‘I think about (them) every waking moment’
WEST PALM BEACH — “I think about my wife and daughter every waking moment and wish we could be together again soon.”
So wrote Lewis Bennett, charged with murdering his wife, Isabella Hellmann of suburban Delray Beach, at sea last year, to a pal back in his native England, according to a weekend story in England’s Sunday Mirror.
In a handwritten note from his cell at a federal detention center south of Miami, he told his friend his real-estate broker wife “was such a positive person and always encouraged me to focus on the ‘now’ and to enjoy each and every moment. I try to take her advice, but the here and now for me at this moment is difficult to appreciate.
“Saying that, there are some truly good people here who have helped my state of mind, so I am grateful for that. My sole motivation is my family and the thought of being together with them all again,” he said.
Bennett added that “My family have been extremely supportive of me and are helping my parents to look after my baby girl. I have had letters from my family, but aside from that, I am left here feeling extremely isolated.”
The Mirror story quoted Hellmann’s sister, Adriana DeFeo, who lives in Palm Beach County, as saying, “He says he wants to reunite with us and that is definitely not true. We have been trying to get in contact with Lewis through our lawyer but have not heard anything.
“We have also tried to contact his sister in England so we can arrange to see my niece, as she is our main concern. But his sister keeps saying she has to check with Lewis and we never hear back. We last reached out to her three weeks ago and she gave us the same response. It is terrible. We are just stuck in limbo.”
The story added that she went on to say, “We want to fly to England to see Emilia, but Lewis’ family don’t want anything to do with us.”
Isabella Hellmann’s family has declined several times to speak to The Palm Beach Post.
Bennett called authorities May 15 from the middle of the Atlantic to say his catamaran had struck something on the couple’s honeymoon sail and that Hellmann, then 41, had vanished. A four-day search turned up nothing.
Bennett, now 41, was arrested in August on a related charge of knowingly transporting stolen coins. In February, he was minutes away from being sentenced to seven months in prison in the coins case when federal prosecutors charged him with second-degree murder.
In March, a judge agreed to table Bennett’s trial, from early April to February 2019.
Bennett separately has asked the Palm Beach County courts to declare his wife dead. Circuit Judge Kathleen Kroll has yet to rule.
On April 26, federal prosecutors wrote Kroll to say that they intended to go the next day to search Hellmann’s suburban Delray Beach condominium “for purpose of having the property appraised.” The note did not elaborate.
Palm Beach Gardens attorney Edward Downey, Bennett’s probate lawyer, declined Monday to comment.
On April 4, prosecutors turned over to the defense, through the “discovery” process, documents totaling 6,000 gigabytes, which likely include the results of separate “missing person” investigations by both the Coast Guard and the FBI.
Both agencies, as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office, have declined numerous requests by The Post, both informally and via the federal Freedom of Information Act, to provide any part of the documents.