Law&Crime Sidebar - 7 New Details in Beauty Queen Lindsay Shiver's Murder-for-Hire Case

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Starting point is 00:00:35 keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A Georgia Mama 3 and former beauty queen who seemed to be living just a dream life on social media was arrested for allegedly plotting to kill her husband. Prosecutters down in the Bahamas say she and her Bahamian lover wanted him out of the way. But we have a big update for you right now as Lindsay Schiever awaits trial. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber.

Starting point is 00:01:14 So it's been a little while since we've talked about 38-year-old Lindsay Schiever. She's the former beauty pageant queen accused in a murder-for-hire plot that allegedly targeted her estranged husband, former NFL player Robert Schiver. and prosecutors say she recruited her lover in the Bahamas to help her. But now she's apparently getting out of jail in the Caribbean country as she's apparently been granted bail a second time and she has a new trial date. So Shiver was arrested in July of 2023 after police in the Bahamas said they found WhatsApp messages between her and her boyfriend Terence Bethel, which allegedly included photos of Robert and the message kill him. And authorities believe that the two then

Starting point is 00:01:58 hired a man named Farron Newbold to actually carry out the hit. So Shiver, Bethel, and Newbold, they were all arrested. They have all pled not guilty. They all face our understanding up to 60 years in prison if prosecutors can prove that those messages and maybe other evidence amounts to a murder for hire scheme. Their trial was set for March, but according to the Nassau Guardian, it has now been pushed back to August because of another high profile trial that's underway in the Bahamas right now. But I want to go back and give you some backstory where we can fully approve. and understand what's happening right now. So we have Robert and Lindsay Schiever. They had been married 13 years. They had three sons. They met at Auburn University in Alabama where she was

Starting point is 00:02:37 a cheerleader. He was a football player. Robert Schiver had signed on with the Atlanta Falcons for a short time after college. But when he was cut, he went on to become executive vice president for senior life insurance company. The family lived in a multi-million dollar home in Thomasville, Georgia, not far from the Florida line. They had a vacation home in the Bahamas. They reportedly there quite frequently. And Shiver's Instagram page, if you take a look at it, it was full of photos and videos of herself, her family, or friends, enjoying just fun in the sun. But authorities alleged that Ms. Shiver was having a little bit too much fun and had begun an affair with a Bahamian bartender named Terence Bethel. So according to paperwork that Robert had filed with

Starting point is 00:03:20 authorities in the Bahamas, this was seen by the Daily Mail, he had previously discovered that Shiver was having an affair with an 18-year-old in the United States. States claiming she had snuck him into their home in 2022. He says he confronted her about that and the two decided to try to stay together for the sake of the three kids. But when Robert found out about Mr. Bethel, he allegedly filed for divorce. He sided the alleged cheating while she countered with claims of physical and mentally cruel treatment.

Starting point is 00:03:48 In July of 2023, in fact, police were called out to their home to deal with a domestic dispute. Apparently, the boys and Robert were going to take their private jet, which Robert, was part owner of down to the island, but Shiver had decided that she wanted to come too. But Robert didn't want her flying with them, saying she was just going down there to see her lover, and he wasn't having it. What's going on? Y'all are separated, or what's the deal? We have filed for divorce.

Starting point is 00:04:13 Okay. Living in the same house, it's hell on earth, as you can imagine. Okay. But anyway, woke up this morning. We have travel plans to leave. Mm-hmm. And he's insisting that I don't go. okay and then I have my keys he starts moves me out of the way starts trying to

Starting point is 00:04:34 unload my car tells me he ends the car he owns the rights to it just got super aggressive and that's when I called immediately because he's been physical before and I'm just not okay so are you just wanting to leave or is he supposed to be going with you yeah we're supposed to be going with our kids okay all right um So I don't know what, that's what I was asking, dispatch, like, what y'all can do if there's even, but of course, now he's inside acting. I mean, I don't know what it is that you want us to do. I mean, if y'all have filed for divorce and y'all are going on a vacation, other than telling him he needs to calm down, I don't personally recommend you go on a vacation together if there's an issue like that and y'all have filed for divorce.

Starting point is 00:05:26 Right. I mean, it's obviously a hostile situation. So is there a way that you can go without him? I mean, the best thing, what we're going to do is tell y'all that y'all need to separate. I mean, has he put his hands on you that, you know, have y'all been physically aggressive today? I mean... No, just besides him moving me out of the way of my car to get to it. Okay, what do you mean he moved you out of the way?

Starting point is 00:05:52 Like, push me out of the way so he could get to my car and start unloading it. Okay. We're going to need to talk to him then. By the way, we talk about some pretty scary stories here on Sidebar, but we're always trying to alert you about what is going on in the world. That's why we also partner with sponsors who can maybe offer you up some protection. And that includes Delete Me. So did you know that your personal data is being harvested and sold online by data brokers? Yeah, anyone can buy your personal information.

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Starting point is 00:06:47 so right now you can get 20% off delete me and protect your personal data when you go to join delete me dot com slash sidebar and use promo code sidebar at checkout. The last three weeks, maybe longer, she's had her couple's trip playing with her boyfriend to go to Key West. Okay, but she just said you're going. That was the Key West. I'm taking my kids, my three boys to Bahamas.

Starting point is 00:07:12 Her kids. Yesterday, she said in the message saying that she's going to change her plans and now get on the airplane between the kids to go to Bahamas. But I am too, by the way. she's going to go to her boyfriend. Elsewhere. And me and the kids are going to our house. And I told her about supporting that.

Starting point is 00:07:33 And you're not getting on the airplane. That can mess with the kids' heads. And it's just something we're not going to do. In situations like this, the best thing that we always recommend is y'all separate. Don't just separate from each other. You don't need to be going on vacation together if you file for divorce and it's obviously a volatile situation.

Starting point is 00:07:51 Right. Now, this is important because police in the Bahamas say, that same day is when Shiver allegedly texted Bethel about getting rid of Robert. So how do police know that exactly? Well, according to the NASA Guardian, there was a $20,000 theft from the bar where Bethel had worked. And police had searched his WhatsApp messages to see if he might have been involved. And lo and behold, that is when they say they uncovered this alleged murder plot. There's also apparently an alleged confession from Shiver to Bahamas police that she

Starting point is 00:08:25 told Bethel she wanted to kill Robert. Maybe she won't characterize that as a confession, but it was also that Bethel said he wanted to kill him too. But she also said that she was just venting, never actually planned to do him any harm. A lot of moving parts. And we will talk also about the issue with Bond, because this is about her now, maybe getting released. We'll talk about it. But let me bring on criminal defense attorney Michael Gottlieb. Michael, thanks so much for coming here on cyber. Appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for having me on. It seems like something out of a crime novel except it's real life? What are your first to just initial takeaways from this case? Because you and I haven't had a chance to talk about it before.

Starting point is 00:09:05 Yeah, when I first heard about the case, I was, I couldn't remember if I heard about it or I read about it or I watched it in a movie because it does seem like one of those sort of, you know, fantasy type things. You've got the beauty queen. You've got the wealthy executive. They've got things that are relatively unattainable to most of us, you know, private jets, vacation homes, vacationing in the Bahamas. But then I had to analyze it as a lawyer, and I'm not really sure they have a conspiracy here. So. Oh, really? Why do you say that? Well, you know, we don't know the full texts that they have. We just know about this one text, kill him. If nobody else responds, you know, okay, let's do it, or they start a plan, somebody just venting and saying,

Starting point is 00:09:48 kill him. I'm not sure that that's enough to get to, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a conspiracy to kill him. I'm sure. Look, we don't know the full extent of the, of the evidence here. But if you have multiple players, which by the way, just generally speaking, I have to say something. I know she's innocent until proven guilty. But I have to say in the majority of the cases I've covered, Michael, where it's a murder for hire plot. accusation or a murder for a higher plot conviction, I find those to be the cases where you leave the worst evidence trail possible, the most breadcrumbs. It's interesting, right, because the idea is you want to farm it out. You want to hire somebody else to carry out this alleged

Starting point is 00:10:34 attack. And yet, whether it's the receipts, it's the flow of money. I've noticed in a lot of these cases, it's sometimes the easiest to prove that there was a murder for higher plot. Well, yeah, I think, you know, so when you're talking about a murder like this, you're talking about it's not attempted, attempted, attempted, yeah. Attempted. It's not heat of passion. Because of that, there's a lot of drama behind it. There's a lot of emotion behind it.

Starting point is 00:11:00 And when you're thinking out of emotion as opposed to with your head, you're going to make those, those kind of mistakes. The best murder for a higher pot I ever heard of was a guy who hired somebody to come in and kill his wife. And he was present during the burglary. So he let him kill the wife. And then he killed the hitman. So he eliminated all the witnesses, you know, but usually, and he still got caught. Usually there are mistakes because these are emotional decisions. You know, it's made with the heart and it's not really properly well planned.

Starting point is 00:11:29 And people do get caught. I agree with you. Okay. So now I want to talk about the bail situation because this is something we want to address. This is the kind of update that we want to get into. So when Schiver was arrested in 2023, she was jailed in the infamous Foxhill prison out in Nassau, but got out on $100,000 bell. She had to wear an ankle monitor. She wasn't allowed to leave the island. But after a few months, a judge in the Bahamas agreed that Shiver could return to the

Starting point is 00:11:56 United States to see her children and live with her parents in Alabama. But she had to wear the ankle monitor and she couldn't travel to Georgia where Robert and the boys had lived. But then less than a year later, in October of 2024, the judge ordered her back to the Bahamas and back to jail after authorities say she broke the conditions of her bond by traveling away from her mother's home for extended periods of time. She and Bethel also spoke with Good Morning America an inside edition. During that interview with GMA, Good Morning America, Bethel said, nobody ever wanted him dead. I'm definitely not guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. And Farron's not guilty of being a hired hitman. It's time to let the world know we're innocent. During that GMA segment, Shriver

Starting point is 00:12:42 reportedly did not speak about the case. One of attorneys told the judge she just merely appeared on film. The Daily Mail reports that Shiver and Bethel, they blame ABC for reneging on an agreement not to air any footage until after the murder conspiracy trial was over. Michael, your reaction to that, because you have to imagine, even if there was an agreement, if you're appearing on there at that time, don't you feel like this, it's probably not the best thing to do? it's definitely an unwise decision whether you're doing it pretrial or post-trial because who knows if you lose and then the network wants to or whoever it is that has that you know wants to air that that video so i don't think it was a wise decision it certainly wasn't a wise decision knowing

Starting point is 00:13:28 that the judge had a prohibition about pretrial publicity listen it's also unusual in a murder for higher kind of scheme when you're not from the country to be let out and being allowed to return to another country, you'd think you'd want to be on your best behavior. Be home when you're supposed to be home, be on your, you know, monitoring and avoid unnecessary pretrial publicity to your case. Even just appearing is potentially wrong. Generally speaking here in the United States, if someone is charged with conspiracy to commit murders, charged in a murder for a higher plot, would they get bail or would have to be very unique circumstances? I think it's a case by case basis. It depends on prior criminal history. If you have any, are you a danger to the community?

Starting point is 00:14:12 She's probably not a danger to the community. She's a danger just to that one particular person, her husband, who she was being divorced from, and whether or not she's a flight risk. Obviously, she's not a flight risk because she came back, you know, and she's probably not a danger to anybody in the Bahamas. She had one person who perhaps they believe she wanted to have killed. So I think bail is likely appropriate. Well, in a 14 page order, the Daily Mail says, that Justice Cheryl Grant Thompson wrote, What the respondents have done can be seen by the applicant as a spit in the face of justice.

Starting point is 00:14:45 Mrs. Schiver can be seen on the Good Morning America interview parading around in a blue sundress on international television speaking directly relative to the evidence in the trial. The respondents were arrested in charge within the Bahamas. The respondents applied for bail and adherence to the laws of the Bahamas. This court will not accept this blatant disregard for the laws of the Bahamas.

Starting point is 00:15:05 So Bethel was also remanded back to jail for violating his own bond conditions, a Bahamian news outlet called the Tribune reported that he had moved to a new home in a different city, but didn't update the police about his situation, which he was required to do. Michael, your reaction to that, because those are some strong words by the judge, and if these allegations are true from the reporting, it shocks me that they would break the rules, they finally get released. Yeah, it's pretty ominous the way the judge poised that. So pose that. Because first of all, you know, it's one thing to be a criminal defendant in America, an American criminal defendant in America. It's another when you're going out of the country, you know, and you're concerned with are, am I going to be treated fair because of my status as a foreigner? And then you're flaunting, you know, sort of as the brash American going on American TV. And as the judge said, you know, really showing a conscious disregard for Bahamian law and you were given the opportunity to be out on bond. So, you know, you have to peer in front of this judge again. You want to be on your best behavior, not exhibiting your worst character traits and really thumbing your nose at the system, as the judge said, that's a bad move. It is. And get this, during the hearing on revocation of bond, according to the Tribune, revoking Scheiber's bail also took her

Starting point is 00:16:32 out of harm's way because she'd accused her new boyfriend of trying to kill her. So back in July last year, Schiver had filed a protection order against a man named Dorsey Ryan Love out in Alabama. And she claims that Love threw her onto a bed, choked her, suffocated her with a pillow at a home in Dothan. And she also claims that he abused her on an earlier trip to Florida, but just she didn't report that to police. And she wrote in the protection order request, quote, he threatened to kill me. So Love was arrested. He was charged with strangulation, we weren't able to find an update on his case, but I thought that was an interesting nugget. And the acting director of public prosecutions agreed with the judge's assessment, according to

Starting point is 00:17:12 the tribune saying, quote, what we say is that had you been in compliance with the bail conditions to reside at your mom's place and not be residing with your boyfriend, who now is attempting to kill you, then we wouldn't be in this place. But it seems both Schiver and Bethel are getting a second chance because Schiver's attorney, Ian Cargill told Alabama news outlet WDHN that she and Bethel were set to be released on bail yesterday. Now, Shiver had the same conditions placed on her. She can't return to Alabama but has to wear an ankle monitor. Bethel has to stay in the Bahamas.

Starting point is 00:17:45 They're not allowed to make public comments about the case. The exact reason for this 180, though, is not clear. So I go now to Michael Gottlieb to tell us why this might be the case. After so much has happened, why would they be released? Yeah. So, you know, we're all left to speculate with that. And from my experience, and I've been practicing criminal for 30 years, when you look at something like that and somebody offends, you know, you've got the most egregious kind of crime that you can, an attempted murder for hire. You're not from the country. And you violated a bond condition and thumbed your nose at the court, as the court said. But yet they're going to relax your conditions and let you out. I suggest speaks volumes to the government's case, that perhaps. the government has realized we're not certain that we're going to obtain a conviction in this case. It's just a suggestion because I don't know that to be true. But if you, you know, you're trying to read the tea leaves and look, you know, into what's really happening here.

Starting point is 00:18:44 To me, that's the suggestion. Why else would you let her out unless their government's having a problem, perhaps proving their case? I know Bahamian law could be different. But if this was happening in the United States. Could revocation of bond, you know, you put a bond or you revoke the bond, can that be used as evidence at the criminal trial? Typically not. And I don't think our systems are all that different. They're both grounded in the, you know, the British common law, if you will. So, you know, then it's just an evolution from there of statutory law. But I know they go with beyond a reasonable doubt as their burden of proof. So my expectation is that that bond condition wouldn't be able to hurt her.

Starting point is 00:19:28 What might be able to hurt her is she's now claiming her new paramourer that he is beating her. And I know that she's claimed with her, you know, her ex-husband that there were allegations of domestic violence as well. If none of them are provable, it may come into the evidence at some point in time if she's got a modus operandi of claiming, you know, false allegations. I don't know if it would be usable or not,

Starting point is 00:19:53 but I would look to something like that as having potential evidentiary value against her in the attempted murder trial, depending on what her defense is. If she were to take the stand, again, I'm not 100% familiar with Bahamian law, but if this was in the United States, if she were to take the stand, could she be questioned about her comments or lack of comments on GMA? Could she be questioned about that body cam footage from the prior incident where she's accusing her estranged husband of abuse? Could she be questioned about this alleged abuse with, like you said, her new power

Starting point is 00:20:23 or more. Would those things come up if she took the stand? Yeah, absolutely. Once you take the stand, you sort of open the door, you know, to your life, to the facts and circumstances, to her claiming he pushed her out of the way because she wanted to go on this trip that he was going on, and that's all on the body cam. And her attitude and demeanor there aren't necessarily consistent. And even the cops, if you watch that body warrant, are kind of like, well, why do you have us here? Did he commit a crime or he didn't commit a crime? you know so all of that is fair game on cross-examination absolutely michael gotlieb thanks for coming on and trying to break down this ever winding story with me a lot of moving parts but appreciate it

Starting point is 00:21:02 thanks so much for coming on sidebar thanks for having me all right everybody that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar thank you so much for joining us and as always please subscribe on youtube apple podcast Spotify wherever you're she at your podcast i'm jesse weber i'll speak to you next time You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

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Law&Crime Sidebar - 7 New Details in Beauty Queen Lindsay Shiver's Murder-for-Hire Case

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