Briton charged with murdering his new wife on paradise cruise
A BRITISH yachtsman who reported his wife missing during a belated honeymoon cruise near the Bahamas was charged with her murder yesterday.
Lewis Bennett, 41, was taken into custody following an FBI investigation as he appeared in a Miami court to be sentenced for smuggling stolen coins during the same voyage.
The businessman and mining engineer from Poole, Dorset, had claimed that Isabella Hellmann, 41, disappeared at sea after his catamaran collided with an unknown object and sank in May last year.
But in a court document charging him with second-degree murder, FBI special agent James Kelley said the bureau believed Bennett ‘knowingly and unlawfully killed’ his wife – an estate agent and the mother of their daughter, now 18 months old.
The FBI suggested greed was the motive as he would inherit their home in Delray Beach, Florida, and the contents of her bank accounts.
The couple had been sailing home from Havana in his 37ft boat. According to the FBI, Bennett told investigators that the night his wife disappeared he had gone below deck near Cay Sal Bank, 30 miles west of the Bahamas, just after 8pm to sleep. He activated the autopilot and left her to keep watch.
He claimed he woke at 1am to the sound of a loud thud and, going on deck, found his Colombian-born wife gone. He sent out a distress call and abandoned ship after realising the boat was taking on water. He was rescued by a US helicopter two hours later close to his partly-submerged boat. Miss Hellmann, who has American citizenship, had been wearing a lifejacket but her body was never found. Bennett told investigators that his boat’s mast had been loose and may have fallen, knocking his wife into the water. Investigators said they found evidence that Bennett had scuttled the catamaran.
Portholes had been opened below the waterline and dam- age to the twin hulls appeared to have been caused from the inside. Officials added that there were no navigational hazards or known loose, floating objects in the area. FBI legal statements say Mr Bennett got into a life raft with luggage and other possessions but took no action to find his wife, who he had married only three months earlier. They read: ‘When asked if he used any of the flares on board the life raft to illuminate the area to facilitate a search, Bennett stated he did not.
‘When asked if he had yelled for Hellman while in the life raft, Bennett indicated that he did not. When asked if he had attempted to locate Hell- man in the water near the vessel, Bennett also stated that he did not.’ The FBI said Bennett did not activate his satellite phone or register his personal locator beacon until he was in Cuba on the final leg of their journey.
This indicated he ‘wanted to ensure his
own rescue and survival after murdering his wife and scuttling his catamaran’, Mr Kelley. He added that Bennett had requested a presumptive death certificate for his wife ‘extremely early’ for a husband who ‘would normally want his wife to be found alive’. When investigators searched the catamaran, they discovered collectable silver coins worth more than £3,000. Bennett had reported the same coins – part of a gold and silver hoard worth £80,000 – stolen from a yacht he had skippered in the Caribbean in 2016. More of the coins were later found hidden in his Florida flat. He was jailed over the recovered coins for seven months yesterday after he had admitted a charge of transporting stolen property.
‘Ensure his own rescue’