Ever pondered abandoning your current path for the thrill of the unknown? Janet did just that, trading in textbook theories for the tug of the tide, and her story is nothing short of breathtaking. Step aboard with us as we recount Janet's unexpected odyssey, a tale that begins within the confines of community college walls and launches into the liberating expanse of the ocean. Witness how a year-long sabbatical on the cruise ship Ares reshapes her aspirations, transforming a fledgling educator into a seasoned voyager. As she immerses herself in diverse cultures and navigates new horizons, Janet discovers a profound sense of purpose that charts a course beyond her wildest dreams.
But when the tides of life shift, so too does our narrative. Venturing back on terra firma, Janet's seafaring lessons steer her towards an unforeseen frontier with the FBI. We juxtapose her newfound freedom with a sobering look at the fates of Scott and Sterling, whose choices have left them ensnared in their own personal prisons. The dusk of Janet's tale may signal the end of one journey, but it ushers in the twilight zone of our podcast. For those who dare to traverse the shadowy corridors of the night with us, more spine-tingling stories await online—where the spectral whispers of fear are just waiting to be heard. Join us, as we uncover the veiled mysteries that flicker at the edge of darkness.
Ever pondered abandoning your current path for the thrill of the unknown? Janet did just that, trading in textbook theories for the tug of the tide, and her story is nothing short of breathtaking. Step aboard with us as we recount Janet's unexpected odyssey, a tale that begins within the confines of community college walls and launches into the liberating expanse of the ocean. Witness how a year-long sabbatical on the cruise ship Ares reshapes her aspirations, transforming a fledgling educator into a seasoned voyager. As she immerses herself in diverse cultures and navigates new horizons, Janet discovers a profound sense of purpose that charts a course beyond her wildest dreams.
But when the tides of life shift, so too does our narrative. Venturing back on terra firma, Janet's seafaring lessons steer her towards an unforeseen frontier with the FBI. We juxtapose her newfound freedom with a sobering look at the fates of Scott and Sterling, whose choices have left them ensnared in their own personal prisons. The dusk of Janet's tale may signal the end of one journey, but it ushers in the twilight zone of our podcast. For those who dare to traverse the shadowy corridors of the night with us, more spine-tingling stories await online—where the spectral whispers of fear are just waiting to be heard. Join us, as we uncover the veiled mysteries that flicker at the edge of darkness.
Well, hello, my little creepies. Oh, yes, it's that time again. We talk about UFOs and Bigfoot, paranormal true crime and conspiracy stories and all things creepy. Yes, this is the Creepy Show. You can find us online at creepyshow and I'm your host, the Master of Creep.
Speaker 2:Well, hello little creepies, it's that time again, tonight's story Sailing into a New Career. Janet has just finished her second year of community college and she decided to take a year off. She started college because she wanted to become a teacher, but then started having second thoughts because of how school careers seemed to be connected to politics. She hated politics and avoided talking about it. She even closed her Facebook account because of the constant chatter about politics. What Janet really wanted was just an extended vacation, some time to rethink her career choice. She was considering changing her major before returning to the community college. Maybe she would just major in biochemistry and become a pharmacist. She would still have the opportunity to teach, which she loved to do, and she would be able to teach people about their prescriptions and their side effects.
Speaker 2:Janet decided to take an entire year off to decide. Now. She loved the ocean and decided to find some kind of job that would allow her to spend time on the beach Maybe a lifeguard, or maybe work at a beach bar. She had decided to find a job that would allow her the time to think about her college and give her an opportunity to be at or near the ocean. Her education would be paid for by her parents, so all she needed was enough money to pay her rent and her food. She lived in Flagstaff, arizona, and decided to move to San Diego for a year. Her parents supported her in taking the year off. Her mother and father told her that she was young and didn't have any responsibilities to worry about. So this would be a good time for her to spend a year and focus on what she really wanted to do. Then she could go back to college and prepare for her future. Now her parents gave Janet $5,000 for her to get started. Now. This won't last long. However, it should give you an opportunity to move and find a place to live and get a job. They also gave Janet a used car so she wouldn't have any car payments. Janet was only 20 years old and had her whole life in front of her.
Speaker 2:After moving to San Diego, janet found a room to rent by the month and started looking for a job. She applied for a few jobs but wasn't really in a hurry to accept one, and then she came across an ad in the newspaper. This was a very exciting job on a small cruise ship. It was a sailing ship and the ad read looking for new crew members, men and women, to perform various jobs on a large sailboat, no experience necessary. Will train Apply in person at San Diego Harbor. Wow, this seemed too good to be true. This is the perfect job. Not only would she be close to the ocean, she would be on the ocean.
Speaker 2:Janet called and set up for the interview. Janet went to the interview and was met by several other people who were also applying for the job. This was a small office very close to the docks. She sat in a chair and started talking to the other people who were also being interviewed. This seemed very exciting. She had never even thought about a job like this.
Speaker 2:Finally, after waiting about 30 minutes, it was her turn to be interviewed, interviewed. This is where she met Captain Dave Fry. Captain Dave was doing the hiring and he was a really big guy, about six foot four inches and very muscular. He appeared to be in his mid-50s and he asked Janet, why do you want to work on a ship? And Janet told him about her college plans and that she was just taking a year off. Captain Dave said well, this would be a perfect job for you because it's a 10-month job opportunity. We need a crew to take care of our passengers who are taking an 18-week vacation and we want to sail around the world. We will be taking two trips during the next nine months. We are looking for cooks and waiters and kitchen helpers, maids, activity organizers, entertainers, and our ship holds 28 guests and about 40 sailors. All the employees are considered sailors.
Speaker 2:Well, janet actually got the job. After going through two more interviews, janet was asked to join the team of sailors who would sail around the world, who would sail around the world. They were set to sail in a month, but the job started the next Monday because there was a one-month training course that would prepare her for the job. On Monday, she showed up for work and got to meet her ship. It was a beautiful 87-meter four-mast sailing ship with 13.5-foot-meter beam. The ship was built around 2004 in the Netherlands shipyard. This was a very modern sailing ship, complete with twin-engine diesels capable of producing 3,860 horsepower, just in case the wind stopped blowing. Otherwise, the engines were to remain just as backup power. The ship was named Ares.
Speaker 2:Janet was trained as a maid, so she would take care of the cabins as a maid, so she would take care of the cabins. On June, the 9th 2017, 28 guests arrived on the ship 14 couples. Each guest paid a whopping $184,000 for the four and a half month around the world journey. Then we would do it all again with another 28 new guests. This was the perfect job for Janet. She would get paid to see the entire world and she didn't even need to pay her rent because all she had to do was pay storage for her car.
Speaker 2:For the next 18 weeks. Life was great. Janet was now a world traveler, having seen the world from many different ports. Each time the ship came into a port, the crew got a two-day furlough to see the different cities and experience different cultures. This was an education all on its own that most people never get a chance to have. Most people never get a chance to have. The ship finally pulled back into San Diego on August the 9th and was scheduled to go back out again on August the 17th for another 18 weeks. What a life. Janet was having a wonderful time working. Her mom and her dad visited her on the ship while docked in San Diego. Her mom and her dad visited her on the ship while docked in San Diego. They noticed that Janet had changed a great deal during the past 20 weeks. I guess traveling the world gives you a different perspective about everything. She seemed much wiser and more mature now.
Speaker 2:The second trip was much different from the first trip. The guests arrived for the second trip and many of these people were foreigners. Some of them didn't speak any English, so it made the job much harder. We also had a new crew member join, an entertainer named Sterling. He was a magician. Entertainer named Sterling. He was a magician. His show also included a lot of comedy and hypnosis. He was really good at it and he kept the guests entertained. He would do a show twice a week and each time it would be a little bit different.
Speaker 2:Just as soon as we started our second trip, something tragic happened. We had been out to sea for just a week when one of our guests disappeared. Security searched the entire ship and, sure enough, one of our female guests was simply gone. The ship stopped and immediately backtracked, looking for a possible passenger overboard. The husband of the missing woman seemed very upset, of course, and we never found the woman. Security searched the entire ship's video log and finally found a video of the woman standing at the ship's stern, and then she appeared to just jump into the ocean. The time mark was 3.15 am and she wasn't reported missing for another four hours. When her husband woke up, her death was ruled a suicide. I later learned out that this happens sometimes on a cruise ship.
Speaker 2:But there was something just not right about this whole death. Janet was the maid for the missing woman's cabin and she remembered the woman as mostly happy all of the time. It just didn't make any sense. Why would she jump to her death, especially on a world cruise, because that's when usually people are at their happiest. Janet mentioned her feelings to Captain Dan and he said well, who knows, maybe she was fighting inner demons or maybe she was just bipolar. And then he reminded her that her job was to clean the rooms and not play detective. But something inside of Janet just wouldn't let it go.
Speaker 2:Janet again approached Captain Dan and voiced her concern. Now Captain Dan has had a lot of experience with sailing on international waters and he told Janet that there's not much they can do in the way of investigating, because when you're in international waters nobody really takes control of an investigation. The FBI sometimes can look into crimes, but only if the perpetrator or the victim is a US citizen. And then Captain Dan again reminded Janet that she was just a maid and not a detective. But Janet decided to do her own investigation and she actually contacted the FBI using the ship's computer and an internet connection. Using the ship's computer and an internet connection and she started to talk to an agent, victor Morales, in the FBI San Diego office and he seemed interested in the case and agreed to look into it. But he had to first determine if either one of the people involved were US citizens. And well, that's a pretty easy thing to find out. Janet said I have access to all the rooms because I'm a maid. And so Janet went into the husband's cabin and she checked and found his passport and copied down all of the information. And, sure enough, her husband was Scott Shoemaker, a US citizen.
Speaker 2:Detective Morales went to work and started looking into the case. He noticed that Scott had recently increased his wife's insurance policy. His wife was named Sarah and she had more than a million dollars on her policy. Sarah's husband, scott, realized that the insurance company was never going to pay unless they could prove that she fell overboard accidentally because they were not going to pay a policy that was caused by a suicide. And of course the video showed Sarah jumping into the ocean willingly. Nobody else was even around her, so it was going to be very difficult to prove that it was an accident, unless, of course, scott could bribe the ship's security officer into destroying the video evidence. So Scott demanded to view the video surveillance tape and then he offered one of the ship's top security officers a large amount of money to make the tape go away. And Janet found out about this request because she was a good friend of the security officer involved and and this only served to intensify her desire to solve this case.
Speaker 2:But Janet found herself running into the same problem. The videotape does show the woman clearly jumping into the ocean on her own will. No one else was around. So how could this possibly be anything other than a suicide? But that's when she remembered the new entertainer, sterling the Great. She remembered seeing Sterling and Sarah talking a lot just before she jumped. How did Sterling fit into all of this? Was he having an affair with her? All of this? Was he having an affair with her?
Speaker 2:Janet contacted the FBI and gave her all of the information that she had collected, and that's when the FBI started working on it and they cracked the case. You see, the FBI subpoenaed the phone records of Sterling and Scott's phone the phone records of Sterling and Scott's phone and they found a lot of text messages going back and forth describing the perfect crime. It seems that Scott was hypnotized by Sterling the night before and Scott was very impressed with Sterling's skill and through text messages going back and forth, the FBI was able to connect all of the dots. Sterling was paid by Scott to hypnotize Sarah and instruct her to jump off the back of the ship. In fact, sterling was paid $50,000 in cryptocurrency if he was successful.
Speaker 2:Both Sterling and Scott thought this was such a perfect plan. Neither one of them didn't think that anyone would question the death. They didn't think about the risk of texting each other, but they were wrong the risk of texting each other, but they were wrong. The case was solved and both Scott and Sterling were charged as soon as the ship pulled into the San Diego port and Janet was giving credit for being instrumental in solving the case. After working on the ship for almost a year case After working on the ship for almost a year, janet decided to go back to school. Now she had already seen the world and she finally figured out what she was going to major in. Two years later, janet finished her college with a degree in law enforcement and now works for the FBI in Flagstaff, arizona.
Speaker 1:As for Scott and Sterling, they're still watching the world through bars as the casket closes on another creepy episode. We bid you farewell To the shadows that danced upon your fears. Oh, and thank you for joining us On this creepy journey Into the unknown, where the darkness whispers secrets and the silence echoes Within your soul. Find us online For some extra creepy content at creepyshow and if you happen to make it through the night, don't forget to share this podcast with someone you want to terrorize. Good night, my little creepies. This podcast with someone you want to terrorize. Good night, my little creepies. Sleep with one eye open, for the night is long and full of horror. Ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha.