Memorial Tree Grows Taller; Smith Family Fights on

Any media accounts of the story I've read portray George as a heavy partyer on the ship who liked to mix with lots of people. What should the cruise line have done? Told him he could only have three drinks a night because if he drinks more, he might have an accident?

Why should the US be the jurisdiction for these ships? They're not registered there. It's another example of the US thinking it runs the world. Do they have similarly strict legislation when Americans go to Mexico or Canada and drink themselves to death? No, they do not.

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To Richard: doesn't the fact that she woke up and went to the spa suggest that there weren't any signs of a crime scene in the room? If there was an obvious crime scene in the room or on the balcony with all the blood the Smith's claim was there, surely she would have noticed, right?

Also, perhaps there is a good reason for her going to the spa. I highly doubt that most people in that situation would wake up and immediately conclude that their spouse was either murdered or fallen overboard - that is probably the last thing I someone's mind. Perhaps Jennifer and George had really been looking forward to going to the spa, and perhaps Jennifer woke up and said to herself, "I can't believe George got so drunk that he passed out in another room. He is going to be so mad that he missed our massage appointments and he deserves it." That seems to make some sense to me.

Maybe things aren't as they seem and perhaps there are good explanations for what appears odd to you.

Also, I am not sure why you drag the Natalee Holloway case into this. They are completely un-related incidents.

All this back and forth about what may or may not have happened to George is not the point.

The point is that his family has a right to have their son’s disappearance investigated fully. They had a right to have the ship’s room thoroughly investigated before it was cleaned up. They have a right to access any and all information that George’s “wife”(of five minutes) accesses. They have a right to fight to keep the case open and active until there are some answers. Jennifer’s settlement with the cruise line was a premature “okay, let’s all move on.”

There are those of us out there, not the least of which is George’s mother, father and sister, who want answers. We want to know what happened to our friend. We want to know that the cruise line will be held accountable and we want to know that they will be forced to make policy changes so that nothing like this can ever happen again. We want that “nearly 1.1 million” to go towards finding out what happened that night.