PARKERSBURG, W.Va. A Wood County grand jury has indicted 20 year old Claudia Lynn Torres of Clarksburg on charges of murder and wanton endangerment in the February shooting death of 28 year old Austin Lamb of Parkersburg. An indictment is an accusation. It is not a finding of guilt.
Torres is presumed innocent unless and until a court finds her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The Wood County Prosecutor’s Office announced the indictment among 96 returned by the grand jury on Thursday, September 18, 2026. Local court reporting identified Torres as remaining in custody without bond at the North Central Regional Jail in Doddridge County.
What police say happened Parkersburg police have said officers were sent to a home in the 1000 block of 40th Street at about 12:10 a.m. on Saturday, February 28, 2026, after a report of an adult male with multiple gunshot wounds. Officers found Lamb on a couch. Police, firefighters, and emergency medical crews tried to save him. Authorities said he was declared dead at the scene.
Police Chief Matthew Board’s department said Torres and Lamb knew each other as friends. According to a criminal complaint filed in Wood County Magistrate Court, Torres, Lamb, and two witnesses had been together earlier that night at a bar. The complaint said Torres and Lamb got into an argument on the way home and were then separated. The complaint and later statements by prosecutors described this sequence after the group reached the 40th Street residence: Lamb went inside.
Torres went to her truck, described in the complaint as a purple Dodge Ram. Authorities said she then retrieved a gun, went back into the home, and opened fire. One witness who was inside with Lamb told investigators that Torres entered the house and fired multiple shots at Lamb, according to the complaint and accounts presented in court. Another witness who was outside told authorities that Torres fired into the home as she walked out the door.
Witnesses outside reported hearing the words, “That’s what you get for messing with me.” Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure later told the court that surveillance video supported the witnesses’ accounts. Lefebure said the footage showed Torres leaving the home, retrieving a gun from her truck, and returning. What Torres told 911 and officers Court records say Torres called 911 after leaving the scene.
In the recorded call, she told dispatchers, “This guy who I thought was my friend tried to grope me. He tried to grope me. So I shot him three times.” That statement is Torres’s account.
Investigators have not publicly said they independently confirmed that Lamb tried to grope her. No court has ruled that the shooting was justified. The complaint also said Torres made an unsolicited statement while being taken to the Parkersburg Police Department. She told officers that when she arrived at the house she retrieved a gun, went inside, and shot Lamb three times.
Lefebure later told a judge that Torres admitted to police that she shot and killed Lamb at the residence. Arrest and early court action Dispatchers told officers that Torres was calling from the area of 33rd Street and Murdoch Avenue. Police said they found her at the Rebel Gas Station on Murdoch Avenue, about one mile from the shooting, and took her into custody without incident at about 12:19 a.m. She was first charged with first degree murder.
On March 4, 2026, Judge Wharton ordered her held without bond. Her lawyer asked for home confinement at her mother’s home in Clarksburg and argued she was not a flight risk. The judge denied that request. Twenty seven people attended the hearing.
A preliminary hearing was scheduled for March 10, 2026. The indictment Months later, the grand jury replaced the initial magistrate charge with an indictment alleging murder and wanton endangerment. Public summaries of the grand jury release did not list additional counts or name other defendants in connection with Lamb’s death. Wanton endangerment in West Virginia generally alleges that a person acted with reckless disregard for the safety of others.
Prosecutors have not publicly detailed in available reports which specific act they say supports that count, such as firing inside an occupied home or firing as Torres left. Those details, if they exist in the sealed or unreleased charging language, have not been fully published in the local accounts reviewed for this report. What has and has not been established Established in official reports: Lamb died of gunshot wounds at the 40th Street home. Torres was arrested nearby a short time later.
She made statements to 911 and to officers that she shot Lamb three times. Witnesses described her retrieving a gun and firing. Prosecutors said video corroborated parts of those witness accounts. A judge denied bond.
A grand jury later returned an indictment. Not established in court: that Lamb tried to grope Torres, that Torres acted in lawful self defense, or that she is guilty of murder or wanton endangerment. Those remain contested or unproven questions for later proceedings. Torres remains held without bond.
After a grand jury indictment, the next typical step is arraignment in Wood County Circuit Court, where a defendant is advised of the charges and enters a plea. A specific arraignment date after the September indictment was not listed in the public summaries available at the time of this report. Lamb, 28, lived in Parkersburg. Torres, now listed as 20, is a Clarksburg resident who was 19 when she was arrested.
The case remains pending.
