ELLSWORTH – The man convicted of killing two Appalachian Trail hikers from Maine in Virginia in 1981 and who allegedly tried to kill again near the trail last week has died while in custody in a Virginia jail.

Virginia authorities, however, are continuing to search areas along the trail looking for what may be another of the trail killer’s victims.

Randall Lee Smith, 54, of Pearisburg, Va., died in his cell at the regional jail in Pearisburg on May 10, according to Lt. Ron Hamlin of the Giles County Sheriff’s Office. Smith had been taken into custody on May 6 after he wrecked a pickup truck belonging to one of two shooting victims who had been attacked at a tenting site near the Appalachian Trail.

Smith was injured in the crash and was hospitalized under guard in a Roanoke hospital until last Friday, May 9, Hamlin said. He was arrested upon his release from the hospital and returned to Giles County, where he was questioned.

“We interrogated him a little,” Hamlin said. “When it appeared that he wasn’t going to talk any more we sent him back to his cell.”

Smith was being held in the jail’s medical center, but was expected to fully recover from the injuries he suffered in the crash. He had been active during the day on May 10, according to Hamlin.

“He’d been on his feet, walking around and socializing,” he said. “One of the guards was taking supper to them and he didn’t see him. He opened the door and he was lying on his side. From there it went downhill for the old fella.”

An autopsy on Monday failed to determine a cause of death, Hamlin said, noting that they were still awaiting the results of toxicology tests. There was no indication that this was a suicide, he said.

“Right now, we don’t know,” he said.

Hamlin speculated that the death of Smith’s mother in 2000 may have set him off. Smith had pleaded guilty to the double murders of Robert Mountford Jr., 27, of Ellsworth, and Susan Ramsey, 27, of Mariaville in 1981. Their bodies had been found in separate, shallow graves at a shelter just 200 yards off the trail. He was released in 1996 after serving 14 years in prison. According to Hamlin, he remained on parole and house arrest, forced to wear an electronic ankle bracelet until 2006.

“After his mother died, he kind of separated from society then. I think that pretty much set him off,” Hamlin said. “He’d given up on life. He told me that.”

Hamlin said that investigators had talked with Smith about why he went back to the mountains and also had questioned him about the most recent shootings in which Smith allegedly shot two fishermen at a tenting site near the trail, about a mile or so from where the 1981 shootings had taken place. Both victims in that shooting had been hospitalized, but both have since been released, Hamlin said.

Hamlin declined to discuss what Smith said in those interviews.

“We got a lot of information,” he said. “If we could have talked with him again, I know we could have gotten a lot more. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have let him go back to his room.”

Smith had been charged with attempted capital murder in connection with last week’s shootings, and though his death may have closed that case, officers searched areas of the trail on Wednesday and plan to continue to search the area again today.

“We’re hoping there’s nothing,” Hamlin said. “But we searched his home again and something we found there made us think that there might be another victim up on the trail. No one’s been reported missing. We just want to search some more.”

rhewitt@bangordailynews.net

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