This case was on Primetime Justice with Ashleigh Banfield on HLN again last night. Here's the link to the transcript:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1706/07/ptab.01.html
from above...keeping within 10% copyright rules so there is a little more than this....
"
Karen Curtis is the news director for WFTL, and she joins me from West Palm Beach, Florida. I am not overstating this, Karen, when I say that the most
important piece of evidence perhaps in this entire missing person presumed dead case would be the boat. So how on earth do we not know where it is?
KAREN CURTIS, WFTL (via telephone): Very good question. It`s a huge mystery. The Coast Guard and the FBI tonight will not say and will not
give any information on who has possession of this boat, the Surf Into Summer, the 37-foot catamaran. You have pictures of it there. The Coast
Guard won`t even say if it was closely inspected, which is unusual.
But again, this is a missing person investigation, and we`re told that Lewis Bennett may not even be a target of an investigation. And there may
not be any foul play, but still, the FBI searched his car in Dell Ray Beach (ph) and they searched his residence in Dell Ray Beach. There was crime
scene tape up there.
And there is no sign of Lewis Bennett and no sign of the 10-month-old baby. Of course, he is a dual citizen of the U.K. and Australia. So we don`t
know where he is. We don`t know where the boat is.
BANFIELD: And the weird thing is, not only is he not home at the home where they shared, neither is the baby. There is FBI crime tape across his
door, and the mail is piping up, as well. So it`s very curious.
I actually do want to read a statement the Coast Guard sent us because, you know, obviously, our first question was, What do you mean you don`t have
the boat? You got the guy. It`s pretty weird. The girl is missing. But the boat is bobbing there and probably needs a really good inspection, like
with a fine-toothed comb.
And this is what the Coast Guard said to us. "The Coast Guard cutter Charles David, Jr., crew relocated the vessel on May 17th" -- and that`s a
couple days after they did the rescue -- "conducted further inspection and attached a self-locating data marker buoy to the vessel. The buoy stopped
transmitting a few hours after it was attached."
What is all that about, Karen?
CURTIS: Well, the Coast Guard told me that they are not in the business of actually salvaging the property and recovering the boat. You know, you see
the picture there of it. But they put the marker on it. It stopped transmitting, but they told Lewis Bennett that it was his responsibility to
get the boat out of the water...
BANFIELD: OK. You had me at hello. I get it. The Coast Guard does amazing work in rescuing people, and in this case, they found Lewis in that
liferaft. But I also know that the Coast Guard has a division called the Coast Guard Investigative Service and that is actually working in
conjunction with the FBI, which makes me think you do more than rescue people, you investigate weird things, too. So you can`t have it both ways.
Why do we not know that they didn`t take this more seriously? Why did that data marker just stop transmitting a few hours later? This is important
stuff!
CURTIS: It`s very important. We don`t know.
And as they said, the FBI and the Coast Guard tonight -- have no information on who has possession of
the boat. I mean, it`s possible it sank. It`s possible that someone, maybe Lewis Bennett, had it salvaged, or that the FBI has it. Who knows.
We don`t know. (INAUDIBLE) huge mystery.
BANFIELD: Real quickly, Jonna Spilbor and Danny Cevallos are with me, two defense attorneys. Jonna, I`m going to get this one to you. I would have
thought the forensic analysis of that boat would be the number one thing they would need to do. It might actually give us a clue as to whether his
story was true.
JONNA SPILBOR, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Absolutely. How hard would it have been for some agency to tow the boat out of the water where it could be properly
inspected? It`s confounding that that did not occur.
[20:25:04]BANFIELD: And now it`s presumably missing. Stay tuned on this one because
the FBI isn`t talking to us, so they may very well have it and
they`re not saying, but it is a weird, weird story."
; I'm just wondering ...-
