Randall Lee Smith murdered Ginny Ramsay's daughter on the Appalachian Trail in 1981, so yesterday Ramsay said she was not surprised to hear Smith now is suspected of shooting two men this week near the trail in Giles County.

"It doesn't sound like he should have ever been let out of prison," said Ramsay, of Aurora, Ohio, upon learning of Smith's latest brush with the law. "We fought and fought against his parole, but in the end they had to parole him."

Smith could be sent back to prison for life if convicted of the latest shootings.

Smith, currently in a hospital under the watch of deputies, was convicted in 1982 of the murders of Laura Ramsay and Robert Mountford Jr., two 27-yearolds from Maine who were hiking the Appalachian Trail to raise money for mentally disabled children.

Smith was sentenced to 30 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to stabbing Ramsay to death and fatally shooting Mountford in Giles.

But Smith, of Pearisburg, was given mandatory parole in late 1996 after serving less than half his sentence. The state's parole system was abolished under then-Gov. George Allen in 1994, but because Smith's crime occurred before Jan. 1, 1995, he still qualified for the mandatory early release and returned to live with his mother in Pearisburg.

That's when Ginny Ramsay said she lost track of her daughter's killer. "I always wondered what happened to him," she said.

The question now is what will become of the 54-year-old Smith. Giles prosecutor Phillip Steele said yesterday he is prepared to file charges against Smith, possibly including attempted capital murder, as soon as Smith is fit to leave Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where he is on a ventilator.

"He's not going to get out of the hospital" without being charged, Steele said.

Smith is the only suspect in the Tuesday night shooting of Scott Johnston of Bluefield and Sean Farmer of Tazewell.

The two men were camping just off the Appalachian Trail after a day of fishing for trout in the Dismal Creek. Authorities say Smith came upon their campsite and shot Johnston in the neck and Farmer in the face.

Farmer was released from a Roanoke hospital after being treated. Johnston still is at Roanoke Memorial after undergoing three hours of surgery that included a tracheotomy, said his father, W. Beaman Johnston of Bluefield.

The father added that doctors don't know if the bullet, which passed completely through his son's neck, has affected the vocal cords.

"He's surviving," the elder Johnston said. "But both those boys are lucky. He shot both of them twice -- Scott in the neck and Sean in the face, and then he shot both of them in the back. They're lucky to be alive."

The two men escaped by jumping in a vehicle and driving to a home in Bland County, where they called a rescue squad.

Smith took their other vehicle, a 2000 Ford Ranger pickup truck, according to authorities. After he was spotted by a state trooper on a rural road, he veered into an embankment and the truck overturned. He was flown by helicopter to the Roanoke hospital.

Ginny Ramsay said she was distressed by the news of the shootings but was glad the two men survived: They can give eye-witness testimony.

"I hope they make something stick against him," she said. "They never should have let him out."

Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or rbowman@timesdispatch.com.