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Neighbor game.
Ashley Banfield
Oo.
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 1
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.
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Hey everyone. Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
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Oh, no.
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We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together.
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We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
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Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
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Ashley Banfield
Visit your nearby Lowes. Hey everyone. I'm Ashley Banfield and this is drop dead serious. I have some things to talk to you about. And if you are like me and you are loving every minute that a piece of the puzzle goes in to actually put the story together of what really happened to Lynette Hooker as opposed to what Brian Hooker says happened to his wife and by now I think you know, but if you don't. Quick summary. He says in the Bahamas she just, you know, fell off the back of the dinghy and up there she went. Couldn't reach her. Lots of waves, lots of wind, currents, tides. Oh no, I'm a Marine and I couldn't save her. And she went out with the dry bag with the keys and. Oh please. Past episodes will get you right up to speed, but it is basically horseshit. The weather was lovely. We have evidence of that. Pictures, marine reports, witness accounts. It was like glass at the time. He says this horrendous thing happened and everything else after that doesn't make sense either. Floated all the way without any power in his eight foot dinghy, all by himself with one oar and ended up on Marsh Harbor. Well, guess what, my friends? I'll say you're welcome in advance because it is entirely possible that if my theory is correct, which is you're full of shit, Brian. She didn't fall off your dinghy. You made it back to your sailboat soulmate, where you have been live aboards for four years, sailing around, enjoying retirement. I believe you made it back to soulmate, Brian Hooker. And if you did. Guess what, guys? There are lots and lots of cameras on board that boat. So here's what I've been able to piece together based on witnesses, people who've been on the boat, people who have visited, people who have seen, seen social media, people who have received text messages and photographs and all sorts of things. I can tell you right now, on board Soulmate, there were so many cameras, right? If you're a live aboard, it isn't weird to have security cameras because you are sleeping on board your home. And it is pretty easy to just paddle up to someone's home and hold them at gunpoint and clean them out, right? Even kill them, take the boat. So a lot of live aboards cruisers will have security cameras and weapons on board. We've already seen what looks like a samurai sword on board this boat. So that might have been a protective weapon that they had. I, I would want one with a long blade. Keep me away from bad guys. Some have guns, others don't prefer guns. All sorts of reasons. It's sometimes hard to get in and out of, you know, countries with weapons. But, but cameras wouldn't be weird at all. And what I have come to learn, my friends, is that Brian Hooker had lots of cameras all around the outside of his boat because he would call them up on his tablet or laptop or navigational tools so that he could see navigationally where he was going. He could use the images. This is what family members have told me. He could use those images while navigating. So cameras on the master, you know, up high, looking around, cameras on board. And we have discovered, just through imaging, multiple cameras in that pilot house. Okay, so just imagine for a moment. You see lots of sailboats, keel boats, big boats, you know, over 40ft, even 30, that some people live on. They're not covered. There's the above deck and then there's the below deck. Not the TV show, but the real thing, below deck. This particular 46 foot sloop had an above deck that was covered with a hard covering that made it like a pilothouse kind of nice actually. You could be up there and still not be in the elements. You might even be able to air condition it. And I can tell you a little bit about the air conditioner because I finally found the air conditioner that I'd been looking for that Brian tinkered with to get his Heidekey to get into the below deck area of his boat. When the fire and rescue people and the police brought him back to the boat after his calamitous night, I'LL get to that in just a moment, that air conditioner. So in that pilot house, which is above deck, nicely covered, even the. You know, even the helm, the big steering wheel is undercover, which is kind of nice. If it's raining or if it's awful, you can be under undercover. There was a camera that we saw that was positioned at the front of that pilot house, facing the stern, the back of the boat. Now, that was there over four years ago when they were purchasing the boat. We do not know if they kept it there when they purchased the boat or if Brian and Lynette rewired different cameras, different systems. But I can tell you this. Lynette's daughter Carly, was on board that boat in February, and she remembers a camera in that exact position. And I did not suggest it to her. I didn't send her a picture of it. I just asked her if she remembered about cameras on board. And that was where she directed me to a camera that she remembered. And we. Lindsay and I went and found that image of that camera right there, and then said, does this look like the. The camera or the place? And she wasn't sure if it was the exact camera, but that looked like the place where the camera was that she remembers. Up under the Bimini, she called it. A lot of COVID on boats are called biminis, but this is a Bimini, sort of whole, entire Bimini house, pilot house. So there is confirmation that at least in February, there were cameras inside at the front of that pilothouse, facing the stern, covering that angle. And then, wouldn't you know it, when we looked at one of the images that Lynette sent her family, we were able to see what looked like something that might actually be that camera or a camera in that exact spot. Lynette is holding what seems to me to be a Life360 camera. And basically, you can hold a selfie stick, and you can get shots all around you, and it erases the selfie stick. So you basically just have your hands. It looks like you're holding your hands out. And she actually made kind of a funny joke about, these are my big fat hands on Facebook, because she's holding the selfie stick and showing everybody who's in that pilot house visiting. These are family members visiting. These are her dad and her dad's wife and other members of the family clearly in happier times, or at least a happy time. But there is that image that we slowed down on. It's a little hard to see because it's a bit blurry, but you can definitely see what looks like might be a camera in that exact same spot on the windshield facing the stern. But I can do you one better or at least equal. That would not be the only camera that we have been able to find. There is another camera that was sent as an image to her family, just basically as a check in. She did like a screen grab and texted it to her family members saying we're okay. And it is a shot coming from. Boom. The stern looking forward. And in the top left hand part of the image, you can see burned in a logo called Blink. And guess what Blink is. It is a camera. It's a whole system. Friends of Lynette and Brian's have actually told me that they had blink cameras. And so we now know that there is a blink camera at the stern of the pilothouse, facing the bow, facing forward, seeing all the action in the cockpit that is covered by the pilothouse, the Bimini. And there seems to be a camera from the front facing back, kind of gets all angles. I like the back camera the best and I'll tell you why. The back camera facing forward towards the bow, also down low, gives you an image of below deck, things that might have happened below deck. I'm not saying anything happened. Brian hasn't been charged with any crime. But if something happened to let Lynette onboard, Soulmate, as I theorize, is really the truth because the other story he told is bullshit. It is possible that that camera may have caught what happened below deck or if it happened in the pilothouse, maybe above deck. One thing we do know is that we have no reports from people who were close by, close enough to hear the big splash that I told you about. Remember there were some people on shore only a hundred yards away. They were parked just offshore at Aunt Pat's Bay. And witnesses heard a big splash, like a big one. Not an insignificant one, a big one because it registered with them. And also they thought it was after 9:30 at night because it was late enough that most of the din of island activity had had settled down. And it was quiet. It was quiet out in the anchorage where all the boats are anchored. And they heard that big splash coming from Soulmate, which is also fascinating that it stuck with them. I also know that in certain times of the year it's super busy and a lot of boats are anchored out in Amp Pat's Bay. But at this particular weekend, Easter weekend, there weren't that many. So interesting, I guess they were able to get a bead on Soulmate. You can also tell Honest to God. You can tell when one sailboat has liveaboards, as opposed to just a charter or somebody who's enjoying say a weekend or just some time on their sailboat. You can tell the liveaboards because they're outfitted for life, usually with solar panels and tons of gear and all their stuff is on deck, like their paddle boards and their dinghy and their extra water bottles and all that stuff, tons of stuff is above and below deck. When you're a live aboard, you have very little space, like so little, and stowage gets filled up so you end up starting to put stuff on the deck. And so you can usually tell right away when you see a liveaboard and it will register with you. And also if you're going to sleep overnight in Ampats Bay, there's a good chance you're liveaboard, right? Otherwise you'd come back into harbor and get back on the mooring ball or throw anchor and come back to your hotel or whatever it is, maybe your house, you know, whatever it is you do with your sailboat. Some people live on board, some people just have visits, some people day sail even with a keel boat. And some people do like a night over or two nights. But you can tell the ones who live, it's different. So maybe that's how these people in Aunt Pat's Bay knew it was soulmate, where the splash came from. Because they had a beat on it when it was light out. And so when it was dark they're like, whoa, those are those live aborts that's coming right from the direction of those liveaboards. I don't know, I wasn't there. But I am giving you the witness reports that came from very reputable sources. You know, fire and rescue. Jim Todd is one of the best sources anywhere on this particular story because he has firsthand accounts. He lives there, he rescues, and also he's just a really sober minded and honest guy with a ton of integrity. And so these reports that he's been taking
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 1
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.
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 2
Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this your first date?
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Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 1
We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
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Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
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Anyways, get a quote@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 2
Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.
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Ashley Banfield
Visit your nearby Lowes.
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 1
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.
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 2
Hey, everyone, Check out this guy and his bird. What is this your first date?
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Ashley Banfield
Visit your nearby Lowes. Sometimes you look at hearsay and wonder if it's a game of telephone, and other times you say, oh, no. That's a fair assessment. So it is entirely possible if there was activity on board Soulmate well after, there should be no one on board Soulmate because, yikes, I lost my wife and I had no power, and I floated for nine hours and ended up on, you know, the shores of Marsh Harbor. Nobody made it back to Solomon then. So if there's activity on Soulmate, why would that be? I think we all pretty much know why, but cameras could have even caught it. This episode is brought to you by Wild Grain. If you love really good fresh bread but you don't have time to hunt down a bakery, this is honestly one of the easiest food subscriptions I've tried. Wild Grain sends baked from frozen sourdough breads, pastries, and even fresh pasta straight to your door. And everything is made with simple ingredients that you can actually pronounce so it tastes incredible and it's easier on your tummy. Best part is you just pop it in the oven no thawing, no prep, and in about 25 minutes your kitchen smells like a bakery. And don't just take my word for it. They have over 40,000 five star reviews and have been voted the best food subscription box by USA Today for three years in a row. For a limited time, Wild Grain is offering my listeners $30 off your first box plus four free Croissants for Life when you go to wildgrain.combanfield to start your subscription today. That's $30 off your first box and free Croissants for Life at wildgrain.combanfield or just use the promo code Banfield at checkout. Lynette's habit after being out all day and they were they'd been out at Tahiti beach during the earlier part of the day enjoying they actually started off of the Firefly Inn. Beautiful place by the way. They they actually pulled up anchor at 11:30 in the morning at the Firefly Inn and then went a quarter mile down south along Elbow Key and dropped anchor again in Aunt Pat's Bay and then took their dinghy to Tahiti beach to enjoy. I mean Tahiti beach, it is phenomenal. And then got back in the dinghy and headed north. I don't know if they stopped back on Soulmate before they continued even further north and went in to the Abaco Inn through the white sound channel. Right. But they should never have been back on board. Not after all that. And Lynette's habit after a day of being out the salt water and all the rest, according to her daughter who was there in February on board with them, was to get back up on board and probably take a shower, which would mean you would remove your blue Conch Republic headscarf and your aquamarine covered bathing suit. Cover up. And your black two piece bathing suit. Or maybe you'd shower in the bathing suit. Maybe just to clean it off from the salt water. It's possible. But all of that is great. But doesn't top taking her Apple watch off when she gets on board and around dinner time putting it on the charger because her Apple watch was losing battery power. It was getting old and it wasn't holding battery. So she would take it off around dinner time and put it on the charger. Well, dinner time, I don't know, say around 7:30, 8:00 clock because that's the time they would have made it back to Soulmate. If Brian's story's true, they left the abaco in at 7:30. I'm still working on that and they would have been at the dump zone baloney. By 7:40. Not even. And they'd have been at Soulmate by about741, 746. Somewhere in there. And hopefully that watch came off onto the charger into the shower. Hopefully those garments went back in a closet somewhere where Brian doesn't care enough about his wife to actually care about what she's wearing. And I can say that as fact because he told the search and rescuers, oh yeah, I don't know. She was wearing just a black two piece bathing suit, nothing more. Didn't actually say anything about the aquamarine cover up or the blue conch in or Conch Republic headscarf. I sure hope she put those away and that they're still on board the boat. And our photograph that we were able to get from the Abaco Inn showed that she was wearing those things and the Apple watch. So if the Apple watch made it back on board, A, how Brian And B, oh dear Jesus, Brian, that would have connected to your Starlink. Because her Apple watch was connected to her phone and the phone is connected to the Starlink. And the hip bones connected to the thigh bone. And I am hoping every single piece of Lynette is found. She deserves to be found. Not saying Brian killed her. He's not charged with anything yet. But there is a digital trove on board that boat. Cameras alone. Okay, I'll get to the other digital trove that I know about. But I can tell you this as well. It's not just cameras above board. There's cameras below board too. There is at least one camera below board that witnesses have been able to mention. And let's just wonder if that one collected anything. Because remember in the Nancy Guthrie case, she didn't even have a subscription. And yet Google was able to scratch images of that scumbag who took her. What about these ones? What about these cameras? Might they have caught something below deck and above deck? Maybe sounds, maybe images. There's a lot of cameras.
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Ashley Banfield
Tick tock, Brian. Tick tock. What? I don't know. An O to be a fly on the wall of the Coast Guard Investigative Service and the work that they are doing at the Fort Pierce Coast Guard station where they have raided that boat and turned it into a crime scene with crime scene 2 tape images that we were able to gather in just the last few days. And before that, the exclusive images that you can only see here on Drop Dead Serious. Unless someone took them of that Soulmate yacht being towed in by the Coast Guard after the Interdiction off of the shore, 40 miles out. They grabbed it, they towed it in, and then as they got closer to the marina, they actually put Soulmate up side by side and brought it in side by side. It was like a parade. I loved it so much. I was so happy to get those images. I was cheering when I got those images. And thank you to everybody in the marina who helped me. You know who you are. Captain Lou McKenna and Michaela. Oh, my God, you guys. And Greg. You know who you are. Guys, thank you so much for everything you did for us and everybody else who has helped to get information. David and Ronnie in the Bahamas. I'm looking at you guys. Marina in the Bahamas. I'm looking at you, girl. I mean, there's just so many people. There's Pete and there's Nathan, and there's Jim, and there's Ashley, another Ashley, different spelling. And Joe. I mean, all of these amazing people. Aaron and Hope, I mean, you all have helped crowdsource this justice effort, right? Lynette deserves justice, and it's gonna take a village, so. And if I've missed you, I will get you. I. I have been doing lots of kudos in many of my episodes, and I will continue to do so. And I'm sorry if I missed you in this one. Thinking on my feet, and I'm never good at that. But as far as cameras, I do know from witnesses that there were multiple cameras on board. I don't know if they were still there when the raid happened. And all I can tell you from sources everywhere is that that raid was a good one, that it was really good and fruitful and so much stuff that is pushing this investigation further at a rapid rate. So that's what I love. And, you know, I hear you. If you're saying. But, Ashley, I saw one of your episodes before, and you said that Brian Hooker was a master of masking his locations. He was fired, after all, from AT&T. Jigging around with the GPS on his work van and hiding his location. And he did do a lot of networking on that boat because even Lynette said, brian's geeking out networking the boat. And many people have said this guy had weirder and way more electronics on board than anybody else who's a live aboard. He was like to the ninth degree and had a digital graveyard. I mean, I have a real phone graveyard because I'm afraid of getting rid of him. But this guy had a digital graveyard. And to that effect, I know that there were multiple laptops, computers, tablets that Lynette and Brian had. So I don't know how many could fit in that carry on bag or whatever. Brian checked when he bounced out of the Bahamas after promising us all that he would never leave until he found his wife. Liar. Liar. And the other reason I know he's a liar is because you have completely ghosted your family. You know, the daughter that you've basically raised, the stepdaughter that you've raised since she was about three. Carly? Yeah. You haven't contacted her at all. What the hell is that? It's called consciousness of guilt in my world. I don't know about your world. You haven't been charged yet, Brian. Emphasis on the yet. How about your mother in law, Darlene? Not a word to her either. Really? I mean, if we're to believe your story. Brian, you are grieving and this was horrendous. What a tragedy you've been through. You would connect with family. You wouldn't ghost them. So again, these behaviors are the behaviors of killers I've met before. And I've got so much more of that in another episode. But honest to God, the cameras. I just can't stop thinking about all the ways that whatever happened below deck or above deck might have been captured. I mean, crime on cam. Wow, now you're talking my language. And then the electronics, right? This. This just trove of. Of electronics and digital stuff and laptops and tablets. Everything that did exist at one point. Did the Coast Guard investigators get that stuff? Because we saw them carrying a bunch of stuff that looked very electronic to us, putting it into evidence bags, getting it off board, set up a whole table to process all the evidence that they were getting from onboard Soulmate. And you know, Brian didn't have a whole lot of time, if you think about it. He had a couple of days, yeah, but he was under the watchful eye. Kinda didn't have a whole lot of time. And then he was arrested and then he just got the hell out. I mean, I think he was in Freeport, nowhere near the boat in Marsh harbor, and got out at 8 o' clock at night, slept there, did his interviews with all the, you know, cbs, NBC, abc. Look how innocent I am. What a victim. And then gone. Gone to Nassau and out. I don't think he ever returned to Marsh harbor to that boat. So I'm not so sure that the best forensic cleaning job was done prior to the real forensics cleaners coming. Meaning the Coast Guard Investigative Service. Those agents worked for days processing that boat, taking stuff off. I watched from above, below, around paddle boards. We have a team. We have a village. You guys know who you are. You're awesome. And they got some really good stuff. Digital exhaust. We call it digital exhaust. Usually trips up Everybody, even criminology PhDs. You know the idiot I'm talking about? So, told you about the blink camera. I've told you about the Light360 camera that caught maybe another camera. We know about a camera down below. We know about it from witnesses who've been there. It's just a matter of whether they got all of these and whether they can scrape just like they did in the Nancy Guthrie case, any images or sound or behaviors that might have happened on board. And how about this? The connectivity. Connectivity. You get near Soulmate with your cell phone and your Apple watches and whatever else watch you have, it's going to connect. And that's the past. You can't erase the past. If something went sideways down below deck or above deck, you can't erase the past. You might erase the future best you can, but you kind of suck at it. You got fired from AT&T for trying to do that. But it's real hard to erase the past. So everybody cross your fingers and say a collective woosa that the Coast Guard Investigative Service agents who are busting their ass for over five weeks, coming up on six weeks have been able to actually put those pieces in the puzzle. Puzzle's getting real complete. I'm starting to really see the picture, let me tell you. Tick tock, tick tock. Brian Hooker. The other thing Brian was known to have had and done was geek out on apps. Like tons of apps. On his watch, on his app, on his. On his. On his watch, on his tablets, on his computers. He did everything via the apps. You can monitor the water. Like, you know, when you're on board, fresh water is really important. You can monitor that. You can monitor your direction. You can monitor your past, you know, travels, your future travels. You can monitor your electricity. How much do you have left? How much do you still need? What's the solar doing? He was an app geek, which, thank you, Jesus, only helps investigators with digital exhaust because he just might not be smart enough, clearly not smart enough to beat AT T. And I can tell you, not smart enough to beat the feds. That's just going to be my guess here. He's not charged with anything. He's innocent until proven guilty, right? Not charged with anything yet. Tick tock. But those apps could be a gold mine as well, given all the stuff that's on board. That likely Coast Guard investigators got because they brought so much stuff off that, that boat. Which is weird because you think the Bahamians would have, but they didn't. So the apps are going to be amazing. Monitoring all of it. When power kicked on on board. How about that? Because there shouldn't be much if you didn't make it back to Soulmate when your long suffering wife bounced off the back and you couldn't get to her ex Marine. You do not exemplify Semper fi. You do not. Let's just be clear. So power. Yeah. Like what about the power on board? Because if Lynette showered when she got up on board, boom. Power would kick on. Power to move the water and to get it pumping out of the taps in the bathrooms. On board. And I don't know if you just decided to maybe cook something or heat something up. Boom. Power. Open the fridge, boom. Power again, couple times. Power, power, power. Right throughout the day, there'll be little bits of power that are standard and normal all day long. For liveaboards, you know, your freezer, on, off, on off. Fridge a little bit on, off. But when you open the fridge, boom, it's really on. And you open the fridge again for another beer. Really on. There are power events that are really noticeable and these batteries record them. Because I think you'll remember from a prior episode I told you that Brian and Lynette had a lightning strike and had to replace so much of their equipment. The batteries for one, are new and the newer batteries are like a journal. They log everything. Thank you, Jesus. I don't know if Brian knew that. If he didn't. Wah. Sucks to be you, Brian. So the other thing I wanted to draw your attention to, we have mentioned this before, but now it's becoming more interesting to me is that that that electric engine that, you know, Brian swears out, Lynette went, grabbed the lanyard and took the key out with her. And the spare key was in the dry bag that she somehow had, was able to grab or have on her while she's driving in terrible weather. Bullshit. In any case, that engine was not the only engine they had. We've seen lots of, you know, social media pictures showing a different electric engine. These engines have telemetrics. These engines tell you what they've been doing and they connect to. Say it with me, your phone, those telemetrics, they connect to your phone, maybe even your watch. And so what's super interesting is the potential of having that second engine. Do I know if on April 4th, there was a second engine on board? I do not. I just know they had one. They had one in social media. Pictures. And what's key about liveaboards is that you don't throw this stuff out. It's important. Your dinghy is your lifeline, right? It's your life raft, and it is the only way you're getting groceries, really. I mean, you don't. They. They brag all the time about having not touched a dock, right? We haven't tied up to a dock for X number of years. It's a bragging, right? And so you get into your dinghy, you throw down anchor or you grab a mooring ball, you get into your dinghy and you go to shore and you get your stuff, you get what you need. You go to the pharmacy, the doct, the dentist, the groceries, newspaper, milk, butter, cheese, whatever. You do it mostly by dinghy. So that dinghy is your lifeline. And you're not going to swim, right? It ain't like you can walk or ride a bike. Your dinghy is your lifeline. And so having an engine out that doesn't work suddenly is your lifeline. Yes, you could row, sure, of course, But a lot of liveaboards would keep a second engine. And I can see Brian and Lynette keeping that second engine is the second engine on board. Because if I were a criminal and I had done something to someone on board that I didn't want people to know about, I might have swapped those engines out, taken the old one from down below and put it on the dinghy and gone and done my dastardly deeds on the old engine and come back to soulmate and swap them out again. And taken the engine that I did the dastardly deeds with, the old engine and just put it back below deck as though, you know, that's the spare. We never use it. But look, the engine on the dinghy didn't go anywhere.
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 1
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.
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Hey, everyone, check out the this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
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Ashley Banfield
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Ashley Banfield
good life Sleep I just wonder if that second engine is on board or if it's not, where is it? Because that would tell us a lot too. But don't forget, not having the engine doesn't mean that the data doesn't exist. The telemetrics don't exist. On the apps. Brian loved his apps. So I want to bring your attention to something else that's really important and that is scuba gear. There's a lot of scuba gear on board. Soulmate. They both dive. They both have dive tanks. They both presumably have dive weight belts. Okay. And the dude is heavier than the lady, so her weight belt will be much lighter than his. So I sure hope her weight belt is on board because if it's not on board, where is it? Where's her weight belt? I sure hope it's not around her right now. And then to the scuba tanks. Two days before Lynette went missing, she posted going to Guana Key to refill the scuba tanks and showed them grabbing the tanks and taking them in to get them filled. So those are full scuba tanks. Presumably there's no other social media showing them out diving between that time and when she went missing. So those scuba tanks presumably should be full and on board. Right? What would happen if his scuba tank wasn't full and hers was? Lynette really recorded everything. If he's going scuba diving without her, she'd probably take a picture and there better be a really good reason why he'd be emptying a tank if it is empty or using a lot of a tank if it is used without her. Because they did that stuff together. They refilled them together, they went diving. But I'd be interested to find out how much oxygen, how much air is in the scuba tank is in his scuba tank. Because if hers is full and his isn't again on its own. Would that be enough to prove that he did something to her? No, but remember those thousand paper cuts I keep talking about? This one's pretty deep. And as far as weights go, a weight belt for diving isn't the only weight on board. Lynette was fit, she worked out, and she had dumbbells. We've seen dumbbells on board. He's using one to hammer something in on the bow at the windlass, the anchor. That's what brings up the anchor. And she was fit, she used dumbbells. And we've seen them in social media. So I sure hope that the CJIS agents, the Coast Guard Investigative Service agents, look around that boat for the dumbbells, because I could see how a very sick person would use dumbbells in a different way than the way Lynette used them. But they should still be on board because they are pictured again, enough on its own. Probably not together with everything else. Another paper cut now to the air conditioning unit. I've been looking all over because the fire and rescue guys told us that when they came up next to Soulmate to bring Brian back to Soulmate after his terrible night floating alone, you know, stranded, Brian got up on board with one police officer and fidgeted around with an air conditioning unit and then got something out of it. We think it's his heide a key and was able to then get down below. He has since told people that he had to break into his own boat because, you know, the keys to the down below deck were in the dry bag that went out with Lynette. So I had to break into my own effing boat. Poor Brian. Anyway, I have now located that air conditioning unit. I was told it was back near the transom, and I thought, well, maybe that air conditions the. The. The master cabin in the back. But no, it air conditions a pilot house. I saw it in one of the videos that I was able to slow down, and Lindsay, you know, circled it, and there we are. It's. It's there that air conditions the pilot house so that you can sit above deck in hot, hot weather and still stay cool enough. So there's that. That. That unit that I was trying to figure out before that you'd have to have your, you know, hide a key in somewhere that he was fidgeting with. And it just sort of clears up one picture that was a little bit murky. There's another little piece of information that once again, on its own, I don't know, coupled with everything else. Another paper Cut. And that is the weather. I was looking for wind and waves and tides, but I wasn't looking for rain because I didn't hear about rain from anybody, from witnesses. I didn't hear about rain from Brian. Brian sure didn't tell anybody about rain. He wanted to tell us everything else, every little detail ad nauseam, stuff that didn't even matter. He couldn't, couldn't stop himself, right? But one thing he didn't mention was rain. So I guess he didn't get rained on or he would have told us, because he told us everything. And here's the problem for Brian. There was rain that night. There was a little pocket of rain on the Sea of Abaco. And so Brian, in his terrible journey, floating across the Sea of Abaco with no propulsion, you know, slave to the wind and the waves and the currents and the tide that washed him up on Marsh harbor, never mentioned a word about being rained on. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was somewhere else at the time that his story would have had him right there in the rain. Maybe he was somewhere else under power of an engine or oars, in the darkness, doing something other than floating. Maybe he didn't even know about that rain because it didn't hit him exactly where he was at the time that rain hit, where he was supposed to be. Another little piece of information again, another little paper cut. So like I said, all these things all together, they all spell bad facts for Brian, who is not yet charged yet again, yet not charged with any crime, innocent until proven guilty or otherwise. Yep. Tick tock. And there's something else I cannot wait to share with you, and that is we are looking at Brian himself and how he presented himself in all the ways that he did. The emails, the text messages, the voice phone call that he barfed out all over his friends who ended up recording it because there was just so much information coming at them for like 40 minutes, they just couldn't write it all down. So they recorded it and then started to realize the more this guy talks, the more it is preposterous what he says happened. And thank God we now have that recording. And thank God Scott Rouse, who is an expert at this kind of thing, is going over it with us and showing us all the things, all the feels, all the tells, all the things that experts know about the way you present yourself that makes you look everything but the sad morning guy, you know, who wants to find his wife, who has a story to tell that doesn't match, science doesn't match, logic doesn't match anything. Scott Rose is going to go over every piece of that and I cannot wait for you to hear some of the things he has to say and the comparison to 1. Chris Watts Google it if you don't know, but pour yourself a drink beforehand. Thank you everybody so much for watching. I always say this and I mean it. You mean the world world to me and to Lynette's parents and also to her daughter. This is crowd solving at its best. And I always tell you if you have something that you think might help this investigation, if you're in the Bahamas and you know something about April 4th, you have video, you have photographs, anything about Aunt pat's Bay from 7pm right through past midnight, we are easy to find. Drop dead serious info@gmail.com drop dead serious info gmail.com Send us your tips. It helps immensely. I pass all of my work product on to the Coast Guard investigators. I don't want to withhold anything that will help get justice for Lynette and her family. And if you'd like to circumvent me, I totally understand it. You can go and download the app CGIS tips and it's anonymous. That's Coast Guard Investigative Service. They have the app for anonymous tips and they won't share them back with me. So just know that if you decide on one they will keep theirs and won't share with me. If you decide on me, I will be able to use it but also will share with the Coast Guard. Thank you again for listening and watching and being invested in Lynette's story and in her justice. Because remember, the truth isn't just serious, it is dropped dead serious.
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Ashley Banfield
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Ashley Banfield
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Release Date: May 19, 2026
Host: Ashleigh Banfield
This episode continues Ashleigh Banfield's exploration of the suspicious disappearance of Lynette Hooker, focusing on potentially crucial digital and physical evidence aboard the sailboat 'Soulmate.' Banfield brings her irreverent, candid true-crime tone to scrutinize Brian Hooker’s narrative, piecing together witness accounts, on-board security measures, and new forensic developments. The underlying question: Did Brian Hooker's high-tech lifestyle and meticulous outfitting of 'Soulmate' unwittingly leave behind digital breadcrumbs that could expose the truth about Lynette's fate?
Prevalence of Security Cameras:
Key Camera Discoveries:
Implication:
Coast Guard Raid:
Digital Exhaust and App Usage:
Connectivity:
Banfield reconstructs Lynette’s likely evening routine after returning from the beach, using witness accounts:
Potential Evidence from Devices:
Weights and Dumbbells:
Scuba Tanks:
Brian’s Behavior:
Weather Anomaly:
Comparison to Other Cases:
Setting the Tone:
About the Evidence:
On Investigators’ Progress:
On Crowd-Solving:
This episode offers a meticulously detailed assessment of the Soulmate crime scene and the potential for digital and physical evidence to unravel Brian Hooker’s narrative. Banfield’s signature, irreverent, and incisive style focuses suspicion firmly on Brian, highlighting mounting inconsistencies while calling on listener support to help bring justice for Lynette. The integration of crowd-sourced tips, new technological revelations (cameras, apps, digital logs), and physical evidence (weights, scuba gear) signals tightening investigative pressure and a rapidly evolving case.
Ashleigh leaves listeners with a charged warning:
“The truth isn’t just serious, it is drop dead serious.” (43:22)
Tips or Relevant Information?
Contact: dropdeadseriousinfo@gmail.com or the anonymous CGIS Tips app.