Lewis Bennett’s alleged motive for killing Isabella Hellmann while on their honeymooon yacht

AN Australian plumber stands accused of killing his US wife and staging the shipwreck of his yacht off Florida in order to conceal his crime.

THEIR arguments were the mundane back and forth of so many couples; over money, where to raise their young family and his frequent work trips away from their Florida home.

But authorities in America say Australian sailor Lewis Bennett decided the only way he could get the final word over his real estate agent wife was to kill her at sea and stage a shipwreck.

Bennett, 41, denies he murdered Isabella Hellmann, the mother of their infant daughter Emelia, in May last year aboard his catamaran Surf Into Summer in the Caribbean Sea off Cuba.

In a series of hearings in a Miami courtroom ahead of his December trial for second degree murder, the FBI has tried to build a case that escalating tensions in the marriage coupled with his greed drove Bennett to kill his 41-year-old wife.

Isabella Hellman, her husband Lewis Bennett and their daughter Emelia before the yacht journey.

MONEY TROUBLES

Assistant US lawyer Kurt Lunkenheimer said prosecutors believe the couple was “outliving their means”, spending about $US90,000 ($A123,000) a year and earning around $US70,000 ($A90,000).

They allege Bennett, a dual British and Australian citizen who lived and worked as a plumber for about six years on Queensland’s Gold Coast, wanted full ownership of the couple’s Delray Beach townhouse, valued at $US160,000 ($A220,000), about US$100,000 ($A137,000) in insurance for the scuppered boat, as well as her car and bank savings, according to the Palm Beach Post.

“So he killed her for $300,000?” asked US District Judge Federico Moreno at a hearing last month, the newspaper reported.

If a jury finds him guilty, it won’t be Bennett’s first crime.

Isabella Hellman and her husband Lewis Bennett. Te Colombian-born woman is presumed to have drowned.

When Bennett was rescued by the US Coast Guard after the couple’s ill-fated, delayed honeymoon last year, authorities were surprised to discover that while his wife wasn’t aboard their liferaft, a cache of rare gold and silver coins was.

A further search of his home unearthed more of the coins, with a combined total value of $US70,000, ($96,000) hidden in boat shoes.

In a separate trial, he was charged with smuggling the coins, stolen from his former employer on the Caribbean island of St Maarten, and is currently serving a seven-month jail term.

Prosecutors last week said Ms Hellmann’s possible discovery of the coins, making her an unwitting accomplice to smuggling, may have sparked their final argument.

This “potentially led to an intense argument resulting in Hellmann’s murder”, Prosecutor Benjamin Greenberg alleged in court.

Isabella Hellman, her husband Lewis Bennett and their daughter Emelia.

MURDER CHARGE

Bennett was charged with the murder of Ms Hellmenn, with whom he had been in a relationship for four years but had married only three months earlier, moments before he was sentenced for the smuggling in February.

Bennett explained that he had been asleep downstairs with the catamaran on autopilot when he heard it crash into something on the final night of their voyage. Ms Hellmann had earlier called her family in Florida to tell them she was heading home.

Bennett said he last saw Ms Hellmann before going to sleep and that she was wearing a lifejacket above-deck on the 37ft (11m) vessel.

He said he boarded the liferaft when his catamaran started sinking, taking what he could, including the coins, but that there was no sign of Ms Hellmann.

The 37-foot catamaran, Surf into Summer, partially sunk in the Florida Straits. The US Coast Guard rescued Lewis Bennett and searched for Isabella Hellmann.

In a strange twist, Bennett’s first phone call after the accident was not to American authorities, but an old friend in Queensland, who contacted local coast guards on the Gold Coast. This call was passed on to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority who then looped in the US Coast Guard.

“Never before have I heard this happen,” Ian McPhail, an Australian Volunteer Coast Guard duty radio officer, told The Gold Coast Bulletin.

“They were quite panicky, the (friend) received a satellite call from (Mr Bennett) saying he had hit a reef and his wife had gone overboard.”

Bennett was rescued about four hours later, but a four day 17,000sq km search found no trace of his wife.

Isabella Hellman and her daughter Emelia.

SUSPICIONS RAISED

Agents from the FBI were immediately suspicious of a number of facets of Bennett’s tale, with a criminal complaint revealing even the holes he said were caused by the collision appeared to have been made from the inside of the twin-hulled vessel.

They cited his brisk application for Ms Hellmann’s life insurance, four months after her disappearance and in the absence of her body, as well as the fact he didn’t appear to have mounted any kind of search for her.

The FBI complaint says Bennett did not use flares to light up the dark sea or call out for Ms Hellmann, and that he had waited until Cuba, the last port of their sailing trip, to activate his satellite phone and locator beacon.

“The fact that Bennett waited until the final leg of his voyage to activate those devices is indicative of the fact he wanted to ensure his own rescue and survival after murdering his wife and intentionally scuttling his catamaran,” the FBI said.

The 37-foot catamaran, Surf into Summer. Investigators say they became suspicious when they noticed the holes in the wreck had been made from the inside.

Also suspicious were Ms Hellmann’s family, including her mother and sister, who lived nearby in Florida.

A court heard last week they were so doubtful of Bennett’s explanation that they planted listening devices inside the couple’s home after her disappearance.

“The family had concerns regarding the circumstances surrounding Hellman’s disappearance and suspected that the Defendant could be responsible for her disappearance,” papers lodged last week said.

“Therefore, the family believed that the listening devices could reveal something that might provide answers as to what happened to Hellman on the night she disappeared or the devices could record incriminating statements made by the Defendant.”

Prosecutors want to play these recordings at Bennett’s trial, but Judge Moreno is yet to rule on their admissibility.

Boca Raton (Florida) body cam footage of Lewis Bennett taking his child Emelia after his wife vanished off the Cuban coast. Picture: Supplied

A FAMILY’S GRIEF

Ms Hellmann’s family has been reluctant to speak publicly ahead of Bennett’s trial, but along with their grief over her death, they are also fighting to see her daughter. Bennett moved Emelia, then nine months old, to the UK just weeks after Ms Hellmann’s disappearance, and the toddler is now being raised by his parents.

In May, Ms Hellmann’s mother and sister spoke to Emelia for the first time on a Skype call, to mark the one-year anniversary of her mother’s disappearance.

“They were able to see Emelia and talk to her,” said the Hellmann family’s Florida lawyer, Mitchell Kitroser.

“Everybody was able to put the needs of the little girl over the controversy of a murder case. And kudos to both families for doing it.”