Fatal stabbing on Appalachian Trail is uncovered thanks to GPS and a dog

James L. Jordan was charged in the fatal stabbing of one person and the wounding of another on the Appalachian Trail. Photo / Washington County Sheriff's Office via The New York Times

Early Saturday, sheriff's deputies in southwest Virginia received an unusual message. An emergency signal had been sent from a hiker's GPS device on the Appalachian Trail. So the deputies went into the forest to look for him. As they stopped to talk to other hikers on the trail, a dog wandered up to the group.

The dog led them to its owner, James L. Jordan, who was standing about 25 metres away, according to Sheriff Keith Dunagan of Wythe County, who recounted the events Monday. Then they found the body of the missing hiker, who had been stabbed to death. A companion of the hiker's had also been wounded.

That led officials to charge Jordan, a 30-year-old from West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, in federal court Monday with one count of murder and one count of assault with the intent to murder, the US Attorney's Office for the Western District of Virginia said. Jordan did not enter a plea and was remanded in custody, said Brian McGinn, a spokesman for the office.

Jordan's public defender could not be reached for comment Monday.

The attack on the hiker, who has not been publicly identified, and his companion has unnerved denizens of the hiking world who meander through the wilderness of the 3,500km Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. Many members of this disparate, determined and close-knit group yearn to disconnect from the world and find solitude on the trail, but they often depend on an online network of guides and social media groups to keep informed — and to stay safe.

Word of the attack, in which Dunagan said the suspect used a 50cm knife, spread quickly. Hikers and guides who usually share information about more common perils of trail life, like ticks, lightning strikes or getting lost, now sought advice on a more ominous topic: What to do to stave off an assault.

"So sad, but it will not affect my travels on the AT," Robin Reinstein Lurie, a hiking guide in North Carolina, wrote on a Facebook page. "Please know that this could happen anywhere and you can't live in fear. I will carry my mace spray with me."

The attack took place around the time that aspiring "thru-hikers" set off at the start of the spring season. This weekend, officials closed a portion of the trail in southwest Virginia where the assault had taken place, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy said. On Sunday, that section of trail was reopened, but hikers were encouraged to share information with the sheriff's department.

"The trail grapevine has always been robust," Brian King, a spokesman for the conservancy, said.

He said there was "sadness, with a little bit of trauma" among those who hike and work on the trail. The fatal stabbing was the 10th murder on the trail in 45 years of record-keeping, he said.

"It is safer on the trail than getting to it," King said. "All this with the caveat that statistics mean absolutely nothing to the families and peripheral victims."

Jordan had been known to hikers and law enforcement agencies whose jurisdictions stretch along the trail since April, when he was accused of threatening people on the trail in Unicoi County, Tennessee, the arrest affidavit said. Hikers shared photographs and descriptions of him on social media after he waved a knife and an axe at a shelter, King said.

On Friday, on a portion of the trail that veers into Smyth County in southwest Virginia, Jordan approached four hikers and acted "disturbed and unstable," playing his guitar and singing, the affidavit said.

The four hikers moved on, and later set up camp along a portion of trail that veers into neighboring Wythe County, but Jordan caught up with them, "spoke to the hikers through their tents, and threatened to pour gasoline on their tents and burn them to death," the affidavit said.

The group packed up. But as they tried to leave, Jordan approached them with a long knife, it said. Two of the hikers escaped, with Jordan in pursuit, according to the affidavit. He returned to the campsite and began arguing with another hiker, fatally stabbing him in the upper part of his body, it said.

The woman who was with him ran, but Jordan caught up to her, the affidavit said. She turned to face him and raised her arms as if to surrender, but Jordan stabbed her until she fell to the ground and played dead, according to the affidavit. After he left to find his dog, she ran down the trail and found other hikers who helped her hike 6 miles to safety, it said.

It was a pit bull mix and GPS coordinates that led to Jordan's arrest.

Dunagan said that before dawn Saturday, his deputies were informed of the SOS message that the hiker's hand-held GPS device had transmitted. They set off into the forest and encountered other hikers who said they had been unnerved by a man who had talked to them during the night, trying to get them to unzip their tent so he could borrow a flashlight, Dunagan said.

The dog approached them, the sheriff said. The team followed it to Jordan, who was dishevelled in khakis and a plaid shirt, Dunagan said. There were bloodstains on the man's clothing.

"He looked like a lot of the people come off the trail, kind of dirty" and smelling strongly, the sheriff said.

The team, tracking the GPS coordinates, found the hiker's body, he said. The knife was nearby.

"I have worked here 36 years and I don't remember anything like this," Dunagan said.

Written by: Christine Hauser

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