Cold Open And The Big Question

Speaker 1 0:02

Somewhere beyond the buffet, the pool deck, and the promise of paradise, something's gone terribly wrong. On Cruise Chip Killer, host Kathy and Geoff break down the latest cruise ship news. They dive into the remarkable cases from today and the past, separate what's known, what's disputed, and what remains unexplained. Through it all, they entertain one highly unofficial question. What if there is a cruise ship killer? The stories are real, the theory is not. Welcome aboard to Cruise Ship Killer.

Season Two Kickoff And Cruise News

Speaker 0:44

Welcome to season two, episode three of Cruise Ship Killer. Hi, Kathy.

Speaker 2 0:49

Hi, Geoff

Speaker 0:50

Hello. Um big big day. I mean, this is a big cast. There's a lot to talk about. So do you want to go first? Why don't you go first on our cruise news, right? Our the the latest, because we can't keep up with this.

Speaker 2 1:03

That's that's true. There's so much going on.

Speaker 1:06

This could be a 24-hour news kind of thing. We might want to go like CNN, cruise ship stories 24-7.

Crew Vetting And Serious Arrests

Speaker 2 1:14

So uh I have three that are very related to what's going on with cruise ship vetting. Uh the first one is a thing called Operation Tidal Wave, where federal agents arrested 11 foreign workers for suspected distribution of child pornography on Holland America and NCL Norwegian breakaway in Boston in August. They had a previous operation in San Diego and Puerto Rico earlier this year that netted 41 crew arrests on nine ships, including a Disney ship. So I just made me think because when my kids were little and we'd go on cruises, they loved to go to the kids' club. My granddaughter, who's an adult now, loved to go to the kids club. And now we have a five-year-old um grandson, and I'm like, you're gonna be on deck five playing a shuffleboard with all of us senior citizens. Because I don't know if I want them to go to the kids' club now. It's kind of getting scary out there.

Speaker 2:12

Well, that's crazy. Yes. So they did a tidal wave in San Diego and Puerto Rico, so different locations, and then now this other one in Boston.

Speaker 2 2:24

Yes.

Speaker 2:24

All within the span of this 2026 period.

Speaker 2 2:27

Right, like 11 different cruise ships.

Speaker 2:29

So it's kind of and these foreign workers were from all different nationalities?

Speaker 2 2:35

Yes.

Speaker 2:36

Wow. So it's FBI? I'm assuming it's FBI.

Speaker 2 2:39

Yeah, federal agents. Wow. Yeah. So then the second one I read about was a hairstylist on Virgin Voyages, brilliant lady, 26-year-old Pranit Naranyan from India, was arrested in July on the Virgin Voyages, charged with two counts of assaulting female passengers under the guise of giving unauthorized massages. And I don't know who falls for that. I mean they have a spa with actual massage people. Why would you be going for a haircut or something and then be like, oh, you give massages? Like, sure.

Speaker 3:16

I bet that's exactly what he did, probably. Did the hairstyling thing and said, Oh, by the way, I also do I'm also a masseuse.

Speaker 2 3:24

But I wouldn't believe that. Would you believe that?

Speaker 3:26

I mean, I don't know what I would believe.

Speaker 2 3:31

It's very separate on a ship with hair styling department and spa. Like they don't cross over. That would be my first alarm. Right.

Speaker 3:40

But these are probably new new cruisers.

Speaker 2 3:44

Could be.

Speaker 3:45

Right.

Speaker 2 3:46

Could be. And then the last one I just read about is an an MSC cruise, a 38-year-old lifeguard, Rafael Blanco from Guatemala, arrested for unlawful sexual activity with a 17-year-old passenger. So when the ship got back to port in Miami, they have arrested him. And I said to Dave, out of all the cruises we've been on, I don't remember ever seeing a lifeguard. So I don't that was kind of strange.

Speaker 4:15

I'm like, I mean now that I think about it, I don't think so either.

Speaker 2 4:19

It's not a strange thing that a lifeguard should be on a ship with the pools and everything, especially when you have kids, but I've never seen one.

Speaker 4:27

I don't think they sit in a big chair.

Speaker 2 4:29

But I've never seen one. Even if they wouldn't sit in the big chair, I've never seen anyone dressed as a lifeguard.

Speaker 4:36

Yeah. Well, technically the people that are like doing the pool rounds and making sure no one's like, you know, reserving chairs that they shouldn't reserve or whatnot, those people look like they're ready to go in the pool. For the most part, they're wearing shorts and a t-shirt. You just jump right in, right?

Speaker 2 4:54

Yeah.

Speaker 4:55

I mean you would think the lifeguard would look though, the part, right? Like, hey, someone's in the water having trouble, help.

Speaker 2 5:02

Yes.

Canceled Alaska Sailing And Compensation

Speaker 2 5:03

And then the big, bigger one that I read just happened on Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas. They canceled their Alaska cruise with 1,700 passengers on board. They were trying to do some repairs, and they were telling them, well, we're probably gonna have to shorten the cruise to five days. But two days later they realized these repairs are not gonna get done in time, so they canceled the whole cruise and told everybody, you have till tomorrow to get off. And so they did get a really great package because they all got full refunds and a hundred percent future cruise credits and a prorated refund for dining and beverage packages. So they basically were docked in Vancouver for two and a half days and on the like a floating hotel.

Speaker 5:47

So that's gotta that's gotta stink. I mean, even though you're in Vancouver, that's yeah, that's the good part. But you're in Vancouver. I mean that's the only silver lining, right? But I'm thinking that if you're taking an Alaska cruise, that's one that you've planned.

Speaker 2 6:00

Right.

Speaker 6:01

It's not like you've taken off. Let's go do the yeah, let's go do the you know, you're not firing that one off quickly.

Speaker 2 6:07

Right.

Speaker 6:07

You're like planning that one. So you've got to be pretty disappointed if that canceled.

Speaker 2 6:11

True, but that that's one of the best, I guess, uh compensation I've seen in a while from a cruise ship company.

Speaker 6:19

Well, based on the news that we've been covering lately, it seems like they have to do a lot to do, keep everybody happy at this point. Yeah.

Viral Carnival Slap And Smoking Rules

Speaker 6:30

Because for some reason, Carnival just they can't get away from this stuff. Like, I just don't think they can get away from this. I think people are going on Carnival cruise ships knowing that things are gonna happen and they have their phones at the ready. So there's a now there's a viral slap video going around. And of course, I couldn't see this dang video because I don't have Instagram, and it was somebody got this on Instagram. So it's cycling its way across the internet right now, and everybody's chiming in about it because here's what happened. So apparently on on one of the decks where uh a lounge, right? Bar, um there's uh two women, they get into some kind of confrontation. Something happened. And uh woman has a drink in her hand and a cigarette. Now, we'll come back to the cigarette now.

Speaker 2 7:18

Yes.

Speaker 7:19

Yeah, let's come, we'll come back in just a moment. But she's holding in one hand the drink and the lit cigarette and is in this confrontation with this woman, won't let her pass by. Like move on.

Speaker 2 7:33

Uh-huh.

Speaker 7:34

So she's kind of getting in her way. So, mind you, she's got the drink and the cigarette in one hand. She slaps, slaps the other woman. Like, get out of the way. And now she's yep, now she's now apparently, since I didn't see the video, but you know, she's saying, get the F out of my way. And then so she gave a good warning, and then wham! And I wish I'd gotta find this video. You have to find this video. Apparently, the reaction, the lady that gets slapped, is just funny because she's like she didn't see it coming. Oh god. So apparently she's just stunned. So everybody on the internet's going bonkers because everyone's arguing, did this lady deserve it or not, right? No, we don't know what ship, we don't know um um you know what itinerary they're on. My guess is that this is like a three-day jaunt to someplace in Mexico. It's a booze cruise, right? Exactly. Something is going on. And and and so we don't know, but we know it's Carnival. We also don't know what happened. Because, you know, I mean, Carnival's had these massive brawls where they've kind of people have been banned for life, and they have this kind of they've been constantly saying they've got this zero tolerance policy. Yeah. So nothing has come out about what's happened to these these two women.

Speaker 2 8:55

There's been a number of really popular cruise directors who have quit on Carnival recently, and I think I think they've just had enough, and they're like, we're gonna go to another cruise line.

Speaker 9:06

So let's go back to the cigarette thing.

Speaker 2 9:08

You can't smoke on a ship.

Speaker 9:09

I d that's my understanding. I can't I can't even tell you if I saw someone smoking on a ship.

Speaker 2 9:14

I I've never I mean I mean I'm they have cigars.

Speaker 9:18

There is places there is places you can have a cigar, because I've done that.

Speaker 2 9:21

Right.

Speaker 9:22

There, but they're designated locations. You can't just be up at the bar having a cigarette.

Speaker 2 9:26

But we've also talked about people sneaking things on and trying to smoke in their cabin. But she's out in a in a , well-populated place smoking. Right. Yeah, that doesn't sound right.

Speaker 9:38

But she was getting a lot of credit. I mean, one guy commented said, that woman that was getting in that other woman's way should have known right away not to mess with someone that can hold a drink and a lit cigarette in one hand. You know, that's like a do not mess with me signal. Like it's like, why would you even bother? So the lady gets slapped and is stunned. So this commentator was like, I'm not surprised she's stunned. She didn't see the sign to begin with. No. Yeah, anyway, so that that was one of the one of the events that I caught.

Speaker 2 10:13

There's a lot of physical things going on on cruise ships lately. Oh, you know, violence a little.

Speaker 10:20

So apparently, since this was caught on video, there were people that were just standing around watching. And I was kind of thinking to myself, if I saw this happening in front of me, what would I do? I probably wouldn't do anything. I'd probably sit there and watch it play out. I don't, I wouldn't get my phone out. Like so many people seem to have a real quick, quick drama

Speaker 2 10:37

They're waiting for something.

Speaker 10:38

They are totally waiting, right? And if you're right, if and if you're on a Carnival, you might as well have that thing ready. Something's probably gonna happen. Right? But me, I wouldn't probably I wouldn't do that. I would sit there and watch and be like, what's going on, right? I think if it blew out of proportion, like really blew up, then I'd probably get involved and be like, what are you people doing? This is a vacation. We we're gonna we're stuck on the boat together. And I am saying boat now. Now I'm saying boat.

Speaker 1 10:59

What?

Speaker 11:00

Because that way people like realize we're on a boat, we can't get off. I have to live with this person for six days. You know, you know, you're gonna pass by these people again, you know. So why why are you gonna get into a fight? Or why are you gonna agitate someone? You know, who knows? I don't know. Crazy people.

Speaker 2 11:15

I think we've determined that it's the alcohol is is involved in everything.

Speaker 11:23

Yes. And oh, that's kind of connected to my CSK story that I have to tell. All right, but you have a bigger story, so we gotta get to your story.

Speaker 2 11:30

Oh no, no. Before we get to your story, though, um, we need to hear the word of the day.

Word Of The Day And Power Outage Panic

Speaker 2 11:37

So listen intently.

Speaker 1 11:43

The word of the day is slap.

Speaker 2 11:51

Okay, go, Geoff. Okay, there it is.

Speaker 11:54

And that's the word of the day. I have no idea what the word is, but if I just ran through a bunch of the vocabulary in today's show, I think I can get it. Uh you want me to go, my story, or you want to do your really?

Speaker 2 12:06

Yeah.

Speaker 12:06

All right, well, first I want to say this. So there's a power outage. That was another news item on a Royal Caribbean cruise.

Speaker 1 12:12

I saw that.

Speaker 12:13

It was short, lived. Captain came right on, like and said, we're checking, right? But everybody, what was really interesting about it is everybody was kind of in a little bit of a panic. And everyone's using their cell phone because your your cabin, your room is out of power, right? So they have even though they have emergency lights, it's pretty dark, you know, no dining, you know, things are really shut down. And um, so people are around with their flashlights on their phone, you know, running around. And there was a like this kind of general like concern. And that got me wondering. It's like, why would you be so concerned? Then I realized, oh, we've talked about this a lot when the Concordia hit and got right, they lost power, they drifted.

Speaker 2 12:51

Right. Uh the poop cruise.

Speaker 12:53

The poop cruise, that's the one.

Speaker 2 12:54

That's why this is left PTSD.

Speaker 12:57

There's like PTSD across everywhere. So when this happened, there was this like general panic, and the captain was smart enough to come on and say, okay, everything's fine. Yeah. These power outages have happened a lot lately.

Speaker 2 13:10

They have.

Speaker 13:11

But they're really short-lived. Like this power came up on this one within 30 minutes.

Speaker 2 13:15

They're lucky. Once the bathrooms go, that's it. It's mutiny on the bounty.

Speaker 13:20

That well, that's exactly it. So a lot of these people, and that was the what one person went online on their social account, and they said, Oh, thank God power's on, because this was the first day, and we have six more to go. So she was actually really legitimately concerned, like, could this happen again? Can we be a poop cruise? Right? That's a little bit of a paranoia.

Speaker 2 13:41

I'm not convinced that it won't happen someday the rest of the voyage.

Speaker 13:47

You never know. We'll see. But it I, you know, much to my surprise, it happens more often than you would think. And they and like I said, they are short-lived. All right.

Drunken Fall Mystery And Investigations

Speaker 13:56

So my story is uh so this is we talked about the guy that fell off the the ship in the English Channel. I can't remember what the cruise line was, but that was uh they were bound for Scotland, right? They were doing a Scottish Isle tour, right? Uh two days later, a man falls from either the 10th, they don't know if it's the 10th or the 11th. Um, what do you call it? Um help me out here.

Speaker 2 14:23

The deck.

Speaker 14:24

The deck, thank you. 10 or 11th deck, down to the promenade, the seventh level, and he died. This has CSK written all over it. So earlier, not too long before this happened, he was at the theater, noticeably drunk, to the point where I can actually use a pull a quote here. So he allegedly, this is a quote from one of the passengers, he allegedly got into an altercation. Um, anything more than that. Altercation swung at someone and fell because he was so drunk. Now, fell, this is not him falling off the balcony. This is just him in the theater, he fell. So that just kind of showed the passengers he's really drunk, right? Um, and then an unknown guest came and helped him up and escorted him out of the theater shortly before the fall happened. So, here he is in the theater, he's drunk. Some unknown passenger helps him up. Moments later, woo!

Speaker 2 15:27

Up and over.

Speaker 15:28

Now, somebody, the there's actually photos, I can show everybody in the room here, but no one can see right now. But there's photos of the tarp covering the body that a passenger took from her balcony because when he went over, let's see, she says, um uh, I'm trying to find the quote here. Where is it? Um well there was a noticeable noise of like a whoa, whoa, you know, kind of like, hey, and then next thing you know, boom.

Speaker 2 16:04

Yeah, I mean everybody says the same thing. You can't just fall over a balcony, so you're either climbing on it or someone's pushing you.

Speaker 16:14

So I don't have I really don't have very many details on this story. It it's really bizarre because you would think there'd be a little bit more, right? But so he falls over, and the the crew immediately jumped to action, tried to save him, couldn't he passed away.

Speaker 2 16:32

He fell three decks?

Speaker 16:34

Uh yeah, from either ten or eleven, they're not specifying which, down to seven.

Speaker 2 16:39

I don't know why I think that if you fell I don't know how old he was a double deck, you know, that you'd still that's still survivable to me. I don't know.

Speaker 16:49

Oh, I mean you can I don't like I you can fall at all uh in a bad way though. Yeah, I mean it doesn't look like I don't know if he from the picture here you can't really tell because you don't know if he hits something on the way down. Who knows?

Speaker 2 17:04

Next time I'm on a cruise, I'm gonna be looking three decks down and see.

Speaker 17:09

Oh, is that survivable or but so we've talked about this a lot, so you know who investigates these kinds of things? You know, once this kind of thing happens, they've got to notify. We've already talked about it. So this the authorities get notified. Now, this is a this was a um Norwegian uh cruise line out of Miami to the Bahamas. And this was um let me just confirm that it was the it was a three-night cruise to the Bahamas. This was the final night.

Speaker 2 17:40

Oh man. Almost made it off the ship.

Speaker 17:46

We have talked about if you're gonna be CSK, you're gonna do this at the very last thing when you're getting off, right? Yeah. So the investigation is led by the um Miami, what are they called? Um Miami Dade, right? The sheriff's office there, the Homicide Bureau, right? They have called this an unclassified death investigation. Where's everybody else where do you think all the passengers are right now? They're gone, right?

Speaker 2 18:18

I mean they're off the ship. Here we go.

Speaker 18:22

Yeah. So I have I think this is one of those that is gonna be a complete mystery for probably gonna be forgotten. Because it's not someone that went over into the water, right? It's someone I don't know how old this person was. I don't even know, I don't know the name. I know it's a male. Um here's the other thing that I didn't know. So one of the first things, and Norwegian does this when there's a passenger goes overboard or falls, is they immediately pull the guest's purchases. They see when we see exactly what transactions have occurred. And one of the things they're trying to quickly determine is was alcohol involved.

Speaker 2 19:06

Oh, yeah, okay. That makes sense.

Speaker 19:08

But isn't that interesting that there's like a list of things that they have to do, right? One is gotta notify the authorities, right? They gotta that they're by law having to do certain things. Well, apparently they also have to check the transactions.

Speaker 2 19:21

That's a CYA for them. Oh, he drank too much, not our fault.

Speaker 19:25

So I'm saying if you're CSK, you could be and based on your your um what is it called? Uh tidal wave raids that are occurred in arrests? Yes. CSK could be a Yes, an employee.

Speaker 2 19:42

Yes. We've said that for a while. Yeah. Or an entertainer that, you know, goes from ship to ship.

Speaker 19:48

Yeah. And he could just look at the transactions and be like, oh yeah, this guy's had like 20 drinks. Okay. No, he's he's he's a little bit more. It's the last night.

Speaker 2 19:57

They need to bring Horatio back and he'll figure out what happened. Did you ever watch CSI Miami?

Speaker 20:03

No.

Speaker 2 20:03

Uh they had a really good detective on there called Horatio. This this would not get by him.

Speaker 20:08

Horatio would be on this.

Speaker 2 20:10

He would be.

Speaker 20:11

He'd be absolutely on this. I mean, they you know, car uh the Norwegian, you know, issued a typical statement, you know, we're you know, condolences to the family, yada yada yada, right? Yeah. But this is uh this is definitely uh one to watch.

Speaker 2 20:26

We're sorry your loved one drank too much and passed away. It's not our fault we have an unlimited drink package.

Speaker 20:34

Well, and who's the one that helped the person get up?

Speaker 2 20:40

Right. So they didn't even they don't even know who that is. And he's off the ship, probably.

Speaker 20:46

I mean, nothing I can find yet. That's what I'm saying. I think this is I mean, this happened in August, right? This happened um what was the date exactly? Um August 23rd. So it's not too too far.

Speaker 2 20:58

There's no camera footage.

Speaker 21:00

Well, there's gotta be. That's what I'm saying. This one stinks to me. Yeah. Like this one, like this one really stinks. Something's not right here.

Speaker 2 21:10

I don't think so either. That's we should follow up on that one.

Speaker 21:14

Yeah, I think so for sure. Yeah, I think so for sure. All right, all right, what's your meaty

The SS Morrow Castle Fire And Suspicions

Speaker 21:22

one?

Speaker 2 21:22

It's not a meaty one. It's um it's a story that popped up in the news recently, and when I saw it, I was like, oh my gosh, I know this story. Because when I was growing up, my grandmother told me a story about her husband surviving a fire on a ship, and how he spent hours treading water until he got rescued. And she had the copy of like the New York Times paper with it all over the front page, listing like survivors, like her husband was listed as a survivor. And there's some kind of renewable interest with it because it somehow be become like this intriguing who done it, which is unsolved. And I wish that I you know, I must have been probably between 12 and 14 when I heard the story, so I was like, oh gosh, you know. But now I wish I really knew about it. I would have asked a lot more questions because now I can't get answers to these questions. But my story is about the SS Morro Castle disaster from 1934. Oh my. So, oh, so this, I know people can't see it. This is my grandmother's photo of her husband. He was a steward on that ship with his co-workers on, and she's got on here, you know, on the Morro Castle with the boys, 1931.

Speaker 22:46

So um that looks like it's taken right on the Titanic. Yeah, right? A bunch of guys dressed like that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 22:52

Four years before before this disaster, and he's in the photo there. So this ship was built in the 30s, and it was contracted to haul mail and freight from the US to Canada, and it just went back and forth. And then on September 7th, 1934, it's like the 17th voyage, the captain is found dead in his cabin, and the ship doctor goes in and determines, oh, I think it's natural causes. He was complaining of stomach pains and the ship doctor saying, Oh, it's it's indigestion and a heart attack, probably, but they're gonna do an investigation. But before they could really get into the investigation part, um, a few hours later, a fire starts in a writing room, and then another fire breaks out in another part of the ship. So the ship is a couple hours away from getting back to New York, and there's a hurricane chasing the ship the whole way back from Cuba. So there's 30 mile per hour winds, and the ship has highly flammable paint and lacquer on the walls, so the wind is really pushing flames and really engulfing the ship pretty quickly. And so by the next morning, there's like 137 people out of 549 that have died, and the ship has beached itself in Asbury Park, New Jersey. It's smoldering for like weeks, just smoldering. So these two Coast Guard ships and some private boats go out into the water that night and they're trying to rescue people that that are in the water. They're trying to rescue people off the ship, but the heat is so bad, you know, they're they're having to stay pretty far back. So then there's this 10-mile stretch of beach, and the bodies are washing up, survivors are washing up, and people are trying to help them. And this um this ship was there for a few weeks, and this Ashbury Park, um, you know, the stores are closing down for the summer. Well, they all open up, including like hot dog stands, because there's so many people coming after this disaster to just come look at this burning ship. And um, like it's like spectators everywhere. They're selling souvenirs, they're selling postcards of the burned ship. I mean, I was like, oh my God, there's lucky looos in the 30s still. Looky loos. So um I start reading about well, what's some of the things that you know went wrong. They had all these people die. It turns out the story is the captain is known for ignoring company policies like skipping the safety drills and turning off smoke detector systems because he doesn't want to inconvenience the passengers. Because I guess sometimes they carry cargo and the fumes are setting off the smoke alarms for no reason, and so he's like, I don't want to, you know, inconvenience anyone. So he turns the whole thing off on multiple sailings. Then the chief officer who took over after he died did not sound the alarm for 10 minutes because he thought, oh, they're gonna contain this fire in this writing closet. But 10 minutes later he's sounding the alarms because the whole ship is just going up in flames. Then it was six of the 12 lifeboats, unusable, and the six that could have carried 400 people only filled up with 85 people. So they didn't even fill the available lifeboats, they just put 80, you know, people in and took off. Um, they've got some improper life vest use that killed people as soon as they hit the water because they didn't put them on right because there was no safety drill. And then back then, I guess the if you had kids on board, which there were kids on board, they were too big for the kids, so as soon as they jumped with the preserves on, they flew off, and then people's kids just disappeared in the water. Um so then there was talk of there's an inadequate water pressure to fight the fire because only six of the 42 hydrants on board can be used at one time. And then kind of like the Costa Concordia, where poor crew response and many of them just saved themselves first and didn't assist passengers, like just jumped off to save themselves. Um so then there was talk of the crew working conditions on the ship, which probably why they saved themselves. They were highly underpaid. It said like $30, they got paid $30 a month. Um they endured poor crew conditions, cramped living conditions, and it said many of them had to supplement their income by smuggling in cocaine and heroin and asylum seekers from Cuba into the US while also smuggling weapons into Cuba from the US. So they had this very high turnover rate. So the theory is that many people speculate that the captain was murdered and poisoned, and that the fires were set intentionally to cover up this murder. And he had told some people that he feared someone was trying to sabotage the ship and harm him. So the investigation into his death didn't get far because his body burned in the fire, like completely.

Speaker 28:34

What was the date?

Speaker 2 28:35

1934.

Speaker 28:36

What it's September, did you say?

Speaker 2 28:38

Yeah, September.

Speaker 28:39

September what?

Speaker 2 28:40

7th.

Speaker 28:41

So today is the anniversary.

Speaker 2 28:43

Oh, is it the 7th?

Speaker 28:44

It is.

Speaker 2 28:45

Oh, oh my gosh, I didn't even know that.

Speaker 28:48

Oh, you're spooking me on this story That's adding a lot of great things to my story here. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 28:52

All right, so the speculation was the chief radio officer, George Rogers, was responsible for both incidents on the ship, as he was previously investigated for an arson before they even hired him. And after this disaster, he went to prison for killing two people and attempting to murder a third person. So everyone is pretty convinced he's the one that was responsible for this whole thing, but they didn't have any evidence. And the other two interesting theories that I found to be interesting was they say he might have been hired by the cruise line to torch the ship for insurance money, or that the federal government hired him to burn the ship to cover up their role in smuggling arms to Cuba. So basically, this is like a CSK for hire, which I didn't even think that you could hire a CSK.

Speaker 29:54

This is crazy.

Speaker 2 29:55

Yeah.

Speaker 29:57

I mean you kind of say, oh, well, back then this kind of thing could happen. But then again, you just told us about the tidal wave thing arresting all these people. Right, like the smuggling part. Right, you don't know what could be happening.

Speaker 2 30:11

Yeah. So afterward, there were some convictions, but they got overturned. So the um acting captain, the chief engineer, and a uh cruise line vice president, they were convicted in 1936 of misconduct, negligence, and inattention um to duty. But then in 1937, they overturned all of those, and the acting captain guy went on to sail again and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. And then I was reading about these new safety measures because every time there's a ship disaster like this, they make changes, like what went wrong and what's the changes gonna be. So from this one, it was the use of fire retardant materials on ships, automatic fire doors, um, shipwide alarms, a whole life vest redesign because the way they were designed, they were like had cork compartments that were causing injuries as soon as you hit the water. They were made of cloth.

Speaker 31:14

Oh wow.

Speaker 2 31:15

And then I'm hoping that's where they went into the yes, you must do the safety drills, whether you want to inconvenience everyone or not. Um so I do I remember my grandma talking about this, and she she was, oh, he was in the water a long time, he's lucky to be alive. And he died of leukemia 27 years later when he was 64, and my grandmother just kept saying about this story that she's convinced that he got his leukemia from being in this water next to a burning ship for you know hours. So I was like googling because I was like, I don't think so. Is there a correlation? No, there's not.

Speaker 31:57

Um I wouldn't think so.

Speaker 2 31:58

No, but she was just convinced this is why my husband got leukemia and he's gone, you know. So yeah, I just uh thought it was interesting that that just came up in the news again recently because I guess there are two um unidentified people that are buried in this cemetery in New Jersey where all these other passengers are buried, and they don't have headstones. They just had this um little plaque that's worn out, and the people in New Jersey want to get them granite headstones like everybody else, and so the story just kind of popped in.

Speaker 32:38

So they're trying to find who these people are?

Speaker 2 32:41

No, I don't think they can. Okay, so it's just unknown the unknown passenger. Right. They just want headstones for them like like everybody else in the cemetery that was there, yeah. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah.

Speaker 32:52

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 32:54

I know it's crazy. I didn't think it was so involved, you know. She just was talking about well, there's a fire and he jumped, and then you're reading all this, what, there's smuggling stuff, and the captain's murdered, and there's fire is arson, and you know, it's turned into a big snowball thing that I had no idea.

Why It Feels Worse Now

Speaker 33:14

Since we've been having so many stories lately, I've been I started asking some questions that I really have to do homework on this because I was really curious. Like I know you can figure out how many passengers will will travel on cruises annually. So we know because there's we certainly know the number of ships, or we can determine the number of ships for each cruise line, whether new cruise lines come on board or not, or those that fall away. But you probably can come up with a number of ships that are sailing with X number of passengers and crew. I'm just wondering, over the years, has that has there been just a slight increase? Has it kind of stayed the same over the period of time, or has it been a decrease? Because it just seems that there's so many of these stories, or is it that the number of cruises and the number of passengers hasn't really changed? What's changed is so many of us really are paying attention to what happens on these things that it makes these news reports like the slap one I just talked about, right? I mean, that one probably 10 years ago wouldn't have gotten anything because no one had a phone back then that was you know, unless you had a really good flip loan.

Speaker 2 34:23

I think the increases in the media coverage near as much. But also the alcohol packages.

Speaker 34:31

I really when did we determine that started? 202 2012, was it?

Speaker 2 34:36

Yes.

Speaker 34:36

I think that was around that that period.

Speaker 2 34:38

I really think it's the alcohol packages. You know, but I'm not I'm sure plenty of people drank before, but when you have to actually pay per drink, you kind of scale it back.

Speaker 1 34:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2 34:49

But these alcohol packages, drink packages, I really think that's made it worse.

Speaker 34:56

I think you're right.

Speaker 2 34:58

And we talked about, you know, you're paying this set fee for all you can drink, and you're like, well, I don't want to lose money, so I gotta do my cap every day.

Speaker 35:08

It also has to be kind of a uh there's been a degrading of of just being um, what do you call it? Um, you're on a you're on a trip, you're on uh it used to be like this on an aircraft when you went on a plane ride. Right. You couldn't wear flip-flops.

unknown 35:29

Right.

Speaker 2 35:29

Right. Right?

Speaker 35:30

I mean, people would dress up and travel.

Speaker 2 35:32

Right.

Speaker 35:32

So there's a certain decorum that was kind of expected, and it just seems that that it just in general has just slowly declined to the point where it's like, yeah, you can wear your pajamas. Well like suddenly that became like okay.

Speaker 2 35:47

It's declined to the point where they're now talking about these um the in the dining room. Do you really have to wear business attire or can you just can we just wear shorts and flip-flops?

Speaker 35:58

I think you have to set a standard like that.

Speaker 2 36:00

That's what the buffet is for.

Speaker 36:02

Right? I think it is. I know, as as the fork incident has proven to us, you can wear flip-flops to the buffet. Yes. But no, seriously, it you you would you I think they you have to have you have to have both, right? To your point. The buffet, you don't want to dress up for or look at least somewhat decent for dinner, go to the buffet.

Speaker 2 36:23

Right.

Speaker 36:24

So we're just gonna have non-stop stuff to talk about. What do you think the next thing's gonna be?

Speaker 2 36:30

Oh my gosh, I have no idea.

Speaker 36:32

I mean, it can't it's only gonna be certain things like major brawl. Do you have any updates on the the the Anna Keppner case with the the brother? The brother who's now gonna be trying. They I had I don't even know if they set a court date, have they?

Speaker 2 36:47

I don't know. Haven't heard anything on that. Or or the um the couple in the Bahamas where the wife, you know, bounced off the dinghy into the water.

Speaker 37:00

Oh, right. That is a new one.

Speaker 2 37:02

We haven't heard anything on the other one.

Speaker 37:03

So we haven't heard anything, we haven't heard anything, any any new developments on that one.

Speaker 2 37:07

No.

Speaker 37:08

And yeah, that's true. We have not heard anything on that one. Well, I'm keeping my my eyes and ears open for the uh for anything on the pig case. On the either of those pig cases.

Speaker 2 37:23

Oh, right.

Speaker 37:23

The one that got the guy got bit and yeah, that one.

Speaker 2 37:27

Right.

Speaker 37:28

Four days later he suddenly seeks treatment for his pig bite. Yeah. And then the lady that wasn't even at the pigs yet, but got injured on the boat ride to the pigs. But it made attention because she was going to see the pigs. So it has nothing to do with the pigs. The pigs are totally innocent on that one. But nonetheless, these are cases, right, that I'm curious about because they filed at the last minute. They got it in the door. Except, wait, what who somebody was a little late. Oh, the one that got hit in the head with a mirror or something that fell off the ship.

Speaker 2 37:57

In the bathroom.

Speaker 37:58

Yeah, yeah. No, she was a little late on filing hers, but yeah, she's claiming memory issues, so that actually might work. She actually might be able to sneak that one in.

Speaker 2 38:05

I forgot and missed the deadline to file a lawsuit. Your mirror fell on my head. Exactly.

Speaker 38:11

Why didn't you follow this sooner? I don't remember, I don't remember. That's my problem. That's my answer. Right. Yeah. You're making my point, Your Honor. All right. That's I mean, that's all I have. Just wait for the next round of stories, which will happen in about five minutes. So if we wait long enough in Google, we'll see some new some something new will come right across the screen.

Speaker 2 38:33

That's true. There's like one a day, pretty much. One incident a day.

Speaker 38:38

All right, till next time.

Speaker 2 38:39

Yep.

Speaker 38:40

All right.

Speaker 2 38:41

Anchors away.

Speaker 38:42

Anchors Away.

Listener Invite And Sign Off

Speaker 1 38:49

I just want to invite anyone and everyone out there who listens to our podcast to please come to our page. It's Cruise Ship Killer Podcast on Facebook and give us some good ideas. Kathy and Geoff can banter about. But also, if you have any stories, or if you even maybe you just want to call in because you have something of interest or you can touch base on something we've already discussed, please feel free to reach out to us. Again, it's Cruise Ship Killer Podcast on Facebook.

Speaker 39:20

That's it for this episode of Cruise Ship Killer. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, rate, and review, or don't. But statistically, the people who disappear never do either. Sources for today's episode are linked in the show notes because shockingly we did not make all of this up.

Speaker 1 39:51

This is a Katie's Pub Production.