Murder on the Appalachian Trail
Revised September 2024
The Appalachian Trail, or A.T., is an iconic hiking trail in the Eastern United States that is said to be the longest in the world. Although millions have hiked part of the trail, and many thousands have done the thru-hike from end to end, there have been the unfortunate few who have succumbed to foul play at the hands of deranged killers.
Since 1974, there have been nine murders near or on the A.T. and two attempted murders, some involving serial killers. In addition, there is the disturbing story of Julie Williams, 24, and Lollie Winans, 26, on May 19, 1996, at the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, which was close to the Appalachian Trail but not actually on it. Read more: The unsolved Williams and Winans camping murders in Shenandoah National Park
Here are the stories of the A.T. hikers who started their dream to walk either some or all of it and never made it back.
What is the Appalachian Trail or the AT?
Appalachian National Scenic Trail
The 2200 mile (3500 km) Appalachian National Scenic Trail, generally known as the Appalachian Trail or simply the A.T., is a marked hiking trail in the US, extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. It passes through 14 states: Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
The Appalachian Trail was proposed in 1921 and completed in 1937. It is maintained by 31 trail clubs and multiple partnerships and managed by the National Park Service (NPS), the United States Forest Service, and the nonprofit Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC).
Myron Avery was reportedly the first person to section hike the trail, and WWII vet Earl Schaffer is generally believed to be the first person to thru-hike the route in 1948.
How many people hike the Appalachian Trail each year?
Between 2 and 3 million people are said to hike part of the trail at least once yearly.
How many thru-hikers do the Appalachian Trail each year?
Thru-hikers attempt to hike the entire A.T. in a single season. The number of thru-hikes per year is around 800-900 per year. Until 1980, there were relatively few thru-hikes per year on the A.T., but after Bill Bryson’s book “A Walk in the Woods” was published in 1998, the number of hikers rose dramatically.
Is it safe to hike the Appalachian Trail?
The chances of being murdered on the A.T. are miniscule as there have been less than a dozen cases of foul play since it opened that have been reported anyway. Chicago has a similar population to the number of A.T. hikers each year, and in 2020, there were 769 murders in the city. Therefore, you are many times more likely to die from foul play in a typical US city than on the trail.
What are the biggest dangers of the A.T.?
The ATC (Appalachian Trail Conservancy) and NPS (U.S. National Park Service) say heart attacks or other health-related issues are the leading cause of death while hiking on the trail. Other significant causes are drowning and falls in the many rivers near the trail. Untreated tick-borne illnesses, hypothermia, dehydration, lightning strikes, and falling trees have also killed hikers.
What are SOBO and NOBO A.T. hikes?
SOBO refers to southbound hikers starting from Mount Katahdin in Maine, and NOBO refers to northbound hikers heading from Springer Mountain in Georgia. 9 out of 10 hikers start in Georgia and head north.
What is the Yo-Yo AT hike?
Some hikers walk the entire AT from one end to the other, then turn around and thru-hike the trail the other way. This is called the "yo-yo".
Where can I find an Appalachian Trail map?
The NPS has an interactive trail map. click here
Murder cases on the Appalachian Trail
Ronald S. Sanchez Jr, Wythe County, VA, May 2019
Ronnie S. Sanchez Jr.
James Louis Jordan, 30, approached a group of four hikers somewhere in Jefferson National Forest in western Virginia on the evening of May 10, 2019. Jordan had walked the Appalachian Trail for several weeks with his dog, Felicia. He called himself Sovereign, “the captain of the hit squad. When he looked into the eyes of the hikers he encountered, he seemed very far away.
The four hikers on the trail said that Jordan was playing his guitar and singing, acting disturbed and unstable. Later that evening, the four friends set up camp a few miles from where they first met him on a Wythe County, Virginia, site near Mount Rogers National Recreation Area.
Jordan appeared out of nowhere and began threatening the group, saying that he was going to “pour gasoline on their tents and burn them to death.” At that point, the four hikers decided to relocate their camp. Jordan then confronted them with a knife. Two of the hikers ran north on the trail to escape. They called 911 at 2.30 am, saying that they were being chased by a madman with a knife.
Jordan eventually gave up the chase and returned to the campsite and began verbally abusing the other two hikers, a man, 43-year-old Ronnie S. Sanchez Jr., of Oklahoma, and a woman. Sanchez and Jordan started arguing, and then Sanchez tried to phone 911 from his cell phone. At this point, Jordan began stabbing him in the upper torso as the woman looked on.
Sanchez had served three tours in Iraq and 16 years in the U.S. Army. He had returned to the United States with PTSD as well as combat-related injuries, according to his former wife, Elizabeth Sanchez. He didn’t like to talk about it. He didn’t want to be around people who wouldn’t even go to the grocery store in the daytime. He had the trail name “Stronghold” and told his ex-wife he’d found peace and clarity on the trail. He began his trek early in the season, figuring he’d average a slower pace than most due to knee and shoulder injuries.
When Sanchez Jr. fell to the ground covered in blood from the knife attack, the female hiker attempted to run away with Jordan in pursuit. When he had chased her down, she raised her arms in surrender, and then he began stabbing her repeatedly, at which point she, too, fell to the ground. Fortunately, she played dead, and Jordan then left and returned to the campsite without finishing her off.
James L Jordan
After Jordan left the scene, the female hiker got up and continued running down the trail, eventually coming upon some other campers just off the trail, who then helped her hike six more miles to a trailhead. Here, they called 911 to report the stabbings. She was transported to a nearby medical center in Bristol, Tennessee.
Jordan returned down the trail and approached another pair of backpackers asleep in their tent, shouting at them that he needed a flashlight. “They were real reluctant to just talk to him. They thought it was a little unusual,” said Wythe County Sheriff Keith Dunagan at a press briefing. “They didn’t even see the person, and luckily, they didn’t come out of the tent.”
Using pings from a nearby cell phone tower, authorities were able to locate the approximate location of the first stabbing, and the tactical team of the Wythe County Sheriff’s Office then began the four-mile hike to the crime scene. At 6.14 am the following day, the group arrived at the campsite where the first attack occurred. There, it found Sanchez's body, who had died from his injuries, along with a dog, which then led the team to the suspect. The deputies found blood on Jordan’s clothes and arrested him. “We had our whole tac team up there, so he wisely surrendered himself,” said Dunagan.
Read more on the story at James Jordan - The Appalachian Trail Murderer
Scott Lilly, Cow Camp Gap Shelter, VA, August 2011
Scott Lilly
On Friday, August 12, 2011, a group of hikers came across a dead body lying in a shallow grave along a side trail to Cow Camp Gap Shelter in George Washington–Jefferson National Forest. The area is in the Mount Pleasant Special Management Area.
The AT/Hotel Trail Loop in the Mount Pleasant National Scenic Area is 7.5 miles long. This trail follows the AT through the bald on Cole Mountain before descending to Cow Camp Gap and the Cow Camp Gap Shelter. It contours along the mountain, making several small stream crossings before entering an old clearing where an old cabin stood known as “the Hotel”. Hunters and herders used it in times gone by. The trail continues to Hog Camp Gap.
Because the crime had been committed on federal land, the Federal Bureau of Investigation assumed control of the investigation. FBI Special Agent Steve Duenas was the lead investigator.
The F.B.I. identified the body as Scott A. Lilly, 30, of South Bend, Indiana. He was likely dead around 12 days before his discovery.
One of Scott’s interests was Civil War history, which brought him to Virginia and to hike the trail, starting June 15, 2011. He went by the trail name “Stonewall”, most likely a reference to Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, a commander in the Confederate Army in the Civil War. Stonewall Jackson died as a result of a friendly fire incident in 1863 across the border in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Scott had embarked on his Appalachian journey as a path to self-discovery, finding himself, and visiting the Civil War battlefields. He intended to hike southbound from Maryland to Springer Mountain in Georgia but never made it.
The last time anyone had seen or heard from him was around July 31st when he climbed The Priest, a 4,063-foot mountain in Nelson County, Virginia, and the Appalachian Trail crosses it. He stayed at the Priest shelter about 0.6 miles east of the A.T. along the Old Hotel Trail, which loops around and rejoins the A.T. again about two miles north. The Shelter and the Hotel Trail are 16.8 miles (an average day’s hike on the trail). The Cow Camp Gap Shelter is another 0.6 miles off the Appalachian Trail down the Hotel Trail. Scott probably wanted to camp at Cow Camp Gap Shelter with the next day’s plan of hiking the 3.8 miles to US 60 and hitch a 9.3-mile drive into the famous trail town of Buena Vista, Virginia, for a resupply.
In January 2012, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner released the cause of death as “asphyxia by suffocation.” and ruled the death a homicide.
The murder of Scott Lilly remains unsolved.
Read the full story at Scott Lilly - unsolved murders on the Appalachian trail
Louise Chaput, Lost Pond Trail, NH, November 2015
Louise Chaput
Canadian Louise Chaput, 52, was a self-employed Psychologist who enjoyed hiking. Sometimes, she would go with a friend, but it wasn’t unusual for her to pack up her gear and hike by herself, heading into the woods for days to take in nature.
On November 15, 2001, she left her home in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, and drove towards Mount Washington to hike some of the Appalachian Trail. Mount Washington, called Agiocochook by some Native American tribes, is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at 6,288 feet and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River.
Louise crossed the border at Norton, Vermont, at 11.45 a.m. At 12.50 p.m., a receipt that would later be found in her car showed that she had made a purchase at the Pik Quick in Colebrook. At 3 p.m., Louise was seen for the last time at the Appalachian Mountain Club visitors center in Pinkham Grant, New Hampshire. The clerk reported that Louise spoke with a French accent and said she had been driving all day and wanted to get in a short hike before it got dark.
The clerk at the visitors center recommended the Lost Pond Trail on Route 16, a short trail that started nearby. Louise left a few minutes later in her car and was never seen again. She had made a reservation at the lodge at the Appalachian Mountain Club but never returned.
On November 19, 2001, Louise failed to return home, and her partner reported her missing. The authorities started a search, and Louise’s silver Ford Focus was found at the Glen Falls Parking Area on November 20. Two days later, on November 22, around Thanksgiving, hikers would find Louise’s body.
She was located only 200 yards from the Glen Boulder Trail and 1/4 mile from the lodge, which led to Mount Isolation, which Louise must have decided to hike instead of the more accessible Lost Pond Trail.
An autopsy confirmed the cause of death as a homicide. She had multiple stab wounds on her body. Louise’s dark blue Kanuk sleeping bag, a blue backpack with a Canadian insignia, and her car keys, which had an “S” pendant, were missing from her pack and car.
The case is still unsolved.
Geoffrey Hood and Molly LaRue, Thelma Marks Shelter, Duncannon, PA, September 1990
Geoffrey Hood and Molly LaRue
Geoffrey Hood, 26, from Signal Mountain, Tennessee, and Molly LaRue, 25, from Shaker Heights, Ohio, had met in Salina, Kansas, at a church-sponsored program for vulnerable young people. After they were laid off, they decided to hike the Appalachian Trail together over six months, starting in Mount Katahdin in Maine on June 4, 1990. Geoff’s trail name was Clevis, and Molly’s was Nalgene.
On September 11, 1990, they hiked to Duncannon, Pennsylvania, and stayed in the trailside Doyle Hotel, not far from the halfway mark of their trip. Most nights, they stayed in their tent or one of the communal trail shelters, so this was a treat for the couple.
On September 12, 1990, Geoff and Molly headed back onto the trail, making it as far as the Thelma Marks Shelter, near the top of Cove Mountain. It was a three-sided lean-to, around 30 feet from the trail, surrounded by trees.
Early on the morning of September 13, the couple was asleep in their sleeping bags and attacked. Geoff was shot three times at around 4 feet, with a .22 caliber pistol, to the head, back, and abdomen.
Forensic evidence after the event showed that Molly was tied up with a rope looped to her neck before she was raped and stabbed to death by slashing her neck, throat, and back eight times with an eight and 3/4-inch double edge blade.
They were found later that day, September 13, by Cindi and Brian Bowen, A.T. hikers who used the trail name “The Lone Moccasins.” They were looking to use the shelter that evening.
Molly was face down in a pool of blood, with her hands tied behind her back, and Geoff was partially naked with a white shirt in his hand. The Bowens returned to Duncannon, the closest town, to report the crime to the authorities.
A man had been seen in the area near the site of the murders that had been seen carrying two red Marlborough gym bags. He had been wearing jeans and work boots and was described as not looking like he belonged on the trail.
On September 21, two hikers saw another A.T. hiker wearing Geoffrey’s backpack and boots. They reported him to the NPS, and he was apprehended as he tried to cross Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, around 8 pm. The man arrested was confirmed to be wearing Geoff Hood’s backpack, boots, and watch and was carrying the two murder weapons, the knife and .22 caliber Winchester Pistol.
It was the weekend Geoff and Molly planned to meet their parents in Harpers Ferry to celebrate their halfway mark of hiking the Appalachian Trail. They had also hinted at something else during one of their phone calls home, and their families thought it might be an engagement announcement.
The man detained by the police said he was David “Casey” Horn. He was questioned and said that he was from Loris, South Carolina, which was invalid. The police determined that David Horn was Paul David Crews, an ex-marine, and they had a warrant out for his arrest in Florida. He had been on Florida’s most wanted list since 1986 when he was indicted for a murder he committed in Bartow.
He had exhibited strange behavior since his discharge from the military. Crews’ second wife recounted the story that in 1977, in Indiana, he climbed in behind her in bed and held a bayonet to her throat. They later divorced.
On July 3, 1986, the authorities were sure he had killed a woman who had given him a ride, and they charged him on July 7 with her murder. But Crews escaped and drove to North Carolina to his brother, who helped him evade capture with a ride out of town and money.
Crews’ DNA was linked to semen found on Molly’s body. This, together with the weapons and other evidence found in or near the shelter, meant the authorities had a strong case against him.
Paul David Crews
At the trial that started on May 15, 1991, he blamed cocaine and alcohol for his behavior, but the prosecutor gave evidence that showed the gun found on Crews test-fired to match the bullets removed from Geoffrey’s body. He was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and was given two death sentences. In 2006, Crews agreed to drop his appeals in exchange for two life sentences without the possibility of parole. Perry County District Attorney Charles Chenot said the victims' relatives approved the deal.
Robert Mountford Jr. and Laura Susan Ramsay, Wapiti Shelter, VA, 1981
Laura Susan Ramsay and Robert Mountford Jr.
Laura Susan “Su Su” Ramsay “, 27 and Robert Mountford Jr., 27, were hiking the Appalachian Trail in Virginia.
The hikers were social workers from Maine and were using their trip to raise money for a school for mentally challenged children in Maine run by Rob Mountford's mother.
On May 19, 1981, whilst staying at the Wapiti Shelter in Giles, VA, Robert was shot in the head with a .22-caliber pistol, and Laura was bludgeoned with a piece of iron and then stabbed repeatedly with a knife and a long nail. After they were murdered, their bodies were placed in their sleeping bodies and then buried.
A man called Randall Lee Smith was arrested for the crimes after fingerprints were found inside one of Su Su’s paperback novels. Investigators searched Smith’s home and found a note claiming he had been abducted by two people who were going to kill him. He was eventually tracked down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Police tricked him into identifying himself via signature by claiming the bug bites on him were severe and that he required medical attention. While in custody, Smith was noted to be exhibiting dissociative behavior and having forgotten everything about his past, though psychiatric testing ultimately concluded that he was faking it.
Smith was taken back to Virginia by police and charged with two counts of murder. On the day before the trial, Smith unexpectedly accepted a plea bargain in which he would plead guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in exchange for a sentence of thirty years in prison. In 1996, fifteen years into his sentence, he was released on mandatory parole for good behavior, which outraged the families of the victims. He returned to Ingram to live with his mother and wore an electronic monitoring anklet as part of his ten years of supervision.
Randall Lee Smith
The prosecutor who led the prosecution against Smith during his trial, along with an acquaintance of Smith's, theorized that Smith, through his virtual lack of inexperience with women, became romantically obsessed with Ramsay because she was friendly to him when they met in a store along the trail. He attempted to flirt with her but was interrupted by Mountford. Smith then followed the two back to their camp and killed them.
Smith made efforts to conceal evidence of the murders. He traveled along the trail to remove, from multiple shelters, log books that had the details of Su Su and Robert’s visits. Mountford and Ramsay had been seen with Smith, and he told other hikers that he knew what had happened to them.
It was believed that Smith may have committed the murders because of his love for the Appalachian Trail, and he saw other hikers as interlopers. A 1985 book written about the murders, Murder on the Appalachian Trail, had the theory that Smith was delusional and living a fantasy life because of a troubled childhood. He would lash out at anyone who got too close to him. Another theory was that Smith was motivated to attack Mountford and Ramsay because they, as social workers, saw how troubled he was and tried to draw him out, provoking anger and murder instead.
Janice Balza, Vandeventer Shelter, TN, 1975
Vandeventer Shelter
In April 1975, Thru-hiker Janice Balza, 22, of Madison, Wisconsin, was killed at the Vandeventer Shelter in Tennessee. She was attacked with a hatchet wielded by Paul Bigley, 51, from Tucson, Arizona, after breakfast. He was a former mental patient. The shelter is directly on the A.T. up Iron Mountain between TN91 and Watauga Dam Road.
Tennesse authorities said that Bigley surrendered to the Carter County sheriff after calling in at a nearby house owned by Mrs. Ethel Whitehead and confessed that he killed Janice as she sat near his campfire at the shelter on the Appalachian Trail. The murder weapon was recovered near the shelter.
Bigley’s motive for the murder was that he “coveted her backpack.”
Joel Polson, Low Gap Shelter, GA, 1974
Joel Polson
Margaret Harritt
Joel Eugene Polson, 26, met Margaret McFaddin Harritt, 17, in March 1974 when Margaret found a job in Five Points, waiting tables at a popular restaurant, Capri’s Italian.
Joel talked nonstop about a great adventure he had in the works. He planned to hike the entire Appalachian Trail and tried to get Margaret to join him. Margaret laughed off the idea as she’d just met him. She hadn’t intentionally exercised a day, and the long hike didn’t sound like fun. But Joel kept coming back, and she agreed to join him before long.
Knowing that her parents would never let her hike alone with a man, Margaret told them she would be one of 15 college students Joel would lead on the trip. She introduced him to her parents in mid-April 1974.
On May 9, 1974, Joel and Margaret started their A.T. hike at the southern terminus at Springer Mountain, Georgia. The trail climbed steadily, unmercifully, and burdened by their overloaded external-frame packs, the unseasoned hikers felt every foot. It wasn’t long before Margaret had a blister forming on her heel, and after just a mile, they broke for lunch.
After covering just six miles that day, they found the Low Gap shelter late in the afternoon and decided to stay the night. The shelter was a lean-to on concrete pilings in a meadow with a brook.
They found another hiker already settled on the bare plank floor as they entered the shelter. Margaret asked his name. Ralph, he replied. Ralph appeared harmless, though certainly down on his luck, and it looked like he hadn’t had a shower for a good while. In the shelter beside him was a small pile of his belongings, including a blanket, leather jacket, and canvas rucksack. Ralph didn’t look like a hiker. He was wearing suede crepe-soled desert boots and lacked proper gear.
After a few minutes of conversation, Margaret crossed the clearing to wash up in the stream, and Joel joined her, saying he didn’t know that he trusted Ralph.
Low Gap shelter, Georgia
They started a fire and cooked dinner, offering him some. He turned down their offer of food. As they ate, Ralph left the shelter and headed into the trees before returning with firewood. Something he repeated twice more in the following hours.
Still nervous, Margaret and Joel decided to leave first thing in the morning and have breakfast a mile or two up the trail to the north.
The night passed uneventfully, and Joel woke Margaret, urging her to get moving. Ralph left the shelter as Joel walked to the stream to freshen up and doubled back toward the fire ring. Margaret was lacing her boots when a loud, sharp noise came: a blast. Joel had fallen to the floor near the fire ring when she looked up.
Ralph walked back to the shelter holding a revolver, and he tied her hands behind her back with twine. He ordered her to her feet, then guided her up the narrow path into the woods. He stopped her by a tree, told her to sit on the ground, pulled her legs around the tree, and tied her feet together. He then blindfolded her and then walked off.
After 10-15 minutes, Ralph returned and removed her blindfold, untied her, and led her back to the shelter. Joel was gone, and Ralph said, “I got rid of him.”
Ralph ordered her to eat and drink while he went through Joel’s pack. He asked whether Joel had any money. Margaret said, “Traveler’s checks”. He then led her back into the woods, around 200 yards from the shelter.
He had her again sit facing a tree and once more positioned her legs around the trunk, binding her feet together and tying her hands behind her back. He covered her backpack with leaves, wedged his rucksack behind her as a backrest and told Margaret he would leave a note in the shelter saying where she was. He filled Joel’s pith helmet with water, placed it beside her, and left behind a bag of granola in her lap. He balanced Joel’s watch on a log so she could read its face, then walked off.
Fifteen minutes later, Ralph returned, worried she wouldn’t be found. He told Margaret she could stay where she was or hike out of the mountains together to a highway for help. She chose the second option.
They headed back to the A.T. with Margaret in the lead, her hands now untied, and Ralph behind with his gun. Ralph told her that if they ran into anyone and Margaret said anything or did anything to signal that there was something wrong, he’d kill everyone.
They were resting not far into the hike when two men with chainsaws came into view, one of them the same forester she and Joel had spoken with the day before. Margaret worried that the two men would notice she was hiking with another man to Joel. They did but didn’t focus on it as they were in a hurry. Ralph asked about the next road crossing to the north, and the men replied it was a long hike before heading off.
Margaret now led Ralph over a narrower, more difficult path, with roots and rocks, on a ridge high above the Chattahoochee River. Ralph told her he’d busted out of jail and felt out of his element. He wanted to get back west, which meant moving light and fast, so he had stolen Joel’s gear.
They came to the Rocky Knob shelter, where they rested before descending a steep, 150-yard side trail to a spring where Ralph filled his canteen. He retrieved a trail map from Joel’s pack and was surprised that the next road crossing was less than three miles away.
Then Ralph announced he would not let Margaret go as he had planned when they reached the road, Georgia Route 75. Instead, they would hitch to the nearest town and get a motel room, and he’d let her go in the morning. Ralph repeated his warning: say anything, and everyone dies.
When they arrived at the road, within a few minutes, a young woman pulled over and offered them a lift. Once in the car, Ralph told her they had traveler’s checks but had lost their IDs. Did she know of a place that would overlook that? The woman replied she knew of a place nine miles south of Unicoi Gap, a Bavarian-themed restaurant called Wurst Haus.
With Ralph holding his gun, Margaret asked whether she could cash a $20 traveler’s check and where they could stay. They were directed to the Chattahoochee Motel.
When they arrived, Ralphe asked for a room, handed over $10, and signed the register as Mr. and Mrs. Joel Polson. They bought food and beer at a restaurant next door, brought them back to the room, and watched an Elvis Presley movie on the TV. Ralph practiced Joel’s signature so he could cash his traveler’s checks. He told Margaret that if she wanted to keep a memento of Joel, she was welcome to go through his pack. She left it as it was.
She asked to shower, and Ralph followed her into the bathroom to stop her from climbing out the window. Then Margaret went to bed and slept with Ralph in a chair with the gun. They returned to the Wurst Haus restaurant the following day to cash more traveler’s checks. The restaurant had no money in the till, so they headed to a gas station up the street, where Ralph got $20.
Margaret and Ralph returned to the Wurst Haus for coffee. Ralph changed his plans again, saying they’d find a bus station in Cleveland and then go their separate ways.
They hitched a ride to Cleveland’s Trailways station, where Margaret first asked the man at the counter for a ticket to Columbia via Atlanta. He pointed out that she could go to Cornelia, a town to the southeast with a Greyhound station with buses directly to the East.
They then hitched yet another ride to Cornelia. While waiting for the bus, they walked to a nearby bank to cash more travelers' checks. After a quick lunch at a restaurant around the corner, they returned to the bus station, where the manager appeared and unlocked the door. Margaret bought a $10 ticket for Columbia, and Ralph approached the counter and purchased a $3 ticket to Atlanta.
Ralph’s bus was due in first but was running late. It eventually arrived, and Margaret watched the bus pull away. Then, after a tense wait, her bus arrived.
It was dark when the Greyhound reached Columbia, and Margaret tried to reach her elder brother, who lived nearby but got no answer. She also failed to get a response from her parents.
So she phoned the Columbia police and told them about Joel. The call was relayed from South Carolina to Georgia, and Sheriff Frank Baker summoned backup from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
On Saturday, May 11, GBI special agent Stanley L. Thompson was woken and headed to the Low Gap Shelter with the Sheriff to investigate. They found Joel covered with forest debris across the stream from the shelter. His head was in a plastic bag tied around his head with string.
The autopsy found that a .38-caliber bullet had entered Joel’s skull just behind his left ear.
On May 16, the Atlanta Police Department received a telephone tip from a woman who said she’d met a man matching the newspaper’s description of the Appalachian Trail murder suspect, and they were told the location of the apartment where he lived.
Agent Thompson and Sheriff Baker drove to Atlanta, where police obtained a search warrant. When they arrived, he wasn’t home, but inside, they found Joel’s backpack, his clothes and camping gear, and a revolver containing four live rounds and one empty cartridge. Thompson waited inside for Ralph to return, and he was quickly arrested.
The man was identified as Ralph Howard Fox, 31, from Detroit. He had been involved in several crimes in his youth, including kidnapping a girl from a party he threw while his parents were away. At 17, he was arrested for car theft, and at 18, stopped again for breaking and entering. In 1963, he went to New Mexico with a 15-year-old girl called Ann and was arrested for statutory rape and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He married Ann a few months later.
In March 1964, with Ann pregnant, Ralph forced a Detroit high school junior into his car at gunpoint, then drove her 13 miles to a wooded lover’s lane in Troy, Michigan. Fortunately, a vigilant police officer happened to come upon them as he was tying the girl’s hands behind her back.
He was sentenced to 15 years for the crime, but he served only a small part of it before escaping from the Michigan State Prison in Jackson. At this point, Ann divorced Ralph. In October 1969, he was recaptured in Miami and returned to the Michigan State Prison.
While out on parole, he broke into Ann’s apartment and lay in wait for her. When she walked in, he opened fire with a rifle but fortunately missed.
Then he headed for New Orleans, then Fort Lauderdale, and after that, Atlanta. He started on the Appalachian Trail for the first time five days before killing Joel in May 1974.
Margaret picked Ralph out during a police lineup. He admitted owning the gun, which he said he’d bought on a Florida beach, but it was later matched to the bullet taken from Joel’s head. He confessed to stealing Joel’s gear and to kidnapping Margaret but said he had no intention of harming her.
Ralph Fox was indicted for murder the following October 1975, and he pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to life in Georgia State Prison.
In July 1991, Ralph was given a one-month reprieve from his prison sentence to attend the funeral of his brother in Michigan, and then he was paroled. He moved to Lapeer County, Michigan, about 50 miles north of Detroit. After seven months, he failed to appear at a meeting with his parole officer and didn’t turn up at home or his job. About a week later, on March 5, 1992, police were called to a muddy field in rural Lapeer, where they recovered the strangled, nude body of 29-year-old Diane Good from Detroit.
They also found evidence that a car had recently been stuck in the mud. After checking local towing companies, they discovered that one of the drivers was Ralph Fox. Police issued a nationwide alert, and two days later, he was arrested in Skagit County, Washington, as he tried to break into a parked car.
He was tried in Lapeer that November and Ralph denied the murder charge. The Jury under Circuit Judge Martin E. Clements declared him guilty. In June 2003, he was transferred to the state prison hospital. He died there the following month from lung cancer.
Scott Johnston and Sean Farmer, Dismal Creek, near Wapiti Shelter, 2008 - attempted murders
Scott Johnston and Sean Farmer
A gaunt, frail stranger with a white beard, wearing camouflage clothing and expensive-looking boots, walked into Sean Farmer's (33) and Scott Johnston's (38) campsite with his hungry dog around 5 p.m. on May 6, 2008.
Sean, a coal truck driver, and Scott, a layer of ceramic tiles from Bluefield, VA, were on a fishing trip. They were lifelong friends.
At 1 pm, Johnston had been fishing for trout all morning in Dismal Creek, just below the Appalachian Trail, and had driven his Ford Ranger pickup truck the nearly 4 miles to Trent's Grocery to pick up some supplies. On his way back from the store, he saw a hungry dog and stopped the truck. The dog’s owner was carrying a fishing rod and a bag. He walked up and said he had recently found the dog. It would be the first of many lies he told.
Worried because the stranger said he had been unable to catch any fish, Johnston reached into his ice cooler and pulled out five trout for him. Before driving off, Johnston told the man he was camping up the road at the Lions Den Campground.
Sean Farmer arrived at the campground at 4 pm and set up his tent at 5 pm when the dog and stranger walked in. The man introduced himself as Ricky Williams of Newport, another lie. Williams talked about football and music as Johnston cleaned the fish by the creek and cooked them on the fire with a pot of beans. He also said he had a master's degree in engineering from Virginia Tech. He said he had been hunting turkey with an uncle in the woods for two weeks. More lies.
Johnston and Farmer sensed that the man calling himself Wiliams was not being truthful, but they didn't hold it against him, and they believed he was trying to impress them. They each drank a Bud Light but didn't offer the stranger one. He said the trout was delicious, but for a man who looked as if he'd missed many meals, he didn’t eat with the vigor expected.
Around 8.30 pm, the camp started to get dark, and Johnston and Farmer each privately wondered why the visitor was staying so long as he had mentioned his campsite was an hour away. Then, out of the blue, the man stood up and smacked his hand against his thigh to wake the sleeping dog, saying, “Come on, boy. It's getting dark; we got to go.”
Then suddenly and unexpectedly, the man calling himself Ricky Williams shot Farmer in the side of the face as he was sitting down. Johnston, meanwhile, had not seen Williams shoot Farmer, but after hearing a bang, he looked up from his log seat and saw Williams’ arm stretched out toward Farmer.
Farmer stood up, unable to figure out what had happened, and felt his face. He turned and saw a flash of fire from the stranger's hand, now stretched toward Johnston. Johnston got up and ran away from the stranger, trying to get to a stand of cedar trees 20 feet away, not fully realizing he had been shot.
Sean staggered back and watched the stranger fire at Johnston, running to the trees. He then turned the gun, a .22-caliber revolver, on Farmer, shooting him in the chest from several feet away. Sean then turned and ran toward his Jeep Cherokee, 20 feet away, and parked on the other side of Johnston's pickup, seemingly oblivious that the bullet had injured him. He jumped into the Jeep, grabbed his keys from the console, and started the engine.
Williams came around the front of the Jeep and pointed the gun at Farmer. Farmer held up his hand through the window to block the bullet, but he didn't fire. Instead, he walked a few feet farther until he was standing outside the Jeep just behind Farmer's left shoulder. Farmer crouched down in his seat, waiting for the next shot.
The farmer put the vehicle in gear, gunned the engine, and sped out of the campground without firing a shot. As he hit the dirt road leading out, Johnston stepped out of the woods onto the road and was picked up.
At one point, the Jeep hit an embankment and nearly flipped, but the two kept on even though they had been shot. Four miles down the road, they stopped at the home of Sammy and Pearl Miller on Dismal Creek Road, who was home with daughters Sheila and Melissa and son Chris. As Johnston banged on the door and pleaded for help, Farmer staggered out of the Jeep.
Eventually, ambulances carried the two men to the local community center, where a helicopter picked them up and took them to a Roanoke hospital.
In the meantime, the stranger had driven off in Johnston's truck, but a state police trooper alerted to the shootings, saw the vehicle, and gave chase. Williams, in the car, crashed, suffering head injuries that required a helicopter to take him to a Roanoke hospital.
On May 9, he was released from the hospital and taken by deputies to the New River Valley Regional Jail in Dublin. There, in his cell the next day, officers found him unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at 6 pm on May 10 at a Pulaski County hospital.
Further investigations revealed that the strange man, calling himself Ricky Williams, was 54-year-old Randall Lee Smith, the same man who killed two Appalachian Trail hikers in 1981, Laura Susan “Su Su” Ramsay “, 27 and Robert Mountford Jr., 27, in Virginia.
Sean suffered a bullet shot into his skull and a wound in his chest. A bullet remains in Scott’s back, and his neck has a bullet wound and a surgical scar.
It was a miraculous escape from a man who had already killed two people 27 years earlier.
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Read about the Pacific Crest Trail, another of the major trails in the United States:
The disturbing Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) disappearances
PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) Deaths
Disappearances on the Appalachian Trail
The Disturbing disappearance of Jessie Albertine Hoover from the Appalachian Trail
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https://www.strangeoutdoors.com/true-crime-in-the-outdoors/2020/5/4/scott-lilly-unsolved-murders-on-the-appalachian-trail
https://medium.com/true-crime-addiction/true-crime-murder-on-mount-isolation-8a89ff71dfc9
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