Dark Voyage

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Speaker 2 She was just one of these kinds of people that literally, the minute she walked into the room, she filled the room up.

Speaker 2 You know what was wonderful about her was that she was refreshingly unaware of how pretty she was.

Speaker 2 She was a gorgeous, gorgeous young woman. My name is Jamie Barnett.
I'm the mother of Ashley Barnett.

Speaker 2 She wanted to be an actress.

Speaker 2 She didn't want to just make a living being an actress.

Speaker 2 She wanted to be a very successful actress.

Speaker 2 She wanted to be on that red carpet one time.

Speaker 2 That girl had talent and she had the looks. She had the personality.

Speaker 2 My name's Allie Tweest and I'm Ashley's best friend. She had the professionalism, she had all of it.

Speaker 2 She was a good little package.

Speaker 2 Probably one of the reasons anyone likes to go on a cruise is because there's nothing that enters our minds that could harm us.

Speaker 3 The story is about the all-American girl, 24 years old, beautiful, smart, who goes on a pleasure cruise to celebrate a birthday.

Speaker 5 There's our boat right there.

Speaker 2 She loved to lay out and swim and she would be with him.

Speaker 4 I told her, let's get away, you know, it'll be nice, you know, and we'll have a good time.

Speaker 3 She goes on a cruise and 24 hours after getting on this boat, she's gone.

Speaker 2 I thought it was a cruel, cruel joke.

Speaker 2 What do you mean my daughter passed away?

Speaker 3 We still don't have clear answers of how Ashley died. My name is John Debney.
I am a film composer here in Hollywood, California.

Speaker 3 I sit here today as part of Ashley's Army.

Speaker 2 We are here today to demand answers into the mysterious death of Ashley Barnett.

Speaker 2 On October 15th, 2005, Ashley's boyfriend ran into the hallway screaming for help.

Speaker 4 And I yelled down the hall, help, help, my girlfriend's not breathing.

Speaker 2 The first thing that came out of my mouth is, well, what did he do to her?

Speaker 2 Honestly.

Speaker 2 Like an accident. Like, I don't know.

Speaker 4 It was the worst day of my life. It was

Speaker 4 the worst day of my life.

Speaker 2 Does he know what happened? Does he not know what happened? Was he involved in what happened?

Speaker 3 You believe he knows

Speaker 3 what happened.

Speaker 2 I believe he knows.

Speaker 2 We all think that you're so safe on a cruise ship.

Speaker 2 But we're not.

Speaker 2 On October 14th, 2005, Ashley sailed out of Los Angeles to celebrate her upcoming 25th birthday.

Speaker 2 And one day into that cruise, she was dead.

Speaker 2 What happened? I'm her mother. I need to know.
I can't go through the rest of my life not knowing. I have to know.

Speaker 3 Jamie Barnett has made a promise to herself and to her daughter.

Speaker 2 Wherever that truth is, we're going to find it.

Speaker 3 One way or another, you're going to find out. how and why your daughter died.

Speaker 2 Yes, I am.

Speaker 3 Jamie knows this much is true.

Speaker 3 Her daughter sailed off with her boyfriend, Jeff Ginsburg.

Speaker 4 She was very alive when I left that room.

Speaker 3 But Jeff came back alone. After he left the room, we just don't know what happened in that cabin.
That's the mystery.

Speaker 2 That's it, right there.

Speaker 3 This was not the ending that anyone would have predicted for 24-year-old Ashley Barnett, who had everything to live for.

Speaker 3 Ashley had the love and support of a large extended family. Though he and Ashley's mother were divorced, there was a devoted father and three adoring brothers.

Speaker 2 They were all so close. A wonderful thing about all of my children, those boys adored their sister and she, them.

Speaker 2 Hi, my name is Ashley. I'm 14 and I love to dance.

Speaker 3 Ashley seemed destined for a life in front of the camera right from the start.

Speaker 2 She loved performing, always loved performing.

Speaker 3 She grew up in Burbank, California, in the shadow of the Hollywood Studios.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we could pull that.

Speaker 3 Jamie works at the CBS television studios, behind the scenes, running the grip department.

Speaker 2 Ashley's office was right here.

Speaker 3 When she was 20 years old, Ashley got a job in the mail room on the same lot where her mom works.

Speaker 3 Ashley soon landed a production assistant job on the hit show Will and Grace.

Speaker 3 It was just the kind of stepping stone that a young, aspiring actress needed.

Speaker 3 Ashley soon caught the eye of film composer John Debney. She had star written all over her.
Not only was she beautiful, but she had such a heart and a soul.

Speaker 3 He wrote the scores to box office hits like Princess Diaries and Bruce Almighty.

Speaker 3 Debney offered Ashley a position as his music coordinator. There are a lot of fine actors and actresses in this town, but Ashley had an extra something.
I think it's a spark of

Speaker 3 fairy dust. It's this thing that very few people have.

Speaker 3 We'd like to play now something called From Somewhere in Time,

Speaker 3 and I like to think it represents

Speaker 3 Ashley somewhere in time.

Speaker 3 Debney never imagined he would lead an orchestra at Ashley's funeral.

Speaker 3 40 instruments playing music chosen especially for her.

Speaker 2 I guess I should start by just describing her. And when she walked in a room, how she lit it up.

Speaker 2 She was just, ah, so amazing.

Speaker 3 Many of Ashley's closest friends stood up and paid tribute. But one person at the memorial was not welcome to speak.
Her boyfriend, Jeff Ginsburg.

Speaker 4 I felt, you know, like

Speaker 4 I should have been a part of it.

Speaker 4 That, you know,

Speaker 4 I could have shared a lot of stories. I was a big part of Ashley's life.
You know, Ashley did love me. I did love Ashley.

Speaker 3 Jeff and Ashley had been friends since the ninth grade, but became a couple in their early 20s. By then, Jeff was working as an electrician.
What did you like about her so much?

Speaker 4 Her personality, her carefree, you know, look at the world.

Speaker 4 Her eyes,

Speaker 2 her hair, her laugh.

Speaker 4 It was just perfect to me.

Speaker 3 But there was a problem that was bigger than both of them. Jeff had struggled with drug addiction.
What were you using?

Speaker 4 Viking?

Speaker 3 Did she know that he was a drug user when she started started dating him?

Speaker 2 When she started dating him, she knew he had been.

Speaker 2 That he was clean now, was her understanding.

Speaker 3 Everyone who knew Ashley knew how she felt about drugs. Those who knew her said that she was not into drugs.
No, she didn't approve of drugs.

Speaker 3 What was she doing with you?

Speaker 4 I think she looked past that. She looked at that,

Speaker 4 when I'm in my addiction, that's not me. That's not Jeff.

Speaker 2 Ashley's the type of girl where if somebody's hurting, she will comfort you and try to help you and fix you.

Speaker 3 Ashley's best friend, Allie Tweest. Did she tell you that she thought she was going to be able to change him?

Speaker 2 She truly believed that, that she could help him, that her love could somehow wake him up. But

Speaker 2 it didn't happen like that.

Speaker 3 On October 14th, 2005, Ashley and Jeff boarded the carnival cruise ship Paradise here in Long Beach, California.

Speaker 3 There are conflicting versions of what went wrong that weekend, but we do have clues, and some of the most compelling clues were left by Ashley herself.

Speaker 5 There's our boat right there.

Speaker 3 This is some of Ashley's home video of that fateful trip.

Speaker 2 Hi, Ashley. Hi, Jojo.

Speaker 3 Documenting what would turn out to be the last hours of her life.

Speaker 3 Joe Fishera is a friend of Jeff and Ashley's. He was part of the group that joined the couple along with Jeff's brother Keith.

Speaker 3 To me it was like a big rave at sea. Just people dancing and just everybody just having such a good time, you know.

Speaker 3 You know, drinking and partying.

Speaker 3 You know, this is going to be a cool time.

Speaker 4 I won the jackpot.

Speaker 3 We know from Ashley's videotape that she and Jeff went to to the casino.

Speaker 3 That night, they went to hear the bands play.

Speaker 3 They seemed happy.

Speaker 3 I mean, what I know is that they went to the concert, and then they went back to the room.

Speaker 3 According to Jeff, back in the cabin, there was a disagreement. He wanted to return to the casino, but it was about 2.30 and Ashley wanted to go to bed.

Speaker 4 You know, it was kind of late, but still, I kind of just, I was really excited about the cruise and

Speaker 4 I just wanted to stay up.

Speaker 3 So, when you left her, was she upset?

Speaker 4 She was a little upset.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 About 4 a.m., according to Jeff, he returned to the cabin. And when you got there, how was Ashley?

Speaker 4 She was asleep.

Speaker 3 Did you try to wake her up?

Speaker 4 No. I just had cuddled up, got him next to her, and held her and went to sleep.

Speaker 3 Saturday, midday, Jeff said Ashley was still sleeping, so he left her in the cabin and went upstairs to join the group. He comes by and his exact words were, my baby doll's still snoring.

Speaker 3 Let's let her sleep a little bit longer and we'll wake her up in a little bit.

Speaker 3 About 2 p.m., Jeff says he returned to wake Ashley.

Speaker 4 I went up to her. I walked up to her.
I was like, baby, you know, let's go. You know, come on, Tina, get up.
I kind of touched her on the face and I was like, you know, baby, baby, what's going on?

Speaker 4 You know, and her eyes were shut and I was kind of like trying to open her eyes a little bit and she wasn't responding and I just started freaking out.

Speaker 3 You knew something.

Speaker 4 I knew something was very wrong.

Speaker 3 2.07 p.m., Jeff calls 911.

Speaker 4 I said, you know, my girlfriend's not breathing. I don't think she's breathing.
Please come help.

Speaker 3 Within three minutes, a nurse arrives and attempts CPR.

Speaker 3 2.10, an emergency announcement is broadcast to summon the ship's doctor.

Speaker 4 And the chaos and the alarms on the ship going on in 911 and medics.

Speaker 3 At 2.12, the doctor arrives.

Speaker 3 According to his statement, Ashley was unresponsive, cold, with no pulse.

Speaker 3 At 2.45,

Speaker 3 she was pronounced dead.

Speaker 2 I won't ever be the same. Oh,

Speaker 2 none of us will. I just, I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 2 She was my family.

Speaker 3 In your opinion, what do you think happened to her?

Speaker 4 I have thought about it a thousand times and I just don't know.

Speaker 2 He has to know what happened.

Speaker 2 And I said,

Speaker 2 what happened to her?

Speaker 3 On Saturday, October 15th, Jamie got that terrible phone call from the nurse on board the ship.

Speaker 2 And she said, well, we don't know. And that's being investigated right now.

Speaker 3 Did Jeff ever phone you?

Speaker 2 No, not

Speaker 2 that night. I asked to speak to him, and she told me I couldn't right now, that he was being

Speaker 4 questioned.

Speaker 2 She later called me back and said that he had been cleared to talk to me, but that he had so far declined to do so.

Speaker 3 What did you make of that?

Speaker 2 I didn't know what to make of that.

Speaker 3 And that's how the mystery began. What did you think had happened?

Speaker 4 I had no idea.

Speaker 4 I had no idea.

Speaker 3 Carnival began an investigation, but because the boat was docked in Ensenada, the the Mexican authorities boarded the ship. They needed to determine if a homicide had been committed.

Speaker 3 Later that night, Jeff and the rest of the group were all on board when the Paradise set sail as scheduled back to California. But Ashley Barnett was left behind in a Mexican morgue, alone.

Speaker 3 She's left in Mexico.

Speaker 3 And the boat sails on. The party goes on.
Nobody stays with her.

Speaker 2 If that had been me, wild horses couldn't have kept me on that ship. I would have been with her.

Speaker 4 I did not want to stay on that boat. I wanted to get off that boat.
I wanted to be with Ash. I didn't want to let her go into Mexico.

Speaker 3 Carnival says Jeff had no choice and confirms to 48 Hours that he was required to remain on board the ship until U.S. authorities could question him.

Speaker 3 One day after Ashley's death, as the ship was heading back home, Jeff finally called Jamie. Why did you wait so long to call her?

Speaker 4 I didn't know what to say. I was just kind of just in a state of shock.
How do you make that call?

Speaker 4 What do you say? And, you know, maybe I didn't do it right, but I did end up calling Jamie,

Speaker 4 you know, the following day.

Speaker 3 In that conversation, Jeff revealed what would be the first troubling clue.

Speaker 2 The conversation was very short because the people in the room with him took the phone away from me because he was so upset. He just said, I don't know what happened.

Speaker 2 And I said, you know, Jeff, you have to know what happened. You were with her.

Speaker 2 And he said, Jamie, I have no idea.

Speaker 2 She went to sleep, and that's all I know. Only thing I know is some of my methadone and some of my vicodin was missing.
And I said, you know, Jeff, what does that mean? What are you saying?

Speaker 2 She wouldn't have taken it. I know, I know.

Speaker 3 So was Ashley's sudden death caused by drugs, the drugs Jeff says were missing? Jamie was about to learn that the carnival cruise was not just to celebrate her daughter's birthday.

Speaker 3 Jeff says he planned to use the time on board to detox. He had relapsed into his Vicodin habit, and that's why he says he had methadone with him.
Let me ask you this.

Speaker 3 At the time, you were addicted to Vicodin, trying to get off, using methadone.

Speaker 3 Is it a good idea to go

Speaker 3 on a three-day party cruise?

Speaker 4 No, it's not.

Speaker 3 Most people associate methadone with heroin addiction, but it's also used to help addicts withdraw from other drugs. Were you under a doctor's care?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 3 Were you just doing this on your own? Yes. Where did you get the methadone?

Speaker 4 I've already answered that. I mean, that doesn't matter.
The fact is that I'd brought the methadone on with me.

Speaker 3 When the Paradise came back to Long Beach, the FBI stepped in and began its own investigation.

Speaker 2 You think, oh, thank God it's going to get taken care of. The FBI is involved.
You know, help is on the way.

Speaker 3 Jamie says the FBI told her to be waiting at the harbor when the ship came in. She believed she would find out what happened to her daughter.

Speaker 2 We stood out in the rain and waited and waited.

Speaker 2 And finally, a woman from Carnival came and spoke to my friends that had brought me there. and said she was terribly sorry to hear about our loss and she would go find someone to come and help us.

Speaker 2 No one ever came.

Speaker 2 And it continued to rain for four hours.

Speaker 2 And finally the FBI came out and took me inside to interview me.

Speaker 3 More questions, no answers. The FBI revealed little to Jamie about what it knew.
Jeff Ginsburg was not charged with any crime, and the mystery was about to deepen.

Speaker 3 Ashley's body was returned to the United States. She appeared to be externally very healthy.
Five days after her death, her family hired Dr. David Posey to perform an autopsy.

Speaker 3 Dr. Posey found Ashley's organs were in pristine condition.
There was evidence that she had consumed some alcohol. There were no signs of trauma.

Speaker 3 There was really no external signs of any injury at all. Dr.
Posey's was the second examination of the body. The first one was in Mexico.
Both autopsies had reached the same conclusion.

Speaker 2 It was the toxic effects of methadone that had killed her. And I was just

Speaker 2 stunned. Stunned.
You know, he said he had methadone on the ship.

Speaker 2 How in the world would it have gotten in her?

Speaker 3 Methadone is a tricky drug. Less than a teaspoon can be fatal.
You're saying this is an extremely dangerous drug to begin with, but even more so if your body has never had any methadone in it.

Speaker 3 That is correct. It's a very dangerous drug to be using, even in the best of hands.

Speaker 3 J-Meet and Ashley's friend Allie are convinced of one thing. Ashley would not have tried methadone on her own.

Speaker 3 Wouldn't have experimented with it.

Speaker 3 If he'd offered to, for whatever reason, share it with her, she wouldn't have...

Speaker 2 No, she's not like that

Speaker 3 and to prove it the family ordered a test of ashley's hair one strand could determine if she had been an habitual drug user no other drugs were found her hair was negative more evidence that she was clean before this incident that's a lot more evidence and really helps tie together the findings from the autopsy

Speaker 3 but who could tie this case together Jamie demanded that Carnival provide her with all the evidence they had gathered.

Speaker 2 How did methadone get into Ashley's body?

Speaker 3 And she turned to high-powered attorney Gloria Allred for help.

Speaker 2 We want the ship to tell us everything they know.

Speaker 3 Their campaign yielded numerous documents from Carnival's internal investigation and landed them a personal meeting with company officials in Miami.

Speaker 2 All of these questions that you're going to ask them, you have a right to ask them, and you have a right to get answered.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 But But it shouldn't take this to get those answers.

Speaker 3 And the biggest question still lingered.

Speaker 3 If she didn't take the methadone herself, how did that methadone get into her body?

Speaker 2 That's a $64,000 question.

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Speaker 2 I want to find out what happened to my daughter.

Speaker 2 Some one or some people need to be held accountable for it.

Speaker 3 There were so many places Jamie Barnett expected to go in the name of the daughter she loved,

Speaker 3 but she never expected that one of them would be the FBI.

Speaker 2 I'm just an ordinary mom.

Speaker 2 So I don't understand how the FBI works.

Speaker 3 She wanted details of the federal investigation into the death of her daughter. All she wanted to know was what happened.

Speaker 2 And when I ask them a real simple, I think it's a simple question, and they can look at me and say, I can't answer that.

Speaker 2 And I go, why? Why not?

Speaker 2 Well, because that's, you know, part of an ongoing open investigation, so I can't talk about it. Still frustrating.

Speaker 2 That's frustrating to me.

Speaker 3 The FBI confirms to 48 Hours that the investigation is still open, but the truth in this case is especially elusive.

Speaker 3 That's because the only version of events of what happened behind the doors of Jeff and Ashley's cabin comes from Jeff. For the record, understand I got to ask you this question.

Speaker 4 Did you give Ashley that methadone? No way. Never.

Speaker 4 I would never, ever, have ever done that.

Speaker 3 If Jeff didn't give her the drug, did someone else?

Speaker 2 I think somebody may have

Speaker 2 slipped her something

Speaker 2 and just trying to loosen her up.

Speaker 2 I think maybe that she might have been tricked into taking something she didn't know. I just, I know something's wrong in my heart.

Speaker 3 We have no way of verifying if Jeff went in and out of the cabin at the times he said he did or if anyone else might have entered.

Speaker 3 That's because on this cruise, on this particular weekend, the key lock, which records all entries to the door of cabin R149, malfunctioned.

Speaker 3 We do know this about that fateful day. As CPR was being performed on his dying girlfriend, Jeff mentions those missing drugs to the doctor and nurse.

Speaker 4 I had told them, you know, why they were working. I said, you know, I had methadone.
I had a Viking. You know, give her, if she had taken that, give her something for that.

Speaker 4 You know, do whatever you can.

Speaker 3 Is it possible that Ashley Barnett, the young woman with the reputation for being so anti-drug, willingly took the methadone herself? The ship's incident report from that day offers yet another clue.

Speaker 3 In a statement attributed to Jeff, Ashley had an abortion three weeks before the cruise, and she was, quote, quite depressed at times.

Speaker 4 She was depressed. She was down.

Speaker 2 She was upset over

Speaker 2 having to make that kind of decision.

Speaker 2 And I won't deny that. She did not take it lightly, but it was the appropriate amount of

Speaker 2 sadness.

Speaker 3 I was with her a day or so before she went on the cruise. She was not depressed.

Speaker 3 She was talking about getting back next week and what her appointment was with another agent that she was going to hopefully sign with.

Speaker 3 Jeff also told Carnival about an incident months earlier when Ashley, quote, had attempted to consume a large quantity of medication, aspirin, six months ago.

Speaker 4 She had brought up something about something that happened at her house and that she had taken too much Tylenol or something or some kind of over-the-counter medication.

Speaker 4 But it was okay because her mother was there and it was a stupid idea, but she was just depressed at the time. It wasn't like she was a suicidal person.
She wasn't.

Speaker 3 Jamie denies that her daughter ever took a large amount of aspirin.

Speaker 2 That never happened. I mean, that just unequivocally never happened.

Speaker 3 Still, there is another theory offered by Jeannie Ginsburg, Jeff's mom.

Speaker 3 So it's not inconceivable to you that Ashley would have taken this drug herself. No.
Jeannie says Ashley had a flair for the dramatic.

Speaker 3 Remember, Ashley wanted Jeff to stay with her that night in their room. She didn't want him to go back to the casino without her.
There was a disagreement.

Speaker 3 So in this scenario, though, she would have taken some to get attention from Jeffrey. Is that what you're suggesting?

Speaker 8 I thought maybe just to scare him a little bit.

Speaker 2 Like, don't leave me like that again, or, you know, something like that.

Speaker 3 But there's one last possible explanation. Jeff may have set in motion events that would lead to a terrible accident.
He doesn't deny he was the one who brought the methadone on board the ship.

Speaker 4 She knew that I had to bring it on so that I could get through the tail end of my detox.

Speaker 3 In fact, Jeff admits he hid the methadone in a bottle of over-the-counter cold medicine like NyQuil or DayQuil in order to smuggle it on.

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 4 I didn't have a prescription bottle for it or anything.

Speaker 3 In Ashley's home video, Jeff seems to celebrate when he clears port security.

Speaker 3 And there is one more small detail in this story that may have triggered absolute disaster.

Speaker 3 Ashley's mother says her daughter wasn't feeling well when she left and may have reached for that bottle of cold medication.

Speaker 2 So it's highly likely that she would have

Speaker 2 taken some NyQuil.

Speaker 3 But perhaps not knowing that there was methadone in the Nyquil bottle.

Speaker 2 Definitely not if she knew there was methadone in the bottle.

Speaker 3 But Jeff insists Ashley did know. How do you know she knew?

Speaker 4 Because I was with her and I told her about it.

Speaker 4 I had put the methadone in the bottle right there in front of her.

Speaker 3 You think it's possible that she took it by accident?

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 3 If she took it by accident, that would imply that she didn't remember that you had put methadone in that bottle of Dayquil.

Speaker 3 That seems pretty...

Speaker 3 Far-fetched to forget something like that.

Speaker 2 I don't know what happened.

Speaker 4 That's one thing that I've come to, you know, understand or accept is that I'll never know what happened.

Speaker 3 Not knowing is not an option for Jamie, so she and her attorney press on with their own investigation. They travel to Ensenada to learn what they can from Mexican authorities.

Speaker 2 We'd like to know the results of their investigation and are they planning to proceed with any kind of criminal prosecution?

Speaker 3 Sorry. It's Jamie's fourth trip.
Mexican officials spent several hours discussing what happened on the paradise.

Speaker 2 I know this case is still open, and I know they're still investigating it. They care.
They care. And that just overwhelms me.

Speaker 2 I wake up every morning wishing I could hold her just one more time.

Speaker 2 And I wake up every morning praying that no other mother ever has to live this nightmare.

Speaker 3 But sadly,

Speaker 3 another mother is.

Speaker 2 As time goes on, it doesn't get better, it gets worse because you don't have that person in your life anymore.

Speaker 3 Maureen Smith lost her son on a cruise in July 2005.

Speaker 3 George Smith was on his honeymoon with his new bride, Jennifer Hagel.

Speaker 3 A few days into the cruise, George disappeared somewhere in the Aegean Sea.

Speaker 3 A bloodstain was found on an awning beneath his room. The captain was quick to call it an accident.
Something Maureen never accepted.

Speaker 2 It's not an accident. My son was murdered.

Speaker 3 The FBI is still investigating. No one's been charged.

Speaker 2 It's not knowing what happened that's the killer. And I know that was what was going through Jamie's mind.

Speaker 3 Maureen heard about Jamie's campaign for answers and reached out to offer support.

Speaker 2 Let me show you my daughter. Oh, she's gorgeous.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 And her son's so handsome.

Speaker 3 George's story echoes Ashley's in many ways.

Speaker 3 Both couples spent time in the ship's casino.

Speaker 3 The night George disappeared, he was there with Jennifer, and they ran into a group of young men they met on the cruise. Josh Askin was one of them, a college student traveling with his family.

Speaker 3 How would you describe the mood there? Was everybody everybody in a good mood, bad mood? Everyone was in a great mood.

Speaker 3 When the casino closed, Josh says the manager, Lloyd Bota, suggested they head up to the disco, so they all piled into the elevator together.

Speaker 3 Lloyd, the casino manager, put his arm around Jennifer, and we thought a little awkward moment. So you remember it as being awkward.

Speaker 3 Was George aware of this? Did he see this happen? Did he have any reaction to this? I... Don't know what he was thinking at that time.

Speaker 3 But later at the club, witnesses say George and and Jennifer argued and that she left without him.

Speaker 3 A short time later, Josh and his buddies

Speaker 3 walked a very drunk George back to his cabin. When you got to his room, what happened?

Speaker 3 We noticed his wife wasn't there. Did anyone think that was unusual?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 He's on his honeymoon. His wife wasn't there.
That's odd to me.

Speaker 3 They went out for a quick look around and didn't find her.

Speaker 3 Josh says they returned George to his room. It was getting late.
I was really hungry. We just kind of said, you know, good night, man.
And he said, you know, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3 And then we just left.

Speaker 3 But there's more to the story. My wife and I were awakened by yelling coming from the Smith cabin.

Speaker 3 Cleede Hyman, in the room next door, says he heard strange sounds coming from the Smith cabin at 4 a.m.

Speaker 3 Suddenly, there was an argument out on the Smith balcony.

Speaker 3 After a couple of minutes, Hyman says he heard someone say good night.

Speaker 3 Then I looked out and saw three male individuals walking away from the room. Next, he heard what sounded like furniture being moved,

Speaker 3 followed by silence.

Speaker 3 After about two minutes of total silence, however, there was a large, what I would call a horrific thud

Speaker 3 the thud is believed to be the sound of George hitting the awning at almost that same moment a crew member found Jennifer on the other side of the ship passed out in a hallway

Speaker 3 investigators later found traces of blood in the Smith cabin We want to know what happened to our son on that cruise ship.

Speaker 2 And we're going to fight and we're going to fight until we find out.

Speaker 3 Like Jamie, answers for the Smiths have been tough to come by.

Speaker 3 The FBI won't talk about the investigation and the person they counted on the most, Jennifer, says she has virtually no memory of what happened that night.

Speaker 2 Not only to lose your memory, but then to have nobody believe you. I don't know what happened.

Speaker 3 Her lawyer backed up her story. She has been given a polygraph test and she passed that test in flying colors.

Speaker 3 At first, the Smiths were supportive, but as time passed, they grew further apart.

Speaker 2 We were frustrated by the lack of information coming from Jennifer.

Speaker 3 George's sister Bree and her family still hoped to join forces with Jennifer when she filed her wrongful death suit against Royal Caribbean.

Speaker 3 That and that alone, they said, would finally yield answers. But just days before filing.

Speaker 2 Breaking news in the so-called missing groom case, we learn of a proposed settlement reached by the bride.

Speaker 3 Jennifer reached a settlement on her own with Royal Caribbean for $1.1 million.

Speaker 3 In addition, the cruise line agreed to give Jennifer access to its information on the case, something she hoped would bring some closure to both families.

Speaker 2 It didn't. Jennifer went behind her back without my parents' knowledge and has proposed a settlement with Royal Caribbean that we did not even know about.

Speaker 3 The Smiths say Jennifer settled because she doesn't want to answer questions under oath about her actions that night.

Speaker 3 They don't believe she had anything to do with George's death, but they do believe she knows more than she's telling.

Speaker 2 She is hiding something. She has answers.
And my son loved her. She betrayed him.

Speaker 3 She betrayed him, and she betrayed us.

Speaker 3 Jennifer refused our request for an on-camera interview, but told 48 Hours she and her family were deeply hurt by the Smith accusations, that she has fully cooperated with the FBI and has nothing to hide.

Speaker 3 Short of turning back the hands of time, she says, there may be nothing I can do that will satisfy George's family.

Speaker 3 The Smiths, meanwhile, have filed their own suit against Royal Caribbean and have vowed to continue their fight.

Speaker 2 When we get answers for our son, we can lay his soul to rest because right now we can't do that. And I'm going to keep going till I can do that for my son.

Speaker 2 That's what I owe him.

Speaker 3 Jamie Barnett feels she owes her daughter Ashley the same thing.

Speaker 2 I had a dream a couple of months ago, and Ashley appeared to me in the dream.

Speaker 2 And I said, Ashley, come home.

Speaker 2 And she said, Mom, I can't come home.

Speaker 2 I felt like she was telling me,

Speaker 2 You've got things that you have to take care of because I can't rest until you do.

Speaker 3 Ashley Barnett died October 15, 2005.

Speaker 3 Do you feel responsible for her death?

Speaker 4 I don't feel responsible for her death.

Speaker 3 Well, you're the one who brought the methadone on board.

Speaker 4 I know, I just...

Speaker 4 It's something that, you know, I just have to live with.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I'm trying to do that now at where I'm at. And, you know.

Speaker 3 Her boyfriend, Jeff Ginsburg, says he has not withheld anything about that fateful weekend.

Speaker 4 I have told everybody the story. I haven't lied.
I have been honest about it from day one. And I have told a lot of people it.

Speaker 4 A lot of people the story. And everything that I have told them

Speaker 4 is exactly what I know.

Speaker 4 That's it. I haven't hid anything.

Speaker 3 In a story filled with so many questions, there is one more part of the mystery that haunts both Jeff and Jamie.

Speaker 3 Remember, when the doctor and nurse arrived at the cabin, they told Carnival Ashley was unresponsive, cold to the touch. Was she alive when you called for help?

Speaker 4 She was warm when we were doing CPR.

Speaker 4 She was still warm. She wasn't cold.

Speaker 2 Her lips weren't blue.

Speaker 3 And after receiving a 911 call that a passenger wasn't breathing, Jeff and Jamie believe that Carnival should have brought more rescue equipment when they initially responded.

Speaker 3 Specifically, a device to shock Ashley's heart.

Speaker 2 Everything you can do was not done.

Speaker 3 You saying it wasn't done in a timely fashion or just wasn't done?

Speaker 2 In a timely fashion.

Speaker 3 Carnival insists they responded rapidly and appropriately.

Speaker 3 Additional rescue equipment would not have made a difference, they say, because Ashley had already died before medical assistance was requested.

Speaker 3 Jeff spent time in a professional treatment program for his addiction. Sadly, the person who thought she could save him is not around to know that.

Speaker 4 She's in my heart and mind every day, all day long.

Speaker 4 There's not a minute that goes by that I don't think about her.

Speaker 4 You know, I mean I think about her all day long

Speaker 4 and you know, I wish she wasn't, you know, I wish she was here, you know, with me. But there's not a minute that goes by I don't think about her, you know?

Speaker 3 All the pieces still don't fit together, do they?

Speaker 2 No, they don't. Don't know if I can bear forever not fit those pieces together.

Speaker 2 I do go to the cemetery and I sit with her and I talk to her and I fill her in on my week. I feel kind of like I'm back with her in a way.
So

Speaker 2 it just, I'm keeping the tradition alive.

Speaker 3 In place of the big dreams Ashley Barnett once had, a Hollywood star marks the grave where she is buried. It could be the story of anybody.

Speaker 3 She was a victim of a lot of different people or a lot of different circumstances that contributed to her untimely death.

Speaker 3 And it could happen again. Somewhere in some port, some 25-year-old girl is getting on a cruise ship with some friends.

Speaker 3 What do you want their parents to know?

Speaker 2 Don't let them go.

Speaker 2 Don't let him go.

Speaker 8 Ashley's mother, Jamie Barnett, settled a wrongful death suit against Carnival Corporation. In 2015, the FBI closed its investigation into George Smith's death.