FBI: Fall off cruise ship apparently no crime

The FBI said yesterday that no crime appeared to have taken place aboard the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship when a Camden County woman fell overboard Sunday night.

The family of Mindy Jordan, 46, of Pine Hill, said it suspected foul play. But the ship's surveillance cameras show she was alone in her stateroom when she fell from her balcony, the Norwegian Cruise Line said Wednesday.

Mark Mershon, an FBI assistant director, told Fox News yesterday "the information that we have acquired does not suggest a crime, but that is not definitive."

The FBI yesterday wrapped up its investigation aboard the ship, which has been in port in Bermuda since Wednesday, the cruise line said.

The ship is scheduled to leave for New York City early this evening.

Agents interviewed witnesses, watched the ship's surveillance footage, and examined Jordan's sealed stateroom, the cruise line said.

The FBI also conducted "extensive interviews" with Jordan's boyfriend and traveling companion, Jorge Caputo, the company said.

Agents sent the railing and the glass partition from the couple's balcony to a laboratory to be examined for fingerprints and other evidence, said Special Agent Jim Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI's New York office.

An exterior video shows the railing of Jordan's balcony but not the area within it, cruise line spokeswoman AnneMarie Mathews said yesterday. She said she had not seen the footage and was not certain whether it showed what Jordan had been doing before falling.

Agents plan to have the surveillance video enhanced.

"It's not as clear as we might have hoped," Margolin said.

Normally, the FBI does not disclose its findings in a case in which no charges are filed. But in this case, "it's conceivable . . . that if it was an accident, we might announce our findings," Margolin said.

Cameras on the side of the ship caught Jordan falling "straight into the water" at 7:53 p.m., when the ship was 45 miles off Atlantic City, the cruise line said. The Norwegian Dawn had left New York about four hours earlier.

Jordan's body has not been found.

The cruise line said hallway cameras show Caputo leaving the couple's room 17 minutes before Jordan fell. Caputo went into an adjacent stateroom, where a couple with whom they were traveling were staying.

Shortly after Jordan fell, an emergency call was placed from that room, the company said.

The cruise line said the FBI's investigation "was consistent with the company's time line and understanding of the incident. At this time, the FBI does not believe that a crime has been committed."

The cruise line originally said Jordan had fallen while trying to climb from her balcony to an adjacent one.

The cruise line offered to fly Jordan's family to Bermuda to view the videotapes, but her mother, Louise Horton, of Bordentown City, turned down the offer.

Horton and other family members have described Jordan's and Caputo's relationship as volatile.

Caputo left the ship around 1 p.m. yesterday, the cruise line said.

Because the exterior camera does not show the area inside the balcony, Horton doubted the cruise line's conclusions.

"If that happened, how would they know that?" she told the Associated Press.