Photos by Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

After Randall Smith's arrest, neighbors wondered what happened to Bo. "He loved that dog and that dog loved him," said Sherman Smith, who is not related to Randall Smith. Bo has been adopted.

Carlie Roberts (left) of Bethany Beach, Del., and Jordan Price of Atlanta hike toward Pearisburg on Sunday. She said residents told them about Randall Lee Smith, about the murders he committed in 1981 and about the most recent allegations.

Sitting with her granddaughter, Virginia Smith and her husband, Sherman, were neighbors of Randall Smith (not a relative of theirs). The Pearisburg couple heard about his death during church Sunday.

PEARISBURG -- News of Randall Lee Smith's death Saturday afternoon elicited little sympathy Sunday in Giles County.

Smith infamously murdered two people along the Appalachian Trail in 1981 and allegedly tried last week to kill two more near the same spot.

Authorities say they don't know yet why Smith died. He was found unresponsive about 5 p.m. in his cell at the New River Valley Regional Jail in Dublin.

Gary Stafford's reaction to the killer's death was typical.

"I think he got what he deserved," Stafford said. "Saves the taxpayers some money."

Dale Vaught of Pembroke said Smith "was probably going to die anyway" by lethal injection.

"It was his second time doing this," he said. "You can't feel bad for somebody like that."

Brenda Bowles does.

"He was a quiet, humble man who didn't have much," recalled a tearful Bowles, one of Smith's former neighbors, during an interview Sunday.

"The Randall I knew was not the cold-hearted person the outside world makes him out to be," she said. "He was a good friend and a good neighbor."

Bowles' concern for Smith, a Pearisburg resident who was 54 when he died, led her to file a missing-person report April 30 with the Giles County Sheriff's Department. She said she hadn't seen him since December and others hadn't seem him since February.

Ironically, it seems Smith's photograph on a related poster ultimately led to his identification and subsequent arrest last week on attempted-murder charges.

Smith already had blood on his hands.

Randall Lee Smith was suspected of shooting two fishermen near Dismal Creek.

Video

• Shooting suspect leaves hospital

Previous coverage

• Suspect in AT shootings reported dead
• Randall Lee Smith remains a mystery
• AT hikers return to normal pace
• Pearisburg man never shook reputation as AT killer
• 1981 AT killer linked to new shootings

In May 1981, he brutally murdered two Appalachian Trail hikers, both 27, and buried their bodies near an AT shelter close to the boundary of Giles and Bland counties. A motive for the slayings was never established.

On Tuesday, Smith allegedly struck again, shooting and wounding two fishermen at a spot eerily close to the site of the 1981 murders.

For those crimes, Smith served 15 years. He left prison in 1996 and was released from probation in 2006. Many people in Giles County believe Smith got off easy for the murders of the two promising young people from Maine.

"Oh, yeah, everybody did," said Mark Albert, who sat with Stafford at a small store not far from Smith's neighborhood.

After prison, Smith moved back to Pearisburg to live with his mother. She died in 2000. Neighbors have described him as a lost soul, accompanied only by his dog, Bo.

"Can you imagine having no friends, no family, nobody visiting you?" asked Virginia Smith, a neighbor who is not related to Randall Smith. She and her husband, Sherman, live a stone's throw from Smith's small, ramshackle house in an older subdivision near Pearisburg. They knew his history and sometimes worried about what he might do to them, their children and grandchildren.

Bowles visited Smith occasionally, even after she left the neighborhood. She brought him meals and stayed to chat.

"He talked about his dog. He loved [Virginia] Tech football. We just talked about trivial stuff, nothing in-depth or personal."

Smith apparently abandoned his home sometime in February or March, leaving with Bo. His public water was cut off April 28.

Bowles believes Smith probably camped for a time somewhere in the mountains above his home.

"I think that's where he went because he had no place else to go. But I guess he figured out he and Bo weren't going to make it up there," she said.

After Smith's arrest last week, neighbors wondered what would happen to Bo.

"He loved that dog and that dog loved him," Sherman Smith said. "Ol' Bo was beside him all the time."

Eugene Whittaker and his wife, who live nearby, have adopted Bo. Whittaker said Randall Smith "was always a good neighbor to us."

Authorities allege Smith used a .22-caliber pistol Tuesday night to shoot Sean Farmer, 33, of Tazewell and Scott Johnston, 37, of Bluefield. Farmer was shot in the face and chest. Johnston was shot in the neck and back. Both survived.

Randall Smith was injured and apprehended when he wrecked a pickup he allegedly stole from one of the fishermen. A battered Ford Ranger pickup parked Sunday at Bear's Garage, a business owned by Sherman Smith's brother, was the vehicle involved in the accident, according to Sherman Smith.

On Friday afternoon, Randall Smith was released into police custody after treatment at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where Lt. Ron Hamlin of the Giles County Sheriff's Department said Smith had spent some time on a ventilator.

Officers found him unresponsive about 5 p.m. Saturday, Hamlin said. Smith was pronounced dead at a Pulaski County hospital about 6 p.m. Hamlin said officers found no external evidence of suicide.

Current uncertainty about the circumstances of Smith's death leaves some wondering whether he was released prematurely from Roanoke Memorial in Roanoke.

"It kind of makes you think they pulled him out of the hospital too soon," Vaught said.

Virginia Smith agreed. "Evidently he was not well enough to be released -- nothing against the hospital."

Eric Earnhart, a spokesman for Carilion Clinic, could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Randall Smith's body was to arrive in Roanoke today, authorities said. An autopsy will be performed.

The town of Pearisburg occupies a plateau above the New River. The storied Appalachian Trail passes through the outskirts of town. Hikers frequently stop in Pearisburg for resupply or rest, as did Carlie Roberts and Jordan Price on a rainy, miserable Sunday.

Roberts said locals had told them about Smith, about the murders he had committed in 1981 and the most recent allegations. Roberts said men at a small country store had insisted they'd have found and "taken care of" Smith if he hadn't been arrested. They sounded convincing, she said.

Virginia Smith learned at church Sunday morning about Randall Smith's death.

"I hope before he passed away that he had a chance to make things right with the good Lord," she said.

Bowles said her sadness about Smith's death is tempered by gratitude that his tortured life is done. She believes he probably has found peace.

"That's what I'm asking for. That's all I want for him."