Tragic Diving Accident or Deliberate Murder? | Forensic Files

As Case File continues into its 10th year, we're currently taking a very short break from new episodes. Brand new
cases will be returning on May 23 for premium subscribers and May 30 for the regular feed. But in the meantime, we're
continuing our special bonus series, Case File Archives, a collection of releases revisiting the earliest years
of the show along with previously unreleased premium episodes. Rest assured that these are additional bonus
releases and will not replace our standard schedule. We will still be delivering the same number of new
episodes this year as we did last year. Case File Archives is simply a way to mark the 10th year, revisit some older
episodes, and share stories that newer listeners may not have heard before. Today's re-release is Ben McDaniel.
Originally released as a premium subscriber episode in October last year, now available to all listeners as part
of our case file archive series. Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at
any time you need support, please contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers for confidential
support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on
our website. Ask any experienced scuba diver what they think about cave diving and you'll
get a different response. For some, the very thought fills them with dread and fear. For others, it's a
source of great excitement, providing an opportunity to explore parts of the world that very few people have ever
seen. Cave diving is an extreme form of technical scuba diving that allows skilled divers to explore submerged
caves that are beyond the reach of natural light. It's been compared to swimming through the history of the
planet with some saying it is the closest environment to outer space. It is a highly challenging and dangerous
activity and as such individuals must undergo rigorous training and tests before they can receive their cave
diving certification. Experienced cave divers often speak about how addictive the sport can be. In
addition to the sense of exploration and adventure that cave diving brings, many
also find it to have a meditative quality. Down beneath the dark depths of the water, there is no sense of time or the
outside world. All that matters is what's happening in the cave at that exact moment.
Break your focus, and one mistake can prove fatal. Caves can collapse, stirred up silt can
be blinding, diving lines can be cut, and you can easily become disoriented and lose your sense of direction.
Some passages are so narrow that divers have become stuck or snagged on rocks. Stay down there too long and you risk
running out of air. Vortex Spring is a commercially operated dive park located just outside the town
of Pon de Leon in northern Florida. It is the largest diving facility in the state, providing a cold freshwater
spring that gently produces a constant outflow at a temperature of 68° F or 20° C all year round.
Most people who visit Vortex Spring do so recreationally, staying in the campground or coming for the day to
swim, snorkel, kayak, or go tubing in the clear waters of the runoff and creek. The basin of the spring itself is a
mecca for scuba divers of all skill levels. At 250 ft wide and roughly 58 ft deep, the water is crystal clear with
perfect visibility. There are underwater platforms for training and small man-made caverns and
crevices to explore. The basin is surface lit during the day and filled with an array of fish and
eels tame enough to eat out of your hand. It's an ideal destination for those looking to gain or advance their scuba
diving qualifications. For the more adventurous and adequately qualified, 58 ft beneath the surface is
the mouth of a cave. Entrance is not for the inexperienced or faint of heart. With 13 people having
lost their lives there in the early days of its discovery, improved safety measures and stricter
guidelines led to the installation of a safety gate, the key to which is only given to qualified cave divers after
they show their certifications and pay a fee to the dive shop employees. But the area is still fraught with
dangers. A sign at the most treacherous part of the cave system features a picture of
the grim reaper along with the bold warning, "Stop! Prevent your death! Go no further!"
More than 300 divers, including openwater scuba instructors, have died in caves just like this one. Without
cave training and cave equipment, divers can die here. It can happen to you. Do not go beyond this point. There's
nothing in this cave worth dying for. 30-year-old Ben McDaniel fell in love with water at a young age. Having grown
up on a 5.8 acre estate in the suburb of Collierville near Memphis, Tennessee, he'd always gravitated towards outdoor
activities, including deep sea fishing and rock climbing. After he went scuba diving for the first
time at age 15 during a family holiday to Disney's Epcot Center, he couldn't wait to do it again.
He started practicing in his family's swimming pool by testing out different air tanks.
It was a hobby that Ben continued to dabble in over the years in between completing a degree in construction
management at the University of Memphis and starting his own company, McDaniel Construction.
After experiencing a series of unfortunate events in his personal life, Ben developed a particular interest in
cave diving. He was certified as an open water diver, which allowed him to dive in open,
unconfined waters. To get his cave diving certification, he needed to undergo around 2 months of
training and log 125 dives with a certified cave diving instructor. Never one to shy away from a challenge,
Ben started learning all he could about cave diving by reading technical books about the sport.
2010 had been a rough year for Ben. Thinking some sunshine and time in the water would do him good, his parents
suggested he take a year off to clear his head, offering to fund the break. The McDaniels owned a condo in Santa
Rosa Beach, a seaside community in the Florida panhandle. So, they suggested Ben go and spend a few months there.
Grateful for the opportunity, Ben took his beloved chocolate Labrador, Spooner, and headed to Florida.
Less than an hour's drive from Santa Rosa Beach was Vortex Spring. Ben began spending as much time there as
he could, paying the entry cost of $25 per day and clocking up scuba diving hours in the hopes of becoming an
instructor. He developed a fascination with the underwater cave system and started
taking classes and making his own detailed map of the area in the hopes of exploring it himself.
The Vortex Spring Cave system is somewhat complex. From the surface of the water, the basin
itself extends to a depth of around 58 ft. At this point, there is a large cavern
which has an opening about 9 ft by 12 ft wide. Go down 115 ft further, and you'll find
a chamber known as the piano room. This is the entrance point to the underwater cave system, and it is
blocked by a reinforced steel gate. Only divers with cave diving certification are allowed to enter, and
with good reason. Beyond the gate is one long, narrow tube-like cave. According to the mapped area, it runs
for a further 1,642 horizontal ft, roughly the length of five American football fields, with a
few small holes jutting off to either side that divers can explore. The terrain consists of cramped
limestone passageways with a sandy, silty bottom. It is not for the claustrophobic.
Along the way are four restrictions. These are the parts of the cave that are so narrow two divers can't fit side by
side. To get through, divers need to travel in single file, twisting their bodies and equipment to squeeze their
way in. During certain points, water from the spring flows outward, adding an extra
challenge for divers as they work their way against the current in spaces barely
tall enough to accommodate both them and their gear. At the fourth restriction, the passage
is only around 10 in tall and 3 ft wide, marking the narrowest point of the cave.
Some have compared traversing it to trying to crawl under a car while in full scuba gear.
Venturing further requires divers wearing backmounted gear to remove their equipment completely, holding their
tanks by their sides while maneuvering their bodies as their stomachs drag through the sand and their backs scrape
against the limestone ceiling. Back in 2010, only a handful of divers had made it this far.
Where the cave led beyond the fourth restriction was not known. The only way out of the cave is via the
same entry gate in the piano room. Proper technique dictates that divers should lay lines by mounting nylon rope
throughout the cave as they go. This helps them find their way out if they become disoriented or lose
visibility due to factors like stirred up silts or malfunctioning light. However, some inexperienced and reckless
divers forego this step and rely on a long pipe that lies along the floor of the cave, which was installed for the
purpose of dredging sand. Either way, entering the cave is dangerous and should only be done by
qualified, experienced divers who fully understand the risks. Exploring the cave requires knowledge of
particular techniques, adequate equipment, and the company of a dive buddy who could help if things went
arry. Ben McDaniel quickly became a familiar face around Vortex Spring, often arriving early in the morning before the
summer crowds and staying for the entire day. He did multiple dives each day, including in the evenings.
Therefore, dive shop employee Eduardo Tran thought nothing of it when he noticed Ben's GMC pickup truck sitting
in the parking lot of the dive shop two days in a row, starting from Wednesday, August 18, 2010.
But when the truck was still there in the exact same place on Friday, August 20, Eduardo began to worry.
Eduardo had last seen Ben at around 7:00 on Wednesday evening. He and one of his co-workers, a man
named Chuck Cronin, had been finishing a dive when they passed Ben as he descended into the piano room.
He was wearing two sidemounted air tanks, which Eduardo had filled for him earlier, as well as his diving helmet
with the light switched on. While all of this was standard gear for a cave diver, the problem was that Ben
didn't have his cave diving certification, he only had his open water certificate,
an entry-level qualification that meant he was only allowed to dive in areas exposed to the sky to a maximum depth of
100 ft. Although Ben didn't have a diving buddy or the adequate certification to enter
the cave, Eduardo suspected that he had been bypassing the gate in the piano room regardless.
He'd recently noticed that someone had been tampering with the lock on the gate, and he suspected that person was
Ben. Not only had Ben developed a reputation around a vortex spring as being somewhat
arrogant about his diving abilities, he was also often one of the last to leave for the day.
Eduardo presumed the reason Ben had been staying so late was so he could bypass the gate without anyone noticing.
With this in mind, Eduardo unlocked the gate on Ben's behalf. He reasoned that Ben was going to get past the gate
anyway, so he might as well save him a few minutes of air, which could prove precious if he was attempting a long
dive on his own. Eduardo and Chuck then resurfaced and decompressed, assuming Ben wouldn't be
far behind them. While Eduardo typically waited around for the last diver to resurface each
day, he was distracted when a family approached requesting help locating a lost diving light. After helping them
for a while, Eduardo and Chuck left for the evening. The next day, Eduardo had some personal
matters to attend to and didn't give any more thought to Ben. But when he noticed Ben's truck still in
the exact same parking spot 2 days later, Eduardo wondered, "What if Ben had never made it back to the surface on
Wednesday night?" Eduardo asked the other dive shop employees if anyone had seen Ben
McDaniel since Wednesday evening. Nobody had. He then notified the Holmes County
Sheriff's Department about his concerns before diving into the spring himself to
conduct a cursory search. The gate to the cave was open in the exact same position that Eduardo left it
2 days earlier, and one of Ben's spare air tanks was resting against it. There was no sign of Ben himself.
Officers quickly arrived at Vortex Spring to assess the situation. In Ben's truck, they found his cell
phone and wallet, which contained his driver's license, and around $1,100 in cash.
A check of the Santa Rosa Beach condo revealed Ben's dog, Spooner, was there alone and hungry, like he hadn't been
fed in some time. With these discoveries, the officers immediately shared Eduardo's concern
that Ben might not have made it back to the surface on Wednesday evening. If that was the case, there was no
chance he was still alive. Either he'd died as the result of some kind of accident or medical emergency,
or he'd become trapped in the cave and would have run out of air by now. They quickly realized this wasn't going
to be a rescue, but a recovery mission. The problem was the police didn't have the necessary resources to check the
full length of the cave. A mission like this required highly skilled and qualified cave divers,
preferably ones familiar with the area. And such individuals were not easy to come by.
The police enlisted the help of Jeff Laughlin, a rescue diver with over 30 years experience.
Jeff was tasked with putting together a team and coordinating the search. He sourced a group of divers from local
dive shops whom he believed to be among the best in the world. Many of them knew Vortex Spring well and
were aware of just how dangerous it could be beyond the gate. In their experience, it was just as difficult to
get into the cave system as it was to get out. If they did find Ben's body in the cave,
recovering it would endanger their own lives as they squeezed through the tight passageways while also pulling Ben's
body behind. The divers were split into three teams with each taking turns descending into
the spring. In addition to looking for Ben's body, they were searching for his diving
equipment. If Ben had intended to explore the caves, they expected to find some air
tanks along the way. It was standard practice for cave divers to leave spare tanks as they went to
ensure they had plenty of air available on their way out. In the basin, the search teams found two
of Ben's air tanks secured to the talk box, a box-shaped device that divers stick their heads into to speak to one
another while underwater. In the piano room at the entrance of the cave, they found the third tank
belonging to Ben that Eduardo had spotted earlier. There was no sign of Ben anywhere in the
basin, the cavern, or the piano room. This just left the cave system. Each of the dive teams was tasked with
going a little further into the cave than the last. As they made their way down the long narrow tunnels in single
file, they shone torches in every nook and cranny on the lookout for dive gear such as masks, lights, or fins.
Recovery of these items could be an indication that Ben had drowned. The further into the cave they went, the
thicker the water became with clay, sand, and silt, making it nearly impossible to see.
They followed the cave towards the fourth restriction. At certain points, it was so tight that
the divers had to hold their air tanks by their sides and swim with one hand extended in front of their bodies.
They looked for any telltale signs that Ben had been there, such as scrape marks
in the ceilings or marks in the clay from where he'd squeezed his way through. They found nothing.
Nor was there any increased activity from scavengers to suggest the deceased body was in the vicinity.
Eventually, they reached a point of the cave so narrow and cramped that it was too dangerous for them to go any
further. In the view of the rescue team, there was no way someone as inexperienced as
Ben could have ventured that far. But if Ben wasn't in the basin, the cavern, or the cave, then where was he?
Ben's parents, Shelby and Patty McDaniel, were at their home in Collierville, 430 mi northwest of Vortex
Spring, when an officer pulled into their driveway to inform them that Ben was missing.
The McDaniels couldn't believe what they were hearing. This wasn't the first time
they'd been dealt an inconceivable blow. Just 2 years earlier, in September 2008,
Ben had gone to pick up his younger brother, 22-year-old Paul, so they could attend a festival together in Memphis.
Ben arrived to find Paul unconscious on his bed, still breathing, but unresponsive.
Paul was rushed to hospital where he was declared brain dead from what the McDaniel family reported to be a stroke.
Ben was devastated by the loss of his younger brother. Together with another sibling, he co-founded the Paul Andrew
McDaniel Foundation, which aimed to honor Paul's memory by providing stroke awareness programs and raising money
towards stroke education, prevention, and treatment. The only solace for the McDaniel family
was that Paul was able to donate his organs, saving at least four lives while helping 80 others through tissue
donations. The McDaniels were even given the chance to hold a stethoscope to the chest of
the man who received Paul's heart so they could listen to his heartbeat. Shocked to find themselves facing
another tragedy so soon, Shelby and Patty McDaniel rushed to Vortex Spring along with Ben's girlfriend Emily, who
had been dating Ben for the past year. By the time they arrived, the area had been cordoned off. Police officers and
Kadaava dogs scoured the spring's banks while divers continued their underwater search.
Ben's parents paced, watching anxiously every time bubbles appeared on the water's surface in case someone emerged
with news. One of the Kadaava dogs detected decomposition along the banks, while
another reacted to a scent in the water diving in. While this was initially strong evidence
that Ben was somewhere under the surface, every time one of the rescue divers reappeared, the answer was always
the same. Ben was nowhere to be found. The fruitless search continued for days. On Monday, August 23, there was renewed
hope when a revered diver by the name of Ed Sorenson arrived at the scene. Ed owned a dive shop around an hour's
drive from Vortex Spring and was one of the most experienced cave divers in the area.
Typically the first person called upon for cave rescues in the area, Ed had been holidaying in the Bahamas when Ben
McDaniel went missing. He'd spent the last couple of days fielding messages from other divers
involved in the search. Each said something similar. The cave was extremely dangerous and there was no
way that an amateur diver without adequate training could have made it any further than the searchers did.
Cave diving officials even warned Ed against making the dive, saying the risk was simply too high.
Undeterred and determined to make it further than the divers before him, Ed Sorenson headed out to Vortex Spring as
soon as he was able. Hopes were high as he suited up and disappeared into the basin.
To preserve his air, Ed used an underwater scooter that allowed him to maneuver through the tunnel at a quicker
pace. It wasn't long before the tunnel became too narrow and he had to abandon the
scooter. Ed continued solo down the tiny passageways, some of which were so tight
that he had his stomach in the sand and his back to the ceiling. Borrowing deeper, he had to turn his
head sideways just to squeeze through. At 6 feet tall and 190 lb, Ed was only slightly smaller than Ben, who was 6'1
and 210 lb. Ed was also highly experienced, having completed around 2 1/2,000 dives,
whereas Ben was only just starting out. This meant that Ed not only had the skills but the physical ability to reach
places Ben could not. Ed followed the map to its furthest point, then went about 200 ft beyond
that. He noticed some marks on the cave where one of the other rescue divers had
traversed earlier. He slowly inched about 20 ft further, marking the furthest point searched in
the recovery mission so far. This would later become known as the end of the line, described as a 6-in wide
vertical crack. The area was pristine. There wasn't a single mark or clue to indicate that another diver had ever
been there before. The next day, Ed Sorenson went into the cave for the second time. He brought a
smaller air tank with him, holding it under his arms to make himself flatter. By the time he reached the end of the
line, the outcome was the same. There was no sign that Ben McDaniel was down there.
Ed dismissed the possibility that Ben could have made it beyond that point. The crack was only around 6 in wide,
making it virtually impossible for a person to get through. Panicking cave divers have been known to
burrow into tiny spaces they couldn't normally fit into, but Ed examined the crack, and it didn't appear to open up
to another room. If Ben had somehow managed to squeeze his way through in a moment of panic,
there was no way he could have made it out again. Ed was flabbergasted. By this point, 6 days had passed since
Ben was last spotted going down into the water. If his body was down there, fish and
other scavengers would be drawn to the scent and rush to the area. Some birds of prey might even be able to
detect the scent and circle overhead. With nothing of the sort occurring, Ed studied the map that Ben had been
drawing of the cave system. He realized that it didn't even match what was down there.
Ed spoke to officers from the sheriff's department to give them his recommendation.
As far as Ed was concerned, Ben McDaniel wasn't in Vortex Spring and had likely never gone very far into the cave.
He told the police it was time they started looking into other possibilities. The reality was the past couple of years
had been difficult for Ben McDaniel in more ways than one. Not only was he still reeling from losing his younger
brother, he was also recovering from a messy divorce. In early 2009, Ben had only been married for a year and a half
when he and his wife went their separate ways. Their divorce petition cited disputes and irreconcilable differences.
Ben lost his house and had to move back in with his parents. His construction business also began to fail, adding
further strain to his financial instability. He left some jobs incomplete, tarnishing
his professional reputation. Several years earlier, Ben had inherited a house from his grandfather. He took
out a $200,000 mortgage on the property, which friends said he had basically been
living off ever since. By the time he moved to Florida, he owed the Internal Revenue Service $48,861
in unpaid federal taxes as well as $1,177 in state taxes. Eager to turn his financial situation
around, Ben enrolled in a course with a nonacredited vocational school called Nuvo Ree, which specialized in real
estate investment. The course focused on how to make money flipping houses by using the equity from
one home to buy another. Ben continued to dabble in real estate during his time in Florida, launching a
company called Rogue Wave Properties. It later turned out that Novo Ree was essentially a multi-level marketing
company, and the school closed down just a couple of months after Ben's disappearance.
Those who knew Ben described him as charismatic and determined. He had a close-knit family and was well-loved by
many, with one of his ex-girlfriends describing him as one of the most amazing people I've ever met and
probably will ever meet. But his back-to-back hardships took a toll and Ben's mental health suffered as
a result. Speculation began that Ben McDaniel might not have accidentally drowned, but gone down into the cave
knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to make it out alive. Some pointed at the discarded air tanks
as potential evidence of this theory. While open water scuba divers require tanks filled with a combination of
compressed air and nitrogen, cave divers require a mix of air, nitrogen, and helium. This is because the deeper a
diver goes, the higher the pressure becomes, thus increasing the partial pressure of each gas in the mixture.
An increase of nitrogen can have an effect on the brain that is similar to alcohol, impairing the coordination,
judgment, and decision-making process of the diver. Helium is added to reduce this effect
while also making it easier and more efficient to breathe at extreme depths. Without it, if the diver does manage to
find their way out of the cave and back to land, they will experience what's commonly known as the bends, a medical
condition in which bubbles form in the body's tissues due to a rapid reduction in pressure.
The bends can lead to tissue and organ damage resulting in joint and muscle pain, fatigue, numbness, dizziness,
paralysis, and at its most severe, even death. While Ben's tank at the entrance of the
cave contained a suitable mix of gases for cave diving, the other two tanks found propped up against the talk box
did not. For the members of the diving community who were anxiously following the case, this detail was particularly
curious, especially because Ben's family insisted that he was well educated when
it came to dive theory. Ben's girlfriend, Emily, had visited him the week before he left for Florida and
noted that his bed was covered in technical books about diving, which were filled with highlighted passages and
handwritten notes. But if Ben knew anything about cave diving, members of the diving community
felt he would have known how important it was to have the proper mix of gases. They also found it strange that Ben left
the tanks where he did. Most cave divers typically left them along the path as they went, like a trail of breadcrumbs
to use on their way out, whereas Ben had left all of his tanks either out in the
basin or at the very start of the tunnel. Furthermore, all scuba diving tanks require a regulator.
This is an essential device that reduces the high pressurized air from the tank and converts it into breathable air
delivered at ambient pressure. Without one, divers cannot breathe underwater. The tank belonging to Ben found outside
of the cave was fitted with a regulator, but the two near the talk box were not.
This meant that if Ben had gone into the cave, the only tanks he had to rely on were the ones he was carrying and the
one he left at the entrance. If he knew as much about diving as his family claimed, fellow divers believed
he would have been aware he didn't have enough air to make it out of the cave alive.
He had also broken a fundamental rule of diving. Never go alone. One search team member told reporters
diving is a buddy team sport and that Ben had ignored some basic safety precautions.
His dive log indicated he'd been taking classes at a hasty pace, leaving him very little time in between to practice
the techniques he was being taught. It also emerged that Ben had been telling people he held diving qualifications
that he did not in fact possess. With these suspicious factors stacking up, some started to question whether Ben
could have purposely gone as far into the cave as humanly possible, knowing there was no way he'd be able to get
out. Perhaps it hadn't been an accident at all, but a carefully planned suicide designed to spare his loved ones the
pain of knowing he wanted to end his own life. Ben's loved ones adamantly dismissed
this possibility. While Ben had experienced some struggles, they felt that things had been looking up for him.
By the time he left for Florida, he was happy in his relationship with Emily and
seemed positive about the future. Ben adored his dog, Spooner, and surely wouldn't have left him hungry and alone
inside the condo. He was also incredibly loyal to his family and they found it inconceivable
that he would intentionally put them through the pain of his death. Just days before Ben disappeared, he had
written his mother Patty a letter for her birthday in which he expressed how grateful he was for his family's ongoing
support. It read in part, "My gift to you this year is my undying love and support. As
I have always told you, it is impossible for me to put into words how special you
are to me. I thank the Lord each and every day for the awesome blessing of having such great parents. I am so lucky
to have you on my team as a friend, confidant, and mom. You are more loved and appreciated than you will know in
this lifetime. Thank you again for letting me stay at the condo. It has meant a lot to me and
has enabled me to take the time to follow my heart and God's plan for me. I don't know where it's leading me, but
you will be the first I will call when I have that aha moment. Ben's parents saw this letter as proof
their son had plans for the future and no intention to take his own life. Furthermore, on the afternoon of Monday,
August 16, just 2 days before he disappeared, Ben left a friend a voicemail updating her on how things
were going. He sounded like his usual self, talking positively about working on his diving certification and some fun
work he'd been doing on a dive boat. Ben said he hoped she was having a good summer before ending the message with,
"I miss you and I will talk to you later." Ben's girlfriend, Emily, dismissed the
idea that Ben could have ventured into Vortex Spring on a suicide mission based on his ego alone.
She thought he'd be too proud to try and squeeze his way into the furthest most point unless he was convinced he could
find his way out. Ben was known to have a go big or go home mentality. Those who knew him didn't see it as
suspicious that he'd gone into the cave without proper certification or a diving
buddy. Not only was he fearless, but when he found something he was passionate about, he threw himself into
it wholeheartedly. An entry in Ben's diving diary confirmed that he had gone into the cave on at
least one other occasion. He had written that he needed to figure out a better way to carry his shovel as
it kept getting caught. Given that his exploration had seemingly gone well, it was speculated that Ben could have
become overly confident and returned to the cave without following the relevant steps.
However, to have successfully explored the cave before, he must have known the right mix of gas needed for his air
tanks, adding further questions about the discarded ones in the basin. The underwater search for Ben McDaniel
continued for 36 days. All up, 16 experienced divers ventured as far into the cave as they felt was viable, but
found nothing to confirm Ben had been down there. Officials from the county health
department sampled the water around 30 times, testing for an increase in bacteria that would indicate the
presence of a decomposing body. They found no trace of any such thing. If Ben had died in the cave, there was a
high chance that his undiscovered body would have been pushed out with the gentle flow of the springs current. Had
this happened, his body may have washed out into one of the adjoining creeks. A helicopter conducted an aerial search
of the area while mounted police trudged through the surrounding swamp and further downstream.
Not a single trace of Ben McDaniel was uncovered. The failed recovery mission left
everyone baffled. Although other divers had died in Vortex Spring before, all of their bodies had
been successfully recovered. With no sign of Ben or his gear, the search team concluded that if he had
drowned, the only place he could be was at the furthest point of the cave beyond
the end of the line, where it wasn't safe for them to venture. If this was the case, it meant Ben had
managed to make it further into the cave than some of the most qualified and experienced divers in the world.
The case left Captain Harry Hamilton of the Holmes County Sheriff's Department deeply frustrated.
While he clarified that the search hadn't officially been called off, he said police were considering other
options. He didn't specify what those options were, but the public were already guessing.
If Ben's body wasn't in the cave, then he hadn't died by accident or suicide. This prompted people to wonder, what if
he had faked his own death? Members of the diving community had been considering this possibility since the
early days of the investigation. Something about the way Ben's air tanks were discarded felt off to them, with
many believing they had been staged. As information leaked about Ben's financial issues and personal struggles,
the theory that he could have staged his own disappearance began to gain traction.
Theories ran wild on diving forums and social media. Some posters quipped that Ben would show up on Facebook years down
the track, married and using an alias. Others said he was probably kicking back on a tropical island somewhere, eager to
leave his troubles behind. But the police had been monitoring Ben's bank, phone, and social media accounts.
Not a single one had been touched since the day of his disappearance. There was no evidence to indicate he'd
been squirreling away cash or planning for a life on the run. He'd even left a significant amount of money in his
wallet, which was found in his pickup truck in the Vortex Spring car park. Various witnesses had seen Ben at Vortex
Spring on the day he went missing, but there hadn't been a single confirmed sighting after Eduardo Tran and Chuck
Cronin spotted him diving into the basin at around 700 p.m. on Wednesday, August
18. Of all the theories put forward since Ben's disappearance, the possibility that he'd faked his own death was the
one his parents shut down the hardest. They found the online speculation highly offensive.
Ben had seen how the unexpected death of his brother Paul took an enormous toll on the family. Patty McDaniel told the
Commercial Appeal newspaper. We know in our hearts that he would have never faked his death to run away. After
what we went through with Paul, we know our son well enough to know he wouldn't put us through that again.
However, there was another theory they were willing to consider. Vortex Spring was owned by a man named
Lel Kelly. Lel told the police that on the evening of Wednesday, August 18, 2010, he'd been closing up the dive shop
for the night when an unkempt man with wild eyes showed up, asking if it was too late to go for a dive. Lel thought
the man might have been intoxicated, but he explained he was just really tired. Knowing that sleep deprivation is
hazardous for scuba divers due to its effect on reaction time and coordination, Lel said he turned the man
away. While he didn't see which way the man went from there, Lel's reported sighting
raised questions about who else could have been in the area on the night that Ben disappeared.
What if he'd completed his dive before meeting with foul play? There were also reports that a diver had
confronted some teenagers in the area for underage drinking, leading some to speculate that the disgruntled teens
might have come back seeking revenge. Police had checked the dive shop's security cameras, but found nothing of
interest to the investigation, nor were there any signs of a struggle in the area.
There was no evidence such as discarded dive gear to suggest Ben ever made it out of the water.
Then there was the question of motive. Ben's parents said he had no known enemies, and the fact that his wallet
still contained $1,100 in cash ruled out robbery. Regardless, they weren't prepared to
rule out the possibility of foul play, especially after some shady revelations came to light.
On September 1, 2009, just over a year before Ben disappeared, a Pon dailyowned man by the name of Bill House had been
doing some temp work at the Vortex Spring Dive Shop when Lel Kelly said he had a job for him a little further off
site. Lel drove Bill a few minutes away into a heavily wooded area alongside an alligator pond.
Once they got out of the car, Lel accused Bill of having stolen $30,000 from him. When Bill denied the
allegation, Lel attacked him with a baseball bat, splitting his left ear open while causing lacerations to his
left arm and bruises to his arm, side, and face. Bill managed to escape, taking off on
foot until he reached a sparsely populated dirt road where he was able to call for help.
Lel Kelly was subsequently arrested and charged with seconddegree felony assault.
He faced court in late October 2010, 2 and 1/2 months after Ben McDaniel went missing and entered a no contest ple to
the charges against him. Lel was sentenced to 6 and 1/2 months community service and 7 and 1/2 years
probation. Bill was so shaken by the experience that he moved his family out of town for
their safety, vowing to never return. Police interviewed Lel and while they found absolutely no evidence linking him
to Ben McDaniel's disappearance, his assault conviction left tongues wagging among those following the case,
including Ben's family. Suspicion also fell on Eduardo Terran and Chuck Cronin, the last two people to
see Ben alive. The two friends went diving together almost every Wednesday, just as they had
on August 18, 2010. While it was customary for one of the dive shop employees to wait around for
the last diver of the day to resurface, this was more of a courtesy than an obligation.
Eduardo and Chuck admitted that they'd left for the night knowing full well that Ben McDaniel was still in the
water, having become distracted after a family approached when they exited the spring.
The family was looking for a lost diving light and Eduardo had briefly gone down
to look for it, forgetting about Ben in the process. He and Chuck had then gone back to
Eduardo's place for a coffee, and it was only when Eduardo noticed the Ben's truck parked in the same spot on Friday
that he realized something was wrong. Both men were subject to a polygraph test and passed, but some felt questions
still lingered. At the very least, some thought that Eduardo had acted negligently by
unlocking the gate for Ben and not waiting to see if he completed the dive safely.
There were further underwater searches for Ben in October and November of 2010, though nothing new was discovered.
The McDaniels established a tip line encouraging anyone with information to come forward, but the line stayed
silent. The McDaniel family began to believe that Ben had either fallen victim to
foul play after resurfacing or that he'd died in the spring and his body was removed as a cover up. Unsubstantiated
theories were circulating that Vortex Spring employees knew Ben had drowned in the cave before he was reported missing
and helped remove his body to avoid bad publicity or a potential lawsuit. Because the police initially believed
Ben remained underwater, the area surrounding the vortex spring hadn't been properly preserved, and they feared
vital evidence that could have helped them find Ben had been lost. As months passed, with no breakthroughs,
the McDaniels grew desperate for answers. They hired a private investigator who told reporter Cindy Wolf that she was
frustrated the authorities weren't aggressively investigating Ben's disappearance as a homicide.
As far as the PI was concerned, quote, "There is just as much reason to look above the water for Ben's body as there
was to look below it." A wastewater operator who tested the water for signs of decomposition
supported this statement, telling the Tampa Bay Times, "I hate it for the parents, but to say a man is down there,
in my opinion, that's false." For the McDaniel family, one of the hardest aspects of Ben's disappearance
was that they couldn't see the cave for themselves. They had no choice but to rely on the
word of other divers and to trust what they were being told. At one point, police obtained a special
underwater camera, which they sent down into the cave system in the hope it would reach the furthest, still
uncarched, point of the cave. The McDaniels watched the monitor with baited breath for 8 hours, but the
camera cord kept snagging and it didn't make it as far as they'd hoped. They even hired 58-year-old Steve Keen, a
highly experienced cave diver who'd led the team that originally mapped the Vortex Spring Cave system back in 2003.
Steve searched the cave seven times in the hunt for Ben, going all the way to the end of the line without making any
new discoveries. He told the Tampa Bay Times, "We went through the whole cave, if he's in
there, I don't know where he'd be." While the McDaniels thoroughly appreciated the search efforts, they
couldn't help but feel frustrated by the lack of answers. In the leadup to what would have been
Ben's 31st birthday in April 2011, they announced that they were holding a benefit at their home in Cierville to
help raise funds for a reward for information. All up, they raised $10,000. Shelby McDaniel made desperate pleasure,
announcing the reward and saying, "We need your help. Our son is still missing. We believe Ben died in the
springs and his body was removed. We know someone knows something. We are Ben's parents. We must bring him home to
bury with his younger brother, Paul, who died of a stroke. In another post, Shelby appealed for a
fearless diver to search the part of the cave where the other divers had not yet
gone in a bid to confirm once and for all whether Ben was down there. This appeal sparked outrage among the
scuba diving community. Not only did some people feel it was offensive to the brave divers who had already risked
their lives in the search for Ben, they also feared the reward would lure untrained divers into the cave.
There was also criticism about the way some of the media had covered the case with many articles inaccurately
referring to Ben as an experienced cave diver. Many members of the scuba diving community wanted it to be known that Ben
had acted irresponsibly by venturing into the cave alone without the proper training.
Some wished the story would fade from public consciousness entirely. Convinced that the whole disappearance was a hoax
that only served to tarnish the reputation of a pursuit they deeply loved. They feared that too much
negative publicity would result in tougher regulations for those who played by the rules.
Worst case scenario, cave diving could be banned completely. With $10,000 up for grabs, divers showed
up to Vortex Spring week after week. Members of the scuba diving community voiced their anger on popular scuba
diving forums, urging the McDaniels to remove the reward before someone else lost their life.
Ed Sorenson told the Jackson County, Florida newspaper. I understand the family wants closure
and I sympathize with them. That's why I do what I do. If there was a 1 in50 chance that Ben was in there, I would go
back. It's not worth dying for something that doesn't exist. Canadian cave diver Jill Heineer had
been following Ben's disappearance since the beginning. Drawn in by the mystery of it all. A highly respected diver,
Jill had helped recover the bodies of several of her friends who had drowned during underwater explorations and knew
firsthand just how dangerous and unforgiving cave diving could be. Upon hearing about the McDaniel's hunt
for a fearless diver, Jill felt compelled to help the family understand that going into the furthest recess of
the cave wasn't a matter of bravery, but logistics. She also wanted to make clear to them
what search teams were dealing with every time they went looking for Ben. Jill decided to explore the Vortex
Spring Cave system with her worldrenowned diving partner and ex-husband Paul Heineer.
Paul was not only a highly skilled diver, he also had a keen eye for detail, and Jill felt he would likely
notice anything out of place. Jill had since remarried a writer and producer named Robert Mlen.
Together, they decided to film the exploration in high definition using a camera with underwater lighting
capabilities. not only to prove once and for all whether Ben's body was down there, but also to show the McDaniels
exactly what the cave system looked like, and how great the efforts made by the search teams had been.
By the time Jill and Paul dove into Vortex Spring, almost a year had passed since Ben's disappearance.
High-deaf video camera in hand, they navigated the confined passageways of the cave, capturing stunning and
unprecedented footage that showed how extensive the cave systems nooks and crannies were and how limited their
range of movement was. By the time Juul reached her limit, they'd found no sign of Ben.
All they had found was a small folding shovel with a little bit of rust on it that looked otherwise brand new.
While this initially gave Ben's parents hope, it turned out the shovel belonged to searcher Steve Keane.
Paul Heineer was smaller than Ben, and he managed to inch slightly further into the cave than Jill. He got to a point
where he was essentially squirming in the sand with his stomach pinned between the floor and the roof of the cave and
his elbows on the walls. At that point, it was physically impossible for him to go any further.
In Paul's view, the only way Ben could have made it further into the cave was if he abandoned his diving gear,
as none of the gear was found. That didn't seem possible. After the dive, Jill carefully examined
the footage for anything they might have missed. Although she saw absolutely no sign of
Ben, she wasn't prepared to rule out the possibility that he had gotten into a state of panic and managed to burrow
himself even further into the cave than Paul was able to go. She was aware of other cases where
something similar had happened. Alternatively, given Ben's recent failures, Jill thought he might have
been overzealously determined to make his mark by going further into the cave than anyone else and paid the ultimate
price. Jill Heerf and her husband Robert Mlen decided to make a documentary about the
case titled Ben's Vortex, in which they intended to explore all possible options
regarding Ben's fate. Shelby and Patty McDaniel agreed to be part of the project, providing Jill and
Robert with exclusive interviews and access to personal information. After spending time with the McDaniels
at their home in Cierville, and listening to their glowing stories about Ben, his brothers, and their childhood,
Robert felt uncomfortable. While the McDaniels were lovely people and gracious hosts who clearly adored
their sons, Robert felt they were trying to create an unrealistic image of a perfect family.
I knew there had to be more to Ben McDaniel and the McDaniel family, Robert said. Nobody is that perfect. No house
is that perfect. Their storybook upbringing of their sons was just unbelievable.
We wanted to find the real Ben. We wanted to know who is the real Ben McDaniel. Jill and Robert ran a background check
on Ben and discovered that he had a criminal record that included an arrest for possession of a controlled substance
with intent to manufacture theft of property, assault, and threatening bodily harm, as well as five other
drugrelated charges. None of the charges ever proceeded to trial and Ben was never convicted on any
of them. Either pleading guilty to lesser counts or having the charge thrown out entirely.
Robert started to suspect that the McDaniels were hiding something after they tried to deter him from
interviewing Ben's girlfriend, Emily, who'd been the closest person to Ben at the time of his disappearance.
Robert interviewed Emily regardless and discovered something unexpected. The McDaniels had spoken openly with the
Jill and Robert about the sudden stroke induced death of their youngest son, Paul, and the impact it had on Ben. They
talked proudly about how Ben was running the Paul McDaniel Foundation to educate
others on stroke awareness and how it was his dream to have an office for the foundation in every major city in the
country. After some uncomfortable conversations regarding this topic with Emily, Robert
discovered that they might not have been telling the full story. Jill and Robert obtained a copy of Paul
McDaniel's autopsy report and saw that he hadn't died from a stroke at all, but from a brain injury caused by a drug
overdose. The autopsy report concluded that Paul had a history of ADHD, alcoholism,
depression, and substance abuse. At the time of his death, there had been toxic levels of opioids and benzoazipines in
his system, drugs that Paul did not have a prescription for. While the true cause of Paul's death,
along with Ben's criminal record, didn't provide any further clarity about what happened to Ben, it raised further
questions for Robert about the state of Ben's mental health at the time of his disappearance.
Robert had personally dealt with addiction and depression in the past while projecting a successful image to
the outside world, and he wondered if Ben had more internal struggles than he'd let on. Robert had also worked as a
nurse, helping patients who'd experienced addiction and trauma, and he'd seen firsthand how some of them
simply chose to leave their lives. He believed it was entirely possible that Ben could have had some kind of
psychotic break and decided to reinvent himself. But there might have been a simpler
explanation. To be a successful cave diver, one needs to be in optimal physical and mental
health. As revealed by the documentary team, Ben had been diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety,
and depression, conditions for which he was taking a range of prescription medications, including Adderall,
Satelopramg, and a Xanax. Mental health conditions can impact a divers's decision-making process, as
well as their ability to think clearly and self-regulate during challenging moments. Furthermore, the side effects
of certain medications can mimic symptoms of the Benz, such as dizziness, fatigue, and numbness.
According to various clinicians, the anti-depressants Ben was on increased the risk of having a seizure while
underwater. One experienced cave diver and general practitioner who saw Ben's medical
history and a list of prescriptions told the documentary team, "If Ben had presented to me as a student, even a
simple basic open water student, there is no way that I would have taught him to dive. There is no way that I would
have recommended that he dive. And there is no way that I would have signed a medical saying he was fit to dive.
These revelations about Ben's mental health and prescriptions added further weight to the possibility that he'd
drowned. Then in early December 2011, talk of foul play came to prominence again after
Vortex Spring owner Lel Kelly was taken to hospital after being found unconscious in his bathtub. According to
a friend, Lel had attended a party the previous evening and while being escorted home, he had drunkenly fallen
down some stairs and hid his head. This friend said they took Lel home, helped him shower, and then left him in
the bathtub covered with a blanket. The next day, he was unresponsive. Lel was put on life support, but died
from his injuries several weeks later. According to a friend of LL's, the Holmes County Sheriff's Police
Department was being suspiciously quiet about the incident, even to Lel's family.
While police said Lel's injuries were caused by an accident, others believed Lel had been attacked or pushed.
In March 2012, the long- awaited autopsy report became available to the public. The medical examiner stated that Lel had
died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head, but was unable to say exactly how those injuries were
sustained. The strange circumstances surrounding Lel's death, coupled with his criminal
history and the fact that he was one of the last people to see Ben McDaniel alive, renewed questions about whether
he could have had any involvement in Ben's disappearance. The McDaniels wanted the area
surrounding Vortex Springs scoured again for potential clues, and the sheriff's department agreed it was an avenue worth
exploring. A team of 13 Kadaava dogs was brought in to search for decomposition.
They found nothing. The dog handler told the Tampa Bay Times, "I think we've been looking in
the right place. I don't think he's in the cave. Around the same time that the Ben's
Vortex documentary was in production, television network Investigation Discovery also produced an episode about
Ben's case for their true crime program disappeared. Ben's parents used the renewed publicity
from both productions to increase their reward for information to $30,000. Just days before the episode of
Disappeared was scheduled to air in March 2012, 43-year-old US Marine and father of two Larry Higinbotham went
cave diving in Vortex Spring and drowned. Once again, Ed Sorenson was part of their recovery team.
Larry's body was found near a discarded shovel at one of the furthest restrictions, which was so narrow that
nobody could get through. Ed had to recover Larry's body by pushing and pulling him through each of
the previous restrictions, risking his own life in the process. Larry's family denied that he had gone
down there looking for Ben McDaniel, but other members of the diving community weren't so sure.
Some of Larry's cave diving friends claimed that he had been enticed by the increased reward money and had been
talking about wanting to claim it. Whatever the case, Ed Sorenson told reporter Cindy Wolf, "Not only did the
reward endanger the lives of divers who would risk going farther than they should, it put all of our lives at risk
because we would have to go in to recover the bodies." The following month, the McDaniels
withdrew the reward, telling Cindy, "We didn't want somebody to go in the cave and to drown because they were looking
for Ben. It was something they'd discussed in Ben's Vortex, too. Shelby McDaniel said
he'd regretted his choice of words when calling for a fearless diver when what he had meant was an advanced diver or
something of that nature. With the previous reward going unclaimed and no viable tips submitted to their hotline,
they realized that if anyone knew anything about their son's disappearance, they weren't going to
talk. By the time Ben's vortex was released in late 2012, the truth about what happened
to Ben remained as elusive as ever. With no sign of Ben's body or diving gear resurfacing after so much time, many
divers continued to believe that Ben had either faked his own death or been murdered after resurfacing from the
water. Jeff Laughlin, the diver who had coordinated the initial search, said, "The only thing I can say is that
everywhere that I knew to look, I looked, but I couldn't find him." Despite the lack of evidence, there were
others who believed Ben was still in the cave somewhere. Ben's parents don't know what to think.
They had a small granite slab engraved with the words Ben McDaniel, beloved son and brother, and gave it to Eduardo
Terran to take down into the cave. Eduardo placed the stone in a spot he thought Ben would like in a part of the
cave he named Ben's room. In the years since, Vortex Spring has changed ownership.
While certain aspects of the cave system have changed and divers are generally discouraged from venturing down there,
many continue to do so. For some of them, Ben McDaniel is never far from their minds.
Although Ben has never been recovered, his family set up a grave next to his brother Paul's, burying a suitcase full
of momentos and notes written by loved ones. A plaque features Ben's name, his date
of birth, and the fact that he was the co-founder of the Paul McDaniel Foundation.
It shows three photos of a smiling and happy Ben rock climbing in one and scuba diving in another.
Shelby and Patty visit the graves often, cleaning the plaques for their boys and
putting in fresh flowers. They also keep a memorial wall for Ben in their home, displaying some of their
favorite photos of him. Whatever the truth, much has been said over the years about the risks Ben took
by entering the cave without the proper certification, prompting others to risk their lives looking for him.
The owner of popular online diving forum scubaboard.com appeared on Ben's vortex
to defend his community, saying, "The scuba community put those limits right out there in front of Ben. Why did he go
diving at night? Because he didn't want anyone to see him breaking those limits.
Why did he do things the way he did it?" Because he wanted to not be caught exceeding those limits.
I don't care how you look at this situation. He broke a lot of limits. He broke the law, at least one law, in
going through that lock. Did the scuba community failed Ben? Ben failed Ben. Shelby and Patty disagree with the
accusations that Ben acted irresponsibly. They told reporter Cindy Wolf that he lived a life of gusto and adventure,
diving into challenges head first without thinking about the dangers. Shelby said Ben was brave. Ben was
fearless. He followed his passions. Without Ben's body and the answers it would provide, the McDaniels find
themselves at a standstill. Speaking to reporter Ben Montgomery while the Kadaava dog search was
underway in March 2012, Patty said, "We used to have goals. None of that anymore. You just live daytoday.
There can't be closure when we don't know anything. Maybe that's our new reality
that there are no answers.

On Friday, August 20 2010, officers from the Holmes County Sheriff’s Department were called to Vortex Spring, a commercially operated dive park just outside the Florida town of Ponce de Leon. A 30-year-old scuba diver from Tennessee by the name of Ben McDaniel had failed to resurface after diving into the narrow cave network under the basin of the spring two nights earlier, and nobody had seen or heard from him since.

When a recovery mission failed to find any sign of Ben, his loved ones and members of the cave diving community were left in shock. Was Ben stuck in an unexplored part of the cave somewhere, or was something else entirely at play?

---

Casefile Archives is a series of special bonus releases revisiting the earliest years of the show. The re-run episodes have been completely edited, polished, re-recorded and freshly produced from start to finish to match our current production standards. They are not complete rewrites - our goal wasn’t to alter the cases or reshape the writing, but to preserve the original storytelling while giving the production the refinement it didn’t have when we started the show back in 2016.

Where appropriate, updates have been added, but the core structure and storytelling remain faithful to the originals. Because of this, these re-releases may sound a little different to our recent episodes, but they allow us to bring some of the earliest episodes up to the technical quality listeners expect today.

CREDITS Narration – Anonymous Host Research & writing – Elsha McGill Production & music – Mike Migas Audio editing – Anthony Telfer

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RESOURCES

Brief Summary

Ben McDaniel went missing while cave diving in 2010, sparking theories of foul play and accidental drowning amid extensive search efforts.

Key points

Case File Archives. Celebrating 10 years with special bonus episodes, including unreleased content.
Ben McDaniel's Passion for Diving. Ben's journey from open water to cave diving reveals his adventurous spirit.
The Search for Ben McDaniel. A missing diver prompts a tense search operation at Vortex Spring.
Ed Sorenson's Determination. Despite warnings, Ed Sorenson dives into Vortex Spring, determined to find Ben McDaniel.
The End of the Line. Ed reaches a point in the cave that becomes known as the end of the line.
Theories of Disappearance. Speculation grows around Ben's disappearance, including the possibility of him faking his own death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

There's nothing in this cave worth dying for.

Warning sign at the cave entrance

5:50WatchMay 16, 2026

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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