12x17 - Dog Day Afternoon

[bunniefuu]

My wife -- she's bleeding all over the place!

Narrator: a family dog witnessed a brutal m*rder.

Whoever entered knew the victim, knew the dog.

Narrator: an animal expert finally got the dog to talk...

Just not in the usual way.

There are two sides to palm beach county, florida.

It's home to some of the wealthiest people in the world.

But a few miles away live people struggling just to pay their

Rent.

We have great neighborhoods and really bad neighborhoods.

A lot of crime -- for the size of the community we are, we have

An extensive amount of violent crime, a lot of murders.

Narrator: cathy and jeffrey lamb didn't live in one

Of the palm beach mansions.

Jeff was a tow-truck driver.

Cathy worked for the walgreen drugstore chain.

I liked jeff.

He was a good kid.

He was good to cathy.

And the main thing was, she loved him.

And, therefore, I loved him.

Narrator: on june , , jeff got home from work around

: P.m.

But when he walked inside, he found blood everywhere.

He was hysterical on the phone.

He was crying so much, I think the dispatcher kept

Referring to him as a woman.

Okay.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Okay.

The blood spatter was completely up the one wall,

Where the side of her head was, and then on the opposite wall

Behind her head, which was a good or feet.

Blood spatter was all over a desk, and it flew underneath the

Desk to the wall through a chair.

It was a lot of blood, and it was very gruesome.

Narrator: when the ambulance crew arrived, they pronounced

Cathy lamb dead at the scene.

She had been beaten to death.

This wasn't an injury that was caused by one blow or two

Blows.

There were multiple blows to the head.

This was something heavy that could create these injuries.

And between the first blow and what eventually k*lled her,

She had to have been suffering.

She was in pain.

And she had to have been thinking "why?"

Narrator: the m*rder w*apon wasn't found at the scene,

Although, it looked like it was a blunt object with a hexagon

Shape at the end.

Two of the couples' three dogs were badly beaten, too.

They were found unconscious nearby.

They were both euthanized because of the head injuries,

Severe head injuries.

Narrator: the dogs had blood on their paws and mouths, an

Indication they probably att*cked the k*ller as he was

Striking cathy.

The pack thing would have kicked in, and the two of them

Would have packed up on this one individual.

So you would have had, in my opinion, probably quite a bit of

Damage.

Narrator: and the k*ller would be bleeding profusely from

Those wounds.

It was decided that we would go ahead and clip their nails

And swab their mouths because again, if this was a home invasi

Type situation, there's a good chance that these

Dogs had scratched or bit the intruder.

Narrator: the couple's third dog was found in a closed

Bedroom, apparently unharmed.

It was a mystery why anybody would choose to go into this

Residence with the three dogs, especially being large dogs.

Whenever I talked to detective kim bradley, she told

Me, "we will get justice for cathy.

We are gonna find the person that did this."

With no clear suspects -- at least none that we're being

Told about -- the sheriff's department is turning to the

Neighborhood for help, passing out these fliers with

Cathy lamb's picture on them and asking anyone who may have had

Any information about what happened here to give them a

Call.

Narrator: cathy lamb's m*rder scene was stranger than

Any investigators had ever encountered.

At first, they assumed the motive was robbery.

Cathy's husband, jeff, said the only thing missing was a pair of

Cathy's gold diamond earrings.

The master bedroom -- all the drawers were pulled out.

Nothing has been disturbed, though.

The clothes sit in there, still folded up.

And there's lots of jewelry and items on top of the dresser.

Narrator: the medical examiner estimated that cathy

Was m*rder*d between : and : in the afternoon.

Since jeff lamb found his wife's body, he was naturally

Considered a suspect.

Jeff lamb had a very good alibi.

He's at his employment, and there are several people there

That can vouch for his whereabouts at the time.

Narrator: soon, other suspects emerged.

While police process the crime scene, a woman named

Joie steidel arrived and introduced herself as

Jeff lamb's fiancée.

It's curious that the husband, the grieving husband,

Is now being consoled outside of the crime scene by his fiancée.

I think human nature would tell you when a guy's telling

You that he has a good relationship with his wife, and

A girlfriend or a fiancée shows up at the crime scene, it's

Gonna start making you think something's going on here.

Narrator: while jeff admitted he had an affair with

Joie steidel, he claimed their relationship was over.

Jeffrey's story was that he had reconciled with his wife and

That they were going to be permanently living together

Again.

And it was contradictory that joie steidel would come into it

And say, "oh, no, we're moving over to this house in jupiter."

Narrator: joie steidel was now a suspect, too.

But she had an alibi for the time of the m*rder.

She worked as a waitress at a nearby restaurant, and dozens of

Customers saw her.

Next, jeff's cellphone records identified yet another suspect.

On the afternoon of the m*rder, jeff lamb spoke with another

Female friend on the telephone.

The first phone call that was made after we believe the m*rder

Took place was made to lisa adzerbell, who turned out

To be joie steidel's neighbor.

Narrator: lisa adzerbell was a married mother of two

Children.

When questioned by police, lisa admitted she, too, had a

Relationship with jeff lamb.

In fact, lisa's husband had caught them together in a

Compromising situation just a few weeks before cathy lamb's

m*rder.

Ray then said he called jeff on the phone.

When we first learned that raymond had been so angry with

Jeff, he was somebody that we were interested in.

We certainly had to investigate.

Narrator: both ray and lisa adzerbell had an alibi for

The day of cathy's m*rder and were eliminated as suspects.

But police were still troubled by lisa's telephone calls to

Jeff on the afternoon of the m*rder.

Lisa said they were purely social.

Phone records proved that lisa made these calls from home.

But jeff's cellphone records indicated jeff wasn't at work,

As he'd claimed.

We get the phone records, which show he is down by that

House.

The phone towers are hitting off of phone towers closer to the

House than they are where he claims to be.

Narrator: and investigators found another contradiction.

Jeff said his dog bandit was in a locked bedroom when he found

His wife's body.

But investigators found bloody paw prints in the bedroom, and

The blood was cathy's.

This meant the k*ller put the dog in the bedroom

After cathy's m*rder, but why?

Narrator: an unknown assailant not only att*cked

Cathy lamb but also her two dogs, nipper and dakota,

Presumably with the same w*apon.

Cathy's friends, and even mr. Lamb himself, said that

Those dogs that were in that house would have torn apart a

Stranger.

Narrator: but investigators couldn't understand why the dogs

Weren't all together.

Why were her two smaller dogs b*at so severely, and yet the

Biggest dog of the group was never struck?

And the dog was also locked in a bedroom.

The third dog was a hybrid, a wolf mix, that was owned by the

Husband.

Narrator: investigators thought the blood on the dogs'

Mouths and paws had come from cathy's attacker.

But forensic testing disproved that.

The swabs and clippings that had been taken from the dogs

Came back negative for any human dna.

Narrator: the couple's third dog, bandit, was initially

Believed to be unharmed.

But the humane society discovered he suffered injuries,

Too, but not from the k*ller.

We discovered that bandit actually had several puncture

Marks, which had indicated that he had been in a fight and

Probably had been in a fight with the other two dogs.

Narrator: so the dogs att*cked one another, but not

The k*ller, even while the k*ller was b*ating them.

And they stood there and they took their beatings, and

Then they went and they hid.

Narrator: to animal behavioralists, the reason was

Clear.

And a stranger wouldn't have been able to b*at those dogs

Brutally, the way they were beaten, without them fighting

Back.

Somebody obviously knew the dogs.

So it had to be somebody that they weren't gonna fight back.

It seemed pretty clear from the evidence that only one

Person could have done this crime.

Narrator: but prosecutors had a problem.

The surviving dog, bandit, obviously couldn't tell police

What happened.

So investigators had to dig deeper and started by looking

Into jeff lamb's finances.

A few years earlier, jeff's former employer accused him of

Stealing almost $,.

He returned the money and agreed to pay an additional $,

Fine.

He wasn't a dumb man, but you didn't think he was real bright

And was gonna set the world on fire.

Narrator: his current job, as a tow-truck driver, didn't pay

Particularly well.

And these payments were a hardship.

$, Isn't a lot of money to most people, but to some

People it's like a million dollars.

Narrator: police also discovered that jeff was the

Beneficiary of cathy's $, life-insurance policy.

He was making restitution for prior criminal activity.

I think he was tired of making those payments.

It was a very small life-insurance policy, but I

Think, to him, it was the answer to what he needed, and it didn't

Matter how he got it.

Narrator: in a search for forensic evidence, investigators

Had the presence of mind to confiscate the clothing jeff was

Wearing the day of the m*rder.

The clothes that we took from him at the scene was a t-shirt

With the tasmanian devil on the front making an "l" shape like

This and underneath, the caption "loser."

He was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and black boots.

Narrator: a forensic analysis found no blood on the shirt and

Boots.

But blood-spatter expert stuart james examined the jeans

Section by section under a stereomicroscope.

Well, the dark color of the jeans certainly made it more

Difficult to see blood.

Narrator: but at times magnification, james could see

Things invisible to the naked eye.

Deep within the fabric, on the jeans' left leg, near the inside

Of the thigh, james saw tiny specks of what appeared to be

Blood.

The suspected bloodstains were actually down within the

Weave and between the weave of the fabric, which indicated to

Me that these stains were not the result of transfer, which

Would have just been on the top of the weave, but rather down

Driven into the weave, much more consistent with impact spatter.

Narrator: the blood spatter was the same size and shape as

One would expect to find after inflicting a b*ating with a

Blunt object.

Dna testing of this blood revealed it was cathy lamb's

Blood.

We have impact spatters at the scene, on the wall, and we

Also have impact spatters on the left interior thigh area of the

Dark jeans of jeffrey lamb.

Narrator: this was definitive proof jeffrey lamb struck the

Fatal blows.

The splatters were so deeply embedded in the fabric that it

Couldn't have just been an incidental contact, that it had

To be with force.

And thank god he didn't change his pants.

Narrator: and blood-spatter expert stuart james found one

More thing.

He just happened to reach in to one of the pockets, just

Checking to see if there was anything in there, and he found

An earring, a little diamond earring that belonged to cathy.

And jeff lamb had told the police that those earrings were

Missing.

Narrator: investigators now had everything except the m*rder

w*apon.

Narrator: two months after cathy lamb's m*rder, a workman

Found a tire iron on the roof of his building.

He had been on the roof because it had been leaking over

At the tow company, and he'd found a tire tool that was used

On one of their big, big tow trucks.

Narrator: it was the office building of the tow yard where

Jeff lamb worked.

The tire iron had hexagonal heads for loosening and

Tightening nuts.

It was tested for dna.

We tried everything to test the tire iron, but the problem

Is, it's south florida, and it rains all the time.

The tire iron was on the roof for / months.

The sun would have evaporated any dna, as well as the water

Washing it off.

Narrator: but since it was so distinctive, as were the wounds

On cathy's body, the tire iron was still a valuable piece of

Evidence.

The hexagonal head was placed over photographs of cathy's

Wounds.

And you look at the injuries on cathy's face, and you're

Like, "there's no way in the world anything other than this

Did it."

And it was so unusual.

Never seen anything like it in your life.

Narrator: jeffrey lamb was arrested and charged with

First-degree m*rder.

Prosecutors believe jeff wanted out of his marriage.

He often told friends that cathy was a poor housekeeper.

But apparently jeff was no better.

He called her dirty, and yet his truck was filthy.

He had more garbage in his truck than you would throw out in the

Street.

I don't know if you'd call him a hypocrite or something, but he

Didn't live a better lifestyle than his wife.

Narrator: the couple separated for a few years, but

Even after they reconciled, jeff continued to have affairs.

Cathy tolerated his infidelity, but she didn't like it.

I felt very sorry for cathy.

I felt very bad, because I knew that she loved him very much,

And I thought that she would be very hurt over that.

Narrator: jeff was paying off a $, fine for embezzlement,

And a divorce would have left him with even less money to make

Those payments.

Jeff had a friend.

He had told him that "I'm not gonna lose my stuff, and I'm not

Gonna give up her life-insurance policy.

I'll k*ll her before she divorces me."

Narrator: prosecutors believe jeff planned to use cathy's

Life-insurance proceeds to start a new life with his fiancée.

On the afternoon of the m*rder, jeff was at work.

His fiancée's car was at the tow yard for repairs.

According to coworkers, jeff said he was taking the car to

Get gasoline and left sometime between : and :.

The evidence suggests he went home, waited for cathy to return

From work, and when she did, b*at her to death with the tire

Iron.

In the process, he got blood spatter on his jeans.

[ Dogs barking ] the dogs didn't att*ck him, but

In their agitation, they att*cked each other.

To separate them, he hit cathy's dogs and took his dog, bandit,

Into the bedroom and closed the door.

He took cathy's diamond earrings to make it look like a robbery.

One of those earrings was later found in his pocket.

Jeff changed his shirt and shoes but not his jeans.

He probably didn't see the blood on them.

Jeff's friend lisa called him on his cellphone just after

: P.m.

The call bounced off a cell tower near jeff's home, proving

He wasn't at work, as he'd claimed.

There's no evidence lisa knew anything about the m*rder.

When he returned to the tow yard, he threw the m*rder w*apon

Up onto the roof, thinking no one would ever find it.

His coworker did, however, two months later while repairing a

Leaking roof.

The blood spatter was supported by these cellphone

Records, and it was further supported by the actions of the

Dogs.

It was planned.

He took...

My daughter...

From us, her family and her friends, for $,.

From us, her family and her friends, for $,.

Narrator: in september of , jeffrey lamb was convicted

Of first-degree m*rder.

He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

We were confident going to trial, because the case wasn't

Just based on science.

It was based on common sense.

I don't believe he gets up one morning of one day and says,

"How could I have done that to that human being?

Beside the fact that she was my wife, besides the fact that I've

Known her since she was a teenager."

His first mistake was not to change his clothes after he'd

k*lled his wife.

The second mistake would be throwing a tool up on a roof

Where it doesn't belong and somebody may discover it.

His clothing was the key to the case.

If the detectives had not asked him to remove his clothing, we

Could never have convicted him of the crime.

He definitely would be walking free today.