You Don’t Need a Murder Motive To Explain Her Likely Death

Cascade of Poor Choices Appear To Have Preceded Her Loss Overboard

Peter Swanson Apr 8

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“Never ascribe to conspiracy that which can be explained by simple incompetence.”

Most of you must have found the news coverage of the American woman who fell off a dinghy in the Abacos at least mildly annoying. She went overboard on Saturday and hasn’t been seen since then.

Brian and Lynette Hooker had been spending time at the Abaco Inn, which is on White Sound at Elbow Cay. Many news accounts describe how the couple then got underway and headed to Elbow Cay, where of course they already were. They were actually heading to where they had anchored their boat somewhere along the Elbow’s western shore, reportedly about 2 1/2 miles away.

To make the whole episode even more confusing, many of the news reports had Lynette Hooker failing overboard with the keys to the outboard. Nobody bothered to explain to the writers that the woman was probably attached to the motor’s emergency kill switch by a lanyard, so when she tumbled into the water the thing went with her.

Turns out, the outboard was an electric Torqeedo, so the kill switch wasn’t really a switch as per conventional gas motors. It was a magnet, coated in orange plastic, that nests atop the tiller causing a connection to happen inside. Unlike the button switch on conventional outboards, you cannot use a pair of needlenose vice-grips or tightly wound string as workarounds if that type of cut-off device gets lost, that little yoke thingy and lanyard.

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If the news media was sloppy, the social media reaction to the story descended almost instantly into speculation that 58-year-old Brian had somehow murdered his 55-year-old wife while tooling along a couple hundred yards from the beach.

This theory got a little bit of traction after Lynette Hooker’s daughter was quoted about a prior violent act on Brian’s part. “There’s history of him choking her out and threatening to throw her overboard. So, the fact that this is actually happening makes me believe there’s more to the story,” Karli Aylesworth told the New York Post.

Aylesworth also said that the coulple had a “history of not getting along, especially when they drink.”

There were frequent references on Facebook to the incident being the subject of a TV “Dateline” episode. There were comparisons to the mysterious death of actress Natalie Wood, who drowned near her husband Robert Wagner’s yacht while anchored off Catalina Island in California.

The Hookers had become social media butterflies after they went a’cruising, so there are plenty of images of them online in their eight-foot—I’m going to say it’s a Boss—dinghy. That’s a type of dinghy that’s shaped like a RIB but entirely made of fiberglass, no hyperlon tubes.

Only one photo (that I could find) showed them wearing inflatable PFDs. Images of them in the Bahamas don’t even show any lifejackets in the boat with them, although they could be tucked into the bow locker. They liked to venture out with cold canned beverages in hand.

All the pictures (that I could find) showed Brian Hooker at the tiller. Yet, when Lynette went overboard, the kill switch went with her, suggesting that she was driving. According to news report, the left the Abaco Inn around 7:30 p.m., a few minutes after sunset, so it was dusk.

The forecast for that day called for hazardous conditions with a “near-gale warning/watch.” Weather router Chris Parker, renown for his ability to customize forecasts for discrete areas of the Bahamas, estimated that the winds were blowing from the east or southeast at 20 knots, gusting to 30.

The Hookers were in the lee of Elbow Cay, but they were likely experiencing a short chop, as happens even on a lake when the breeze is up. Brian was quoted as saying that his wife “bounced” out of the boat, which tracks as true. But why was she driving, if she was driving? (Or else we must believe there was some other reason she was attached to the kill switch instead of him.)

With a dead motor, Brian Hooker said he paddled.

Brian Hooker said the last time he saw his wife, she was swimming toward land, which had to be Elbow Cay. She would have been swimming in an easterly direction. Brian also said she was being carried away by current. Any current in this area would have had to parallel the beach. That is, either northerly or southerly.

The dinghy however had enough windage to have been driven by the 20-knot-plus wind toward the west and Marsh Harbor, where it eventually arrived. There is no mention in the news accounts of a VHF radio or a radio call. There was no mention of a cell phone except that Lynette had shared a picture online just as they were leaving the resort.

Photos of the dingy show that it had oar sockets, yet apparently the Hookers did not carry oars and oarlocks (a Loose Cannon pet peeve). That style of dinghy probably would not row well, but it would surely row better than it would paddle.

(The only way for a single paddler to make headway would be to straddle the bow and draw the paddle midships. One way to achieve the best rowing performance from an inflatable is to adapt the set-up for longer oars. Inflatable manufacturers provide placebo oars that are at least a foot too short.)

One news outlet actually reported, “Satellite tracking data captured the powerless eight-foot hard-bottom dinghy drifting a staggering 178 meters in just 12 seconds.” First, what “satellite tracking data?” And staggering, yes. Staggeringly impossible. But that little boat had to have been moving pretty quickly

The search for Lynette Hooker did not begin until after 4 a.m. on Sunday when Brian and his dinghy reached Marsh Harbour. That’s almost nine hours after Lynette supposedly went overboard. What took so long for the dinghy to travel just four nautical miles downwind in Force 5 conditions? (Maybe it got hung-up for a while on the shallows around Porgee Rock.)

One guy quoted by the news media seemed pretty sensible. Richard Cook, team leader with Hope Town Volunteer Fire and Rescue, told reporters that he thought foul play was unlikely

“It was just a lot of bad decisions,” Cook said. “Night time, very windy, no moon out yet, so it was pitch dark and very rough conditions for the small boat they were in.”

Sure, no one can rule out the possibility of murder, not yet, but more likely this horrible event resulted from a cascade of poor choices, maybe including too much to drink. As I used to tell my reporters, “Never ascribe to conspiracy that which can be explained by simple incompetence.”

And, as I told my wife, that’s certainly not how anyone with a brain would plan to murder their spouse.