Hide Article Text (OCR)
said Denise Mitten, the group’s executive director. Williams and Winans had worked as interns for the group last summer, leading outdoors programs in Minnesota, Mitten said.The two struck up a friendship that continued over the year as Williams worked in Vermont and Winans attended Unity College in Maine, Mitten said. Their trip to Virginia was not related to the outdoors group, she said.“It’s an absolutely awful tragedy,” Mitten said. “These women were so ready to serve, to teach, to give.”Williams had previously worked as a park ranger at Big Bend National Park in Texas. Winans wasstudying outdoor recreation, Mitten said.“It’s just unthinkable,” she said. Normally you just worry about the weather and animals when you’re in the country. You never think anything like this could happen.”Rangers began searching the park on Friday after receiving a telephone call from the father of one of the women who told them that his daughter was late in returning from a hiking trip, a law enforcement official said. The FBIhas joined park rangers and the Virginia State Police in investigating the deaths.The two women had two back-country camping permits, one forthe area where they were found and the other for Nicholson Hollow, about five miles northeast, park spokeswoman Robbie Brock-wehl said.They were supposed to have traveled from the Skyland area to Nicholson Hollow by May 26 and to have left the park the next day, Brockwehl said.“People don’t always camp in the area they plan to,” she said. “Maybe they got tired. Maybe the weather was bad.”By Monday afternoon, news of the slayings had circulated among many of the guests at Skyland. Several visitors said they were stunned that a violent crime could occur in such a remote and tranquil setting.“You used to think that national parks were safe. Maybe animals could get you, but certainly nothing like this,” said Howard Shirley, of St. Joseph, Mo., who was visiting the lodge with his wife, Sue.“We’ll stay here, but we’ll certainly be careful,” Sue Shirley said. “We’ll keep the doors lockedtonight.”The women are the eighth and ninth people to be killed along the Appalachian Trail in the last 22 years, said Brian King, a spokesman for the Appalachian Trail Conference, a nonprofit group based in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., that maintains parts of the trail.
Newspaper Details
Winchester Star
Winchester, Virginia, US
Tue, Jun 04, 1996
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
WV, USA 16 Oct 2021
Other Publications Near Winchester, Virginia
The Winchester Times
The Star
The Evening Star
Winchester Gazette
Winchester Evening Star
