Friday, October 30, 1998
Man accused of faking death pleads innocent to murder, fraud Arthur Bennett has been sentenced in Utah on counts of molesting his daughters.
By Caren Benjamin Review-Journal
A man accused of faking his own death by killing another man in a fire told his daughter when he miraculously reappeared from the dead that an unseen hand had snatched him from a fire and saved his life, according to her testimony before a grand jury.
Arthur Bennett pleaded innocent Thursday to murder, insurance fraud, sexual assault and arson charges. He could face a death sentence.
The sexual assault charges are related to Bennett's oldest daughter, now 16, who told the grand jury about how she lost, mourned, found and learned to fear her father.
The other charges stem from a February 1994 trailer fire near Lake Mead that killed a still-unidentified man.
At the time of the fire, Bennett was on leave from the Marine Corps in Yuma, Ariz. The leave was to allow him to prepare for a court-martial on charges he molested a child there, court documents showed.
The body inside the trailer was burned beyond recognition. The trailer belonged to Bennett. A military dentist later confirmed that the body was Bennett's because he said he remembered Bennett's teeth. Bennett's dental records had disappeared from the Yuma base, the dentist told the grand jury in April.
Shortly before the fire, Bennett took out a $200,000 life insurance policy. The check was cashed and went to his mother, witnesses told the panel.
That was the last law enforcement heard of Bennett until late October 1997 when police in Hurricane, Utah, arrested a Joe Benson on charges of molesting his daughter and another child.
The authorities discovered Benson was Bennett. He had been living with his three daughters and his ex-wife in Hurricane since 1995.
In Utah, Bennett was tried on charges of molesting both his daughters and another child. He pleaded no contest in May to those charges, and a Utah judge ordered him to spend 45 years in prison.
Las Vegas Homicide Detective Mike Franks went to Hurricane and confronted Bennett, who in response to questions said "a hand pulled him back from the trailer and saved him that day," the officer told the grand jury. Bennett also "went on to say he was an assassin for the Marine Corps. He assassined Colombian drug lords. He did not know who was in the trailer," Franks said.
In the Bennett's Utah home, police found a letter he wrote to his ex-wife after the fire hinting to her of a plan and asking her forgiveness for past bad behavior.
Bennett's oldest daughter said her father rejoined the family toward the end of 1994. They had moved to Las Vegas by that time to be near other relatives. At the time of the reunion, "we all just started crying and went up and hugged him," she said.
Her father was barely recognizable, she said. His short brown hair was now long and red. He had a full beard and mustache and blue contact lenses. His story to his daughter was "that when the trailer exploded ... he was walking to it, and some hand or someone came out of nowhere and grabbed him away ... from the fire and that the friend inside the trailer was a really good friend of his and he was in the military with no family."
She said he had been living with his sister in Ohio. She said he warned the whole family not to tell anyone who he was because police would not believe his story and they would be sent to foster homes or even jail. A few weeks later, he climbed into her bed and had sexual intercourse with her, she testified.
She told no one until 1997 because "I got used to what he was doing to me, and I got scared of what was going to happen to my sisters and my family." Bennett's trial is scheduled for June 7 before District Judge Donald Mosley.