Trail death disturbs local hikers - The Times-Herald

[WhiteBlaze]

Trail death disturbs local hikers The Times-Herald, GA - Jan 11, 2008 "We do not recommend that hikers carry firearms on the Appalachian Trail. In many jurisdictions (including national park lands), it is against the law to ...

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[TOW]

"If statistics mean anything, the Trail is safer than your home, the highways you take to get to the Trail, and probably your hometown," said King, "but it is not an American Eden totally free of risk, hazards, or the socially marginal."

This is a quote from the above post and that is the bottom line. Every year there are questionable people on the trail but IMO it is much safer to go out and hike and have an adventure than to sit at home on your duff out of fear about the "WHAT IFS." The boogey man that you will fear the most, as you will come to realize is the one in the mirror........

[4eyedbuzzard]

From the article:

According to King, this was the first Trail-related murder in more than 17 years, the eighth victim in six attacks in the last 34 years.

Correction: 11 years since the last murder(6 years if you count Louise Chaput on the Glen Boulder trail in NH), 11th victim, 8th attack.

"About the biggest threat on the trail is running across a bear,"

Questions: Over the years, how many hikers have been killed by bears, vs hikers killed by humans?

[kirbysf]

Where did you get your stats about 11 murders in 11 years with 8 attacks?

[pitdog]

If someone killed hilton in self defence,would he have been caught?

[4eyedbuzzard]

Where did you get your stats about 11 murders in 11 years with 8 attacks?

I didn't say 11 murders in 11 years.

The 11 years is a correction to the article's reference to this being the first AT related murder in 17 years. Julianne Williams and Lollie Winans were murdered in SNP in 1996. And actually I need to correct that: Louise Chaput was stabbed to death in NH in Nov 2001, though like Meredith Emerson, she was on a day hike and also not technically on the AT. So by that standard it should be 6 years.

Not including Meredith Emerson,

9 were murdered in 6 incidents on or near the AT according to this source: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA...5/06050359.htm

plus 1 more in 2001: http://www.wptz.com/wnne/2656665/detail.html

plus Meredith Emerson = 11 fairly widely reported murders in the vicinity of the AT since 1974.

[kirbysf]

So, how many of those killed were actually on the AT?

[Freeleo]

i would assume all of them in spirit

[MOWGLI]

So, how many of those killed were actually on the AT?

The tragic and senseless murder of the two women in Shenandoah National Park in '96 occurred off of the AT.

[Colter]

Questions: Over the years, how many hikers have been killed by bears, vs hikers killed by humans?

People fear the wrong things. As far as I know no hikers have been killed on the AT by bears. None by hunters. Some by hypothermia, some by lightning, some by falls. A very few by wackos.

Life is about living, not fear. And one of the best places to live your life is on the Appalachian Trail!

[rickb]

This was posted on WB some years ago.
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________




November 2001 — [Backpacker 0402] Hiker, Louise Chaput, 52, a psychologist from Sherbrook, Quebec, was found stabbed to death about 200 yards from the Glen Boulder Trailhead at the foot of New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington. Chaput began a solo hike in the area on November 15, 2001, and when she failed to return, officials launched a 3-day manhunt. Searchers located her body about a mile south of the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Pinkham Notch Lodge, where she’d scheduled a reservation but never showed up. Police continue to seek Chaput’s backpack, a dark blue internal frame containing a green down sleeping bag, and the keys to her Ford Focus station wagon.

May 1996 — Two women hikers were found slain June 1st, just off the Appalachian Trail near Skyland Lodge in Shenandoah National Park. The bodies were found on National Trails Day by park authorities that had been alerted a day or so before that the women were overdue from a backpacking trip. Killed were Julianne Williams, 24, of St. Cloud, Minn., and Lollie Winans, 26, of Unity, Maine. They were camped about 1.5 miles from Skyland Lodge, in a spot about 25 yards off the trail near a brook. Their dog, a golden retriever/lab mix named Taj, was found nearby, apparently unharmed. A roll of film found among their belongings was developed, and pictures from that roll have been used in posters seeking information from the public. Investigators said the women's throats had been cut but officials would not say if the women were sexually assaulted. In a story published Saturday, July 20, the Washington Post reported that FBI officials are considering the possibility that the women were killed by two or more assailants, not one. New details emerged Saturday that revealed the women's wrists were bound. The Post quoted Stanley Klein, special agent in charge of the FBI's Richmond office, who said one body was found inside their tent and the other was found outside. The women were last seen in the park on May 23, but an autopsy report concluded they died on or after May 27. Investigators have ruled out robbery as a motive. (SNIP) Six years and 15,000 tips after the murder of two women near the Appalachian Trail sent a chill through hikers everywhere, federal prosecutors say they have the killer and will prosecute the case as a hate crime.
Darrell David Rice of Columbia, Md., was indicted for the 1996 slayings of Julianne Williams and Laura “Lollie” Winans, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. Already jailed on an unrelated kidnapping charge, Rice told authorities the women “deserved to die because they were lesbian (expletives),” according to prosecution documents filed in court.
The bodies of Williams, 24, of St. Cloud, Minn., and Winans, 26, of Unity, Maine, were found bound and gagged June 1, 1996, at a creek-side campsite in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, about a half-mile off the Appalachian Trail. Their throats had been cut.

September 1990 — Thru-hikers Molly LaRue, 25, from Shaker Heights, Ohio, and her boyfriend, Geoffrey Hood, 26, from Signal Mountain, Tennessee, were killed as they woke up at a shelter just off the Trail south of Duncannon, Pa., by fugitive P. David Crews (now under death sentence in Pennsylvania). She was stabbed to death; he was shot. Crews, carrying some of their gear, was arrested eight days later by National Park Service rangers on the A.T. bridge above the Potomac River from Maryland into West Virginia.

May 1988 —On May 13, 1988, Stephen Roy Carr, a so-called mountain man living in Michaux State Forest in south central Pennsylvania, shot two female hikers while they were making love at a campsite near the Appalachian Trail. He proceeded to stalk them as they moved their campsite to a spot off a side trail and shot at them with a rifle from the woods. Rebecca Wight (of Blacksburg, Virginia), 29, died at the scene. Claudia Brenner, 31, of Ithaca, New York, despite five bullet wounds, survived to testify against her attacker. Carr was arrested about 10 days after the crime and sentenced to life in prison.

May 1981 — Thru-hikers Susan Ramsey and Robert Mountford, both from Ellsworth, Maine, and 27, were killed near a shelter in southwest Virginia, 20 miles from Pearisburg, during the night, by Randall Lee Smith, who pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was paroled by Virginia in September 1996. Mr. Mountford was shot at the shelter, and Ms. Ramsey was stabbed to death a short distance away. Although he had made an effort to hide the bodies, Smith was arrested and charged within a matter of weeks.

April 1975 — Thru-hiker Janice Balza, 22, of Madison, Wisconsin, killed by a hatchet wielded by hiker/tree surgeon Paul Bigley, 51, after breakfast at a shelter in northeast Tennessee. He died in state prison in Nashville. He killed her for her pack, a brand he coveted, testimony revealed.

May 1974 — Joel Polsom, 26, of Hartsville, South Carolina, was killed at a shelter in Georgia by Michigan fugitive Ralph Fox, who continued to walk south and then caught a bus to Atlanta, where he was arrested.

[canerunner]

Life is about living, not fear.

Well said, Colter!

No one should let fear rule their lives. If that is the case, one can lay in bed all day and never accomplish anything! That doesn't work either, because you can die in bed.

Life is too short to live it in fear.

[gaga]

"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.'' - by Homer J. Simpson

[kirbysf]

rickb,
Thanks for the information. That is what I wanted to know. 11 murders since 1974 is tragic. With all the crap being putout about these tragic events one could become very fearful about hiking the AT. Fearful enough that many would now carry guns for protection. This, I think, would create more senseless deaths. Hopefully we can overcome our fear and these fear mongrels and have a safe hike.

[markp64]

also there was a murder at henson gap, in ga section of trail just s. of blue mtn shelter, it states in my guide books that the gap is named for a man who was ambushed and killed many years ago, also i helped paint low gap shelter back in 08 as member of the g.a.t.c. i knew that a hiker had been killed there
in 1974 but that was all i knew, it felt a little strange there knowing someone
had been murdered there. thanks to the gentleman who posted the detailed info on this thread, also the forrest service rangers that i have talked to stated that as long as you have a valid conceald carry permit you may cary a firearm in the natl, forrest on the trail, this was decided after the emerson
murder i am not saying you should or should not just passing on the info.

mark..........