Police have suspects, but no arrests in beating death

Members of the Whitley County Major Crimes Task Force are still searching for answers in connection with the recent death of a Jellico man, but so far no murder weapon has turned up and no arrests have been made.
Carl David Lamb, 45, of Brick Plant Lane, was pronounced dead at 7:25 p.m. on Feb. 19 at a residence belonging to Clarence King.
King reportedly came back to his mobile home and adjacent car lot at 621 London Avenue, Jellico, and found Lamb laying face down in a pool of blood near the back door in the kitchen.
“We have several suspects, but no one that we can definitely target as the perpetrator,” said Whitley County Sheriff’s Detective Chuck Davis, who is the lead-investigating officer in the case. “I believe that he knew the perpetrator or perpetrators. The consensus of the task force is that we think more than one person was involved.”
Police said there were no signs of forced entry at the home, and that Lamb, who died from blunt force trauma, received multiple injuries to his face and head. King told police that Lamb was a night watchman at the car lot.
Davis said investigators returned to the crime scene Thursday, and about 10 a.m. conducted a ground search of the surrounding area with the help of the Williamsburg-Whitley County Rescue Squad in hopes of finding the murder weapon, but were unsuccessful.
“We started by the railroad tracks there by the baseball field in Jellico, and walked up to Black Oak Road, as well as searching around the residence, and a connecting junk yard. We were looking for a murder weapon, not per se a gun or knife, but something that could have been used to cause blunt force trauma,” Davis said.
Davis declined to comment on what motive the attacker or attackers might have had.
“My personal opinion is that the perpetrator was out of control,” Davis said. “The severity of the head wounds indicate rage.”
Davis said Monday morning that about 14 people had been interviewed in connection with the investigation so far, including people that knew Lamb, and people that lived near the murder scene.
“Right now we are still interviewing witnesses,” Davis said. “We have four more people we need to interview, then we are going to go back, and interview three or four people we first interviewed last week, and try to pinpoint some times and dates.”
“Friday we got a search warrant for a vehicle that might have been at the scene when the killing occurred. We processed the vehicle Saturday,” Davis said declining to say whether the search turned up any evidence.
Investigators are waiting for the test results from the Kentucky State Police Crime Lab in Frankfort, which is examining some physical evidence seized at the murder scene, but Davis said it may be weeks or months before the results are back depending on the backlog at the lab.
Anyone having information about the case is asked to contact the Whitley County Sheriff’s Department at 549-6006.