Greenbelly reports there have been 13 known murders along the trail since 1974, with the most recent occurring in 2019. However, two of the most disturbing murders, which occurred in 1981, were committed by a man named Randall Lee Smith.
As reported by Strange Outdoors, 27-year-old Robert Mountford Jr. and 27-year-old Laura Susan “Su Su” Ramsay, who were both social workers, traveled from their hometown in Maine to Virginia to hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail in May 1981. They planned the hike as a way to raise money for a school run by Mountford’s mother, which served children with developmental challenges.
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On the evening of May 19, 1981, Mountford and Ramsay shared a meal with another hiker, Randall Lee Smith, at the Wapiti Shelter in Giles, Virginia. According to Strange Outdoors, Smith attacked both of his dinner companions as soon as they finished their meal. After shooting Mountford in the head with a .22-caliber pistol, he struck Ramsay with a piece of iron before stabbing her multiple times with a knife and what the publication described as a “long nail.”
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