Cruise Passenger Mystery Deepens

Connecticut Man Missing Almost A Month, Since Vanishing Off Ship

(CBS)  Says U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor: "This is not going to be an easy case. We have a moving crime scene, we have a group of international passengers who have dispersed. So, it may take a long time to piece together what happened that night."

Turkish authorities had interviewed and released Hagel, and a Turkish prosecutor has said Hagel isn't a suspect.

Defense attorney and CBS News legal consultant Mickey Sherman went to high school in Greenwich, Conn. with George Smith IV's father, though it's been years since they've spoken.

Sherman, who still lives in Greenwich, says he has been watching the case take shape.

On The Early Show Monday, he told Storm the Smiths are a "well-known family. …Everyone has always had nothing but the best regard for this family. Never any trouble. The best reputation. Nice people, active in the community. Again, I don't know them now, but I know of them. No one would have anything negative to say about them at any time."

Hagel and both her and Smith's families have been completely tightlipped, which Sherman says he respects: "A lot of people are not disappointed, but frustrated with that. We in the media seem to be frustrated by that. But, as opposed to some of the other cases that we've seen, whether it's (Michael) Jackson or (Scott) Peterson, I laud them, both sides, for not parading out lawyers or family spokespeople or whatnot.

"According to the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut (Kevin O'Connor), who has now got control of this case, they've been nothing but cooperative, both sides. And that's all they really need to do."

Turkish authorities say Hagel told them she and her husband had been in the casino, drinking and gambling, and she doesn't remember what happened when they got back to their room. Yet, Hyman says he heard arguments, perhaps furniture being moved around.

Sherman discounts the apparent discrepancy: "You have to assume on a cruise ship, everyone is there to enjoy themselves. You can't vilify them that they were drinking. That's what you are supposed to do on vacation and on your honeymoon."

Sherman agrees with O'Connor that probers have their work cut out for them: "(This wasn't) just a crime scene, it was a moving crime scene. And a private crime scene. Who knows if the cruise ship security people are cooperating fully? They have (potential) civil liability."