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Princess Cruises

Alabama mom who died on Princess cruise 'knew something was going to happen'

Gene Sloan
USA TODAY

The children of the 52-year-old Alabama woman who plunged to her death last week from an upper deck of a Princess Cruises ship say she was nervous about taking the voyage.

"My mom did not want to go on this cruise ... like blank point, she did not want to go," Andrea Smith told ABC News in an exclusive interview aired Tuesday on ABC's Good Morning America. "She knew something was going to happen." 

The woman's son, Timothy Tenorio, told the news outlet his mother gave him an unusually long hug before departing for the cruise.

"I was kind of curious about, like, why it was so long, and then I asked her, and she, like, said it might be the last hug you get from me," he said. 

The children's mother, Almarosa Tenorio, died on Nov. 13 after falling from an upper deck of the 3,600-passenger Royal Princess onto a lifeboat several decks below. The death has been ruled unnatural by authorities in Aruba, where it is being investigated, but the cause of the death remains under investigation.  

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Tenorio was traveling with her husband, Leo Tenorio. Smith told ABC News the couple had gone on the cruise to work on their relationship.

Some news outlets in Aruba last week said the death was being probed as a possible murder. But Leo Tenorio told a local Fox News station in Mobile, Alabama, late Monday his wife was not the victim of a murder. He didn't go into detail, the news outlet said. 

Tenorio was questioned as a witness but is not being treated as a suspect, according to the ABC News report. 

The FBI last week joined local authorities in Aruba in investigating Tenorio's death, which occurred in the middle of the night.  

Aruba Public Prosecutor's Office spokesperson Ann Angela on Friday told USA TODAY the U.S. agency is working with local authorities to determine if a crime was committed.

Aruba is involved in the investigation because the ship was sailing to the island at the time of the incident. Aruba police and forensics technicians boarded the vessel Nov. 13 after it arrived in Aruba, just hours after the incident occurred.   

A spokesperson for Princess Cruises on Monday told USA TODAY the company had nothing new to share on the woman's death.

In a brief statement last week, Princess confirmed a 52-year-old American woman died on Royal Princess on Nov. 13 as it was en route to Aruba but did not discuss details of the incident.

"We are deeply saddened by this incident and offer our sincere condolences to the family and those affected," the statement said. 

 

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