Netflix's Amy Bradley is Missing and the heartbreaking reason the FBI couldn't act on sex worker photo
Netflix's latest true-crime documentary Amy Bradley is Missing has been a massive hit with viewers since its release on July 16, quickly rising to second place in the UK's top TV show charts on the streaming platform. The three-part docu-series explores the chilling and unresolved disappearance of 23-year-old Amy Bradley, who vanished while on a Caribbean cruise with her family in 1998.
Amy was traveling on board a Royal Caribbean cruise ship with her parents, Ron and Iva and her brother, Brad, when she went missing en route to Curaçao. She was last seen in the early hours of March 23 1998, resting on the balcony of the family's cabin. When her dad checked on her shortly after sunrise, she was gone - and has never been found.
Now, 27 years later, Netflix revisits the mysterious circumstances surrounding her disappearance and the persistent efforts by her family to uncover the truth.
The documentary summarises all the major theories that have emerged over the decades, including the most haunting one: that Amy was abducted and trafficked.
One of the most significant revelations in the docuseries centres around a photograph discovered in 2005 on a sex worker's website thought to be based out of the Caribbean.
The image bears a striking resemblance to Amy, so much so that her family took the discovery public and appeared on the Dr. Phil show in a desperate bid to find their daughter.
"All I could keep thinking is, 'Is that my daughter?'" Amy's mother Iva says in the documentary. "We all looked at it - the nose, the chin, and the hair - it took my breath away."
The FBI took then took the lead on analysing the image. An agent close to the case was interviewed in the series, and confirmed that forensic analysts had determined that it could very well be Amy.
Investigators examined everything from the woman's pose, which was a specific stance that would have hidden all of Amy's identifiable tattoos - like a Gecko lizard on her navel, or sun on her lower back - to the bed frame in the image in an effort to track its origin.
Speaking about the photo found on the sex worker site, co-director of the docuseries, Ari Mark told The Hollywood Reporter: "That part really made us scratch our heads, too."
He went on to add that it is 'hard to ignore is how seriously the FBI took that photo.'
Mark adds: "They really did chase that down. They analysed the bed frame, tried to figure out where it was made. They sent an operative down there to actually scope it out. And they did look into that website, and they brought in that trafficking expert - it's hard to ignore."
However, despite the extensive investigation, authorities were unable to trace the photo's origins or determine where it was taken, as the website's IP address could not be located.
The director went on to claim that "from the FBI standpoint, they've exhausted everything."
In 2010, Amy was declared legally dead in absentia. Yet, her case remains open, and the FBI continues to maintain a missing persons page with age-progressed images of what Amy might look like today.
The page also states that a $25,000 reward is offered for information leading to her discovery, with the FBI still looking for tips from the public.
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