HUSBAND HELD IN BAHAMAS AS WIFE'S DISAPPEARANCE DEEPENS — PLUS A CHEERLEADER VERDICT AND A SERIAL KILLER FACES DEATH

0:03 Kalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Tuesday, April fourteenth, twenty twenty six. This is Daily Crime and Justice. Let me tell you about a boat called Soulmate. Brian and Lynette Hooker bought that sailboat four years ago and left their life in suburban Michigan behind. They became boat life bloggers. They documented everything, the sunsets, the storms, the quiet stretches of ocean. With nobody around for miles. They were living what a lot of people would call the dream. On the evening of April fourth, they took a small eight foot dinghy out near Elbow k in the Bahamas, heading back to the Soulmate. After a day ashore, only Brian came back. He says Lynette fell overboard. He says she had the keys with her the engine's safety lanyard when she went in. He says the currents took her.

1:01 He says he paddled to shore and contacted authorities. Lynette Hooker has not been found. Nine days later, her fifty five year old body is somewhere in those waters, and the search has shifted from rescue to recovery. Brian Hooker, fifty eight years old husband of twenty five years is sitting in Bahamian custody, not charged, questioned on probable cause. His lawyer says he's heartbroken and cooperating. His stepdaughter says she's not surprised this is happening. We're going to walk through this one carefully today because there is a lot here and a lot of it hurts. Also this morning, former University of Kentucky competitive cheerleader Laken Snelling was a ragined last week on first degree manslaughter charges. We have been following this case since August and she pleaded not guilty.

1:53 We have updates. And in Orlando, Florida, Demorris Hunter has been convicted of first degree murder in the killing of Teresa Anna. We brought you the start of that trial last Thursday. The jury came back fast. Now, Hunter, already serving one hundred and ten years in California for a separate killing, faces the death penalty here in Florida. Three cases, one missing woman who deserves to be found, one verdict that took twenty two years, One young woman's name cleared in the legal sense, but the facts unresolved. I'm Garrett Fisher. Let's go this is daily crime and justice. I want to start with what we know for certain, because in a case like this, the facts you can nail down matter more than speculation. What we know On the night of Saturday, April fourth, Brian and Lynette Hooker left Hopetown on the Abbaco Islands in a small, open topped eight foot dinghy. They were heading back to their sailboat, the Soulmate, which was anchored nearby near Elbow k That standard practice for live aboard sailors. They anchor the big boat and use a small dinghy to get to and from shore.

3:06 What we know only Brian Hooker returned his account as given to authorities and shared publicly through his attorney, and his own statement goes like this. The sea conditions deteriorated rapidly, high winds, choppy water. His wife fell overboard. She was wearing the engine's safety lanyard, the cord that cuts power to the motor if the operator's thrown clear, which means when she went in the engine stopped. He was unable to retrieve her. The currents took her away. He last saw her swimming toward shore. He paddled the now powerless dinghy toward land and eventually made it through brush to a boat yard, where he contacted police. Early Sunday, April fifth, Bahamian authorities launched a surge. The US Coast Guard joined with aerial assets. Days passed. On Sunday evening, roughly twenty four hours after Lynette Hooker went missing, Brian called his daughter, Carly Aylesworth and told her that her mother was missing.

4:04 The way she described receiving that call is worth sitting with. She said he was, and I'm paraphrasing here, matter of fact about it. Your mom is missing. She's been missing since last night. We'll come up to see you soon. Aylesworth told CNN she felt like he had just dropped a bomb on her, and then kept talking before abruptly ending the call. By Tuesday, April seventh, authorities confirmed the search had transitioned from a rescue operation to a recovery mission. That's the language that means they no longer believe they're looking for a living person. That same day, Brian left Aylesworth a voicemail saying searchers had found a flotation device he said he had thrown to Lynette when she fell In Wednesday, April eighth, Brian Hooker is taken into custody by the Royal Bahamas Police Force, not arrested on charges, detained on quote probable cause for questioning as a suspect in connection with his wife's disappearance. His attorney, Terrell Butler, confirmed the detention and said he denies any wrongdoing. That same day, the US Coast Guard announced it had opened a parallel criminal investigation. Since then, Brian has been questioned twice more. A magistrate approved an extension allowing police to hold him through Monday evening under Bahamian law, which allows up to seventy two additional hours of detention when investigators need more time. As of this broadcast, he has not been charged. He remains in custody now. Who was Lynette Hooker?

5:36 Fifty five years old mother, born and raised near water in Michigan. Her mother, Darlene Hamlet, told reporters her daughter had spent her whole life near lakes on boats, sailing and swimming. She was not a novice. The Hookers had been sailing together for more than a decade, and for the last four years had been living aboard the Soulmate full time. Documenting their voyage from Texas to Michigan on social media. They had an audience people followed along, which makes the silence after April fourth even harder to make sense of. Now, let me tell you about Carly Aylesworth, because she is the voice at the center of this story, and she has been consistent and specific in a way that is hard to ignore. Aylesworth is twenty eight years old.

6:22 She is Lynette's daughter. Brian is her stepfather. She told CNN, Fox News, CBS, and NBC that the marriage between her mother and Brian had a history of violence, not just tension, not just volatility. She specifically alleged that Brian had a history of choking her mother. She used the word choked. She alleged he had previously threatened to throw Lynette overboard. There is a history of him choking her out and threatening to throw her overboard, she said, So the fact that this is actually happening makes me believe there's more to the story. She also pointed out the timing of the call she received three days He left her a voicemail three days after her mother went missing, not a call the night had happened three days and even then, she said, the call he eventually made to tell her Lynette was missing came roughly twenty four hours after the incident, not in real time. Brian's attorney has pushed back on all of this, specifically saying his denials of wrongdoing include the allegations recently made by Aylesworth. Here is where the story gets complicated, and I think it's important to say this out loud. There is a twenty fifteen police report from Kentwood, Michigan. Police were called to the Hooker home after an altercation. Both Brian and Lynnette accused each other of assault. Brian told police Lynette had struck him in the face multiple times while intoxicated. Officers documented a red, swollen,

7:52 bloody nose on Brian. Lynette told police she had been struck and choked by Brian. No visible injuries are Lynette were documented. A prosecutor later reviewed the case, determined there was insufficient evidence to establish who started the assault and dismissed it. Lynette was briefly arrested, Brian was not. Brian's attorney has pointed to this, noting that Lynette, not Brian, was the one charged in that incident, arguing it undermines the narrative of him as an aggressor. I want to be careful. Here a domestic violence incident from eleven years ago, in which both parties accused each other, no charges, ultimately stuck, and the circumstances involved a third person, a locked room, and mutual intoxication. That is not clean evidence of anything.

8:42 What it is is context, and in a missing person investigation, context matters. Here is what. We don't have a body, We don't have physical evidence of a crime. We don't have charges. We have a man in custody, a woman who has not been found, and a set of coming narratives from people who love her, and a lawyer who represents him. What I keep coming back to is this. The boat was named Soulmate. They made videos of their life at sea, and people watched and thought, look at them. Two people who chose each other and chose this life and chose to do it together. And now she's gone, and he's in a Bahamian police station, and her daughter is telling anyone who will listen that she has not been shocked by what happened. Lynette Hooker has not been found.

9:29 She deserves to be still ahead. A former cheerleader pleads not guilty, and a serial killer faces the possibility of death row again. We first brought you the Lake and Snelling case in August of last year, when her roomates made a call to police that changed everything. We covered her grand jury indictment in March, and last Thursday, April tenth, leg And Snelling was arraigned in Fayette County, Kentucky on the charges she's been facing since that indictment. She pleaded not guilty. Let me give you the current charge picture because it's important. Snelling, twenty two years old, now faces four counts first degree manslaughter, abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, and concealing the birth of an infant.

10:31 Her pre trial date has been set for May fourteenth. A status hearing is scheduled for June twelfth. She remains on house arrest at her parents' home in Tennessee. She posted a ten thousand dollars bond after her rearrest last month. The maximum exposure here is significant, up to twenty years on the manslaughter charge alone, plus an additional eleven years on the remaining counts. If convicted of everything, she is looking at the possibility of more than three decades in prison. Quick recap for listeners who are newer to the show. August twenty twenty five, Lexington, Kentucky, lack in Snelling's roommates here sounds coming from her room. A picture falls off the wall from the impact. When Snelling emerges, she says she passed out from not eating and leaves. Her roommates check her room and find a blood soaked towel evidence of childbirth, and a newborn infant in her closet wrapped in trash bags. Snelling was arrested three days later. She admitted to giving birth. She said the baby fell during delivery.

11:29 She said she passed out on top of the infant and woke to find him blue and purple. She said she believed he was dead. She wrapped him up, laid next to him on the floor, said it gave her comfort, and then put him in trash bags and hid the body. The medical Examiner's report changed the legal trajectory of this case. It found that the baby was full term, born alive, died of asphyxia, meaning suffocation. That finding triggered the grand jury indictment on manslaughter charges in March. The not guilty plea is the expected move in arraignment. It doesn't tell us much about what happens at trial. What matters now is the May fourteenth pre trial date and what comes out of it. This case will hinge on the medical examiner's findings and what the prosecution can establish about the cause and manner of death. A full term baby was born in that apartment and died there. Nobody outside that room knew it was happening. Whatever led to that moment, the fear, the secrecy, the silence. That is the real story underneath the legal proceedings, and it is not over coming up. We told you about Demores Hunter when his trial started last week. Since then, the jury has come back with a verdict. We have the details, and the stakes going forward are about as high as they get.

12:57 Last Thursday we introduced you to Demo Morris Hunter and to Teresa Ann Green. We told you that in May two thousand and two, Teresa, thirty eight years old hospital secretary, mother to a thirteen year old son named Octavius, was found strangled to death and stuffed in the trunk of her own car in a Walgreens parking lot in Sanford, Florida. We told you that Hunter had been living in the same apartment building, attending the same party, and that he had reportedly told the party host afterward, in so many words, that he had done something really bad. We told you. The trial had just started. The jury didn't need much time. On day three, April eighth, the jury found Demores Hunter guilty of first degree murder and theft in the killing of Teresa Ann Green guilty after twenty two years of verdict, let me walk you through what the jury heard before they reached that verdict. Day one, prosecutors laid out the basic timeline. Hunter was living at Bay Run two apartments in Orlando under an alias Michael Barry. He was not using his real name. He attended the party at the Butler's apartment on the night of May twenty fifth, two thousand and two. Teresa was there too. Witnesses testified they saw Hunter and Teresa fall together on the stairs as the party wound down, then both get up and go into Teresa's apartment. Her son, Octavius, was away for the night.

14:21 The next morning, Hunter drove Teresa's car to a Walgreens. He asked a neighbor, Joseph Butler, to drive a white van behind him. When Butler asked why they were leaving, Teresa's car at the Walgreens. Hunter told him I did something really bad. Butler said he didn't want to hear anything else and drop the subject. Police found the car, They popped the trunk. Teresa and Green's body was inside, wrapped in material strangled. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death as manual strangulation. Hunter's DNA was found at the scene. He fled, was eventually tracked to California and arrested. Day two brought the FOREN fingerprints, DNA, the car, the timeline, and importantly, a van was later found burned in Texas, an intentional fire, which investigators connected to Hunter. The defense, for their part, tried a different angle. They argued the Butlers weren't credible. They pointed to an altercation at the party.

15:21 Witnesses said Teresa had slapped Joseph Butler and he hit her back. The defense suggested chaos, alcohol and the possibility that someone else was responsible for what happened after the party ended. They pointed the finger at the Butler's and said, you can't trust what they told you. On day three, both sides gave closing arguments. Prosecutor said Hunter made a conscious decision to strangle the life out of Teresa and Green and discard her like trash. The defense said the case was built on unreliable witnesses. The jury wasn't persuaded by the defense. Guilty first degree murder. Now here's where we are. Hunter is fifty nine years old. He's already serving one hundred and ten years in a California prison for the murder of another woman in Oakland. Prosecutors in Florida are pursuing the death penalty. The penalty phase began yesterday, Monday, April fourteenth, and deliberations are underway. Let me tell you something about Teresa and Green. She was thirty eight years old.

16:20 She was a hospital secretary. She had a son who was thirteen years old when he came home from a friend's house on Memorial Day weekend and found his mother's apartment trashed, her purse emptied on the bed, everything wrong. He didn't know what had happened yet, but he told the courtroom that he knew something had happened. He sat in that courtroom twenty two years later and watched his mother's killer get convicted. That's not nothing. The penalty phase is still ongoing. We'll keep you updated, but for Octavius and for Teresa, it happened someone was held accountable. That is Daily Crime in Justice for Tuesday Day, April fourteenth, twenty twenty six. Three cases today. A woman missing in the Bahamas, her husband in custody, no charges, no body, no answers. A young woman in Kentucky who pleaded not guilty at her arraignment. A trial that will come down to what a medical examiner found in that apartment. And a serial killer convicted for the second time, now facing the possibility of death while a son waits for justice to finish its work. We will keep watching the Hooker case closely. Brian Hooker's legal situation in the Bahamas is fluid and could change by the time you hear this.

17:36 Check our feeds for updates. Be good to people, say what you mean, and if something is wrong, say something. Do better. Daily Crime and Justice is a production of Calarogus Shark Media. This episode was produced with the assistance of AI powered research tools and is intended for entertainment and informational purposes only. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, information is so cor from publicly available Internet sources and may contain errors or omissions. All persons charged with crimes are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing in this podcast constitutes legal advice.