There were noises in George Allen Smith IV's stateroom not long before he plunged over the side of the cruise liner and vanished in the Mediterranean Sea after a night of hard honeymoon partying four years ago. That is one of the few undisputed aspects of a case that has drawn worldwide attention, eluded FBI agents and forensic scientist Henry C. Lee, and driven a wedge between Smith's family members and his widow, Jennifer Hagel Smith. And with the release Monday of 2,200 pages of depositions and probate court hearings, the chasm between the families has only widened. George and Maureen Smith are adamant that their 26-year-old son was killed, pointing to reports of rowdy behavior in Smith's stateroom before he disappeared. They believe that the cruise line was negligent, and they have challenged a settlement that Hagel Smith reached with Royal Caribbean Cruises. Hagel Smith, 29, has not dismissed the possibility of homicide but said that her husband's death could have been a tragic accident. She had passed out in an alcove far from the stateroom aboard Brilliance of the Seas and did not see what happened to him. Hagel Smith told The Courant that she, too, is grieving, and that she's been unfairly portrayed in what amounts to a crusade by her husband's parents that included about three dozen television appearances. 'Maybe this keeps him alive for them,' she said. 'It's easier to point fingers than to look at other options.' On Monday, the two sides each pointed to sections in the voluminous record that bolster their respective views. A witness who was in the next cabin reported hearing rowdy behavior in the Smiths' stateroom early on the morning of July 5, 2005, and seeing three men leave the room. The witness said that there were sounds of one person remaining in the room, rummaging through drawers, followed by 10 minutes of silence and then a loud thud. Although Elizabeth Byrne, Hagel Smith's attorney, said that the noise was suggestive of rowdy play and the sounds of three men putting an intoxicated honeymooner to bed, Maureen Smith said she was convinced that the sounds portended something more sinister. At an April 2007 probate court hearing, Byrne pressed Smith on why she came to that conclusion. 'You had a fight going on in the next cabin,' Smith responded, according to the transcript, and she went on to maintain that cruise line officials made premature statements, which she said they later retracted, that her son's death was an accident. 'And to this day,' she said, 'Royal Caribbean (is) hiding a lot of things.' When Byrne noted that the only blood in the stateroom was two small splotches of George Smith's blood on a sheet, his mother responded, 'Maybe. By the time they got there, that was all that was there. By the time they got there.' All the men who had been with Smith were questioned at length by the FBI. The case, which remains an open FBI investigation, will continue to play out at Superior Court in Stamford, where the Smith family is appealing a $1.085 million settlement that Hagel Smith reached with Royal Caribbean Cruises. The probate court in Greenwich approved the agreement, but the Smith family believes that she settled too quickly and too cheaply, arguing that the case was worth $2.4 million. Hagel Smith, in an April 2007 deposition, said that the Smiths were pressing her for information about the case that she just did not have. Thus far, the legal process has favored Hagel Smith, who was ruled out as a suspect early on in the case. She passed an FBI polygraph, and has been included in FBI update and strategy meetings; a negligence lawsuit that the Smiths filed against the cruise line -- a suit that Hagel Smith chose not to join -- was summarily dismissed in Florida; and the probate judge ruled that the settlement was in the best interest of the estate. Hagel Smith told The Courant that her life has changed irrevocably, just as the lives of her husband's parents have. But she said that the Smiths have unfairly channeled some of their anger toward her. She doesn't believe that will end, nor does she see closure coming soon. 'At some point, I realized I had to stop waiting for this to be over and accept the fact that the Smiths are going to be relentless in their pursuit of fault and blame,' Hagel Smith said. 'Once my family and I got our arms around that, it was a step toward starting to heal. It's a step I don't think his family has taken.' (Begin optional trim) The Smith family continues to maintain that cruise line security personnel mishandled their response to reports of rowdy behavior in the Smiths' stateroom before the disappearance. The security officers responded to a complaint about the noise, but never entered the room. What has been lost in the media maelstrom, Hagel Smith said, is that a fun-loving, kind man died on their dream cruise, and that she is trying to honor his memory and move forward. 'It's OK if this case lasts forever,' Hagel Smith said, 'because I can heal.' (End optional trim) 