More than a week after his wife reportedly fell overboard in the Bahamas, Brian Hooker remains in custody as authorities face a Monday deadline to decide whether to charge him in connection with her disappearance or release him.
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Brian Hooker, 58, was taken into custody Wednesday, days after he told Bahamian authorities that his wife, Lynette Hooker, fell off the dinghy they were riding on the night of April 4. He said she fell overboard with the key to the vessel, forcing him to paddle from Elbow Cay to Marsh Harbor Boat Yard, where he notified police.
Authorities now must decide by Monday at 7:20 p.m. local time if they will charge him in connection with his wife’s disappearance or set him free, his lawyer, Terrel Butler, said
His detention cannot be extended beyond that deadline. It’s unclear when he may have a court date. Police are set to interview Brian Hooker again Monday, Butler said, though details are not clear.
Brian Hooker was questioned by police Friday for more than three hours at Central Police Station in Grand Bahama about whether he caused harm to his 55-year-old wife, Butler said at the time. He was also asked about his relationship with his wife and their personal life, Butler said.
The lawyer noted Friday that there is so far no evidence or information related to Lynette Hooker’s death. No body has been recovered as of Monday.
“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 the Friday interview.
Brian Hooker has denied any wrongdoing in relation to his wife’s disappearance.
“He definitely denies causing her death, and he still asked about her and is hopeful that she will be recovered,” Butler added.
Lynette Hooker has now been missing for more than a week. On Friday, Royal Bahamas Defense Force Cmdr. Origin Deleveaux told NBC News that the search for her is ongoing. Authorities are searching for Lynette Hooker by land, air and sea.
Deleveaux noted the “serious bad weather” as the search unfolded, echoing what Brian Hooker and others who live on the island have said about the weather causing rough waters that night.
But Lynette Hooker’s daughter, Karli Aylesworth, has questioned her stepfather’s telling of events.
“I hope this was just a freak accident, but I just have a hard time believing it at the moment,” Aylesworth said Thursday. “I just want to know the truth.”
Aylesworth said she didn’t think her mother’s disappearance was an accident.
“I feel like this was probably preplanned, if anything, like, it doesn’t seem like just some accident,” she said.
Brian Hooker “categorically and unequivocally denies any wrongdoing and in particular the allegations recently made by Karli Aylesworth,” according to a statement Butler released Thursday.
The couple had “a history of not getting along, especially when they drink,” Aylesworth previously told NBC News.
But her mother and stepfather were both experienced on the water and had been sailing for more than a decade, she said. They started in a small, two-person sailboat and eventually upgraded to a larger vessel purchased in Texas.
Both Brian and Lynette Hooker have had previous run-ins with the law.
Court records in Michigan indicate that a jury acquitted Brian Hooker of a child abuse charge in 2006. Details on the case were not available.
Lynette Hooker was arrested on charges of assault and battery/simple assault in 2015, though the warrant was denied after “insufficient evidence as to who started the assault.” According to a Michigan police report from that night, both she and her husband accused each other of assault.
As previously reported by NBC News, Brian Hooker detailed the evening his wife went overboard in a phone call to a friend, a recording of which was shared on YouTube.
In the audio, purportedly of Brian Hooker, he says he and his wife were anchored out at the south end of Aunt Pat’s Bay on Elbow Cay near Tahiti Beach, and they went out in a dinghy into the water last Saturday night.
He said Lynette Hooker “basically just bounced off the dinghy” amid a blow of winds around 20 mph.
“We weren’t wearing life jackets. It was sundown, and the sun set like basically 10 minutes after she fell over,” he said.
“The wind blew us apart so fast that I think, I think she tried to swim back to the sailboat, back to our sailboat which was probably, I don’t know, 1,000 yards [away] or something. But the waves were three foot,” he said.
What followed was a “cascade of failures and it’s something I’m never going to forgive myself for,” Hooker said on the call.
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