Isabella Hellmann didn’t just die on the high seas more than two years ago. Her husband
killed her. That’s what federal prosecutors asked a Palm Beach County Circuit judge to include in the real-estate broker’s death certificate, hoping to shut down any future claim Lewis Bennett could make to her modest estate.
The death certificate approved in May is posted in court dockets, but the part that details the death is blacked out. The lawyers’ comments in court suggested that portion says only that Hellmann’s cause of death is “unknown.” Prosecutors wanted to change language from “lost at sea/presumed drowned” to “gross negligence by husband Lewis Bennett.”
The judge agreed but would not approve the checking of a box listing cause of death as “homicide,” saying that was the purview of the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office.
A death certificate clears the way for the couple’s daughter Emelia, who turned 3 in July, to inherit her mother’s estate.
An assistant U.S. Attorney said Bennett has settled an insurance claim on the catamaran believed to be worth $100,000. He said Hellmann “apparently” has a life insurance policy, but lawyers can’t find it.
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The girl has been living with the parents, first in England and then in Scotland, since Bennett picked her up from his in-laws in Boca Raton days after the search for Hellmann was called off.
The family finally saw Emelia recently in Scotland.
Feds: Make Isabella Hellman's death certificate say husband's 'gross negligence' killed her
