It appears it was a clean parting of ways as Charlie posted this on pinside:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ben-heck-leaving-spooky#post-4229863
Ben replied a few hours later:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ben-heck-leaving-spooky/page/2#post-4230800
Here is a recent interview with Ben Heck from last week:
Not sure what this means for the pinball community but Ben is a great engineer and always enjoyed watching his show along with all his neat projects/creations.