Tara Lambert’s Plot to Kill: Trial, Appeal, and Guilty Plea

Tara Lambert’s murder-for-hire case ended with a guilty plea and a five-year prison sentence in July 2018, three years after the former Ohio model was caught on hidden camera handing an undercover deputy $125 and a photograph of the woman she wanted killed. The target was Kellie Cooke, the mother of Lambert’s two stepdaughters, and the plot grew out of a long custody fight between the two households. Lambert was first convicted at trial in 2016 and sentenced to seven years, but an Ohio appeals court threw out that conviction in 2017 because the indictment was defective. Prosecutors recharged her, and she pleaded guilty rather than face a second trial.

The Custody Fight Behind the Plot

Lambert’s husband, Brandon Lambert, had two daughters with Kellie Cooke of Lucasville, Ohio. Brandon and Kellie had never married, and Kellie held permanent custody of the girls.¹ After both parents remarried, prosecutors said, the two households became locked in a long and bitter dispute over visitation.² Cooke later told reporters she believed Lambert wanted the girls because Lambert could not have children of her own.

How the Sting Unfolded

On July 21, 2015, after a visitation hearing that did not go the Lamberts’ way, Tara Lambert sent a Facebook message to Ginny Cheadle, a former high school classmate. She asked whether Cheadle knew anyone “hard up for cash” who could “take care of our issue” and “take care of the problem for good.”³

Cheadle went to the Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office the next day. Detective Rex Emrick coordinated a plan, and over the following days Cheadle recorded five phone calls with Lambert working out the details.¹ On the calls, Lambert discussed paying $1,000 and suggested staging the killing as a home invasion gone wrong.⁴

The meeting with the supposed hitman took place on July 28, 2015, in a Long John Silver’s/KFC parking lot in Circleville. The “hitman” was Deputy Sanford Crayton of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, an undercover officer with 17 years of experience, and a camera hidden inside his vehicle recorded everything.¹⁵

Lambert handed the deputy $125 in cash inside a bank envelope as a down payment. She also gave him a photograph of Kellie Cooke with her address written on the back, along with descriptions of Cooke’s vehicles and daily routine.⁴ On the recording, Lambert told the officer to “put her in a chopper, you know like one of those lumberjack chopper things” when they discussed disposing of the body.⁶ When the deputy asked what to do if Cooke’s husband Shawn was home, Lambert said “he can go too.”

Lambert was arrested minutes later in a nearby Walmart parking lot. In a recorded interview 45 minutes after the arrest, she told Detective Emrick she had only wanted Cooke beaten up, not killed. “I don’t want her killed, I want her beat up,” she said, adding that murder “came up but I don’t want her dead.”⁵

The First Trial and Seven-Year Sentence

A Pickaway County grand jury indicted Lambert on August 7, 2015 on two counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, one for Kellie Cooke and one for Shawn Cooke.⁷ Each count was a first-degree felony carrying up to eleven years in prison.⁸

The trial began in Pickaway County Common Pleas Court in January 2016. Assistant Prosecutor Jayme Hartley Fountain played the recorded calls, showed the Facebook messages, and put Cheadle, Emrick, and the undercover deputy on the stand.⁸ Defense attorney James Kingsley argued that police had “manufactured a crime” and that Cheadle had pushed Lambert to escalate.⁵ Lambert testified in her own defense and said she was “only kidding” about the wood chipper.⁹

On January 27, 2016, after roughly 40 minutes of deliberation, the jury convicted Lambert of conspiring to kill Kellie Cooke and acquitted her of the count involving Shawn.⁸¹⁰¹¹

Why the Conviction Was Overturned

Lambert appealed, and on June 6, 2017, the Fourth District Court of Appeals of Ohio reversed the conviction. The court found that the indictment failed to allege a “substantial overt act” in furtherance of the conspiracy, which is an essential element under Ohio’s conspiracy statute. The charging document did not describe any specific act Lambert took to advance the plot and did not even include the generic statutory language requiring one.⁷

The appeals court applied the Ohio Supreme Court’s 2000 decision in State v. Childs, which requires automatic reversal when a conspiracy indictment omits the overt-act allegation. Prosecutors argued that a later-filed bill of particulars cured the defect and that Childs had been weakened by newer decisions. The panel rejected both points, holding that a bill of particulars cannot supply an element the grand jury never charged, and that an intermediate appellate court has no power to overrule the Ohio Supreme Court.⁷ Lambert was released.

Re-Indictment and the 2018 Guilty Plea

Pickaway County Prosecutor Judy Wolford asked the Ohio Supreme Court to review the appellate ruling. On January 31, 2018, the high court declined.¹² Wolford went back to the grand jury and secured a new indictment on both conspiracy counts. Defense attorney Samuel Shamansky challenged the Shawn Cooke count on double jeopardy grounds, since Lambert had been acquitted at the first trial. Wolford responded that because the first indictment was fatally flawed, the original trial was effectively void.¹³

Rather than go to trial again, Lambert, by then remarried and using the name Tara Arbogast, took a deal. On July 11, 2018, she pleaded guilty before Judge Knece to a single count of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and was sentenced to five years in prison, an outcome her attorney said all parties had agreed to.¹⁴ She received credit for roughly 16 months already served, was ordered to report to the Pickaway County Jail on July 30, 2018, and faced five years of post-release control.¹⁵

The Victim and the Tipster

Kellie Cooke, 32 at the time of the plot, was a school bus driver and mother of four.¹ At the 2018 sentencing, her 18-year-old daughter read a statement on her behalf. “I knew what you were capable of. You lied, manipulated and controlled everything my girls done,” it said. “You wanted my girls. When you figured out I was on to you, you snapped.” Cooke later appeared on The Dr. Phil Show in September 2018 and called Lambert “one of the most evil people I’ve ever met.”¹⁶

Ginny Cheadle, whose call to the sheriff’s office made the sting possible, told Crime Watch Daily she could not go along with the plan as a mother and had been offended by Lambert’s assumption that she would.¹⁷ Brandon Lambert and Tara later divorced.²

1
Columbus Monthly. The Inside Story: Circleville Femme
2
The Columbus Dispatch. Appeals Court Overturns Conviction of Ex-Model in Murder-for-Hire Plot
3
The Columbus Dispatch. Circleville Woman on Trial in Murder-for-Hire Plot
4
WSAZ. Lucasville Woman Alleged Target in Murder-for-Hire Case, Trial Begins
5
Circleville Herald. Conspiracy Trial Continues Through Second Day
6
The Columbus Dispatch. Former Model Pleads Guilty in Murder-for-Hire Plot
7
Ohio Fourth District Court of Appeals. State v. Lambert, 2017-Ohio-4310
8
Circleville Herald. Lambert Found Guilty of Conspiracy to Commit Aggravated Murder
9
NBC Chicago. Ex-Model Sentenced to 7 Years Prison in Murder-for-Hire Case
10
Logan Daily News. Lambert Gets Seven Years
11
KRON4. Former Model Sentenced 5 Years Prison in Murder-for-Hire Plot
12
The Columbus Dispatch. Ex-Model Re-Indicted in Murder-for-Hire Plot
13
Circleville Herald. Back Where It All Began: Lambert Pleads Not Guilty
14
Seattle Times. Former Model Pleads Guilty in Murder-for-Hire Plot
15
Circleville Herald. Lambert Story to Appear on Dr. Phil Show
16
People. Tara Lambert Victim Interview After Murder-for-Hire
17
True Crime News. Crime Watch Daily Exclusive: Target’s Hero in Averted Murder-for-Hire Plot Discuss Case