Process started to issue a death certificate for Brenda Lambert who disappeared in 1992
Sep. 14—PRINCETON — A unanimous vote Tuesday by the Mercer County Commission started the process of issuing a death certificate for a Mercer County woman who disappeared in July 1992 and helping bring some closure to her family.
July 26 was the 30th anniversary of the day Brenda Lambert disappeared after her son's first birthday party. She told members of her family and her friends goodbye, and has not been seen since.
Lambert's sister, Christy Kennedy, petitioned to have her declared legally dead.
"For one reason, we needed the closure," Kennedy said after the county commission meeting. "I mean, we know she was murdered on July 26, 1992. Her name was on the deed to her home, and also I've been asked to do this by the prosecuting attorney in Mercer County; so, it was just time. This may be the only closure that we ever get."
The family still hopes Brenda can have a grave with her parents.
"We want to bury her beside her mother and her dad. That's what they wanted, and that's what Brenda would have wanted, too, is to be brought up out of her secret grave and to be buried somewhere where we can visit her," Kennedy said.
Kennedy, who was 14 when Brenda disappeared, said her sister had two children, her 1-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter, when she disappeared. Brenda lived on Windmill Hill off Lorton Lick Road.
Brenda and her husband were estranged at the time of her disappearance, Kennedy said previously.
Around five and a half months after Brenda Lambert disappeared, her friend Mark Anthony Cook went missing after leaving a Brushfork bar called Pedro's.
The late Darrell Bailey, who was chief deputy of the Mercer County Sheriff's Department, told the Bluefield Daily Telegraph in 2006 that he believed the two disappearances were connected and that foul play was suspected. Lambert and Cook's bodies have never been found. The case remains under investigation.
The county commission passed the petition unanimously.
County Clerk Verlin Moye told the commission that they had done what the petitioner, Christy Kennedy, had requested.
"There is more than ample evidence to satisfy the (state) code to apply for a death certificate," Moye said. "The code has been satisfied, and I appreciate you expediting this matter and giving this family some closure."
Moye said after the meeting that a section of the West Virginia Code addresses the requirements for obtaining a death certificate.
"According to Code 44-9, the West Virginia Code, it stipulates basically if a person has not been heard from for a period of seven years or more, and meets other certain criteria in the code, the petitioner can petition the county court, the county commission, to presume her to be dead according to the statue. and then from that point, the clerk is ordered to petition the (state) Department of Vitals and Statistics to issue a death certificate."
Petitions for death certificates do not appear often.
"There's not many of those that are done, but we used as a template one that was done up in Nicholas County back in, I think, it was in the Eighties," Moye said. "But anyway, it's in the code book and we have to follow what the statue says to accomplish that."
Moye said his office would be forwarding the request for a death certificate.
"Absolutely. We'll appoint (Kennedy) over the estate and, of course, she will be bonded and then papers will be administered; and then at the same time we will petition that Department of Vitals and Statistics with the information we have," he said. "Hopefully, they will expeditiously provide us with a death certificate."
Anyone with information about the case can contact the Mercer County Sheriff's Department at 304-487-8364.
— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
