Rebecca Coriam, a crewmember on cruise ship Disney Wonder disappeared off the Pacific coast of Mexico on the morning of 22 March 2011.
Coriam returned to the Wonder and her duties as a youth worker. She maintained contact with her family via Facebook and Skype. Six weeks later, on 21 March 2011, the day the ship pulled out of Los Angeles, she sent what would be her last message to her parents via the former, saying she would call the next day.
Her mother grew concerned when, following her reply, 12 hours went by without a response. As she and her husband were going to bed that night, 22 March, the phone rang. It was not Rebecca but an official with Disney, saying that the Coriams’ daughter was missing.
At 9 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time that morning on the Wonder, off the coast of Mexico bound for Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas, Coriam had missed the start of her shift. She was not in her room or anywhere else on the ship, and did not respond to pages over the ship’s public address system. A review of security camera footage found one appearance of her, timestamped 5:45 a.m. An early, unverified account, purportedly from another crew member, claimed she had gone overboard at 3 a.m., nearly three hours earlier.
In the video, Coriam is talking on one of the ship’s internal phones in a crew area. She appears distraught. A young man walks up to her and asks if everything is all right. Her mouth can clearly be read to be saying “Yeah, fine”, after which she hangs up. She then walks away, pushing her hair back and putting her hands in her back pockets, mannerisms her parents say were common for her. The sequence is the last known sighting of her.
The crew searched the ship but found no sign of her. Ships of the U.S. Coast Guard and Mexican Navy searched the international waters through which the Wonder had been sailing during the hours in which Coriam could have gone overboard, if that was what had occurred. They, too, found nothing.
Since the Wonder is registered in The Bahamas, a detective from the Royal Bahamas Police Force flew to the ship to begin a formal investigation once it had returned to Los Angeles, three days after the disappearance. He was reported to have undertaken “several days of onboard investigations”.
Mike and Annmaria Coriam, Rebecca’s parents, were flown out from England to meet the ship when it returned. They met the Bahamian detective and said he told them he had only spent one day on board investigating before flying back home. The detective also told him he had only interviewed a few crew members, and none of the passengers. They claimed Disney kept them in a car with blacked-out windows and brought them on board via a little-used side entrance after all the passengers had disembarked. The Wonder’s captain gave his condolences and expressed his theory that Rebecca had been washed overboard by a wave while at the crew pool, a theory they doubted due to the high walls around it. After that, they were taken to a meeting with Disney executives and the woman Rebecca had been speaking to on the phone.
They were both tired and suffering from jet lag, therefore did not ask too many questions. Mike Coriam believed they would have another chance to do so later, but they never did. Afterwards, they were taken to her room and presented with her belongings.
A few weeks after the Coriams returned home, in early May, Annmaria received an email from Rebecca’s bank reporting that there had been activity on one of her accounts in the weeks since the disappearance. Although they were asked by authorities to keep the details confidential, they were nevertheless hopeful. “The fact that her credit card’s been used could only mean someone has stolen it or she’s still alive,” Mike Coriam told the Daily Mail. Later the Coriams were able to say that the email informed them that someone had apparently tried to access the account on 19 April. They were not aware of it, but later found paperwork among Rebecca’s belongings that linked the account to her. However, they could not find the actual card. In September John Jennings, Rebecca’s uncle, said the password to her Facebook account had apparently been changed by someone unknown.
Since Coriam was not found on the ship, it has been concluded that she went overboard. How, and why, and whether she might have been able to survive are unknown. Many theories hinge on the emotional phone conversation she was having in the video that is the last known sighting of her.
A crew member told Ronson that the call was taped. Many believed it was with a romantic partner. “She was in a relationship, and there were problems, and it was upsetting her,” “Melissa” told Ronson. “It was a very, very intense relationship. It was great and then it was awful. I can’t think of any other reason why she’d have been upset and wandering around by herself at 6 a.m.” However, she says Coriam was on the phone not with the partner but a mutual friend. On the anniversary of Rebecca’s disappearance, their parents told the Liverpool Echo that they heard the names of a young woman and older man on the ship mentioned as possibly being involved in a love triangle with her, and called for them to come forward. They also disclosed that they had heard Disney had sent some additional footage to the FBI for enhancement, but could not say what that footage might contain.
It was suggested that, despondent over the relationship, an emotion possibly exacerbated by the cabin fever of months at sea in close, cramped quarters, Coriam committed suicide. Her family, and friends among the crew, doubt that. “[W]e know she would never harm herself,” said her father. “We just know. That’s why we have been totally mystified from day one.”
The Coriams said Disney officials had told them that Rebecca was drunk and furious on the footage, banging her head into the walls, but that was belied by the actual video. Later, they were able to speak with the woman on the other end of the phone conversation, who told them that while their daughter had been upset at first she calmed down quickly and said she was going to her room. “Melissa”, who had last seen Coriam at 11 p.m. the previous night, told Ronson that she believed that Rebecca went out to the crew pool, one of her favorite places on the ship, to be alone and relax for a while. While there, she might have climbed up and sat on the wall, and then fell. “Bex was a bit of a risk taker,” she said.
However, “Melissa” was dismissive of the suggestion that the slippers allegedly found near the pool, which were included among the belongings returned to Coriam’s parents, had been hers. “Mike and Ann showed them to me,” she told Ronson. “They were too big. They weren’t her style. They were pink and flowery and Hawaiian. I’d never seen her wear them. Why didn’t Disney come to me or her girlfriend and say, ‘Can you identify these as Bex’s?’” While the Coriams later claimed they were actually too small, they were unable to find anyone on the ship who had seen her wearing them and learned that no forensics had been done on them.
The unresolved status of Rebecca’s credit card has given the Coriams hope that if she did fall overboard, their daughter survived and might have been able to swim to shore, or at least far enough to be rescued. She competed in triathlons and kept herself in excellent physical shape. “We’ve never believed she simply disappeared overboard and drowned,” said Mike Coriam almost two months later. “Maybe she fell in the water and was picked up by a fishing boat. Maybe she lost her memory and is in a little village in Mexico. Maybe she was attacked. Maybe she was on board after all and got off.”
Ronson reported that at the time his article was published, the Coriams had received no further updates from Disney or the RBPF on the progress of the investigation. “[W]henever we call anyone, all they say is, ‘The investigation is ongoing,’” Mike Coriam said. “We’ve tried emailing, telling them how we feel, how it’s getting harder but nothing. Just, ‘It’s ongoing.’” The Bahamanian police officer assigned to the case never returned Ronson’s calls.
The Coriams have been joined in their criticism of the investigation by British government officials, Rebecca’s friends among the crew, and advocates for victims of other incidents on cruise ships and their families. The latter, especially, note that 170 passengers and crew have disappeared from cruise ships since 2000, many without being seriously investigated or widely reported. All critics contend that Disney, like other cruise operators, is more interested in avoiding adverse publicity related to these incidents than anything else.
Carver and Walker both believe Disney has more evidence than it has shown, particularly security footage of the area by the pool, and is covering up knowledge of what happened out of fear of adverse publicity. “If there’s a video that shows your daughter going overboard,” Carver told Ronson, “that’s the end of the story. There’s no way someone can go off a ship and it not be recorded.” Melissa told Ronson it was implausible that there was no footage since the pool is close to a number of other important offices, such as human resources and the payroll department, where money and sensitive documents were kept. She believed any coverup by Disney may have been as much about protecting themselves from charges of negligence, since the pool is just below the ship’s bridge and would thus be the portion of the ship where a fall would most likely be seen by someone in a position to start a rescue. “If it was 6 a.m. and they were doing their job and watching the front, someone must have seen her go over,” she told Ronson. “Or if they didn’t, they’re covering up why they didn’t.”
Disney told Ronson that they are deferring to the RBPF. “[They have told] us the investigation is still ongoing. They have not shared a timeline with us, either.” Their spokesperson refused to comment on specifics about whether a tape of the phone call or additional security-camera video exists. “[W]e wish we knew what happened as much as anyone. Rebecca’s disappearance has been difficult and heartbreaking for everyone.”
