Jess Carr: ‘Murder on the Appalachian Trail’ author remembered

By WAYNE QUESENBERRY/Staff

Joseph Carr and his sister Marguerite Carr Gunn share a particular interest in last week’s shootings in the Dismal area near the Bland/Giles line. Their late brother, Jess Carr, wrote the popular novel, “Murder on the Appalachian Trail,” about a similar incident 20 years ago.
“My original reaction was that this was just too bizarre,” said Carr, who lives on property he owns in Bland County that borders Dismal Creek. “What were the chances this would be Randall Lee Smith again? It was just too bizarre to be true.”
Gunn, who lives in Radford, commented, “My first reaction was for the safety of my brother and sister-in-law living so close to where the shootings occurred. I called them immediately. My brother was out of town but my sister-in-law was home. She told me she was all right.”
According to Carr and Gunn, they and their brother Jess spent many summers at their grandparents’ home – which Joseph Carr bought – in the Dismal area. They swam and fished in Dismal Creek and played in the woods.
“We grew up in the Poplar Hill area of Giles County,” noted Carr, a retired chemical engineer. “I bought the property and have been living here about 28 years.”
The year after he moved to Bland County, Carr said, two Appalachian Trail hikers – a man and a woman who worked in Maine – were murdered near the site of last Tuesday’s shooting.
In 1982, Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in the hikers’ deaths. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison but was released on parole in 1996 and discharged from parole supervision in 2006.
“I had kept up with Randall Lee Smith and I knew when he got out of prison,” Carr said, “but I lost track of him after that.”
His brother spent nearly three years writing “Murder on the Appalachian Trail,” which was published in 1985. It was his 11th book including “Saint of the Wilderness.”
“Jess was fascinated with people,” Carr said. “He said everybody had a story. He had a lot of interest in people – their motives and their aspirations. He loved books and had about 4,000 in his library He was in the printing business. He owned Commonwealth Press in Radford. He went on to write four more books.”
Carr pointed out his brother spent months gathering information for “Murder on the Appalachian Trail.” He said Jess Carr followed the trial closely and interviewed the parents of one of the murder victims.
“It was one of his top three books,” Carr said. “The fact that it was local and the murders generated a lot of publicity made it popular.”
According to Gunn, a renewed interest is being shown in the book, which is now out of print. Copies are appearing on eBay and Amazon.com for several hundred dollars.
Jess Carr died in 1990.
Commenting on the past and present shootings, Gunn remarked, “I’m a ‘why’ person. I wonder why on earth would someone’s life be so filled with hatred to take another person’s life. I guess we’ll never know.”
Smith died Saturday in the New River Valley Regional Jail in Dublin. He had been charged earlier that morning in connection to last week’s non-fatal shooting of the two campers.
Asked what he thought his late brother’s reaction would be to the recent incident, Carr replied, “I expect he would write a sequel.”
Wayne Quesenberry can be reached at 1-800-655-1406 or .