Appalachian Trail Double Shooting

Appalachian Trail Double Shooting.

Randall Lee Smith strikes again. In 1981 Randall Lee Smith pleads guilty to brutality murdering two Appalachian Trail Hikers. Both victims were 27. After he brutality murders the hikers, he buried their bodies near an AT shelter close to the boundary of Giles and Bland counties. A motive for the slayings was never established.

For those crimes, Smith served 15 years. He left prison in 1996 and was released from probation in 2006. Many people believe Smith got off easy for the murders of the two promising young people from Maine.

Smith allegedly struck again, shooting and wounding two fishermen at a spot eerily close to the site of the 1981 murders. The victims were Sean Farmer of Tazewell and Scott Johnson of Bluefield, VA.


Scott Johnson

The men were camping along Dismal Creek just off of the Appalachian Trail when Randall Smith stopped by for a visit. He apparently befriended the men as he did his previous victims. The men fed him a fresh trout dinner and some beans. After dinner Smith said “guys, I got to get out of here” and he then pulled out a pistol and opened fire. Both were hit twice and taken to Roanoke Memorial Hospital.


Sean Farmer


Smith then stole a vehicle belonging to one of the victims. Later Smith crashed the vehicle and he was taken to the same Trauma Center as his victims. Both victims lived.

Smith, 54, was charged with two counts of attempted capital murder, two counts of using a firearm in commission of a felony, possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and grand larceny.

Once Smith was released from the hospital, he was arrested. He went to the New River Valley Regional Jail.

Smith died in jail. He was found unresponsive in his cell. There have been no reports of the cause of his death. His body was sent back to Roanoke for an autopsy.

Apparently before the shootings, Smith has disappeared. A neighbor and friend filed a missing-person report April 30 with the Giles County Sheriff's Department. She said she hadn't seen him since December and others hadn't seen him since February.

Ironically, it seems Smith's photograph on his missing person poster ultimately led to his identification and subsequent arrest last week on attempted-murder charges.

The community has mixed feeling for Randall Lee Smith. Some spoke to the press and some think he got what he deserved while other still morn his passing. The friends said after prison, Smith moved back to Pearisburg to live with his mother. She died in 2000. Neighbors have described him as a lost soul, accompanied only by his dog, Bo.

"Can you imagine having no friends, no family, nobody visiting you?" asked Virginia Smith, a neighbor who is not related to Randall Smith. She and her husband, Sherman, live a stone's throw from Smith's small, ramshackle house in an older subdivision near Pearisburg.

"I hope before he passed away that he had a chance to make things right with the good Lord," she said.