The disappearance of Rebecca Coriam was the first in Disney Cruise Line history. Rebecca Coriam, 24, disappeared on March 22, 2011, while working aboard the Disney Wonder cruise ship off the coast of Mexico. Her case is still unresolved to this day.
On March 21, 2011, the Disney Wonder cruise ship set off from Los Angeles, California, towards Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The large yacht has a crew of roughly 950 and can seat 2,400 people. On that day, one of these crew members was 24-year-old Rebecca Coriam, originally from Chester, England. Rebecca Coriam’s duty entailed working with the children of the ship’s various families.
Rebecca Coriam’s disappearance is still being investigated. Her parents have criticized Disney’s handling of the investigation, thinking that the firm knows more than it claims and is more concerned with avoiding negative publicity than helping investigators.
What Happened on that Day?
Rebecca Coriam had been on the cruise for six weeks before her disappearance. During those six weeks, the ship traveled to the Mexican Riviera and the Panama Canal.
Rebecca communicated with her parents on a daily basis through Facebook and Skype. On March 21, 2011, she wrote her final Facebook message to her parents, stating she’d call them the next day. That day, the ship left the port of Los Angeles to begin a new cruise.
Rebecca Coriam had missed her morning shift at 9 a.m. Pacific time. The ship was heading for Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas off the coast of Mexico. Rebecca was not in her room, and the crew could not find her anywhere else on the ship.
They examined the ship’s security video and discovered only one instance of her at 5:45 a.m.
Rebecca Coriam walked out of her room and vanished after what appeared to be an intensive phone discussion captured on the ship’s security cameras.
Rebecca appeared upset on CCTV footage hours before her death.
Rebecca is seen on footage in the crew area, conversing on the phone and seeming distressed.
A young male crewmember approaches her and asks if she is okay, to which she replies, “Yeah, fine,” before hanging up.
The footage is the conclusive evidence of her presence on the ship since she disappeared.
Late that night, Disney phoned Coriam’s parents, informing them their daughter had gone missing and requesting them to meet the ship when its reach final port of call.
The Coriams was given a pair of flip-flops, which the case’s sole investigator claimed were given to them by their daughter. According to the officer, the young woman went overboard due to a rogue wave on the crew pool deck.
Rebecca’s parents, Mike and Ann, claimed their darling daughter had been murdered and tossed overboard. However, Disney said she was pushed overboard by a freak wave and disappeared at sea, and the alarm was raised only after few hours later only when she failed to show up for work.
A nine-month investigation by a single police officer in the Bahamas, the Caribbean country where the Wonder was registered, decided that her disappearance was “not suspicious.” However, some concerns remain unresolved.
Her parents resolved an out-of-court lawsuit with Disney in 2016, but their daughter’s death is still being investigated.
Missing Pieces in Rebecca Coriam’s Disappearance
The Coriams also engaged their private investigator, Roy Ramm, who revealed some disturbing details. Ramm discovered right away that the weather on the day Rebecca vanished had been calm and not stormy at all, making a large rogue wave on the ship exceedingly unlikely.
Rebecca Coriam appears to be wearing men’s pajamas in the footage, which was shot in the middle of the night. Her family believes this is a clue that their daughter desperately threw on any available clothing to flee the cabin following an attack.
Rebecca’s shorts were ripped as well when they were returned to her parents, leading them to suspect she was involved in a violent battle soon before her death.
Furthermore, when Rebecca’s parents boarded the ship, they were shocked to find a pair of flip-flops neatly put side by side on top of Rebecca’s luggage in her wardrobe, which had not been removed for forensic analysis.
Further contradictions revealed that they were a size and a half too small for Rebecca, and she was never seen wearing them by her colleagues. The footwear, which was supposed to have been left on the ship’s edge where Disney said she fell overboard, had a different signature and cabin number inscribed on each side.
Mysteries Incidents that Happened After Her Disappearance
Rebecca’s bank notified her parents in early May 2011, a few weeks after they returned home, that someone had tried to access one of her accounts on April 19. She didn’t have the card with her.
Rebecca’s uncle informed them that the password to her Facebook account had been changed in September. He had no idea who had done it.
One day before Rebecca’s disappearance anniversary, her father got an e-mail from a woman who claimed to have seen Rebecca with a dark-haired man in Venice, Italy, the previous August.
The woman stated that the family’s website had triggered her memories. “Everyone was quite disturbed to think she could be out somewhere after all this time,” her uncle added. On the other hand, Rebecca’s passport was among the goods her parents rescued from the ship, he observed.
Criticism on the Investigation
Rebecca’s disappearance has only ever been investigated by one police officer. Only one man has been charged with conducting a forensic investigation and interviewing 3,000 passengers and crew members. He assumed command since the ship is registered in the Bahamas for tax purposes.
The sandals also bore a different signature than Rebecca’s and were not removed for forensic investigation.
Rebecca’s family and UK politicians have condemned the investigation into her death, and Stephen Mosley, their local MP at the time, raised the inquiry in the House of Commons in 2011.
“The investigation into Rebecca’s disappearance was horrible,” he stated.
Few individuals realize their vulnerability when joining a cruise ship.”
The family has stated that they never got a final report on the investigation and that “Cheshire Police were informed and did contact with the Bahamas authorities, but Cheshire Police did not proceed with their investigation, on the grounds of lack of proper authority in this subject.”
“Cheshire Police also got an initial report that, in their words, was ‘completely and utterly unsatisfactory,’ and they were instructed not to disclose its contents to the family.”
Many people feel that Disney has more information than it has provided, including security footage of the area near the pool, and that it is concealing knowledge of what happened to avoid negative publicity.
It seemed unlikely that there was no footage because the pool sits next to several important buildings, including human resources and the payroll department, which housed money and sensitive documents.
Many suspected that any cover-up by Disney was motivated by a desire to avoid liability, given the pool is located directly below the ship’s bridge and would thus be the vessel area where someone would most likely see a fall in a position to initiate a rescue.
Coriam’s family claims that the Bahamian investigator interviewed only a few staff members and no guests during his brief stay on the Disney Wonder.
They reaffirmed this opinion claiming Rolle never questioned any of the ship’s 2,000 passengers. Despite being the lone investigator assigned to the big task, he completed his investigation in two days.
Conclusion
So, what happened to Rebecca Coriam? There are numerous theories. Was she washed away at sea? Given the weather at the time, the absence of damage to the ship, and the high walls, it is implausible.
Was she murdered, and if that happened, by whom? Did she take her own life? Her family has constantly refuted this idea, characterizing her as joyful and upbeat and having purchased tickets for a much-anticipated trip to Disneyland Paris.
Another possibility is that she ran away to start a new life, and Rebecca’s father was contacted by a witness who said she was in Venice, but this has never been proven, and it seems impossible that she could have gotten off the ship at sea and made it to shore on her own.
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