Macy Lamar Found!

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Oxford Eagle, Dec. 13, 1997
Macy Lamar found
Late sheriff's mistress arrested

By Chase McFadden Staff Writer
Macy Lamar, late sheriff Charles Lamar's daughter, returned to her mother's home in Oxford yesterday evening after a dramatic rescue in Biloxi, where she was being held captive.
While further details have yet to be released, police officials say that Aimee Harberson, an employee at the Yoknapatawpha County assesor's office and reputed former mistress of the late sheriff Lamar, was among the alleged kidnappers arrested.
According to Yoknapatawpha Sheriff's Department Public Relations Officer Elizabeth Jones, FBI agents surrounded a Biloxi residence at 6:40 p.m. yesterday evening after receiving a tip from Oxford private investigator David Anderson, who had sighted Macy Lamar inside.
The federal agents entered the residence through the front door and encountered no resistance from the five alleged kidnappers, all of whom were taken into custody without struggle, Jones said.
Lamar returned to Oxford yesterday night and was reunited with her mother, Caroline Blanchard. In a brief telephone call, Blanchard tearfully told this reporter, "God has answered my every prayer today. I'm just so happy my baby is home."
Macy Lamar disappeared Sept. 20 from the Oxford Mall. Sheriff Lamar spearheaded an intensive search effort, but failed to find his daughter before he was killed Nov. 8, when his car skidded into a cotton field and exploded. Recently-released evidence suggests that the sheriff's death, once thought to be suicide, may in fact have been the result of another motorist ramming him off the road.
FBI officials made their arrest after Anderson, a former Yoknapatawpha sheriff's deputy, followed Harberson from Oxford to Biloxi, where she entered the residence at approximately 5 p.m., Anderson said. Anderson waited outside the residence in his vehicle, planning to follow Harberson to her next destination when she departed, according to Anderson.
Instead, Anderson said that about an hour after he arrived, he glimpsed Macy Lamar standing in front of an upstairs window.
"It's a pretty quiet street, so I don't think she was expecting anyone to see her. If there was that possibility, she wouldn't have been let near the window," Anderson said. "I just happened to look up at the right time."
Anderson immediately used his cellular phone to contact Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff Taylor Sheldon, who in turn alerted the FBI. A squad arrived on the scene half an hour later, and the arrests occurred immediately without incident.
Anderson said he was following Harberson on suspicion of her involvement with illegal toxic dumping on the Dickerson property near Oxford. Anderson's firm has been working with the local group Oxford Green since early November to uncover who is responsible for leaving 300 barrels of dioxin at the property, which was bought by real estate developer Reed Chambeau in March.
Anderson declined to state whether Macy Lamar's disappearance is connected with the dumping, but said his firm is continuing its investigation.
"We don't have enough answers yet to make any kind of connections," Anderson said. "We may yet find some, but it would be irresponsible to speculate at this point."