On May 15th, 2017, Lewis Bennett sent out a distress call due to his capsized boat and missing wife. Was he a victim or a murderer?
On their honeymoon, Lewis Bennett and Isabella Hellman experienced the unthinkable: Isabella vanished without a trace. Hellman, a Florida resident, was swept off her feet by Bennett after meeting online in 2015. They soon had a child and married, but it would be some time before they embarked on their tragic honeymoon.
The Tragedy of Isabella Hellman:
Lewis Bennett, a former English and Australian citizen, was an accomplished sailor, and when they finally decided to set off on their delayed honeymoon in 2017, they planned to sail to Cuba. The voyage from Florida appears to have gone as planned, but the return trip proved fatal for Isabella Hellman.
The US Coast Guard responded to a distress beacon near the Bahamas on May 15, 2017. They discovered Lewis Bennett alone in a life raft, lost at sea. According to Bennett, he was sleeping while his wife manned the boat when they collided with an unknown item, causing the boat to take on water. Hellman was nowhere to be found by the time Bennett went looking for her. And by the time the Coast Guard found her, it had been many hours since she was last seen alive. Despite a thorough search, she was never discovered.
Lewis Bennett was interrogated several times about his wife’s disappearance. He admitted that it took him the better part of an hour to pack and evacuate the boat as it slowly sunk. He didn’t search for his wife or try to stop the boat from taking on water. Despite being an experienced sailor, he did nothing. Between the US Coast Guard investigation and the FBI investigation, Bennett emerged as a key suspect in his wife’s murder. He was eventually charged with his wife’s death, but Isabella Hellman was never found.
Learn more about this tragic murder case, including signs of tampering with the boat, stolen coins worth $100,000, and other crazy details in the video below:
