We have received information that a cruise guest was allegedly murdered on the Carnival Sunshine which returned to port this weekend in Charleston, South Carolina following a five day cruise to the Bahamas.

The information comes from two passengers who were on the cruise and prefer to remain anonymous. I was also directed to social media posts on Facebook from several other guests discussing the circumstances on the cruise in question.

In a nutshell, we were informed that a guest allegedly killed her husband following a personal dispute. We will not repeat the scuttlebutt on the ship regarding the details of what allegedly happened. The wife allegedly was detained on deck 1 with security posted outside.

At the end of the cruise, the passenger’s body was wheeled from the ship. An image of seven law enforcement officer overseeing the removal of the body as well as an image of the sealed cabin were taken by a third passenger who went on the cruise.

Carnival responded to our request for information denying that a crime took place, stating in full:

“There was no crime.

Law enforcement came aboard for a routine inspection following the death on board.  The ship left as scheduled for its next cruise on Monday.  We are disgusted by those spreading rumors that create more distress for the family of the guest who died.”

Regarding Carnival’s press statement, I am not aware that Carnival had a process of sealing the cabin of a guest when he dies naturally, or of allegedly detaining the deceased guest’s spouse and assigning a security guard to monitor her, or of members of law enforcement boarding a cruise ship for a “routine inspection” following the death of a guest (much less at least seven officers supervising the removal of the deceased guest’s body).

Carnival refused to respond to multiple requests from this firm for the contact information of the law enforcement who boarded the cruise ship. We obviously are interested in the FBI’s characterization of the guest’s death. To withhold this public information, to us, reveals Carnival’s lack of transparency.

The Carnival Sunshine is no stranger to the FBI which has jurisdiction to investigate crimes which occur on the high seas involving U.S. nationals, including “homicides” and “suspicious deaths.” In March of this year, the FBI investigated another untimely death of a guest on the Carnival Sunshine. The FBI considered the death to be a “suspicious death” of the guest whose body was sent ashore in Nassau.

Carnival released an ambiguous press statement which I considered to be worthless at the time. “The FBI joined Carnival Sunshine upon its return to Charleston yesterday morning to conduct an investigation into the death of a guest. Both the deceased and her husband were debarked in Nassau and Bahamian authorities have already investigated the circumstances and are conducting an autopsy. We are fully cooperating. This is a matter for authorities in The Bahamas and Charleston and we have no further comments.”

You can read about that case here.

Carnival subsequently did in fact comment about the case and claimed that the passenger died due to “natural causes” which the FBI disputed. The FBI was required to go to federal court in order to obtain a search warrant to force Carnival to open the passenger cabin so the FBI agents could perform a search for evidence of a crime. You can read about that development in this article titled: Carnival Changes Its Story: “Suspicious Death” of Guest on Carnival Sunshine is Now a “Natural Death” As FBI is Required to Obtain Search Warrant to Inspect Cabin No. 6271 Based on “Evidence of a Crime”

In June of this year, the FBI boarded the Carnival Sunshine and arrested a passenger on charges of aggravated sexual abuse of a nine year old minor girl. You can read about that alleged crime here.

46 U.S. Code § 3507 (The Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010) requires cruise lines to report “homicide suspicious death, a missing United States national, kidnapping, assault with serious bodily injury, any (sexual) offense to which section 2241, 2242, 2243, or 2244(a) or (c) of title 18 applies, as well as certain other crimes. Unfortunately. the Department of Transportation (DOT), which is responsible for disclosing the crimes to the public, has not reported a single crime on a cruise ship since 2022. It is less than clear whether this is because of bureaucratic problems with federal agencies (either the DOT or FBI) or the refusal of cruise lines, like Carnival (and others), to cooperate in releasing accurate and complete data.

What happened on the Carnival Sunshine?

Regarding this most recent death, the question is who do you believe? Anonymous guests? That’s not ideal. But there is no local law enforcement handling crimes hundreds of miles at sea on foreign-flagged cruise ships. The cruise line? That’s far from ideal. Carnival’s has a well deserved reputation for corporate dishonesty after being convicted of perjury in covering up shipboard pollution and fined over $100,000,000 (million) by the chief federal court judge in Miami a few years ago. Carnival’s recent squabbles with the FBI over whether the last death of a guest on the Carnival Sunshine was “natural” (as Carnival wanted the public to believe) or a “suspicious crime” (as the FBI found) does not create a reasonable basis to give Carnival the benefit of a doubt.

Have a comment or question? Please leave one below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

Image Credit: Carnival Sunshine = Michael Au – flickr and CC BY 2.0, commons / wikimedia CC and fined BY 2.0; FBI and sealed cabin – Pam Miles (Facebook).

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By: Jim Walker
Title: Murder on the Carnival Sunshine?
Sourced From: www.cruiselawnews.com/2023/10/articles/uncategorized/murder-on-the-carnival-sunshine/
Published Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2023 12:47:54 +0000

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