12 Years Ago, She Mysteriously Vanished While Working Aboard A Cruise Ship
Rebecca Coriam grew up in Chester, England, with her sister and two foster brothers. As a teen, she was a student at Chester Catholic High School before graduating and attending Plymouth University at Exter.
While in college, Rebecca studied sports science. She also had work experience at the Chester Zoo and adored both the outdoors and children.
So, in June 2010, Rebecca set her sights on a new opportunity. She traveled to London to interview for a job on a Disney cruise.
After applying alongside hundreds of other job seekers, Rebecca did land the gig. She was ecstatic and subsequently went to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida for a four-day training session.
Once she successfully completed her training, Rebecca started working as a youth counselor on a Disney cruise ship.
Sadly, though, just four months into her new role, the 24-year-old lost her grandfather. This pushed Rebecca to request two months off from work. She ultimately went back home to spend two weeks with her family; then, she planned to use the rest of her time off for personal excursions.
After she left her hometown, though, Rebecca’s family never saw her in person again.
Rebecca’s Disappearance
The 24-year-old did safely make it back to work on the Disney Wonder cruise ship, which was based in the port of Los Angeles. Rebecca spent an additional six weeks working on the ship– while it traveled to the Mexican Riviera and the Panama Canal– before she disappeared.
Mariusz Blach – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
She made sure to keep in touch with her parents regularly using Facebook and Skype. But, on March 21, 2011, the 24-year-old sent her final message to her parents– claiming that she would call them the following day.
Just 12 hours later, on March 22, Rebecca’s parents did receive a phone call. It was not from their daughter, though. Rather, it was a Disney official calling to inform them that their daughter had gone missing.
Rebecca reportedly missed her 9:00 a.m. shift– when the cruise ship was off the coast of Mexico and headed for Puerto Vallarta. The 24-year-old also was not in her room, and crewmembers could not locate her elsewhere on the ship.
Rebecca was even paged over the cruise ship’s P.A. system. However, she never arrived to check in to work.
Security camera footage was subsequently reviewed, and Rebecca was seen speaking on an internal phone in the crew lounge at 5:45 a.m. She also looked distressed.
Then, a young man was seen approaching her in the footage, appearing to ask if she was okay. Rebecca nodded before hanging up the phone and walking away from him. That was the last time the 24-year-old was ever seen.
Disney staff then contacted the United States Coast Guard and the Mexican Navy to conduct a search of the surrounding waters. Unfortunately, though, nothing was uncovered.
Rebecca’s father, Mike Coriam, was not satisfied with Disney’s efforts to find his daughter. He claimed that the cruise staff did not follow standard operating procedures since the ship was never turned around to look for Rebecca.
Mike also alleged that the Coast Guard and Navy teams were provided incorrect coordinates. So, he believes they searched the wrong region of the ocean.
Due to the Flags of Convenience (FOC) system, though, Rebecca’s case fell to the ship’s registration country– which was the Bahamas. So, three days after her disappearance, Disney alerted the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) to launch an investigation.
One detective, Paul Rolle, was assigned to the case. He was flown in by Disney on a private jet before spending a day on the Wonder ship once it returned to the port of Los Angeles. While on the ship, Rolle reportedly only interviewed six employees out of 950 staff members and zero passengers– even though there were over 2,000 aboard.
Disney also eventually flew out Mike and Anne Coriam, Rebecca’s parents, following numerous days of reportedly”stalled” communication. They met with detective Rolle, as well as the ship’s captain.
Upon arrival, though, Anne recalled how Disney’s treatment appeared to be prepped.
“Everything was staged by Disney. We were taken in a car with blacked-out windows on the boat’s back entrance as passengers disembarked from the front. They took us to a room where they played the CCTV footage of Rebecca where, largely, she appears to be fine,” Anne said.
Then, the ship’s captain explained his own conclusion about what had happened to the 24-year-old. The captain detailed how a rogue wave likely swept Rebecca off of Deck 5.
At that point, Mike and Anne were shown the Deck 5 area– which was a staff swimming pool area located in front of the ship’s bridge and enclosed by walls over six feet tall. Afterward, the parents were escorted to crew quarters and Rebecca’s cabin, where they were given a sandal that was allegedly Rebecca’s and had been recovered on Deck 5.
According to Mike and Anne, though, the sandal did not even belong to their daughter. In fact, it clearly had someone else’s name and cabin number written on the side.
Regardless, the very next day, Rebecca’s parents got off the ship and watched as the Disney Wonder exited the LA port to sail to its next location. And in spite of the RBPF case still being investigated, the company deemed the “heartbreaking” case to be concluded. Disney placed flowers on Deck 5 and held a ceremony– which was attended by some crew members on the ship.
The Case Is Not Closed
Despite Disney’s view of the matter, Mike and Anne Coriam were not satisfied with the handling of their daughter’s case or how the company recounted their daughter’s disappearance.
This pushed them to hire Roy Ramm, a private investigator who formerly worked as a specialist at Scotland Yard. The parents also sought help from former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott and Chester MP Chris Matheson.
And what Mike and Anne’s team ultimately uncovered revealed damning implications about what might have really happened to Rebecca.
Primarily, Disney was confident that a rouge wave had taken Rebecca off of Deck 5 between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. on March 22, 2011. But, this account had various inconsistencies.
First, there were no stormy weather conditions occurring when the ship was near Puerto Vallarta. This meant it would have been very difficult for a 100-foot-tall wave to take Rebecca over the six-foot-tall walls that surrounded the deck.
The private investigator, Ramm, also discovered that the CCTV footage of Rebecca speaking on an internal phone had been altered. This video evidence– which was the last known sighting of the 24-year-old– was reportedly cropped to conceal the location and timestamp.
Disney claimed that the footage was captured on Deck 5, close to where Rebecca was supposedly swept overboard.
Once Ramm reviewed the footage, though, he and other investigators concluded that the video was actually captured on Deck 1.
In the months following Rebecca’s disappearance, Jon Ronson, an investigative journalist with The Guardian, also took an interest in the case. He boarded the Wonder and took a cruise in hopes of learning more about what truly happened.
While Ronson talked with crew members, though, he learned how many crew members believed Disney knew more than they were letting on.
“Disney knows exactly what happened. That phone call she had? It was taped. Everything here is taped. There are CCTVs everywhere. Disney has the tape,” one crew member said.
When Ronson asked another crew member about Rebecca, they responded cryptically, saying, “I don’t know anything about it. It didn’t happen. You know, that’s the answer I have to give.”
Back at home, Rebecca’s family and loved ones described her as an energetic and happy young woman. After all, landing a job at Disney requires a positive disposition.
Other crew members on the ship, though, revealed how Rebecca was not always so happy-go-lucky. One coworker even described Rebecca as “a lovely girl with an underlying sadness.”
Questions Continue To Swirl
According to Rebecca’s family, friends, and accounts from crew members and law enforcement officers, the investigation into her disappearance was botched. There were only six official interviews recorded, and evidence was withheld. There was also no forensic investigation.
“I was never spoken to by any security or police at all… to call this, an ‘investigation’ is an insult,” one of Rebecca’s friends told BBC.
Years later, in 2016, the private investigator Ramm discovered a pair of ripped shorts among the personal belongings from Rebecca’s cabin. This pushed him and other law enforcement officers to suggest the ripped shorts indicated a struggle, or even an assault, prior to the 24-year-old’s disappearance.
It is also important to note that just a few months after Rebecca vanished, her family realized her Facebook password had been changed, and there had been activity on her bank account.
“I believe there’s sufficient evidence to indicate a crime may well have taken place,” MP Matheson said.
Nonetheless, Rebecca’s friends and family have not gotten any concrete answers to the questions that have continued to swirl for over 10 years now.
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