Judge disgusted by killer’s ‘lack of remorse’

Joshua Lambert will spend the rest of his life in prison.

The 37-year-old murderer was re-sentenced in Island County Superior Court June 15 to 80 years in prison for the murder of his 80-year-old grandfather, George Lambert, and kidnapping of his great aunt on North Whidbey seven years ago.

Judge Vickie Churchill said she had “absolute disgust” for Lambert’s crimes and his utter lack of remorse.

“You have a total inability to understand that it was your hand, your hand, that held the knife,” she said.

Since Lambert won’t be getting out of prison — barring a successful appeal of his sentence — Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks elected to dismiss additional charges against Lambert for the murder of his other grandfather, 80-year-old August Eisner, and burglary of his parents’ North Whidbey home.

The decision means the families of the victims, as well as the law and justice community, won’t have to go through another long and painful trial.

Lambert stabbed his grandfathers to death at two different homes while he was in a delusional search for guns. He testified that he thought FBI agents had kidnapped his son and he thought he needed to shoot them to save the boy.

Banks argued at trial that the delusions were fueled by methamphetamines. Lambert acted as his own attorney and claimed insanity.

The jury found Lambert guilty of all charges. Churchill originally handed him an exceptional sentence of 100 years in prison, but the appeals court last year reversed Lambert’s convictions for the felony murder of Eisner and the burglary of his parents’ home.

Lambert was sent back to superior court to be re-sentenced on the charges that were affirmed by the court.

Banks recommended the 80-year sentence in a sentencing memorandum and in court last Friday. He pointed out that the jury found aggravating factors that allowed a sentence beyond the standard range.

Like Churchill, Banks noted Lambert’s inability to feel remorse or understand the impact his never-ending legal maneuvers have on his family.

“Mr. Lambert continues to see the vicious murder of his grandfather,” he wrote, “the gratuitous cruelty towards his great aunt, and the rest of his brutal crime spree as little more than an opportunity to spar intellectually with his legal adversaries, in his never-ending narcissistic quest to prove he is right, and everyone else is wrong.”

Banks called Lambert “particularly dangerous” and spoke of his history of violence.

“He is worse than a time bomb,” he said. “He is a random bomb.”

The sentencing hearing had been delayed in order to give a community corrections officer with the Department of Corrections time to do a pre-sentence investigation. Banks was critical of the resulting report, which he called “substandard.”

The corrections officer misstated the standard sentencing range, got the offender score wrong and failed to contact any family members, he said.

The corrections officer wrote in the report that she was unable to make contact with them, but Banks said the family members said they never heard from her.

Lambert subpoenaed several mental health professionals to speak at his sentencing hearing. He questioned them over speaker phone about his symptoms of mental health problems.

Lambert told the judge that he believes someone intentionally shot hallucinations into his brain during the day of the murders. He said he wouldn’t have killed the elderly men if it wasn’t for the delusions and that he wasn’t trying to be malicious.

“I didn’t actually mean to start stabbing,” he said. “I was just trying to get them to tie up.”