I never met Louard Elbert (Buff) Lamb. He was the Sheriff in neighboring county 37 miles away, while I served as a police officer and commissioned deputy in Webster, County. Our paths never crossed, but I wish they had.
So, in writing this book I did the next best thing, I interviewed the people around him. Individuals like his sister Clady and nephew Dennis Beckett. His friends and enemies and his deputies too many to mention. I spoke with people Buff had arrested and those he had befriended. And the ex-wives who described him as a gentle, handsome, kind but often tormented soul.
Captivated by these stories, I got to know Buff in a friendly, intimate manner. I was with him on a dark foreboding night when he found a woman’s…show more content… Had it not been for Buff and Ray, along with 123 arriving policemen, the town would have been burned to the ground and two town Marshals bound with ropes tied to cinder blocks, drowned in the nearby lake.
I stood in the road next to Buff when he turned back bikers and suffered through law suits of abuse and charges of malfeasance. And, we cried together when we carried the bodies of kids drowned in a river or burned alive in a fire.
Buff and I survived ex-wives, long hours of work with scarcely any sleep and donated much of our time to do what we thought was right. Meanwhile, our name was dragged in the dirt at home and in the media, yet bragged about in coffee shops and restaurants in the north and western states.
In the 1970’s we were implicated in the murder of a young housewife who had come up missing and the body not found until a year later. Feelings still run deep about whether Buff had information he didn’t share about the investigation. I must admit, I believe Buff knew more than he let on. But whatever information he may have had, if any, he took it with him to his
