The US Coast Guard has seized the dinghy missing Florida woman Lynette Hooker was riding when she vanished into Bahamian waters in early April, as investigators step up their probe.

The 8-foot dinghy that Brian Hooker says he and his wife, Lynette Hooker, were aboard when she disappeared in the Bahamas in early April, was seized by U.S. Coast Guard investigators Thursday.

After six days of searching by police and volunteers, authorities announced that a child's body dressed in “similar clothes” was found Thursday in an out-of-the-way location on a farm in the southwest...