PALM BEACH, Fla. _ Authorities confirmed Thursday that the FBI has joined the investigation into the reported disappearance at sea of Delray Beach real estate broker Isabella Hellmann.
U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman Lisa Novak told The Palm Beach Post that the Coast Guard and the FBI are "jointly" working on what she called "a missing person investigation." Asked if foul play had been ruled out, Novak said her agency's policy is not to comment on open cases.
On May 19, FBI spokesman James P. Marshall said, "We are aware of this matter and will respond accordingly." He since has declined to elaborate.
On Wednesday, Lewis Bennett, Hellmann's husband since February, told WPTV News Channel 5, The Post's news partner, that he was flying to Cuba to obtain a boat and conduct his own search. He said his family was "distraught" and that he felt he had to do something to help find his wife.
The Palm Beach Post has attempted to talk both to Bennett and relatives of Hellmann for more than a week.
Hellmann, 41, was reported missing in the early morning of May 15 in the Atlantic about 70 miles southeast of Key West. The Coast Guard suspended its search on May 18.
Bennett told authorities he and his wife, who have a 9-month-old daughter, were on a two-week vacation. He said he was sleeping below deck at about 1 a.m. and awoke after the boat struck something, then went topside but discovered his wife gone and the boat taking on water.
Bennett said he gathered an electronic beacon and an emergency transmitter and left the sinking 37-foot, 30-year-old catamaran for a life raft. The Coast Guard said a helicopter found him at about 4:30 that morning, about 1,000 yards from the vessel and in water 4,008 feet deep _ about three-fourths of a mile _ and flew him to Marathon.
Coast Guard Miami spokesman Eric Woodall said Wednesday that responders inspected the boat "the best they could from the surface" and never saw what it might have struck. He said the pontoons had neither visible holes or obvious places where water could have filled them, just deep scrapes at the back ends of each.
A Coast Guard photo shows the catamaran upside down with one pontoon below the surface and the other above the water line.
Woodall said the Coast Guard can't rule out that Hellmann's body is inside the boat but doesn't believe that to be the case. He said no one has gone inside because of the dangerous way the catamaran lies partially submerged. He said divers did bang on the hull but no one answered.
The Coast Guard has said the boat was not in regular shipping lanes. But experts have said there's plenty of items in the open ocean that a boat could strike, from freighter containers to trees knocked down by storms.
The Coast Guard has said it marked the boat and sent out a "navigation hazard" advisory. But, Woodall said, the electronic beacon the Coast Guard used to mark the location stopped working, so the Coast Guard can't say with confidence if the boat is in the same place. He said it ultimately would be up to Bennett to remove it.
Woodall said the boat had been in the Bahamas and its ultimate destination was Boca Raton. Woodall said Bennett was "bringing it over for hurricane season" but could not say from where.
The agency has generated incident reports, but attempts by The Post to obtain them were steered toward a Freedom of Information Request, which can take weeks or months to fulfill.
Bennett told investigators Hellmann was wearing a life vest the last time he saw her, when he went below at about 8 p.m. May 15. The couple had left Havana Harbor at about 5:30 p.m., the Coast Guard said.
Bennett is a dual British-Australian citizen; it's not known how or when he came to Florida. Records indicate he bought the boat in 2013 on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten.
Facebook pages suggest the couple knew each other since at least 2014, around the time Hellmann divorced. They also say Hellmann and Bennett traveled together as far as Japan and England.
