According to officials, the inquiry into a missing wife who fell overboard while sailing with her husband in the Bahamas is currently being handled as a murder investigation.
On April 4, Lynette Hooker, 55, went missing in the waves after falling from a dinghy in choppy weather off the coast of Elbow Cay in the Abaco Islands, according to her husband Brian Hooker, 58.
A US official gave Fox News a startling update on the case on Tuesday, stating that it was now being investigated as a murder.
The US Coast Guard further stated that it was dispatching a dive crew to examine the waters where Lynette went overboard since GPS data taken from Brian’s phone purportedly revealed that his movements went against what he had initially told authorities.
Investigators said they now think they searched the “wrong area” in search of Lynette, despite Brian’s allegation that he had to paddle for many hours to reach a nearby island after his wife fell overboard.
It happened a few days after authorities announced that detectives had also been given permission to inspect the couple’s ship, the Soulmate, which had been transported to Florida following the accident.
Investigators are scheduled to search their boat, which was confiscated by the US Coast Guard at the beginning of the case, at a warehouse in Fort Lauderdale for any hints regarding her abduction.
Former FBI agent Nicole Parker told Fox News at the time that “any sort of digital devices that you can take, any computer systems that you can extract, anything of that sort [will be taken in].”
On April 4, Lynette Hooker, 55, and her husband, Brian Hooker, 58, were returning to their yacht, the Soulmate, when she fell off a dinghy in choppy conditions.
Authorities will search their boat, which has already been transported to Fort Lauderdale.
“I’ve never harmed Lynette, and I never would harm Lynette, and I want to find Lynette,” Brian told NBC News in April. He has not been charged in connection with his wife’s disappearance.
Terrel Butler, Brian’s lawyer, previously stated to the Daily Mail: “He categorically and unequivocally denies any wrongdoing.”
Following his wife’s disappearance, the husband was first held by Bahamian authorities for five days before being freed without being charged and going back to the United States.
Parker stated that the FBI became engaged in the investigation despite the fact that the case was taking place in the Bahamas since the victim and suspect are both US citizens and their yacht was registered in the US, which “gives the United States jurisdiction.”
According to Brian’s account of the disappearance to the authorities, he and his spouse were traveling in a dinghy toward their sailboat when they encountered choppy waters.
He claimed that about 7:30 p.m., Lynette was knocked overboard when they were paddling against heavy currents.
According to Brian, he paddled frantically for hours before arriving at the island of Great Abaco at around four in the morning.
His timing, however, was called into doubt by a number of people, including a local bartender and the couple’s acquaintance Daniel Danforth.
Iframes are not supported by your browser.
After fresh GPS data from the boat contradicted what Brian had informed authorities, the Coast Guard renewed the search, according to officials.
Brian maintains his innocence and has not been charged in connection with his wife’s abduction.
Danforth stated last month that although Brian claimed to have spent hours searching the waterways for Lynette, he reportedly neglected to tell police about a sophisticated camera called a FLIR system that could have aided in the search.
The camera “would have been my first choice like if I was trying to rescue somebody,” Danforth told Fox News. However, he asserted that Brian did not seem to have informed authorities about it. “I told them about it and they were very interested,” he said. They had never heard of the system being aboard the boat before. Because it had a serial number, they informed me that they will apply for a warrant of seizure.
“I drifted and tried to paddle with one oar for the next seven hours until I washed up behind the shore of the next island over and was able to get some help finally,” Brian wrote in a Facebook message that Danforth previously shared. Brian claimed to have seen his wife swimming “toward the sailboat” before they “lost sight of each other pretty quickly.”
Ken, a 38-year-old local bartender who did not provide his last name, stated last month that he served the husband and wife the night Lynette vanished and that he did not think the timetable made sense.
He claimed that the pair had many rounds of rum and Cokes at the Abaco Inn in Elbow Cay, Bahamas, early in the evening.
Ken initially believed that their experience was unremarkable, but after learning of Lynette’s disappearance, he began to doubt Brian’s account.
Daniel Danforth, the couple’s buddy (seen with his wife), questioned Brian’s account of what happened because the husband failed to disclose the Soulmate’s thermal camera.
Ken, a 38-year-old bartender from the Bahamas who served Brian and Lynette Hooker the night before she vanished at sea, says he doesn’t think the chronology of her disappearance makes sense.
The bartender expressed skepticism about Brian’s claim that he had to paddle across Embow Cay (above) all night after his wife went overboard.
He thought it was “weird” that Brian told the authorities that he paddled through the night to Marsh Harbor, a cove a few miles across from the bar in Elbow Cave, after Lynette “fell overboard,” as he thought it shouldn’t have taken him that long.
“He told the New York Post, “What caught my attention is that they left here at 7:30 p.m., and [her going missing] supposedly happened right after they left here. He didn’t make it over there until 4 a.m. or something like that, in 25-mph winds.”
That way, it’s just four miles. He stated, “Even if he was just floating, it should have been a much quicker time. It shouldn’t have taken eight to ten hours to get there.”
