✶ Location: Studio B

✶ Deck: 3

✶ Speaker: Sheryl McCollum

Kicking off the CruiseCruise programming is a Ride-Along at Sea with Sheryl “Mac” McCollum! Over the course of the cruise, Mac will present attendees with a set of three different cold cases. We highly encourage cruisers to attend all three sessions if possible as Mac is always looking for new ideas, theories, and fresh ways of looking at evidence.

Case File #1

It’s September of 1989 and a 12-year-old girl is riding her bike to the laundry house of the apartment complex where she lives with her family. It’s just a short ride past one set of apartments, which is good since she has the laundry basket perched on the handlebars of her bicycle. 

Once the clothes are in the wash, she makes the short ride back toward her apartment knowing that her mother will be home soon to move the clothes in the dryer and start dinner. Instead, her mother arrives home to find a truly horrid scene: her daughter has been beaten, raped, and murdered.

35 years later this case is still unsolved to this day and needs all of our help to identify a killer. 

✶ Location: Studio B

✶ Deck: 3

✶ Speaker: Paul Holes

When it comes to solving crimes the burning question from police and public alike seems to be: “Is there DNA?”

But sometimes, even when DNA is present, it doesn’t necessarily identify the perpetrator. That’s where genetic genealogy comes in. 

You may think you need a PhD to learn how DNA testing can lead to a genetic genealogy profile, and eventually a suspect, but you don’t! Famed cold case investigator Paul Holes takes attendees through the steps on how to build out and understand a profile that can lead to a perpetrator. Using simple illustrations, and terminology you won’t need to Google, Holes will break down the process and nuances of genetic genealogy and how it’s used to build out a family tree. A few brave CrimeCruisers will also get a chance to put their new skills to the use when Paul puts them through the ultimate genealogy test.

Will you be able to find the suspected killer?       

✶ Location: Theater

✶ Deck: 3

✶ Speaker: Chris Hansen

Investigative journalist Chris Hansen exposes the merchants of death: illegal Honduran immigrants who have taken over the drug trade in cities around the country, making millions of dollars and shipping the money back to their homeland to build mansions for their kingpins as a tribute to their deadly trades.

In San Francisco alone there have been over 2,200 fentanyl-related deaths since 2020. Most of these drug deals are done right out in plain sight with no legal consequences. 

Hansen has gathered startling video of the societal destruction caused by this drug trade and will be giving a first-look at his newest investigation exclusively to CrimeCruise VIPs. Hansen will take us undercover into this drug trade in San Francisco, showing the horrific toll fentanyl has taken on our country, tracking the illegal profits as they flow overseas, and exploring how city laws have allowed these merchants of death to proliferate while also contributing to the retail crime crisis in California and elsewhere. 

✶ Location: Theater

✶ Deck: 3

✶ Speaker: Nate Eaton

When your child or loved one goes missing, a real life nightmare begins. But would you really know what to do if you or a friend ever found yourself in this unthinkable situation?  

Nate Eaton, Investigative Journalist and News Director of eastidahonews.com has covered these kinds of cases all too many heartbreaking times. He was there when Robert Wood, a mute, autistic 9-year-old boy disappeared in Virginia. Robert was fortunately found alive five days later, but no one knows what happened to him as he still doesn’t speak. Eaton has also been deeply involved in covering the disappearance of DeOrr Kunz and continues to work the case still to this day. Most people also know of Nate’s work on the disappearance and murders of JJ and Tylee. 

Using his personal archival footage from these three cases, Eaton will take attendees through what the families did right, and what could have been done differently. Through his training, Nate will also provide invaluable suggestions and tips on what you should (and should not) do if you ever find yourself in a similar situation. When to call law enforcement, when (or if) to get the media involved, how to navigate social media, how to set up a command center, the pros and cons of offering a reward–and so much more.  

While we hope you never have to use what you learn in this session, it could make all the difference for someone you love.

✶ Location: Theater

✶ Deck: 3

✶ Speaker: Nate Eaton & Paul Holes

The 2018 video is etched in our minds…Chris Watts on his porch speaking with a local news reporter, tearfully begging for his family to come home. Then, just 2 days later, the horrific truth is revealed as Watts confessed to killing his wife and two children during an interview with detectives. 

While most audiences watching the interview didn’t believe the sincerity of Watt’s pleas, how and why did he think his media manipulation was going to work?! And Watts is not the first suspect to try this tactic–think back to the likes of Susan Smith as she tearfully pleaded for the safe return of her two children even though she’d drowned them.

In a session you’ll only see on CrimeCruise ’24, Nate Eaton and Paul Holes will break down the different perspectives used when interviewing serial killers, suspects, and “persons of interest” in criminal cases. They’ll explore the psychology these monsters employ when talking to the media versus talking to law enforcement and they’ll discuss how they’ve employed two very different approaches toward a common goal of finding the truth. 

✶ Location: Theater

✶ Deck: 3

✶ Speaker: Sheryl McCollum

Step inside Mac’s Zone 7 for a live podcast taping aboard the Independence of the Seas! 

✶ Location: Theater

✶ Deck: 3

✶ Speakers: Nate Eaton, Sheryl McCollum, Paul Holes & Matt Murphy

Have you ever wondered how field reporters develop stories or gather their sources, intel, and fact finding during breaking news situations? Now is your chance to find out by becoming a true crime breaking news reporter for CrimeCruise News!

Join host Nate Eaton as he gives us all a crash course (no pun intended!) in field journalism. We’ll learn the basics of double sourcing, developing a story, interviewing authorities and witnesses, and how to craft a clear, concise, and respectful breaking news report.

After the lesson it’s time to put our new skills into practice!  Attendees will be given the basics of a breaking incident and then we’ll  ‘hit the scene’ to piece together the real story. Once you think you’ve gathered all the important details, you’ll have a time to craft your 30 second breaking news report–then it’s lights, camera, action to present to the live viewing audience: your fellow CrimeCruisers!   

After reports are filed, our esteemed panel of judges will vote on who delivered the best story and give out a few fun prizes. Do you think you have what it takes?

(The case presented is completely fictitious and is in no way based on real life events. This session is strictly for educational and entertainment purposes only.)

✶ Location: Theater

✶ Deck: 3

✶ Speaker: Derrick Levasseur

March 1st, 2013 was the last day anyone saw 51-year-old cancer survivor Robin Pope of Kent Island, MD alive. 23 days later her decomposed body was found by a fisherman along the shoreline just a mile from where she was last seen.  

Robin’s cause of death is officially listed as drowning, but was this really an accident? Suspicions and theories have swirled around the Pope case like the water lapping the shoreline–but police don’t have any concrete answers. 

That’s where CrimeCruise attendees can help. 

Crime Weekly’s hosts have spent countless hours researching and presenting this case but still don’t have any resolution to give her family and loved ones. Now, in our first-ever CrowdSolve at Sea, we invite you to deep-dive into this mystery and see if you might have the key thought, theory, or idea that might set the investigation on a course toward closure.

In order to maximize our time in this session we invite CrimeCruise VIPs to familiarize themselves with the Pope case beforehand using the following resources:

• Remembering Robin Pope Website
• Crime Weekly Part 1
• Crime Weekly Part 2