← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Suspected Murder: Coast Guard Returns to Bahamas With Dive Teams | Lynette Hooker Missing in Bahamas
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Hey everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield. Welcome to the Northern Outpost. I'm up in Canada, so get used to this. I have big news. It's official. This is a murder investigation. This is a suspected murder. Lynette Hooker is no longer missing and you know, a criminal investigation. This is a suspected murder investigation. My sources have confirmed this for me. And let me tell you something else. I think Brian knows it. And the reason I think Brian knows it, Brian Hooker, if you're watching the TikTok, is catching up with you. And I think maybe you're watching this podcast because he's hired himself a new lawyer. I always suspected that the one he had before, the one that he got in Michigan, you know, when he did his quick trip back to Michigan and was seen by our spies, that one might not have been ready for prime time because this new one, this new lawyer has, is former doj. So now I think Brian suspects he might be having to fight a federal battle and needed a federal lawyer. Somebody who had some background in, you know, federal litigation. So the TikTok getting closer and closer and closer. And when I say that by the time you see this podcast The Coast Guard cutter Margaret Norville is going to be heading out first thing Tuesday morning. And so those dive teams could actually be in the water by Tuesday evening. I suspect though, actually that the coast guard cutters. 154ft. That's big. It's like if you're not really familiar with ships or yachts and you watch below deck, now you're getting into below deck yacht category with length. But it is not fancy like below deck. It has everything on it. Like it's got a galley, it's got dining facilities, it's got sleeping facilities. But it's not made for comfort. It's made for military styled work. Cause this is the Coast Guard, right. It's a branch of the military. And so it's got a crew of I think 24 people. It can travel at 35 knots. It will probably travel around 20 knots. That's kind of the kind of cruising speed that isn't going to just guzzle the, the gas. It's very expensive to, to drive these, these vessels. Right. Especially with fuel where it is right now. Thanks a bunch. But they're also going to have on board a dive team and members of Segis. I've been talking a lot about sieges. Coast Guard Investigative Service. Can I just scream this from the rooftop? This is not the FBI. I don't know what's going on with these other media outlets that keep saying the FBI. The FBI. The FBI is not doing this. This is an entirely a Coast Guard investigation. Coast Guard Investigative services, sieges, they do stuff like this all the time. They actually, in the 70s were ordered down to Antarctica to like arrest a guy for a shooting there. Because they were the ones that had the jurisdiction. I'm going to talk about that a little later on in this podcast because jurisdiction is so important with the case of Brian Hooker and Lynette Hooker that we can now make certain assumptions as to where Lynette likely died. So there's a couple things that lead us to Soulmate. First, Brian's full of shit that we know. So we can now extrapolate that Lynette was probably killed on board Soulmate. I think they got that dinghy back to Soulmate. There was no bounced off the back. And I floated and floated and ended up on Marsh Harbor. All of that is bullshit. We have GPS data that shows he was in places he shouldn't have been. Doing things that you don't do if you don't have propulsion. Right? If you don't have propulsion and you're just floating, you're floating with the wind and the waves, and you're ending up on a beach or a rocky shore somewhere. You're not doing the things that Brian was doing. And his GPS shows it. Right. Anyway, there's also this notion of jurisdiction. Coast Guard, United States Coast Guard has jurisdiction over cases like this when a US Citizen, or actually any person, is killed on board a US Vessel. Soulmate was a US Vessel registered in Florida. So Coast Guard has jurisdiction when someone is killed on board a US Flagged vessel. Soulmate was a US Flagged vessel. There's another area of federal law, too, where the Coast Guard can assume jurisdiction, and that is when a US Citizen is killed in foreign land. So there are a lot of things that can take the United States government into the Bahamas. Permission was granted, though. They're working in concert with the Bahamians to bring the Coast Guard cutter Margaret Norbel into Bahamian waters. But there's something else. There's a lot of moving parts to this because there are multiple locations that need to be searched. In my theory, and I think a lot of you theorize as well, Brian would have had to get rid of Lynette, probably either burying or at sea. Hey. Oh, hi. There's Chris. Northern outpost. He's been out working all day. And so he would have had to get rid of Lynette, either in water or on land burying. So there are a couple of places where it's possible that he may have sunk her. Okay, the pink weight belt. Not onboard Soulmate. She had a pink dive belt. Right? A weight belt for diving. To our knowledge, at this point, not recovered. And so is it possible Brian used that to sink her? I'm not saying he did anything. He's not charged with anything. But I'm glad he's got himself a good lawyer who knows this stuff. So, because Brian has a bullshit story, it wasn't wavy, it wasn't windy. That didn't happen because the Coast Guard has jurisdiction when someone dies on a US Flag vessel like Soulmate and like Soulmate's dinghy. And because they are now going there, I think we are getting to the point that even though they're keeping very, very quiet, Coast Guard's keeping very quiet about this. I think we're getting to the point where we can fairly say it is very likely that Lynette Hooker died on board Soulmate or the dinghy. But I'm going to go with Soulmate, because if you're out in that dinghy, everybody can see you. If you're on Soulmate, below Deck, nobody can see you. And I dare say it would be hard to hear you as well. So with all of that in mind, the theory that I'm thinking through now, it is more than likely. I've already known. Brian made it back to Soulmate, for Christ's sake. You know this crap story didn't happen. He's a hothead. We know he has choked people before. The allegation being that his 12 year old daughter was choked by him. The allegation also being that they went to court, they had a trial, and a jury acquitted him. It isn't as though this wasn't litigated. The jury acquitted him of choking his 12 year old daughter. But that doesn't mean that she doesn't have that story. Told that story in court. Multiple witnesses told that story in court. His. The way I understand this case, his defense was, is that these were implanted memories. 12 years old. I think that's a stretch. I know about implanted memories with little children in court. Absolutely. But at 12 years old, different. And I also can tell you that child never had contact with Brian again. So you can make your judgment on that. Lynette had multiple complaints to her parents, to her friends about Brian choking her out to the point of losing consciousness. And allegations that he had said to her before I should have finished the job. Photographs of her bruised back, telling her friend, this is where it happened. I got pressed up against the back of the sailboat while he was choking me. She's left the sailboat many times to her mother, saying, I'm leaving him for good. The abuse is terrible. Only for her mother desperately to beg her not to go back. And Lynette went back. Whole other dynamic. We've talked about that with Lynette's mom. She tried so hard. She even consulted battered women's shelters to try to figure out better ways to convince Lynette not to go back to Brian. So that's the guy's history, shall we say? Plenty of allegations of choking and beating and bruising. And Lynette, we know, left multiple times. And we know that Lynette bought a ticket for March 11. Two weeks later, she'd be dead. It's just. It makes me so angry and it makes me so sad all at the same time. Okay, so we've figured out at this point that the likelihood is that now that this is a suspected murder. The likelihood is that that murder happened on board Soulmate. Is it possible that it kind of could happen? Some. Sure. If a US citizen is killed in a foreign Jurisdiction. You can take jurisdiction as well. But there's so much investigation going on around Soulmate. The crime scene tape, the towing it, the seizing of it. And by the way, any minute now, it's going to be hauled out of the water and then put up in dry dock, ready for probably trial, right? Tick tock, Brian. Tick tock. So let's talk now about some of the places that are likely, given Brian's right. And also there are some limitations when you have just a dinghy with an electric motor. Limited hours if you go fast. Fewer hours if you go really slow, like 1 mph. Longer hours. Generally speaking, though, he didn't have that much battery power to go on if he decided to get rid of Lynette. And I don't just mean killing, I mean absolutely getting rid of her body. All an allegation. He's not charged yet, but it is an investigation. So more than likely not outside the Sea of Abaco. Too far, too rough, too difficult to do. Soulmate itself did not move okay, according to authorities who were keeping an eye on it and looking at its history. But there are places on the eastern shore of Marsh harbor that could be accessible and could fit with his timeline. Your next unforgettable experience can happen anytime. Take an AMEX card with you for rewards wherever you go. 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And there are places south of this wash up spot where the Hopetown Volunteer Fire and Rescue eventually got that dinghy offshore. That could be actually pretty good spots to hide a body. Like if you head around which point, north of which point, and south of which point, there are locations there that if I were a betting man, I think you're going to see divers and land search. And to that end, I can confirm to you. Guess who is headed back to the Bahamas. One of my favorite parts of this story has been Maggie. Maggie is the canine cadaver dog from Broward County Sheriff's Office. They've been kind enough to loan Maggie and her handler Chris back to the Coast Guard to do their land searches. And by the way, I told you this in earlier episodes, and I'm still amazed. Maggie smell out decomposition on the water 30ft down. I know I said impossible as well, but I heard it from the horse's mouth, pardon the pun. Maggie and her handler talked to me about the capabilities of Maggie when a body decomposes. And not to get too clinical about this, because it's very sad. We're talking about Lynette. I mean, we are talking about Lynette, this innocent, lovely person, you know, with a family who is devastated. But when a body decomposes, they emit oils, and those oils surface. And so if you're 30ft down, the dissolution of those oils can still get to a point on the surface where a cadaver dog can actually detect and alert. I thought it was incredible as well. So Maggie will not only be sniffing on land, but also likely on water as well. Whether we now, at seven weeks plus, are at a point where that is possible, I don't know the answer to that, but that's Maggie's capability. So Maggie's the only canine at this point that's going to be going over. I thought maybe there'd be others, but, you know, it's not super easy. And these dogs are extraordinarily well trained. They have to come with their handlers. Needs to be paperwork. You're going into a foreign jurisdiction. But right now, we know Maggie for sure is going to be going, and I am told multiple locations will be searched, not just on the water, on land as well. So that eastern shore of Marsh harbor, that's a big focus south of where this mofo says he washed up. GPS is driving a lot of this, but there's also suspected other locations because, again, Brian Hooker, from past history, we know, is a master of disguising his locations and hiding himself because he was fired from AT&T for doing just that jiggering with the GPS device on his work van. They finally got rid of him. They tried multiple times and finally got rid of him on the third round because this was provable. And he made it hell for everybody who worked with him. He made their life hell. He was like the union steward. And all he wanted to do, according to his co workers was fuck with the company. It's all he ever wanted to do, whether it was right or wrong. And he wanted to co opt all the employees to do that. That's the kind of guy we're talking about here. So master of disguising his location. There are some places that they're going to search, likely that may not be GPS located, but just might be sort of smart thinking with bad people's minds. Right. And so we talked a lot about Tolu Cut before. Tolu Cut is one of the places that you can get out to the Atlantic now with an eight foot dinghy. You're not going out into 18 to 20 knot winds in that eight foot dinghy at night. That's kind of a death wish. That doesn't mean that areas within the Tolugh cut that are slightly protected aren't deep. And Dean Zomzyl who's been so great to us, he was the guy over on Lubbers who gave us his, his all night long surveillance video from his home pointing towards Elboqui where we could see all that light activity, the action happening on the spot in the dark where Soulmate was anchored. Dean has told me there is a place and I'll, I'll show you in the map right now, an area in the Toluc Cut area that is 40ft deep. Those are the kinds of things that matter if you're trying to get rid of evidence or people. So these are the spots that I'm guessing the Coast Guard may be looking at. Let's talk about what's really in your makeup. Most of us spend a lot of time worrying about what we eat, what we drink, how we take care of our families. But we cake our faces in makeup full of chemicals that we can't even pronounce. Your skin is your body's largest organ, so whatever you put on it, that's absorbed. And it's why I use Toups and company. Here's what I love. Their liquid foundation and their face primer, they don't just cover your skin, they actually nourish it. Most makeup requires constant touch ups or it leaves your skin feeling kind of heavy and clogged. But this stuff feels incredibly light, doesn't cake, and it actually lasts throughout the day. If you're tired of using makeup with mystery chemicals, you don't have to anymore simplify your routine and actually feel good about what you're putting on your skin. Head to to tupesandco.com banfield they're offering my listeners 25% off your first order with the code Banfield. Again, That's Toops and company. Let me spell it. T-O-U-P S A N-C-O.com banfield tubesandco.com banfield Use the code BANFIELD for 25 off your first order. You can always just click the link in the description, too. One other thing that Maggie's going to do, and this is important because early on when I was over there, I was under the impression that Maggie had searched Soulmate. She did. And the dinghy. They had the dinghy. The Royal Bahamian police force had the dinghy. So Maggie has not searched the dinghy. She has not been able to sniff the dinghy. And she will be doing that if the Bahamians give the permission, which I am imagining they will do. Of course it's the right thing to do. So the Bahamians, I'm sure, will give permission for Maggie to search the dinghy. Here's the problem. If the dinghy has been in the impound outside, there's been plenty of rain in the last seven weeks and it's possible that that potential decomposition scent, if it's there, could be washed away. So there's a, it's a bit of a nebulous factor as to whether the dinghy is going to yield any information, but they sure do need to see the dinghy. And another thing about this location, south of where Brian, so to speak, washed up, not only are there interesting locations where you could hide a body, Maggie the cadaver dog, did not search south of where Brian washed up. She searched a lot of other places that could have been places where, you know, Lynette might have washed up if his story were true or Lynette might have been, you know, placed if his story's untrue. But they didn't search south of where, you know, the, the spot where the boat washed up, south of the, of the boatyard. So that's going to be key for Maggie to actually be able to get on shore on Marsh Harbor's east side. And if you hear the words fast response cutter, that's what the Margaret Norvell is, a fast response cutter. But, you know, at top speed, what, 35 knots, it's fast, but it's not lightning fast. And so there's a ribbon on board rib. Rigid inflatable boat means it's got a rigid hull, hard hull with inflatable, you know, gunnels inside. Well, so they're Going to have a RIB that will be able to ferry everybody around much quicker. The dive team will likely be on that rib. They'll probably use some additional boat support in the Bahamas to get to all these different locations, but they're going to be all over the place and they're going to be very, very busy. But that, that RIB is like, if I could get a boat like on my wish list. It's one of these ribs, right? One of these military style Coast Guard styled ribs. They're just awesome. If you're a boating person, you know, if you know, you know. But the RIB is really like, it's orange. You'll spot it, be easy for us to be able to see once it's in the Sea of Abaco. There's another piece of equipment that this team from the Coast Guard is taking and it's really important. And if you followed the saga of MH370, which was the missing Malaysian Airlines, you know, aircraft that crashed and disappeared with everyone on board presumed dead but not found. ROV remotely operated vehicle. In the case of MH370, we learned a lot about ROVs. The one that they're taking over will be able to look under the water, basically another set of eyes as well as divers. So an ROV can be in one location looking at the bottom and the divers can be in another location. The benefit being that the divers can go deep where you can't see the bottom and the ROV can sort of go underwater and search in other areas as well. So really, really glad to hear that they've got that technology going along with them as well. Let's talk a little bit about the night or morning that Brian Hooker swears that he washed up on shore at Marsh Harbor. Okay, well, we know the location is just south of the boatyard, around 100 yards. Some people say quarter mile, but. But 100 or so yards south of the boatyard. Now we know a lot more about what happened at the boatyard. If you go back to one of my earlier podcasts, you'll know that I had a source that told me he was cool as a cucumber when he walked up to the boatyard. Sure didn't seem like anybody who was in a panic or had just been, you know, marooned and floating for eight to nine hours in a panic that he just lost his wife. Nope, not at all. And the Daily Mail has actually seen the video. So when I had the description of him being cool as a cucumber, I hadn't seen it. With my own eyes, I had a source who had seen it. But now I can tell you a lot more. And I can tell you more than the Daily Mail because I checked back in with my source and got more information. So start with some of the Daily Mail reporting, which is that he kind of approaches the chain link banks of the boatyard, strolling up casually, not seeming as though he's very concerned about much Said this was at 3:35am that's on April 5th, right. This is Easter morning. And he's seen on surveillance video wearing a blue shirt, dark shorts and flip flops, the Daily Mail says. But I can tell you they're not flip flops, they're slides. Because we also had that description from the Hopetown Volunteer Fire and Rescue folks that got him that morning from the boatyard and said he was wearing kind of a blue and white patterned Hawaiian cut styled shirt. The fabric was like a sailors or a boat or a fisherman's kind of fabric and these blue slides. So the description is somewhat similar. A little bit off on the flip flops though because the, the actual eyes on rescuers said flip flops coming aboard. All right. So they continue to say he had a cowboy styled hat on his head, which is interesting because in the photograph that we of Brian Hooker leaving the Yabico Inn the night before at 7pm he's got this hat on. I'm not sure if it's the same one, but it sounds like it's slightly similar in description. He's got a yellow dry bag in the video. We knew this from our witness, but we also know from Jim Todd with Hopetown Volunteer Fire and Rescue that four rescuers on board the boat that took Brian off of the boatyard shore onto their vessel to go and look for where all this happened and start to look for Lynette. One rescuer saw a yellow bag. One rescuer remembers seeing an aqua blue bag. Jim Todd remembers seeing a royal blue bag. And one rescuer doesn't remember any color of the bag at all. So this is just still a fascinating piece. Some memories of different colors, but definitely the yellow dry bag was in that memory as well. On the video, Daily Mail says that Brian is seen speaking in a fairly calm voice, not calling out in a panic. My God, I've just been marooned and I've made my way here and I'm trying to find help. Nope, nope. He's calmly and casually saying, hello, I need help. Hello, help me. But not calling out in any kind of panic. Nothing at all. He apparently is Just, you know, bringing up his hands to wave for attention. But no fear, no concern, nothing to indicate that this is like somebody who's in deep distress. At no point does he seem to raise the alarm at all about the missing wife. Not at all. Not until later when they're discussing with the boatyard employee. So just sort of odd. And I can give you a little bit more description so he doesn't apparently yell. No apparent sign of desperation, panic, or urgency. No mention of the missing wife. Here's what I can tell you from my sources. He's not just checking his watch once, because the Daily Mail says he checks his watch. He's checking his watch multiple times. He's also wandering around and looking behind things very weird. He's wandering in the shadows, but doesn't realize that light is catching him. The way it was described to me is eerie, his behavior. And in his left hand, he's holding something that appears to be like a dark tablet. He does not have that in his hand when he's rescued by Fire and Rescue the next morning and brought onto the rescue vessel with the police officers and the rescuers and the searchers. So what was that? What was that dark tablet like device in his left hand? Did it go into the yellow dry bag by the time that Hopetown Volunteer Fire and Rescue got there? It's just one more little weird piece. What kind of tablet would you be carrying in your hand if the dry bag went out with Lynette with all the important things in it? Hmm? What tablet would there be tablet like? I can't say it's a tablet. It just appears to be a dark tablet, light thing. There's also multiple videos, not just one. So if the Daily Mail saw a video, they may very well have seen a video. There are multiple videos from the boatyard. And again, I can give you this description. My source says you could also say he walked around for quite a while, very nonchalantly looking behind things. No sense of urgency. There were buildings in the area with lights on that he did not seem interested in trying to go to look for help. It looked creepy. Interesting description of Brian Hooker at the boatyard after being marooned with no propulsion, floating in the Sea of Abaco all night until finally he comes ashore. Just an interesting, you know, anecdote that I'm sure if a jury ever gets to see it, they'll think it looks creepy as well. Just an interesting extra piece of color on what the Daily Mail has reported they've seen on the video. This would be a good time to revisit Brian Hooker and, you know, his whole demeanor when he was asked by reporters about this crazy story that he had with Lynette just bouncing out of the back of the boat. And CBS asked him a critical question, which was, do you believe that Lynette is still alive? And with everything we know now, especially since now this is a suspected murder, it's interesting to watch his response. Do you believe that Lynette's still alive? I do. I believe I've been told that people have lasted in the Bahamas after falling overboard for days and even weeks. So there you have it. Wow, this thing is really starting to pick up speed and momentum. Momentum. And you know, for the sake of Carly Aylesworth, that's Lynette's daughter, and Darlene Hamlet, that's Lynette's mother, I really hope that the Coast Guard can get some answers on this trip over the Bahamas. Meantime, we're going to be following developments. We've got eyes on everywhere in the Bahamas. So make sure you tune in. Don't forget to subscribe because then you aren't going to miss any details because these details are coming fast and furious. Thank you everybody so much for listening and for watching. And remember, truth isn't just serious. You thank it's dropped dead serious.