The Honeymoon That Ended in Prison | A Murder Disguised as Tragedy

The Deadly Honeymoon Voyage In the early hours of May 15th 2017 the United States Coast Guard received an emergency distress signal in the dark waters of the Bahamas approximately 26 nautical miles west of Cay Sal Bank. When rescue teams reached the coordinates they found one person. Lewis Bennett, a British mining engineer and experienced sailor, alone in a life raft. His catamaran, the Surf of Summer, was taking on water and slowly sinking beneath the surface. His wife of three months, Isabella Helman, was not in the raft. She was not in the water nearby. She was not on the boat. She was simply gone. The Coast Guard launched an extensive multi-day search covering thousands of square miles. Helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and two rescue cutters combed the region for any sign of Isabella. On May 18th, three days after the distress call, the search was officially suspended. They had found the submerged wreckage of the Surf of Summer. What they had not found was Isabella. And what they had also not found was any navigational hazard, any reef, any object in that water that could explain why a seaworthy catamaran captained by a trained and certified sailor had suddenly breached and sunk in open water. Not a single hazard was recorded by any crew member across the entire search operation. Isabella Helman was 40 years old. Born in Cuba and a naturalized American citizen, she had built a full life in Delray Beach Florida. She was a real estate agent. She owned her own condo. She was deeply loved by her family, especially her sisters, and was known by everyone around her as warm, social, and full of life. In July 2016 she and Lewis welcomed a daughter, Amelia. In February 2017 they got married. Three months later they set sail on a delayed honeymoon through St. Martin, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. On the morning of May 14th Isabella called her sister from Varadero Cuba. The trip was nearly over. She was excited to get home and hold her daughter again. That phone call was the last time anyone in her family heard her voice. When investigators sat down with Lewis Bennett he told a calm and coherent story. He had gone below deck to sleep after dinner, leaving Isabella at the helm with the autopilot set toward Florida. He said he was woken by a sudden impact, went topside, and found Isabella gone and the vessel flooding. He said he gathered his belongings, deployed the life raft, and abandoned ship. The FBI took over the case and what their investigation uncovered went far beyond a missing persons report. Maritime forensic experts who reviewed photographs of the capsized Surf of Summer found that the two holes in the hull showed outward displacement of material, meaning the damage originated from inside the vessel, not from an external collision. Inside Lewis Bennett's life raft agents found nine plastic tubes containing 235 rare collectible silver coins. A further 162 coins were recovered from the couple's condo in Delray Beach. Photographs of the coins were sent to the owner of a yacht called the Kitty R, based in St. Martin, where Lewis had previously worked as a crew member. The owner identified them immediately. The coins were part of a collection worth 100,000 dollars stolen from the Kitty R in a burglary. The person who had filed the police report claiming to have discovered that break-in was Lewis Bennett himself. A search of Isabella's car uncovered 220,000 dollars in cash, believed to be proceeds from coins already sold. Five days after Isabella disappeared Lewis contacted the Coast Guard requesting a letter of presumed death for his wife. They declined. The judge denied the petition and asked simply. What is the rush. In November 2018 Lewis Bennett pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of Isabella Helman and was sentenced to eight years in federal prison, the maximum allowed under the charge. As part of his plea agreement he renounced all claims to Isabella's estate. Every asset was placed into a trust fund for their daughter Amelia. If this story affected you, hit the like button. It takes one second and it helps this channel bring more cases like this one to people who need to hear them. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you are here for every story we cover. These cases deserve to be told and they deserve to be heard. Isabella Helman was 40 years old. She called home the morning she disappeared. She never made it back. #TrueCrime #TheDeadlyHoneymoonVoyage #IsabellaHelman #LewisBennett #TrueCrimeStory #MissingPersons #ColdCase #TrueCrimeYouTube #CriminalCase #JusticeForIsabella #TrueCrimeCommunity #MurderMystery #FBIInvestigation #HoneymoonTragedy #UnsolvedCases #TrueCrimeDocumentary #RealCrime #CrimeStory #FederalCase #TrueCrimeNarration