Brian Hooker says he will continue looking for missing wife in Bahamas

April 14 (UPI) -- Brian Hooker, an American man released from police custody this week in the Bahamas after his wife went missing, said he won't stop looking for her.

Brian Hooker, 58, said his wife Lynette Hooker, 55, fell overboard from the dinghy they were in on April 5, while holding the boat's keys.

Brian Hooker said he tried to save her, but paddled to shore when he lost sight of her in the strong current before paddling from Elbow Cay to Marsh Harbor Boat Yard on Abaco Island -- about 5 miles to 8 miles -- before notifying police.

Police took him into custody April 8.

Brian Hooker told CBS News that he wants to believe his wife is still alive, and he plans to go back and search for her as soon as he can.

"I won't be able to stop looking," he said. "Someone with more authority" will have to tell him to stop.

He was released Monday evening because Bahamian law doesn't allow police to hold him any longer without charges, his attorney Terrel Butler said.

Brian Hooker told ABC News that being in police custody was "hell."

"It was a little different chapter of hell in a giant hell that I'm in," he said.

No body has been found.

Brian Hooker said he believes his wife is still alive.

"I believe, I've been told that people have lasted in the Bahamas after falling overboard for days and even weeks," he told CBS News.

"There are so many islands, there are so many sandbars, little atolls and spits of land," he said. "Of course you think about alternatives to that, but I'm not really capable of just turning away from this."

The couple, from Grand Rapids, Mich., were avid sailors. Brian Hooker told CBS News they had been sailing for more than 12 years, and being together on the water was "fantastic."

Their boat, called Soulmate, is 46 feet long, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. "She's our floating home," he told CBS. "We've been on her for four years now."

"We were more like co-captains," he said. "There are certain jobs that I did, and certain jobs that she did, because there's a big enough boat that it takes two people to really to run efficiently."

But text messages between Lynette Hooker and a friend implied otherwise.

After being married for 21 years, were six weeks together at sea, Lynette told Marnee Stevenson, a fellow boater and friend, in 2024, via text message.

"I guess it was too much closeness. We decided to call it quits. I'm not going back," Lynette Hooker wrote to her. When Stevenson asked if the two could reconcile, Lynette Hooker said, "It was real bad. I can't be out there with him."

But she implied that she returned to him after a month, saying, "Looks like things are on the up and up."

Lynette Hooker's daughter, Karli Aylesworth, doesn't believe her stepfather's story.

"I hope this was just a freak accident, but I just have a hard time believing it at the moment," Aylesworth told NBC News. "I just want to know the truth."

Aylesworth told CBS News last week, "I don't understand how she got the key. Brian's always driving. So, he basically is in charge of the key. So, the fact that my mom had it doesn't make any sense."

Lynette Hooker's mother, Darlene Hamlett, told ABC News she hopes "we find the truth." Hamlett said the couple had a volatile marriage.

"I just want the truth to come out, and I'm hoping that they can do that, and I hope they find her and that that will help clear up all of this," she said.

Brian Hooker said he wants to find his wife.

"My sole focus is finding Lynette, no matter how likely or unlikely that is," he told ABC. "This search for Lynette has been interrupted by the investigation. I understand that investigations have to take place, but I'm going as soon as I can to start finding Lynette.

"I will always think there was something I could have done differently. My one job, my one job was to look out for her, and that has not happened. And I'm gonna keep looking out for her now, the best I can.

"I'm going to keep going. I'm not leaving until I'm told to leave or convinced that it's fruitless," he said.

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