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“She would not stop laughing at me,” Kenneth told a witness, according to the FBI in Anchorage. He said the defendant strangled the victim before throwing her overboard, so there was no way for her lungs to fill up with water and the body floated instead of sinking, allowing it to be found. Kocontes is a "very smart, very educated'' attorney, but "he made a very critical mistake,'' Spitzer said, adding that the defendant picked the cruise ship because every room "had a direct drop'' to the water. Some passengers on the cruise initially thought the loudspeaker announcement for security and medical personnel was make-believe and was part of a musical Sherlock Holmes-themed murder mystery trivia program, one passenger told PEOPLE. Soon after, the two made plans to go on a cruise, which was unusual because he seldom went on vacation and was known for his thriftiness, Price said.
Her Husband Allegedly ‘Snapped’ After She Mentioned Divorce: Family Source
Kocontes continued to support Kanesaki from 2002 to 2005 even though he had "no legal obligation to do so,'' she said, telling jurors they would hear conflicting evidence about the cause of death. On the first day of the cruise, the defendant and Kanesaki opted for a daylong Sicily excursion. They returned to the ship, where they had dinner and shared a bottle of wine before going to a casino and seeing a show, Price said.
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PEOPLE Explains: Case of Utah Mom Allegedly Murdered by Husband on Alaska-Bound Cruise
Two daughters who gave statements during the emotional first day of the sentencing hearing on Wednesday spoke about their father but did not speak to a specific sentence. Manzanares' attorneys, in a court filing last month, asked Burgess to consider the wishes of the Manzanares children, who they said hold their father responsible but "also understand that his impairments played a major factor in the events that occurred, and they have already lost one parent." Burgess said Kristy Manzanares' life was "viciously ended" by her husband, in an attack partly witnessed by two of the couple's children.
Before the trip, Kocontes asked his best friend, a private investigator and retired cop, about security on cruise ships, such as surveillance cameras, she said. Prosecutors said Kenneth Manzanares had issues with anger and that he had acknowledged restraining his wife in the past and punching holes in walls. Defense attorneys said the couple had a "long and happy marriage," and Jamie McGrady, a federal public defender representing Manzanares, accused prosecutors of selectively parsing details from statements Manzanares made to try to paint him as someone who was abusive.
The man who was found guilty was found guilty of a crime of manslaughter and illegal firearm possession. U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui of California says crimes at sea are an unfortunate reality, and she co-authored a bill in 2010 to expand protections to passengers after hearing from victims. Most cruise-goers will never encounter any kind of crime, but serious offenses do occur on cruise ships—and can seem even more jolting in what’s supposed to be a festive and fun setting. Lonnie Loren Kocontes, 62, was convicted June 15 of murder with a special-circumstance allegation of murder for financial gain in the killing of 52-year- old Micki Kanesaki, whose body was recovered by the crew of a research vessel on May 28, 2006, in the Mediterranean Sea near Italy.
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She called the sentence a tragedy and said the judge ignored scientific evidence. A passenger on the ship, Ruby Plata, was with her husband aboard the ship when she heard an announcement over the intercom. But Burgess said there was competing evidence offered about Manzanares' culpability and that experts had failed to show what factors led to the crime. Another passenger, Jen Larson, told ABC News that she saw the Kristy’s young daughter distraught and screaming after the incident. When a man emerged nearby in blood-covered clothes and said, “It doesn’t look good,” the girl “just lost it,” Beckman recalled.
Woman boards Jacksonville cruise ship, gets arrested, charged with attempted murder in 2022 hit-and-run: JSO - WJXT News4JAX
Woman boards Jacksonville cruise ship, gets arrested, charged with attempted murder in 2022 hit-and-run: JSO.
Posted: Wed, 24 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
There was no evidence that she had fallen overboard or committed suicide and there were no sightings of her. None of her belongings had been taken.There have been multiple reported sightings of Amy since she went missing, some in Curacao and more recently in Barbados. Amy remains to this day a missing person and there is hope that she is still alive somewhere.
It is said that Scott’s story was inconsistent, at first he said that she had been blown overboard when they were running on the running track of the ship. He then later changed his story and said that she had fallen overboard. In this post, we look at the truth behind the episodes and the real-life cases that match the circumstance of the murders mentioned on the show.
When Kristy and Kenneth Manzanares boarded a cruise ship headed to Alaska, it was supposed to be the beginning of a week-long anniversary celebration for the Utah couple with friends and family. Days later, however, Kristy lay dead on the floor of her cabin, blood splattered around the room, and her husband was charged with her killing. A former Irvine attorney was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing his ex-wife and throwing her body overboard while on a Mediterranean cruise to solve his financial disputes with the victim.
Princess Cruises will issue $150 onboard credit to each passenger because of the inconvenience. The source adds that at some point that evening, Kristy asked for a divorce. At that point, Kenneth allegedly “snapped” and killed her, the source says. Kristy was traveling with extended family members and her three daughters, ranging in age from 13 to 22, family spokeswoman Miranda Barnard told PEOPLE.
She said Kocontes married Nguyen in Las Vegas in 2005 and the two moved in together in Orange. In September of that year, he filed a motion in court to have a judge force Kanesaki to sell their Ladera Ranch home, Price said. Kocontes, most recently a resident of Safety Harbor, Florida, and met Kanesaki while working at a Los Angeles law firm, where he was an attorney and she was a paralegal, Price said. They married in 1995 and divorced in 2002, but continued living together in Ladera Ranch and took steps to split up their assets to protect him from threatened litigation, she said. In her opening statement of the trial -- which began in February and was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic -- Senior Deputy District Attorney Susan Price said Kanesaki, at the time, "was with a man who no longer loved'' Kocontes and had remained with her for "financial'' reasons. A statement released by Kristy Manzanares' family said the ruling "brings us neither joy nor anger. Rather, simply a sense of resolution. We believe that the court made a fair and just determination. However, the legal system does not and is not intended to fill the emotional void of our loss."
However, Matsui says, “there is certainly more work to do,” noting that new legislation she introduced would improve crime-reporting mechanisms as well as information available to cruisers. While federal agents were looking into the death, Kocontes at some point talked Nguyen into removing a hard drive from one of his computers in his Irvine office, Price said. She lied to the federal grand jury because Kocontes threatened to kill her and make it look like an accident, Price alleged. Kanesaki's niece, Julie Saranita, recorded phone conversations with Kocontes while she was cooperating with FBI agents, according to Price, who played some of the conversations for jurors during her opening statement. Eventually, Kocontes dropped the issue, left Nguyen and moved back in with Kanesaki, but told Nguyen he loved her and did not want to leave her, the prosecutor said. Kocontes "almost got away with the perfect crime,'' Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer told reporters after the verdict was handed down.
Manzanares' attorneys, in a court filing, said he had brain abnormalities that a defense expert deemed consistent with injuries caused by playing contact sports. This, combined with what was at the time an undiagnosed bipolar disorder and "a problematic combination of prescribed medication and alcohol resulted in an aberrant episode of violence," the filing states. The cruise was a celebration of their 18th wedding anniversary, the family source tells PEOPLE.
The July 25, 2017 death was one of three homicides or suspicious deaths that year on one of 10 cruise lines operating in U.S. ports, according to U.S. Kocontes' attorney, Denise Gragg, told jurors "there are very few things in this case that are not contested,'' but one of the main differences involves the relationship between the defendant and the victim. The defendant was put up in a hotel in Naples, but he stayed just a day and returned home before his ex-wife's body was found, Price said. Instead of going to his home in Ladera Ranch, he went to Nguyen's house, where they resumed their intimate relationship, she said.
Cruise Ship Killers is a true crime series that tells the stories of people who never returned home after taking a holiday on a cruise ship, featuring interviews with family, friends, invest... A Utah man was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison in the beating death of his wife on an Alaska cruise in 2017, with a federal judge describing the crime as violent and brutal. Prosecutors had sought life in prison for Kenneth Manzanares, who pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder in the death of his wife, Kristy Manzanares. In 1998 Amy Bradley was 23 and she went missing from the Rhapsody of The Seas. The cruise line searched the cruise ship but was not able to find any signs of Amy.
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