The Coldest Case In Laramie - Episode 2

Speaker 1 Hear that?

Speaker 2 That's what it sounds like when you plant more trees than you harvest.

Speaker 2 Work done by thousands of working forest professionals, like Adam, a district forest manager who works to protect our forests from fires.

Speaker 3 Keeping a forest fire-resistant synonymous with keeping a forest healthy, and we do that through planting more than we harvest and mitigate those risks through active management.

Speaker 3 It's a long-term commitment.

Speaker 2 Visit workingforestsinitiative.com to learn more.

Speaker 4 These first two episodes of The Coldest Case in Laramie are free, but to hear the whole series, you'll need to subscribe to the New York Times, where you'll get access to all the serial productions and New York Times shows.

Speaker 4 And it's super easy. You can sign up through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
And if you're already a Times subscriber, just link your account and you're done.

Speaker 4 Previously, on The Coldest Case in Laramie.

Speaker 5 I just, I feel like there could be something there, especially given like that Fred Lamb was a cop.

Speaker 6 Oh, there is something there, I'm sure.

Speaker 6 I remember Michelle smacking me and telling me, look at those weirdos. There's my neighbors.
He's a weirdo.

Speaker 6 Then it got really quiet and it was like he was whispering in the phone and he said, you need to pursue this. Don't stop.

Speaker 7 There's homework here. If you guys could get me, like, if you could talk to Michelle and see if she'd talk to me.

Speaker 6 And I'm sure Michelle will talk to you.

Speaker 7 All right. Can you hear me now?

Speaker 8 Oh, my God.

Speaker 7 Okay. Oh, gosh.
Oh, my gosh. It's actually working.
I just heard you

Speaker 7 something else.

Speaker 9 Lori and Brandy made good on their homework. Within a day of our first conversation, Lori connected me with Shelly's old roommate, Michelle.

Speaker 9 Michelle is a striking woman.

Speaker 9 Big eyes, bigger smile.

Speaker 9 We met over Zoom.

Speaker 9 She prepared for the interview in a way I didn't. I wore a baseball cap and soft pandemic clothes.
Michelle dressed for this meeting like an important job interview, in full makeup and blown-out hair.

Speaker 9 She was eager to talk.

Speaker 5 How did you meet Shelly?

Speaker 8 At the restaurant. We were waitresses there.
We kind of looked a little bit alike and had a lot of the same

Speaker 8 same goals. You know, we were both pretty good students and just, we just, we hit it off.
She was a sweet, sweet, sweet person.

Speaker 8 We were just, it was like we were a married couple, but, you know, we're obviously two females, but she, we remember, I remember I bought a washer and dryer. She bought a stereo.

Speaker 8 We had a wall, we had milk crates for furniture. You know, we had our stuff sitting on milk crates and we just thought we were so cool.

Speaker 8 we just we were so poor but we just we just felt like we had it all

Speaker 7 she was she was was she a couple years older than you then if you were yeah

Speaker 7 and had you waited tables before or how did you end up at foster's um they just were hiring and i went down there and thought I better find a job.

Speaker 8 It's funny because I didn't, I come from a big Spanish family, five kids, nobody's ever left home.

Speaker 8 And then I told my parents, I'm going to go away to to college and they're like yeah sure you are and i and you know they're you know a poor family and they couldn't afford to put me through college i said well i'm going to move there i'm going to get a job and they were like okay good luck with that and then come june 4th i was i was packed my bags i didn't have bags i didn't even have bags i packed my boxes full of my clothes and i said i'm leaving tomorrow and my brother was like oh my god she's really leaving so my dad had him drive with me and and move there and we drove into Laramie June 4th and it snowed and he was like, I won't tease you if you come back home.

Speaker 8 I won't say a word. And I was like, no, I'm staying.
So I applied for a job at Foster's and got hired and worked there full-time.

Speaker 8 Weird thing, I'll never forget, Big Pete from Big Pete's Welding said, Why did you move here? And I said, I came to go to college.

Speaker 8 He said, You're going to get an education, but it's not going to be at school. And I thought, what does he mean by that? Well, he wasn't kidding.

Speaker 8 That town gave me an education.

Speaker 8 I remember it so well. I remember it like it was yesterday.
I stayed

Speaker 8 at my boyfriend's house, and we got in a huge fight because I wanted to go home.

Speaker 8 And I said, I want to go home. I don't feel right.
Something felt weird. And I remember it was either two or three in the morning.
And he said, you can't go home now. It's middle of the night.

Speaker 8 Nothing's going to change between now and then.

Speaker 8 And I just said, something's wrong. I don't feel, I don't, I cannot describe it.
And I can't tell you why.

Speaker 8 And then that morning early, I went home and it was like five or six or something. And that's how I saw the flames.
And I saw the apartment still burning. And when I pulled up,

Speaker 8 that's when the officer said,

Speaker 8 who are you? And I said, I live here. And

Speaker 8 then they said, where's

Speaker 8 And I thought, What do you mean, where's Shelly? She's in the house. And I was hysterical, just going crazy.
I just could never forget those words. They said, Do you know where Shelly is?

Speaker 8 And I was just like dumbfounded. I said, What do you mean, do I know where she is? She's in the house.
And I just went crazy, just went nuts.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I can't imagine. Yeah.

Speaker 8 So, shortly after Shelly was killed, I met

Speaker 8 my husband, who I'm divorced with, and married him quickly. He was 10 years older than I was.
He was a high school teacher, and I was scared out of my mind.

Speaker 8 It was a scary time, and I was just searching for

Speaker 8 comfort. And that was, you know,

Speaker 8 he was 30, I was 20, and he was a high school teacher. And I thought, he's not going to hurt me

Speaker 8 today.

Speaker 7 And do you think that Shelly's death, I mean, I would imagine it had everything to do with that disease.

Speaker 8 Oh, guarantee. Because right after,

Speaker 8 so when Shelly was killed, I was I was still in shock. I was so young and I was just, I didn't even call my parents when it happened until probably you know, the next day.

Speaker 8 And I think one of the detectives said, we got to call your parents. And then my dad wanted me to move back home because he was scared and I wouldn't.
And then

Speaker 8 somebody sent me, I started, I rented an apartment, a basement apartment.

Speaker 8 Foster's gave me like $600 because I didn't have any clothes. All my clothes were burnt.
And I didn't even have a coat. I don't even think.
And so they gave me $600 so I could rent an apartment.

Speaker 8 And then somebody mailed me a card with a $100 bill in it and said, if you're smart, you'd leave town.

Speaker 8 so the detectives got the card i called them right away because i was so scared i thought somebody's going to come for me next which nobody knew that i lived i mean i hadn't been there for more than maybe a week

Speaker 8 and so i did leave and i stayed home for a month and then i was just i felt like i was running away i thought i'll never be able to face my fears and face what happened.

Speaker 8 And I just wanted to go back to Laramie.

Speaker 8 Yeah, but that was all just so, so surreal. That whole, you know, somebody sending me now, they think it was probably Fred that did that.

Speaker 8 You know, the detectives, but back then they didn't know. They just kind of,

Speaker 8 I don't know, you know, all the things that he did to us while we were in that apartment, it was constant, you know, and back then it was just so, it was so strange because Lori and I laughed, not laughed, but we were talking about how I used to work graveyards.

Speaker 8 And so one time I woke up in the middle of the day and there was a mouse inside my shirt on my belly. And how does that get there? You know, and my screens would come off of my windows all the time.

Speaker 8 And then he would say, and then I was screaming because that mouse was on my belly. I was freaking out.
And he all of a sudden was at the door and was like, what's wrong? What's wrong?

Speaker 8 Do you need help? I mean, how did he know, you know, that I think he put the mouse? I don't know.

Speaker 8 I guess I don't know that for sure, but I know for sure that he would take the screens screens off, ask me for help, and then say, Can I come in and help you put your screens on? or

Speaker 7 so the screens would come off. You obviously probably wouldn't see him take the screens off, but he was always there saying, Hey, do you need help with that? Yes, yeah.

Speaker 8 Hey, I noticed your screens are off. Can I help you put your screens back on and stuff? So,

Speaker 8 yeah,

Speaker 8 in hindsight now, there is, I would say, I am 99.9% sure Fred Lamb murdered Shelly.

Speaker 8 I think, you know what my gut tells me is she smoked, he smoked. I think she went out probably when she got home.
She didn't smoke in the house. She went outside to smoke

Speaker 8 because I brought her, I went to Florida with my parents that June and I brought her an ashtray from Florida

Speaker 8 and that was outside all broken. And I think she was outside smoking.
He probably came outside. He probably hit on her.

Speaker 8 She told him to go pound sand and I bet you he tried to rape her and that's my thought I don't know truthfully what how that all happened but I think she was outside smoking when he started talking to her I think she probably didn't give him the time of day he just probably was drunk and lost it

Speaker 7 so the stuff about lamb being a former cop and a former deputy you know

Speaker 7 it creates some complications i would think with with the investigation like did was there some were they just like well that guy's good because he's one of us

Speaker 8 yes yes yep and and nobody questioned the fact that at 5 a.m.

Speaker 8 He's fully dressed and that's he's not even at his house that's not his house he's at somebody else's house he's a married man there and that his truck was parked in a parking lot away running there's a matchbook by his by his truck you know nobody questioned any of those things nobody did and then lets him leave town and what was the matchbook i hadn't heard about the matchbook there there was a thumbprint like a bloody thumbprint on a matchbook and they found that but they didn't investigate him take his prints or do anything at that time they just had that matchbook and there was a bloody thumbprint on it they tested lori they tested me they took hair samples from me, from my pubic hair, from Lori, but they didn't test Fred.

Speaker 8 And then they let him leave the very next day with all of his clothes and all of his boots and everything that was there.

Speaker 8 I just knew that they weren't looking in the right direction and they didn't have a freaking clue who did that because if they're sitting there doing all of this to us, they didn't know what they were doing.

Speaker 8 They had no idea.

Speaker 8 The crazy thing, the craziest thing of all. So I've worked at the Orthopedic Center of the the Rockies in Fort Collins for 17 years now.
There's a guy that works there that's a maintenance guy.

Speaker 8 He's worked there for 30 years. We've known each other 17 years.
And when the first thing came out about Fred,

Speaker 8 he had the article on his desk. And I thought, well, that's weird.
Why would this guy have this article on his desk?

Speaker 8 Well, it turns out that he was the guy that found the apartment on fire, that found Shelly, that actually knocked on Fred Lamb's door and caught Fred fully clothed at 5 a.m.

Speaker 8 and Fred wouldn't let him in his house. Fred wouldn't,

Speaker 8 you can't help her. I'm a police officer.
You need to just leave everything alone, wait for the fire department to come. Basically, he was trying to stop him.

Speaker 8 But how crazy that this, and I've always wondered, who was that man that helped, you know, helped us that day and tried to help Shelly? And I worked with him for 17 years and never even knew it.

Speaker 8 It's the strangest thing.

Speaker 10 Are you okay if I record this phone call?

Speaker 11 Yeah, I guess so.

Speaker 12 In business, they say you can have better, cheaper, or faster, but you only get to pick two. What if you could have all three? You can with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Speaker 12 OCI is the blazing fast hyperscaler for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs where you can run any workload for less.

Speaker 12 Compared with other clouds, OCI costs up to 50% less for compute, 70% less for storage, and 80% less for networking. Try OCI for free at oracle.com/slash nyt.
Oracle.com slash nyt.

Speaker 1 Hear that?

Speaker 2 That's what it sounds like when you plant more trees than you harvest.

Speaker 2 Work done by thousands of working forest professionals, like Adam, a district forest manager who works to protect our forests from fires.

Speaker 3 Keeping a forest fire-resistant synonymous with keeping a forest healthy. And we do that through planting more than we harvest and mitigate those risks through active management.

Speaker 3 It's a long-term commitment.

Speaker 2 Visit WorkingForestInitiative.com to learn more.

Speaker 13 October brings it all. Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.
At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all. Mixing up something spooky?

Speaker 13 Total Wine and Moore is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.

Speaker 13 With the lowest prices for over 30 years, you'll always find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and Moore. Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.

Speaker 13 See TotalWine.com for details. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.
Drink responsibly. B21.

Speaker 9 Pat Kalini, the maintenance guy, was a little more reluctant to talk than Michelle was. He felt to me like a speak-only when you've got something to say kind of guy.

Speaker 9 I haven't lived in the Mountain West for decades, but I'm familiar with the type. Yet when it came down to the morning Shelley was killed, Pat was full of details.

Speaker 4 Well, um,

Speaker 4 so

Speaker 11 me and a buddy got up early

Speaker 11 in the morning to go elk hunting. And he was running late, so I was took off to run down to the fly store

Speaker 11 and drove right by the house and didn't see anything.

Speaker 11 Went into the fly store for just a couple minutes and picked up some stuff for lunch and turned around and was

Speaker 11 on my way back when I went drove by the house and

Speaker 11 flames were shooting out the door. And so I swung around and pulled up in front and jumped out and went running up to the house.
And right away saw Shelly in on the floor

Speaker 11 and

Speaker 11 yelled at her and she didn't move so I

Speaker 11 tried to get in and I just stuck my head in the door and my hair started singing just barely even getting my head in the door I just knew there was no way I was going to get all the way in so I

Speaker 11 went running to the neighbors and started pounding on the door and a guy comes to the door

Speaker 11 and I tell him that the apartment's on fire and I needed for him to get me towels and wet them so I can try to get in and and

Speaker 11 get the girl out.

Speaker 11 He kind of he nodded and he he would not move, wasn't doing anything.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 I think I actually just pushed him out of the way and went ran in his house and grabbed some towels and came back. And by the time I got back over to the apartment, my buddy had

Speaker 11 showed up.

Speaker 11 And when he showed up he tried to do the same thing

Speaker 11 and

Speaker 11 we we it was just way too hot for us to get in

Speaker 11 but

Speaker 11 so anyhow the the neighbor which I'm sure you've heard who that is right that

Speaker 11 help me out here I'm trying to for I forgot his name Fred Fred Lamb Yeah, Fred Lamb. And he was just like,

Speaker 11 he was just out of it.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 obviously, I was, my adrenaline was pumping like crazy, and he wasn't moving and helping me. And I was going crazy to try to get in there.
And

Speaker 11 you could literally see the flames coming out of the door. The door was open.
The window was busted out from the living room. So flames were coming out.

Speaker 11 And I don't even remember him sticking his head out the door to look over,

Speaker 11 which was just

Speaker 11 driving me crazy. And

Speaker 11 I remember standing at his door

Speaker 11 and we could see where someone was hitting the door with a bloody hand.

Speaker 11 And then there was a big pool of blood. And then you could see where

Speaker 11 obviously she had hit the ground and then was drugged back over to her apartment.

Speaker 11 I mean, we were so blown away by the blood on the sidewalk that, you know, we thought it was just an innocent accident that her place got on fire and

Speaker 11 that she had gotten smoke inhalation and passed out or something. You know, that's what that's kind of where we were at until we saw that blood, and then we were like, holy

Speaker 11 shit, what the hell is going on here?

Speaker 4 This is Sarah Koenig, host of the Serial Podcast.

Speaker 4 If you're hooked on this show, and I'm guessing you are, then I'm hoping my job here is pretty easy, to get you to subscribe to the New York Times so you can listen to the rest of it.

Speaker 4 My father was an ad man who taught me the best ads are declarative, no puffery. So here goes.
Serial shows are expertly reported and inventive. Nobody makes them like we make them.

Speaker 4 But Serial's great serials aside, when you subscribe, you get all the Times shows. The Daily, Es Recline, Wirecutter has a new podcast.
My advice though, don't just get an audio subscription. Go big.

Speaker 4 Subscribe to the paper, all access, the whole McGilla. Serial is part of the Times, so technically I work at the Times, and honestly, I'm kind of cheap, but I subscribe.

Speaker 4 for the news, obviously, and the games, and the cooking, and the magazine, and cereal. I think of the Times as a staple.

Speaker 4 Even my kids, who are not budding journalists and who don't even really listen to cereal, they both asked me for Time subscriptions. All the cool kids are doing it.
So please sign up.

Speaker 4 You can do it through Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Or if you're already a Time subscriber, sign in.
It's worth it.

Speaker 1 Struggling to see up close? Make it visible with Viz. Viz is a once-daily prescription eye drop to treat blurry near vision for up to 10 hours.

Speaker 1 The most common side effects that may be experienced while using Viz include eye eye irritation, temporary dim or dark vision, headaches, and eye redness.

Speaker 1 Talk to an eye doctor to learn if Viz is right for you. Learn more at Viz.com.

Speaker 13 October brings it all. Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.
At Total Wine and More, you'll find just what you need for them all. Mixing up something spooky?

Speaker 13 Total Wine and More is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.

Speaker 13 With the lowest prices for over 30 years, you'll always find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and Moore. Curbside pickup pickup and delivery available in most areas.

Speaker 13 See TotalWine.com for details. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.
Drink responsibly. B21.

Speaker 14 ONDECK is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, ONDEC's loans up to $250,000 help make it happen fast.

Speaker 14 Rated A-plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star trust pilot reviews, ONDEC delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at deck.com.

Speaker 15 Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by ONDAC or Celtic Bank. ONDAC does not lend in North Dakota, all loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

Speaker 11 So the fire department showed us up and

Speaker 11 they took a statement, got our names and everything, and said that they would be in touch. So we went hunting and then came back later.

Speaker 11 And they called us and asked us to come in. So we went in.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 one of the first things I told him was the the neighbor I go you got to check this guy out he is

Speaker 11 he he just seemed just guilty as hell that he knew something and would not help and and

Speaker 11 the detective was like you don't worry about him he's a police officer and you don't need to worry about him and when they told me that I just came unglued I was like what the hell are you talking about that's that makes it even worse that he never even stepped out of his apartment that he couldn't come over and help me if you tell him he's a cop.

Speaker 11 So I was just livid, and they calmed me down. And so we talked about

Speaker 11 everything. And then that's when they told me that

Speaker 11 she was already dead when I saw her,

Speaker 11 which me and my buddy both didn't have a clue of that. We thought she might be still alive and we couldn't get in and get her.
So it was just killing us all day long.

Speaker 11 But anyhow, that's, I mean,

Speaker 11 I don't know if you guys and that's pretty much all I know. But

Speaker 11 well, let me I'm letting you just talk.

Speaker 10 Let me ask you a few follow-up questions. Do you remember talking about the guy? Do you remember having that conversation? Like

Speaker 10 what a strange encounter?

Speaker 11 Yeah, I mean, that was the first place I was going with those when the detectives were talking to me that night.

Speaker 10 And did you hear anything from them after that?

Speaker 11 I don't think we did.

Speaker 11 I don't remember them contacting us

Speaker 11 until,

Speaker 11 holy cow, what was it,

Speaker 11 20-some years later when Perry opened it back up again.

Speaker 10 What do you think about that?

Speaker 11 Well, actually, now that you ask it, it seems awfully strange.

Speaker 11 I just, yeah, I mean, I always thought that was always just so weird.

Speaker 11 Although, you know, they came out in the papers and they, I remember them saying, you know, they thought it was a truck driver and this and that. And

Speaker 11 we always would talk and wonder who the heck it could have been and just figured it was like the police were saying that they thought it was a passerby, you know, someone traveling through and they were gone.

Speaker 11 But I still, you know, I never did get any answers.

Speaker 11 So

Speaker 11 yeah.

Speaker 10 And here we are.

Speaker 11 You know, and that that was just absolutely so maddening for, you know, Michelle and I that,

Speaker 11 you know, Detective Terry told us a lot of the stuff that he had. And it's like, holy cow, man, this almost seems like an open and closed case.
And

Speaker 11 And then the paper even put in his

Speaker 11 statement that, yeah, yeah, I did.

Speaker 11 Do you remember how he worded that? It was like, yeah, yeah, I did.

Speaker 10 Saying that I did this wouldn't, like, yeah, what was it exactly? Let me find that.

Speaker 11 Yeah, guy did this. Something like that.
Yeah, something like that.

Speaker 10 Yeah, his lawyer argued that he was browbeaten.

Speaker 11 That he was what?

Speaker 10 Brow beaten because he like like

Speaker 10 that he was you know an old man who was diabetic, was hungry and didn't understand, you know, was talked to for seven hours. And so, you know, basically all this stuff was taken out of context.

Speaker 11 So,

Speaker 11 yeah, so

Speaker 11 I didn't hear any of that.

Speaker 10 Yeah, okay, this is what it says in the story from the

Speaker 10 boomerang. According to the documents, during a police interview, Lamb initially denied the homicide allegation, but later said, quote, Fred Lamb did it.

Speaker 10 Dot, dot, dot. I'm not denying that I did it, unquote, end quote.
And, quote, bottom line is, I killed the girl, unquote, the documents state. Lamb consistently denied remembering the crime itself.

Speaker 11 Wow. Yes.

Speaker 11 That's why, that's why, you know, this came out just a while after we had met with

Speaker 11 Terry, and we were all like, yes, this is going to be over in no time and then nothing.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 9 There wasn't a whole lot more reporting I could do from my apartment in Brooklyn. Police reports, court filings, none of that was online.
Neither were the news reports from back in the day.

Speaker 9 But lucky for me, it was March 2021 and the vaccines were rolling out in New York. The country was starting to open up again.

Speaker 4 So, uh, first stop is

Speaker 4 vaccine and then Laramie, right?

Speaker 4 Directly, just directly.

Speaker 9 Vaccine me. I had a little vacation time.

Speaker 9 Two parents who lived across the country who I hadn't seen in more than a year.

Speaker 9 I figured I'd pack up my dog Lucy, grab my friend Jasmine, and go on a road trip. Make a pit stop in Laramie, poke around a little, see what I could see.

Speaker 4 All right, Lucy, what do you think?

Speaker 4 It's one very concerned bulldog.

Speaker 9 Yeah, that's one very concerned little dog. Yeah.
Okay, so I think I'll just go like this with the car.