More than a decade before Lynette Hooker vanished during a boating trip in the Bahamas last weekend, she and her husband gave sharply different accounts of a night in Michigan that ended with her arrest.
A 2015 police report from Kentwood, Michigan, provides a glimpse into the couple’s relationship, which her daughter has described as volatile.
On Wednesday, Brian Hooker was arrested by the Royal Bahamas Police Force in connection with his wife's disappearance, his lawyer said. The arrest came days after he told police that Lynette Hooker, 55, fell overboard with their boat’s keys during a dinghy ride near Elbow Cay on Saturday night. He said he had to paddle for hours to get to Marsh Harbour Boat Yard early Sunday.
Karli Aylesworth, the missing woman's daughter, has since questioned that account, and the U.S. Coast Guard opened a criminal investigation. Details about Brian Hooker’s arrest were not immediately clear.
"I am sad that this is even a possibility. I hope this was just a freak accident, but I just have a hard time believing it at the moment," Aylesworth said Thursday.
"It's hard to see the people you’ve grown up with and care about possibly doing something like this. I just want to know the truth."
The February 2015 report describes the spouses accusing each other of assault, though only Lynette Hooker spent a night in county jail. She was arrested on charges of assault and battery/simple assault, though the warrant was denied after "insufficient evidence as to who started the assault."
Brian Hooker was intoxicated and had blood coming from his nose, according to the Michigan police report. He told police his wife, who he said was also drunk, had “struck him in the face multiple times,” the report stated.
At the time, Brian Hooker said his wife believed a person named Jacob Hooker and another person, whose name was redacted from the report, were locked in an upstairs room and “fooling around.” It was not immediately clear who Jacob Hooker is and how is he related to the couple.
Police stated they tried to contact Jacob Hooker and the other person after the event, but the pair had already left the home. When police tried calling both of them, neither answered, the report said.
NBC News was unable to reach Jacob Hooker despite multiple attempts on Thursday.
Brian Hooker said that his wife tried to open the door of the locked room and that he went upstairs to calm her down, which was when she hit him in the face “4 to 5 times,” according to the police report.
“He stated he had never been hit like that in a long time. He started to cry and became emotional,” the report said.
Police wrote in the report that officers contacted a witness who said she heard Lynette Hooker upstairs “causing a commotion.” She said she saw Brian Hooker go upstairs and return several minutes later with a bloody nose.
The witness declined to comment on the 2015 incident, including how she knows the couple, when reached by NBC News on Thursday.
The report says that Lynette Hooker was "highly intoxicated" on the night of the incident.
When police brought her downstairs to ask her what had happened, she said Brian Hooker had hit her in the forehead. She said that her children had locked themselves in a room upstairs and that she was trying to get in, which is when she said her husband choked her and punched her one time, the report stated.
According to the police report, officers saw Brian Hooker’s red, swollen and bloody nose, but said Lynette Hooker had no visible injuries.
Mark Hunting, an attorney for the couple at the time, said attorney-client privilege applies to this case and that he was not at liberty to opine about it, when he was reached by NBC News on Thursday.
According to Aylesworth, the couple had “a history of not getting along, especially when they drink.” It was not immediately clear whether the couple had been drinking on the Saturday night boat trip.
Aylesworth noted that both were experienced on the water and had been sailing for more than a decade, starting with a small two-person sailboat and moving to a larger vessel they bought in Texas.
Aylesworth told NBC News that her mother was unlikely to “just fall” overboard, noting that she briefly spoke with her stepfather after the incident, who sounded “monotone and relaxed.” She added that Brian Hooker provided the same account he gave to the police.
In a Wednesday morning Facebook post, Brian Hooker wrote that he is “heartbroken over the recent boat accident in unpredictable seas and high winds that caused my beloved Lynette to fall from our small dinghy near Elbow Cay in the Bahamas.”
Later that day, he was arrested in the Bahamas. His lawyer, Terrel A. Butler, said Brian Hooker denied any wrongdoing and rejected the claims made by Aylesworth.
“He has been cooperating with the relevant authorities as part of an ongoing investigation,” Butler’s statement added.
