The husband of Lynette Hooker, a Michigan woman who remains missing in the Bahamas, told her daughter in a voicemail message that a flotation device he tossed to his wife had been recovered after she “fell overboard” from a boat.
Brian Hooker is in custody in connection with Lynette’s disappearance, Us Weekly previously reported.
Karli Aylesworth, who has questioned the story Brian, who is stepfather, told authorities about how Lynette went missing, shared a voicemail message he left for her with CBS News.
“Hello, honey, it’s Dad. I just got a call from Hope Town Search and Rescue, and they found the flotation device that I threw to Mom when she fell overboard,” Brian told Aylesworth, according to the news outlet.
An attorney representing Brian, 59, confirmed to news outlets, including NBC News and CNN, that he was arrested amid the search for Lynette, 55, who went missing from an 8-foot dinghy while sailing with Brian to Elbow Cay on Saturday, April 4.
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After initially announcing her disappearance, the Royal Bahamas Police Force shared in a Wednesday, April 8, news release that a 59-year-old American man had been arrested that evening. Brian was not mentioned by name in the release.
Advardo Dames, the assistant commissioner of the Royal Bahamas Police, confirmed to Reuters that Brian was arrested “for additional questioning based on some probable cause we have.”
According to authorities, Brian told police that Lynette fell from the “hard-bottom” dinghy they had taken from Hope Town to Elbow Cay in the Abaco Islands the evening of April 4.
Brian reported that Lynette had the keys to the boat when she vanished as a result of “strong currents” carrying her away, police said.
Following his arrest, his attorney, Terrel A. Butler, told NBC News that he “categorically and unequivocally denies any wrongdoing.”
Aylesworth told CNN on Thursday, April 9, that she just wants “to know the truth.”
“I don’t want him to be in trouble,” Aylesworth said of her stepfather. “I just hope this was a freak accident, but I don’t want it to just be swept under the rug.”
Brian has not returned a request for comment from Us.
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Brian and Lynette have been married for roughly 25 years and would regularly sail together and share their boating adventures online, their family members confirmed to CNN.
The morning of April 8, the day of his arrest, Brian wrote in a Facebook post that he was “heartbroken over the recent boat accident in unpredictable seas and high winds that caused [his] beloved Lynette to fall from [their] small dinghy near Elbow Cay in the Bahamas.”
In addition to Bahamian authorities, the U.S. Coast Guard is investigating what led to Lynette’s disappearance, according to NBC News.
More than 10 years ago, Lynette and Brian accused each other of domestic violence in an incident that resulted in Lynette’s arrest, according to a Kentwood, Michigan, February 2015 police report obtained by the news outlet.
NBC News reports that after Lynette was taken into custody, a “warrant was denied after ‘insufficient evidence as to who started’” an alleged physical assault.
Aylesworth told NBC News that Lynette and Brian had “a history of not getting along, especially when they drink.”
Aylesworth has started a GoFundMe in support of Lynette titled “Help Find and Honor My Missing Mom.”
“This is to help the search for her or to help lay her to rest,” Aylesworth wrote on the page.
Aylesworth shared how to contact her via email and wrote “if you know anything, please let me know.”
