Tory Lambert

Tory Lambert was a loving father, brother, and son, remembered by his family as a great friend who would help anyone. The 39-year-old Black man was a father to five children, the youngest of whom was just nine months old at the time of his death. A relative described him as the life of the family. His loved ones said he would have done anything for anyone. Tragically, his family was already familiar with sudden loss; his mother, Violet Lambert, had been killed in a domestic dispute in a Cobb County mall parking lot three years earlier, in 2014.

In the early morning hours of Monday, June 26, 2017, that same senseless violence visited the Lambert family again. Tory was in his car outside the Discount Food Mart in the 3000 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in southwest Atlanta when a man opened fire. According to police, a third person was involved in the shooting before fleeing the scene. Tory was struck by the gunfire and was found wounded in his vehicle in the parking lot. He was rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital but did not survive his injuries.

Another man, Carey Grant, was also shot during the incident. Despite being wounded in the leg, Grant managed to get into his own car and drive away from the scene. He traveled less than a mile down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive before crashing his vehicle. Emergency responders transported him to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition and was later released.

The Atlanta Police Department immediately began an investigation into the deadly shooting. Detectives worked to piece together the events that led to the gunfire. "Very early in the investigation… We don’t know if a dispute led up to this shooting incident,” a police lieutenant told reporters at the time. While police did not publicly release a motive, Tory's family members told the media they believed a dispute that started at another nearby location preceded the shooting at the food mart. One relative lamented, "This was just so uncalled-for, his life to be taken over something as minute as somebody else's argument."

In August 2017, about two months after the shooting, Atlanta police arrested a suspect. Torry Wyche was taken into custody and charged with murder and simple battery in connection with Tory Lambert's death and the injury to Carey Grant. According to a September 2021 news report, Wyche was later released on a $250,000 bond for the felony murder charge. The same report noted that one of the conditions of his bond was that he not possess any weapons, but that he was subsequently arrested again in June 2021 on an aggravated assault warrant and was found in possession of a stolen handgun. He was released a day later on a $20,000 bond.

In the wake of Tory's death, his family was left not only with their grief but also with the financial burden of a funeral, as his insurance had lapsed. A GoFundMe campaign was organized by a family member to help cover the costs of sending him home, with donations directed to the Murray Brothers Funeral Home in Atlanta. The family expressed their heartfelt thanks for the support they received during such a difficult time. The case against Torry Wyche is a matter of public record in Fulton County.