Transcription
Hey everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is Drop Deadad Serious and welcome to Hopetown Inn in Marina where I am in uh Elbow Key in the Bahamas. Um, if you know this area, it is just, I mean, it's paradise, but there has been trouble in paradise. And let me tell you, maybe it's better to say there's been paradise lost. Um, because we are on the fourth day of our investigation here um in the Abacose, you know, in the islands north of Nassau, north of New Providence and it is tough going to get information here. It's tough. It's tough to get information from the Royal Bahamian Police and it's tough to get information from locals because not everybody uh, you know, trusts the media and um, not everybody wants to talk either. But we have found out a few things that we need to bring you today. um, particularly, we now have the last known photo at this point of Lynette Hooker uh alive and it was taken just minutes before she and her husband Brian Hooker left the resort that they were spending some time having drinks at just in late afternoon on April the 4th, a Saturday evening. Uh, there's so much information though in this photograph, particularly timestamp, the clothing worn, body language, what they were doing. But I'm going even further than the photo. And I'm going to talk to the bartender who served them the last drinks. He's got some things to say, and he's clearing up a bunch of facts, too, because boy oh boy, the rumor mill gets spread here, and the worker that told me what their drinks were wasn't quite accurate. But the bartender will uh clear that up. But more to the photo now. um, this is the pool area that Brian and Lynette Hooker came to visit at about 4:30 in the afternoon on Saturday, April the 4th. Uh, as you know well by now, they threw their anchor down on their yacht, Soulmate. And may I just stop down for a moment and remark on just how how sad it is that the yacht that this couple shared was called Soulmate. Soulmate. Because the investigation at this point, and I will say it's an investigation. He's still considered a suspect. Um, >> and that is from the authorities here in the Bahamas. Uh, the investigation's ongoing, right? And to think if it's possible that your soulmate could uh could do what, you know, at one point Brian was alleged to have done when he was under suspicion and uh and and being held in detention. He's not been charged with anything. He's back in the United States. He's actually in Sacramento. I'll talk about that in a minute. But um, so back to the photograph. So Lynette is wearing a black bathing suit. You can see if you zoom in and a green coverup. I have checked this with Lynette's daughter and um, and Lynette's daughter's boyfriend, Stephen. And they both say that's that's Brian and Lynette. You can tell by the USMC tattoo on his left shoulder. And that is definitely Lynette. And we've seen that bathing suit cover up or at least what looks like it in a lot of their um videos on their social media videos. So, she's got the cover up on. And what's so significant about that is that Brian never mentioned the bathing suit cover up when he was talking to the authorities when he was talking to fire and rescue. He just said she was wearing a two-piece black bathing suit and it wasn't a bikini. Lynette's daughter, Carly, told me it was more like a two-piece black bathing suit that, you know, kind of looks like a one piece, but it is two pieces. That's all Brian said. Brian said it's a two-piece black bathing suit, but he didn't say she was wearing a green cover up over it. And now from the picture, you can clearly see that she's wearing something else that he didn't mention to the police. Also the timestamp on the photograph and I have to tell you this photograph um how I got it. First of all, I'd heard about the photograph and lots of people here talk. In fact, there's a boat just back here. Actually, it's just out of out of um, let me let me just turn it this way. See the blue hull right right there? The blue hull on that boat. Folks on that boat had told me about the photograph, but they wouldn't give me the name of the guy who had the photograph. It's like double secret probation. But anyway, I poked around a lot. Uh, and last night really, really late, I was able to get this photograph from a local local fisherman named Joe. And by the way, that's a wahoo that he's holding. Um, he spends a lot of time out on the water and everybody knows him. He's been here for a long time. He's an American guy who lives here now. And um, and Joe was taking a picture for his mom. His mom had texted him and he went out cuz it was a beautiful night. And he took a picture of the pool and the waves and the wind and he texted it to his mom. He took two pictures actually. Uh, one is a little more clear when you zero in to um Brian. You can see his tattoo a little bit more clearly. But it wasn't until the next day that Joe realized, hold it. I think I have a picture of them. And the time stamp is 6:34 p.m. 6:34 p.m. We know that Brian and Lynette are still at the pool. And um, and the bartender corroborates that as well, tells me that he served them their last drink at about uh between 6:00 and 6:30. There is surveillance video and the Royal Bahamian uh police force is being very, very strict and very KY. They are not allowing the general manager of the Abaco Inn to release it. Not even to Carly, you know, Lynette's daughter. It's really, really sad because we actually spent a lot of time with Carly and her boyfriend Steve. They they finally made it over to Elbow Key and um, we went back with them and I'll show you that in just a minute. We went back with them to the Abaco Inn where her mother was last seen. um, and I talked to them there and got their their thoughts once they've now seen the lay of the land. But um, it just surprised me that the general manager wouldn't give them the video. He did let them look at it. He let them look at the video, but he wouldn't give them a copy. And when they looked at the video, um, they also remarked on the time stamp uh at the moment where Brian and Lynette are leaving the Abaco Inn. And their recollection is it's sometime around 6:38, something around there, which would basically mean this photo that was snapped at 6:34 is just minutes before they finally leave. But it also is weird because it doesn't seem to jive with um the story that Brian told most people that he left around 7:00, 7:30 because this is well before 7:00. It would add sort of an extra hour onto the whole um story of when the boat went over and how long it took him to get over to Marsh Harbor floating. Up until now, it's been around 8 and a half, nine hours. Well, now it would be nine and a half, 10 hours and longer and longer. Also, bright effing daylight. It's 6:35 right now and I'm like almost having to do this because the sun is right in my eyes. Okay, it is on its way down and it doesn't actually set until about 7:30, but then you've got sort of dusky daylight. It's not dark till 8. So, wow. Let's just say you left around 6:45. That's an hour and 15 minutes of daylight. And that dinghy is not driving for an hour and 15 minutes. It's only going about 10, 15 minutes out from the Abaco Inn to, you know, out to the anchorage where they were just outside of uh White Sound Channel. Right. Anyway, it's just another data point on this very bizarre story that Brian has told that doesn't match up with some of the other things he's told other people. So 6:34 is the time stamp on Joe's photo. And thank you Joe and thank you to your mom. I appreciate the fact that you took the photo for your mom and that you shared it with me. I do appreciate that. The other thing that um I wanted to tell you about was that when we first got to the Abaco Inn, gosh, how many days ago? Like three, I think three days ago. I don't know, losing count. Four days. Um, the the some of the workers there said they only ordered two rounds. um, Bacardi Light and soda. H, they did only order two rounds and they did have Bacardi Light but not soda. It's Coke and I look, the details are insignificant to the investigation, but just facts are important. So, and the reason I know that it's uh a Bacardi Light and Coke with a lime, also known as a Cuba Libre, um is that the bartender told me. The bartender himself, I I finally was able to catch up with him because he's been off the last couple nights, and I was able to talk to him firsthand about everything he saw with this couple. um, were they remarkable? No, not really. And did anybody notice anything untoward? Like were they angry? Was he angry? Did he look like he was frustrated or annoyed? Or did anything stand out at all? And I'm telling you, basically no. um Ken Sweding is the bartender. Here's my conversation with him at the Abaco Inn. I know we're all looking for ways to make a little extra cash this spring. So check this out. Our sponsor, Free Cash, is offering a $10 bonus right off the bat with our link in the description right here. Uh Free Cash is my new favorite app. Users earn real money just by doing simple tasks like playing games or taking surveys. You can withdraw at just $25 however you want. PayPal, Visa, even gift cards. Free Cash also has a 4.8 star Trust Pilot rating right now. Click the link in my description or you can scan the QR code to try it out for free and get that $10 bonus. >> So tell me um tell me about the day that that couple came in here. What did you see? Okay. So, Saturday afternoon, I guess around 4:30 roughly. um, the gentleman came to the bar. His wife went straight down by the pool. So, I didn't really see her, talk to her, only she passed kind of thing. It was a busy afternoon. The gentleman came up. He got two Rum and Cokes. Cuba Libres. >> Rum and Coke or Rum and Soda? >> Rum and Coke. >> Okay. We had originally heard Rum and Soda. Thank you for clarifying that. So two Cuba Libres. I put white rum, Coke, lime, gave them two. They went he he carried him down at the pool. Came back up at an hour, hour and some later. Got two more from the other side of the bar because he came from the pool area that time instead of coming from this way. um gave them his his second round basically of two and he went back down at the pool and that was it. I only I only served them four drinks. >> Did he ever talk to you? >> Uh, beg, just just when I took his order and then the second time he was like, "Oh, thank you for serving me so fast." Because we were busy. We had close to 200 people here that night kind of thing. >> And the second time he came up, he didn't have a shirt on, right? >> No shirt. >> First time he had a shirt. >> First time was when they first pulled up original and then when he came up the second time he came up from the pool area. I don't know if they took a dip in the ocean or in the pool, but he came up shirtless the second time and he was like, "Oh, I apologize cuz I know it's getting close to dinner time and this that and that." I'm like, "Dude, it's okay. You only come into the bar for a drink and you're at the pool area anyway. So, it's it's not a big deal and ran his card, dealt with that accordingly. And that was basically the last time I saw either one of them. >> Did he seem very very drunk or moderately drunk or? >> No, I wouldn't say that. I mean, he he might have had a like a buzz going on kind of thing, but definitely didn't seem proper. What was his mood? >> I to me it seemed like he was fine. Like everything was okay. It didn't seem like there was nothing going on, nothing wrong. >> He wasn't angry. >> No, not not mad or angry or anything at all kind of thing. Not towards me anyway. >> So, I didn't notice any any uh >> wrath, I should say. >> He seemed like he was in a good mood. >> Yes. >> Um did you >> enjoying himself? Enjoying. Did you ever see or hear them arguing or did you hear raised voices? >> No, mom. No, I didn't didn't see them. If they were arguing or anything like that, it would have been down by the pool area and I work up on the other side up there. Yeah. >> So, they were I mean, it seems like by everybody I've spoken to here, it was quite unremarkable the the couple that was here. It It was odd. I would I would say >> they just didn't really stand out. >> No. >> Did you see them leave? >> I did not. >> Do you know what time they left? >> No, not exactly. Um, you'd probably have to check with the general manager or something to possibly get like feedback from footage or something because like I said, we was busy that night. So, I didn't have any control um or thought to pay attention to people leaving and coming kind of thing. >> Do you know what time they had their last drink? >> I I would I would say it was probably between 6:00 and 6:30. >> 6:00 and 6:30. >> Yeah, roughly. >> Plenty of time to finish their drinks um by say 6:35. >> Yeah. Or if they got it around 6:30 by 7 kind of thing. >> Yeah. >> Um supposedly they left around 7, 7:30 but I am not sure. I >> This is hard to pin down. >> Yes. And I like I say I was not >> Some are saying 6:30. >> I was not paying attention. They definitely was here after 6:30. >> They definitely Well, there's a picture of them at 6:34, I think it is. um but then it's hard to tell exactly >> after that >> when Yeah. when you know they were down at the pool at that time. >> Um, I can get you a card for the manager and maybe you can email back and forth with them and they could possibly give you like a footage of after 6:30 and see what time they walked up or something possibly. >> Did the police come and ask you lots of questions about serving them and who they were? >> I spoke with the police. I gave my statement and signed it and everything. um same thing like with I'm telling you I was working so I wasn't really paying attention and I would was definitely not expecting something like that to come out of it kind of. >> That's my next question. Ken, I when you found out what happened afterwards, what did you think? I it was a shocker definitely because when they finally got pictures of who it was and my manager showed me a picture of them and I was like, "Oh, I served that gentleman. I know I know I served that guy at the bar. um I know what I served him kind of thing." Cuz I'm I'm a pretty good bartender. I've been bartender in about 20 years kind of thing. >> You remember the drinks. You always I was a bartender for 6 years. So I hear you. You remember what people drink cuz it's their character. >> Exactly. >> A lot of times, you know, >> most of the time. >> But I suppose I mean, shock, but also I can imagine it doesn't really happen here anymore. >> No, this is not a not a normal thing. Definitely. This is a oddball. >> Like Elbow Key is such a nice, sleepy, easygoing place. There's It doesn't seem there's much crime here. >> It's a great spot. Very little crime. um most of most of the time it would be petty if anything like somebody taking a box off the ferry dock because nobody picked it up or something like petty petty stuff. >> And we don't know yet if it's a crime. It's still being investigated, but >> it is. >> Do you have a a feeling one way or the other? um the only thing I can say is it definitely seems weird because the timelines and the stories don't really add up. Not in not in my mind. >> Well, I get that impression, too. I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Ken. >> No problem. >> And good luck with the wedding tonight. I know you're going to be busy. >> Thank you. >> I appreciate you taking the time. >> We're definitely going to be wild. It's close to 150 people we got for for a wedding tonight. So, my thanks to to Ken Sweding for talking to me um about this. He's quite surprised obviously that this has all transpired. It's such a sleepy wonderful place. This is just a story that people aren't used to around here. So, at the Abaco Inn, I also um had a chance to talk with Steve and Carly. Carly is Lynette's daughter. She's come all the way from Michigan to the Bahamas and puddle jumped all the way, you know, from Nassau to Marsh Harbor and then Marsh Harbor with the ferry over here to Elbow Key. um, and she for the first time went to the Abaco Inn today. We rode with Carly and Steve to the Abaco Inn in their golf cart. um, we chatted along the way. She is so stoic, but I can just see the pain in her face and I can just hear it in her voice. She's really struggling with this. This is very, very hard because she's, you know, trying to track down the story of what happened to her mother. And by tomorrow, and again, today is April 17th, Friday. By tomorrow, it's going to be 2 weeks. It's a long time to go without any knowledge of a where your mother is, and b what are people doing about it. So, we rode with them there, and I'm going to show you in just a minute um our conversation when we got to the Abaco Inn. Uh, they had a chance to look around. We showed them a few of the things that we had seen there as well. And we talked to them on the dock where it's likely her mom and Brian would have um hitched up their their dinghy and for the last time climbed down the ladder into the dinghy and gone down the White Sound channel out to their anchorage. um, but before they did that today, they were able to get back on board Soulmate. It's still sitting on the mooring ball. It's still sitting uh in Marsh Harbor at the Conchman, basically just off from the Conchman and um, nice locals gave them a ride out onto the water and got them on board. So Carly and Steve were able to get on board their mom's boat and actually look around and get some momentos, things that are important to Carly of her mother, things from her mother. And I just wanted you to see, they shared this with me, so I'm not um breaching anyone's confidence or privacy. um, they shared the the images and the videos of them getting onto the boat, going down below and and looking for things. Take a look. >> I know, baby. I know. I know. So, look, they spent as much time as they could um trying to find things that were, you know, important and and memorable from um Carly's mom, Lynette. And let me just give you the list of things that that Carly told me she was able to retrieve from down below. She said she got a necklace of Lynette's and it's um an L for Lynette in diamonds and actually Carly said it her mom used to wear it all the time and so she's really at least happy that the necklace was left behind so that she's that Carly's got that necklace. um I guess Lynette used to wear a lot of headbands and so Carly really wanted those headbands. Today she was actually wearing uh one of her mom's headbands that she got from on board. And in one of the pictures you can actually see Steve's sort of got the collection of headbands in um in his hand. She also Oh, this broke my heart. She found a picture frame on board um that Carly herself had actually painted for her mom. And so she took that picture frame um back and a little Buddha because apparently Lynette uh loved the little Buddha had a little statue and so um they took that as well but not a lot just important momentos that were very meaningful to Carly. um, so after they uh finished on Soulmate, back to land, they got the ferry over here and and that's when I told you we went to Abaco Inn with them for the first time on that golf cart and we had a chance to talk about everything they've learned since they got here because honestly it's for them it was like looking at maps trying to figure out where did this happen? What does it look like? I don't get it. You know, it doesn't make sense. And it makes more sense when you walk it, when you boat it, when you golf cart it, and when you try to get from A to B around here. And so I had a chance to talk to Carly and Steve down on the dock where the dinghies uh tie up. I had showed them the the two docks where all the boaters come in with their tenders. You call it a tender if you're in a dinghy going out to a big boat. um and I asked them a few questions about just how this has changed things for them. Take a look. >> So give me your thoughts now that you've arrived here. um at the Abaco Inn. >> Um I'm happy to get some answers of and I'm glad to see some video of my mom, her last moments. um I got to see her at the bar and walking down to the water, but that's about it. >> Do you have a a greater sense of the lay of the land now that you've had a chance to walk around these uh this area where they they may have parked their dinghy right here, right over there? Do you get a better feel for everything now that you're here? Yeah. um I got to go on a boat ride and retrace their steps basically and see the bar that they were at before Abaco Inn and ask questions there. They didn't have any They said nothing was out of the out of Well, they said >> Yeah. >> Nothing was out of the ordinary. >> Out of the ordinary. >> Yes. >> And um, >> basically the water, it was high tide, but it seemed like the water was shallow enough where they could at least like touch it sometimes. So that's where I'm confused on why he didn't jump in because he's pretty tall. So I'm just confused why he didn't jump into >> Well, the more confusion comes from why didn't they follow the shoreline? Why didn't they go outside of those pilings where those pilings are there? Because it's deeper. So outside those pilings, it's shallower. A small boat doesn't have to be in deeper water to operate. This boat could have easily operated in less than 2 ft of water. He he could have if she would have fell over outside left or right would he was going to outside the pilings to the left. He could have stayed outside the piling and it would have been 2 to 3 ft deep water even with high tide even with waves which the waves don't start until you get outside that last piling usually if that's where it gets windy. That's where it gets wavy. He could have followed the shore the whole way to the left. He chose not to. >> Yeah. Do you have a a a changed sense of Brian's story since you arrived here? >> No. His story's been [ __ ] from the beginning. >> We've thought it was sketchy the whole time. So, just seeing it for in person, it just solidifies that it's sketchy to us. >> Yeah. You had a chance to go to Soulmate and get on board your mom's boat. >> Yeah. >> Can you tell me about that? >> It was really hard. It hit me like a freight train that she's not there. um I felt like she was just going to walk around the corner and she's going to be like, "What's up?" But it's just hard. I got some of her belongings. I got her headband. I got a necklace of hers. >> The one you're wearing? >> Yep. And I got I got a picture frame that I made for her that I painted on. And I got something that she sewed so that just to remember her. >> What was it like being on board? >> It was really hard. um, yeah. I cried the entire time >> and on the way back. >> Thanks for the people that actually gave us the ride that we didn't know that they just said, "Hey, who do you need anything?" And we said, "Hey, can we get a boat ride?" And they they offered it. The Bahamian people are some of the nicest people we've ever met. >> They have been really good to say that we're in the same boat. We've been getting a lot of rides and a lot of help from people here and they're more than willing to step up. >> Yeah, they they all think the exact same thing. They all know his story is garbage and he's a garbage person. >> What do you think about the notion that he left the day after he was out? >> I think it just shows his character on how much his word means. um how do you say I'm going to never stop searching for her and then leave the next day to say you're going to go aid for your mom, which you know she's been sick for a while. So why now? Is there anything that's changed um for you being here now that you've been able to be on the island, come and actually walk in the last steps of when Lynette was last seen? Is there anything that's changed or any knowledge that you've gained since you've been here? >> um he said that they left at 7:30, but they it shows that they left at 6:30. So it's just >> is >> Yeah, 6:30ish. >> um >> and see that photo at 6:34 is different as well. It really does sort of time stamp them being here at that point. >> Yeah. So, there's an hour there where something >> may or may not have happened. We don't >> and we don't know what had happened. We just know that it took them literally 9 hours to float from out there across the waterway. What is it? Four, five, six miles or something, which everybody everybody here says if the wind was blowing 20 knots that him and a dinghy even if cuz he said he was paddling. So if he was paddling against the wind, which would make no sense, you paddle towards, you know, there, it should have taken him 2 to three hours max. So there's several hours outstanding at a minimum. >> Yeah. And why would he move his boat after she disappeared? So that's also >> if you want her to come back cuz she was lost and someone found her and had and she got on a boat, you come back to where you thought your boat would be and then it's gone. You're like, "Hey, where'd my boat go?" >> Yeah. What do you think of that information that the um the fire and rescue guys said that he seemed very concerned about getting the dinghy back but didn't ask >> how many search boats are out? Where's the you know search command post? Like how can I join up? >> It just makes it seem like he just wants this to be done and over with. Like oh he it kind of seems like when he was texting me he just wanted me to get over the fact that my mom's gone. um like, "Oh, get through. We'll get through this, honey." Like, "What? um, my mom's gone and your story is not adding up. I'm not going to just be on your side because you just want this swept under the rug." >> Have you had a chance to talk to him at all? >> Not since he told me about it. >> And has he tried to reach out to you or have you tried to reach out to him? >> No. um, he contacted me a few times. He texted and called and left voicemails, but other than that, I haven't answered. Do you plan to? >> No. >> You don't want to talk to him? >> With the facts that I know and his story and my gut feeling, it's a definite no right now. >> What do you think happened? >> I think he did something to her and threw her in. um, he might have did something to her. They got to the boat and then when he moved it, dumped her around at sea maybe. I don't know. >> But nothing good. >> Nothing good. >> You don't believe a word of his story? >> No. Well, we we know he did float across. That's about the only part of the story we know is semi-true is he did float in the dinghy across and it took nine hours somehow to float four miles in a 20 knot wind which every boat captain we've talked to, every person of knowledge of sailing we've talked to have all said that is not plausible. >> Yeah, >> there's several hours outstanding. What were those hours? We don't know. >> All right, thanks guys. That just has to be so incredibly painful um for Carly knowing that her mom was out there somewhere, might still be out there somewhere, but just not knowing the not having the answers, you know, I just felt like she's just a kid and and uh she is her mother's only child as well, no siblings. So, she and Steve, her boyfriend, are really just doing this, you know, on their own. um this was difficult for me to see last night. someone else I met when I was out doing my rounds. um, nice guy. He and his dad do a lot of fishing here. They sat beside me and we're having dinner and we talked to Annie said um, everyone's talking about this story. Everybody is talking about it. He said, um, you know, there are a lot of sharks um out there. Some people say, look, they barely ever bite. There's barely ever an attack. The last one was years and years ago. Others say there's tons of tigers and bulls, right? Tigers and bulls are the nastiest sharks out there. um and uh and I said, "Yeah, but how close to these areas, right? There's a lot of there's a lot of boating here and people, you know, throw the anchor down and they're swimming off their yachts and everything." And um most people have said, "No, they never go after the swimmers. It's so rare. Down the way the fishermen come in at 5:30 and there's a whole bunch of them, but maybe not in this particular area." And then Jonathan, who's sitting next to me, shared a video with me of him on board with a local captain, who, by the way, they are eagle-eyed. These fishing captains, locals, have ionic eyes. They're Steve Austin eyes. This fishing captain could see a tiger shark way up ahead. I didn't know what the video was. I'm looking at it forever because they're just cruising along the beautiful water. And then then you see it. You see the tiger shark that was just outside of White Sound Channel. That's the channel that comes out of the Abaco Inn. That's the channel that um Steve and Lynette would have had to go out, take a left, turn south, and head towards their um their keelboat Soulmate. 40 foot 46 foot catch. um and it would have been just a couple thousand yards down um down the way. Not even not even a couple thousand under 2,000 yards, maybe even under 1500 yards. So the video you're about to see is right out that channel right in the same vicinity. Take a look. Fight your me. You with me, [ __ ] >> bro. That's a big tiger. >> So, you heard that, right? That's a tiger shark. And it was pretty big, too. um, that video most importantly was shot on Monday, April 6th. That's the day after, um, you know, Brian washes up on shore having a perilous night floating across to Marsh Harbor and Lynette has gone overboard according to him. uh, so that was that. Yeah, that thing was out there on um on Monday and I I looked at it as the video went by. I just thought, my god, like it's just kind of freakish to think there all these boaters and all these swimmers and everybody's having such a great time in the Sea of Abaco and it's so shallow. At its deepest anywhere, maybe 15 feet, but more like 10, you know, you can see the bottom everywhere you go. There are no massive keel boats that come in here. or they got they wouldn't clear, you know, they just wouldn't clear their their keels. You know, some of them draw like I I was on a keel boat that drew 9 ft. It couldn't have sailed in the Sea of Abaco. So, you see a lot of sport fisher boats here and you do see a lot of keel boats, but you just don't see the giant keel boats that have a really deep keel to keep them from, you know, tipping over. uh but you know the one thing that a lot of people have said and I've said this before in other episodes is that you more than likely would see a body and um you're going to see eventually the video that I got or at least the the picture that I got of the uh US Coast Guard flying a grid pattern over the entire Sea of Abaco area where Lynette would have um drifted and you would have seen them. They used sonar, they used drones, they used a they the C130, they aircraft, they they did all that, right? And you would have seen that because it's it's like a shallow pool almost, right? Or a it's like between the shallow and deep end of a pool, I should say. You know, anywhere between two, four, six, 10, and at the deepest and rarely at highest highest tide 15 ft. So they feel like if Lynette was in that water, they'd have seen her. And they have done every shore everywhere. They've taken the cadaver dog on the shores. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don't know if you noticed that, but there's a life vest sitting on board Soulmate. It's actually in the cockpit out in the open like a big gust and that thing could blow off, but it's out there. That's how Brian left it. um, which is odd. I would I mean, nothing seems to be stowed properly. It It's just kind of very chaotic in there. I do know that the police have been on board multiple times and that they have taken things from that boat. They took the oar. They took the oar that Brian used. He said he lost one oar and he told friends he had another one that was broken. A broken oar. Hell to the no, it wasn't broken. I saw it. I saw the photograph of it on Soulmate. He brought it back up on Soulmate and it was a full-on paddle, y'all. Yes, it had the pin in the middle, but it was not broken. And there was no receptor, like receptacle for the pin in that little dinghy that they had. So, those oars wouldn't have been used as oars. They'd have been used as paddles. And in fact, um, you're going to hear, uh, oh man, the information that Brian gave about how he paddled and where he paddled, you're going to hear that in tomorrow's episode because it is like none of it adds up. None of it. Where he says he was paddling furiously, it doesn't add up to me and it doesn't add up to a lot of boaters who have followed this story. One other thing that I want to tell you about and this really broke my heart. um, because I feel like we're just at the beginning of this investigation and is such a mystery. um, the US Coast Guard investigators who were here, they arrived in, you know, kind of a smaller version of a C130 um with their gear, with their cadaver dog, with the kennels and all the gear, every gear, every piece of gear that they needed to be here. And they worked their tails off while they were here. And it was hard too because they didn't have their own boats. They had to rely on the Bahamians to like come pick them up and take them around and show them where things are and give us a lift over to that island, Lubbers's Quarter, so we can go take the dog over there to search. And that was really hard. um, you know, but uh they spent I would say about 4 days, four days here. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Yeah. Three and a half. And they left today. I mean, there was just so much that they could do, right? um, but that C130ish, it's not a C130, but it looks like one and it opens up the back. They they went back stateside. That doesn't mean the investigation's over. And in fact, like I said before, I heard on Bahamian Authority from his lips that Brian is still considered a suspect. But uh and there's no statute of limitations on murder in the US and you can be charged with murder in the US um even when something happens overseas with a US citizen. So that is still ongoing um and the investigation is still ongoing but they are now taking the investigation back stateside and it was sorry to to see them go because I I just feel like there's just so much more maybe that needs to be done and and but listen you search where you search and if you don't get a hit you don't get a hit. Speaking of stateside, um Brian Hooker, um you already know took off uh went back to the United States, one day after, well, literally the next day after he was released from detention. And I get it, not a lot of wanted people, not a lot of people want to stay um in a foreign country if they're a target of a criminal investigation. um but he didn't have a passport, so he would have had to expedite it. And I know he didn't have a passport because he said his passport, Lynette's passports, and the extra key for the electric engine on the dinghy all went overboard in the dry bag. A dry bag, by the way, I've said this before, that's a foot and a half by a foot and bright green, big, hasn't washed up anywhere. So, I don't know where the dry bag went, but you know, the flotation device was all the way over uh on the next shore next to uh Brian Hooker's dinghy 100 yards away. So, why didn't the flotation device go? That's for another episode. In any case, he said as he was leaving this country that he was going to visit his sick mother. And I can tell you uh that we have learned law enforcement that he is in fact in Sacramento. He went all the way to Sacramento where his mom, Rita Ward, lives. I want to just remind you of something that Rita Ward told NewsNation. She said, quote, "Brian is going to continue searching for Lynette and he's talking to his kids by phone as often as possible and hopes to see them soon. He's not searching, not here. um he's definitely not searching here. And to our knowledge, we don't even know if he ever did get out on a search boat at any point. We only know that the fire and rescue guys told us he was more concerned about how do I get my dinghy back? um and didn't ask like where's the, you know, where's the central command for search? H, what do we do from here? How many boats you got out there? There was no questions at all about the progress or the, you know, um logistics of the search and how he could join it. He didn't ask at all. He just said, "How do I get my dinghy back?" I also understand that though I'm going to mitigate this a little by saying if you are a boater on a keel boat, a sailboat and you throw anchor, you can't walk to land. You have to have a tender. You have to have a smaller boat, a dinghy or a tender, you know, some kind of tender. So, the fact that he's asking for his tender, it stood to reason it's an emergency, you must have one or you're on board. You're stuck on board. But it is odd that while asking for the tender, you're not also asking about the logistics and finding your wife. And this was all just a few hours after he'd washed up on on shore. And I'll remind you of where Brian Hooker's head was at because he's on a recording saying the following. I'm in Bahamas till I get my wife back. I canceled everything. We were going to go back home for I'm going to renew my visa. I just know that I hate this boat and if she doesn't come back, I'm never getting on this [ __ ] boat. I'm going to sell this [ __ ]. But he didn't stay here. He left really quickly and to our knowledge he didn't do a lot in terms of searching. He did ask a few guys. uh you have a boat? Does anybody have a boat? You know, um but he never followed through and to our knowledge we don't know that he would have had any time really because it was 4 days. um including the day that he washed up on shore before he was arrested and thrown in detention. And once he got out of detention, there wasn't any searching either because he was gone. So there you have it from from Hopetown. um on Elbow Key in the Abaco Islands uh in the Bahamas. I know it's a mouthful, but boy is it a great place to be. It's just that this is such a sad story um in such a happy place. You know, I do have some interesting stuff coming up though. I've talked to the one guy who spent the most time with Brian once he washed up on shore. And let me tell you this, the things that Brian said to him, not the same as the things that Brian told his friends. All that's coming up. So, make sure you subscribe and do a like if you will. It really helps us out and I appreciate it. Like, you don't even know. um, thanks everyone for listening. Thank you so much for watching. And remember, truth isn't just serious, it's drop deadad serious.