Early evening, just before sunset on Aug. 18, 2010, Ben suited up, strapped on his tanks and submerged.
Two divers passed him as they were swimming out.
One of them Eduardo Taran, a commercial diver who works for Vortex, knew Ben was sneaking into the cave by jimmying the gate. Only certified divers are given a key. Taran, who came to know Ben in the weeks he was at Vortex, swam back to the cave and used his key to open it for Ben. Later, Taran and his fellow diver were given polygraph tests. They passed.
Sometimes Ben stayed down so long in the cave that Taran would sit on the bank waiting for bubbles in the glassy water, a signal that Ben was decompressing. No one watched for bubbles on Aug. 18.
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With all the experienced divers saying Ben's not in the cave, the McDaniels seized on a darker fate: foul play. They hired Lynn-Marie Carty, a Florida private investigator who operates a business called Reunite People, to explore that.
She's gathered criminal records of several people associated with Vortex, including its former owner, Lowell Kelly, who died under suspicious circumstances last month. When Ben disappeared, Kelly was awaiting trial on charges that he drove a temporary employee into the woods, accused him of stealing $30,000. Kelly beat him with a baseball bat. Kelly pleaded no contest and was given a fine and probation.
Carty is frustrated that authorities aren't aggressively investigating the case as a homicide.
"There is just as much reason to look above the water for Ben's body as there was to look below it in the cave," Carty said.
