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- Oxford Eagle, Sunday 9/21/97
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- Sheriff's daughter reported
missing
Disappearance follows prison
escape
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- By Chase McFadden
- Eagle Staff Writer
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- Macy Lamar, the daughter of Yoknapatawpha County
Sheriff Charles Lamar, was declared missing Saturday
night after she disappeared from a local shopping mall.
Sheriff's department officials say Macy's mother,
Caroline Lamar, contacted an Oxford Mall security agent
shortly after 6 p.m., when Macy failed to meet Caroline
at the mall entrance facing the parking lot.
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- The Lamars arrived at mall, located at 1111 Jackson
Ave. W., at about 3 p.m. on Saturday, and had visited
several stores together when Macy suggested that the two
split up so that Macy could go to the Sound Shop while
Caroline went to Footaction USA, according to Sheriff's
Department Public Relations Officer Elizabeth Jones.
Jones said the two agreed to meet at 6 p.m. near the mall
entrance.
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- "Macy was an extremely responsible person," said
Caroline Lamar in a prepared statement. "When she didn't
turn up, I knew something had gone wrong."
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- Jones said a Sound Shop employee has confirmed that
Macy Lamar visited the store, but declined to name the
employee.
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- The disappearance further focuses attention on
Sheriff Lamar, who is currently running for reelection
against prosecuting attorney Harold Mazza, who has
frequently attacked Lamar for being soft on crime.
Sheriff Lamar refused to comment on the incident.
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- Sheriff's deputies found items belonging to Macy in
the mall, Jones said, but refused to release further
details. Deputies also questioned a witness of the theft
of a car from the mall parking lot, Jones said. Jones
refused to speculate on whether the theft and the
disappearance may be related, but said "We're looking
into all the possibilities."
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- The car, a brown 1986 Buick LeSabre, was stolen at
about 5:30 p.m., according to Jones, who said the witness
reported seeing two men approach the car on foot from
Jackson Ave. The men reportedly opened the car doors
without keys and spent several moments seated inside the
vehicle before the motor started and the men drove off,
Jones said.
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- The witness apparently did not report the incident at
the time because one of the perpetrators seemed to be a
law enforcement officer, Jones said. Jones refused to
elaborate further, but added that both men are in
reportedly in their mid-twenties and white.
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- Jones declined to specify whether the descriptions of
the two perpetrators matched those of escaped suspected
Edward Pierce and Anthony Phelps. Suspected murderer
Pierce and Phelps, who was arrested Friday on suspicion
of committing the latest in a series of brutal rapes,
escaped from a sheriff's department van Saturday
afternoon while being transported to another facility.
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- "To make any kind of statement about whether they
[Pierce and Phelps] were involved with either of the mall
incidents ... would be premature and dangerous," Jones
said.
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- Jones refused to release the name of the theft
witness. Deputies were notified of the car theft at about
7:15 p.m., after the car's owner left the mall at closing
time and realized the car was missing, Jones said.
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