Dr. Matt Lambert lost his sanity in the early morning hours on Thursday in Washington, D.C. This was a horrific attack, spurred by a bizarre motive. It was mold. I’m not kidding. Mold damage drove Lambert to the brink, and he took it out on a building manager with whom he was in a legal battle. Lambert claimed he couldn't live in his condo, which he paid over $1 million for, after façade renovations uncovered black mold. He blamed the Vida gym for contributing to this mess, filed lawsuits, and finally snapped. 

He shot five people, killing one. The deceased was the condo manager, James Stuart, who worked at the Vida gym below Lambert’s reportedly mold-infested condo. He said he had been unable to live there since 2024. Security camera footage shows Lambert shooting Stuart at point-blank range. Lambert crossed paths with another gym member and property manager, Charelle Ferguson, whom Lambert confessed to the crime after the shooting. Ferguson corralled bystanders into her office as people scrambled for cover. It was a chilling encounter (via WaPo):

Charelle Ferguson, a building manager for the Metropole condos, said she saw Matt Lambert head into the Vida Fitness gym Thursday just before 8 a.m. They greeted each other as they often did, she said.

Soon after, Ferguson heard gunshots. Outside the lobby window, she could see people screaming and running. She heard someone yell, “Somebody was shot in the head!”

Ferguson ushered panicked residents into her office and began calling everyone she knew who lived there, including Lambert, as the fire alarm blared.

Lambert picked up around 9 a.m., she said. “Matt, are you okay?” she recalled asking.

Lambert said no, he was not okay, she recalled. He said he was tired of the mold and water damage in his unit, which, he had told her previously, had rendered it unlivable.

“The only way people will pay attention, you have to do something,” Ferguson remembered him saying.

Then he confessed to shooting five people, including one of her co-workers, Ferguson said.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” she said. “I tried to calm myself down and get as much info from him as I could and keep him on the phone.”

Lambert told her he had barricaded himself in his condo and would be staying there, she said.

They had often discussed his frustrations in recent months, Ferguson said. As they spoke on the phone, she said, the police approached her.

She handed her phone to an officer.

Vida and all parties in Lambert’s lawsuit deny the allegations lobbed at them over the mold issue:

Stuart was a member of the gym who worked out at the same time every morning, according to David von Storch, owner of the Vida Fitness gym. Security video showed Lambert shooting Stuart point blank in the back, von Storch said. “It’s not random gun violence,” he said. “It’s some guy targeting his neighbor.”

Lambert, a board certified emergency room doctor, lived in a seventh-floor penthouse unit above the gym where police have said the rampage began. He paid almost $1.1 million for the one bedroom condo in 2016, according to property records. The building, which was completed in 2008, is in the affluent Logan Circle neighborhood, nearly a mile north of the White House.

In 2025, Lambert filed a lawsuit against the condo association and property management company alleging that they had failed to address the water damage, mold and elevated moisture in his unit despite his complaints over several years.

[…]

In court, the condo association and EJF Real Estate Services, the property management company, have denied responsibility for the damage. A lawyer for the condo association did not respond to The Post’s request for comment. Jennifer Oberg, vice president of client care for EJF, said that the company is cooperating with law enforcement and declined to elaborate.

In a subsequent complaint filed as part of the same lawsuit, the condominium association claimed that liability “more than likely” lies with Vida and the owners of the commercial unit where it rented space. The condo association argued that Vida and its landlord operated a commercial exhaust system that might have contributed to the mold.

Vida’s owners and its landlords denied those allegations in court records. Von Storch, the president and founder of Vida’s parent company, also denied the allegations in an interview with The Post, saying the exhaust system is “not even close” to the apartment in question. The lawsuit is ongoing.

Lambert complained about the building to Metropole employees and fellow residents as well as in postings on social media.

Ferguson said they had chatted in recent months about his frustrations with the condo.

Just a wild and tragic story.