappearance is that she fell off the Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas and into the ocean. She was last seen on the balcony of the family’s cabin early in the morning.
The Netherlands Antilles Coast Guard conducted a search of the water for four days but found no sign of her.
Bradley was legally declared dead in 2010. The FBI investigation into her disappearance remains open, with a $25,000 reward offered for information leading to her recovery.