Sunday, May 11, 2008
Suspect in AT shootings reported dead
Questions surround his alleged involvement in shootings.A Giles County official said Randall Lee Smith was found unresponsive at the New River Valley Regional Jail.
Randall Lee Smith is suspected of shooting two fishermen near Dismal Creek.
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Randall Lee Smith, a suspect in the Tuesday shooting of two fishermen along the Appalachian Trail in Giles County, was pronounced dead at a Pulaski County hospital shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday, said Lt. Ron Hamlin of the Giles County Sheriff's Department.
Hamlin said officers at the New River Valley Regional Jail found Smith lying on his side and unresponsive about 5 p.m.
Smith had been in a medical ward and was alone in his cell, Hamlin said.
He said jail officials found no external signs of suicide.
He would not speculate as to whether the death was caused from the head and shoulder injuries Smith suffered when he crashed a pickup truck Tuesday night.
"He had given up on life. I saw that yesterday," Hamlin said. "He said he was ready for death."
Hamlin said that Smith had been talkative and alert Friday, telling police more than they had expected to learn from him about their investigation into the shootings of the two men.
Investigators said that the suspect in Tuesday's shootings spent three hours that day with Sean Farmer, 33, of Tazewell, Va., and Scott Johnston, 37, of Bluefield, Va.
The three talked and ate dinner before the suspect, believed to have been Smith, pulled out a gun and shot Farmer and Johnston at their camp on Lions Den Road.
Farmer was shot in the face and chest, while Johnston was shot in the neck and back.
Farmer was released from Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital on Wednesday, according to friends, while Johnston was listed in good condition as of Saturday afternoon, according to hospital spokesman Eric Earnhart.
Smith, of Pearisburg was apprehended Tuesday night after he crashed a pickup truck that belonged to one of the two shooting victims on Sugar Run Road near Eggleston.
Smith, 54, was injured in the crash and hospitalized at Roanoke Memorial after being taken into custody.
Doctors placed him on a ventilator until sometime Thursday and released him Friday afternoon into police custody.
After being released from the hospital, Smith was charged Friday with two counts of attempted capital murder, two counts of using a firearm in commission of a felony, possession of a firearm by a felon and grand larceny, according to Hamlin.
The Tuesday shootings occurred near the same secluded area along the Appalachian Trail where Smith killed Susan Ramsay and Robert Mountford Jr. in 1981.
The bodies of Ramsay and Mountford, both from Maine, were found in shallow graves near a shelter on the trail. Ramsay had been beaten and stabbed more than a dozen times; Mountford was shot three times in the head.
Smith accepted a plea agreement that reduced his charges to second-degree murder and set his punishment at 30 years. He served about 15 years and was released in 1996.
He was also the subject of a book, "Murder on the Appalachian Trail."
After he was released, Smith kept a low profile in the community, but he never seemed to shake the reputation he made for murdering the two hikers.
Hamlin said Saturday his department would continue investigating the Tuesday shootings of Farmer and Johnston, but that it was less urgent now that Smith is dead, "unless somebody comes up missing."
Smith's body will be taken to Roanoke on Monday for an autopsy, Hamlin said.
Staff writer Jessica Marcy contributed to this report.
