She Ordered Room Service, Then Vanished. (The Merrian Carver Mystery)

How does a person vanish from a massive cruise ship in the middle of the ocean without a single witness?

In this special crossover episode, we’re heading over to the Speculating Wildly About Crime (SWAC) studio. Join Jamie, Kristy, and David to dive deep into one of the most unsettling maritime mysteries in history: The disappearance of Merrian Carver.

In 2004, Merrian booked a last-minute Alaskan cruise, told absolutely no one, and boarded the ship in Seattle. By night two, after a strange interaction with her cabin steward and a massive untouched tip, she was gone. No CCTV, no splashes reported, and a cruise line that allegedly told staff to "just keep working." #truecrimestories  #missingatsea  #MerrianCarver #UnsolvedMysteries #CruiseShipCrime #survivingish  #SWACPod #coldcase  #alaskancruise  #PodcastCrossover #documentary

https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@SWACPOD⁩  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

I have a wing and must be like I was a gas on the which is a beginning absolutely amazing. So they give information to the hours on the upper case. And I think you guys really like another. If you want to do it in next week, we've got a surviving with the traveling up with airport and just a few little things that's happened in life. I've got some brand new issues that you don't want to miss. So check out this episode. Follow Swag Pod Speculating Wildly About Crime. So check it out, and we will see you all next week.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

I'm Jamie. I'm Christy. And loyal Swack Pod listeners, this is a very familiar face to you. New SwatPod listeners, I want to welcome David Keck to our show today.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Hello, friends. I'm so excited to be here. It's been quite a while since we talked about true crime together, and I've not yet talked about true crime with Kristy yet. So I'm ready.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

So again, those of you that are new listeners, David was part of Swack Pod. He helped birth this baby. He put a lot of labor hours into it. He taught me damn near everything I know about podcasting. So I kind of owe my life to him, maybe a little bit. And as life happens, things change, people change, people grow. And he moved away from it, but started some really, really exciting things. So David, if you don't mind, I want to give you the floor a little bit to talk about your network.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah, thank you so much. So I developed a network called Surviving Podcast Network. As I was sharing my own survivor story, what I found very common is there was a certain side of us that people didn't get to see. And so people had to walk on the eggshells. So I am hoping that October 1st will be the release date to my brand new podcast called Surviving-Isch. And it's going to be about those daily petty grievances that we're all just trying to get through. And it's going to be a little bit lighthearted because I want to give people permission to see victims as a survivor where you can still laugh and joke with us. We're still that funny, silly person. And I'm really excited about this new chapter. With that being said, we also have Unholier podcasts that we share survivor stories, and there are stories of people that have survived and gotten through cult and religious abuse. But it's very positive. A lot of them have constructed their thoughts of religion and still built a relationship with God on their own. And some maybe still be in that place of trying to build that relationship or rediscover God. But it's all positive. It's all amazing. And I would love for anyone and everyone to check it out. I make guest appearances on there, and we go live on Tuesdays for Unholier Tuesday on TikTok. And that is Unholier underscore pod. My lovely friend Jenny is the host of it. So thank you for letting me share all that.

SPEAKER_04 3:37

Yeah, and she's great. I had the luxury of being able to join one of those lives. And she is just full of personality and spunk and knowledge. And I'm not a person who goes to church every single week, but it was really cool to listen to. And she kept me captivated for sure. So I think that was that's great. So yes, we will post all of that on our show notes.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

You know, like everybody in my life now is podcast people, and we all just love and support each other regardless of the genre. It's such a lovely community. And now that I'm here with you, I'm like, gosh, I've missed this. I've missed swag so much, I can't wait to speculate. I'm so excited. I feel like Christy and I may have we're either gonna be best friends or to be determined.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

So we'll start it off. Christy, tell me about your week.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

We had the Labor Day weekend, which was nice. My husband took my son back to school shopping because he won't go with me anymore. Because he says, Mom always wants to buy me the next dad. I don't want to go. So it was nice because I'm like, oh, I got some alone time. So that was fun. Did the farmers market and just little things here and there. One thing I did do was Friday. I actually watched the movie Friday with my son. So he's 15. Okay, I want your opinion. So we're watching Friday, and my husband walks in, he's like, Christy, you're watching Friday with your 15-year-old son not appropriate. And I was like, What?

SPEAKER_04 5:15

So I personally think they they're talking about weed at school anyway, so why not watch a movie with Smokey with your mom?

SPEAKER_00 5:24

I think that it that is fine, right? Because I think that we want to shelter conversations, shelter children, and even shelter the conversations that we have with adults, right? And when we do that, when we have this filter, we're not normalizing the things that are normal conversations in the world. So I love what you did. I think that is exactly what needs to be done.

SPEAKER_04 5:51

Okay. David, how was your week? What was the highlight?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

So kind of the same. Like, I think we're at the age now where if we can be on the couch and watch housewives and order some pizza and just play games on your phone and not move, is a lovely weekend. And that's what I did.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

That sounds perfect. I love it. So I did much of the same, but I have to tell you, if y'all don't know this about me, I am obsessed with NFL football. Y'all are getting me on NFL football opening night. There is a game going on right now, Dallas Cowboys versus the Eagles, but it's probably gonna be boring because Jerry Jones is a fucking idiot. But thankful for Packer fans nationwide, we got Micah Parsons. All right, so today we are gonna be covering the case of Marian Carter. So, for those of you that don't know this case, this is our second case that SwackPad is covering where somebody goes missing from a cruise ship. So I know there's a lot of buzz out there about Amy Lynn Bradley. There's that recent Netflix documentary that came out, and everybody's like, you should cover it, you should cover it. And I said, You should listen to my podcast more often. Missy, who was actually on here a couple weeks ago, who's now part of Dark Woods Puranormal, she actually covered and hosted that case. Unfortunately, your girl was out sick that week, so I probably owe you a speculation at some point about Amy Lynn Bradley, but she did a great job. I think David actually was on that episode. So please go back and listen to that episode for today's case. We are traveling back to 2004. So I want us to all get in the mindset of 2004. Yes, cell phones were around. No, they weren't as plentiful, social media wasn't as plentiful. So I want us to keep all these things in mind as we're thinking about this case today. Marian Carver actually lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which I think is not too far outside of Boston. And for this trip, she actually traveled to Seattle, Washington, because she took an Alaskan cruise. I do want to tell you just a little bit about Marian Carver. She was a very successful investment banker for a very, very long time. In fact, her father grew up in that type of industry too. And it was just recently that she wasn't doing that anymore. Some sources say she was fired, some sources say she left on her own, but she was not working at the time of her disappearance. She had taken up writing quite a bit, and so she was trying to be an author of some sort, but not to worry, she wasn't an investment banker for a while, so she didn't have the financial nest egg. So it wasn't like she was in turmoil or anything like that. So she was good. She was gorgeous, she was a redhead, she was super smart, also very independent, to the point of being very private about her life. So she didn't let a lot of people in on her dating life, her work life, her personal life at all, really. In fact, there have been a handful of times in the past where she would just get up and go and say, I'm not feeling today. I'm gonna go take a vacation here, I'm gonna go for a ride here. And that was the norm for her. Marion was not without love in her life, so she did fall in love at one point in her life shortly after she moved to Massachusetts, and she was married for quite some time. She had a daughter. At the time of her disappearance, her daughter was 13. Unfortunately, there was a divorce that happened and it was pretty ugly. So at the time of her disappearance, she was single, and her daughter was spending the summer in England with her father. Some sources say Marion lost custody of her daughter, other sources say the daughter was just spending time away with her father in England. So I'm not gonna put it out there either way. Marion and her daughter did talk on a daily basis, so they would have almost like a nightly phone call. They had a great relationship. Marion's relationship with her ex-husband, not fantastic, but they made it work to co-parent. Marion did have some siblings, they're not talked about much, if at all, during this case. Marion did have two parents who were still alive, they were still together at the time, and we will talk a lot about her father, who became a pretty big advocate for her as well. All right, so days leading up to the disappearance. So just two days before this cruise set sail. So I'm gonna say it was August 24th of 2004. I don't know what was going on at Marian's life that day, but she went online and was like, hmm, I feel like taking a cruise. But sounds good. An Alaskan cruise. Let me boop boop fine, order a ticket. Sure, they still have some capacity. Okay, got the ticket ordered for my cruise. Mind you, two days before it took off. She also, of course, living in Massachusetts, the cruise is taking off from Seattle. She had to buy a round trip ticket. I think that's important. I think we should put a pin in the fact that she bought a ticket going from Boston to Seattle and from Seattle back to Boston. So, for all intents and purposes, when she booked this trip, it did seem like she was going to go on the cruise, do the seven-day thing, come back, go back to Boston and live her life like normal.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Did I hear you say that she had to buy a round trip ticket or she chose to buy?

SPEAKER_04 11:29

I think chose to because I think anytime you and I don't know exactly the package that she used to buy the ticket or anything, but I think anytime you choose to buy a ticket anywhere, you have the option to do one-way. Like when I moved to Florida, I went on a one-way ticket.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah, I would think so. But I think that's a great point that you made, depending on the package, because if it's an all exclusive package, like does five cocktails a day and three meals come with this cruise package as well as round trip tickets. And so that was my question is if you knew anything else on why there would or would not be a round trip ticket.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

So that actually is a good point. That I do not know. So she could have very well bought like a package from like Priceline or an Expedia where it just automatically was round trip, right? Where she didn't have the option to say if she wanted it to be one way or the other. So valid point. So I think we should put a pin in that as well.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

And I think because it's 2004, people they still use travel agencies in 2004. It wasn't like it is now where you just book your own vacation. So that's why I'm thinking it was more of a package deal. Oh, five thousand dollars and you get your flight and everything.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

You're right.

SPEAKER_04 12:46

Alright, so August 26th. So this is the day that she's getting ready to leave. She packs up her eggs, she leaves her apartment, tells no anybody. She does not tell her daughter who she talks to daily. She does not tell any friends, she does not tell her parents, any other family members. She leaves her apartment, locks her door, drives to the airport, gets on a flight, and goes to Seattle. The very next day, so I don't know if she stayed overnight in Seattle or if the flight was like a red-eye thing, whatever it was. August 27th, she boards the seven-day Alaskan cruise from Seattle. She actually took the same exact cruise ship with her daughter about five years earlier with her daughter. So she was familiar with the cruise line, cruises in general, and the ship as well. She described the ship a little bit. It had 12 decks, so that's 12 floors. So for people who have not been on a cruise ship, most of those decks are gonna house rooms, much like a hotel. There's gonna be probably the deck on the bottom, is typically for cruise ship staff. Then you have a lot of the decks that are rooms, and then you have a deck or two that's like restaurants, pools, entertainment, the stage, etc. This cruise ship held about 2,000 passengers. It wasn't stated one way or the other if it was officially sold out. My hunch tells me no, seeing as Marion booked a trip two days before it sailed, but I could be wrong. So don't come for me on that. Marion's cabin was on the ninth deck. She had a panoramic window so she could see out, but I don't believe it had a balcony. Um, she was one or two decks below what would be what we call an open deck. So, like a deck where passengers could go out and sunbathe or whatever it might. She could pop outside of her room, go up on the elevator, go up a floor or two to this deck, and be out in the open, if you will. Also, something to put a pin in just for how easy it was for her to access something like that. I do want to pause right here because I think it might be good, might be something, might be nothing, but for our listeners to know, have we all been on cruises? David, have you been on cruises before? So you understand how all that works.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yes, I love cruisers. And so I at some point I do have a question about the room, but Chrissy, have you been on a cruise?

SPEAKER_02 15:20

I was on one cruise and I don't think I would go on another one.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Really?

SPEAKER_02 15:25

The oceans are scary. Oceans are scary.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Did you have a personal scary experience for just being out there because at night when it like you can't see lane, everything is so black? Was it one of those things? Yeah, it's scary.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

If you fall overboard, no one's coming for you. Your chances are pretty slim to none.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Oh, you're probably done. However, I never feared falling over, and I'm a drinker. I just I guess I knew not to go that close to the end.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

I also went with an ex-boyfriend who was horrible. So maybe I just associate that together.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

We're gonna take a friend cruise where we're gonna be with a bunch of fun people, and this will be great and exciting.

SPEAKER_04 16:11

So I went on my first cruise two years ago. Loved it so much that I went again last year. Now I covered this case and I'm like, the fuck with the staff.

unknown 16:20

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 16:21

But I'm with David, they are super fun, but I'm with you, Christy. When you especially after you've had a few drinks, and you're up on that top deck at night and all you see is black, it can really freak you the fuck out. David, do you want to ask your room question now?

SPEAKER_00 16:38

She seems to have financially her life together, and it seems like the things that she does is lovely as far as the way that she treats herself, as far as vacations and things like that. So the room that you described seemed to me to be a luxurious kind of room versus just a standard room. So, do we know what type of room she was in? Was it a room that like a higher class person would buy?

SPEAKER_04 17:07

I think she was at the mercy of what was left over because she's booking two days before. So I don't know if I'd put a ton of salt into was it a big room, was it a small room?

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Yeah, if you're two days before, you're pretty much getting uh the leftovers of who canceled last minute. So you're right, I forgot about that part.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Okay, shopping on the clearance rack.

unknown 17:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

But sometimes you found a good dress on a clear clearance rack.

SPEAKER_04 17:30

So, for those of you that don't know, when you go on a cruise ship, you have stewards, and the steward is like a housekeeper, but more than that, I would say it's like a housekeeper on steroids, like they're there to help you with anything you need. You need a first aid kit, you need a new blanket, you need a new towel, you need to know how to get to the bingo hall, you need to know what time dinner is. This person is your person, right? And so each of them has a certain amount of rooms that they're responsible for, and they really get to know their guests. And so a lot of the information that we're gonna hear from here on out comes from their recollection of things. So it's stated the first evening she gets there again. She really keeps to herself. She maybe does some writing in her cabin, she maybe goes up to one of the decks and does some writing. She did have a brief interaction with her steward. She asked for a couple extra towels, and that was really anybody saw or heard of her that first night. So assumingly, we would think that she went to bed that night and wakes up the next morning. So again, assumingly, she spent the day kind of avoiding crowds because she's not seen by many people other than her steward that day. So there's a lot of places on a cruise ship, even with 2,000 passengers, that you can sneak away into little corners and find time away for yourself. So it's thought that's maybe what she was doing that night. Now, this was I don't know, most cruise ships I was on. The formal dinner wouldn't happen this fast, but the formal dinner was night two on this cruise ship. So this, and for those of you that haven't been on a cruise, formal dinner is a big night. This is a night that everybody gets dressed up, you go to the dining room hall, they have cruise ship photographers everywhere so that they can take pictures and they can sell you the pictures and whatever. And so 99% of the time, people are going to this dinner. And so the night that this was happening, the steward thought this is a perfect time for me to go in and do a turned on service for all the rooms. So they're going into each of the rooms, and the steward gets to Marion's room, and I don't know if they knocked or not. Doesn't seem like they did, but they get in there and they're like, Oh, you're here. This is so weird. Do you know the formal night is tonight? Are you gonna be going to dinner tonight? And she's like, No, no, no, no. I I'm not gonna be part of that. I just want to keep to myself. But do you think you can help me order room service? And actually, I want to take a step back. So I think this was the same night that the steward said when he opened the door and interacted with Marian. She was only in like a long t-shirt, if you will. So, like, definitely not dressed for formal dinners. So he was like, Do you know formal dinners upstairs? Do you want to go? And so she's like, No, no, no, but can you help me order room service? So he's like, sure, that's my job. So she says, Okay, here's what I want to order. And she orders two sandwiches. She then tries to give the steward a tip, and he says, No, no, no, no. This is my job. I'm here to serve you. Here's your room service, be on your way. So room service comes, and the two sandwiches are served on two different plates. And she essentially says, Okay, well, I was gonna give the steward this tip. She sets aside a tip of$107 with the steward's name and sets it like on a counter in the room. And I would say, assumingly, to give to him the next day or give when the cruise is over, whatever. And then she would go to bed and she sets her dishes out in the hallway to be collected, much like you would if you ordered room service at a hotel. So I'm gonna pause here for two things. The first thing is we're in 2004 and I could bring out my cell phone in a second.$107 is a lot of money to leave for a tip, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:52

When I've been on cruises, I would take tip every few days. Because after a day or two, when you get that first tip. And they said that's nice that you're tipping after two days. I'm getting special treatment. So not only are they benefiting because they're gonna benefit financially, but I'm gonna benefit because when you want clean towels or a clean bed, I come first. I tip, you know, so it makes me wonder if it's one of those situations.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

I just don't understand where the seven dollars comes from. 107.

SPEAKER_04 22:28

Is that all the cash she had? Or she's just like fuck it, Chrissy. This is going into my speculation now.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

All right, so well, and maybe this is what you're hitting at, but I even wrote I said 107 question mark code question mark. Could that mean something?

SPEAKER_04 22:45

Second thing I wanted to get your all's take on is two sandwiches. How do we feel about that?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

I'm a man with an appetite who drinks and will order food thinking I'm ordering enough to have lunch tomorrow, and then I wake up to pack my lunch and realize that after a couple drinks, I ate my lunch for tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Yeah, especially if she's by herself. Does she want to go all the way to the dining hall or wherever? Might be kind of a pain. I might as well just keep a sandwich. Sandwiches are easy to keep.

SPEAKER_04 23:21

So this unfortunately was the last confirmed night that she was seen. So this is the last time anybody goes on record saying that they saw Marion on the cruise ship. So again, this is night two. She orders the room service and she presumably puts it outside of her door. So the very next morning at 6 a.m., I don't know why the steward is up so damn early, but he is doing his rounds. He sees the dishes outside, and for whatever reason, I don't know if he knocks on the door or tries to go in there, but he goes into Marion's room and sees that she's not there. And again, I've only been on two cruises, so I don't know how attached stewards get to people. Maybe he had a very long conversation with Marion, but it's stated that right after this, he like does a lapper on the ship. So basically he's like, Holy shit, she's not in a room. I just saw her less than 12 hours earlier. Where could she be? Can't find her. So he goes down to his supervisor and says, Hey, my guest in blah blah blah blah blah room. I saw her last night, she didn't go to the dinner, seemed a little odd. I helped her order room service. I went to her room this morning to go start to do my job, and she's not in her room. I searched the ship and I couldn't find her. And I came back to her room and she's not there, so I'm coming down here to report it to you because you're my boss. So I do want to pause there and I want to ask questions again.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

Do we think this is normal behavior? Obviously, like the bed wasn't slept in or something. Because why, first of all, why would he be knocking at 6 a.m. unless she requested or something that he because who wants to get up at 6 a.m. on their vacation? Not many of us.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

What kind of conversation could this person have had with the stewardess that would lead them to worry? You're on vacation, you're on vacation by your yourself, you're a gorgeous woman. There's plenty of hot guys and women around, whatever your preference is. Our mindsets are going to be like, well, you can't go far. You know, we have 800 rooms on this cruise ship. We're not thinking about this something went overboard. What I find interesting is that he had a little bit of conversation with her in the span of two days. And now he's worried because she wasn't in her room.

SPEAKER_04 26:05

He wasn't worried that she didn't want to go to this gorgeous, catered banquet dinner that is on the and it will say he was alarmed, but not enough to go to his supervisor about the dinner thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

But alarmed enough to walk around and check and worry.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

No, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

I have questions on that.

SPEAKER_04 26:26

If that doesn't make you go, hmm, this will within I don't have an exact timestamp on this, y'all, but I'll say within 24 to 48 hours, this supervisor called a meeting with all stewards in this area of the ship. Basically said, and I'm paraphrasing, right? Hey, so-and-so said that he has some uneasy feelings about this passenger. I just want to remind you all that everybody on the ship is, I don't know how I'm gonna say this. They're on the ship under the privacy of their own whatever it might be. And for lack of better words, he had everybody sign an NDA and said, Okay, we're not gonna talk about this missing person. We're here on this ship to do our job. That's what we're gonna do for the rest of time out here. Please come and sign this paper that you're not gonna talk about this. And now we're going into night three, four, five, six, and every single time that the steward goes to Marion's room, he goes back to his supervisor and reports again. For example, that night, hey, I went to go do her nighttime service and her room hasn't been touched. And this happens night after night after night. Each time the steward notices that Marion's not in her room, he goes to the supervisor every single time and says, I'm concerned she's still not there. One point the supervisor goes to the steward and says, and I quote, just concentrate on doing your job, leave this to me. So now we fast forward to the last night or two of the cruise. And Marion's daughter calls Marion's father, Ken, and says, I haven't heard from mom in three or four days. I talked to her every day. Have you heard from her? Do you know what's going on? Now I need to remind everybody. Marion booked this trip two days before it left and told fucking nobody. So her family thinks she's writing her book, she's doing whatever. I don't know why she can't call her daughter. Maybe something's going on, but we're not alarmed. So Ken's like, okay, I'm gonna call her cell phone. Calls the cell phone, gets a busy signal. Calls a landline, gets no answer. Does this for the whole day, and finally, after that, he's like, okay, I'm concerned. I'm gonna call the Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Department and file a report of some sort. So police department goes out to her apartment, knocks on the door, nobody answers. So they were able to go inside. No signs of foul play. There's no force entry, there's nothing laying on her countertop. So they report that back to the dad. They start to question some of the neighbors. They've got no leads, nobody's seen her, nobody realizes anything suspicious. So they're like, Her laptop's here. I guess we could take her laptop and we could start to look through that. So that is where they find that she booked this cruise, right? So they start looking into stuff and they're like, oh shit, she booked this cruise two days before. So then they call the family back and they're like, Hey, did you know about this? And of course, nobody knows. Ken's like, Okay, well, give me the cruise line. I'll just call the cruise ship. Easy peasy, right? So by this point, the cruise that Marion was supposed to be on had already disembarked, people are already off the ship, whatever. So he calls and they said, Hey, we can confirm that she got on the ship. And like I talked about earlier in the episode, there's grainy as fuck photos, videos of her going on the ship with very minimal bags. And I do want to put another pin in that, and I do want to say that again, it's a minimal bags. A seven-day cruise, and she had two backpacks essentially, or like a big overnight bag. But they say, and again, this is another quote we can confirm she got on board the ship, but we're not certain that she got off the ship. What? I'm sorry, 2004 at least had some kind of technology, and I know I've only been on cruises as of recent, so maybe Christy, you can speak to the cruise that you've been on, but you still have to book, you have to have a ticket, and you have to show your ID or something to show that you got on, and I believe to get off. Am I wrong?

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Yeah, you need to show both when you get on and get off.

SPEAKER_04 30:54

So, how do you we're not certain that she got off the ship? Well, then shut the fucking ship down because you guys are not doing your damn job. Don't you have to scan something to say you got off the ship? And don't they have to do like a clean sweep of the ship to make sure that everybody is off before we're letting new passengers on?

SPEAKER_00 31:16

I would love to hope that. As far as the scanning, yes, you have to scan out. But they but it's also like that kind of head count. Like when you're on a field trip in school, they're like they do roll call, they're like, okay, there's 27 of us. Well, then going forward, they just make sure they have 27 heads. It's careless, it's not great.

SPEAKER_04 31:36

Yeah, and so by the time that Ken had gone there and said, Hey, I'm here to investigate my daughter's whereabouts, they're like, Yeah, sorry, but we've got nothing.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

I think originally they said that every three days they would do away with.

SPEAKER_04 31:50

Yes. So Ken is like, cool, y'all are not gonna help me, so I'm gonna hire a private investigator. So two cases actually end up getting opened up one case in Massachusetts, one case in Seattle. Also, Ken hires a private investigator out of Florida, I believe. And it took a while for them to get things going with the private investigator, but it wasn't until two months later. So now we're into September. The private investigator finally got on the ship and nobody will meet with them. At one point, he's told, hey, the manager's doing a new hire training, so he can't really meet with you right now. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

New hire trainings are very hard.

SPEAKER_04 32:31

So Ken didn't stop there. He kept going and going, and finally was able to get those subpoenas. So he subpoenaed everybody that was on the ship the day that Marion went missing. So we finally got the steward to testify. And the steward went on record to say, I was concerned on the second day. I reported it to my supervisor five times that I'm concerned. I don't know where she is. I think she went missing. Every day I went into her room, I noticed the$107 tip that remained untouched. He also talked about Marion being in really good spirits. The final day of the cruise, he noticed and reported to his supervisor again that hey, her room is still unchanged. I'm still very concerned. And his supervisor at that point said, please just take her belongings out of the room, put them in a locker, and we'll deal with it later. Now, when Ken found out about this, he went back to the cruise manager and said, I would like her items. And they said, Sorry, we don't have them anymore. A lot of times when they're not claimed, we will donate them. So after being all under all the scrutiny from the private investigator, and now the subpoenas are coming out. Now we have to launch an official investigation that began in late September. At that time, the hotel manager confirmed that they we did fire the steward supervisor for their failure to report the incident. We didn't start our investigation until after the Cambridge PD contacted us, which in my eyes is bullshit because your steward came to you several times. Why'd you have to wait until her family reported her missing? Whatever. And actually, they initially refused to file a police report and waited five weeks until after her disappearance. And that's when they finally decided to go to the FBI. When Ken dug deeper, and this is where it's really gonna piss you guys off, because this is where I got really fucking mad. So Ken dug deeper and said, Something is else has got to be going on here. I'm not gonna stop until I have answers. He went to a Royal Caribbean's corporate office, essentially. She should have been reported missing from day one. Her room should have been preserved as a possible crime scene. And we apologize. Now, if y'all aren't mad enough yet, here we go. So remember when the private investigator first came on, when Ken first came on to ask and said, Do we know that she was on that ship? Do we know that we she left that ship? Hey, we have this grainy footage of her first getting on the ship, but everything of her being on the ship after that, we erased after three days because that's just what we do, right? So we don't know what happened to her. We don't even know if she got off the ship. However, all of a sudden, now that we're under FBI investigation and we have private investigators and everybody's being subpoenaed, I'm so sorry, Ken. We should have told you about this, but we actually do have footage of Marion. And we have footage of her actually jumping overboard and taking her own life. We think that she had, quote, severe emotional problems, and it appears that she has committed suicide. They even went on record to say, and I quote, I'm so mad, the death of Marianne Carver is a horrible tragedy, but regrettably, there is little that a cruise line resort or hotel can do to prevent someone from committing suicide. End quote.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

I could have wrote that.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

I think what happens with corporations, and this is just from past experience with working in HR with multi-billion dollar corporations, is we can't put emotion behind anything as bad as we want to, as much as we want to as a person. We simply can because anything that we do as a company we're held liable for. Unfortunately, it has to come down to the protection of the company, especially if we truly don't know what to happen as person, or if we truly were not responsible. No, I think there's great areas where maybe the higher-ups are not responsible. But what about the manager or captain of the screw ship? You know what I mean? I hate it because there have been situations in my HR career where I've had to be advised by our corporate attorneys to be very stern and factual. I obviously was not good at that job because I have empathy and sympathy and all the things. And so it just makes me wonder how much of this was a corporate response, a legal response versus a true human response.

SPEAKER_04 37:44

I can see that side of it. Like I work for a multi-billion dollar corporation. We do the shit too, right? All the time it's say this exact line, don't put anything more into it. Your girl's not very good at that either. I think my bigger concern in this situation is we didn't have any footage, we didn't have any footage, we didn't have any footage. All of a sudden, oh shit, we're being subpoenaed. Oh, by the way, we had this footage, we just didn't want to fucking share it with you, and now here it is. I don't like that. That doesn't say right with me.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Well, and it shouldn't, but it still makes me wonder it's almost like corporate response, right?

SPEAKER_04 38:24

All right. Obviously, Marion's family did not like the outcome of this, but two really, really amazing things that Ken did and was part of with this. So in 2006, Ken Carver founded what is still known today as the ICV. So the ICV is the International Cruise Victims, and basically it is a foundation that has families of missing, murdered, whatever people that are out on cruise ships. And because there's so much gray area with this international waters and who covers it and whatever, they've just started this foundation where everybody can come as a whole, and there is this uh think piece, information piece where all of the family's information is out there so that is available to the public. People can look into it, and it's not hidden by corporate or what jurisdictions covering it.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Laws and things change depending on where you are in the ocean. So would that still play a factor into a missing person case or a million percent?

SPEAKER_04 39:35

So sometimes you don't even know where to go with it, depending on where it happens, and I think that's part of the problem is the ball gets dropped so often, and so then it creates. Again, this is speculating wildly about crime. We're speculating, we're not seeing anything is written in stone, but I think it leaves it very open for a multi-billion dollar organization to paint a picture that best aligns with their company in a positive light. And coming from corporate America, I can understand that a little bit, a little bit, and I'm saying one percent. But at the end of the day, these are human lives. This is somebody's daughter, mom, grandma, aunt, whatever it might be. We've got it.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

But I think there's natural grooming that just comes with the people that are purchasing these tickets, they're Karen's, right? We have to be mindful of the minute that they find out a dead body or someone's missing. There's 800 Kairens on here out of the thousand, there's gonna be like, it's I want my money back. And so the company's job is to save its name and defend themselves from the Kairens. What I can't believe I'm about to say this because it's gonna seem like I'm defending corporations, and by no means is that what I'm trying to do, but I can see how the goal is for the corporation to say we have to protect the money in the company versus the Kairens that are trying to get the free things, which means you have number one, the company, the money, number two, defeating the Kairens, which puts the victims at the bottom of the tone pole.

SPEAKER_04 41:29

So that is where the case of Marian Carver lies today. So unfortunately, that's all we know. I'm gonna get into theories in a second, but there is an open investigation with the Seattle Police Department, there's also an open investigation with FBI, there's also an open investigation with the Massachusetts Police Department. So if you have any clues about where she could have been, went, please contact any of those authorities. So theories, there's basically four main theories, and we'll get into these in our speculation, but I just want to put them out there. So theory number one is a suicide. So again, this is a cruise line's official claim, it's heavily disputed by her family for multiple reasons, but it is a theory. Theory number two is an accidental fall. Is this possible? I've been on a cruise ship. Yes, the railings are high, but it's not impossible to jump off or fall off the edge if something crazy happens, you trip, you're drunk, whatever. Theory number three is a planned disappearance. Again, there's not really any real evidence to support this, but it is definitely a possibility. People do go missing on purpose. And then the fourth theory is fun play. This is what's most widely speculated by family, supporters, friends that they believe either a crew member or passenger is to blame for Marion's stuff. Now, before we get into our speculations, there's one other thing that I didn't note. You all know from being on a cruise, usually when you go on a cruise, you're given a card, right? Marion did get a card, card was never used. And that's not to say that she didn't eat or anything, right? Because she got the two sandwiches. Like you don't have to scan your card when you get your food or when you get like the free water and stuff like that. Now, even though I had a drink package, I still had to show my card every time I got a drink.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Like a million percent. Maybe you had a voucher that like a tangible voucher that you gave. And then as technology progressed as well as situations progressed, now we just have this card. So I'm not gonna charge you. However, we're keeping count that your package you get five free drinks a day free because you've already paid for it. So I'm gonna swap your card. And if you get six drinks, then at the end of the cruise, you have a balance for that sixth drink that you pay for.

SPEAKER_04 44:10

And it could have very well been in 2004 that you pay for a package and maybe you get like a bracelet. And the bracelet says you get free meals and your five free drinks a day. And so you don't have to be swiped for anything outside of that. So your card could have truly just been your credit card where if you go to the store or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

Back in the day, back in 2000, I did have a card.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

And did you have to use it for drinks and stuff, or was it just to like shop?

SPEAKER_02 44:37

For everything, for everything. Yeah.

unknown 44:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 44:40

So we talked about the four possibilities that it could be, but Christy, I'll start with you. What do you think happened to Marion?

SPEAKER_02 44:50

When I first heard about this case and looked into it, I thought the suicide. Just because she didn't use her card after. And she was going through a tough time. I feel bad, even though she got to talk to her daughter every day. She didn't get to see her.

SPEAKER_04 45:08

I can't imagine in a different country.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

Yeah, in a different country. So it's not like you can be like, oh, okay, I'm gonna quick take a long weekend and go see you. It's just awful. And I just I couldn't imagine. And then she wasn't working, so just but then she was trying to aspire to be a writer, so that's why I was like, maybe not. Like at first, I was thinking, oh, suicide, she didn't bring a lot of stuff with her, she had this plan, but then I thought after hearing more, like maybe it was a plan disappearance, maybe this was her plan all along. She was an investment maker, so she had ways to hide money. I'm sure she knew. And maybe it was just she was just done. And this, you know what? I'm gonna live in Nova Scotia with the Canadians, and I'm gonna have some Nova Scotia, and I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna get my money out of the Swedish bank accounts and be a writer full time and become Canadian, and that's what I'm hoping for her.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

Do you think if that happens, she secretly reaches out to her daughter?

SPEAKER_02 46:16

Yeah, that's the only thing, and then it sounds like she was close to her dad, but he passed, right?

SPEAKER_04 46:22

He's he has since passed, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

So that's the only thing. That's the only way I'm like, maybe not just because of her daughter. I couldn't not see my child again.

SPEAKER_04 46:34

Yeah, so yeah, if that is truly happening, there has to be some kind of DL communication going on.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

Yeah, so I don't know. Like I was between suicide or planned disappearance. I would probably have to know more, and then I think that the steward felt bad for her and knew she was, even though he said, Oh, she seemed fine, but people can seem fine even though they're hurting inside.

SPEAKER_04 47:02

I also, and this is not necessarily part of my speculation, but something I thought of. Do you think maybe they did have a deeper conversation? And he was like, I'm just gonna protect her legacy, and so I'm not going to say out loud that she was in a bad place.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

Yeah, because he was like, Why would you come and knock on her door at 6 a.m. and then see that she's not there and get so upset about it?

SPEAKER_04 47:27

Before we get into your speculation, can you please explain the pineapple on your desk?

SPEAKER_00 47:31

As we do our edits, if there's anything that we're like, oh crap, pineapple.

SPEAKER_04 47:37

Oh, you still use it.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

Yeah. And so one of my fans, if you will, sent me this pineapple. This one was really pretty. I was like, is it an engagement ring? If my potential husband is listening, is this an engagement ring? Like, what are they doing?

SPEAKER_04 48:00

Okay, David, what's your speculation?

SPEAKER_00 48:03

So this one is a hard one. I don't know that I have a direct I feel this is what happened. I have a couple of things I'm juggling with. I hate this for me, but I honestly feel like a lot of the responses from the cruise line was just corporate responses. That does not mean that someone involved in the company did not have anything to do with it. But as far as the company itself being a sex trafficking company, I'm not sure that I believe that at least with this case. I think that she is miss independent and she's taking cruises by herself. It has been said that it's not out of the norm. But I question the lack of luggage. However, she has the financial means to just pack what you need to pack and we'll get there, and we've got insure accounts or whatever if you're planning to disappear. I think that I mean in 2004 it would be simpler to disappear versus now. So I get so torn with that. What I would love to know is, and maybe you all know this, but is there an interview, like a recent interview from the steward that mentioned her being missing?

SPEAKER_04 49:32

I have not seen it other than his deposition that he gave, where he talked about I went into her room, recorded her missing for five days, I saw the tip, I talked to her on this day. Like he was very fucking detailed. I didn't get my hands on the deposition where I could read it word for word, but that's a gist that I got. I have not seen anything after that.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

So my question would be is he now saying the same story, or is he no longer with the company? Or are legal timelines pass where he can freely speak about things and say, what does this happen on a regular basis or whatever? I would love to talk to him now.

SPEAKER_04 50:15

To your point, and that's to cut you off, and I'm sorry, but like the NDA, and I guess when you're talking to police and you have a deposition that you have to follow, maybe NDAs don't mean shit. But like he signed the NDA, but then he could still give his deposition. So there's gotta be some Swiss cheese holes in that.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

I was gonna say, like with most NDAs, you can speak as long as you speak only factual proven truth. So that could progress as times go on, right? Uh as you learn more or whatever. So I would love to talk to him today. I don't think that he's guilty by any means, but I think that there could possibly be some kind of filter on him or things that have been brought to his attention when he's a lot bulb scrolling off now, 25 years later, and he's like, oh fuck, you know? What I would also love to know that I did not find is was there any money left toward her daughter? I do believe, regardless of how much you love your family, that if you're in a place where you're like, everyone's better off without me, and I'm better off too, and I'm just gonna be selfish and disappear. I do think there there are people that can absolutely do that. But I do think they're gonna consider a child, especially if you're gonna fake your death and you're smart enough to do it and you have the financial means to do it, there's gonna be some kind of support there for them. And so I would love to know if there was any kind of anything set up, or even the father's financial status. Was the father just so well off with millions of dollars in the bank? The 300 grand she could have left for her daughter wouldn't have touched what he could do, and she just knew that he was okay. I found nothing about that, but I have questions with it. So my speculation got us nowhere. But I have questions.

SPEAKER_04 52:19

But I think to your point, David, her dad had to have originally lived in the States, right? Like they they got married, they had a child in the States, and then to move to London is no small feat unless your company is paying for it. And so if we go along with that speculation that you're saying, maybe she may she being Mary Ann thought the dad has enough money, the daughter's okay with him as much as I hate him.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

I do not believe that she chose to end her life. If she did choose to do that, I think it would be a spur-the-moment kind of thing and not a planned kind of thing. I think with her maybe having light luggage was because she was like, Wish I got money. I don't want this black dress that he is seeing me in, and what like I want to hear and I'm just gonna start it over. I think that might have been the mindset. And I don't think it was trafficking or anything like that. She was a lovely, beautiful, financially stable lady, but she was out of the age bracket of trafficking.

SPEAKER_04 53:26

David, I'll piggyback off that and say I don't think there's human trafficking going on here. And for people that have listened to this podcast for a long time, that is usually a speculation island that I go to. Also, listeners, here's where else I'm not. I'm not on police corruption island either. So I originally was going along the lines of she may have died by suicide. She just had the rough divorce, her daughter's overseas, she just lost her job. There's a lot of shit going wrong. And to book a trip two days ahead of time, if I were single and didn't have kids in a marriage, I could be that spontaneous myself. Like I would wake up tomorrow and be like, Do you want to go to Vegas? Do you want to go to Vegas? All right, cool. Sounds good. Let's go. So I don't think that's that weird, but the light luggage concerned me for a minute, right? Where I'm like, was she really trying to do something? And then I was originally talked out of it by the round trip ticket, but then y'all talked me out of that at the beginning. So now I'm like, oh, could she have died by suicide? Maybe. I don't know what state of mind she was in. I don't so maybe, maybe not. So all that to say it's probably not death by suicide, but there's a 10% chance where I'm like, maybe she just had a shitty night. I do think there is more to the conversation that she had with the steward. I don't think the steward's telling the whole conversation. I don't think we know the whole story there. So maybe it was deeper, and maybe there was some like moment of weakness, and she went up to another deck and she's like, fuck it, I'm just done. I can completely see that. However, I think my uh strongest speculation goes to disappearance, like intentional disappearance. Like you talked about, David. My daughter's away, I'm financially stable, I know how to tuck money away to where I need it to go to. And so I can go on this cruise. That's why I booked it two days ahead of time. Everything finally just clicked, so now I'm good to go. I'm gonna book it. I'm gonna go to Vancouver wherever the next stop was that she that was on the cruise lines, whatever. And again, they don't have very complete records of who goes on and off during the stops, right? And so maybe she did get off at the first stop, and maybe she did meet somebody on the ship and she was sleeping in that guy's room for a couple nights and then got off on the first port day and never came back on. That's why she packed minimal luggage because she's like, I'm not gonna be on the ship for very long, I don't need anything to go to dinners, whatever. The first time we get off the ship, I'm off. I have my money, I have my bank account set, I can set up a new identity, all the things. The struggle I have with that is I'm a mom, and as difficult as my 12-year-old son is, because some days I think he loves me more than anything in the world, and the other days I think he hates me more than he hates Satan. Today was one of those days. I can't imagine my life without him, and I don't think he can imagine his life without me. Maybe that's me being crazy, but I just don't know if you could go through with that. And I've had a lot of mental health turmoil, and I've had I've been through a lot of shit. I still could never see myself. I don't want to say abandoning my kids because I don't know if that's the right answer, but like having no contact with my kids ever again. So that's why I said if she did genuinely do that, I really hope she has some kind of low-key communication with her daughter. My third and final speculation, and I think this honestly might be my heavier side of things. I don't like this steward. I he doesn't sit right with me at all. It is really concerning to me that he goes to her room the next morning at 6 a.m. I don't know what time his shift starts. Maybe it started at 6 a.m. So maybe that's not quite weird. But the fact that if your shift does start at 6 a.m., that's the first room you go to when you were there for how long the night before, and you automatically go into a room and then you note all this stuff, and then what sat wrong with me the most was the fact that he went looking around the ship on his own at 6 a.m. When not to quote the cruise ship director, but you still have a job to do, and if she wasn't in a room at 6 a.m. and you just saw her less than 12 hours before, that's not a cause for concern in my eyes. Maybe she went out that night after you left her and she went into some guy's room. You don't know what the fuck happened for you to go search the entire cruise ship and then come back down and be like, oh, I think this person's missing, that leads me to believe that something else is going on in the conversation that you're not telling everybody else about. So that's concerning to me. So to your point, David, I would still want to talk to him today. I think the other part that's concerning, and I've said this, and this is where I'm gonna go on Jamie Island, and everybody's gonna sail their ship away. But I think sometimes when you make such an effort to make noise about something, it's because you're trying to deafen something else. And again, we aren't speculating wildly about crime. I'm not saying this is a thing by any means, but I think sometimes when you say, Hey, look at me over here, look at me over here, it's because you don't want anybody to see you in this place. And so what that means is maybe he knew more about what was going on, but he's trying to cover his tracks. Maybe he tried to make a sexual advance to her and she turned him down. Maybe he knew that she did want to end her own life and he is trying to cover it up with all this other stuff, but that part does not sit well to me. What I do know is something definitely happened to her after that second day because the fact that she didn't use her card again after that day and nobody saw her again after that day, that's very fucking concerning. So whether she went in somebody else's room, whatever happened, I don't like it. But my big piece is lying with that steward. My second big piece is lying with she wanted to disappear on her own, and that hurts my heart for her daughter. But also, she might have been going through something mental health-wise that she couldn't handle or put as a burden to her daughter. And so I hope if that is the case, she will come back sometime and resurface when she's healthier. All that to say, I don't know if I'm going on a cruise anytime soon, unless it's with the two of you, so that I can have people who know what the fuck to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:23

All right. So unfortunately, until cruise lines and everybody can get their stuff together, all we can do is speculate wildly and hope that we can get justice from Aaron Carver. Thank you again, David Keck, for being a guest tonight.