Vortex & the reward $$$
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From the Memphis Commercial Appeal: Collierville parents pull reward for missing diver : Memphis Commercial Appeal
[h=2]Feared motivating others to risk lives[/h]By Cindy Wolff
Originally published 12:00 a.m., April 14, 2012
Updated 12:09 a.m., April 14, 2012
A Collierville couple has rescinded a $30,000 reward to recover the body of their son, Ben McDaniel.
The 30-year-old vanished in August 2010 after he was last seen underwater cave diving at Vortex Spring in Florida. Expert cave divers spent weeks searching for McDaniel without finding a trace that he died there.
The family steadily increased a reward to $30,000, which incensed the cave diving community because they thought it was recklessly encouraging inexperienced divers to take greater risks to collect the reward.
Last month, Larry Higginbotham, 43, of Biloxi, Miss., drowned inside the cave at Vortex. His family said the diver wasn't looking for Ben McDaniel, but cave divers are skeptical.
"He was found near a shovel left near a restriction so small that no one could get through it," said Edd Sorenson, the most experienced cave diver in the area.
Sorenson retrieved Higginbotham's body, pushing and pulling the lifeless man through four narrow restrictions.
"Not only did it (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 have to go in to recover the bodies," Sorenson said.
Sorenson, along with most cave divers who searched for Ben, are convinced that his body isn't there. That leaves the theories that he committed suicide, that he started another life with an assumed identity or that he was murdered.
Last month, 13 cadaver dogs searched an area where Patty and Shelby McDaniel thought their son's body might be. The dogs didn't hit a scent.
The parents haven't had one call or tip to a hotline they created. They are realizing that anyone who knows something isn't going to talk. So, they said, it wasn't worth risking the lives of cave divers.
"We didn't want somebody to go in the cave and drown because they were looking for Ben," Shelby McDaniel said Thursday.
-- Cindy Wolff: (901) 529-2378
[h=2]Feared motivating others to risk lives[/h]By Cindy Wolff
Originally published 12:00 a.m., April 14, 2012
Updated 12:09 a.m., April 14, 2012
A Collierville couple has rescinded a $30,000 reward to recover the body of their son, Ben McDaniel.
The 30-year-old vanished in August 2010 after he was last seen underwater cave diving at Vortex Spring in Florida. Expert cave divers spent weeks searching for McDaniel without finding a trace that he died there.
The family steadily increased a reward to $30,000, which incensed the cave diving community because they thought it was recklessly encouraging inexperienced divers to take greater risks to collect the reward.
Last month, Larry Higginbotham, 43, of Biloxi, Miss., drowned inside the cave at Vortex. His family said the diver wasn't looking for Ben McDaniel, but cave divers are skeptical.
"He was found near a shovel left near a restriction so small that no one could get through it," said Edd Sorenson, the most experienced cave diver in the area.
Sorenson retrieved Higginbotham's body, pushing and pulling the lifeless man through four narrow restrictions.
"Not only did it (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 have to go in to recover the bodies," Sorenson said.
Sorenson, along with most cave divers who searched for Ben, are convinced that his body isn't there. That leaves the theories that he committed suicide, that he started another life with an assumed identity or that he was murdered.
Last month, 13 cadaver dogs searched an area where Patty and Shelby McDaniel thought their son's body might be. The dogs didn't hit a scent.
The parents haven't had one call or tip to a hotline they created. They are realizing that anyone who knows something isn't going to talk. So, they said, it wasn't worth risking the lives of cave divers.
"We didn't want somebody to go in the cave and drown because they were looking for Ben," Shelby McDaniel said Thursday.
-- Cindy Wolff: (901) 529-2378
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