transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:04] Hey, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield, and this is Drop Dead Serious. I got another big break in the Lynette and Brian Hooker story. And it is again a huge piece of the puzzle. We have received an exclusive photo that shows Lynette Hooker on the deck of the pool at Abaco Inn at exactly 544 PM on the night before Easter, April 4th. Now, why is that significant? First of all, if you're just joining us on this particular story, thank you for being here. Love having you. Please don't forget to subscribe. Anybody who's watching, please don't forget to subscribe. Independent journalists, it really helps us to stay on this story. There is a whole backstory here. And we have an entire playlist that will get you up to speed on everything that's happened in this case. But I can't go back on it right away at the top of this podcast. I need to tell everybody who's watching why this photograph is so significant. We know at this point from other photographs that we've received exclusively that Brian Hooker is seen walking away from the Abaco Inn at 7 p.m., right at sunset. He's caught on a photograph walking towards the docks where his dinghy would be parked, but Lynette's not with him. We don't know where he left her. Did she go down to the docks first and leave him behind? Is he heading down to the docks first and she's back up maybe using the restroom? We don't know. All we know is that we see him crossing the road and getting close to the pathway that takes you to the docks to get into the dinghy. He swears he didn't get into the dinghy with Lynette until 7:30 PM and then motored out the 12 to 15 minutes towards their yacht soulmate where hell on wheels happened. Suddenly, two to four foot seas and gusts of massive 18 knot winds bounced her off the back of the dinghy and it was so dark and the currents were so strong and the waves so high I couldn't see her and we got separated and now it's dark and I floated four miles in nine hours and beached up on Marsh Harbor. Okay, so first of all, it does get dark at eight o'clock, but it will be really key to find out if Lynette was in that dinghy with Brian, if that photograph showed him getting into that dinghy at some point afterwards with her at 7.30. Even then, it's still really far-fetched. Because you'd be back at Soulmate by 7.45 and it's still daylight. I was there at that time, I can attest. Still daylight, doesn't get dark-dark till 8. Does not take half an hour to get from the dinghy dock out to Soulmate, maybe 12, maybe 15 minutes. So why does the picture of Lynette at the pool at the Abaco Inn at 5.44 matter? It's not so much the time because we already know that at least Brian is walking towards the dock at 7. And we saw at least Lynette's daughter Carly and her boyfriend Steve saw a surveillance video of Brian and Lynette walking at the Abaco Inn around 6:38 p.m. So why does 5.44 matter? It's not so much the time that matters, it's the timing that matters. When you zoom in to Lynette taking a selfie right there in the wind with the Atlantic in the backdrop, you can see on her left wrist is a very light-patterned band. And what appears to me and many others as her powder pink Apple Watch that she is seen wearing in so much of her social media. I mean, it's such a powder pink Apple Watch that it almost looks like a white tan line. But there she is holding up her camera, doing selfies at the left side of the pool. As you're looking towards the Atlantic, that would be the north side of the pool. Okay. And it sure looks like that is her powder pink Apple Watch. All that matters. Before I tell you the significance of her having the Apple Watch at this time, I also want to just draw your attention to the far right hand side of the pool, the south side of the pool. There's Brian. He's sitting on a sun chair facing out towards the Atlantic, getting some sun at 5:44 p.m. That should tell you it's still sun tanning weather at quarter to six. I've been there. You could be sun tanning at seven and 7.30. It only starts to get a little dusky at about 7.45. And even then, I may or may not put my running lights on. Those are the red and green lights and the white light at the back of a boat. Red and green at the front of the boat, white light at the back of the boat. If I were driving my boat in the dusky conditions that I was in, in the Bahamas, right there at Elbow Key at 7.45, I may or may not put my running lights on. Just because I'm a super safe captain, I probably would, but you didn't need them. So now you know at 7.45 how light it is. You could absolutely see someone bobbing in the water. You would not get separated from them. And mark my words, my friend, the seas were not two to four feet. I've already showed you the evidence yesterday from the surveillance cameras just a quarter mile north of them at the Firefly Inn. The surveillance cameras show it's dead calm. It's lovely. Maybe a ripple as you come out from the bay, but it ain't two to four foot seas. It ain't roiling winds. No way, no how. And I will also tell you that one of the fire and rescue personnel went to the exact spot where Brian swears, Lynette bounced off the back of the dinghy. He went there this morning. I'm recording this on April 22nd, on Wednesday. He went there this morning. The wind, speed, and direction were identical when he went there. And he did this to do a test. And he said these words, I got to eat my words because I told you before I thought it was kind of rough. But I did a replicate, I did an absolute replicate wind condition test and it was calm. In the lee of Elbow Quay, with exactly the same 18 knot winds blowing, it was calm. The waters were absolutely not two to four feet. They weren't even one foot. It was calm. So Brian's story that all of a sudden, the waves were two to three, four feet and it was rough and the wind was screaming and, oh god, I got separated and the currents took her away. No. I already told you no. But now it's been double, double confirmed by somebody who originally thought it might have been rough. And he said, no, I got to eat my words. It wasn't rough. It absolutely wasn't when I did the retest with the exact same conditions. Hell to the no. So if Lynette had that watch and bounced off, well, we'd start to know about the activity on her watch because it doesn't matter where that watch is. It doesn't matter at this point regarding the technology where Lynette is. Her watch has her activity. Her watch knows what she did. If that watch by any chance ended up getting closer to Soulmate, that watch and her phone would reconnect with the starlink that they had on Soulmate. So if you're thinking, you know, if you're trying to game what happened, it's entirely plausible that maybe Brian ain't telling the truth, right? Maybe she didn't bounce off. Maybe they made it back to their yacht Soulmate, maybe 12 to 15 minutes from the Abaco Inn. In calm water, I'm telling you, it might have been a few ripples, but it was not a screamer and there were no tumbling waves and nothing that would bounce you off the back. By the way, that's not bouncy. That's a hard bottom and fairly hard-hulled dinghy. It's not like a rubberized bouncy dinghy. You'd have to go over some significant waves to be bouncing off the back. And then to be separated in this raging wind and waves, no. So let's just say they made it back to soulmate, because that is possible. Well, then all the electronics are going to connect, right? Her watch, it's connected to her phone. Why do I know that? Because I spoke with her daughter and her daughter said, absolutely, my mom's watch was connected to her phone because she used Find My Phone all the time and I do it all the time too. Like, I literally, I lose my phone all the time. It's just beside me. I do it all the time. I use Find My Phone and apparently Lynette did too. So her watch, like mine, is connected to her phone. And so that watch, if it went back up on board Soulmate, would automatically connect to the Starlink and so would her phone. So that data is going to exist. And if Brian had his watch and his phone, that's going to connect too. I mean, I don't know about his watch. It's different. It's not an Apple watch. It's more of a Navionics kind of watch, which I have a hundred questions about. But if Lynette got back up on board, there's going to be evidence of that. If she wrote an email, if she looked at pictures or sent a picture, if she did anything, there's going to be evidence of that. I am fascinated if we will at one time find out what the data dump is going to tell us. We don't know yet, but we will. We will at some point. So here's the other story about the watch. Couple of months ago, Brian told Lynette's daughter Carly that he bought a brand new watch for Lynette because Lynette's battery was dying so fast, she needed a new watch. But he didn't buy her an Apple Watch. So he bought her another kind of watch and it didn't fit. And so she didn't wear it and she both she and Brian, Lynette and Brian were going to give it to Carly because Carly was just there visiting her mom like just a couple months ago. And Carly forgot to take it with her when she went home to Michigan. That watch was green. And again, it wasn't an Apple Watch. And we know this. We know that when the Royal Bahamians shall we say seized some things, as you would in a police investigation when you're doing a criminal investigation, when they went on board Soulmate, they got a watch. They got Lynette's watch. But Lynette may have had two. There may have been that green watch that she was going to give to Carly. It was new. It was supposed to replace her Apple Watch, but she wasn't wearing it. So it might have been on board. But that pink watch, the Apple Watch that she wore in all her social media, and it looks like she was wearing at the Abaco Inn, which is the last place that Lynette is seeing alive. It looks like she's wearing that pink Apple Watch. So watch this space on what that's going to mean once the data all comes in. I can't wait. You know, the digital exhaust catches everybody. Caught Brian Koberger, the idiot, took his phone and turned it off, drove his own car to the murder scene. I mean, even a guy who's a PhD student in criminology, fucked up his digital. So I'm thinking some dude who didn't even know how to load WhatsApp onto his phone apparently, he's not the digital Einstein. He may not have known if they made it back to Soulmate. It's just a very interesting piece of the puzzle. But we do know that the Royal Bahamians have one of Lynette's watches. Do they have the green one that was new that was sitting on the boat because Carly didn't take it home with her? Or do they have the old one, the pink one that was on her wrist just before Brian says she disappeared? Before I go on, I have one more thing I need to tell you about in this episode. Brian got himself a new lawyer, a Michigan lawyer from Grand Rapids. She did an interview with ABC in which she said that Brian never hurt Lynette. No matter what Lynette's daughter and Lynette's mother, no matter what they say, Brian never hurt Lynette. Well, guess what you're about to hear? You're about to hear an interview with one of Lynette's dearest friends since ninth grade. And guess what? She has something completely different to say about whether Brian ever hurt Lynette and she's got the photos. It is a very different story. Here's the tease. She says he absolutely did. These are just allegations. They're never proven in court. But there has been police activity. There are injuries that were photographed. Lynette said things to her friend, to her mother about being injured by Brian and about wanting to leave him because things were bad on the boat. You're going to hear that interview in just a moment. Something else I want to bring up with you that really sticks in my craw. A lot of Brian's own words are coming back to haunt him and I have his words because I got his texts with the fire and rescue guys. So you know that Brian's story is that Lynette went overboard, took the electric key by pulling the lanyard with her and the other spare key was in the dry bag that somehow she grabbed as well because she was driving with her hand on the tiller but still was able to grab her dry bag and grab the lanyard and bounce out the back. I know, I'm with you, it's horseshit. However, this is his story. She bounced off the back, somehow pulling the lanyard with her. There is no wristlet. There is no little wristlet like you're on a jet ski and you put a wristlet on. So if you bounce off, the jet ski stops and you can swim back to it. No, there wasn't, it was just a string that's, that hung straight down. So you'd have to, as you're driving, right? The tiller, let's say I'm driving and I've got my hand in front of me and I'm driving towards you. So she's bounced because he says she's driving. So she would have to take her hand off of the, off the hull in front of her that's stabilizing her. Grab her dry bag, which she always puts down. And by the way, it's not the kind of dry bag you're going to wear. It's like a long briefcase. So if you do that, it's hanging kind of at your hip and falling out and not, it's just not safe. You put the dry bag inside, inside the dinghy and that's where she's always driving with it, inside the dinghy. But you'd have to take your hand off of the hull, right? And you'd have to grab the dry bag as you're falling out, hand on the tiller is coming this way, and you'd have to reach down and grab the lanyard and fall out. That is not happening. Ladies and gents, I've been in a boat for 58 years. That's not happening. I've driven any number of tiller boats. I've lost the tiller and almost fallen out. That's not happening. When you bounce out of a boat or you go over a wave or you're losing it, you're grabbing on for stability. You're not grabbing things down on the floor or a string on the engine. All that. But the dry bag is a question because no one's ever found it. No one's ever found the dry bag. It hasn't washed up on any shores in the Sea of Abaco. It's bright green and it would show up with all the searches that they've done in the Sea of Abaco. If you think that's crazy, it's the ocean. It is not. It is the Sea of Abaco. It's like a swimming pool. It's four, five, eight feet deep. It's very, very deepest at high tide. It's like 15 feet. Huh? You can see the bottom. They grid searched everything. The Coast Guard grid searched that. They put drones over it. They did everything. They were in boats. It's not in the Sea of Abaco. It's not on the shores of the Sea of Abaco. It's bright green. It's a beacon. And if it sank, you would see it. Bright, bright green. But Brian had something really weird to say. Lots of weird things to say. Really weird thing to say about Lynette's dry bag. He's texting back and forth with one of the search and rescue guys because they had found the green, I call it like a swimming floaty because it's really not a rescue or a life jacket. It's what he says he threw to Lynette. It was one of the seat cushions that they sit on. You can see it in all the social media. He sits on a blue one often, she sits on a green one, or sometimes they are on opposite, but you can see what these cushions look like. When that green one was found just 100 yards south of where his dinghy washed up on Marsh Harbor, this is the text conversation. He asks the captain, was there a similarly colored dry bag nearby? It might have been slightly brighter than that seat cushion. It would have held about 10 pounds. I think it's a typo, but I think he means to say 10 pounds, so a medium size one with a black strap. He's asking the captain about, did the dry bag wash up with the floaty that I threw out, that's green, that you found? And the captain, well, he's not a captain. Brian's mistaken. He thinks that this fire and rescue guy is a captain. He's not a captain. And he kind of wondered why he kept calling him a captain, but he thinks since he welcomed him on board at one point of the search and rescue boat, maybe Brian got it in his mind that he was a captain. But anyway, this was the response from fire and rescue representative. I came and retrieved it just now. Brian then says, and this is key, wasn't there a subdivision or half a dozen houses back there? What are you talking about? I'm talking about finding the dry bag. Was the dry bag next to the green floaty? But now you're talking about a subdivision where there's a half dozen houses? It's just weird. Why would the dry bag be all the way up in a subdivision with a half a dozen houses? Doesn't make any sense. I have no idea why he said that. It just sticks out to me. And it also sticks out to friends of Lynette. A couple of friends that I've been talking to who are avid boaters. They live aboard. They've been on board. They don't think they've tied up for two years anywhere. They've been on board their sailboat and they have been following every single word that Brian Hooker has said. And they have been lining up all the inconsistencies. And one of the things that Blaine Stevenson has done for me and for you is to actually do a comparison. Roll up a dry bag with your phone and passports because this is what Brian says Lynette had in her dry bag. Her phone, a couple passports, the keys, the extra key to the engine, which is just a little, you know, it's almost like a little plastic piece. And you can find their demonstration on YouTube and TikTok. They have to handle sailing cameo. But this demonstration is great. Blaine waited for the exact wind, wave patterns and everything and decided to roll up a dry bag, much like Lynette usually does. As you can see in her dinghy, she just sort of rolls it up and it's got some air in it. Nobody really pulls all the air out of their dry bag. It's better to have a dry bag with air in it because it'll float if it falls in, everything will stay dry, and you'll be able to get it. So he rolls up a dry bag very loosely, and then he just tosses it in, and he measures everything that happens after that. How quickly he drifts from his boat, how quickly the dry bag drifts from him, and it should give you an idea of what it might look like in Brian Hooker's scenario. Take a look.

Speaker 2:
[21:05] Okay. For the last two weeks, we've gotten inundated with what is a dry bag, how does it work, and what does it do in water. So I'm just going to show you our standard dry bag size, much like everybody else's dry bag size. All it is is a plastic bag that you fold over, keeps your stuff dry. But what I have here is I have a speaker about the same weight as a GoPro. I got a cell phone. I've got a passport. I've got house keys. And instead of another passport, because I only have one passport, I'm just throwing in our daily tasks book. And then you just hold the bag open. Dump your items in. And then, what we do is we just fold this over, okay? You fold it over once or twice. I usually just do twice. I know my wife does like two or three times. I am not that stringent on it. And then, and then you buckle it up like this, okay? That's a dry bag. Now, it's not, as you can see, I didn't inflate it intentionally or anything. I just left the natural air that fills in around the items you got in your bag. It's kind of limp. It's kind of how we all keep our dry bags. Again, some people fill it up, roll it over three or four times till it's tight. Other people are lazy like me. I figure for this demo, being lazy is more closer to failure being a potential, but then we're going to show you what it does in the water. It's going to take me a second to get in the dinghy. All right, we're in our dinghy. There's our boat. The wind is coming from the north. The current is coming actually kind of dead right now, but it is coming from the north and we are drifting slowly away from the boat. And then this is our dry bag. And if we throw it overboard, that's what it does. Now, as you can see, my dinghy is out of the water more. It catches more wind. The wind is pushing me at a faster pace than the dinghy, or than the dry bag, sorry. The dinghy is being pushed because we get more windage. The wind is hitting us more, the wind's affecting us more. But the dry bag will just sit there and float, and I have complete confidence in it, because I threw my cell phone and my passport in there. And as you can tell, there's the boat. We haven't made it that far. There's the dry bag. And here we are. That's how far away it has gotten in one minute. There's our boat, that's how far away we've gotten in roughly two minutes. And right now, if I wanted to, it would take me about a minute to take my anchor out of there, throw it overboard. Well, you can see the distance between my dry bag and my dinghy, just based off of windage. Pulling up along the side of the dry bag, scooping it up, put it in the dinghy, head back to the mothership. Then we open the dry bag, we unfold it, and if we look in here, we can see a little bit of water got in, because I only folded it a couple of times. So that's a little damp. So people want to know how a dry bag works. That's how a dry bag works. Well, I now be folding mine over three times for sure. But it will even stay afloat while taking on a little bit of water. But it will not float as fast as a dinghy. Our dinghy takes on so much windage, the items floating in the water are affected more by the wind.

Speaker 1:
[26:03] Super interesting demonstration. My huge thanks to Blaine Stevenson and Sailing Cameo for doing that. Quick word from my sponsor. When was the last time you actually went to the doctor? Not Googled your symptoms, not powered through it, actually went to the doctor. If you've been putting off a doctor's appointment because it's just too hard to find somebody good who takes your insurance and can see you soon, I get it. Zocdoc is a free app and website where you can find and instantly book in-network doctors. More than 150,000 of them in 50 states. I've used them myself. There's dermatology, dentistry, primary care specialists. You can even search by symptom and you can book in seconds. And the appointments typically happen within 24 to 72 hours. So stop putting off the doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.com/banfield and find and instantly book a top rated doctor today. Again, that's zocdoc.com/banfield. This message is sponsored by Zocdoc. I want to show you something else now. And this is rich. You have probably heard the comments that Brian Hooker made on tape, right? Friends recording his own words where he's being asked, where were you coming from? Where were you going to? And he sort of rattles off this big long answer. And in it, he just kind of rattles off that he just doesn't know the tides and the currents or some odd thing here. This is what he said.

Speaker 2:
[27:44] So where were you guys coming from and going to? 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.

Speaker 1:
[27:57] Like, I don't really understand the currents and tides here.

Speaker 2:
[28:01] I kind of rely on Hope Town. OK, so.

Speaker 1:
[28:05] Well, that doesn't really square with Brian Hooker's own words that he wrote to the fire and rescue guys. OK? Sounds to me like with the text I'm about to read you, Brian Hooker knew a hell of a lot about tides and currents. You ready? This is when he's talking to the fire and rescue representative about a place that used to be called Matlow's Key. Matlow was an old pirate. And recently, Matlow's Key has been purchased and it's under development. It's now called Montage Key. It's beautiful. And at some point soon, it's going to be finished and gorgeous. And I can't wait to see it at that point. But he's suggesting that it's possible some of the things that they're looking for, like maybe the dry bag or the ore that he lost, might have floated towards Montage Key because he thought maybe even Lynette had floated that way, saying almost certainly there's nobody on the key on Easter weekend until maybe tomorrow. It's sort of fits with the flood tide till midnight and the ebb tide after, along with that terrible east wind. So you know what flood tides are and ebb tides are at midnight and afterwards, Brian Hooker? You know what that is? Then why did you say to your friend on the recording when he's asking you, where were you coming from and where were you going to? Well, I just don't, I don't really know the tides and the currents. I don't really understand them here. Bullshit! You know what a flood tide is after midnight and an ebb tide. You know. You lied to that guy when you were telling him all these details. Verbal loggeria. Check yesterday's episode. It's unbelievable how much this guy said. And when it comes to the wind and the waves and the tide, well, I did a little research and I talked to the best of the best. I talked to these experts in drift patterns. And they've got the gear that tells you everything based on science, not based on opinion or based on the naked eye. The science of the drift patterns from the night of April the 4th, 730 at night when Brian Hooker says she just bounced off the back in two to four foot seas and you know, gale force winds. Okay, so here's what I've learned about that. From the experts, they have told me that they have run these drift patterns, and with the wind and the tide and the current as it was that night, there is absolutely no way possible if Brian Hooker is telling the truth and Lynette Hooker went over the back in the place she went over. There is absolutely no way that her body would not end up in the Sea of Abaco, which again is a great big giant swimming pool, you'd see her, you'd see her, right? Or on the eastern shores of El Boke through the Toulou Cut on either the north or the south part of those shores, the shores on the Atlantic. If she went out the Toulou Cut into the Atlantic, the patterns would have blown her back onto the shore on either end of the cut. The south end or the north end of the cut. No other place. And if you want to talk about shark activity or anything like that, they accounted for that too. They have the word particle. Some part of Lynette, clothing, body parts, something would be in the Sea of Abaco or would have come up on those north and south sides of the Toulou Cut on that eastern shore, where the Atlantic is. So, there you have it, the science, Brian. The science says, it's not possible the way you told the story. Her body just wouldn't have completely vanished. At least not in the water. Which brings you on land, a whole other story. Was Lynette buried somewhere? That's a whole other question. And in a complete twist of bizarre irony, I want you to see what I noticed on a text message that Lynette's mother, Darlene, shared with me. It was a message that Brian sent to her the day after all of this horror, this tragedy unraveled, right? So this is Monday after Easter Sunday. Take a look at his profile picture. I nearly lost my lunch when I saw this. His profile picture depicts basically a problem if a man and woman are yelling at each other and fighting. The solution is a sailboat. I'm not so sure that was the solution in this particular case. Okay, now I want to move on to this new lawyer that Brian has hired. Probably a good idea because Brian, I do not like your chances, right? Good thing you got yourself a lawyer. But this lawyer, her name is Crystal Marie Houser. She's in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I guess that kind of makes sense because he's from Michigan. He said he left the Bahamas to see his sick mother in Sacramento. I don't think he's staying with his mother. I'll just put it that way. Got some intel that he hasn't been staying with his mom. This attorney did this interview with ABC in which she suggested that Brian Hooker has never hurt Lynette. Girl, girl, do you know Brian? Like his mother-in-law knows Brian, do you know Brian? Like Lynette's vesties know Brian? Have you seen the texts and the pictures? Here's how she put it.

Speaker 3:
[34:24] Would Brian ever physically harm Lynette?

Speaker 4:
[34:27] Absolutely not.

Speaker 3:
[34:28] Given how much has been said about Brian Hooker, is there anything that you would like the public to know, those who consider him guilty?

Speaker 4:
[34:37] I would ask those watching to treat him the way you would want to be treated, to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Speaker 3:
[34:45] Does he have any plans to go back to the Bahamas to help with the search?

Speaker 4:
[34:49] I imagine that is where his heart is, but I can't speak on whether or not that's what he will be doing. We all handle things in different ways, and be open minded to the fact that just because Carly and Darlene are making these claims, there's absolutely no evidence to support any of the allegations, absolutely none.

Speaker 1:
[35:18] Well, I'm sure that Carly and Darlene won't appreciate being characterized that way. They're real close to Brian, right? Darlene is Lynette's mom, Carly is Lynette's daughter. They're desperate for answers about what happened to their loved one. They are mourning, they are suffering, they have no idea where she is or what happened to her. But a lot of the things that Brian Hooker is saying, just don't add up, like total horseshit if you ask me because I've been there. The waves and the wind bullshit. That's what Darlene and what Carly are dealing with. Stuff you're saying that didn't exist. Double talk, backing off on things that you said, saying you don't know the current and the tides and then knowing an ebb tide, the flood tide after midnight. Those are the things that Carly and Darlene are suffering through right now, Brian. And this lawyer, Crystal Marie Hauser, ma'am with all due respect, I know you have your job to do, but you better get to know your client and his history a little bit better. And if you need some guidance, I've got that for you because I called someone who knows Lynette intimately, has known Lynette since 9th grade, texts and communicates fairly regularly with Lynette. Lynette confides in this woman when things are going south and they went south a lot. Rachel Shaw spoke to me about specifics, specific text messages, photographs with bruises, desperate attempts to leave Brian, get off the boat, get to the airport, changing her mind, going back to Brian. Let me let Rachel Shaw describe for you her experience with Lynette, the things Lynette said about Brian and her life with Brian on board, and even way before that. I will say this, these are allegations, not been proven in court. However, this is one woman's account of what her dearest friend told her regularly. Rachel, tell me about your relationship with Lynette.

Speaker 5:
[37:31] Um, I've known Lynette since we were in ninth grade. I'm sorry. Very long time. We were friends. She was two years older than myself. She graduated two years before me, but, um, I mean, we never lost contact. She was there for me for, I mean, I remember her coming to my homecoming when I was a senior and I was on homecoming court. I just, probably one of the most supportive friends I've ever had. Sure, we would go weeks, even months without talking, but we always kept in contact and I always knew when something wasn't right. You just, we lived together for almost, I think, a year and a half, maybe two years in the early 90s. I was in her first wedding, her first husband. I mean, she's my best friend. I mean, she texted me the Wednesday before she disappeared. I was kind of mad at her. She was like my sister. We would, yeah, I wasn't mad, mad at her. I was just a little mad at her.

Speaker 1:
[38:56] Because she hadn't been in touch?

Speaker 5:
[38:57] No, because I knew she needed to come home, basically. I knew she was painting that picture that was, something was off. And I knew that from previous conversations that we had had earlier in March. And I just, I felt like she was very worried about what was going on in my life, which my life is very boring. Very boring. She's very worried about my boyfriend, who is he's got a traumatic brain injury. So I take care of him and it gets kind of stressful. And I have a job in healthcare, very stressful. I am, you know, I work a lot. And she was really trying to get me to come down there. I'm in the process of getting my passport and my real ID. And I was, she was telling me, I want you to come down, you need to take, you need to get away, you need to take some time off, you haven't had a vacation and I haven't in a very long time. And I was thinking about it. But then I also knew what was going on, like just prior to that, you know, prior to that conversation.

Speaker 1:
[40:19] Yeah, talk to me more about that, because you said that you knew what was going on. You were kind of mad at her. What do you mean by that exactly?

Speaker 5:
[40:26] She called me, to be exact, it was either, I think it was the 12th, because I have a text message that I had sent her right after that conversation. And she was-

Speaker 1:
[40:39] March 12th?

Speaker 5:
[40:39] Yeah. Yeah, just this last March. And she was upset about things that had went on. And she was on a limited amount of time because Brian was out paddleboarding. And she had sent me a message saying, he's out paddleboarding. So I knew I had to call, excuse me. That's a lot of times how I would know I needed to call because, oh, she needs to talk now because she's alone. And I knew there was like no privacy, and she couldn't really just call me, you know. She couldn't just jump in the car and go to the store and make a quick call. So in any case, she had called me and she had told me about some things that had happened. I think they were in Florida and it was something to do with their grandson telling them something in confidence. And Brian wanting to keep the secret and Lynette thought the grandson's mother should know. And she said she told the mother and it was a big to do. I mean, to give you exact details, I know I was doing, I was working while I was listening to that conversation. And I was like, what, what are you talking? And she said, yeah, we had, we had been drinking a little bit lately. And I was like, I said, oh, you know, no, no, no, that's, no. She said, I know, we're quitting again. We just can't drink. We just can't do that. And, you know, things get really bad when we drink. And I said, just, I mean, I don't think it matters either way. But in any case, she said, things are bad, really bad. And I need your advice. I said, well, Lynette, what do you want? What do you need advice on? And she said, I'm 10 minutes from the airport. I said, get on the plane.

Speaker 1:
[42:42] And then she was on her way to the plane and she called you?

Speaker 5:
[42:45] Ten minutes from the airport. That's what she said. That's, that's what she said.

Speaker 1:
[42:49] We always kind of spoke a little code. That makes sense, honestly.

Speaker 5:
[42:52] And I said, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[42:53] I'll tell you what, where that boat was moored, all she needed to do is get to the dock and it is about a 10, 15 minute taxi to the airport.

Speaker 5:
[43:01] Right. And I also knew that. But in my mind, it was, I didn't, I'm going to say I didn't know that until after the fact. But I had said, well, get on the plane. That's my advice. Get on the plane. If things are that bad, if they're getting the way they were, get on the plane. And in any case, she didn't. The next day, she texted me a picture of her dinner and said, he made dinner. And I was very upset. And did not text her back because I was like, well, if things get as bad as they were two years ago, you're going to be sorry. And unfortunately, that's the information that I had sent you the pictures.

Speaker 1:
[43:52] So what happened two years ago? And maybe describe for me, you've mentioned things were bad, but I'm not really clear on on what she said to you about everything all the way along, how things were bad, in what way, what was the relationship with Brian like? And all the times that she confided in you, what were the things she said and told you about?

Speaker 5:
[44:11] The violence, the, well, two years ago, he had, they had gotten into a big fight when they were drinking and he choked her. And he had her pinned against a seat. He bruised her back really bad when he did that. And the next day, told her, and she had called me, and I remember talking to her when she was still there. She was still on the boat and very upset. And she said, he told me that he wished he would have finished the job and thrown me overboard. No one would have ever found me.

Speaker 1:
[44:54] Did she text it or did she call you and say that?

Speaker 5:
[44:56] She called me and said that. She called me and said that. She did not text. She barely texts to any of this stuff because she was so private. And in a way, it's hurt her at this point because she didn't. She kept things so, and she would always say to me when she was on the verge of leaving, I'm so embarrassed. And that I think is why she kept things so under wraps because she was so embarrassed by thinking that she had failed in some way. This is embarrassing.

Speaker 1:
[45:36] Did she call you about other times and describe other instances of violence?

Speaker 5:
[45:41] There was, yes, there was the time when she ended up having to go to jail that time. She called me after that. She told me about what happened then. And she said that she was defending herself. And I remember it was because of a locked door. Something to do with her daughter and his older son with a locked door. And something happened in that regard. I don't remember the story exactly, unfortunately. And it was a phone conversation. And then there was another incident that she had called me about.

Speaker 1:
[46:25] Well, just to clear up that last incident, she was arrested because he had... The version that I have seen and been told about from sources was that she was arrested because he had blood in his nose, but she had marks that came out later. And they never charged or prosecuted this case at all against her.

Speaker 5:
[46:47] Yeah. She dropped it. They dropped it. It was a drinking-fueled part. It was a drinking-fueled fight, and she had said, it's the alcohol. She would tell me that before. And as far as I knew, they were not drinking at all like the month of March, like after, because she had said that, as long as we don't drink, we're fine.

Speaker 1:
[47:14] What was the next episode that you were about to mention before I jumped in?

Speaker 5:
[47:17] I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:
[47:18] That she told you about?

Speaker 5:
[47:19] She had told me about him getting into it with his oldest daughter, Jessica, something happening. And I don't remember what that was centered around at all. I just remember that he had to go to court for that a lot. And she was very stressed about it. And at the time, you know, she supported him and she kept a lot of that under wraps. But I didn't find out about that, like the actual physical acts that happened until he did it until two years ago. So when...

Speaker 1:
[48:04] And it's a long time ago. This is the this is the incident that went to before a jury, the jury acquitted him. But there was an allegation that he had choked out his 12-year-old daughter, correct?

Speaker 5:
[48:14] Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[48:17] And she kept that under wraps and you only found out about it a couple of years ago?

Speaker 5:
[48:21] Right. When she got choked, I remember her calling me though during the court proceedings in 2015. But I don't remember her telling me whether it was abuse during that time or not. Honestly, but I do remember her telling me about it after he had done it to her, after he had choked her. I said-

Speaker 1:
[48:47] Tell me a little bit more about the incidents on the sailboat because I think you'd mentioned to me off camera that she would usually text you, are you up? That was often a code for I want to talk on the phone.

Speaker 5:
[48:59] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[49:00] What were some of the instances on the sailboat that she confided in you about?

Speaker 5:
[49:04] Just the drinking and the fighting. She'd say it would just get vicious and he would be very, very mean.

Speaker 1:
[49:13] Physical?

Speaker 5:
[49:14] Yeah. She would sometimes take the blame. She would say, well, I would poke the bear, I push the argument, I fight back is what she would tell me. I would say, I think your best way to fight back would be to leave.

Speaker 1:
[49:37] But did she talk to you about him being physically abusive with her on the boat?

Speaker 5:
[49:42] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[49:44] What would she say?

Speaker 5:
[49:45] Definitely told me about the choking and they would throw things at each other, stuff like that. I mean, the only one that sticks in my mind very clearly was the choking. That was it.

Speaker 1:
[50:04] And describe what she said about that.

Speaker 5:
[50:06] She said he choked her to the point to where she thought she was going to black out. Get off there. You're going to chew through that cord. She said, I think she said, he choked me to the point to where I felt like I was about to black out and then he released me. And the next day said, I wish I would have finished the job and thrown you overboard. And I said, you have to leave right now, right now. She left, went to her mother's for about two, two and a half months somewhere in there. During that time she was job hunting, but he was continually trying to get her back. I do have a text message that he had sent to her. I'd have to dig for it, but I could find it. That she had sent me a screenshot of, that he had sent to her when they had split up about Rosie wanting to see her. And she clearly asked him to, she said, I do think...

Speaker 1:
[51:18] His daughter, his daughter, Rosie, he was saying my daughter Rosie wants to see you.

Speaker 5:
[51:21] Rosie still wants to, you know, talk with you and still, you know, wants to be close with you. She really loves you and it's a very long text. And then she said, I love Rosie very much too, but I also think this is a clear manipulation of my feelings. Stop it. And I mean, and he did this throughout the time she was with her mother and would invite her down and come down, come have a date with me and love bomb basically for.

Speaker 1:
[51:58] She would tell you this or she texted it to you?

Speaker 5:
[52:00] She told me. She'd tell me. I do have the one text though.

Speaker 1:
[52:04] Is that when, is that when she, is that when she photographed bruises on her back and said I'm taking these pictures so I remember?

Speaker 5:
[52:10] Yes. And she had sent it to me. And I was like, what the... And I, I just don't erase anything. And I have all, I have that text message. I knew I had that. But, you know, I was like, good. I'm glad that you aren't going to go back. Well, unfortunately, she did. And I was in Florida and we had met for dinner. There's a picture of us on my Facebook that is her and I. That was the last time we had been together, just her and I. And it was the day before she went back to him after that incident. And we had went to, I remember we were at, what is it called? Catfish Johnny's in Florida. And we had dinner together. I was down there for work and she was there with her mom. And her mom is like 20 minutes from my work when I'm in Florida. And she said she was going to go back and what do you think? And I said, Lynette, if anything ever happens to you, to where you can't speak for yourself, you come up missing, you, anything happens to you, I am going to point the finger at Brian because of this. And I do not think you should go back. But if that is what is going to make you happy, I support you in your decision to try again. And, you know, I'm sure there were several more incidents that we know nothing about because, again, she was so private, so private. I know that even from living with her. She was so private. She confided in, like, nobody. And I didn't tell anybody because she trusted me, you know, other than her mother and I talked a little bit, but I would even keep a lot from her mom just because this is my friend and I wouldn't want her, you know, the same thing doing to my... But immediately when her mother called me and told me what had happened, unfortunately, my mind went right to two years ago. And when I told her that and she the next day, I had called her when I was back in Michigan because that was my last night in Florida. I flew home to Michigan and my boyfriend had a terrible, another accident while I was gone or when I got home and I was on the phone with her and she said, by the way, I told Brian what you said about you're going to point at him if something happens to me and he said that's fair.

Speaker 1:
[55:05] She told you that's fair.

Speaker 5:
[55:07] He said that's fair.

Speaker 1:
[55:10] Wow.

Speaker 5:
[55:10] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[55:11] Again, you said to your friend, Lynette, if something happens to you and you turn up missing, I'm going to point the finger at Brian.

Speaker 5:
[55:18] If you turn up missing or anything happens to you to where you can't speak for yourself, I'm going to point the finger at your husband, at Brian. She told him I said that and he said that's fair. I'll never forget it because it sent chills down my spine. That was two years ago and I was like, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[55:41] What are your thoughts about Brian's newest lawyer who has apparently been retained in Michigan, saying Brian has never hurt Lynette?

Speaker 5:
[55:51] I have proof. Otherwise, I have the pictures. I did give all of that to the US co-star too. Yeah. I know otherwise. I know he choked her that time almost to the point of passing out, which to me is almost killing her.

Speaker 1:
[56:10] As far as instances of abuse, you've mentioned the one where you say she told you that he choked her to the point of near passing out, it caused bruises that she photographed on her back. Were there other instances that she described to you either by text or by phone?

Speaker 5:
[56:29] Not that she described to me by text or by phone. This last March, all she said to me was, it's getting really bad and I'm 10 minutes from the airport. I said, get on the plane. If it's as bad as you're saying, if it's as bad as I think it is, get on the plane. And that was the end of our conversation because I was working and I had to go and I couldn't be on the phone anymore. And I-

Speaker 1:
[56:55] And she had a ticket. She bought a ticket March 11th, right?

Speaker 5:
[56:58] Yeah, that's what I'm told. I didn't know that though until after she went missing. But it told me that, yeah, there was definitely something going on that none of us knew about that she was keeping private, that there was definitely-

Speaker 1:
[57:14] And you were about to say you fully expected.

Speaker 5:
[57:17] There was, there's got to be something going on. What's that? I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:
[57:21] You were just about to say, you were just about to say that you fully expected. Can you finish that?

Speaker 5:
[57:25] I fully expected to hear from her and have her tell me she was in Miami or with her mother the next day, or in Michigan here at the house by herself the next day. I fully expected that. And when I found out she went back, I was like, why? I mean, it's just a sense. I mean, I can't say that I immediately called her up and said, what are you doing? You fool. I know there's more going on than what you are telling me. Because I just knew it and I knew nothing that I said was going to change that because she was determined that that relationship was going to be fine as long as they didn't drink. She had been telling me the remainder of the month, we talked quite a few more times throughout the rest of the month of March and not really by text as much as by phone. We would rather speak to each other. She had told me that they were not drinking and they had even stopped smoking weed and yeah, that was they were she was happy about that. She liked that. And then when I found out what happened and that they had been drinking, I was like, what? No, I thought she said, you know, and this was like through two, three weeks ago that they were not drinking anymore. I don't understand. But yeah, I really do think that she just thought that as long as they didn't drink and like they had no substances at all whatsoever, that things would just be great.

Speaker 1:
[59:15] Rachel, I'm so sorry this has happened to your friend, and I'm so sorry that you and your family are going through this.

Speaker 5:
[59:20] I wish she would have text me more than called me. I just like I say to her, like wherever you are, I just want to slap you for not giving me more, to give them, because unfortunately, I just don't remember details as well as I should.

Speaker 1:
[59:44] No, it's okay, but I'm just, I appreciate that you tell-

Speaker 5:
[59:49] But my immune gut said, why were they drinking again? I just, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[59:59] I'm sorry you guys are all going through this, and I just want to say thank you very much for sharing these stories with me.

Speaker 5:
[60:05] You're welcome.

Speaker 1:
[60:06] My thanks to Rachel Shaw for speaking with me. That is not an easy interview to do. This is a dear friend of hers who at this point, she is probably coming to terms with the fact that she'll never see her again, and that there was nothing that she could do to prevent that. Did everything. Again, those are just allegations. They're not proven in court. It is one woman's account of what her friend, Lynette, told her on an ongoing basis, showed pictures of. So it is what it is, right? I do want to say this. If you are watching and this is triggering and you feel like you have been a victim of domestic violence or you know someone who is struggling with this, we have the hotline for you. It's 1-800-799-SAFE. 1-800-799-SAFE. You can also text the word BEGIN, B-E-G-I-N, to 88788. I have another link for you. There are so many people who know people in the Bahamas, people on Elbow Key who could be watching right now. Hello, I miss you guys. If you think you may have taken a photo on the evening of the 4th of April, the night before Easter Sunday, if you were over at the Abaco Inn, if you snapped some video, if you snapped some photographs of the sunset, of the fun in the bar, of the boats coming in and out of the harbor, up White Sound Channel into the Abaco Inn, if you took any of those pictures, the sunset goes towards the channel, the waves are out towards the pool in the Atlantic, beautiful, beautiful images. If you took pictures or video, please send them to us at dropdedseriousinfo at gmail.com, dropdedseriousinfo at gmail.com. If you don't want to send them to me, I understand. Please, please for the love of God, send them to the United States Coast Guard Investigative Services. These guys are busting their asses on this case. They are the federal government's juggernaut investigators who are working this case, and they have a couple of ways for you to send this in anonymously. You can go onto their website, p3tips.com. That's the letter P, the number three, tips.com. You can do anonymous tips there. You can also download their app. They've got a whole app for anonymous tips as well. It's CGIS Tips. Just go to your app store and look for CGIS Tips. You can download that app. It says right there, anonymous tips here. Send what you can to the Coast Guard as well. We've got a QR code on the screen as well. They need your pictures, your videos. We need your pictures, your videos of the Abaco Inn that night. If you were down on Tahiti Beach that day, that helps too. If you got some pictures of Brian and Lynette Hooker, if you have friends who were on Elbow Key, reach out to them and ask them, were you at Abaco Inn on Saturday night? Did you snap any photos? You may not see them. Most people don't see them because you're snapping something in the foreground and Brian and Lynette are in the background. You have to zoom in. So please check your photos, check your videos and send us what you can. Again, dropdedseriesinfo at gmail.com. And also, if you know something, if you know something about the case, send us a note, dropdedseriesinfo at gmail.com. And can I just tell you from the bottom of my heart, several of you have already sent things in. Thank you so much. Let's keep the momentum going. Justice for Lynette Hooker. This is not gonna just go away. This is not just gonna go away. We're gonna find the facts. If it takes us all effing year, we're gonna find the facts on what happened to Lynette Hooker and whether Brian Hooker is telling the truth. And that goes for you, Brian Hooker's lawyer lady. The truth may just include that he has hurt Lynette before and may include that he did this time too. And I get it. You want everyone to give him the benefit of the doubt. And we are. Most we can, but every single time I run into a fact that does not make sense, does not add up, it gets harder and harder. That's what the law folks call building probable cause and a case. So you may be a busy lady. In any case, thank you all so much for listening and watching. Don't forget to hit subscribe. It really does help. I love that some of you folks have joined our actual club. That's join button down there too. You get exclusive content. So I'm happy to share that with you. I'm going to do a Q&A very soon. And I'm just really thankful that you were here for this. Remember, the truth isn't just serious. It's Drop Dead Serious.