FL FL - Ben McDaniel, 30, Ponce de Leon, 18 Aug 2010

[Krimi]

I watched this tonight, very intriguing case. One of my first thoughts was that he died accidentally in the cave and was found by someone who worked there, and then disposed of for liability reasons. The cadaver dogs did hit on the water and the shore, so I do suspect he passed away. The employee left the gate open for him even though he knew he wasn't certified. I think they may have been afraid of a lawsuit.

From all of the articles about cave diving it seems clear that he is not in that cave. This is a very straight forward cave and the best cave divers in the world have searched. If they say he's not there, I don't believe he is. The shovel could be anyone's. Many divers carry the same kind of shovel. We don't even know if it had been there long.

I'm on my phone right now, but I need to read a bit more about this. I'll be back tomorrow with more thoughts, I'm sure

Good points, I tend to agree - although the employee that let Ben in by unlocking the gate admitted to doing so - so a lawsuit became an instant possibility with employee negligence established. However, the employee did not initially give up this information (as I understand it) but probably did so later under the pressure of police questioning. If the employee was forthright, then I would think Ben is somewhere down there, perhaps sucked into another underwater stream he discovered.

 

[Krimi]

I watched this tonight, very intriguing case. One of my first thoughts was that he died accidentally in the cave and was found by someone who worked there, and then disposed of for liability reasons. The cadaver dogs did hit on the water and the shore, so I do suspect he passed away. The employee left the gate open for him even though he knew he wasn't certified. I think they may have been afraid of a lawsuit.

From all of the articles about cave diving it seems clear that he is not in that cave. This is a very straight forward cave and the best cave divers in the world have searched. If they say he's not there, I don't believe he is. The shovel could be anyone's. Many divers carry the same kind of shovel. We don't even know if it had been there long.

I'm on my phone right now, but I need to read a bit more about this. I'll be back tomorrow with more thoughts, I'm sure

Good points, I tend to agree - although the employee that let Ben in by unlocking the gate admitted to doing so - so a lawsuit became an instant possibility with employee negligence established. However, the employee did not initially give up this information (as I understand it) but probably did so later under the pressure of police questioning. If the employee was forthright, then I would think Ben is somewhere down there, perhaps sucked into another underwater stream he discovered.

 

[SwampMama]

I have dove in Vortex Springs before, quite a few times and even at night. Beautiful place and fun to dive. Even non-divers enjoy swimming/playing in the water that flows from the cave down to the creek/

As for the possibility that he was "sucked into" another underwater stream inside the cave, I'm not even sure how that could be possible. Vortex Spring produces 28 million gallons of crystal clear freshwater a day. That water flows OUT of the cave. It filters thru the limestone and passages that make the cave, out of the cave at the rate of millions of gallons a day at a constant rate of flow.

For instance, I dove another spring a few miles from Vortex. It had a tiny cavern with a small opening. I actually had to fight my way into it against the flow of water that was coming out. I had to grab onto the rocks and pull myself into it until I got into the "room" of the cavern. Leaving the cavern was a blast as the water pressure just shoots you out of the cave. I even went back in just for the fun of being shot out of it by the water.

This is such a mystery. I have no clue why anyone would risk cave diving alone. There is too much to go wrong. Some passages require you to remove your tanks and gear and squeeze thru passages and then bring your gear thru and put it back on. My husband and I were cavern/cave diving once and it was a passage that went straight down, you swam around around a huge rock at maybe 90 ft and then came up again. I had trouble with my ears (blockage/pain/due to the cold water) and i stayed at about 35 feet while he went down to see it. ( This was our honeymoon and he would likely not get the chance to dive it again as it was a huge distance from our home.)

I waited at 35 feet from him and it was taking a long time. Turn out his mask came off at the bottom and he was blindly trying to find it, searching with his hands, feeling around. Thank God he found it, cleared it of water and returned to me. OMG, He could have died, I could have became a widow on my honeymoon.

This case puzzles me so much. It haunts me as my ex husband is still an avid diver. He braves the gulf of mexico to go "rig diving" which is spearfishing deep in the gulf . It a very challenging dive where many of the fish are bigger than you and one mistake can kill you. They shoot the fish with a speargun and then have to fight the fish to bring it up. The spear is tied to a line that the diver holds. A few foolish divers have attached that line to their bodies, speared a fish that was bigger than them and were last seen heading down at the mercy of the fish into the bottomless gulf. Their bodies where never recovered. Even though he is my ex-husband, I would be devastated to lose him and honestly wish he would stop doing that type of diving. It scares the hell out of me.

But diving is a beautiful thing and there are many fairly safe ways to dive. The weightless of floating along, being able to do flips, to float along upside down and a million other things makes it so delightful.

This link has awesome pics and videos inside the cave. i would recommend to check it out. It has 35 great pics and 7 videos. One amusing pic shows a vienna sausage can. The eels like to eat vienna sausage and you can feed them that. I have also hear of divers bring cans of "squeeze cheese" (in a can like whipped cream) to feed fish underwater. http://www.lovethesepics.com/2012/06/adrenaline-junkies-cave-diving-vortex-spring-37-pics-5-videos/

Ben, where are you? Will we ever know?

 

[SwampMama]

I found this interesting, regarding the "$50,000" that Ben allegedly owed to the IRS. This is a quote from his father from the Scuba board forum, dated 6-22-14 (Post #136) http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cave-diving/378983-article-ben-mcdaniel-vortex-springs-case-14.html

"the IRS says is owed by Ben was filed by a family member of Ben's "then" business associate, a Mr. Paul Wiltz from Cook county, Il. Turns out this family member was Mr. Wiltz's ex-wife who filed false information as our lawyers, our accountants, private investigators and other legal teams involved. Mr. Wiltz is a wanted felon who preys on vulnerable, innocent people who have experienced tragedy. As I have stated , before Ben left on his last dive trip to Florida, we paid off all known debts incurred by him. As far as we knew there were no other monies owed at that time. It was sad to find out from all the investigations this professional con-man is still alive and well! But now he has probably latched onto another party who is also vulnerable. Ben disassociated himself after all the investigations were completed. Mr. Wiltz and his ex-wife have a warrant out for their scheme to embezzle Ben and file false tax information. The local IRS is well aware of the situation and is also on the look-out for these two parties.

It would be wonderful to locate Ben's remains so all these questions could be answered as to what actually happened. Our family has not ever believed anything other that he is in the cave buried in a crevice or unexplored section. We are not unhappy with any of the divers and those who have tried to find out where he is. It is quite an emotional journey tho to try and figure out what really happened. It will soon be four years he has been gone. It will soon be six years since we buried Paul."

Found this article about the business Paul Wiltz owned from when it was just starting. Interestingly there is a mention of Ben McDaniel who is identified as "their senior vice president and head of the Memphis office". Can anyone find any other article about possible crimes embezzlement, lawsuits, arrests, etc.

Ok, so what do you WS'er about this Paul Wiltz and his mysterious company where it seems big sums of money were in play and obviously some allegations of some wrongdoing. Hmmmm, what went on there? I think there is more to that story. Would Paul have reason to want Ben to die or disappear so he would not have to testify or so he could not go to police or authorities with what he knew?

 

[SamKelly1965]

I just watched both Disappeared episode and Ben's vortex. What I am the most confused about is why Ben's obit and his brother Paul's obit list a fourth brother Brad McDaniel, but all news articles and both documentaries indicate there are only three brothers. And all specifically say there are only three brothers; it's not a case of them just not mentioning the fourth. It is also said that Ben is the oldest, and all the pictures shown are of three brothers. This is bugging me.

 

[Sutton]

I just watched both Disappeared episode and Ben's vortex. What I am the most confused about is why Ben's obit and his brother Paul's obit list a fourth brother Brad McDaniel, but all news articles and both documentaries indicate there are only three brothers. And all specifically say there are only three brothers; it's not a case of them just not mentioning the fourth. It is also said that Ben is the oldest, and all the pictures shown are of three brothers. This is bugging me.

Misreporting and unclear reporting. There were 4 boys: Ben, Paul, Brad, and Tim. Some reporters may have said something like, "Ben's three brothers" and some articles, when talking about Ben, may have excluded Paul, referring only to his two living brothers.
This is my opinion only, based upon reading many articles and online info about Ben. I don't know the family, so don't accept my explanation as fact.
I believe Ben's soul is at rest, but hope his body is found someday.

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

I was watching Ben's story on Disappeared. Sad to see it is still unsolved. If the area where he was diving at has truly been fully searched, then where do they go from there?

 

[margol29]

Sorry to see no new replys or ideas on this thread for almost 2 years.

Something happened to this man. Somebody knows something.

 

[MOTORUNNER]

Bump for Ben

 

[Simply Caustic]

Thinking of Ben today, and hoping for answers one day

 

[shadwell]

A disclaimer beforehand - no diving knowledge and only going on “Disappeared” and some reading around on this.

One thing that strikes me is the supposition of staging on the part of McDaniel, based on the discovery of decompression tanks at the cave entrance/pool and the fact that they were not all completely filled - the suggestion being that a diver would normally always fill these tanks completely before diving and would place them at strategic points along the dive route to decompress in stages along the return leg of the dive.

The obvious alternate explanation would be that McDaniel did follow the full tank/placement guidelines, but had returned from the cave to the pool, recovering the tanks As he went and partially using their contents to decompress on the way back up. The fact that the tanks were found in the water might suggest that something happened to him between his arrival back at the pool, but before he was able to recover the tanks to the shore.

Adding to this the evidence of the cadavre dogs a scenario presents itself whereby McDaniel returned to the pool, experienced distress while attempting final decompression (possibly due to having the wrong gas mix in the bottles) and died in the water. The body then remained in the pool overnight (long enough to create a scent detectable by the dogs) and was recovered in the morning by a person or persons unknown.

If so, the next obvious question would be: who was responsible for filling the decompression tanks - McDaniel himself or VS staff?

 

[cricket49]

I have been following this case for years and it is sad that his body has not been found.

 

[missstery]

I hadn't heard of Ben McDaniel until I watched Disappeared a few days ago. I'm sure it said he had been seriously depressed but his life was finally turning around. But I did wonder if it was possible for him to have taken all his gear off once he got to as far as anyone can ever go, so he could squeeze through easier and might have had some spare air with him so he could do that. Then it ran out and he is laying deeper in. And one of the owners saw his gear there and disposed of it.

But I also saw on one of the videos, large holes in the ceiling of where they were diving and wondered if it's at all possible to have dove up through them (they looked like they could break very easily as they looked very thin but I have no idea as I've never been in a cave) and his body might be up there somewhere.

I'm probably completely wrong but just putting my thoughts out there.

 

[ex-stat]

I want to defer to the diving experts as they are so much more knowledgeable on this than me and if the general consensus is that he is not in there, then I go with that.

Did they ever search the wooded area right by Vortex Springs?

I just wonder if he could have surfaced disorientated and alone, and wandered into the woods?

I know they said the CCTV was not great or something.

Also, did they search Skinner Bay? I didn't really know what to make of that on Google Maps as it is meant to be a lake but on the real view it looks very much like trees from above. Maybe it is a mangrove swamp?

If he is not in the Vortex and his truck is there, absent of foul play I would look at the woods. They appear to be incredibly close to the Vortex.

 

[emem1138]

Bumping