Missing woman’s sister seeks control of assets
Papers also served on spouse of woman reported lost at sea.
DELRAY BEACH — The sister of Isabella Hellmann has filed in court to protect the assets of the suburban Delray Beach real estate broker reported lost at sea in May, court records show.
Palm Beach County court documents also show papers were served on Lewis Bennett, Hellmann’s newlywed husband, who said in a June Facebook posting he has gone to England with the couple’s infant child. The family’s lawyer said Wednesday that Bennett is contesting the legal actions.
Bennett has told the Coast Guard he was awakened early on May 15 after his 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 the vessel was taking on water and that Hellmann, his wife of three months, was gone. He was rescued, but a four-day search failed to find Hellmann, 41.
The Coast Guard and the FBI confirmed May 26, eight days after the search was called off, that each was conducting a “missing person investigation.”
Neither agency has said whether Bennett is a target of the investigation or even if either suspects foul play.
But on June 16, several FBI investigators pushed through yellow evidence tape that the agency had used weeks earlier to seal the front door of the couple’s unit at the Pine Ridge at Delray condominium complex and spent the day inside, leaving with numerous boxes. At the time, an FBI spokesman would say only that the agency “initiated a court-authorized search” as “part of the investigation into the disappearance of Isabella Hellmann.”
Neither the FBI nor the Coast Guard has commented since.
The petition for emergency conservator was filed by Adriana Difeo of Jupiter, Isabella’s sister, on June 14, exactly one month after Isabella reportedly left Cuba.
Mitchell Kitroser, a North Palm Beach attorney representing Difeo, told The Palm Beach Post on Wednesday: “Obviously the family is heartbroken. That’s as far as I want to go with it.”
The petition said the suburban Delray Beach condo, which it valued at $117,000, unknown financial accounts and possibly a car need to be maintained and that no one has access to Hellmann’s bank records or finances to pay her debts.
It said Bennett “has expressed to friends that he has no intent on returning to the United States at this time.”
A June 16 filing submitted an undated Facebook message from Lewis Bennett to someone identified only as Claudia, saying he had gone back to England with the child, who turns 1 later this month,
“My parents and my sister are helping me and Emelia is fine,” Bennett wrote, “I don’t know where I will be next month but I can’t come back to Florida when Isabella’s family are accusing me of those horrible things.”
A police report has said one of Hellman’s sisters screamed accusations at Bennett during a May 28 confrontation at the Boca Raton home of Hellmann’s relatives.
On June 15, according to court records, Palm Beach County probate Judge Rosemarie Scher, based in the north county courthouse in Palm Beach Gardens, denied an emergency petition that would have immediately made Difeo the conservator for Hellmann’s assets.
A July 5 court document shows papers were successfully served on Bennett in England via FedEx on June 21, and someone signed for them. All efforts by The Palm Beach Post to contact Bennett in Florida, the Caribbean, England and Australia have failed. Bennett is a dual Australian-British citizen.
On June 28, Bennett published on his Facebook page his first posting since early April saying, “understandably, I have now returned to the UK with my daughter to seek the comfort of my friends and family” and that he “must take a step back from the world of social media.”
After Bennett’s posting sparked a long line of comments that alternate between messages of support from friends and relatives and searing questions from people who question his role in his wife’s disappearance, he took it down July 4. He later shut down his Facebook page altogether.
The Hellmann family also has not responded to numerous inquiries from The Post.