Ex-NFL Player's Wife Texted 2 Words: 'Kill Him.' Now She's a Suspect — and Claims It Was Just a Figure of Speech

Following a heated dispute over a private jet bound for the Bahamas, Lindsay Shiver sent a two-word WhatsApp message to her boyfriend.

"Kill him," read the July 2023 message, which authorities allege concerned her husband, Robert Shiver, amid the couple's contentious divorce.

Bahamian authorities, in an indictment reported by ABC News, allege that the text, which was sent to Lindsay's boyfriend, Terrance Bethel, and friend Farron Newbold Jr., included a picture of her husband and another woman and was part of a murder-for-hire plot targeting Robert, with whom Lindsay has three kids.

Though Robert was unharmed, Lindsay was arrested days later in the Bahamas. Authorities charged her, Bethel and Newbold with conspiracy to commit murder. They have pleaded not guilty.

In an interview with Good Morning America, Bethel claimed the whole thing was a misunderstanding and that "kill him" was a figure of speech.

“Whenever she gets into an argument with [Robert] and she tells me about it, of course I’m livid about it,” Bethel said. “But planning to murder him? No.” 

Prior to the alleged plot, Robert and Lindsay had begun what became an acrimonious divorce, all while still living together with their sons in Thomasville, Ga., while maintaining a vacation home in the Abaco Islands of the Bahamas.

The couple met at Auburn University, where Robert played football and Lindsay was a cheerleader in 2007. They got married in 2010.

On April 5, 2023, Robert filed for divorce, accusing Lindsay of “adulterous conduct.” In turn she accused him of cruel treatment and claimed her extramarital relationship had started during a period of separation and was condoned by Robert.

It all came to a head on July 16, 2023, when Robert was planning to take his three sons to their vacation home in the Bahamas on the family's private jet. Lindsay was planning to accompany them on the jet so she could meet Bethel, when Robert told her she wasn't allowed to.

After a dispute, during which Lindsay claimed Robert was "aggressive," she called 911.

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“I told her, I’m not supporting that,” Robert, who briefly spent time with the Atlanta Falcons, tells police in bodycam video of the incident outside their home in Georgia. “You’re not getting on the airplane. That can mess with the kids’ heads. It’s just something we’re not going to do.”

Lindsay's trial is currently scheduled to begin in August. After the Good Morning America interview, a judge in the Bahamas placed a gag order on the case, preventing the parties from further discussing it publicly.

"Nobody ever wanted Robert dead,” Bethel said in the interview. “I’m definitely not guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, and [Farron] is not guilty of being a hired hitman. It’s time to let the world know that we’re innocent.”