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May 14, 2008 6:26 pm US/Mountain
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Norwegian: N.J. Woman Alone At Time Of Incident
Cruise Line Says Norwegian Dawn's Surveillance Camera Footage Appears To Rule Out Foul Play
SANDY'S PARISH, Bermuda (CBS) ―
Was she pushed or did she jump?
There was shocking new information Wednesday night in the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Mindy Jordan, a 46-year-old nurse from New Jersey, who fell overboard off the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship on Sunday about 45 minutes off of Atlantic City.
Early Wednesday morning, the Dawn reached its first and only port in Bermuda. FBI agents from New York arrived at the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda to meet with local police, ship security and to interview witnesses, including Jordan's boyfriend, Jorge Caputo, who remained on board the ship after he witnessed his girlfriend go overboard.
In a statement, Norwegian Cruise Lines said the advanced safety and surveillance system operating on Norwegian Dawn, including cameras in the interior hallways and on the exterior sides of the ship, has confirmed that Jordan was in her stateroom alone at the time of the incident.
The sequence of events is as follows:
* Jordan and Caputo dined at the Garden Café with the couple they were traveling with and then returned to their assigned adjacent staterooms at approximately 7:28 p.m.
* At 7:36 p.m., Caputo left his stateroom and went to join his friends in their stateroom next door. From that moment on, Jordan was alone in her stateroom.
* At 7:53 p.m., surveillance cameras from the exterior of the ship capture Jordan falling overboard from her balcony, straight into the water. Shortly thereafter, an emergency call was made from the friends' stateroom and Caputo is seen exiting to seek help.
* At 7:57 p.m., a man overboard announcement was made and the ship's crew began lifesaving operations, including the launch of two rescue boats.
Norwegian Cruise Lines has offered to make arrangements for Jordan's family to join the ship in Bermuda on Thursday and view the surveillance footage.
CBS station WCBS-TV in New York City spoke with several of the Dawn's passengers, many of whom were perplexed by the incident.
"We keep thinking about it ... The poor lady. It's just absolutely horrible," said Linda Neely of Stanhope, N.J.
"Barry," a passenger from Huntington, N.Y., said once Jordan hit the water there was a controlled chaos on the ship.
"All of a sudden they called a "Code Oscar" on port side. Everybody started running and then they started saying somebody fell overboard," he said. "Then a guy ran past with a red buoy and a beacon and threw it over."
Caputo told authorities that Jordan was goofing around on their ninth floor balcony trying to climb to the one next door. He claims she fell on something on the deck below and he tried to save her but she lost her grip and fell into the ocean.
Passengers say the weather was wild Sunday night, so bad that the cruise director sent out warnings and told everyone to stay indoors.
"It was too windy outside for anyone to be outside and they banned everybody basically from being on the deck so I don't see it," said Gilbert Rivera of the Bronx. "I just don't understand how she fell over."
Neeley said the sea was extremely rough.
"You couldn't even stand up. The wind was just blowing and blowing and I can't imagine what they were doing up there, what lead her to do something like that," Neeley said.
That's what investigators are hoping to figure out before the Norwegian Dawn heads back to New York on Friday.
Jordan's family has been asking authorities for a full investigation -- rather than simply relying on the early word from Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line.
"Our interest is to understand what happened," said Jordan's brother, Steve Lynn, who traveled from his home in Kentucky to be with his and Jordan's mother, Louise Horton, in her Bordentown, N.J. home.
Lynn said the FBI also interviewed his mother Tuesday night and took some possible evidence, including photos of bruises on his sister.
Horton has said that Jordan's relationship with boyfriend Caputo was abusive. Jordan, the mother of two teenagers, had been involved with Caputo for about 2 ½ years and lived with him in the Philadelphia suburb of Pine Hill for most of that time, her brother said.
Lynn said relatives had encouraged Jordan to contact authorities about the way Caputo treated her.
"She was reluctant to do that and did not," he said.
Jordan's family members say it was Caputo who called Horton to tell her that Jordan was missing. They said the call came about 15 hours after she went overboard.
"For this to happen on Mother's Day is even more tragic," Lynn said Wednesday.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)