Podcasts · Casefile True Crime

Casefile Extra: Ben McDaniel

16 May 2026 · 1 h 13 min · Episode 406 · Explicit

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 Extra features bonus episodes exploring compelling cases, stories and topics beyond our regular weekly releases.

---

Narration – Anonymous Host

Research & writing – Elsha McGill

Production & music – Mike Migas

Audio editing – Anthony Telfer

Sign up for Casefile Premium:

• Apple Premium • Spotify Premium • Patreon

For all credits and sources, please visit https://casefilepodcast.com/casefile-archives-10-ben-mcdaniel

Ben McDaniel case was originally released as a premium episode in October 2025.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Links in the notes 6

• https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/casefile-true-crime/id998568017?ign-itscg=30200S&ign-itsct=casefile_podcasts
• https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/9gSwcv7USsb
• https://www.patreon.com/casefile
• https://casefilepodcast.com/casefile-archives-10-ben-mcdaniel
• https://acast.com/privacy

The episode on the publisher’s site ↗ (opens in a new tab)