The Murder of Laurie Show

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Laurie Show was murdered in 1991

In December 1991 the murder of Laurie Show would rock one of the oldest inland towns in America. Why would someone kill a beautiful 16-year-old girl? Was she a victim of opportunity or did someone specifically target her? Listen to find out!

Lancaster PA - Randolph Carney at en.wikipedia / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
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Lancaster PA Randolph Carney at en.wikipedia / CC BY-SA

Laurie Show

Laurie Show was just 16 years old when her tragic murder occurred in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Who could have imagined on December 20, 1991, that her demise would be at the hands of teenage girls? One of whom was blinded by her jealousy and hatred towards Laurie. Two life sentences, numerous appeals, and a short bid at freedom could never make up for the life they took on that cold morning. Laurie Show’s murder would be the catalyst to strengthen anti-stalking laws throughout Pennsylvania.  

Location

Lancaster County is located in south-central Pennsylvania and is approximately 75 miles west of Philadelphia. Lancaster City is one of the oldest inland towns in the United States. It was originally named “Hickory Town” and then later renamed Lancaster after Lancaster, England. Lancaster is also known as the Red Rose City.

The story happens in East Lampeter Township which is located east of Lancaster City. The township covers approximately 21 square miles and is named after a town in Wales.

Background Information (1991)

Laurie Show was a 16-year-old sophomore at Conestoga Valley High School in East Lampeter Township. She lived with her divorced mother, Hazel Show in an apartment/condominium complex on Oak Drive in East Lampeter Township. During July 1991, prior to the start of her 10th-grade year, Laurie had gone out on a few dates with Lawrence “Butch” Yunkin. He was a 20-year-old high school drop-out.

Yunkin was on a break from his 18-year-old pregnant girlfriend, Lisa Michelle Lambert at the time. Laurie told her mother that during her last date Yunkin raped her in the cab of his truck. Laurie Show made a police report on July 31, 1991, reporting that Yunkin raped her. Yunkin got back together with Lisa Michelle Lambert. Soon after a campaign of harassment and stalking against Laurie and her family started. Lambert was convinced that Laurie was trying to steal her boyfriend.

Documentary

“THE KILLING OF LAURIE SHOW” is a documentary, which can be found on YouTube. According to Hazel Show, Lambert would call the Show residence and scream into the phone. She would ignore Hazel Show’s calls to stop. Lisa Michelle Lambert would show up at Laurie’s work, the Deb Shop Clothing Store at the local mall, and continue her harassment by hurling obscenities and threats.

Lambert would make statements of wanting to scare Laurie, then hurt her and even wanting to slit her throat. The Shows filed simple assault charges against Lambert. Lambert had pushed Laurie to the ground during a confrontation at the end of November 1991. The police began their investigation into this latest incident around December 15, 1991.

Along with filing charges, the Shows attempted to get an order of protection against Lambert. They even changed their home phone number. Lambert, according to witnesses, had attempted to recruit other teens to help lure Laurie out of her apartment. She wanted to cut off all of her hair and tie her to a pole somewhere in Lancaster City. This did not happen as two girls had warned Laurie of Lambert’s maniacal plan.

The Players

Lisa Michelle Lambert (18),  and Lawrence Yunkin (20) had met at a public swimming pool one summer. She ended up moving in with Yunkin, who dropped out of school and worked as a roofer/lumberyard worker. Lambert would later claim that Yunkin was domineering and controlling about what she wore and where she went. He even went so far as to not let her drive or return to high school to get her diploma. She claimed he frequently beat her and sodomized her.

Tabitha Buck (17) had recently moved from Oregon with her family and was new to the area.

December 19, 1991

Hazel Show received a phone call from Laurie’s guidance counselor, Mrs. Cooper, asking her if she could come to the school the next morning. She wanted to meet to discuss concerns she had regarding Laurie and another male student with whom she claimed Laurie had gotten in some trouble. When Hazel talked to Laurie about it that night at home, Laurie didn’t know what she was talking about. Hazel decided she would go the next morning to clear up what was obviously a misunderstanding.

December 20, 1991

When Hazel left the next morning, Laurie was drying her hair, wearing sweats, and preparing for the final day of classes before the Christmas break.  Hazel left the apartment and drove to Conestoga Valley HS at 7 am to meet with Laurie’s guidance counselor. The guidance counselor was not there when she arrived and there was no record of Hazel having an appointment so she returned home.

She was met by a neighbor who told her she had heard loud noises coming from their apartment that morning. Hazel noticed that her apartment door was open but she had locked it when she left. Hazel ran inside and found her daughter lying on her bedroom floor. She had a 5-inch gash in her throat, stab wounds that punctured her lung, and another that grazed her spine. There were several wounds to her head and defensive wounds on her arms. There was a rope around her neck.

Per the documentary, Hazel ran to the kitchen, got a knife, and cut the rope from around Laurie’s neck. Hazel Show places a 911 call at approximately 7:35 am. Laurie was still alive and moving her arms and legs. Tragically she soon succumbed to her injuries, but not before telling her mom “Michelle did it.  Michelle, Michelle…..love you, love you, love you, love you.”

Laurie Show was buried two days before Christmas in her favorite Penn State sweatshirt.

Show Murder Investigation

The police were called and an investigation commenced. They worked on tracking down Lisa Michelle Lambert after what Hazel Show had told them. Later that same day, Lambert, Yunkin, and Tabitha Buck (17) were arrested at the Garden Spot Bowling Alley near Strasburg, PA. Michelle was 6 months pregnant.

Initial statements by Yunkin, Lambert, and Buck showed that Yunkin had dropped off Lambert and Buck at Show’s apartment. Yunkin claimed he did not participate in the murder and only drove Lamber and Buck to and from the Show residence. He admitted to taking Lisa Michelle Lambert to the local K-mart the night before where she purchased rope, two black hats, and possibly gloves. Yunkin claimed that he thought Lambert and Buck were only going to cut off Laurie’s hair as a prank, but they had taken a knife he kept in his vehicle with them.

He did admit that he helped to provide an alibi and dispose of evidence. Such as washing the clothes, specifically black sweatpants that were his (size XL) that Lambert wore during the murder and then putting them in a garbage bag and throwing them in a dumpster located behind K-mart. He also put the rope and knife in another garbage bag and threw the bag into the Susquehanna River.

Lambert was read her rights which she waived and gave the police an alibi statement. She soon gave another statement in which she admitted to being involved in Laurie Show’s murder. Lambert would later recant her initial statements. Lambert stated that she was in an abusive relationship with Yunkin and he was the one who encouraged her to harass and assault Show. Tabitha Buck was the one that stabbed Laurie.

Lambert, Buck & Yunkin Trials

In 1992 Lambert and Buck were each tried separately for Laurie Show’s murder.  Yunkin agreed to testify against Lambert for a reduced sentence of 7 years contingent on him telling the truth. This plea was later revoked as Yunkin was found to have lied on the stand at Lambert and Buck’s trials.  He was tried and convicted of 3rd-degree murder and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in state prison. He was released after serving 12 years in 2004.

Lambert decided to go with a bench trial before Judge Lawrence Stengel.

Per trial testimony, Yunkin had dropped Lambert and Buck off at the Show apartment and remained in the car. Buck then got Laurie to open the front door. According to Hazel Laurie would have never opened the door for Lambert. Lambert and Buck entered the apartment and attacked Laurie. Lambert cut Laurie’s throat in a fit of jealous rage while Buck sat on her legs pinning Laurie down.

At the trial, the sweatpants that Lambert had been wearing that morning were placed into evidence. The sweatpants had Show’s blood on them, placing Lambert at the scene.

The prosecutor’s theory was that Lisa Michelle Lambert was jealous of Laurie Show. Lambert believed that Laurie wanted Yunkin back and also wanted to intimidate Laurie into dropping charges against Yunkin. On July 20, 1992, Lambert, wearing a white satin evening gown, was convicted of 1st-degree murder and criminal conspiracy.

Tabitha Buck was tried in October 1992. She was now 18 years old. She was found guilty of second-degree murder and was sentenced to a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.

1997 (Not the end of the story)

What happened next would turn this case upside down and bring into question a state’s sovereignty with legal matters versus the federal government’s right to intrude into such matters.

Per an an article in the LA Times 1997. Lisa Michelle Lambert filed a federal habeas corpus letter claiming prosecutorial abuse. She asked for her verdict to be set aside and claimed she had been framed and was innocent. Lambert claimed that she was framed by Lancaster police officers in order to silence her from coming forward with charges that they had ganged raped her. Lambert’s lawyers also claimed there were several inconsistencies with the evidence and the testimony given in her first trial. Also, they contended that due to Laurie’s injuries to her throat she could not have told her mother Michelle did it.

Hazel Show told Judge Dalzell that when she was returning to her condo that morning she passed a brownish-colored car and recognized Lawrence Yunkin as the driver. She told a detective about this at the time, but he told her not to worry about it. The issue is that this statement backs up Lambert’s claim that Yunkin was present in the condo and contradicts the original trial testimony. The prosecution’s case didn’t have Yunkin at the condo. He only dropped the girls off and then came back for them.

Federal Judge Makes Ruling

A Federal judge, Stewart Dalzell, ruled that Lambert was innocent. He cited “wholesale” prosecutorial misconduct and granted Lambert’s petition for her release on April 16, 1997.  He also barred the state from re-trying Lambert.

Per LANCASTERONLINE reporting the Attorney General of PA appealed Judge Dalzell’s ruling. In January 1998, Dalzell’s ruling was overturned by a federal appeals panel that stated Lambert did not exhaust all of her state court appeals prior to taking her appeal to the federal level.

February 1998

Seal of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Seal of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

The PA Supreme Court returned Lambert’s case to the Lancaster County Court System stating that she needed to start her appeal process at that level first. Lisa Michelle Lambert was only out of prison for 8 months.

May 1998

Judge Lawrence Stengel presided over Lambert’s retrial. Witnesses called to testify against Lambert were the detectives that oversaw the investigation in 1991, Tabitha Buck and Lawrence Yunkin. Lambert now claims that Yunkin participated in the murder and choked Show.  Lambert claims that she tried to defend Show against Buck and Yunkin, even going so far as trying to pull her from the apartment.

She claims that she did not cut Laurie’s throat and had been sent out of the room by Yunkin. Lambert also claimed that she suffered at that time from battered women syndrome. She claimed that Yunkin was afraid that he might do jail time for raping Laurie. He had urged Michelle and Tabitha, who had recently moved to the area from Oregon to beat her up. It was Tabitha and Yunkin who went “crazy” and killed Laurie.

The defense provided witnesses that claimed to have seen Yunkin treat her violently in the past. Another witness saw a police officer give Lambert a “threatening glare” while at a local festival. This officer is one that Lambert claimed had raped her. The defense also provided a letter Yunkin wrote Lambert asking her to lie for him. They also questioned whether Hazel Show heard her daughter speak due to her throat being cut. Instead, they alleged that Show had written out the initials of Buck and Yunkin.

Buck Testifies

The prosecution put Buck on the stand. She testified that Lambert actively participated in the attack, even telling Buck to wear her hair up, don’t wear makeup or fingernail polish. A relative of Yunkin provided a poem that Lambert had written in jail that describes how the murder took place. Crime scene experts testified that there were no initials written in blood and other physical evidence did not corroborate Lambert’s story.

August 1998

Judge Stengle upheld Lambert’s original guilty verdict stating that even if he did believe her story…she would still be guilty of 1st-degree murder as an accomplice.

2003

Lambert attempted to appeal to the US Supreme Court, but it was rejected. Lambert exhausted all of her appeals in 2005.

Other Outcomes

Hazel Show became an advocate campaigning for tougher anti-stalking laws in PA and a new law was signed into effect in June 1993. In 2007 Lambert sued the correctional institute she was housed over claims that she was raped and assaulted by state prison staff in 1996. Her claim was that the institution had done nothing to stop the assaults. Lambert received a $35,000 settlement and a guard that was convicted of assaulting her was sentenced to 1 ½ to 3-years.

On November 22, 2017, Tabitha Buck was re-sentenced to a term of 28 years to life due to the US Supreme Court ruling banning mandatory life sentences as juveniles, finding it unconstitutional to not allow for parole.  The U.S. Supreme Court says that the juvenile brain is not fully developed and that juveniles have the potential to be rehabilitated. At the time, there were 450 juvenile murder cases to be reviewed.

In 2016 Pennsylvania was ordered to review all past juvenile murder cases per the US Supreme Court ruling. Tabitha Buck is eligible for parole in December 2019 and has been ordered to pay the costs of prosecution, submit DNA samples, and pay the Show family $7,738 in restitution for Laurie’s funeral expenses.

Buck has been a model prisoner during her time behind bars. At her re-sentencing hearing, Buck told the court she would ask for permission to move back to Oregon with her family if paroled. Buck’s lawyer claims that she was negatively influenced by Lambert as she had just moved to the area and did not have any friends. Prosecutors contend that Buck has failed to show any remorse for her role in the murder. 

Tabitha Buck was released on parole in December 2019.

Lambert Writes Book

Lisa Michelle Lambert wrote a tell-all while in prison regarding her version of events entitled “Love, Murder & Corruption in Lancaster County:  My Story”. It was published on February 15, 2016, and can be found on Amazon. Much of her story contradicts the testimony and evidence that was used against her at trial.

She maintains she was framed by police officers who had ganged raped her earlier in 1991. Lambert lied about her involvement to protect her boyfriend who abused and manipulated her. She claims that she was controlled at all times by those around her. In the months leading up to the attack, she says every time she screamed at Laurie’s mother or when she knocked Show to the ground, it was either a misunderstanding or an accident.

She claims that the murder was a prank gone wrong and that the plan had been to cut Laurie’s hair in order to embarrass her and stop her from accusing Lambert’s boyfriend of rape.

If cutting off her hair had been the plan why bring a knife and not scissors?

Lambert goes on to describe her relationship with Yunkin as violent and controlling but agreed to marry him because he took her virginity. She also describes Yunkin as a “self-mutilating pervert.” Lambert writes that Buck was the one that had called Hazel Show to get her out of the apartment. Buck and Yunkin were the ones to commit the assault and killed Laurie while she tried to save her. She goes on to blame every police officer, judge, and newspaper for conspiring against her.

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