even more updates/timeline:
According to her sister, Isabella did not want to leave her 9 month old baby, but wanted to help her husband move a boat from St. Martin to Key West. The boat would later be taken to Australia by Bennett and his business partner,. “He has a lot of experience. He knows a lot about boats,” she said.
The couple had taken trips like this one before, prior to having their baby, but never just the two of them alone.
April 8 - Government officials in St. Maarten confirmed Bennett’s 1986 37-foot Fountaine Pajot Orana 44 catamaran came in, named "Surf Into Summer", listing Sydney, Australia as the home port.
April 26 - Bennett flew from London to Fort Lauderdale and the couple was going to take a flight to the Caribbean to begin their trip.
“They were supposed to go from St. Martin to Puerto Rico, from Puerto Rico to Cuba, and from Cuba to Key West,” her sister said. The couple would spend no more than two days at each island to rest and then sail to the next destination.
April 29 - Hellman posted on Facebook: “Caribbean, here I come,” along with a map bearing a dotted line from South Florida to St. Maarten. Hellman flew to St. Maarten.
April 30 - Government officials in St. Maarten confirmed Bennett’s boat left for the trip.
May 1 - Hellman posts from Puerto Rico, referencing "another day in paradise".
May 2 - Hellman posts from the British Virgin Islands.
May 3 - Hellman's cellphone breaks and all contact from this point on was through Bennett's iPad.
??? Isabella told her sister she would be back by May 12 to attend her sister's graduation on Saturday.
??? Isabella told her sister that for five days straight they would not be able to talk.
May 11 or 12 - Isabella's sister received a call from her but found it strange that every other time, Isabella asked about the baby and asked detailed questions, but not this time, she just asked if they were getting ready for the graduation. Her sister still thought Isabella was going to surprise her at the ceremony. But Saturday the 12th came and went and no sign of Isabella.
May 14 - 5:30 p.m. - Catamaran leaves Havana, Cuba, with a final destination of Key West, FL. Officials said the catamaran's last port of call was Cuba.
May 14 - 8:00 p.m. - Bennett goes below deck to sleep, leaving Hellman at the helm of the boat wearing a life vest.
May 14 - 8:25 p.m. - Hellman called her sister: ‘Oh hi, we just connected the phone, it’s been really hard for us to connect it cause his [Bennett’s] friend told me it’s hard. I’m in the middle of the ocean right now, we left Cuba. I’ll see you tomorrow.'
May 14 - 1:00 a.m.-1:35 a.m. - Bennett said he awoke to something hitting the boat and felt that it was starting to sink. Bennett used a satellite phone to call the International Response Coordination Center, a private company, which passed the SOS to the Coast Guard. When he saw the catamaran was taking on water, he dropped the lifeboat into the water and got into it, fired his emergency position beacon (EPIRB). The catamaran was now 30 miles west of Cay Sal, which is about 100 miles southeast of Key West and about 130 miles east-northeast of Havana.
May 15 - 3:00 a.m. - Hellman's sister said she woke up to several missed calls and voice mails. One was from the satellite phone from Bennett who said, 'this is an emergency, you need to call the Coast Guard. This is my coordinates.'
May 15 - ??? - Bennett’s business partner left a voicemail for Hellman's sister.
May 15 - 4:30 a.m.-4:50 a.m. - The Coast Guard chopper pinpointed Bennett floating in a life raft with a personal locator beacon about 1,000 yards from the now upside-down Surf into Summer and in about 4,800 feet of water. Bennett said the USCG allowed him to retrieve a backpack from the catamaran; in it was his iPad, the satellite phone, chargers, his wallet, and documents related to the boat. A basket pulled Bennett from his raft in 2-to-4-foot seas and taken to Marathon Key, FL. He told the USCG he was unable to find his wife and had no choice but to abandon the vessel.
May 15 - ??? - The Coast Guard called Hellman's sister and asked to pick Bennett up in Marathon. Hellmann’s family picked him up that afternoon and brought him to their home in Boca Raton. Her sister said, “He was calm, he wasn’t crying or anything. When I saw him I ran to him and I hugged him and I said where is Isabella? And he said I don’t know.”
May 15 - within hours of when Bennett would have been rescued, a neighbor said she saw a car parked downstairs belonging to Hellmann’s sister.
May 17 - Neighbor said she saw five relatives go into Bennett/Hellman's Delray Beach apartment.
May 17 evening - His first first time back in his Delray Beach apartment. Hellmann’s engagement ring, electronics and an expensive handbag were gone. A neighbor told him that she’d seen the family in the apartment. Bennett said he was considering “civil action” against Hellman's family members who he believes went into his condo while he was in Cuba.
May 17 - Neighbor said he approached Bennett to express his concern and sympathy. “He said, ‘Yeah. I’m going to be leaving for England. I’ve got to move on with my life,’ ” The neighbor said, ‘What about the baby?’ He stopped and said, “Oh. I guess I’ve got to take her with me too".
May 17 or 18 (day before USCG search called off) - Hellman's best friend pleaded with Bennett not to leave the country with the couple’s baby. “I begged him to please understand that the family lost Isabella and the only piece of Isabella left was (the baby), and he just can’t leave and take (her).” "He said he understands, but he’s got his life in Australia.” The best friend reminded Bennett, at the Hellmann family home in Boca Raton, about the huge effort by family and friends to find the two Tequesta teens lost at sea in 2015, and “suggested he do his own search. I mean, he’s a captain. He knows the sea. He knows the area. Do something. Not stay here. I would be looking for my wife."
May 18 - U.S. Coast Guard called off the search after searching 6,680 square miles of sea.
May 19 - the key lock on Bennett’s front door had been replaced with an electronic keypad. Bennett contacted deputies to file a complaint. Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office confirms.
May 20-23 - Bennett and baby stay at the apartment. Also that weekend, Bennett told a neighbor he wanted to search for his wife but had lost his passport when the vessel sank. He said he had obtained a temporary one but that it barred him from leaving the country right away.
May 23 - 8:30 p.m. - neighbor said she saw “official-looking” men with latex gloves and Bennett out by his car
May 24 - another neighbor was walking his dog and saw Bennett “bringing stuff out. He had someone helping him. They were throwing stuff in the dumpster.”
May 25 - Bennett's car is gone.
May 26 or 27 - CBS 12 visited the apartment. No one was home, but two boxes marked evidence were left on the front stoop-- one was open at the top, and they could see inside. The item looked like a piece of inflatable marine equipment, possibly a life-vest.
??? - Bennett texted Isabella's sister from Cuba telling her he had checked with U.S. Embassy to get local authorities involved and had checked all hospitals looking for Isabella.
May 27 - Bennett returns from Cuba. He said he “met the authorities there and checked every hospital, but there is no sign of her.”
May 28 - Bennett went to Boca Raton to pick up the baby, he returns to Hellman's family's home with a Boca Raton police officer demanding the baby’s things.
??? - Hellman's sister was told that Bennett has left the country with the baby.
In addition:
The Coast Guard said responders inspected the boat “the best they could from the surface,” and never saw what it might have struck. The catamaran is steered by a tiller alongside a canvas seat, near the stern, close enough that a person in it could be flung overboard by the impact of a collision. It was too dangerous for anyone from the Coast Guard to go inside the boat and that divers banged on the hull but no one answered. The agency does not believe Hellmann’s body is inside.
The catamaran’s pontoons had neither visible holes nor obvious places where water could have filled them, but there were 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.
