Brian Hooker’s attorney speaks out on wife’s disappearance in Bahamas
Cadaver dogs in the Bahamas to help search for missing American Lynette Hooker, April 16, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Nearly three weeks after American Lynette Hooker went overboard and disappeared in the Bahamas, an attorney for her husband Brian Hooker is asking the public “to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Michigan-based attorney Crystal Marie Hauser told ABC News that Brian Hooker never would have harmed his wife of 25 years.
Lynette Hooker has been missing since April 4. That evening, after the couple departed Hope Town for their yacht, Soulmate, in Elbow Cay, bad weather caused Lynette Hooker to fall off their dinghy and go overboard, Brian Hooker told authorities.
Brian Hooker was arrested on April 8 and questioned by police. He was released on April 13 without charges.
On April 14, Brian Hooker told ABC News that he was staying in the Bahamas with a “sole focus” of finding his wife, “no matter how likely or unlikely that is.”
“My only focus is to go back to the boat and then hire or beg people to help me go find some areas to search,” he said.
But hours after that interview, Brian Hooker left the Bahamas, with his Bahamian attorney saying he wanted to be with his terminally ill mother.
Asked if Brian Hooker plans to return to the Bahamas to help with the search, Hauser said, “I imagine that is where his heart is, but I can’t speak on whether or not that’s what he would be doing.”
Karli Aylesworth, Lynette Hooker’s daughter and Brian Hooker’s stepdaughter, has traveled to the Bahamas and told ABC News she doubted Brian Hooker’s story.
“I don’t understand how she drowned or got floated away,” Aylesworth said. “It just made me be more, ‘Why didn’t he do this? Why didn’t you do that? Why did that happen?'”
Lynette Hooker’s mother, Darlene Hamlett, told ABC News the couple had a volatile relationship.
“We all handle things in different ways,” Hauser said. “Be open-minded to the fact that just because Karli and Darlene are making these claims, there’s absolutely no evidence to support any of the allegations — absolutely none.”
(WASHINGTON) — A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent was charged with assault for allegedly pointing a gun at the heads of two motorists in Minneapolis in February, the Hennepin County Attorney’s office said Thursday.
According to the prosecutor’s complaint, Gregory Morgan Jr., an ICE agent in Minneapolis, was ending his shift on Feb. 5 and was a driving back to the Whipple Federal Building when a person allegedly cut him off as Morgan was trying to pass them, and the agent then allegedly brandished a firearm at them.
Morgan, of Temple Hills, Maryland, is charged with two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and a warrant has been issued nationwide for his arrest. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarity said in a news conference Thursday that Morgan has not been taken into custody but hopes he’ll turn himself in.
The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
The incident occurred during a contentious period in Minneapolis when the city was the focal point of an immigration enforcement surge and after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal law enforcement. During that time questions arose about whether ICE agents could be prosecuted by state or local authorities.
Moriarity said Thursday that Morgan was driving “illegally” on the shoulder, “appearing to bypass shoulder traffic.”
The complainant told police that they did not know the person driving the other car was an ICE agent until investigators told them, according to the prosecutor’s complaint.
“There were no markings on Defendant’s vehicle that would identify it as law enforcement and the vehicle was not displaying or using lights or sirens,” according to the complaint. “Defendant continued to travel on the shoulder but rather than continue to drive past the victims, he pulled alongside their vehicle, rolled down his window, and pointed a black handgun directly at Victim 1 and Victim 2. Victim 1 had a clear view of Defendant’s appearance, saw that Defendant was wearing a black t-shirt, saw that the gun was pointed directly at their heads, saw that the gun was a Glock or Sig Sauer handgun with what appeared to be a red-dot sight, and noted that Defendant 2 yelled something indiscernible.”
That is when they called police to report what had happened, the complaint said.
Investigators interviewed Morgan, his supervisor and his partner a day later.
According to the prosecutor’s complaint:
“[Morgan] stated that Victim 1 swerved over in front of him and cut him off. Defendant claimed that he feared for his safety and the safety of others so, in response, he pulled alongside Victim 1’s vehicle, rolled down his window, drew his firearm, and yelled ‘Police Stop.’ [Morgan] stated he was trying to get Victim 1 to ‘back up.’ Defendant acknowledged that his firearm was a Glock 19 with a laser light, which Defendant had holstered on his right hip at the time of the interview. Defendant stated that after he pulled the gun on Victim 1 and Victim 2 he got in front of their vehicle and drove to the Whipple Building.”
Investigators also said they received cellphone footage from the complainant and reviewed traffic camera footage from the road on which they were traveling.
A man named Cole Allen, who appears to be the same person as the suspect in the shooting incident at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C., April 25, 2026, is interviewed by KABC in Los Angeles in March 2017. (KABC)
(WASHINGTON) — Cole Allen, the suspect in the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooting, appears to have been a highly intelligent person, albeit shy, and was at one point a devoted Christian, according to conversations with individuals from his past.
The California native was tackled by law enforcement after the gunfire Saturday night inside the Washington, D.C., Hilton hotel, where thousands of journalists as well as President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet were gathered for the annual dinner. Allen did not reach the ballroom, where the dinner was underway. A Secret Service member was shot during the incident, but the bullet hit the agent’s protective vest, officials said.
Allen, 31, faces three felony counts of attempted assassination of the President of the United States, transportation of a firearm and ammunition over state lines with the intent to commit a felony and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.
Allen’s former pastor, Rev. Movses Janbazian, struggled to square the man described by federal officials as an aspiring killer with the hard-working student who attended sermons each week at Pasadena United Reformed Church in South Pasadena.
“Nice, gentle, smart young man,” Janbazian told ABC News. “It’s obviously very surprising to hear his name appear in the news in this way.”
Janbazian said Allen joined the United Reformed Church congregation during his time at Caltech, where he studied mechanical engineering. Allen would frequently bring coursework to church — evidence, he said, of what a “competitive program” he was enrolled in. Allen graduated from Caltech in 2017 and he received a master’s degree from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 2025.
Paul Thompson, a neighbor of the Allen family, described Allen as “not very sociable,” but maintained that he “had no idea that he was capable of that kind of violence.”
“I’ve seen him a hundred times coming and going … but I’ve never had a conversation with him,” Thompson said.
Allen’s father, on the other hand, was “kind of like the neighborhood mayor — knows everybody by first name,” Thompson said.
“Everybody likes him. He’s a very sociable guy,” Thompson said of Allen’s father.
“This is going to be very, very difficult … on his family,” Thompson added.
Allen was most recently working as a tutor and students said he demonstrated a knack for competently teaching a wide range of subjects. A group of high school students who were tutored by Allen shared a statement describing him as “generally very intelligent” and “normal and friendly.”
Joel Devereux, the father-in-law of Allen’s brother, described Allen to ABC News as “very quiet, polite, smart” in their limited interactions, but said he seemed “distant from his family” and “doesn’t normally hang around them.”
Allen — who officials say traveled by train from California to D.C. — allegedly left a note which said that administration officials were his targets, “not including [FBI Director Kash] Mr. Patel,” and were “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest,” according to the criminal complaint against him.
Allen allegedly wrote that Secret Service agents were targets “only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethally if possible,” the complaint said.
The note said hotel security, Capitol police and the National Guard were “not targets if at all possible (aka unless they shoot at me),” and hotel employees and guests were “not targets at all,” the complaint said.
The note said he would “go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary,” adding, ‘I really hope it doesn’t come to that,” according to the complaint.
Allen appeared in court on Monday and did not enter a plea. He’s set to return to court for a detention hearing on Thursday.
ABC News’ Susan Zalkind contributed to this report.
The xc released an image on April 29, 2026, it said was of suspect Cole Allen taking a selfie of himself in his hotel room before allegedly trying to breach security at the event while armed with multiple weapons. (Department of Justice)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal magistrate judge expressed deep concern Monday with the post-arrest treatment of the California man charged for allegedly attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at last month’s White House correspondents’ dinner and whether he has faced overly restrictive conditions that were “extremely disturbing.”
Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui convened a hearing on Monday after attorneys for Cole Allen, 31, requested over the weekend that he be removed from suicide watch at the Washington, D.C., jail facility.
Even though Allen’s attorneys later moved to withdraw that request after they were informed he was taken off suicide watch, Faruqui ordered the hearing, citing “grave concerns” about the treatment Allen has faced.
The judge said some of Cole’s restrictions entailed being placed into a padded cell, with no access to phone calls, books or recreational time. Faruqui also raised the issue of sleep deprivation, noting that Cole had “constant lighting.”
In a heated line of questioning with a representative from D.C.’s Department of Corrections, Faruqui probed why it seemed that Allen had faced much harsher treatment since his arrest than many of those charged with participating in violence during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol who were granted transfers to D.C.’s less-restrictive Correctional Treatment Facility (CTF).
“People seem to have forgotten about Jan. 6 — I have not,” Faruqui said. “Pardons may erase convictions, but they do not erase history. I had many, you know, there was — easily right — dozens, if not more, of people that had firearms that day… People got closer to killing the president that day, they were hanging gallows outside of the front of the Capitol building.”
“I’m just trying to understand, why is there this great difference between Mr. Allen’s situation and what happened there, where they were given the benefit of the treatment going over to CTF,” Faruqui said. “If we were able to house all the January 6 defendants at CTF, why Mr. Allen doesn’t have that same benefit as someone without a criminal history?”
Faruqui claimed Allen was being treated “differently than anyone I’ve ever observed” including accused terrorists, gang members and others facing charges of political violence.
At one point during the hearing, Faruqui apologized to Allen for the conditions he has faced.
“We are obligated to make sure that you’re treated with the basic decency that human beings should have, let alone a presumed innocent person,” Faruqui said. “So I’m sorry. It sounds like things have not been the way that they’re supposed to.”
In trying to give some clarity over the initial move to put Allen under suicide watch, assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine noted to Faruqui that after his arrest Allen did tell FBI agents that he did not expect to survive the attempted assassination. She further noted that in his email he sent to family and others just before carrying out the attack, he mentioned not likely being able to speak to them again.
“I think coming into this, Mr. Allen traveled across country, a great distance over several days to commit this attack and it was clear at the time he committed the attack did not expect to survive it,” Ballantine said. “Which I think certainly initially gives rise to serious concerns about the potential for suicide.”
An attorney for the D.C. Dept of Corrections, Tony Towns, said at the hearing that decisions regarding Allen’s confinement conditions were intended to address safety concerns, and not intended to punish him.
Faruqui instructed Allen’s defense attorneys to keep him updated on the progress of his conditions, though Faruqui also acknowledged he had little in the way of power to compel D.C. Corrections to ease restrictions on his confinement.
