Date: 2008-05-07
From: Kimberling Creek

To: Rt 606
Miles today: 0.0

From Roanoke News...GILES COUNTY -- A man who befriended, then killed, two hikers on the Appalachian Trail in Giles County 27 years ago may have returned to the same section of the trail and shot and wounded two fishermen Tuesday night.Giles County investigators said Randall Lee Smith, 54, of Pearisburg, Va., is suspected in the shootings at the campsite off Lions Den Road near Dismal Creek, just more than two miles from Wapiti Shelter, where Smith committed an infamous double murder in May 1981.Smith was captured Tuesday night after he wrecked a pickup truck that belongs to one of the fishermen, Giles County Sheriff Morgan Millirons said.Officials haven't named the victims, but friends and family members identified them as Sean Farmer, 33, of Tazewell, Va., and Scott Johnston, 37, of Bluefield, Va.Millirons said one of the victims was shot three times and the other twice.Brian Johnston, Scott Johnston's brother and Farmer's best friend, said he talked with Farmer from the hospital Wednesday.Farmer told him that he and Scott Johnston met the gunman at the campsite and offered him some trout they'd caught.They had a dinner of trout and baked beans, Sheila Miller, who with her sister later helped the men, said the victims told them.The three men talked, and after a while the gunman said to them, "Guys, I got to get out of here," Brian Johnston said.He pulled out a .22-caliber pistol and shot Scott Johnston in the neck and back and Farmer in the shoulder and face, Brian Johnston said.Scott Johnston ran into the woods and the gunman chased him. Farmer got into his Jeep. Scott Johnston ran back to the Jeep and got in, and the pair sped out of the forest.The gunman tried to shoot Farmer once more but had run out of bullets, Brian Johnston said."My best friend saved my brother's life," Brian Johnston said Wednesday afternoon.Sheila and Melissa Miller were sitting in Melissa's bedroom in her house a couple of miles away when the victims showed up in the Jeep."We heard somebody beating on the door real loud and they said, "I've been shot, I've been shot, please let me in,'" Sheila Miller said.When they opened the door they saw a man holding his neck, blood dripping from his fingers. Farmer, whom the women know, was behind him, Sheila Miller said.The sisters called 911 and got the men blankets and pillows "and we just made them as comfortable as we could," Sheila Miller said.Farmer was sweating profusely, Melissa Miller said, "so I got a wet washcloth and wiped his face."The Millers became nervous as Farmer and Johnston described what had happened and got up to lock their doors and windows.A rescue crew arrived about 45 minutes after the men got there, they said, and worked on them for about an hour. A rescue worker called for a helicopter to fly them to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.Rescue workers asked what had happened and asked Farmer and Johnston to describe the man who had shot them.As they described the man and his black-and-white dog, a rescue worker said it sounded like the man whose pictures had been posted around the areas of Giles and Bland counties that surround the Jefferson National Forest.The Millers knew the man's picture -- on a flier that listed him as missing -- was posted inside nearby Trent's Store. But Trent's was closed, so Melissa Miller's son went to the owner's home and asked him to open up the store so they could get the flier.When Melissa Miller's son took the flier back to Farmer and Johnston, they confirmed that was the man who shot them, she said.Millirons said the shooter got away in a black Ford Ranger pickup truck belonging to one of the victims. It doesn't appear he took anything else from them, he said.State police Sgt. Michael Conroy said a trooper patrolling on Sugar Run Road in the Eggleston area saw the truck about 9:40 p.m. and pulled out behind it. The truck ran off the left side of the curvy road, hit an embankment and overturned, he said.Fingerprints positively identified the driver as Smith, Millirons said.Smith was taken out of the truck and flown to Roanoke Memorial, where he is on a ventilator, Giles County Lt. Ron Hamlin said."We haven't been able to talk to him," he said.Smith's coonhound, Bo, was with him in the truck. The dog was taken to the Giles County Animal Shelter, he said. A gun was recovered, Hamlin said.He said Smith, who is being guarded by a deputy, is expected to recover.He faces two counts of attempted capital murder and charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and grand larceny.Hospital spokesman Eric Earnhart said Johnston was in serious but stable condition Wednesday evening. Friends said Farmer had been released.A bullet was lodged in Farmer's nasal cavity and couldn't be removed, Sheila Miller said.Wednesday afternoon, a section of the Appalachian Trail from Virginia 606 in Bland County to U.S. 460 in Giles County was closed to hikers while investigators searched for evidence and other possible victims. The sheriff's office was asking hikers to call home and let their loved ones know they are OK.Rumors about what had happened had already spread among hikers, in part because the sheriff's office had posted the "missing person" fliers with Smith's picture along the trail."Mr. Smith was known to loaf around the hikers," Hamlin said. Also, he said, a woman told investigators that Smith told her he was going to the cliffs near Dismal Falls.Jon Beckham of Atlanta said some hikers were sleeping off the trail, avoiding shelters because it was in a shelter that Smith killed two people in 1981.Near Jenkins Shelter, Beckham saw a sheet of loose-leaf paper with a skull and crossbones and the words "You have been warned" drawn on it.His father saw the same image and words on a rock, he said.Hiker Danny Reed of Radford said he heard gunshots Tuesday night. When he later heard the shooter may have been Smith, Reed couldn't believe it."I was like, 'You got to be kidding. This guy's back again?'" he said, resting his chin on his walking stick as he looked toward Dismal Falls.From me: Sigh