Murder On The Trail

On 19 May 1981, two social workers from Ellsworth, Maine, bedded down for the night at the Wapiti 2 shelter on the Appalachian Trail above Pearisburg, Virginia. Robert Mountford Jr. and Laura Susan Ramsey were both 27 and both worked as counsellors at the Homestead project, a home for disturbed children. They were hiking the whole 2,050-mile trail to raise money for the children they looked after. Earlier that day they had been seen at Trent's Grocery in Bland County, and later at the shelter with a man who called himself Billy Joe. A female hiker they had befriended waited at an agreed meeting place. When they did not turn up, she alerted the authorities. details of the account remain covered until revealed The lead investigator ran his knife between the floorboards and found a thick red substance. Thirty yards out, under a heap of leaves that looked unnatural in the woods, they found Ramsey's body wrapped in plastic inside a sleeping bag. A cadaver dog found Mountford several hundred yards away, also in a sleeping bag. He had been shot three times in the head. Ramsey had defensive wounds all over her hands. She had been hit in the head with a piece of angle iron from the shelter's fireplace, stabbed with a knife and punctured thirteen times with a long nail pulled from the shelter. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The medical examiner put the deaths at least several days earlier. Ten days of summer decomposition made it impossible to say whether Ramsey had been sexually assaulted. It was the first double homicide in the history of the trail. A bloody fingerprint on Ramsey's paperback copy of Mount Olive by Lawrence Durrell belonged to neither victim. It matched nothing in the state or FBI databases. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He had no criminal record. His truck was found abandoned on a vacant lot near the ocean in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on 8 June 1981. Inside was a disjointed handwritten note: 'This boy and girl have been so nice to me, you would too if it meant your neck... It is going to be a real shame for them when the time comes to get rid of them... I will be far, far away before Truck and these people are found.' this part of the story is covered for now A man claiming amnesia was picked up at a litter-strewn campsite outside Myrtle Beach. Detectives in white coats told him his insect bites needed urgent treatment, then asked him to sign a consent form. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed The families of both victims had agreed to the deal. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Many people in Giles County were furious. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed He became a model prisoner, earned his GED and took up Wicca. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed He took every picture off the walls of the little house, ran out of money and lost his utilities one by one. In February 2008 neighbours watched him carry an astonishing number of bright yellow plastic bags from his cellar into the house. His water was cut off on 28 April 2008. On 30 April a missing persons report was filed after weeks of mail piled up outside. On 8 May 2008, two friends from Virginia, Sean Farmer, 33, and Scott Johnston, 37, were trout fishing and camping in the Walnut Flats area of Dismal Creek in the Jefferson National Forest. A haggard camper with a .22 pistol joined them, accepted a bag of trout and stayed for a trout dinner and three and a half hours of talk. He said his name was Ricky Williams and that he had studied engineering at Virginia Tech and written papers for NASA. At about 8.30 p.m. he got up to leave, walked behind Farmer and shot him twice in the head and back. He then turned and shot Johnston twice in the neck and face from about ten feet away. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Johnston, with a finger plugging the hole in his neck, steered from the passenger seat while Farmer, half blind and passing out, drove down the mountain. They hit an embankment, nearly went over a 20-to-30-foot drop, then reached Melissa Miller's house and shouted for her to call 911. Both men survived. Both still carry bullets in their bodies. The next day a hiker called Moondog told police that he had seen a Ford Ranger stop at an old fire road on the night of the shooting. this part of the story is covered for now A state trooper spotted the truck on Sugar Run Road near Eggleston and gave chase. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now The case was closed because there was no one left to prosecute. Farmer went to work driving a coal truck; Johnston recovered and said he felt he had got his life back. details of the account remain covered until revealed