Somebody Knows Something (2026) s01e04 Episode Script

[gentle music playing]
[rock music playing faintly]
After an extensive search, what happened
to Kevin McGrath remains a mystery,
and now police are asking
for the public's help.
[Chamberlain] Since 2023, people all over
have been fascinated by
Kevin McGrath's mysterious disappearance.
I'm not saying that this man was murdered.
[TikToker] The ship's overboard alarm
was never triggered.
How does a full-grown man just disappear
with no signs of going overboard?
[Chamberlain] Did Kevin fall off the boat?
Did he jump, or did someone
hurt him during those hours?
What is the likelihood
that no one saw Kevin?
That would be unlikely.
The video was not conclusive
to a person falling in the water.
I turned around
and I noticed somebody's feet,
like they were hiding.
They have no record that he left the ship.
So then where is he?
[Danielle] We have no answers.
My family and I have no answers.
No one just vanishes into thin air.
Where's my brother?
We need him home.
A cruise ship is a closed system.
Are there cameras? Did people see things?
Why is there not more information?
Every year, more than 600,000 people
go missing in the United States.
[reporter] The story of Jaycee Dugard
shocked the nation.
Amy Bradley simply disappeared
without a trace.
[reporter 2] Asha Degree went to bed
one night and was gone in the morning.
I'm Kara Robinson Chamberlain,
and in 2002, I was one of those victims.
[reporter 3] At just 15 years old,
Kara was abducted by a serial killer.
[reporter 4] Assaulted and tortured
for 18 hours,
but somehow she managed to escape.
[Chamberlain] I went on to a career
in law enforcement.
[Leon Lott] Then she wanted
to be a victim advocate
and show them how
they can be a survivor like her.
[Chamberlain] Now I'm investigating the
cases true crime fans are obsessed with
because there are people who don't know
what happened to their loved ones.
Somebody knows something.
Somebody saw something.
And if I can bring
one person some answers,
then it's worth everything.
[Chamberlain] Twenty-six-year-old
Kevin McGrath
went on a cruise and disappeared.
He was celebrating his father's
60th birthday with 42 family members.
A lot of people on social media
have speculated about the case.
We need your help
in finding 26-year-old Kevin McGrath.
Kevin went missing
on a Carnival Cruise Line ship
for his father's 60th birthday.
Carnival has released
very little information
about what they know about
what happened to Kevin.
[Chamberlain] But outside of social media,
there's not much coverage.
It seems like the story was dropped
pretty soon after it broke.
Amara Cofer specializes in cases with
victims whose stories aren't always told
by the mainstream media.
-Hi, Amara.
-[Cofer] Hi.
You wanna tell me a little bit about Kevin
and what you know about his case?
Yeah, this story,
it's-it's-it's a real mystery
and as soon as I heard it, I-I was just…
I was fascinated by the details of it.
[Chamberlain] From what I've read,
Labor Day weekend 2023,
Kevin just disappears without a trace?
[Cofer] Yes.
He had been on the cruise. They
were celebrating his dad's 60th birthday.
By all accounts, it was,
you know, a normal weekend.
Kevin was in a good mood
and nothing seemed amiss,
but when they pull into the port
in Miami, um, he's not there.
Um, the ship is searched.
There's no trace of him.
How does that happen?
One theory is that he, you know,
committed suicide.
Kevin had been in the military.
He had been going through
some personal issues,
the separation from his wife.
[Chamberlain] Did he seem down at all
on the cruise?
[Cofer] No, and that's what makes it
so mysterious
because the only footage that we have,
Kevin is captured, um, dancing, laughing,
interacting with people on the cruise
and his family members,
just in a really good mood.
And so to me, if he had
committed suicide, if he had jumped,
I believe that
we would have saw something.
Something would have been found.
[Chamberlain] Right.
He didn't leave a note.
[Cofer] He did not.
And outside of the possible suicide,
you do have the theory that maybe
he could have walked off the ship.
Maybe someone on the cruise ship
was possibly able to hide him.
He wasn't seen.
I imagine that's because
you mentioned personal issues,
like, maybe he was trying
to escape his life.
-He was trying to run away.
-[Cofer] Yes,
but what's really strange is there's been
no activity on his bank accounts.
There's been nothing to let us know
that he has kind of started his life over.
And in his room, his ID
and his passport were both found.
[Chamberlain] Okay, so it's unlikely,
but still possible.
Was there anything so far that you've seen
that could possibly suggest
foul play in his disappearance?
For me, it's just
the sheer lack of evidence
that suggests that something happened,
and, you know, his family has
been desperate to try to get answers.
They were the last people
to see Kevin alive,
so they're the start of the story.
[Chamberlain]
I'm in Port St. Lucie, Florida,
to talk to Kevin's parents,
Sean and Debra McGrath.
I want to get more information about Kevin
and their experiences on the cruise ship.
Well, thank you both for being willing
to kind of sit down and talk to me.
So tell me about your family.
[Debra] I met my husband, Sean,
in New York City.
I was a police officer,
and I retired after 20 years.
[Chamberlain]
Okay, I do hear the New York accent,
-now that you say that. [chuckles]
-[laughs]
[Debra] We have five kids.
[Sean] It's three girls and the two boys.
Kevin's the youngest.
-[Chamberlain] Okay.
-[Debra] By 13 minutes.
I just want to show you
some pictures from…
-[Chamberlain] I would love to see them.
-…when he was a baby.
Um, this is him with his twin brother.
I just want to show you how
he always was a… a happy child.
[Chamberlain] Yeah.
Which… Who's who in this one?
-Is this Kevin? Or is…
-[Debra] No, that's…
-This is Kevin? And this is his brother?
-[Sean] Yeah that's Kevin, to the left.
-[Debra] Yeah. Andre.
-[Chamberlain] Andre.
Oh, my goodness.
So sweet, so handsome.
As they get older,
you can tell that they're not identical.
[Debra] And this picture was taken
on the cruise where he went missing.
Tell me about the cruise.
-It was my 60th birthday celebration.
-Yes.
Forty-two family members
and friends attended.
The first day we got on, you know,
it's a big party on Friday.
Kevin was having a great time.
Then Saturday was a sea day,
so he was having a good time with family.
Kevin stayed in the cabin
with his twin brother, Andre.
[Andre] It was good.
We just kinda spent time with each other,
you know, laughing, having a conversation,
um, you know, reminiscing.
Just kinda enjoying the moment.
He was playing pool. He was dancing.
I saw him do karaoke.
-He was feeling good.
-[audience cheering]
On the last night of the cruise,
we all had dinner.
Sean had told, uh, Kevin and Andre
we're going to meet for breakfast.
And so in the morning we got to
the dining room about 7:20, 7:30.
Everyone was there except for Kevin.
[Andre] I woke up, and he wasn't there.
And I thought he would be maybe
at breakfast,
you know, maybe getting an early seat.
But I went to the breakfast table
and he wasn't there.
You know, what's going on?
It was unusual because
he's usually prompt.
[Andre] I was hoping that maybe
he fell asleep somewhere
and, you know, he's gonna come up
and eventually would meet up with us,
but he never came back.
[Debra] So, I started calling
Kevin's phone.
[phone ringing]
By 8:30, I was, uh, frantic.
[Andre] We were there just waiting.
Waiting, waiting, and nothing.
Like, why is he not with us?
[Chamberlain] Did you go to security?
Security escorted me to the top deck.
They had some flyers made
up with his picture on it,
and they passed it around to crew members.
And that's when they started to page him.
[PA beeping]
[Debra] But by that time,
most people were off the ship already.
So could he have gotten off the ship?
People are, like, leaving the ship.
So as you're getting off the ship,
the security make you
punch the sea pass card…
-[Chamberlain] Mm-hmm. Okay.
-…and your picture shows up,
-and then you got to go through customs.
-Turnstile? Okay.
[Debra] They have cameras every location.
And when immigration got on board,
they said he didn't leave through customs.
[suspenseful music playing]
And then the cruise line said, "We don't
have anything showing he left the ship."
So I requested to speak to the staff,
and I started asking him,
"Do you have cameras?"
And he told me,
"No, we have very limited."
And I asked him, "What about
the man overboard system?"
And he said, "It's very few
because it's an old ship."
I just didn't understand that at all.
I broke down crying, hysterical.
I'm praying that please let him
just be hiding somewhere.
[sobbing] And then you start thinking,
what if somebody harmed him?
You know, how could you live with that?
-[chattering on radio]
-[helicopter whirring]
[Florio] I'm, uh, Captain Frank Florio.
At the time, I was the
deputy sector commander at Sector Miami.
We'd received a phone call from Carnival
at approximately 10:55 local,
and we, as quickly as possible,
started that search effort.
[journalist] The US Coast Guard
was contacted
and completed a search
in the general vicinity,
including hundreds of square miles
of open water.
[Florio] Whenever we have
a search and rescue case,
we throw every asset that we can
to make sure that we find
that person in distress.
At that time we knew Miami PD
was searching the vessel.
Miami PD did a preliminary search,
very limited.
By the time they searched
the cabin that Kevin and Andre were in,
his bags were packed
by my husband and Andre.
And then everything was stripped.
The room was basically cleaned out
for the next set of passengers,
so the police didn't find anything,
and they made a turnaround right away.
That basically was it.
If anybody had any information
about Kevin,
they already left the ship.
The coast guard covered the area
for approximately three days.
And then they stopped.
[journalist] The coast guard is suspending
its role in the case,
and now police are asking
for the public's help.
[Debra] At that point, the cruise line
just basically was saying
they had no knowledge of what happened.
And then you know we're trying
to process that he's not…
he's not coming back. [sobbing]
Oh, my God.
Uh…
He's not… He's not returning.
[Chamberlain] There were a few things
that Debra said about the investigation
that caught my attention.
It sounds like Miami PD
cleared the ship for turnaround,
but it's hard to understand
what was going on that morning.
Were there really no cameras on board?
So many questions.
Much like Kevin's parents, Jamie Barnett
experienced tragedy on a cruise ship.
After that experience,
she ended up lobbying
to change laws around cruise ship safety.
In Kevin's case, it was, you know,
7:30 when they find out he goes missing.
I imagine everyone's off the boat by 9:00,
and then coast guard, Miami PD shows up
at 11:00, according to Kevin's family.
What are your thoughts on that?
Well… [stutters]
It's interesting because
that's when you get into
the real murky jurisdictional issues
of investigative authority.
What was probably going on
in that period of time
was the lawyers from the cruise line
and probably the US Attorney's Office
trying to decide
who's gonna take this case.
Does the FBI take jurisdiction
or the police in Miami?
-[Chamberlain] Interesting.
-[Barnett] Mm-hmm.
[Chamberlain] So next steps are,
let's check the cameras,
and there's very few cameras on the ship.
[Barnett] Well, the CVSSA, Cruise Vessel
Security and Safety Act of 2010,
-it requires CCTV in all public areas…
-[Chamberlain] Mm-hmm.
…except where privacy is expected.
-Hallways, stairways, decks…
-[Chamberlain] Yeah.
-Yeah. Dining rooms. Right.
-Elevators, you know, everywhere, right?
But the language seems to leave
some room for interpretation.
And what we are unfortunately finding
is that the cruise companies tend
to take some liberties there.
So no level of standardization.
Just when you thought it couldn't get…
-Right. Right.
-…any more complicated, right?
[Chamberlain] Right.
What Jamie said intrigued me.
So I'm on my way to speak with
Charles Kinnear,
who is the president
of a few cruise lines,
and so I'm hoping he'll have some insight.
How unusual is it for a cruise line
to not have cameras?
Oh, they have… they have cameras.
They just don't have 100% coverage.
Right.
So the Conquest was built in 2002,
about ten years before
the Cruise Ship Safety Act
actually came into force.
So they would make an effort to
put the cameras wherever they could,
but retrofitting a ship with cameras
is-is not an easy thing to do.
You're literally tearing up
the whole ship…
-[Chamberlain] Mm-hmm.
-…and the ship is not designed
to be torn up like that.
So this Cruise Ship Safety Act of 2010
would not generally be something
that would cause a ship to be retired.
Correct.
[Chamberlain] In order to try to find out
what happened to Kevin,
I've got to build a timeline.
We don't have CCTV to work with
from the ship's cameras,
but other passengers did post
personal videos of Kevin.
So in this video, it looks like
he's dancing with this one woman.
According to social media,
it's a family friend.
So let me just ask Debra, Kevin's mom,
if she knows anything about this.
[phone chimes]
[Chamberlain] Kevin's mom, Debra,
says the two people in the footage
are Sonja Simmons,
who is Kevin's former basketball coach,
and Christine Thys, a family friend who
was also on the dance floor with Kevin.
They've never spoken out before.
What I'm interested in hearing is,
what was Kevin like in the hours
before he went missing?
-How are you doing?
-I'm good.
[Chamberlain] I understand, like,
the last night that anyone saw Kevin…
-Was in the nightclub.
-Yeah. So tell me about that night.
[Simmons] That night, we had fun
in the club.
He was on the dance floor
the whole entire night.
-[Chamberlain] Having a good time.
-[Simmons] Having fun.
-[Chamberlain] Was he drinking?
-[Simmons] He didn't even have… No, well,
you're not allowed to drink
on the dance floor.
Every time I turned my head, I was like,
-"Kevin having a blast."
-Yeah.
[Simmons] I say we left at about
at least 2:30. It was late.
-That late?
-It was late.
Okay. Did you tell him bye?
I didn't get a chance to
because he was already on the…
-he was closer to the door.
-Mm-hmm.
I was still over by the bar,
so by the time I got out,
-I didn't see him after that.
-Okay.
[Thys] My husband and I,
we went downstairs
and the club was closing,
-and that's when Kevin exit from the club.
-Mm-hmm.
He looked a little tired,
and maybe something was bothering him,
or just maybe he just was exhausted,
but I didn't feel that he doesn't
-look right or he's intoxicated.
-Right.
I had no feeling of that
for-for-for Kevin.
And Kevin said,
"I'll see you guys for breakfast."
[Chamberlain] Did he head back towards,
like, the direction of the rooms?
[Thys] No, he was going
the other direction,
but I don't know where he went after that,
and we went to our cabins
because it was late.
Did law enforcement
ever come and talk to you?
-No. No law enforcement. Yeah.
-Really?
-No law enforcement.
-No…
-No police on the cruise.
-Nobody?
No, because once we disembarked,
-there was no more, um…
-But you were one of the last people
-to see him.
-Yeah.
-Doesn't… Isn't that weird?
-They did not. Yeah.
[stutters] At least question, yeah.
They did not.
I-I was surprised at that too,
that, you know, they didn't,
um, question us
-or investigate further…
-Yeah.
…since we were the last ones for… so.
-That just--
-[Thys] That and the coast guard
and-and Miami, uh, police, nothing.
[Chamberlain] It's crazy that no one
from Carnival or law enforcement
talked to some of the last people
to see Kevin that night.
Right now, there's still a gap
between 2:30 a.m.
and 7:30 a.m.
when he was reported missing.
I wonder if his key card showed
any activity around then.
When Carnival reviewed
the use of Kevin's key card,
the last use that we have
is at 3:30 in the morning,
and that was when he was accessing
his room to what we assume to go to sleep.
We also found out his roommate,
which happens to be his twin brother,
reported that he thinks
his brother left the room
at approximately five o'clock
in the morning.
When Kevin came back,
he didn't seem drunk at all.
He seemed in his right mind.
He seemed functional.
I went back to sleep,
but I think he went to bed.
Then I heard the door open.
I thought he left.
I was kind of, like, too tired to,
you know, get up and check.
When I woke up, I just saw his bed was,
you know, not made.
I-I think the bathroom light was on.
And he wasn't there.
I thought he went to, you know,
maybe walk around
or maybe go get something to eat.
I wasn't worried.
You know, somebody's not there, I mean,
you try not to think the worst, right?
But, like, uh, just sitting here
when you think something
may have happened to him,
you feel kinda…
you know, you feel a lot
of different emotions.
It's hard.
[Chamberlain] Based on what Andre said,
Kevin left the room
sometime between 3:30 and 7:30 a.m.
So I'm curious, where was he going?
[Debra] Kevin had an issue with sleeping.
He would spend a lot of time
in the open, fresh air,
riding a bicycle, walking.
He would go out 2:00 a.m.
It could be storming outside,
and he would still go out.
He wouldn't want to talk about it either.
I find a lot of military people don't like
to speak about what they went through.
Kevin went into the military as soon
as he got out of high school at 18.
For a while, he was stationed in Italy.
But when he called me, and he asked
for my Social Security number,
then I knew he was gonna be deployed.
He went to Syria, and I broke down.
I was always worried
about these dangerous places.
[Sean] Growing up,
Kevin was always adventurous,
but in the military you go overseas,
you do things…
It's gonna weigh heavily on your mind.
[Debra] Kevin came home.
It was the beginning of 2022.
He left the military because
he couldn't go back to his wife's house,
because there was an incident.
Something happened.
That was not the same loving Kevin
that we knew.
I'm Addison Thomas,
and I'm Kevin's ex-wife.
Hello.
We met in 2019 on Tinder.
He was a very handsome dude,
and he was very respectful.
He was very funny.
It was never a dull moment, honestly.
He was in Fort Campbell,
but he came and see me every weekend
or every weekend that he could.
And it took us two months
before we got serious.
At the time, I found out I was pregnant.
And then we got married two months after.
-[chattering]
-[Thomas] When I had his daughter,
seeing her and him together,
it was just… He was always holding her.
He spoiled her to death.
-[person] Three, two, one!
-[person 2 chuckling]
[person] Up in the air.
[all screaming, cheering]
[person 3] We're having a boy!
We're having a boy!
[Thomas] My relationship with Kevin,
it was great,
all the way until we had our son.
Then Kevin started changing.
Like, he was hanging
around the wrong crowd.
He did not want to tell me, like,
who these people were.
It's like his anger started
coming out around that time,
and he started drinking a lot.
His eyes were like, really red,
and he started using LSD.
That's common in military for PTSD.
I know his job was very stressful.
But he never really, like,
spoke about how he felt.
And one night he went
drinking with his buddies,
and he came home,
and I was like, well, you know,
"What's going on?"
And he said, "I wanna kill you sometimes."
I just thought he was, you know, joking.
We had humor. Like, we had dark humor.
We had regular humor.
I was like, you know, "Why?"
And he was like, "I just think about it."
And, like, me, I was like, "Go do it."
So he goes upstairs, and he grabs the gun,
and he puts it in his waistband.
And when I looked at him,
he didn't look like the Kevin that I knew.
Like, there was something up.
I think it was, like, PTSD
actually cutting into him.
And then the neighbors heard screaming
and yelling and called the cops.
[sirens wailing]
He pleaded guilty to domestic,
um, violence
and they sentenced
him to six years' probation.
And there was an order of protection.
So, he came home.
And he definitely
wanted to improve his life,
but because of the incident,
after he disappeared,
lots of media tried to portray Kevin
in a negative light.
[TikToker] Kevin McGrath's disappearance
is highly suspicious.
Kevin was actually arrested
for aggravated assault…
…for threatening to kill
his wife and kids.
TMZ got involved.
People started saying, like,
what he did to me, it was just who he was.
And it definitely wasn't.
I had to say something to them.
He fought for your country, you know?
And y'all are treating him
like he's this dangerous guy.
Like, we are not afraid of Kevin.
We love Kevin.
[Chamberlain] Learning that
Kevin's a veteran
is something that resonates
with me personally.
I have people that are close to me
that are veterans.
It's not always simple
for people who have served our country
to get the assistance they deserve.
I'm on the way
to speak to Vin McNally now.
Vin has a lot of experience with
mental health in veterans specifically.
And he is a cruise and security expert.
So, when you take into account
Kevin's military background,
veteran, possible PTSD,
what could have happened to Kevin?
[McNally] What was his mental state
at that time?
That was the key question.
From what I understand,
Kevin was on parole.
And he did not make a, uh, request
to the probation officer that,
"I'm going to see my father's birthday
on a cruise ship for three days."
-He knows that he's violated probation.
-[Chamberlain] Yeah.
So, he knows he's gonna have to
face the music
-when he gets off that ship.
-Mm-hmm.
Maybe he wasn't thinking
of any consequences at all.
[Chamberlain] You mean
he could have tried to escape?
Like, jumping off the ship?
Could he have
survived something like that?
[McNally] He's trained in the military,
so he may know how to land in the water.
Would he be hurt? Most likely.
Because, remember, the height
of that ship, it is four or five stories.
But he could survive that,
yes, absolutely.
[Florio] Another very important
piece of information that we found out
was that Kevin was talking
with another person that night,
saying that he was capable of jumping off
the ship and actually swimming to shore
if he needed to, due to his background.
[content creator] Kevin McGrath
was on probation.
And to make matters worse,
he did not let his probation officer know
that he was going on the cruise.
[content creator 2] This dude ain't lost.
He on the run.
[Chamberlain] So, people have speculated
that Kevin might have tried to escape.
If he was trying to run away or escape…
He was home for two years.
Why would he wait to go on a cruise
knowing there's sharks in the water,
and try to swim?
For what reason?
He could have stayed in the Bahamas.
-He wasn't packed up.
-[Chamberlain] He wasn't packed?
His clothes were still scattered
all over the room.
Kevin wasn't the type of person
to just be with no money, no ID.
We had his birth certificate, his military
ID, everything was there. Everything.
[Chamberlain] Do you think it's possible
Kevin hurt himself?
[Debra] I can't see him giving up
everything just like that all of a sudden.
He loved his kids.
That's the main reason
I think he would not do that.
[Thomas] The mind that Kevin had
before he left, he was in an okay spot.
The last time we talked was August 28th.
They left September 1st.
He was talking about how he was
gonna be able to get his own place,
like, he had a lot to look forward to.
He was mentioning school as well.
[Kevin] Financially, I'm definitely
gonna get back on my feet here.
Probably gonna end up
having two jobs here soon.
-So, whenever that happens…
-[sniffles]
…you'll definitely be a little
more comfortable when it comes to that.
[Thomas] So I don't think
he would do anything intentionally,
because he didn't want
to be a father that wasn't there.
[Chamberlain] During all of this coverage,
are you talking to Carnival?
What are they telling you
in the days after he went missing?
They never… Nothing ever came through.
So I got in touch with a maritime lawyer,
and for several months,
he worked on the situation.
Around that time, Carnival told
law enforcement they found the footage
from when the tugboat
is guiding the ship into the port.
When the ship pulls in,
the tugboat guides it,
and there's a camera
in the forefront of the boat.
They thought it showed
that he went overboard.
It was just hard for us to believe.
[Chamberlain] Tell me more about the
footage Carnival showed law enforcement.
Do you see Kevin falling?
[Debra] There was a splash.
We just see water.
We don't see anything go into the ocean.
Right. Do you have that footage?
Law enforcement can't release it
-to the public.
-[Chamberlain] Why?
Both PD and the coast guard
concluded that this is inconclusive.
So for them, the case is open.
[Florio] The video was not conclusive to
a person falling in the water.
But at the end of the day,
our job is focused on finding that person
in the water, not speculating
what actually happened to him.
[Chamberlain] Honestly, I still don't know
what happened to Kevin.
I wanna talk to one
of Kevin's friends from Florida.
This woman, Shelby Bart, who met him
when he moved back there in 2021.
She's been working with
Kevin's family to get the word out
and get Carnival to release the footage
from that night.
Tell me a little bit about Kevin,
like, how you met him.
Um, I met Kevin locally.
So we have, uh…
we have kava bars down here.
So it's a nonalcoholic bar.
It's a place to hang out
and be with like-minded people.
Kevin was, for the most part,
like, a very happy,
smiling, laughing, kind, you know, guy.
But TMZ and whoever it was
decided to run with a sensational story.
But it was almost, like,
immediately once the story broke
about him having a criminal past,
nobody cared anymore that he was missing.
People were like,
"Glad he's dead." "Glad he's gone."
And the McGrath family,
I felt so terrible for them.
So, I started an online petition
on Change.org
that was to be sent to Carnival,
asking for them to provide footage.
And I started a Facebook group
with his sisters,
and a lot of the people that were on
the cruise with him joined the group,
also really rattled by like what happened.
And people will comment.
[Debra] I'm not on Facebook,
but my family was posting
about Kevin missing from the cruise.
And there was a gentleman
that came forward who was a passenger.
And said that around the time
Kevin went missing,
they saw someone's feet
just sticking out of some chairs.
It was dark.
It was an area they shouldn't be in.
And he found that to be very strange.
[Chamberlain] Today, I'm heading
to talk to a witness
that reached out to the family on Facebook
with a story that he felt might be
connected to Kevin's disappearance.
So, you were on the same cruise
as Kevin McGrath.
-Yes.
-How did you find out
about Kevin being missing?
Carnival, uh, it's kind of
a social-media thing
where you can keep contact
with other cruise members.
All of a sudden something pops up.
"Hey, did you, uh, did you hear about
the guy that went missing on the cruise?"
I went, "Holy cow, what?"
This was how long after the cruise?
-Um, I'm guessing maybe a week.
-Okay.
So what made you reach out?
[Ford] So the morning of porting,
I'm an early riser.
I woke up early. Everybody else was,
you know, normal sleep.
And thought, "You know what, there's
a couple of things I didn't get to see."
I wanted to see the mini golf course,
so I went on a walk looking for this.
Approximately what time-ish?
[Ford] I would say 4:30, 5 o'clock.
[Chamberlain] So, that's actually around
the time Kevin's unaccounted for.
Was this before the sun was up?
-[Ford] It was completely dark outside.
-[Chamberlain] Okay.
[Ford] I'm walking the upper decks
and ended up on this little deck
with all these lounge chairs.
It was right by the smokestack.
Here is a map. So, where…
[Ford] So I would have been
right up in this area here.
And about the time I got ready to leave,
I-I turned around,
and I noticed somebody's feet
-in the lounge chairs.
-[Chamberlain] Mm-hmm.
[Ford] And it looked like
somebody had laid down
and kind of pulled the chairs
close to them.
[Chamberlain] What type of shoes?
[Ford] They were like the flip flops,
like the Adidas or whatever.
-That-that have--
-Oh, like-like the slides?
-Yeah, yeah.
-Yeah.
And they were wearing them with socks.
And I looked at it for a minute,
and I thought,
"This is probably some poor guy
that didn't want to lay on a lounge chair
and somebody see him."
And so I went ahead and left the area.
What do you think now about what you saw?
You know, it's-it's,
"Could it have been Kevin?"
This area was just someplace
that the crew would go to store chairs.
If I was trying to hide something,
that-that would be the place to do it.
That makes sense.
[Ford] So, I contact the family
on Messenger and the sister said
she was gonna get
a hold of some detectives
-and asked if I'd mind talking to them.
-Mm-hmm.
[Ford] "No, not a problem."
And what really troubles me
is no one's really reached out.
[Chamberlain] Yeah, wow.
-You saw someone…
-Right.
…and we have someone that's missing,
so it seems like something
that just needed to be investigated.
How easy would it be
for someone to reach out?
[Ford] You're 100% right.
[Debra] I played different scenarios
in my mind.
And to me, the worst scenario
would be someone harmed him.
When Kevin got out of the military,
he didn't like people in his face.
Kevin had bought a cigar
earlier in the day.
And so in my mind,
if he was smoking a cigar
in the wrong location
and security came at him
in a hostile manner,
and was up in his face,
he would have escalated the situation.
They could have just threw him overboard.
You're just stuck in your mind
as to what transpired
in those wee hours of the morning.
[Chamberlain] I still don't know
what happened to Kevin.
I don't know if those were his feet,
but it's very strange that no one
ever followed up with Will Ford.
And without any evidence,
anything's possible.
-Hi, Amara.
-Hi, how are you?
I'm good. I have some updates for you.
I actually spoke to a man named Will Ford,
and Will was on the cruise
that morning that Kevin disappeared.
He sees, like, two feet
sticking out from underneath
and in between two stacks of pool chairs.
And then he gets home,
sees that someone went missing,
and he thought, "Wait,
this could be relevant."
And he shares it.
The fact that, you know,
there's someone who's on the ship
who didn't even know that someone
went missing until they got home,
-it makes you really think.
-Right.
And no one ever followed up with Will.
Wow, that's crazy.
How many more "Wills" are out there?
Right. And as far
as Carnival's investigation,
there's a video
that Carnival sent to law enforcement
which they indicated
showed Kevin going overboard.
But according to his family, all you can
see in the video is a white cap.
At no point do you see
something coming down.
You just see a splash.
And ultimately, law enforcement,
the coast guard,
they never saw anything in the video
that led them to close this case.
And they have no access
to any other information
that leads them to believe
the case is closed.
If all you see is a splash, even
if that was Kevin going into the water…
-Right.
-…what if someone pushed him?
What if this was, you know…
What if something happened?
So, no real information. And his family
is left without any answers.
[seagulls squawking]
[Chamberlain] I hope and pray
that you can get some answers,
that someone knows something
and someone saw something.
And-And maybe we can figure out
what happened.
-Yes.
-That's the only reason I-I do this.
That's the only reason I'm here.
And that's why we are so thankful,
because it-it's still an open case.
Anyone could come forward.
[Sean] We've been approached
by family members
about possibly having
a celebration of life for him.
But I refuse to
until I have physical evidence
that points to him, you know, dying.
[Chamberlain] Yeah.
-[Debra] I'm not giving up, Kevin.
-[Chamberlain] No.
Kevin's spirit is saying to me,
"Mom, don't give up.
Don't give up.
Keep fighting for me." [sobbing]
My joy left with him.
But because of my family, I'm holding on,
but it's not the same.
Till I die, I'm not giving up.
[Thomas] I miss him. I really do.
Both as a person I was with
and as a father.
When their birthdays come,
they do ask about
if their dad's going to be there,
and I just tell them he can't make it.
They used to cry about it,
especially his daughter.
Kids want their… their mom,
but she always want her dad.
It just hurts
because that was her best friend.
[Chamberlain] Kevin's family should not
have to accept "inconclusive"
as an answer for what happened.
There's footage that was not released,
there are witnesses
that were not interviewed,
and we have a family waiting for answers.
It appears that Carnival
followed the law in this case,
but perhaps that is the problem.
There's no strict standard
when it comes to older ships.
Then there's this matter of the video
evidence provided to law enforcement.
Where is it? Why can't we see it?
For now, I would love for anyone
who was on that cruise in 2023
to check your videos, check your photos,
see if there's anything
that could be helpful
in finding out what happened to Kevin.
If you have any new information
about Kevin's case,
please call law enforcement directly.
His children deserve to know
what happened to their father,
and this family has waited long enough.
For further discussion about Kevin's case,
visit the Somebody Knows Something
channel on abcnews.com
If you wanna commit the perfect murder,
this was it.
The house across the street
had surveillance cameras.
You hear the gunshots. You hear her
scream. And I was like, "What's going on?"
Somebody wanted her dead.
I don't know why. And it makes me angry.