← Criminally Obsessed
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- [00:00]
A
Hey everyone, I'm Ann Emerson and this is criminally obsessed. As an investigative journalist, I ask a lot of questions and I usually run out of time before I get to all of the answers. But y' all have given me so much to think about. When it comes to the missing woman down in the Bahamas, Lynette Hooker, the Michigan mom who disappeared nearly three weeks ago. Did she really fall out of that dinghy? If you got called out on this case, how would you be feeling about this right now?
- [00:30]
B
Frustrated. It's kind of the perfect storm, isn't it?
- [00:33]
A
Where is she? Is she at the bottom of the ocean or is she somewhere on land?
- [00:38]
B
The dynamics of this environment are ever changing.
- [00:42]
A
So I'm taking 10 of your questions and comments to one of our favorite death investigators, Joseph Scott Morgan.
- [00:50]
B
I'd say it's going to be an empirical impossibility to find her remains.
- [00:54]
A
Let's get into it. Lynette Hooker. I mean, the comments have been overwhelming on this case, on our, on our page. I'm sure one of the things that we were looking at in this case is how long it it he was. He's off grid basically from the time that Brian Hooker said that Lynette went in over the dinghy to the time that he ends up washed ashore at Marsh harbor, over all the way around the bend, basically. Nine hours is a long time to get rid of a body, was one comment that we got from one of our viewers. What do you think about that?
- [01:36]
B
Yeah, I think that that's a very astute assessment on your friend that's making that comment. And nine hours is a tremendous amount of time, particularly when you consider the vast area. And I'll go back to that. I can't escape that, that you're talking about here. When you think about how many different locations along an area where a body could be. Nine hours is certainly enough time to make this a very complex investigation. And also some of the other things that you're going to have to consider. Within a nine hour window, you could possibly be dealing with tidal flow like significant, like is the tide pulling out, is it moving in? And also any of the currents that are around that area because you know, you can go into kind of a dead area where currents are not as affecting as they would be.
- [02:36]
A
Like a protected cove.
- [02:37]
B
Yeah, precisely. That's a good way to phrase it, a protected cove.
- [02:41]
A
Right.
- [02:42]
B
And if you have, have an area, say where you have a more swift current, it can certainly that current can facilitate pulling, pulling a remainder human remains out to sea or out into open water, more so than, you know, being closer to shore.
- [02:58]
A
Yeah, well, and then we had another one that was interesting because we do know a little bit about Brian Hooker, who. He has not been charged with anything with his wife's death, but he certainly remained a person of interest for them to continue talking to. And for viewers like that can be a witness, like he witnessed, according to his story, her go overboard. So that is why, you know, we are always really careful when we talk about, you know, how people are. Are being investigated or not investigated as the case may be.
- [03:28]
B
That's why we should. You're absolutely right.
- [03:30]
A
You know, so there is something to that. We don't know yet, but we do know, according to his information, that he, that he was a Marine. And one of the questions one of our viewers wanted to know is, what I would like to know is where would a. A marine hide a body? And, and he landed near a boatyard. Should law enforcement look around that area in containers, barrels with cadaver dogs? Because there was so much time that lapsed. There was nine hours. Yeah, it's just an interesting thought there.
- [04:00]
B
Yeah, it is. And you know, here, here's the thing. They're still looking for her remains and nothing is off limits. So, yeah, I mean, any area that, that dinghy would have come in contact with, even peripherally or pass through, that's going to be an important area to search. Now, as far as hiding a body, that requires a bit more work because if an individual, and we don't know who that might be, but if there was an individual that was, say, trying to hide a body or prevent others from finding somebody, if you're out in water, you're going to have to think about weights, right? Anchors, that sort of thing. And do you have weights that you can weigh down a body in order to facilitate, you know, keeping that, that those remains out of view and how, how deep. And I think that that's another big point here. The area that this dinghy is traversing. What's the water depth in all of these locations? Because, you know, the deeper, the deeper the water, particularly if a body is weighted down, the more difficult it's going to be to cover this area. You know, when we, we'd look out, you know, if we're at the beach or something, you know, we'd look out over the water. We just see beautiful water. But what you don't understand is that there's a huge landmass beneath that water. It. The water surface hides things that we can't even begin to fathom because, you know, the. The topography undulates. You've got rocky outcroppings that are down there. You've got areas where you'll have specific, like, deep holes. And that's why, you know, this makes this all the more difficult. If you're looking for a body that. That has been sequestered like this, you would have to have a dive team that would cover this area, and it has to be covered in a grid search. And just imagine the time that we're talking about nine hours, all right? You try to break that down into a grid search. How accessible are personnel that are qualified to be able to do this and to go block by block because it would be. Or grid by grid and search that entire area underwater. Underwater.
- [06:25]
A
Underwater caves. Reeves the reefs. I'm just thinking about all the times you go snorkeling. I mean, there's just a million different places that animals tuck into.
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B
And that. That's one of the reasons people go to these areas, is to snorkel. So you've got coral that's down there, you have reefs that are down there. And again, as I've previously mentioned, people need to keep this. As gruesome as it is, you've got. Apex predators are in that area as well. And so that's very important. And that can compromise your ability to find anything in this environment. Not to mention just how austere, you know, an aquatic environment is, particularly in saltwater environment.
- [07:04]
A
Somebody else mentioned oxygen tanks, because they were known to have oxygen tanks on board. I mean, obviously they can count and see the. The oxygen tanks, but a lot of people just use them over and over again. That could be possibly used to weight somebody down.
- [07:19]
B
Yeah. And as. And again, I'm terrified of. I'm claustrophobic. So I know nothing about scuba diving. I like watching videos from underwater. But, you know, it would seem to me that you would have to bleed the tanks. And because they do have, I guess, some level of buoyancy or compromise them in some way with their outer shell, you know, you know, to use them or facilitate a weighting down of a body, you know. And also divers also used waist weights as well, you know, strategically positioned to keep them, you know, to avoid the buoyancy. You know.
- [07:58]
A
That's right.
- [07:59]
B
Try to keep them beneath the water. And then you have to have points of contact. If a body were to be weighed down, you'd have to be able to loop through and then attach that to the body. And I've covered. Over the years, I've covered Several cases like this, you know, where bodies have been weighed down with cinder blocks and, you know, barbells transmissions. I've had a body with a car axle. So, yeah, I mean, it, it, you know, it, it requires some thought, you know, in order to facilitate that. And so anybody that might be involved with this, they would have to come prepared is the big thing.
- [08:39]
A
Yeah, prepared. And also, you know, with a tiny little dinghy, you have to think about what, what would possibly even be on board. But once again, you know, one thing that I keep on getting reminded of is that we're literally, we have one, one person's story of what happened, and we haven't been told about other people's versions or surveillance video that would support that. So can you tell me Ladette's body goes into the water? That's what we're just assuming right now. But can you tell me what it looks like for that body to be in the water for 24 hours versus, you know, going towards two weeks?
- [09:18]
B
So you're going to have, you're going to have several factors at play here. First off, these are warm waters. They're very warm waters. And as we know, warmth, even in an aquatic environment speeds up decomposition. Okay. And the aquatic environment in and of itself speeds up decomposition. Bodies change at a more rapid pace than they do on land, but the manifestations are a little bit different. The other thing you're going to have to contend with here is that literally some of the apex predators in the world swim in these waters. And of course, I'm referring to sharks. And that's just a whole. A hard, cold fact about this area. You're talking about the Caribbean. And so there's no telling what the status of the body is. If they found her body, if they found her remains, I'm hoping she's on some little desert island somewhere, that she's washed up on a sandbar and she's okay and no one has found her yet. However, it's very difficult to survive in these waters. And if marine life have been interjected into the equation, it. I'd say it's going to be an empirical impossibility to find her remains.
- [10:31]
A
Okay, let's say they do. Maybe her remains have washed ashore somewhere. You know, if she, she has perished, if that is what's happened to her. Fingerprints, blood, hair. Does this all get washed away?
- [10:46]
B
No, there would still be. If she is washed away and she's kind of in a protected area. Yeah, you could still recover usable DNA. It would still be viable at this point, all Right now, the further down the road we go in this very austere environment. People always think of, you know, this environment as being very. I don't know if the terms bucolic, but, you know, it's, it's very, it's gorgeous. You know, if anybody's ever been to the Caribbean, you've seen those beautiful emerald green waters. It's austere. I mean, it's very austere. It's dangerous, it's, it's unrelenting. And, but yeah, and the further you go down the timeline, the more, the more compromised those tissues become, the sooner it's going to be better. The other thing they're going to have difficulty doing perhaps, is trying to determine a specific cause of death. Now, if we're looking at drowning, perhaps one of the things we're going to look at are going to be the lungs. Well, thinking that her thorax has not been compromised in any way, you could still assess the lungs to a certain degree and see if a drowning had gone on. If we still have her skull, we do things like look at the inner ear and in the sinuses. If we have water in there, that's an indication of drowning. That gives an idea of uptake of water as you're, as you're inhaling. But beyond that, it's going to be very difficult to assess these remains, given the timeline and how far down range she's gone.
- [12:20]
A
So if her remains are in the water, what are we looking for versus if she is on, on land? Actually.
- [12:28]
B
Okay, well, if she's in water, first off, I, you know, my assumption would be is that she would be deceased by this time. They would be floating on the surface because we do balloon. Put it, you know, as delicately as I possibly can. And that comes about as a regard of gas buildup in the body. If she were in some location, and let's just say if she is not deceased, she's still with us. You know, you'd find somebody that's probably horribly dehydrated by this time. Matter of fact, I don't see how it would be survivable. This isn't the movie Cast Away.
- [13:09]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [13:09]
B
Because one of the. Even though you're surrounded by water, the most difficult thing to come around, come, come across, and the Caribbean is drinkable water. That's very difficult. All right, so if she's on land and you have remains there, you'll still have the, the swelling, that sort of thing, but the decomposition is going to be different because now you're, you're In a non aquatic environment, so flies, those sorts of things, that's what you would be looking for. And there would probably, if she was on land, in the sea. I hate to say this, but, you know, you, you would have some, you would have some evidence, suggest significant evidence. You know, at this point, you know, two weeks in our world, in forensics, medical, legal, death investigation is not a long period of time for us to deal with. With remains.
- [14:01]
A
It could hurt clothes give us any indication to what happened?
- [14:07]
B
Well, yeah, I mean, in both states, Perry mortem, I mean, the anti mortem state. Yeah, she was injured and injured through. Through that bathing suit. Yeah, yeah. You certainly could appreciate something like that dependent upon what kind of instrument may have been used, if an instrument was used at all. And then in the postmortem state, if you found the bathing suit. Yeah, and a lot of that's going to go to aquatic or marine life, you know, how they affect or affected the body. And if I've seen clothing that has been torn by sharks and alligators over the course of my career, and you can, you can make some of that stuff out. You know, the, the tough thing about it is you're trying to determine if it's in the anti mortem or postmortem state.
- [14:59]
A
And on your body bags podcast, you've talked about how you don't bruise postmortem. Right. So no. If she has bruises on her body, does that lend to sort of what her body's condition was basically before she got in the water?
- [15:17]
B
That's all. Ante mortem bruising is antimortem, which means prior to death, the dead do not bruise. You can injure the dead, but they'll get little dings in their skin, say, for instance, if they bump up against rocks or bits of wood and that sort of thing. And you'll get these little tears in the skin, but there's no associated hemorrhage, which of course is what. They're hemorrhages. And so if there's no longer blood coursing through the vessels, you're not going to have hemorrhage into any tissue that's been compromised postmortem.
- [15:51]
A
If we did find Lynette, could we possibly see physical evidence of her wearing? Because we've heard about how she had the kill switch lanyard on her. Would it be, you know, and the lanyard could be in a couple of different places. I mean, you can put it around your neck. You can also clip it onto clothing. We heard she had on a bathing suit that Would make me think that she might have had that lanyard around her neck if she fell in. Would we be able to tell whether or not that kill switch was around her neck if we found her?
- [16:26]
B
Yeah, hard to say. You know, my boat, my kill switch is on my. On my wrist. I keep it. I have to, by law.
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A
Or. On your wrist?
- [16:36]
B
Yeah, you have to have it there. It's generally an elastic thing. It's not going to. It's not going to leave much of a mark, to be honest. It's not like a static, like ligature. You know, people always think about ligature marks on. On necks and those sorts of things generally. And that could, you know, supposedly, I guess, in some universe kills it. Kill switch lanyard could be used as a ligature, you know, in some circumstances, I suppose. But you would have to have pressure or a tightening or a tying or an anchoring in order to facilitate any kind of markings that might be left behind. With that said, I would be more curious. If she did have it on her, would it still be with her? Not necessarily. Does it leave a mark? So wrist. I've never seen anybody wear it around their neck. I guess so. But also if there's a clip on it too, like a little alligator clip, where it could clip through the fabric of a bathing suit, perhaps. We'd have to see.
- [17:43]
A
Is there a way for us to be able to tell if we did recover her body, whether or not she was. She fell or if she was pushed out of that dinghy?
- [17:51]
B
I think it'd be very difficult. It's not a far fall. Right. It's not like going over the railing of a cruise ship or something. All right. It's so low to the water and I can't imagine, you know, and plus, it's kind of a pliable, soft surface, too. So it's not like it's a done. It would be any kind of dynamic injury. Like you're going over a hard surface, you know, and even. Even when you have hard surfaces and people go off the edge of buildings or cliffs or, you know, whatever the case might be, the determination as to the dynamic that took them over the edge is very, very difficult to assess. Matter of fact, those are some of the most difficult cases, you know, to. To kind of assess when you're. You're trying to understand. Understand what happened in those moments right before she disappeared.
- [18:42]
A
I think my problem with this case is that I feel like more people would have seen what was going on that night. I understand people are busy looking at their own stuff. But you have somebody in the water, you know, I mean, these are very experienced sailors. She's a capable, experienced swimmer. We've been told over and over again, you yell, you scream, you throw the flotation device out at her, which is what he said he did, but nobody heard or saw anything. For us to be able to gather what happened to Lynette that night.
- [19:17]
B
Yeah. And do I think. If you're talking about from an observable position, I think some of the things I think I would like to know are have they gone down every possible path here regarding folks that could have been within earshot or even visually, what could have been seen, heard, those sorts of things. And again, this is a very dynamic environment. Right. You know, you're talking about being in the ocean, essentially, and a lot of movement and sound is lost, easily out there. Talk about the old adage about ringing. You can't unring the bell. And even if you're out there and you hear something, it's very disorienting. You. You. You know, where did that come from?
- [20:05]
A
True. Because sound travels across water.
- [20:08]
B
Yeah. But you've got the lapping of the waves. And if. If we think about, you know, I think that there was some mention of, you know, the weather was kind of dodgy. At that. Yeah. At that. And again, that's going to mask things. So, you know, for lack of a better term, it's kind of the perfect storm, isn't it? And, you know, it makes. It makes the investigation of this all the more difficult.
- [20:31]
A
Yeah. How do you feel about it? Like, if you got called out on this case, how would you be feeling about this right now?
- [20:38]
B
Frustrated, I think. And I would try to keep my mind in the scientific vein as opposed to any of the other peripheral stuff that's going on. And that's really important in my world, in forensics world. And I would want to make sure, again, I can't beat this drum loud enough that everything, everything is secured and locked down, because I want as many professional eyes on boats and dinghies and anything else that's even peripherally associated with this case that could be physical evidence, I want it locked down so that it can be fully assessed and appreciated. Okay. I don't want to lose anything. And. And that's. That's the most critical bit. And. Well, in any case, but particularly with this, where there are so many unknowns, you know, it's not like you're walking down the street or on a sidewalk or even certainly in your home. Again, I can't say this enough. The, the dynamics of this environment are ever changing. And so it, this is like if you were, if you were going to work a case like this, you know, you do not want some neophyte investigator involved in this. This, this is certainly pro. Pro level stuff here because it's so very intricate. You would really have to get people that know what they're doing. I would want Coast Guard, Coast Guard, FBI involved.
- [22:07]
A
Yeah. I mean, Coast Guard's involved. I don't know about the FBI, but I do know the Coast Guard's been involved. I'd love to hear from any viewers if they know more. We have, actually viewers that are watching this from the Bahamas and out with searches. Can you believe Brian was a. Brian moved his sailboat to a mooring in Marsh Harbor. He left where it was where she was supposedly swimming, too, and then moved it hours later into a new mooring. And that is one of the things that is. We've. We've talked to a forensic diver about it who's, who was just brilliant. And he, he talked about how that was extraordinary. If that was not a red flag, I don't know what is.
- [22:51]
B
Yeah. And, you know, it's certainly something as an investigator that I would want to peel that onion, if you will, and, you know, kind of do a deep dive with and try to understand what the rationale was behind that. And I guess you could say whether, you know, all those sorts of things. But if, if your loved one. Let's think about this as a marker. If, if your loved one is missing and they're swimming to get to a location that's fixed point. Right. And so, you know, you don't want to do anything that's going to, you know, dishearten them in any way if they're trying to reach a fixed point. You know, it would be, it. It would be difficult to kind of wrap my head around that as well.
- [23:33]
A
Yeah, it looks bad. Thank you so much for jumping back on with me today. I'm so glad we were able to talk about a couple of these things.
- [23:41]
B
My pleasure.
- [23:41]
A
Thank you very much for your time today.
- [23:44]
B
You bet, Ann. Thanks for having me. And thanks to all your fans as well.
- [23:47]
A
I'm still trying to get an interview with Brian Hooker or his attorney. He's not answering my calls, and she has said no comment. I have been in contact with the Coast Guard and I'll share more information when I can. I'm also reaching out to the US Embassy and following up with the lawmakers that Lynette's daughter Carly has reached out to for help. I am relentless and I need to find out what happened to Lynette Hooker like. And subscribe. And turn on your notifications to crimly obsessed so you don't miss any of our updates. And keep those questions coming.