All we know about Alistair 'Yellow' Douglas today, the musician last seen with missing Amy Bradley

Cosmopolitan

3 days ago

Viewers of Netflix's latest true crime drop, Amy Bradley Is Missing, a three-part documentary examining the sad case of a young woman named Amy Lynn Bradley, who disappeared during a cruise ship holiday with her family in March 1998. At the time, she was just 23 years old.
More intriguing still, since then there have been multiple rumoured sightings of Bradley, everywhere from the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao to Barbados and California – yet her family are still desperately seeking an answer and concrete evidence as to where she could be.
In the Netflix series, one person who was pointed out to be a person of interest in Bradley's case was a musician, Alister 'Yellow' Douglas, whose band was playing on board the Royal Caribbean International cruise ship, Rhapsody of the Seas, when she vanished. Reports were made that Douglas had been seen dancing with Bradley in the early hours of the morning before her family raised the alarm that she was nowhere to be found.
Douglas always denied any wrongdoing and that he played any sort of rule in Bradley going missing.
Here, we take a deep-dive into who Alister 'Yellow' Douglas is, what he's said about Amy Bradley's case and where he is today.
Alister Douglas, better known by his nickname 'Yellow' (a nod to his signature brightly dyed yellow hair), was once a vibrant presence aboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas, thanks to his turn at playing bass guitar in the ship's live band, Blue Orchid.
When Amy Bradley vanished in the early hours of 24 March 1998, during what should have been a dream family holiday, surveillance footage and eyewitness testimony placed her with Douglas in the ship's nightclub just hours before she disappeared.
The two were seen dancing together, and reports suggest they were also spotted on the deck after midnight.
As one of the last known people to see Bradley, Douglas became a key figure in the investigation. The FBI grilled him extensively, and he even agreed to take a polygraph test, which he reportedly passed. Despite the scrutiny, no charges were ever filed against him, and he faded from the investigation as authorities pursued other leads.
After the intense scrutiny from media and the police, Douglas became relatively anonymous over the following decades with his whereabouts were unknown – until late 2024, when investigative journalist James Renner, who has a YouTube channel dedicated to true crime, uncovered Douglas's surprising new life.
Now in his 50s, Douglas has traded his bass guitar for a Bible. He resides in a remote mountain community in Grenada, where he serves as a reverend. His congregation is small—40 to 50 members—and his church is described as a 'humble shack' perched on the mountainside. But what's perhaps most striking about his new life is his practice of exorcism, a dramatic turn from his days as an entertainer.
Speaking on Renner's YouTube channel, Douglas recalls Bradley approaching him after his set and telling him that she played saxophone, her dad was an insurance manager who had recently discovered she was gay and forced her to go on the cruise (something her family have denied), and that she was smoking a lot.
"About five minutes to one I said 'I have to go, I have to be out of passenger area' and I left. That was my last conversation, last time I saw her," Douglas states, contradicting the three witnesses who claimed to have seen her on the upper deck with Douglas between 5:30 and 5:45am.
Later in the interview he adds, "Around 7 o'clock, I was awakened by a call by the hotel manager and he asked me 'Douglas, do you have a woman in your room?'. It was forbidden, it was forbidden dating [...] And I said 'no' and I asked why, he said 'The woman you were talking to last night in the club, we can't find her'."
After, as per Douglas' account, the ship was then grounded and nobody could enter or exit.
"Everybody was interrogated," he said. "Lie detector tests... At that time, they didn't say anything much to me, they took the [wires] off me." Douglas added that an FBI agent later interviewed him on multiple occasions, telling him again that he was clear.
"I've lost so many opportunities because of this," Douglas shared. "Once my name was entered [into Google] they would say I had something to do with this missing girl and I would lose the contract.
"The truth, no matter how long it is, always surfaces."
Netflix's three-part series, Amy Bradley Is Missing, is available to stream from 16 July
Jennifer Savin is Cosmopolitan UK's multiple award-winning Features Editor, who was crowned Digital Journalist of the Year for her work tackling the issues most important to young women. She regularly covers breaking news, cultural trends, health, the royals and more, using her esteemed connections to access the best experts along the way. She's grilled everyone from high-profile politicians to A-list celebrities, and has sensitively interviewed hundreds of people about their real life stories. In addition to this, Jennifer is widely known for her own undercover investigations and campaign work, which includes successfully petitioning the government for change around topics like abortion rights and image-based sexual abuse. Jennifer is also a published author, documentary consultant (helping to create BBC's Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next?) and a patron for Y.E.S. (a youth services charity). Alongside Cosmopolitan, Jennifer has written for The Times, Women's Health, ELLE and numerous other publications, appeared on podcasts, and spoken on (and hosted) panels for the Women of the World Festival, the University of Manchester and more. In her spare time, Jennifer is a big fan of lipstick, leopard print and over-ordering at dinner. Follow Jennifer on Instagram, X or LinkedIn.