In the pictures they regularly posted on social media their faces were always wreathed in dazzling smiles. On Facebook and Instagram, where they documented their adventures as 'The Sailing Hookers,' Brian and Lynette Hooker appeared to be the blissfully happy couple, enjoying the retirement of their dreams as they spent the past few years sailing on a yacht appropriately named Soulmate.

And yet since Lynette, 55, vanished in the Bahamas a week ago and her 59-year-old husband was arrested after he came up with a curious story to explain how she fell out of their dinghy in strong winds and powerful, shark-infested currents, the sparkle has rapidly disappeared from the Michigan couple's 25-year marriage.

In its place is evidence of an altogether darker relationship with accusations of past drunken domestic abuse and violent threats that may - or may not - have some bearing on what happened to Mrs Hooker.

The Daily Mail can reveal new evidence of their apparently troubled relationship after obtaining an official police incident report showing that she - not he - was arrested for domestic violence by Kentwood police in Michigan in the early hours of February 1, 2015.

The papers record that while Lynette called 911, summoning police to their home, she was subsequently treated as the suspect.

According to the report, which was accompanied by a photo of Brian's bloodied hands, Mr Hooker suffered 'abrasions' but didn't need medical treatment.

Officers said both were drunk and that Lynette had no previous history of domestic violence.

Each accused the other of assault, although Lynette - who was 'highly intoxicated' - had no visible injuries while Mr Hooker had blood coming from a red and swollen nose.

She, meanwhile, told officers that her children had locked themselves in a room upstairs. She said Hooker had hit her on the forehead and choked and punched her.

He told officers a different story: that his wife had believed that two people – one named as Jacob Hooker, believed to be her stepson, and the other whose name had been redacted in the report – were locked in an upstairs room and 'fooling around.'

Hooker said his wife tried to open the locked door but, when he tried to calm her down, she hit him in the face 'four to five times,' said the police report. A witness told officers she saw him come downstairs with a bloody nose.

'He stated he had never been hit like that in a long time. He started to cry and became emotional,' said the report.

Lynette was arrested on charges of assault and battery/simple assault, and spent a night in jail. Released on bond she had to agree not to contact Brian to whom she'd then been married for 12 years.

Ultimately no further action was taken due to 'insufficient evidence as to who started the assault.'

At the time, police said they later tried to contact Jacob and the other individual but they'd left the house and never returned their calls.

Questioned about the 2015 incident, Terrel Butler, Brian's attorney, told the Daily Mail: 'I have not discussed this with my client yet, but to my understanding she's the only one that was charged in that incident.'

'I will say this [arrest] clearly changes the image that has been portrayed of him as being violent or an aggressor.'

That will be for police and prosecutors in the Bahamas to decide, although Butler said her client 'categorically and unequivocally denies any wrongdoing.'

According to the Royal Bahamas Police Force, 5ft 10in Lynette went missing while traveling at sea with her husband in the Abacos - a group of small islands and cays in the northern Bahamas - last Saturday.

Brian Hooker said they left Hope Town, Abaco, around 7:30pm EDT on an eight-foot, hard-bottom dinghy en ⁠route to neighboring Elbow Cay and their yacht, according to police.

According to the police report, Hooker said his wife fell overboard with the boat's kill-switch key, causing the vessel's engine to shut off before strong currents carried her away. It is unclear if she was wearing a life jacket. He told his stepdaughter, Karli Aylesworth, that he threw Lynette a flotation device.

Unable to restart the engine, Hooker said he was forced to spend hours paddling the boat to shore after losing sight of ⁠his wife, who'd been wearing a black bathing suit.

Arriving on shore near a boat yard at around 4am on Sunday, he alerted the police. Rescue services have been looking for her ever since.

Initially, it appeared to be nothing more than a tragic accident at sea although there's growing evidence that Hooker didn't always appear too emotionally affected by the loss of his wife.

Edward Smith, the night watchman at the marina at Marsh Harbour close to where Hooker made it to shore in the dinghy, told the Daily Mail that there 'wasn't a lot of emotion' when the sailor explained what had happened.

'He wasn't crying or anything. He didn't seem stressed in that way. There wasn't a lot of emotion. There were no tears,' he said.

'He expressed nothing that you would imagine in those circumstances. He was more exhausted than emotional because he kept asking for water.'

Smith continued: 'I said to him, "Why on earth go out in that small boat in the dark and those conditions?" And he did show some emotion then when he said, "We were drinking, we were drunk. I should have known better. I shouldn't have done it."

'But he then added, "Whatever happened, happened. The wind was blowing so hard when it happened, she just went over."'

According to Smith, Hooker told him he fired two flares at passing boats but they didn't see them.

Hooker also had a somewhat unemotional Facebook conversation with a sailing friend of theirs, Daniel Danforth, who had got in contact on Monday after seeing him on the news.

Asked if it was true Lynette had fallen off their boat, Hooker only replied: 'Yes brother I'm afraid so.'

He went on: 'The wind blew me away from her and she swam towards the sailboat, and we lost sight of each other pretty quickly as it was just about sundown.

'I drifted and tried to paddle with one oar for the next 7 hours until I washed up behind the shore of the next Island over and was able to get some help finally.'

Curiously, given his wife had been missing for days, Hooker dwelt instead on what he called the 'huge burden' of being on the news. When Danforth told him he was in his prayers, Hooker said: 'Thank you friend. Our family is in hell right now.'

By Wednesday, Hooker was sounding more distraught in a social media statement he posted online. 'I am 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,' he said. 'Despite desperate attempts to reach her, the winds and currents drove us further apart. We continue to search for her and that is my sole focus.'

That same day he was arrested in connection with Lynette's disappearance, officers suddenly handcuffing him after accompanying him out to his small yacht. Under Bahamas law, police can hold him for up to eight days if there are extenuating circumstances before they must charge or release him.

Terrel Butler, his attorney, described the development as 'shocking.' She said her client - who 'appears completely heartbroken and deeply distressed' - had cooperated with the authorities and had sat down for a long interview. 'The trauma of her disappearance, coupled with his current detention as a suspect, has left him in an extremely fragile state,' she said.

The investigators were clearly not satisfied with his account. He was taken out to his yacht to collect some clothes but, handcuffed and clutching his clothes, he lost his footing and fell overboard, said his lawyer.

He, at least, was swiftly retrieved from the Caribbean.

The US Coast Guard has opened a criminal investigation, and law enforcement sources say the Royal Bahamas Police Force has officially requested US assistance in the case.

His wife has yet to be found despite an extensive search involving Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, Hope Town Fire & Rescue and the United States Coast Guard, using drones and professional divers.

Meanwhile, Lynette's daughter, Karli, has not been at all helpful to her father's case, saying something 'just doesn't add up' about her mother's disappearance and calling for a 'full and complete' investigation.

She has said the couple had 'a history of not getting along, especially when they drink.' (It remains unclear whether they'd been drinking before or during their Saturday evening boat trip).

And 'not getting along,' she told Fox News on Wednesday, involved a history of domestic violence.

'There's also been a history of domestic violence in that relationship so I do believe something might have happened to her,' she said.

Asked to elaborate, she said: 'There's history of him choking her out and threatening to throw her overboard so the fact that this is actually happening makes me believe there's more to the story.'

She has listed myriad other reasons why she is suspicious: her mother was 'fit and strong,' and a good swimmer and she never drove the boat so wouldn't normally have the keys.

She said she also found it hard to believe that anyone would paddle back to shore while a beloved spouse was still out at sea. And she questioned why her stepfather told police he saw his wife swimming towards the shore. Surely, reasoned Karli, she'd swim towards the boat.

She told NBC News her mother was an experienced sailor who'd been on the water for more than a decade in a succession of boats, culminating in Soulmate, which the couple bought in Texas.

She insisted Lynette was used to being at sea and unlikely to 'just fall' overboard.

Karli also claimed Brian was not good with alcohol. 'He starts to act more smart-a—y and more picking at you and like "I know this will irritate you so I'm gonna do that" type of attitude,' she said.

Karli said her father only left a brief voicemail message about her mother's disappearance three days later. In it, he can be heard saying: 'Hello, honey, it's Dad. I just got a call from Hope Town Search and Rescue, and they found the flotation device that I threw to mom when she fell overboard.

He ended: 'I love you. I'll talk to you later bye, bye-bye.'

She said that when she spoke to Hooker after the incident, he sounded 'monotone and relaxed,' providing the same description of events he gave police.

Back in Onsted, near Detroit, where the Hookers live, neighbor Jordan Plentz bore out Karli's claims about their turbulent marriage, saying she was told by Lynette's mother, who lived with the couple.

'I wasn't shocked when I heard about it,' Plentz told the Detroit News. 'They fought for a long time. ... The violence was pretty bad.'

Karli Aylesworth isn't the only one who knows the couple and is skeptical of Brian Hooker's account of what happened.

Daniel Danforth, the friend with whom Brian had that matter-of-fact Facebook exchange, told ABC News: 'Some of the things just don't add up.'

He said the couple - who he said had once separated for a while - were both 'very experienced at what they did,' adding: 'Dinghies don't really go very fast. That's not something you really take out in rough seas.'

And like Karli, he pointed out that the couple always carried phones around with them - often using them to post online - and questioned why there wasn't one on the dinghy with which Hooker could have summoned help.

He also found it odd that Hooker should be scrolling through social media and liking posts when Lynette had still not been found.

'You know, my wife's missing, Facebook's the last thing I'm worried about. You're going to find me on the water riding around,' Danforth told CBS News.

He also questioned why Hooker moved his boat from Elbow Cay, where it was anchored, shortly after Lynette went missing. And why, he asked, did his friend's account of what happened not tally with news reports?

While police have said Hooker recalled his wife being swept overboard and out to sea, Danforth said his messages reflected 'she was casually swimming back toward the sailboat.'

But not everyone familiar with the Hookers is so convinced that Brian's account is entirely incredible. John Waters, another friend of the couple, said they 'weren't that experienced' on the sea.

'Their new lifestyle was this boat that they picked up in Texas. They spent a year working on it,' he said.

Karli says she still harbors a faint hope that her mother may have made it to land but night watchman Edward Smith, a former fisherman, and a local boat skipper both told the Daily Mail that the bull sharks that infest those waters would have taken her within minutes.

'They can be monsters,' said Smith. Whether there was another brutal killer out there that night has yet to be determined.