Mathew Charles Lamb

Mathew Charles Lamb
A formative black-and-white photograph of a young, confident-looking soldier. He wears a military-issue shirt and a dark-coloured beret, marked with insignia. He smiles into the camera.
Lamb in the Rhodesian Light Infantry, 1974
Born(1948-01-05)5 January 1948
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
Died7 November 1976(1976-11-07) (aged 28)
Mutema Tribal Trust Lands, Manicaland, Rhodesia
Cause of deathKilled in action[1]
Known forAcquittal of capital murder because of insanity in 1967, thus avoiding Canada's mandatory death penalty[2]
Criminal chargeCapital murder[2]
Criminal penaltyFound not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to indefinite psychiatric care. Released in 1973[2]
Military career
Allegiance Rhodesia
BranchRhodesian Army
Years of service1973–1976
RankLance corporal
Service number726724
Unit
WarsRhodesian Bush War †

Mathew Charles "Matt" Lamb (5 January 1948 – 7 November 1976) was a Canadian spree killer who, in 1967, avoided Canada's then-mandatory death penalty for capital murder by being found not guilty by reason of insanity. Abandoned by his teenage mother soon after his birth in Windsor, Ontario, Lamb had an abusive upbringing at the hands of his step-grandfather, leading him to become emotionally detached from his relatives and peers. He developed violent tendencies that manifested themselves in his physical assault of a police officer at the age of 16 in February 1964, and his engaging in a brief shoot-out with law enforcement ten months later. After this latter incident he spent 14 months, starting in April 1965, at Kingston Penitentiary, a maximum security prison in eastern Ontario.

Seventeen days after his release from jail in June 1966, Lamb took a shotgun from his uncle's house and went on a shooting spree around his East Windsor neighborhood, killing two strangers and wounding two others. He was charged with capital murder, which under the era's Criminal Code called for a mandatory death penalty, but he avoided this fate when the court found, in January 1967, that he had not been sane at the time of the incident. He was committed for an indefinite time in a psychiatric unit. Over the course of six years in care at Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre's Oak Ridge facility he displayed a profound recovery, prompting an independent five-man committee to recommend to the Executive Council of Ontario that he be released, saying that he was no longer a danger to society. The Council approved Lamb's release in early 1973 on the condition that he spend a year living and working under the supervision of one of Oak Ridge's top psychiatrists, Elliot Barker.

Lamb continued to show improvement, becoming a productive laborer on Barker's farm and earning the trust of the doctor's family. With Barker's encouragement, Lamb joined the Rhodesian Army in late 1973 and fought for the unrecognised government of Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe) for the rest of his life. He started his service in the Rhodesian Light Infantry, and won a place in the crack Special Air Service unit in 1975, but was granted a transfer back to his former regiment a year later. Soon after he was promoted to lance-corporal, Lamb was killed in action on 7 November 1976 by friendly fire from one of his allies. He received what Newsweek called "a hero's funeral"[3] in the Rhodesian capital, Salisbury, before his ashes were returned to Windsor and buried by his relatives.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference binda527 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference windsorstardeath2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference newsweek was invoked but never defined (see the help page).