FBI searches Delray condo of mom reported lost at sea
Investigators leave after 8 hours with evidence from newlyweds’ unit.
DELRAY BEACH — Friday’s allday raid of Isabella Hellmann’s suburban Delray Beach condominium dispelled any idea that authorities are satisfied the woman’s vanishing was an accident.
About 20 FBI investigators Friday morning pushed through yellow evidence tape that the agency had used weeks earlier to seal the front door of the unit, which Hellmann shared with Lewis Bennett, her husband since February and the father of their 10-monthold daughter.
FBI spokesman Michael D. Leverock said Friday morning in a statement that the agency “initiated a court-authorized search” at about 9 a.m. as “part of the investigation into the disappearance of Isabella Hellmann.”
Bennett has told the U.S. Coast Guard he was awakened early on May 15 — one month ago Thursday — after the 37-foot catamaran Surf Into Summer struck something about 30 miles west of Cay Sal in the Bahamas.
He said he came topside to find that the vessel was taking on water and Hellmann was gone. A Coast Guard helicopter rescued Bennett in a life raft about three hours later.
A four-day Coast Guard search failed to find Hellmann, 41. Both the Coast Guard and the FBI confirmed May 26, eight days after the search was called off, that they were conducting a “missing person investigation.”
Neither agency has said whether Bennett is a target of their investigation or even if they suspect foul play.
But on June 1, the FBI sealed the front door of the couple’s condo at Pine Ridge at Delray with the yellow evidence tape.
On Friday morning, neighbor Anne Fennimore, whose condo is on the second story immediately above Hellmann’s residence, told The Palm Beach Post she and other neighbors were ordered to stay inside as agents approached the front door downstairs.
“One yelled that they had a warrant to search the place, and then broke the (tape) to get inside,” Fennimore told The Post. She said she saw six crime-scene technicians in latex gloves enter the condo. They appeared to find no one inside, she said.
At the complex, near the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Florida’s Turnpike, federal authorities had arrived in unmarked black SUVs and an unmarked sedan pulling a small trailer containing items marked “investigative material.” Palm Beach County sheriff ’s vehicles blocked access.
“To see this happening in this development is surprising,” said Thomas O’Grady, who lives about a block north of Hellmann’s condominium. “It’s a quiet neigh-
leave with pay in March. In 2014, Brown received a verbal reprimand for loss of property. He received written reprimands in 2006 for an argument with a resident and in 2005 for crashing into a car.
The strongest punishment for Antico, a 15-year Boynton officer, was a limited suspension for a crash involving his vehicle. In April 2016, after he got into his seventh at-fault crash while operating a city vehicle, he was suspended for eight hours and had to take a state-certified emergency vehicle operations course.
It appears none of the crashes ended with injury. The crashes include hitting another car’s mirror; not putting the gear fully in park, causing his vehicle to roll backward; getting stuck after backing his car over a wooden pole; and hitting a car in front of him.
Both have been honored for police work and community service.
Brown’s work in the community includes the teen police academy, the South Florida K-9 Competition and organizing help for a family in need with a Christmas dinner and toys.
He and police dog Filip have been credited for many arrests, including suspects in the 2016 murder of Tomas Pedro. Pedro was playing soccer at Pence Park when he was killed in an attempted robbery. Brown was also praised for his arrests in the 2012 Delray Beach murder case of Dustin Deckard, a high school wrestling champ.
Brown was named Officer of the Year in 2013 for his work on cases of armed robbery, homicide, bank robbery, armed carjacking and burglary.
Antico drew praise for his involvement in the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation assessment, the police teen academy and as a department representative in a flag football tournament sponsored by the Miami Dolphins.
He’s also been honored after helping apprehend suspects in a 2012 armed robbery at a Dunkin’ Donuts, a 2011 case involving alleged gang members and firearms and drug traffickers and in 2007 when he apprehended a man wanted for attempted abduction and residential burglary who was stabbing himself in a home after setting it on fire.
Antico also received a letter in 2009 from a person he arrested praising him for his professionalism.