Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Martha Jean Lambert Mystery Case Pt. Two

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Martha Jean Lambert Mystery Case Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:34
Speaker 1: So welcome back to part two of our next series
0:36
Speaker 1: of The Path with Chili, which I have titled Jules's
0:39
Speaker 1: Statement Analysis in case you didn't hear last week's episode.
0:42
Speaker 1: Because we recorded this right before Christmas, Ashley was taking
0:45
Speaker 1: a break, so we decided to try something a little
0:48
Speaker 1: different where I didn't tell any details about the featured
0:51
Speaker 1: case to Jewles beforehand, and I instead sent her a
0:54
Speaker 1: statement that had been made by someone connected to the
0:56
Speaker 1: case from a police interrogation room, and she decided to
1:00
Speaker 1: perform a statement analysis of it to give her thoughts
1:03
Speaker 1: about whether or not the statement was true, And on
1:06
Speaker 1: our last episode we went through all the details. She
1:09
Speaker 1: broke down each part of the statement one by one,
1:11
Speaker 1: but she still doesn't know any of the details of
1:13
Speaker 1: the case. So on this episode, I'm finally going to
1:16
Speaker 1: provide the full context of this statement and also share
1:18
Speaker 1: the details of the case and see if Jules now
1:21
Speaker 1: feels differently than what she's felt the last time when
1:24
Speaker 1: she made her analysis. So, Jules, I covered this one
1:28
Speaker 1: on the trail we called four years ago. Have you
1:30
Speaker 1: ever heard of the nineteen eighty five disappearance of twelve
1:33
Speaker 1: year old Martha Jean Lambert's or had any recollection of
1:36
Speaker 1: having heard my podcast episode about it.
1:38
Speaker 2: I mean, it's possible that I heard it four years ago,
1:41
Speaker 2: but the name isn't ringing a bell.
1:43
Speaker 1: Well, the crazy part about this is that the person
1:45
Speaker 1: who made the statement from our last episode was her
1:47
Speaker 1: older brother, David, who would have only been fourteen years
1:51
Speaker 1: old at the time that he allegedly killed his sister.
1:55
Speaker 1: And what's also crazy is that I mentioned that it
1:57
Speaker 1: was made in a police interrogation room, but this was
1:59
Speaker 1: not the first time David had made this statement, this
2:02
Speaker 1: confession to the police, and this was a special moment
2:05
Speaker 1: where there were two detectors in the room and they
2:08
Speaker 1: gathered David together with his mother, Margaret. So the statement
2:11
Speaker 1: he is making is him confessing to causing his own
2:14
Speaker 1: sister's death to his own mother. So does that change
2:16
Speaker 1: your outlook now that you know this information?
2:19
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that is some dark, dark stuff. It's
2:24
Speaker 2: completely different when I'm thinking the victim is somebody who's
2:28
Speaker 2: not only twelve years old, but his sister. That's wild.
2:33
Speaker 2: I'm really looking forward to hearing the details here.
2:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, because one of the things you mentioned about this
2:38
Speaker 1: statement in our last episode is that you thought it
2:40
Speaker 1: sounded very detached and unemotional, and that he's talking about
2:44
Speaker 1: a traumatic ordeal with not a lot of feeling. And
2:47
Speaker 1: that seems even worse when you consider that he's talking
2:49
Speaker 1: about causing the death of his own sister and he
2:51
Speaker 1: is telling his own mother for the very first time.
2:53
Speaker 1: Yet at no point does he become emotional or break
2:56
Speaker 1: down crying, which I think adds maybe more credence to
2:59
Speaker 1: the idea that he is not telling the full truth.
3:02
Speaker 1: So it took place in Saint Augustine, Florida, in nineteen
3:05
Speaker 1: eighty five. Martha was twelve, David was fourteen, and they
3:09
Speaker 1: also had an older brother named Raymond, and their mother, Margaret,
3:13
Speaker 1: She was thirty three years old at the time. And
3:16
Speaker 1: this was not a happy home life because Margaret's husband,
3:19
Speaker 1: Howard Lambert, was seventy four years old and was known
3:22
Speaker 1: for having alcohol problems and a violent temper. And when
3:26
Speaker 1: you do the math, you realize that Howard would have
3:28
Speaker 1: been fifty nine years old and Margaret would have only
3:30
Speaker 1: been eighteen when she gave birth to the first child.
3:34
Speaker 1: So right from the outset, it sounds like this was
3:36
Speaker 1: not a healthy relationship.
3:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, if she was eighteen when she gave birth. Did
3:42
Speaker 2: they concede when she was seventeen and literally a child.
3:47
Speaker 1: And he would have been like fifty eight to fifty nine,
3:49
Speaker 1: which makes it all the more traveling.
3:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sets up some weird dynamics.
3:53
Speaker 1: You know.
3:53
Speaker 2: If somebody to say the age of like twenty five
3:55
Speaker 2: or something, and the person who's way older, I have
3:57
Speaker 2: much less issue with it. It's when somebody is still
3:59
Speaker 2: in their teen years and we have somebody who's near
4:02
Speaker 2: retirement age that there's a bit of an issue.
4:05
Speaker 1: And yes, like I said, this was not a happy household.
4:08
Speaker 1: There have been three separate occasions when the children were
4:10
Speaker 1: taken away from their parents and placed in foster care,
4:13
Speaker 1: possibly due to abuse, but at this particular moment, they
4:16
Speaker 1: were back living with Howard and Margaret at a mobile home,
4:20
Speaker 1: but the neighbors would say that there was a lot
4:21
Speaker 1: of turmoil that they often heard loud yelling and fighting
4:24
Speaker 1: coming from there. At the time. Martha was a seventh
4:26
Speaker 1: grade student, and even though the other kids described her
4:29
Speaker 1: as being friendly, she was very shy and did not
4:32
Speaker 1: have many close friends, and her grades were pretty poor,
4:36
Speaker 1: and she was known for showing up for school dressed
4:38
Speaker 1: in dirty clothing. And even though there are a lot
4:41
Speaker 1: of warning signs here that she was the victim of
4:44
Speaker 1: abuse in that whole soul, it has still never been
4:46
Speaker 1: conclusively proven, but definitely a lot of red flags.
4:50
Speaker 2: That is truly heartbreaking. And to think, is it possible
4:54
Speaker 2: too that if both her and her brother are being
4:56
Speaker 2: abused and I guess we don't know the full extent
4:59
Speaker 2: of it, if this was physical, sexual just neglect. Obviously,
5:03
Speaker 2: if you're sending children to school in dirty clothes, that
5:06
Speaker 2: is concerning. But we often do see, you know, as
5:09
Speaker 2: we saw with the Menendez brothers, there was one that
5:11
Speaker 2: became sexually abusive of the other because he himself was
5:14
Speaker 2: abused and that becomes that cycle, and it was really
5:18
Speaker 2: dramatized in the most recent Ryan Murphy TV show on
5:21
Speaker 2: the Menendez Brothers, and a lot of people thought that
5:23
Speaker 2: was like really inappropriate. But I don't know if indeed
5:28
Speaker 2: in this situation, is there potential that we're seeing Martha
5:31
Speaker 2: be abused by David because David has himself experienced abuse.
5:36
Speaker 2: Do we know more of the dynamics about any specifics
5:39
Speaker 2: there not?
5:41
Speaker 1: Really no. I know that Martha did not have a
5:43
Speaker 1: good relationship with her father, who was known for having
5:46
Speaker 1: a temper, But the sources did say that she seemed
5:48
Speaker 1: to have a good relationship with her mother and her
5:51
Speaker 1: two brothers and would sometimes act does the peacekeeper when
5:54
Speaker 1: her two brothers were fighting. So I didn't hear anything
5:57
Speaker 1: about any abuse in the relationship, But I don't our
6:00
Speaker 1: last episode. When you looked at the statement analysis, you
6:02
Speaker 1: wondered if David was telling this fabricated story to cover
6:06
Speaker 1: up for something else, such as sexual abuse of the victim.
6:09
Speaker 1: And while that's never been conclusively proven, when you hear
6:11
Speaker 1: about their home life and their backstory, you start thinking
6:14
Speaker 1: that could be a possibility.
6:16
Speaker 2: When you see like the cold, detached on emotional nature
6:20
Speaker 2: of David, and you speak to the fact that there
6:23
Speaker 2: was trauma and upheaval and some type of abuse in
6:28
Speaker 2: the household, it is possible that David could be experiencing
6:32
Speaker 2: something I'm obviously not diagnosing him, but antisocial personality disorder,
6:36
Speaker 2: which would now be encompassing of like sociopathy, and that
6:41
Speaker 2: could explain the reactions that he was having and why
6:45
Speaker 2: he wasn't emotional, especially given the trauma that was experienced
6:49
Speaker 2: in the family home. But I don't want to give
6:52
Speaker 2: him an out here and say that, like, that's why
6:55
Speaker 2: he's that way. It could be he's that way because
6:58
Speaker 2: he's lying until you tell me more.
7:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I don't have the answer to a
7:03
Speaker 1: lot of that questions, but you might come to different
7:05
Speaker 1: conclusions when you hear the full story. So Martha went
7:08
Speaker 1: missing on November twenty seventh, nineteen eighty five, which was
7:11
Speaker 1: the day before Thanksgiving, so she was away from school
7:14
Speaker 1: on a holiday, and she was planning to spend Thanksgiving
7:17
Speaker 1: at her grandmother's house the following day. So on this
7:21
Speaker 1: particular evening, she went to a social gathering at a
7:23
Speaker 1: neighbor's mobile home, which was also attended by her mother,
7:27
Speaker 1: and at around seven thirty, Martha told Margaret that she
7:30
Speaker 1: needed to go back home, that she would be back
7:32
Speaker 1: in about five minutes, but she never returned, and when
7:35
Speaker 1: Margaret returned to her own home, she discovered that Martha
7:38
Speaker 1: was not there. And the story provided by the father Howard,
7:41
Speaker 1: is that Martha did stop by while he was making
7:44
Speaker 1: tinner and asked what time the food would be ready,
7:46
Speaker 1: then she left again, but she never returned and he
7:49
Speaker 1: had no idea where she was, and the family decided
7:53
Speaker 1: to perform a search for Martha, and they officially reported
7:56
Speaker 1: her missing at three am, which would have been seven
7:59
Speaker 1: and a half hours after she was last seen. And
8:02
Speaker 1: some people have taken that as a red flag that
8:04
Speaker 1: maybe the family knows more than the letting on because
8:06
Speaker 1: they took so long to officially report her missing.
8:10
Speaker 2: Well, this seems to be a family of lower socioeconomic status,
8:14
Speaker 2: and then that brings into question what is their relationship
8:18
Speaker 2: with law enforcement? Is this an area where there's a
8:20
Speaker 2: lot of criminal activity. Is this something where you feel
8:24
Speaker 2: as though you can go to law enforcement and be
8:25
Speaker 2: taken seriously. Maybe they thought, oh, well, she's got to
8:28
Speaker 2: be missing for a few hours before we go, and
8:30
Speaker 2: reporter is missing. So I think you could read that
8:33
Speaker 2: either way. You could read it as these people are
8:36
Speaker 2: hiding something and that's why they didn't come forward, or
8:40
Speaker 2: if this is a pattern of behavior, they could be
8:42
Speaker 2: thinking like, oh, she's just at one of her friend's houses.
8:45
Speaker 2: Let's just give her some time before we go and
8:47
Speaker 2: raise the alarm with law enforcement.
8:49
Speaker 1: And that is true because the two brothers did have
8:52
Speaker 1: a prior history of running away from home. So if
8:54
Speaker 1: Martha was missing for quite a few hours. I can
8:56
Speaker 1: see how that might not instantly raise alarm bells because
8:59
Speaker 1: this was as a pattern of behavior in the family.
9:02
Speaker 1: But it seems like Margaret became paranoid that Martha had
9:05
Speaker 1: been abducted because apparently some neighbors were called seeing Martha
9:09
Speaker 1: walking west on the nearby cariy Lene Road and being
9:12
Speaker 1: approached by a suspicious looking green van which did not
9:15
Speaker 1: appear to belong to any of the local residents. And
9:18
Speaker 1: apparently when Margaret heard about this van, she immediately suspected
9:21
Speaker 1: that her daughter may have been abducted.
9:24
Speaker 2: Well, if you're assuming that your daughter, if you're thinking
9:27
Speaker 2: there's a great probability that she was abducted, I would
9:29
Speaker 2: think you would be hurrying to law enforcement and definitely
9:32
Speaker 2: pleading your case. Because time is of the essence. We
9:35
Speaker 2: know that there's like what the first forty eight hours
9:38
Speaker 2: that after somebody has abducted, the chance if you were
9:41
Speaker 2: taking a child, that the person could end that child's
9:44
Speaker 2: life is very high. So that had to be an
9:47
Speaker 2: incredibly scary time.
9:49
Speaker 1: It was, And I'm not entirely sure when the family
9:51
Speaker 1: learned about the green vand but if they didn't hear
9:53
Speaker 1: until around three am, that could explain why they waited
9:56
Speaker 1: so long to decide to contact the police. I know
9:59
Speaker 1: that the pl did perform a search in the wooded
10:01
Speaker 1: area behind the mobile home, and that Margaret said, don't
10:04
Speaker 1: waste your time, she's not there, or stop searching. And
10:07
Speaker 1: some people have taken that as a sign of suspicion
10:10
Speaker 1: that maybe she was buried there or something and they
10:12
Speaker 1: didn't want the police looking. But if Margaret genuinely believed
10:15
Speaker 1: that she was kidnapped by someone in a green van,
10:18
Speaker 1: I can understand why she would say, she's not there,
10:20
Speaker 1: stop wasting your time, look for this van. But we're
10:23
Speaker 1: talking about how David, many years later, would make this
10:26
Speaker 1: confession that he was responsible for Martha's death, and the
10:29
Speaker 1: police actually became suspicious of him almost immediately because he
10:33
Speaker 1: gave a bunch of contradictory accounts about the last time
10:37
Speaker 1: he saw Martha. First, he told the police that he
10:40
Speaker 1: witnessed Martha climbing into a black vehicle, but they never
10:43
Speaker 1: found any evidence that a black vehicle was in the area,
10:45
Speaker 1: and they felt that David's story did not hold up,
10:48
Speaker 1: so he changed his story and that he said he
10:51
Speaker 1: last saw Martha walking down the street towards the Little
10:53
Speaker 1: Champ convenience store on State Road two o seven. But
10:57
Speaker 1: then he later changed his story again, now claiming that
10:59
Speaker 1: Martha had I've been eating dinner with him at their
11:01
Speaker 1: mobile home before she told him she was going out,
11:04
Speaker 1: and when David asked where, she refused to tell him,
11:07
Speaker 1: and that he never saw her again. And Margaret would
11:11
Speaker 1: also say that when she came home late that night,
11:13
Speaker 1: she saw David walking outside and he was laughing for
11:17
Speaker 1: no apparent reason, but when she asked why he was laughing,
11:20
Speaker 1: he would not tell her why. So that's why people
11:23
Speaker 1: were suspecting that David might have known more than he
11:25
Speaker 1: was letting on.
11:28
Speaker 2: That's very bizarre behavior. I don't know what his baseline is,
11:31
Speaker 2: but I would take it the fact that it raised
11:34
Speaker 2: alarm bells with Margaret, that that was atypical for him
11:38
Speaker 2: to just randomly be laughing at nothing enough so that
11:42
Speaker 2: in the context of her daughter being missing, it was like, Okay, well,
11:47
Speaker 2: maybe he knows more, or maybe he did something to her,
11:51
Speaker 2: because it's a little bit unsettling, and it's giving me
11:54
Speaker 2: like Burke Ramsey vibes too. You know, when you get
11:57
Speaker 2: somebody who doesn't necessarily react the way that they should,
12:01
Speaker 2: and their emotions are almost like incongruous the way that
12:06
Speaker 2: they're expressing them. And I know with Burke Ramsey, I
12:09
Speaker 2: believe that he's on the spectrum. I'm not one hundred
12:11
Speaker 2: percent sure, And I don't know what is the case
12:14
Speaker 2: with David, if he has any type of diagnosis or diagnoses.
12:18
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but that behavior is a little bit bizarre,
12:23
Speaker 2: especially when your sister's missing.
12:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as we're talking about in his statement analysis,
12:28
Speaker 1: he never mentioned anything when he was talking to his
12:30
Speaker 1: mother about coming home and laughing. It just seems to
12:33
Speaker 1: contradict like what he said in his statement. And I
12:37
Speaker 1: don't know if he's on the spectrum. I'm sure that
12:39
Speaker 1: a poverty stricken family in the nineteen eighties were not
12:42
Speaker 1: going to officially diagnose him, but it's certainly a possibility.
12:46
Speaker 1: But I think the big red flag is that he
12:48
Speaker 1: kept changing his story, and it was even contradicted by
12:51
Speaker 1: his father, Howard, because his story is that Martha came
12:55
Speaker 1: back home just briefly to see when the food was
12:57
Speaker 1: going to be ready, and then she left again. And
13:00
Speaker 1: David provides this story about them eating together in the
13:02
Speaker 1: mobile home before Martha left, even though the story provided
13:06
Speaker 1: by their own father is that she went missing before
13:08
Speaker 1: the food was even ready. So it seems a parent
13:11
Speaker 1: that someone is lying here, And I don't know. I
13:14
Speaker 1: can understand why you would feel bad things about the father, Howard,
13:19
Speaker 1: because he may have been abusive, but at no point
13:21
Speaker 1: has anyone indicated that the police ever considered him to
13:24
Speaker 1: be a suspect.
13:26
Speaker 2: So do we know anything about David having like a
13:29
Speaker 2: pattern of compulsive lying prior to this?
13:33
Speaker 1: I know that many years later Margaret would say that
13:35
Speaker 1: David did have a history of making up stories for attention,
13:39
Speaker 1: So it is possible that maybe he just decided to
13:41
Speaker 1: come up with these fake stories at the time for
13:44
Speaker 1: attention as a cry for help. Maybe he was upset
13:46
Speaker 1: that his sister was getting all the attention because she
13:49
Speaker 1: had gone missing. What I find interesting is that one
13:51
Speaker 1: of his stories involved him saying that he last saw
13:54
Speaker 1: Martha walking towards the Little Champ convenience store, and in
13:57
Speaker 1: the statement he made to the police years later, he
13:59
Speaker 1: talked about how they had gone to the store and
14:03
Speaker 1: Martha did give him the correct change back from the
14:05
Speaker 1: twenty dollars bill. So it is interesting that a piece
14:08
Speaker 1: of one of his original stories eventually wound up at
14:11
Speaker 1: his confession years later.
14:13
Speaker 2: And I do find it interesting as well that he's
14:15
Speaker 2: got a pattern of lying and making up stories for attention.
14:19
Speaker 2: We know that he comes from an abusive household, and
14:21
Speaker 2: I know that memories that are laid down in childhood,
14:26
Speaker 2: it can become very convoluted over time, and one can
14:30
Speaker 2: almost convince themselves that certain things are true. And we
14:32
Speaker 2: run across different cases like that. So I'm not saying
14:35
Speaker 2: that he's guilty or he's innocent, just that I'm keeping
14:38
Speaker 2: an open mind and thinking there's a possibility that he
14:41
Speaker 2: fabricated all of this and there was a van that
14:43
Speaker 2: abducted her, But also there's a possibility that he could
14:47
Speaker 2: have done this, and that's why he's lying and changing
14:50
Speaker 2: his story.
14:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's the issue of this case is that
14:53
Speaker 1: there really isn't any hard evidence it's to point in
14:56
Speaker 1: any direction. In regards to the oldest brother, Raymond, that
15:00
Speaker 1: really isn't much information about him. I know that Margaret
15:03
Speaker 1: has said that she believed he was in church that
15:05
Speaker 1: night and nowhere near the mobile home at the time
15:08
Speaker 1: Martha went missing. So he has never been suspected, but
15:11
Speaker 1: Margaret would later say that shortly after Martha went missing,
15:14
Speaker 1: she got a call from a young girl who just said, Mom,
15:17
Speaker 1: I'm okay before abruptly hanging up, but she never said
15:21
Speaker 1: she was Martha, and Margaret thought that her voice, the
15:24
Speaker 1: caller's voice did not sound like her daughter, so it
15:26
Speaker 1: could have been a prank. And then David said that
15:28
Speaker 1: he got a phone call from Martha who said she
15:31
Speaker 1: was later going to contact the police to let them
15:33
Speaker 1: know that she was alive and reveal where she was.
15:36
Speaker 1: But this never occurred, and David's story was never corroborated,
15:39
Speaker 1: so for all we know, he could have been completely
15:41
Speaker 1: making up this story about receiving a phone call from Martha,
15:44
Speaker 1: either because he just felt like getting attention or because
15:47
Speaker 1: he was responsible for killing her and wanted to give
15:50
Speaker 1: off the false impression she was still alive somewhere.
15:54
Speaker 2: Oh, this is so difficult because we now know that
15:57
Speaker 2: he is a pattern of this. So is he trying
15:59
Speaker 2: to get attention or is he trying to just completely
16:03
Speaker 2: change the narrative every chance he gets and includes certain
16:06
Speaker 2: details or exclude other ones. So he's trying to distract
16:11
Speaker 2: from the fact that he's guilty. It's a really difficult
16:14
Speaker 2: case because of the age of the perpetrator, but also
16:17
Speaker 2: because of the background of the trauma and the abuse
16:20
Speaker 2: in the household. It opens up a lot of possibilities here.
16:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you could totally interpret like David's actions and
16:28
Speaker 1: his statements in either way. And that's why I said that.
16:31
Speaker 1: When I've looked at online discussions about this case on Reddit,
16:34
Speaker 1: the opinions about David's guilt or innocence are split fifty
16:37
Speaker 1: to fifty. Like I know, I've changed my mind many times,
16:40
Speaker 1: and you can just interpret them in so many different
16:42
Speaker 1: ways that it's hard to come up with a concrete conclusion.
16:46
Speaker 1: So it's been reported that Martha's disappearance put more strain
16:50
Speaker 1: on the marriage between Margaret and Howard, which wasn't that
16:53
Speaker 1: great to begin with. So they eventually did get divorced,
16:56
Speaker 1: and Howard passed away a short time later because he
16:59
Speaker 1: was already seventy four years old at this point. Margaret
17:02
Speaker 1: eventually moved to Illinois and got remarried, but when her
17:06
Speaker 1: second husband died, she returned to Florida sometime during the
17:09
Speaker 1: two thousands, and it's been reported that David and Raymond
17:13
Speaker 1: the two brothers have went on to have troubles with
17:15
Speaker 1: the law, and I don't know many much details about
17:19
Speaker 1: their crimes, but it doesn't sound like they had any
17:22
Speaker 1: documented history of violence or anything like that, or anything
17:25
Speaker 1: to any warning signs that David may have been capable
17:28
Speaker 1: of killing his sister at the age of fourteen. But still,
17:32
Speaker 1: you could tell that this whole incident caused a downward
17:34
Speaker 1: spiral with the family, and that regardless of whether David
17:37
Speaker 1: is guilty or innocent, you can tell that losing his
17:40
Speaker 1: sister caused him to like go on a downward spiral
17:43
Speaker 1: throughout the next couple decades.
17:46
Speaker 2: That's really sad, especially when you see there's a potential
17:49
Speaker 2: that he could be fabricating this whole thing. It could
17:52
Speaker 2: have just been for this need for attention, because he
17:55
Speaker 2: wasn't having a lot of his needs potentially met in
17:58
Speaker 2: a use of household where everything just seemed to be
18:02
Speaker 2: in constant flux and not in a way that was
18:04
Speaker 2: supportive to his siblings and himself. So it's an odd
18:09
Speaker 2: way to act out, but I can definitely see a
18:11
Speaker 2: scenario where that's exactly what he's doing, and regardless of
18:17
Speaker 2: if he is responsible or if somebody else is responsible
18:20
Speaker 2: the death of his sister and you haven't told me yet.
18:23
Speaker 2: But do they go on to recover her body.
18:26
Speaker 1: They don't know. So they have never found any corroborating
18:28
Speaker 1: evidence to support David's story. They do check the spot
18:31
Speaker 1: where he claimed he buried her, but found no evidence
18:33
Speaker 1: to prove that his story was true.
18:37
Speaker 2: Well, that completely changes my perspective based on what we've
18:41
Speaker 2: been saying so far, I'm more inclined to believe that
18:44
Speaker 2: he's fabricating the whole thing.
18:47
Speaker 1: Yes, and he could be fabricating it because he's innocent,
18:50
Speaker 1: or he could be fabricating it because he did something
18:52
Speaker 1: else to her and just doesn't want to reveal the
18:54
Speaker 1: real truth. But well, we'll talk more about that when
18:57
Speaker 1: we get to that confession. The state than we analyzed
19:01
Speaker 1: in our last episode was from two thousand and nine,
19:03
Speaker 1: but believe it or not, David actually made a second
19:06
Speaker 1: confession nine years earlier, in the year two thousand, which
19:10
Speaker 1: had different details. It came about after he was arrested
19:14
Speaker 1: for passing a bad check, and while he was in custody,
19:17
Speaker 1: he told police that he was responsible for killing his
19:19
Speaker 1: sister and that he had disposed to verbody in a
19:22
Speaker 1: Kokuena mine on Holmes Boulevard which was known as the Pits,
19:26
Speaker 1: and this is a different location that he confessed to
19:29
Speaker 1: in his second confession years later. But they did perform
19:33
Speaker 1: a search of this mind, but they did not find
19:35
Speaker 1: Martha's remains or any evidence to corroborate his story. So
19:39
Speaker 1: David was not charged and the police at that time
19:42
Speaker 1: pretty much thought he was making the story up for attention.
19:45
Speaker 1: But it was only after a pair of cold case
19:47
Speaker 1: detectives named Sean Tice and Howard skip Cole took over
19:52
Speaker 1: the case several years later that they decided to make
19:55
Speaker 1: a take a fresh look at David and that's when
19:58
Speaker 1: he went on to make his second confession.
20:01
Speaker 2: Well, that's really interesting. I think the fact that there's
20:04
Speaker 2: no corroborating evidence to support any of the locations that
20:08
Speaker 2: he's saying it just further reinforces It's like what I
20:11
Speaker 2: just did a little while ago. I think he's making
20:14
Speaker 2: this up. He's coming up with this information. If you're
20:17
Speaker 2: going to be continually confessing to investigators, I would think
20:21
Speaker 2: that at some point you're going to give accurate information.
20:24
Speaker 2: And we have to ask ourselves, how is a fourteen
20:26
Speaker 2: year old going to have the tools at the ready
20:29
Speaker 2: to be able to dispose of a body you don't
20:32
Speaker 2: have a vehicle, or were you going to put her
20:34
Speaker 2: on a bike and then ride your bike with a
20:37
Speaker 2: body somewhere. It just doesn't seem.
20:39
Speaker 1: Likely exactly, And it seems like the different detectives had
20:43
Speaker 1: different outlooks on that. Like the detectives who heard his
20:46
Speaker 1: confession in the year two thousand pretty much just wrote
20:48
Speaker 1: him off, saying this is not believable. I don't think
20:51
Speaker 1: a fourteen year old is going to jump a twelve
20:53
Speaker 1: year old's body into a mind, So they just wrote
20:56
Speaker 1: them off. But I think when these new detectives Tice
20:59
Speaker 1: and Coal to Cover, they wanted to take a fresh
21:02
Speaker 1: look at David and brought him into be reinterviewed, and
21:04
Speaker 1: they took his new He has a completely different story
21:07
Speaker 1: in this new confession, but they take him a lot
21:09
Speaker 1: more seriously. So the confession, his new confession took place
21:14
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, and by this point David
21:17
Speaker 1: was thirty eight years old. And now I'm going to
21:19
Speaker 1: provide you with the full context of the story he
21:21
Speaker 1: shared in that statement that we talked about in the
21:24
Speaker 1: last episode. He claimed that they were at their mobile
21:27
Speaker 1: home together, but their father became angry because the Thanksgiving
21:31
Speaker 1: turkey had gotten burned, so they decided to leave and
21:34
Speaker 1: walk to the Little Champ convenience store on State Road
21:37
Speaker 1: two oh seven, which, as I mentioned earlier, which was
21:40
Speaker 1: one of the stories David provided of the last time
21:42
Speaker 1: he saw Martha, and he said that while he was there,
21:46
Speaker 1: David gave Martha a twenty dollars bill to purchase some items,
21:49
Speaker 1: and after leaving, they walked to the former grounds of
21:52
Speaker 1: Florida Memorial College. And you'll probably remember that in his
21:56
Speaker 1: statement he mentioned the college as the spot where Martha's
21:59
Speaker 1: dead death took place, and this is because Florida Memorial
22:03
Speaker 1: College had relocated in nineteen sixty eight, so this site
22:07
Speaker 1: that they went to was just a bunch of dilapidated,
22:09
Speaker 1: abandoned buildings, but it was referred to in the neighborhood
22:12
Speaker 1: as the poor Kid's disney Land because some of the
22:15
Speaker 1: local children would go there to hang out and play.
22:19
Speaker 1: And David said that while they were hanging out there,
22:21
Speaker 1: he got angry because Martha did not give him the
22:24
Speaker 1: correct change for the twenty dollars bill. He gave her,
22:27
Speaker 1: so this led into an argument and things escalated to
22:30
Speaker 1: the point where Martha punched David in the face, so
22:33
Speaker 1: he responded by pushing his sister, and then when she
22:35
Speaker 1: fell backwards, she hit her head on a piece of
22:38
Speaker 1: metal which was sticking out of the ground, and once
22:41
Speaker 1: he checked Martha's body, he discovered that the metal had
22:43
Speaker 1: impaled the back of her skull and that her head
22:45
Speaker 1: was gushing blood and that she was dead.
22:48
Speaker 2: Okay, but again we have to ask ourselves, if your
22:53
Speaker 2: twelve year old sister is not giving you back the
22:55
Speaker 2: change and you get into an argument over this, is
22:58
Speaker 2: she just gonna punch you? Is this a typical way
23:02
Speaker 2: that these siblings would come to blows during arguments. Do
23:05
Speaker 2: you know anything about their history?
23:08
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like it, because it says that much
23:10
Speaker 1: of the strife in that family was from the father, Howard.
23:13
Speaker 1: But it doesn't sound like there was a lot of
23:15
Speaker 1: fighting between the siblings because the sources say Martha got
23:18
Speaker 1: along well with her mother and her brothers, and that
23:21
Speaker 1: most of the strife was between David and his brother Raymond,
23:24
Speaker 1: but not really between him and Martha. So it sounds
23:27
Speaker 1: like it would have been very out of character for
23:29
Speaker 1: them to get into such a conflict that they would
23:31
Speaker 1: start punching each other over change from a twenty dollars bill.
23:35
Speaker 1: And I've also believed that the twenty dollars bill detail
23:38
Speaker 1: doesn't sound believable because this was a family that was
23:41
Speaker 1: living in poverty, and it does not sound like Howard
23:44
Speaker 1: was a guy who would generously give money to his
23:47
Speaker 1: children to buy stuff at a store. So I'm wondering,
23:50
Speaker 1: would Tavid really be in possession of a twenty dollars
23:53
Speaker 1: bill at this point.
23:55
Speaker 2: Well, I thought right from the beginning of the statement
23:57
Speaker 2: when I did the analysis, that the twenty dollars was
24:00
Speaker 2: fabricated or this wasn't the motivation like he's saying that
24:03
Speaker 2: it was, if he is indeed responsible, And also if
24:07
Speaker 2: his sister fell and impaled her head at this college
24:10
Speaker 2: or poor Kids Disneyland, which, by the way, if there
24:13
Speaker 2: was an abandoned college somewhere to go and explore like
24:16
Speaker 2: that sounds really cool, So I can see how the
24:18
Speaker 2: local kids were really into it. But how would he
24:22
Speaker 2: remove her body and how would he do so without
24:25
Speaker 2: being seen?
24:26
Speaker 1: Well, now I'm going to share the details about how
24:28
Speaker 1: he said he got rid of her body, like he
24:30
Speaker 1: said in his statement that he just went into a
24:31
Speaker 1: panic and that he originally called out for help, but
24:34
Speaker 1: nobody in the neighborhood heard him, so he didn't know
24:37
Speaker 1: what to do. And because he hailed from a troubled household,
24:40
Speaker 1: he was very paranoid about how his parents would react
24:44
Speaker 1: if they found out who he had killed his sister.
24:46
Speaker 1: So he responded by grabbing a broken piece of a
24:49
Speaker 1: road sign and used it to dig a three foot
24:51
Speaker 1: shallow grave, and that after burying Martha, he returned home.
24:55
Speaker 1: And you mentioned that he said in a statement that
24:57
Speaker 1: he said he cleaned himself up, But I'd have to
25:00
Speaker 1: think that this would be a lot more noticeable, that
25:02
Speaker 1: if this fourteen year old dug a hole deep enough
25:05
Speaker 1: to bury his sister, that he would be sweaty, it
25:07
Speaker 1: would be dirty. But he never heard that account from
25:10
Speaker 1: either of his parents. All we have is the weird
25:11
Speaker 1: story from Margaret that she saw David laughing for no reason.
25:15
Speaker 1: But he obviously didn't give off any warning signs that
25:18
Speaker 1: he had just committed a murder and buried a body.
25:21
Speaker 2: This is a fourteen year old kid digging a three
25:24
Speaker 2: foot hole to fit a twelve year old in is
25:27
Speaker 2: no small feat. I think it's something that an adult
25:29
Speaker 2: would be exhausted. I mean, you watch movies and you
25:32
Speaker 2: see two people digging like a six foot hole, and
25:34
Speaker 2: this takes hours and hours and hours and hours. It's
25:38
Speaker 2: not an easy thing to do. So to picture him
25:41
Speaker 2: doing this, not with the proper implements, with a road sign.
25:45
Speaker 2: It's just a makeshift shovel that would take forever unless
25:49
Speaker 2: you're digging like sand out of there or something.
25:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And we talked about this in our last
25:55
Speaker 1: episode that the average fourteen year old, if they did
25:58
Speaker 1: something like that, would probably just run away in panic.
26:00
Speaker 1: Like they wouldn't immediately think a few minutes afterwards, I'm
26:04
Speaker 1: going to bury my sister's body, and they're not going
26:06
Speaker 1: to have like the wherewithal to think, Well, I don't
26:08
Speaker 1: have a shovel. I'm going to use a piece of
26:09
Speaker 1: a broken road sign and then do it so thoroughly
26:12
Speaker 1: that no one ever found her body for like the
26:14
Speaker 1: next twenty four years. And yes, if you're wondering, they
26:18
Speaker 1: did perform a search of this area after David make
26:21
Speaker 1: his confession, but at this point, a lot of the
26:23
Speaker 1: abandoned buildings have been demolished and it had turned into
26:26
Speaker 1: like an overgrowed wooded area that was pretty much condemned
26:29
Speaker 1: to the public. And they said they did bring some
26:32
Speaker 1: cadaver dogs to the location, and it said that they
26:35
Speaker 1: showed a quote unquote behavioral change when reacting to a
26:38
Speaker 1: certain spot. So they spent like two days excavating the site,
26:42
Speaker 1: but they failed to turn up any trace of Martha's remains.
26:45
Speaker 1: And they pretty much said that because they had done
26:48
Speaker 1: such extensive demolition work over the past twenty four years,
26:51
Speaker 1: that if Martha's remains were buried there, they may have
26:54
Speaker 1: been moved or scattered away inadvertently. So even if they
26:58
Speaker 1: some remains were still buried on the they were pretty
27:00
Speaker 1: skeptical that they would ever be able to recover them.
27:03
Speaker 1: So that's why they felt confident on accepting David's confession
27:07
Speaker 1: even without any corroborating evidence. Though at the same time,
27:10
Speaker 1: could he really have buried her that thoroughly that no
27:13
Speaker 1: one noticed her body during like the uh subsequent construction
27:17
Speaker 1: work that took place there over the years.
27:20
Speaker 2: All right, called, Yes, I don't think that happened. I
27:22
Speaker 2: think he's completely fabricating and I don't think that he
27:25
Speaker 2: murdered his sister, and I don't think that he disposed
27:27
Speaker 2: of her body there. He definitely didn't dig a three
27:30
Speaker 2: foot hole with a street sign. And I get why
27:33
Speaker 2: they're saying, oh, her body could have been moved. The
27:35
Speaker 2: dog showed behavioral change. We've seen dogs show behavioral changes
27:39
Speaker 2: in a lot of scenarios. There could have been something.
27:42
Speaker 2: This was an old college kids played there, they called
27:44
Speaker 2: it the Poor Kid's Disneyland. Somebody could have cut themselves
27:47
Speaker 2: in an area and bled significantly. You could get a
27:50
Speaker 2: behavioral change from a dog. So unless they're giving a
27:54
Speaker 2: full alert and you're excavating something that is going to
27:57
Speaker 2: be corroborating to what David said, then I don't think
28:01
Speaker 2: that we can go off of this and go, oh, well,
28:03
Speaker 2: they excavated a lot, so yeah, they could have moved
28:06
Speaker 2: the bodies. So yeah, like basically she could have been
28:08
Speaker 2: here and he's probably telling the truth.
28:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what's so troubling. It really seems like these
28:14
Speaker 1: cold Caate detectives wanted to get like an unsolved missing
28:17
Speaker 1: person's case off the books, so they were willing to
28:19
Speaker 1: take David out his word because he was willing to
28:21
Speaker 1: confess even though there was no evidence to implicate him.
28:24
Speaker 1: So the statement analysis I provided to you, Like I mentioned,
28:27
Speaker 1: this is not David's original confession to the police. This
28:31
Speaker 1: is in a police interrogation room where they decided to
28:34
Speaker 1: bring in Margaret for the first time so that David
28:36
Speaker 1: could tell her the full story about what happened. And
28:39
Speaker 1: the interrogation video is from a surveillance camera. It was
28:42
Speaker 1: released on YouTube by the local newspaper, the Saint Augustine Records,
28:46
Speaker 1: so that's how I was able to say it. And
28:48
Speaker 1: it's a total of fifty six minutes long. And what's
28:51
Speaker 1: interesting is that there's a long stage in there where
28:55
Speaker 1: they bring Margaret inside and David inside and they sit
28:58
Speaker 1: at the table, and then the two detectives take David
29:01
Speaker 1: outside for the next six minutes and it's pretty much
29:04
Speaker 1: just dead air after that, with Margaret just sitting there
29:06
Speaker 1: doing nothing. And then after that that's when David comes
29:09
Speaker 1: in and he makes the full confession to his mother,
29:11
Speaker 1: which is the statement we shared on the last episode.
29:15
Speaker 1: And I've always wondered when looking at that, what did
29:17
Speaker 1: these detectives say to David before he confessed to his mother,
29:20
Speaker 1: And you have to wonder could he they have influenced
29:23
Speaker 1: him somehow before he finally decided to spill the beans.
29:28
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'd be more inclined to believe that. Yeah,
29:31
Speaker 2: there is definitely a potential that they did that because
29:34
Speaker 2: David coming forward with these details and just the unemotional
29:38
Speaker 2: nature of everything, the lack of detail. It's utterly vague.
29:42
Speaker 2: Even the details that you're giving me now that he
29:44
Speaker 2: told Margaret. It's not indicative of somebody who's recalling events
29:49
Speaker 2: that actually transpired, because while telling his mother, why would
29:53
Speaker 2: he be leaving out these details if it were true?
29:56
Speaker 2: Is there a possibility or a world where David, maybe
29:59
Speaker 2: in some capacity, feels guilty for what happened to his sister.
30:03
Speaker 2: His sister's missing, he's sad. We saw him spiral, and
30:07
Speaker 2: somehow he feels like he needs to be punished for
30:10
Speaker 2: what happened, and maybe in that there'll be some kind
30:13
Speaker 2: of atonement. Maybe he should have been watching her, maybe
30:16
Speaker 2: he saw her get abducted. I think that there's got
30:19
Speaker 2: to be some part of David, because personally I believe
30:22
Speaker 2: that he didn't do this, that he is looking for
30:27
Speaker 2: some kind of atonement. He's looking to feel better. And
30:30
Speaker 2: sometimes you see it in religion too, where think of
30:34
Speaker 2: what is that Dan Brown movie, the da Vinci Code,
30:37
Speaker 2: the Dvinci Code, Think of it where you've got the
30:39
Speaker 2: monk that like whips himself right, where sometimes people will
30:45
Speaker 2: go through pain in order to try to atone for
30:47
Speaker 2: something that they feel was their responsibility. And so if
30:51
Speaker 2: somebody dies or your sister is abducted, there can be
30:54
Speaker 2: a lot of complex emotions attached to that. And the
30:57
Speaker 2: way that a child processes it might not be typical.
31:00
Speaker 2: The brain isn't finished developing at the age of fourteen,
31:05
Speaker 2: so we might see some reactions that aren't what we
31:07
Speaker 2: would think would be typical reactions.
31:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking as well, that maybe he
31:12
Speaker 1: had some sort of guilt about what happened to Martha,
31:14
Speaker 1: even if he was not directly responsible. Like maybe he
31:17
Speaker 1: knows more than he's letting on. But if you watch
31:20
Speaker 1: the interrogation video, like David gives his confession in kind
31:24
Speaker 1: of a flat on emotional tone which is very vague,
31:26
Speaker 1: where he's not giving specific details, and that wouldn't make
31:29
Speaker 1: sense if he was making this confession to some police detectives.
31:32
Speaker 1: But he is telling his own mother for the first time,
31:35
Speaker 1: and Martha even starts crying right in front of him.
31:38
Speaker 1: I mean, when you did your statement analysis and didn't
31:41
Speaker 1: have any knowledge of the case, did you ever dream
31:43
Speaker 1: that he was making this confession to his mother or
31:45
Speaker 1: a family member.
31:47
Speaker 2: No, I assumed it was to an investigator and they
31:50
Speaker 2: were sitting in a room. You know, you just kind
31:52
Speaker 2: of picture that in your head. But the fact that
31:55
Speaker 2: it's his mother, it's is he even more bizarre Because
32:00
Speaker 2: of emotion, You would think you would be filled with shame, remorse, guilt,
32:06
Speaker 2: just everything would be bubbling up. It would feel very visceral,
32:10
Speaker 2: and it just doesn't feel like that at all.
32:12
Speaker 1: No, Like you think that if he was telling the truth,
32:14
Speaker 1: he would well up and say I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
32:17
Speaker 1: I hope you forgive me. But it's just kind of
32:18
Speaker 1: vague saying that, Well, I wish it hadn't happened, but
32:21
Speaker 1: it did happen. And it's kind of like you would
32:24
Speaker 1: think that if he was begging for forgiveness from his mother,
32:26
Speaker 1: that he would show like a lot more remorse rather
32:28
Speaker 1: than just something very vague. But when you watch the
32:31
Speaker 1: whole video, like she starts crying and she kind of
32:34
Speaker 1: gets me angry for a little while, but then they
32:36
Speaker 1: kind of have a conversation where it says, this is
32:38
Speaker 1: going to be difficult, but we're going to work through this,
32:41
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that we got this all out. And
32:44
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that there's no context for this. But
32:47
Speaker 1: at one point during the interrogation video, the detectives make
32:50
Speaker 1: mention of a man who apparently inflicted sexual abuse on
32:55
Speaker 1: Martha and David when they were kids, and apparently also
32:58
Speaker 1: abuse their other brother, Raymond. And they don't say who
33:01
Speaker 1: this person was, but they kind of implied that this
33:03
Speaker 1: might have been one of the Lambert's neighbors. And they
33:06
Speaker 1: say that I know this was traumatic for all you,
33:08
Speaker 1: but now that you're getting out in the open, we
33:10
Speaker 1: can still talk about it. And it makes me wonder.
33:13
Speaker 1: I think that these kids were probably being abused by
33:16
Speaker 1: someone in their personal lives, and that even if it
33:18
Speaker 1: has no relevance at all to Martha's disappearance, that it
33:22
Speaker 1: just caused like a lot of trauma. And this could
33:24
Speaker 1: explain why David might be making this story up all
33:27
Speaker 1: these years later. Maybe he's feeling I should have protected
33:29
Speaker 1: Martha for being abused by this man.
33:33
Speaker 2: I think that's a very real possibility because we have
33:36
Speaker 2: to factor in the trauma, and we think of his
33:38
Speaker 2: reactions and him claiming responsibility, and it becomes a lot
33:42
Speaker 2: more nuanced and a lot more complex when you're adding
33:44
Speaker 2: in children that are experiencing abuse and neglect in the home,
33:49
Speaker 2: and the potential that, like you said, there could be
33:51
Speaker 2: other people in their orbit that are abusing them as well,
33:55
Speaker 2: not just the neglect that they're experiencing in the home.
33:58
Speaker 2: So him reacting way that he's reacting and everything, it's
34:02
Speaker 2: just so difficult to say, Oh, this kid, he obviously
34:07
Speaker 2: did it, and this is him being guilty and or
34:11
Speaker 2: feeling guilty and just copying to it years later. I think,
34:14
Speaker 2: like you said, the way he's not asking for forgiveness
34:18
Speaker 2: from his mother, I truly think, unless you hate your
34:22
Speaker 2: mother and you're like shoving this in her face, like yeah,
34:25
Speaker 2: I did this, and there's some contempt there, I think
34:28
Speaker 2: under normal circumstances, most people love their mother, and even
34:31
Speaker 2: if they don't, they seek her approval. So in a
34:35
Speaker 2: situation where you would have caused such strife and such
34:38
Speaker 2: pain to not ask for your mother's forgiveness, to not
34:42
Speaker 2: be wailing, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, over and
34:44
Speaker 2: over again.
34:45
Speaker 1: It feels odd, it does yeah, And of course if
34:49
Speaker 1: this is where the story had ended, then this would
34:51
Speaker 1: consider to be a solved case and we might not
34:53
Speaker 1: be discussing it. But you watch the video and at
34:56
Speaker 1: the end they ask Margaret do you believe him? And
34:58
Speaker 1: she says yes, and it sounds like she's finally accepted
35:01
Speaker 1: that her son killed her daughter. But they're going to
35:03
Speaker 1: try to work through it. And it was not until
35:05
Speaker 1: January of twenty ten where all this information went public
35:09
Speaker 1: and the state's attorney's office said that we are not
35:11
Speaker 1: going to file charges against David because there's no evidence
35:15
Speaker 1: besides his own confession. But we're also aware of the
35:17
Speaker 1: extenuating circumstances because he was only fourteen years old at
35:21
Speaker 1: the time, and if he is telling the truth, the
35:23
Speaker 1: crime would be considered to be manslaughter, not murder, so
35:27
Speaker 1: there would be a statute of limitations on it. So
35:29
Speaker 1: they said, we consider this case to be closed, even
35:32
Speaker 1: though we don't have Martha's body. We're convinced that he's
35:34
Speaker 1: telling the truth and that's going to be the end
35:36
Speaker 1: of it. But shortly after this went public, Margaret made
35:39
Speaker 1: a statement to the press saying that I don't believe
35:42
Speaker 1: my son's story. I think he's innocent. I don't think
35:44
Speaker 1: he killed Martha. And she pretty much said that he
35:47
Speaker 1: was always very protective of Martha when they were kids,
35:49
Speaker 1: and that she doesn't think he would be capable of
35:51
Speaker 1: doing this to her, and that he had a long
35:53
Speaker 1: history of emotional problems, he had issues with the drugs,
35:56
Speaker 1: he had a criminal history, and he had a tendency
35:58
Speaker 1: to make up stories in order to get attention. So
36:01
Speaker 1: she flat out told the press, I don't believe he
36:03
Speaker 1: did this. I still believe that Martha was the victim
36:05
Speaker 1: of an abduction and that it might have been the
36:07
Speaker 1: person in this green van.
36:10
Speaker 2: I'm inclined to agree with Margaret.
36:12
Speaker 1: Well. Sure enough, shortly after Margaret said this, David publicly
36:15
Speaker 1: recanted his confession himself, saying that he even described himself
36:19
Speaker 1: in the press as quote unquote mentally uncompetent and said
36:23
Speaker 1: that he was facing such pressure during his interrogation with
36:26
Speaker 1: detectives Tyson Cole they eventually reached the point where he
36:29
Speaker 1: just decided to tell them what they wanted to hear.
36:31
Speaker 1: So he fabricated this whole story about killing Martha, that
36:35
Speaker 1: he wasn't actually responsible for her disappearance, and that it
36:38
Speaker 1: was completely one hundred percent true. So after they made
36:41
Speaker 1: their recantations in the press, they sought comment from Detective Tice,
36:45
Speaker 1: and this is the quote he used, saying that it
36:49
Speaker 1: wasn't just this one confession. We interrogated him for a
36:51
Speaker 1: total of like twenty three hours. So he said, quote,
36:54
Speaker 1: we have twenty three hours of video. If someone wants
36:57
Speaker 1: to sit down for two or three days and watch it,
36:59
Speaker 1: then have at it. And if you can draw another conclusion,
37:02
Speaker 1: god bless you. End quote.
37:05
Speaker 2: Well, they sound very certain.
37:08
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, I will admit I have not watched
37:10
Speaker 1: all twenty three hours. I've only seen this one fifty
37:13
Speaker 1: six minute confession video, which doesn't sound convincing to me.
37:17
Speaker 1: So maybe if I saw all these twenty three hours
37:20
Speaker 1: of interrogation videos, I would think David's story is more
37:23
Speaker 1: believable and I might have a different outlook. But it
37:26
Speaker 1: does not sound like David ever revealed any details about
37:29
Speaker 1: the crime which were not public knowledge. It's still this
37:31
Speaker 1: very vague story with a lot of vague details, and
37:35
Speaker 1: it still involves him like digging up and burying his
37:37
Speaker 1: sister's body so thoroughly that no one found it in
37:40
Speaker 1: twenty four years and he never provided any other evidence
37:43
Speaker 1: to corroborate his story. So if you want me to
37:45
Speaker 1: believe that David's confession is true, I will need a
37:48
Speaker 1: lot more than that.
37:50
Speaker 2: And basically, what you're releasing, these clips, these fifty six
37:54
Speaker 2: minute clips, is going to be the best of the best.
37:57
Speaker 2: What they're going to release and what they're going to
37:59
Speaker 2: kind of give the public to chew on is going
38:02
Speaker 2: to be the most convincing, the best part of it.
38:05
Speaker 2: So I'm assuming that it's all lesser the other you know,
38:09
Speaker 2: twenty two hours or whatever, that they have a footage
38:13
Speaker 2: that you haven't seen is going to be lesser footage.
38:16
Speaker 2: So yeah, he may be saying something to the effect
38:19
Speaker 2: of what he's already been saying, but maybe to a
38:22
Speaker 2: lesser degree. And it sounds like these two really had
38:25
Speaker 2: confirmation bias, and like you said to me personally, it
38:29
Speaker 2: sounds like they really wanted to close a cold case
38:32
Speaker 2: and they had a confession, and it was of the
38:35
Speaker 2: attitude and the idea that like, why would you confess
38:37
Speaker 2: if you weren't responsible? But there is just so much
38:41
Speaker 2: to this because like we said, there was behavioral issues,
38:43
Speaker 2: drug issues, We've got a pattern of compulsive lying, we
38:46
Speaker 2: have trauma and neglect in the house, and then we
38:50
Speaker 2: could have an insurmountable amount of guilt that he has
38:53
Speaker 2: associated with. I couldn't protect my sister.
38:56
Speaker 1: And what's sad about this case is that they're no
38:58
Speaker 1: longer obliged to take any other action because we've seen
39:01
Speaker 1: so many cases that wind up in wrongful convictions after
39:05
Speaker 1: a suspect makes a false confession. But if that happens,
39:08
Speaker 1: if they go to prison, then you're going to have
39:10
Speaker 1: like attorneys in the Innocence Project, fighting to get them
39:12
Speaker 1: out of prison and keep them the story in the spotlight.
39:15
Speaker 1: But here David was not charged. They just basically said
39:18
Speaker 1: he was a minor at the time, there's no evidence
39:20
Speaker 1: to support his story, so they can just close the
39:22
Speaker 1: case without filing charges and say that we're satisfied that
39:25
Speaker 1: he's telling the truth without needing to provide any evidence
39:28
Speaker 1: to support this. And they have said that they still
39:31
Speaker 1: consider the case to be closed, but they have acknowledged
39:33
Speaker 1: that we have Martha's DNA and dental records on file,
39:36
Speaker 1: So if we happen to find who remains. We will
39:39
Speaker 1: reopen the investigation. If we get any new leads that
39:42
Speaker 1: suggests that Martha was the victim of an abduction or
39:45
Speaker 1: something else happened, we'll we'll look at it again. But
39:48
Speaker 1: until that happens, they're just going to keep this case
39:50
Speaker 1: closed and just publicly say that we still believe David
39:53
Speaker 1: did it, even though he's a free man today.
39:56
Speaker 2: Wow, I truly feel like a killer got away with murder.
40:00
Speaker 2: Somebody else abducted Martha, and it was just really easy
40:03
Speaker 2: to point the finger of David and be like, oh,
40:04
Speaker 2: case closed, We've got our guy here. But in my
40:07
Speaker 2: personal opinion, there's somebody out there that did something to
40:11
Speaker 2: her and they're not being held to account.
40:13
Speaker 1: Since you talked about your statement analysis that you figured
40:16
Speaker 1: that David might be like telling partial truths, that maybe
40:20
Speaker 1: he did kill Martha, but what actually happened was not
40:22
Speaker 1: an accident, maybe there was sexual abuse, or the truth
40:25
Speaker 1: was completely different. Do you still feel that is a
40:28
Speaker 1: possibility that maybe he was guilty and just did something different,
40:32
Speaker 1: or are you now one hundred percent certain that he
40:34
Speaker 1: was innocent and that someone else did this.
40:38
Speaker 2: I think, based on the information that you've given me,
40:41
Speaker 2: like Okay, let's say I'm ten percent that that's a possibility.
40:44
Speaker 2: I'm ninety percent that he didn't do this. And what
40:48
Speaker 2: I really come back to is, well, everything is vague.
40:51
Speaker 2: His statements are utterly vague and almost entirely fabricated. In
40:55
Speaker 2: my opinion, it was just that one part of like
40:57
Speaker 2: washing up and that I thought was interesting. But that's
41:01
Speaker 2: just one thing, and when you take it and put
41:03
Speaker 2: it in the entire context of this, I think it's
41:06
Speaker 2: much less likely then David is just fabricating this entire thing,
41:10
Speaker 2: because we would have found her body if it was David,
41:13
Speaker 2: Like he gave us two locations where her body could
41:15
Speaker 2: be both were checked. There's nothing to corroborate what he said.
41:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what I always thought myself, that even
41:21
Speaker 1: if the truth is different, if he killed her because
41:23
Speaker 1: of a sexual assault or something like that, I don't
41:26
Speaker 1: think he would have been capable at age fourteen of
41:28
Speaker 1: digging up a hole so deep and bury her body
41:31
Speaker 1: so thoroughly that no one would have found her at all. Like,
41:33
Speaker 1: it's very impossible. He would have to be like a
41:35
Speaker 1: criminal mastermind, like a young Dexter Morgan in trading to
41:39
Speaker 1: get away with this, But even though he has been
41:41
Speaker 1: arrested a few times and has a criminal history since then,
41:43
Speaker 1: he has never been charged for any other violent crimes
41:46
Speaker 1: or any other murders. So I don't think he's like
41:48
Speaker 1: a very He's capable of something like this and maybe
41:51
Speaker 1: just decided to confess after pressure or some sort of
41:54
Speaker 1: subconscious guilt, maybe because he felt he should have protected
41:57
Speaker 1: Martha and feels guilty that he was on to do.
42:00
Speaker 2: So, Yeah, that sounds really accurate to me. I think
42:04
Speaker 2: that it comes down to guilt, And like we've discussed throughout,
42:07
Speaker 2: there's just so many complexities to the situation and with
42:11
Speaker 2: his behavior, socioeconomic status, the neglect, the trauma. We don't
42:15
Speaker 2: know if there was neighbors abusing them or if it
42:18
Speaker 2: was just in the home, but we do know that
42:21
Speaker 2: these children went through a lot. And if he is
42:24
Speaker 2: indeed innocent, then he's a victim too because his sister
42:28
Speaker 2: is gone. He was pushed by detectives at a later
42:32
Speaker 2: date to confess again, and then we have his mother
42:36
Speaker 2: and father and the other brother, and they don't have
42:39
Speaker 2: the answer about what actually happened to Martha and about
42:42
Speaker 2: who did this to her, and they're not being punished
42:46
Speaker 2: and they don't believe that David did it. I don't
42:49
Speaker 2: believe that David did it, Like I said, I think
42:50
Speaker 2: there's like a ten percent chance, but I'm pretty convinced
42:54
Speaker 2: that he's fabricating everything out of guilt.
42:57
Speaker 1: And one theory I have seen push forward is that
42:59
Speaker 1: maybe a family was orchestrating a cover up, that maybe
43:02
Speaker 1: if she was killed in the home, that they all
43:04
Speaker 1: conspired together to get rid of her body. But I'm
43:07
Speaker 1: thinking that if Margaret herself was complicit in what happened
43:11
Speaker 1: or new, then she never would have publicly come out
43:13
Speaker 1: and said I don't think my son did it, because
43:15
Speaker 1: she technically had it out because the police said, we
43:18
Speaker 1: think David did it, but we're not going to file charges.
43:21
Speaker 1: So if she was involved, she would have been scott free.
43:23
Speaker 1: So the fact that she decided to speak out and
43:26
Speaker 1: say that my son did not did this indicates to
43:29
Speaker 1: me that she has no idea what happened.
43:32
Speaker 2: I think if there was a conspiracy with the family,
43:34
Speaker 2: we would have seen these details leak out with David, because,
43:38
Speaker 2: like you said, David is not some criminal mastermind. He's
43:40
Speaker 2: not somebody with an extremely high IQ that is going
43:43
Speaker 2: to have this propensity to be able to elude authorities
43:47
Speaker 2: and to be able to manipulate. I don't see that
43:49
Speaker 2: in the information that you've given me. So to think
43:52
Speaker 2: that this conspiracy of many within the family could hold
43:55
Speaker 2: up over all of this scrutiny and so many years,
43:59
Speaker 2: it just doesn't seem And like you said, if that
44:02
Speaker 2: was the case, Margaret would not be rushing to defend him.
44:05
Speaker 1: Yes, And when watching the interrogation video and you see
44:08
Speaker 1: her emotional reaction when David confesses, it's genuine like it
44:12
Speaker 1: sounds like she's taken by complete surprise that her son
44:14
Speaker 1: is admitting to this. And I think that if she
44:16
Speaker 1: knew the truth about what happened, she would not be
44:19
Speaker 1: reacting in that fashion. I mean, I guess my only
44:21
Speaker 1: concern is the father, Howard, because he was known for
44:24
Speaker 1: being abusive and he died only a few years later,
44:26
Speaker 1: but he was seventy four years old, and I think
44:29
Speaker 1: that if he killed Martha, it would have been difficult
44:31
Speaker 1: for him as well to thoroughly bury her body and
44:34
Speaker 1: ensure that no evidence was left behind.
44:37
Speaker 2: I guess it depends on the physical health of Howard
44:40
Speaker 2: and if he had a vehicle available and what is
44:44
Speaker 2: exact alibi was. It's hard because there's just a lot
44:47
Speaker 2: of information lacking. We've got the information about a green van.
44:51
Speaker 2: I think there's so many child abductions that happen. It's
44:54
Speaker 2: possible that she was abducted. Statistically, there's a higher probability
44:58
Speaker 2: that she was killed by somebody known to her, But
45:01
Speaker 2: it's not always what is statistically most probable that is
45:04
Speaker 2: the actual outcome.
45:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes families are under suspicion for years and then
45:08
Speaker 1: it turns out that it was a complete stranger who
45:10
Speaker 1: had no personal connection to her at all. But when
45:13
Speaker 1: you consider that she was last seen in a mobile
45:14
Speaker 1: home park and that there were been a lot of witnesses,
45:17
Speaker 1: it seems very unlikely that something could have happened to
45:19
Speaker 1: her there without anyone seeing anything. So I do think
45:22
Speaker 1: it's a good pousibility she walked off down the road
45:25
Speaker 1: cross paths with a predator who abducted her. On One
45:28
Speaker 1: detail I've not mentioned is that Martha was wearing a
45:30
Speaker 1: two peece bathing suit that night, That is all she
45:33
Speaker 1: was wearing. So because even though it's November, it was Florida,
45:37
Speaker 1: so the weather was still warm, and she had been
45:39
Speaker 1: swimming earlier that day, and so of course it seemed
45:42
Speaker 1: very unlikely she would run away wearing nothing more than
45:44
Speaker 1: a two piece bathing suit. But if she walked and
45:46
Speaker 1: a predator saw a girl dress like that, he might
45:49
Speaker 1: have decided that she would be the perfect victim to abduct.
45:51
Speaker 1: And if they managed to escape the area without anyone
45:54
Speaker 1: seeing anything, then they essentially got away with a perfect crime.
45:58
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting detail. I could definitely see through
46:02
Speaker 2: the eyes of the predator if they saw somebody dressed
46:05
Speaker 2: like that, for sure, they could be enticed to pull
46:08
Speaker 2: over and to try to abduct her. So this is
46:12
Speaker 2: just a really sad case.
46:14
Speaker 1: It is, yeah, and it's just sad to think that
46:16
Speaker 1: the police will not do anything to try to solve
46:18
Speaker 1: it unless they have a new lead or new evidence
46:21
Speaker 1: just jump completely in their lap. Or if Martha's remains
46:24
Speaker 1: turn up somewhere, because I personally do not believe they
46:26
Speaker 1: are they're buried at the site of the former college,
46:29
Speaker 1: I think that they're probably somewhere else, and if that's
46:31
Speaker 1: the case, there is a chance they can be recovered.
46:36
Speaker 1: So any further comments on your statement analysis anything that
46:39
Speaker 1: you said before that you've now changed your mind on
46:42
Speaker 1: after hearing all the full facts of the case.
46:45
Speaker 2: I think the things that maybe were paused for concern,
46:49
Speaker 2: like his mentioning of washing up. I don't think in
46:53
Speaker 2: the context of all of the information that I necessarily
46:56
Speaker 2: believe that had anything to do with sexual abuse or
47:00
Speaker 2: a rape. But I think that in my analysis, pretty
47:04
Speaker 2: much everything I would stick to aside from that that
47:07
Speaker 2: I believe that pretty much everything that he said is fabricated,
47:10
Speaker 2: that the motive is fabricated, all of the actions that
47:12
Speaker 2: he took or fabricated. It's missing emotion, there's jumbled up
47:16
Speaker 2: time references, there's pauses, there's uses of words like the
47:20
Speaker 2: unique words like just he says basically after like, there's
47:24
Speaker 2: a lot of missing time and missing things, and it
47:27
Speaker 2: just is very incongruous statement in general. And now that
47:31
Speaker 2: I know all this information, I personally am ninety why
47:34
Speaker 2: I feel as though I'm ninety percent sure that he
47:37
Speaker 2: didn't do this.
47:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely agree. And when you gave your original
47:41
Speaker 1: statement analysis without knowing the facts of the case, I
47:43
Speaker 1: was thinking, yeah, you're reading this well, because I think
47:45
Speaker 1: most logical people would look at a statement and say
47:48
Speaker 1: this is not truthful and I decided to pick this
47:50
Speaker 1: case because the circumstances are so unusual that we have
47:54
Speaker 1: someone admitting to what he did at the age of fourteen,
47:57
Speaker 1: killing a sister and making a confession in front of
47:59
Speaker 1: his mother. So when you asked me to find a
48:01
Speaker 1: statement from a cold case we covered, I thick this
48:03
Speaker 1: one just because it is so out of the ordinary.
48:07
Speaker 2: Well, we'll definitely have to do this again. This was fun.
48:11
Speaker 2: I don't want to use the word fun. This was
48:14
Speaker 2: like a unique way to structure an episode because I
48:17
Speaker 2: really loved going in blind and having no idea and
48:20
Speaker 2: then looking back and seeing what in the statement analysis
48:24
Speaker 2: I believe to be correct and what I would then
48:27
Speaker 2: change once I had some more contextual clues.
48:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, because this was definitely not a cut and dried case,
48:33
Speaker 1: so I thought it would be the perfect one to choose,
48:35
Speaker 1: And I think we should definitely do this again on
48:36
Speaker 1: another case on another week where Ashley is absent.
48:40
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So that about.
48:42
Speaker 1: Wraps up our episode on the Disappearance of Martha Gen Lambert.
48:45
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us, and we will
48:47
Speaker 1: probably have Ashley back for us for our next series
48:49
Speaker 1: of episodes. So until then, see you next time.
48:53
Speaker 2: Hey, guys, I just wanted to drop in and let
48:56
Speaker 2: you know that I spoke with Mark and he listened
48:59
Speaker 2: to both parts to the audio, so my initial statement
49:02
Speaker 2: analysis and what you just heard right now both Robin
49:06
Speaker 2: and I talking about the details of the case. And
49:09
Speaker 2: he said I did an excellent job with the statement
49:11
Speaker 2: analysis and he laid out all the points that I
49:14
Speaker 2: got correct and so I'm really happy with that. And
49:16
Speaker 2: he said that Robin had great insights. So I just
49:19
Speaker 2: wanted to let you guys all know that he co
49:22
Speaker 2: signed on the statement analysis and Mark is truly the expert.
49:26
Speaker 2: And if any of you are interested in statement analysis,
49:29
Speaker 2: I'm going to provide a link to the training that
49:32
Speaker 2: Mark offers in the show notes. Robin, do you want
49:35
Speaker 2: to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went
49:37
Speaker 2: Cold Patreon?
49:38
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
49:41
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
49:45
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
49:48
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49:51
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Speaker 1: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
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50:01
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50:07
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50:18
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50:27
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
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50:43
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50:45
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Speaker 2: Enjoying doing those, so we hope you'll check out those.
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51:03
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51:22
Speaker 2: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy