Husband, in-laws feud over missing woman
FBI investigating disappearance of 41-year-old mother
She vanished at sea on Mother’s Day during a honeymoon catamaran cruise.
Since then, the disappearance of Isabella Hellmann has stymied search and rescue crews, pitted her husband and relatives against each other in court, raised at least oneof her sister’s suspicions of foul play and sparked an FBI investigation.
Hellmann, 41, a Delray Beach real estate agent and mother to a now 1-year-old, presumably fell overboard while at the helm of the couple’s 37-foot catamaran. Her husband told authorities that he was asleep below deck when the vessel struck something and began to take onwater.
For four days the U.S. Coast Guard searched the waters near the Bahamas with two airplanes, two helicopters and two ships.
A day after the search was called off, Hellmann’s husband, Lewis Bennett, requested a letter from authorities saying his wife was “presumed dead,” according to court records obtained Friday.
The Coast Guard told Bennett it did not have the authority to issue such a letter, according to records from the Palm Beach County Circuit Court, where a legal battle between Lewis Bennett and his in-laws is playing out.
By state law, Hellmann would have to be missing for five years before she would be legally presumed dead.
Bennett, a 38-year-old engineer, with British and Australian citizenship is believed to have left the country with the couple’s daughter, Emelia.
It was about 1 a.m. when the catamaran began to sink about 30 miles west of Cay Sal, north of Cuba and southeast of the Florida Keys, Bennett told the Coast Guard.
With the aid of rescue beacons, Bennettwas found floating in a life raft. The couple’s daughter was with relatives in Florida.
Twoweeks later, Bennett asked Boca Raton police to accompany him while he retrieved a computer, iPad, engagement ring and other belongings fromhis in-laws’ home, a police report said.
While there one of Hellmann’s sister, Elizabeth Rodriguez, screamed at Bennett and accused him of killing her sister, the report said. Attempts to reach Rodriguez for comment for this article were unsuccessful.
Afterward, police contacted an investigator with the U.S. Marshals, who said Bennettwas the subject of a probe into his wife’s disappearance, the police report said.
The FBI has declined to comment beyond confirming that it is investigating Hellmann’s disappearance.
Another of Hellmann’s sisters, Adriana Difeo, has asked the court to grant her conservatorship of her missing sister’s estate.
But a week ago, Bennett sought to have the court prevent Difeo from making any legal claim to Hellmann’s property, primarily a Delray Beach condominium.
Since Hellmann’s disappearance, the FBI has visited the condo at least twice and taken away items in boxes marked as evidence. The contents appeared to be inflatable marine equipment, possibly a life vest.