Dr. Phil Discusses Hit-Man For Fire Case Ahead Of S17 Premiere

Dr. Phil is back for a 17th season on Monday, September 9th. The wildly popular show hits the ground running with a story of attempted murder that will have you on the edge of your seat all episode long.

CBS Local's Matt Weiss spoke to Dr. Phil about this week's two-part episode covering the case of Tara Lambert who attempted to hire a hit-man to kill her husband's former lover.

MW- Good morning Dr. Phil how are you?

Dr. P- Good, how are you?

MW- Doing fine over here! I want to jump right into things here because you're covering quite the story this week covering a woman named Tara Lambert who attempted to hire a hit-man to kill her husband's former lover Kellie Cooke. What did you find most disturbing about the way this played out?

Dr. P- You know Matt, I think probably the most disturbing part of this was her emotion and demeanor. When she hires this hit-man as it turns out this is an undercover police officer and so the entire thing is caught on video. The disturbing part of this is her demeanor while she's talking to this man, "Make this look like a home invasion gone bad and when you're done let's feed her body to a wood chipper." Laughing and giggling the whole time and says, "Oh yea, and if her husband is home, kill him too." This is just an exciting time for her, she's laughing and giggling with no remorse whatsoever. No consideration for the fact that two children are going to be left without a mother and perhaps without a father.

It's all about her, she's self-absorbed, she's laughing and talking throughout the whole thing. It's very cold and very disturbing that life is so cheap to her.

MW- What does it say about a person's mental state when they can behave like that?

Dr. P- I think every case is different, but I believe in this case we're talking about some real immaturity here. I think this woman really never appreciated the gravity of what she was talking about. I think she impulsively decided that "I'm going to do these things." This woman was an annoyance to her. She recruited this woman she knew from high school, and this woman was a real rough and tumble sort of a person, she recruited her to make terroristic phone calls to her where she threatened to beat her within an inch of her life.

It wasn't just a one time thing. Then she hires a hit-man to kill her. She pays him $125 down payment and then is going to pay the rest later. She's really working through this thing and never takes a second to pause and say, "Wait a second this is a bad idea." She blames her husband for it, she says hes pushing me for it, badgering me. Her husband has never spoken about it, but in part two of our coverage on this which is Tuesday, I have an exclusive interview with the husband, Brandon, and boy, does he give us some revelations about this that were completely unknown.

MW- You wonder what kind of mental state he's in as well having gone through all this.

Dr. P- Very difficult for sure.

MW- And so then we have Tara going through the police sting, how did she react when she realized when it occurred to her what was going on?

Dr. P- Well of course after she makes a deal with the hit-man she gets out on goes shopping. She goes shopping in a store near there and when she comes out the place is surrounded by police and they arrest her. She is totally surprised like, "Are you really arresting me? Is this serious?" She either feigns or is completely shocked, one or the other, that she is actually being arrested. In her mind she hasn't done anything wrong, she hasn't hurt anybody, it's just words. So as I said, the immaturity here is really shocking that she didn't get the gravity of what she was doing.

MW- Unbelievable that even after money was exchanged she still has no recognition of the situation. What else can you say about part two of this story?

Dr. P- I also sit down with Kellie, the target, and Ginny, the one that she recruited to intimidate her, and we get a really different story than what Tara was telling. Part two also includes the interview with the husband so part two is going to be really revealing in contrast to what Tara was saying.

MW- Sounds like it's shaping up to be a crazy week for the show. Well thanks so much for the time Dr. Phil and take care!

Dr. P- Thanks a lot Matt!

Dr. Phil returns this Monday, September 10th. Check your local listings for more information.