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As Case File continues into its 10th year, we're currently taking a very short break from new episodes. Brand new
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cases will be returning on May 23 for premium subscribers and May 30 for the regular feed. But in the meantime, we're
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continuing our special bonus series, Case File Archives, a collection of releases revisiting the earliest years
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of the show along with previously unreleased premium episodes. Rest assured that these are additional bonus
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releases and will not replace our standard schedule. We will still be delivering the same number of new
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episodes this year as we did last year. Case File Archives is simply a way to mark the 10th year, revisit some older
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episodes, and share stories that newer listeners may not have heard before. Today's re-release is Ben McDaniel.
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Originally released as a premium subscriber episode in October last year, now available to all listeners as part
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of our case file archive series. Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at
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any time you need support, please contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers for confidential
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support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on
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our website. Ask any experienced scuba diver what they think about cave diving and you'll
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get a different response. For some, the very thought fills them with dread and fear. For others, it's a
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source of great excitement, providing an opportunity to explore parts of the world that very few people have ever
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seen. Cave diving is an extreme form of technical scuba diving that allows skilled divers to explore submerged
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caves that are beyond the reach of natural light. It's been compared to swimming through the history of the
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planet with some saying it is the closest environment to outer space. It is a highly challenging and dangerous
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activity and as such individuals must undergo rigorous training and tests before they can receive their cave
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diving certification. Experienced cave divers often speak about how addictive the sport can be. In
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addition to the sense of exploration and adventure that cave diving brings, many
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also find it to have a meditative quality. Down beneath the dark depths of the water, there is no sense of time or the
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outside world. All that matters is what's happening in the cave at that exact moment.
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Break your focus, and one mistake can prove fatal. Caves can collapse, stirred up silt can
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be blinding, diving lines can be cut, and you can easily become disoriented and lose your sense of direction.
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Some passages are so narrow that divers have become stuck or snagged on rocks. Stay down there too long and you risk
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running out of air. Vortex Spring is a commercially operated dive park located just outside the town
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of Pon de Leon in northern Florida. It is the largest diving facility in the state, providing a cold freshwater
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spring that gently produces a constant outflow at a temperature of 68° F or 20° C all year round.
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Most people who visit Vortex Spring do so recreationally, staying in the campground or coming for the day to
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swim, snorkel, kayak, or go tubing in the clear waters of the runoff and creek. The basin of the spring itself is a
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mecca for scuba divers of all skill levels. At 250 ft wide and roughly 58 ft deep, the water is crystal clear with
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perfect visibility. There are underwater platforms for training and small man-made caverns and
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crevices to explore. The basin is surface lit during the day and filled with an array of fish and
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eels tame enough to eat out of your hand. It's an ideal destination for those looking to gain or advance their scuba
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diving qualifications. For the more adventurous and adequately qualified, 58 ft beneath the surface is
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the mouth of a cave. Entrance is not for the inexperienced or faint of heart. With 13 people having
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lost their lives there in the early days of its discovery, improved safety measures and stricter
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guidelines led to the installation of a safety gate, the key to which is only given to qualified cave divers after
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they show their certifications and pay a fee to the dive shop employees. But the area is still fraught with
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dangers. A sign at the most treacherous part of the cave system features a picture of
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the grim reaper along with the bold warning, "Stop! Prevent your death! Go no further!"
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More than 300 divers, including openwater scuba instructors, have died in caves just like this one. Without
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cave training and cave equipment, divers can die here. It can happen to you. Do not go beyond this point. There's
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nothing in this cave worth dying for. 30-year-old Ben McDaniel fell in love with water at a young age. Having grown
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up on a 5.8 acre estate in the suburb of Collierville near Memphis, Tennessee, he'd always gravitated towards outdoor
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activities, including deep sea fishing and rock climbing. After he went scuba diving for the first
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time at age 15 during a family holiday to Disney's Epcot Center, he couldn't wait to do it again.
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He started practicing in his family's swimming pool by testing out different air tanks.
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It was a hobby that Ben continued to dabble in over the years in between completing a degree in construction
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management at the University of Memphis and starting his own company, McDaniel Construction.
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After experiencing a series of unfortunate events in his personal life, Ben developed a particular interest in
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cave diving. He was certified as an open water diver, which allowed him to dive in open,
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unconfined waters. To get his cave diving certification, he needed to undergo around 2 months of
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training and log 125 dives with a certified cave diving instructor. Never one to shy away from a challenge,
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Ben started learning all he could about cave diving by reading technical books about the sport.
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2010 had been a rough year for Ben. Thinking some sunshine and time in the water would do him good, his parents
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suggested he take a year off to clear his head, offering to fund the break. The McDaniels owned a condo in Santa
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Rosa Beach, a seaside community in the Florida panhandle. So, they suggested Ben go and spend a few months there.
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Grateful for the opportunity, Ben took his beloved chocolate Labrador, Spooner, and headed to Florida.
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Less than an hour's drive from Santa Rosa Beach was Vortex Spring. Ben began spending as much time there as
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he could, paying the entry cost of $25 per day and clocking up scuba diving hours in the hopes of becoming an
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instructor. He developed a fascination with the underwater cave system and started
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taking classes and making his own detailed map of the area in the hopes of exploring it himself.
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The Vortex Spring Cave system is somewhat complex. From the surface of the water, the basin
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itself extends to a depth of around 58 ft. At this point, there is a large cavern
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which has an opening about 9 ft by 12 ft wide. Go down 115 ft further, and you'll find
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a chamber known as the piano room. This is the entrance point to the underwater cave system, and it is
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blocked by a reinforced steel gate. Only divers with cave diving certification are allowed to enter, and
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with good reason. Beyond the gate is one long, narrow tube-like cave. According to the mapped area, it runs
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for a further 1,642 horizontal ft, roughly the length of five American football fields, with a
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few small holes jutting off to either side that divers can explore. The terrain consists of cramped
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limestone passageways with a sandy, silty bottom. It is not for the claustrophobic.
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Along the way are four restrictions. These are the parts of the cave that are so narrow two divers can't fit side by
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side. To get through, divers need to travel in single file, twisting their bodies and equipment to squeeze their
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way in. During certain points, water from the spring flows outward, adding an extra
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challenge for divers as they work their way against the current in spaces barely
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tall enough to accommodate both them and their gear. At the fourth restriction, the passage
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is only around 10 in tall and 3 ft wide, marking the narrowest point of the cave.
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Some have compared traversing it to trying to crawl under a car while in full scuba gear.
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Venturing further requires divers wearing backmounted gear to remove their equipment completely, holding their
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tanks by their sides while maneuvering their bodies as their stomachs drag through the sand and their backs scrape
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against the limestone ceiling. Back in 2010, only a handful of divers had made it this far.
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Where the cave led beyond the fourth restriction was not known. The only way out of the cave is via the
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same entry gate in the piano room. Proper technique dictates that divers should lay lines by mounting nylon rope
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throughout the cave as they go. This helps them find their way out if they become disoriented or lose
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visibility due to factors like stirred up silts or malfunctioning light. However, some inexperienced and reckless
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divers forego this step and rely on a long pipe that lies along the floor of the cave, which was installed for the
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purpose of dredging sand. Either way, entering the cave is dangerous and should only be done by
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qualified, experienced divers who fully understand the risks. Exploring the cave requires knowledge of
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particular techniques, adequate equipment, and the company of a dive buddy who could help if things went
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arry. Ben McDaniel quickly became a familiar face around Vortex Spring, often arriving early in the morning before the
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summer crowds and staying for the entire day. He did multiple dives each day, including in the evenings.
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Therefore, dive shop employee Eduardo Tran thought nothing of it when he noticed Ben's GMC pickup truck sitting
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in the parking lot of the dive shop two days in a row, starting from Wednesday, August 18, 2010.
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But when the truck was still there in the exact same place on Friday, August 20, Eduardo began to worry.
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Eduardo had last seen Ben at around 7:00 on Wednesday evening. He and one of his co-workers, a man
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named Chuck Cronin, had been finishing a dive when they passed Ben as he descended into the piano room.
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He was wearing two sidemounted air tanks, which Eduardo had filled for him earlier, as well as his diving helmet
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with the light switched on. While all of this was standard gear for a cave diver, the problem was that Ben
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didn't have his cave diving certification, he only had his open water certificate,
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an entry-level qualification that meant he was only allowed to dive in areas exposed to the sky to a maximum depth of
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100 ft. Although Ben didn't have a diving buddy or the adequate certification to enter
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the cave, Eduardo suspected that he had been bypassing the gate in the piano room regardless.
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He'd recently noticed that someone had been tampering with the lock on the gate, and he suspected that person was
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Ben. Not only had Ben developed a reputation around a vortex spring as being somewhat
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arrogant about his diving abilities, he was also often one of the last to leave for the day.
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Eduardo presumed the reason Ben had been staying so late was so he could bypass the gate without anyone noticing.
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With this in mind, Eduardo unlocked the gate on Ben's behalf. He reasoned that Ben was going to get past the gate
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anyway, so he might as well save him a few minutes of air, which could prove precious if he was attempting a long
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dive on his own. Eduardo and Chuck then resurfaced and decompressed, assuming Ben wouldn't be
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far behind them. While Eduardo typically waited around for the last diver to resurface each
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day, he was distracted when a family approached requesting help locating a lost diving light. After helping them
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for a while, Eduardo and Chuck left for the evening. The next day, Eduardo had some personal
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matters to attend to and didn't give any more thought to Ben. But when he noticed Ben's truck still in
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the exact same parking spot 2 days later, Eduardo wondered, "What if Ben had never made it back to the surface on
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Wednesday night?" Eduardo asked the other dive shop employees if anyone had seen Ben
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McDaniel since Wednesday evening. Nobody had. He then notified the Holmes County
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Sheriff's Department about his concerns before diving into the spring himself to
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conduct a cursory search. The gate to the cave was open in the exact same position that Eduardo left it
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2 days earlier, and one of Ben's spare air tanks was resting against it. There was no sign of Ben himself.
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Officers quickly arrived at Vortex Spring to assess the situation. In Ben's truck, they found his cell
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phone and wallet, which contained his driver's license, and around $1,100 in cash.
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A check of the Santa Rosa Beach condo revealed Ben's dog, Spooner, was there alone and hungry, like he hadn't been
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fed in some time. With these discoveries, the officers immediately shared Eduardo's concern
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that Ben might not have made it back to the surface on Wednesday evening. If that was the case, there was no
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chance he was still alive. Either he'd died as the result of some kind of accident or medical emergency,
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or he'd become trapped in the cave and would have run out of air by now. They quickly realized this wasn't going
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to be a rescue, but a recovery mission. The problem was the police didn't have the necessary resources to check the
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full length of the cave. A mission like this required highly skilled and qualified cave divers,
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preferably ones familiar with the area. And such individuals were not easy to come by.
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The police enlisted the help of Jeff Laughlin, a rescue diver with over 30 years experience.
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Jeff was tasked with putting together a team and coordinating the search. He sourced a group of divers from local
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dive shops whom he believed to be among the best in the world. Many of them knew Vortex Spring well and
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were aware of just how dangerous it could be beyond the gate. In their experience, it was just as difficult to
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get into the cave system as it was to get out. If they did find Ben's body in the cave,
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recovering it would endanger their own lives as they squeezed through the tight passageways while also pulling Ben's
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body behind. The divers were split into three teams with each taking turns descending into
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the spring. In addition to looking for Ben's body, they were searching for his diving
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equipment. If Ben had intended to explore the caves, they expected to find some air
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tanks along the way. It was standard practice for cave divers to leave spare tanks as they went to
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ensure they had plenty of air available on their way out. In the basin, the search teams found two
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of Ben's air tanks secured to the talk box, a box-shaped device that divers stick their heads into to speak to one
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another while underwater. In the piano room at the entrance of the cave, they found the third tank
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belonging to Ben that Eduardo had spotted earlier. There was no sign of Ben anywhere in the
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basin, the cavern, or the piano room. This just left the cave system. Each of the dive teams was tasked with
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going a little further into the cave than the last. As they made their way down the long narrow tunnels in single
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file, they shone torches in every nook and cranny on the lookout for dive gear such as masks, lights, or fins.
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Recovery of these items could be an indication that Ben had drowned. The further into the cave they went, the
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thicker the water became with clay, sand, and silt, making it nearly impossible to see.
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They followed the cave towards the fourth restriction. At certain points, it was so tight that
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the divers had to hold their air tanks by their sides and swim with one hand extended in front of their bodies.
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They looked for any telltale signs that Ben had been there, such as scrape marks
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in the ceilings or marks in the clay from where he'd squeezed his way through. They found nothing.
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Nor was there any increased activity from scavengers to suggest the deceased body was in the vicinity.
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Eventually, they reached a point of the cave so narrow and cramped that it was too dangerous for them to go any
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further. In the view of the rescue team, there was no way someone as inexperienced as
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Ben could have ventured that far. But if Ben wasn't in the basin, the cavern, or the cave, then where was he?
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Ben's parents, Shelby and Patty McDaniel, were at their home in Collierville, 430 mi northwest of Vortex
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Spring, when an officer pulled into their driveway to inform them that Ben was missing.
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The McDaniels couldn't believe what they were hearing. This wasn't the first time
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they'd been dealt an inconceivable blow. Just 2 years earlier, in September 2008,
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Ben had gone to pick up his younger brother, 22-year-old Paul, so they could attend a festival together in Memphis.
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Ben arrived to find Paul unconscious on his bed, still breathing, but unresponsive.
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Paul was rushed to hospital where he was declared brain dead from what the McDaniel family reported to be a stroke.
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Ben was devastated by the loss of his younger brother. Together with another sibling, he co-founded the Paul Andrew
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McDaniel Foundation, which aimed to honor Paul's memory by providing stroke awareness programs and raising money
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towards stroke education, prevention, and treatment. The only solace for the McDaniel family
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was that Paul was able to donate his organs, saving at least four lives while helping 80 others through tissue
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donations. The McDaniels were even given the chance to hold a stethoscope to the chest of
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the man who received Paul's heart so they could listen to his heartbeat. Shocked to find themselves facing
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another tragedy so soon, Shelby and Patty McDaniel rushed to Vortex Spring along with Ben's girlfriend Emily, who
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had been dating Ben for the past year. By the time they arrived, the area had been cordoned off. Police officers and
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Kadaava dogs scoured the spring's banks while divers continued their underwater search.
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Ben's parents paced, watching anxiously every time bubbles appeared on the water's surface in case someone emerged
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with news. One of the Kadaava dogs detected decomposition along the banks, while
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another reacted to a scent in the water diving in. While this was initially strong evidence
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that Ben was somewhere under the surface, every time one of the rescue divers reappeared, the answer was always
00:23:25
the same. Ben was nowhere to be found. The fruitless search continued for days. On Monday, August 23, there was renewed
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hope when a revered diver by the name of Ed Sorenson arrived at the scene. Ed owned a dive shop around an hour's
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drive from Vortex Spring and was one of the most experienced cave divers in the area.
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Typically the first person called upon for cave rescues in the area, Ed had been holidaying in the Bahamas when Ben
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McDaniel went missing. He'd spent the last couple of days fielding messages from other divers
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involved in the search. Each said something similar. The cave was extremely dangerous and there was no
00:24:16
way that an amateur diver without adequate training could have made it any further than the searchers did.
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Cave diving officials even warned Ed against making the dive, saying the risk was simply too high.
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Undeterred and determined to make it further than the divers before him, Ed Sorenson headed out to Vortex Spring as
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soon as he was able. Hopes were high as he suited up and disappeared into the basin.
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To preserve his air, Ed used an underwater scooter that allowed him to maneuver through the tunnel at a quicker
00:24:54
pace. It wasn't long before the tunnel became too narrow and he had to abandon the
00:25:00
scooter. Ed continued solo down the tiny passageways, some of which were so tight
00:25:07
that he had his stomach in the sand and his back to the ceiling. Borrowing deeper, he had to turn his
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head sideways just to squeeze through. At 6 feet tall and 190 lb, Ed was only slightly smaller than Ben, who was 6'1
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and 210 lb. Ed was also highly experienced, having completed around 2 1/2,000 dives,
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whereas Ben was only just starting out. This meant that Ed not only had the skills but the physical ability to reach
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places Ben could not. Ed followed the map to its furthest point, then went about 200 ft beyond
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that. He noticed some marks on the cave where one of the other rescue divers had
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traversed earlier. He slowly inched about 20 ft further, marking the furthest point searched in
00:26:06
the recovery mission so far. This would later become known as the end of the line, described as a 6-in wide
00:26:15
vertical crack. The area was pristine. There wasn't a single mark or clue to indicate that another diver had ever
00:26:26
been there before. The next day, Ed Sorenson went into the cave for the second time. He brought a
00:26:35
smaller air tank with him, holding it under his arms to make himself flatter. By the time he reached the end of the
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line, the outcome was the same. There was no sign that Ben McDaniel was down there.
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Ed dismissed the possibility that Ben could have made it beyond that point. The crack was only around 6 in wide,
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making it virtually impossible for a person to get through. Panicking cave divers have been known to
00:27:07
burrow into tiny spaces they couldn't normally fit into, but Ed examined the crack, and it didn't appear to open up
00:27:15
to another room. If Ben had somehow managed to squeeze his way through in a moment of panic,
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there was no way he could have made it out again. Ed was flabbergasted. By this point, 6 days had passed since
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Ben was last spotted going down into the water. If his body was down there, fish and
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other scavengers would be drawn to the scent and rush to the area. Some birds of prey might even be able to
00:27:46
detect the scent and circle overhead. With nothing of the sort occurring, Ed studied the map that Ben had been
00:27:55
drawing of the cave system. He realized that it didn't even match what was down there.
00:28:04
Ed spoke to officers from the sheriff's department to give them his recommendation.
00:28:10
As far as Ed was concerned, Ben McDaniel wasn't in Vortex Spring and had likely never gone very far into the cave.
00:28:19
He told the police it was time they started looking into other possibilities. The reality was the past couple of years
00:28:34
had been difficult for Ben McDaniel in more ways than one. Not only was he still reeling from losing his younger
00:28:41
brother, he was also recovering from a messy divorce. In early 2009, Ben had only been married for a year and a half
00:28:49
when he and his wife went their separate ways. Their divorce petition cited disputes and irreconcilable differences.
00:28:58
Ben lost his house and had to move back in with his parents. His construction business also began to fail, adding
00:29:05
further strain to his financial instability. He left some jobs incomplete, tarnishing
00:29:11
his professional reputation. Several years earlier, Ben had inherited a house from his grandfather. He took
00:29:20
out a $200,000 mortgage on the property, which friends said he had basically been
00:29:25
living off ever since. By the time he moved to Florida, he owed the Internal Revenue Service $48,861
00:29:34
in unpaid federal taxes as well as $1,177 in state taxes. Eager to turn his financial situation
00:29:44
around, Ben enrolled in a course with a nonacredited vocational school called Nuvo Ree, which specialized in real
00:29:51
estate investment. The course focused on how to make money flipping houses by using the equity from
00:29:58
one home to buy another. Ben continued to dabble in real estate during his time in Florida, launching a
00:30:05
company called Rogue Wave Properties. It later turned out that Novo Ree was essentially a multi-level marketing
00:30:13
company, and the school closed down just a couple of months after Ben's disappearance.
00:30:20
Those who knew Ben described him as charismatic and determined. He had a close-knit family and was well-loved by
00:30:28
many, with one of his ex-girlfriends describing him as one of the most amazing people I've ever met and
00:30:35
probably will ever meet. But his back-to-back hardships took a toll and Ben's mental health suffered as
00:30:43
a result. Speculation began that Ben McDaniel might not have accidentally drowned, but gone down into the cave
00:30:51
knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to make it out alive. Some pointed at the discarded air tanks
00:31:01
as potential evidence of this theory. While open water scuba divers require tanks filled with a combination of
00:31:08
compressed air and nitrogen, cave divers require a mix of air, nitrogen, and helium. This is because the deeper a
00:31:16
diver goes, the higher the pressure becomes, thus increasing the partial pressure of each gas in the mixture.
00:31:24
An increase of nitrogen can have an effect on the brain that is similar to alcohol, impairing the coordination,
00:31:31
judgment, and decision-making process of the diver. Helium is added to reduce this effect
00:31:38
while also making it easier and more efficient to breathe at extreme depths. Without it, if the diver does manage to
00:31:46
find their way out of the cave and back to land, they will experience what's commonly known as the bends, a medical
00:31:53
condition in which bubbles form in the body's tissues due to a rapid reduction in pressure.
00:31:59
The bends can lead to tissue and organ damage resulting in joint and muscle pain, fatigue, numbness, dizziness,
00:32:07
paralysis, and at its most severe, even death. While Ben's tank at the entrance of the
00:32:15
cave contained a suitable mix of gases for cave diving, the other two tanks found propped up against the talk box
00:32:22
did not. For the members of the diving community who were anxiously following the case, this detail was particularly
00:32:30
curious, especially because Ben's family insisted that he was well educated when
00:32:35
it came to dive theory. Ben's girlfriend, Emily, had visited him the week before he left for Florida and
00:32:43
noted that his bed was covered in technical books about diving, which were filled with highlighted passages and
00:32:49
handwritten notes. But if Ben knew anything about cave diving, members of the diving community
00:32:56
felt he would have known how important it was to have the proper mix of gases. They also found it strange that Ben left
00:33:04
the tanks where he did. Most cave divers typically left them along the path as they went, like a trail of breadcrumbs
00:33:12
to use on their way out, whereas Ben had left all of his tanks either out in the
00:33:17
basin or at the very start of the tunnel. Furthermore, all scuba diving tanks require a regulator.
00:33:26
This is an essential device that reduces the high pressurized air from the tank and converts it into breathable air
00:33:33
delivered at ambient pressure. Without one, divers cannot breathe underwater. The tank belonging to Ben found outside
00:33:43
of the cave was fitted with a regulator, but the two near the talk box were not.
00:33:50
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
00:33:57
one he left at the entrance. If he knew as much about diving as his family claimed, fellow divers believed
00:34:05
he would have been aware he didn't have enough air to make it out of the cave alive.
00:34:11
He had also broken a fundamental rule of diving. Never go alone. One search team member told reporters
00:34:20
diving is a buddy team sport and that Ben had ignored some basic safety precautions.
00:34:27
His dive log indicated he'd been taking classes at a hasty pace, leaving him very little time in between to practice
00:34:34
the techniques he was being taught. It also emerged that Ben had been telling people he held diving qualifications
00:34:42
that he did not in fact possess. With these suspicious factors stacking up, some started to question whether Ben
00:34:51
could have purposely gone as far into the cave as humanly possible, knowing there was no way he'd be able to get
00:34:58
out. Perhaps it hadn't been an accident at all, but a carefully planned suicide designed to spare his loved ones the
00:35:06
pain of knowing he wanted to end his own life. Ben's loved ones adamantly dismissed
00:35:15
this possibility. While Ben had experienced some struggles, they felt that things had been looking up for him.
00:35:23
By the time he left for Florida, he was happy in his relationship with Emily and
00:35:27
seemed positive about the future. Ben adored his dog, Spooner, and surely wouldn't have left him hungry and alone
00:35:35
inside the condo. He was also incredibly loyal to his family and they found it inconceivable
00:35:42
that he would intentionally put them through the pain of his death. Just days before Ben disappeared, he had
00:35:50
written his mother Patty a letter for her birthday in which he expressed how grateful he was for his family's ongoing
00:35:56
support. It read in part, "My gift to you this year is my undying love and support. As
00:36:06
I have always told you, it is impossible for me to put into words how special you
00:36:10
are to me. I thank the Lord each and every day for the awesome blessing of having such great parents. I am so lucky
00:36:19
to have you on my team as a friend, confidant, and mom. You are more loved and appreciated than you will know in
00:36:27
this lifetime. Thank you again for letting me stay at the condo. It has meant a lot to me and
00:36:33
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
00:36:41
you will be the first I will call when I have that aha moment. Ben's parents saw this letter as proof
00:36:49
their son had plans for the future and no intention to take his own life. Furthermore, on the afternoon of Monday,
00:36:57
August 16, just 2 days before he disappeared, Ben left a friend a voicemail updating her on how things
00:37:04
were going. He sounded like his usual self, talking positively about working on his diving certification and some fun
00:37:13
work he'd been doing on a dive boat. Ben said he hoped she was having a good summer before ending the message with,
00:37:21
"I miss you and I will talk to you later." Ben's girlfriend, Emily, dismissed the
00:37:29
idea that Ben could have ventured into Vortex Spring on a suicide mission based on his ego alone.
00:37:36
She thought he'd be too proud to try and squeeze his way into the furthest most point unless he was convinced he could
00:37:42
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
00:37:52
suspicious that he'd gone into the cave without proper certification or a diving
00:37:56
buddy. Not only was he fearless, but when he found something he was passionate about, he threw himself into
00:38:04
it wholeheartedly. An entry in Ben's diving diary confirmed that he had gone into the cave on at
00:38:11
least one other occasion. He had written that he needed to figure out a better way to carry his shovel as
00:38:18
it kept getting caught. Given that his exploration had seemingly gone well, it was speculated that Ben could have
00:38:26
become overly confident and returned to the cave without following the relevant steps.
00:38:32
However, to have successfully explored the cave before, he must have known the right mix of gas needed for his air
00:38:39
tanks, adding further questions about the discarded ones in the basin. The underwater search for Ben McDaniel
00:38:50
continued for 36 days. All up, 16 experienced divers ventured as far into the cave as they felt was viable, but
00:39:00
found nothing to confirm Ben had been down there. Officials from the county health
00:39:06
department sampled the water around 30 times, testing for an increase in bacteria that would indicate the
00:39:12
presence of a decomposing body. They found no trace of any such thing. If Ben had died in the cave, there was a
00:39:22
high chance that his undiscovered body would have been pushed out with the gentle flow of the springs current. Had
00:39:29
this happened, his body may have washed out into one of the adjoining creeks. A helicopter conducted an aerial search
00:39:37
of the area while mounted police trudged through the surrounding swamp and further downstream.
00:39:43
Not a single trace of Ben McDaniel was uncovered. The failed recovery mission left
00:39:50
everyone baffled. Although other divers had died in Vortex Spring before, all of their bodies had
00:39:58
been successfully recovered. With no sign of Ben or his gear, the search team concluded that if he had
00:40:06
drowned, the only place he could be was at the furthest point of the cave beyond
00:40:11
the end of the line, where it wasn't safe for them to venture. If this was the case, it meant Ben had
00:40:19
managed to make it further into the cave than some of the most qualified and experienced divers in the world.
00:40:27
The case left Captain Harry Hamilton of the Holmes County Sheriff's Department deeply frustrated.
00:40:34
While he clarified that the search hadn't officially been called off, he said police were considering other
00:40:40
options. He didn't specify what those options were, but the public were already guessing.
00:40:48
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
00:40:58
he had faked his own death? Members of the diving community had been considering this possibility since the
00:41:08
early days of the investigation. Something about the way Ben's air tanks were discarded felt off to them, with
00:41:16
many believing they had been staged. As information leaked about Ben's financial issues and personal struggles,
00:41:24
the theory that he could have staged his own disappearance began to gain traction.
00:41:30
Theories ran wild on diving forums and social media. Some posters quipped that Ben would show up on Facebook years down
00:41:38
the track, married and using an alias. Others said he was probably kicking back on a tropical island somewhere, eager to
00:41:46
leave his troubles behind. But the police had been monitoring Ben's bank, phone, and social media accounts.
00:41:55
Not a single one had been touched since the day of his disappearance. There was no evidence to indicate he'd
00:42:02
been squirreling away cash or planning for a life on the run. He'd even left a significant amount of money in his
00:42:09
wallet, which was found in his pickup truck in the Vortex Spring car park. Various witnesses had seen Ben at Vortex
00:42:18
Spring on the day he went missing, but there hadn't been a single confirmed sighting after Eduardo Tran and Chuck
00:42:25
Cronin spotted him diving into the basin at around 700 p.m. on Wednesday, August
00:42:30
18. Of all the theories put forward since Ben's disappearance, the possibility that he'd faked his own death was the
00:42:38
one his parents shut down the hardest. They found the online speculation highly offensive.
00:42:46
Ben had seen how the unexpected death of his brother Paul took an enormous toll on the family. Patty McDaniel told the
00:42:54
Commercial Appeal newspaper. We know in our hearts that he would have never faked his death to run away. After
00:43:03
what we went through with Paul, we know our son well enough to know he wouldn't put us through that again.
00:43:11
However, there was another theory they were willing to consider. Vortex Spring was owned by a man named
00:43:22
Lel Kelly. Lel told the police that on the evening of Wednesday, August 18, 2010, he'd been closing up the dive shop
00:43:31
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
00:43:39
the man might have been intoxicated, but he explained he was just really tired. Knowing that sleep deprivation is
00:43:47
hazardous for scuba divers due to its effect on reaction time and coordination, Lel said he turned the man
00:43:54
away. While he didn't see which way the man went from there, Lel's reported sighting
00:44:00
raised questions about who else could have been in the area on the night that Ben disappeared.
00:44:06
What if he'd completed his dive before meeting with foul play? There were also reports that a diver had
00:44:13
confronted some teenagers in the area for underage drinking, leading some to speculate that the disgruntled teens
00:44:20
might have come back seeking revenge. Police had checked the dive shop's security cameras, but found nothing of
00:44:28
interest to the investigation, nor were there any signs of a struggle in the area.
00:44:34
There was no evidence such as discarded dive gear to suggest Ben ever made it out of the water.
00:44:42
Then there was the question of motive. Ben's parents said he had no known enemies, and the fact that his wallet
00:44:49
still contained $1,100 in cash ruled out robbery. Regardless, they weren't prepared to
00:44:56
rule out the possibility of foul play, especially after some shady revelations came to light.
00:45:05
On September 1, 2009, just over a year before Ben disappeared, a Pon dailyowned man by the name of Bill House had been
00:45:13
doing some temp work at the Vortex Spring Dive Shop when Lel Kelly said he had a job for him a little further off
00:45:20
site. Lel drove Bill a few minutes away into a heavily wooded area alongside an alligator pond.
00:45:28
Once they got out of the car, Lel accused Bill of having stolen $30,000 from him. When Bill denied the
00:45:36
allegation, Lel attacked him with a baseball bat, splitting his left ear open while causing lacerations to his
00:45:44
left arm and bruises to his arm, side, and face. Bill managed to escape, taking off on
00:45:51
foot until he reached a sparsely populated dirt road where he was able to call for help.
00:45:58
Lel Kelly was subsequently arrested and charged with seconddegree felony assault.
00:46:04
He faced court in late October 2010, 2 and 1/2 months after Ben McDaniel went missing and entered a no contest ple to
00:46:13
the charges against him. Lel was sentenced to 6 and 1/2 months community service and 7 and 1/2 years
00:46:21
probation. Bill was so shaken by the experience that he moved his family out of town for
00:46:28
their safety, vowing to never return. Police interviewed Lel and while they found absolutely no evidence linking him
00:46:37
to Ben McDaniel's disappearance, his assault conviction left tongues wagging among those following the case,
00:46:44
including Ben's family. Suspicion also fell on Eduardo Terran and Chuck Cronin, the last two people to
00:46:54
see Ben alive. The two friends went diving together almost every Wednesday, just as they had
00:47:01
on August 18, 2010. While it was customary for one of the dive shop employees to wait around for
00:47:08
the last diver of the day to resurface, this was more of a courtesy than an obligation.
00:47:15
Eduardo and Chuck admitted that they'd left for the night knowing full well that Ben McDaniel was still in the
00:47:22
water, having become distracted after a family approached when they exited the spring.
00:47:29
The family was looking for a lost diving light and Eduardo had briefly gone down
00:47:33
to look for it, forgetting about Ben in the process. He and Chuck had then gone back to
00:47:40
Eduardo's place for a coffee, and it was only when Eduardo noticed the Ben's truck parked in the same spot on Friday
00:47:47
that he realized something was wrong. Both men were subject to a polygraph test and passed, but some felt questions
00:47:56
still lingered. At the very least, some thought that Eduardo had acted negligently by
00:48:02
unlocking the gate for Ben and not waiting to see if he completed the dive safely.
00:48:09
There were further underwater searches for Ben in October and November of 2010, though nothing new was discovered.
00:48:17
The McDaniels established a tip line encouraging anyone with information to come forward, but the line stayed
00:48:24
silent. The McDaniel family began to believe that Ben had either fallen victim to
00:48:30
foul play after resurfacing or that he'd died in the spring and his body was removed as a cover up. Unsubstantiated
00:48:40
theories were circulating that Vortex Spring employees knew Ben had drowned in the cave before he was reported missing
00:48:47
and helped remove his body to avoid bad publicity or a potential lawsuit. Because the police initially believed
00:48:55
Ben remained underwater, the area surrounding the vortex spring hadn't been properly preserved, and they feared
00:49:03
vital evidence that could have helped them find Ben had been lost. As months passed, with no breakthroughs,
00:49:12
the McDaniels grew desperate for answers. They hired a private investigator who told reporter Cindy Wolf that she was
00:49:20
frustrated the authorities weren't aggressively investigating Ben's disappearance as a homicide.
00:49:26
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
00:49:35
was to look below it." A wastewater operator who tested the water for signs of decomposition
00:49:42
supported this statement, telling the Tampa Bay Times, "I hate it for the parents, but to say a man is down there,
00:49:52
in my opinion, that's false." For the McDaniel family, one of the hardest aspects of Ben's disappearance
00:50:04
was that they couldn't see the cave for themselves. They had no choice but to rely on the
00:50:10
word of other divers and to trust what they were being told. At one point, police obtained a special
00:50:17
underwater camera, which they sent down into the cave system in the hope it would reach the furthest, still
00:50:22
uncarched, point of the cave. The McDaniels watched the monitor with baited breath for 8 hours, but the
00:50:30
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
00:50:38
highly experienced cave diver who'd led the team that originally mapped the Vortex Spring Cave system back in 2003.
00:50:48
Steve searched the cave seven times in the hunt for Ben, going all the way to the end of the line without making any
00:50:55
new discoveries. He told the Tampa Bay Times, "We went through the whole cave, if he's in
00:51:03
there, I don't know where he'd be." While the McDaniels thoroughly appreciated the search efforts, they
00:51:11
couldn't help but feel frustrated by the lack of answers. In the leadup to what would have been
00:51:17
Ben's 31st birthday in April 2011, they announced that they were holding a benefit at their home in Cierville to
00:51:25
help raise funds for a reward for information. All up, they raised $10,000. Shelby McDaniel made desperate pleasure,
00:51:37
announcing the reward and saying, "We need your help. Our son is still missing. We believe Ben died in the
00:51:46
springs and his body was removed. We know someone knows something. We are Ben's parents. We must bring him home to
00:51:56
bury with his younger brother, Paul, who died of a stroke. In another post, Shelby appealed for a
00:52:04
fearless diver to search the part of the cave where the other divers had not yet
00:52:09
gone in a bid to confirm once and for all whether Ben was down there. This appeal sparked outrage among the
00:52:17
scuba diving community. Not only did some people feel it was offensive to the brave divers who had already risked
00:52:24
their lives in the search for Ben, they also feared the reward would lure untrained divers into the cave.
00:52:33
There was also criticism about the way some of the media had covered the case with many articles inaccurately
00:52:39
referring to Ben as an experienced cave diver. Many members of the scuba diving community wanted it to be known that Ben
00:52:47
had acted irresponsibly by venturing into the cave alone without the proper training.
00:52:53
Some wished the story would fade from public consciousness entirely. Convinced that the whole disappearance was a hoax
00:53:00
that only served to tarnish the reputation of a pursuit they deeply loved. They feared that too much
00:53:07
negative publicity would result in tougher regulations for those who played by the rules.
00:53:13
Worst case scenario, cave diving could be banned completely. With $10,000 up for grabs, divers showed
00:53:22
up to Vortex Spring week after week. Members of the scuba diving community voiced their anger on popular scuba
00:53:29
diving forums, urging the McDaniels to remove the reward before someone else lost their life.
00:53:36
Ed Sorenson told the Jackson County, Florida newspaper. I understand the family wants closure
00:53:43
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
00:53:52
back. It's not worth dying for something that doesn't exist. Canadian cave diver Jill Heineer had
00:54:03
been following Ben's disappearance since the beginning. Drawn in by the mystery of it all. A highly respected diver,
00:54:11
Jill had helped recover the bodies of several of her friends who had drowned during underwater explorations and knew
00:54:18
firsthand just how dangerous and unforgiving cave diving could be. Upon hearing about the McDaniel's hunt
00:54:26
for a fearless diver, Jill felt compelled to help the family understand that going into the furthest recess of
00:54:33
the cave wasn't a matter of bravery, but logistics. She also wanted to make clear to them
00:54:39
what search teams were dealing with every time they went looking for Ben. Jill decided to explore the Vortex
00:54:47
Spring Cave system with her worldrenowned diving partner and ex-husband Paul Heineer.
00:54:54
Paul was not only a highly skilled diver, he also had a keen eye for detail, and Jill felt he would likely
00:55:01
notice anything out of place. Jill had since remarried a writer and producer named Robert Mlen.
00:55:09
Together, they decided to film the exploration in high definition using a camera with underwater lighting
00:55:15
capabilities. not only to prove once and for all whether Ben's body was down there, but also to show the McDaniels
00:55:23
exactly what the cave system looked like, and how great the efforts made by the search teams had been.
00:55:31
By the time Jill and Paul dove into Vortex Spring, almost a year had passed since Ben's disappearance.
00:55:38
High-deaf video camera in hand, they navigated the confined passageways of the cave, capturing stunning and
00:55:44
unprecedented footage that showed how extensive the cave systems nooks and crannies were and how limited their
00:55:51
range of movement was. By the time Juul reached her limit, they'd found no sign of Ben.
00:55:59
All they had found was a small folding shovel with a little bit of rust on it that looked otherwise brand new.
00:56:06
While this initially gave Ben's parents hope, it turned out the shovel belonged to searcher Steve Keane.
00:56:14
Paul Heineer was smaller than Ben, and he managed to inch slightly further into the cave than Jill. He got to a point
00:56:22
where he was essentially squirming in the sand with his stomach pinned between the floor and the roof of the cave and
00:56:29
his elbows on the walls. At that point, it was physically impossible for him to go any further.
00:56:38
In Paul's view, the only way Ben could have made it further into the cave was if he abandoned his diving gear,
00:56:46
as none of the gear was found. That didn't seem possible. After the dive, Jill carefully examined
00:56:55
the footage for anything they might have missed. Although she saw absolutely no sign of
00:57:01
Ben, she wasn't prepared to rule out the possibility that he had gotten into a state of panic and managed to burrow
00:57:07
himself even further into the cave than Paul was able to go. She was aware of other cases where
00:57:14
something similar had happened. Alternatively, given Ben's recent failures, Jill thought he might have
00:57:21
been overzealously determined to make his mark by going further into the cave than anyone else and paid the ultimate
00:57:29
price. Jill Heerf and her husband Robert Mlen decided to make a documentary about the
00:57:39
case titled Ben's Vortex, in which they intended to explore all possible options
00:57:44
regarding Ben's fate. Shelby and Patty McDaniel agreed to be part of the project, providing Jill and
00:57:51
Robert with exclusive interviews and access to personal information. After spending time with the McDaniels
00:57:58
at their home in Cierville, and listening to their glowing stories about Ben, his brothers, and their childhood,
00:58:05
Robert felt uncomfortable. While the McDaniels were lovely people and gracious hosts who clearly adored
00:58:12
their sons, Robert felt they were trying to create an unrealistic image of a perfect family.
00:58:19
I knew there had to be more to Ben McDaniel and the McDaniel family, Robert said. Nobody is that perfect. No house
00:58:28
is that perfect. Their storybook upbringing of their sons was just unbelievable.
00:58:34
We wanted to find the real Ben. We wanted to know who is the real Ben McDaniel. Jill and Robert ran a background check
00:58:45
on Ben and discovered that he had a criminal record that included an arrest for possession of a controlled substance
00:58:51
with intent to manufacture theft of property, assault, and threatening bodily harm, as well as five other
00:58:58
drugrelated charges. None of the charges ever proceeded to trial and Ben was never convicted on any
00:59:05
of them. Either pleading guilty to lesser counts or having the charge thrown out entirely.
00:59:12
Robert started to suspect that the McDaniels were hiding something after they tried to deter him from
00:59:18
interviewing Ben's girlfriend, Emily, who'd been the closest person to Ben at the time of his disappearance.
00:59:25
Robert interviewed Emily regardless and discovered something unexpected. The McDaniels had spoken openly with the
00:59:33
Jill and Robert about the sudden stroke induced death of their youngest son, Paul, and the impact it had on Ben. They
00:59:40
talked proudly about how Ben was running the Paul McDaniel Foundation to educate
00:59:45
others on stroke awareness and how it was his dream to have an office for the foundation in every major city in the
00:59:51
country. After some uncomfortable conversations regarding this topic with Emily, Robert
00:59:58
discovered that they might not have been telling the full story. Jill and Robert obtained a copy of Paul
01:00:05
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
01:00:12
overdose. The autopsy report concluded that Paul had a history of ADHD, alcoholism,
01:00:19
depression, and substance abuse. At the time of his death, there had been toxic levels of opioids and benzoazipines in
01:00:27
his system, drugs that Paul did not have a prescription for. While the true cause of Paul's death,
01:00:35
along with Ben's criminal record, didn't provide any further clarity about what happened to Ben, it raised further
01:00:41
questions for Robert about the state of Ben's mental health at the time of his disappearance.
01:00:47
Robert had personally dealt with addiction and depression in the past while projecting a successful image to
01:00:53
the outside world, and he wondered if Ben had more internal struggles than he'd let on. Robert had also worked as a
01:01:01
nurse, helping patients who'd experienced addiction and trauma, and he'd seen firsthand how some of them
01:01:08
simply chose to leave their lives. He believed it was entirely possible that Ben could have had some kind of
01:01:14
psychotic break and decided to reinvent himself. But there might have been a simpler
01:01:20
explanation. To be a successful cave diver, one needs to be in optimal physical and mental
01:01:30
health. As revealed by the documentary team, Ben had been diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety,
01:01:37
and depression, conditions for which he was taking a range of prescription medications, including Adderall,
01:01:44
Satelopramg, and a Xanax. Mental health conditions can impact a divers's decision-making process, as
01:01:51
well as their ability to think clearly and self-regulate during challenging moments. Furthermore, the side effects
01:01:58
of certain medications can mimic symptoms of the Benz, such as dizziness, fatigue, and numbness.
01:02:06
According to various clinicians, the anti-depressants Ben was on increased the risk of having a seizure while
01:02:12
underwater. One experienced cave diver and general practitioner who saw Ben's medical
01:02:20
history and a list of prescriptions told the documentary team, "If Ben had presented to me as a student, even a
01:02:27
simple basic open water student, there is no way that I would have taught him to dive. There is no way that I would
01:02:35
have recommended that he dive. And there is no way that I would have signed a medical saying he was fit to dive.
01:02:45
These revelations about Ben's mental health and prescriptions added further weight to the possibility that he'd
01:02:52
drowned. Then in early December 2011, talk of foul play came to prominence again after
01:02:59
Vortex Spring owner Lel Kelly was taken to hospital after being found unconscious in his bathtub. According to
01:03:07
a friend, Lel had attended a party the previous evening and while being escorted home, he had drunkenly fallen
01:03:14
down some stairs and hid his head. This friend said they took Lel home, helped him shower, and then left him in
01:03:22
the bathtub covered with a blanket. The next day, he was unresponsive. Lel was put on life support, but died
01:03:32
from his injuries several weeks later. According to a friend of LL's, the Holmes County Sheriff's Police
01:03:39
Department was being suspiciously quiet about the incident, even to Lel's family.
01:03:45
While police said Lel's injuries were caused by an accident, others believed Lel had been attacked or pushed.
01:03:53
In March 2012, the long- awaited autopsy report became available to the public. The medical examiner stated that Lel had
01:04:02
died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head, but was unable to say exactly how those injuries were
01:04:09
sustained. The strange circumstances surrounding Lel's death, coupled with his criminal
01:04:16
history and the fact that he was one of the last people to see Ben McDaniel alive, renewed questions about whether
01:04:23
he could have had any involvement in Ben's disappearance. The McDaniels wanted the area
01:04:29
surrounding Vortex Springs scoured again for potential clues, and the sheriff's department agreed it was an avenue worth
01:04:37
exploring. A team of 13 Kadaava dogs was brought in to search for decomposition.
01:04:44
They found nothing. The dog handler told the Tampa Bay Times, "I think we've been looking in
01:04:52
the right place. I don't think he's in the cave. Around the same time that the Ben's
01:05:02
Vortex documentary was in production, television network Investigation Discovery also produced an episode about
01:05:09
Ben's case for their true crime program disappeared. Ben's parents used the renewed publicity
01:05:16
from both productions to increase their reward for information to $30,000. Just days before the episode of
01:05:24
Disappeared was scheduled to air in March 2012, 43-year-old US Marine and father of two Larry Higinbotham went
01:05:33
cave diving in Vortex Spring and drowned. Once again, Ed Sorenson was part of their recovery team.
01:05:42
Larry's body was found near a discarded shovel at one of the furthest restrictions, which was so narrow that
01:05:48
nobody could get through. Ed had to recover Larry's body by pushing and pulling him through each of
01:05:55
the previous restrictions, risking his own life in the process. Larry's family denied that he had gone
01:06:03
down there looking for Ben McDaniel, but other members of the diving community weren't so sure.
01:06:10
Some of Larry's cave diving friends claimed that he had been enticed by the increased reward money and had been
01:06:16
talking about wanting to claim it. Whatever the case, Ed Sorenson told reporter Cindy Wolf, "Not only did the
01:06:25
reward endanger the lives of divers who would risk going farther than they should, it put all of our lives at risk
01:06:32
because we would have to go in to recover the bodies." The following month, the McDaniels
01:06:39
withdrew the reward, telling Cindy, "We didn't want somebody to go in the cave and to drown because they were looking
01:06:46
for Ben. It was something they'd discussed in Ben's Vortex, too. Shelby McDaniel said
01:06:54
he'd regretted his choice of words when calling for a fearless diver when what he had meant was an advanced diver or
01:07:02
something of that nature. With the previous reward going unclaimed and no viable tips submitted to their hotline,
01:07:10
they realized that if anyone knew anything about their son's disappearance, they weren't going to
01:07:16
talk. By the time Ben's vortex was released in late 2012, the truth about what happened
01:07:23
to Ben remained as elusive as ever. With no sign of Ben's body or diving gear resurfacing after so much time, many
01:07:33
divers continued to believe that Ben had either faked his own death or been murdered after resurfacing from the
01:07:40
water. Jeff Laughlin, the diver who had coordinated the initial search, said, "The only thing I can say is that
01:07:49
everywhere that I knew to look, I looked, but I couldn't find him." Despite the lack of evidence, there were
01:07:58
others who believed Ben was still in the cave somewhere. Ben's parents don't know what to think.
01:08:09
They had a small granite slab engraved with the words Ben McDaniel, beloved son and brother, and gave it to Eduardo
01:08:17
Terran to take down into the cave. Eduardo placed the stone in a spot he thought Ben would like in a part of the
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cave he named Ben's room. In the years since, Vortex Spring has changed ownership.
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While certain aspects of the cave system have changed and divers are generally discouraged from venturing down there,
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many continue to do so. For some of them, Ben McDaniel is never far from their minds.
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Although Ben has never been recovered, his family set up a grave next to his brother Paul's, burying a suitcase full
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of momentos and notes written by loved ones. A plaque features Ben's name, his date
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of birth, and the fact that he was the co-founder of the Paul McDaniel Foundation.
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It shows three photos of a smiling and happy Ben rock climbing in one and scuba diving in another.
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Shelby and Patty visit the graves often, cleaning the plaques for their boys and
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putting in fresh flowers. They also keep a memorial wall for Ben in their home, displaying some of their
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favorite photos of him. Whatever the truth, much has been said over the years about the risks Ben took
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by entering the cave without the proper certification, prompting others to risk their lives looking for him.
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The owner of popular online diving forum scubaboard.com appeared on Ben's vortex
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to defend his community, saying, "The scuba community put those limits right out there in front of Ben. Why did he go
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diving at night? Because he didn't want anyone to see him breaking those limits.
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Why did he do things the way he did it?" Because he wanted to not be caught exceeding those limits.
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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
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going through that lock. Did the scuba community failed Ben? Ben failed Ben. Shelby and Patty disagree with the
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accusations that Ben acted irresponsibly. They told reporter Cindy Wolf that he lived a life of gusto and adventure,
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diving into challenges head first without thinking about the dangers. Shelby said Ben was brave. Ben was
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fearless. He followed his passions. Without Ben's body and the answers it would provide, the McDaniels find
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themselves at a standstill. Speaking to reporter Ben Montgomery while the Kadaava dog search was
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underway in March 2012, Patty said, "We used to have goals. None of that anymore. You just live daytoday.
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There can't be closure when we don't know anything. Maybe that's our new reality
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that there are no answers.