Anyone know any "psycho in the woods" type stories?

[funkyfreddy]

Looking for legends/lore/true or not so true stories about psychos, escaped convicts, monsters, ghouls, ghosts, aliens, Indian legends, etc. The kind of tales that have been told over the campfire for eons.

Anyone care to post any or point me to any links were I can find some? Thanks, Fred

[snuffleupagus]

Several years ago there was a legitimate bigfoot sighting in my neighborhood..... At the time there was a huge construction sight, in the works. Several construction workers claimed to have seen the stalking beast running from an open clearing and into the woods. An investigation stopped work on the site for several days, so the local newspaper reported. Funny thing about it is, that my neighborhood is only ten minutes from Baltimore City, and fourty minutes from D.C. Could Sasquatch really be living so close to our nations capital? Nothing else has ever been mentioned, so I'm sure it's all a big cover-up. or is it?..... LOL

[SGT Rock]

There have been about 3 attacks of hikers resulting in death right on or near the trail on parallel trails in the corridor I can think of.

The two women in 1996 in Shennendoa: http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywo...wb980821dn.htm

The couple at the Thelma Marks Shelter in I think 1990:
http://www.hamptonroads.com/pilotonl...ee/trail5.html

The two women in Pennsylvania about 1974:
http://members.aol.com/femnet/out.htm

I have read there have ben 9 murders in the entire AT history, but these are the only 5 I know of (one of the women survived in 1974). I think this would qualify for a story to spook the hell out of someone.

[Lone Wolf]

Don't forget the 2 murdered at Wapiti Shelter in 83 or 84.

[SGT Rock]

I may have got my facts wrong about the two women in Pennsylvania, The book L. Wolf is mentioning is about that story. My bad.

[Tabasco]

It wasn't me, I promise. I was on vacation that week...

[Chappy]

Two women shot near Birch Run Shelter in Pennsylvania, 13 May 1988, by Stephen Carr. Carr, a so-called mountain man, lived in the Michaux State Forest and was sentenced to life. One of the women died at the scene and the other survived despite being shot five times.

[SGT Rock]

OK, so maybe was remembering a story about two women getting shot in Pennsylvania. Again, my bad.

According to this site: http://members.aol.com/femnet/rt605.htm, there have been 9 murders. The two in '96 plus:

In 1988, a man frightened two women off the trail and shot them in Michaux State Forest in south-central Pennsylvania. One woman survived; the other died. Stephen Roy Carr was sentenced to life in prison without parole in the shootings.

Two years later, hikers were warned to stay off the trail in Pennsylvania after a man and his fiancee were shot to death as they slept in a remote shelter along the trail in Perry County, Pa. Paul David Crews of LaRue, S.C., is awaiting execution in Pennsylvania for those two slayings.

In May 1981, a man and a woman who were hiking from Maine to Georgia were killed in a remote cabin near Pearisburg. Randall Lee Smith, who pleaded guilty to lesser charges in the deaths, is up for parole in Virginia in September.

A Wisconsin woman was hacked to death by a hiker with a hatchet in Tennessee in April 1975; her attacker died in prison. A 26-year-old man was killed at a shelter in Georgia in May 1974.

[Chappy]

Just finished reading the book on this incident, The Whole Truth? A Case of Murder on the Appalachian Trail. Victims were lesbians and the guy shot them while they were doing their thing. Not a reason to kill.

[Jersey Bob]

at least 10 characters

[doppler]

I ran into the escaped convict, and the nice people hunting him, in 96' about 20 miles north of Damascus a few days before Trail Daze. The only lesson that I learned is that when there are three helicopter scoping out the trail there might be danger on the ground.
Doppler

[Footslogger]

Don't know if he's a certified "Psycho" ...but we had a pretty suspicious character on the trail last year - - "Elwood" aka "PegLeg". He kept showing up as we made our way north. By the time we hit the Shennies, the story got out that he was "wanted" in another state and several hikers who had shared a campsite with him noticed some of their gear was missing. He was finally cornered and captured at the Blackburn Center (night before I got there). They dumped his pack and found over a dozen items belonging to other hikers AND a small police scanner that he was using to avoid the authorities.

[papa john]

Hmmm, Randal Lee Smith murdered a man and a women at the Wapiti Shelter and received 15 years. He has been out of prison for quite some time now. ALso, they were NOBO.

Read the book "Murder on the Appalachian Trail".

John

[bobgessner57]

"A Wisconsin woman was hacked to death by a hiker with a hatchet in Tennessee in April 1975; her attacker died in prison."



About 3 or 4 nights before the guy chopped her up I spent the night with him at Vanderventer shelter just S. of Damascus. I was Nobo, he Sobo and we were the only ones there. He was pleasantly weird. He was an old grizzled guy. When I arrived he had some sort of stew cooking in a # 10 tin can over an open fire. His gear was what I first noticed; canvas pack on a wooden Alaska frame, hatchet (I might have worried if I knew its ultimate use), folding wood and canvas camp stool, mammoth flannel and fiber fill sleeping bag, etc. We sat around the fire talking about his days as a gold prospector out west. He claimed to have been searching for the Lost Dutchman mine. I remember sharing my tea and in the morning he gave me a big hunk of Cornell peanut butter ball. He had a wad bigger than a softball and was pleased to share.
I left thinking he was odd but harmless. About the time I hit Pearisburg I heard about the murder and the description of the killer. I decided then that I was not the best judge of character.