A shocking case has emerged involving Georgia resident and former beauty queen Lindsay Shiver, who is accused of plotting, alongside her alleged lover from the Bahamas, to hire a hitman to murder her ex-NFL player husband. However, according to one of Shiver’s attorneys, she ought to be exempt from criminal charges due to significant legal issues affecting the prosecution’s evidence.
Her defense team in the United States contends that Bahamian authorities do not have the legal authority to file charges of murder-for-hire, particularly because the purported crime supposedly took place while Shiver was on American soil.
“Lindsay Shiver did not commit the offenses that the Bahamian Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has accused her of,” declared her attorney, Craig Shirley, in a statement to News Media, making a firm claim of her innocence.
Appearing at the heart of this contentious legal battle is Lindsay Shiver and her partner, Adrien Bethel, who stand accused of orchestrating a plot to murder her husband, Robert Shiver, who is also the father of her three sons. (Photo Credit: Daniel William McKnight/ Instagram)
Shirley has pointed out a crucial discrepancy, noting that the indictment alleged Shiver was present in the Bahamas on July 16, 2023, when the supposed conspiracy was set in motion. However, he insists that the defense has presented both the prosecution and the court with evidence from various independent sources corroborating that she was indeed in the United States on that day.
“The DPP must prove it. Meaning that, as a threshold requirement, the DPP is required to prove that Lindsay was in the Bahamas on July 16, 2023,” Shirley said. “It cannot.”
Lindsay Shiver leaves supreme court in the Bahamas, Aug. 9, 2023. Shiver, 36, is accused of plotting to kill her husband, Robert Shiver, who was a star football player at Auburn University. (Daniel William McKnight)
Shirley argued that the discrepancy is not only a factual dispute but a jurisdictional defect that prevents the Bahamian government from prosecuting Shiver under its own penal code.
“Lindsay cannot be prosecuted under the Bahamian Penal Code for an alleged act committed at a time when the undisputed evidence establishes that she was not in The Bahamas,” he said.
“This is not a technicality; it is a legally fatal defect in the DPP’s evidence, its charges and its continued prosecution of Lindsay,” he said.
Shirley said that he was “shocked and disappointed” that Bahamas authorities were continuing to pursue prosecution against Shiver, saying that they have the obligation to drop all charges.
“Lindsay should never have been subjected to a prosecution that the Bahamian government lacked the legal authority to bring,” he said.
Shirley noted that he issued the statement independently and that neither Shiver nor her Bahamas-based attorney, Terrel Butler, had prior knowledge he was providing it. Butler declined to provide comment.
Lindsay Shiver, far right, wearing a hat that reads “Bad Influence” is accused of plotting to kill her husband, Robert Shiver. (Instagram)
The alleged plot was unraveled by Bahamian authorities during an unrelated break-in investigation at a local bar in Abaco, Bahamas.
While searching a suspect’s phone, police discovered WhatsApp messages containing photos of Robert Shiver alongside text instructions allegedly sent by Lindsay Shiver reading, “Kill him.” Defense attorneys maintained that the messages were taken out of context.
Shiver, along with her lover, Adrien Bethel, and the alleged hitman, Faron Newbold Jr., were arrested in the Bahamas in July 2023. Shiver, along with Bethel and Newbold Jr., is charged with conspiracy to commit murder under Bahamian law. They pleaded not guilty to all charges.
News Media has reached out to Bahamas prosecutors and to Robert Shiver’s attorney.