in v e s t ig a t io n honeym oon over - bryan burrough · n m onday evening, july 4, 2005, a m am...

n Monday evening, July 4,2005, a mammoth, multi-tiered cruise ship, Brillianceof the Seas, weighed anchor

and eased out of the harbor at the Greekisland of Mykonos, in the Aegean Sea. Itwas the sixth night of the ship’s 12-daycircling of the Mediterranean, a voyagebegun in Barcelona the previous Wednes-day. Captain Michael Lachtaridis of theRoyal Caribbean line, whichowns the ship, ordered a coursenorth by northeast. The ship wasscheduled to reach the Turkishport of Kusadasi around dawn.

Aboard that night were 2,300guests, most of them Americans.One was a handsome, muscular26-year-old Connecticut honey-mooner named George Allen Smith IV,whose family owns a popular liquor store inthe upper-crust Connecticut town of CosCob, near Greenwich. Smith and his at-tractive blonde bride of 10 days, Jennifer,who was to begin a new job teaching third-

graders upon their re-turn, had a stateroomwith a balcony on

Deck Nine. After a day among the white-washed villas of Mykonos—the highlight ofwhich was an unlikely encounter with theactress Tara Reid, who was filming her nowcanceled show, Taradise—the Smiths re-turned to the ship for a romantic dinner. Af-

terward, they headed to the casino and thento the discotheque, where they were seendrinking with a circle of shipboard acquain-tances late into the night.

It should have been another fun, frolic-some evening, the first night of the rest oftheir lives. But what started out as a storysuited for Jimmy Buffett turned out to be

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HONEYMOON OVERGeorge and Jennifer Smith’s Royal Caribbean honeymoon cruise ended

prematurely last July, the night George vanished. Did he fall or was he pushed? Where was Jennifer? Who were the young Russians in their cabin?

The F.B.I. remains silent, but almost everyone else is talking

BY BRYAN BURROUGH

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DANGER AT SEABrilliance of the Seas, withStateroom 9062 circled,departing Miami, February3, 2006; inset, Georgeand Jennifer poolside ontheir honeymoon.

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one for Agatha Christie. Sometime in thehours before dawn George Smith van-ished, presumably fallen overboard intothe dark Aegean. All that was found thenext day was a single ugly bloodstain ona life-raft canopy beneath his balcony—just the first macabre detail in an extraor-dinary set of clues, quasi-witnesses, possiblesuspects, and grieving relatives that havebecome fodder for the nonfiction soap op-eras that unscroll on the cable-television“justice” shows. Was it an accident? Ormurder? Or something else?

N ight after night, Greta Van Susterenon Fox News, Joe Scarborough andRita Cosby on

MSNBC, and LarryKing and Nancy Graceon CNN have repeat-ed the tantalizing par-ticulars: The blood-stain. The “misplaced”wife. The f lirtatiouscasino boss. The uglyscene in the disco. Thetroublesome “Russianboys.” The bottle of ab-sinthe. The suspiciousnoises inside the Smiths’stateroom. The cop lis-tening through the wall.The “thud.”

Just about everyoneon television appears to believe GeorgeSmith was the victim of foul play, thoughthe F.B.I., which is investigating, hasn’t saida word. The longer the case remains un-solved, the darker its undertones grow. Al-legations of a Royal Caribbean “cover-up”have been tossed about while journalistsand congressmen murmur about the dan-gers lurking aboard cruise ships.

The case was actually slow to attractnational attention, in large part becauseSmith’s family remained silent during theearly stages of the F.B.I.’s investigation, butin November, frustrated by what they char-acterized as a lack of information fromRoyal Caribbean, Smith’s wife and parentshired attorneys. A month later they wentpublic, granting interviews to King andScarborough, and making statements be-fore a congressional hearing investigatingcruise-ship security.

In short order Smith became the firstwhite male prominently featured in the five-year boomlet of Missing White Womenmedia sagas that began with the murder ofWashington intern Chandra Levy in 2001and have endured through the coverage ofLaci Peterson and others. The Smith casequickly elbowed out the dwindling updatessurrounding the disappearance of Alaba-ma teenager Natalee Holloway in Aru-ba, of which there has been little news in

months. “Now that the Holloway case isgoing nowhere, everyone is looking for thenext big thing,” a cable booker told me inJanuary. “I guess this is it.”

The Smith coverage, however, has beenoddly circumspect, in part because theF.B.I. has asked witnesses to refrain fromdiscussing what happened that night. Butif you talk to the bookers and reporterswho have followed the case since the be-ginning, it becomes clear that everyoneknows who the “persons of interest” are.Strangely, their names have beenkept out of the press for monthsand are only now trickling intoview. In the vacuum, cable hosts

have been left to examine side issues:whether Royal Caribbean “contaminated”the “crime scene”; whether its officials“abandoned” Jennifer Hagel-Smith in Tur-key following her husband’s disappearance;whether cruise ships are safe. All three ideasare being pushed by plaintiff’s attorneys,who smell big money in filing lawsuitsagainst Royal Caribbean. Valid or not, thiskind of marginalia has tended to obscurethe central question: What really happenedto George Smith?

T he Smiths have been a fixture in theGreenwich area for decades. The firstGeorge Allen Smith, a major-league

pitcher in the 1910s and early 1920s, taughthigh-school math there for years. His son,George Allen Smith II, was a dentist andprominent horse breeder. George SmithIII, the missing George’s father, is an ac-countant who purchased the Greenwicharea’s oldest liquor store, Cos Cob Liquor,in 1982. He and his British-born wife, Mau-reen, live in neighboring Glenville, where

George IV and his older sister, Bree, nowa lawyer in Hong Kong, grew up.

His family remembers George IV as afun-loving, free-spirited boy who grew updoing the things American boys do. Heplayed driveway basketball, rode his bicyclefor miles, and was on the football team atGreenwich High before being sidelined bya bout of mononucleosis. The family joker,George was a devotee of the British sit-com The Office. In the family, and later atBabson College, in Wellesley, Massachu-

setts, where he studiedcomputer science andreceived a business de-gree, he was known asa whiz with anythingelectronic. “He was thego-to person for all thatkind of stuff,” says Bree.“Still, when something

goes wrong, I think I’ll askGeorge, and it just hits me. Youcan’t ask George anymore.”

At Babson, where he pledgedthe Tau Kappa Epsilon fraterni-ty, George was known as a friend-ly, quiet student who sufferedthrough an extended breakup witha longtime girlfriend. “A sweetguy, not too chatty, he wasn’t thecenter of attention at a bar, but hewas well liked by everybody,” re-

members a wom-an who knew himthere. “Like everycollege student, hepartied pretty hard,but we all did.”

After gradua-tion, George took

a job with a computer firm in Stamford,Connecticut, doing research on Internetsearch engines. He later moved on to a firmin suburban Boston, where his boss, aPh.D. named Amanda Watlington, remem-bers him as a favorite employee, a hardworker who took vacation time at Christ-mas to help his father at Cos Cob Liquor.“I cannot remember him ever having anunkind word for anyone,” says Watlington.“He was a big, gentle man.”

In 2003, George surprised his family byquitting his job and coming home to workat the family store. “It was the pull of fam-ily—absolutely the pull of family,” says Wat-lington.

“At his job, you know, he worked at adesk from eight to six every day, and hesaid he couldn’t sit in front of a computeranymore,” says Maureen.

“He needed more social interaction,”adds Bree.

George moved into an apartment in By-ram, close to Cos Cob, and set to work up-dating the store’s computer systems and


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HIGH SPIRITSA 2003 photo of George Smith III,left, with George Smith IV at their Cos Cob Liquor store, in Cos Cob,Connecticut.

“I THINK THERE ARE ARRESTS COMING DOWN,“ SAYS MAUREEN SMITH. “MYSON WAS MURDERED ON THIS CRUISE SHIP.”[

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building its Web site. His father hopedGeorge would take over the businesssomeday, and George was laying plans tomove aggressively into Internet liquorsales. A handsome young man devoted toweight lifting, he began each day with atrip to the gym, and soon his father no-ticed the store seemed to be building itsfemale customer base. “So many womenwould come into the store,” says his moth-er, “just to see George. But he was so, soloyal to Jennifer.”

George met Jennifer Hagel in 2002. Heand some friends had taken a summer sharein a dilapidated rental house in Newport,Rhode Island, and when his shower brokedown, he began using the bathroom of anupstairs apartment whose tenants includedJennifer’s brother, Johnny. “George was veryquiet about his relationships, at least withus, but suddenly we started hearing thename Jennifer a lot,” says Bree. “My broth-er was a serial monogamist, but he and Jen-nifer seemed to get quite serious quite fast.”

A pretty platinum blonde,Jennifer grew up in the nearbytown of Cromwell, where herfather, a former policeman, runsa construction business. Hermother is a real-estate agent.Jennifer attended Trinity Col-lege, in Hartford, and was,when she met George, work-ing toward a master’s degree atRoger Williams University, inBristol, Rhode Island. Beforethe Smiths realized it, Jenniferhad moved into George’s apart-ment, and the couple seemed tobe spending every available min-ute together. On Monday, hisday off, George would swingby a Fresh Fields market tobuy Jennifer’s favorite, Chileansea bass, which he barbecuedoutdoors no matter the weath-er. “That was actually my en-gagement gift for him—a newgrill—because every time wewent over there, even in win-ter, we had to sit outside while Georgegrilled,” says Maureen. “In our coats.”

George and Jennifer spent long hourstogether finalizing details of their wed-ding, which was held at the watersideCastle Hill Inn & Resort, in Newport,on a beautiful Saturday afternoon inlate June. They danced their first dance toVan Morrison’s “Into the Mystic.” The nextday, running late for a limousine that wouldtake them home and then to the airport,the newlyweds hurried away from the fami-ly luncheon before saying good-bye to Bree.

“I never got a chance to say good-bye,”she says.

“But we all have our guilty moments,”

Maureen adds with a sigh. “George’s fatherand I had been on several cruises, and weencouraged them to go cruising. We saidhe’d love it. But, you know, once you delveinto it, that can be a pretty sinister world.You have no idea.”

T hey met the ship in Barcelona. All thatWednesday afternoon, on June 29, asBrilliance of the Seas sat quietly at an-

chor in the harbor, guests climbed the gang-way and spread throughout the ship, find-ing their staterooms and getting their firstlook at the casino, the disco, the restau-rants, and the three swimming pools. Bril-liance of the Seas is one of the largest ofRoyal Caribbean’s 19 ships, a 90,000-tonbehemoth with 12 passenger decks, pow-ered by gas turbines. It sails 52 weeks ayear, spending summers off the coast ofEurope and winters in the Ca-ribbean. The ship is manned byabout 850 Royal Caribbean em-ployees and can house as many

as 2,500 guests. It has a spa, a full-servicemedical facility staffed by doctors andnurses, and even a brig for unruly pas-sengers.

The Smiths unpacked their things inStateroom 9062, a narrow space lined witha couch on one side, burled-wood cabinetson the other, and a double bed next tothe balcony’s sliding door. By all accounts,

George and Jennifer appeared to be hav-ing a wonderful time those first few days.Photographs show them embracing by thepool—George shirtless and buff, Jenniferbeaming with happiness and love. Theycertainly sounded as if they were havingfun. On the second night, after many of thepassengers had spent the day prowlingVillefranche-sur-Mer, in France, the din ofpartying from the Smiths’ room kept theirneighbor, a man named Cletus Hyman,awake until almost 3:30 A.M. The nextmorning Hyman walked by the guest-relations desk and asked what could bedone. If it happened again, he was told,call the desk, and they would handle it.

On the third day, Friday, the ship dockedin Italy, and hundreds of passengers piledinto taxis and buses for an outing in Flor-ence. The Smiths shared a car with a

20-year-old community-college student from Cal-ifornia’s Orange Countynamed Josh Askin, whoremained friendly withthem after their returnto the ship. Askin, whowas traveling with his

podiatrist father, his mother, and twosiblings, is described as an avid snow-boarder and, according to his high-school yearbook, was once voted“Most Likely to Marry for Money.”

“Josh was young, you know, a cuteCalifornia boy,” says a person whomet him aboard Brilliance of the Seas.“The kind of boy who just wants tohave fun.”

A strange series of events tran-spired aboard Brilliance of theSeas in the days after it left It-

aly. Mystery still shrouds many of thebasic facts, and divining the truthrequires storming a defensive line ofF.B.I. agents, corporate executives,and uncooperative attorneys; all havetheir own agendas, few of which—at the moment, at least—entail di-

vulging much to re-porters. Push a littleand it’s clear manydon’t have all thatmuch informationto divulge.

Another thing that’sclear is that, besides

Josh Askin, George and Jennifer Smithmet another group of young, hard-partyingvacationers—four boisterous young Russian-American men whose activities aboardBrilliance of the Seas are now a focus ofthe F.B.I. investigation into George’s dis-appearance. The four were traveling withrelatives; their group, numbering eight peo-ple in all, consisted of two families named

LAST DANCEGeorge dances withJennifer to “Into theMystic” at their Junewedding, in Newport,Rhode Island.

“I LOOKED OUT MY DOOR. AND THAT’S WHEN I SAW THE MALE SUBJECTS,” SAYS CLETE HYMAN. “THREE MALE SUBJECTS.”[


Rozenberg. One, from South Florida, isheaded by Mikhail and Larisa Rozenberg.The second family, believed to be fromBrighton Beach, a Russian section of Brook-lyn, is headed by Michael and Angela Ro-zenberg. Between them the families hadthree sons aboard, all said to be in theirteens or early 20s: Jeffrey, Zachary, andGreg. Also in the group was a burly Brigh-ton Beach 20-year-old named Rostislav“Rusty” Kofman.

O ne of the oddest things about theSmith case has been the media’s re-luctance to identify these young men.

In a situation with striking similarities—the Natalee Holloway case—three youngmen last seen with Holloway were pub-licly identified within days of her disap-pearance; for months afterward, the mainsuspect, a Dutch student named Joran vander Sloot, was endlessly discussed on thecable justice shows.

Something different happened in theSmith case. For months Askin was the on-ly one the press identified, after his at-torney spoke last summer to Katie Couricon the Today show and on Dateline NBC.

Even after that, most press outlets de-clined to identify him. Rostislav Kofman,whose name I learned from a cable book-er in December, was not publicly nameduntil January, by the New York Post. Thisarticle is the first to name the Rozenbergs.

Why the disparity in coverage? Onelikely explanation arises after a talk withthe Rozenbergs’ New York attorney, Ar-thur Gershfeld. Gershfeld, himself a Rus-sian émigré, is a former assistant districtattorney in Brooklyn and an unsuccessfulcandidate for the New York State Assem-bly. When I told him I expected to printhis clients’ names, he tersely threatened tosue me.

“These kids are being put through atremendous amount of stress for some-thing they didn’t do,” he says. “I personal-ly don’t think the feds are ever going tocharge them with anything.”

In part because of Gershfeld’s admo-nitions, very little is known about theRozenberg group beyond names and

addresses. The four young men are allsaid to be students, although where theyattend school is unknown. A reporterwho encountered Rusty Kofman describeshim as “a strapping young guy, cropped

hair, nice smile, huge hands.” An attor-ney with knowledge of the younger Rozen-bergs describes them as muscular andstreetwise.

But if little is known of the Rozenbergs’backgrounds, a good deal is emergingabout their activities aboard Brillianceof the Seas. According to several peopleinvolved with the case, Kofman and theRozenberg boys first attracted attention onSunday night, July 3, five days into thecruise. The ship’s solarium, which con-tains a hot tub, was a favored after-hours“hookup” area, where young people flirt-ed and occasionally slipped off to quiet li-aisons. The solarium is a nonsmoking area,however, and at least one of the Rozen-berg group lit up cigarettes. When admon-ished to stop by a ship’s officer, one ormore of the men allegedly cursed at himand kept on smoking.

The next morning—the day the shipdocked in Mykonos—a report on the in-cident crossed Marie Breheret’s desk. Bre-heret was the ship’s guest-relations manag-er, and she had begun the cruise expectingthings like this; with high schools and col-leges on summer break, Brilliance of the

Seas had an unusually high number ofteenagers on board. She telephoned one setof Rozenberg parents—apparently the Flori-da family, Mikhail and Larisa—and askedthem to her office. There Breheret tookthem into the hotel director’s office. As sherecalls the meeting, “we basically explainedto them that . . . Well, I reminded them ofour Guest Vacation Policy, and we toldthem that any further occurrence of this be-havior would cause us to disembark theseboys. The parents apologized and promisedtheir kids would be supervised, and therewon’t be any further problems.”

The Rozenbergs had been put on no-tice. The problems with their children, how-ever, were only beginning.

T hat night, as Brilliance of the Seas leftMykonos for the Turkish coast, Georgeand Jennifer Smith headed to the ca-

sino after dinner. Jennifer has said theyhoped to meet up with another couple theyhad gotten to know. Instead, by all ac-counts, they spent much of the eveninggambling separately, Jennifer playing black-jack, George at a craps table, teachingJosh Askin the game. Three of the Rus-sian boys, including Kofman, were alsoin the casino.

The most detailed account of what hap-pened in the casino comes from Askin’s at-torney, C. Keith Greer. According to him,Askin noticed Jennifer becoming “cozy”with a strikingly handsome South Africancroupier named Lloyd Botah. When thecasino closed at 2:30, the Smiths, alongwith Askin, crowded into an elevator, head-ing for the disco. Also in the elevator, Greersays, was Botah, who stood beside Jen-nifer—too close, by Askin’s estimation. “Hewas definitely stepping over professionalboundaries,” says Greer. “It was awkward,but I don’t know that George noticed it atthe time.” Botah’s attorney, Andrew Rierof Miami, denies that his client flirted withJennifer.

In the disco, according to all accounts,the group was joined by Kofman and twoof the Rozenberg boys. They sat around atable with George as several of the grouptook shots from a bottle of absinthe, thegreen, highly potent liquor that is illegalin most of the West and isn’t sold aboardBrilliance of the Seas. Royal Caribbeanofficials have suggested that the bottlewas probably smuggled aboard the shipagainst the rules. Before long, all accountsagree, both George and Jennifer were verydrunk.

Askin, meanwhile, remained uncom-fortably aware that Jennifer was sittingvery close to Botah, says Greer. Accord-ing to Kofman’s attorney, Albert Dayan,she was “draping herself”over other men.In time George noticed and objected.Three people—Rusty Kofman’s attorney,as well as a 24-year-old New Jersey mannamed Dominick Mazza and a Phoenixschoolteacher named Margarita Chaves,both of whom spoke to the AssociatedPress—say George and Jennifer engagedin a brief argument that culminated withJennifer kicking her new husband in thegroin and walking angrily out of the disco.According to Askin’s account, Botah fol-lowed her.

Askin says he didn’t see the fight. “Heonly learned of it from a media account,”says Greer. Rier denies that Botah followedJennifer anywhere. “He left the disco be-tween 3:10 and 3:20,” the lawyer says,“and when he left, George and Jenniferand all those kids were still there. Hedidn’t see anything like [an altercation]. Hewent right back to his room.” For her part,Jennifer has insisted she remembers noth-ing after leaving the casino. If so, it’s possi-ble she suffered an alcohol-induced black-out.

Shortly after the Smiths’ disagreement,at about 3:30, the disco closed. Of theyoung men with George at the time, onlytwo—Josh Askin and Rusty Kofman, viatheir attorneys—have publicly given a ver-sion of what happened next. According

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“WE HAD NO JUSTIFICATION FOR INVADINGA GUEST CABIN . . . [DUE TO] ONE SIMPLE PARTYING NOISE COMPLAINT,” ROYAL CARIBBEAN STATED.[

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to both, George was too drunk to walkunaided, so Askin and the three Russianboys helped him to his cabin.

When they arrived at the stateroom,however, Jennifer wasn’t there. Georgewanted to find her. According to one ac-count, George changed his shirt and then,with Askin and the three Russian boys,headed to the solarium, where the cruiseship’s younger crowd tended to congregateafter hours. Jennifer wasn’t there either.The group then guided George back to

his room, arriving at 4:02—a time verifiedby a computerized monitoring system thattracks when key cards are used to openstateroom doors. George Smith was neverseen alive again.

T wo versions of what happened next—so far the only ones that have beenmade public—come from people whose

staterooms flanked the Smiths’. The moredetailed of the two comes from Clete Hy-man, who, as it happens, makes an ex-cellent witness. Hyman is the deputy policechief in Redlands, California. He has 31years of experience in law enforcement.

According to Hyman, he was awakeneda few minutes after four A.M. by “loudcheering—what sounded like a collegedrinking game” in the Smiths’ stateroom.Irked, he pounded on the wall. The soundssubsided for a minute or two before re-suming. Hyman picked up his telephoneand complained to the operator, who as-sured him the situation would be investi-gated. “There were two times the yellingcame to a crescendo and dropped off,” herecalls. “After I banged on the wall, it nev-er reached a high pitch again. Then, ba-sically, it was what I’d call party noise.Loud talking. For about five minutes itwas just loud talking.”

At one point, Hyman heard voices drifttoward the stateroom door. He thought—but wasn’t certain—that at least one voicecould be heard in the corridor. If so,someone may have left the room—an im-portant detail, as the rest of his accountmakes clear. Hyman tried to go back tosleep, but it was no use. Suddenly, hesays, “out of the blue, and I’m trying todrift in and out of sleep, there was aloud argument on the balcony. Threevoices. I could not make out [what theywere saying], and I didn’t really attemptto. These voices were raised. And youknow, it sounded like an argument. Not

a fight. An argument. That went on for aminute or so.”

By now, Hyman estimates, it was 4:15.At that point, he could hear voices mov-ing across the room, toward the door. “Youcould definitely hear a voice ushering peo-ple out of the room,” he says. “‘Goodnight,’ ‘Good night,’ ‘Good night,’ repeat-edly. I hear the door close. And then Iwaited a little bit, 10 seconds or so, and Ilooked out my door. And that’s when I sawthe male subjects. Three male subjects.”

This is a crucial moment. If GeorgeSmith was still alive in his room—andthere’s no reason to believe he wasn’t—thethree men Hyman saw can probably becleared of any involvement in his death.But Hyman, out of respect for the F.B.I.probe, won’t say whom he saw. He won’teven say if he has identified whom he saw.“Sorry, I won’t even go that far,” he says.“I saw three suspects. All I can say.”

O n the other side of the Smith state-room, vacationers Greg and Pat Law-yer, who heard many of the same

sounds as Clete Hyman but not all, did notsee the young men leave. But they heardthem speaking. Two of the three youngmen, they claim, had accents. The Lawyers’account does not contradict Hyman’s keyassertion: only three men left the room.

If Josh Askin is correct, four young menhad taken George back to his room: Askin,Rusty Kofman, and the two Rozenbergs.Kofman’s attorney, Albert Dayan, insiststhat all four left at the same time—thatHyman miscounted. But if only three left,that might mean someone was still in theroom with George. Or it might not—thatis, if one of the men had left earlier, asHyman thought possible. As of this writ-ing, no one is certain who was in the roomafter 4:15.

Whatever the case, Clete Hyman con-tinued to listen through the thin walls. Heis certain he heard someone talking—“in aconversational tone”—but he heard onlya single voice. At the same time, he beganto hear louder noises. “There was move-ment in the room, and again this wassporadic,” Hyman says. “It sounded likesomeone going in and out of cupboards,drawers, maybe furniture being moved.The thoughts that go to my mind is thatthey were cleaning the room—they had aparty there, and they were cleaning. I wasvery happy.”

By Hyman’s estimation, this lasted eightminutes or so. At that point, sounds movedtoward the balcony. Two metal chairs werethere, and Hyman says he heard at least onebeing moved. And then, silence. For a min-ute or two, Hyman says, he heard no sound.Then, roughly between 4:20 and 4:25 A.M.,Hyman heard what he describes as “a hor-rific thud”—so violent he felt the vibrationin his bed.

“My first thought was that someonefell on the balcony—not off,” he says. “Butbecause it was so loud, I discarded thatthought. Someone would have to be veryheavy to make that sound. The secondthought I had is that, well, they had beenmoving furniture. I thought maybe theywere throwing furniture overboard. Itsounded heavy enough to be a couch. Ididn’t look out. There was total silence af-ter that. I didn’t hear any screams, anymovements, after that.”

Presumably the “thud” was the soundof George Smith going over the balconyand hitting the canopy below. The criticalquestion remains: Was he pushed? Or washe alone? Ordinarily, Hyman says, he couldhear the Smiths leaving their cabin; hecould hear their door open. After the thud,he did not hear the door open. If someonewas inside Stateroom 9062 when Georgemet his fate, the person slipped out with-out making a sound. Hyman acknowledgesthe possibility. (Royal Caribbean’s moni-toring system can’t clear up the mystery. Itnotes the opening of a stateroom door whena key card is used, but not when a dooris opened from within.)

The next thing Hyman heard camethree or four minutes after the “horrificthud.” Two Royal Caribbean security men,responding to Hyman’s earlier call, walkeddown the corridor and approached theSmiths’ door. They heard no sound frominside. There was no reply to their knock.Assuming the party was over, they didn’tattempt to enter. Hyman remained in hisroom and did not talk to the officers,who walked away. “Security left believ-ing all was well,” Royal Caribbean notedin a time line it issued. “We had no jus-tification for invading a guest cabin onthe basis of one simple partying noisecomplaint.”

Hyman laid his head on the pillow andtried to go back to sleep.

Josh Askin, via his attorney, denieshe played any part in George Smith’sdisappearance. He indicates that he,

Kofman, and the two Rozenbergs stayedwith George for 10 or 15 minutes, duringwhich Askin used the bathroom. He saysthat everyone departed by 4:15, leavingno one inside but George. Rusty Kofman’sattorney disputes this time line, placing





“WE ENCOURAGED THEM TO GO CRUISING,”SAYS MAUREEN. “BUT . . . ONCE YOU DELVE INTO IT, THAT CAN BE A PRETTY SINISTER WORLD.”[

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could have prevented it or, at the veryleast, raised the alarm had he fallenoverboard. If George was the victim offoul play, she might also have preventedthat. Or she too might have ended up inthe Aegean.

But Jennifer apparently did not returnto her room. From the disco she took theelevator down to Deck Nine, but she wasevidently so drunk she became disorient-ed. Instead of turning right, into the long

port corridor that led to their stateroom,she turned left, into the starboard corri-dor. From there she walked until the cor-ridor ended in an alcove. In the alcovewas a maintenance door. It was locked.Jennifer slumped against the wall, slid tothe floor, and fell asleep.

Her attorney, James Walker, has suggest-ed that Jennifer may have been drugged.It’s also possible that someone led herto the alcove and left her there—and sheforgot about it after a blackout. And it’sat least conceivable that she did in factreturn to the stateroom and then left oncemore. The most likely explanation, how-ever, is that Jennifer was so drunk she be-came confused. When her husband tum-bled overboard, she was passed out in ahallway.

A ccording to Royal Caribbean, a secu-rity guard found Jennifer a little af-ter 4:30—just about the same time the

two other security guards responded toClete Hyman’s complaint and found theSmith stateroom silent. On a walkie-talkie,the guard who found Jennifer buzzed thenurse on duty that morning. The nurse sug-gested he apply a wet paper towel to herforehead and attempt to rouse her. This hedid. Jennifer woke, gave her name andstateroom number, and said, “I’m O.K.”

Two more security men appeared and

helped Jennifer to her feet. She was able towalk, but not well. Rather than frog-marchher through the hallways in this condition,two of the three men walked the length ofthe ship to the Smith stateroom. They ar-rived at the door at 4:48, 15 minutes afterthe first pair’s visit. There is no indication

“MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS THAT SOMEONEFELL ON THE BALCONY—NOT OFF,” SAYS HYMAN. “IT SOUNDED HEAVY ENOUGH TO BE A COUCH.”[

everything several minutes earlier; he sayshis client and the two Rozenbergs wereall back in Kofman’s room by four, andclaims to have a time-stamped photo prov-ing it. Whatever the timing, Kofman in-sists the last he saw of George Smith waswhen the boys left him on his bed; Georgewas so grateful, he says, that he actual-ly kissed one of the boys and promisedto buy them a round of drinks the nextday. According to Askin, he went to Kof-

man’s room with the others and was backin his own stateroom by 5:15 A.M.

Where was Mrs. GeorgeSmith during all this?

For months there was spec-ulation about Jennifer’s where-abouts in the hours beforeand after her husband re-turned to their stateroom. Ininterviews she has given, sheinsists she remembers nothing after leav-ing the casino. On its face, this might ap-pear suspicious. No guest came forwardto establish where she had been. Indeed,the questions surrounding her whereaboutslay thinly atop the big question: Did Jen-nifer Hagel-Smith have anything to do withher husband’s disappearance?

The mystery began to clear up in Janu-ary, when Royal Caribbean issued its timeline of events. According to several wit-nesses, Jennifer was seen leaving the discoat about 3:15—just minutes before Georgeand his friends left. It should have takenher less than five minutes to return to herstateroom. If she had walked directly there,she might have been there when Georgewas partying with Askin and the Russianboys—the “drinking games” Clete Hymanheard began around 4, which continueduntil at least 4:20. In fact, had Jennifer re-turned to the room, there’s little doubtthe night would have ended differently.If George met an accidental death, she

PARADISE LOSTAbove, George Smith on his honeymoon; right, a stateroom with balcony on Brillianceof the Seas.


the second pair of security men knew ofthe first pair. “So they knock,” says BillWright, a Royal Caribbean senior vicepresident, “and no one answers. So theygo in, look in the bathroom, look around.No one’s there. That’s it. They were justlooking for her companion.”

A wheelchair was summoned for Jen-nifer, and she was accompanied back to herstateroom by two security men and a fe-male employee. They re-entered her cabinat 4:57. The three Royal Caribbean offi-cers guided Jennifer to the bed,where she lay down atop thecovers. Today, Royal Caribbeansays none of its men noticedanything amiss—no signs of astruggle, blood trails, or any-thing that would remotelysuggest wrongdoing. As theywere leaving, Clete Hymanstuck his head out the doorof his room and told themof his earlier complaint. Heurged them to go inside. Theysaid they had just been inside.Hyman returned to bed.

Jennifer slept about threehours, until eight o’clock. Whenshe woke and found no signof George, she later told au-thorities, she didn’t worry.She claimed he had slept out-side their stateroom at leastone other evening during thecruise. The Smiths had mas-sage appointments at 8:30.She kept hers and later saidshe expected her husbandwould show up at the spa.When he didn’t, she went onwith her massage anyway. By this timeline, George Smith had not been seenfor more than four hours.

A t about the time Jennifer Hagel-Smitharrived for her massage, several pas-sengers on their balconies had no-

ticed the bloodstain on the white canopy.A group of ship’s officers examined it, asdid Captain Lachtaridis. All knew what thismight mean: Brilliance of the Seas was ex-periencing what Royal Caribbean terms an“overboard situation.”

But who went overboard? There werefour decks of staterooms above the blood-stains. Captain Lachtaridis ordered a checkof the four staterooms directly above theblood, plus the eight rooms on either side.Guests’ entry onto and exit from the shipis monitored via a card system called Sea-pass; it took only minutes to establish thatmany of the guests in those rooms hadalready gone ashore. It took less than anhour to determine that the Smiths werethe only guests not accounted for.

A page for Mr. and Mrs. George Smithwas announced on the ship’s intercom. Af-ter a few minutes, a spa attendant called tosay Jennifer was in a massage room. Threeofficers went down to meet her. She saidshe had no idea where her husband was.She said she assumed he might be sleepingsomewhere else aboard ship. The officers,who refrained from mentioning the blood-stains for fear of alarmingJennifer, escorted her to anurse’s office. Marie Bre-

heret came in and, with other officers, gen-tly explained the situation.

“She was like a zombie,” Breheret says.“She was just desperate. She had a lookin her eyes that said, ‘Help me.’ She wascrying. She seemed to be confused. Wecalled in the doctor, to make sure she wasO.K. She couldn’t go back to the room.So we found an empty cabin. I took herthere. Because she couldn’t get any clothes,we opened the shop to get her someclothes. They all had the Royal Caribbeanlogo. Those are the only items we sell,you know.”

A few minutes after the Smiths werepaged, Askin approached a ship’s officerand volunteered that he had been party-ing with the Smiths late the previous night.

He said they were probably in their state-room, asleep. Later, once it became clearGeorge was missing, Askin was paged tobe questioned. “When Joshua heard theannouncement,” says Breheret, “he cameto us with his mom. When Jennifer ar-rived, Mrs. Askin was acting very mother-ly toward Jennifer. She was hugging her.She kept saying, ‘Don’t worry, we will

find him.’ I thought they werefriends. I thought they werecruising all together.”

B oth Jennifer and Askinwere led ashore to beinterviewed by the Turk-

ish police; neither Rusty Kof-man nor any of the Rozenbergs was in-terviewed. Police also boarded the ship,photographed the bloodstained canopy,and searched the Smiths’ stateroom. Ac-cording to Greer, Askin’s attorney, theyfound droplets of blood on a bedsheetand a towel. Greer, who has reviewedTurkish documents on the case, says theamount of blood was small—not, he in-sists, an amount consistent with someonebeing stabbed or seriously injured. “It wasn’tsomething that someone was hiding,” hesays. “This was on a boat, remember. If youdo something nefarious, you throw it over-board and it’s gone forever. You don’t leaveit lying around.”

The Turks later turned over their find-ings to the F.B.I. So did Royal Caribbean,which says it has given the F.B.I. nearly100 tapes from security cameras aroundthe ship. With permission from the au-thorities, Captain Lachtaridis ordered thebloodstains hosed off at six that even-

ing, and prepared toleave Turkey. Sever-al days later he fileda report with author-ities in the Bahamas,where the ship ischartered, termingGeorge’s disappear-

ance a “probable” accident; the Smith-family attorneys have used this to suggest aRoyal Caribbean cover-up. A Royal Carib-bean attorney says the captain acted on apremature assumption and calls the report’sfiling “a stupid mistake.”

There is no suggestion that anyoneseriously considered mounting an oceansearch. The ship had covered nearly 200miles the previous night; George Smith,or his body, could be anywhere. Jennifer,meanwhile, telephoned her parents in Con-necticut, who broke the news to the Smithfamily. She then boarded a Lufthansa flightfor home.

That evening Brilliance of the Seas leftthe Turkish coast and headed back intothe Aegean toward Athens, where it would




IN COLD BLOOD?Below, Clete Hymanappears on ScarboroughCountry; bottom, the bloodstain as it wasfeatured on that show.

“SINCE WHEN DOES A CRUISE LINEHAVE AN OBLIGATION TO BECOME A C.S.I. UNITAND SOLVE CRIMES?” ASKS ONE PASSENGER.[


anchor the next morning at the Greekport of Piraeus. The drama involving theSmiths was over, but troubles with Ros-tislav Kofman and the Rozenberg boyswere just picking up steam. Two more in-cidents involving them allegedly occurredover the next 48 hours. One evening, shipofficials say, Greg Rozenberg was cardedat the disco. His passport indicated he was17. He insisted he was 18. Marie Breheretwas summoned, as were Greg’s parents.According to attorneys familiar with whathappened, the parents argued to Breheretthat the passport was in error, that Gregwas in fact 18, but Greg was barred fromthe disco.

On another occasion, Breheret took a

call from one of the women who answeredroom-service calls. She complained thatKofman and the Rozenberg boys hadphoned in an order and, during the courseof ordering, cursed at her. Breheret pickedup the phone, called the boys, and tooktheir order. She says she told them theywould have to be more polite. They assuredher they would be. Even so, Breheret feltthat two more incidents justified a secondmeeting with the Rozenberg parents.

Once again they were summoned to thehotel director’s office. This time Breheretwas emphatic. “I would say they werehelpful and nice again,” she says, “but wemade it very clear; we told them that ifthis kind of situation reoccurred, we willask them to leave the ship. We made itvery clear—there won’t be any furtherwarnings.”

On Thursday, July 7, an elderly passen-ger had a heart attack and died. After theship docked at Naples the next morn-ing, Breheret spent the day helping thewidow. Which is why she didn’t get in-volved that morning when a 20-year-oldwoman—her identity has not been madepublic—arrived at the medical center and,according to one source, asked a nurseabout the morning-after pill. The nursesensed something was amiss, and gentlypressed the girl, who during the ensuingconversation said she had been the victimof a rape.

What happened next ishazy at best; no one directlyinvolved in handling the girl’s

allegation has been willing to discuss it indetail. But according to attorneys workingon the Smith investigation, the girl iden-tified those involved as Rusty Kofman andthe three Rozenberg boys. Once again,ship officials called in both sets of Rozen-berg parents, as well as Josh Askin’s par-ents. The incident, it turned out, had beenvideotaped. Attorneys on the case say oneof the Rozenberg parents produced a copyof the tape. Another copy, these attorneyssay, was “found”—they won’t say how.

Of the young men on the tape, only

Rusty Kofman, via his attorney, AlbertDayan, has addressed it publicly, acknowl-edging that Kofman took part, but claim-ing the sex was consensual. Dayan saysKofman was asleep in his room that nightwhen one of the Rozenbergs telephonedhim, told him they were having sex witha young woman they had met in the ship’ssolarium area, and asked him to bringhis camera, which he did. Askin’s attorneysays his client took no part in the incidentwhatsoever. The Rozenbergs’ attorney,Arthur Gershfeld, refuses to discuss it.

M eanwhile,word spreadthat the young meninvolved in the rape

allegation were the sameyoung men rumored tohave been last seen withGeorge Smith. “When werealized it was the same

names involved, I was concernedfor our safety,” says a person whowas traveling with the girl involvedin the rape allegations. “Especiallywhen we made some accusations. Iwas concerned—where was all thisgoing to lead?”

Royal Caribbean officials, how-ever, moved swiftly to defuse thesituation. Hours after the girl hadcome forward, both Rozenberg fam-ilies and the Askin family—13 peo-ple in all—were escorted off theship. A number of guests gatheredon balconies to see them go. “Wewatched this group as they walkedoff and down to their luggage onthe dock,” says the person travel-ing with the girl. “We were justtickled to death [they were gone]. Iwatched them go down throughsecurity at the end of the dock,and it was obvious that Italian cus-

toms put them through the ringer, ab-solutely everything they had, item byitem. It took them a long time to gothrough customs.”

Afterward, the rape allegation was re-viewed by a magistrate in Naples. Accord-ing to an Italian newspaper article, themagistrate, after viewing the videotape,found no evidence of a crime. Others in-volved in the incident, however, say themagistrate did not rule on the evidence,but instead declared that the court hadno jurisdiction, and turned the case over


KE

VIN

WO

LF



BEARING WITNESSJennifer listens to testimony in Congressabout the disappearanceof her husband, December 13, 2005.

“JENNIFER WAS LIKE A ZOMBIE,”BREHERET SAYS. “SHE WAS JUST DESPERATE. SHE HAD A LOOK IN HER EYES THAT SAID, ‘HELP ME.’”[





to the American Consulate. The F.B.I. isnow investigating the case.

News of George Smith’s disappearancegenerated several national media reportslast summer, including pieces by DatelineNBC and A Current Affair, but all efforts todig further into the case were stymied bythe grief-stricken Smith and Hagel fami-lies, who refused to talk to the press. “Itwas total shutdown mode,” says BradHamilton, a reporter for the New York Post.“You went to the liquor store and employ-ees worried they might be fired if theytalked. I talked to the store’s distribu-tors. They were aggressively hostile. Wewent to the Hagel home, on a cul-de-sacin Cromwell. The neighbors were aggres-sively hostile. For the most part, you know,the story just went nowhere.”

E verything changed in December, how-ever, when both Jennifer and theSmith family suddenly opened up,

granting television interviews and agree-ing to testify before a congressional com-mittee—chaired by Connecticut’s Christo-pher Shays—investigating cruise-ship safe-ty. Both criticized Royal Caribbean: theSmiths for its supposed failure to keepthem apprised of the investigation intoGeorge’s death, Jennifer for what she de-scribed as poor treatment by ship’s offi-cers the day of his disappearance. Sheclaims she was left alone in Turkey to fendfor herself, a contention strongly deniedby Royal Caribbean officials.

Caught off guard, Royal Caribbeanbrought in a crisis-management team ofattorneys from the Washington firm ofOrrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe headedby Lanny Davis, a special White Housecounsel to President Clinton. In early Jan-uary, when a torrent of news stories andcable chatter surged after a holiday lull,the Davis team led Royal Caribbean of-ficials in a spirited defense against claimsthey had neglected Jennifer, sullied the“crime scene,” and downplayed George’sdeath.

They produced Marie Breheret, whosaid she had been at Jennifer’s side almostevery minute she spent in Turkey. They is-sued a time line laying out everything theyknew about what had happened, as wellas a list of the “Top Ten Myths” aboutGeorge’s disappearance. When Jenniferagreed to discuss the case on Oprah, RoyalCaribbean’s president, Adam Goldstein,went on the show and apologized to herfor how the incident was handled.

“It’s so hard to attack back,” Davis toldme. “What are you going to do, attack agrieving mother? You can’t win. But they’reaccusing us of a criminal conspiracy, ofcovering up a crime. We have to figure out,What do you do in this Internet-cable-do-

it-first-before-you-do-it-right kind of echochamber? This is a great example of thisculture of cable TV and misinformationthat starts to gain its own reality.”

O verall, Royal Caribbean has succeed-ed in countering the most damningclaims. There seems to be little sub-

stance to Jennifer’s complaints of beingabandoned. And while two family attor-neys—James Walker and Brett Rivkind ofMiami—have eaten up hours of coveragecastigating the cruise line for “contaminat-ing” the “crime scene” by failing to seal itoff, several guests caught up in the furordefend Royal Caribbean. “They did sealthe room; we were right next to it,” saysClete Hyman. “And I worked with Marie.She was extremely compassionate and pro-fessional. I see all of this, frankly, as asmoke screen erected by attorneys who areonly interested in money.”

The guest who was traveling with thegirl who initiated the rape allegation agrees.“Watching all this stuff in the press, I just

started feeling very, very sorry for RoyalCaribbean,” this passenger says. “The day allthis took place, with the help of the ship’sdoctor, who was extremely nice, we had thename of the F.B.I. agent who was involvedin the case, his telephone number, all thatstuff, within hours. This is just so differentfrom the way Royal Caribbean has been por-trayed. I mean, since when does a cruise linehave an obligation to become a C.S.I. unitand solve crimes? This whole thing is crazy.”

While the war of words continues, theF.B.I. investigation drags on. Attorneys forRusty Kofman and Josh Askin say theirclients have been repeatedly interviewedby the F.B.I. They say the Rozenberg boyshave not agreed to similar interviews; theRozenbergs’ attorney won’t say whether thisis true. So far, most lawyers involved in thecase speculate, no one has admitted tomuch of anything beyond having consen-sual sex with the 20-year-old woman. With-out a confession, the case may be difficultto solve. “That’s what worries me,” saysClete Hyman. “That [the F.B.I.] may nevercome out and say anything.”

So what really happened to GeorgeSmith?

Even his family isn’t sure. “We getmore and more confused each day,” saysBree.

“I don’t,” says Maureen.

“I do,” says Bree. “You know, Josh Askinis in the media one day, this Rusty Kof-man the next. I just don’t know . . . ”

“I’m actually convinced that the F.B.I.has the answers,” says Maureen, “and Ithink there are arrests coming down, andthere needs to be. My son was murderedon this cruise ship.”

He may well have been. But, based onthe evidence presented thus far, I’m in-clined to think the four (or three) youngmen who departed the room that morn-ing left George alone and alive. Clete Hy-man emphasizes that he heard nothingup to that point that could be construedas a struggle. If one of the young menstayed behind in the room, it would besuspicious. It’s difficult to believe thatJosh Askin, a college student with no pri-or links to Kofman and the Rozenbergbrothers, would cover up for them ifone of them had remained behind inSmith’s cabin. If it was Askin who re-mained behind, it’s difficult to believethe others wouldn’t finger him. Current-

ly, there’s no evidence that anyone elsevisited the stateroom.

Why would someone want to killGeorge Smith anyway? There’s been spec-ulation that he spoke of having a largeamount of cash in his stateroom, but noone involved in the case says any moneywas missing. A plausible scenario re-volves around an otherwise innocuousfact that hasn’t been made public: GeorgeSmith, like many men, apparently enjoyeda good cigar while on vacation. At leastone guest had smelled cigar smoke waft-ing from his room earlier in the cruise.The noises Hyman heard after the youngmen left that morning—drawers openingand closing—could well have been Georgehunting up a cigar. Maybe he took itoutside to smoke and decided to sit onthe balcony railing.

The ship’s captain, Michael Lachtaridis,later told Royal Caribbean executives hesaw what he called a “butt print” on thebalcony railing—the outline of a derrièrein the dew the next morning. Even allow-ing for the captain’s premature statementthat George’s death was possibly an ac-cident, his statement can’t be discountedentirely. “The boat was rocking prettygood that night,” one passenger told me.“If he sat up on that railing, it wouldn’tbe hard to fall off—especially if he wasreally, really drunk.” !!

“THIS WAS ON A BOAT,” SAYS ASKIN’S LAWYER. “IF YOU DO SOMETHING NEFARIOUS, YOU THROWIT OVERBOARD AND IT’S GONE FOREVER.” [


in v e s t ig a t io n honeym oon over - bryan burrough · n m onday evening, july 4, 2005, a m am...

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