48 Hours Mystery: Love Lost

(CBS News)  Produced By Clare Friedland, Mary Noonan Robichaux, Marc Goldbaum and Liza Finley

George Smith and his bride, Jennifer Hagel Smith, were married last summer in a picture-perfect wedding and soon thereafter embarked on what was supposed to be a dreamy honeymoon cruise on the Mediterranean.

But after a night of heavy drinking, George disappeared, presumably having gone overboard in the darkness of the night. Was his disappearance a crime or just an unfortunate mishap? Hannah Storm reports on the investigation.

For George and Maureen Smith, life changed forever with a single phone call last July 5.

"6:30 in the morning the phone rang, and I heard this crying on the phone and it was Jennifer's father," recalls Maureen. "He was sobbing uncontrollably and he said, 'Something terrible has happened to George on the cruise ship. He's missing.'"

It was the last thing they would have expected to hear. After all, their son, George, age 26, was happily on his honeymoon cruise with the love of his life, Jennifer Hagel. And now they were being told he had vanished somewhere in the deep waters of the Aegean Sea.

Just 10 days earlier, life seemed so full of promise for the newlyweds. They were married in a picture-perfect wedding on a hilltop overlooking the bay in Newport, R.I.

Asked to describe his son, George Smith says he was very devoted and a family person. Speaking about his daughter-in-law, George says Jennifer was very outgoing, was very pretty and had a great personality.

Maureen says her son's dreams for the future included children. "And he would've been a great father, and he would've had a lot of fun with his children."

George's love of children was something he shared with Jennifer. She had just accepted a job as an elementary school teacher. And George was about to take over the family business, a successful liquor store in Greenwich, Conn.

Now, George's parents and his sister Bree found themselves overwhelmed with grief and frantic for answers, half a world away from that cruise ship. All that Royal Caribbean would tell them was that George was "missing."

Bree remembers asking the cruise line whether they had searched the ship, the Brilliance of the Seas. "And they said, 'Yes we searched the boat.' I said, 'Well continue to search the boat, my brother has to be there.' They knew otherwise. Because they knew about the blood on the overhang. But they never told us about the blood on the overhang," she says.

Bree was referring to a huge blood stain on a metal canopy some 20 feet below George and Jennifer's balcony. A photo of the stain was captured on the morning George disappeared by 16-year-old passenger Emilie Rausch.

"When I took the picture, one of the things that made me think that this could have been blood — I saw a handprint running off the side of it," Emilie recalls.

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[AlenaJoy]

After studying this situation, here's what I feel is obvious, given eye witness accounts and the witness of the security official in the cabin next to the Smith's. The security officer heard the moving of furniture, he heard partying and felt and heard a loud thud. There was blood in the Smith cabin and that proves there was an injury. I believe George Smith was partly to blame for his own death because of very bad decisions on his part. He drank until he was publicly intoxicated and couldn't return to this room without help. But I also blame the male companions because they saw his state and continued to allow him to drink, or plowed him with alcohol. They clearly had a greater sense of their behavior than George did by that time. Therefore, they should be held more accountible than George. If they had left George's room immediately, George would most likely have gone to sleep. But it may be that their state by that time was distorted, having much to drink also. But George Smith couldn't get back to his room without help and they remained in George's room for some time, continuing to party. It seems fairly impossible by that time that George would have been capable of leaving the room on his own, after his male companions left. If he did, it's conceivable that he would fall overboard. But how would that be possible, since he had consumed more alcohol in his room? Therefore, his male companions are surely at fault. If George's cabin was empty when others returned his wife there, his male companions removed George from his room and pushed him overboard. There is no other possibility in my mind. It may be that George became beligerant in his room, creating aggression from his companions. In their state of mind, they may have killed him without intent. But I believe they must have removed him from his room and that they are to blame for second degree murder. They also need to come to trial for the rape. The victim hasn't followed through on that and she should. But overall, I don't feel Royal Carribean is at fault. I believe they were cooperative and did their duty. The ball dropped somewhere between the Smith's and their US investigators and the Turkish security. Follow through was not the duty of Royal Carribean. It was the duty of the Smith family to follow through and bring this to trial. It is high time that the Smiths press charges against all of George's male companions on that ship and it's high time the rape victim pressed charges and brought that to trial as well. All of the male companions need to serve time for second degree murder and rape in my opinion. They are all responsible for public disorder, public intoxication, criminal negligence, death and rape. They need to see prison for a long time because they were a critical part of both of those crimes.