GPS data questions husband’s account in Bahamas disappearance case

Digital evidence has become the pivot point in the disappearance of Lynette Hooker, a 55-year-old Michigan woman who vanished in the Bahamas after a trip on an 8-foot dinghy with her husband, Brian Hooker. GPS data from one of Brian Hooker’s devices appears to conflict with the account he gave authorities, and that mismatch is now driving a renewed search for Lynette Hooker in the waters around the Abaco Islands.

Lynette Hooker was last reported on Saturday, April 4, 2026, while the couple was traveling from Hope Town to Elbow Cay near Aunt Pat’s Bay. Brian Hooker told authorities that bad weather caused his wife to fall overboard and that he lost sight of her as he tried to help. Police later said he paddled to Abaco and docked at the Marsh Harbour Boat Yard around 4 a.m. Sunday, April 5. The new GPS evidence, CBS News reported, does not line up with that version of events.

The shift in the case has pushed investigators beyond a standard missing-person search. U.S. officials are asking the Bahamas for permission to send a dive team into new areas of the Sea of Abaco, where they hope to locate Lynette Hooker’s body. The U.S. Coast Guard has confirmed it is conducting a new search, and the Coast Guard Investigative Service has been treating the case as a criminal investigation. The sailboat the couple used in their travels, Soulmate, has been seized by U.S. Coast Guard investigators in Florida.

Investigators are also seeking the public’s help in identifying the owners of a sailboat that may have been moored next to the Hookers’ vessel the night Lynette Hooker disappeared. That detail adds another layer to a case already defined by competing accounts, electronics, and a timeline built from movements on the water.

Lynette Hooker’s daughter, Karli Aylesworth, has pressed for a full and complete investigation. She said her mother was an experienced swimmer and had been sailing for more than 10 years, raising fresh questions about the circumstances behind the disappearance. Brian Hooker was arrested in the Bahamas during the investigation and later released, according to prior reporting, as the case continues to widen from a missing-person search into a broader examination of the couple’s final hours and the digital trail they left behind.