While cruise ships have long served as a favorite of Americans looking for a vacation, headlines highlighting violent crimes have marred the industry for decades.
Over the years, stories of lawlessness on cruises have both captivated and horrified travelers, with experts often pointing out how the unique environment often serves as a hotbed for bad actors and troublesome events.
"Just like subways invite crime because criminals have a ‘captive audience,’ cruise passengers are ‘captive’ for an even longer time, as jumping off into the ocean is not really an option," Dr. Carole Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist, told Fox News Digital. "A cruise ship feels like a world unto its own. It feels like you’re on another planet or at least another country, so it seems like there are fewer consequences."
The sense of fewer consequences is echoed by Chicago-based attorney Andrew Stoltmann, who added that cruise ship passengers are subjected to the local laws wherever the ship is docked.
"Maritime law is extremely complex, and it shifts depending on location," Stoltmann said. "Whatever flag the ship flies, that law is what is applicable while the ship is sailing. But while the ship is docked, it is that country's law that applies. This makes it extremely complex, and many times it’s hard to figure out."
Ultimately, experts point to a mixture of relaxed inhibitions and inconsistent methods of reporting crimes as some of the major catalysts for headlines involving murders, rapes and vacationers going missing on the high seas.
"There’s obviously a perception by the public that these cruise ships are very safe, and they have their own police force or security force," Stoltmann said. "Unfortunately, this usually simply isn’t true. And because these ships are often in international waters, many of the same legal protections we enjoy here in the United States simply aren’t applicable on the high seas."
In recent months, headlines about cruise trouble have included the mysterious death of Florida teen Anna Kepner and a lawsuit filed by the family of a man who says their loved one was killed after Royal Caribbean served him nearly three dozen alcoholic drinks. Those are just the latest in decades of scares and scandals marring the industry:
In 1998, 23-year-old Amy Bradley embarked on a Royal Caribbean International cruise with her family for a seven-day trip to the tropics to celebrate her recent college graduation.
However, the celebration quickly turned tragic when Bradley vanished from her stateroom as the ship was preparing to dock in Curaçao, sparking a massive search for the aspiring sports psychology student in a case that remains unsolved.
On the evening before her disappearance, Bradley and her brother, Brad, were enjoying an evening at the Rhapsody of the Seas nightclub, where the pair remained until the early morning hours. She was last seen asleep on the stateroom cabin’s balcony by her father.
About a half an hour later, Bradley had vanished.
An extensive search for the recent college graduate ensued, but authorities were unable to locate Bradley. The vessel continued its scheduled stops and ultimately returned to Puerto Rico four days later.
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Since her disappearance, countless rumors have swirled about what happened to her, with some theories suggesting she had fallen overboard and drowned or that she had intentionally jumped from the balcony to take her own life.
At the time of the search, Netherlands Antilles Coast Guard Lt. Sjoerd Soethout told reporters she could have fallen from the ship’s balcony, The Associated Press reported. The FBI also uncovered "no evidence of foul play" following an investigation into Bradley’s disappearance.
The case ultimately ran cold.
Years after her disappearance, Bradley’s parents were sent a series of sexually explicit images of a woman based in the Caribbean by an anonymous tipster.
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The woman, identified only as "Jas," was posing provocatively while intentionally covering any identifiable markings, such as Bradley’s tattoo of a Tasmanian Devil spinning a basketball.
The photos further solidified Bradley’s parents’ theory that their daughter had been kidnapped and sold into sex trafficking.
However, despite various leads throughout the years and the FBI releasing age-progressing photos of Bradley in 2017, she has never been found and authorities have yet to charge anyone with a crime relating to the case.
In 2017, Kenneth Manzanares and his wife, Kristy Manzanares, boarded the Emerald Princess cruise ship with their daughters for a trip to Alaska.
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The couple got into a contentious argument in front of their daughters while inside their stateroom, and Kristy Manzanares told her husband she wanted a divorce and that he should disembark the ship when it reaches port in Juneau, according to prosecutors.
As the fight escalated, Kenneth Manzanares ordered the pair’s daughters out of the room, prosecutors said. After they heard their mother scream, they attempted to reenter the room, which was locked.
The girls then accessed the room through a connected balcony, where they witnessed their father "straddling Kristy on the bed, striking her in the head with closed fists," according to prosecutors.
Kenneth Manzanares then attempted to hurl his wife’s body over the balcony railing, but his in-laws managed to break into the room to stop him.
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Following the attack, Kristy Manzanares "had a severe head wound, and blood was spread throughout the room on multiple surfaces," according to an FBI arrest affidavit.
She subsequently died from her injuries, with authorities ruling her cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head and face.
Kristy Manzanares’ brother-in-law, identified in court documents as D.H., told investigators that upon entering the room, he found the victim covered in blood on the floor and Kenneth Manzanares inside with blood on his hands.
Kenneth Manzanares allegedly told D.H., "She would not stop laughing at me."
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In 2020, Kenneth Manzanares pleaded guilty to second-degree murder charges after prosecutors alleged he was his wife’s killer.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2021, but only served a few weeks of his sentence before he was found unresponsive in his Juneau prison cell. Investigators ruled out foul play in his death.
Last month, 18-year-old Anna Kepner, a Florida high school senior, was found dead inside her family’s cabin aboard the Carnival Horizon cruise ship.
Kepner’s body was discovered stuffed under a bed and covered with life jackets inside the room she was sharing with her 14-year-old brother and 16-year-old stepbrother on Nov. 7. The cruise returned to the Port of Miami the next day. Her cause and manner of death was reportedly a homicide by mechanical asphyxiation.
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While no one has been charged in Kepner’s death, court filings submitted by her 16-year-old stepbrother’s parents indicate the teen is being looked at as a potential "suspect" by the FBI.
Friends and relatives close to Kepner have spoken out to accuse the 16-year-old of acting inappropriately toward the victim in the past.
Speaking to reporters outside Kepner’s memorial service, her ex-boyfriend recalled a time when he was on a 3 a.m. FaceTime call with her when she dozed off. Shortly after, he witnessed Kepner’s stepbrother enter her room.
"I was like, ‘What the hell are you doing in her room?’" he said. "Then he got scared and ran away, and I heard his footsteps running through the house 'cause he got caught."
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Over a month later, authorities have not made any arrests in the case, and the investigation remains ongoing.
In December 2024, 35-year-old Michael Virgil embarked on a four-day tropical getaway to Ensenada, Mexico, with his long-time fiancée and the couple’s young son, who has autism.
The family boarded Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas while it was docked in Los Angeles but were informed by crew members that their room was not yet ready, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Virgil’s family.
They were subsequently invited to visit a bar with live music while they waited, but the couple’s son grew restless and left with his mother to check on the status of their room.
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Within hours of the ship’s departure, Virgil was allegedly served at least 33 alcoholic beverages, which were included under the company’s virtually unlimited "Deluxe Beverage Package" that Virgil had purchased.
After consuming nearly three dozen drinks, the suit states, Virgil became increasingly agitated and combative while trying to locate his family’s cabin.
As Virgil grew more belligerent, security and crew members allegedly tackled him to the ground and restrained him for several minutes. During the altercation, the staff captain directed crew members to inject Virgil with the sedative haloperidol and use three cans of pepper spray to subdue him, the complaint alleges.
Virgil was pronounced dead shortly after the incident.
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A medical examiner later determined Virgil’s death was a homicide, with the cause being "combined effects of mechanical asphyxia, obesity, cardiomegaly and ethanol intoxication."
Virgil’s family has since filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Royal Caribbean, seeking judgment for damages under the Death on the High Seas Act, including loss of support, inheritance, past and future earnings and net accumulations. They are also seeking funeral and medical expenses, loss of companionship and protection and mental pain and suffering, among other claims.
Royal Caribbean did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
"We are seeing an incredibly alarming number of serious injuries and fatalities on cruise ships of late," the family’s attorney, Kevin Haynes, said. "Our goal is to force systemic change in the way this industry operates to ensure that no person or family experiences tragedy like this again."
Fox News Digital's Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
