Michael Mankamyer
Cruise Ship Passenger Overboard Survives 8 Hours In Ocean
Carnvial Cruise Lines Glory - March 16, 2007
Karen Roberts who said her cabin was three doors down from Mankamyer’s, said she thinks there’s more to Mankamyer’s fall than meets the eye. “We heard they called for security, there was blood in the hallway, in the room, everything.”
After Mankamyer went overboard, Wega was handcuffed and arrested by ship security. Security suspected that Wega threw Mankamyer overboard, and were investigating a potential murder.
Mankamyer, still in the hospital, is said to have a collapsed lung, but is in good condition after the sixty foot fall.
Mankamyer is negotiating exclusive interviews with Good Morning America and Inside Edition, said Lorraine Nelson, a spokeswoman for Jackson Memorial Hospital. The public is eager to hear what really happened on that day.
Nelson said there is a long list of additional local and national news outlets and entertainment shows looking to hear Mankamyer's explanation of why he jumped and how he survived.
Nelson said he will not be released from the hospital March 19th and may not be released March 20th. His parents are with him in the hospital. Mankamyer says no new information will be released while he in the hospital.
Family members were stunned. "He isn't wild," said his sister, Gina Mankamyer, 44, of Orlando. "He isn't a depressed person, and he isn't a heavy drinker."
Nancy Nelsen, a civilian search and rescue specialist who works with the Coast Guard's Miami office, credited a new computer model, the Search and Rescue Optimal Planning System, or SAROPS, for helping locate Mankamyer. The system analyzes wind and currents, and uses an animated grid model to project where a floating person could be.
Two Coast Guard cutters and two helicopters took part in the rescue, which swept 125 miles and cost $72,955, said Nelsen. Mankamyer won't be asked to reimburse those expenses, she said.
Mankamyer has said in interviews that he ordered some alcoholic beverages through room service, and mixed with medication he was taking. He says he doesn't remember much after that.
"It was very, very, very frightening," he said. "I was sitting there thinking `what is going to happen to me now?' I remember being in the ocean and the waves were just up and down. You were looking over waves each way looking for that boat or that helicopter. Just looking for anything.", Mankamyer said. He said he saw a rescue boat after about five hours, but it turned away from him. Three hours later, on a final sweep, the ship saw him and he was rescued.
The search by two Coast Guard cutters and two rescue helicopters cost taxpayers about $73,000.
UPDATED: June 15, 2007
In a shocking twist to this case, Mankamyer was arrested. The FBI began investigating Mankamyer in March, about the same time he went on television to tell his story of survival at sea.
Suspicions of criminal behavior were considered because the 35-year-old bachelor had been traveling with a 16-year-old boy, and cruise-line records showed he had booked at least four trips with other boys, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
In recent weeks, deputies had been staking out Mankamyer's home in the Mai Tai Village, a mobile-home park near South Goldenrod Road, while detectives questioned the teens identified as his cruise-ship guests, sheriff's officials said.
Accusations have been made that some boys were plied with liquor at the Mankamyer home, then while intoxicated they were fondled and had sex acts performed on them.
Mankamyer has been charged with one count each of lewd or lascivious molestation and sexual battery -- not likely to cause injury.
UPDATED: August 14, 2007
In another shocking twist to this case, the charges against Mankamyer have been dropped, as the boy, age 16, who claimed he was molested by Mankamyer has said he was pressured into making the charges, after being interviewed by law enforcement for four hours at his school.
The boy who accompanied Mankamyer wrote in a statement to prosecutors that he lied while being questioned at school.
"I made stuff up so I could get out of there," he wrote. "I felt trapped and had to tell them something in order to leave."
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