Amy Bradley Sent Girlfriend a 'Message in a Bottle,' Lamenting 'an Ocean Between Us.' Then She Vanished at Sea
At first, the message seemed straightforward.
In January of 1998, Amy Lynn Bradley, 23, of Virginia, confessed over the phone to her girlfriend, Mollie McClure, that she had kissed another woman while both of them had been drinking.
Needing time to process the news, McClure, then 23, stopped taking Bradley's calls.
Determined to reach McClure, Bradley sent her a 'message in a bottle,' expressing her remorse in a handwritten letter — one that took on new meaning after Bradley vanished in March of 1998 during a Caribbean cruise with her family.
"Mollie, I hurt you deeper than you can ever forget,' Bradley wrote in a letter McClure shares in episode three of Netflix's true-crime series Amy Bradley Is Missing, which premiered on July 16.
'I'm not asking you to forget, because that'll never happen," Bradley wrote. "I just wanted to ask you if you could find it in your heart to forgive me."
Then, in an eerie foreshadowing of what may have befallen Bradley a month later, she wrote, "I feel like there is an ocean between us, like I'm on a desert island waiting for you to rescue me. A message in a bottle, my only hope. I miss you, Mollie.'
Bradley ended the missive writing, 'Save me, please. Stranded, Amy."
On March 24, 1998, exactly one month after Bradley wrote the message in a bottle, she disappeared from a Royal Caribbean ship in Curaçao. She has been missing ever since.
Some believe that Bradley fell overboard or died by suicide. Others wonder if she had been kidnapped, trafficked and forced into a life of prostitution.
In the series, McClure says she has no idea what happened to the woman she loved, who vanished while traveling with her parents and brother.
Her father last saw her sleeping on the balcony of their cabin between 5:15 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. on the morning of March 24, 1998.
But by 6 a.m., she was gone, and had only taken her lighter and cigarettes with her, leaving even her shoes behind.
"Some viewers have fixated on Bradley's letter and phrases that now seem haunting in retrospect — like "an ocean between us" and "stranded." But McClure says in the series that "the convenience of the metaphor is ripe for misunderstanding."
'It could suggest suicide,' McClure says. 'But I don't connect with it in that way.'
She notes that 'it is a love letter.'
During a nearly 30-year-search for Bradley, her family has received tips that have seemed promising.
Canadian tourist David Carmichael said that in August 1998, he believed he saw Bradley in Curaçao, "flanked by two people" on the beach. As he got closer, he says the woman pointed to her tattoos — which matched all of Bradley's.
Authorities searched the area after getting Carmichael's tip, but didn't find any sign of Bradley.
In January 1999, a Navy petty officer reportedly visited a brothel in Curaçao and said a woman told him her name was Amy Bradley and asked him for help. He told her there was a naval ship about five minutes away, but she responded, "No, you don't understand. Please help me. My name is Amy Bradley."
The officer didn't take action, her father, Ron Bradley, told NBC News — in in part because the officer wasn't allowed to be in the brothel and because he didn't know anyone by that name was missing until he saw a magazine cover with Amy's face and name on it.
Related: Was Amy Bradley Ever Found? Unpacking the Theories About Her Disappearance and Alleged Sightings Over the Years
In September 2005, an anonymous source allegedly sent the Bradleys online photos of a woman named Jas whom they claimed was their daughter.
The Bradleys had a forensic detective analyze the photos, who allegedly said it was a perfect match for Amy. Unfortunately, they weren't able to pinpoint the site's IP address, and the FBI still lacks evidence to detain or charge anyone with kidnapping.
Amy Bradley Is Missing began streaming on Netflix on July 16.
Read the original article on People
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