Thanks for the posting this!
Previous timeline update from this thread:
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...-2&p=13515770&highlight=timeline#post13515770 and here:
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...FL-Keys-14-May-2017-1&p=13410266#post13410266
ISABELLA VANISHES: A TIMELINE
November 1975: Luz Stella Isabella Rodriguez is born in Colombia. She is believed to have moved to Florida some time in the 1990s.
April 1977: Lewis Bennett is born in Dorset area of southwest England. He attends public schools and at some point moves to Australia.
February 2002: Isabella marries William Hellmann. The two begin divorce proceedings in August 2012 in Palm Beach County Circuit Court in Delray Beach. Divorce is final in August 2014.
May 2011: Lewis Bennett registers Next Generation Solar in Australia.
November 2013: In St. Maarten, in the Caribbean, Bennett buys catamaran described as a 37-foot Fountaine Pajot Orana 44. He registers it in Australia.
2015: Isabella Hellmann and Lewis Bennett meet online.
August 2015: Bennett registers Next Generation Solar in Florida.
September 1, 2015: The owner of KITTY R purchases 617 collectible gold and silver coins for approximately $41,000.
early morning hours, May 5, 2016: Coins stolen.
May 8, 2016: Bennett files police reports of stolen coins, valued at $100,000, aboard KITTY R. No report was filed to insurance company as they were not insured.
May 10, 2016: Bennett flies from St. Maarten to Miami International.
July 2016: Amelia is born.
January 2017: The couple buys a condo at the Pine Ridge at Delray Beach development for $123,000.
February: The couple marry spontaneously in Atlanta.
March 18: Bennett flies from Fort Lauderdale to St. Maarten.
Bennett's boat, Surf Into Summer, is in St. Maarten.
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. Bennett flies from St. Maarten back to Fort Lauderdale.
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: Bennett and Hellmann fly to St. Maarten. Hellman posted on Facebook: “Caribbean, here I come,” along with a map bearing a dotted line from South Florida to St. Maarten.
April 30: I The couple set sail. 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.: The couple reportedly leaves Varadero, Cuba a resort town about 75 miles east of Havana.
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.
(We later find out he is also carrying various coins which the CG was surprised the backpack was "very heavy". In additional, to Bennett, the life raft also contained: one backpack, a suit case, unexpanded parachute flares, 14 gallons of water, an electronic emergency locating device and nine plastic tubes wrapped with clear tape containing in total 158 “Year of the Horse” British silver coins and 77 Canadian Maple Leaf silver coins.)
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 18: Coast Guard officially calls off search.
May 19: Coast Guard responds to Bennett request for a “letter of presumed death,” saying it doesn’t have authority.
May 23: FBI briefly returned the coins to Bennett, then learned later in the day that they were stolen. At condo, officials, FBI investigators searched Bennett’s car, and interviewed him.
May 26: Coast Guard and FBI confirm that they are conducting a “missing persons investigation.”
May 27: Bennett claims he just returned from Cuba and "met the authorities there and checked every hospital, but there is no sign of her.”
May 28: In confrontation to which police are called, Hellmann’s sister screams accusations at Bennett, who had come to pick up Emelia at the family’s Boca Raton home.
May 30: Dailymail.com posts interview with Bennett at his suburban Delray Beach condominium in which he professes his innocence.
Just prior to June 1, FBI evidence tape seals the door.
June 14: Isabelle’s sister files in Palm Beach County Circuit Court in Palm Beach Gardens to take over Isabella’s finances.
June 16: FBI and USCGIS execute a search warrant and spend eight hours searching the couple’s condo and leave with several boxes.
June 21: Court papers are formally served on Bennett’s family home in Southampton, England.
June 28: Bennett says in a Facebook posting he has gone to England with Amelia. After receiving both supportive and critical comments, he takes down the post. He later closes his Facebook page altogether.
. And thank you for the link to all the pictures: quite clearly that is not an Orana. I'm no boat expert, but that looks like a much older design from what I can see (shape of windows etc).
