Ex-beauty queen launches Hail Mary bid to void murder-for-hire trial with shocking new claim about her Bahamas arrest

By BEN ASHFORD, US SENIOR REPORTER and ARTESIA DAVIS IN NASSAU, BAHAMAS Published: 17:23, 7 July 2026 | Updated: 17:25, 7 July 2026 Lindsay Shiver has waited three years to go on trial for allegedly hiring a hitman to kill her ex-football player husband – but now the former beauty queen is hoping she won't ever have to set foot in a courtroom again. Shiver's new lawyer claims authorities in the Bahamas have no legal authority to prosecute the mom-of-three for conspiring to murder Robert Shiver because she was in the US when the supposed 'plotting' took place. Shiver, 39, not only wants the charges dismissed, but she could also sue the Royal Bahamas Police Force for wrongful arrest, the Daily Mail has learned exclusively. The Hail Mary legal bid comes as the long-awaited trial for Miss Houston County 2005 was pushed back yet again to begin November 2. By then, the prospect of spending 60 years in a hellhole prison will have hung over her for three years and four months. The case against Shiver hinges on WhatsApp messages she allegedly sent to her barman lover Adrien Bethel, 30, and his friend Faron Newbold Jr, 31, in July 2023. Charging documents claim Shiver sent Newbold a photo of Robert drinking at a beach bar close to their vacation home in the Abaco Islands – along with an instruction to 'kill him'. She was arrested several days later in the Bahamas but her recently-retained lawyer Terrel Butler points out that the messages were sent before she arrived in the country. Lindsay Shiver - pictured leaving a Bahamas courthouse in December 2023 - is seeking to have her charges dismissed, claiming wrongful arrest, three years after she was charged with an alleged murder-for-hire plot against her husband  Shiver's trial has been pushed back again and now set to take place in November this year, for allegedly trying to hire a hitman to take out husband Robert Shiver as he vacationed in the Bahamas in July 2023 That means officers had no jurisdiction to detain and question Shiver and the trial should therefore be scrapped, according to a motion filed last week. Butler – who is also representing Brian Hooker, the American boater whose wife Lynette fell overboard and vanished near the Abaco Islands in April – declined to give any further details. Senior Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson is expected to issue a ruling by the end of the month. The Shivers enjoyed a gilded lifestyle prior to their chaotic breakup, splitting time between a seven-bed mansion in Thomasville, Georgia, and a vacation home in Baker's Bay, an ultra-exclusive Abaco resort frequented by the likes of Tom Brady and Michael Jordan. Former Auburn football star Robert, 40, filed for divorce in April 2023, accusing his wife of cheating, while Shiver countered with claims of 'physical and mentally cruel treatment'. Three months later she was sensationally charged in the Bahamas with conspiring with Bethel to have his childhood pal Newbold murder her husband of 13 years. Robert had taken the couple's private jet to the Bahamas without allowing his estranged wife to board after a blazing argument about her fling with Bethel. Shiver admitted to police that she messaged her younger lover to say she 'wanted to kill' Robert and that Bethel 'understood' and 'wanted to kill him also'. Lindsay was charged in the Bahamas with conspiring with her barman boyfriend Adrien Bethel (left) to have his childhood pal Faron Newbold Jr (right) 31, kill Robert  The mom-of-three appeared in court in 2024 when she was charged with conspiracy to commit murder. She spent 19 days inside Nassau's Fox Hill prison But in the very same interview, she insisted that any talk of murder was merely 'said out of anger and frustration', according to prosecution documents obtained by the Daily Mail. Robert was unaware of the alleged threats to his life until police quizzed Bethel over an unrelated break-in and discovered the messages on his phone. 'This n***a rolled up on Lindsay and wouldn't let her on the plane and he put his hands on her,' Bethel had allegedly written to Newbold. 'I am about to come out of retirement for this n***a. He is flying into Baker's Bay, she is thinking about letting me kill him but he has the kids.' Shaken Robert branded his wife 'manipulating' and accused her of having multiple affairs, according to the docs. She was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and spent 19 days inside Nassau's notorious Fox Hill Prison before she was released with a GPS ankle monitor and allowed to return to the States to live with her parents in Alabama. Shiver was locked up for a further four months in late 2024 for breaching pre-trial publicity restrictions by appearing in a news segment on ABC's Good Morning America. Robert, who has never spoken publicly about his estranged wife, is still living in Thomasville where their hostile divorce and custody battle slowly crawls towards its conclusion. Originally from Alabama, Shiver won the title of Miss Houston County in 2005 and then went on to be second runner-up in the National Peanut Festival pageant the same year The couple share three children  He went on to date reality TV star Savannah Chrisley, 28, who tore into Shiver following their unexpected split in March 2025. 'I don't think I will ever forgive her for what she has put Robert and the boys through,' Chrisley said on her podcast. 'I don't believe that Robert and I would be where we were at today if she wouldn't have caused so much mass destruction.'