Bahamian police on Monday released Brian Hooker, the Michigan man who said his wife fell from their 8-foot motorboat off Elbow Cay 10 days ago, ending five days of custody without charges after prosecutors recommended against filing a case while the investigation continues.

The decision leaves the disappearance of Lynette Hooker, 55, an open inquiry on two fronts. Bahamian authorities are still working the case as a missing-person matter at sea, and the U.S. Coast Guard has opened a separate investigation. Police said Hooker, of Onsted, Mich., told them his wife was holding the boat's keys when she went overboard the night of April 4, shutting off the engine and forcing him to paddle to shore. "Strong currents subsequently carried her away, and he lost sight of her," police said in a statement reported by the Guardian.

The account

Hooker told investigators the couple had been traveling in a hard-bottom dinghy from Hope Town to Elbow Cay, a short crossing among the small islands that make up the eastern end of the Bahamas. After reaching land, he said, he alerted someone to his wife's disappearance early the following morning. Police took him into custody on April 8, four days after the reported fall, and extended his detention by 72 hours on Friday after a three-hour interview, according to the Guardian. That extension was set to expire Monday evening, making the day an effective deadline to charge or release him.

Law enforcement chose the latter. Officials said they acted on the recommendation of prosecutors, who concluded the available evidence did not support charges at this stage. Hooker has denied any wrongdoing through his attorney, Terrel Butler, and has cooperated with the investigation, Butler said.

Family doubts

Lynette Hooker's relatives have publicly questioned the account from the start. Her daughter, Karli Aylesworth, told NBC News, as reported by the Guardian, that it was unlikely her mother would "just fall" off the boat, calling her an experienced sailor whose voyages with her husband had stretched over years. Aylesworth has also said she believed the episode "was probably pre-planned, if anything," and that the couple had a "history of not getting along, especially when they drink."

Lynette's mother, Darlene Hamlett, told the Associated Press, in comments carried by the Guardian, that her daughter "grew up on water" and had always been "near lakes, on boats, sailing and swimming." The couple, married more than 20 years, ran social-media accounts under the name The Sailing Hookers on Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, posting videos of a 2023 cruise that began after they bought a sailboat they named Soul Mate in Rockport, Texas, and set out through the Gulf of Mexico from Kemah.

A strained marriage

Text messages obtained by CBS News, and cited by the Guardian, show the marriage had fractured at least once in recent years. In January 2024, Lynette Hooker wrote to a friend, Marnee Stevenson, that she and her husband had decided to separate after a brief attempt at life aboard. "We were married 21 years. Our marriage lasted 6 weeks cruising," she wrote. "It was real bad. I can't be out there with him." A month later, after Stevenson observed that things appeared to be improving, Lynette answered with three red heart emojis and a thumbs-up.

The couple's record with law enforcement also includes a 2015 domestic incident in Kentwood, Mich. According to a police report reviewed by NBC and described in the Guardian's account, Brian Hooker, intoxicated and bleeding from the nose, told officers his wife had struck him in the face multiple times; he said Lynette was also drunk. She was arrested and spent a night in jail. A warrant was later denied because it was not clear "who started the assault."

Two jurisdictions

The parallel U.S. Coast Guard inquiry adds a second track to the case. Such federal investigations into deaths and disappearances from recreational vessels can proceed even when a host country declines to charge. Bahamian officials have not said whether they expect to reinterview Hooker, who is no longer in custody.

What the release does not resolve is the central question: how an experienced sailor, whose mother said she had grown up on water and whose daughter described years of Caribbean voyaging, vanished on a short nighttime crossing between two of the Abacos' best-known anchorages while her husband paddled away in a disabled dinghy.

Counterpoint

Relatives' suspicions are not evidence, and Bahamian authorities have repeatedly stressed that Hooker has not been accused of a crime. The coverage so far has drawn almost entirely on left-leaning outlets and on statements from Lynette Hooker's family; Hooker's own account, filtered through his lawyer, has received comparatively little airing. Prosecutors' decision not to charge, at least for now, reflects that asymmetry.

Still, the investigation is not over. Bahamian police said they continue to work the case, and the Coast Guard inquiry is in its early days. For the family waiting in Michigan, the release of the only witness leaves them where they started 10 days ago: without Lynette, and without an answer.