Randall Lee Smith, of Giles County, VA, was convicted in 1982 of murdering two Appalachian Trail hikers. In May 1981, Smith killed a man and a woman hiking from Maine to Georgia in a remote cabin near Pearisburg, VA. The bodies of Robert Mountford Jr. and Laura Susan Ramsay, both social workers in Ellsworth, Maine, were found in shallow graves. They had been missing for about two weeks. Mountford was shot three times in the head; Ramsay was beaten and stabbed more than a dozen times.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, of which he only served half. Smith was released on October 22, 1996 due to the dim-witted edict referred to as mandatory parole. (Most outdoorsman refer to the practice as "catch & release").
In May of 2008, Randall Lee Smith tried killing again near the Dismal Creek area. Smith struck up a conversation with the two hikers, and then proceeded to shoot the men. Sean Farmer was shot in the face and chest. Scott Johnston was shot in the neck and back. Farmer, 33, and Johnston, 37, were able to escape to a vehicle and get help. Smith escaped in a Johnston's 2000 Ford Ranger, which he later crashed, leading to his capture.
Source: Roanoke Times and Associated Press.
