Posted on 05/15/2008 5:18:21 AM PDT by grjr21
Surveillance cameras on the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship show a Camden County woman was alone on her balcony when she fell overboard Sunday, the cruise line said last night.
The Norwegian Cruise Line said in a statement that hallway cameras and cameras on the sides of the ship "confirmed that Mindy Jordan was in her stateroom alone at the time of the incident."
The family of Jordan, 46, of Pine Hill, said Tuesday that it suspected foul play. The family could not be reached last night after the cruise ship's statement was released.
The company did not characterize the incident, and noted that investigations are continuing.
The cruise line said it was arranging for Jordan's family to join the ship in Bermuda today to view the footage.
FBI agents from the New York City office and local authorities in Bermuda conducted interviews on the ship yesterday.
If FBI agents determine that Jordan's fall was accidental, that information will be relayed to family members but not made public, Special Agent Jim Margolin said.
The cruise line released a timeline of events, beginning with Jordan; her boyfriend, Jorge Caputo; and a couple they were traveling with eating dinner in the ship's Garden Cafe.
The couples returned to their adjacent staterooms about 7:28 p.m., the cruise line said.
Eight minutes later, Caputo left his room and joined his friends next door. "From that moment on, Mindy is alone in her stateroom," the cruise line said.
At 7:53 p.m., the cameras show Jordan falling from her balcony, "straight into the water."
The cruise line previously said Jordan, who was staying on deck nine, had been trying to climb to an adjoining balcony when she fell.
Shortly after Jordan's fall, an emergency call was made from the friends' stateroom, and Caputo is seen leaving that room "to seek help," the cruise line said.
Four minutes later, a man-overboard announcement was made, and the ship's crew launched two rescue boats.
Jordan went overboard about 45 miles off Atlantic City, about four hours after the ship had left New York en route to Bermuda.
The Coast Guard joined the search, which was called off on Monday. Jordan's body has not been found.
The cruise ship arrived in Bermuda yesterday. The ship is due back in New York on Sunday morning.
Jordan's family members said this week that they doubted the cruise line's initial account, and they described Jordan's relationship with Caputo as volatile.
The two lived together for more than two years, said Jordan's brother, Steve Lynn. He said Jordan had moved out several months ago, but that the two had apparently reconciled.
Barbara Matthews, the couple's neighbor, described Jordan and Caputo in complimentary terms and said she had seen no evidence of trouble in their relationship.
She said Caputo, who works for a car dealership, had moved next door to her about three years ago with his daughter, Megan, who was 20. Jordan moved in about a year later.
"What I know about him, it's impossible for me to think there was anything sinister going on," she said.
Matthews said she last saw the couple Sunday morning before they left for the cruise.
They were meeting their traveling companions in the parking lot, and Caputo joked with Matthews about watching the house to make sure his daughter didn't have any parties while he was gone.
She said Caputo recently had recovered from back surgery and "was really looking forward" to the trip.
Jordan, a licensed practical nurse, had a 15-year-old daughter and an 18-year-old son.
Her mother, Louise Horton of Bordentown City, said she had spoken to Jordan twice on Mother's Day before the ship left port. Caputo called the next morning to say Jordan had died.
"The pieces just don't add together," Horton said Tuesday.
ditto that! Heck, just looking at that balcony on my tv makes me dizzy. Don’t like heights ESPECIALLY over water. One little 3 1/2 foot bar is all that separates you from death. Nope. Not for me!
I wasn’t going to ask :-). Another point is that women, being smaller than men (as a rule) and with a lower body mass, get drunk more quickly if alcohol consumption is equal.
We had a man-overboard, at NIGHT in the Caribbean, and ANOTHER ship found him!!!
1. Because a relative of ours would never do anything stupid.
2. There's no money in it if it's not somebody else's fault.
At least they had a window instead of an interior room.
I think I’d like to stay on land :-).
When there is a serious crime or unexplained death on a cruise ship, how is it determined which police department has jurisdiction?
yep!
a friend of mine just got off the Norweigan Dawn that day. came back from Bermuda. The bus caught fire on the way back to New London.
not a good day for Norweigan Cruise Lines
They do not say how she fell.
The balcony railings are four feet high and she was five feet tall, so it is unlikely that she accidentally fell.
In another account, the boyfriend says that she fell off because "she was horsing around."
If he was in another room, and she was on her room's balcony how would he know if she was horsing around?
As usual, important data points are missing.
Wow, they called man overboard within 4 or 5 minutes of when she fell and they still couldn’t find her. Seems like the search area would be relatively small. Perhaps she drowned right away.
Based on my limited understanding of maritime law:
As long as it's not in port, not within the waters of any foreign country, the FBI has jurisdiction. But the local authorities (in this case, the Bahamian police) where the ship next docks, or wherever it docked last, can be called in to interview witnesses.
The FBI can even investigate crimes on foreign soil that involve U.S. citizens, though they require the permission of the host country. The Khobar Towers bombing is an example, where the Saudi authorities weren't very cooperative.
If elements of the crime occurred before the ship sailed, say in NYC, the authorities there would be involved in the investigation.
He would know what she was doing when he left the cabin, and he was in an adjacent cabin; he would have known if she was leaning over the railing to get the attention of the folks next door.
She could have been killed or knocked unconscious by something on her way down, or by impact with the water. Even with a limited search area, it's difficult to find something as small as a person in something as big as the Atlantic Ocean, especially if the person isn't wearing a life vest or surrounded by flotsam.
If they had a bad relationship, he could have locked her out on the balcony.
propellers
As soon as you step on board, you’ll be offered drinks. There are also bars everywhere you look. Most cruises are pretty boozy.
I don’t blame ‘em. People like to drink on vacation and cruise lines make lots of extra cash on those expensive drinks. I’ve seen people run tabs in the $100-200 range every day just for drinks.
Fixed that!
I would be drunk as soon as I got on the ship! It’s a vacation ya know!
I guess it should be changed to person-overboard. Feminist everywhere have found a new cause.
He could spend years as a suspect without them.
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