April 13 (UPI) — Authorities in the Bahamas are facing a deadline to charge or release a man being held in connection with the disappearance of his wife at sea.
Brian Hooker, 58, said his wife Lynette, 55, fell overboard from the dinghy they were in on April 5, while holding the boat’s keys.
Brian Hooker said he tried to rescue her, but paddled to shore when he lost sight of her before paddling from Elbow Cay to Marsh Harbor Boat Yard on Abaco Island — about 5 to 8 miles — before notifying police.
Police took him into custody on April 8.
Authorities must decide by 7:20 p.m. EDT Monday whether to charge him, his lawyer Terrel Butler said. She said police didn’t give any new evidence Monday, when they questioned him.
The body of American Lynette Hooker has not been recovered and Brian Hooker has denied any wrongdoing.
“He was uncertain as to why they were questioning him about causing harm or possible murder when they had not given him any information where she is, if they had recovered her,” Butler said after a Friday police interview.
“He definitely denies causing her death, and he still asked about her and is hopeful that she will be recovered,” Butler added.
On Friday, Royal Bahamas Defense Force Commander Origin Deleveaux told NBC News that the search for her continues, by land, air and sea.
CBS News reported that the couple had quit their jobs and began a life at sea, but it didn’t last.
After being married for 21 years, they lasted only six weeks together at sea, Lynette told a friend via text message.
“I guess it was too much closeness. We decided to call it quits. I’m not going back,” Lynette Hooker wrote to Marnee Stevenson, a fellow boater and friend, in 2024.
When Stevenson asked if the two could reconcile, Lynette Hooker said, “It was real bad. I can’t be out there with him.”
But she implied that she returned to him after a month, saying, “Looks like things are on the up and up.”
Lynette Hooker’s daughter, Karli Aylesworth, doesn’t believe her stepfather’s story.
“I hope this was just a freak accident, but I just have a hard time believing it at the moment,” Aylesworth told NBC. “I just want to know the truth.”
“I feel like this was probably preplanned, if anything, like, it doesn’t seem like just some accident,” she said.
Aylesworth told CBS News last week, “I don’t understand how she got the key. Brian’s always driving. So, he basically is in charge of the key. So, the fact that my mom had it doesn’t make any sense.”
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