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LYNETTE HOOKER SHOCK GPS, HUBBY ‘IN THE WATER” WHEN WIFE VANISHES · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Overboard Lynette Hooker tonight, damning GPS evidence emerges this as
0:07
Speaker 1: her husband, Brian Hooker, seems to be tangled up in
0:10
Speaker 1: his own words, where he states he was quote in
0:15
Speaker 1: the water trying to get back into the boat with
0:20
Speaker 1: his wife when she vanishes. What that's the first I've
0:25
Speaker 1: heard of that. Good evening, I'mancy Grace. This is crime Stories.
0:29
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for being with us.
0:38
Speaker 2: It was wendy, yes, but not to the point where
0:42
Speaker 2: someone can just bounce out. I did talk to a
0:45
Speaker 2: captain and he said he was working that night and
0:47
Speaker 2: he doesn't remember the waves being that bad. I'm just wondering,
0:51
Speaker 2: why was she swimming away from the dinghy and why
0:54
Speaker 2: didn't she try to get back on it.
0:55
Speaker 3: Why did she grab the key on her way out?
0:59
Speaker 4: It doesn't make any.
0:59
Speaker 1: Sense bombshell tonight. Does Lynette Hooker's husband, Brian Hooker, who
1:05
Speaker 1: according to some reports has left the country. I'm not
1:08
Speaker 1: sure about that. Does he place himself in the water
1:13
Speaker 1: with his wife Lynette the night she falls overboard? Seemingly,
1:19
Speaker 1: he seems to admit he was in the water with
1:22
Speaker 1: her and trying to get back into the boat, but
1:26
Speaker 1: first damning GPS evidence emerging straight out to special guest
1:32
Speaker 1: Vanessa Walsh joining us. She's the start of unmasked true crime. Vanessa,
1:37
Speaker 1: what about the GPS evidence do you consider to be damning?
1:44
Speaker 4: Well, Nancy, what I think is so important is that
1:46
Speaker 4: people lie, and GPS evidence is objective, so the digital
1:51
Speaker 4: evidence can provide investigators with where exactly Brian was and
1:55
Speaker 4: when exactly he was there.
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Speaker 5: That's why the reporting discrepancy between the GPS data and
2:01
Speaker 5: the original account, the brand game to investigators has become
2:05
Speaker 5: such a major focus, because as this investigation moves forward,
2:09
Speaker 5: it's obvious that this is a technology driven investigation now
2:14
Speaker 5: and it's more about reconstruction.
2:17
Speaker 4: One of the things I keep.
2:18
Speaker 5: Coming back to is Lynette's cell phone, because according to
2:22
Speaker 5: Brian's own account and the recorded statement, Lynnette allegedly entered
2:25
Speaker 5: that water with her iPhone that was protected inside a
2:29
Speaker 5: sealed drive aat. So if that is true, one of
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Speaker 5: the investigative questions I've had since day one is whether
2:36
Speaker 5: or not that iPhone generated any usable GPS information after
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Speaker 5: she allegedly went overboard that would be useful to investigate.
2:48
Speaker 1: Vanessa Walsh, You're brilliant. It's staring everybody in the face.
2:54
Speaker 1: It's right under our noses.
2:56
Speaker 6: But you're right.
2:58
Speaker 1: The iPhone her smart phone in a dry bag, and
3:02
Speaker 1: I have dived all around the world before the twins
3:05
Speaker 1: were born in a dry bag, everything remains intact. If
3:11
Speaker 1: her cell phone had been in a dry bag. Let's
3:14
Speaker 1: talk to an expert, Dan dan Forth joining us, friend
3:18
Speaker 1: of the hookers. That's why we have a dry bag.
3:23
Speaker 1: He says, her phone was in the dry bag. There's
3:26
Speaker 1: no reason she would have cut it off that night.
3:27
Speaker 1: She had been in a restaurant, according to him, and
3:30
Speaker 1: they got into the dinghy to go to the Soulmate.
3:33
Speaker 3: Their yacht, and we have non photographs.
3:36
Speaker 1: Should have been transmitting Dan.
3:39
Speaker 6: And it should have them to the moment.
3:40
Speaker 7: There's a lot of questions we have, but I feel
3:42
Speaker 7: like that's where the authorities are kind of keeping that
3:44
Speaker 7: part of it, you know, the investigation more private.
3:46
Speaker 8: You know.
3:47
Speaker 7: The biggest thing is, you know, anytime you have an
3:49
Speaker 7: investigation like this, it's the lies.
3:50
Speaker 6: The lies just keeps coming out and keeps coming out.
3:53
Speaker 1: You know.
3:53
Speaker 7: He used me as a pall in the very beginning
3:55
Speaker 7: to try to establish a baseline. When he talked to
3:57
Speaker 7: Blaine Stevenson shortly after the story was completely different, and
4:00
Speaker 7: then when he talked to investigative services again it was
4:03
Speaker 7: even another version of it. And so the biggest thing is,
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Speaker 7: like she said, the electronic evidence is a big factor
4:09
Speaker 7: in this, and we can know that there was a
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Speaker 7: lot of electronics on them boat, including flear systems, tracking systems,
4:14
Speaker 7: navigation systems. So we're hoping that those investigative services will
4:18
Speaker 7: be able to use some of this to their benefit.
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Speaker 1: Dan, Dan. For those people that have not used a
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Speaker 1: dry bag, I mean I had never heard of one
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Speaker 1: until I learned to dive in the Ymca Pool in Queens,
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Speaker 1: I didn't know about it. Explain why it's so important
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Speaker 1: to divers, to fishing, to fisher people, to everybody out
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Speaker 1: on the water.
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Speaker 7: A dry bag is a kind of like a backpack
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Speaker 7: or a purse or something like that that carries all
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Speaker 7: your electronic devices, the things that you don't want to
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Speaker 7: get wet. Sometimes we carry our boat paperwork, we carry,
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Speaker 7: you know, like your passports and stuff inside the bag
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Speaker 7: so something don't happen to it. They're very convenient and
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Speaker 7: the kind of creature or habit you get to where
4:56
Speaker 7: you carry them with you all the time.
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Speaker 6: A second nature to have your dry bag.
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Speaker 7: In fact, you'll watch all the videos online, they're always
5:02
Speaker 7: notably in the photos. Whether you're out touring on the land,
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Speaker 7: whether you're walking on down the docks, whether you're back
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Speaker 7: in your boat, you pretty much always have it on you.
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Speaker 7: It's a creature comfort for protecting your valuables while you're traveling,
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Speaker 7: because you don't want your phone.
5:14
Speaker 6: To seek dan.
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Speaker 1: When my son goes fishing or sailing, he's a real
5:20
Speaker 1: water enthusiast, he puts a dry bag with nothing but
5:24
Speaker 1: his phone and his idea in it. And there's a
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Speaker 1: zipper thing on his vest right here, and the dry
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Speaker 1: bag just big enough for the phone, and the id
5:32
Speaker 1: goes right here and it's zipped in, and it's uh,
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Speaker 1: you said, people carry them everywhere with them. It's the
5:38
Speaker 1: same Let me let you put it like this. It's
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Speaker 1: the same way people do with their cell phones. I mean,
5:44
Speaker 1: nobody's ever foot away.
5:46
Speaker 7: From their cell phone. Laying your cell phone is part
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Speaker 7: of it. In the water, we have a different lifestyle.
5:50
Speaker 7: As a liver board. We carry all a lot of
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Speaker 7: electrons and stuff with us all times for tracking purposes,
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Speaker 7: for connectivity services, so you always want to have that
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Speaker 7: with you and you don't want to get in wet.
6:00
Speaker 7: Dry bags come in many different styles, but the style
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Speaker 7: they had it was called a fold over dry bag,
6:04
Speaker 7: which you put all your stuff in it.
6:05
Speaker 6: The zivic shut.
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Speaker 7: You fall it two or three times, and even if
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Speaker 7: a little water does intrude in it, they don't sink,
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Speaker 7: they float, and it keeps away for you to be
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Speaker 7: able to retrieve your objects as they do fall overboard.
6:14
Speaker 7: You don't want your phone going straight to the bottom,
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Speaker 7: and so it's a way to be able to retrieve
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Speaker 7: all your importance, you know, your identification and stuff like that.
6:20
Speaker 6: It's just it's common practice in the boat world.
6:23
Speaker 1: Let's go to veteran trial lawyer. I can't wait for this,
6:28
Speaker 1: Josh Coles Rude, as I said, criminal defense attorney, former
6:32
Speaker 1: assistant prosecutor with the US Attorney's Office, founder of Colesrud
6:36
Speaker 1: Law Offices, Coles Rude. He states, this is why you
6:41
Speaker 1: tell all your clients shut your piehole. Take the fifth.
6:46
Speaker 1: He has gotten all tangled up in his statements, and
6:49
Speaker 1: we have been studying them for days and comparing them
6:52
Speaker 1: and looking for inconsistencies, he states. His wife, Lynnett Hooker
6:58
Speaker 1: had her iPhone in a dry bag that she went
7:01
Speaker 1: overboard with the dry bag, So why didn't the phone transmit?
7:07
Speaker 1: As Vanessa is pointing out, there's no reason it shouldn't have.
7:13
Speaker 8: Well, you know, I mean the recording is interesting for
7:16
Speaker 8: a variety of reasons. And you know, I think that
7:20
Speaker 8: the recording is devastating, but not for Brian, but for
7:24
Speaker 8: the people trying to turn this into a murder. Because
7:28
Speaker 8: when you actually listen to the recording, what do you hear?
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Speaker 3: Now?
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Speaker 8: You hear a man blaming himself. You hear a man
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Speaker 8: you know he's listening every single mistake that he made.
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Speaker 8: You hear a man who's clearly devastated. And that's what
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Speaker 8: survivor sounds like. You know, a guilty man minimizes, a
7:48
Speaker 8: guilty man hides the bad facts set him up.
7:51
Speaker 1: You know what if I did, if I didn't only
7:55
Speaker 1: have one hour to analyze the latest in Lynette Hooker's
7:59
Speaker 1: dis appearance, I would let you go on and on
8:03
Speaker 1: and on. But that was not my question. You are
8:06
Speaker 1: not being responsive. I asked you about the cell phone.
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Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you a few moments to
8:12
Speaker 1: come up with some zany defense about why the cell
8:15
Speaker 1: phone suddenly quit transmitting just like the GPS, it just quit.
8:22
Speaker 1: There's a big eleven hour gap where it just quit. Coincidentally,
8:28
Speaker 1: when Lynette goes missing. I'm really got to think about
8:32
Speaker 1: that because I know you're gonna come up with a
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Speaker 1: great response. Vanessa. I got off track when you pointed
8:37
Speaker 1: out what was right under our noses about the iPhone,
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Speaker 1: which was brilliant. By the way, Vanessa, the GPS you
8:43
Speaker 1: consider it to be the most damning evidence. Please in
8:46
Speaker 1: lay people terms, explain what you mean, and then I'll
8:50
Speaker 1: circle back to dan Forth.
8:53
Speaker 5: Well, what I mean by that is that the story
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Speaker 5: he was very specific when Brian told this story. He
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Speaker 5: was giving out maps to his friends, who is giving
9:01
Speaker 5: out very specific locations. He had actually been circled the
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Speaker 5: point on the map where he says, and that went
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Speaker 5: overboard in this four to seven feet of water and
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Speaker 5: as far as the cell phone goes, I do think
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Speaker 5: that that could.
9:13
Speaker 4: Be one of the most important clues in this case.
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Speaker 5: And as you know, in a case with very few witnesses,
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Speaker 5: many times the digital evidence and GPS evidence can become
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Speaker 5: one of the most important witnesses.
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Speaker 1: Dandan Forth joining us, He's joining us out of Shrevepoint.
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Speaker 1: He is a friend of the hookers. Dan again, thank
9:34
Speaker 1: you for being with us tonight. Dan, explain what Vanessa
9:38
Speaker 1: is talking about about the GPS evidence.
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Speaker 7: All right now, what they're talking about the GPAs story
9:46
Speaker 7: he told you was trying to coordate was a planned story.
9:49
Speaker 7: He told, you know, one version to me and he
9:51
Speaker 7: told another version of blame. But it kind of puts
9:53
Speaker 7: them in a different area. So when the electronic evidence
9:56
Speaker 7: came out that it puts them in a completely different area.
9:58
Speaker 7: It shows that, you know, it's another inconsistency to the story.
10:01
Speaker 7: They had multiple tracking items on them. Like you said,
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Speaker 7: her phone should have been tracking. A dry bag does
10:08
Speaker 7: not block sailor signal. If your sailor phone is in
10:11
Speaker 7: a dry bag and it rings, you'll hear it ringing.
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Speaker 7: You'll open up your dry bag, get your phone out.
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Speaker 7: So therefore, she makes a very valid point that phone
10:19
Speaker 7: should have broadcast until the very last minute of that
10:21
Speaker 7: phone working, whether it was turned off manually, whether it
10:24
Speaker 7: was sunk underneath the water, but one way or another,
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Speaker 7: it should have had a GPS signal on Find my phone.
10:30
Speaker 7: There's many there's multiple tracking activities. Most apps tracking as well,
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Speaker 7: So there should have been something on the area, and
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Speaker 7: I think that that's going to be a lot. But
10:36
Speaker 7: I also know that the federal investigators don't always show
10:39
Speaker 7: their hand until they.
10:40
Speaker 6: Get an indictment.
10:41
Speaker 7: And after an indictment comes out, then there'll be a
10:42
Speaker 7: lot of discovery for everybody to find out what they
10:44
Speaker 7: do and don't have.
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Speaker 1: Now you have spoken with the Coastguard and they search exhaustively,
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Speaker 1: isn't that true? Daniel dan'sforth They search exhaustively, not only
10:55
Speaker 1: in the area where Brian Hooker says his wife when
10:58
Speaker 1: that went overboard, but far far beyond that, and they
11:02
Speaker 1: came up dry, nothing, no sign.
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Speaker 6: Of Lynette, what we call coming up dry.
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Speaker 7: It's very unfortunate for the family because we did not
11:11
Speaker 7: recover in that body at the time. But also to
11:13
Speaker 7: the purpose that investigation was try to validate the GPS track.
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Speaker 7: They have a known track that was different from Brian's account,
11:20
Speaker 7: and so going along that track that they could have
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Speaker 7: located anything, and they may or may not have that story.
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Speaker 1: Whoa hold on, Nellie, do you hear what you just said? See?
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Speaker 1: That would be my first argument in an opening statement
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Speaker 1: that the GPS data they the Coastguard have for Brian
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Speaker 1: Hooker is different than Brian.
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Speaker 6: Hooker's story story.
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Speaker 1: Let's just let that sink in for a moment. Ooh,
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Speaker 1: I can't wait for Josh colesry to explain how the
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Speaker 1: GPS data is different from what he said happened that night. Okay,
12:01
Speaker 1: you just like trilled off the tip of your tongue. Man,
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Speaker 1: I would hammer that bam, bam, bam. What do you
12:07
Speaker 1: mean the GPS is different than what he said?
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Speaker 7: Well, we'd like to validate that GPS track by finding
12:13
Speaker 7: something of Brian or Lannette' whether it be a or
12:15
Speaker 7: whether it be a rope or anything from that ding.
12:17
Speaker 7: You to verify that those electronic trails are correct, to
12:20
Speaker 7: kind of give it a tangible besides just being so.
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Speaker 7: That's what it was so important for them to follow
12:24
Speaker 7: the track that they have.
12:27
Speaker 1: You said that his story was different than the GPS story, Dan, Yes.
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Speaker 7: His story was just to send everybody off on a
12:33
Speaker 7: wild goose chase. And I told everybody from the beginning,
12:35
Speaker 7: if you just take.
12:36
Speaker 6: Out his story, now, was it different?
12:38
Speaker 7: Well, because from the timeline that she went missing, and
12:40
Speaker 7: I feel like they originally made it back to the
12:42
Speaker 7: boat there's not a doubt in my mind.
12:43
Speaker 6: They made it back to the boat that night.
12:45
Speaker 7: Now what happened after the electronics went off? And they've changed,
12:48
Speaker 7: and that's where this part of the investigation will reveal.
12:51
Speaker 6: But even the systems that he had on his boat
12:53
Speaker 6: have reversed.
12:54
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is what's different. What are the differences
12:58
Speaker 1: in his story and what the GPS reveals.
13:02
Speaker 7: A completely different track around Lubbers Island. You know that
13:06
Speaker 7: he goes south. The GPS track goes south around Lubbers
13:09
Speaker 7: and goes back over east toward l Ok. But so
13:13
Speaker 7: he told me it happened right outside of the Abaco
13:16
Speaker 7: restaurant and there were only a thousand peep from the ceilboat,
13:18
Speaker 7: and that she was trying to swim back to the cell.
13:20
Speaker 6: Boat when he got blown away. That he was more
13:22
Speaker 6: of a victim when he talked to.
13:23
Speaker 1: Me, okay, can you slow down because I gotta understand
13:29
Speaker 1: Before I can argue one way or the other, I
13:32
Speaker 1: need to understand what you just said. The GPS says
13:36
Speaker 1: that the dinghy or him or the yacht went south.
13:44
Speaker 7: I'm not sure which form of I think that the
13:47
Speaker 7: GPS track they have came from came from his personal electronics,
13:50
Speaker 7: which that would have put the GPS track is where
13:52
Speaker 7: his physical body went, not where the boat went or
13:55
Speaker 7: where the dean went is, but where Brian Hooker went
13:57
Speaker 7: that night and his story he states that he would
14:00
Speaker 7: from A B to C and then the GPS track
14:04
Speaker 7: takes him to a completely different route contradicted and everything
14:06
Speaker 7: that he said in the story.
14:08
Speaker 1: Where does the GPL show you said south around.
14:12
Speaker 7: Around lovers and then back east. See where if you
14:15
Speaker 7: see where he says the yacht is doped. Yeah, he
14:17
Speaker 7: took the He took the track straight across the bay.
14:20
Speaker 7: He got blown straight across the bay over to marsh
14:23
Speaker 7: Harbor and.
14:24
Speaker 6: So but he didn't.
14:25
Speaker 7: The GPS track actually carries him down between the island,
14:29
Speaker 7: down south, back around all the way across the bay,
14:33
Speaker 7: then back north where he's you know, it's landing that
14:36
Speaker 7: and then I feel like he's landing before. And that's
14:38
Speaker 7: where they found the cushion and stuff, because even in
14:40
Speaker 7: that's seat, cushion wasn't found. Everything of Lynette's was completely missing.
14:44
Speaker 7: It has never been recovered. Only the items that you know,
14:46
Speaker 7: if you look that he sits on. His cushion was recovered.
14:49
Speaker 7: You know, his dry bag was recovered, but nothing of Lynette's.
14:52
Speaker 7: And I think the most valid information we've heard lately
14:55
Speaker 7: was trying to track the end last time that her
14:58
Speaker 7: phone pinged. When was it cut? And if we don't
15:00
Speaker 7: necessarily know a location, at least we know a timeline.
15:03
Speaker 7: Did it happen at seven thirty, did it happen at
15:05
Speaker 7: nine thirty?
15:06
Speaker 6: And you know?
15:06
Speaker 7: And so the investigation going back to the Bahallas this
15:09
Speaker 7: time was to try to confirm some of that data
15:11
Speaker 7: electronic evidence.
15:13
Speaker 1: Could I please see Daniel Danforth, Dan, I want to understand.
15:17
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I have this right. The
15:19
Speaker 1: actual GPS that we believe is attached to his body,
15:22
Speaker 1: which could be a cell phone, it could be his iPhone,
15:24
Speaker 1: But it's him. It's him, not the yacht, not the Dingyee,
15:27
Speaker 1: it's him. Takes him south to Lover's Island, then east,
15:36
Speaker 1: then southern and north. Is that what you said?
15:39
Speaker 7: He comes south right around the south side of Lovers
15:43
Speaker 7: this straight east all the way across and made landfall
15:47
Speaker 7: two times before ended up where he reported his original landfall.
15:52
Speaker 1: Wait, so he goes to land two times before he
15:56
Speaker 1: what he reports.
15:57
Speaker 7: Two times before he got to Departy report.
16:03
Speaker 1: No oh oh, no, okay, this is bad Brian Fitzgibbons
16:09
Speaker 1: bad for Lynnette because his story, as Daniel Danforth, as
16:14
Speaker 1: we all have heard the story, because he goes on
16:17
Speaker 1: and I'm that is that they left the restaurant, they
16:23
Speaker 1: get into the dinghy, they get out on the water,
16:27
Speaker 1: and then suddenly two to three foot swells come along.
16:30
Speaker 1: She falls in the water with her dry bag I
16:33
Speaker 1: e phone. He throws her a seat cushion. Although there
16:38
Speaker 1: are life jackets there, they're in the boat right there.
16:43
Speaker 1: He could have thrown them and she's never seen again.
16:47
Speaker 1: That's what he says, and that he is blown straight
16:50
Speaker 1: across the bay and paddles I guess the two teacups,
16:55
Speaker 1: as I like to say, and ends up at Marsh Harbor.
16:57
Speaker 1: Completely different route then what the GPS reveals. That is huge.
17:05
Speaker 1: Vanessa Walt is right, that is damning.
17:10
Speaker 9: Yeah, this is a wildly different story than Brian Hooker
17:14
Speaker 9: first recounted it, and it adds a lot of credence
17:19
Speaker 9: to what many folks are reporting and saying online that
17:23
Speaker 9: he did indeed.
17:24
Speaker 6: Return to the Soulmate.
17:25
Speaker 9: And I think what this brings into play, because you know,
17:28
Speaker 9: that trap. That direction of travel would corroborate some of
17:32
Speaker 9: the eyewitness statements of seeing things happening on Soulmate lights
17:37
Speaker 9: turning on, flares being lit off at strange angles or
17:42
Speaker 9: around nine PM. This this adds a lot of credence
17:47
Speaker 9: to those first hand accounts.
17:50
Speaker 1: Now, one thing I believe that Hooker told Carly Lynette's
17:58
Speaker 1: daughter that the quote floatation device he threw out, I
18:03
Speaker 1: believe is seat cushion was found. Let's listen, let's lest.
18:08
Speaker 10: I got awesome book and rescue and they have found
18:14
Speaker 10: the flotation device that I threw to mom when she
18:17
Speaker 10: fell overboard.
18:18
Speaker 6: They haven't found her yet.
18:19
Speaker 1: That's my friends at CBS, So Vanessa Walsh, that is
18:24
Speaker 1: one thing we think was found, the seat cushion.
18:29
Speaker 5: Yes, and reportedly, inconveniently, the seat cushion washed up not
18:33
Speaker 5: far from where Brian ended up at marsh Harbor.
18:37
Speaker 1: Why do you say that, what's convenient about that? What
18:40
Speaker 1: is coincidental about that?
18:42
Speaker 5: I agree with you, but I would like you to
18:43
Speaker 5: explain the thing that stuck out for me from the
18:46
Speaker 5: beginning is that's I always thought it was stranger.
18:49
Speaker 4: That's the one thing he threw out in that shallow water.
18:52
Speaker 5: But it's interesting that we've never been able to find
18:54
Speaker 5: anything else to corroborate his story, most importantly the dry
18:58
Speaker 5: bag with the dinghy k and her cell phone and
19:01
Speaker 5: his passports and all that.
19:02
Speaker 4: They've never found any trace of that.
19:04
Speaker 5: But they commutely find the one piece he does bring
19:07
Speaker 5: up in his statement close by to where he landed.
19:11
Speaker 4: To me, that seems a little suspicious, just my opinion.
19:15
Speaker 1: And tonight does Brian hook her place himself in the
19:22
Speaker 1: water with Lynette when she falls overboard.
19:28
Speaker 10: I was keeping a very stiff upper lip because she
19:30
Speaker 10: is strong, you know. I mean, she's a regular swimmer,
19:33
Speaker 10: not like a pathlete or anything. But she determined and
19:37
Speaker 10: she was at the flare pistol.
19:39
Speaker 4: I had had.
19:40
Speaker 6: Slid down one of.
19:41
Speaker 10: The responsins down towards the stern and the dinghy. I
19:46
Speaker 10: took so many leaves over the dinghy I bailed about
19:50
Speaker 10: five or six times. I had to bail out the cockpit,
19:52
Speaker 10: but the inside also got wet. The dingy key was
19:55
Speaker 10: not attached to me, you know. So when we were
19:58
Speaker 10: around trying to get back in the boat, and some
20:01
Speaker 10: of the sun was falling, when it kind of dropped out,
20:04
Speaker 10: it was a magnet key, you know, for the electric motor.
20:06
Speaker 10: It was a cascade of failures and it's fun thing
20:10
Speaker 10: I'm never going to forget myself for.
20:12
Speaker 1: So that's him from our friends at Fox News Digital
20:16
Speaker 1: and Unmastered Ty Crime Podcast. First to you, Daniel Danforth,
20:21
Speaker 1: she was hit with a flare pistol. What she was hit?
20:28
Speaker 7: First off?
20:28
Speaker 1: With a flare pistol. I'm looking right at it, what
20:32
Speaker 1: he said on the phone call. And then he goes
20:35
Speaker 1: on to say we were acting around trying to get
20:39
Speaker 1: back in the boat. What do you make of it?
20:44
Speaker 7: I feel like they were possibly trying to get back.
20:47
Speaker 7: There's a couple of contradictories in that he said he
20:48
Speaker 7: was on the stern and the cockpit was filling full
20:50
Speaker 7: of water. That's talking about the sailboat, not necessarily talking
20:54
Speaker 7: about the Dean.
20:55
Speaker 1: Uh.
20:56
Speaker 7: And so this was kind of like it's kind of
20:58
Speaker 7: new information. I hadn't heard this account yet.
21:00
Speaker 1: Okay, to you, Dave Matt joining US Crimes Towards Investigative reporter.
21:05
Speaker 1: He and Vanessa have been on the case from the
21:07
Speaker 1: very beginning when we heard Lynette went overboard. Dave Matt,
21:13
Speaker 1: do I have that statement correct? And who to whom
21:18
Speaker 1: was Brian Hooker speaking.
21:21
Speaker 11: Brian Hooker called fellow voter and friend Blaine Stevenson two
21:26
Speaker 11: days after Lynette vanished in the Bahamas. Now Stevenson related
21:32
Speaker 11: this story to Fox News Digital that at a moment
21:36
Speaker 11: in that phone call, Brian places himself in the water
21:41
Speaker 11: that night. This contradicts his account that he stayed in
21:44
Speaker 11: the dinghy while she drifted away. It is exactly as
21:49
Speaker 11: you just quoted, Nancy. He says that I bailed about
21:53
Speaker 11: five or six times. I had to bail out the cockpit,
21:56
Speaker 11: but that the inside also got wet, and so the
22:00
Speaker 11: dingey key was not attached to me, you know. So
22:02
Speaker 11: when we were wrapping around trying to get back in
22:05
Speaker 11: the boat, word for word, took her to Blaine Stevenson.
22:10
Speaker 1: Dan, you're right. There is no cockpit in a dingy.
22:17
Speaker 6: No, it's just a little open tub.
22:19
Speaker 7: And they didn't really have a bailing device that you
22:21
Speaker 7: know that has a belch pump that pumps out automatically.
22:24
Speaker 1: Just see so many red flags with this. What does
22:28
Speaker 1: it mean she was hit with a flare pistol. I
22:32
Speaker 1: mean to me, that sounds like the pistol accidentally fired
22:37
Speaker 1: and hit her. Or is he saying the pistol rolled
22:41
Speaker 1: down the dinghy and hit her in the leg? What
22:44
Speaker 1: is he saying?
22:45
Speaker 7: It's kind of odd because most people don't carry flares
22:48
Speaker 7: in their dean, you know, like the flare is more
22:51
Speaker 7: for the sailboat that you know, to carry a flare
22:53
Speaker 7: gun on a dinghy that you're just going to and
22:55
Speaker 7: from shore. They're not like you're out cruising around or
22:57
Speaker 7: out in the ocean. A flares used for, you know,
22:59
Speaker 7: certain to rescue, to try to get attention brought towards you.
23:02
Speaker 7: So it's kind of odd that there would even be
23:04
Speaker 7: a flare gun brought up.
23:05
Speaker 6: I feel like a lot of it is. He's just
23:07
Speaker 6: the story is kind of mixed up.
23:08
Speaker 7: And that's what's happened when you don't tell the truth,
23:10
Speaker 7: is that the stories start to overlap each other, and
23:13
Speaker 7: that you know, there's so many contradictions to what happened,
23:15
Speaker 7: what he told me, and then what he told you know,
23:17
Speaker 7: the other witnesses. Somewhere or another, the truth will finally
23:21
Speaker 7: be revealed, you know, That's what I'm hoping it comes out.
23:26
Speaker 1: You know, everyone was disappointed when the coast Guard called
23:30
Speaker 1: off their search in the last few days of that
23:32
Speaker 1: area where they were looking for Lynette. But I was
23:36
Speaker 1: not surprised because I did not think they were going
23:39
Speaker 1: to find Lynette in the area where he said she
23:42
Speaker 1: fell overboard. So that was no big surprise to me.
23:45
Speaker 1: Daniel dan Forth, in fact, surprise if they had found her.
23:51
Speaker 7: We don't know that the ba Behavians may only allow
23:53
Speaker 7: them seven days to come search. We don't know what
23:55
Speaker 7: the criteria of being allowed to search. That they had
23:57
Speaker 7: to ask for permission to enter another country to perform
23:59
Speaker 7: as arch and therefore like so many days into the search,
24:03
Speaker 7: and the Bahamian government wouldn't let them hire private captains anymore.
24:06
Speaker 7: They could only charter the Bahamian government vessels, and so
24:10
Speaker 7: there was a lot of legal red take between the
24:12
Speaker 7: two countries. So we don't really don't know what went
24:13
Speaker 7: down and what done went down until that, like I said,
24:15
Speaker 7: until it all kind of comes out later. We can
24:17
Speaker 7: only go upon what we see and what we're presumed.
24:20
Speaker 7: But I feel like they went down there on a
24:21
Speaker 7: very particular mission, and I feel like we have one
24:24
Speaker 7: of the best investigative services there is all this mission,
24:27
Speaker 7: and I'm praying that we can find something to validate
24:29
Speaker 7: the GPS track and it would blow Brian Hooker's story
24:32
Speaker 7: out of the water because he hasn't done nothing because
24:35
Speaker 7: of her and pain and lies in every single person's
24:37
Speaker 7: lives since we've met him since till now.
24:40
Speaker 6: And the family.
24:40
Speaker 7: I can only imagine what the daughter and the mother
24:42
Speaker 7: are going through because this calls a major toll on
24:44
Speaker 7: my wife where she's kind of now she has PTSD
24:47
Speaker 7: from the past and she's not wanting to go back
24:49
Speaker 7: out selling again. Because it's a community, you have to
24:52
Speaker 7: trust your fellow voter on it, and this is really
24:55
Speaker 7: really damaging into the lifestyle and the voting community.
25:00
Speaker 1: You know what, Dan, You're absolutely right, and I learn
25:03
Speaker 1: that diving. You have to trust the people you're with.
25:08
Speaker 1: They save your life. Okay, there was one instance they
25:11
Speaker 1: saved my life and I didn't even know them that said,
25:16
Speaker 1: this has affected your wife to the point she's got PTSD.
25:20
Speaker 7: She already had PTSD and it's really you know, she's
25:22
Speaker 7: been treated in trying to take care of for years.
25:24
Speaker 7: And that's why we got into boating and so we
25:26
Speaker 7: could be.
25:27
Speaker 6: Alone out on the water.
25:28
Speaker 7: We didn't have to deal with the conflicts of land
25:30
Speaker 7: and since then, this happened. She's very leary because she's
25:33
Speaker 7: real close with Lynette her Lynette met in twenty twenty three,
25:37
Speaker 7: and my wife don't make very many friends. That she's
25:39
Speaker 7: a very very private person, and so it kind of
25:41
Speaker 7: hurt her a lot that that was one of the
25:43
Speaker 7: few people that she kept very close in contact with
25:45
Speaker 7: and that this has happened and we had actually they've
25:48
Speaker 7: been begging us to come down to the Bahamas with them.
25:50
Speaker 7: We actually have a motor yacht, not a sailboat, so
25:52
Speaker 7: it costs a lot more fuel for us to go.
25:54
Speaker 7: And so now it's kind of like she don't trust
25:56
Speaker 7: another boating company. You know, it's kind of hard to
25:59
Speaker 7: you know, to have a buddy boat when this happened
26:00
Speaker 7: to one of the few buddy boats that we've ever had.
26:02
Speaker 7: So it's like she opened herself up a little bit
26:05
Speaker 7: and somebody, I feel like Brian Hooker took advantage of
26:07
Speaker 7: that and really, you know, put her in a bad
26:09
Speaker 7: emotional state and another you know, it really triggered her
26:11
Speaker 7: PTSD again.
26:14
Speaker 1: You stated that Hooker has been nothing but heartache since
26:19
Speaker 1: you met him, and see, I didn't know that. Why
26:22
Speaker 1: do you say that, Well.
26:25
Speaker 6: I enjoyed because we met.
26:27
Speaker 7: Like I said, we originally met in twenty twenty three
26:29
Speaker 7: and we spent a month together in New Orleans, and
26:31
Speaker 7: they were very motivated like us, you know, that kind
26:34
Speaker 7: of give up on the land lifestyle, wanted to travel.
26:37
Speaker 6: We had a lot of the same maritime.
26:39
Speaker 7: Desires, but me and Brian Hooker, we had completely different
26:42
Speaker 7: views on every other thing in the world. But it
26:44
Speaker 7: was nice to be able to talk to somebody and say, well,
26:47
Speaker 7: why do you feel this way without having an actual argument,
26:50
Speaker 7: And I could see the life from a different perspective,
26:52
Speaker 7: from a more liberal perspective where I'm more of a
26:54
Speaker 7: conservative perspective, and so it kind of opened my eyes
26:57
Speaker 7: up to a lot of things. But you know, as
26:59
Speaker 7: we traveled, it was great to have another we call
27:01
Speaker 7: them buddy boats, somebody that asks where you all anchored
27:03
Speaker 7: at tonight so we know you're safe. So that way,
27:05
Speaker 7: if you go missing, you have some kind of a
27:07
Speaker 7: track and accountability of people keeping a touch of like,
27:10
Speaker 7: oh no, you know, the Dan Force were up in
27:11
Speaker 7: you know this bay here, so that was our last
27:14
Speaker 7: known place, and we did the same with the Hookers.
27:16
Speaker 7: So during their time they have had some problems in
27:18
Speaker 7: their relationships. But as my wife was real close in that,
27:21
Speaker 7: I never tried to get involved because you don't want
27:22
Speaker 7: to damage you know, a co friendship like that, you
27:26
Speaker 7: know you have the wives or friends, and then me
27:28
Speaker 7: and him were friends, but it was it was just
27:32
Speaker 7: kind of hurts me a lot that he used me
27:34
Speaker 7: in a pall in the very beginning of this to
27:35
Speaker 7: try to establish a fake story. You know, he shouldn't
27:38
Speaker 7: have never, Like I guess the last interview he did
27:40
Speaker 7: when he said that he wasn't going to leave the
27:41
Speaker 7: Bahamas until a higher power told him that he had
27:44
Speaker 7: to leave. I guess that higher power turned out to
27:46
Speaker 7: be his attorney.
27:48
Speaker 1: Okay, untally the lawyer Josh Coles rude, Have you had
27:55
Speaker 1: time to come up with a defense for that pesky
27:58
Speaker 1: GPS saying something completely different than what Brian Hooker says.
28:04
Speaker 8: Uh, I have an excuse for that, and also for
28:09
Speaker 8: the statement about Brian swimming.
28:11
Speaker 3: So I'll get to them both.
28:12
Speaker 8: So the uh, the first one, Uh, you know there
28:17
Speaker 8: are dry bags, thicker dry bags that do block cell
28:22
Speaker 8: phone signals. So I disagree with my colleague saying that,
28:27
Speaker 8: you know, the dry bags don't do that ever, because
28:30
Speaker 8: that's simply incorrect. I'm a diver, and I know that
28:33
Speaker 8: my cell phone does not work in my dry bag,
28:36
Speaker 8: which is a thick dry bag. Uh.
28:38
Speaker 3: Second, you know, how do we know that the battery right?
28:40
Speaker 1: Well, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, wait, Okay, Josh,
28:45
Speaker 1: I have plan not to interrupt you, but you're saying
28:48
Speaker 1: that a car, that a cell phone can transmit through
28:52
Speaker 1: these walls in this studio through a car. You're gonna
28:57
Speaker 1: get Wi Fi on a plane, but you're saying a
29:01
Speaker 1: dry bag, stop say cell phone from transmitting. I just
29:04
Speaker 1: want to make sure I understood what you just said,
29:06
Speaker 1: because I would have so much fun. Oh, I may
29:09
Speaker 1: have to go back to the court room now that
29:11
Speaker 1: you said that? Is that? Okay? All right? Go ahead?
29:22
Speaker 8: Yeah, the thicker dry bags, I can block cell phone signals, period.
29:31
Speaker 8: And when you're out on the water and the cell
29:33
Speaker 8: phone signals aren't as good as they would be on
29:36
Speaker 8: the land with five G networks, you know, it's not
29:40
Speaker 8: out of the realm of possibility that that signal was lost.
29:45
Speaker 8: And what about the battery on the phone. How do
29:47
Speaker 8: we know that the battery didn't die during that time?
29:51
Speaker 8: You know, there just are too many alternative explanations that
29:55
Speaker 8: can explain the probity away from this piece of evidence.
30:00
Speaker 3: And then secondly, Nancy, you know, let's.
30:03
Speaker 8: Talk briefly about the recorded conversation that you brought up
30:08
Speaker 8: where Brian said that he was in the water.
30:10
Speaker 3: You know that was taken out of context.
30:12
Speaker 8: If you look at the three p thirty mark in
30:15
Speaker 8: that statement, the friend literally asked him, so you were
30:18
Speaker 8: swimming and he says no. So, you know, you know,
30:22
Speaker 8: to be fair to the recorded conversation, you know, he
30:26
Speaker 8: gives a mixed answer. You know, it's certainly nothing definitive
30:30
Speaker 8: about him being in the water. And because you know,
30:34
Speaker 8: the statement was given to a friend, it wasn't given
30:37
Speaker 8: in a way where he was preparing for you know,
30:40
Speaker 8: trial or something like that. This was a genuine comment
30:43
Speaker 8: about somebody who's genuinely.
30:45
Speaker 3: Cared for and looking for the wife.
30:48
Speaker 8: So you know, I think that this is much to
30:52
Speaker 8: do about nothing, and you know, there's no there there.
30:56
Speaker 1: Okay, And I boat Brian Hooker. I had to belt wait.
31:04
Speaker 1: I want to start with her getting shot with a
31:06
Speaker 1: flare pistol. She was hit with a flare pistol. I
31:09
Speaker 1: had slid down one of those sponsors down towards the stern,
31:13
Speaker 1: which there's not really a stern and a cockpit. Well,
31:16
Speaker 1: there's not a cockpit and a dinghy. I took so
31:19
Speaker 1: many ways over the dingey. I boiled about five or
31:21
Speaker 1: six times. I had to bail out the cockpit. There's
31:24
Speaker 1: not a cockpick in a DEENI and a dingy, but
31:27
Speaker 1: the inside also got wet and so and the dingey
31:31
Speaker 1: key was not attached to me, you know. So when
31:34
Speaker 1: we were around trying to get back on the boat,
31:41
Speaker 1: those you know what, let's listen to it from the
31:44
Speaker 1: horse's mouth.
31:45
Speaker 10: I was keeping a very stiff up her lip because
31:48
Speaker 10: she is strong, you know.
31:49
Speaker 6: I mean she's a regular swimmer or not like a
31:52
Speaker 6: nast or anything.
31:53
Speaker 10: But she's determine that she was hit the flare pistol
31:56
Speaker 10: if I had had slid down one of the sponsons
32:00
Speaker 10: down towards the stern and the dinghy. I took so
32:04
Speaker 10: many leaves over the dinghy. I failed about five or
32:08
Speaker 10: six times. I had to bail out the cockpit, but
32:10
Speaker 10: the inside also got wet. The dingy key was not
32:13
Speaker 10: attest to me, you know. So when we were around
32:16
Speaker 10: trying to get back in the boat, and some of
32:18
Speaker 10: the sun was falling when it kind of dropped out.
32:21
Speaker 10: It was a magnet key, you know, for the electric motor.
32:24
Speaker 10: It was a cascade of failures and it's fun thing
32:28
Speaker 10: I'm never going to forget myself for.
32:30
Speaker 1: So that's him from our friends at Fox News Digital
32:33
Speaker 1: and Unmastery Crime podcast starring Vanessa Walt, who is joining
32:39
Speaker 1: us tonight. He absolutely said we were trying to get
32:43
Speaker 1: back into the boat, Vanessa. I mean I just heard it,
32:49
Speaker 1: he did.
32:50
Speaker 5: Nancy, and I've listened to that call between Brian and
32:53
Speaker 5: Blamed countless times over the past two months, and I
32:56
Speaker 5: did immediately notice that part of the statement as well
33:00
Speaker 5: the very first day I listened to it, and I
33:02
Speaker 5: did kind of stop and go, WHOA was that some
33:04
Speaker 5: type of slip up?
33:05
Speaker 4: What was that exactly?
33:07
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, whether he doesn't really have a chance to clarify it,
33:10
Speaker 5: or he chooses not to really circle back to that,
33:12
Speaker 5: because the conversation's kind of bouncing all over the place,
33:15
Speaker 5: we can't be one hundred percent sure of what he
33:18
Speaker 5: means there. But he does say, you know you were swimming,
33:22
Speaker 5: then Blaine says, and then he says no, But he
33:25
Speaker 5: jumps to the next sentence, So it's really hard to
33:28
Speaker 5: discern what exactly he was saying there. I wish they
33:31
Speaker 5: would have kind of dove into that deeper and got
33:34
Speaker 5: some more clarification.
33:38
Speaker 1: We alluded to this at the very beginning, regarding an
33:43
Speaker 1: eleven hour gap in the tracking. Coincidentally, when Lynette guys overbore,
33:52
Speaker 1: take a listen to Kenneth ingeran maritime law professor.
33:57
Speaker 12: There are ways that it can stop trends submitting catastrophic
34:02
Speaker 12: power failure. It doesn't just go off and then come
34:09
Speaker 12: back on in the situation like this without some sort
34:15
Speaker 12: of deliberate action.
34:18
Speaker 13: I believe there's evidence that the tracking of the boat
34:23
Speaker 13: was turned off at a time that closely parallels around
34:28
Speaker 13: the time that she went missing.
34:30
Speaker 3: All of those things are highly suspicious.
34:32
Speaker 1: And the guy you see talking right there is Tad Debates.
34:36
Speaker 1: He's a former federal prosecutor, veteran attorney. And the first
34:41
Speaker 1: one was the maritime law professor. As I mentioned Kenneth Ingrand,
34:45
Speaker 1: what are they talking about, Daniel dan Forth, how does
34:50
Speaker 1: it relate to this case? Oh, that's where our friends
34:53
Speaker 1: at Fox News Digital. I'm referring specifically to an eleven
34:57
Speaker 1: hour gap where the GPS just turns off.
35:01
Speaker 7: I don't think that that accidentally happened. It had to
35:03
Speaker 7: be manually turned off. With the type of battery systems
35:06
Speaker 7: that they had, the solar system. They even it has
35:08
Speaker 7: an emergency reserve. So let's something like you said, a
35:12
Speaker 7: catastrophic power failure happened, then it wouldn't have just accidentally
35:15
Speaker 7: turned off. And if it was a catastrophic power failure
35:18
Speaker 7: did happen, it wouldn't be automatically turned back on. When
35:21
Speaker 7: Brian Hooper and the volunteers you know, Research and Rescue
35:24
Speaker 7: made it back to the boat the next day is
35:25
Speaker 7: when it came back on. So that tells me that
35:28
Speaker 7: it was manually turned off.
35:29
Speaker 6: It manually turned back on.
35:31
Speaker 7: Because if you had a catastrophic power failure, you're not going.
35:33
Speaker 6: To go back to the put it back on.
35:37
Speaker 1: Well, you just said that it was battery or solar powered,
35:42
Speaker 1: not connected to power on the mainland.
35:47
Speaker 3: Right, it was.
35:49
Speaker 6: It was completely powered. Everything on Solmate was powered from Soulmate.
35:52
Speaker 7: They actually had a lithium lithium battery pack and then
35:55
Speaker 7: they had solar and generators to recharge the lithium solar pack.
35:59
Speaker 7: And so if you had a major meltdown that would
36:01
Speaker 7: actually power off with.
36:02
Speaker 6: That nobody on the boat.
36:03
Speaker 7: You're not just gonna be able to just turn that
36:04
Speaker 7: back on when you got there. You'd have to correct
36:06
Speaker 7: whatever problem there was then turn it back on. But
36:09
Speaker 7: when Hopetown Search and Rescue took Brian Hooker back to
36:11
Speaker 7: the boat the next day, and it's been logged at
36:13
Speaker 7: the same time that they got to the boat, is
36:15
Speaker 7: when the power came back on. Now you got a
36:17
Speaker 7: critical component failure that says, okay, I can no longer
36:20
Speaker 7: run the electronics. I'm shut down, and I had an
36:22
Speaker 7: electronic failure. You're not gonna go back in there the
36:25
Speaker 7: next day and just turn it on. The system came
36:27
Speaker 7: back active the same time that Hope Hopetown Search and
36:31
Speaker 7: Rescue took Brian Hooker back to the boat. I think
36:34
Speaker 7: it was logged at eight thirty or nine thirty am,
36:37
Speaker 7: and that's when the system was powered back on. And
36:39
Speaker 7: that you wasn't a long delay. It was like he
36:41
Speaker 7: went in the boat, flipped the switch, the power came
36:43
Speaker 7: back on, and another gentleman stayed on the boat within
36:47
Speaker 7: for about an hour kind of looking around, and then
36:49
Speaker 7: we come back off at the Hopetown Search and Rescue.
36:51
Speaker 1: Left then Oh my stars.
36:54
Speaker 7: And another thing I wanted to point out too is
36:56
Speaker 7: I'm not trying to rewind, but they said in that
36:57
Speaker 7: phone call, he says that we were, you know, after
36:59
Speaker 7: a round, I'm trying to get.
37:00
Speaker 6: Back on the boat.
37:02
Speaker 7: Most people don't ever call a DAN a boat. A
37:04
Speaker 7: D will always be a DAN, maybe a tender. But
37:07
Speaker 7: so it sounds to me like he slipped up and
37:09
Speaker 7: said we got back to sol Mat and we were,
37:12
Speaker 7: you know, kind of fighting around trying to get back
37:14
Speaker 7: on you know, the part about the way he describes
37:16
Speaker 7: that would sound like they're trying to get back on
37:18
Speaker 7: the big boat, which would have been sole Mate.
37:20
Speaker 6: And I feel like that was a little bit.
37:21
Speaker 7: That's where he crossed the conversation off to something different
37:24
Speaker 7: real quick, because you're not gonna call like if you're say,
37:26
Speaker 7: if I fell overboard, I'm trying to get back to
37:28
Speaker 7: my D.
37:29
Speaker 6: I'm not trying to get back in a boat. You
37:30
Speaker 6: never really call a D a boat.
37:32
Speaker 7: There's there's just a normal person who don't who's a
37:34
Speaker 7: land person would call it, you know, a look a
37:36
Speaker 7: little boat and a big boat.
37:38
Speaker 6: But in the nautical world.
37:39
Speaker 7: That a dan is a d in a boat is
37:41
Speaker 7: a boat. So if he's made the comment we were
37:43
Speaker 7: trying to get back on the boat. We were effing
37:44
Speaker 7: around trying to get back on the boat, that confirms
37:47
Speaker 7: that they made it back to Solvate that night.
37:48
Speaker 6: That that's a lie that he said that they didn't
37:50
Speaker 6: make it back. I think that he did. He told
37:52
Speaker 6: him so for right there that they did make it
37:53
Speaker 6: back to.
37:53
Speaker 1: Sulvate, which would explain a lot Daniel dan Forth when
37:57
Speaker 1: he keeps referring to the stern and the kind of
37:59
Speaker 1: saying if you don't have that in a dinghy.
38:02
Speaker 7: And if you also hear the water got into the boat,
38:05
Speaker 7: so it got into the cockpit. Also, it got inside
38:08
Speaker 7: and got the inside with there's no inside of a Dani.
38:11
Speaker 7: You got the cockpit of a celboat. The door was opened,
38:14
Speaker 7: water went inside the stuff. So you see that he
38:16
Speaker 7: almost at he's describing the cell boat. He's not describing
38:19
Speaker 7: the Dean. When that phone call, and then you can
38:22
Speaker 7: see he called himself and that's where he started switching
38:24
Speaker 7: it back up to oh, let's go back to playing.
38:26
Speaker 7: You know, poor Brian Hooker here, and but like I
38:29
Speaker 7: also wanted to point out the cushion that he supposedly
38:31
Speaker 7: threw to her.
38:32
Speaker 6: It was found.
38:33
Speaker 7: That's his cushion. You see him sit on in every video.
38:35
Speaker 7: Where's her cushion?
38:36
Speaker 9: At?
38:37
Speaker 7: How come her cushion was never recovered? Not what you know,
38:40
Speaker 7: but there's not one video of them ever in the
38:42
Speaker 7: dingy that she don't have her cushion with her. And
38:44
Speaker 7: that's a guaranteed flotation device.
38:45
Speaker 6: It does not sink.
38:46
Speaker 7: So how come it wasn't ever recovered in the same
38:48
Speaker 7: general location or even to this day that that cushion was.
38:52
Speaker 7: I think they made it back to the cell boat,
38:54
Speaker 7: and that confirms that they made it back to the
38:56
Speaker 7: cell boat. With very words of them saying we were
38:59
Speaker 7: effing around trying to get back on the ceilboat or
39:02
Speaker 7: try to get back on the boat. He would have
39:03
Speaker 7: said we were having around trying to get back in
39:05
Speaker 7: the d if they had fallen overboard, and then that's
39:08
Speaker 7: why what Blaine said was y'all swimming Oh no, no,
39:11
Speaker 7: because they were going from the d back into the
39:13
Speaker 7: big boat, which would have been the sailboat fault me.
39:16
Speaker 7: So he just confirmed right there that they made it
39:18
Speaker 7: back to the boat that night.
39:20
Speaker 1: Then there is the whole issue of the infrared.
39:25
Speaker 3: He showed me.
39:26
Speaker 14: You have something they called that flear system, which is
39:28
Speaker 14: a forward looking infra red canram. He said, if any
39:31
Speaker 14: person comes up in a boat or a kayak or
39:33
Speaker 14: something like that, or walks down the dock, it immediately
39:36
Speaker 14: set off alarm and it's self track them as they
39:38
Speaker 14: walk around the boat.
39:39
Speaker 15: If it's at night time and it's in the dark,
39:41
Speaker 15: the flour is going to immediately capture the heat of
39:44
Speaker 15: that person's body. Seizing a vessel is a great piece
39:49
Speaker 15: of evidence because all these electronics are digital evidence, and
39:54
Speaker 15: it doesn't go away, and you can't delete it, and
39:56
Speaker 15: you can't erase it.
39:57
Speaker 6: It's there forever.
39:59
Speaker 1: First you were seeing our guest, our friend, Dan Danforth
40:05
Speaker 1: on CBS News. Then you were seeing our longtime friend
40:10
Speaker 1: and colleague Robert Crispin, private investigator speaking at CBS News
40:14
Speaker 1: as well. Dan dan Forth. What to what are they
40:20
Speaker 1: referring about the infrared?
40:23
Speaker 7: Now, what he had on his boat was a very
40:25
Speaker 7: unique system that most people don't have. It's actually considered
40:27
Speaker 7: a high end luxury ist of and most of the
40:29
Speaker 7: time it's for search and rescue or military boats.
40:32
Speaker 6: But what he had was called clear for looking infrared.
40:35
Speaker 7: Now, as you can see in the photo, it is
40:36
Speaker 7: mounted pretty high up the mast, and so the key
40:39
Speaker 7: features that it has is an auto detect and auto
40:42
Speaker 7: self track. And when I was getting an experience of
40:45
Speaker 7: system and stuff, my wife was walking down the dock
40:47
Speaker 7: and it actually picked up her heat signature and it
40:50
Speaker 7: tracked her going all the way back over to Aria
40:52
Speaker 7: and her boarding Ari yacht.
40:54
Speaker 6: And I thought that was.
40:54
Speaker 7: Pretty neat, and he said, don't worry, he goes, you
40:56
Speaker 7: can set the temperature for whatever you want, and anything
40:58
Speaker 7: above that temperature at an all badly self track. And
41:01
Speaker 7: so that night, if the system was working, it should
41:04
Speaker 7: have automatically self tracked them if they got anywhere near
41:06
Speaker 7: the Dean.
41:07
Speaker 6: Within a I guess within one hundred.
41:09
Speaker 7: Yards or so, it should have self tracked, especially if
41:11
Speaker 7: somebody was in the water. You exert more energy, so
41:13
Speaker 7: you're going to create more heat, you know, so it's
41:15
Speaker 7: going to be an easier target for it to find.
41:18
Speaker 7: The coastguard said that the system wasn't really registered to
41:20
Speaker 7: Brown on the net, but once they got the serial
41:22
Speaker 7: number off of the system that they were going to
41:24
Speaker 7: be able to access the Fleer system's cloud, and that
41:27
Speaker 7: regardless whether or not Brian and Lynette subscribed to the cloud,
41:30
Speaker 7: that once they had that serial number, they would be
41:32
Speaker 7: able to access all the information off of that. So
41:34
Speaker 7: that was part of the reason they get a warm
41:36
Speaker 7: to be able to pull the serial number off of
41:37
Speaker 7: that Fleer system.
41:39
Speaker 1: Okay, other people hate it when I do this, but
41:43
Speaker 1: I have got to have you explain that again and
41:46
Speaker 1: speak very slowly, because I've never dealt with a Fleer
41:52
Speaker 1: front forward looking infrared and I see it up on
41:58
Speaker 1: the mast. We're showing it as you can speak. I
42:00
Speaker 1: don't know if you see your monitor or not, but
42:03
Speaker 1: there it is. It was registered to the previous owners,
42:06
Speaker 1: not the hookers. Okay, tell me one more time. You
42:09
Speaker 1: were saying it could track your wife.
42:12
Speaker 6: What it is.
42:13
Speaker 7: It's basically like a camera, but instead of seeing it
42:15
Speaker 7: like there's a video camera or a cell your phone
42:17
Speaker 7: camera where you're going to see an image on the screen,
42:20
Speaker 7: it picks up. It's strictly and heat thermal, and so
42:23
Speaker 7: it's kind of like when you're watching a movie like
42:25
Speaker 7: the old Poultergeist movies and stuff. You would see that
42:28
Speaker 7: thermal image, but you couldn't see a person. It was
42:30
Speaker 7: almost invisible. So if somebody was invisible, you could still
42:32
Speaker 7: track them with this camera because it.
42:34
Speaker 6: Reads heat temperature.
42:35
Speaker 7: If there's anything that changes temperature around the ambient temperature,
42:38
Speaker 7: it's going to show up a different color. And so
42:40
Speaker 7: it was like my wife was leaving solvate headed back
42:44
Speaker 7: to our boat. All was inside a salvate and the
42:46
Speaker 7: camera automatically detected her movement because it was higher than
42:49
Speaker 7: eighty degrees where he had the temperature set that day
42:51
Speaker 7: on the system. So the camera tracks her and it
42:54
Speaker 7: don't show her as my wife. It shows her as
42:56
Speaker 7: like a red walking human, you know. But she's all
42:59
Speaker 7: read and you can't like a picture of her, you know.
43:01
Speaker 7: It don't show you that, you know, like her skin
43:03
Speaker 7: color or her hair color. It's just strictly a red
43:05
Speaker 7: figure walking down the dock. It just strictly reads some
43:07
Speaker 7: thermal imaging. And it's a very high end system and
43:10
Speaker 7: they're great for search and rescues. That I even asked,
43:13
Speaker 7: you know, during this time when Lynette was first missing,
43:16
Speaker 7: how can they use them that as part of the
43:17
Speaker 7: search and rescue to be able to search advoca see
43:20
Speaker 7: Because it's such a high end system to be able
43:22
Speaker 7: to locate. And that's the purpose of having something like
43:24
Speaker 7: that is to be able to see at nighttime, to
43:26
Speaker 7: be able to see in bad conditions, to be able
43:28
Speaker 7: to track things that you can't see in the black
43:30
Speaker 7: in the darkness of night.
43:33
Speaker 1: So it's my understanding Vanessa Walch, the star of Unmasked
43:38
Speaker 1: True crime, who has done a lot of investigative work,
43:42
Speaker 1: and the disappearance of one that hook her, it's my
43:45
Speaker 1: understanding that the camera is currently being processed as part
43:51
Speaker 1: of this probe.
43:53
Speaker 4: What do you know understanding as well?
43:55
Speaker 5: And they're specifically interested in the potential iCloud capabilities, as
44:00
Speaker 5: was just saying, And I think, I mean this parent
44:03
Speaker 5: is specifically designed to detect if someone goes overboard, one
44:07
Speaker 5: of its main functions. So I think the big question
44:10
Speaker 5: for investigators will be was this infrared camera operational when
44:16
Speaker 5: Lynette went missing? And did Braham try to use it
44:19
Speaker 5: to find Lynette?
44:19
Speaker 1: And if not, why, Dan dan Forth, I was looking
44:23
Speaker 1: through all the information we've a masked and isn't it
44:27
Speaker 1: true that Hooker showed off the infrared device while you
44:30
Speaker 1: were all docked in New Orleans back in around twenty three.
44:34
Speaker 6: Yes, And like I was telling you.
44:35
Speaker 7: My wife has PTSD, so she gets very nervous anytime
44:38
Speaker 7: that we're in contact with land, and that she don't
44:41
Speaker 7: really know who's accessible to come get us, because when
44:43
Speaker 7: we're all the water, nobody can really come get us.
44:45
Speaker 7: Unless you drive up in another boat or come up
44:47
Speaker 7: in some scuba gear, you're not really going to get
44:49
Speaker 7: to us. And so when we were at the dock,
44:52
Speaker 7: telling Brian about my wife's PTSD, he said, don't worry.
44:55
Speaker 7: So this is the best security system you can have.
44:57
Speaker 7: And my wife and Lynette we're out on the dock
44:59
Speaker 7: talking and uh so, as it stay.
45:01
Speaker 6: Departed and my wife was going back to the boat.
45:04
Speaker 7: He you know, set the camera and said, you know,
45:05
Speaker 7: set it for alarm for anything above eighty six degrees. Well,
45:09
Speaker 7: instantly the camera spun around and it started tracking my wife.
45:12
Speaker 6: As she walked back out, because on.
45:14
Speaker 7: The dock she was the only other things you know,
45:16
Speaker 7: higher than eighty six degrees at the time the size
45:18
Speaker 7: la neet and so any kind of like movement or
45:21
Speaker 7: something like that that has a higher temperature, the camera's
45:24
Speaker 7: on self detect like it can pen three hundred and
45:26
Speaker 7: sixty degrees up and down one hundred and eighty degrees
45:29
Speaker 7: and so it can look around. It's a self searching
45:31
Speaker 7: feature your other guest. And one of the main features
45:34
Speaker 7: of this clear system has MOB which is man overboard
45:38
Speaker 7: feature on it. So if somebody ever does fall overboard,
45:41
Speaker 7: you push a boat button on it and a track
45:44
Speaker 7: and it tracks the person to me if you had
45:45
Speaker 7: to turn around you know the heat in the storm
45:48
Speaker 7: or at nighttime, to be able to go back and
45:49
Speaker 7: look for somebody. It has a man overboard feature as
45:52
Speaker 7: part of the feature of this system.
45:56
Speaker 1: Now, in his defense, Ryan Fit's Gibbon has pointed out
46:01
Speaker 1: something significant. Do I think it's probative? Does it prove anything? Know?
46:07
Speaker 1: Not to me about the GPS going off for those
46:09
Speaker 1: critical eleven hours. But Brian, I'm glad you told me
46:14
Speaker 1: about it, because every good prosecution anticipates the defense and
46:19
Speaker 1: is prepared to shred it. So you mentioned something about
46:24
Speaker 1: previous times the GPS had gone down.
46:28
Speaker 9: Yeah, So it's been reported not only that nine hour
46:31
Speaker 9: window on the night of Lynnette's disappearance was the AIS
46:36
Speaker 9: tracker off. It's been reported that also on three other
46:42
Speaker 9: days or three other times between April tenth and April thirteenth,
46:47
Speaker 9: the tracking system was shut down. Now, you know what
46:52
Speaker 9: flies in the face of this is that Brian Hooker
46:54
Speaker 9: was in custody by the Royal Behaman Police from April
46:58
Speaker 9: eighth to April thirteenth. Okay, so those dates are well.
47:04
Speaker 4: Known to us.
47:05
Speaker 9: So you know, the prosecution, if there is to be
47:08
Speaker 9: a prosecution, is certainly going to need to explain that
47:12
Speaker 9: April tenth date the AIS tracker went off.
47:16
Speaker 1: So you're saying that on three other occasions between April
47:21
Speaker 1: ten April thirteen, his Brian Hooker's GPS went down, but
47:27
Speaker 1: he was in custody at the time, is that what
47:29
Speaker 1: you're saying?
47:30
Speaker 9: Yeah, And there certainly could be a good reason for this,
47:33
Speaker 9: right But as that nautical expert was on talking about it,
47:38
Speaker 9: that there had to be some kind of human intervention
47:41
Speaker 9: to turn this system off during the hours of Lenett's disappearance.
47:45
Speaker 1: So, for all I know, it could have been during
47:49
Speaker 1: the investigation that the GPS was being tested or investigated.
47:54
Speaker 1: I don't know, but that's a fact that could be
47:59
Speaker 1: critical to both the state and the prosecution in this case.
48:02
Speaker 1: At this hour tonight, Brian Hooker remains innocent, presumed innocent
48:09
Speaker 1: under the law unless and until that presumption is pierced
48:15
Speaker 1: with evidence on the part of the state that proves
48:19
Speaker 1: him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If you know or
48:23
Speaker 1: think you know anything about Lawn's disappearance, please dial US
48:28
Speaker 1: Coast Guard eight hundred four to two four eight eight
48:33
Speaker 1: zero two eight hundred four two four eight eight zero two.
48:38
Speaker 1: We remember an American hero, Lieutenant Patrick Wutherford Newport, p D, Arkansas,
48:44
Speaker 1: shot in the line of duty after fifteen years on
48:47
Speaker 1: the force, leaving behind his wife, Kristen, and two children,
48:52
Speaker 1: Caitlin and Caleb. Sentenced to life without their father. American hero,
48:58
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Patrick Weatherford. Thank you to our guests, but especially
49:03
Speaker 1: to ye for being with us. Nancy Grace signing off
49:05
Speaker 1: for to night. I'll see you to morrow night, and
49:07
Speaker 1: until then, good night friend,