LISTEN: Brian Hooker's own words appear to place him in the water the night missing wife vanished in Bahamas
A friend of Brian Hooker says a phone call he recorded days after Lynette Hooker vanished suggests her husband was in the water with her that night, an account that would appear to contradict the story Brian has told.
After leaving shore at Hope Town in the Bahamas at around 7:30 p.m. on April 4, Brian Hooker told authorities that rough waters caused his wife to fall off their dinghy. Brian Hooker paddled to shore and arrived at Marsh Harbour around 4 a.m. on April 5, authorities said.
The couple was headed back to their sailboat Soulmate, their full-time home in retirement, when Lynette fell overboard. They frequently sailed around the U.S. and Caribbean, according to their social media pages.
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Brian Hooker called fellow boater Blaine Stevenson two days after his wife Lynette vanished in the Bahamas. Stevenson told Fox News Digital that a moment in that call appears to place Brian himself in the water that night, contradicting his account that he stayed in the dinghy while she drifted away.
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"I mean she's a regular swimmer, not like a athlete or anything, but she's f------ determined, and she was hit with a flare pistol I had slid down one of the Sponsons down towards the stern and the dinghy. I took so many waves over the dingy. I bailed about five or six times. I had to bail out the cockpit, but the the inside also got wet and so, and the dinghy key was not attached to me, you know, so when we were f------ around trying to get back in the boat," Hooker said on the call.
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On the same call, on several instances Brian Hooker said he was inside the dinghy.
"The waves were three foot and I was trying to ship the oars and one of the pins on the oars broke and that f----- dropped over the side and I was yelling for her the whole time and I yelled to her that I lost the oar and I threw the anchor out and anchored the dinghy. And just yeah I yelled I couldn't see her anymore...the moon has not risen yet. And the waves were doing their thing and you know, you I saw her I think twice I threw her a flotation cushion that we used to sit on the dingy, you know right after she went in, but I didn't I couldn't tell if she got it or not."
Kenneth Engerrand, an adjunct professor of maritime law at the University of Houston Law Center and shareholder in the Brown Sims law firm, told Fox News Digital that Brian Hooker's story is "inconsistent" and said the case is "getting more damning by the minute."
"He's saying they were in water, but at the same time, he's bailing. And at the time, she's quickly, immediately away from him by the waves and the wind and whatnot. Everything about this is inconsistent," Engerrand said.
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"He's telling five different stories, and none of them are consistent. So it's as if he's just making stuff up as he goes," he added.
The U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Services concluded their four-day renewed search for Lynette Hooker's body on Monday after GPS data from Brian Hooker's phone obtained by authorities allegedly shows a discrepancy between what he first told law enforcement, sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital. During their renewed search, the Coast Guard took possession of the dinghy.
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That discrepancy prompted federal U.S. authorities to seek permission from Bahamian authorities to search a new area in the Sea of Abaco with 25-foot-deep waters, the sources added. Investigators are treating the case as a homicide, according to a U.S. official.
Brian Hooker's Michigan-based attorney previously asked Americans to give him the benefit of the doubt in an interview with ABC News.
"I would ask those watching to treat him the way you would want to be treated, to give him the benefit of the doubt, and to consider that not all of us, nor you, considering your own relationships, the way you speak to one another, we all handle things in different ways," Crystal Marie Hauser said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Hauser for comment.