Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 12, 1991 TAG: 9102120459
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: PEARISBURG LENGTH: Medium
He pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of capital murder, one count of arson and two counts of robbery for the Memorial Day weekend murders of Dale Russell Lambert and Ralph Randall Lester.
After reviewing transcripts of Myers' statements to police, Giles County Circuit Judge A. Dow Owens sentenced the Bland County man to five life terms under a plea agreement.
"We walked around a little bit, partied, and got to drinking," Myers had told Trooper Allen L. Lewis of the Kentucky State Police after he was picked up for speeding the day following the second slaying.
Lambert "was real smart-mouthed. He's ripped me off a few times and I've always let it go because he's married to a first cousin of mine," said Myers, 28. "Then, I decided that I was just fed up with it. I took him up there, shot him in the back of the head with that Stevenson shotgun.
"I took and drug an old tire that I had. . . . I laid it on top of him, threw a little bit of paper on it, and set it on fire, and let it burn."
Lambert's charred remains were found in a remote section of the Jefferson National Forest in Giles County by his brother, Raymond Lambert. The cause of death was a shotgun wound to the head at close range.
The day after his confession to Lewis, Myers told investigators from Giles County the same story, adding, "Every time I would go off to go somewhere, he was pestering me, following me and wanting to smoke my dope. . . . He was wanting to fight and carry on. I'd tried to tell him that I wasn't going to fight, that I wanted my money. I just shot him. I blowed his head off."
He visited Lester the following Memorial Day afternoon at Lester's home in the White Gate section of Giles County, Myers told investigators. "Somebody had come up to him and said that I was trying to set him up with the police, or something like that . . . and I said, `Man, all I want to do is buy some pot.' And he just kept on and kept on. And I shot him. I think I shot him twice," he said.
He then burned Lester's house down.
Later in his statement, Myers said his rage had been building up for a long time, since his divorce a year before the killings. He also admitted to having a drug habit.
"My intentions wasn't to shoot neither one of the boys, they just p----- me off. And that's what I done. I had a gun in my hand and I shot them. . . . People mess with me, I've got a bad temper and I just lose my cool sometimes," he said.
Myers' statements made to police after his arrest were taped and transcripts of the tapes were introduced as evidence Monday by Commonwealth's Attorney James Hartley.
Judge Owens declined to have the taped confessions played publicly in the courtroom. After considering the transcripts and other evidence, he sentenced Myers to five consecutive life sentences.
The punishment was the maximum sentence Owens could have imposed without death. Myers will be eligible for parole after serving 30 years in prison.
"The court feels this is as close as we can come to justice," Owens said of the plea agreement. The judge said nothing could ever be done to reverse what happened to Lambert and Lester.
"Thanks for nothing," one spectator shouted out in the courtroom after the sentence was read. Some of Lambert's family members had wanted Myers to receive the death penalty.
But Hartley said it would have been difficult to convict Myers on the capital murder charge.
Much of the evidence proving Myers planned to rob his victims prior to killing them was circumstantial, Hartley said.
He said it wasn't clear-cut, like a convenience store robbery in which someone gets killed. Robbery as an afterthought is not enough for a capital murder conviction, he said.
Hartley also said he doubts Myers will ever make parole.
by CNB