‘Heart-wrenching’: Lachlan Young sent Hannah McGuire’s mother suicide text messages after murder
Just minutes after burning his ex-girlfriend's body, a cruel killer began texting her mother in an effort to cover up murder as a suicide.
Mere moments after burning his ex-girlfriend’s body, a young killer began sending her mother a series of horrifying text messages.
Details of the text messages sent by Lachlan Young as he sought to convince Debbie McGuire her daughter had died by suicide were detailed in Victoria’s Supreme Court after he pleaded guilty to Hannah McGuire’s murder.
Using Ms McGuire’s phone, the then-21-year-old wrote messages to himself and Debbie as he was driven home by a friend in a heartless effort to cover up her death.
Young strangled Ms McGuire in the bathroom of the Sebastopol home they once shared in the early hours of the morning on April 5 last year during an argument.
Ms McGuire had resolved to end their relationship due to Young’s emotional and physical abuse and had moved back in with her parents the month prior.
He was jailed for 28 years on Tuesday for what Justice James Elliott described as an “extreme act of domestic violence”.
“In sentencing you, the scourge of domestic violence resulting in the death of innocent and defenceless female partners is again to be addressed by the court,” he said.
“This case is yet another example of a male using violence and his superior strength to murder a vulnerable woman who trusted him.”
‘This is going to break his heart’
Outlining the facts of the case, Justice Elliott said about half an hour after Young murdered Ms McGuire about 2.30am, he placed her body into the rear footwell of her car.
He then drove to Ben O’Keefe’s house, an unwitting co-worker who has not been charged with any offence, and asked Mr O’Keefe to jump in his own car and follow.
“By this time, you had already decided to lie and create a false trail about how it was that Ms McGuire had died,” Justice Elliott said.
“At 3.27am, you sent a message from her phone to your phone which stated ‘I’m not coming’.”
After arriving at bushland near Scarsdale, Young proceeded to torch Ms McGuire’s car with her body still inside.
Mr O’Keefe was present for the burning but was unaware there was a body inside.
He then gave Young a lift home.
During the ride, Young sent a series of messages to himself and Debbie McGuire in what his lawyer described as an “amateurish” and “foredoomed to fail” effort to avoid prosecution.
“I’m sorry, Mum. I thought this was the right decision. I tried to heal and cope with it all, but I’m not okay,” the first message at 3.43am to Ms McGuire’s mother read.
“I thought leaving was the best decision. I tried to reconnect with people, and I tried sleeping with someone else to try and help me move on. But I couldn’t do it.
“I tried messaging Lach, but he doesn’t want anything to do with me now. I have sent a message. Please check in on him. This is going to break his heart.”
Debbie McGuire responded to her daughter across four messages expressing concern.
“What? Where are you? You’re not making sense. You’re not going back to him,” she wrote.
Young responded: “I tried to go back, but he doesn’t want anything to do with me. I’ve made the wrong choice. I have thrown away everything.”
Messages from Ms McGuire’s mother then become increasingly anxious as she begs who she thought was her daughter to answer her calls.
“WTF. You haven’t thrown anything away. You’ve made exactly the right choice. Where are you? Answer me now. Hannah, answer me or I’m getting in the car and coming for you, coming to find you,” she writes.
“Hannah, Hannah, you need to answer my phone call. Where are you? I’m coming to find you. You’re at Lachie’s, aren’t you? You can’t live the way you were living, being spoken to like s--t and treated like crap.
“Remember why you left in the first place. You were doing fine without him. In fact, I’ve never seen you look happier. I’m on my way in. “Where are you so we can talk properly? Hannah, I’m at Lachie’s. Where are you? I’ve called police, and I’m heading to the police station now.
“Please don’t do anything silly. We will come and find you. Don’t throw away your life and everything you’ve worked hard for, for Lachie.”
Around the same time, Young logged into Ms McGuire’s banking app and transferred himself $5000 and sent $2000 to Debbie McGuire.
Young then feigned surprise when Debbie McGuire turned up at his house searching for her daughter at 4.48am.
He continued the ruse by contacting Ms McGuire’s friends looking for her and stating he would “ruin this town if someone had done something to her”.
Justice Elliott described these messages, aimed to try and make it appear that she had died by suicide, were “heart-wrenching”.
“The steps you took after Ms McGuire’s death were multifarious, cold and calculating; they were utterly disrespectful to both the memory of Hannah McGuire and to the suffering her family and friends were going through,” he said.
‘I will never forget and I will never forgive’
Ahead of Young’s sentence being imposed, Debbie McGuire was one of more than a dozen people to deliver victim impact statements to the court.
She described her daughter as her “best friend, my light, my pride and my greatest joy” and “everything the accused could never be”.
“Words fall short of conveying the profound pain, immense sense of loss and lasting emptiness I have felt since Hannah was taken from me,” she said.
“Hannah was kind, intelligent, vibrant, loved, courageous, and powerful and gave herself generously and cared deeply for every person who entered her life.”
Mrs McGuire said the loss of her daughter and the knowledge of how Young treated her remains like “discarded trash” would remain with her forever.
“I live with my last message to Hannah being ‘Come home to mum’, and, ‘I love you’. Not only did the accused take Hannah’s life, but he also attempted to elaborately cover up her death, setting her body on fire, treating her like discarded trash,” she said.
“He even sat for a moment to watch her burn and attempted to make people believe she had taken her own life.
“He destroyed every part of her being, crushing all of Hannah’s hopes and dreams.”
She said that while she commended those that could offer forgiveness, “unfortunately for the accused, I am not one of them”.
“I hope every day, for the rest of his life, he experiences the most intense pain imaginable,” Mrs McGuire said.
“I will never forget and I will never forgive. It is a burden I will carry for the rest of my life.
“Unlike the accused, Hannah mattered. She is important and loved and brought to this world things that no one else could.”
Young, now 23, will serve at least 22 years and fourth months of his sentence before becoming eligible for parole.
At the earliest, he could be released in mid 2046 aged 44.
Originally published as ‘Heart-wrenching’: Lachlan Young sent Hannah McGuire’s mother suicide text messages after murder
