What happened on the Elizabeth Dane?

Question

In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines one of the player's first tasks is to investigate the Elizabeth Dane, an ocean-going cargo vessel. This vessel was transporting an ancient sarcophagus which many of the local vampires believed contained an antediluvian.

Although the player's investigation reveals that it appears the sarcophagus had been opened from the inside, both Beckett and Doctor Johansen believed it to contain nothing more than an ancient mummy. Indeed, several of the endings shows the character Jack hanging out with the supposed mummy while watching an explosion.

So then, what had actually happened on the Elizabeth Dane? Aside from knowing that the crew was missing, little was actually learned about it's fate prior to the player boarding it. Had there been a vampire in the sarcophagus that killed the crew (perhaps Jack himself, or maybe the cab driver) or had some other ill fate befell it?

Answer 1

The important statement is that it appeared to have been opened from the inside, not that it was opened from the inside.

Considering that Smiling Jack is nearly 4 centuries old (at the time of VtM:Bloodlines), AND has many contacts, it doesn't strike me as inconceivable that he might have been able to kill everyone on board (or hire someone else to do it, to keep his own Humanity from slipping any further) and then falsify evidence to make it look like the sarcophagus had been opened from inside.

Why would he bother falsifying evidence? Well, Prince LaCroix wants to diablerize the antediluvian, but the rest of the Camarilla is scared spitless at the idea of an antediluvian roaming freely on the streets of Los Angeles... and Jack is exactly the kind of person who loves to screw with the Camarilla's minds that way. He dislikes the Camarilla, and specifically the Ventrue, but prefers mischievous and underhanded tactics to direct confrontation (though he's certainly no slouch in combat, either).