In the spring of 2008, two friends head into the Appalachian wilderness for what should’ve been a quiet weekend of fishing. The kind of trip they’d taken countless times before—until a soft-spoken stranger named Ricky asks to share their campfire. What happens next will leave both men scrambling for their lives in the dead of night. But as the investigation unfolds, a chilling connection emerges: another set of hikers brutally murdered on the same trail nearly three decades earlier. In this episode, we follow two timelines—one of survival, one of silence—and expose the terrifying truth that had been hiding in plain sight for over 25 years.

Sources:

Strange Outdoors: The Appalachian Trail Murders of Robert Mountford Jr. and Laura Susan RamsayWashington Post: Blood on the Mountain: The Appalachian Trail MurdersUPI Archives: Randall Smith Guilty Plea and Psychological EvaluationMurderpedia: Randall Lee Smith Case SummaryInvestigation Discovery: Dead Silent – Hunted on the TrailNBC Dateline: Secrets in the Smoky MountainsCrime and Coffee Couple Podcast: Terror on the Appalachian TrailFordham Ram: The Chilling Case of the Appalachian Trail Killer