Transcription
Hey everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is Drop Dead Serious and I have a big exclusive piece of news to share with you regarding the Lynette and Brian Hooker story.
If you'll recall, Lynette Hooker has been missing now for over two weeks. Um, on a Saturday night, a beautiful sunny Saturday night on Elbow Key in the Bahamas. Uh, Lynette was having some drinks with her husband Brian sometime between 4:30 and 7 o'clock and she was never seen again because her husband Brian suggests they went down to the docks and got in their little dinghy, little tiny 8ft dinghy with about a 2 to four horsepower on the back and were motoring out to their sailboat where they'd been living literally in their retirement. They've been living on that sailboat, 46 ft catch that was anchored just south of the Abico in where they were having drinks. And Ryan said they never made it to the sailboat because the waves were two to four feet high. The wind was screaming. It was getting dark. She bounced off the back. They got separated because of wind and current. And I tried. I tried. I even threw her a flotation cushion and you know just it didn't work. She went out with the dry bag and with the key, the electric key that keeps the engine going on a lanyard. She took both those things out with her and the spare key was in that dry bag. And you know, wouldn't you know it, we just I just had to float for the next nine hours until I hit shore over on Marsh Harbor.
So many things to address here. But first, the most important thing to address, and it's the timeline of when Brian said he left with Lynette from the Abico in after having drinks. He says it was around 7:30. It's about a 15 10 to 15 minute uh little dinghy ride from the docks of the Abico in around the corner of White Sound Channel and down the shore of Elbow Key in the Lee side of Elbow Key. Screaming wind over on the Atlantic side, but nice. and usually a lot more calm over on the Sea of Abico side where they were. They only take about 6 in of water, too. So, they can drive over the really shallow stuff. They don't have to go way out. They can just skirt the shore real close where it's protected. But Brian said 2 to 4ft seas. So wavy. It's very, very shallow there. Very, very shallow. But let's just say they're in five feet of water where it's deeper. It's literally it's that cello. Okay. Waves is a little hard to maybe stand, but getting separated from her. Again, I digress. Here's the critical issue.
We saw the last known photo taken of Brian and Lynette and we put it out on this podcast and it was timestamped 6:34 p.m. and they were at the pool behind the Abico in. You could see Lynette was wearing her green cover up. She has her arms crossed. It looks like she's maybe kind of cold because it's windy back there. We've been back there. I have stood back there at that exact time. And it is a little colder cuz the wind is really screaming from the Atlantic onto that shore. That is the eastern shore of Elbow Key. So, it's an east wind coming at Elbow Key. And up over the key on the west side, it's a lot quieter, a lot hotter. Actually, I was sweating on the other side cuz it was still sunny when I was there at 7:00 at night. Still sunny till 7:30 at night. In fact, we've got the sunset picture and this is the photo that's so critical that I want to show you. This is an exclusive picture that we just got our hands on today and it is Tuesday, April 21st. This is a photo that someone who was up in the bar of the Abico Inn where Lynette and Brian had gotten their drinks from, uh, she wanted to see the sunset. So, she took a beautiful sunset picture and it's a live picture. And you know what live pictures are, right? They kind of move for like a second and a half or two seconds. It's a live picture. And she didn't know it at the time because how could she? Um till she heard about this terrible story and went back to see her picture, which is timestamped 700 p.m. as the sun's going down. So at 7:00 p.m., if you zoom in, there's somebody crossing the road leaving the in the Abico Inn bar area. And it appears to be Brian Hooker. Uh Lynette's not with him. Lots of things could be happening here, guys. But it's key first of all to establish he is still on shore at 7 pm.
Originally, Lynette's daughter Carly and her boyfriend Steve had seen a quick uh look at the surveillance video from the Abico Inn and they could have sworn it was somewhere around 6:38 that they could see Lynette and Brian walking down towards the dock. They were on the path. They hadn't hit the road yet. They were walking down towards the dock and that was our last known timestamp for when they might have actually been leaving. And boy was that a lot earlier than Brian says, right? He left the dock at 7:30. Well, this was like almost an hour earlier, which gives you an hour more of daylight, which tells you that, you know, as you're heading out to your sailboat 10 to 15 minutes to get out there, it ain't dark. It ain't pitch black. Can't see her anymore. I lost sight of her. It was so dark. Nope. It blew his timeline away.
So, I'm reeling some of that back in because this photo is at 7 PM. Again, it's a still photo. It's a live photo, but we don't know what happens after he crosses the road. It's a little 30-second walk to the dock where you tie your dinghy up at that point. Did he get in the dinghy? Where was Lynette? Was she back up at the Abico in maybe using the restroom? You go down. I'll meet you down there. She going to use the restroom. Or maybe they walked down and she said, "You know what? I'm going to run back up. I got to use the restroom." It's still a mystery, though. It's one more piece. But this gets us just a little bit closer to when Brian and Lynette, if Lynette uh did get into that dinghy at the dock and start making their way towards their sailboat 10 to 15 minutes away by dingy. So, this photograph is really important.
There's something else in this photograph that's very important to the story, and that is when you zoom in, it's hard to see it when it's a still picture, but when you let the live picture go, you can see he's carrying a yellow dry bag. It's important. The dry bags are going to be an issue in this investigation. He's carrying like a banana yellow dry bag, right? But Lynette is always seen in their Instagram videos carrying a bright green dry bag. In fact, we can see it um in the Florida in the Key West videos. We can see it in the Bahamas videos. If you zoom into the last known photo at the pool over on the Atlantic side of Elbow Key at the Abico Inn, it's hard to make it out, but it sure looks like there's something lime green on the ground to the left of Lynette's sun chair. And it would make perfect sense. She's got her stuff in her dry bag and she's got it down on the ground beside her sun chair. That would make sense. I cannot see the lemon yellow dry bag that Brian uh is carrying off when he's seen in this brand new picture at 700 p.m. I can't see that in the pool picture. But we know this Brian's story and I put the story in heavy quotes as many asterisk as you can fit on there. Brian's story is that he leaves the Abico in with Lynette at around 7:30. So, it's a half hour later than we see him walking down towards the dock and they go out of White Sound Channel and take a left, which would be going now south down the shore of Elbow Key. And the waves are rough and it's getting dark. It is only getting dark at 6:45 at 7:45 to 8:00 p.m. Been there 5 days straight. Measured it every day. The sun does go down, but it's still light until 8. At 8, it's dark. At 8:00, if you told me your wife bounced out of the dinghy and you couldn't see her, now I could believe you because it is dark. But at 7:30 or at 7:45, let's give them 15 minutes to get around the channel and start heading south on Elbow Key. I'll give you 10 minutes. That's all that would take. If you really left at 7:30, and I'm not so sure that's true because I see you walk into the dock at 7. That takes you to about 7:40. Let's say you mucked about getting untied for a little bit. Or maybe you spent a second on the dock or so. Let me just give you to 750. At 750, it's not too dark to see her if she went overboard. It's not too dark for another 10 minutes and you're in pretty shallow water.
So, let's talk about how windy it really was because we've had, remember on all my episodes, I've had varying reports of how windy it was right there. Right there in the Sea of Abico, 150 yards off of shore, right off the western shore, the leeward shore that isn't screaming with wind. I've had one report from the owner of the Firefly Inn who said to me, "It can be 30 knots screaming on the Atlantic side. The wind can be 30 knots and over on the Sea of Abico side on the western side, you could be snorkeling because it's that protected. Hence, it is like a dream for people who throw anchor or just want to find safe harbor, sleep for the night, swim, have fun. It's safe harbor because it's protected from the wind. But that was a report I had not yet heard. It could be 30 knots screaming back there on the Atlantic side and you could be snorkeling on our side. And let's back it up with some pictures from that exact day. How about that?
So, the surveillance and and the reason that Firefly Inn is so important to me is because I had heard from um Fire and Rescue that Lynette and Brian had actually been at the Firefly Inn earlier in the day sometime around 11:00 a.m. and then pulled up anchor and moved southward along the island, not even a/4 mile to where they threw down anchor to get in their dinghy and go into the Abico Inn to enjoy some sun, drinks, etc. So, I went to the Firefly Inn, spent several hours there, and I talked to the owner and I got surveillance video from the Firefly Inn. Interestingly, yes, Brian and Lynette did throw down anchor at the Firefly Inn, but they didn't get into their dinghy. At least we can't find that on video. The dinghy appears to be up on the Davidits, you know, hanging off the back of the boat cuz that's what you do when you're living on your boat. You got to have your you got to have your tender. That's a little vessel that gets you to and from your uh your yacht because you can't get the yacht into the shallow water. Um they never brought that little dinghy, the tender down off the back of the sailboat. And here's the weirder thing. The timestamps of soulmate Brian and Lynette's 46- foot catch sailboat that they're living on, the timestamp of it coming in and throwing anchor down out in front of the firefly Inn is actually the day before. It's Friday, April 3rd, at around 1:30 or so in the afternoon. They come in, they throw the anchor down, but they don't come in to shore and they sleep there. They stay on the boat and they stay overnight. I assume sleep, but they stayed overnight. And the next morning around 11:00 is when they pulled up anchor and pulled out, but they never came ashore. At least that the video shows. Video does not show that tender coming ashore. And the video does not show them in the restaurant. And they ran the credit cards. They don't have anything that suggests um a Brian or Lynette Hooker ran a credit card. I will say this, at the Abico Inn, the New York Post has a reporter who talked to the bartender after I spoke to the bartender and the New York Post reporter added a detail that Brian paid for his drinks in cash at the Abico Inn. So maybe they if they had done anything on land at the Firefly, they paid in cash, but the surveillance video just doesn't show them there. So, and I spent better part of an hour um going over this with the Firefly Inn folks and the owner of the the inn. And it does not appear that they came ashore. Okay. Not critical.
The most critical thing is at the Abico Inn. I've never seen surveillance video so fiercely protected in my life. the general manager of the Abico Inn I've tried every which way but sideways to see that video. Get that video. See the last steps of Brian and Lynette. See what time they got in the dinghy. That's all I really want to see. I want to see what they're wearing and I want to see what time they got in the dinghy. Uh no go. The Royal Bohemian police put the gibbos on it and told the Abico Inn general manager, "You're not releasing this. Don't release it." Don't know why, but they've just done that. So, that's okay. We'll give that to them. But it is just so incredibly fiercely protected. I I'm not sure why. At some point, maybe we'll find out because I think it would answer a lot of questions. I think we would know once and for all what time Brian cast off from the dinghyd dock and made his way towards soulmate. To me, that's kind of probable cause for an arrest if he somehow got the time off by an hour. And I'm okay with not knowing the time yourself, but unfortunately, you can't fight the sun. That's set in stone. That's a fact. The sun goes down at around 7:30 and it starts to get dark, but at 7:45 I could still do a podcast and be lit up. And I did at 8. It is fast. It is fast. It goes from almost light to dark in 15 minutes. But you cannot fight that timeline. You can't tell me you left around 7:30, you know, if the time stamp says you didn't. So that's why I'm so interested in this. If you left that dock at 7:30, the time that Lynette, so to speak, bounced out would have been at 7:40. I'll give you till 7:45. Let me give you an extra 5 minutes. 7:50. It's still not too dark to see her. And Brian said it was too dark. Eventually too dark to see her. I could see her. And then and then he tells all sorts of varying stories. To one person, he says, "Uh, I called out to her and I never heard her." But then to the fire and rescue, he says, "I called out her. I called out to her and she said something, but I couldn't make out what it was." Well, that's different. Also, you threw out the flotation device to her, right? This this flotation device is like a swimming toy. Honestly, it's not really much of a flotation device, and they're sitting on these two things that they've got in their dinghy. They put them up on the on the hull of the dinghy so that either one of them has something soft to sit on. Uh, one of them is green and that's the one he says that he threw to her. I can understand why you might throw that. It's a little heavier. It won't sort of fly away in the wind. The screaming wind. The screaming wind. But there were two life jackets at the bottom of the dinghy when it washed up at Marsh Harbor. Two life jackets. Why didn't you put one on, tie the dinghy to your ankle, and go in after your wife with the second life jacket? What an idea. Didn't happen. Didn't throw the anchor down either to stay in place. Didn't happen. He says he didn't throw the anchor of the dinghy down until he got across to Lepers, which is like maybe I don't know probably 2,000 yards away. It's a long way. And it didn't fire off the flare till it got there either. What? That's nutty. That doesn't make sense.
Let's go back to the wind. So, the Firefly Inn took video with their surveillance cameras of those docks. Here's what it looks like at 7:15. Do you see a screaming wind? This is April 4th at 7:15 at night. I don't know what Brian's story is or what the real story is. We know the photo of him walking down to the dock is at 7 and we know he says it was 7:30. So, I'm going to show you 7:00. 7:15. That is 7:15. Look how calm that water is. Granted, you're coming into a a little bit of a bay here as you come into the Firefly Inn, but sorry y'all. This is not a screamer. These are not 2 to 4 foot waves. I don't even see any waves. In fact, the boat that's going out isn't even spraying anything. It's got no side spray because it's not hitting anything. It's just calmly going out in the bathwater. As it goes out a little bit, there's a ripple that starts, but a ripple is not 2 to 4 foot seas. Again, that's 7:15 at night. Right around the time that Brian is likely getting into the dinghy, according to the video, according to him, it's 15 minutes later. According, you know, to the video, it's 15 minutes earlier. But but you can see it for yourself.
Now, if you want to go up the hill from the view that you're looking at, like go up high on the island so that you can start seeing over the back of the island and you can start feeling the wind coming from the Atlantic. Well, I got that, too. That's at 7:30. And I want you to take a look specifically at the flags because the owner of the Firefly Inn pointed it out to me and said, "These flags aren't even standing at attention." Like you can see the palm trees moving, but the wind is not so fierce that the flags are like rigid, you know, in position at attention. They're kind of fluttering and dropping a little and they're fluttering again and they're dropping a little. That is not a 30 knot wind. That is not even like a 20 knot wind. I don't even think it's an 18 knot wind, which is what some of the reports said the wind was when Brian and Lynette were out there. But you can see for yourself, this ain't a screamer. This is April 4th. This is the wind at exactly 7:30 on April 4th. And you can also see the effect. It's a little harder to see because the digital, you know, look gets a little dirty as you get closer to the water, but there are no white caps out there. There's no 2 to 4 foot seas that I can make out. So now this is the first actual video I have of the sea conditions right in the leeward side of the island on Elbow Key, not even a quarter mile north of the Abico Inn where Brian and Lynette apparently cast off and you know tragedy visited them. Tragedy visited her, but I don't know if tragedy visited him.
So just finding all the pieces of the puzzle slowly has been really hard. It was hard when we were there for the 5 days that we were there. And it's been hard since we've been back. The Royal Bohemian Police aren't saying nothing to no one know how. I've tried. I've tried. Brian ain't talking. Probably smart. But photos don't lie, right? These time stamps on the iPhone, they don't lie. And now we have him walking across the street finally towards the pathway to the dock at 7 p.m. What happened next? Where's Lynette? What happened? What's going on with that dry bag? Where's Lynette's dry bag? Did she have it back up at the end somewhere? Did you do something between the last known surveillance video that Lynette's daughter Carly and her boyfriend Steve saw? They thought it was sometime around 6:38. Well, that's 22 minutes earlier. What happened in between that time? Like maybe their memory could be could be foggy. I'll I'll just give that grace cuz I mean they're going through hell, right? Carly and her boyfriend Steve are going through hell. And Lynette's mom, Darlene, is going through hell. A, they want to know where their mom slash their daughter is. and B, they want to know if Brian had something to do with it.
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I want to play for you a couple of clips now that are really getting under my skin. I'll tell you why. Uh Brian Hooker called the friends of Lynette and Brian, right, and just sort of spewed a whole bunch of stuff. And the people he called were were so were they there was so much information coming their way that they started recording it because they couldn't write it down fast enough. They they just wanted to make sure that they could go back and and list everything out. They were so worried about their friend Lynette, right? So, you know, after a while, they're starting to think something's rotten in Denmark here. So, the recording became critical to them to go back over everything that Brian said. And and these clips that I'm going to play for you are the reason why. So Blaine Stevenson is this friend that, you know, was being downloaded with all this information from Brian and a whole bunch of information he didn't need because what Blaine wanted to know was where were you coming from and going to when this horrible thing happened. That's critical that that information you would want that question, right? The answer that he got from Brian was just a [ __ ] mismatchy halaloo of junk. Just junk. I mean, he starts off with coming out of Abico Inn and turning left out of the White Sound channel and heading south on Abico or on Elbow Key, but then he starts talking about we've been in the harbor and we needed to get out and we went to uh Great Guana Key. Well, that was two days before. Why are you adding all of this [ __ ] information? It has nothing to do with what Blaine wants you to answer, and that is where were you coming from? Where were you going to when your wife bounced off the back of the dinghy? What are you talking about April 2nd for? Right. Just sounds like somebody who just is offering way too much. I don't know. You have a listen.
>> So, where were you guys coming from and going too? Because that's what I couldn't figure out in any of the Facebook articles I was reading like how to do a grid pattern search like
>> I don't really understand the occurrence and tides here. I kind of rely on Hopetown the Okay, so off of a place called Elbow Key and that's called Elbow spelled Elbow K C A Y and uh we were kind of in the middle of the key and there's a place called Tahiti Beach. It's really popular here and it's a beach that dries out at low tide and so a a barge runs up on it and serves drinks all day from there and there's a lot of manor rays will go around your legs and everything and uh all of that and uh so we really like that spot and we had been kind of stuck in the harbor for a while so we were getting out and about and we had to go to a different island called Great Guanaki to refill our scuba tanks and it was going all right and Yeah, I mean it's been a strong easterly and that's what you get here is the trades basically. You know, you're we're at the top of the trades and uh so we were having you know uh basically 20 knot wind steady all day with a couple gusts here and there and where we were anchored was pretty quiet. But when we came out of this bar called the Avico Inn, we came out of the channel and instantly got into the [ __ ] into the chop.
>> Hold the phone. Hold the [ __ ] phone. Did you just hear him say, "I don't understand the current and the tides here. Are you serious? Are you serious? You live on a keelboat?" I'm a captain of a keelboat. Not all the time. I have captained a keelboat 34 foot uh CNC in the Wit Sunday Islands in Australia. I was the captain and the only person on board with me didn't know how to sail. So I know what you have to know to be on a keelboat and I don't live on one. This bro lives on one. You know the currents and the tides. If there's one thing you know on a keelboat, it's the tides, my friend. Because the Sea of Abico is like being in a swimming pool and you're in a keelboat and your keelboat has a big old keel that will bang up on the bottom and tip you over if suddenly the tides go down and you're not in deep enough water. You know the tides. What the I don't understand the currents and the tides here. [ __ ] You've been there five weeks. You've been in the Sea of Abico and Marsh Harbor. this whole area. You've been there five weeks at the least. Okay? You know the current and you sure as hell know the tides or you would not have been coming into the bathtub deep water, right? So, there's one thing I just I call [ __ ] on. But also, you spent the night already right off Elbow Key because I saw you. I saw you at the Firefly Inn. You dropped your anchor on Friday and you slept on board till Saturday and you pulled up anchor at 11:30 in the morning. So, don't you tell me that you don't know the currents and the tides. You dropped anchor and slept. And as a former captain, I love saying that. It's like I did captain a boat, but I'm no captain. A keelbo. Uh you don't sleep because you're so worried about dragging anchor. And if you don't know the tides, you're not even going to drop anchor and you are sure as [ __ ] not going to bed because you don't know if you're going to float and bring that anchor up and float away. So don't you tell me that you don't know the tides, Brian Hooker. You do. So you brag to people that you haven't tied up to a dock for two years. You know the tides. You know the currents.
All right. This next clip, Blaine Stevenson asks a very, very clear and concise question. Were you anchored off of Abico Inn? This is a very easy answer. Yes, but slightly south of the channel that takes you into the Abico Inn there, that I answered it. Instead, you're going to get yet again verbal loggeria from this [ __ ] He just goes on and on and then just starts to throw in like the risk. He starts talking about the people down at Tahiti Beach, you know, quarter mile away who he's bragging to. I mean, listen, a lot of people who live aboard or uh, you know, are cruisers. They they literally live on sailboats and they move around the the cabin. Um, they like to say, "I haven't tied up to a dock in x number of days, months, years." It's kind of a bragging, right? Um, but this guy this guy's now bringing it into the conversation. Don't ask me why. Don't ask me why. his wife is still missing only a couple days. He started to bring into the conversation that, you know, we talk about how risky it is and here I am and I've lost my wife now. What do you know? Really, this is what you want to say to Blaine Stevenson when he just wants to know where were you anchored? Have a listen.
>> So, you guys were anchored outside Abico Inn like by White Sound or Joe's K? Yeah, we were anchored out by uh just we were anchored out I would say a half mile south of the of the channel the White Sound channel on Elbow Key towards Tahiti Beach. It's in a we were at the south end of of something called on Pat's Bay like like California and St. An you know western or St. An. But uh um and we had gone whatever half a mile or so, 3/4 to Tahiti Beach where that's the popular place. Hung out there all day. met people that later this the next few days later um cool people and I I remember you know how it is people that don't do what you and Mar and Lette they think we're [ __ ] awesome and I wax pontypical about having an authentic life and it's authentic because there's risk and then I lost my [ __ ] wife um that same night and probably I feel like the gods were listening And um
>> This guy, this guy, you know, there's the old expression, thou doth protest too much. And what I hear from Brian Hooker is a guy who just can't shut up. He is getting in his own way. And he's talking way too much and adding way too much detail that's unnecessary. And why?
I have a huge favor to ask of you. Huge, huge, and critically important. the American Coast Guard investigators who are working on this case, they need your help and I need your help. So if you were in this area on Saturday night, April 4th, the night before Easter, at any time, do you have video? Do you have photos? Were you snapping pictures of the sunset at the Abico Inn? Because you may have captured images of Lynette or Brian. You may have captured images of their dinghy. There's so much information in those images. So, if you would be so kind, send those images, videos to dropdeadseriousinfo@gmail.com. dropdeadseriousinfo@gmail.com. The link is right below. We're making it easy for you. If you don't want to send them to me, okay, I get it. Send them to cgs.com. It's a website, but if you want, there's a QR code on the screen as well, and they have an app. I'm looking at it right here. They have an app. CGIS tips. Submit anonymous tips. So, CG for Coast Guard, IS for Investigative Services. Um, CGIStips.com or check that QR code on screen. We're going to have the link there as well. If you are watching this and you know someone who's on Elbow Key or you know someone who was there who's just gotten back, check your photos at the Abico Inn between 6:30 and 8:00 at night. If you took pictures from your friend's house of the Abico Sea, send those send those to me and copy them to the United States Coast Guard. you might actually have the one thing that cracks this case.
Hey, listen. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for watching. I have a lot more coming your way. Uh don't forget to subscribe right here, right? And become a member, too, because uh we're dropping stuff all the time. I don't want you to miss these episodes. Go back and check those other episodes that we just did. Five days in the Bahamas. I have so much information about the case in those episodes leading up to tonight and in the next couple of days. I am like this close to a couple of real big kahuna uh factoids and pieces to the puzzle of this case. So, make sure you tune in and I'll have them for you right here. Um, thank you again for being here.