Alleged murder plotter Lisa Lines ordered to answer to attempted murder charge

The woman at the centre of an alleged deranged and long-running murder plot against her former partner has been committed to stand trial, with a magistrate ruling she must answer to an attempted murder allegation.

Lisa Lines is facing one count of attempted murder and two counts of conspire to murder over a series of alleged plots to knock off her former partner Jonathon Hawtin.

Ms Lines’ legal team tried to have the attempted murder charge against her dismissed, but a magistrate rejected their no case submission.

She will now have to fight it alongside the conspire to murder charges at the South Australian Supreme Court in 2025.

The attempted murder allegation is connected to an alleged blast of violence from October 2017.

Police allege Ms Lines and her former lover, Zacharia Bruckner, together tried to kill Mr Hawtin, with Bruckner allegedly attacking the man at his Adelaide Hills home with an axe.

Mr Bruckner is then alleged to have shot himself with a gun to make the axe attack look like it was in self-defence.

Mr Hawtin was left a tetraplegic from the alleged attack.

During a hearing at Adelaide Magistrates Court last week before Chief Magistrate Mary-Louise Hribal, Ms Lines’ defence team argued the charge should be dismissed on a “no case” basis.

“The principal evidence that the Crown has is that there were two tiny spots of blood on my client’s tracksuit … the only inference you can draw from that blood, is an inference as to her presence in the shed at some point,” Dominic Agresta, appearing for Ms Lines, said.

“The difficulty for the Crown in my submission, is that there was no dispute … that my client entered the garage after the events, where she is said to have seen both Mr Bruckner and Mr Hawtin supine on the ground both bleeding.”

The police initially believed Mr Hawtin had tried to kill Mr Bruckner after he started a relationship with Lines.

Mr Hawtin was acquitted of all charges following a trial at the South Australian Supreme Court in 2019.

Mr Agresta said Ms Lines’ actions after finding Brucker and Mr Hawtin bleeding in the shed were “inconsistent” with a murder plot.

She dialled triple-0 and tried to stop the bleeding from both Mr Bruckner and Mr Hawtin, Mr Agresta said.

“It (the triple-0 call) demonstrates there is panic, obvious sincere panic in my client’s voice at the time she made the call,” he said.

“It also supports the contention she attempted to quell Mr Hawtin’s bleeding.

“If it is true she was involved in a plan to kill Mr H, there is no explanation as to why she would call the ambulance in such haste.”

Magistrate Hribal rejected Mr Agresta’s arguments and found Ms Lines had a case to answer.

Ms Lines, who appeared via videolink from custody, answered “not guilty” when the attempted murder charge was read out.

Ms Lines and Mr Brucker are also accused of conspiring to murder Mr Hawtin and his mother Rhonda through a hit man between December 29, 2021, and November 15, 2023, with undercover police operatives allegedly securing evidence of the alleged plot.

Ms Lines and Mr Brucker pleaded not guilty to those charges last week.

The police have also charged Letiticia Fortune, another lover of Lines, with attempted murder.

The police allege Ms Fortune plotted to smother Mr Hawtin with a pillow as he lay in hospital recovering from the axe attack.

Ms Fortune has yet to enter a plea to the charge.

Ms Lines, who holds a PhD in social sciences from Flinders University, was arrested in November 2023 on the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau and then extradited back to Adelaide to face the courts.

She left Australia and settled in Taiwan in 2019 after Mr Hawtin was acquitted of the charges against him.