Merrian Carver -Msg from Cruise

[awakening2lite]

http://www.internationalcruisevictims.org/Images/Merrian_Carver_lg1.jpg
Merrian Carver

http://www.internationalcruisevictims.org/LatestMemberStories/Merrian_Carver.html

EXCERPT

Merrian Carver, a 40 year old woman, disappeared from a Royal Caribbean cruise to Alaska in August of 2004. Her Steward reported her missing for 5 days to his supervisor and was told to “just do your job and forget it” At the end of the cruise, Cruise line officials simply boxed up her belongings and even disposed of most of her items.

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line made no attempt to contact either the FBI or her family when she turned up missing and had not used her room. Cambridge Police took several weeks to even trace her to the cruise ship delaying the search for almost one month.

Once the Cruise line was contacted, it took them 3 days to confirm she had been on the cruise, 26 days after she had disappeared. They then confirmed that she was on the ship and after the second night did not use her room. However, they also indicated that this was not uncommon since she could have stayed with someone else and could have gotten off in Vancouver and they would be not record kept to confirm her departure from the boat. Since we could not really determine what happened we hired Private Investigators plus a Boston Law firm to start a major investigation. By then the trail was cold.

EXCERPT

Again, another subpoena was issued on January 24, 2005 for additional material. By February 9th only one item had been sent to use as a result of these two subpoenas. That was a poor quality picture of Merrian getting on the boat.

[awakening2lite]

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1541034

Cruise Cover-up?

Cruise Line Doesn't Notify Anyone When Woman Disappears on Second Day of Trip

Jan. 26, 2006

When 40-year-old Merrian Carver went missing on the second day of a seven-day Alaskan Royal Caribbean cruise, the crew didn't respond as one might expect. In fact, the crew acted as though nothing had happened.

Merrian, a former investment banker who loved to write poetry, was divorced and decided to take a cruise in August 2004. Merrian lived in Cambridge, Mass., and her 13-year-old daughter was staying with her ex-husband in England.

No one even knew Merrian had gone away, until her father, Kendall Carver, received a frantic call from his granddaughter.

"She said: 'Do you know where my mother is? I've been calling her, and I haven't gotten a response,'" Carver told "Primetime."

After several days of unreturned phone calls, Carver and his wife, Carol, filed a missing-person report. Weeks later, police learned their daughter had purchased the cruise ticket.

But when Kendall Carver called the cruise line -- three weeks after the ship had docked in Vancouver, British Columbia, officials confirmed that Merrian had boarded the ship, but they weren't sure whether she had gotten off.

"In effect, Merrian vanished from the Earth," he said.

Clothing Given Away, Purse Stored

"It seemed like kind of a rather basic thing. If you put 2,000 people on a ship, you ought to know if 2,000 people got off the ship. They didn't know that. They couldn't tell us that," Carver said.

He became more alarmed when he said the cruise line casually explained that Merrian had stopped using her room after the second night, and that her belongings had remained in her cabin after everyone else had gotten off the ship.

Carver couldn't believe what he heard next: Royal Caribbean explained that it had given Merrian's clothes to charity and locked up her purse.

"They got rid of most of her stuff," he said. "A gold wristwatch, all her clothes were gone, vanished."

And most shocking of all, they told no one she was missing -- not the police, not the family.

"She was gone," Carver said. "And the purse had her name, Social Security number and everything. They just put it in storage, did nothing."

No Clues but Many Questions

Retired and living in Phoenix, Kendall Carver, the former head of an insurance company, went back into CEO mode and launched the type of counteroffensive the cruise line probably hadn't expected. Eventually, he would spend more than $75,000 trying to find out what happened to his daughter.

First, he hired one of the word's largest private-detective agencies.

"We wanted to talk to somebody on that boat that had seen Merrian," Carver said. "Now that seemed like a pretty reasonable request."

Tim Schmolder was the San Francisco private eye dispatched to find out what had happened to Merrian. Schmolder started asking questions, and while he said Royal Caribbean provided some answers, he said it also set up some roadblocks to his investigation.

According to Schmolder, his requests for interviews with passengers or crew were denied, as was his access to the ship's video camera system. He said cruise officials also limited the amount of time he could spend on the ship.

After a few hours, Schmolder left the ship without a single clue as to how Merrian might have disappeared.

"My report became, you know, kind of empty of content," he said. "But full of questions -- questions as to why access wasn't allowed, questions as to why the cabin attendant wasn't available, questions as to why I couldn't interview the security manager for the camera system. Question, after question, after question: Why? Why? Why?"

Was It a Cover-Up?

What was behind the silence? Did the cruise line not know or was it simply not telling? For four months, the Carvers were in limbo, waiting for answers, until, finally, they took legal action.

They demanded Royal Caribbean produce a list of other passengers from the Boston area, where their daughter had lived, in case there was a friend or someone who might know about Merrian.

Carver said that the subpoenas produced a list of the ship's 2,000 passengers, with no contact information, and a poor-quality picture of Merrian getting on the ship.

But the worst news was yet to come. When the Carvers' attorneys forced Royal Caribbean to make the cabin attendant, Domingo Monteiro, available for a deposition, Carver was crushed by what he heard.

"Domingo said he reported Merrian missing daily, and to his boss," Carver said. "And that at the end of the cruise, Merrian's things are in the room where they'd been for five days. He asked his boss, should we report this? The boss says no. He says, 'I'll take care of it. Just put all of her belongings in a bag. Put them in my locker and I'll take care of it.'"

Next they learned that since the Carvers started complaining, Royal Caribbean had held an internal hearing and fired Monteiro's boss. But for the three months that the Carvers had been asking questions, the cruise line had never shared that information with them.

"All along the way they've been lying to us, and leading us down a path. And I say it's tough to lose a daughter, let alone be dealing with a cover-up," Carver said.

Carver said that Royal Caribbean's own documents offer evidence of cover-up. One memo shows that months earlier, company officials knew Monteiro had reported suspicious circumstances to his supervisor.

Not only that, it seemed the company took great pains to make sure that "Domingo … did not speak with anybody." Carver said that one memo showed Royal Caribbean checked with 14 different employees to make sure the cabin attendant didn't speak with outside sources.

Jeffrey Maltzman, Royal Caribbean's attorney, said the memos showed no evidence of a cover-up. "What the company was trying to do was find out if he [Domingo] had talked to anybody," Maltzman said.

"If you look at the document, nowhere does it say: 'Don't talk to someone if they call you,'" he added.

That does not make the Carvers feel any better. "I still am upset," Carver said. "I mean, that was probably one of the worst days of my life, to figure out that they knew Merrian was missing. If only they had done something during that cruise, when she was reported missing daily, we would have known."

Royal Caribbean further infuriated the family when it issued a press release stating that Merrian "appears to have committed suicide on our ship."

Maltzman told "Primetime" that it was not the cruise line's responsibility to say what happened to Merrian. "They don't have the expertise," Maltzman said. "That's law enforcement's job."

Royal Caribbean put out the statement about suicide "because that's what the family has told us they believe happened," said Maltzman.

Carver said that is not true. While he concedes it's a possibility Merrian may have committed suicide, he said Royal Caribbean's handling of the case would prevent the family from ever knowing the truth.

Sympathetic Words Too Late for Family

Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., learned about Carver's case after one of his constituents complained about a similar incident.

"Merrian Carver's case just ignites me because I think of the arrogance of the industry, the cruelty of this industry," Shays said. "In the end, they acted like she was a nonperson."

Shays became so concerned about the cruise-line industry that he called a congressional hearing to look into its practices. He said he was unimpressed when Royal Caribbean's director of security expressed words of sympathy for the Carvers during the hearing.

"It would be better if you cooperated with the family," Shays said at the hearing. "And didn't make them have to seek this information the way they sought it -- having to spend literally tens of thousands of dollars. So your actions would speak more loudly than your statement, frankly, and your actions appear not to support your sorrow."

Merrian's last gift to her father was a picture frame that plays a recorded message that says: "Hi Daddy, this is Merrian. Hope you're having a great day."

It is a message that haunts the Carvers, who worry that they'll never really know how or why their daughter disappeared.

[awakening2lite]

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/07/acd.02.html

Transcript from the Anderson Cooper show.

COOPER: Well, the pirate attack was one example of how the sea can be a very dangerous place, even when you are riding on a luxury cruise ship. The following story is another example. It is a mystery of a woman who left Seattle on a cruise and never came back.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice over): She was, her father says, vivacious. And at 41 financially independent, Merrian Carver loved to take cruises.

KENDALL CARVER, MERRIAN CARVER'S FATHER: I would say cruises were probably Merrian's most favorite activity. I mean, she was very sophisticated, loved to get dressed up, and she really like to take cruises and that is something she did probably, maybe once a year.

COOPER: A year ago last August, Merrian Carver, divorced, and the mother of a teenager, boarded the cruise ship, Mercury, in Seattle, bound for a seven-day cruise to Alaska and back. It was the last time her parents, her ex-husband, and her daughter ever saw her again.

K. CARVER: She did not tell me she was booked on a cruise. And I -- she didn't necessarily -- Merrian was a private person, wouldn't necessarily share everything she did. I have four daughters. They don't share what they're doing this coming weekend. Merrian did not share that with me.

COOPER: This grainy black and white photograph from a security camera is the last known image of Merrian, taken as she boarded the ship. Only one day out of Seattle, the cruise line says the steward assigned to her cabin reported her missing to his supervisor. Each day, the steward later said, in a deposition, he reported her missing. And each day, he said the supervisor's response was the same, quote, "You do your job. You continue to do your job."

For its part, the cruise line says they do not monitor guests. And it is not uncommon for people to stay in rooms not belonging to them.

CAROL CARVER, MERRIAN CARVER's MOTHER: We had no idea where she was, whether she was -- where she was. I mean, it is just, you know, unbelievable that you could lose somebody.

COOPER: Her father says Merrian Carver had been emotionally distraught because of her divorce. And at first, they didn't even know she was missing, because she hadn't told them of her plans. The first, they say, they knew of her disappearance was when they're granddaughter phoned.

K. CARVER: Their daughter called me and said that she'd tried to call her mother. They talked, I don't know, every day or every other day, and didn't get an answer. She said, do you know where mother is?

COOPER: They did not. But they ultimately filed a missing person's report with police here in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Merrian lived in this apartment building. The police checking her credit card purchases, learned about the trip onboard the Mercury. Purchased, said the cruise line, only two days before departure. The first time anyone knew for sure she was missing.

K. CARVER: So, I called the cruise line. And said, gee, you know, our daughter has bought a ticket on your ship. Was she on your ship? And about three -- roughly, three days later -- we're now 27 days into the time this had started -- they called back and said, yes, we've got her bag in storage. We found it in storage. It has her name, her Social Security number, it has some computer discs in it. And you know, we'll mail it to you.

COOPER: Not until September 30, more than a month after the disappearance did the cruse line file this report with the FBI. A disappearance the company says it was not aware of until the family intervened.

C. CARVER: The whole story is the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line just absolutely -- every time we turned a corner trying to find a piece of our puzzle, trying to find out daughter, we were the only ones interested.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, still to come on 360, more on the mysterious disappearance of Merrian Carver. Should the cruise line take responsibility?

Plus, what's up with supermodel Tyra Banks? Why she went out of her way to put on an awful lot of weight. Across America, and around the world, this is 360.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back, before the break we told you about Merrian Carver, a cruise loving woman who set sail from Seattle a year ago, and disappeared. Her family has been grappling with the mystery, trying to find out what happened to her aboard that ship and hoping that somehow, some way, they may find her alive. The investigation has only lead to frustration. A lot of it directed at the cruise line their daughter traveled on, because the cruise ship never informed them that she was missing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

K. CARVER: There are other people involved in that corporation. There is a board of directors, who have some responsibility to the passengers. And I would hope that they would say, gee, we've got to make sure this doesn't happen to some other family in the future.

COOPER (voice over): For Ken and Carol Carver the disappearance of their 41-year-old daughter Merrian, onboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Mercury, has been both emotionally and financially devastating. They say they've spent 75,000 in fees for attorneys and private investigators in the 15 months since she disappeared. The Royal Caribbean ship she sailed on was crowded, 2,000 passengers. A floating small town.

KRISTOFFER GARIN, AUTHOR, "DEVILS OF THE DEEP BLUE SEA": There is one thing you have in every small town in the country, which you will never see on a cruise ship and that is the police. An impartial third party, whose job is to investigate and solve crimes with no financial conflict of interest.

COOPER: Kristoffer Garin is the author of a newly released book on the big cruise lines.

GARIN: This is not something they like to see. It can cost their cruise line hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, an hour a day, when they have to stop these cruises for an investigation.

COOPER: The Carvers have filed a lawsuit alleging negligence against Royal Caribbean, and because of it, the company said in a statement to CNN that it was, quote, "somewhat limited in what it could say in response." It said the Carvers have suffered, quote, "an inconsolable loss", but added, cruise line authorities believe that Merrian Carver, quote, "appears to have committed suicide on our ship".

Her parents say that even if Merrian did jump overboard -- and Carol Carver, for one, does not believe it -- it is immaterial. Authorities on the ship, they say, should have quickly informed them of her disappearance.

C. CARVER: We're hoping that maybe some people that were on the ship, maybe someone is out there seeing this program, that maybe they saw something that might tell us, you know, what happened to Merrian. Did they see her get off at one of the ports? You know, was she, maybe -- you know, you'd think in the middle of the night, was she drugged? You know, someone could drug her and literally walk her off the ship.

COOPER: Royal Caribbean fired the supervisor who failed to report Merrian Carver's disappearance. But added, sadly, "even if he had shown better judgment -- which we wish he had -- there is no reason to believe we could have averted the tragic outcome."

She is not the first American to disappear at sea on a cruise ship. According to a magazine, the "Business Journal of Jacksonville", eight other passengers have disappeared in the past five and a half years. A small number among the millions who have taken vacations at sea, say cruise ship operators who insist they can't monitor the comings and goings of their passengers.

GARIN: The cruise lines do not take responsibility for their individual guests. They check in as adults, they behave themselves as they behave themselves.

COOPER: There will be congressional hearings about all of this, about Merrian Carver's disappearance and about the disappearance of a young newlywed from Greenwich, Connecticut, George Allen Smith, who disappeared while on his honeymoon on a Royal Caribbean vessel, off the coast of Turkey.

[packy]

An older but lengthy article here. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1110vanished.html

"She boarded the Mercury but never got off. The cruise line called it a suicide. But her father's investigation has left him with as many questions as answers about her fate - and the cruise line itself.

Her words tumbled out of the phone, anxious and afraid. "Do you know where my mommy is? I've been trying to call her, and she hasn't called back for days. Is she with you?"

From his home in Phoenix, Kendall Carver forced reassurance into his voice and tried to calm his 13-year-old granddaughter thousands of miles away in England."

[awakening2lite]

http://www.cruisebruise.com/Merrian_Lynn_Carver.html

EXCERPT

On night two of the cruise, she was suddenly missing. She never slept in the bed from night two on.

Her cabin steward, Domingo Monteiro reported her not using her cabin, numerous times, and was told to shut up and mind his business when he reported her missing to his superior, and he was told to keep putting fresh chocolates on her pillow. The report was never taken any higher in the chain of command.

Her belongings had remained in her cabin when everybody else got off the ship.

Her cabin steward told his superior this. He asked his boss, should we report this? The boss says, " No. I'll take care of it. Just put all of her belongings in a bag. Put them in my locker and I'll take care of it.'"

Her handbag had her wallet with her name, Social Security number and everything. They just put it in storage, did nothing. No missing persons report was filed with the police by the cruise line, nor did they attempt to reunit the handbag with money and identification with the owner.

At some point during the five weeks, the cruise ship decided to give away her belongings that had been in storage, to charity.

After the Carvers started complaining, Royal Caribbean had held an internal hearing and fired Monteiro's boss. But for the three months that the Carvers had been asking questions, the cruise line had never shared that information with them.

After her father, Kendall Carver began his own invesigation, hiring one of the word's largest private-detective agencies and was being serviced by Tim Schmolder private detective from San Francisco, who was on the case, Domingo's superior was terminated, memos went out to 14 other employees onboard, wanting to know if Domingo had talked to anyone about this event.

Kendall Carver said that Royal Caribbean's own documents offer evidence of cover-up. One memo shows that months earlier, company officials knew Monteiro had reported suspicious circumstances to his supervisor.

The Kendalls demanded Royal Caribbean produce a list of other passengers from the Boston area, where their daughter had lived, in case there was a friend or someone who might know about Merrian. Kendall Carver said that the subpoenas produced a list of the ship's 2,000 passengers, with no contact information. The story continues on Page 2. See the links below.

Merrian ordered two sandwhichs through room service on night two, and was never seen after that.

On night two she (or somebody) left the entire trip tip for the room steward, $108, instead of leaving the tip on the last day of the cruise as is common, on a table with his name card on top of it.

She never used the return portion of the airline ticket.

Her father has spent more than $75,000 to date to get answers to the question, "what happened to my daughter?" He has also founded the International Cruise Victim not-for-profit organization

Royal Caribbean outraged the Carvers when they issued a press release stating that Merrian "appears to have committed suicide on our ship."
Jeffrey Maltzman, Royal Caribbean's attorney said that it was not the cruise line's responsibility to say what happened to Merrian, the cruise line doesn't have the expertise to determine cause of death, that was law enforcement's job.

UPDATE: August 2, 2006

According to Kendall Carver, an ex-crew member has contacted him, who worked onboard the cruise Merrian took. He says there were conversations among crew members that she was involved with one of the crew members.

Kendall says it took the crew member alot of effort to find him, and this accounts for such a long delay in getting key information to her family.

He says, "This was a crew member on the ship, a former crew member on the ship. And he has referred us to additional crew members on the ship, one of which we've been in communication with, and one of which has indicated that the story among the crew is that one of the individuals on that ship, one of the crew members, was involved with Merrian."

He goes onto say, "it's highly significant because it starts to answer all the questions that we've had on Merrian. Why she wasn't reported missing. Why her items were, at the end of the trip, just put in storage or thrown away. If it's true, at this point, it's hearsay. But it's the story coming from crew members."