The Mobile District Attorney's office announced that parole was denied for a man who was charged with DUI and murder in a 1998 traffic fatality.

In December 1999, Mobile County Circuit Judge James C. Wood sentenced Eddie Lambert to life for the murder of motorcyclist Eric Godwin along with a 20-year consecutive sentence for first-degree assault on a passenger who accompanied Godwin on his bike.

The November 1, 1998 traffic incident was Lambert's 13th DUI offense.

In his initial court case, Lambert was presented as a self-admitted alcoholic. Stories written by a Mobile Press-Register court reporter detail his long rap sheet of DUI offenses, spanning nearly two decades, beginning in 1981. Lambert even managed to be convicted of DUI twice in the same year on two occasions - in 1983 and 1996.

Although, driving under the influence finally took Lambert off the road for an indefinite period, it only accounts for less than half of his history of traffic related offenses.

A December 3, 1999 article written by former Press-Register staff writer Gary McElroy about Lambert's sentencing includes information about his troubled past on roadways in the areas inside and nearby Mobile.

"Lambert has an arrest record going back to 1970, when he was a teenager. In addition to drunken driving convictions, Lambert has been arrested for speeding, driving on the wrong side of the road and driving with a suspended license, among others - 31 offenses in all."

In trial, then-Assistant District Attorney Ashley Rich read aloud a letter Lambert addressed to a judge while serving a nine-month jail sentence for a DUI in 1995.

Excerpts from that letter reveal Lambert expressed remorse for his pattern of erratic driving behaviors.

"I really have learned my lesson," he wrote, before going on to express that it was "lucky for society" and for himself "that I have not hurt or killed someone."

Unfortunately, three years later, he would.

Rich, who is now Mobile's District Attorney, told members of the courtroom in 1999 that Lambert was in fact on parole for a DUI conviction in Mississippi the night that he drove his van into a 1993 Harley Davidson sitting at the intersection of Schillinger and Cottage Hill roads.

Witnesses at the scene attested to seeing Lambert's van weave in and out of the area, congested by the flow of fall traffic that coincided with the Mobile Fair season.

Godwin, 30, and his 34-year-old girlfriend Denise Alliwine, were thrown from the motorcycle, laying in the street calling to each other before Godwin eventually died from his injuries and Alliwine lost consciousness, as revealed in court testimony.

When asked by Wood if there was anything he'd like to say to the family of his victims, Lambert said "I apologize to the family, if I am really guilty of this."

He stated he had no memory of the incident.

Alliwine was able to address the court during the trial. In her statements she described Godwin as a man who dearly loved to be on his motorcycle, riding about town.

"He would have continued to ride," she said, "but this repeat offender kept slipping through the cracks, until he finally killed someone."

"Give this repeat offender the maximum sentence you can," she asked of Wood.

He did.

On Wednesday morning, Rich appeared in Montgomery in front of a state parole board to ensure she was able to keep Godwin off the road and in prison to finish a sentence that was originally presumed to last until he is 92-years-old.

According to Rich, today's hearing was the third time Lambert has been eligible for parole in the 18 years since he was imprisoned.

"I told the parole board today, 'Look, even before he was eligible for parole the first time, even before he committed this murder, the system failed,'" she says. "The fact that he had 13 prior DUI arrest, and he wasn't in jail when he did this - the system failed."

Rich then says she appealed to the victim's family. "I told (the board), 'Don't fail this victim's family again. Don't do that. Keep him in jail."

According to Rich, Lambert's family was present to plead for empathy on his behalf, as well.

"(Lambert's) family said today that he's a changed man. Well, that doesn't take away from the fact that Godwin's family can't love him or see him anymore. Their life is forever changed," Rich says.

The victim's sister was on hand at today's hearing to speak to the grief the family has endured in the nearly two decades since losing a man who was, not only a son and brother, but a beloved uncle to the sister's children.

"She has had two children since then who haven't gotten to know her uncle," Rich says. According to Rich, Godwin's sister became so overcome with emotion while reading a prepared statement that Rich had to come to the podium to complete her remarks.

As for the living victim of this brutal crime, Rich says, Alliwine has life-long injuries resulting from her brush with death. "She still walks with a limp to this day," Rich added.

"Do I think he will re-offend? Absolutely, I think he will re-offend. So, he doesn't need to be out."

"It's ironic that it is this time of the year again and families want to go to the fair with their kids and ride rides. They want to be free from people like Ed Lambert," she says, remembering witnesses she said felt powerless to stop Lambert from killing someone on that fateful night in 1998.

"I want to be able to tell people that Eddie Lambert is in prison and he's not going to be doing what he did that night."