← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Husband Caught 'Relaxing' While Wife is Missing in Bahamas | Lynette Hooker, Brian Hooker
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- [00:01]
Commercial Narrator
Support is available 247 with VRBoCare.
- [00:05]
Ashley Banfield
We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help.
- [00:09]
Commercial Narrator
Because a great trip starts with the right support.
- [00:17]
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.
- [00:27]
Ashley Banfield
Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
- [00:31]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Oh, no. We help people come customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
- [00:37]
Ashley Banfield
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
- [00:39]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Anyways, get a'@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.
- [00:42]
Ashley Banfield
Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Hey, everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is drop dead serious. Welcome back to the program and welcome back to the story of Lynette Hooker. And I call it the story of Lynette Hooker, because this is her story. There's another guy in the story named Brian Hooker, her husband, but it's not his story, it's her story. She's still missing. And Brian, I don't know where he is at this point. You know, he flew back from the Bahamas after this wonderful live aboard life that he was sharing with his wife, Lynette. They'd been at Sea for four years, living on board their 46 foot catch sailboat. But as soon as she went missing and his whole story. If you've already seen the back episodes, I won't bore you, but effectively, in a nutshell, oops. She just went bouncing off the back and couldn't get her. So. Bye. It wasn't but a minute before he had bounced from the Bahamas and was in Sacramento with his ill mother, he said. And now there's word he's probably not even there. More like Michigan, where witnesses I've spoken to said he was seen up until like four days ago. Are you still looking for Lynette, Brian? Because you did say something like, I'll never leave the Bahamas until I found her. Ma, I have some stuff to tell you tonight. Big stuff. About what Brian was actually up to on the day after he washed ashore at Marsh harbor, four miles away from where Lynette, you know, bounced off the back of the dinghy and I floated all night for nine hours. No, you didn't. Wait until you hear what eyewitnesses have now told us about what he was doing for the two days while everybody was out there searching for Lynette because of Brian's story that she bounced off in two to four foot seas and like, you know, Andrea Gale style storm. If you've watched my other episodes, you know, that's absolute horseshit. There were not two to four foot seas. The sea was not angry, my friend Seinfeld reference. The sea was not angry. Many people have told us it was like glass in some areas and a little wavy and really wavy on the windward side of Elbow Key, but a nice anchorage on the leeward side where he was with Lynette. So this whole business about her bouncing off, sorry, big waves, big wind, then your story just doesn't make sense. If it took you nine hours to float four miles. And it also should have. If the wind, you know, really blew you, the actual wind that mariners have actually researched would have blown you into lubbers. Lubbers quarters. It's a key right across the way. That's where you would have ended up. That's where Lynette would have ended up. That's where her drive bag would have ended up. That's where the thing that you threw to her that isn't even a life preserver but is like a swim floaty. That's where it would have ended up. But, you know, nine hours later, he ended up on Marsh Harbor. Okay, so when you got to Marsh harbor and then the rescuers were all over the Sea of Abaco looking for your wife, and you were making, you know, inquiries about how can I get a boat to help search for Lynette, and you were given phone numbers and names of people to actually call to rent a boat, what do you guys think Brian Hooker actually did with those numbers and those names? Do you think he actually called the guy the name and the number that was given to him about renting a boat. Say it with me now. Nope. Eyewitnesses tell us that not only was he given the name and number of a guy who'd rent him a boat, because he was asking, how do I get one? I gotta help in the search for my wife. Not only did he not reach out to that person, we haven't heard about anybody else he's really reached out to. Now, granted, there's a lot of people in the Bahamas, so maybe, yeah, okay, maybe in Marsh harbor he might have. I don't know. I'm not finding them. But I did find what he was up to. And before I tell you that, I'm also going to tell you in this episode, some more information about weird light activity going on in the vicinity of Soulmate, the sailboat, the 46 foot catch at a time when nobody should have been around the sailboat at a time when he'd have been halfway, if this is his math, halfway floating without an engine, without a, you know, a set of oars. Only one. One broke. Well, baloney. Anyway, if his story is true, which it's not, Halfway to Marsh harbor, he's bobbing along in his powerless dinghy. But there was light activity going on in the vicinity of soulmate, if not on board soulmate and beside soulmate. But let me tell you about the days after Lynette went missing. So Brian swore up and down to all of us that he would never leave the Bahamas without his wife, Lynette. He would never stop searching for her. Right? We all saw that. We all heard that. So, yeah, he's, you know, committed to searching for this wife that bounced out of the dinghy. But on Sunday, when he is rescued from the shores of Marsh harbor, where he washed up right after floating all night long, she bounces out Saturday night at about 7:45 and Sunday at about 4:00am you know, he comes wandering up to the boatyard asking for help over on Marsh harbor. Well, in the ensuing hours, fire and rescue brings him aboard and says, let's go looking for your wife. This is a catastrophe. And, you know, he's with them for a hot minute, right? He's. He's pointing out things and saying, I don't know. I really don't know. I was just so. It was just so confusing. I was just so confused. Bro, shut it. You're a marine. A US Marine. You know, like this. You know, when it goes sideways in a boat, you know what's going on. And p. S, don't you dare tell me that you were hammered because you only had two drinks over the course of about three hours at the Abaco Inn that you just left minutes before. So, no, you weren't hammered. I was just so confused. No, you're not confused in the daylight because it's still daylight at 7:45. Doesn't get dark till 8. You can see perfectly at 7:45. I know, because it was there, right in that spot on that water. So again, tell me why you were so confused when you went out with fire and rescue right off your marooned spot on Marsh harbor, came back over to Elbow Key, and they were trying to say, was it there? Was it there? Was it there? Was it there? Thousand yards to your yacht? Where was it? Oh, he was just so confused. That's about the only searching we think Brian ever did, which was not very helpful. P. S. When they asked what was your Wife wearing. What are we looking for? He said black bathing suit, two piece. That's it? Nothing else? Nothing more? Black bathing suit, two piece. Really? Because we found the photos that show otherwise. She was wearing an aqua green cover up, a bathing suit cover up, and a royal blue conch republic scarf on her head. She had sunglasses and it looked like she might have had a black fanny pack, too. Didn't think to maybe, I don't know, tell the rescuers that. So you weren't really doing much in the search effort now, Brian, were you? And as it turned out, that seems to be the trend in the days that followed because eyewitnesses have told us the next day, which would be Monday, and the day after that, which would be Tuesday. You think he'd be furiously calling those numbers that he was given and asking for the guy he was given and saying, I need a boat. I'll pay anything. I need to rent a boat. I need to go and help look for my wife. Guess what he was doing instead? He was cooling his heels on the porch of the Conch, in for two days, hanging out on the porch while everybody else was out on the Sea of Abaco searching for Lynette. But Brian is hanging out on the porch of the Con can do what now? In the realm of. Are you fucking kidding me? If my husband was somehow lost at sea, I'd be out swimming and looking for him. But, you know, that's just me. I might have even have taken my own dinghy and gone looking, especially around the shores of Marsh harbor, because that's where your whole life was, on a mooring ball at Marsh Harbor. That's where you rent a mooring ball at the Conch Inn. That's where soulmate made it back. You're back on that mooring ball on Monday morning because the rescuer told us he came and helped you get off your hook, your anchor, which you were struggling with because now you're a, you know, you're a lone handler of your boat. You don't have someone up on the windlass, which is the anchor, and you at the helm. So the rescuer helped you and was standing at your helm so that you could go on the windlass and get your anchor off, you know, off of its hook point, and you could move the boat. That was Monday morning. It takes about maybe 40 minutes for you to motor across those four miles to get into Marsh Harbor. So, yeah, by Monday around noon, you're back at your comfort zone and you have your dinghy now, you'd already washed up on Marsh Harbor. So wouldn't you think that maybe Lynette might too? Wouldn't you get that dinghy down from the davit on the back of your sailboat and go out looking around the shore where you washed up? It's not that far. I did it. I went there. It's not that far. In fact, the boat I was in couldn't get as close as the boat you'd be in because the boat I was in drew a lot more depth. Engine went way down, deeper. But your little engine and everything else is only about 6 inches. So you could go real close to shore and be looking for Lynette, but you didn't. You were hanging out at the Conch Inn on the porch, according to witnesses, for two days while everybody else was searching for your wife. That kind of rubs me the wrong way. I don't know about you all. Like I said, if that was my husband out there, I wouldn't be hanging around the Conch Inn. I'd be out swimming looking for him. You want to see what the mooring ball looks like and Soulmate looks like right now in Marsh Harbor? Here it is this morning. And again, I'm taping this on Wednesday, April 29, but this morning I got these images of Soulmate sitting on its mooring ball in Marsh Harbor. Presumably, it has been there ever since. Right. Captain Ronnie, thank you. You have been so incredibly helpful in this story and in this investigation. Captain Ronnie goes to work and passes by Soulmate in Marsh Harbor. So he kindly just took a shot for me to make sure it was still there. And I noticed a couple things on there. I noticed that the. The solar panels are still on there that looked like the paddle boards are still on there. So I was very worried that it might get looted because that is something that locals have told me will happen if people know that. That a sailboat or a yacht or a vessel of some kind is unmanned. And everybody knows this headline, so they know that its owner upscrade to the United States as soon as his, you know, as soon as his passport cleared. And that's another story. But, yeah, I was really worried it was going to get looted and maybe some forensic evidence was going to go, but still there looks like some of the valuable stuff still there as well. Crossing my fingers, you know, that all the things that need to get off that boat, get off that boat. But Captain Ronnie also did me a solid this evening at 7:20 before it starts getting dark, because it's dark by 8. He went and checked again. For me and said, yep, boat's still on the mooring ball. And you know, thank God we get this like feel for where the conch in mooring ball is. It's just off the shore from the conch in. And they, the hookers had a rental agreement to have that mooring ball. And it gives them some privileges, I believe, that they can use at the Konkin. I think they can use the pool and the, you know, the resort facilities. So, boy, were those ever used. And before I go further, I want to just ask you for a huge favor other than subscribing. Thank you. Anybody who might know something, please let us know@dropdeadseriousinfomail.com if you know anything about this. If you think, if you heard something from someone, any tip can get us on a lead. And honestly, a lot of this is getting solved by your tips. It's been amazing how you guys have come through. If you know someone in the Bahamas, particularly Marsh Harbor, Elbow Key, Lubbers area in the Abacos, drop me a line. Drop dead serious infomail.com if you know someone who may have a forward facing camera pointing out from Elbow Key across the Sea of Abaco to Lubbers, that's the key. That is the, that's the video, that's the surveillance video that's going to make a huge difference. If you know anybody who has a rental house, who was at a rental house on Elbow Key on the night of the 4th of April, the night before Easter Sunday. Drop dead serious info gmail.com because they may have been renting it and the rental house may have security cameras that caught exactly what went on at SoulMate. Literally. They're 150 yards offshore, right along that area of Elbow Key all the way from Tahiti beach up to the White Sound Channel. There's houses all the way along there, rental places, vacation places. Maybe you know somebody who was chartering a yacht or a sailboat or a catamaran in the Abacos. Drop dead serious infomail.com if you don't want to talk to me, okay, I'm not upset. I get it. I've been at this rodeo for 38 years. Do me this solid. Reach out to the people at the Coast Guard. It's so easy. And you can do it anonymously. They have an app, CGIS Tips. That's C G I S Tips. It's an app. It says right there, anonymous tips, cgis. The QR code is on our screen. So it couldn't be easier to give us your Information, your tips and your photos and your video. And you can do it anonymously to the Coast Guard. But know this, if you give it to me, I am also going to share my work product with investigators because I think they should have it too. They should have as many clues to this puzzle as I'm able to get. I'm happy to do that because we're all in this together. When someone in our flock, us, they go outside our flock and then attack one of us, well, we're going to crowdsource the solution. We're going to find you and we're going to find the evidence to get you. And that's kind of what I'm doing here. I'm busting my tuckas to try to make sure that Lynette Hooker gets justice because she deserves it. Nobody should be able to wind us up and send us on wild goose chases if that's what Brian Hooker has done. An allegation only at this point, TikTok. But no one should be allowed to do that and get away with it. Costs a lot of people their money, their time, their pain, their suffering. How about Lynette's family? How do you think things are for them right now? Can you just imagine Lynette's mom, her daughter, what they're going through? They don't even know where she is. And this guy, this guy. I'm gonna need somebody with more authority to tell me to stop searching for her. Please, Brian. Tick tock. We're out here and we're not going away. And your tips really help. So please drop deadseriesinfomail.com and something that's really gotten into my craw is that it ain't like Brian Hooker don't know the lay of the land around Marsh Harbor. They'd already been there for about nine weeks, maybe more. And I know that Brian Hooker has like been up close and personal with the shoreline at least around Marsh harbor because I found this video of Brian and Lynette out paddle boarding. And this is a really beautiful video. When you see it, you're going to see total paradise. Like, I want to go on a vacation there. I want you to watch the video and I want you to look at the shoreline of what you're going to see because I'm going to talk about it a little bit. So take a look at this. Coming in for adult beverage and to investigate private beach. I got my own private beach with my sexy husband. Boob cam. The boob cam. I finally found a use for a bathing suit top Right. So finding a private beach, I asked my contacts in Marsh harbor and Elbow Key if they recognized this area, and yes, they did. And they drilled it down to an area. Where do you think? Say it with me now. Marsh Harbor. Okay, Marsh Harbor's big, I know, but they're on their paddle boards, which means you get up close and personal with the shoreline. You can be right offshore. Your little fin is just a couple inches, right? So they're paddling into the private beach and they clearly have been there before and they know that area, which means Brian knows that area. Brian, why didn't you even get your paddle board out to look for your wife? Again, you say that you floated all the way across from Elbow Key to Marsh Harbor, 4 miles, and you ended up on the shoreline of Marsh harbor and your little green floaty was only a hundred yards south of you. Why didn't you take your paddle board and look all along that shore for your wife? Why didn't you take your dinghy and look all along that shore for your wife? Why were you sitting on your ass at the Conch Inn for two days swearing up and down to anybody who would listen that you'll never leave the Bahamas without her. You'll never stop looking for Lynette. It turns out you stopped like a day in. You stopped and sat down and let everybody else keep looking. So timeline is everything here? Okay. On Saturday night, April 4, the night before Easter Sunday, they are at the Abaco Inn having drinks. We have gotten some of the last evidence of them there, right? We see Lynette taking selfies at the pool. We see Brian at 7 o' clock walking down towards the dinghy dock. He says he left at 7:30. Will be the judge of that, when we actually see evidence of it. But okay, that's the night of the fourth. He says hell broke loose, you know, 15 minutes later. And for the next nine hours into Sunday the fifth, he blows across to Marsh Harbor. So Now, Sunday the 5th, he is rescued. He is taken out by Hopetown Volunteer Fire and Rescue. Please give to them. Everything is by donation. That whole volunteer squad is amazing. Please go online and look them up and generously give to Hopetown Volunteer Fire and Rescue in the Abacos in the Bahamas. They pick him up on their vessel. They go out looking. Where did it happen? Here, here, here or here. They even take him to his boat where a police officer who was on board gets on board with him. And then eventually they take him back to Marsh Harbor. And then these nice Fire and rescue people give generously Please. They pick him up again and they bring him to his boat so that he can once again be back on Soulmate. But now he doesn't have a dinghy because the dinghy's still back on Marsh Harbor. So wouldn't you know what? Another fire and rescue guy, Pete calling. Thank you for doing this again. Give generously. Hopetown Fire and Rescue. Hopetown volunteer Fire and rescue Pete brings him his dinghy. Cuz again, these guys think that this guy's been through hell. He's a victim, just lost his wife. So they bring him his dinghy and that's on Monday. Monday is now April 6, okay? They bring him his dinghy. Pete even helps him to get off the anchor, right? To get his hook up off the ground out in front of Aunt Pat's Bay. He goes up, Brian goes up to the windlass and gets the anchor up. Pete's at the helm, you know, backing up and helping get the anchor, get the sailboat off the anchor and then. See you later. Good luck to you. I hope you find your wife. Right? So now he's got his dinghy, he's got his sailboat, he goes back to Marsh harbor around, I'm guessing noonish, because Pete was there in the morning and it's only about a 45 minute trip maybe under power with that sailboat back to Marsh Harbor. Gets on his rented mooring ball and sits his ass down at the conk in for the rest of Monday, which is the sixth, and Tuesday, which is the seventh. And wouldn't you know it, the Royal Bahamian police hook him up, Dano, on the 8th. That's Wednesday the 8th. They put him in a detention cell, right? They take him from there over to Freeport and he falls out of the boat. Remember this crazy story? He's got handcuffs on and he's got his crap. Whatever he's holding, he's like, whoa. Goes out of the boat and they have to jump in and rescue him. Don't ask. I don't get it either. But that is on Wednesday the 8th. So they take him to Freeport, they put him in a detention cell and he's there. As they continue to expand the number of hours and days that they can legally hold him without charging him because they're trying to get enough evidence, I guess, to charge him. But after five days, they don't have enough and they let him go. So that means he's held on Wednesday the 8th, Thursday the 9th, Friday the 10th, Saturday the 11th, Saturday, Sunday the 12th, Monday the 13th, they let him out at 8 o' clock at night there and about dark. And on Tuesday when I arrive, I'm just getting settled and getting my way over to Marsh Harbor. He's sitting down with the three big networks that he thinks are all the rage, I guess, for true crime reporting. They're not. It's podcasting. He sits down with cbs, NBC and abc, and he gives these interviews because his lawyer, I guess, thought it'd be a good idea, or he thought it'd be a good idea, whatever. And he says things like, my sole focus is finding Lynette. I'm going to keep looking out for her now as best I can. My goal is to go back and speak with the Hopetown Fire and Rescue volunteers. I thought you might want to see this little clip from his CBS interview because this is really what he was telling all of us while something else was going on, which I'll tell you in a moment. But here's what he said to cbs.
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Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
You want to keep looking for Lynette?
- [25:27]
Ashley Banfield
I'm going to need somebody with more authority to tell me to stop. I'm going to need somebody with more authority to tell me to stop. Stop. I just had to repeat that because that's not what happened. And apparently that wasn't even what was the plan, because during this whole circus of talking to these three networks on Tuesday, April 14, what do you think Brian was doing in the background? Brian and whoever else, maybe his sister who flew there to support him and her husband, and then his lawyer that he hired locally from Nassau. I don't know who was helping him, but Brian was peddling like crazy under the water. Getting an emergency passport. Yeah, that's what Brian was doing while he's telling all of us, I'm going to need somebody with more authority to tell me to stop searching. Why then are you getting an emergency passport and booking a flight the hell out of there the next day and then getting on that flight the hell out of there the next day? Like what the actual. You're telling all of us through NBC, ABC and cbs, whoever saw those, you're telling all of us my sole focus is on finding Lynette. I'm going to keep looking out for her now as best I can. My goal is to go back and speak with her. Hopetown Fire and Rescue volunteers, please give generously. But you, at the same time on this day, Tuesday, April 14, that you're saying this, you're doing that, getting your passport, your emergency passport, because you knew full well, didn't you, Brian effing Hooker. That you were going to blow that popsicle stand the next day because that's what you did. You got out of there the next day. How's that searchy thing going for you? How your contacts with Hopetown Fire and Rescue going? Because they all tell me you haven't said a word to them. Nothing. Not a word. They haven't heard a word from you. You left them to do all the searching while you sat on your ass on the Conch Inn for two days, according to witnesses. And maybe you couldn't sit one more day at the Conch Inn because you got arrested and thrown in the clink. But boy, did you get busy doing something else the day that you got out. You get out at 8 o' clock at night and the next day you are getting an emergency passport the hell out of there. But telling all of us, I can't wait to keep searching. Can't. Can't wait to keep looking for my wife. Horse. Let me just tell you something, Brian Hooker. If. And I say if, but I really in the back of my head mean when you're arrested and charged with, I don't know, maybe murder, all this shit is going to come back to haunt you. Because all these things are things that juries hate and it makes them hate you. Because you say one thing and you do another and then you say one thing but it doesn't fit with the facts. Those are called bad facts for people who are facing charges. And mark my words, Mr. Hooker, I really believe you are going to be facing a world of hurt because your story doesn't add up, your behavior doesn't match the facts and the reality of what really was going on. You know, at this point I want to stop down for a hot minute because if you're. If you haven't been watching all my episodes up until now, you might be a little bit geographically lost as to where all these places are. So I want to get you up to speed on where everything is because all of this stuff really matters. There's a lot of mentions of Abacos and Marsh harbor and Toluca and Tahiti beach and white sound channel and Lubbers quarters, okay? So I want to get you kind of geographically oriented as to where this story played out. Start in Marsh harbor, okay? That is the harbor where Lynette and Brian Hooker called kind of home. Home base for them because they rented that mooring ball. And if you don't know what a mooring ball is, it's basically a permanent anch. It's got a little ball that floats on the surface. You can just hook up to it and like you can literally hook your boat up to it so you don't have to set your own anchor. It's already set. So they rent that and they rent it from the conk in and they get to use the services of the conk in and then they go on their day excursions. You know what? Unhook from the mooring ball. Let's go over to the fun places like over on Elbow Key. So from Marsh harbor, if you sail east, you can sail four miles from Marsh harbor over to this spectacular key called Elbow Key. On your way, you will pass something called Montage Key. Kind of a new name for an old place that was called Matt Lowe's Key. The reason it was called Matt Lowe's Key is because Matt Lowe was an old pirate. And so that's got some history to it. But Matt Lowe's Key was purchased by a friend of mine and he's doing this amazing real estate development there. So construction. And I'm going to talk about that in a hot minute because lots of you have asked about all the references that Brian makes to Matlo's Key. I'll get there. So again, if you want to come out of Marsh harbor and start sailing east, you are going to sail four miles past Matlow's Key and then you're going to pass Lubbers Quarters. That's also a key, but it's a lot bigger and there's stuff there. People live there and have their homes there and vacation homes and there been some restaurants and bars and stuff. It got really hammered by Hurricane Dorian. So they're still kind of rebuilding a lot there. But you may have heard or seen some of my video from a homeowner named Dean. And Dean is on Lubbers. And Lubbers has obviously one side that faces Marsh harbor and the other side that faces Elbow Key. So if you're heading over again from Marsh harbor, you're going to pass Matlow's Key, you're going to pass Lubbers Quarters, and then you're going to end up in one of the most beautiful anchorages because it's in the lee side of the fierce Atlantic that's blowing from the east. Right. The waves up on the far side on the eastern shore of Elbow Key, they are fierce. The wind is fierce. Not all the time, but a lot. But because that land mass, that key, Elbow Key acts as kind of a barrier. Everything on the western shore is delightful. It's why people throw anchor down there because it is safe harbor. It's safe to anchor. You're not going to get blown to smithereens, you know. So a lot of people will sail over from Marsh Harbor. I think Brian and Lynette figured that was a great idea because they were anchored there on Friday, April 3rd. We've shown you in past videos that they were a little bit north on Elbow Key at a lovely place called the Firefly Inn. I met with Pete calling there from Hopetown Volunteer Fire and Rescue. Please give generously. And he told us all about the day that he spent getting the dinghy back to Brian and helping him get off his anchor along Elbow Key, right? But they. They had been there. Lynette and Brian had been anchored off a Firefly on Friday the 3rd, and they slept at Anchorage that night. And they pulled up their anchor at Firefly at 11:30 in the morning and started sailing or motoring. I don't know which way they decided to travel that day, but if I were betting, man, I think they just motored because they were only going for about 25 minutes. Not even. So I figured they were motoring southward down the key past the White Sound channel, and they dropped their hook, drop their anchor 150 meters offshore. 150 yards offshore in between. Now, White Sound channel and Tahiti beach. Great spot to settle in because you can go south to Tahiti beach and hang out, which Brian said they did that morning of the 5th, Saturday the 5th. Or you can go from your anchorage where you've dropped your anchor north about 12 to 14 minutes or so into the White Sound channel and go to the Abaco Inn, which is what Brian and Lynette did. And then they came out. We know they came out, right, because they had to leave. And there will be video, and mark my words, I'm working on it. But he says once they turned the corner back south towards their boat, the sea was angry, my friend. I mean, this whole bullshit story, right? And you've already seen video that I've showed you on that day at 7:15. You've seen the wind at 7:30. It wasn't that bad. So he then says, I can't get her. I can't even see her head in between the waves. We're getting blown apart by the winds and the current and the tides and bullshit. I throw her the green floaty thing that we sit on on the pontoons of our. Of our dinghy. People say, well, why didn't you throw the life jackets that were in the bottom of your Dinghy that the Hopetown volunteer fire and rescue representative Pete calling saw in the bottom of your dinghy. Well, I can. I do have an answer for that, because life jackets can be very, very light. And if he says it was so windy, you're not going to throw it because it'll just blow in the wind. But this foamy, swimmy thing is like a thick sort of dense foam, and it might have some weight and girth to it, so you might actually be able to get it through a wind. And that might be why he chose to say or throw that thing to his wife, who's blowing away. But I don't know if she ever got it. He says again, couldn't hear her. Well, he says to someone else, I. I called out to her and I heard her. I don't know what she said. Says to somebody else, no, I. I called out. Never heard her voice once. So, yeah, inconsistent. So then he says she went out with her dry bag. Wouldn't you know it? He says, lynette was driving, so she's got her left hand on the tiller. Because I've seen the pictures. She sits on the right pontoon, which means you use your left hand for the. For the throttle and the tiller. So she's got her left hand on the tiller, driving. But why, Brian, if it was so rough and terrible, if the seas were angry, my friend, why was your wife driving? Because she's not normally the driver. She doesn't drive very much, according to her daughter. Why'd you have the. Not regular driver at the helm? You weren't hammered because we already know you only had two drinks each over three hours, so it wasn't like you were so smashed she had to drive. Why'd you have your wife drive if it was. The conditions were so bad. So again, horseshit. But let's just say for shits and giggles, she's driving. Hands on the tiller, your other hand. As a driver, I do this all the time. You would balance yourself with your right hand on the pontoon, just, you know, so you're not like, wobbling around. But he says she bounced out. Well, she's holding the tiller, so. Bounced out, really. And as she bounced out. This is the. This is the richest part of it. This is the part I just can't believe even tried this one on us. As she bounces out, she takes her dry bag with her. No. And somehow grabs the little lanyard that's hanging down from the engine. So she takes her hand off the tiller and Grabs at the lanyard that's holding the electric key and grabs for her dry bag because it's not on her. Nobody drives with their briefcase like dry bagging hanging off them. And every time we see you in your dinghy on all your social media, dry bags are in the bottom. You get in, you throw it in the bottom. You're not going to have it on you or around you when you're driving, especially in rough weather. So, yeah, she bounces out after grabbing her dry bag. It's adorable, right? And grabbing the lanyard that's hanging straight down. It's not the kind you wrap around your wrist. It's not like that kind of kill switch. Yeah, that's why it's such horseshit. And then takes. Takes all the propeller, you know, possibilities away from the boat because now the dry bag's gone. Now she's gone, the key is gone. I can't reach her. He says he tries to row, but then loses an oar. The pin breaks. It's like bullshitter. You took the seat out of your dinghy. We've seen it in social media. That thing comes with a seat and the pins for the rowing. And the fulcrum is so far back, you got to sit on the seat in order to be able to row that boat with your back towards your wife. Right. Again, it's all horseshit. Okay, let's just say you were on your knees. No, again, no. Your anchor is down there and in the way. It's an eight foot dinghy. There is no space for anything. Barely enough space for your feet and your anchor sitting down there. I've seen that too in pictures. You're gonna be like, I'm rowing on my knees with my back to my wife, trying to find. I'm coming, honey. Oh, some people, he's like, got coburger dumb, right? I'm gonna take my own car to the crime. I'll think I'll take my phone, too. Alleged crime. So now he's got no power, he says, and I'm blowing in the wind and I've got. Now it's dark, I can't see anything. And I'm blowing and blowing and blowing. He is blowing, he says, in the easterly wind. He's blowing. He's blowing west now towards Lubbers. That's where all the winds and the patterns and the experts we've spoken to in marine assessment say the wind was really blowing. But no, no, no, he says, I was blowing, blowing, blowing. And then I got to Lubbers, which is About a mile, right. And then I decided to throw my anchor down. Really? And then I decided to shoot off my flare. Really? Not when the emergency was going on a mile back. Okay, and you're a U.S. marine and you're a mariner, a live aboard who deals with like always foreseeing problems. That's what sailing is. I've done it forever. And you always foresee problems. You're always troubleshooting as a sailor and on. You know, in the ocean, if you're in a boat, especially dinghy, you're always foreseeing problems. You're not waiting for a problem and then wondering what to do. Oh, I didn't think to throw down my anchor and jump out and save her Again, none of this shit happened. But I'm just trying to disprove it piece by piece. Okay, so now he's throwing down his anchor at Lubbers, right north of the Lubbers. So you can see that on your map. And through shooting off his flare because he said, I tried to paddle in, but the wind was just so strong. It was just so strong. And the waves so strong. Big, 6 foot 4, US burly marine. I could have done it, okay, but I'll give you that, Brian. Okay, you're weak. Whatever. I'll tell you something else. We've learned that the north side of Lovers is extremely shallow. There's a huge reef, I'm told, that goes all the way out. So, dude, you could have just got out and stood. And if you were really trying to paddle, you'd have hit. You would have hit the bottom, right? Like think it through, fella. But no, no, you couldn't possibly have, you know, saved yourself on Lubbers. You just floated on past it and I guess pulled up your anchor. I don't know, whatever. You didn't just think to maybe stay there right, until daylight and then. Help. Help. No, no, you decided to float yourself even a bigger part of the Sea of Abaco across three more miles to Marsh Harbor. Okay, you pulled up anchor. Whatever. This is preposterous. But that's what he says he did. So now he's floating all the way. He's going to float past that north part of Lovers across really, really shallow reef. He's going to now float past Matlo's Key. It's coming up. He's going to go all the way over onto the eastern shore of Marsh harbor, where eventually. That's where they found the dinghy, right? He walks into the boatyard a couple hundred yards to the north and Says help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Matlow's Key. A lot of you have asked about that and the significance of Matlo's Key other than Matlow was a pirate and it's now called Montage Key. It is under construction and I think by about 20, 27 or 28, it's going to be beautiful, beautiful homes. The real estate developer, I know him, he's fabulous. And I spent some time with him when I was in the Bahamas doing this story, getting all sorts of information, contacts, the whole nine yards. He knows everybody. So I asked Captain Ronnie, hey, Captain Ronnie, do me a solid, go do a zing around Matlow's Key for me. See if you see a green dry bag, an or an aqua colored swim cover up, women's cover up and oh yeah, a body. You know, that would be helpful. Just do a quick, you know, tour if you can. And it's not that hard because it's only about 50 acres. It's actually pretty small. So doing a tour, you can see everything. There's not a whole bunch of foliage on it. It is easy to see this thing, right? Matlow's Key. You can see the whole damn thing. You see the whole construction project right there. And so Ronnie did that. Captain Ronnie, dude, you are something else. Love you, man. He searched and he asked some of the construction workers to keep an eye around as well. Nothing there. But why was Brian telling us to look there again? He swears up and down the wind is blowing that way and maybe that's where her dry bag or whatever ended up. Dude, the wind was actually blowing in a south westerly direction, not a northwesterly direction. The way you say you floated. I think you were with your little electric engine. Then you somehow maybe got rid of your key and your dry bag and all the rest somewhere else. And maybe Lynette allegation, just an allegation. So that's Matlo's Key montage Key where Brian really wants us to have our attention. But my attention is kind of back at Elbow Key and the Sea of Abaco between Elbow Key and Lubbers Quarters. Because that's where the wind would have gone. That's where the dry bag would have gone. That's where the missing ore that broke off at the pin, whatever would have gone. And that is where your dinghy would have gone, Brian Hooker. That's where you would have thrown out anchor on the shores where there are homes and people who could have helped you. Good story though. Certainly made For a lot of investigation for all of us. The Coast Guard, right, They're on this, by the way. Don't even get me started. Coast Guard's awesome. Cjis, Coast Guard Investigative Services, they just today, and I'm recording this again on April 29, on Wednesday, they just got a big conviction in a criminal case they've been working on. So booyah, baby. Nice job. Sejus. They're the ones working on this for the American side. And thank God for that because they are really good at what they do. And then, you know, the Bahamians, they're working on it. I don't know what they're doing because they wouldn't talk to us. I was asking them all sorts of questions when I was up on a dock with them. They're tying up their rib. It's a hot looking boat, by the way. And I'm asking them questions and they're like, they won't talk to me. Okay, fine. But I sure hope you're doing your job. I hope you know what you're doing, right. I'm going to just assume you do. In any case, they had to let him go because they didn't have enough. They didn't have enough on him to hold them. But tick tock, tick tock, Brian. So I hope that map kind of gives you the lay of the land a little bit better because I just want to tell you a couple more nuggets of information that I have learned. So back over on Elbow Key, that's east, right? And on the western shore of Elbow Key, that is where Brian and Lynette dropped anchor at a place called Aunt Pat's Bay. It is a popular place to drop anchor because it's calm and it's a spit over to this amazing Tahiti beach place that's so shallow, you just walk around, you go up these floating bars. It's like a really cool place. And then it's also just a stone's throw the other way to go to the Abaco Inn. But I spoke with a homeowner on shore in that whole area and he told me today that on that day he was there on the 4th of April and said that he and a captain were cleaning a ton of fish on the docks right there in Aunt Pat's Bay, which makes me a little nervous because cleaning a lot of fish, what do you think that means? It means you throw the guts and the detritus, the chum, into the water. And what do you think is attracted by chum sharks? So we have heard that in a couple of the areas over on Elbow Key, like Tolu Cut and Marnie's Creek and Ant Pats, that sometimes there's some fisherman activity, Marnie's Cut in particular. I've heard that a lot of fishermen come in around 5 o' clock and they clean their fish. And over near Tolou Cut, there's some activity there as well that attracts sharks. So that's a concern, knowing that this homeowner told me today that at Aunt Pat's Bay area, out on the docks, he and this boat captain were cleaning a lot of fish that day. Could have been a lot of sharks in that area that day. And in fact, the next day, Monday, April 6, we saw a video from a nice guy named Jonathan who shared it with me, who does a lot of fishing with his dad, Bill. And they were with their captain who has an eagle eye and spotted a tiger shark ahead of them. I couldn't see it on the video until they're right up on it, but there's this huge tiger shark right out white sound channel. So again, maybe some of that chumming in the waters and the fish cleaning on the fifth might have played into this. But again, it's only if you believe that Lynette really went overboard, because I'm telling you, brothers and sisters, I do not. I do not believe Brian Hooker's story because it's preposterous. If you are even the least bit savvy about boating or sailing or ocean stuff, his story is just nuts and just garbage. So I don't believe that Lynette went overboard there. But what if he did something to her? What if they made it back to Soulmate and he did something to her on Soul, because he has a history of being pretty violent with his family and with Lynette. Witnesses say her family says, siblings say he's choked out a 12 year old daughter of his. He's choked out Lynette before, the allegation is, and that Lynette herself sent pictures of her all bruised up on her back because she'd been choked out by her husband, she said to her friend Rachel and took the pictures to remind her not to go back to him, but she did anyway. What if he did something and this time it went too far and Lynette was killed maybe onboard Soulmate. Then he's got a big problem on his hands and he's got to start thinking. And I don't know if he knew about the shark activity. I don't know if others had told him he'd Been there a while, so he might have. He loves to play ignorant, but this guy knows what a slack tide, ebb tide, flood tide, midnight tide, he knows all those things. And then he says, I don't know about the tides around here, but what if he knew about the sharks over on Lubbers quarters, Dean, who was so great and shared that, that surveillance video with us that looks across at the SE of Abaco towards Elbow Key and that fleet that was anchored, including Soulmate, he said that bull sharks regularly patrol his shore over on Lubbers. What if Brian knew that? Because everybody has the same question. If he killed her, where did he put her? I will tell you this about shark activity and this is what everybody there has told me. Sharks don't love us, right? We're not their preferred morsel, we're not their preferred diet. Fish are their preferred diet. Things that live in the ocean are their preferred diet. But they'll always give it a sample. They'll give us a. A chomp and see if we're one of those things that they like. And usually they don't love us. If they're starving, they may go to town a little, but they don't typically take us, take everything. They don't eat us because we're not their preferred meal. And so most people I've spoken to in that area have said if he tried or if anybody tried, or if she fell overboard and was in the water, the sharks wouldn't have eaten everything. Something would have washed up in that area. Sea of Abaco is like a giant swimming pool in the shores and the patterns of the wind, everything would have been in the Sea of Abaco, according to the experts that I've spoken with about it. So sharks aside, shark activity aside, even if that were a reality, she went overboard. Doubt it. Okay, but what if he did something to her and then tried to get rid of her using shark activity? Well, it's a bit of a crapshoot, you know. And if he did do that, there's going to be evidence of that. So I don't think he would have made that choice if he did it again. This is my allegation. This is me gaming what could have possibly happened to Lynette if his story is that preposterous, what's the other possibility? And I just don't think shark activity is the answer. But in the coming episodes, I have a few things that I want to show you. I'm still putting them together, mapping them out, but I want to give you some ideas of things that I've seen explanations that have been given to me about how you might easily get rid of a body. A lot of people say he buried her. Probably buried her on Lubbers. Pros and cons to that, too. If again, he did that, if he killed her and he got rid of her, how did he do it? Don't think that he anchored her and sunk her in the Sea of Abaco. Again, it's like a giant swimming pool. You'd have seen her. And they flew those patterns. Coast Guard patterns. We have them. We showed them to you. They flew the patterns over the Sea of Abaco. Nothing. Nothing there. They took the cadaver dog, Maggie to the shores of Lubbers, the northern part, where he said he was nothing there. But I think they need to go back and do the rest of Lubbers. So, yeah, it's possible. Sure. You could motor over to Lubbers and bury a body there. Sure. But there are other possibilities, too. And I want to bring up something else that we were working on because we. When we got the final picture that we showed you of Lynette at the pool at the Abaco Inn, the people who took that picture were very mindful of this couple. And most people who were in the bar who. They. They can't really see the pool from the bar. They made no mind that the people I asked who worked there that night said, I don't even notice them. It made me think that they were just nondescript and very boring. Nope, nope. The description that we got, and this is in a prior episode, the description that we got from these people who were literally at a table facing the pool and facing the busy and raucous roiling Atlantic, they saw something else. And the words that were used to describe this couple to us was, no, no, no. Nothing normal about them. Or they're in about those words. Right. But nothing normal. There he was, seated in the far southern end of the pool, staring straight out to the ocean, to the waves, to the Atlantic. Right. She is at the northern end of the pool dancing by herself for, like, half an hour. She's taking selfies. We saw that by herself at that end of the pool. But they thought that they were weird and they said we remembered them. They stuck with us, that couple, because we'd seen them before, or at least we'd seen him before. We recognized him and said, that's the guy. So if you heard this before, I want to update this story because I've learned something new. So this group of people who confided in us, they were not interested in going on camera. They were the ones who gave us their photo of Lynette taking the selfie. They said we recognized him from four days beforehand. Four or five days beforehand, they said. They said that they were at a place called Nippers. That's another bar on another island. And again, if you're an island hopper, if you're living aboard, you're doing this stuff all the time. You're going to all these places, and you're sailing or motoring or taking your dinghy or doing whatever. And so this group of people said, we saw Brian. Lynette might have been with him. We don't know. We didn't see her. But we saw this Brian guy because he was bugging us, harassing us, saying, hey, let's party. Let's party at this Nippers restaurant. And then they said he was, like, waving around some violence, saying, come on, let's party or something to that extent. And that's why they said it stuck with us that. That's the guy, that guy who's seated, looking out into the Atlantic. That's him. And that's why they took in the whole scene of this unusual couple spread apart. So far, she's alone, dancing by herself to. To. I don't know if there's music you can hear or not. At the. At the north end of the pool. He's down, facing right out into the ocean. They said, scowling, pouting. They said, pouting, staring straight out in the ocean. Might they have gotten it wrong? Sure. I. I think a lot of those sailing types and fishermen can. Can tend to look alike. You know, little portly, super suntanned, but he's got a USMC tattoo on his left shoulder. I don't know if they could see that from all the way up where they were sitting, but. And again, goatees, gray. It could be a mistaken identity. But their story we heard today might actually have some truth to it, because we got a hold of the bartender, one of the bartenders at Nippers, and what she said was, yeah, I knew that couple. Yeah, I served them on the 28th and the 29th. 28th and 29th. Well, that's the date that this group said they saw him at nippers. At the 29th. They said specifically the 29th, they were partying at Nippers. Now, I do know that that Nippers is super duper fun on the weekends and wild, but not so much at night, mostly in the day. So the bartender says, I served them. I Saw them. They were both there Saturday and Sunday. They were having lunch at a table just off the bar. Now this bartender admitted, I'm busy, I don't see everything. Didn't seem like they were acting weird to me, she said, but they were definitely there both Saturday and Sunday. So we now have them. According to the bartender who knew them and said, I definitely knew that couple, Brian and Lynette hooker on the 29th, which is when this group said that they were at Nippers and this guy was harassing them. So do I know that the story is true? No, not 100%, but there's nuggets that are now we know that Brian was at nippers on the 29th. Bartender recognized him. So just little nugget there about that story. Very, very unusual. Okay, so there you have it. Big episode, lots of information and I ain't done yet. I got a whole bunch more coming up for you in just the coming days, so make sure you subscribe so you don't miss this stuff. I have to re explain a lot of stuff and you'll be, you know, ahead of everybody if you just stay on track. And then also join our membership because we do some stuff that's just exclusive for the members. I have some really fun like meet and greet kind of things online where we do ask me any things and it's just fun. And your questions are amazing and I absolutely love that you're this engaged in this story and all the other stories that we do as well. So huge thanks to you for caring enough to just be this, you know, dialed in. So yeah, just join the membership if you want to be part of our club. Don't forget to subscribe and then hit the like thing. That really helps me too. It's an independent effort that I'm doing now, folks. So whatever you do does really help us. The likes, the subscribes, the memberships. It's all really huge. Thank you so much. I will continue to bring you more news on this. In the meantime, as I always like to say, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.
- [58:46]
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