An ex-federal prosecutor, who has penned a book on cases involving missing persons without recovered bodies, emphasized to Fox News Digital that a crucial aspect in the case of a missing American woman is understanding why her husband’s sailboat ceased transmitting location signals on the evening she vanished.
Brian Hooker and his wife, Lynette, embarked from Hope Town in the Bahamas around 7:30 p.m. on April 4. According to Brian, turbulent waters caused Lynette to fall from their dinghy. He reportedly paddled to shore, reaching Marsh Harbour by approximately 4 a.m. on April 5, as stated by authorities.
The couple was en route back to their sailboat, named Soulmate, which serves as their full-time residence in retirement, when the incident occurred, Brian claims. Their social media profiles indicate they frequently sail throughout the U.S. and Caribbean.
Marine tracking data acquired by Fox News Digital from VesselFinder reveals that the Soulmate’s Automatic Identification System (AIS), which provides information on a vessel’s identity, speed, and position, stopped at 9:29 p.m. on April 4 and did not reactivate until 8:40 a.m. the next day, resulting in an 11-hour blackout.
Blaine Stevenson, a friend of Brian’s, informed Fox News Digital that Brian returned to his sailboat with search and rescue teams on the morning of April 5. The Coast Guard Investigative Service is currently conducting a criminal probe into Lynette Hooker’s disappearance.
Tad DiBiase, an experienced former federal prosecutor and author of “No-Body Homicide Cases: A Practical Guide to Investigating, Prosecuting and Winning Cases When the Victim is Missing,” told Fox News Digital that understanding the circumstances behind the loss of tracking data is a pivotal question for investigators.
“I believe there’s evidence that the tracking of the boat was turned off at a time that closely parallels around the time that she went missing. All of those things are highly suspicious,” DiBiase said.
DiBiase said if he were a prosecutor being consulted on this case, he’d want to see a few questions answered.
Here’s the latest on Lynette Hooker, the US woman who vanished after falling off a boat in the Bahamas
“I’d wanna know a lot more about their relationship and then I would want to be very certain that the tracking system was turned off, what time it was turned off, all of that kind of forensic evidence,” he said. “I’d want to make sure that it was very solid and very clear what happened and what the position of the boat was, as opposed to where he said the boat was.”
U.S. authorities recently asked the Bahamian government for clearance to search a new area in the Sea of Abaco for Lynette Hooker’s remains after investigators found GPS data that allegedly contradicted what her husband told investigators on the night she disappeared, CBS News first reported and sources confirmed to Fox News Digital.
A source in the Bahamas told Fox News Digital that the new search, if approved by Bahamian authorities, will focus on an area of the Sea of Abaco with waters reaching 25-foot depths. The renewed efforts are based on GPS data from Brian Hooker’s phone, in which he was using a marine navigation app. The Hookers’ dinghy allegedly visited the same area, a U.S. official confirmed to Fox News Digital.
The Coast Guard seized the couple’s sailboat, Soulmate, in early May and took it to Fort Pierce, Florida, but it was recently moved to Fort Lauderdale, as authorities couldn’t pull it from the water.
Brian Hooker’s Michigan-based attorney previously asked Americans during an interview with ABC News to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“I would ask those watching to treat him the way you would want to be treated, to give him the benefit of the doubt, and to consider that not all of us, nor you, considering your own relationships, the way you speak to one another, we all handle things in different ways,” Crystal Marie Hauser said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Brian Hooker’s lawyer for comment.
