Murder of Laurie Show

Laurie Show was a 16-year-old sophomore at Conestoga Valley High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She was stalked and harassed for months by classmate Lisa Michelle Lambert, who had learned that Show briefly dated Lambert's on-and-off boyfriend, Lawrence "Butch" Yunkin. Show had reported to her mother that Yunkin date-raped her during their brief relationship. Lambert, described as "obsessively jealous," reportedly harassed Show at her job and elsewhere, while classmate Tabitha Buck engaged in physical altercations with Show on multiple occasions. Witnesses said Lambert had expressed intent to "scare Laurie, then hurt her, then slit her throat." The night before the murder, Yunkin drove Lambert to a Kmart where she purchased rope, hats, and gloves later used at the crime scene.

On December 20, 1991, Show's mother, Hazel Show, discovered her daughter fatally wounded at their home after having been lured away to speak with a school guidance counselor. Police reported Show suffered a five-inch gash to the throat, a punctured lung, a wound grazing her spine, several head wounds, and more than 28 defensive wounds; her left common carotid artery had been severed. Hazel Show told police her daughter named Lambert as her attacker before dying. Lambert, Yunkin, and Buck were arrested the same day at a local bowling alley. Evidence included scratch marks on Buck, wounds on Yunkin, Show's makeup items found in Buck's purse, and Lambert's apparent lack of defensive wounds.

In 1992, all three were tried in Lancaster County. Yunkin testified against Lambert in exchange for a deal, which was later revoked after he was found to have lied about a letter asking Lambert to cover for him. Lambert and Buck were convicted of first-degree murder and criminal conspiracy and sentenced to life without parole; Yunkin received 10 to 20 years and was paroled in 2003.

Lambert appealed, and in 1997 U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell presided over a federal habeas corpus hearing. The defense presented evidence, per the Los Angeles Times, that police and prosecutors had contradicted themselves and that evidence appeared to have been tampered with, including sweatpants misattributed to Lambert, a missing bag of Yunkin's bloody clothing captured on video by an officer who denied finding it, and a lost earring fragment linked to Yunkin found on Show's body. Hazel Show told Dalzell she had reported seeing Yunkin at the crime scene, a statement withheld from Lambert's original trial lawyers. Dalzell overturned Lambert's conviction in April 1997 citing prosecutorial misconduct, but a federal appeals panel reinstated the case in January 1998, ruling Lambert had not exhausted state appeals.

A 1998 hearing before Judge Lawrence F. Stengel, who had presided at the original 1992 trial, resulted in the reinstatement of Lambert's guilty verdict, a decision later upheld by Federal Judge Anita Brody. Lambert's further appeals, including to the U.S. Supreme Court, were rejected, and she exhausted her appeals in 2005. Buck was resentenced in 2017 to 28 years to life following a Supreme Court ruling on juvenile sentencing and was paroled in December 2019. Hazel Show became an advocate for anti-stalking legislation, which was signed into Pennsylvania law in June 1993.