AT killer linked to new shootings

EGGLESTON, Va. – Virginia State Police say a man convicted of killing two hikers from Maine on the Appalachian Trail in 1981 was injured in the crash of a truck possibly connected to the shooting of two people on the trail Tuesday night.

Sgt. Michael Conroy said Wednesday that Randall Lee Smith was taken to a Roanoke hospital after the 2000 Ford Ranger he was driving overturned. Conroy said the truck ran off the road after a trooper pulled in behind it shortly after 9:30 p.m.

He said state police had been asked to be on the lookout for a truck of that description in connection with an investigation of the shooting of two people in the Dismal area.

Smith was given two 15-year sentences after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the 1981 deaths of Susan Ramsay and Bob Mountford, social workers from Ellsworth, Maine. Smith was released in 1996.