Nicoleta Neculai
Crew Member Disappears Later Found Dead
Norwegian Cruise Line's Jewel - February 7, 2006
Nicoleta Neculai
Event Date: February 7, 2006
Bruise: Death
Bruise Location: Caribbean
Age: 27
Home Town: Romania
Cruise Line: Norwegian Cruise Lines
Ship: Norwegian Jewel
Details:
The family has come to Cruise Bruise after seeking answers for over three years. If you were working aboard this ship when the incident took place, please contact us with information you know about the case. If you have photographs of the people in this case, that might help us identify who the persons of interest are, please forward them to us.
Nicoleta Neculai was living in Romania when she decided to work on a cruise ship. She went to a crewing agency, Job Service, in Brasov. Brasov is located about 166 km from Bucharest, in the Transylvania region of Romania. It was here she was able to secure a job as a barmaid on Norwegian Cruise Lines' Norwegian Jewel, based in Miami, Florida.
The family says that Nicoleta and her family were assured that the crewing agency would be the liaison between the cruise line, Nicoleta and her family and would keep them informed how she was doing.
Various reports allege that Nicoleta became involved with her supervisor at the bar aboard the Jewel. There are two different reports as to how that relationship turned out, one from the family via some crew members, and the other from two different crew members who worked aboard.
One crew account says that during that relationship, Nicoleta became pregnant. This fact is disputed by some and we have no autopsy evidence that says she was or was not pregnant.
The crew says that Nicoleta had every reason to believe the supervisor and her would be together, because reports say he had forbid her from being involved romantically with any other person aboard, including one specific crew member, a Canadian.
But, the supervisor, his name unknown, according to the crew reports, had other ideas. Soon Nicoleta was able to determine that the supervisor was involved with other women who worked aboard, and had no intention of doing right by her. It seems he was a player, faithful to none, while all had to be faithful to him.
Reports say she became enraged and went to his superiors demanding action and was rebuffed. At that time, it is reported, she threatened to go public with the fiasco and ensure that passengers knew the kind of things that were happening on the Jewel. There is some motive for murder.
The family says they were told by other crew and through contacts Nicoleta made to them directly, that she was was involved with the supervisor, rebuffed him and went to his supervisors to keep him away from her, because she was afraid of his jealous fits. Again, there is motive for murder by her lover.
Either way, then it seems she moved on. Nicoleta had decided to try to get a visa to stay in the U.S, work on land and continue the relationship with the Canadian.
On the day before she disappears, Nicoleta posts on her Facebook account and seems cheerful and optimistic. Around this time she also asks her family to send her some things from home in a package. Then, she disappears.
About six days later, she is found on or near the shore line of Grand Cayman, dead. When NCL contacted the family, they said she committed suicide. The family isn't buying it, and they have good reason to wonder. Several of her friends aboard contacted her family directly, others contacted the family online with a different version from the NCL story.
The family contacts a well-known Miami, Florida maritime attorney (name withheld) and hires him to find out what really happened to Nicoleta and get compensated for her death. For the family, their representative says that finding out really happened to Nicoleta was paramount and more important than any money they might receive in a settlement.
They allege that the attorney was able to negotiate a settlement of $60,000 for her death. But, the family wanted proof that the Nicoleta had in fact jumped. They say they were told that NCL claimed there was a video record of her jumping, but NCL would not furnish the video to the family so they would know for sure.
More suspect, the family says is that when they and the attorney tried to locate her supervisor involved in this story aboard the ship, he had vanished.
Why? Perhaps because other accounts say the video did not show her jumping. Instead, it showed her running on deck to "someone" who was off camera, then she disappears off camera. It is that "someone" the cruise line would be likely to protect. Certainly, if that "someone" was the last to see her alive and was in fact responsible for throwing her overboard, a person in management position, a huge settlement would have to be paid by the cruise line to the surviving family.
Romania's ambassador to Washington, Brasov Sorin Ducaru interveins and demands that the FBI does an investigation into what happened to Nicoleta. When the FBI boarded the ship to investigate, there are at least two reports that say a cover-up took place; the crew aboard were told by one or more supervisors (names unknown) that when they were interviewed by the FBI they were to say they "saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing" about Nicoleta and her lover. There is the evidence of the cover-up.
The family continued to try to get answers. When they went to the recruiting
office in Romania asking for help, nobody would talk to them and the business had a
security officer keep them away from the recruiting office. The media was also denied an interview at the recruiting office.
Because the family was not going to get the video evidence that the line says proved she jumped, the family alleges they refused the $60,000 settlement. The settlement amount was written into the crewing contract Nicoleta signed, providing the specified amount in the event of her death. That amount should have been sent to the family, with or without an attorney, in any event.
So, the family alleges that they contacted another attorney (name withheld) and he tried to negotiate with NCL. They say the law firm told them that the settlement offer was withdrawn, and no deal would be made. The new firm was shut out, the family left without answers and not even the life insurance policy, allegedly an amount guaranteed in the contract Nicoleta signed.
I would like to point out at this point, that Maritime Attorney James Walker was able to negotiate exactly the kind of settlement Nicoleta's family wanted, access to the evidence. When George Allen Smith IV's widow settled her case, she got all the evidence in the case. It seems like a simple request to comply with, it is not unreasonable and it has been done.
Further, in my investigation for answers, I found a cruise review of that exact voyage and there is no mention at all of anyone missing. This means, there was no search, otherwise the person doing the review would have surely mentioned circling for hours looking for a missing person. While Nicoleta did not turn up for work, there is no evidence the ship reported her missing to the local coast guard or attempted to search the waters for her the first time she missed her shift.
If Nicoleta was indeed running to someone right before she went overboard, that someone would have been witness to her going overboard, and if not involved, surely would have notified security to do a search.
There are really two conflicting stories within this. What does not conflict is the fact that Nicoleta was involved with her supervisor, they fought, she went to his supervisors, afterward was in good spirits, planning to begin a relationship with another crew member. She had no reason to jump off the ship, but there are numerous persons who had something to gain by throwing her off the ship.
