Texts, tapes show motive in alleged murder
Text messages from a Delray Beach mother who disappeared at sea and witness statements from her acquaintances show she and her husband’s relationship had grown rocky over finances and child-rearing issues — issues that federal prosecutors say are a possible motive for him to plot and execute her murder.
“You make me crazy shouting, yelling, swearing,” Isabella Hellmann texted her husband, Lewis Bennett, about six months before her disappearance. The new documents were filed this week in the case against Bennett, who has been charged with seconddegree murder in her death.
“I’m tired of you telling me I’m the MOST WORSE PERSON YOU EVER MET BEFORE, everything I do it’s WRONG… this is very pathetic Lewis,” she wrote in another text to her husband.
The text messages were included in a filing by federal prosecutors Thursday. The new documents show what the couple fought about in the months before she came up missing.
Prosecutors say Bennett killed Hellmann on a May 2017 sailing trip — a belated honeymoon — between the Bahamas and Cuba. Her body was never found.
The documents also detail the financial stress the couple was facing at the time of their sailing trip to the Caribbean.
The couple owed property taxes and also faced having their condo’s electricity cut off, the documents show Hellmann telling Bennett. They also owed thousands of dollars for home renovations fi-
nanced by Hellmann using credit cards, but they were only making minimum payments. They also disagreed on whether she should return to work. She wanted to stay home with their young child, now 2.
Bennett’s trial is scheduled for December. Prosecutors want to introduce the statements to show Bennett wanted out of his marriage, giving him reason to plot his wife’s death. He had wanted to move to Australia with their daughter, but Hellmann didn’t want to go, according to what acquaintances told federal authorities.
During a visit with her obstetrician after the child’s birth, she told the doctor, “she had made her decision to stay in Florida with her daughter and that she was ‘100 percent not going,’” federal documents show.
“With Hellmann murdered, the defendant would be in complete control of his life, inherit Hellmann’s estate and not have to deal with constant arguments over their child, finances and moving to Australia,” the documents say.
Bennett has told investigators he last saw Hellmann on Mother’s Day 2017 while she was at the helm, court records show. He said the vessel was on “auto pilot” en route back to Florida as he went to sleep below deck. That’s when he heard a thud, he said, and the vessel began to sink.
But a Coast Guard expert found that the couple’s boat appeared to have suffered intentional damage on both sides of its hull that was not the result of a collision. The expert said the damage came “from inside the vessel,” according to FBI records. Two escape hatches below the waterline were also found open, which caused the cabin to flood, investigators said, adding they believe the boat was “intentionally scuttled.”
The U.S. Coast Guard rescued Bennett, but could not find Hellmann. He told rescuers he was unable to find his wife as the boat sank. However, he managed to salvage $38,000 in stolen gold coins that were also aboard the boat. He pleaded guilty in November to transporting stolen goods valued at $5,000 or more.
Prosecutors want to use the texts from Hellmann, as well as her written and verbal statements to family, friends, a doctor, and Bennett.
The new filings also disclose that Hellmann’s family installed listening devices in her Delray Beach condo after her disappearance.
Prosecutors hope to use recordings from those devices, including Bennett’s statements.
The couple’s baby daughter is in England with his family.
Material from WPEC CBS-12 was used in this report.