An Alaskan cruise to celebrate a couple’s wedding anniversary allegedly ended in the bizarre murder of a mother-of-three by her husband.
Kristy Manzanares, 39 has been identified as the victim by her husband, Kenneth, also 39, earlier this week.
The criminal complaint says medical workers and security personnel were called to the couple’s cabin on the Emerald Princess – which was based in Australia last year – at around 9:03pm.
They found Mrs Manzanares suffering from a severe head wound.
It is alleged that Manzanares murdered his wife because ‘she would not stop laughing at him’ in front of their three children. He ‘tried to throw her body overboard’.
Witness accounts reveal that crew found Manzanaras with blood on his hands and clothing.
“Blood was spread through the room and was on ‘multiple surfaces,” according to court documents.
The witness also said that Mr Manzanaras tried to “grab (Kristy’s) body and drag her toward the balcony” but the witness intervened by grabbing “the ankles of (Kristy’s) body to pull her back into the cabin.
“Later, when (Kenneth) was being processed during a search by the FBI for physical evidence, he stated, ‘my life is over,’” an FBI agent wrote in his report.
It’s believed the couple were celebrating an anniversary and were travelling in a large group – which included their children.
Princess Cruises said in a statement that Mrs Manzanares died Tuesday night onboard the Emerald Princess, which had 3,400 passengers onboard and was on a week-long cruise to Alaska from Seattle.
Ironically, according to reports, On the night of Mrs Manzanares’ death the ship was hosting a ‘murder mystery’ themed dinner. Many of the passengers though the incident was a hoax or part of the dinner, according to a report by CBS News.
Hey Frankie,
We haven’t indicated at all that we are blaming Princess Cruises for the incident. We love Princess and we are sure the staff handled the matter appropriately. Thanks for the comment.
Cruise Passenger
The staff of emerald had been tremendous on our trip that had an accidental death in Dunedin NZ. Accidents do happen and ship captain n staff do their job as best as possible could. Thank u. Ram Prasad
Re the death of the lady on the Princess Cruise Ship. Don’t blame the Princess Cruise Line or staff. We have had 4 beautiful cruises on the Princess and plan to do more. We have nothing but excellent comments on staff and accommodation and everything. We thoroughly enjoy are cruise shipping.
The staff were doing as instructed by asking passengers Not to leave the cruise ship. The passengers safety would have been their priority.
On our first Princess Cruise – on our first night – my husband and I were dancing on the dance floor and all of a sudden a very large gentleman fell to the ground – people on the dance floor moved away and the next morning we found out that the gentleman had passed away -heart attack-
Staff were excellent that night – went through their routines in cases like this.
Can’t wait to go again on another cruise with Princess.