The end of the search for Cameron Robbins marked the start of an investigation by the Royal Bahamas Police Force into how the teenager ended up in the water that night. That investigation is still ongoing at this time, Inside Edition Digital has learned.
A spokesperson for the Royal Bahamas Defence Force says that the Louisiana teen who disappeared in the waters off Athol Island "fell" from the ship despite reports that the recent high school graduate jumped overboard.
Officials were unable to locate Cameron Robbins or his remains despite an intense 48-hour search led by the Defence Force, with the assistance of the United States Coast Guard.
The star athlete had vanished into the waters of the Bermuda Triangle.
The end of that search marked the start of an investigation by the Royal Bahamas Police Force into how the teenager ended up in the water that night. That investigation is still ongoing at this time, Inside Edition Digital has learned.
Cameron went into the water at approximately 9:30 p.m. on May 25, and two hours later the Defence Force contacted the U.S. Coast Guard to assist in the search operation, "reporting that a man fell off the Blackbeard's Revenge sunset cruise ship," according to a news release.
The Coast Guard provided updates on social media over the next 48 hours, and when the search was called off two days later, the agency included a map showing the 350-square-mile search area.
Robbins' family released a statement as well a short time later, saying: "The Bahamas government has called off the rescue for Cameron and we are returning to Baton Rouge. We want to thank the Bahamas government, the U.S. Coast Guard, the United Cajun Navy and Congressman Garrett Graves for everything they have done for us. In this time of grief we thank our family, friends and well wishers for granting us the privacy we need to properly remember our son and mourn his loss."
How Cameron disappeared remains unknown.
There are a number of factors that could have played a role in his disappearance.
Weather reports show that it was warm but cloudy and there was little moonlight on the night of May 25, making visibility a problem for the teenager.
There is also a chance that the fall into the water may have caused Cameron to suffer a concussion, one expert tells Inside Edition.
"When he jumped into the water, he could have hit his head on the boat," says swim safety expert Jim Spears. "He could have hit his head on the water, like slapping the water with his head. Either way could cause dizziness, a concussion or confusion."
Further complicating search efforts could be the fact that the continental shelf drops to approximately 30,000 feet just a few hundred meters east of where Cameron fell into the water. That deep drop in the sea floor in the area between Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico is used by many experts to explain why people have previously gone missing in the Bermuda Triangle.
Many believe that a shark may have been involved, a theory that first emerged when an official with the Royal Bahamas Defence Force noted that the waters were "shark infested" while announcing the suspension of search efforts.
Video purporting to show Cameron in the water emerged four days later, first appearing on TMZ, which speculated that he had been dared to jump overboard without providing evidence or a source for that information.
A few days later, Fox News ran an interview with a source who wished to remain anonymous, but claimed to be the mother of a teenager who had been friends with Cameron and on the boat that night.
"This was a booze cruise, and they were on their way back when this happened. My son texted me when it happened, saying, ‘Cameron jumped off. They can’t find him.' They were out there until 2, 3 in the morning,'" read the Fox News report. "It was terrible weather that night. The kids were cold, wet and traumatized. The girls were in bikinis and bathing suits. The guys were giving them their shirts. It was a bad time to bring drunk 18-year-olds out into waters near this island where there's nothing."
Official declared Cameron as "missing at sea," and a spokesperson for the United Cajun Navy said that Robbins' family did not wish for the agency to look into the theory that a shark killed the teenager after he went overboard.
To date however, no member of the Defense Force or Coast Guard has confirmed claims that Cameron jumped overboard.
