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Update: Police probe double shooting

By JEFFREY SIMMONS/Staff

Another spring. Two more victims. The same suspect.
More than 20 years after he beat, stabbed and shot two Appalachian Trail hikers to death, a Pearisburg man is the prime suspect in a Tuesday night non-fatal double shooting in the Dismal area near the Bland/Giles line.
Giles County Sheriff W. Morgan Millirons confirmed Wednesday afternoon that Randall Lee Smith, 54, is facing charges in the shooting that occurred in a Jefferson National Forest campsite off Lion’s Den Road in Giles County.
Both the victims – two males from the Bluefield area—and Smith, who was injured in a wreck, were being treated Wednesday at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
According to police, Smith walked into the men’s campsite at approximately 5 p.m. on Tuesday and struck up some friendly conversation. Later, though, as the men sat around the campsite, Smith suddenly jumped up and started shooting at the two victims, police said.
One man was shot three times in the neck area, and the other victim was hit once in the face and chest, police said. Officers wouldn’t say what kind of gun was used but said they had recovered a weapon.
“It’s hard to understand; we don’t know why yet,” Millirons said Wednesday afternoon at a makeshift press conference on the side of Dismal Creek Road.
After shooting the men, Smith took one of their pickup trucks and headed across Flattop Mountain into Giles County, police said. The men, though, were able to drive their remaining vehicle to some homes along Dismal Creek Road and get help.
The original 911 call came into Bland County dispatchers.
Responding to the call, a Virginia State Police trooper got behind the 2000 Ford Ranger, which wrecked at approximately 9:42 p.m. on Tuesday.
VSP Sgt. M.T. Conroy said Wednesday morning that the vehicle was traveling on Sugar Run Road in the Eggleston area when it ran off the left side of the road, struck an embankment and overturned.
Smith and the victims were all airlifted to Roanoke.
As police continued their investigation on Wednesday, part of the nearby Appalachian Trail from Virginia 606 in Hollybrook to U.S. 460 in Pearisburg was closed as law enforcement personnel searched along the pathway to make sure their were no other possible victims.
Yellow police tape blocked the trail entrance in Hollybrook and an electronic message board told hikers to go to nearby Trent’s Grocery for updates.
Hikers were lined up along the store’s worn blue benches Wednesday morning as they waited for a shuttle to take them to Pearisburg where they could get back on the trail.
Nancy and Claude Robinson, who go by the trail names “Slim” and “Bogey,” said they were warned to watch out for Smith after stopping in Bland County at a United Methodist Church trail ministry for hikers.
Bland County Sheriff Jerry Thompson said his officers had been looking for Smith on their patrols since last Friday when he was listed as a missing person.
Hikers for 22 years, the Robinsons said news of the most recent shootings wouldn’t affect their walking plans.
“It’s sad,” said Nancy who heard sirens and saw the medical helicopters Tuesday night. “We’re always on our guard.”
It was May 1981 when two through-hikers from Maine – a male and female—were killed and buried in shallow graves along the trail in Giles County near Pearisburg. The murders were chronicled in Jess Carr’s book “Murder on the Appalachian Trail.”
In 1982, Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in the hikers’ deaths and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. A state police investigation who worked the first case said Wednesday that Smith never offered a motive in the slayings.
Smith was released on parole in 1996, according to the Department of Corrections, and was discharged from parole supervision Sept. 26, 2006.
Although he hasn’t been arrested in the latest case, Smith’s facing possible charges of being a felon with a firearm, attempted murder and use of a firearm in commission of a felony, police said.
Jeffrey Simmons can be reached at 228-6611 or . Staff writers Nate Hubbard and Wayne Quesenberry contributed to this report.