Lachlan Young pleads guilty to Hannah McGuire murder
A man on trial for killing his ex-girlfriend in a regional Australian town last year has changed his plea after days of evidence.
Applause rang out in a Victorian courtroom after the ex-partner of young woman Hannah McGuire dramatically pleaded guilty to her murder eight days into his trial.
Lachlan Young had denied deliberately killing Ms McGuire, 23, in suburban Ballarat last year and claimed before the Victorian Supreme Court her death was an accident.
On Friday, Young changed his plea after he was rearraigned on the murder charge.
“Guilty,” Young, 23, replied.
It followed an adjournment in the trial on Thursday, with the court told on Friday the matter had now been resolved.
Justice James Elliott thanked the jury for its work before asking the sheriffs to “take Mr Young back to the cells”.
In the back of the courtroom, members of the gallery hugged while applause broke out after Justice Elliott adjourned the proceedings for sentence hearing.
The court had heard during the trial that Ms McGuire had been “terrified” of Young, who once tried to run her off the road in an earlier incident.
Ms McGuire’s body was found in a burnt out car on the side of State Forest Rd, Scarsdale on April 5 last year.
Her former long-term partner, Young was charged with her murder on April 8, 2024.
Prosecutors at his trial told the jury Ms McGuire died a month after she ended a “controlling and turbulent relationship” with Young.
Her death rocked the tight knit community of Clunes, where her family ran a local pub and the university student was a much-loved member of the town’s netball club.
Ms McGuire was on the cusp of finishing her teaching degree and worked as a teacher’s aide at Delacombe Primary School.
The school’s business manager Danielle McCann told the court this week that it was sent into lockdown on March 20, 2024 after Young sent threats to Ms McGuire.
“He was threatening he would come to the school,” Ms McCann said. “She didn’t feel safe.”
Ms McGuire went to the Sebastopol house she and Young bought together, during their relationship, on the night of April 4, 2024.
Prosecutors said she died there about 1.50am the next morning.
Young had first claimed at trial Ms McGuire’s death was “an unplanned and spontaneous incident”, with the jury told she hit her head after being thrown to the ground during a fight.
He then attempted to stage it as a suicide by putting Ms McGuire’s body inside her own car and torching it in bushland 25km outside Ballarat.
During the trial, the jury was shown text messages sent by Ms McGuire’s mother as she and her husband searched for their daughter.
“Come home to mum, Hannah. I love you,” Debbie McGuire wrote in the early hours of April 5, 2024.
The court heard Debbie received messages back from her daughter’s phone about 3:43am, which appeared to resemble a suicide note – but police believe Hannah was already dead by this point.
“I tried messaging Lach, but he doesn’t want anything to do with me now,” the message read. “Please check in on him. This is going to break his heart.”
Young’s matter will return to court next Friday to set a date for future plea and sentence hearings.