Mum still looking for answers after daughter died on cruise while celebrating 25th birthday
A woman whose daughter died on a cruise ship is still bereft of concrete answers almost 20 years later.
In October 2005, Ashley Barnett boarded a three-day cruise that was departing Long Beach, California, as part of celebrations for her 25th birthday.
However, she died tragically less than a day after boarding the ship.
Ashley's boyfriend said that they went to a concert and a casino before going back to their cabin, saying that at around 2.30am on 15 October he returned to the casino while Ashley went to bed.
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He said he returned at 4am and went to bed, while later on he woke up and went to meet friends while Ashley was still asleep.
The boyfriend said he returned to his cabin at 2pm and couldn't wake Ashley, then started screaming that she wasn't breathing.
Efforts to resuscitate Ashley were unsuccessful and she was pronounced dead at 2.45pm.
Hours later the ship's nurse contacted Ashley's mother Jamie to inform her of her daughter's death.
The cruise ship had been docked in Ensenada, Mexico, but while the woman's body was kept in a morgue nobody stayed with it.
Five days later Ashley's body returned to dry land and an FBI investigation was held, but Jamie previously wrote that they 'revealed very little'.
Speaking to The Sun, Jamie spoke of how difficult it was to go through such tragedy and not fully know what had happened.
She said: "She was autopsied, and before she could come back to the United States, her body had to be embalmed.
"So by the time her body came back, any forensic pathologist had very little to go on to figure out what happened.
"It was a long, perilous journey, which had no real answers in the end.
"I'll never get all the answers. That's one of the most heartbreaking aspects of all... losing someone like that on a cruise ship.
"It's just all different when it happens at sea, and people don't realise that at all."
Ashley's official cause of death was given as a methadone overdose, and Jamie noted that her daughters boyfriend said that his methadone and Vicodin medications were missing.
However, Jamie said her daughter was 'adamantly anti-drug' and 'would have never knowingly taken methadone'.
Her family ordered a hair follicle test, which came up negative and showed no traces of habitual drug use from the young woman.
Since her daughter's death Jamie has become president of the International Cruise Victims group, which campaigns for stronger laws for crimes committed on cruise ships.
LADbible Group has contacted Carnival Cruise Line for comment.
Topics: US News, Cruise Ship
Joe Harker