Police Closed the Case Without Charges: Brother Confessed to Accidental Killing
ABC News
Jan. 2, 2010
Martha Jean Lambert vanished near her St. Augustine home on Nov. 27, 1985. Her mother, Margaret Pichon, says she remains convinced that the 12-year-old girl was kidnapped.
However, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office said Friday that Pichon’s son David Lambert has confessed to accidentally killing his sister in an argument.
Sgt. Chuck Mulligan said Lambert told police that he panicked and buried the girl in a shallow grave. Lambert was 15 at the time.
The State Attorney’s Office decided not charge Lambert with manslaughter after prosecutors considered his age at the time, the statute of limitations manslaughter charges had in 1985 and “other mitigating circumstances,” Mulligan said.
Investigators had considered Lambert a suspect, but they had no evidence nor a confession until sheriff’s detectives Sean Tice and Howard Cole III reopened the case in June. more …
