How Could You? Hall of Shame-Ethiopia Adoptive Parent Tim Lambesis UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Oceanside, California, Ethiopia adoptive parent and Christian heavy metal singer of the band As I Lay Dying, Tim Lambesis, 32, was arrested on May 7,2013 and charged with Solicitation of Another to Commit Murder  in a plot to kill his estranged wife, according to a press release by the San Diego Sheriff’s department. The press release says that his wife Meggan Grace Murphy Lambesis “resides in Encinitas. The Encinitas Detectives, The San Diego Fugitive Task Force and the Sheriff’s Special Investigation Division investigators immediately initiated an investigation.
The investigation culminated [ on May 7], when Lambesis solicited an undercover detective to kill his wife. He was then arrested, transported to the Encinitas Station, and booked into the Vista Detention Facility.” California Penal Code 653f says that this is punishable by 3, 6, or 9 years in prison.

The couple adopted two Ethiopian daughters and an Ethiopian son since  2009. He traveled for his son in April 2009.  Meggan filed for dissolution of the marriage in September 2012.

“As I Lay Dying formed in San Diego in 2000 and has released six albums including 2007’s “An Ocean Between Us,” which reached No. 8 on Billboard’s charts. A track from the album was nominated for a Grammy for top metal performance.

It was not clear whether Lambesis had hired an attorney, and a phone message seeking comment left at a number listed in his name was not immediately returned.

According to its website, the band is scheduled to tour the country with several other metal acts starting later this month. On May 1, Lambesis tweeted: “I love the crowds here in Asia and the Pacific. Great shows in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand so far! Just landed in Hong Kong.”

As I Lay Dying singer Tim Lambesis arrested in murder-for-hire plot

[CBS News 5/8/13]

“As I Lay Dying had just returned from a short tour that included stops in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea and wrapped up in Shanghai, China. “I’ll be home in about 15 hours,” Lambesis wrote in a May 6 Instagram post.

The Grammy-nominated metal band has nearly 2 million fans on Facebook and have sold over 1 million albums with Metal Blade Records. The band are veterans of Ozzfest, Rockstar Mayhem and Revolver’s Golden Gods Awards, among other notable appearances. Lambesis is also the mastermind behind the Austrian Death Machine project, a spoof band based around the singer’s fondness for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Last month, ADM raised nearly $80,000 on Indiegogo to record a third album.

His newly launched Pyrithion project, also on Metal Blade, raised some eyebrows with some of the Christian-leaning As I Lay Dying’s longtime fans, who objected to what they saw as “satanic” lyrical content. Lambesis, who studied at Liberty University and has several faith related tattoos, recently posted a video where he addressed those concerns. The singer also owns and operates Lambesis Studios and is credited as producer on albums by Sworn Enemy, Zao, Chelsea Grin and War Of Ages. The avid bodybuilder and motorcycle enthusiast also founded the Modern Rebellion clothing line a few years ago.

Last year’s “Awakened” opened at No. 11 on the Billboard charts; As I Lay Dying’s previous two albums debuted at “10” and “8,” respectively.

Tim and Meggan Lambesis adopted three children from Ethiopia together in recent years before separating. The singer’s wife filed for dissolution of marriage in September of last year, according to San Diego Superior Court documents.

Meggan is listed as part of the group background vocals on Austrian Death Machine’s 2008 debut album, “Total Brutal.” As I Lay Dying is scheduled to begin a tour with Killswitch Engage at the end of this month that also features Miss May I and Affiance.

Friends and fans responded with disbelief across social media on Tuesday, with many citing what a down-to-earth and extremely nice guy the singer can be. “Innocent until proven guilty,” several friends posted on Facebook.

Lambesis is expected to be arraigned Wednesday or Thursday.”

As I Lay Dying Frontman Tim Lambesis Arrested over Plot to Kill Wife

[BIllboard 5/7/13 by Ryan Downey]

ABC News is reporting that two additional charges have been laid-two counts of conspiracy to commit a crime. As I Lay Dying Singer Tim Lambesis Arrested in Murder-for-Hire Plot[ABC News 5/8/13 by Kevin Dolak]

Los Angeles Times is reporting that he is being held without bail.  Arrest of As I Lay Dying’s Tim Lambesis ‘prevented a tragedy’[Los Angeles TImes 5/8/13 by Tony Perry]. The article goes onto say ““You might think that you’re talking to someone that’s trusted,” said Jan Caldwell, spokeswoman for San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, told Fox 5 in San Diego.“You might be talking to someone you know. But if you’re looking to do something wrong and something bad, most people aren’t going to let that rest. They’re going to take that to a higher authority.”

The arrest “prevented a tragedy,” Caldwell added.

In various interviews, Lambesis has insisted that while the lyrics to the band’s songs may seem harsh, the five members are Christians and the songs include Christian themes of forgiveness and struggle.”

Christian metalcore band As I Lay Dying singer Tim Lambesis arrested ‘for hiring ex-policeman to murder his wife’ [Independent 5/8/13 by Matilda Battersby] says ” Detectives said they averted an attempted hit on Meggan Lambesis, who lives in nearby Encinitas, after they received information last Thursday that Lambesis had solicited someone to kill his wife.

“The information came to us late last week. We acted quickly on it. I believe that we averted a great tragedy,” San Diego County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Jan Caldwell told Reuters.

The singer, with his trademark long hair and heavy tattoos, was arrested “without incident” at around 2pm.

Police say they immediately launched a task force combining expertise from several law enforcement agencies eventually leading to Lambesis’ arrest. The department declined to give further details on the investigation.”

Interviews mentioning adoption and child welfare

Loudwire‘s   January 2013 interview with Tim mentions adoption . As I Lay Dying Singer Tim Lambesis Talks Touring, Humanitarianism, Side Project + More [LoudWire 1/14/13 by FullMetalJackie] “Tim, you’re pretty well known for your humanitarianism. Does it provide you with a source of lyrical inspiration?

Yes, it’s definitely a part of my life for me, my kids are adopted and I’ve visited their country – they’re from Ethiopia and that was eye opening to what the world is really like, at least a third of the world. I think that just influences my entire world view even if I’m not necessarily writing a song about humanitarian work, I’m writing a song about what truly makes us happy in life and those types of think that have been influenced by my experiences.”

Attention Deficit Delirium‘s Bryan Reesman  interviewed Tim on December 23, 2011 here

Excerpts:

“Do you mean that in an educational sense, or more in terms of life lessons?
I guess the best example would be on the spiritual side. I think a lot of supposedly religious people will sit around and talk about theology all day long, but then when it comes to helping the homeless guy sitting on the corner get his life together so he can get a job, they’ll just walk right past them. So to me, what’s the point in sitting around and talking about these lofty ideas if we can’t do simple actions?

It makes me think of the way a lot of mainstream Christians are portrayed through the people that represent them on television. You have plenty of people out there who do not practice what they preach, but they make people feel better about things just by talking about them. But not, as you say, doing anything about them.
Yeah, as an example, there are a lot of religious people that will put so much energy into defending the most minute point. Like Creationists, for instance, will spend millions of dollars trying to defend the literal six day Creation, which is a very extreme point of view, and in all reality those millions of dollars spent on orphan care would have drastically changed more lives, even if those people didn’t end ultimately up agreeing with the very boxed up theology that those people have.

What then would be your definition of a good Christian?
My definition would just be somebody who simply takes action and… that’s a tough question. It’s really hard to sum up in a quick paragraph without leaving an aspect of what’s important out, but on the most basic level, I don’t think you could really listen to the teachings of Jesus and then only deal with them in a theoretical sense. The people he encountered all wanted to get up and do something as a result of what they heard.

What inspired you to adopt three children from Ethiopia?
What inspired me to adopt in general was just visiting orphanages when I was around high school age. I lived 40 minutes from Mexico, so me, friends and church groups would go down there and either help construct buildings for the orphanages or schools down there, or in other cases, we actually ran a kids camp for a week during spring break for some of the orphaned kids in the area to have something to do. It broke my heart realizing that when we left that that was the most exciting week of those kids’ year. When I got older, I wanted to look into it. [With] all the different programs around the world, each one is unique, and in particular I felt that the Ethiopian program is one that had a very obvious sense of need. With some of the programs, you wonder if corruption is going on, especially with any money that can be made with potential child trafficking, and Ethiopia was the easiest place for us to know that we were avoiding that.”



Blogging

Meggan used to have a blog called lambesis.blogspot.com. Tim had a blog with one August 2010 entry at http://timlambesis.blogspot.com/

“Allegiance seems misunderstood

Sorry that it’s been over a year since my last blog post. I plan to get back into it starting now.

 

Last week I made a post on my band’s Facebook site to spread the word about a startup orphanage I had visited during my last stay in Ethiopia. Surprisingly, that post caused some controversy because there are a number of people who feel I should instead be putting my efforts into helping my own country. I can only assume these comments come from people who pledge their allegiance solely to America. I’ve said and done a lot of stupid things in my life before I fully understood an issue, so I’d like to give those who made these ignorant comments on my Facebook post the benefit of the doubt while doing my best to shed some light upon this topic.

While some believe there may be some reasonable grounds to justify pledging allegiance to one’s country, I also think that those willing to pledge allegiance to the USA can only seriously do so if they’re also allowed to pledge allegiance to their families and friends. There is not a magical line in the earth somewhere that says our allegiance must solely remain on the grounds to which we were born. Additionally, I know very few people who do not have at least one distant family member of friend from another country. I’m not trying to get into a new topic, but doesn’t that logically necessitate questioning which demands the greatest allegiance between family, friends, and country.

I personally pledge allegiance to no one. Though, this does not mean that I don’t have a tremendous amount of respect and gratitude for my country. For most people with any type of religious belief, the lines of family and empire are blurred. Specifically for me as a Christian, I believe God desires for all of the world to be in his family, and those in his family belong to God’s kingdom before any man made empire. For those who disagree with the very concept of God, it still becomes difficult to close out one human being from basic aid or human affection because the reality is that we are 99.99% the same people on a genetic level even for those not in our biological families.

I want to help all Americans suffering oppression. I want to help all Ethiopian children lonely and starving in devastating poverty because their parents died from common preventable diseases. More than either of these things, I want to help ANYONE ANYWHERE that I can while knowing that the time and resources I’ve been given will responsibly be put to use. Naturally, we’re most capable of helping those whom we’ve come into contact with. As of this moment in time, what stands out to me is that I’ve come across a tremendous amount of need in the area where my son comes from in Ethiopia. I’m sure there is equally as great of a need in other places, but at this point in time I am responsible for what I know is certain. I have yet to across these places in the USA with a similar urgent need and I’m not sure if ever will unless one of you out there takes my hand and guides me into the hidden or forgotten parts of our country. In my last post I was simply trying to make the point that there is at least one location I can recommend to anyone that I know with full confidence their money will be responsibly put to excellent use. There are plenty of charity scams out there, so if you’ve personally visited a similar place and know for certain where the money is going, then you should be spreading the word about that place instead of going out of your way to tell fans of As I Lay Dying that they should be helping their own country without given them even the vaguest direction.”

 

He has a tumblr account at http://timlambesis.tumblr.com/ From a post a year ago(  a foreshadowing): “Every time I leave for a tour I have to get creative with what we call “prison style” workouts. I don’t claim to be the authority on this stuff at all, so I’m seeking advice as much as I am dishing it out. For starters, there are always the basics you can do in any prison cell (or backstage room).
– pushups (clap pushups, triangle, wide grip, etc.)
– abs (crunches, jackknives, leg raises, bicycles, planks, etc)
– chair dips for triceps
– lifting luggage for biceps
– jump squats
– lunges
– handstand presses for shoulders”

REFORM Puzzle Pieces

Update: “Timothy and Meggan Lambesis have been married since June 2004, and separated in August 2012, according to court records. Wife Meggan filed for divorce on September 20, 2012. Some of her statements in court files include:

“….In the past month he has taken two last-minute trips to visit his then-girlfriend in Florida.”

“In the past several months, I have noticed changes in (Timothy’s) behavior that concern me regarding his ability to care for our three children. Specifically, he has become obsessed with body-building and spends a great deal of time lifting weights, hanging out at the gym, and being unavailable to the children.” (Sheriff’s records state Timothy Lambesis is 6 feet 3 inches tall and 190 pounds.)

The couple have one boy aged 5 and two girls ages 8 and 10, which they adopted in Ethiopia, according to records.

Meggan Lambesis stated that Timothy Lambesis is part of a band named Austrian Death Machine and runs a clothing line called Modern Rebellion.

“Historically, (Timothy) is on tour for a minimum of 6 months every year.”

There are published reports that one of Timothy Lambesis’ bands, As I Lay Dying, is considered a Christian band. Meggan stated in one court paper: “(Timothy) completed his B.S. in Religious Studies after we got married.”

“For the past three years, I have stayed at home while (Timothy) worked. We adopted our first son in 2009. We recently adopted two more children from Ethiopia, and our children need my full-time attention. Respondent has always controlled our finances, and we have interests in numerous companies associated with (Timothy’s) music career, his band, his solo projects, the band’s merchandise, and a recording studio.”

Meggan Lambesis described herself as an “unemployed homemaker.” She has $21,537 in a checking account with a local credit union, and believes that her husband brings in about $25,000 per month with his various business interests, according to her statements on file.

Meggan Lambesis now lives in a home in Encinitas, and Timothy at an address in Escondido, according to documents.”

Band singer arrested for trying to hire out a murder, Sheriff said

[San Diego Reader 5/8/13 by Eva Knott]

“Authorities said Lambesis tried to hire an undercover detective he believed was a hit man, and he was arrested Tuesday while shopping at a store in Oceanside.

The couple adopted the children – ages 4, 8 and 10 – from Ethiopia, and Tim Lambesis continued to see them for about 10 hours a week when he was not on tour, even though the couple was no longer living together, according to court documents.

Meggan Lambesis said her estranged husband had become “obsessed with bodybuilding” and was distracted while with the children, often texting or talking on the phone. She noted he had fallen asleep while watching them at the beach or near the pool and said they need a “stable parent” to help them adjust to their new life and country.

She said he tours six months out of the year and had traveled across the country twice in one year to visit a girlfriend. She said he also had spent thousands of dollars on tattoos. Both had agreed to private mediation to discuss the children’s custody.

Tim Lambesis’ comments about his Grammy-nominated band’s latest album, “Awakened,” indicate he may have been struggling.

The band’s website says the album – released the same month his wife filed for divorce – is a “far darker, more pessimistic beast” compared to previous albums.”

 

“”On this record, I wasn’t purposefully trying to be negative, but I think sometimes we have to be honest with some of the darker and more difficult times of our lives to get back to that positivity,” Lambesis is quoted as saying. “While the lyrics do perhaps seem like a dark window into my soul, they’re written that way specifically because I want to move on and transcend those difficult moments in life.”

Authorities said a task force from several law enforcement agencies launched an investigation that led to the arrest late Tuesday. The department would give no further details.

A man who answered the phone at a number listed in the singer’s name in Del Mar said the family was not commenting at this time.

Lambesis was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Vista. His attorney could not be reached for comment.”

Tim Lambesis, As I Lay Dying Singer, Arrested In Murder-For-Hire Sting

[Huffington Post 5/8/13 by Julie Watson]

“A heavy metal singer has appeared in court charged with hiring a hitman to murder his estranged wife.

Frontman of the Christian-inspired group As I Lay Dying, Tim Lambesis, 32, is accused of handing over an envelope containing $1,000 in cash to an undercover police officer to pay for his wife Meggan Lambesis to be killed.

A court heard how he also handed the fake hitman a photograph of his wife with her address and the security gate code.

Lambesis also allegedly gave a list of dates he would be with their children to give him an alibi.

The singer yesterday pleaded not guilty to solicitation of murder at his first court appearance at San Diego North County court in Vista.

A judge set bail at $3 million and said if he is released, he must wear a GPS monitoring device and face strict travel restrictions.

Claudia Grasso, a San Diego County deputy district attorney, told the court the singer had emailed his wife while on tour in August that he didn’t love her, he wanted to end the relationship, and he no longer believed in God.

Meggan Lambesis later learned her husband was having an affair and had been involved with ‘a string of women’.

The prosecutor said the undercover operation was staged after Lambesis told a man at his gym that he wanted his wife killed, complaining that she was making it difficult for him to see their children and impossible to complete their divorce.

The court was told how Lambesis met with an undercover agent, who went by the alias ‘Red’, on May 7 and was recorded saying he wanted his wife killed.

[Daily Mail 5/10/13 by Suzannah Hills]

Update 2: “An employee of the Oceanside Barnes & Noble who did not want to be named recounted the May 7 bookstore bust of As I Lay Dying lead singer Tim Lambesis this way: “It was about 2 p.m. My buddy was outside the store doing face-painting and the cops told him that he needed to stop immediately and go inside. Tim [Lambesis] was there with a friend just browsing. I saw one special task-force cop, two regular officers, and two undercover officers. They just pushed everyone aside and handcuffed him. It all happened so fast. It seemed like they were planning it out for a long time.”

A sheriff’s spokeswoman said in a release that Lambesis had paid an undercover officer $1000 to kill his wife Meggan, who lives in Encinitas.

 

The arrest of the 32-year-old metal frontman/entrepreneur, whose net worth is said to be $14 million, leaves unanswered questions. Most importantly, what will happen with his Grammy-nominated metal-core band and their nearly two million Facebook fans?

 

What about Modern Rebellion, the successful rock-swag clothing line Lambesis founded? And what of the recording studio he and partner Daniel Castleman launched two years ago, which has drawn metal bands from Australia (As Silence Breaks), New York City (Sworn Enemy), Pennsylvania (War of Ages), and Salt Lake City (Chelsea Grin) for extended recording sessions?

 

Lambesis Studios was launched in Lambesis’s garage in 2006. But in 2011, when most other local recording studios were folding, Lambesis rented space in an Escondido industrial park. “I built it from scratch,” he said at the time. “I think the only other new studio that has opened in the past five years is Sushifish.”

 

As I Lay Dying is now managed by 5B Artist Management and records for Metal Blade Records, which has sold a million As I Lay Dying records between their seven Metal Blade releases. Neither company nor Castleman would comment on what’s next.

 

Lambesis had two side bands. One was Austrian Death Machine, which goofed on Arnold Schwarzenegger. The other was Pyrithion. Longtime As I Lay Dying fans were not happy that Pyrithion’s demonic lyrics deviated from the positive Christian message of As I Lay Dying’s music and said that Pyrithion seemed to offer an anti-religious or satanic message.

 

In response, Lambesis recorded a five-minute interview video for YouTube: “Pyrithion concept & lyrics — accused satanist.” In the video, Lambesis admits that the lyrics were “darker” but that they represented viewpoints “that were not necessarily my own.” He said the satanic connections were just “crazy assumptions.”

 

One insider who has worked with Lambesis responded, “What struck me as different about it was that he didn’t say in it ‘Everyone knows I’m a Christian,’ which is what we expected him to say.”

 

At press time, Lambesis was still in the Vista Detention Facility, being held on $3 million bail. His next court hearing is June 10. On May 13, the Yahoo music blog quoted Lambesis’s L.A.-based attorney Anthony Salerno, who said that Lambesis may have been set up by the cops. “Tim’s wife’s brother, I understand, is a San Diego Sheriff’s deputy. I think I would be remiss if I didn’t fully explore that [because] that is a little bit…it’s at the bare minimum very coincidental, and it may be more than that.”

 

As I Lay Dying was to embark on a national tour at the end of this month with Killswitch Engage. The agency handling the tour (coming to San Diego all-ages rock club Soma on June 25) says that it will continue but with a band replacing As I Lay Dying.”

 

As I Lay Dying in jail Great article title!

[San Diego Reader 5/22/13 by Ken Leighton]

The journalist goes on to say that his bail was reduced to $2 Million and he still couldn’t post it. Also, Tim fired his lawyer Salerno and now has hired San Diego attorney Thomas Warwick. Warwick gives a NEW excuse for the hit…STEROIDS (Note to new lawyer: ‘Roid Rage involves manic episodes of aggressive behavior, not  methodically plotting to kill someone and paying a hitman.)

His next court hearing is Wednesday May 29.

“As I Lay Dying lead singer Tim Lambesis is set to appear in court Wednesday, weeks after allegedly hiring a hitman to kill his estranged wife. Lambesis’ lawyers are expected to lay out a “roid rage” defense, blaming the rocker’s steroid use to his alleged attempt to arrange the murder.

Thomas Warwick, the rocker’s lawyer, says Lambesis was mentally unstable when he asked an undercover detective to kill his wife and that the singer’s thoughts were “devastatingly affected” by the drugs.

“His thought process was dramatically impacted by the steroid use,” Warwick said in a Vista, Calif., courtroom on May 17 during a bail hearing.

Lambesis, 32, was arrested May 7 in Oceanside, Calif., and charged with soliciting the murder of his wife Meggan Lambesis, who resides in Encinitas, Calif. Tim Lambesis remains behind bars on $2 million bail and has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors don’t buy the “roid rage” defense and say the singer knew exactly what he was doing and his estranged wife now lives in fear.

“She is living petrified, not knowing, ‘Can I come out, who else is out there?'” Deputy District Attorney Claudia Grasso said.

Once Lambesis began working out, the steroid use began and the singer known for his head-banging music with a Christian twist lost his faith in God, Warwick said.

A 2008 video of Lambesis on the television show “L.A. Ink” shows a much skinner [sic] body compared with a 2013 video of the rocker working out in the gym on his personal YouTube page. [So what? 5 years  (Heck 5 MONTHS!) of weight training easily would  increase muscle mass.]

“Anabolic steroids lead to an increase of testosterone hormone in blood, but it is very complex and it is not a direct cause-and-effect scenario,” ABC News senior medical contributor Dr. Jennifer Ashton said.

Authorities began investigating Lambesis about a week prior to his arrest after they said they got word he was allegedly trying to find someone to kill his wife at a local gym. Grasso said Lambesis later met with the undercover agent posing as a hit man and gave him $1,000 and instructions on how best to kill his wife.

Meggan Lambesis served her rocker husband with divorce papers in September 2012, according to court records. The couple has three adopted children from Ethiopia.

Tim Lambesis is a founding member of the metalcore band that formed in 2000 in San Diego. As I Lay Dying’s 2007 album “An Ocean Between Us” hit number 8 on the Billboard 200, and no. 1 on the Top Rock chart. The group was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for the song “Nothing Left” from the album. The band has released six albums.”

Lawyer for As I Lay Dying Singer Tim Lambesis Blames Steroids in Murder-for-Hire Plot

[ABC News 5/28/13]

Update 3: “Even though As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis is facing murder-for-hire charges, his Austrian Death Machine project still plans to release its third album ‘Triple Brutal.’

The side project, which is a parody/tribute to action hero/ex-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, issued this statement on their Facebook page, which made no reference to Lambesis’ legal issues:

“Tim finished all of his parts back before he went on tour in Asia. He was just waiting for me to do my parts and put together the finishing touches on the mix of the album. I’m working on that starting this week now that I have the files. The CD should be done soon and then we’ll start planning to manufacture.”

The band funded the album via Indiegogo, offering incentives to fans to contribute to the recording of the record. One person paid $1500 for the privilege of recording some vocals on a track. ADM ended up raising over $78,000, exceeding their $63,000 goal.

There are numerous guest musicians on ‘Triple Brutal,’ including Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed), Doc Coyle, (God Forbid), Johnny Plague (Winds of Plague), Scott Lewis (Carnifex) and others.

After being charged in the murder-for-hire plot against his former wife, Lambesis was released on $2 million bail. He had to come up with $160,000 to secure that release. His next court date is June 26, and As I Lay Dying have cancelled all scheduled tour dates.”

New Austrian Death Machine Album To Be Released Despite Tim Lambesis Murder-For-Hire Case

[LoudWire 6/13/13 by Chad Bowar]

“Timothy Peter Lambesis, 32, bailed out of jail after twenty-four days in custody, he had been arrested on suspicion of soliciting the murder of his estranged wife.

Documents in his court file indicate Lambesis or his agent paid $160,000 in fees as a “premium” to All-Pro Bail Bonds on May 30, 2013, and Lambesis was released the same day from Vista jail, in Northern San Diego County.

Lambesis was arrested by Sheriff’s deputies on May 7, 2013, after he allegedly gave an envelope with money and gate codes for entry into his wife’s residence, to an undercover agent who was posing as a hitman.

On May 29 and May 30, there were unexpected hearings in San Diego Superior Court for Timothy Lambesis, however the defendant was not brought into court for either hearing, according to court paperwork.

Lambesis was charged with a single felony, “solicit another to commit and join in the commission of the murder of Meggan Lambesis.”

Prosecutor Claudia Grasso told a judge at a previous bail hearing that Lambesis “is a huge flight risk.” The prosecutor also said that Lambesis faces a “maximum exposure” of nine years for the alleged crime.

Superior Court Judge David Berry directed that Lambesis must have GPS monitoring that is court approved, his passport will be retained by the Sheriff, and his travel is limited to home and work and his attorney’s office and court and a residential treatment program.

Private defense counsel Thomas Warwick Jr. had stated in court that Timothy Lambesis “was not the same person” after he began spending hours in the gym and “got into steroids.”

The next scheduled court date for Timothy Lambesis is now June 26, 2013 before the Honorable Judge David Berry, in San Diego’s North County Superior Courthouse.”

Tim Lambesis bailed out on hired-murder charge

[San Diego Reader 6/3/13 by Eva Knott]

“Lambesis was taken into custody on May 7 for paying an undercover police officer $1000 in cash along with photographs of his wife, Meggan Lambesis, access codes to her home and a list of dates when he would be away with the couple’s three adopted children in order to establish an alibi.

After pleading not guilty to one count of solicitation of murder, Lambesis’ bail was set at $2 million, a reduction from the $20 million originally requested by Deputy District Attorney Claudia Grasso. Grasso claimed Lambesis “is a huge flight risk.” Judge David L. Berry stipulated that if Lambesis makes bail, he must wear a GPS device, remain in San Diego and stay away from his wife and children.”

“Two hearings were held on May 29 and 30 in addition to divorce proceedings. A representative of Radio.com at the courthouse reported Lambesis was not present at either.”

As I Lay Dying’s Tim Lambesis Coughed Up $160k For Bail

[Radio.com 6/5/13]

Update 4/July 16, 2013

For tweets from his fans who blame his wife in the crudest of terms, see http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/49980202149/as-i-lay-dying-singer-attempts-to-murder-his-wife.

“Timothy Lambesis, who is out of custody on $2 million bond posted last May, was in a San Diego courtroom today, June 26, setting his next court date for September 16, 2013.

The divorce of Timothy Lambesis from his wife Meggan could be finalized by that time. Mrs. Meggan Lambesis filed for dissolution of their 8-year marriage in September of 2012.

Timothy Lambesis was arrested on May 7 2013, after he gave an envelope full of incriminating evidence to a man named “Red” whom he thought was a hitman, but was actually an undercover officer, according to a prosecutor. The envelope contained cash for “expenses” and the address and gate codes and instructions on how to get into his wife’s residence, Deptuy District Attorney Claudia Grasso has alleged.

Tim Lambesis, 32, pleads not guilty to one felony, solicitation to commit murder. The maximum possible prison sentence is nine years, the prosecutor said.

Defendant Lambesis was held in lieu of $3 million bail before his private attorney Thomas Warwick Jr. successfully argued the bail down to $2 million. Lambesis or his agent paid a $160,000 fee to a bondsman and he obtained his liberty after 24 days in custody, on May 30, 2013.

Information in his court file from defense attorney Warwick describes the defendant this way:

Timothy Lambesis was born in Scottsdale Arizona 32 years ago and when he was seven his family moved to the San Diego area. (His two older brothers currently live in Phoenix.) Timmy graduated from a Christian High School in Solana Beach in 1999. “Mister Lambesis received his religious studies degree from this small, private Christian university” named Liberty University, according to Warwick.

Tim Lambesis has been a band member since his senior year of high school, and was part of five different bands; he formed the band As I Lay Dying with drummer Jordan Mancino in 2001. Attorney Warwick said the band is “American Christian Metalcore.”

The band As I Lay Dying has released “six studio albums,” the last in September 2012.

Until his arrest, Tim Lambesis lived in Carlsbad with his girlfriend; he rents that home from his parents.

While arguing that his client was not a flight risk, persuading a judge to lower the bail amount, the defense attorney stated: “Mister Lambesis considers himself a homebody and would much rather stay here in San Diego than anywhere else.” Also, “Mister Lambesis does not even enjoy traveling for work and would much rather stay at his home in Carlsbad.””

California rocker accused of hiring hitman gets court date

[San Diego Reader 6/26/13 by Eva Knotts]

Update 5/August 19, 2013

“As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis has been granted permission to break his house arrest to seek medical attention for a neck injury.

The heavy metal rocker is accused of attempting to hire a hitman to kill his estranged wife, and is facing one count of solicitation to commit murder and one count of conspiracy to commit a crime.

Lambesis, 32, was recently freed on bail but ordered to stay home under house arrest, and he has now been granted leave to seek treatment for a problem with his neck.

A judge has signed off on an order allowing the star to leave his house to visit a medic and a physiotherapist, according to Sandiegoreader.com.

He is due back in court in San Diego, California on September 16.”
Tim Lambesis Freed From House Arrest Over Neck Injury
[Star Pulse 8/7/13 by Dave Simpson]

Update 6: “As we reported last week, after many delays, today was the big day for Lambesis, as there was another hearing scheduled.

But, if you’re assuming something got resolved, you are wrong. The case will still be open going into 2014.

Lambgoat had a source inside the courtroom today and reports that today’s hearing was extremely brief. Lambesis appeared with his lawyer Thomas Warwick as seen in the photo above and pleaded “not guilty” to one felony charge of solicitation of murder.

A January 15th date was set for a readiness conference, which is where the two sides discuss the case and see if the two parties can agree to resolve the case. This is where a plea bargain would happen, if at all.”

“Should the trial last past May 16th, Lambesis will have to fork over another $160,000 to the bail bondsman, as the bail only lasts for one year.”

AS I LAY DYING Frontman Tim Lambesis’ Murder-For-Hire Case Won’t Be Resolved Until 2014[Metal Injection 11/13/13 by Robert Pasbani]

“As I Lay Dying vocalist Tim Lambesis was in a California courtroom this morning for a readiness conference related to charges against him for allegedly trying to hire a hitman to kill his wife. The purpose of a readiness conference, also known as a pre-trial conference, is for the defense counsel and prosecutor to discuss the case, and see if it can be resolved through a plea bargain.

Tim Lambesis Murder-for-Hire Hearing Delayed[Loudwire 1/15/14 by Chad Bower]

Update 7:”Lambesis, who also fronts As I Lay Dying, had his most recent murder-for-hire hearing delayed in mid-January. The rocker returned to court today (Feb. 6), but nothing of significance happened other than the scheduling of his next court appearance on Feb. 19.”

Tim Lambesis’ Austrian Death Machine Finalize Release Details for ‘Triple Brutal’[Loudwire 2/6/14 by Chad Childers]

Update 8:”A heavy metal singer accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill his wife is back in court for another pretrial hearing.

Tim Lambesis, 33, faces nine years in prison. His lawyer is hoping to work out a plea deal with prosecutors.

 

Lambesis is free on $2 million bail.

 

His estranged wife reportedly has a civil suit against him for more than $2 million for emotional distress and punitive damages.”

 

Singer seeks plea deal in murder-for-hire plot[cbs8 2/19/14]

“This review of the case against Tim Lambesis has been compiled from court transcripts and file documents.

Lambesis is charged with a single felony: “soliciting another to commit and join in the commission of the murder.” The maximum possible prison time is nine years for this crime, according to the prosecutor. Timothy Peter Lambesis, now 33, was in custody twenty-four days before posting $2 million bail, he is now on house arrest and wears a GPS monitor.

A man named Brett said he began working at a California gym in February of 2013, he described himself as a trainer. Attorneys hinted that Brett was a supplier of steroids and possibly other drugs for persons at the gym. Brett denied that claim.

The gym is called Pure Fitness, located in the seaside town of Carlsbad, CA. Brett said he became acquainted with Lambesis, who exercised at that gym, about a month after he started there. By the next month, Brett said he heard talk about Lambesis’ troubled marriage, and specifically that Lambesis would “be doing better if his wife was taken care of.”

Brett claimed it was Lambesis who contacted him. “He contacted me via text asking me if he could talk to me.” The two arranged to meet in the parking lot at the gym.

Lambesis brought his girlfriend with him that evening. It was about dusk on April 22 and he was living with girlfriend Amanda in a home in Carlsbad at that time. Amanda went into the gym to exercise while the men stayed outside. “Just myself and him,” Brett remembered. “He began by asking me if I knew why I was there. I made the comment that I was hoping it wasn’t to kill anybody.”

“He said that that was funny and that was exactly why I was there.” Brett said Lambesis spoke of his failing marriage. “We had a discussion and he proceeded to tell me about his relationship with his ex-wife and how it had deteriorated.” Actually, Tim’s wife Meggan Lambesis had filed divorce paperwork eight months earlier, but they were still married.

Brett said Tim Lambesis told him, “He had been seeing another woman. And they had split up. And they had three children.  And he was not happy and he wanted to make sure that the kids had one healthy relationship instead of two bad ones.” Tim reportedly complained that his wife was spending all their money on divorce attorneys.

Brett understood that Lambesis wanted someone to “get rid of her, kill her.” Brett said he told the rock singer, “That’s not my thing, I’m not involved in any behavior like that.”

“I’m a body guard, not an assassin.”  Brett said he sees himself as a protector.

But Lambesis was persistent, according to Brett. “He wanted to know if maybe I could find somebody to do it for him.  He knew I knew people was his comment. I know you know people so maybe you can help me.” The two men spoke for about 20 minutes that evening.

Soon afterwards, Brett became nervous. “I thought that he was going to go through with it, with or without me.”  Brett said he got advice from an attorney. “She said I needed to get a tape recording of that, otherwise, I’d be an accessory to murder if it happened.”

So Brett said he initiated another contact, and two days later he met again with Lambesis, this time at a bookstore in Oceanside. It was a Barnes & Noble. Tim Lambesis brought his girlfriend Amanda again. She was told that the men were going to talk about music and motorcycles, and since she was not interested in that kind of conversation she waited outside in the car, according to a detective’s statements later.

“We went in the back and had a conversation and started talking about the situation at hand and about him.” Brett claimed that he offered alternatives on handling the situation, “go to counselor, talk to somebody, get help.” But Lambesis would not be dissuaded, according to Brett. Lambesis complained about Meggan. “His wife was keeping him out on tour because of the money, to generate money. And he had three bands and he wanted to stay home and produce instead of traveling.” Tim complained he wasn’t allowed to take the children on tour with him.

“At the end of that conversation when I saw that he was not veering from killing his wife, I told him I had somebody in mind for him, yes.” Brett named a fictional hitman he called “Red.” Tim “was all for it,” Brett remembered.

Brett said he made one more phone call to Tim, asking permission to give “Red” his phone number, and Lambesis okayed it.

A San Diego County Sheriff’s deputy played the part of “Red.” The stocky man has a long, reddish beard and the scruffy appearance you would expect of an undercover officer. Red said he has been a peace officer for thirty-three years.

Red said he phoned Timothy Lambesis on May 7, 2013.  Lambesis had just returned from a tour the day before. “I told him I was Red and had been told to give him a call.” The undercover officer set up a meeting. The first hour Red suggested they could meet was rejected because Lambesis said he had to go pick up his kids, so they moved the meeting up to 2 o’clock. It would be at the same Barnes & Noble bookstore.

“I asked him to bring photographs of the individual we were talking about and I asked him to bring the address for the individual and a thousand dollars.”  That was not intended to be the total fee, “It was a down payment for me to do a couple of days work.” The total cost was set at $20,000 – which Lambesis agreed to “immediately,” according to Red.

The men talked in the music section of the store. “He told me he wanted his wife gone.” Lambesis did not have a method in mind. “I did ask him what he wanted me to do specifically and he said that was up to me.”

“During our conversation he told me that he had picked out three dates that were good dates for him, for me to kill his wife. Those were the dates that he would have his children and therefore, he would not be a suspect in the case.”

The undercover officer tried to get Lambesis to use the word “kill” or “dead” during their conversation, which he said was recorded, but Lambesis resisted. “But he continued to say repeatedly that, I want her gone. I want her never ever, ever to come back.”

Then Lambesis started to walk away. “So, as he was leaving, we got about fifteen or twenty feet away from each other and he turned back to me and he goes, ‘Just to clarify, just so you know, I do want her dead.’”

Red followed Lambesis out to his black Jeep in the parking lot.  “He handed me a manila file folder envelope.” Lambesis passed this out his car window. “I opened the envelope just briefly,” Red remembered. “I saw a stack of hundred-dollar bills, I did not count those hundred-dollar bills. I saw photographs of a white female. And I saw a printed address and then a couple of handwritten dates.”  Red was given the security code for the gates at Meggan’s condominium complex, and a description of her vehicle.

As soon as Red walked away, Lambesis was taken into custody by other officers who were waiting on scene. That was the afternoon of May 7, 2013.

A week before Tim Lambesis’ arrest, officers had gone to speak with Meggan Lambesis.

San Diego County Sheriff’s detective John Buckley said he met with Meggan in the garage of her Encinitas condo the evening of May 1, 2013.  “I told her that we had received information that somebody was contacted by her husband, asking if they knew somebody who would kill her. She was shocked.” Meggan told the detective she had separated from her husband last September and that they “really only communicated via text message.”

Meggan claimed that Tim announced the end of their eight-year marriage by e-mail. “While he was out on tour he told her that he was with somebody else and that it was over,” according to detective Buckley.

Lambesis plead not-guilty to solicitation of murder. His lawyers have suggested that his behavior changed after he began taking steroids at the gym. Another defense has also been suggested: that law enforcement was over-reaching and that they incorrectly set up their sting. Recently there has been speculation that a plea deal might be negotiated.

Tim Lambesis is due in San Diego’s North County Superior Courthouse today, February 19, 2014”

Tim Lambesis Murder for Hire Trial Testimonies Reveal the Plot[radio.com 2/19/14 by Eva Knott]

Update 9:“The lead singer of Grammy-nominated metal band As I Lay Dying pleaded guilty Tuesday to trying to hire someone to kill his estranged wife.

Timothy Lambesis, 32, remains free on $2 million bond until he is sentenced May 2 on one count of solicitation of murder in Vista Superior Court, north of San Diego.”

Timothy Lambesis Pleads Guilty: As I Lay Dying Singer Admits Hiring Hitman To Kill Wife[HuffPost Celebrity 2/25/14 By Associated Press]

Update 10: “The lead singer of the band As I Lay Dying has been sentenced to six years in prison for plotting to kill his wife.

U-T San Diego reports 33-year-old Timothy Lambesis was sentenced Friday in San Diego County. He had pleaded guilty to soliciting murder.

Authorities say Lambesis hired an undercover sheriff’s detective to kill Meggan Lambesis last year.

Lead singer of heavy metal band As I Lay Dying sentenced to six years in prison for plotting to kill his wife[Daily Mail 5/16/14 by Associated press]

Update 11:““Shock” doesn’t even begin to describe the collective feeling of confusion and bewilderment that reverberated throughout the metalcore community when Tim Lambesis was arrested May 7, 2013. San Diego police alleged the cofounder and frontman for As I Lay Dying had tried to put out a “hit” on his estranged wife, Meggan Murphy Lambesis. Suddenly, a band once cherished as elder statesmen in the New Wave Of American Metalcore (guitarists Nick Hipa and Phil Sgrosso, bassist Josh Gilbert and drummer/cofounder Jordan Mancino) became notorious for all the wrong reasons. A “murder-for-hire” plot involving a “Grammy-nominated Christian metal singer” seemed straight out of a bad TV movie, with everyone from Good Morning America to Nancy Grace weighing in.

Ask someone familiar with the story what happened and the answer will be something like this. At some point after adopting three children from Ethiopia (Biruk, Abikia and Tigist) with his ex-wife, Lambesis got into bodybuilding, dating other women, and eventually asked some guy at his gym if he knew any hitmen. The singer’s gym buddy called the cops, who set up a sting, and Lambesis was busted after giving an undercover cop an envelope with pictures of his wife, her address, alarm codes and a $1000. But these revelations brought more questions than answers. How could Tim do this? Why? Was it money? Custody? A setup? “’Roid Rage”? Did he really just ask a random buddy at his gym, “Do you happen to know a hitman that can murder my wife?” Lambesis offered no answers. He has remained silent in the year since the morning he was surrounded by armed officers in the parking lot of a Barnes & Noble. Until now.

The majority of this conversation was conducted in the tiny recording studio in the home owned by Lambesis’ parents, where the As I Lay Dying frontman wore an ankle monitor while on house arrest after he was released on $2 million bail. Neither Lambesis nor his camp saw the questions beforehand. The one condition Lambesis had was the interview couldn’t run until after his sentencing, to ensure that nothing he said here would influence the court.

Lambesis says a handful of movie producers (both amateur and otherwise) offered him large sums for the rights to his story. Dr. Phil wanted him on his show. The offers, interest and requests were continuous and unrelenting. Ultimately, Tim elected to share his story in a forthcoming, not-for-profit documentary (which will be revealed soon) and in these interviews with Ryan J. Downey.

He does not intend to speak on it again.

Let’s start with when you and Meggan decided to adopt children.
TIM LAMBESIS : Like a lot of couples, we talked about having kids and whether we’d like to eventually. I really wanted to be a father, but I wanted to adopt. I think for many women, it’s normal for their motherly instinct to make them more interested in having children biologically. I made it very clear that I would prefer to adopt. After a few years, she got to a point where she really felt a drive to be a mother; she felt she was meant to be a mother. I was touring a lot. I was trying to delay it a little bit; not because I didn’t love kids or want to have kids, but I wanted a bit more financial security.

What made you so driven to adopt?
When I was in high school, my church went on these spring break mission trips where we’d go down to Mexico and do vacation Bible school in a really poor area. One time we went down there to rebuild part of this orphanage. There were all of these orphan kids who would come to hang out while we were rebuilding. There was this one kid, Edgar. I had been hanging out with him all week while we were there. There were tons of kids there, but that kid had latched onto me for whatever reason. He was maybe 9 or 10. I was getting ready to say goodbye. I was thinking, “Okay, no big deal, we’ve had a great week.” But I got the impression that was the most attention he’d ever had in his life. He literally clung onto my leg. It was heartbreaking to think, in that moment, I was the closest thing he’d ever had to a friend or a father figure. It really stuck with me. It was really heartbreaking. I was, like, 17 years old. When I got home and started to process it all, I thought, “Well, when it finally comes time for me to be a dad, I want to take care of some kid that will never be loved if I don’t adopt.” That was my mentality at the time. It was a way distant future thing for me, of course.

When Meggan and I started talking about having kids, I told her that’s what I wanted to do. She was open to the idea but wasn’t totally convinced. But after getting involved in the adoption community and the really good support system there, she said, “I might still want to have kids biologically, but for now, let’s adopt [our first child] then we’ll see how I feel from there.” That’s when we adopted Biruk. Originally, we were part of the Russian and Ukrainian adoption program because, you know, for a white family from the suburbs, it’s like, “Hey, let’s adopt a Russian or Ukrainian kid, nobody will even know.” [Laughs.] It was kind of the natural first step. That’s where our minds were at the time.

There were a lot of complications with that program, because there was a huge waiting list, because a lot of white, middle-class, suburban families were thinking the same thing. [Laughs.] So we called up the adoption agency and asked, “Where’s the greatest need? Where is there a place where if we don’t adopt, nobody will?” Not that people were avoiding Ethiopia, but I think a lot of white families are scared; we were, too, so I’m definitely not pointing any fingers. Things are a little different now, but at that time, Ethiopia really needed more families.

It seems like asking, “Where’s the greatest need?” is the best question you can ask.
It was really cool too, because then the whole process went by a little quicker, a little smoother. There was a lot less uncertainty in the process.

But it still is a process.
Oh, it’s definitely a process. And I’ll give all credit to Meggan for doing all the paperwork. I mean, she put in so many hours of work above and beyond [what I did]. I signed the papers. I kind of lazily went through these courses they make you take and things like that. She really put in all the hard work and had that drive, as a mother. The process actually took about nine months, almost like a biological birth situation. When Biruk came home, about six months later or so, I didn’t even ask her the question. She just came to me and said, “Remember when you asked me if I would ever be totally satisfied as a mother with only adopting?” Because we had left off where we were going to adopt but she still wanted to revisit the topic of biologically giving birth to a child later. She said, “Everything about Biruk completely satisfies my motherly instinct.”

How old was he when you brought him home?
He was 15 months, so just a little over one. After he was home for a while, the natural question that came up was whether we’d consider adopting again. There was a little more urgency put into that because, when we went to go pick up Biruk, we went to visit an orphanage where we were sponsoring a child. You know, those $40- a-month sponsorship things? We figured, “Well, we’re in Ethiopia, we might as well visit her.” It wasn’t that far out of the way. So we went to the orphanage to visit her. She was really shy. And she was really cute, too. Biruk is a super-cute kid. She was really shy, but also really relieved that we were there to pay attention to her, that she was special.

My parents were there, too. When we were getting ready to leave, I said, “Hey, Mom and Dad, I know you guys are a little old to have kids, but, maybe you should consider adopting!” I’d feel heartbroken leaving Ethiopia and leaving her there. My parents said, “We’d love to, but let’s be realistic here…” My dad is almost 70, you know? So in the back of my mind, I’m like, “Well, I’m in the process of adopting my first kid. I’m definitely not ready for this, but I can’t just leave her here.” Knowing she’s there, knowing that I visited her, knowing the need that she’s in. So it just was natural to kind of speed up the process a little bit.

I think we probably would have waited longer to adopt more kids just because of the touring and all that. We knew my one daughter from the sponsorship program. My other daughter had lived with her in the orphanage for four years. They were like sisters. There’s a policy within a lot of adoption agencies, and it was true with ours, where they won’t split up siblings. I’m sure in dire need they will, but they really don’t want to. You’re already shocking them by taking them into a new culture. In our case, they weren’t biologically related, but it would have felt like a similar shock. That’s all they knew. They had grown up in an orphanage together. Biruk came home in 2009, and my daughters came home in 2011.

Talk to me about the two years where it was you, Meggan and Biruk.
I loved the setup at the time. Biruk loved traveling. Most babies cry on airplanes, but he just wanted to crawl around and play. He was just so active. It was cool because I could have my cake and eat it, too. I could pursue music full time and not feel like I was gone from my son. Once my daughters came home, I would have loved for the same thing to be possible. But it’s already pretty crowded on a tour bus with 10 smelly dudes.

We still did our best. If I was gone on tour for a month, I’d make sure I was home for a month. Or if we did two tours back-to-back, we’d have a big break for a couple of months after. I thought it was working, because I was home more often than the average touring guy. And a lot of fathers work 50- or 60-hour work weeks and only see their kids for a few hours at the end of the day, when they’re exhausted. I got to go have lunch with my daughters when I was home. I remember going to visit school, sitting crammed into this tiny picnic bench area, with all these tiny kids around me.

This sounds like a scene from Kindergarten Cop.
Yeah. I was welcomed at the school. Obviously I couldn’t walk onto a school campus now without people freaking out. But it was totally normal then, and those are some of my best memories, that kind of stuff. Eventually, it got more difficult. Meggan’s sense of identity was in being a mother, and rightfully so. She had three kids to take care of as often as possible. I was doing my best to be there 50 percent of the time.

She didn’t work, and I didn’t want her to, with three kids, especially newly adopted kids who need that extra nurturing and love. Work became my thing, and parenting became her thing. So even when I tried to be more involved, as a father, [she] was like, “Well, this is my thing. What are you doing?” I felt pushed out of my own family. It was difficult.

Part of parenting is providing.
It wasn’t like I was negligent. I’m sure people have their opinions of me after the fact. I started justifying all of these weird thoughts. I started to think I’d have a better relationship with the kids if her and I weren’t together anymore. We would each have our own time with them and handle things however we wanted. Once we did separate, I realized that many of these difficult interactions still carried over from our marriage.

In the divorce papers, Meggan said you were texting all of the time when you were with the kids. Granted, that’s not uncommon in the modern business world.
That’s an example I won’t even bother to defend. That’s pretty normal for one person to accuse another of when they’re trying to come up with a list of [complaints] for divorce papers. I don’t blame her for putting together that list. If I had my day in [family] court, I’m sure I would have brought my own list of things that nitpicked every little detail. I was touring, and with Meggan’s identity in being a mother and being wrapped up with the kids–which is healthy for them—it made her feel like there was tension between the two of us. “What does he love more? Music? Or me?” It created a level of insecurity.

I had my own insecurities. When I was home, I didn’t feel like my wife was excited to be with me, because she was more concerned with the excitement of other things in life. I’m admitting my big insecurity. I began to seek that adoration from my career. I thought, “Well, I want to be in the best shape of my life. I want to be the best performer.” I didn’t want us to be one of those bands where we hit our thirties and we all slowly go downhill. I decided to start going to the gym. I was insecure [about my body]. I started paying more attention to tiny details about my body. If there’s anything that really caused a big divide in our relationship, it was those insecurities. Mine were obviously much worse, as far as being unhealthy.

You’re describing moments in many marriages.
I understand her perspective. I repeatedly gave her the impression that while I told her I loved her most, I acted like music was more important. It was like everything outside the home made her feel unwanted and unloved. She pulled herself into this homebody nature, with her whole sense of identity in being a mother. Then it became home life vs. what I did for a living. It got to where she couldn’t compliment me [on any victories or milestones related to my career]. I understand why that happened. She didn’t want to compliment me because it would encourage the thing that pulls me away from her. So every tour that came up, even if it was a no-brainer and best for the family financially, she was resentful of that. Or when I was getting in better physical shape, she was resentful toward that. “Oh, well, that’s just something that helps his career.” She resented all of these things. I felt resented when I was home. So I sought fulfillment elsewhere, which led to me putting more effort into my career than my marriage.

When did you start taking steroids?
It’s a stupid justification, looking back, but I had hit a natural plateau. My body didn’t want to change beyond a certain point. I thought, “Well, everyone takes these supplements that are as close to steroids as you can get. Why not cut the crap?” I thought it would be more sincere to just take steroids instead of taking the closest thing. Every fitness magazine you look at—not just the bodybuilding ones, but the ones with regular people in decent shape on the covers—people in the fitness industry told me that even the fitness models who just want to look lean and natural are all taking steroids! Even bikini models are taking some type of [performance enhancement].

I remember thinking of Brad Pitt in Fight Club as the fitness ideal. And I remember learning that even Brad Pitt was never actually “Brad Pitt in Fight Club.”
Yes, the super-thin but super-shredded Brad Pitt type guys, a lot of those types of guys are taking steroids. It’s just a different type that makes you shredded. So even if you just want to be lean and shredded, not even bulked up, steroids are standard. I realized that no matter what direction I took it, if I wanted to have a magazine level of fitness, I would have to do whatever everybody [privately] acknowledges to be the standard.

We hear a lot about “roid rage.”
For the most part, I think that’s kind of a myth. When I was arrested, I had come off testosterone-based steroids. My hormone levels were really unbalanced. Your body naturally produces a decent level of testosterone and keeps your estrogen levels under that, if you’re a guy. When you take testosterone, it elevates your level to 10 times what your body is normally doing. Your estrogen levels raise to compensate. When you stop taking it, your testosterone levels fall to the floor. But because you’re not generating any of the normal testosterone your body used to produce, your body goes from the highest it has ever had to way below the lowest. But your estrogen is still high.

Is that where so-called “bitch tits” come from?
Yes, that’s where “bitch tits” come from; it’s called gynecomastia. Before my arrest, I had stopped the testosterone-based stuff. My hormone levels were super-out of whack. The blood test I had right before I left for Asia, right before my arrest, showed my testosterone level was significantly lower than that of a 90-year-old man.

But you looked like the Incredible Hulk!
I came off the testosterone-based steroids in order to pass some tests I needed to take in order to get more custody of the kids. Obviously, taking steroids wasn’t as important to me as getting more time with my kids. I needed to pass these tests. I was still taking the non-testosterone stuff, the stuff that’s for looks, that helps you get shredded. There’s one called Trenbolone, which they give to cattle to maintain muscle mass when they are in transit and can’t eat for long periods of time. It makes it so you can have the most muscle possible on the least amount of food. It’s not made for humans. It was super- crazy to think, “Oh, this is the best way to balance out my body.” My body was in the worst state of balance it could have possibly been in.

Plenty of people take steroids. But most of them don’t end up in prison.
Well, for the vast majority of people, there’s no adverse reaction to anabolic steroids. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances that take anabolic steroids where their personalities may be a bit more obnoxious, or they may have acne, but I’ve learned that only 10 to 20 percent, depending on the type of substance, have an adverse reaction. I figured, “Well, I guess I’m not in that 10 percent!” At first, I felt good.

Where’d this info come from?
I talked to an undisputed expert on the topic, Dr. Harrison Pope. He’s a Ph.D in his 60s who has been actively researching anabolic steroids for years. He said there are only minor changes for the majority of people who take this stuff. And even in that 10 percent or so who have an adverse reaction, those reactions are different. I don’t present that information as any form of excuse. I’m presenting it just to say that I was convinced, at the time, that I had no adverse reactions to steroids. It’s an “upper,” so to speak, so I felt great. You have all this extra testosterone in your body. I was blind to a lot of the things that I see now. Even when I started talking to Dr. Pope, I was skeptical. But then he started asking me questions, like, “Hey, prior to 2012, did you ever do this or that type of thing?” He listed a few things, and I said I had never done them before 2012. Then he asked whether I had done them since. I had to pause. He blew my mind with some simple questions. There were lots of things I did after 2012 I would never picture myself doing now. The way I acted, the way I reacted, my priorities. When a person’s priorities change and all their meaningful interactions in life change… Just those two things alone, you have to admit something happened. Those are some pretty big deals. 

Put a frog in a pot of boiling water and he’ll jump out. But stick him in cold water and gradually raise the temperature and he won’t even realize what’s up till it’s too late.
Eventually, you cross a certain line and then other factors come into it. I’m not saying I only cheated on Meggan because I was taking steroids. There were many other factors.

Some anti-depressants cause weight gain, but so does eating more while on them.
Exactly. Perfect example. “Did he cheat on his wife because he was taking steroids? Or did he cheat on his wife and let his lustful mentality get the best of him and allowed his insecurities to drive him from there?” They are all factors. It was a perfect storm. In the past, those things hadn’t [caused me to cheat]. But they had planted a seed. Now, when it all comes down to it, I’m the one who decided to take steroids. I’m the one who didn’t address certain issues in my marriage. I can’t blame my insecurities, because that was only one part of it. I can’t blame steroids for the same reason. I can’t blame Meggan. She was certainly willing to address some of those issues. I’m still the one who made all of those smaller choices that added up to one bigger, much more hurtful choice.

“Gym culture” has come up with your case. Educate me on that transition.
I was going to the gym five or six times a week and really working hard. Everyone at the gym has seen the guy working hard, watched him grow, then saw him hit a plateau. You don’t have to go seeking [steroid dealers]—they find you. A handful of people came up to me saying, “I can tell you want to get to the next level.” They weren’t winking at me when they said it, but they might as well of been. I knew what they meant. They don’t say, “Hey, I’m a steroid dealer!” The first time a guy said I should consider steroids, I said, “Well I’m just going to change my routine and shock my body with some new exercises.” He had way more gym experience than me. He said, “Yeah, that’ll help a little bit, but it’s not going to get you what you’re looking for,” and then comes the sales pitch. I found out a lot of guys I had always looked up to—who I assumed didn’t take steroids—were taking them. Even some guys who claimed to be straight-edge! “Yeah he’s super-jacked, but he’s straight-edge, so I mean, of course he doesn’t take steroids!” Right? When I found out that every single person I thought looked awesome was taking steroids, I adopted the mentality that I had to take them to achieve what I wanted. I was convinced that if I didn’t achieve that type of look, I had failed [in my fitness goals and in my career].

People who aren’t into fitness will think that sounds bonkers, dude.
But even the average person can relate, as far as the “standard.” When you’re in the checkout at the grocery, if you’re a girl, it’s the girl in the bikini on the cover of the magazine. That’s the standard. If you want to be a public figure or someone admired by others, you have to look like those magazine covers. If you accept that and go beyond, the next level opens you up to all of these insane ideas. It’s just crossing that first line.

The campaign against drugs is always super-extreme. Someone smokes weed for the first time and realize they didn’t go insane, so they figure it’s all bullshit.
None of the guys I knew taking steroids seemed like psychos. They weren’t doing anything like what I was arrested for. Everyone was debunking the myths for me. There is no “’roid rage.” I still had a full head of hair. I started thinking all these things about steroids are false. The government tells me a lot of things I don’t agree with. I had all of these “good” reasons to take steroids and saw no reason not to. Little did I know, if you’re in the pool of people with adverse effects, you won’t know until it’s too late. It’s exactly the frog in boiling water like you said. It’s embarrassing to look back and realize how many of the stereotypes now apply to me. The first thing I learned in talking with a doctor was that I wasn’t a big tough guy trying to get to the “next level.” I was insecure. I was weak-minded. I realized the things that made me want to become a perfectly, physically fit specimen. Even if I had achieved that, the brokenness would still be there. It’s empty. In a way, I’m thankful I fell on my face. I fell flat on my face. The whole world knows. I had to lose everything, sit in isolation and reevaluate the type of person I was. For that I’ll always be thankful. For the pain of it all? Not so much.

Meggan’s divorce papers revealed that you had become an atheist.
I was a philosophy major in college. I thought it was something I’d enjoy that would help me grasp what people are thinking in order for me to help people better understand Christianity. I thought I would learn how to defend the faith. I was naïve.

I ended up touring, so I finished it up through a distance study program. I switched from philosophy to religious studies, as they wouldn’t let me do philosophy via distance learning. I’d get three pages of the traditional evangelical conservative point of view, then three paragraphs or sometimes even just three sentences from the atheist perspective. But even in just a few sentences, I’d think, “This point of view makes more sense,” even when it wasn’t being well represented. In the process of trying to defend my faith, I started thinking the other point of view was the stronger one.

The first time I cheated on my wife, my interpretation of morality was now convenient for me. I felt less guilty if I decided, “Well, marriage isn’t a real thing, because Christianity isn’t real. God isn’t real. Therefore, marriage is just a stupid piece of paper with the government.” I thought of myself as super-scholarly at the time. “My academic pursuit has led me to this.” I was sincere to a certain degree, but we all hear what we want to hear to justify our actions. I interpreted the evidence how I wanted and felt it was intellectually dishonest to consider myself a Christian. I felt at best I could consider myself agnostic, and at least I would consider myself an atheist. That was my original twist on the whole thing. I read a lot of stuff from the people who are now more popularly known as the “Four Horsemen” of the atheist apocalypse.

Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. I actually interviewed Hitchens at some length back in 2001. I didn’t agree with him on faith or on the Iraq War, but I absolutely loved his wit and wordplay.
Hitchens wasn’t an expert in any one particular field. He kind of covered them all. That’s why he was, rest his soul, the debater. I remember watching a debate between him and [Christian theologian] William Lane Craig and thinking, “I just like that guy more.” I realize now that these guys are brilliant scientists in their own fields—neuroscience, biology, physics. Sam Harris was analyzing neuroscience and the way the brain works to the point where he says, “I think the likelihood of God being involved in our world is very slim.” He presented very good reasons for that. Dawkins would say, “I understand the biological process very well.” He explained evolution in a way that’s brilliant and makes a lot of sense. When I read A Universe From Nothing, [Lawrence] Krauss explains the physics down to that initial vacuum-like moment before the Big Bang happened. He says, “Look, I can describe all these things” using his expertise. Because they’ve so accurately and brilliantly described the science, they must be right. It’s okay to admit they are right about the science. But the philosophy? I realize now those guys are jumping into a field that isn’t their field. They are brilliant scientists, but poor philosophers. I can separate the two now. But I couldn’t back then.

Plenty of brilliant philosophers would make terrible scientists.
Exactly. You know when you have that friend who’s just genuinely smarter than the rest of you? When he develops a theory about whatever, everyone’s like, “He must be right!” But even that guy is still wrong about at least one in 10 things. Harris was the first guy to break through to me. His Free Will book in particular seemed so hard to argue against. You’d have to be an idiot to argue with that book. That’s how I felt.

The faux moral superiority of religious fundamentalists is such a turnoff. But I see the same evangelical zeal in the “New Atheism.” It’s smug. Reactive. Absolute.
Have you seen the movie The Unbelievers? It’s Dawkins and Krauss traveling the country spreading the gospel of new atheism. These guys travel the world, creating a movement for new atheism with a seemingly divine sense of purpose. Now they have this movie that’s supposed to inspire people to become unbelievers. But what inspired them to want to do that in the first place if it’s all meaningless? William Lane Craig is a brilliant writer. He wrote about the movie and about how there’s a part of human nature that yearns for a divine sense of purpose. Whether those guys admit it or not, they are definitely preaching their message as if it’s the calling on their lives. It’s important for me, where I’m at now, to acknowledge these guys are brilliant scientists. I can agree with their science without abandoning a belief in God. It may conflict with super-conservative Christianity, but that’s not what Jesus was teaching to begin with.

As the saying goes, “The number one cause of atheism is the church.” Whenever we deal in extreme absolutes, when one part of it turns out to be totally faulty, it’s easy to throw it all out.
Yes, even down to the topic of morality itself. I went to a Christian high school. We had a Bible class where the teacher said, “Where does morality come from? Is it objective or subjective?” Your first instinct is to say it is kind of subjective. Maybe it’s good to life sometimes, like to a kid to make them feel safe. “Wrong! Morality is objective because it comes from God. So there is only one right answer!” It was ingrained in my mind, then, that if there was no God, there is no objective morality. So when I abandoned all belief in God, I had nowhere to put my feet. I was 30 years old and asking myself that same question, “Where does morality come from?” If there was no God, then morality is whatever I want to make it. That began to justify a lot of crazy behaviors in my life.

Aleister Crowley wrote, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”
Most atheists don’t actually think that way. Most atheists grow up in a maybe slightly healthier environment where they learn that morality is slightly subjective, that society as a whole benefits from morality. They learn these general concepts that are super-obvious to me now. At a Christian school, you’re presented with one argument. “Can you think of a better argument?” So later in life when a counter-argument surfaces, your whole world is thrown into shock, because you’ve been indoctrinated. I’m not blaming religion. But this was one of the factors that sent me into this massive moral decline.

I was convinced there was no God and therefore there was nothing wrong with absurd things. I trained my mind to work around the issue. “Well, logically, if this makes my life better, than this is what I should do.” I don’t think I’d fall into that moral trap again, even if later in life I examined the evidence and once again decided there’s no God. I’ve been able to see all sides of the arguments more wholly. Even from the perspective of doing whatever’s best for you, there are still consequences for your actions.

Taking anabolic steroids can make you feel like you’re above everything. The heightened hormones make you feel literally invincible. I didn’t plead insanity or anything. But I did have insane thoughts like, “I can casually do all of these things I’ll never get caught for, and my life will be immediately better if I just do what’s best for me.” It was almost as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. It’s insane for me to think about now. I wasn’t capable of thinking through steps two and three and how much it would hurt my kids? Or how much all of my other relationships would be damaged or destroyed? I’ve always been the thoughtful, over-analyzing type. Clearly, there were major changes happening there.

The divorce papers said you were obsessed with bodybuilding, you would ignore the kids, and that you even once fell asleep while watching them at a swimming pool. You had a girlfriend in Florida, you spent tons of money on tattoos and nice cars. When all of this came out after your arrest, you really couldn’t have looked any worse.
You have to put yourself in the mindset of someone filing papers against the person he or she hates the most at that moment. “Let’s list everything I can, even if it’s remote, even if there’s only a sliver of truth,” you’d want to list it. She filed papers. I didn’t.

But what about the things she wrote? Are they true?
I could probably start from the top and explain [each thing]. I’m not going to deny there are some things in there that are true. But let’s start with the tattoo example. It’s one of the least relevant things on the list, but [one of the most absurd]. When you’re in a band, you don’t pay for your tattoos, for the most part. Guys want to tattoo you when you come through on tour. You tip them. That’s about it. And as far as spending money on crazy cars, I literally went to the Jeep dealership and said, “Give me the cheapest car you have. I need a safe car to drive my kids around in.” Those are just a couple of examples of the absurdities that are in there from somebody who just wants to find reasons to slam me. I don’t even remember everything that’s on the list.

She says you spent too much time at the gym. Obviously, that’s true.
Yeah, I’ll admit to that. That’s one of my biggest regrets, that I’d run off to the gym for an hour when I could have spent that hour with my kids. I’ll straight up own that one.

A lot of fathers play golf or go sit in a bar. I’d say that hour was better, at least.
But looking back and knowing how little time I’ve gotten to spend with my kids over the last year… I will say, without a doubt, I’d have rather spent those hours with my kids than at the gym. At the time, I definitely didn’t view it like it was cutting my time with the kids. I tried to sneak out when they were taking a nap or doing homework and [Meggan was helping them]. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was probably spending more time at the gym than I even realized. No matter how bad things got, no matter how badly I wanted to get out of the house or didn’t want to spend time with my wife on a personal level, even at my worst, my kids were the biggest priority for me. I could have spent more time with them. But prior to my arrest, the only thing that really interfered with my relationship with my kids were the issues going on with the divorce.

A month before your arrest, you posted a YouTube video addressing fans who felt your new side project, Pyrithion, was “satanic.” I remember watching the video at the time and noticing you never gave the easy answer: “Of course not. I’m a Christian!” You knew people thought of you as a Christian. Weren’t you lying by omission?
Yes. If you say, “This is what I believe, you can count on this. If you believe the same things, I’m on your team.” A lot of Christian parents said, “Yes, you can buy this As I Lay Dying CD, because they’re a Christian band.” They don’t even think to actually check the lyrics. So when you change your views, you kind of owe it to the fans to be honest.

As far as the video I did explaining Pyrithion’s lyrics… I was trying to put out a fire. I was afraid it would affect As I Lay Dying sales, which would affect my overall income. I was trying to put out the fire by saying the easiest thing, “I’m not a satanist!” Truthfully, I was an atheist. The “strategy” I had at the time was cowardly. Two of the songs on that record were about coming to grips with the idea that life has no purpose, no meaning. These were negative themes I wasn’t “allowed” to deal with in As I Lay Dying songs. I thought making As I Lay Dying darker would be bad for my career. That was my thinking.

There are bands out there right now, playing Christian festivals, cashing the Christian checks, selling CDs in the Christian stores, who are not Christians. Maybe one or two guys are, but most of them aren’t. They will rationalize it either by saying, “I want this check,” or “Well, one guy still is” or worse, I know of one band who says, “Well, we don’t want to let our fans down, because we love them so much.”
We toured with more “Christian bands” who actually aren’t Christians than bands that are. In 12 years of touring with As I Lay Dying, I would say maybe one in 10 Christian bands we toured with were actually Christian bands. I actually wasn’t the first guy in As I Lay Dying to stop being a Christian. In fact, I think I was the third. The two who remained kind of stopped talking about it, and then I’m pretty sure they dropped it, too. We talked about whether to keep taking money from the “Christian market.” We had this bizarrely “noble” thing, like, “Well, we’re not passing along any bad ideas. We’re just singing about real life stuff. Those kids need to hear about real life, because they live in a bubble.”

Well, many of them do. What happened when a kid asked to pray with you?
I remember one Christian festival where an interviewer wanted one of the guys to share his testimony, and he just froze up and let one of the guys who was still a Christian at the time answer the question. We laughed about it afterward, but we were only laughing because it was so awkward. When kids would want to pray with us after shows, I’d be like, “Um, go ahead and pray!” I would just let them pray. I’d say “Amen.” If praying while I have my hand on their shoulder makes them feel better, I didn’t want to take that away from them. When they would specifically ask me to pray for something, I’d say, “I don’t really like to pray out loud, but I’ll take that with me to the bus.”

And do what with it? Send out positive vibes?
Yeah. It was cowardly, looking back. But did I really want to get into a huge explanation? Before my arrest, my plan was to tour for as many really good years that we actually had left—four, five. I wanted to save up that money and then stop doing it altogether, stay home with my kids, have the money we needed. If I had to work at McDonalds, it would easily pay the bills, because my house would be paid off, and all we’d need was food.

Most guys think their band will be popular forever.
I went to Meggan at one point and said, “I have saved up a good chunk of money. We can get a house, and then there’s not much more money I will need in order for us to live comfortably.” The big pressure was always on me to tour less. We were finally in that position. I gave her a budget of $500,000 to pick out a house. We’d pay for the entire thing at once and never have a house payment. She couldn’t find a house she liked for that amount of money. She found one for $750,000. I said, “You know that means I’m going to have to tour a lot more for this to happen. You want me to be home more often.” Now she was saying, “I want the $750,000 house. You’re going to have to tour more often.” That’s when I realized we had both changed, so much, in different ways. She couldn’t look at me as the same person she married. I couldn’t look at her that way. We could have easily gone to counseling for that. But I didn’t even push the issue. I was like, “This is the final straw.” I kind of gave up on us ever being on the same page. She’s a pretty reasonable person. If I had given her a hard time about it for a week or two, she would have probably agreed to a compromise. But I just didn’t care anymore.

How did things get so bad that you would even entertain the idea of her death?
After our separation, I was only allowed to see the kids twice a week. And it had to be somewhere Meggan could sit in the distance and literally watch me watch the kids.

How’d that start? Is that legal?
Well, I realize that a lot of my behavior since then justifies her skepticism. Her attitude was, “He decided to leave me. There’s nothing wrong with me. He must be crazy.” If you’re emotionally defending yourself, that’s a reasonable way to react to a certain degree. But eventually you gotta get to that point where you realize, “Whether it’s my fault or his fault that we’re not together, we’re just not together.”

Had you fallen in love with someone else?
No. When I decided to separate, I had been talking to somebody. We were kind of dating more or less, but it wasn’t like, “Oh, I’m in love.” It wasn’t someone I was trying to run off with and it wasn’t the first infidelity, either. But it was the first one I wasn’t even bothering to try to hide. It was pretty much like we were almost dating.

What was your relationship with the band and crew like at the time?
They were all pretty aware of what was going on. But none of them called me out on it. Looking back, I wish they had been like, “Yo, dude, is this really how you want your life to unfold?” I understand it was awkward. “We know he’s cheating on his wife, we know he’s going to end his marriage, we know he’s on steroids.” They all definitely knew I had [strayed] from my marriage and at least some of them know about the steroids.

Is it true that you ended your marriage by email?
I was on tour and she could tell, over the phone, that something was wrong. I said, “I’m going to be home in three days. I really want to talk about this when I get home.” I didn’t want to talk about it over the phone. And she says, kind of like a Gandhi hunger strike, “I’m not going to go to sleep until I know what’s going on with this.” I didn’t want her to endure any more pain. I didn’t want her to stay up all night. I would have rather told her this in person, but I said, “I don’t love you the way you love me. I want you to be able to go forward in life and be happy. I want you to be with somebody who really loves you.” I had an illusion that I was dong the “noble” thing. I separated from her over the phone. I sent her an email to follow up with my thoughts on everything. As far as the email about no longer being a Christian, that email was actually a considerable time before that.

The perception is you wrote, “I’m cheating on you! I’m an atheist! Bye!”
That’s because when the D.A. brings it up in court, she just says it without putting dates on anything, so it comes across that way. I can’t say for sure, but it was definitely about six months prior. Anyway, so I told her all of that, I get home and she tells me I can see the kids twice a week for two hours at a time. “I talked to somebody and they said that’s reasonable.” I don’t blame her for [how she felt]. But after a couple of weeks, it’s like, “We’re separated. You’re going to have to learn how to make this work. You can’t limit my time and observe me.” In all of her time observing me, I might not have handled things exactly how she wanted, but I was a good father. I mean, that’s for sure. She’d say, “Well, remember that one time you fell asleep by the pool,” and I was like, “Yes, because we were both there, and I told you I was feeling nauseous.” So yes, I nodded my head, fell asleep for a nanosecond in my chair, then shook my head, stood up and wouldn’t sit down anymore because I was afraid of falling asleep. I was like, “You can bring these things that happened one time up for so long, but eventually, you’re going to have to learn how to just let me be a dad.” It was frustrating to have my time with the kids limited and controlled. But I figured we’d get through it eventually. But it went on so long, by the time we had a judge make a ruling on custody, the kids viewed me as an outsider. It was like I was somebody that just visited them.

What did you two tell the kids about the separation?
We told them together. We let them know they could ask any questions. The next day, one of my daughters had some questions. I thought she seemed to be doing well, given the traumatic situation. But once I became like an outsider, like, this visitor, I was… They called me “Dad.” But they weren’t really sure the role I was supposed to play in their lives. Not because I didn’t want to play a greater role, but because they thought that Mom took care of them and Dad was just some random guy at that point, and this was after awhile of me having this really controlled schedule. I told the social worker that was preparing us for the courts how frustrating that was, that I really needed more time with the kids, immediately. The social worker seemed to reassure me that I would get more time with them, eventually.

Meggan wanted 100 percent custody. She was really honest about that. If it were up to her, I’d have nothing to do with them. She told me a few times she wished I was dead. Those are not unique thoughts for me to have. She felt those things toward me, too. Not that she would have ever taken it to the level that I did. But when she said those things, I thought, “She’s going to try to push me out of their lives. I need to get more time with the kids.”

It doesn’t sound like she wanted you dead; she’d just be happy if you were gone.
She actually said, “We’d be better off if you were…” So when she realized I was working toward getting more custody, I think her next play was to win them over emotionally, to completely make me the outsider. Certain things started happening. One afternoon, my daughter asked my mom, “Why didn’t Daddy want to adopt me?” My mom calls me over and we all start talking further. My daughter says, “Why do you go on tour? Is it because you don’t want to spend time with us?” I told myself, “Well, these are natural questions, she’s just feeling some doubts.” Later, that turned into, “Daddy goes on tour because he doesn’t want to spend time with us, and he doesn’t love us like Mommy does.” It went from a question to a statement. I knew something [was up].

I was giving the kids a snack one afternoon. I wasn’t religious, but I knew they prayed with Mommy. So I said, “Hey, are we supposed to pray before your snack?” I wanted to keep their routines. It’s one of the healthiest things you can do in a divorce situation. They said, “No, we only pray with Mommy.” There was a sense of exclusivity about it. The prideful part of me, and the curious part wanted to pry a little bit. So I go, “What do you guys pray with Mommy about?” I asked in a way, like, “Why is it so exclusive?” And my daughter goes, “Mommy prays with us at night that we don’t have to go to Daddy’s house anymore.” I turned around, walked into the kitchen… I like, pretended… I think I had some apples that I was putting on a plate or something. I pretended like slicing those apples was the hardest thing I had ever done, because it felt like the hardest thing I’d ever done… It probably was only two or three minutes, but it took me what seemed like an eternity to be able to put those apples on that plate, take a deep breath, turn around and bring the rest of the snacks to the kids.

She told the kids that they weren’t safe with my parents. They had a great relationship with my parents. They would help Meggan when it was an overwhelming night and I was gone and she needed that extra hand. But eventually it wasn’t just her and I, it became our two families feuding. My daughter said, “We’re not allowed to be alone with Grandma.” I said, “Why not?” She said, “We’re not safe with Grandma.” That was when I realized there were no boundaries to this family feud. I was trying to be the best father I could be.

Were you saying negative things about her to the kids?
To confess, I did fall into that trap a little bit. Here’s an example. I was supposed to drop off the kids, but she wasn’t home. Since she would only communicate by email or text, I couldn’t get her to answer the phone. I said, “Well, Mommy doesn’t know how to work her cell phone.” She would let them eat things I wouldn’t normally allow them to eat. I’d say, “Well, Mommy doesn’t know anything about nutrition.” The kids don’t need to hear that. These were minor things, but I shouldn’t have said them. It’s not fair to the kids.

But the thing about your parents crossed a line?
That was the moment where I realized that if I’m not going to be physically gone from my kids’ lives, I was going to be emotionally gone, unless something happens. I talked to my lawyer. I told that story. It’s all documented with the social worker, the whole thing, the praying… I asked my lawyer, “How soon can we get in front of a judge? Because I need something to happen.” She said, just being realistic, it would be at least a couple of months, at the soonest. And I remember, just being like, if, you know… [Sighs.]

You felt like you didn’t have a couple of months?
Yeah. I felt like the courts weren’t able to do anything for me. I wasn’t an angry or vengeful person, I was just hurting. In trying to describe the emotions that eventually led to the conversations I had prior to my arrest, it definitely wasn’t like… I mean, I wasn’t like screaming her name, or like swearing… I wasn’t angry.

This guy at my gym, my workout partner, I just expressed to him how sad I was. I asked the guy I had been buying steroids from, the steroid dealer, if we could meet. I’m talking to him in the parking lot one afternoon and I go, “Hey, how’s it going?” He goes, “Pretty good, unless you maybe need me to kill somebody for you.” Like that, right off the bat.

I’m kind of like, “Whoa, what are you talking about?” He goes, “Well I’ve heard you’ve been pretty frustrated with your wife…” He just kind of had—I mean, he’s a steroid dealer. He has a sketchy background, you know what I mean? So I’m thinking, “Geez, where’s this guy going with this?” He starts asking me these seemingly rhetorical questions. “Have you tried working things out with your lawyer?” I said yeah, but it was going to be a couple of months before I saw the judge. “Have you tried taking them to a social worker? Like a counselor?” I said yes and the social worker had met with the kids.

He goes, “Well, you know your other option is I can hook you up with somebody that could do this.” And he goes, “Can you think of a better option?” He’s asking it like it’s a rhetorical question. I remember thinking at the time, “This doesn’t feel right. This doesn’t feel like my best option.” But my thinking at that time… As much as I wished there was a better option, this is my best option. Obviously, right now, I can think of a dozen things and I understand the legal system much better. Legally speaking, there are emergency type things where you can get a judge to see you earlier, which I didn’t know. There are dozens of things I can think of now. But I just started to develop this mindset of, “Alright… I guess this seems like the path I’m going to have to go down.”

The guy you’re talking about is Brett Kimball. In court, he said, “He began by asking me if I knew why I was there. I made the comment that I was hoping it wasn’t to kill anybody. He said that was funny, because that was exactly why I was there. We went back in and had a conversation and started talking about the situation at hand…” Brett claims he offered you alternatives. “Go to a counselor, talk to somebody…”
It’s not like he presented alternatives like he was trying to talk me into one. He presented the alternatives as a means to talk me out of them. “You want to try this stupid thing? You want to try that stupid thing?” It was like the steroid [pitch]. “You’re going to GNC to buy the testosterone booster? You don’t want to take the real deal?” Granted, I know it’s a matter of perspective, but that’s how he presented it.

He said you wouldn’t be dissuaded.
Here’s what’s interesting: His testimony was thrown out. When we cross-examined him, my lawyer says, “I’m sorry I have to ask you these questions, but, are you a steroid dealer?” And Brett says, “Uh… no.” And then my lawyer asks, “Have you ever distributed a list of steroids to people at the gym?” We had the list of steroids he would pass out, his solicitation list. He’s like, “No.” The judge goes, “Jurors, hold on. We’re taking a recess. This guy needs to realize what he’s saying on the stands.”

Was he under oath?
He was under oath. The judge takes a recess and assigns Brett a public defender. They go and talk in the hallway. He comes back and the public defender says, on the record, “Brett Kimble, would you like to plead the fifth?” And he says, “Yes.” And he says, because he went into this unadvised, “Would you like your testimony to be stricken from the record?” And his testimony was struck from the record. There were cameras in the courtroom and they were broadcasting live. The judge says, “Can you delete that from the tapes?” They said, “Yeah, but, we already broadcasted it live.” He goes, “Well, as long as that’s the only broadcast, just make sure they never broadcast that part again.”

Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about his crimes, just yours.
It was very quickly shown that he was an illegitimate witness. The testimony against me at my sentencing will be the testimony of the actual undercover officer.

You and Brett agree about the “unless you need me to kill somebody” comment.
Yes. His version of the story starts out the same as mine.

If he wasn’t somebody who could make that happen, why make that joke?
Everybody who knows him, including his friends, have said Brett making this connection and turning this whole thing over to the police was not altruism. He wasn’t trying to make the world a better place. Everybody knows he did something that helped him in some way. But nobody knows what that is. It’s not even up for debate with people that know him. It’s not like, “Oh, Brett’s just such a good guy. He just wanted to make the world a better place.” I mean, this is the guy that, if he came up to you and was like, “Oh yeah, dude, I can totally have somebody killed for you.” You wouldn’t doubt it for a second. I’m not saying all steroid dealers are potential murderers. But this was a guy who was in massive amounts of debt to other dealers. Other dealers had been in the gym looking for him, looking to rough him up. I never personally saw this, but people at the gym said the Hells Angels were looking for him and that plainclothes police officers had come in looking for him, too. All of these things happened within two weeks of when this happened. The chances of him doing something to help himself are very high; the chances of him doing something to make the world a better place are very low. Something in the story just doesn’t add up.

That’s why my plea was not guilty. Well, my initial plea was not guilty, just because that’s how the system is set up. The system is not set up to deal with a guilty plea initially. But the second time, I pled not guilty, because I was convinced this was a textbook case of entrapment. I admit, in my heart, as a human being, I was guilty, because my heart was capable of going there. But in the court of law, I firmly believed I was innocent. What I found is that there’s really no such thing as an entrapment defense. It’s a myth, like a unicorn. Let’s say there are 10 things that would necessitate an entrapment defense, the government is like, “We’ll just do nine of those 10 things.”

What happened after that conversation? Was Brett going to look for somebody?
No, he had someone in mind. He didn’t say the guy’s name right then. I left the conversation thinking somewhere in the distant future, he would have me talk to some guy. No crime had been committed; the wheels were in motion for some sort of potential meeting. Brett calls me right before I leave for the Asian tour. He says, “Hey man, I really need to talk to you.” So I go and meet him. He says, “Hey, I’ve got this guy, we’ve got it all set up. His name is Red. He’s from Texas. So when you’re on tour, sometime when you’re in Texas, I’ll have him come meet you.” My curiosity got the best of me. “This sounds interesting. This Red dude sounds gnarly.” At that point, whether a crime was going to happen or not, I was just super-interested to meet this dude. I mean, you meet a lot of bizarre characters on tour. I was curious.

At the end of that conversation, Brett goes, “Oh, by the way, I need to borrow $8,000.” I’m like, “Dude, I’m leaving for Asia first thing tomorrow morning. The banks are closed. What do you need it for, anyway?” He says, “Oh, I’m managing this guitar player kid, and he’s going to be playing this TV show thing and I need to get some merchandise because…” He’s talking in circles. He needs $8,000. Nothing else he’s saying makes sense.

I said, “Dude, I’m really sorry, but there’s no way I can get you $8,000 by tomorrow.” I wonder: if I had let him borrow the money, would he have set me up like that? How irrelevant is $8,000 in the scheme of destroying a whole person’s life? But maybe that was enough to piss him off to be like, “Well, screw that guy! I need to get out of some trouble I’m in with the cops, and I’m going to put it on this guy.”

There are so many nights where I just stayed up in my cell just staring at the ceiling, in an isolation booth, thinking, “Why did this guy do this?” I’d actually feel better if I found out he got off some really gnarly charges, like he was going to serve 15 years in prison but he got off. That would at least provide an explanation. That’s some sort of satisfactory answer, as much as it would still make me bummed and frustrated.

I found out shortly before my sentencing that Brett has been arrested six times—three of them for theft. The records list a conviction or a reason for [each] arrest—except one. His sixth arrest was two months before my arrest. The official record says that arrest was for “undisclosed reasons.” This doesn’t help my court case at all, unfortunately. My lawyer said that my best defense, in terms of logic, would get me the worst sentence.

Where is Brett now?
They moved him to Texas. I don’t think he’s in Witness Protection, but they did move him from California to Texas, so clearly, there’s some sort of protection going on. He needed to start a new life. He had Hells Angels looking for him, cops looking for him, other steroid dealers he owed money to. He definitely needed a fresh life.

So I get back from Asia late at night on May 6. I’m woken up May 7 by a phone call from Brett. It was probably only 10 or 11, but with jetlag, I was still asleep. He’s like, “Remember that guy Red I was telling you about? He’s in town. He’s going to leave soon. You have to meet with him today.”

A guy calls me, says he’s Red. He goes, “We’re not going to talk about anything until we meet in person, but, I need you to bring me these things in order for the meeting to happen.” He specifically says, “I need you to bring me pictures, an address and $1,000 for expenses. So, I’m thinking, “He’s going to be doing some research. We’re not committing a crime right now. It’s just research.”

Having just gone through the separation, I actually didn’t have any pictures of her saved. I literally went online and printed black and white pictures of her. I didn’t have any pictures of her ready because I hadn’t been thinking about this whole thing. So I bring him exactly what he asked for and we meet –

He asked for the alarm codes, too?
No. That works against me, if I’m being honest. I printed her address and the pictures and all that. Right before I got out of the car to meet him, I’m thinking, “I should probably write a couple more things down here.” I didn’t want him to be snooping around the house, seeing what was going on, when my kids were there. So I wrote down when I’d have the kids. Then I was like, “I don’t know this dude. He’s probably a big thuggy dude. He’s going to look really obvious. I should probably write down the gate code so he’s not hopping fences and stuff.” So I write these things down, and those are very clearly handwritten later. I printed up exactly what he asked me to bring, and at the last minute I wrote those things down, because I kind of panicked.

It’s like your rational mind was trying to get back in control.
It’s all such last-minute insanity. Granted, here I haven’t slept more than five or six hours in a week at this point, in one night. In the last week, I maybe slept 30 hours. I’m just like, “I’m going to go meet this guy” and he’s asking me all these really weird questions.

Wait, back up: So you meet him in person.
He tells me to meet him at Barnes & Noble. I walk in, and there’s this biker-looking dude. Clearly, it was Red. He gives me the “what’s up?” and I gave him the “what’s up?” and then we’re just walking in one of the aisles, just talking. He’s asking me these really direct questions. “What is it you want me to help you with? What is it you want?” I was just like, “Man, I want my ex-wife gone.”

I’m thinking at this point we’re still doing research. He asked me for money for “expenses.” As the conversation goes on, he’s trying to get me to be more direct. He’s like, “I don’t want to do a job where I thought I was just supposed to beat somebody up and I was really supposed to do something else. I need you to be really specific.”

I was like, “Man, I just want her gone.” I wanted to make the hurt stop. That’s what I was focused on. I know this sounds ridiculous, but it’s like a big bear defending its cubs. Whatever I had to do, you know what I mean? It’s not in my nature to be growly and gnashing my teeth. I’m a pretty calm guy. I’m kind of passively saying, “I want her gone.” It’s just too much for me to handle. I don’t know how to handle any of it.

He’s pushing. “I want you to specifically say exactly what you want.” I’m thinking, “Is this dude stupid?” Obviously, I’m the one who is stupid. But in my mind, at the time, I’m thinking, “Man, I’m making it pretty clear here.” He says, “Just to be clear: You want your wife dead?” So right before I leave, I walk over to him and I say, “Yeah, just so you understand.” I don’t know why I didn’t realize I was the stupid one. There I was thinking he was the stupid one. But I’m really the stupidest dude in the world. That’s when I said, “Yes, to answer your question specifically, that’s what I want.” He’s got that recorded.

He asks me if I brought the stuff he asked me to bring. I said yes and that it was in the car. We go to the car, I hand him the envelope with everything in it through the window, I kick my car into reverse, look over my shoulder to back up, turn around and kick the car into drive and as soon as I turned my head back around, there was a gun at my head.

Was it Red or someone else pointing the gun?
It was a female officer. “Freeze!” I put the car in park and put my hands up. “Freeze! Get out of the car! Show me your hands!” I’m like, “I have my hands up. How do I get out of the car?” None of it seemed real. I don’t know who opened the door. I guess she must’ve. All I know is I was facedown on the concrete and all of these people were looking, wondering what the hell was going on. It was just like in the movies where five cop cars all pull up at the exact same time. You hear one split-second siren and then they all pull up to block a car from multiple angles. No exaggeration, there were somewhere between 10 and 15 [police officers], some undercover, some in uniforms. I’m thinking, “This is an absurd amount of officers. I’m not some super-well-known criminal.”

So, they stuff me in the back of the cop car and I’m going down to the station. All I can think of at the time, because my mind is just so… I’m like, “Hey, how long is it until we get to the station?” They’re like, “I don’t know, maybe 20 minutes.” I’m 6’3”. I don’t fit in the little grooves where your head is supposed to go. My knees are hitting, my shoulders… I’m thinking, “Man, 20 minutes is a long time to be sitting like this.” That’s how insane my mind was.

I start to process it all. I’m thinking, “He said that $1,000 was for expenses. I was just doing research on a crime, I wasn’t actually doing a crime.” So I’m thinking, “Okay, this isn’t that bad.” That’s the insanity of my mindset. “I wonder how long till I get my phone call?” “These cuffs are really uncomfortable.” These are the things on my mind. They throw me in the holding cell. I’m so jet-lagged and exhausted. I’m so out of my mind from everything that’s going on. I’m in this super-cold cell, in a sleeveless shirt and gym shorts, and within 15 minutes, I fall asleep on the concrete.

On Law & Order, they say innocent people flip out when put in a holding cell. But if you’re guilty, you go right to sleep. You know you’ll be there a while.
I was just thinking, “How long till I get my phone call? I can’t wait to get out of here. I’m so exhausted.” I had flown home from China. My body probably needed an entire day to adjust. While we were in Asia, we were flying from city to city and having to be at the airport at, like, 5 a.m. every morning. I was just totally shot. Then they bring me into the interrogation room, and I’m asking them bizarre questions. My mom says she watched the video and that I just seemed out of my mind. I’ve just been arrested for a very serious crime, and yet I just keep asking really stupid questions, like, “How long until I get transported to the next facility?” I couldn’t fathom what was going on. You know in movies when they have those trippy dream sequences? I was experiencing life like that.

When did you first have contact with someone outside of law enforcement?
My first phone call to anyone was about eight hours later, which, not that I’m complaining, but my lawyer said was really abnormal. I called my family. It had been all over the news, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t know how to explain this to my family.

It was all over the news fast.
I never viewed myself as a true “public figure.” People in our genre of music know who I am, but nobody else knows or cares. I can go to the grocery store without getting recognized, so in my mind, I was just another chump who’d been arrested.

When I called my parents, they told me what a huge story it was. That’s when it hit me that it was a very serious crime. And then the guilt of what’s going on in my heart starts to settle in. I started to see things from the perspective of what things were really like rather than the insane thinking I’d been living under. We had begun a process of research that could potentially cause someone to die. I was thinking, “Well, I’d have to pay him the remaining $20,000 before he does anything, so I haven’t”—that was how I justified it. But I started to realize that while I still owed the guy $20,000 and the crime wasn’t going to happen that day, the crime was set in motion to eventually happen. Once I realized that, I didn’t even recognize myself.

Because of my status as a public figure, I’m a liability for the jail. So they put me in isolation. The first place they put me was on the murder block, which is for all the dudes who’ve murdered someone and they’re in isolated separate cells because the nature of their crime. They can yell at each other through the walls and vents and stuff. So the first night I spend, it’s just dudes yelling, “Yo, who’s the new guy? Did he hurt kids? Did he rape anyone? Did he do anything he should get beat up for?” I just stayed quiet. The next night, they moved me into medical isolation, which is for people on suicide watch or who just broke an arm or something. That’s where I stayed for the remainder of the month. There are three white walls, it has a piece of glass on it where you can see into a hallway. They would put food through the hole in the door.

So you’re in isolation for several weeks, coming off that testosterone.
Because my estrogen levels were skyrocketing, the feelings I had weren’t heightened aggression. It was the opposite. It was depression. It was desperate thinking. I actually thought if I didn’t do something right then and there, my whole life would fall apart.

The perception is that you were trying to hang onto your money. You had gotten all ’roided out, vain and into yourself, and your ex-wife had become a nuisance.
I just felt extreme sadness. I was heartbroken. I was hurting. I wanted my kids. The steroids did create an imbalance. I was still having negative effects from the non-testosterone, but then the testosterone system in my body was completely crashed. When a woman is PMS-ing—I’m not a doctor, but imagine whatever that woman is feeling from that imbalance, but multiplied times 100. In my blood tests, my hormone levels were measurably ridiculous. I’m not saying I blame that. But I can 100 percent tell you I was making a lot of decisions I never would have made before or since.

Like what?
The doctor I was talking about, he loves this example. I’m at a four- way stop. I inched into this guy’s lane and he starts honking at me and causing a scene. Normally, I would say, “Whatever, sorry, go ahead.” Instead, I get out of my car, and I start chasing him. That was when my testosterone levels were really high. Getting out of my car and running after a car like a grizzly bear is something I never would have done before. My priorities really changed. I used to be someone who thought who you are on the inside matters more. Everyone cares about the exterior, but I once had a balanced perspective.

Some of the infidelities stemmed from my insecurities and both got to a level I couldn’t possibly foresee ever happening again. It’s hard to pinpoint the examples because it’s just in everyday decisions. I would wake up and feel like life was meaningless, life was hopeless. I know a lot of people struggle with depression. You wake up and it’s just like… Nothing moves you. Nothing makes you feel anything.

I remember emailing a friend and writing, “Hey dude, I feel like nothing in life has any value, or any meaning whatsoever, except for my kids. The devastation they’ve come from is so much more powerful than any sort of minor heartache I have ever felt. They’re the only thing that gives me any hope, because they’re the only thing that’s truly meaningful in my life.” I wrote long emails to this friend about how all I really want to do is someday make a documentary about the orphanage where my kids came from. That’s how I could overcome my depression, if I could help other people. They could see these devastating circumstances and yet how joyful these kids are. I wrote him this long email and told him I wanted to do this big documentary.

Yes, my kids still mattered to me. Doing a documentary and showing what’s really going on in places like Ethiopia, I would love to do those things. But to actually wake up every day and feel like nothing in life has any value or meaning besides my children? By contrast, I’m facing a jail sentence right now, but I wake up every day feeling positive.

When we were in China, I didn’t want to go out. I didn’t want to do anything. I wasn’t anti-social to the point where it made it awkward for other people, but everyone would be all about sightseeing, and I’d ask how much longer it would be before we got back to the hotel. I had a good source of income. I had a new relationship that I was really happy with. That was a source of positivity in my life. I got to travel the world. If I didn’t feel good enough about myself, I got up onstage and had the admiration of a thousand people. “Well, at least if I don’t feel good about me, I can raise my fist in the air and everyone is going to cheer for me.” But despite all that, I was still in this extreme depression.

I can’t blame any of the hormones on why I chose to do what I did. But I can say there were a lot of things I felt at the time that I definitely would not have felt otherwise.

I was getting text messages from all sorts of people asking whether the news was true. I remember the first link I clicked on. I thought it was some sort of joke website.
I was in denial. But once I was in isolation, all I could do was think, constantly think. At first it was, “Why would Brett do this to me? What was his motivation?” Nobody had explained to me what a long sentence I was looking at. It wasn’t until three days after my arrest that I even found out the potential length of my sentence, the maximum. It was just me in a cell. It was a recipe for insanity. I was thinking, “Man, the first thing I can get my hands on to read, I don’t care if it’s a brochure about vacuum cleaners.” Then the chaplain comes around and I’m thinking, “That’s the only thing in the world I don’t want to read about right now.” I spent 30 years believing in something I decided was a fairy tale. I grabbed a few books, and I recognized, early on, that I was in a very susceptible place emotionally. I read this one guy’s autobiography, his testimony so to speak, and I was really inspired. But then I thought to myself, “No, I’m not gonna be that foxhole atheist who faces something traumatic and wants God. It’s still a big myth.”

But I read more. Some of the stuff wouldn’t have an emotional sway to it. It’d just be matter-of-fact statements and all of a sudden this thing would be tugging at my heart; it would make me feel like I wanted… kind of wanted to cry, kind of wanted to throw up. This weird thing, what is tugging at my heart? But I was convinced I was too rational for this. “I’ve researched this too much. This can’t be God. It has to be the bad food in jail.”

Eventually, my family got some books to me; one of them was by William Lane Craig. If you remember guys like [Christian apologist] Josh McDowell or [Calvinist theologian] R.C. Sproul, he’s like the new generation of that. He’s a double Ph.D, one in historical theology and one in philosophy. He starts with these philosophical arguments about why he’s [adopted] the Christian worldview. He starts really simply—how there potentially could be a God. He’ll successfully make his point, then he’ll argue why he thinks there is a God. Then he’ll get into Jesus’ claims about who he is and go through all of these points. He’s a true philosopher. He doesn’t write books in the “popular” sense. He’s writing thick volumes. I read 1,000 pages of that dude, just to pass the time. I remember thinking, “This dude has some really good arguments here.” Granted, I feel like some of them he could have developed a little bit quicker because philosophers tend to write a certain way. But I had all the time in the world. That kind of opened up my mind to where my heart was a little bit. Even still, I didn’t come out of that situation saying “Oh, just because I’m in isolation I believe in God.” I was actually almost too proud. I didn’t want to let a traumatic event convert me. I’m going to formulate my beliefs because of what’s truly rational. This coming from a guy who just—

Did the most irrational thing of his life.
Exactly. Once I came to grips with the fact that I really am being charged with this crime. It doesn’t matter if I wasn’t certain whether or not to actually go through with the murder part of it or not. I’m potentially looking at a decade here in prison. I remember thinking, “Easy solution. Next chance I get, I’m going to get out on bail. I’m going to go home and soak up as much time as I can with people I love. And I’m going to kill myself.”

There’s no way I’m going to spend a decade in jail. There’s no way a dude that just got done traveling the whole world and having financial freedom, having the opportunities to absorb multiple cultures and have multiple incredible experiences is going to just become this big wide-winged bird crammed into this tiny cage. Life is just the result of natural events, and lots of people are born and lots of people die every day. I’ll just soak up as much time that’s worth living and then just kill myself. That was it.

Even if you’ve been accused of murder, usually the bail is about a million bucks or something and you pay your eight to 10 percent of that, get out and then stand trial. I didn’t commit murder, so I figured my bail would be reasonable. At my arraignment, I was thinking bail would be $1 million at most. All of my money had been set aside in an attorney trust fund during the divorce. But I figured I could pull together $80,000, borrowing money here and there, blah, blah.

I was literally convinced, as soon as I get out of here I’m just going to soak up as much time as I can and then kill myself. It was super-black and white. Life is full of pain. If this is the way life is going to be forever, this is no way to live. No one should live like this.

So then at my arraignment, I plead not guilty. My attorney makes his case before the judge of why my bail should only be $250,000, which is the normal scheduled amount for my crime. When I say scheduled amount, that means that’s the suggested thing for anyone who commits this crime. He was a retired judge who had taken this seat because the normal judge was sick that day. So he’s really happy with his retirement seat, he gets paid double because he’s retired. He goes, “I’m going to set the bail at $3 million.” That’s 12 times the normal amount! The emotional part of me thought maybe God was trying to keep me alive, because I was going to kill myself. But I didn’t believe in God! So it had to be a fluke! That’s crap. We’ll just do a bail review in a week, the bail will be lowered, then I’ll get out of jail and go kill myself.

We do the bail review and it’s a new judge, but he’s more recently appointed to the seat. So he’s kind of scared to rock the boat. So he reduces the bail to $2 million. I don’t think God intervenes and does mysterious magical things. He’s not this character that people depict in movies. But I do think, selectively, that there are certain situations that happen in life where even a rational person can be like, “Maybe God was at work here.” Maybe this was one of them.

I heard someone gave you the money in exchange for the rights to your story.
No. There was a guy who said he’d give me $60,000 for the rights to my life story. I’ve since learned from movie producers that $60,000 would have been taking advantage. I don’t have any ambitions about selling my life story. But this person knew it was an opportunistic moment. He says he’ll get it to me right away. My family worked out a deal to get me out, and I wanted to pay them back. When I got home on house arrest, this guy said he’d wire me the money right away so I could give it to the bail bonds people. I considered using that money to get out on bail, but I never ended up doing it because my dad struck his own deal, so I was able to do that through the family. He became hard to get a hold of, which gave me a moment to reevaluate. I’m convinced he wanted to tell his story, not mine. If I sold my story to him, it would become his twisted version. I thought he cared about me as a person and was helping me get out of a tough situation. But as it turns out, he said he had to get more advice from his attorney. He referenced things like full and total control, all editing rights and the whole bit. Two more people approached me later, with bigger offers. But at that point, I had accepted that I was comfortable being in debt to my parents because they see the big picture and they want true healing to happen, not for me to have to sold my soul living the rest of my life with some bizarre version of me being told out there. I was so ready to sign over. I wanted that $60,000 so bad. That was the magic number I needed. I had all the money except for $60,000. It would have been the right amount at that time.

What was your last contact with Meggan and the kids before your arrest?
After our separation there were a couple of weeks where Meggan and I tried to be helpful and interactive with the kids so that their questions could be answered and they could be a little more comfortable. When I started getting time with the kids solely by myself, she didn’t want to talk to me anymore. It frustrated her that things weren’t exactly how she wanted them. She would only speak to me over text or email. That’s one of those things, when people only communicate on that level, things get worse.

It’s easy for someone to become an abstraction to you then and not a person.
Yes. She started to become an “idea” to me, which is super-weird. Here’s a good example of how bad the communication became: She was picking up the kids, and I was helping them into the minivan, giving them kisses. One of the kids buckled up but hadn’t shut the door yet, and Meggan started driving away with the door open without realizing it. So I start running after the minivan, “Whoa! Wait!” She kept driving. I don’t know if the momentum of the car closed the door or what. Maybe my daughter closed it?

But Meggan gets home and starts this big family drama. I’m not blaming her. I’m saying this is an example of a simple miscommunication. I could see why she saw it that way. But I could have seen it like, “You’re a terrible mother! I can’t believe you drove away with the door open!” She gets home and sends this big thing to both of our parents saying, “I can’t believe Tim was running after the car like a madman today. We’re going to have to figure out a new way to exchange the kids, it’s unsafe at this point. I remember thinking, “You’re calling me unsafe? You just drove away with the door open!”

If I in fact, was a madman running after the car, then she should want to keep the kids safe from that madman. And if she in fact, was driving away with the door open, then I should be running after the van telling her to stop. That’s definitely not a story told to blame anyone. It’s just to show when communication gets so poor between people, those types of things happen. They heighten things, where both parents have good intentions. She had great intentions as a mother. My arrest shows I obviously was a little bit of a madman. We both had good intentions. We’re both actually trying to be the best parents we can be, but we’re making it way worse on our kids.

The reason I make my own confession even about the small stuff, I can see even how that stuff develops. It feels good for a brief moment to be like, “I’m the better parent here!” As strange as this is, it’s heartbreaking when I look back on those situations. I can’t believe she told the kids those things. The social worker called it “alienating behaviors.” I have been able over time to let go of the anger I’ve had about it. I’d be lying by saying I didn’t have any. I can see how she might take an instance and really try to push it, in the moment. Maybe even she regrets the things that she said. Because there was no interaction between her and I, I’ll never get an apology nor do I expect one given the pain that I’ve caused. My relationship with the kids was destroyed a little bit because of her alienating behaviors. But now it’s entirely destroyed because of my arrest. If that is just the little bit that was beginning the process and made me feel desperate, the total destruction of that relationship and not being able to see my kids for this last year is entirely my own fault. I’m trying to keep that in perspective. The last thing I want to come across is that I’m still bitter about these comments.

When was the last time you saw your kids?
Right before I left for Asia. Right now there’s a restraining order against me, which I understand. I have a lot to figure out there. Given the, I call them alienating behaviors, because that’s what the social worker calls them, and those will be documented in the sentencing, so obviously from my side I’ve used stronger words like brainwashing, manipulating or poisoning. Knowing those alienating behaviors started prior to my arrest, I can only imagine the extent I’ve fueled them at this point. The kids are old enough to know what’s going on. I’m sure some kid at school has said something. The prison sentence I’m facing is one thing. But the real lifelong sentence is that I may never get to see my kids again. Or if I do get to see them, the relationship is so damaged where I’m not even sure it’s best for them, for me to try to pry my way into their lives.

You can’t control what they choose to do. They may yearn to have some sort of relationship with you, regardless. People have all sorts of complicated family bonds.
My attorney on the civil side said that the most significant parts of his relationship with his son have all been since his son turned 18. He’s in his 50s. It makes me think, “Okay, at some point they’re going to want to come talk to me and see what’s going on. They may have a lot of questions, and they might not all be easy, but there’s hope.”

Meggan filed a $2 million civil suit against you. What’s going on with that?
When it rains it pours. I was served with the restraining order the day after I made bail. Then I find out they’re fighting to make sure I won’t ever see my kids until they’re 18. And then there was the $2 million civil suit. Considering the cost of the attorneys, my debt to my parents for the bail bond… When I learned about the civil suit, I kind of laughed. “I don’t even have $20,000. You’re suing me for $2 million?”

People are saying you did this because your wife wanted your money.
I put my money into an attorney-run trust account. A judge would basically decide who gets what. I had already given up control of the money and my entire life savings.

The Tim I knew before all of this was always trying to plan ahead and examined every business decision. Part of the shock of this whole situation, for me, was, “How could he be this stupid? What did he think would happen? Did he think he’d even get away with it anyway? Was it supposed to look like an accident? Was there a plan?”
In that meeting, where the guy wanted this $1,000… I was curious to see what he came back to me with after he did his research, because I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

You had no idea what methods he may or may not have used?
All of that was to be determined. My lawyer told me I could fight this as entrapment. He also told me I could chase unicorns and believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. If we made the entrapment argument, but didn’t win, I would for sure get the maximum sentence. Not only that, but it looks like we’re attacking law enforcement, who will always have the judge’s sympathy. It’s also dragging the judge through this big long excuse story that would come off like I have no remorse. So when it came time for sentencing, the judge would say, “Well, based on your complete lack of remorse, I’ll give you the maximum.” I realized how empty the entrapment defense was. At the first opportunity I had to plead guilty; it was 10 months later when the judge had given any indication of my options. So I plead guilty. It wasn’t a plea deal, because there was no certainty about what my sentence would be if I plead guilty. It was more like, “For sure you’re not going to get the maximum if you plea.” But that was it.

The maximum is nine years. Do you expect to get, like, eight years and 11 months?
Well, it happens in blocks. I’m sure the sentencing will be wildly misreported.

There was an April Fool’s story online that you were already serving a nine-year sentence. And you had escaped from jail, Shawshank Redemption -style.
I know. One of my friends hit me up because he thought it was real. The judge has three options to choose from: three years, six years or nine. The way the credits work in California, you serve 50 percent of that time. So it’s actually one and a half years, three years or four and-a-half years.

Will the time you’ve served, plus the house arrest, count toward that?
It normally would. But we don’t want to bring that up during sentencing. The judge could take that into account, like, “I really want this guy to serve three years, so, I’m going to give him four because I have to give him one for the house arrest.”

I was shocked to learn nine years was the maximum; it seems too low.
Well, here’s what’s interesting. My lawyer pointed out that if this wasn’t entrapment, they would be charging me with conspiracy to commit murder. I’d be looking at 20 years. They charged me with solicitation to commit murder, a lesser charge.

What’s the difference?
Brett wasn’t a dude who was seriously considering helping me commit a murder. If he was, I’d be looking at conspiracy. So we know for a fact Brett was working with law enforcement in some way. That’s why I’m being charged with solicitation. The proof that this case was entrapment is actually right there in the charge itself.

So if this were someone who was planning to help make this happen and not just pretending, it would be conspiracy. You were conspiring together. But since you were the only person involved who thought any of it was real, it’s solicitation.
Exactly. And that’s the difference. My lawyers are saying, for your own peace of mind if it makes you feel better to know it was entrapment, yes, the charges prove that.

A week after your arrest, your first attorney, Anthony Salerno, pointed out Meggan’s brother is a San Diego sheriff’s deputy. The San Diego sheriffs are who arrested you.
Yes. Her brother is a Sheriff.

He said, “I don’t want to make accusations on this one unless I have some more information, [but] I think I’d be really remiss if I didn’t fully explore that. It’s at the bare minimum very coincidental, and it may be more than that.”
[Silence].

It does seem like a pretty big coincidence.
I won’t go down that line of thinking. I can’t. I don’t want it to be true. I’ve faced enough heartache. It’s easier for me to cope with everything if I don’t think about that.

Salerno’s interviews made a lot of waves in the press.
He really wanted to pursue the entrapment angle. We had to hire someone else, because we learned it would be like chasing the Easter Bunny.

Your new attorney, Tom Warwick, started talking about steroids.
You asked me earlier about detoxing from steroids in jail. The depression I was feeling from the situation, plus the hormones, plus the isolation… I’m not trying to make this a “poor me” moment. But imagine despair like you’ve never felt, heightened by these chemical imbalances. That’s why I feel like I’m talking about a different person—a person who was suicidal, insane. Change someone’s hormones that dramatically and they may not actually be a different person, but they will certainly resemble a different person.

After your release, a neighbor of your parents named Charlene Walker told a local news crew that Meggan and your father had been in a loud shouting match outside.
That just straight-up never happened.

Meggan wasn’t there yelling, “It’s not about the money”?
No. It was a highly emotional time for my parents. Maybe she heard my mom yelling at my dad about which attorney we should hire. “It’s not about the money!” I don’t know. I wasn’t there for that conversation. But Meggan had no interaction with my parents whatsoever. So that’s a straight-up lie.

Are you familiar with the blog Public Shaming? They have a Tim Lambesis page setup. It’s full of screen caps of your fans saying things like, “Thanks to that stupid bitch, my favorite band has been fucked up forever,” and “His wife probably deserved it.” When you put up that Tumblr blog of yours, why wasn’t the first thing we heard from you something like, “Please leave Meggan alone.” She was said to be in hiding.
I did the Tumblr thing because I was going insane in isolation for all of those weeks. Then I got home and was alone most of the time. I didn’t see anyone during most of the day. People had gone to work. I’d see my family in the evenings. That was about it.

Did anyone from As I Lay Dying come to see you?
No. Well, Jordan [Mancino, drummer] came by once. We talked for a little bit. It was really emotional and we never got anywhere. He was here for maybe 30 minutes. We just scratched the surface. I thought he would come back, but he never did. Maybe he thought I was nuts.

I was sitting around doing nothing but thinking. I wanted someone to talk to. I can’t talk about my court case. I can’t talk about this or that. So I’m going to start a book club, more or less. “Here’s what I’ve been reading. What are your thoughts?”

It doesn’t sound like you were thinking rationally again yet.
Honestly, yes, I was still a little bit off balance and a little nutty. I was also sorting through some really important and powerful topics but I wasn’t really ready to have a conversation about them. So I was just rambling on without a point. I just wanted some human interaction. I was researching a lot of the questions that had driven me away from faith. I wanted to get other people’s takes on the things I had been reading.

Natalie Zina Walschots wrote an editorial for The Toronto Standard called, ‘It Is Safer in the Dark: What the Treatment of Meggan Lambesis Tells Us About Violence, Victim-Blaming and Silence.’ She wrote eloquently about the concept of ‘The Evil Ex.’
To answer your question about why I didn’t tell people to lay off, as far as I knew, she wasn’t in hiding or scared for her life. A mutual friend of ours was walking down the beach on Memorial Day weekend. He saw Meggan on the beach, right out in front of her house, on one of the busiest beach days of the year. She clearly wasn’t in hiding.

Walschots wrote that “the evil ex” is right up there with zombies and Nazis as a pop-culture punching bag. She noted that sometimes, it’s a heartfelt exploration of hurt, anger and sadness; some are even classics, like Converge’s Jane Doe. But The Evil Ex loses her name. She’s vilified. She’s said to be “crazy” and all of that.
As much as I’m heartbroken and forever scarred by the alienating behavior, I do think deep down, if you remove the hurt from the situation, Meggan is a good person and she just wants to be an incredible mother. I don’t think of her as a bad person. What she said was hurtful on a level I will never be able to describe. But I have to believe she regrets saying those things.

So you talked with Jordan. You didn’t hear from anybody else from AILD?
Jordan did return my phone call. The other [band] guys didn’t return my calls when I first came home. I eventually did speak with Nick [Hipa, guitarist], really briefly. I mean, really briefly. In both cases, we never got to the details. I thought they were establishing communication, as if we’d eventually be able to talk about all of these things. But then it was almost like there was some sort of group thinking going on. It was like they all decided, collectively, not to talk to me. They cut off all communication. I sent a very long, very formal apology to all of them, trying to make amends, acknowledging how heavily my actions had impacted their lives. I got no response, so I sent another one out.

In the second one, I was just like, “Look, I know I don’t deserve forgiveness. But I just want to begin this process…” I got really brief responses from Nick and Jordan, acknowledging they had received it. Jordan said everybody just needed more time and that I was kind of hassling them, like, “leave us alone.” So I just stopped bothering them. The last email I sent was just like, “Guys, I’m not looking for a business opportunity, or to make everything okay so we can make more records together. I just considered you guys friends for a long time…” I just wanted to reach out on a friendship level. What I really needed during this difficult time were my friends. I thought they just needed more time. These emails were spread out. The last one was like nine months after I was arrested.

Looking back, I did a poor job of respecting their wishes, letting them speak when they’re ready. I kept trying to reach out. I made things worse. I take responsibility for that. I realize six months is a short period of time for some people, but for a guy sitting at home by himself on house arrest… [Laughs.] I was living in my own bubble.

People choose their friends. They were in a band with me because I was a meal ticket. It was an opportunity for them to make a good income. We were business partners. They made it clear there’s no concern for me on a personal level. And that’s actually okay. The person I was wasn’t somebody worth being concerned about, to be honest. The person I was in the last six months or so before my arrest, I wouldn’t be friends with that person. I don’t take it personally. But it doesn’t make it any less sad. It’s sad to think of all that time put into those relationships and now there’s no personal concern, no friendship.

Do you think it would change things for them maybe if they talked to you?
I honestly think they’d feel a bit differently, if not entirely, if they took the time to get to know the person I am. But on a practical level, I’ve got to move forward. If they’re not willing to speak to me, we shouldn’t be planning on playing in a band together. They’re doing their own thing already. At some point after all of this, we’ll have to reevaluate As I Lay Dying. Whether or not As I Lay Dying will continue is a future discussion to be had.

There are a lot of people involved in the business of a band.
I’ll just say this: they made it very clear that we were business partners and nothing more. It’s heartbreaking on a personal level, but there’s nothing wrong with doing that. I have to respect it. It’s their choice. But when there are business decisions to be made, I can’t sit waiting around for answers from people who won’t speak to me. I’m definitely not going to wait for a five-person consensus, if it’s just business. The ownership of the As I Lay Dying business is actually only two people. It’s Jordan and I. We used to make things more democratic, even though Jordan and I had veto power. But for whatever minimal business that’s left, it’s Jordan and I. I would never jump back into a van or a bus [with all of them]. I want to be surrounded by people who are trying to make each other better on a personal level and aren’t just trying to make good music.

There was a brief public exchange between you and Phil on the AILD Facebook page. People were anxiously waiting to hear from you about this whole situation. And then the first thing you have to say is, “Hey, buy this sweet As I Lay Dying guitar from me!”
I have huge debts with my parents. I started selling all of my gear. I sold tons of guitars, amps, all kinds of things. I was having dinner with my dad and he said, “Why would you just let a piece of history be sold without the buyer having an idea what it’s from?” This is coming from the guy I owe over $150,000. Maybe the person buying a guitar would be more appreciative of it, if the information was out there about how it was used.

It was similar to the more recent statement posted on As I Lay Dying’s website. It read as though it was from “the band.” But the rest of the guys quickly disavowed it.
The guys who aren’t owners in the band knew about a week before [the post] they are no longer part of As I Lay Dying. It wasn’t anything personal. But because there’s no new AILD business, it doesn’t affect their bank accounts. There’s no more or less money for them. The band wasn’t communicating, so it was stripped to its most basic setup. The other three guys shouldn’t have been hurt by it. It doesn’t hurt them financially.

It seemed like they were pissed you had taken the wind of their sails with the unveiling of Wovenwar. They also said they had no prior knowledge of the statement.
It’s true they had no prior knowledge that the statement was going up. But they knew the information that was in the statement. [Nick, Josh and guitarist Phil Sgrosso] definitely knew they were no longer in the band. It wasn’t shocking to them that we hadn’t been a Christian band in a long time. The way they were trying to be mysterious about what their new band is, it created difficulties for me. It was important to clarify the rumors in the clearest way possible, to the people on my side, from a legal standpoint.

I suppose that’s more important than a marketing rollout.
Yes. “The other four guys have a mystery new singer.” That doesn’t clear up anything. It could be interpreted like they were still going to call it As I Lay Dying. I had to clarify that it wasn’t As I Lay Dying. It’s a completely different thing, with a new singer.

A lot of people online thought Josh would take over as frontman.
Yes, there was a lot of stuff like that. The first clip they posted online had Josh singing! It was actually an As I Lay Dying B-side. That was deceptive. It definitely lent the impression they were moving on as As I Lay Dying, cause they weren’t saying otherwise.

It was inappropriate for your first public actions to be starting a Tumblr or selling an old guitar. Their mystery viral marketing felt awkward, too. It’s certainly not their fault they were put in that situation. It’s yours. But it felt strange to see “cool” marketing.
It was strange for their first post to be an As I Lay Dying B-side. It was a song we had all rejected at one point. Now they’re marketing a new record with that? Given everything going on with me, it created more questions about AILD, in a situation where rumors were already flying. Addressing the issues in a matter-of-fact way seemed smarter.

Metal Sucks had a field day with the idea you posted about yourself in the third person. They did a whole “Dear Diary” satire on you, which was pretty funny.
I own the website, but that doesn’t mean I wrote the post. Our former management represents Jordan, but they don’t represent my side of As I Lay Dying. It’s totally normal that I would have a representative post something for me, just like any band would. Yes, I provided the information. Yes, it was information only I could have given someone. But I mean, when Jordan’s management makes a statement on his behalf… That’s what’s tricky. I mean, Dio owned the Dio band name. I would imagine he had people posting things on the Dio websites for him. Is that really so far-fetched? I could’ve responded to their statement responding to my statement, but that would’ve made it worse, not better. Yes, at this point, I have a couple of people helping me represent my career. I don’t know who is going to be my manager. But I have people who are temporary.

Speaking of the future, you’ve been making music.
It’s up for debate whether or not Metal Blade Records would own anything I do. And [releasing music under] the As I Lay Dying name is clearly not appropriate at this time; it may never be. Now is not the time to evaluate that. I’m not necessarily writing a solo record, because Metal Blade could tie that up. I’m not really writing an As I Lay Dying record. It’s really just music for my friends, my family and myself. They will eventually see the light of day, but I’m not writing with any grand expectations.

Metal Blade could have cared less about anything I did [after my arrest]. But then the Austrian Death Machine record came out and sold more than any of the previous ADM records. So then the President of Metal Blade calls up Artery Recordings and is like, “Oh, by the way, I just want to remind you that was a one-off deal, letting Tim do that record with you.” I’m making music as therapy through this difficult time. If it becomes this big standstill about marketing, and record labels, I’d rather these songs never see the light of day.

What kind of stuff are you writing?
I’m a limited vocalist. I yell. I scream. There are, like, four things I can do [Laughs.]. I write music that will fit with my voice, so that music tends to be aggressive, which tends to be metal. And so no matter what I write, it always ends up sounding like As I Lay Dying.

People don’t realize how much of the music you wrote.
In the foundation of As I Lay Dying, I was the sole songwriter. For the first three releases, there weren’t any major songwriting contributions from the guys coming and going in the band. There were some great riffs, but on the instrumental side, I was the doing the bulk of the writing, then I was writing all of the lyrics. When Phil joined the band, he started helping. And then Nick started to add riffs here and there. The most recent record was actually written mostly by Josh, oddly enough. He wrote more than half of it. So it’s changed over time. But my songwriting originally shaped the sound. I’m not patting myself on the back: I’ll be the first to admit that what shaped the sound of As I Lay Dying were In Flames and Living Sacrifice. I was fine with the other guys writing, but it had to come through me for approval, because I had to be able to picture myself singing over it. My vocal range limited what would get through. A lot of songs ended up rejected. I’m guessing a lot of those songs will show up with their new band, which explains why the first promotional thing they released was an As I Lay Dying B-side.

Have you thought about the fact Meggan will likely read this interview?
Yeah. When we first separated, Meggan and her parents got together with my parents. Her parents come from a religious background, like mine. At that meeting, they said they hoped something traumatic would happen to me that would knock me down and whip me back into shape, so to speak, restore me back to the person I once was. A lot of people pray for things, or hope for things, that are scary when they actually happen.

There’s the saying, “God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is no.” But there’s also, “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”
I did fall flat on my face. I hit rock bottom. I lost everything. The trauma, the solitude: It made me the person I think they hoped I would eventually become. I know I have a long road ahead of me. I know that making amends will be a difficult process. But if they are open for it, this story of tragedy turning into redemption, it’s a story that’s just as much in their hands at this point as it is mine. They wanted to see me go through whatever it took to make me a good father. Now I have, and I’m not allowed to be a father.

You can’t blame her or her family for wanting you the hell away.
I’m the one who caused all of the hurt. If there’s anything I can do to help the healing process, I want to do that. They deserve my absolute best effort to make amends.

How are you preparing for prison?
I know what it’s like to get ready for a long tour. The problem is, this isn’t a long tour. It’s somewhere between six months and three years. If I knew I was preparing for six months, I would walk into this, like, “I got a lot of hope ahead of me.” Career wise, and as a father, I don’t ever want to depend on getting in a van or on a bus to make a living. I need to have a backup plan. It’s hard to prepare without knowing how long I’ll be inside.

I will say that whether I serve three days or three years, the lessons have been learned. At this point, it’s just satisfying the public, my ex-wife and her family with a certain amount of punishment. It won’t make anybody feel better, but we all live under the illusion that punishing people makes us feel better. That’s for the judge to decide, you know, how much punishment will make society feel that I was punished.

Have you talked to anybody who has done time?
Yes. I talked to a buddy who has served five years and another buddy who has served 10. I can’t even imagine serving 10 years. I could suck it up, but it wouldn’t be easy. But this guy handled it really well. I admire how he came out of the whole thing. He told me the first year is the hardest. After that, you get used to it. He was so nonchalant.

Ronnie Radke told me he went vegetarian in jail and the first thing he did when he got out was go and get a hamburger. He was so excited to be able to walk into a convenience store and say, “I want that,” to have freedom of choice again.
He went vegetarian in jail? That’s interesting. If I knew I was doing six months, I’d probably make plans to release this music I’ve been making somehow. But three years? It will probably be super-irrelevant. I wouldn’t count on any income from it, you know?

Tupac signed up for a bunch of songs with Death Row while he was in prison. People always wondered how so much stuff kept coming out. He just went to work.
I wish Metal Blade would let me free from the contract. Like, no joke, I want to do more records that are totally charity-based. I want to take away any sort of impure motive. But in the traditional label model, if I don’t deliver a record that will make them a certain amount of money, they can tie it all up until I give them something they like.

How hard has this whole thing been on your girlfriend, Amanda?
The people who have stuck by me have shown a level of character. They have shown they love me no matter what the world thinks. For Amanda to have stuck by me through this whole thing shows a lot of things. It shows her strength as a person to be able to endure all this. She wouldn’t have stuck by me if I didn’t have deep regret, deep remorse. She could sense that I was coming to grips with things during some of our earliest conversations on the phone from jail. She was still skeptical when I got out. But she grew to love me more, not less, through this whole time I’ve been on house arrest.

It’s clear she wasn’t with you for the money or the popularity.
I will never have to wonder about that, that’s for sure. I can see in her love for me that these events have changed my character for the better. I must be learning something.

If you’re away for three years, that’s a long time for any relationship.
I definitely white-fanged her. That’s the one where he tries to scare the dog away, right? White Fang? I was like, “Don’t wait three years. You can have a better life.” But I couldn’t push her away when I tried. She saw that the person she loved was coming back and coming back stronger than ever before. She committed to standing by me through this. I thought that would fade over time, but her commitment has only gotten stronger.

What are you walking into on Friday?
I don’t know. I know a majority of my sentence will be where there are, like, 30 guys in bunk beds, an open room type of thing. It’s more of a casual housing environment; not where I’ll be at first, but eventually. It’s a place where all the guys have some hope of getting out. I guess it’s more cost-efficient to put everyone in a big room.

A bunch of smelly dudes in a confined space. That’s sort of like touring.
You know, when you asked about the guys in the band… In hindsight, if they would’ve reached out, been a bit more supportive, I probably would have jumped back into this whole mindset of doing As I Lay Dying with them again. I would have fallen back into old habits. The way they distanced themselves from me was a blessing in disguise. I lost everything. Not just my family, my money, but the guys I spent almost a decade with. I don’t want to come across as bitter toward them. I’m thankful it unfolded how it did. I don’t want a feud. I don’t think they’re jerks because they didn’t come visit me. They had their reasons to keep away from me. One day they will explain themselves, I’m sure. A call or an email would have settled my curiosity. Or if they heard my side of everything, maybe it’d make them hate me even more. It’s just weird for them to express nothing toward me—not hatred, not anger, nothing. It makes it feel like there’s no personal resolution.

Certainly this Brett guy is an interesting character.
I found out after the fact that he was all flustered one day, before my arrest. He was venting to one of the other trainers about all of the crazy stuff going on in his life. And he’s like, “I’m not going back.” My buddy was like, “What do you mean?” It turned out Brett had definitely served some time somewhere at some point. The other trainer thought it was very weird. “Why is Brett ranting about not going back?” It didn’t make sense to him until after my arrest and all of the details that came out.

Even when he came into the courtroom, everyone there, seeing his interactions and the way he told the story on the stand, he’s definitely a strange dude. He had strange body language. He had these random smirks every once in a while. This guy came to me and presented this idea to me, he was one of the few people that were aware of [my situation]. I mean, if you know someone who is an alcoholic, you don’t offer a beer.

He knew I was in a very dark place personally and that I was feeling desperate. It wasn’t random. “Hey, your life seems to be going great, but just in case, I know somebody who can take out your wife for you.” Nobody does that. [Laughs.] I couldn’t personally identify those emotions at the time. But when the idea was presented, all of a sudden, these desperate feelings surfaced. I didn’t just agree with him. I legitimately felt like, “You know what? There is no other way! This is my best and only option!” This is when I really feel like I’m telling a story about someone else. I would never have come to that conclusion before. I certainly wouldn’t come to that conclusion presented with it now.

This interview may be your last chance to communicate with the Murphy family.
It’s so hard to process. I would like to say to them that I have an extreme amount of remorse. I realize any apology I make only helps in the slightest little bit, if at all. I don’t know how to word this exactly. I don’t just want to say, “Oh, I feel really badly.”

For what it’s worth, I did offer to give away my entire life savings from my 13-year career in music. At the only meeting I ever had with them, the only chance I had to talk to one of the family members, I offered every dime to them. I know that’s not enough. It never could be. But it was a gesture to say, “If that entire chapter of my life was a waste, if I have to give it all away to try to undo the hurt I’ve caused, I will do it.”

I know money doesn’t make things better. I could actually go to her and get spousal support. I’m unemployed. Her family is wealthy. I could fight through family law courts and see how much I can keep. They can continue to fight me through civil suits. But I don’t want to fight. I want to move past the whole thing. I could try to slug it out with the smallest details in court. I don’t want to. I want to reveal where my heart is at now.

I’m trying my best to put my right foot forward. I know it’s only a small thing in the big scale of what I need, the hurt I need to undo. There’s only so much I can do, I guess. I really do think that healing is possible. I thought almost a year later, after the events, there’d be some healing going on, some communication between families. When I took a step back and realized the first time I offered to try and make things easier wouldn’t result in, “Oh, okay, let’s all hug,” I was naively hoping for something and felt discouraged when it didn’t happen. But they’re out living normal lives. Here I am I’m in my bubble.

You can’t deny that you put yourself here.
I deserve so much more than what I’ll get [at the sentencing]. I’m thankful, even if I get more time than the minimum, I’m thankful. I’m not making excuses. In most societies through recent human history, I could have gotten a lot worse. I’m thankful. The change that needs to happen within me, whether I serve six days or six years, has begun. I don’t think it does our government any better to spend a bunch of money locking me up for a long period of time. Whatever arguments we present in court to try to lower my sentencing are unrelated to the remorse I feel and the gratitude that’s in my heart. I’ll always feel like I deserve longer. But honestly, the true sentence started well before my arrest. The true punishment was losing my kids and eventually, losing them for good was my own doing. Losing them on an emotional level long before my sentencing was my doing. That’s the sentence I will have the hardest time enduring. I think about my son, especially. If I were to make a list of my top 10 memories from my life, at least seven of those include Biruk. I may never see him again. No matter how long I’m in prison, that will be the hardest sentence I will have to live with, by far.

It sounds like you’re ready to go inside.
Emotionally, I’m prepared for the prison time. But when my physical sentence is over, how long will the rest of it follow me? People who love me tell me I will overcome these feelings. I can still have a good life. But the emotional sentence will be never ending. At least I feel like it will never end. My girlfriend, my parents, they’ve said it 1,000 times. They say it will end. Maybe I need to hear it 100,000 times before I will believe it.

POSTSCRIPT: In a defense memo to the judge that became public after sentencing, attorneys Thomas Warwick and Karen Oakman requested Lambesis be given probation. The memo also revealed the final terms of the family court case. Tim acquiesced to Meggan’s requests, which included losing his children permanently, agreeing to a 10-year restraining order, giving her full ownership of his life insurance policy, taking full responsibility for any tax liabilities, turning over any cash that was seized from his home and surrendering the almost $250,000 remaining in trust accounts. Tim’s parents, Nick and Vicki, also gave into Meggan’s demand that they give up all rights as grandparents.”

Tim Lambesis world exclusive interview: The As I Lay Dying singer breaks his year-long silence[Alt Press 5/16/14 by Ryan J. Downey]