In the summer of 1985, a shadow fell over an Oklahoma City family, a prelude to a grim discovery months later. Fourteen-year-old Terry Lee Lamb, a young male, vanished in July along with his mother, Linda Wheeler, and his siblings, Angela, Michael, and Edward Mosely. The family's disappearance sparked concern, but the full and tragic extent of their fate would not be known for several months.
The search for the missing family came to a heartbreaking end in November 1985.
Their bodies were found at a remote campsite near Sallisaw, Oklahoma. The discovery confirmed the community's worst fears and launched a complex homicide investigation. Linda Wheeler, Terry's mother, had been brutally beaten and stabbed to death.
Suspicion soon fell upon Linda's ex-husband, Herman Edward Lamb Jr. He was subsequently arrested and charged with the murders of his ex-wife and her four children. The case against him proceeded to trial, where the prosecution presented its evidence. However, the jury ultimately acquitted Lamb of all charges, leaving the question of who was responsible for the family's deaths officially unanswered. No one else has ever been charged in connection with the murders.
Though he was acquitted in the murders of his ex-wife and her children, Herman Edward Lamb Jr. had a violent criminal history. He was convicted and sentenced to over 100 years in prison for the 1977 rape and murder of a 21-year-old woman in Illinois. He also pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in the slaying of a nude dancer in Florida. The family of his Illinois victim believed he was a serial killer. Lamb died in a hospital in 2020 while still imprisoned for the Illinois murder. The deaths of Terry Lamb and his family remain an unresolved case.
