RealChoice: October 15, 2005: Post-Abortion Overdose Aboard Cruise Ship

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

October 15, 2005: Post-Abortion Overdose Aboard Cruise Ship

As she approached her 25th birthday, Lila Ashley Barnett, who went by her middle name, seemed have everything going for her.

Living the Dream

Ashley Barnett

Though Ashley's parents were divorced, both Bill and Jamie were devoted to her and her three brothers. Ashley also had two half sisters and two step brothers. Ashley's mother told CBS News that whether related by blood or marriage, the siblings were close and supportive of one another.

Ashley had been born in Greenville, Texas, to a theater family. Her first stage presence was as an infant in her parents' production of The Miracle Worker.

Though born in Texas, Ashley grew up in Burbank. She graduated from Burbank High School in 1999. Her mother worked in the grip department of CBS Television Studios. Ashley joined the Screen Actors Guild and played small roles in "Passions," "Family Affair," and "Will and Grace." Ashley began working at CBS Studios, at first in the mailroom and then as a production assistant on "Will and Grace."

While Ashley was working at CBS, film composer John Debney, who had written scores to "The Princess Diaries" and "Bruce Almighty," among other films, noticed the vibrant young woman. "She had star written all over her," Debney told CBS News. "Not only was she beautiful, but she had such heart and soul." He hired her as his music coordinator.

Ashley's career was on the rise.

Ashley and Geoff

Ashley had known Geoff Ginsburg since they were in 9th grade. By the time they were in their early 20s, they had become a couple.

It seems an odd pairing. Ashley was working in Hollywood production and Geoff was an electrician. But an even bigger mismatch was their attitude towards drugs.

Ashley was firmly anti-drug to the point, her mother said, that she annoyed people with an anti-drug rap song she had written. Jamie said that one of her friends said that if others in a room started to "party," Ashley would leave the room rather than remain someplace where drugs were being used.

Geoff, on the other hand, was a recovering Vicodin addict.

Ashley's friend Allie Tweast told CBS News that Ashley thought she could rescue Geoff from his addiction, "that her love could somehow wake him up."

She was wrong.

The Cruise

On October 14, 2005, Ashley and Geoff boarded the Carnival cruise ship "Paradise" in Long Beach, along with two other couples. The three-day cruise was to celebrate Ashley's 25th birthday, which was coming up on October 21.

DayQuil capsules vs. methadone tablets

Geoff, whose had evidently fallen off the wagon, brought both Vicodin and methadone onto the ship with him, with the latter poured into a DayQuil bottle. (Some coverage said that he had methadone pills in a DayQuil bottle, but this is highly unlikely. DayQuil capsules come in blister packs in a box, not in a bottle, and methadone tablets do not in any way resemble DayQuil capsules.)

That first night at sea, Geoff and Ashley went to a concert and a casino. Joe Fischera, one of the friends who had boarded with Geoff and Ashley, said, "To me it was like a big rave at sea. Just people dancing and everyone just having such a good time, you know. You know drinkin' and partyin'. This is gonna be a real cool time."

Ashley, who reportedly was not the type to enjoy a rave, probably did not find this very much to her liking.

Geoff and Ashley returned to their cabin but, according to Geoff, had an argument. He left at around 2:30 am, Ashley stayed. When he returned at around 4 am, he found Ashley asleep and curled up with her.

Next day slipped out without waking her to join their friends. Joe said that Geoff told them, "My baby doll's still snoring. Let's let her sleep a little bit longer, and we'll wake her up in a little bit."

The Dreadful Discovery

Some time between 1:45 and 2:00 pm, Geoff said, he returned to the cabin and spoke to Ashley, telling her it was time to get up. She didn't respond to his voice.

"I kind of touched her on the face and I was like, you know, baby, baby, what's going on , you know. And her eyes were shut and I was kind of like trying to open her eyes a little bit and she wasn't responding. And I just started freaking out."

Geoff ran into the hallway screaming for help. Another passenger, who was a volunteer firefighter, heard him and rushed to help. The firefighter started CPR and told Geoff to call 911. It was 2:07 when he made the call, saying, "My girlfriend's not breathing. I don't think she's breathing. Please come help."

Within three minutes the nurse arrived, assisted with CPR, and sent out an emergency announcement to summon the ship's doctor. He arrived at 2:12 pm to find Ashley unresponsive, cold, and pulseless.

Geoff said that he told the nurse and doctor that 5 of his Vicodin were missing, as was the methadone, but they didn't administer any drugs to counteract the likely overdose. They couldn't have, even if they had wanted to, because there was none aboard the ship.

None of the coverage indicates at what point Geoff noticed that his Vicodin and methadone were missing. They just note Geoff's assertion that he told the doctor and nurse as they were working on Ashley.

She was pronounced dead at 2:45 pm.

Immediate Aftermath

Ashley's body was taken to morgue in Ensenada, Mexico. Mexican authorities come aboard ship and questioned Geoff. They also notified the FBI. After concluding that no crime had taken place, Mexican authorities instructed Geoff and his friends to return to the US aboard the ship so they could be questioned by US authorities.

Meanwhile Ashley's body was kept there in the Ensenada morgue.

It wasn't until around 6 pm the evening of October 15 that Ashley's mother got a phone call from the cruise ship nurse. "I'm terribly, terribly sorry to tell you your daughter passes away today."

Jamie at first couldn't believe what she was hearing. She later recalled telling the nurse, "No, she didn't. No, she didn't. This is a joke. This is very cruel."

Once the truth started to sink in, Jamie asked what had happened. She was told, "We don't know. That's being investigated right now."

Jamie asked to speak to Geoff, but was told that he was being questioned. She wasn't going to get any answers that night. Nor was she to get any clarity over the following decades.

Finally Speaking With Geoff

Geoff didn't reach out to Jamie until the following day. He said he had waited so long to call because "I didn't know what to say. I was just like in a comatose, kinda just in a state of shock. How do you make that call? What do you say? You know? I'd never been in that situation before. I didn't not know how to handle it."

Jamie told CBS News, "The conversation was very short because the people in the room with him took the phone away from him, because he was so upset. He just said, 'I don't know what happened,' And I said, 'You know, Geoff, you have to know what happened. You were there with her.' And he said, 'Jamie, I have no idea. She went to sleep and that's all I know. The only thing I know is some of my methadone and some of my Vicodin was missing.'"

Jamie learned that the purpose of the cruise had not just been to celebrate Ashley's birthday. Geoff had planned to detox off the Vicodin during those three days. That's why he had somehow illegally obtained the methadone.

Cause of Death

An autopsy performed in Mexico concluded that the cause of death was methadone toxicity.

It took Ashley's family five days to get their daughter's body returned to the states after a mandatory pre-transit embalming. Ashley's family hired a pathologist to do another autopsy including a hair analysis to see if Ashley had begun abusing drugs. Ashley's organs were healthy. there were no signs of trauma. The hair tests came back clean. The only risky substances in Ashley's body were alcohol consistent with drinking the night before, and the drugs that had killed her.

So the mystery is not the cause of death itself. The question is why Ashley consumed enough of Geoff's methadone to end up dead.

The Accidental Overdose Theory

Ashley's mother steadfastly holds that her anti-drug daughter wouldn't have knowingly ingested methadone. Ashley had told a friend before boarding the cruise ship that she was feeling unwell, so perhaps she reached for the DayQuil bottle and took a dose, thinking it was cold medicine.

Geoff disputes this theory. He told investigators and reporters that he poured the methadone into the DayQuil bottle in front of Ashley and warned her not to take it. Could Ashley have forgotten and mistakenly dosed herself with methadone out of the DayQuil bottle? It seems unlikely that a vehemently anti-drug woman would have forgotten that the DayQuil bottle actually contained methadone. Ashley would only have taken the methadone if she hadn't known that Geoff had put in in the DayQuil bottle.

None of the coverage I've seen explores this in depth. Liquid methadone can be clear or dyed in a variety of colors, including orange. Geoff might well have selected a DayQuil bottle because his methadone was orange and thus was likely to be mistaken for methadone by anybody searching his luggage. Methadone and DayQuil also both have a medicinal taste, so this wouldn't have tipped Ashley off that what she was taking was a dangerous narcotic, not a benign cold medication.

I have also never seen any information about whether there were other cold medicines in the cabin. DayQuil is an unlikely choice for somebody about to go to bed after a long day, but the DayQuil bottle might have been the only thing in the room that looked like a cold remedy.

I also haven't found any indication of how much of the liquid Ashley consumed. Did she measure out a dose in the little cup or chug the whole bottle?

The Attention-Seeking Theory

Another theory is that because Ashley and Geoff had argued, she might have taken some of his methadone intending to become ill and gain his attention. This seems the least likely scenario for a young woman who was vehemently opposed to drugs.

The Suicide Theory

The third scenario, and the one I consider highly likely, it that Ashley took the drugs deliberately to end her life.

Ashley's family insisted that she wouldn't have killed herself, especially not with a drug overdose, because she as happy and had a lot to look forward to. But one factor indicates that the overdose might have been deliberate: Ashley had undergone an abortion three weeks before the cruise and Jamie admitted that Ashley had been depressed about it. "She was upset over having to make that kind of decision. And I won't deny that. She did not take it lightly. But it was the appropriate amount of sadness."

What is "the appropriate amount of sadness?" A lot of women are blindsided by how devastated they are after their abortions.

So imagine it: Ashley, according to her mother, had an appointment with another agency to represent her in her acting career. But if she was depressed about an abortion, feeling as if she had killed her baby, would that cheer her up or would it make her feel like it simply wasn't worth it? Then she gets on a cruise ship with he boyfriend -- presumably the baby's father -- only to find out that he is not, as she had thought, a recovering addict but one who had fallen off the wagon and had actually snuck drugs onto the ship and into their cabin. The cruise turns out to be, as her friend described it, "a big rave at sea." That's the opposite of what her mother and friends say Ashley would have considered a good time. Her boyfriend decides to return to that rave rather than stay in the cabin with her and get some sleep. She doesn't even still have a relationship worth keeping.

This theory seems to hold as much water as the accidental overdose theory. It all hinges on whether Ashley knew what was in the DayQuil bottle or not and whether she only consumed what would have been a dose of DayQuil or had downed the whole bottle.

Moving Forward

Jamie's focus shifted from trying to figure out why Ashley consumed the methadone to the poor medical care aboard the ship. There were few defibrillators. There was no Narcan or similar drug to treat an overdose. The investigation into Ashley's death seems perfunctory -- especially over 20 years on, when there are still no answers. So Jamie joined the lobbying group International Cruise Victims, to develop stricter laws to address crimes and deaths aboard cruise ships.

Jamie also filed a wrongful death suit against Carnival Corporation, alleging negligence and a violation of the Death on the High Seas Act. She also faulted the doctor and nurse. The case against the doctor was dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction. The case against Carnival was also dismissed but I do not have access to documents to explain the reason for the ruling. The court did grant that Jamie may file the suit again on different grounds.

HT: killed-by-choice

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