Caleb Washburn gets six years in prison for fatal 2022 crash that killed Stacy Lamb

Nearly two years after Stacy Lamb was hit by a car and killed while walking her dogs near her Bloomington home, the man charged with causing her death has been given a six-year prison sentence.

After his release from incarceration, 34-year-old Caleb M. Washburn will spend one year on probation under house arrest. His driver's license was suspended for 12 years.

Washburn, of Bloomington, pleaded guilty this week in Monroe Circuit Court to a Level 4 felony charge of causing death when operating a motor vehicle with a controlled substance in his system.

Under a plea agreement, a second charge of causing a death while driving under the influence of a controlled substance and a charge of causing death while driving while intoxicated were dismissed.

A conviction for a Level 4 felony can bring a prison stint ranging from two to 12 years; the advisory sentence is six years.

“We went in there yesterday morning fearing the worst, that he would get house arrest or something,” Chris Lamb, the victim’s husband, said the day after the sentencing.

During the 5-hour hearing, supporters speaking on Washburn’s behalf described a man who’s changed his ways since the fatal crash and is on a sober path.

“I appreciate the fact he’s doing well, if he’s doing as well as he said he is, but it doesn’t change the fact that he took Stacy’s life,” Lamb said. “There has to be a price paid for that.”

Gunfire: Gunshots fired outside West Third Street Kroger after road rage incident turns violent

After-supper walk turned deadly

Lamb was a 50-year-old USPS postal carrier with a daughter and three grandchildren. She was walking her two dogs in the 6400 block of West Airport Road at 8:45 the night of June 10, 2022, when she was struck by Washburn's 2006 Pontiac Vibe.

A witness said the car crossed the center line, left the roadway and drove straight into Lamb and her dogs. The pets survived, but Lamb died after being transported to the hospital.

Chris Lamb usually accompanied his wife and dogs on their after-supper walk but he stayed behind that night to finish building a water chute for cleaning the rocks and gemstones his wife collected on trips they took together.

He was in the garage when he heard a cacophony of emergency vehicle sirens close by.

“They kept a coming and kept a coming, and I walked around from the garage. I called her to see what it was, and she didn’t answer. I saw the fire trucks and police turn towards the back of the airport and I saw then stop right by the hangar where we would have turned around on our walk."

He jumped on his golf cart and raced to the scene. "They wouldn’t let me get very close. I knew it was really bad. He hit her so hard it knocked her out of her socks and boots.”

The doctor at the hospital told Lamb his wife’s femoral artery had been severed and she had bled to death within a few minutes. “I made the mistake of reading the autopsy report and saw how the impact destroyed her body.”

He said the dogs ran from the crash site dragging their retractable leashes. First responders found them on the Monroe County Airport grounds, unhurt. Lamb still has them. "I don’t know if I could have made it through this without them,” he said.

Police: Woman not in the road when struck

Washburn initially said Lamb was in the roadway and he had tried to avoid her and the dogs. But evidence at the scene and an accident reconstruction indicated she wasn't on the road. Washburn also told a sheriff's deputy at the scene he may have been distracted by his cellphone and that when he looked up, it was too late to avoid hitting Lamb.

Chris Lamb said Washburn's car was completely off the road when he got to the scene.

Washburn failed field sobriety tests and refused to submit to a toxicology blood draw, which was done after police got a search warrant ordering he give a blood sample.

He was arrested and booked into jail on preliminary charges the night of the fatal crash. But he wasn't officially charged until toxicology test results in December 2022 confirmed he had the opioid fentanyl in his system the summer day his car struck and killed Lamb.

A neighbor who had driven past Lamb said he looked in his rearview mirror and saw Washburn's eastbound Pontiac "dart over into the westbound lane straight towards the female who was in the grass on the side of the road," the probable cause affidavit in the case said.

During the sentencing hearing, Monroe County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jeff Kehr mentioned several past car crashes where Washburn was driving. There was a head-on collision when he was 20 years old, and in 2018 he attributed a crash to trying to avoid hitting a racoon.

"Then, in 2021, he flipped his car after he said he swerved to miss a squirrel," Kehr said. "And for this case, he claimed he swerved because the victim and her dogs were in the road, which runs contrary to what an eyewitness told the police and the evidence from the scene reconstruction."

Chris Lamb and other family members asked that Washburn receive the maximum 12-year sentence. Judge Darcie Fawcett imposed a total of seven years and gave Washburn credit for five days he served in jail after his arrest.

Fawcett recommended to the Department of Correction (DOC) that Washburn participate in the state's Purposeful Incarceration initiative, where a defendant can ask the judge in the case to modify a sentence after they successfully complete the DOC's Recovery While Incarcerated program.

That means Washburn may not have to serve his entire sentence.

“I can’t tell you how many people have said, ‘I can’t believe you haven’t gone where he lives and killed him,’ things like that,” said Lamb, who oversees the city’s Frank Southern ice-skating rink and Twin Lakes softball fields.

He attended all the court hearings in the case, tracking its' progression. “The bailiffs in the courtroom would stay kid of close, I guess afraid I might do something. But I’m just not that guy.”

During a 10-minute break from Monday's sentencing hearing, Washburn was leaving the men’s room as Lamb entered. “I said excuse me and just walked past him,” he said.

Chris and Stacy Lamb attended Bloomington High School South. They never dated, but he had a crush on her that lingered decades after graduation. "Either she had a boyfriend and I was single, or it was the other way around," he said.

In 2017, he had been divorced 20 years and Stacy wasn't married. Her brother contacted Lamb, whom he had worked for, and suggested he give her a call.

It took him days to muster the courage to dial her number. "I told her it took 30 years for our schedules to match up." They got married the next year in Gatlinburg.

He's heartbroken the life they had planned isn't going to be.

"I feel blessed to have had five years with her," Lamb said. "Stacy was the best woman I have ever known."

His wife wouldn't want him to harbor bitterness and anger against Washburn. "I'm not much of a grudge holder, and in my head, I think I've forgiven him," Lamb said. "This time in jail will give him plenty of time to think about what he did. Maybe he'll finish that program. Maybe he'll be able to turn his life around and start over."

Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: 6-year sentence for Bloomington man who killed woman walking dogs