Serial killers and true crime

The Johnson County sheriff says his office is investigating a local link to a possible serial killer.

A man serving a life sentence for a triple murder on a Southwest Virginia tree farm is now being investigated in connection to a missing person case in Johnson County, Tenn. 

That’s according to Johnson County sheriff Mike Reece.

Reece just confirmed that Frederick Phillip Hammer gave a statement to police in Ashe County, N.C. about how and why he killed the missing person.

Hammer was convicted of shooting Ronald Hudler, 74,  his 45-year-old son Frederick and 25-year-old employee John Miller during an attempted robbery on Hudler’s tree farm.

Reece says the person went missing in 2001, and a body was never recovered.

He says Hammer gave police an indication of where the person’s remains could be, and the details Hammer provided lead Reece to believe his admission is credible.

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FROM WSLS.COM

6:10 p.m.

Ashe County sheriff James Williams said, while Hammer hasn’t provided any information to investigators that would only be known to the killer, his “gut feeling” is that Hammer killed Tim Shatley in 2005, and a Tennessee woman missing since 2001.

Williams said he plans to conduct another search this spring for the body of Julie Lovett, a 29-year-old woman who disappeared from neighboring Johnson County, Tennessee in 2001.

Williams said investigators have linked Hammer to Lovett.

Hammer once told a jail inmate he murdered 17 people.

Williams, and Grayson County sheriff Richard Vaughan, confirmed that the investigation into more murders linked to Hammer could spread outside North Carolina and Virginia into several other states.

3:05 p.m.

WSLS has learned that the Grayson County Sheriff’s Office and the Ashe County, North Carolina Sheriff’s Office are in the middle of a joint investigation, into the possibility that Freddie Hammer killed more people.

Hammer is in Wallens Ridge State Prison serving a life sentence for the murders of Grayson County tree farmers, Ron Hudler, his son Frederick Hudler, and the Hudler’s employee, John Miller.

All three men were found shot to death on the Hudler’s farm in January 2008.

While in prison, Hammer admitted to killing Jimmy Blevins in Ashe County, North Carolina in February of 2007.

Sources have confirmed to 10 On Your Side, that Hammer has admitted to two more unsolved murders in Ashe County, NC, and that information he has provided about the crimes has been “credible” to investigators.

Sources also tell 10 On Your Side that the investigation into Hammer’s previous murders could expand beyond Virginia and North Carolina, and could include more than one dozen murders.  One of the cases involves a cold case in Johnson County, Tennessee, which borders Grayson County, Virginia.

Keeping my eye on this one. I do worry that they are pinning too many unsolved crimes on this guy but we will see.