Girl says she heard Ritcheson talk about jumping from ship

PROGRESO, MEXICO — David Ritcheson talked about jumping from the upper deck of a cruise ship a day before he acted on the thought, according to a fellow passenger.

The 18-year-old Spring man, the victim of a vicious assault that nearly killed him last year, told friends on Saturday night that he planned to jump off the Carnival cruise ship Ecstasy at first light.

"I'm going to jump first thing in the morning before anyone is awake," Ritcheson told two friends, according to a 10-year-old North Texas girl who overheard the exchange.

The child, Landee Adams of Van Alstyne, was so troubled by what she heard that she recounted the conversation to her mother, a paramedic, who dismissed it as idle teen talk.

But the following morning, after scaling a 60-foot tower near the Ecstasy's bow and ignoring security workers' efforts to talk him down, Ritcheson plunged 200 feet into the ocean about 7:30 a.m. Sunday....