A 23-year-old Australian man, Lachlan Young, pleaded guilty to the 2024 murder of Hannah McGuire, his ex-girlfriend, whom he would then set on fire. He admitted to the crime in court after a failed attempt to plead guilty to manslaughter.
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According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Young pleaded guilty to murder on Friday, July 18, at the Ballarat Supreme Court. He had previously offered to plead guilty to manslaughter, which was rejected by the prosecution.
Young had previously admitted to killing McGuire and then dumping her body in bushland. However, he claimed at the time that he had done so with no murderous intent, and that her death was an accident.
A five-week murder trial began as he pleaded not guilty to murder after he was arraigned for McGuire’s murder. However, eight days into the murder, Young had a change of heart. He pleaded guilty to murder in his re-arraignment and effectively ended his murder trial.
Murderer
As reported by the Australian Associated Press, the incident occurred on April 5, 2024. Both the prosecution and the defense agreed on the facts regarding McGuire’s death. Lachlan Young killed his ex-girlfriend, Hannah McGuire, placed her inside her car, drove her to a nearby bushland, and then set the car on fire.
However, the defense claimed that McGuire had died of suffocation. Meanwhile, the prosecution claimed in court that Young had hit McGuire’s head with a bathroom sink during an argument, killing her as a result.
The court heard the testimony of one of Young’s friends, 23-year-old Benjamin O’Keefe. He told the court that Young had asked to convoy with him to the bushland to drive him home, as he was planning to crash McGuire’s vehicle with her inside it.
“He wanted to put her in her car and roll her down a hill … because she was leaving him and she was going to take the house and other things,” O’Keefe told the court, as per ABC.
O’Keefe stated that he tried to ignore Young’s requests, but eventually caved in to his requests. He accompanied Young to Scarsdale and saw how he swerved the car and crashed into a tree.
While he told Young to only dump the car and not burn it, O’Keefe told the court that he saw Young using a yellow blowtorch to set the vehicle on fire.
O’Keefe said that he never saw McGuire inside the vehicle. She was, and her body burned alongside the car. As a thank you, Lachlan Young paid O’Keefe AUD 45 ($29).