The luxury yacht, missing wife ... and a long-distance call for help
THE first person Lewis Bennett called on discovering his new wife had fallen overboard from their luxury yacht near the Bahamas was a friend on the Gold Coast, the Bulletin can reveal.
The friend then called volunteer coast guards at Southport, who alerted the Australian Maritime Safety Authority who, in turn, forwarded the information on to US coast guards.
The bizarre chain of events is the latest chapter in the mystery disappearance of Colombian beauty Isabella Hellman nearly a month ago.
“Never before have I heard this happen,” said Ian McPhail, an Australian Volunteer Coast Guard duty radio officer for 17 years at Southport.
“They were quite panicky, the (friend) received a satellite call from (Mr Bennett) saying he had hit a reef and his wife had gone overboard.”
A US coastguard helicopter reportedly found Mr Bennett about four hours after he phoned Australia.
However, a four-day search of 17,000sq km failed to find Ms Hellman.
Mr Bennett, 40, was a direc- tor of Eight Developments Proprietary Limited while living in Mt Nathan in the Gold Coast Hinterland.
He met Ms Hellman while in the US, they had a baby and married this year.
The FBI and the US Coast Guard are investigating Ms Hellman’s disappearance, but would not comment if foul play was suspected.
Mr Bennett told media in the US late last month that he “had nothing to hide” as US authorities questioned him over his wife’s disappearance.
He was photographed by media in the US on May 31 with his baby.
The British-born Mr Bennett told investigators Ms Hellman fell overboard in the Florida Straits when he was asleep on their catamaran around 8pm. The yacht had left Havana, Cuba, that day.
Mr Bennett was woken at 1am when the boat hit an object. When he went on deck his wife, who had agreed to take watch and was wearing a life jacket, was gone. Mr Bennett got into a lifeboat and called for help.
A former neighbour of the couple in Florida said the couple were arguing about whether to live in Australia or America in the months before their cruise in the Caribbean.
Tina Saragaglia, 49, said she became friends with Ms Hellman three years ago and helped them buy their home in Delray Beach, Florida.
“They mainly had the problem of deciding where to be,” she said.
“He wanted to have the family in Australia, growing up the child and everything and she was mentioning that she didn’t want to go.
“She was not hiding that ... her family’s here, she has three sisters.
“The guy was travelling really often and coming here and staying three or four months.
“They started remodelling the place and they made it beautiful.
“I don’t know if she was cloudy or she didn’t know exactly what he was doing.”
Ms Saragaglia said she saw Mr Bennett briefly after the disappearance of his wife and claims he told her he would travel to Cuba to see if he could find Ms Hellman.