Brian Hooker’s sailboat stopped transmitting its location on the night his wife, Lynette Hooker, vanished in the Bahamas, according to data obtained by Fox News Digital.

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, according to authorities.

The couple was headed back to their sailboat Soulmate, their full-time home in retirement, when Lynette fell overboard. They frequently sail around the U.S. and Caribbean, according to their social media pages.

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Data obtained by Fox News Digital through marine tracking company VesselFinder shows the Soulmate’s Automatic Identification System (AIS), which broadcasts a vessel’s identity, speed and position, went dark at 9:29 p.m. on April 4 and did not resume until 8:40 a.m. the following morning, a blackout of more than 11 hours.

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Blaine Stevenson, a friend of Brian Hooker’s, previously told Fox News Digital that after spending about three or four hours searching with rescue officials on April 5, Brian returned to his sailboat and stayed there for roughly 24 hours.

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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 the timing of the AIS going dark is “highly unusual.”

“There are ways that it can stop transmitting. Catastrophic power failure, things like that. The mechanism in a collision goes to the bottom of the ocean, something like that, or it’s turned off. It doesn’t just go off and then come back on,” Engerrand said.

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“If [the AIS] had stopped altogether and never came back on, then you would assume there was some sort of catastrophic failure on the system. But when it went off and then came back on some hours later, that’s an action whereby the system was turned off or disabled,” he added.

Notably, there were three more instances from April 10 to 13 where the AIS wasn’t transmitting data.

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Brian Hooker hasn’t been charged with a crime. He was detained for five days by Bahamian police after his wife disappeared, but wasn’t charged.

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Sometime between May 8 and 10, Brian and Lynette Hooker’s sailboat, Soulmate, was seized, a source familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital. Soulmate was seized 40 nautical miles off the coast of Melbourne, Florida, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

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In a news release, the Coast Guard said the seizure was part of a “complex surveillance and interdiction operation.” The sailboat was taken to Coast Guard Station Fort Pierce, where it is being processed for potential evidence.

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.

At least one person was killed and nine others were unaccounted for Tuesday after a tank containing a corrosive chemical mixture ruptured and collapsed at a Washington paper mill, authorities said.

Nine people were injured in the collapse at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. in Longview, including one firefighter, officials said. Injuries ranged from minor to critical.

Officials said the response had shifted from rescue operations to recovery efforts.

“At the moment we are not aware of any rescues that are yet to be made,” Cowlitz Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said during a news conference.

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The cause of the collapse remained under investigation.

Emergency crews responded Tuesday morning after a tank containing a chemical mixture known as “white liquor” ruptured at the facility. White liquor is a corrosive chemical mixture used in the paper-making process.

Officials initially estimated the tank contained about 80,000 gallons of the substance, but later revised the amount to roughly 900,000 gallons.

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Authorities said approximately 90,000 gallons may still remain inside the damaged tank, which remains unstable and continues to complicate recovery efforts.

Several people suffered injuries ranging from minor to critical, including burns and inhalation injuries. One firefighter was among the injured.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray addressed the community during the news conference.

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“I know there’s a lot of questions about how all of this happened and I want to assure you that we will all continue to pressure to get answers to those questions,” Murray said. “This community deserves that.”

Officials said there was no direct threat to the surrounding community.

The incident comes days after roughly 50,000 California residents faced evacuation orders tied to a hazardous materials emergency at an aerospace facility in Orange County.

On Tuesday, officials lifted the final evacuation order for residents in Garden Grove living near a damaged chemical tank at GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems that had previously been at risk of exploding after a tank containing highly flammable methyl methacrylate (MMA) overheated and became compromised. Officials said the immediate risk of explosion, fire or leak had passed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The teenage stepbrother accused in the death of 18-year-old Anna Kepner aboard a Carnival cruise ship is scheduled to appear in federal court in Miami Wednesday morning, as prosecutors push to have him behind bars before his trial.

Timothy Hudson is accused of first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse after Kepner was found dead in November 2025 inside a Carnival cruise cabin that was traveling on the high seas toward Miami, according to federal court documents.

Prosecutors say Kepner was found in a cabin she shared with Hudson and another sibling. Hudson was 16 at the time of the alleged murder and is currently free under a prior release order.

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Florida-based criminal defense attorney Tim Jansen told Fox News Digital he found that the teen boy being released before the trial striking, given the severity of the charges.

“I don’t know how they got released into the custody of someone with these charges. I find that alarming,” Jansen said.

Federal prosecutors say Hudson was previously released to a family member while the case was still being handled under the Juvenile Delinquency Act. But after the case was transferred to adult prosecution and a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment, the government asked the court to revisit that release decision.

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In the filing, prosecutors argued that under adult bail standards, Hudson “is a danger to others and should be held in pretrial detention.”

On Wednesday, the court will weigh Hudson’s release under the federal Bail Reform Act, which judges use to determine whether a defendant should be detained, released or placed under bond conditions while awaiting trial.

Jansen said the allegations, if proven, would give prosecutors a compelling public-safety argument.

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“He’s 16 years old, looking at the spending the rest of his life in prison,” Jansen said. “I would argue as a prosecutor, he is both a flight risk and a danger to the community. He’s already [allegedly] sexually assaulted and killed one person. He’s demonstrated his ability not to conform. And I believe the court will detain.”

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Prosecutors argued that the alleged crimes were among “the most serious, egregious, and violative crimes one person can inflict upon another” and said no combination of conditions could assure the court that Hudson would not be a danger to others. They also noted that he currently lives in a home where minors reside.

The government’s motion says Hudson was not released on bond, but rather under a release order with conditions.

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Defense counsel has not agreed to immediate detention. According to the filing, Hudson’s attorneys said the matter should be referred to the judge who handled the original release order, and that he should remain free pending a decision on release.

If the judge orders detention Wednesday, Jansen said Hudson could be taken into custody immediately.

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“Immediately, U.S. Marshals Service will take him into custody, and then they will have to make arrangements to detain him separate from all the other adult inmates,” Jansen said.

FATHER OF TEEN ALLEGEDLY KILLED BY STEPBROTHER ON CRUISE SAYS HE CAN’T ‘RELIVE’ TRAUMA AT MURDER TRIAL

Kepner’s parents have voiced their outrage that Hudson is back into the community – despite being federally charged as an adult.

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“We’re upset that he’s still out. We’re six months in, and he should already have been arrested, and yet he’s free to do whatever he wants right now,” Christopher Kepner told the Daily Mail. “That’s our problem. He’s been able to do whatever he wants and go where he wants, but the family’s been sitting here unable to do anything.”

If convicted, the teen could face a maximum penalty of life in prison.

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“I want to see him in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. He does not need to be free. He does not need to be in the general public, around any kids or women in general,” Christopher Kepner said.

The unfolding legal battle comes months after come months after Anna, affectionately called “Anna banana,” was found dead onboard the cruise ship during a family vacation with her father, stepmother, grandparents and several siblings.

Authorities later ruled her death a homicide caused by “mechanical asphyxiation,” according to documents previously reviewed by Fox News Digital.

According to investigators, she was found under the bed in her cabin, wrapped in a blanket and covered with life jackets. The cabin was shared with her stepbrother.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Hudson’s attorney for comment.