An Australian woman has been arrested in the Pacific republic of Palau, accused of repeatedly trying to murder her ex-husband and leaving him paraplegic, with the help of her new lover.
Mother-of-two Lisa Lines, 43, was arrested by Palau law enforcement on behalf of SA Police and remanded in custody on the tiny Pacific island.
Dr Lines, an author and former university lecturer, has been charged with two counts of attempted murder and two counts of conspiracy to murder.
Zacharia Bruckner, 36, was also arrested by Queensland Police and has been charged with conspiracy to murder-related offences.
Police will allege that the pair were lovers and plotted to murder Dr Lines’s ex-partner, Jonathan Hawtin, and his mother, Rhonda, for years.
Axe-and-gun attack left Mr Hawtin paralysed
Queensland Police prosecutor Eddie Fraser laid out the case against Dr Lines and Mr Bruckner in court on Thursday.
Dr Lines is said to have met Mr Bruckner in 2017 when Mr Bruckner, then a young editor, was recruited to her publishing company.
He moved in with Dr Lines and her then-partner, Mr Hawtin, in Adelaide. The pair began a romantic relationship, either before or soon after Dr Lines and Mr Hawtin’s relationship ended, police allege.
Police allege that, in October 2017, Mr Bruckner attacked Mr Hawtin with an axe at an Adelaide Hills home, leaving him paralysed from the neck down.
“In October 2017, Lines attempted to murder Hawtin by coercing Bruckner to assault Hawtin with hatchet,” Mr Fraser alleged.
“Hawtin suffered such serious injuries that he is a quadriplegic.”
Police had originally charged Mr Hawtin with attempted murder after Mr Bruckner had suffered gunshot wounds to the hip during the same incident.
Mr Hawtin was acquitted after a Supreme Court jury found him not guilty in 2019.
Mr Fraser told the court on Thursday that police now allege Mr Bruckner “shot himself in the hip” and he and Dr Lines allegedly “staged a crime scene to make it look like Mr Hawtin was the offender”.
Police further allege that, while Mr Hawtin was recovering in a rehabilitation centre, a second attempt was made on his life.
Police claim that a “female friend” of Dr Lines was spotted peering into Mr Hawtin’s room before she was escorted away by staff. It’s alleged that the woman — who was, by some reports, a third lover of Dr Lines — was sent there by Dr Lines to suffocate Mr Hawtin with a pillow.
Years-long manhunt for Lisa Lines
Dr Lines left Australia in 2020 and took the children she shares with Mr Hawtin to Taiwan, where Australia does not hold an extradition treaty.
Interpol missing persons notices were released for the two children in 2021 and a years-long manhunt was launched.
On Wednesday, Dr Lines landed in Palau, where she was arrested.
In addition to the 2017 attacks, police will allege that Dr Lines and Mr Bruckner have been conspiring to murder Mr Hawtin and his mother, Rhonda, by the use of a hit man between December 2021 and the present day.
Mr Fraser said there had been “communication” by both Mr Bruckner and Dr Lines, recorded by a person posing as a hit man.
Police are working to have both Dr Lines and Mr Bruckner extradited to South Australia to face the charges.