Michigan couple at center of Bahamas disappearance chronicled sailing adventures on social media
Lynette Hooker bounced around the deck of the docked Soul Mate, smiled into the camera and proclaimed: “We're finally leaving Kemah,” referring to a Texas port town.
“It's only been four months,” she said as her husband, Brian, tugged on some rigging as they got ready to set sail.
The “Gulf Crossing” video more than three years ago marked the start of a sailing adventure — chronicled on Facebook — for a couple who are now at the center of criminal investigations after Lynette went missing in the Bahamas.
A few days after Lynette disappeared, police in the Atlantic Ocean island nation arrested Brian. He denies any wrongdoing in his wife’s disappearance and has been cooperating with law enforcement, his attorney, Terrel Butler, said.
Brian Hooker told police that his wife of more than 20 years fell overboard Saturday night from a small motorboat that was carrying the couple from Hope Town to Elbow Cay, small islands on the eastern end of the Bahamas. He said Lynette, 55, had the keys and the boat's engine shut off.
“Strong currents subsequently carried her away, and he lost sight of her,” police said in a statement Saturday.
He paddled to shore and alerted others early Sunday, said authorities, who arrested and questioned him Wednesday.
The U.S. Coast Guard has opened an investigation separate from the one by Bahamas authorities.
Karli Aylesworth, Lynette's daughter, has said it's unlikely her mother would “just fall” from a boat.
And while the couple is seen smiling, laughing and joking in social media videos of their voyage, they have a history of contention.
Brian and Lynette Hooker accused each other of assault in 2015, according to a Kentwood, Michigan, police report obtained by NBC News.
Brian Hooker, who was intoxicated and bleeding from the nose, told police his wife had struck him multiple times in the face, the report said. He told officers Lynette also was drunk. She was arrested for assault and spent the night in jail. A warrant was denied because it wasn't clear “who started the assault.”
Aylesworth also told NBC that the couple’s relationship was volatile and that they have a “history of not getting along, especially when they drink.”
The couple’s home is in Onsted, about 72 miles (117 kilometers) southwest of Detroit. The closest big body of water is Lake Erie, about 60 miles (72 kilometers) southeast of Onsted.
Lynette Hooker's mother, Darlene Hamlett, said Wednesday that the family “grew up on water” and that her daughter's life has been “near lakes, on boats, sailing and swimming.”
The couple posted videos of their years sailing around the Caribbean on their “Sailing Hookers” Facebook page.
Lynette, in the March 2023 video, describes the start of the couple's voyage aboard the Soul Mate as the sailboat slips through the Kemah, Texas, fog and into the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
“Pretty cool,” Lynette said as Brian blared the Soul Mate's foghorn. Later, while changing an engine alternator belt, he looks up at his wife and says, “Hi sexy.”
In an earlier video, the couple explains how they bought the Soul Mate in the coastal town of Rockport, Texas, and fixed it up.
“After several years of driving around the country, looking for our perfect sailboat, we finally found her in Texas,” Lynette said in that eight-minute video, posted in January 2023. “She was a little rough on the edges. The decks needed to be redone, but we knew we were up for the task.”
That video shows them working together, scraping, priming and painting. “The decks are done! we're still married! party time!” is printed in a message on the video.
A video posted two years ago shows them using their smaller motorboat to buy food on land. The video doesn't give the couple's location.
“We got the grub,” Brian says into the camera, which shifts to a case of beer at his feet and bags of groceries in the bow. “Delivery ... the way of life, man.”
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Associated Press writers R.J. Rico and Dánica Coto contributed to this report.
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