4:00

them with a water hose. I have to say if my

4:02

sister did that to me, I don't

4:05

think I would think it was a funny prank. This

4:07

is why I think Brenda was very likable because they

4:09

seem to think that it was a funny prank. Anybody

4:12

else would like knock it away with this, but Brenda's

4:14

family just adored her and they

4:16

thought it was great. Yes, they did. They loved these

4:18

types of pranks. So one of

4:20

Kristie's personal favorite memories was when she

4:22

and Brenda dressed up as Wayne and

4:24

Garth from Wayne's world and drove around

4:26

town blaring bohemian nurhapsody while banging their

4:28

heads along to the beat. And just,

4:30

I love that like image of

4:33

just two sisters. Yes, yeah, definitely.

4:35

Brenda went to Bramwell High School, but by

4:37

the time she was 15, she was

4:40

really over it. And I don't mean that she was

4:42

over in the same way that all teenagers are just

4:44

sick of going to school, but you

4:47

know, Brenda really just did not enjoy

4:49

academics. She was very intelligent, but the

4:51

principal of the school even urged her

4:54

parents to let her drop out. You

4:56

know, she was saying she wanted to drop out. She

4:58

didn't want to be in school. She had other things

5:00

that she wanted to do. And the

5:02

principal of the school was even like,

5:04

you should consent to this. Wow. According

5:06

to evaporate the missing. When Brenda was

5:08

16, she met a coworker of her

5:11

brother named Raymond Lambert. He

5:13

worked at a local chicken factory with

5:15

Brenda's brother, Tim. Soon after

5:17

they met, Brenda was dating Raymond and

5:19

a very short time later, Brenda was

5:21

pregnant. The couple got married

5:23

in 1986 and went on to

5:25

have a second child in 1991. The

5:28

family lived in a home on Route seven

5:30

where Brenda took to motherhood really easily. Being

5:34

a teen mom was no problem for her. She

5:36

adapted to it very well. And she was a

5:38

dedicated stay at home mom. Brenda

5:41

loved spending time with her kids and with her

5:43

nieces and nephews. And she did her best to

5:45

also be a devoted wife. From

5:48

an outsider's perspective, and even from

5:50

her sister, Christie's perspective, it

5:53

really seemed that Brenda and Raymond had

5:55

an ideal relationship. Christie

5:57

told us that she actually used to admire

5:59

what her sister and Raymond had. had and

6:01

originally she based what she wanted to have

6:03

in her own future to look like their

6:05

relationship. Christy also remembered

6:07

how Brenda and Raymond would slow dance in

6:10

the kitchen while cooking, they would also have

6:12

water fights and these other little things that

6:14

made it seem like they were a very

6:16

loving couple. Christy said

6:18

that she was aware that Raymond had cheated on

6:20

her sister before but from

6:22

her perspective as a 14 year old

6:24

girl at the time she thought everything

6:26

seemed fine but everything

6:28

started to change in 1991. That's when Brenda's

6:33

cousin Tammy moved into town with her mom

6:35

and the two cousins started hanging out together

6:37

a lot. At some

6:39

point Tammy decided that she had the

6:41

hots for Raymond and she wanted to

6:44

pursue him romantically. Here's where things really

6:46

don't make sense to me but Tammy

6:48

claims that she doesn't know that Raymond

6:51

is her cousin's husband which you have

6:53

hanging out with your cousin even

6:55

just hearing the name Raymond if you meet him

6:58

just out of nowhere you'd have to be like

7:00

oh my cousin's married to somebody named Raymond. If

7:02

you've been hanging out

7:05

together like you've never met you've

7:07

never seen Raymond or heard his

7:09

name or anything like yes that's

7:12

hard to believe hard to believe.

7:14

Before long though Tammy and Raymond

7:16

had begun a full-fledged love affair.

7:18

Meanwhile as Raymond is carrying on

7:21

this affair Brenda's doing all she

7:23

can to try and salvage her

7:25

marriage but things quickly devolved into

7:27

violence and fights. Raymond

7:29

started becoming physical with Brenda and he

7:31

even choked her on multiple occasions. Brenda's

7:34

sisters would see her with black eyes and marks around

7:37

her neck but they were lost when it came to

7:39

what they should do to help her. They would

7:42

just try and comfort Brenda and encourage her

7:44

to leave Raymond but Brenda was resistant to

7:46

leave because of the kids. Whenever I hear

7:48

about choking and strangling it always feels like

7:51

a great opportunity to mention this crazy statistic.

7:53

I actually looked it up earlier just to

7:55

make sure I had it right but

7:58

that there was a study that showed that victims

8:00

of strangulation or choking are actually 750%

8:03

more likely to be murdered by the

8:05

person who strangled

8:08

them within the next 12 months. So

8:11

every time I hear about a story like this

8:13

and it's like he was choking her, he was

8:15

strangling her, I just like my

8:18

heart breaks because whenever

8:20

you know that statistic you're like you can't.

8:23

You can't unremember that really. Exactly. It's

8:25

always in the forefront of your head.

8:27

Yeah, totally. She said that if she

8:29

was going to leave, she wanted to

8:31

do it the right way through the

8:33

court system, not just packing up and

8:35

leaving suddenly. Chrissy told us

8:37

she believed that the physical abuse started

8:39

after the affair with Tammy began. Eventually

8:43

though, Brenda got a restraining order for

8:45

misdemeanor battery and a warrant was issued

8:47

for Raymond's arrest. But unfortunately,

8:49

he wasn't actually taken into

8:51

custody. Two days later, he

8:54

finds Brenda, beats her, puts a weapon

8:56

to her head and I couldn't believe this

8:58

when I read it, forced

9:00

her to call and drop the restraining

9:02

order, which oh my gosh, like

9:04

to be brave enough to do that and then to have this,

9:06

I can't think of anything worse. And

9:08

we still have so much more to get into

9:10

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16:00

was pretty sour, so people started saying

16:02

their goodbyes and leaving. Everyone

16:05

had parked their cars in a line on

16:07

the driveway and as they were starting to

16:09

leave, Brenda actually went from car to car

16:11

asking if anyone could stay the night with her. Since

16:15

Brenda really didn't seem to be in a great

16:17

mood, everyone said no. They thought she really just

16:19

needed to blow it off and relax and they

16:21

wanted to get to their own homes. Brenda's

16:24

sister Kay told her that she would stay the night

16:26

if Brenda came to pick her up later, but Brenda

16:29

never showed up. Her family

16:31

had no idea that their lives would change the next

16:33

day. So once everyone else had

16:35

left the party, Raymond, his mom and the kids were

16:38

going to leave too. Brenda asked

16:40

Raymond if she could keep the kids overnight, but he

16:42

said no. Then he, his

16:44

mom and the kids left. According

16:47

to Raymond, he, his mom and the kids left

16:49

around 8 o'clock that night. So there is a

16:51

discrepancy in time there, but this

16:53

as we said was according to Raymond, he and

16:55

his mom and kids left at eight. Brenda

16:58

was just planning to stay home alone that night and

17:00

clean up after the party. But

17:02

then in a bizarre turn of events, Raymond

17:05

actually showed up at one of Brenda's

17:07

sister's houses and that's Kat. And

17:09

he was there at 11 PM and started asking if

17:11

she had seen Brenda because he couldn't find her at

17:14

the house. Kat said

17:16

it looked like Raymond had seen a ghost. He

17:18

was literally shaking when he arrived at her

17:20

house. The next day, Brenda's

17:23

mom called her, but she wasn't able to get ahold

17:25

of her. So she ended up

17:27

going over to Brenda's house where they had

17:29

all just gathered the night before, but Brenda

17:31

wasn't there. Brenda's

17:33

car was in the driveway and her front door was

17:35

locked, but there was no sign of her. After

17:39

making calls to anyone and everyone that might

17:41

know where Brenda was, her mom knew something

17:43

was wrong. It was very unlike Brenda to

17:46

just up and leave. And it was really

17:48

concerning that nobody even knew where she might

17:50

be. Brenda's

17:52

mom made several trips over to her house just to

17:54

see if she had come back, but Brenda was never

17:56

there. So Brenda's mom

17:58

decided to try contacting the the police,

18:01

but unfortunately she was told that she

18:03

couldn't make a missing person's report until

18:05

48 hours had passed. And on top

18:07

of that, the police told her they

18:10

wouldn't accept a report from anyone other

18:12

than her husband, Raymond. That's wild. That

18:14

is absolutely wild. And

18:16

I think even last week we said something

18:18

about how sometimes you hear about these types

18:20

of just like the different things that they

18:22

did in investigations that right now we would

18:25

never, you know, expect them to do something

18:27

like this. I think now you can even

18:29

report someone missing before 48 hours. Oh

18:32

yeah, you can. But back then it is wild

18:34

to think that they're like, no, we're not even

18:36

gonna like, we're not even gonna make a note

18:38

of this until two days have passed by like

18:40

that is, it does seem crazy. Right. But at

18:43

that 48 hour mark, Raymond did report Brenda missing.

18:45

He said he went to Brenda's house at two

18:47

30 in the afternoon on the 27th. And

18:50

that's when he realized she was nowhere to be

18:52

found. Obviously though, that's

18:54

not what he told Brenda's sister at 11 PM

18:56

the night before when he came

18:58

to her door, shaking, looking like he'd seen a

19:01

ghost and saying he couldn't find Brenda anywhere. Raymond

19:04

claimed that he believed Brenda ran off with

19:06

another man. And he told the officers that

19:08

he was at his son's birthday party with

19:10

Brenda. And he left at 8 PM and

19:12

went back to his mom's house. He

19:14

did not mention that he had gone over

19:16

to Brenda sister cats house looking for her

19:20

officers went out to Brenda's house to look around

19:22

themselves. Some of Brenda's sister showed

19:24

up, but strangely, maybe

19:26

the most strange thing is that cousin

19:29

Tammy also showed up when the police

19:31

were over there to look around Brenda's

19:33

house. Since the front

19:35

door was locked, the officers weren't able to get inside

19:37

the house, but lucky for

19:39

them, Tammy actually knew about

19:41

a window on the second floor. That didn't

19:43

lock. So she climbed up to the second

19:45

story. I'm not really clear how she did

19:48

it. Did she use a tree? Does she

19:50

just spiderman up the side of the house?

19:52

Not really sure. She climbed to the second

19:54

story, went through the window and let everybody

19:56

inside. It is strange and very

19:58

convenient that Tammy was the one. who knew

20:00

there was a window upstairs that did not

20:02

lock. As if Brenda was going to tell

20:04

her that that was the case. Somebody told

20:06

her that that window did lock. Inside

20:09

the house, Brenda's purse was found in a toy

20:11

box that was in the bathroom she'd been working

20:13

on remodeling. And that does

20:15

seem like a weird place for her to

20:17

have her purse. But her sister, Christy, actually

20:19

thinks that Brenda was intentionally hiding her purse

20:21

there from Raymond so that he couldn't steal

20:23

her money or her license or anything else

20:25

because he knew that she was going to

20:28

be seeing a lawyer soon. So it's plausible

20:30

that he would want to do anything to

20:32

stop her, especially considering that he had already

20:34

used violence to get her to drop the

20:36

restraining order before. You know, honestly,

20:38

what would he be willing to do to stop a

20:40

divorce? In the bedroom

20:42

upstairs, there was stuff thrown all over the

20:44

place and all of Brenda's bras and underwear

20:47

were gone. Christy really

20:49

wasn't sure what to make of this specific detail,

20:51

but she thinks it's possible that somebody was just

20:53

trying to stage the scene to make it look

20:55

like Brenda kind of packed and left in a

20:57

hurry, which, yeah, it does seem strange that like

21:00

all of your undergarments would be gone. You

21:02

know, it does seem like somebody just was

21:04

not thinking crystal clearly, but just like grabbed

21:06

a few things or a bunch of things

21:08

from one drawer or something. Yeah. The clothes

21:10

Brenda had on for her son's birthday party,

21:13

which were a yellow shirt and blue shorts

21:15

were found by the bathroom door. But the

21:17

underwear she had on that day was gone.

21:20

Investigators think Brenda had changed her own clothes

21:22

after the party and before she went missing.

21:26

Raymond also claimed that Brenda's rings were missing from

21:28

the house. Brenda's

21:31

family was shocked and extremely alarmed at

21:33

her disappearance. She would

21:35

have never left her kids and it was

21:37

unsettling that her personal belongings were left behind,

21:40

but she had just vanished. Christy

21:43

has heard that Brenda's house was sprayed with luminol,

21:45

but that there was no evidence of foul play

21:47

found in there. And

21:50

we have more to get into after one last break

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now back to the episode. So

24:54

before the break, we were discussing the

24:56

disappearance of Brenda and these initial days

24:58

when they're looking through her house, looking

25:00

for any clues and really all they've

25:02

been able to come up with is

25:04

her bras and underwear are missing, which seems

25:06

kind of strange as Christy had mentioned, but

25:08

she thinks it may have just been like

25:11

a ploy to look like someone's grabbing stuff

25:13

and leaving and you know, that's what they

25:15

would take. So although

25:17

Raymond was considered an early suspect,

25:19

he was never arrested or charged

25:21

with anything related to Brenda's disappearance.

25:24

He told investigators that he and Brenda

25:26

were the best of friends and that

25:28

no matter what happened with their marriage,

25:30

they would always be friends first. He

25:33

said that anytime Brenda needed time alone

25:35

or distance from her family, she always

25:37

talked to him about it. And he

25:39

said he agreed that her disappearance was

25:41

strange. But just one

25:43

week after Brenda was last seen, Raymond

25:45

was moving Tammy into the house. And

25:48

when we say the house, we literally

25:50

mean Brenda's house. And

25:52

remember Raymond's living there too until this couple split

25:54

up and then he goes to live with his

25:57

mom. So literally a week

25:59

after his where

28:00

they both like to go out dancing. Mark

28:02

also worked at the Burger King where Brenda often

28:05

went to get food, so they saw each other

28:07

there a lot too. Marches

28:09

appeared on January 13, 1993

28:12

in Brush Fork, which is a town

28:14

about three miles away from Bluefield. He

28:16

was last seen leaving Pedro's. Chrissy

28:19

said that she heard through the grapevine

28:21

that Mark had gone to Pedro's and

28:23

started asking about Brenda, and that's when

28:25

he got beat up and thrown out.

28:27

He was last seen walking towards US

28:29

Route 52 in 20-something degree weather, and

28:33

he was never heard from after that. Wow.

28:37

So as you can imagine, Mark's disappearance

28:39

caused quite a stir and rumors started

28:41

to fly. Tips came in

28:43

that possibly connected Brenda and Mark's disappearances,

28:45

and these rumors have actually stuck for

28:47

the last 30 years. One

28:51

tip was essentially that Brenda and Mark had

28:53

just run off to start a new life

28:55

together, meaning neither one of them is actually

28:57

missing. Obviously, Brenda's family

28:59

is not buying it, but neither is Mark's.

29:03

The Mercer County Sheriff's Department officially does

29:05

believe that Mark and Brenda's disappearances are

29:07

connected and that foul play is involved

29:09

in both of them, but

29:11

Brenda's family has differing opinions about

29:13

that. One of her

29:15

sisters told Cold Justice, anybody

29:17

trying to connect those two is just getting

29:20

thrown off really bad, but

29:22

Christy, who is another one of

29:24

Brenda's sisters, told us that both

29:27

her mom and Mark's mom think

29:29

the disappearances are connected. So

29:31

there does seem to be a little bit of

29:35

uncertainty about whether or not

29:38

their relationship, whatever it was, could have

29:40

had anything to do with both of

29:42

them disappearing. Right, but as far as

29:44

them running off together, why would

29:46

he have disappeared five months later? It doesn't make

29:48

sense. If they disappeared the same night, I could

29:50

see trying to make that connection, but this makes

29:52

no sense. Yeah, I agree. Just

29:55

like Brenda, though, Mark has never been found.

29:58

He is five foot eight with green. eyes,

30:00

brown hair, and fair skin. Mark

30:03

was last seen wearing bleached blue jeans,

30:05

a black t-shirt, black tennis shoes, and

30:07

a denim jacket with writing on the

30:09

back. There's really not

30:11

much other information available about him.

30:13

He was born in 1969 and

30:15

he was reported missing by a

30:17

family friend. In

30:20

2003, authorities tried to drain a pond off of

30:22

Route 52 after they got a tip that Brenda

30:25

and Mark's remains were inside of it. A

30:27

diver was used as well as underwater recording

30:29

equipment to search this pond, but they didn't

30:31

find anything of importance. At

30:34

some point, as the investigation continued, Brenda's

30:36

daughter, who as we said was just

30:38

five years old at the time she

30:41

went missing, told Brenda's aunt

30:43

that Raymond and his dad were in the

30:45

mountains during that night and day that Brenda

30:47

disappeared. Her daughter also

30:49

told Brenda's family that she saw her

30:52

dad dragging her mom across her grandma's

30:54

backyard the night Brenda disappeared. She actually

30:57

told her grandma right away when she saw

30:59

this, but her grandma told her that she

31:01

just had a bad dream and should go

31:03

back to sleep. Brenda's daughter later told Kristie

31:05

that she knew for sure she wasn't dreaming.

31:09

As Brenda's kids were growing up, they weren't allowed

31:11

to even say Brenda's name or talk about her,

31:13

so her daughter had to be really secretive anytime

31:15

she even talked to Brenda's family. And Brenda's

31:18

daughter also suffered from having Tammy, you know,

31:20

moved right into her home where she used

31:23

to live with her mom and

31:25

now she doesn't have her mom. All she has is

31:27

a picture of her mom in her bedroom and Tammy

31:29

would just come into the room, take

31:32

the picture down. She would slam it down

31:34

face down and just kind of be really

31:36

nasty about it, not allowing Brenda's daughter to

31:38

even have a photo of Brenda in her

31:41

own bedroom. One

31:43

night in front of the kids, Tammy actually walked

31:45

up to Raymond and said, quote, why

31:47

don't you tell them what really happened to their mommy?

31:49

And Raymond retaliated by hitting Tammy with

31:52

a weapon. That whole

31:54

thing is chilling. Terrifying. So

31:57

over the years, many different rumors popped up

31:59

regarding Raymond. and his dad being at a

32:01

sawmill on the night of Brenda's disappearance. Raymond's

32:04

family owned the sawmill and it was down the

32:06

rope from their property, which was basically on top

32:08

of a mountain. Police

32:10

were never able to search the sawmill area due to

32:12

not being able to get a search warrant for it.

32:15

They never searched Raymond's parents' house or

32:18

their property either. Christie

32:20

thinks that Raymond killed Brenda and then

32:22

buried her on his brother's property inside

32:24

the sawmill. Six

32:27

years after Brenda was last seen, her house

32:29

burned down while Tammy and Raymond were still

32:31

living in it. Ultimately, the fire was ruled

32:33

an accident. Interestingly enough,

32:35

it's been reported that the sawmill also

32:37

burned down at some point, but Christie

32:39

said she's not able to confirm this

32:41

and she's not sure about the sawmill

32:44

because it's very secluded and located on

32:46

private property, so she's obviously not able

32:48

to go there. Sadly,

32:50

both of Brenda's parents passed away

32:52

within six years of her disappearance.

32:56

According to Christie, their mom grieved herself

32:58

to death over what happened with Brenda

33:00

and not knowing what actually happened. Brenda's

33:03

daughter also passed away in 2020. She

33:07

had taken her mom's disappearance really hard

33:09

her entire life and would often call

33:11

Christie and the other sisters crying. And

33:14

she was just 33 years old when she died. Tammy

33:17

and Raymond eventually got divorced after Tammy

33:20

said Raymond was physically abusive towards her.

33:23

She initially believed that Brenda left on purpose,

33:25

but as time went on, she started to

33:27

doubt that story, though she didn't ask any

33:29

questions out of fear. In

33:33

2006, an age-progressed photo of

33:35

Brenda was created. In

33:37

2016, Christie submitted her DNA to a

33:39

databank in hopes of matching it to

33:42

Jane Doe's. In

33:44

2022, Christie petitioned the county commission to

33:46

issue a death certificate for Brenda, which

33:49

was granted. All

33:51

Christie wants now is to bring her sister home so

33:53

that she can be buried with their parents. In

33:57

2023, a billboard was funded by the AWARE

33:59

Foundation and was placed off of Cole

34:01

Heritage Road in Bluefield where tens of

34:03

thousands of people can see it each week.

34:06

In 2023, Christie told WOAY, quote, Brenda

34:10

was murdered and Brenda was hid on property

34:13

very close to here. I mean,

34:15

everybody knows it and everybody knows who. Brenda

34:18

was 22 years old when she went missing. Today,

34:21

she would be 54. At

34:23

the time of her disappearance, she was five foot two

34:25

and weighed 110 pounds. She

34:28

is white and had black curly shoulder length

34:30

hair and dark blue eyes. Anyone

34:33

with information should contact the Mercer County Sheriff

34:35

at 304-487-8364. And

34:40

if you wanna keep up to date with

34:42

Brenda's case, please join Christie's Facebook page by

34:44

searching Missing Brenda Lambert. And if

34:46

you'd like to help, please share Brenda's missing person

34:48

poster, which we will link in

34:50

our show notes along with a link to

34:53

the Facebook group and other sources for this

34:55

episode. This story just breaks my

34:57

heart. I feel like they all do, but

34:59

especially because we got to work directly with

35:01

Christie and got to talk with her and

35:03

hear personal stories about

35:05

growing up with Brenda and the type of family they had

35:08

and the type of life that they had. It's

35:10

just so sad to think

35:12

about a mom taken from her kids. So yeah, it

35:14

was very wonderful to get to work with Christie. I

35:17

know Christie has been working, like I said,

35:19

at the beginning, really with as many different

35:21

resources as she possibly can to get a

35:23

little bit more coverage of Brenda's story. So

35:26

we also did wanna shout out, I

35:28

think I mentioned briefly earlier in the episode,

35:30

evaporate the missing. The woman who

35:32

runs evaporate the missing is named Brandy, but she

35:35

also has worked closely with Christie and

35:37

our Haley has also become very close,

35:39

of course, with her as she does.

35:43

And Haley says she's really amazing and

35:45

is really helping a lot of families that we

35:47

work with get coverage. So definitely wanna give her

35:49

a shout out. I think it's so important, people

35:51

doing all this work. It really does take a

35:53

village of people, I feel like to bring things

35:55

like this together and to get a lot of coverage and

35:57

to make progress in cases like

35:59

this that.