The case of 55-year-old mom Lynette Hooker — who vanished from a sailboat in the Bahamas — is being treated as a “murder investigation,” according to a new report.
Investigators will comb the “Soulmate” sailboat of 55-year-old Lynette Hooker for clues to possible foul play on the part of her husband Brian, a US official told Fox News’ Mike Ruiz.
Brian Hooker, 59 — who told authorities she fell overboard the night of April 5 during a Caribbean trip — has not been charged with a crime.
Now, authorities will take yet another look at their floating love nest, where the Michigan pair lived and traveled the world.
Their most recent vacation was their doomed trip to the Bahamas, where Brian claimed foul weather tossed his wife into the water.
The boat had suspiciously stopped transmitting location data the night Hooker disappeared and did not resume until the following morning.
Blaine Stevenson, a friend of Brian Hooker’s, previously told Fox News that Brian returned to his sailboat with search and rescue officials on the morning of April 5.
Federal investigators reportedly reopened the search last month after newly obtained forensic data suggests inconsistencies in her husband’s account about the night she went missing.
Law enforcement officials seized the sailboat from the Bahamas and docked it in Fort Pierce, Florida. They later moved it to Fort Lauderdale, according to Fox.
The next step is to pull it out of the water and bring it to a warehouse to be searched, a US official told the outlet.
“Any sort of digital devices that you can take, any computer systems that you can extract, anything of that sort, will be taken in,” Nicole Parker, former FBI special agent, told Fox.
