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- [00:01]
A
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B
There is no evidence that she is dead. And so that is an important element that they would have to prove in any charge of murder.
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C
Last week, Lynette Hooker vanished at sea under deeply suspicious circumstances. Her husband, Brian Hooker, was arrested, but was released just yesterday by the Royal Bahamian Police without charges. As this investigation continues, Brian claims Lynette felt overboard and was just swept away by strong currents. Brian says he did everything he could and insists he wants to keep searching.
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D
I won't be able to stop looking. I'm gonna need somebody with more authority to tell me to stop.
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C
But Lynette's mother, Darlene isn't convinced. She says there are still far too many unanswered questions.
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B
Well, he was an excellent swimmer, too. That's why we couldn't understand why he didn't jump in after her or why not row toward the way he saw her go.
- [01:28]
C
Now new text messages, phone recordings and photos are surfacing as a swarm of questions linger around the troubled marriage and Lynette's final boat ride. I'm Lyndon Blake, and you're listening to that's so Criminal. Brian Hooker, the husband of the missing American in the Bahamas, Lynette Hooker, was released from custody this morning after being held for five days. He was questioned about his wife's disappearance, but there wasn't enough evidence to charge him, so he was released from jail. But I want to make it clear police are telling NBC News he is still a suspect in Lynette's disappearance. They just can't hold him for forever in jail when they don't have the charging papers, they can't find property, probable cause to let him go. So Brian briefly, and I mean very briefly, spoke to reporters this morning with CBS and said that he is going to stay and look for his wife.
- [02:37]
D
My goal is to go back and speak with the Hopetown Fire and Rescue volunteers, the search and rescue volunteers. I won't be able to stop looking. I'm going to need somebody with more authority to tell me to stop.
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C
Meanwhile, his lawyer, Terrell Butler, said they were getting ready to leave the area. Well, now we know Terrell has said Brian is no longer doing interviews. He is done as the situation surrounding his wife's disappearance intensifies. Since we last talked, a couple that were sailing, friends of Lynette and Brian shared a conversation they had with Brian after Lynette went missing on their YouTube channel. It is now unavailable. They took it down after he was released this morning, but. But it was up there for several days. And the couple posted the conversation because they said that Brian just sounded relaxed and that it was kind of alarming, his tone.
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E
The wind blew us apart so fast that I think. I think she tried to swim back to the sailboat, back to our sailboat, which was probably, I don't know, thousand yards or something, and the waves were doing their thing. And, you know, I saw her, I think twice I threw her a float flotation cushion that we used to sit on the dinghy, you know, right after she went in. But I didn't. I couldn't tell if she got it or not.
- [04:02]
C
So they release it. And in that conversation, you just hear him describe how nothing went right that night. Everything that could have gone wrong Saturday, April 4, went wrong. And so when you're listening to this story, it seems very chaotic. It seems like there were these waves and winds. And he's said in the phone call, Lynette bounced off the small, tiny eight foot dinghy that can't even go fast at all. So you're not like in a speedboat skipping over waves here. And it just seemed a little bizarre. And a source that's lived in the Bahamas now for three decades, someone that's a local there, very familiar with the water, very familiar with Elbow Key where all this happened, says, yeah, that's not really how it goes in this harbor near Aunt Pat's Bay near Lubbers Island. Elbow Key. I'm listing all these names because it is a very confined area where Brian claims Lynette went overboard. And to say this off the top, this person wants to remain anonymous because they live there, they're locals. But she said that they're not trying to wrongly accuse Brian of anything. They would never want to wrongly accuse someone of doing something horrible like causing their wife to disappear at sea. But they just want the facts straight. So first off, bombshell discovery. Lynette's watch has apparently been found.
- [05:52]
F
Her watch has been found. They are currently doing some investigations on it to read some things, her heart rate, et cetera, et cetera. The area where they found it is, I believe, throwing investigators off a little bit. It is not near where he claims she Fell. The best way to say it is it's north of where all of this occurred, and it's not anywhere near Elbow Key.
- [06:25]
C
I mean, there you have it. It's throwing investigators for a loop here because if there was this strong current and that just took Brian all the way west to Marsh harbor and the watch way north, far away from Elbow Key, then where'd Lynette go? Why didn't she go that way? A lot of people have said as an experienced boater, if there is a strong current, you know, to go with it, not go against it. But what makes things even more weird is this person tells me in this area there's no currents at all. She goes, definitely not rip currents. This is called Under Lee, this bay between Elbow Cay and Lubbers island and the Abaco Islands in the Bahamas. And under Lee means you are safe from wind, you're safe from these elements. It's a safe harbor. It's a calm place. The water's shallow. You can touch and move. Most of the area. It's clear. It's like looking through glass. You can see the bottom of the ocean floor and there's plenty of people around. It is a tourist spot, but it's also a spot where locals go out and you hang out. And it is so confined when you're standing on Elbow Key, you can see the houses across the way at Lovers Island. So I'm just trying to paint this picture because when you first hear the story, you just think this is out at sea. But this is very sheltered by all these barrier islands in the Bahamas. Another point that this source wants people to know is that at the time Brian says that Lynette fell overboard. He said he couldn't find her. He couldn't see her shortly after because it was getting dark. Well, I was on April 4th that night around 7:30, the sun was setting. It's light for about 30 minutes after that. And in the Bahamas, it was light that night. And she said there were scatter clouds, but it wasn't like it was dark at the time. Lynette allegedly, you know, just bounced off the dinghy, fell overboard. Again, this is not a rural area. This is an area where. I mean, to me, if I were to fall off a dinghy, a boat, it would be in a place like this, a place where you could easily swim to shore, especially if you're a strong swimmer. You're not out there castaway. I mean, you can literally see people walking on the beach. That's how close it is.
- [09:20]
F
She was so so close to Elbow Key. And if it's true that the current was moving them west, she was so close to lovers. If the current was as strong as he says it was to have him and the dinghy and the life flotation thing that he threw to her that they found not far from the dinghy, she would have drifted that exact same direction.
- [09:48]
C
Another thing locals are wondering is why wasn't Brian able to call for help? I'm talking about call for help on a cell phone. Because I asked this person straight up that spends a lot of time on boats near this area. She's like, we've never had problems making phone calls. Other people that are in town, tourists that are on boats, they've never ever had issues. You're so close to these islands that are populated that there's cell phone towers. And it's not like an issue where you just can't get a signal. Brian also said that he tried to light flares. But again, when he was explaining this to his sailor friends in this now taken down video, he's talking about how it was just a horrible series of unfortunate events. He said that, you know, he grabbed the flares and they didn't see the flares because there was this boat going by. And after that he just didn't know what to do.
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E
My power boat came by and I, I waved my flashlight on my phone. The neighbor so fast it, you know, it didn't even see. And another one came by right behind it, sort of five minutes behind it. And I had, I grabbed the flares by then came with. I had two flares and they didn't see the flares.
- [11:08]
C
I guess there were U.S. coast Guard planes out still searching the Elbow Key area today. There were local boaters that we're capturing that as the recovery effort for Lynette continues. It's not a rescue mission anymore. It's a recovery mission. They are looking for a body now. In this search, Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney. Let's go get ready for a new case. We're gonna crack this case and prove
- [11:36]
A
we're the greatest partners of all time.
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C
New friends. You are Gary the snake and your last name. Desnake. Dream team Hidden new habitats Zootopia A secret reptile population.
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You can watch the record breaking phenomenon at home.
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C
You're clearly barking at Zootopia 2. Now available on Disney Plus. Rated PG. Obviously unimaginable time for the family. And I think what makes this really hard is there were so many signs regardless of Lynette falling overboard. Or not. There were so many signs that this relationship with Brian and Lynette was not smooth sailing. And looking back now, which is what Lynette's mother, Darlene Hamlet, is doing, what her daughter Carly is doing. It's just there's so many things that you're like, we knew this was a possibility that she may go out on the boat. They've been sailing for years and never come back because there's been incidents in the past where they have gotten in physical fights. According to Darlene on the sailboat, she describes this one time in particular. And the words that she said Brian used are chilling.
- [12:57]
B
But one of the conversations that they had while they were on the boat the next morning is he told her that he wished he had finished the job and thrown her overboard. And the fact that she had left him on numerous occasions before and continued to go back even after she had been hurt was something that was very difficult for me to understand. And I did a lot of crying, and I had to prepare myself for what I thought was someday going to happen unless she finally decided she had had enough.
- [13:35]
C
And Darlene was honest when she said they had drinking problems. They could not handle their alcohol well. And it wasn't just Brian, it was her daughter, too. And the person that I talked with that's in the Bahamas on Elbow Key, said that the big key she thinks in this investigation could be surveillance footage from the Abaco Inn, which is a bar on Elbow Key. And this is where they were spotted earlier in the evening before they got on their dinghy to try to make it back to their sailboat in this harbor. And the woman said that locals down there saying that they knew they were drinking, they were partying, which could kind of change Lynette's good swimmer, you know, description if you're drunk, and that obviously affects that. And this person today that I've been speaking with again says the Abaco Inn should have their tab. There should be an idea of what state they were in when they left that. But Darlene, Lynette's mom, made it very clear that when things were good with this couple, they were married for more than two decades, everything was great. But when they would drink, they would get physical, they would get mean. And she said Brian specifically would get
- [14:47]
B
vicious when Brian drank. Brian could be mean, hateful, say unpleasant things. That pretty much describes him. He also got physical, and it just continued.
- [15:03]
C
Darlene said this is about every year and a half to two year cycle where Lynette would get ready to leave the relationship and Then she would go back. This last time was just a month ago, March 11, less than a month before Lynette fell overboard. Lynette was supposed to get on a plane, fly to her mom's house, and stay with her for a while, try to find the job, because she told her mom she can't take it anymore.
- [15:30]
B
I just can't take anymore. He's so abusive to me. He yells at me and tells me that I'm a terrible wife and no good for anybody and that. Well. And she says, I don't know what to do. And I said, did you ask him to stop drinking? I said, is he drinking again? And she said, oh, yes, he's drinking. And I said, willie, stop. And she said he told her he had no interest in quitting drinking at all. And I said, well, then you know what you've got to do.
- [16:01]
C
Darlene says she's speaking out now for other women to help them get out of situations that are not going well because Lynette just could never get away. But the scary thing is the same feeling Darlene would have every time that Lynette left her home. She would think to herself, this could be the last time that I see my daughter.
- [16:23]
B
Last time that she went when he had choked her and when she has the bruises on her back and took the picture to remind herself she was here at my house in Florida and she was looking for a job. She was going to stay in this house while we were up in Michigan and start over. She didn't want to. She was 50 years old, and she didn't want to start over. She was embarrassed because her marriage was failing, and she went back. Wish it would have come home.
- [16:58]
C
And Brian's alleged abuse wasn't just to Lynette. There are police reports that he abused his daughter. And there's this one specific report which Carlie, his stepdaughter, has touched on, where Brian was upset at one of his kids, and he held his daughter up in the air by the neck over a science book she was reading. This is years ago, decades ago. But that. That mean spirit, as his family keeps describing, has been there, and it's been a pattern. Continue to pray for the family as they search for Lynette and try to find closure to this tragic situation. I know Carli, Lynette's daughter, who has been very outspoken during this entire investigation, is heading to the Bahamas tomor to help find her mother. We'll keep you updated on this case with more episodes and on our YouTube page. I'm Lyndon Blake and you've been listening to. That's so criminal. That's so criminal.