Murder Case Puts New Focus on Texas’ Concealed Gun Law

It was the kind of shooting that many have dreaded in the five years since Gov. George W. Bush signed legislation giving Texans the right to carry concealed handguns.

Early Saturday, two popular young men in their 20s--both high-tech professionals--hailed a cab a few blocks from the Governor’s Mansion. Barely two miles later both were dead, gunned down by their cabdriver--a gun enthusiast with a Texas concealed handgun license in his pocket.

Taxi driver Wayne Franklin Lambert Jr., 53, who had a gash over his left eye that required 18 stitches, told police he acted in self-defense. But he also gave differing accounts to witnesses as they happened upon the scene: They tried to rob him; they tried to run out on his fare; they jumped him.

Police were puzzled by what they said were other inconsistencies as well.

For instance, one of the men was shot three times in the back. And the other gave a death-bed statement indicating the cabdriver became enraged over something his friend had said and challenged him to a fight. It was a fight that the second victim said he was trying to stop when a .45-caliber slug tore through his body.

Police charged Lambert with capital murder, opening the second multiple murder case brought against a Texas concealed gun licensee in the last three years. He remained in jail Wednesday when a Travis County judge refused to reduce his $100,000 bail.

At the bail hearing, Assistant Dist. Atty. Robert Smith portrayed Lambert as a flight risk because he has lived in the Philippines. He disputed claims of self-defense and noted the cabdriver “has an extreme fascination with weapons and a large cache of guns.”

Meanwhile, lingering echoes of that deadly gunfire have resounded into the political campaign of the man from the Governor’s Mansion. Gun control advocates have seized on the shootings to renew criticism of the law and the Texas legacy of Republican presidential nominee Bush.

“The history of the concealed handgun law in Texas is ugly,” said Nina Butts, a spokeswoman for Texans Against Gun Violence and a longtime foe of the Bush-backed measure. She said that Bush “promoted rather than prevented gun violence” when he signed the bill in 1995 and that the state has since “licensed people with questionable judgment . . . who have done terrible things with their guns.”

The Bush concealed handgun law, a hallmark of his gubernatorial record in Texas, already was an issue in some swing states where gun control groups have mounted anti-Bush ad campaigns featuring the law.

The Bush campaign declined comment Wednesday, referring questions to the governor’s state press office. Spokesman Michael Jones defended the Texas concealed gun law but said “it would be inappropriate to discuss a pending criminal case.”

Last month, The Times disclosed that a yearlong investigation into serious crimes committed by concealed gun licensees raised doubts about the state’s screening process and the judgment, character and training of some license holders. The investigation found that Texas has licensed hundreds of people with prior criminal convictions--including rape and armed robbery--and histories of violence, psychological disorders and drug or alcohol problems.

It also identified many of the more than 3,000 licensees who committed crimes, ranging from murder to drunken driving, after receiving their Texas permits. Though access to such records is limited by strict confidentiality rules, the investigation traced scores of cases in which license holders responded violently under stress.

The latest controversial shootings revive many of those issues. And new information shows that accused killer Lambert’s questionable history fits a pattern of problem licensees revealed in The Times’ investigation.

Sixth Street in Austin is still alive with music and crowds after midnight when the cabs normally line up outside the Ivory Cat Tavern to pick up the first wave of homebound fares in the city’s nightclub district. A regular at this unofficial cab stand was Lambert, usually in his trademark camouflage jacket and Army boots.

His fellow drivers knew he had a passion for guns and a fear of crime that prompted him to defy his employer’s ban on drivers carrying firearms. He always had a loaded .45-caliber handgun in his cab, they said. Some said he also hid a smaller gun in a door pocket.

During off-hours, Lambert practiced shooting in the country. Fellow driver Kevin Norris, 31, said Lambert “could hit a peach core” from 50 yards. “He was always practicing his target shooting,” Norris said. “He’d ask me to go with him three or four times a week.”

Other friends said Lambert learned to shoot in Vietnam, where, he told them, he served on helicopter gunships.

Norris said Lambert haunted gun shows across Texas, buying and selling firearms, and had a prized collection of more than 30 guns stored in the bedroom of his small apartment. When police searched the residence, they also found an AK-47 assault rifle, a volume of the “Mercenary Manual II” and a book on gun silencers.

Among items taken from Lambert’s taxi after the shootings was a .357-caliber American Derringer, as well as the .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun used in the shootings.

Austin court records show that Lambert was charged with assault after beating, choking and threatening to kill another cabdriver in August 1994. Those charges were dropped after Lambert paid restitution to the victim.

Austin Fire Department records link Lambert to an unsolved arson investigation. In 1989, Lambert’s house, where he lived alone at the time, burned to the ground. Austin fire investigators ruled it an arson, the result of “multiple ignitions.” No one was ever charged.

About a month before the shooting incident, Lambert’s wife and 7-year-old daughter moved out. Friends said they had a rocky relationship and she had left him before.

On Lambert’s last night shift, two Texas transplants climbed into his red and mint-green taxi shortly after 1 a.m.

One was Lance Hughes, 29, previously from Fresno. He was the manager of inside sales for Vignette Inc., an Austin software firm whose success in a public stock offering had made Hughes a millionaire. He also was engaged to be married to another Vignette employee who is expecting their first child early next year.

The other passenger was Kevin MacDonald, 23, a Portland, Maine, native and high school sports star, one of the newest Vignette employees. He had moved to Austin from San Francisco only two weeks earlier with his brother.

The two passengers had spent the evening with four Vignette colleagues at a Sixth Street club watching the Mike Tyson-Andrew Golota heavyweight boxing match on television and drinking beer, according to MacDonald’s brother Brian True, who was part of the group. MacDonald and Hughes decided to share a cab home.

Lambert headed for the Mo-Pac Expressway leading to the neighborhood where both passengers lived, but an altercation erupted in the taxi. Lambert stopped near the botanical gardens of Zilker Park.

Moments later, Hughes was shot three times in the back. He died on the street. MacDonald was shot once in the chest. He was rushed by ambulance to a hospital for surgery. Lambert was treated for the gash over his eye.

Witnesses on the scene immediately after the shootings said Lambert told them that the men had tried to rob him. But when fellow cabdrivers arrived, Lambert told them that the men had tried to “run on me,” or refuse to pay the fare. A police arrest warrant said Lambert eventually changed his story three times.

Lambert told police that the two unarmed men attacked him. He said he pulled his gun to scare them, but they kept coming. A subsequent coroner’s report found neither shooting victim had marks on their hands indicating a fight. Nor did the driver’s account explain how Hughes came to be shot in the back.

Finally, police interviewed the mortally wounded MacDonald, who told investigators that Hughes said something that offended the driver and he challenged them to a fight. According to the wounded man, police said, Lambert also threatened to tell police they were trying to rob him. MacDonald said that he was shot when he got out of the cab to prevent the fight.

A few hours after giving his statement to police, MacDonald died.

Defense attorney Ray Bass insisted in an interview that Lambert did nothing wrong. “It was self-defense, there’s no question in my mind. He picked up a couple of belligerent drunks. They were pumped up and started trouble.”

However, county prosecutor Smith noted that Hughes was shot three times in the back. “I don’t see how you get self-defense out of that,” he said in the court hearing.

Toxicology reports show that Hughes was legally drunk, with a blood-alcohol reading of 0.26, but MacDonald was sober, with only a trace of alcohol in his system.

Since the shootings, friends and family of the dead men have flooded a computer message center posted by the Austin American-Statesman newspaper, paying tribute to the character and generosity of Hughes and MacDonald. Some also have been critical of Texas gun laws.

However, the outpouring of sentiment, most of it from the East and West coasts, has clearly rankled some locals.

One complained that Austin is being “ruined by arrogant Yankee dot-com yuppies.” Another unidentified writer defended the Texas concealed gun law, saying: “Texas did not cause this tragedy, nor did G. W. Bush.”