Man allegedly fires shot at son-in-law; faces felony charges

Police on I-15 northbound after stolen car catches fire, Iron County, Utah, Dec. 5, 2017 | File photo by Cody Blowers, St. George News

IRON COUNTY — Charges were filed Wednesday against an Iron County man after an incident involving a family argument that evolved into a shot being fired late Tuesday night.

Robert Owen Lambeth, 71, of Cedar City, was arrested Wednesday and booked into the Iron County Jail on one count of discharge of a firearm; shooting in the direction of a person, a third-degree felony. The Iron County Attorney’s Office later added a charge of aggravated assault, also a third-degree felony.

A call to 911 reported that shots were being fired at a residence on North 2950 West, according to a probable cause statement supporting the arrest.

During the call it was reported that Lambeth had allegedly shot at his son-in-law inside the residence.

Iron County Sheriff’s deputies responded to the home where they found Lambert’s son-in-law waiting outside.

Robert Owen Lambeth, of Iron County, Utah, booking photo, May 9, 2018 | Photo courtesy of the Iron County Sheriff’s Office, St. George News

Deputies entered the home to speak to Lambeth, who told them he retrieved his rifle from a closet during an argument with his son-in-law.

He returned to the room and allegedly fired one shot in the direction of his son-in-law to “scare him,” and to get him “out of the house” police said in the statement.

According to court records, Lambeth suffers from dementia and “does not recall a lot of the details from the incident.”

Lt. Del Schlosser said that while Lambeth was booked into jail on one third-degree felony count of discharge of a firearm at the time of his arrest, the second charge of aggravated assault was likely added because of where the shot was fired from.

“So that charge probably stands because Lambeth fired the gun over the top of the head of the other individual,” Schlosser said.

Dementia is also noted in the report, he said, which will likely require a mental health evaluation ordered by the court, “but that’s up to the attorney,” he said.

Lambeth’s appearance scheduled at the 5th District Court in Cedar City Thursday was canceled, and no further information regarding his next scheduled hearing was available at the time of this report. He remains in jail on $5,000 bail.

This report is based on statements from police or other emergency responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @STGnews

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2018, all rights reserved.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

1 Comment

  • mshaw May 11, 2018 at 5:46 am

    Glad I’m not at there thanksgiving dinner table

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.