New details emerge in triple murder case

By MONTE MITCHELL/Media General News Service

New details emerged Monday in Carroll County during a preliminary hearing in the capital murder case of Freddie Hammer, 48, of Crumpler, N.C., who is accused of shooting three men to death Jan. 24 at a Grayson County Christmas tree farm.
Farm owner Ron Hudler, 73; his son, Fred Hudler, 44, and farm worker John Miller Jr., 25, were each shot at least once in the head, according to testimony.
A surveillance camera at a convenience store near Independence captured images of what authorities believe to be Hammer’s truck, traveling along the route leading from the farm to a campground where he had a camper in Cripple Creek on the day of the killings.
On Feb. 3, at Cripple Creek, about a 40-minute drive from the Hudler farm, searchers looking for a missing Ashe County man found three briefcases belonging to Ron Hudler, as well as a small safe lockbox, witnesses testified. Among the items inside were Hudler’s credit cards, letters, two watches, a money wrapper for $1,000; a money wrapper for $2,000; and two torn homemade money wrappers for $5,000. None of the cash was recovered.
Investigators also testified Monday that red paint on Hammer’s truck appears to match the red safe in Ron Hudler’s garage. The safe had been moved, and was tilted on a pan, as if someone were trying to load it onto the truck, according to testimony.
But the safe door, which took two keys, was open, when authorities arrived at the scene.
Monday’s hearing was meant to see if a judge thought there was enough evidence to send the case to a grand jury on capital robbery charges. At the end of the five-hour hearing, Judge Randall Duncan of Virginia’s General District Court said the commonwealth showed probable cause on each allegation. The next scheduled grand jury session is October.
Last month, a grand jury indicted Hammer on a charge of committing more than two murders within three years.
Hammer sat through the hearing in handcuffs and leg shackles. There was a heavy chain around his waist, locked with a padlock. He’d entered the courthouse amid heavy security. Deputies with assault rifles at their shoulders stood at either end of a prison van, as Hammer was hustled the few steps into the courthouse.
Hammer wore a red jumpsuit from the New River Valley Regional Jail in Dublin where he’s been held without bond since he was arrested Jan. 26. Hammer’s wife, Brenda, sat in the audience behind him. On the other side of the aisle were members of the Hudler and Miller families.
It was a search for Jimmy Blevins, an Ashe County man who has been missing since Feb. 24, 2007, that led to the discovery of the Hudler property which was found several hundred yards from Hammer’s Cripple Creek camper, according to testimony Monday.
Members of Blevins’ family, including his mother, Janet, attended Monday’s hearing.
Hammer is Jimmy Blevins’ uncle by marriage, and is the last person known to have been seen with him. Authorities say Blevins is likely dead, and they consider Hammer a suspect in the case. Blevins’ body has never been found, despite numerous searches by community members.
Brian Hampton, a physical education teacher at Alleghany High School in Sparta, N.C., was among a group of about a half dozen people searching for Blevins near the Cripple Creek camper on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 3. With them was Peyton Colvard, lead investigator on the Blevins’ case for the Ashe County Sheriff’s Office, who was off-duty. Colvard’s cousin is married to Hampton. The case involving the Hudlers and Miller—which included evidence that Hammer had visited the camper the day of the killings—had prompted them to search the Cripple Creek area for Blevins, Colvard testified.
Hampton said he’d passed through a red gate at the back of the campground, and started walking along a fence when he saw something shiny. It was covered in brush. He said he used a stick to thrust into the handle of a briefcase and pull it out. It fell open.
“There was a letter there that said Ronald Hudler,” Hampton testified.
A medical examiner testified that Ron Hudler was shot once in the back of the head; that Fred Hudler was shot in the back, in the nose and twice in the back of the head; and that Miller was possibly struck in the head with a blunt object before being shot twice in the head.
Family members cried during the testimony, as the attorneys passed around photos.
“It was a very difficult day for all of us because we relived a lot of it,” Don Hudler, Ron’s twin brother, said after the hearing. “It was tough.”
Monte Mitchell writes for the Winston-Salem Journal and can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at .
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