Honeymoon Horror

George Allen Smith IV

He was born on October 3, 1978 in Glenville, Fairfield County, Connecticut to Maureen and George Smith. He had played football in high school. 

He was 26 years-old and with his father, he managed the Cos Cob Liquor Store in Glenville. George was 6’2” tall and a quiet and friendly guy. His caring and compassionate nature, witty sense of humor and zest for life made him someone family and friends loved to be around. His friends from both home and college meant the world to him, and he considered them all to be his family. 

George Smith and Jennifer Hagel had been together since June 8th, 2002. 

On June 25, 2005, George and Jennifer married at cliff side ceremony in Newport, Rhode Island. 

For their honey moon eleven days after they walked down the aisle, they embarked on a romantic 12-day Mediterranean cruise.

George and Jennifer, were on their honeymoon in waters between Greece and Turkey on the Royal Caribbean ship "Brilliance of the Seas." 

They had a balcony stateroom on the 9th deck of the ship. 

On July 4th, 2005, halfway through their honeymoon cruise, they spent the day ashore in Mykonos. 

At night, they returned to the ship and changed for dinner. They had a romantic dinner in one of the shipboard restaurants, afterwards they went to the casino to meet up with another couple also on their honeymoon. They also connected with several young men that they had met on the cruise. 

There was a rumor on the ship that George was carrying large sums of money, and a report that both George and Jennifer had talked about how people were stuffing cash into their pockets at their wedding. Their was also rumors that they had brought all the money with them on the cruise. 

When the casino closed at 2:30 a.m., they moved on with their friends to the disco. They were all drinking heavily, and Jennifer began flirting with other men, including one of the casino staff. At some point, someone brought out a bottle of absinthe.

It was around 3:25 a.m., Jennifer and George got into an argument, and at least three witnesses said that they were both very drunk, and that Jennifer kicked her husband in the groin before walking out of the disco. 

Later, Jennifer said that George was mixing alcohol with his prescription medications, Zoloft and Clonazepam.

Around 4 a.m. on July 5th, 2005, passengers heard loud noises, including scuffling and a thud, coming from Smith's cabin and called security.  But no cruise line employees entered the cabin or called to determine what was happening.

Cleaning personnel would later find Jennifer unconscious lying in the alcove some 400 feet away from her cabin. Security personnel would then take her by wheelchair back her empty cabin, where the cruise line security personnel put her in bed, turn out the lights, and closed the door.

The ship docked in Kusadasi, Turkey, at 6:14 a.m., and passengers were cleared to go ashore at 6:39 a.m.  

When Jennifer awoke on the morning of July 5th, she was not immediately concerned that George was not in their room. She believed he had continued partying after she went to bed and had simply fallen asleep in their new friends’ room, as had happened once before. She and George had appointments at the ship’s spa for massages, so she went to the spa to keep her appointment. Jennifer thought that George would join her there when he woke up.

Around 8:30 a.m., several passengers on their balconies noticed a large bloodstain on one of the lifeboat canopies.

16 year-old cruise passenger Emilie Rausch took a photograph of the large blood stain, with a hand print off the side of it, on the awning. Blood was also found on the Smiths’ balcony railing, in their cabin, and on the side of the ship. 

A search of the ship initially showed three missing passengers: George and Jennifer Smith, and Josh Askin. Jennifer was located in the ship’s spa shortly before 10 a.m., and Josh Askin was also found. 

Three officers told Jennifer that George was missing. When questioned, Jennifer said she did not remember anything after leaving the casino until she woke up in their room that morning. 

After looking at the electronic trail of their movements and looking at surveillance footage and talking to witnesses, a basic timeline of events were constructed.

3:30 a.m- The disco closed and George and his friends went back to his room. When George realized that Jennifer was not with them, he asked the other men to help him locate her, but they were unable to find her. 

4:02 a.m.-They all returned to George’s room where the partying apparently continued. 

Between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m.- George’s companions returned to their own room and ordered room service, even taking pictures of the food.

Around 4 a.m.-The passengers in the neighboring rooms, Cletus Hyman, a law enforcement officer and Pat and Greg Lawyer, said they heard what sounded like a loud party and a drinking contest in the Smiths’ room that night. 

4:05 a.m.- Mr. Hyman called the Guest Relations desk to complain about the noise. He thought he heard at least one voice out in the corridor, and then what he describes as an argument on the balcony that lasted about a minute, involving three voices. 

Around 4:15 a.m.- Mr Hyman heard voices saying “good night” softly and when he looked out his door, he saw three men walking away. Pat and Greg Lawyer who were staying on the other side of the Smiths’ room also called Guest Relations to complain about the noise. They said they heard three male voices talking quietly outside their room and believed two of the men spoke with accents.

Then Smiths’ neighbors heard someone talking in a conversational tone in the Smiths’ room, and sounds like furniture was pushed around and cabinets being opened and closed, as though the room was either being put back in order or searching for something. 

Mr. Hyman said there was only one voice speaking, and after about ten minutes, the voice moved to the balcony, where he heard one of the metal balcony chairs being moved. It was quiet for a minute or so, and then he heard what he described as “a horrific thud” coming from the Smiths’ balcony, strong enough that he felt the vibration in his room. He said his first thought was that someone had fallen on the balcony. He did not hear anyone leave through the Smiths’ door, which he normally did.

4:30 a.m- Security personnel finally responded to Mr. Hyman’s call about the loud noise in the neighboring room. Everything by now was quiet. Mr. Lawyer suggested they might want to enter the room because it sounded as though the room was being trashed, but when the security staff knocked and there was no response, they left.

Shortly after 4:30 a.m.- Jennifer was discovered passed out in a corridor on Deck Nine, but on the other side of the ship from her own room. She was too disoriented to find the correct room but was able to tell the staff who she was and her room number. Crew members stayed with Jennifer while two other staff went to her cabin to try to find George. 

4:45 a.m.- Unaware of the first visit by security staff just a few minutes earlier, the crew members entered the room around  looking for George and found the room empty. 

4:57 a.m.-Two security officers and a female crew member took Jennifer by wheelchair back to the Smiths’ cabin and helped her to bed. As they were leaving, Mr. Hyman stuck his head out the door and mentioned that he had heard commotion in the room about an hour earlier. The security personnel said that they had seen nothing amiss and then left.

George was reported missing to the Turkish police. The captain insisted that Jennifer leave the ship in order to undergo a day of interrogation by Turkish officials. Josh Askin, one of the men who had been partying with the Smiths, was also taken ashore to be questioned by police. 

6 p.m.- Captain Lachtaridis had the crew wash the bloodstain away and prepared to depart for the ship’s next port of call. When Brilliance of the Seas returned to the Bahamas, the captain filed George’s disappearance a “probable accident.” The Turkish police and Royal Caribbean turned over their findings to the FBI, who didn't board the ship until two days later, including over 100 security tapes from various points on the ship.

The last people that George was seen with were Josh Askin of California and three Russian-Americans, brothers Greg and Zachary Rozenberg and their cousin Rostislav “Rusty” Kofman of Brooklyn. All four men were in their late teens or early twenties. The Turkish police interviewed Askin, but none of the others. When contacted by the FBI, they insisted that they had all left George’s room by 4:15 a.m. and returned to Kofman’s room to order room service. Askin said he returned to his own room around 5:15 a.m. All insist George was alive and well when they left him in his own room. 

The young Russian men had already been warned by ship personnel regarding their behavior and during the 48 hours after George vanished, there were several more incidents involving them. All 13 people, Kofman, the Rozenberg family, and the Askin family, were removed from the ship in Italy after an alleged sexual assault on a female passenger that at least two of the young men participated in and videotaped. 

The Turkish police investigated the crime scene for about two hours, but were rushed off the boat so that the cruise ship could continue on to its next scheduled port of call. 

Jennifer and a crew member stayed with her from the moment she learned that George was missing until she left Turkey to return home. 

The Smiths’ room was sealed to preserve a potential crime scene.

January 2006- Royal Caribbean allowed forensic specialist Dr. Henry Lee aboard to collect forensic evidence from the Smiths’ room. He collected samples, photographed the scene and took measurements.  However, they wouldn't let him to his experiments involving throwing a dummy off the balcony.

May 2012- A video, that the FBI had in their possession since 2005, was released to the public. It was taken the day George disappeared while the search for him was underway. In it it shows the four men that were with George prior to his disappearance. They were in the dining room, on board the Brilliance of the Seas, sitting around and talking about his death and apparently mocking him. The four men took the video themselves, apparently passing around a flip phone. At the end of the video one of the men stands up, hunches his shoulders, and flashes gang signs saying, “Told ya I was gangsta.”

Jennifer received a $1.1 million settlement from Royal Caribbean in 2006. George’s family challenged the settlement and Jennifer's position as executor of her husband's estate, but a probate court approved the settlement and the ruling was upheld in Superior Court in 2008. A portion of the money went to create a charitable fund in George's name. Included in the settlement was an agreement from Royal Caribbean to turn over the evidence they collected at the time of George's disappearance from their own internal investigation. 

“I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that my son was murdered on that cruise ship,” explained George’s mother.

George's parents didn’t approve of the ship giving their son’s belongings, which they say may have held forensic value, to Jennifer. 

“The evidence will be given to a woman whose whereabouts are unknown when George was thrown overboard,” says the Smith family. “A woman who has done everything in her power to stop us from finding out what happened to George on July 5, 2005…”

George's body has never been found.

Did you know that an article about George’s disappearance was deleted from Wikipedia?