FREEPORT, Bahamas — The husband of a Michigan woman who disappeared in the Bahamas after reportedly falling from their boat has been released from police custody, his attorney said Monday evening.
Terrel Butler told reporters that authorities "had no evidence" against her client Brian Hooker and were required to release him.
Hooker, 58, did not respond to reporters' questions as he left Grand Bahama's central police station with Butler. She described him as "very emotional" and said he needed time to "destress from this horrible experience."
Hooker wastaken into custody Wednesday, days after he told Bahamian authorities that his wife, Lynette Hooker, fell off the dinghy they were riding on April 4. He said she fell overboard with the key to the vessel, forcing him to paddle from Elbow Cay to Marsh Harbor Boat Yard, where he notified police.
In an interview Monday evening, Royal Bahamas Police Commissioner Shanta Knowles said that authorities made the decision to release Brian Hooker after meeting with prosecutors.
Knowles said he will remain a suspect in the investigation, which she said is ongoing. Officials remain hopeful that they can find Lynn Hooker, she said.
Butler said earlier that police did not provide any new evidence in an interview with her client Monday, which lasted less than an hour. She added that the interview was more of the same line of questioning from his previous conversations.
On Friday, police questioned Brian Hooker for more than three hours at Central Police Station in Grand Bahama about whether he caused harm to his 55-year-old wife, Butler said at the time. He was also asked about his relationship with his wife and their personal life, Butler said.
The lawyer noted Friday that there is so far no evidence or information related to Lynette Hooker’s death. No body has been recovered as of Monday.
“He was uncertain as to why they were questioning him about causing harm or possible murder when they had not given him any information where she is, if they had recovered her,” Butler said after the Friday interview.
Brian Hooker has denied any wrongdoing in relation to his wife’s disappearance.
“He definitely denies causing her death, and he still asked about her and is hopeful that she will be recovered,” Butler added.
Lynette Hooker has now been missing for more than a week. On Friday, Royal Bahamas Defense Force Cmdr. Origin Deleveaux told NBC News that the search for her is ongoing. Authorities are searching for Lynette Hooker by land, air and sea.
Deleveaux noted the “serious bad weather” as the search unfolded, echoing what Brian Hooker and others who live on the island have said about the weather causing rough waters that night.
But Lynette Hooker’s daughter, Karli Aylesworth, has questioned her stepfather’s telling of events.
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“I hope this was just a freak accident, but I just have a hard time believing it at the moment,” Aylesworth said Thursday. “I just want to know the truth.”
Aylesworth said she didn’t think her mother’s disappearance was an accident.
“I feel like this was probably preplanned, if anything, like, it doesn’t seem like just some accident,” she said.
Brian Hooker “categorically and unequivocally denies any wrongdoing and in particular the allegations recently made by Karli Aylesworth,” according to a statement Butler released Thursday.
The couple had “a history of not getting along, especially when they drink,” Aylesworth previously told NBC News.
But her mother and stepfather were both experienced on the water and had been sailing for more than a decade, she said. They started in a small, two-person sailboat and eventually upgraded to a larger vessel purchased in Texas.
Both Brian and Lynette Hooker have had previous run-ins with the law.
Court records in Michigan indicate that a jury acquitted Brian Hooker of a child abuse charge in 2006. Details of the case were not available.
Lynette Hooker wasarrested on charges of assault and battery/simple assault in 2015, though the warrant was denied for “insufficient evidence as to who started the assault.” According to a Michigan police report from that night, she and her husband accused each other of assault.
As previously reported by NBC News, Brian Hookerdetailed the evening his wife went overboard in a phone call to a friend, a recording of which was shared on YouTube.
In the audio, purportedly of Brian Hooker, he says he and his wife were anchored out at the south end of Aunt Pat’s Bay on Elbow Cay near Tahiti Beach, and they went out in a dinghy into the water last Saturday night.
He said Lynette Hooker “basically just bounced off the dinghy” amid a blow of winds around 20 mph.
“We weren’t wearing life jackets. It was sundown, and the sun set like basically 10 minutes after she fell over,” he said.
“The wind blew us apart so fast that I think, I think she tried to swim back to the sailboat, back to our sailboat which was probably, I don’t know, 1,000 yards [away] or something. But the waves were three foot,” he said.
What followed was a “cascade of failures and it’s something I’m never going to forgive myself for,” Hooker said on the call.
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