Federal prosecutors charged a 34-year-old Bellingham chiropractor yesterday with attempting to hire a hit man in New Mexico to kill her ex-husband and his father, who work together in Mount Vernon.

If convicted of the crime of interstate murder for hire, Shannon Hollister faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday to determine whether Hollister, who is unemployed, will be detained or whether she can be freed on bond.

At her first appearance yesterday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, Hollister appeared shell-shocked and mumbled her responses.

Prosecutors said that sometime when Hollister was in Texas, she asked an acquaintance "if she knew a person who could murder someone."

The acquaintance called police and Hollister was provided the name of a "hit man" in New Mexico, who was actually undercover Detective Robbie Telles with the Clovis Police Department.

In November, Hollister and the detective talked five times over the phone. By then, she was back in Washington state, where she had lived in the early 1990s.

Prosecutors said Hollister agreed to a $5,000 fee and discussed at least two ways the killings could occur, including making it look like her ex-husband died of a drug overdose and blowing up the chiropractic office run by her ex-husband and his father and blaming it on a natural-gas explosion. It's unclear why the ex-husband's father was allegedly a target.

Hollister called Telles last Thursday and wired the money to him on Saturday from a Wal-Mart in Bellingham, prosecutors said. FBI agents arrested her Saturday in Mount Vernon.

Hollister's public defender, Paula Deutsch, said Hollister has been caught up in a "long-term domestic-violence situation." Deutsch said Hollister's current address had been kept private to address that concern.

Prosecutors said Hollister told Telles that her ex-husband, 32, was harassing her and mistreating their 6-year-old daughter.

But the ex-husband, Nick Martin, said last night that Hollister has a history of making false accusations against him. He said he's been investigated and cleared several times.

He said they met at, and graduated together from, the Parker College of Chiropractic in Dallas and married in 1998.

The relationship deteriorated, Martin said, and Hollister disappeared for most of 2001 with their daughter, hiding in Oregon and Texas before being located in Connecticut with the help of missing-children fliers.

He filed for divorce when they disappeared. And Hollister has been allowed just 24 hours of supervised visits per week since, Martin said.

"In my view, it's just an escalation," Martin said. "It's just crazy. I can't conceive it."

Michael Ko: 206-515-5653 or mko@seattletimes.com