As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis has spoken about what led to his decision to solicit a hitman to murder his now ex-wife – watch below.

Lambesis was sentenced to six years in prison for plotting to kill his wife back in 2014. He was sentenced after pleading guilty to paying a police officer posing as a hitman $1,000 (£630) to kill his then wife, Meggan Lambesis.

After being released in December 2016, Lambesis took to the band’s official Facebook page to post a lengthy statement, “apologising to everyone” for his actions.

The vocalist then reunited with the San Diego band in 2018, who released their first new song in six years with ‘My Own Grave’ and announced details of a homecoming show that summer.

Appearing on The Garza Podcast, which is hosted by Suicide Silence guitarist Chris Garza, Lambesis reflected on both his crime and his time in prison.

“My thinking was so isolated in my own mind and disconnected from my support system that I didn’t really even fathom or realise how much I had lost myself and the core of who I really was,” Lambesis said (via Blabbermouth).

“It’s, like, I was this one person for most of my life, and then for this period of time, I had this very isolated, different type of mindset, and then have since returned to being much of who I was in the earlier part of my life plus, of course, the added perspective of everything I went through.”

He continued: “I don’t really know how to describe it. I lost myself, I lost my way, and I sat there in a cell being, like, ‘How did I become this person?’” Lambesis also spoke about how the time in prison gave him the opportunity to reflect and that there were “a thousand better ways” to handle his divorce at the time.

“I can talk about, vaguely speaking, any father who loses his children, there’s a burning feeling of just, like, ‘I’ll do anything to fix this or to make this right or to maintain this relationship,’” he explained.

“But just ’cause you feel like you would be willing to do anything to maintain what matters to you the most in the world doesn’t mean you show that those are your best options. And I saw clearly sitting there thinking in a cell, ‘Wow, I could have handled this a thousand different ways,’ and the fact that in my mindset I thought at the time this was the best way to handle the situation, it blew my own mind.

“It’s, like, how did I even think that? It just was shocking. And there’s really no defence or no way to take away what I did other than that, thankfully, there was actually no true physical harm of any kind.”

Earlier this year, As I Lay Dying lost another longtime member in drummer Jordan Mancino who exited the band due to “internal issues”.

Mancino’s decision to leave came after guitarist Nick Hipa left the Californian metalcore outfit in 2020, citing that he wanted to prioritise “a motion design career, deep focus on my family, taking care of my health, and working on other creative projects”. Bassist Josh Gilbert departed from the band in May.