Neighbors of Ms. Edelgard Carney who disappeared from the Princess Cruises’ Sapphire Princess indicate that she never intended to return home once she left California.  

Vancouverite, a newspaper in Vancouver, Canada, reports that Ms. Carney sold her $300,000 house to the Catholic Church for just $125,000, left her furniture and disposed of her personal belongings.  

If in fact this is a suicide, it seems to be very painful to the surviving family members for a loved one to choose this method to end her life.

The cruise line has been careful not to release self serving comments regarding Ms. Carney’s disappearance.  In August, following the disappearance of passenger Amber Malkuch in Alaskan waters, Holland America Line (HAL) issued a PR statement labeling her death a probable suicide. There were no facts supporting this theory and the FBI had not even concluded its investigation.  HAL was roundly and rightfully criticized for such a publicity spin. In this case, Princess Cruises is going to avoid that PR debacle by waiting for an announcement by the U.S. Coast Guard or Canadian authorities.

Questions remain why Princess Cruises did not detect the passenger overboard earlier.  The newspaper indicates that the cruise line caused confusion after telling the U.S. Coast Guard that the passenger fell overboard on Monday when she actually disappeared on Tuesday.  This caused the U.S. Coast Guard to search nearer to the Alaskan Coastline rather Canadian authorities searching in Canadian waters.    

Update:

According to the Vancouver Sun, a representative of the Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police has concluded that this appears to be a suicide: “She was by herself, and the video shows her jumping off.”

The newspaper states that Ms. Carney had a life-threatening illness.

The video is reported to show Ms. Carney jumping off of the stern of the cruise ship.

A commenter to out blog previously noted that while on this cruise ship he noticed: "video cameras similar to ones used in our apartment bldg. pointing across/down on the stern of the ship ostensibly to view the rear waters area."

Although Ms. Carney is reported to have jumped Tuesday morning, it took Princess Cruises until Thursday afternoon to even find the video. Either Princess Cruises does not have a policy to monitor their exterior cameras or no one was paying attention.