The newlywed husband of a mother who vanished while the couple was sailing in the Bahamas had asked the Coast Guard for a “letter of presumed death�? a day after the agency called off their search, and within four days of their boat overturning, according to court documents. 
 
 Isabella Hellmann's sister has accused her husband Lewis Bennett of killing her, according to a police report issued after her disappearance. Bennett has not been formally named as a suspect in her disappearance. 
 
 Authorities have also never said that they suspect the disappearance of the 41-year-old mother was the result of foul play, and the investigation into her disappearance is still being treated as a missing persons case by the Coast Guard and the FBI. 
 
 A May 19 letter from the Coast Guard to Lewis Bennett, Hellmann's husband of just three months and father of their 9-month-old daughter, informed him that it isn't authorized to issue a letter of presumed death. The letter is included in documents related to an action Hellmann’s sister, Adriana Difeo, filed in the Palm Beach County court in June in an effort to take over Hellmann’s finances. 
 
 The Delray Beach, Florida couple was celebrating their marriage by sailing the Caribbean. The boat was reported capsized on May 15 near the Bahamas, and the search for Hellmann was called off on May 18. 
 
 Bennett told the Coast Guard that Hellmann had agreed to take watch above deck. He awoke to the sensation of something hitting the boat, he told the Coast Guard, and the feeling that the vessel was starting to sink. 
 
 Bennett also told the Coast Guard that when he couldn’t find Hellmann he jumped onto a life raft and sent out a distress call. He was found on the life raft on May 15, according to the Coast Guard. 
 
 Florida law states that a person can't be declared legally dead until he or she has been missing for at least five years. 
 
 Areva Martin, a legal analyst, told ABC News that Bennett's request from the Coast Guard doesn't add up, given the details spelled out by Florida's missing person law. 
 
 "There's not a clear indication as to why he would want this letter, particularly in light of Florida law, which says a person is not presumed dead that goes missing until after 5 years has elapsed," Martin said. 
 
 The letter from the Coast Guard notes that "a combined 137.77 hours spanning 4,980 square nautical miles with four types of aircrafts and three CG cutters" was dedicated to their search for Bennett, but they were unable to find her. 
 
 Friends of Hellmann have told ABC News that the couple had gotten into a fight about the possibility of moving to Bennett's native Australia. 
 
 "She was set on, 'no, I'm not moving,' and he was upset [about] her not wanting to go with him," Sarah Cortes, a friend of Hellmann's, told ABC News. "The family is destroyed, the family is extremely hurt." 
 
 ABC News Ben Stein contributed to this report. 

 Within a day after the Coast Guard called off the search for Isabella Hellmann, her newlywed husband asked the agency for a “letter of presumed death,” court documents show. 
 
 Lewis Bennett has said he was awakened early on May 15 after his catamaran struck something west of Cay Sal in the Bahamas. He said he came topside to find the vessel was taking on water and Hellmann, his wife of three months, was gone. He was rescued, but a four-day search to find Hellmann, 41, was officially called off May 18. 
 
 The next day, the agency wrote Bennett, acknowledging his request. The letter but did not say the day he submitted it. 
 
 Follow The Palm Beach Post’s complete coverage of Isabella Hellmann’s disappearance 
 
 The Coast Guard letter is contained in documents related to the Palm Beach County court action Hellmann’s sister filed in June to take over the missing woman’s finances. 
 
 This week, a lawyer for Bennett filed a motion to dismiss the attempt by Hellmann’s sister, Adriana Difeo of Jupiter. 
 
 The sister “has no standing” to become conservator for Hellmann, Boca Raton attorney Robert Feldman wrote in a motion filed Monday. In fact, Feldman wrote, since Hellmann filed no will, the only person with that standing is Hellmann’s husband and the father of their child: Bennett. 
 
 “Given the circumstances surrounding Isabella Hellmann still being deemed missing, although not pleasant, she should be presumed deceased,” Feldman wrote. “In due time, proper proceedings to determine same as well as probate proceedings will be filed.” 
 
 By Florida law, a person can’t be declared legally dead until he or she has been missing for at least five years. 
 
 Feldman was out of town Friday and could not be reached. 
 
 “The husband does have priority,” Mitchell Kitroser, a North Palm Beach attorney representing Difeo, told The Palm Beach Post on Friday. “Given the nature of the case, it’s interesting that he would have left the jurisdiction and now is coming back to contest his sister-in-law’s application.” 
 
 Kitroser declined to elaborate. He also declined to comment on Bennett’s correspondence with the Coast Guard. 
 
 Bennett said in a June Facebook posting he has gone to England with the couple’s infant child. 
 
 The sister’s petition said it wants to protect the suburban Delray Beach condominium, which it valued at $117,000, and which was jointly owned by Hellmann and a corporation created by Hellman and Bennett. It also seeks to protect undetermined financial accounts and possibly a car, and to pay Hellmann’s debts. 
 
 The Coast Guard and the FBI confirmed May 26, eight days after the search was called off, that each was conducting a “missing person investigation.” Neither agency has said whether Bennett is a target of the investigation or even if either suspects foul play. But on June 16, several FBI investigators spent hours searching the couple’s residence, leaving with numerous boxes. At the time, an FBI spokesman would say only that the agency “initiated a court-authorized search” as “part of the investigation into the disappearance of Isabella Hellmann.” Neither the FBI nor the Coast Guard has commented since. 
 
 In the Coast Guard’s May 19 letter to Bennett, a commander said the agency wasn’t authorized to issue such a “presumed death” document but did provide a two-paragraph summary of the search, noting it spent “a combined 137.77 hours spanning 4,980 square nautical miles with four types of aircrafts and three CG cutters.” 
 
 The letter said Bennett can get any additional records by filing a Freedom of Information Act request. 
 
 The Palm Beach Post also asked the Coast Guard within days of the disappearance for documents related to the search, but the agency has required the newspaper also request them through FOIA, which often can take months. The Post is appealing the delay. 
 
 The Coast Guard on Friday was asked what day it received Bennett’s letter but said it likely could answer that question only via a FOIA request. 
 
 Despite asking for a declaration of presumption of death sometime on or before May 19, Bennett later told a DailyMail.com reporter at his condominium, for a May 30 story, that he had made a trip to Cuba a few days earlier, returning May 28, and “met the authorities there and checked every hospital, but there is no sign of her.” 
 
 All efforts by The Post to reach Bennett have been unsuccessful. 
 
 On June 28, Bennett published on his Facebook page his first posting since early April, saying, “I have now returned to the UK with my daughter to seek the comfort of my friends and family.” It sparked a long line of comments of support from friends and relatives, but also questions from people about his role in his wife’s disappearance. He took it down July 4 and later shut down his Facebook page altogether. 
 
 A police report has said one of Hellman’s sisters screamed accusations at Bennett during a May 28 confrontation at the Boca Raton home of Hellmann’s relatives. The Hellmann family also has not responded to numerous inquiries from The Post.
– In Florida, a person must be missing for five years before a "letter of presumed death" can be issued. But in a new twist, documents reveal that Lewis Bennett requested such a letter just four days after his new wife, Isabella Hellmann, went missing and the day after the Coast Guard called off its search, reports ABC News. The couple from Delray Beach, Fla., had married three months earlier and were celebrating their marriage by sailing the Caribbean. Bennett reported their boat capsized on May 15. He says he'd been sleeping below the night of the 14th when he awoke to the sound of the boat hitting something and found the boat was taking on water; when he couldn't find his 41-year-old wife, he says he jumped into a life raft and sent out a distress call. The Coast Guard found Bennett on the 15th, and called off the search for Hellmann on the 18th—after spending 138 hours searching nearly 5,000 square nautical miles. The Coast Guard and FBI list it as a missing person's case with no mention of foul play, but Hellmann's sister, Adriana Difeo, has been vocal about suspecting otherwise. Difeo tried to become Hellmann's conservator to protect the couple's Delray Beach condo and pay off her debts, but has no standing given that Hellmann had no will. Bennett, as Hellmann's husband and father of their 9-month-old daughter, is the only person with standing, reports the Palm Beach Post. Bennett has since taken his daughter to the UK to "seek the comfort" of friends and family, according to a Facebook account he since deleted. (One lost-at-sea case has taken a turn.)