Claudia Kirschhoch Pt. Two

Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series on the unsolved disappearance of Claudia Kershak Robin, do you want to catch everyone up on what we talked about in our previous episode? Well, Claudia Kershok was a twenty nine year old woman from New York who had just gotten a job as a travel writer, which was her dream job because she was now getting paid

to travel the world and write about it. She was supposed to go to a resort opening in Cuba, but during a layover in Jamaica, she was denied access to the country because of tensions between Cuba and the US, so she got to spend a couple of days staying at an all expenses paid trip at a resort in Jamaica alongside another travel writer named Tanya Rosinger, because they had to wait a couple of days in order for her to get a flight

back to New York. According to Tanya, Claudia told her that she had gone out in a date with a resort bartender named Anthony Grant and that they had smoked some marijuana and gone skinny dipping, and then Tanya took an earlier flight back home Claudia said she was going to return home in a few days, but she never did, and they checked her room at the resort.

All her personal items were still there, and the last confirmed sighting of her she was seen on a beach, so it seemed like she had gone to go sunbathing or something before something happened to her, and there was a lot of shady behavior by the resort. They lost some of her personal items,

They did not seal off the room as a crime scene. They tried to do a lot of victim blaming and a press conference saying that she was promiscuous and that Claudia ran off on her own, probably to cover up the fact

that she was a likely victim of foul. The FBI brought in to do a search of Anthony Grant's residence and his vehicle, and a tracking dog detected Claudius sent in the trunk and also traces of her sent on Anthony's boots and a pair of gloves she owned, and eventually got to the point where he

stopped talking to the authorities. He hired an attorney and he wound up failing a polygraph to test, but they did not find any evidence to implicate him in Claudia's disappearance, and sadly, here we are twenty three years later, no trace of Claudia has been found. They suspect she was the victim of foul play, but there just isn't enough evidence to implicate anyone, so it

remains an unsolved cold case after twenty three years. So even though all missing persons cases are a traumatic experience for the victim's loved ones, it's particularly difficult when the victim goes missing in a foreign country that they are not familiar with, because this can lead to all sorts of additional issues with red tape and the local authorities. But the ironic thing about this story is that Claudia went

missing from a country she wasn't planning to visit to begin with. Remember, her original assignment was to attend a travel junket in Cuba, where things were pretty tense at that time. So when she contacted her parents to let them know she was being denied entry there, they actually breathed a sigh of relief, never imagining that she would go missing from an entirely different country instead. Jamaica has always had serious issues with violent crime, but it also relies heavily

on its tourism industry, which generates over a billion dollars per year. This is why the attempt to betray resort areas like beaches n grill as safe zones, and tourists are generally discouraged from leaving these areas for their own safety. But the problem with Plaudius cases is that she was last seeing at one of these supposedly safe resorts, and one of the resort's employees was suspected of potentially being involved in her disappearance. That's the kind of thing which can scare tourists

away. Oh boy, can it right? That is exactly what these kinds of large tourists driven industries can't have, right. We talked on episode one about places like Disney World in sandals resorts and beaches. They can't have a headline that says young American tourist vanishes right from our resort or our last seen at the resort. So in this case, like you said, the family

is not just battling a demand for answers. In a typical case, they're trying to figure out what are the laws, what are the investigative practices, what are the practices of this resort she was last at. Right, there's all these things that they're battling as barriers to answers in the disappearance of their daughters. So whereas if Reagan went missing right here, I would know Berryville Police Department, Carroll County Sheriff's Department, and perhaps like the FBI and things

like that, right, but larger institutions would come and respond. Here. I know how our neighborhoods work. I know the people involved. This family was kind of at a loss and fighting so mightily for any indication of what happened to their baby. Like you have publicity that an American tourist goes missing at one of your resorts, Like that's a very bad thing because you rely

on America for such a large chunk of your tourism industry. So it seems very very obvious that the resort was trying to push forward any sort of narrative so that they wouldn't have to admit that Claudia might have met with foul play on their property. It seems so political, such a shame in these countries when something like this happens and there seems to be pressure from politicians the institution

in this case a billion dollar tourism industry. What almost feels like the conclusion of not having any answers is the foregone conclusion, right, Like, it's better to have some kind of ambiguity than to find out that a guest an American guest husband murdered in a resort, Right. I think that is the absolute worst case scenario because they've listened to so many different cases that are overseas where you have either Americans, Canadians, Australians, whomever traveling in countries that

you believe that they would take it seriously. But it seems like there is like zero motivation to actually look into these things, and it's shocking, and especially in this situation, we can kind of understand why they're doing it because there probably is a lot of outside pressures and when you're trying to protect something like a very poor country that is worth over a billion dollars, that is

something that people will go to great lengths to protect. One of the most controversial moments in this case was when Leo Lambert, the head of pr At Sandals resort, held a press conference in which he portrayed Claudia as a wild, promiscuous woman and tried to push forward the idea that she just wanted to run away and start a new life by living in the hills with some Jamaican lover, but of course that idea was completely ridiculous, since Claudia always maintained

a close relationship with her family and had recently moved into a new apartment and was pretty much work her dream job as it allowed her to travel the world and get paid for it. And even if Claudia did have a reason to run off, she left all of her personal items behind in her hotel room

and literally had nothing on besides a bikini t shirt and portable radio. This was an obvious attempt to protect the public image of Sandals, resorts and the Jamaican tourist industry, as they wanted to dispel the idea that American tourists might have been abducted and murdered, and instead pushed forward the narrative that Claudia just took off voluntarily. If you guys think about media coverage of several missing persons

and murder cases, you'll see really negative things about the victim. That victim blaming and shaming that we always talk about. So you'll have a story that has nothing to do with the fact that an individual was let's say a dancer, an exotic dancer, or an escort. Right, let's say her boyfriend murders her. Well, the fact that she was an escort means nothing. But you'll see that in a headline like escort murdered, you know, and it causes you to stop and go why why are those factors put in this

story? Why was Claudia portrayed as a scandalous kid who messed up and therefore kind of deserved what was coming to her? And the reality is that if you don't behave the way Claudia did, you're safe. So they want to paint a picture that, you know, you don't engage in drugs, you don't have sex, you're not promiscuous, you're not kind of ignorant to your surroundings, so you're safe. Here's why Claudia would have been a victim.

They paint this kind of isolated picture where I can read a news story and separate from it and say, oh, that wouldn't happen to me because I don't do these things. It's like the true crime equivalent of an urban legend, where it's trying to stop kids from wanting to have sex and act wild. And it's one of those things where it's like, well, if you remain chaste in your a quote unquote good girl, then things like this won't

happen, which is so ridiculous because these factors play in those cases. But we see it again and again. You read publications like the Daily Mail, for example, and you'll see things like stripper is murdered or escort is murdered, and it's like ash said, absolutely zero to do with the job that they did. It'll be something completely random, but yet that splashed all over the headlines because it's delacious and it allows people to feel safe. Oh,

you're so right. I mean, like, think about the way we teach sexual assault prevention, right, We're like, don't wear scandalous clothes, don't drink at the party, don't do these things. And it's like I will always tell kids that I'm talking to, I'm like, if someone wants to hurt you, they will like, there are definitely ways you could be quote safe, but when someone wants to victimize you, right, it is their

choice and their power that somehow gets to you. There's really not a way to say that couldn't happen to me because all of us are not immune. None of us are immune from being somebody's victim if they decide they want to

take advantage of us or they want to heard us. It always strikes me too that it's like young women are told so much about what they should do for sexual assault prevention, but I feel like the education really needs to start with young boys, and it really needs to start with children, right, But the owners shouldn't and the responsibility shouldn't have to be put entirely on women, and men shouldn't be treated as these creatures that are unable and incapable of

controlling themselves, because that just isn't true, and it's just so damaging to both sexes when that narrative remains the pervasive one. Anyway, we've already made

comparisons between this case and the disappearance of Natalie Holloway. Claudia story did receive a lot of coverage from the media at the time it originally happened, and was even featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, but of course it was nowhere near as big as Natalie's story and pretty much got pushed out of the Spotlight after two thousand and five, I know that Fred and Mary Ann Kershaw

supposedly reached a confidential settlement with Sandel's resorts after they filed their lawsuit against so I wonder if this has prevented any new information about the case from being released over the past decade. Now, if for any reason you're not familiar with Natalie Holloway's disappearance, here's a brief synopsis of the parallels with Claudia's case.

Natalie was an eighteen year old high school graduate from Alabama who went on a school trip to Aruba in May of two thousand and five, but was reported missing after she failed to make her flight home. She was last seen leaving a nightclub with a local seventeen year old named Haran Vanderslout and two of his friends, but was never seen again. And like Claudia, Natalie left behind

all of her personal items in her hotel room. Well. As you probably know, most people suspect that Haran Vanderslut was responsible for Natalie's disappearance, and he is currently serving time in a Peruvian prison as he murdered another young woman named Stephanie Flores Ramirez on the exact five year anniversary of what Natalie went missing, and much like Claudia's case, there have been complaints about a corrupt or

in Compe police investigation and allegations that a cover up took place. But while Harod Vanderslout hailed from a prominent and influential family, the primary person of interest in Claudia's disappearance, Anthony Grant, was just a resort bartender without any powerful

ties. However, there is compelling evidence to suggest that his employer took steps to cover up what happened to Claudia, though this may have been done for reasons which extended beyond protecting Anthony, who still wound up losing his job just for going out on a date with Claudia. While Harod Vanderslout's self destructive exploits following Natalie's disappearance are very well documented, I have no idea what happened to

Anthony Grant or what he's up to today. You're absolutely right. When we look at the difference between Anthony Grant and your Ron Vander's salute, it is

a stark difference. Yes, they were both acquainted with this individual who went missing, but Anthony Grant seems like he's trying to be somewhat forthcoming while not telling the whole is how I feel in my gut where he's saying, yes, I was with her, Yes I was intimate with her, Yes I broke protocol, But I didn't kill her, right Like, I'm not the one responsible for this. So Anthony, the biggest thing I think he was facing was that we know he's going to lose his job because he was hanging

out with a tourist. But then you get this dog sniffing evidence and it goes from a you've lost your job to you could literally lose your life to a prison sentence. So I would love to know if there's more pointing to Anthony Grant or if at this point that's all we have this dog sniffing evidence and that he was obviously taking her beyond that safe gate of the resort.

Well, we'll talk more about this later on, but I definitely think there's evidence to the points that he knows more than he's letting on, but may not have necessarily been the one who killed her. So here's what we do know. The last person who can confirm having spoken with Claudia before she went missing is Tanyu Grossinger, who had breakfast with her on the morning twenty seventh.

Claudia was then seen walking down the beach later by a lifeguarded around one thirty pm that afternoon, and while eye witnesses and missing persons cases can often be mistaken, I'm inclined to believe this one might be legitimate. Since the only items missing from Claudia's room were a bikini, T shirt and portable radio, that definitely suggests she was heading to the beach before something happened to her.

Of course, the simplest explanation would be that Claudia walked into the water and drowned, but it seems like this theory has been completely discounted because everyone

believes her body would have washed up on the shore at some point. The Jamaica can Stabulary Force have even dismissed the idea that Claudia drowned, and given how certain people from that area seemed to have an interest in getting away from the idea that she was a victim of foul play, the police probably would have pushed the drowning theory much harder if there was any possibility of it being true. It's very clear here what Claudia was going to do that day,

so I don't think it's a question mark, right. She has breakfast with Tanya and then she's going to out to the beach. They assess her room and they see, obviously nothing's missing except her bikini, this T shirt, and a portable radio. To me, that's a typical young woman who's going to let's say sunbathe she'd be going to sit and have drinks with friends on the beach. But it was very purposeful. Do you guys think she could have also had her cell phone or do we know that it was recovered in

the room and then later went missing. I think they established that they did find it in the safe, but it went missing later on for a completely different reason. I have a question, how do they know what was missing from her room. It's not like they had an itinerary of all of her belongings prior to her disappearing, So it just seems strange that they're like, only these three items were missing. How would anybody know? Yeah, that

is true, that's a good point. I don't know how they were able to determine that, say, she didn't have an extra pair of clothes on her at the time, because how are they going to know how much clothing that she brought with her on the trip. I mean, obviously she left most of her important items behind, like her passport and cell phone, but I don't know how they could be certain that these were the only items that she was carrying at the time she went missing. No, I didn't mean

itinerary, meant itemized list of Okay, itinerary. That did not make any sense. Now. Most of the information we know about the relationship between Claudia and Anthony Grant is from a third hand source, Tanya Crozinger, who was simply relaying the information that Claudia shared with her. According to Tanya, Claudia's stories that she went to a nightclub with Anthony on the evening of Made the

twenty fifth and smoke some marijuana with him before they went skinny dipping. However, she apparently maintained that she did not have sex with Anthony, and when he asked her out again the following night, she declined. Of course, Anthony denied even knowing Claudia for months until he was questioned by the FBI, but he then claimed he did have sex with Claudia and that they went out

for a second time. I unmade the twenty sixth. Now, Tanya claims this isn't true because she had dinner with Claudia on the evening of the twenty six But I guess we can't completely discount the possibility that after they parted ways, Claudia could have met up with Anthony later that night. But if she did, she never mentioned this to Tanya when they had breakfast together on the

morning of the twenty seventh. Now it must be stated that it really doesn't matter whether or not Claudia actually had sex with Anthony, because either way it's her own business. But if they didn't have sex and she turned out Anthony asking her out a second time, then this could have given him a potential motive to go after her on the twenty seventh. So y'all are definitely on

the path here. I remember in episode one, I'm like, well, listen, he could actually be being very honest right that, yes, I had sex with her, and Claudia could have actually been being very respectful of Tanya and saying, like we're on a work trip. I respect to you.

I want you to view me in a very clean and pure light on a work outeam and I didn't have sex with the He just wants you to know that, right, Like I could see telling my friends like, oh, by the way, I didn't do anything with him, right to have that kind of reputation kept up. But then when you start to talk about she goes missing, and you guys very correctly, we're like, wait a

minute. By planting that Seamen could have been found, right, or his DNA might be found had her body ever been recovered, he could have also been covering his tracks, which then makes this a very different scenario. Looking at this and the way that Tanya says Claudia had gone out with him and then denied him the next night almost makes me feel in my gut that maybe something did happen where he was asking her to take it further or was trying

to force himself on her, making her therefore uncomfortable. And then like you said, now Anthony has a motive to say I want Claudia, she said no, it's now this quest to go get what I want and or be with a a people who helps me kind of facilitate that social dynamic. Robin, let me ask you a question. Do you think that there's a possibility that like Anthony in the situation could look super guilty and that there is this

other nefarious force, maybe like sex traffickers on the island. Who then maybe even though Anthony may have done something to her, maybe he slept with her, maybe he didn't, Maybe he took it too far, Maybe he was afraid of what made happen, and maybe he tipped off somebody that he knew about this woman who was staying there, who's this attractive travel writer who's there for a short period of time, and maybe she could be in line with

the type of women that they may be looking to abduct, given that I'm sure there are certain people that would like an American woman. Has that ever been listed as a possibility. I haven't heard anything about sex trafficking, But as we're going to talk about, there have been other rumors that Anthony may not have been directly responsible for what happened to Claudia, but may know what happened, like he could have been involved in the cover up, or he

could have witnessed her death. And as we're going to talk about, there was the anonymous letters saying that she went to a party and consumed a date rape drug and then wound up convulsing and dying. So there aren't a number of possibilities other than Anthony being the killer and maybe a thing where maybe he had no idea that she was going to be harmed, but he did something like maybe pointed her in the direction of the wrong person, so that he

kind of is indirectly responsible. And obviously, even if he didn't actually kill her, he doesn't want to admit his culpability because he thinks it might look bad for him. We talked about in part one that he took a polygraph, and we all know that polygraphs are not admissible, they're not very reliable. But it is interesting that when he was asked a bunch of questions he failed. The one question that he did pass, was he directly responsible for

Claudia's death? And he answered no, and it appeared that he was truthful. Yeah, exactly, Here's what I wonder, you know, like she's going to all these local places where Anthony's really to me take care on this very romantic, kind of culturally based experience where shoot, if I was single and I was in a foreign country and I found someone that I really bonded with and felt very safe with, I would absolutely want to go and experience

his family, his neighborhood, his hangouts. Who knows who else she met at those locations. So, like you said, Anthony likely has more information or at least is a bigger link to this story than we're aware of. But I don't know that it's Anthony per se, or was it someone Anthony

exposed her too. I'm almost leaning more towards like a bigger story and a bigger I don't know a bigger acquaintance group to investigate than just Anthony, because it is powerful that he passed that question did you directly impact the disappearance of

Claudia? And he passed that question. Of course, even if he had no involvement in Claudia's disappearance, I can still understand why Anthony would have felt the need to lie about having gone out with Claudia, since he apparently had another girlfriend at the time and it was a fireable offense for employees to date guests. Obviously, you can't put a lot of stock into the results of

polygraph tests, like we just said, since they're not completely reliable. YEA, Since he had another girlfriend at the time and it was a fireable offense

for employees to date guests. Claudia's parents have always expressed their belief that even if Anthony did not directly harm her, he may have introduced her, like ashe just said, to someone else who did and at the very least knows exactly what happened and is withholding information or at least has names like that's really where my gut is, right, like who did you bring Claudia around? Now? The problem, like you said, is he has a lot of

reasons to keep his mouth quiet. Right. Anthony is up against law enforcement who's invest seating him for the disappearance. He has a girlfriend, and he's skinny dipping and smoking weed and going on this kind of romantic rendezvous with Claudia. That's a problem. He has an employer who if he's caught with this guest, which he was obviously with, he's going to be fired. That

is a problem. When you look at Jamaica and you look at the economy of Jamaica, there's many families who if they have a family member who's steadily employed like Anthony, would have been at a sandals resort right or a beach's resort. That's critical for more than just Anthony, Right, he could be feeding several people in his home. He could be the breadwinner of the entire family. So you have law enforcement, your employer, your girlfriend, the

community, everyone's looking at you for answers. Right, that's a lot of stress on him. But I think he knows names of Like listen, when we were at this bar, my friends, you know, X, Y and Z were there and they took particular interest in Claudia. Does he have it in him to give up the people he exposed her too? Or is he too scared for all of the collateral damage that comes with that kind of

information. And you're correct about Anthony's job, because he was living with his mother and sisters at that time, and for all we know, he may have been supporting them because getting a job as a resort bartender would be pretty high class, like pretty lavish in Jamaica. So I'm sure he felt that if I lose this job, I could be living in poverty, and that

could have given an ulterior motive to lie. Oh for sure. Think about a sandals resort or a beach's resort, like I went to one one time, and it was like, if you're going to invest in that it is kind of like we're going to really spoil ourselves and be incredibly luxurious in this. And if you're in that situation to make that decision, you know, his tips were great. You know that he was incredibly personable. Look at how he got Claudia away from the resort and got her to trust him.

So people with that kind of personality, that kind of genuine connection with the people, they're Surrey drinks too. You know, people were tipping big time, they were really enjoying having Anthony as their bartender. And so I am pretty convinced that this was not just a job for him, this was a

way of life to provide for many more people than just himself. Oh can you imagine, like most jobs that you'd be, you'd probably just make what like ten dollars American a day at the time, twenty dollars American a day at the time, Max, And being a bartender. I remember, you know, I've gotten to Mexico so many times more than I can count, gone to Dominican and done all inclusives, and even when you're staying at a

really nice place and you don't have to pay for drinks. I remember picking my favorite bartenders and then being like, you know, here's fifty bucks, just keep the drinks coming today type of a thing. So if you have that happened from several guests, you could be walking out with hundreds of American

dollars per day on top of what you're making at the resort. So yeah, I would think that would be a pretty lavish life where you would be able to support your sisters and your mother and potentially a partner as well and children like that would be incredible money for somewhere like Negrille. I think one of the biggest flaws with the original investigation by the Jamaica Constabulary for US is that they automatically believed Anthony when he denied knowing Claudia and did not push him

harder like the FBI did. One of the local detectives was interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries and stated that Anthony is not considered a suspect, which I find a bit odd, but I guess the wording might have been a bit ambiguous, and that doesn't necessarily mean that they've eliminated him as a suspect. I certainly don't believe there's enough evidence to actually make an arrest. But even if you discount Anthony's lying, I believe there's enough reason to be suspicious of them.

A strand of Claudia's hair was found in Anthony's vehicle, and a tracking dog detected or sent there, which might not be suspicious on its own, since by his own admission, he did drive Claudia to a nightclub. However, it's a bit more troubling that our scent was detected inside the trunk. The scent being detected on a pair of Anthony's boots could be explained away, since

he could have warned them on the night he went out with her. But it's a bit more troubling that it was detected on a pair of gloves. Why would Anthony be wearing those on a date he wouldn't be, so in my core, I have to ask, like, what was this dog detecting? Was it trained to pick up like let's say a bloodhound and a missing child, where they smell, you know, their clothes and their hair brushes and their teddy bears, and they get that scent of the familiar person,

right, and they chase the scent of that living person. If that's the case, I truly believe it's very, very possible that a dog would hit on transferable sense. Why those gloves would have been mixed up. Maybe they were in the trunk, maybe they were folded up with towels that were in the car. I don't know. I'm not saying it's not possible that this

dog is very accurate. But for some reason, dog sniffing evidence really bothers me, And so when I think about it, I have to know, like, if it's detecting decay, like in the Kaylee Anthony case, right, in Casey Anthony case, then we have a problem, right, like we have a death smell that that dog's trained to detect. But if it's simply transfer smells of familiarity, then how much would that really tell us? Could those gloves have been caught up in other things that had Claudia sent naturally

on them? And then there's the fact that Anthony called in sick on a date after Claudia was last seen and did not return to work for four days on its own. That might not look so suspicious, but it seems like one hell of a coincidence that Leo Lambert, the resort's head of public relations,

just happened to be absent from work on those exact same days. And I'm not trying to imply that Lambert himself personally harmed Claudia, but I get the impression that there had to be more than one person involved in what happened to her. It's really tough to know what to make of Lambert because he intentionally twisted information Tanya Grossinger provided to him at the press conference about Claudia's disappearance. In fact, he pretty much devolved into victim blaming when he pushed forward

the idea that Claudia ran off with a secret lover. Lambert then admitted to lying to Claudia's parents about having seen her at the resort after the last confirmed sighting of her. But you have to ask was he doing all this just to protect the resort's reputation and dispel the idea that violent crime might have taken place there, or did he actually have direct knowledge or involvement in what happened.

I think here what's really kind of crazy is Leo Lambert. Didn't he apply for like a passport or yes, tried to leave the country right when all of this happened. Yeah, like it didn't get that far. But he said he was trying to apply for a new one. And that really gives off the impression that if something is about to go down, I have to leave the country really quick. Yeah, and that's more than just like, hey, I kind of feel bad about what happened here. I'm the

PR person. I could be at risk, like the fact that your PR stunt was to spin this, right, like a PR person is a spend doctor. I studied that. That was my major in college, So I'm going to spin it to benefit my institution, right, Jules like thing we

harp on all the time. But he went dirty, he went low, and he made sure that everyone who knew about Beaches Resort knew that if you are not a scandalous drug induced, sex craved woman, that you are not going to be harmed at our institution, right, Like that our resort is safe unless you're like this woman. And so then you see him lying, covering, victim blaming and in this idea of like I'm chasing a passport,

what were you running from? Why? Other than just like I mean, so you see Gordon Butch here take a stance where he's like, listen, I am sorry for what happened. I I'm going to get the reward money. I have chastised my employees. I am trying to make changes. Do I think he did enough? I don't know. I don't have enough information to decide that was he protecting his brand absolutely, but at least he stepped forward and said I am sorry for what happened. If nothing else, the

humanity and that for the family was huge. And then you have Leo Lambert who literally takes exactly what Butch had said and kind of throws it in the family's face of your daughter is accountable for what happened to her, And I'm going to run away from that. I don't know. There's something about me that wants to grab Leo Lambert and just kind of shake him and say, what is wrong with you? Like the damage you do to this family and to your business looks really bad. So one day we have to take a

trip to Jamaica just so you can track him down and shake him. Leo, I am coming for you, for you the victim blaming. I'm coming well. The fact that potentially important evidence happen to go missing from Beaches a Grille gives off the impression that something sinister took place Sharikap once the hotel staff realized that Claudia was missing and rented it to other guests before the police had a chance to process it as a potential crime scene, and they recorded over

footage from a surveillance camera which overlooked a room. Now, I have my doubts that something actually happened to Claudia inside the room. But let's combine this with the other odd mistakes the resort made. They lost that particular month's log book, which kept a record of all the vehicles that went in and out

of the hotel. They somehow lost Claudia's cell phone after collecting it from a room, and they took the initiative of developing the film inside or camera without consulting anyone and likely destroyed it. I know they claimed there were no photographs on the role, but I find that very unlikely, as Claudia's entire job involved traveling to tourist destinations and documenting them, So there's no way she would have spent a couple days in Jamaica without taking any pictures. No, not

at all. And I'm just in my head, like white year, was this that we took this camera? Okay, at that time, I'm assuming they still were taking the film into the like into a Walmart or into a Walgreens or a photo development place, right I think? So, yeah, like this is still old school film where you would have to get it developed. You could just like pull it up like on a cell phone camera.

Okay, So at that point, that's a lot of effort in my opinion, you have a room that your boss is basically saying, this room should have been vacated. It wasn't gathered the belongings. Move them to the front desk and we'll figure out what happened. Who in their right mind said one, I'm going to take our cell phone and two I found this camera. I'm going to give the film to my boss, or two you know management, and we're actually going to take the step to go outside of the property

developed the film, look at it and do this assessment. That is not your place. It is absolutely questionable. Why this resident, why did this visitor not check out? There's a problem. Whether she attentially ran off, whether she disappeared, whether she was killed, something happened. So in my head, I'm just I cannot fathom who sat back and said, hey, take this film and go get it developed. It seems very very questionable, and in my opinion, it would show Anthony. It would show that local

bar hang out. If I was me and I was sitting there traveling finding these new experiences with people going to local culture. If that's who I am, I'm a travel blogger. I'm going to take so many pictures because it takes one hundred pictures to get that one photo worthy magazine spread to say this is my experience in Jamaica. There's no way that film didn't contain information about

her last whereabouts. There's no way, and who, like where on the chain did it get kicked out to these employees to make this concerted collaborative effort to obviously, it seems like they're concealing evidence, Like why are they so invested and so involved? It feels like somebody further up the chain had to instruct them to do this, unless they themselves were personally involved or had knowledge

as to what had happened to Claudia exactly. I mean, it'd be one thing if the police took the initiative to develop the photographs, because that's technically potential evidence. But I just don't know why, like a hotel staff would go to that trouble on their own, and it seems very likely that there

was something on that film they didn't want anyone to see. And same thing with the cell phone, like they could have lost it by accident, but maybe Claudia made a phone call to someone prior to her disappearance or received a call, and they did not want that person's name showing up on Claudia's call logs, So that's why they made her cell phone disappear. So if only one or two of these mistakes had occurred, we could probably just write them

off as sloppy or incompetence. But when you combine all of these things together, it seems pretty deliberate. Now, I'm not trying to say that Sandals Resorts Incorporated perpetuated some mammoth conspiracy in order to cover up what happened. In our last episode, we mentioned that the owner of Sandals, Gordon Butch Stewart, is one of the wealthiest, most influential people in Jamaica, and Fred and Maryann Kershok had nothing but good things to say about how he treated them.

Stewart covered all their travel expenses, contributed to the reward fund, paid for radio ads which helped spread the word about Claudia's case in the media, and he seemed just as disappointed as the Kerrshaks by how Beach's Negro handled her

disappearance. However, even though Leo Lambert was supposedly reprimanded for how he conducted himself during that press conference, a Google search revealed that Lambert was still working as Sandals corporate pr director for years afterwards, so it doesn't look like his actions cost him his job. Again. More details about how the lawsuit between Sandals and the Kershaws turned out might shed more light on how complicit the resort

was. For sure, it absolutely would. And I'm with the Kershaws where you look at this fact that Leo Lambert took your daughter's character and he slandered it in the media. Right, he's presenting that your daughter's the reason that this happened. Your resort has no responsibility in the issue. And then, like you said, you see that he's actually still in the same position.

I remember, like you, you see this at institutions like the military or universities where a student comes forward and says, you know, a dean assaulted me or a dean abused me, and then you look after this claim has came out and the dean is promoted to a vice president position, right, and you rack your brain of saying, where was the accountability? Where was the punishment? Because the victim is going to hold all of those consequences.

And it's almost as if Leo Lambert's rewarded or slapped on the wrist for what he did, and what he did was very damaging. When you say Claudia caused her disappearance, Claudia's behavior holds her accountable for what happened, you are basically saying like, I don't care, we are not responsible, and so for me, it causes a community to look at that and say, well,

neither are we. Why would we care? Why would we come forward when Claudia's to blame and I don't behave in that scandalous manner that Leoso presented. So if you want to go to Jamaica and track him down and shake him, you at least know that he's still working for Beaches and a Grille, so it won't be hard to find him. Well, I need them to pay for my trip, okay, but go fund me, you guys,

start to go fund me for me. But you have to ask if the resort was complicit, would they really have gone to all this trouble just to protect a bartender like Anthony Grant. Well, this is why some people have speculated that even if Anthony was not directly responsible for what had happened to Claudia, he might have introduced her to the person who was, And perhaps this person was much higher on the food chain and exerted enough influence to compel

the resort to dispose of evidence which pointed to their involvement. But how would these events have played out? Well, we know that Claudia was last seen on seven Mile Beach, but like its title suggests, this was a very large beach which was seven miles long. We have no idea what exact spot she was planning to settle down at, or if it was isolated enough that

she could have been attacked in broad daylight without anyone seeing anything. Now it's possible that nothing even happened at the beach and Claudie instead wound up meeting someone and left with them voluntarily. Even though all the sources described the exact items which were missing from Claudia's hotel room, one detail which isn't clear is if

she took any footwear with her. If she was only planning to walk along the beach, she might have decided to leave barefoot, But I'm not sure if she would have willingly gone somewhere else without returning to her room get some shoes as well as change your clothing, since all she had on was a bikini and a T shirt. I guess it kind of depends on what the

layout of that space was like. If you left the resort and walked straight onto the beach and she, in my opinion, she could have very easily been going to meet people that she had met, like locals that were going to be on the beach, other resort goers that were going to be on the beach, and or she was hanging out by herself and met people they were out of the beach. Claudia does not sound like somebody who's going to sit there and just be isolated from socialization. Right. She's my dale,

my friend who makes a friend in a grocery store at the mall. Right Like wherever she goes, she's going to make a friend. That's how Claudia sounds to me. So if Claudia was then going to come back to a resort room or go to a quote, another place to just kind of hang out. If she thought she was being led to just another beach area, or if she thought she was going to go back to kind of a more resort hangout area with sand and things like that, I could see her not

needing to go change. She's in the same environment. But the fact that if she was going to be going out later that night, I do think she would have come back and changed. I think you would have found her wet bait ensued and her kind of beach clothes, and you would have seen

a different kind of outfit missing. However, would Claudia have even left with someone else voluntarily since she supposedly turned down a second date with Anthony Grant, I don't know if that would imply that she wanted nothing more to do with him. We also have the odd account of these two men, one of them a Hotel jet Ski instructor, who supposedly showed up at the front desk asking for Claudia after she went missing, but then denied that this ever happened.

Details about this whole situation or sketchy. But if they're not telling the truth, does that mean Claudia became acquainted with these guys or any other men during her stay there. Well, she was at the resort for at least three days, so that definitely could have happened. But as far as I can hell, she never told Kanya Grossinger about any encounters with any men besides

Anthony Grant. Now, the Kershaws eventually received an anonymous letter which claimed that Claudia died because she had a fatal reaction to a date rate drug which was slipped into her drink at a party. This has also been pushed forward as a potential theory for Natalie Holloway's disappearance, and it's certainly plausible here. Whoever was responsible may never have planned on killing Claudia, but once she reacted badly to the drug, they had to cover up the whole thing and dispose of

her body. If one or more employees from the resort were complicit in this, then it would definitely explain their need to destroy potential evidence and orchestra to cover up. I'm with you, I mean, Anthony Grant alone was not worth covering all of these things, having this kind of conspiracy theory going against Claudia and her family. But if you had multiple people at the resort who were complicit in this act. Right, we also went out with this client.

We also went out with this customer, and we were the ones who slipped with the drink, right, Like I could easily see this being a group effort that kind of wolf packs Claudia and kind of convinces her that she's in the safe group that came from the resort. And even as high up as Leo, like, I wonder what caused him to take such a negative view towards Claudia instead of following Bush's lead, his boss's lead and saying like

this is tragic. We messed up. I'm so sorry. Was he in some way related to, very close to or knowledgeable of what was happening. Maybe he had a role to play though, do you know what I mean? Like, it's easy for the top guy to take the role. And I'm not saying this is what happened here, but it is easy for the person who's the figurehead, he's the wealthy guy, to be the quote unquote good guy and to have somebody lower down the food chain do the dirty work

and say those things and then see how it lands. And then when it doesn't lad. It's easy to step forward and be like, I'm very disappointed by the way that was handled. But would that have been the same reaction if her parents didn't kick up a stink and the media in the US some outlets didn't catch on to this and make it a big deal. Is it

more for optics or was it a genuine response? That's true, There is a good possibility that if this had been some other woman who didn't hail from such a prominent family, who didn't have a family who were such an activists, that the general public would have just accepted this explanation that she ran out voluntarily in this case would have faded from the spotlights. So that may have

been their intention all along and went a backfire. They were like, Okay, now we have to try to be helpful to the family in order to improve our optics. But how or when did Claudia wind up at this party mentioned in the letter? If the sighting of her on the beach is accurate, did she really go from there to a party dressed to nothing more than

a bikini in a T shirt. Well, if the party took place on the beach, then I guess that's a possible explanation, but we have no idea of Claudia's exact whereabouts after one thirty pm on the app noon of May twenty seventh. However, if the scenario outlined in the letter is the truth, that I would not be surprised if Anthony Grant was involved in some way,

even if he was not directly responsible. He could have brought Claudia to this party and introduced her to the individual who slipped a date rate drugs into her drink. Wherever did this could have enlisted Anthony's help to get rid of Claudia's body, which would explain why her scent was detected inside his car trunk. But overall, without a body or any evidence that a crime took place,

we can only speculate. The only thing I know for certain is that Claudia did not take off voluntarily and go off to live with some Jamaican lover. She definitely became the victim of foul play, and it's very likely that multiple people were involved or at least have knowledge about what happened. Given that two decades of past and there was so much red tape holding up the investigation, we may never know the actual truth and Sadly, I'm not sure if

Claudia's loved ones will ever get full answers. All that being said, should you happen to have any information on the unsolved disappearance of Claudia Kirshock, please contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley. Any final thoughts on this case, I guess the only final thoughts I have is it again when we look at a missing person's case. Claudia was twenty nine years old. She was a successful businesswoman who got deterred and derailed away from a trip to Cuba to cover

a resort. And she gets put onto this resort in Jamaica where she's going to spend a week, and she says, yes, yes, I'm going to take this chance. I'm going to have this opportunity, and I'm going to just enjoy life, right like any twenty nine year old would do. She meets this bartender who's incredibly charming, who's kind, who convinces her he's safe enough to take on this kind of backyard tour of where he grew up and people he cares about and places he loves, and she says yes.

And so I feel like, as a young woman or used to be a young woman. Yeah, you know, I'm not that old, but I can relate to that. I can relate to the thrill and the charm that would have come with being in a different location, finding someone who found an intrigue with me and saying, I'm going to show you my life. There's an honor in that, right and a kind of a charm in that,

And so she says yes and goes and it's never seen again. It blows my mind that no one knows what happened to this girl, and no one, with the passages of time, has said I'm not connected to these people anymore. I'm not scared of these people anymore. The consequences are not big

enough for me to keep my mouth shut anymore. That's basically all we have going for us is that time will eventually be a benefit where Claudia's case and Claudia's legacy will be honored because the passage of time allows someone to have the guts to say I know what happened. I think Anthony's the most likely to know what happened. I don't know that he's responsible, but I do know that Claudia's family is at a standstill of saying how do we grieve? How

do we process? How do we heal when we don't know what happened to Claudia? Who hurt her? Is she's still hurting? Or are we just missing our baby? Like is she deceased in somewhere where we can't hold her and have her in a place to honor her one day? So my prayer is time becomes a tool in this case. It becomes a powerful thing where someone says, I'm willing to talk now because Claudia and her family deserve answers. This case, it just breaks my heart because Claudia is this young woman

who's so vibrant. She's out there living her best life, and she meets this guy on vacation. She goes out, which one should do. Reminds me of when I went to Hawaii when I graduated high school. I went with one of my best friends. My aunt lived in Hawaii, and we went there for like eleven days. We met these two guys. One was a proser for one was a model, and we saw them as much as we could until my aunt finally was like, no more, you're grounded.

On the last night, you're not allowed to go out, And we were like screw it, We're gonna go out anyways. And at that point in time, we're at this random person's house. You're in this strange place. Anything could have happened to us. So I envisioned a situation for Claudia where do I think that Anthony Grant is the one that's responsible? Personally? I don't think he is directly responsible, because I do think it's really telling about

the one polygraph question. But I do think that he introduced Claudia somehow to the individuals that are responsible. Whether or not it was overdosed because somebody slipped her the date rape drug. That does sound like a really plausible situation.

Then several people would be kind of incahoots trying to cover this up. And I don't know what Leo Lambert's connection was why he was trying to Basically, he was trying to slutch shame Claudia, saying she ran off with this guy she was out there with, kind of like implying that she had loose morals and that this was her fault, and then being like, she just ran off with a random men, which there would be no reason for her to

do because she seemed really happy in her job she kept in close communication with her parents at all times, and she always came home. What does she have to run away from. She literally travels for a living, writes about it, and she gets paid. So I just don't see any situation where she would leave willingly. But if she wasn't her bathing suit in the middle of the day, I think it's likely that she was lured away to some party. I don't know if it was like ashe said that they were had

the intention of wolf packing her. But I think if you're going to date, rape, drug this foreign this girl from a foreign country, knowing that she's going to be leaving soon, I think there could have been nefarious intentions on the part of several individuals, because it seems like this cover up was really far reaching, And I don't know that it was far reaching because of certain individuals or because of the institution, or somebody high up in the institution

then instruct these individuals to destroy evidence, to get the camera film developed, and then basically being like there was nothing on there, there was no pictures, when we know that just isn't true. It seems like they went to a great deal of effort to do all of these things. There must have been somebody who was pulling the strings there and instructing them to do so,

because who would do that of their own accord. You know, no one's going to on their spare time dig into this unless they actually had the intention of finding out what happened to Claudia. If they already knew and it was just this big cover up, then they're playing a role. They're just pawns in this greater scheme. Whether or not Butch knew, I'm not sure. I think that it could go either way, that maybe he really did just

innocently stumble upon this resort that handled everything poorly. But maybe because I'm cynical, I'm more inclined to believe that he was far more plugged in and more aware of the situation than the public and the Kershaws might have been aware of. But that's just my own opinion that's obviously not based in fact. We've got nothing to substantiate that. But overall, I really just hope that somebody

at some point really feels bad about this. So many years have gone by that I wish somebody would come forward, and I really hope that I get to see the day that Ashley goes and shakes Leo Lambert exactly. That's our number one goal here. Yeah, I'm coming guys. I'm feeling like a

crowdsource thing. We make this happen. But yeah, like we've talked about this before, how missing persons cases in which someone vanishes in a foreign country are just like the absolute worst nightmare for their loved ones because not only do you have to go through the trauma of having someone you care about disappear with that explanation, but you also have to go through a massive red tape. You have to learn the new customs and the way investigations are handled in a

country you're not familiar with. And that's what happened with Natalie Holloway. It's one of the most high profile missing persons cases of the modern era, and pretty much everyone knows who did it, but even after all these years, they've never found her body and it's technically still unsolved because the original investigation was

so badly mishandled and there was likely a cover up. And the same thing may apply to Claudia Kershock, where we know she was last seeing on a beach, and we suspect that she was murdered, but we don't have any evidence. We don't know how this scenario would have unfolded. We have a promising person of interest and Anthony Grant, but it's possible that even though he probably knows what happened, he's not the one who directly caused her death.

But this pretty much the same thing that applies here is that there are probably multiple people who do know, and we're multiple people involved, but no one has ever come forward and revealed the truth. I mean, we've had anonymous people come forward. We've had like the anonymous letter about how a date rate drug was slipped inside Claudia's drink at a party which caused her death. We had this anonymous caller who said that two men once told them that they sealed

Claudia's body inside an oil drum and disposed of it. I mean, we have no idea if these scenarios is true, but it does suggest that rumors and hearsay have gone throughout the island and that there may be people out there whose conscience has got to them and know what happened, but they just are

reluctant to come forward. And that's why I'm hoping that with the passage of time, someone will finally speak, because this was a pretty big deal in the early two thousands, but it seems once they had the civil trial with Claudia's parents and the resort, it has disappear from the spotlight and there have

not been any new developments. And quite frankly, I'm not even a hundred percent sure if Claudia's parents are still alive after all these years, but it would be nice if they finally received justice and learn the truth about what happened to her and recovered her body, because I definitely think this is one of those cases in which someone knows something. All it might take for this case

to break wide open is for the right person to come forward. Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer the standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with

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commentary track over was the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smartass remarks about Juwel Kaylor than be sure to join Tier three. So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jewels and Ashley Patreons. So there's early ad free episodes

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