Once again, the “readiness conference” for As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis has been delayed. The hearing has been pushed back to Tuesday, February 25th. According to Lambgoat, who’ve been religiously following the case, sources indicated that the defense attorney requested an additional conference with Lambesis.
Meanwhile, Radio.com has pieced together a review of the case from court transcripts and file documents. Like Metal Injection said, it reads more like an episode of Law & Order than anything. Fleshing out some of what we already know about the case, a trainer named Brett started working at Lambesis’ gym, Pure Fitness, in Carlsbad, CA as a trainer. He began hearing Lambesis state that he would “be doing better if his wife was taken care of.”
Brett claimed it was Lambesis who contacted him. “He contacted me via text asking me if he could talk to me.” The two arranged to meet in the parking lot at the gym. Lambesis brought his girlfriend with him that evening. It was about dusk on April 22 and he was living with girlfriend Amanda in a home in Carlsbad at that time. Amanda went into the gym to exercise while the men stayed outside. “Just myself and him,” Brett remembered. “He began by asking me if I knew why I was there. I made the comment that I was hoping it wasn’t to kill anybody.” “He said that that was funny and that was exactly why I was there.” Brett said Lambesis spoke of his failing marriage. “We had a discussion and he proceeded to tell me about his relationship with his ex-wife and how it had deteriorated.”
Brett quickly told him that he wasn’t an assassin, but Lambesis asked if he could find someone to do it for him. Nervous, Brett consulted an attorney that told him he needed to get a recording of Lambesis saying that he wanted his wife dead, or else he could be an accessory to murder if something did happen:
Brett said he initiated another contact, and two days later he met again with Lambesis, this time at a bookstore in Oceanside. It was a Barnes & Noble. Tim Lambesis brought his girlfriend Amanda again. She was told that the men were going to talk about music and motorcycles, and since she was not interested in that kind of conversation she waited outside in the car, according to a detective’s statements later. “We went in the back and had a conversation and started talking about the situation at hand and about him.” Brett claimed that he offered alternatives on handling the situation, “go to counselor, talk to somebody, get help.” But Lambesis would not be dissuaded, according to Brett. Lambesis complained about Meggan. “His wife was keeping him out on tour because of the money, to generate money. And he had three bands and he wanted to stay home and produce instead of traveling.” Tim complained he wasn’t allowed to take the children on tour with him. “At the end of that conversation when I saw that he was not veering from killing his wife, I told him I had somebody in mind for him, yes.” Brett named a fictional hitman he called “Red.” Tim “was all for it,” Brett remembered.
“Red” was actually a Sheriff’s deputy who called Lambesis and set up a meeting in that same Barnes & Noble bookstore. He asked Lambesis to bring Meggan’s address, photographs of her, and $1,000. Apparently, the undercover officer had to get him to say he wanted her “killed” or “dead,” and Lambesis would only say repeatedly “I want her gone. I want her never, ever, ever to come back.” But as Lambesis walked away, “we got about fifteen or twenty feet away from each other and he turned back to me and he goes, ‘Just to clarify, just so you know, I do want her dead.’”
Apparently, Lambesis’ lawyers, in addition to claiming that he was on steroids at the time, will also attempt that law enforcement might have been overreaching, and that a plea deal might be reached.
