Butler man sentenced in 2019 stolen car case
The final destination was reached Thursday in a case involving a road trip with a stolen car.
Tyler Lambing, 21, of Butler, was sentenced to nine months in jail by Common Pleas Judge Timothy McCune.
Lambing was charged in April 2019 after he and a 17-year-old girl allegedly stole her father's car and fled to West Virginia.
Lambing was arrested April 13 in Fairmont, W.Va., after a 24-hour manhunt, during which he allegedly eluded police at a Walmart in White Hall.
He originally faced charges of burglary, three counts each of theft and receiving stolen property, two counts of felons not to possess firearms, conspiracy to commit theft, all felonies, and a misdemeanor charge of corruption of minors.
But on Jan. 21, Lambing reached a plea deal with Assistant District Attorney Terri Schultz, and on Thursday McCune sentenced Lambing to 18 to 47 months in Butler County Prison.
Lambing received credit for time served since his detainment in the county jail May 22, according to court records. Schultz couldn't be reached for comment.
According to a previous report on Lambing's preliminary hearing, Middlesex Township police officer Conrad Pfeifer, the lone witness to testify at the hearing, recounted being called out April 12 to the Route 8 home where the girl lives with her father and younger brother.
The Butler Eagle is not identifying the girl or her father due to her age. Her case was adjudicated in May in county juvenile court.
She originally was charged with eight felonies. But in a deal with the prosecution, she accepted responsibility for conspiracy to commit theft of a gun, a felony, and unauthorized use of a vehicle, a misdemeanor.
Pfeifer said the girl's father told police that when he returned home around 3:45 p.m., he found his bedroom ransacked. Missing were two guns — an AR-15 rifle and a 9 mm pistol — as well as a watch and his 2010 Toyota Camry.
“The first remark he said was his daughter stole his car and there were items missing from the house,” the officer told prosecutor Amanda Scarpo, a county assistant district attorney.
The girl apparently skipped school that day, police said, and she told her father she was going to pick up a friend from jail.
Her brother was home sick from school and was upstairs that morning when he heard two voices downstairs.
Around 10 p.m., the stolen car was found in the parking lot of a Walmart in White Hall, a small town in northern West Virginia, next to Fairmont.
White Hall police responded. The girl was in the vehicle; Lambing was not.
Investigators did not immediately know why the pair drove to West Virginia or what their plans were beyond stopping at the store.
A White Hall police officer previously told the Butler Eagle that the handgun was found in the car's trunk along with the rifle.
The manhunt for Lambing continued into the next day. White Hall police said he was found around 7 p.m. at a McDonald's restaurant in Fairmont.
He was eventually extradited back to Pennsylvania, and placed in the county jail.
