← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Bahamas Nightmare: Husband Released as Wife Still Missing After Going Overboard | Lynette Hooker
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- [00:00]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Neighbor Gabo, then Doug. There's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
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Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner
Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
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Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
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Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.
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Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty.
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Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner
Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.
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- [01:36]
Ashley Banfield
Hey everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is drop dead Serious. I'm coming to you from my mom's house in Florida, hence the different backdrop. But I wanted to bring you this podcast tonight. It is April 13th, because tomorrow I'm headed to the Bahamas. Actually, I'm going to start looking for myself about all of these different places that Brian Hooker said he was right before his wife, Lynette Hooker went off the back of the boat and he was unable to save her. I felt like the story was very fishy just because I'm a boater. But I'm learning a lot more and I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt. I talked to someone today in the Bahamas who's very, very familiar with El Boke, actually where Brian and Lynette were the whole day before she went missing on April 4th. And he said he was there April 4th on elbow key at that time said the weather actually was a bit blowy and in the place where they were just outside the channel where they'd actually moored their boat. This is frustrating. It kind of keeps the mystery alive because my friend David told me there could be some currents there, the wind could be blowing. Would it be enough to separate somebody like that? Probably not, but maybe. I was kind of hoping for something more definitive. But I'm going to go there myself and talk to more mariners. I'm actually going to be going to a marina right there at El Bluqui. And I'm going to take the route that Brian and Lynette took to spend the day in Elbow Key and the route that they took in the dinghy, supposedly to go out to their anchored boat where catastrophe befell them, according to Brian. And then I'm going to take the route that Brian says his dinghy actually drifted. But I have something I want to show you right now that. And I'm having a really tough time understanding that this is a guy who floated anywhere based on what his watch told those who followed him. Because his watch was one of those watches that plots his course. And his stepdaughter could follow his course plotted along a route based on his watch. And she has sent it to me and I'm looking at it saying this looks an awful lot like the route the sailboat took from Marsh harbor where they spend most of their time over and around, over to Elbow Cay for the day of fun and then right back again in the exact same route, not floating willy nilly with a broken oar trying to paddle for nine hours. So I'm going to show you those. And again, I'm willing to suspend disbelief here because I don't know necessarily exactly the time. I'm going to talk to a captain who's more familiar with these charts and with the times and with these apps as well, just to get his take tomorrow when I get there. But let me just start from the beginning because late Tonight, just after 8pm EAS, Brian Harker was released. You know, the Bahamian authorities determined that after a 72 hour hold, which was already an extension of a 48 hour hold, that they didn't have enough to charge him with anything that could hold him in a detention cell on Grand Bahama Island. So in the city of Freeport on Grand Bahama island, he was at the central police station. That's where he was detained. And his lawyer, Terrell Butler was there saying, listen, charge them or release them. It was supposed to happen at 7:20 and it did not. And Ms. Butler told me she was pissed. She was waiting and she was pressuring them. Anyway, they released him and Fox News Digital got some images of him being cleared out of the central police station where he was being held. They were all prepared that if he was being charged, he was going to make an appearance across the street and then probably end up being transferred over to the main city of Nassau on New Providence, the big island in the Bahamas where most people fly into, where paradise island and the Atlantis and all that fun stuff is. Anyway, that's not happening. So here's what I'm guessing. He may be going out to his boat tonight because that's where he lived. That's where he lived and lives. He may be heading out to Soulmate, which is on a mooring ball which he and his wife Lynette would rent so that they could access the Conch Inn and Marina nearby for the facilities there, the pool and the restaurant and all the rest. And, and that's where the boat was. The, you know, the 46 foot Soulmate yacht was, was anchored when he was arrested and taken to jail. So he's got to sleep somewhere tonight. So who knows if his lawyer is there on Grand Bahamas. She's probably got a hotel room. I don't know if he wants to spend the money on a hotel room or whether he wants to head back. You probably, actually, if I think about it tonight, he's about 100 miles away and the ferry, 17 hours and a flight is probably not going to happen tonight. So he's probably resting his head on a hotel pillow tonight and then we'll make for. For this is my guess, he will either make for Marsh harbor where his boat is anchored, or he'll cut and run. If he's got his passport, and I can only assume he does, if they released him, he may say, I'm out of here before anything else changes, before they change their minds and goodbye to my beautiful boat. I'm not gonna, you know, it's either the boat or it's me get out to some jurisdiction that won't transfer me back here. These are things he's going to have to talk through with his attorney. So a couple of other things that you should know. His attorney, Terrell Butler, actually spoke with Fox News over the weekend and this is a super interesting answer to the question if he had ever hit his wife, Lynette. Here's the answer.
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Terrell Butler
He has categorically denied that. He has denied the allegations. And there was mention of an incident that occurred in 2015 and during that his wife was the one who was Arrested. And he does not want to dwell on negativity. He has been reluctant to respond to the claims made by his stepdaughter, but he did mention that she has a medical history that needs to be looked in. She's on certain medication. She can be easily influenced, and that may be affecting what she's saying as well as her grief at this time.
- [07:51]
Ashley Banfield
Okay, the next thing I want to play for you is a phone call that Brian Hooker had with friends of his after Lynette went missing and presumably before he ended up in a detention cell because there were four days, right. He had his crisis on Saturday night, April 4th, 7:30 at night, floated until 4 in the morning on Sunday the 5th, and then he was not arrested until. I think it was Wednesday or Thursday. I think it was Wednesday, Wednesday night. And so there were several days there where he was actually on. On board his boat. Right. First of all, I can tell you, and I'm going to show you these messages in just a hot minute. I can tell you that he messaged friends of his to say that he was actually taken to his dinghy and took the dinghy back to his sailboat, which was at Obokee, and then sailed the boat or motor yacht, either motor sailed or sailed or motored back to Marsh Harbor. You'll have to look at a map to see the distances here, but it's kind of a day trip. So he was actually sailing in the four days between catastrophe and arrest and probably sailed and hooked right back up to his mooring bow because that's what he texted his friends. And I'm going to show you those texts in a minute. But first I want you to hear this message or this conversation that Brian Hooker was having with his friends. And maybe his friends weren't feeling so good about this, or maybe they felt that it helped his case. Whatever the reason, the friends released this to the press. So here he is talking about the whole cascade of failures the night that Lynette went missing. And you can decide for yourself if you think this sounds legitimate or if this sounds like a guy who is really defensive. Take a look.
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Brian Hooker
That was the craziest night. Drifting out in the Abaco Sea. She basically just bounced off the dinghy in the middle of a little blow, like 20 some knot winds that popped up. I think she tried to swim back to the sailboat. To her. Back to our sailboat, which was probably, I don't know, a thousand yards or something. Yes. Yeah. I yelled. I couldn't see her anymore. I had. I grabbed the flares by then I had two flares, and they didn't see the flares, I guess.
- [10:09]
Ashley Banfield
So in this same vein, I now want to show you a couple of maps that CBS News actually released, because he sent these maps to his friends, and again, the friends gave it to the press. But this is Brian, obviously, in those four days where he wasn't, you know, he was free to roam about the cabin. He created these maps to show his friends this perilous journey that he had taken after Lynette supposedly went off the back of the dinghy and he couldn't rescue her, and he had a broken oar and was trying to paddle, and, you know, off he went into this blackened sea and drifted towards Marsh harbor shore. Anyway, I'm astounded that he went to all this trouble again. To me, in my line of work as a true crime reporter, it kind of looked like this is a guy who's really protesting too much, making a lot of effort to say, see, this is where I was, as opposed to, I don't give a flying. Who cares? I want to find my wife. I'm not going to explain anything to anybody. I want to find my wife. That's. That didn't seem to be it. It was more, look at my journey. Here's the course I took, and here's the map. So take a peek at these maps. And it's hard for me to explain exactly because these maps aren't. They're not big enough for me to understand exactly where I am right now, but by tomorrow, I'm going to know that. But he has these red lines that are supposed to show where he went and where Brian's dinghy route went when he was floating for nine hours, you know, with no power on the boat, because he says Lynette went off the back with the electric key. In any case, the reason I wanted to show you Brian's maps is because I got my hands on a real map. And so the real map is intriguing because it's a map that shows his actual course. And I have it because Brian's watch plotted a course, and his stepdaughter daughter, Carly Aylesworth, she used to follow the course. So she was looking at the course, and she was following it along. It's sort of like. It's like plots on a line, and then the line connects. I'm trying to make heads or tail of it. There's a video, and there's a still picture. And again, I think I need to talk to an expert about what exactly it shows us but look, I'm just going to tell you from, you know, my not very learned mariners approach to these maps. I'm struggling with how perfect the lines are. So, for instance, if Brian leaves Marsh harbor, then follow the red, you know, arrows, ends up at that big long thing way off on the right in the blue water. It's Elbow Key, where it's beautiful and there's restaurants and Hopetown's there, and I'm gonna take you there tomorrow. That makes sense. The arrow makes sense. He's headed with Soulmate and Lynette on board to Elbow Key. But what doesn't make sense is if El. If Brian is now drifting aimlessly in the dark water in the little dinghy with a broken oar and no ability, you know, to maneuver, why does the course look identical on the way back? Like the course follows exactly the same track as Soulmate did on the way there? It seems. And I know one thing, when you're blowing in the wind and dinghy, you're not keeping a straight course. You're kind of all over the place, and you sure as shit not following the exact same course that your yacht did on the way there. They may have been sailing with gps, which keeps you on course. When you sail or motor with a gps, you kind of like. It's almost like a game. You just, you, you follow the course and if you start to steer that way, you get back on course. So your line is very, very specific. And if you return, you tend to return the same line. So those lines are right on top of each other. Now, if your watch is taking you away the hell over here in the wind, you're not going to follow the same course horse that your yacht did when you were on GPS under power. So this is my impression of this. The one thing I cannot tell you is if the. If the times of this plot were exactly the times of what Brian said happened at 7:30 at night until 4:00 in the morning. That's what I'm trying to pin down. But once I get a good old salty mariner captain to talk to me about this tomorrow, I think I'll have a better feel for this. And I sure hope, I sure hope that the police have this and that they've been able to look at this and compare it to what Brian says happened and to the maps that Brian has drawn to what this watch actually plotted with gps. I love that stuff. I love it when the electronics tell us a different story or at least confirm a story. It might do both. So those are really interesting aspects. And of course, this is super interesting as well because I was able to get this directly from the family. And the fact that Carly Ailsworth, Lynette's daughter, was able to go to sort of the digital popcorn trail, I don't know if Brian either knew it or forgot it or cared. I don't know. But she's got it and she gave it to me. So thank you very much, Carly Aylesworth Maps aside, I want to share with you some texts now. So you've seen the maps that Brian sent to his friends and they released to the press, and you've seen the real maps that his watch plotted, whether they're the same time frame or not. I'm working on that. Now. I want to give you the text messages that Brian shared with his friends and that his friends shared with the media. Again, I'm not particularly certain whether the friends were so suspect of him that they released it to the media or maybe thought that his texts would help his case, but they released the text. So here we go. This one friend says to Brian, did we just see y' all on the news? ABC World News said Lynette fell off boat. And Brian answers, yes, brother, I'm afraid so. Off the dinghy in some choppy seas. On the way back to the sailboat, the wind blew me away from her and she swam towards the sailboat and we lost sight of each other pretty quickly. As it was just about sundown. I drifted and tried to paddle with one oar for the next seven hours until I washed up behind the shore of the next island over and was able to get some help. Finally, we are all still searching. A lot is going on right now, but I thank you for checking on us. Being on the news is a huge burden and I just had my first ever news organization call me a few minutes ago. You're in our prayers. Thank you, friend. Our family is in hell right now. Search and Rescue just called and said they had searched so a bunch of areas today and no joy. They are going back out tomorrow, but a storm is coming in on Wednesday and then the response is please keep us informed and if we can do anything, let us know asap. All of that happened on Monday evening. That would be a full 24 hours since Lynette supposedly fell off the boat because they were leaving elbow key around 7:30 at night. Okay, so that was at 8:31pm on Monday. But at 8:17am the next morning, the friends send this text. I know the pressure on you is hard. I am Praying hard and if you need to talk or anything, let me know. Do you have a place to stay on island or are you staying on boat? Any way I can help, please ask. And Brian responds. Good morning, Daniel. Thank you for reaching out and supporting us. I got the boat back to Marsh harbor yesterday after the fire department brought me back my dinghy. I'm on a mooring ball at a place called Conch Inn, staying on the boat. My sister and brother in law are flying in later this morning to stay for a couple of days and I will probably stay with them for a night or two while weather happens, but then I plan on heading back out to the site and continuing search. I will most likely definitely need help in the future, but I just don't know what that is yet. I'm trying to take it a day at a time and keep the faith. Search and rescue is out again today before some big winds come tomorrow and the answer comes back. We are here to help any way we can. Currently in Shreveport, but our boat is on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. We was actually going to buy a sailboat this week and bring both boats home to Shreveport. If you need anything, I will help where I can. And Brian answers. Congratulations on your sailboat captain and thank you for your kind offers. I will be in touch as events unfold. I want to go back to that text he sent about the fire department bringing him back his dinghy. So I'm just going to give you a real crude look here. If this is Marsh harbor, they're staying over here at an inn and they've got a mooring ball which they hook up to and they stay kind of regularly and they use the services of the inn. But they wanted to go over here to this island, Elbow Key. It's very long and stringy, so they sail up and over and over to Elbow Key and then they drop anchor or pick up a mooring ball and then they take their little tender, their little eight foot dinghy and go in and party and have drinks all day and have fun. Then take the dinghy back to the boat preparing to sail all the way back, right? But the accident happens from the dinghy to the, to the sailboat that was, you know, moored or anchored just off of Elbow Keep. All right, so his dinghy blows in the nighttime and hits this side of the shore at Marsh harbor. And he goes up on shore and he goes through all the woods and the bushes over here to get help and then he gets his dinghy back. Whoever from the Fire department got him his dinghy back. But how did he get back to the sailboat? I think somebody. There's a ferry that goes between, so I'm sure that the ferry went. Because you're not taking that dinghy. There's no way. That's way too far to go with this little two horsepower kind of dinghy. So he probably took the ferry and then got someone to take him out to his sailboat and then sail all the way back. Because he said that he's. I'm on a mooring ball at a place called Conch Inn. Well, that's. That's way over here. So he got that sailboat, right, that he never made it. Lynette never made it to the sailboat. He never made it to the sailboat. He blew in the dinghy over to this side of Marsh harbor, and he's supposed to be on his mooring ball over here. Well, right now he's over here. So somehow he was sailing the high seas while people were looking for Lynette. I find that weird, too. In those four days, wouldn't you kind of stay put with your yacht right there and, like, search in that area where she's been missing? No, he got his sailboat all the way back and around, so. Okay, that's a bit weird. Why. Why did you need to be over in the mooring ball? Maybe it was expensive, but it's free to drop your anchor. You can find safe harbor just about anywhere, and you can drop an anchor. So I am finding that odd. But he did say fire department brought me back my dinghy. I'm on a mooring ball at a place called Conch Inn, staying on the boat. So he went all the way back over here while all the search and rescue was going on over here. Okay, that doesn't bode well. Anyway. Everybody's different, but that's sort of informative. I can also tell you that this has been really tough news for Lynette's family back here in the US and they are in conversation right now. And I'm recording this at 20 to 10 at night, just about an hour ago. They have been in conversation with the US Authorities over there. Coast Guard was helping to do investigation. I don't know if any FBI officials ended up there. I can't tell you that, but I will find out. To continue their efforts on the US Side to do an investigation. Because if an American dies overseas, or if an American dies at the hand of another American, or a person dies at the hand of an American, they have jurisdiction to investigate. And they do. And so the hope of Lynette's family is that the Americans are continuing their investigation and that something may actually yield from that. That's the word from the family tonight. I also have a scheduled phone call and interview, hopefully with Brian Hooker's attorney, Terrell Butler. She's been pretty busy as you can imagine, so hopefully I can get a little bit more information from her when we speak. But she's busy trying to deal with him, get him out of jail and get him figured out because he's in jeopardy, right, no matter where you are. Typically there's no statute of limitations on murder if that's what they're looking at. And if they're just trying to collect enough evidence to, to charge him. They just didn't have enough in this time period. You know, there's a short window. You can hold somebody and you can't hold them indefinitely. So that 72 hour extension ended at 7:20pm tonight. Out he went. But where he goes is going to be really interesting. So keep a, a close eye on this podcast and subscribe because I'm going to pop this content out pretty regularly from the Bahamas. And if you like it, please like it because it really does do us a solid. I really do appreciate your support and it does help the podcast. But that's what I've got for now. And I've got to be honest with you, I wasn't expecting this. But the closer we got towards the 7:20pm deadline, the more I thought they got nothing. They're literally going up to the wire because they don't have the goods on them to charge them. Otherwise they'd have done it today. They didn't need the deadline. But when you need the deadline, it's because you're hoping every minute something will turn up and you can actually, you know, effectuated charge that will stick. Because once you charge somebody, that's not indefinite either. There's also a window there. The clock starts ticking. I can't say in Bahamian law that it's exactly like our constitutional right to a, you know, a speedy trial. But since US Law is born of British law and so are the Bahamians, their jurors, their, their criminal procedure, same thing, mostly from the same tree. I would imagine they have a speedy trial statute there as well, or at least a right to a speedy trial. So if you get charged, you have the right to a speedy trial. And if they don't have the goods on you, they got to go to trial with whatever they got. So that's why they don't charge until they know that they can at least get the ball really rolling and maybe make a speedy trial. It's all a game of chess. It's a fascinating game of chess. In any case, I'm really wondering if Brian Hooker is going to stay in the Bahamas. I'm really wondering if Brian Hooker has his passport tonight. I'm really wondering if he's eventually, maybe tomorrow going to jump on the ferry. Long ferry, probably not. Flight about an hour flight about 100 miles to marsh harbor to get back to his yacht, Soulmate. Because at this point, that's his asset. That's a big asset. That's his home. It's his house. They were living. They were living the dream. Sailing into retirement, you know, on. On. On the. On the yacht, on Soulmate. So I'm really wondering what the next 24 hours is going to bring. And 48. But I can tell you this, it's going to bring me to the Bahamas and I'm going to update you all the way along the way. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for watching at my mom's house. And remember, this truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.
- [25:57]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
- [26:06]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner
Hey, everyone. Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
- [26:10]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
- [26:17]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.
- [26:19]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com.
- [26:22]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner
liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.