The next day, a Saturday, Ian James Lamb, 43, left his home in the central coastal town of Gosford and headed west in search of work as a manual laborer. His mother helped pack his clothes and toiletries and kissed him goodbye at 6:30 a.m. It was the last time she saw her son alive.
On the same morning, Crump and Baker bought a .308 rifle and some ammunition in the farming township of Goondiwindi. Their motive for buying the gun was robbery. All they needed was a victim. It was Crump and Baker's intention that they would no longer work. Instead, they would steal for a living.
Ian Lamb didn't think twice about pulling over to the roadside and sleeping in his car that Saturday night. The seasonal worker felt secure resting on the front seat of his old car, even though the doors weren't locked and the windows were open to allow in what little breeze there was. He lived hand-tomouth and carried little, if any, cash. He wasn't expecting any trouble.
Unfortunately for Lamb, Crump and Baker spotted his car and decided to steal the car's gasoline. Allan Baker's chilling statement tells best what happened next:
"We both got out of the car. I got the rifle. I loaded it and I walked over to the car and I pointed the rifle through the window of the driver's side, and I seen a man asleep on the front seat. Kevin looked in the back to see if he was by himself and he was. I knocked on the door with my hands and said 'Hey you.' The bloke sat up and I pulled the trigger and shot him. It hit him in the voice box.
"Then for about ten minutes nothing happened. It was deathly quiet. I was scared. Then I went around to the other side of the car to the passenger's side and opened the door. Kev opened the driver'sside door and I went through the man's pockets. I got about $20 out of his pockets and money from the glove box and I got some cigarettes and his wallet. I don't think there was anything else but I left it there.
"I noticed that the man had been drinking because there was some bottles of beer on the floor. I didn't touch them because there was blood on them."
Baker then described how they pulled Lamb's body over in the seat to untangle his feet from the brake and clutch pedals so they could drive the car. Baker, with Crump following closely behind, drove Lamb's car about 12 miles and abandoned it on sparsely traveled Bald Hill Road. They then loaded Lamb's meager possessions into their own car and took the gas by punching a hole in the tank.
Crump, in an attempt to avoid a joint murder charge, told police that he was merely a bystander to Lamb's murder.
"Allan [Baker] hopped out of the car with that .308," Crump said. "He went over and knocked on the door, and the driver's side window was down, when he knocked on the door, and the fellow in the car said 'Ahh' and Allan put the gun up through the window and shot him. Just shot him through the neck. Here it was." Crump pointed to the center of his throat.
Crump's denial of any role in the shooting made little difference. Regardless of who pulled the trigger, the jury convicted them both of murder.
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