16-07-2025
Hannah McGuire murder trial: witness denies knowing victim was inside burnt-out ute
A man who claims he saw an accused murderer set fire to a ute has repeatedly denied he knew the alleged victim was inside.
Benjamin O'Keefe told the Victorian supreme court he knew the orange Mitsubishi Triton belonged either to Hannah McGuire or her family, but claimed he never thought the 23-year-old McGuire was inside the vehicle when he followed Lachlan Young to the remote bushland location.
'I didn't know her body was in there,' O'Keefe told the jury on Wednesday.
Young is accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend in the early hours of 5 April 2024, before driving her body in the Triton to Scarsdale, south-west of Ballarat, and setting the ute alight.
He has admitted to killing McGuire but denies the charge of murder, claiming her death was a spontaneous and unplanned incident.
O'Keefe told the court Young shared a plan with him on 2 April to 'roofie' McGuire and cause her to have a car crash in order to scare her out of taking their house.
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Two days later, O'Keefe said he heard a car horn and went to his front lawn to see Young waiting inside the Mitsubishi Triton.
O'Keefe told the jury he did not look inside the ute and obeyed Young's instructions to follow behind in his vehicle.
He claimed they went to Scarsdale where Young drove the Triton into some trees and then ordered O'Keefe to turn his car around.
Young then used a yellow blowtorch to set fire to the front of the Triton, O'Keefe told the jury.
O'Keefe claimed Young gave him $45 after the incident without an explanation.
He told the jury he deleted security camera footage of him leaving and returning to his house because he did not want to be connected to the car fire.
But he maintained he only suspected McGuire was in the vehicle after he learned she had died later that day.
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O'Keefe said he visited Young, worried he may have been implicated in a murder.
'I went up to him and said, 'Hannah better not have been in that car',' he told the jury.
He claimed Young told him McGuire was already dead as she had been suffocated.
Under questioning from defence barrister Glenn Casement, O'Keefe repeatedly denied he knew McGuire was in the Triton.
O'Keefe admitted he did not contact police, instead deciding to drink with Young and then go on a camping trip with friends.
Detectives arrested O'Keefe on 7 April but he was never charged over McGuire's death.
The trial continues.
