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Killer made family turn over reward offer before revealing location of man's body
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Published: August 5, 2009
CLIFTON - Freddie Hammer told authorities he'd killed Jimmy Blevins, shot him in the head and covered the body with debris.
But he wanted something before he'd tell them where.
Blevins' family had offered a $15,000 reward for information leading to their son. Hammer wanted the money.
The request infuriated investigators.
"It's despicable," said Ashe County Sheriff James Williams. "Basically he's blackmailing the family for the reward money for killing their son."
Blevins' mother, Janet, said the family was angry, but felt like they had to pay the money to find out where Jimmy was. They agreed to put the money in a trust fund for a child Hammer had been helping raise before he went to prison.
Hammer then made a hand-drawn map marking the spot where he said he'd killed Jimmy Blevins on Feb. 24, 2007, the day Blevins disappeared. When investigators had a hard time finding the body in the overgrown area behind an outbuilding in the Clifton community, Williams used his cell phone to call a prison near Richmond and spoke to Hammer, who led them closer to the spot.
Authorities dug about four feet down and found Jimmy Blevins there on Tuesday. The body was clothed in a winter coat and boots.
The medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill yesterday made a positive identification based on dental records, Williams said.
Janet Blevins said the family is grateful to those who helped find her son.
"We thank everybody for the work they put into it and everything," she said yesterday. The family plans a funeral service in the near future.
Hammer is serving five life terms without the possibility of parole for killing three men on a Grayson County Christmas tree farm in 2008. He'd already admitted to killing an off-duty Philadelphia police officer in 1978.
When he confessed to killing Blevins, he also confessed to killing Tim Shatley in 2005 at a bridge over the New River, a few hundred yards from where Blevins lived.
Authorities are not convinced that he killed Shatley, though.
"His version of what happened is a little vague for us to be able to charge him yet," Williams said.
They plan to continue to investigate the Shatley case and Hammer's possible role.
Williams said yesterday that before Hammer pleaded guilty to the murders on the Christmas tree farm, Hammer boasted to a fellow jail inmate that he'd killed 17 people.
Williams said he didn't know if Hammer's claim was true or not, but Williams said he wouldn't be surprised.
"I think he enjoys killing, gets a rush out of it," he said. "We consider him a serial killer. He's killed multiple times, maybe more than we know."
Hammer is not a suspect in any other killings in Ashe County, but Williams said other agencies may want to talk to Hammer.
"I don't know if it would do them any good or not," Williams said. "He's a hard nut to crack."
Hammer told authorities he'd killed Jimmy Blevins over a dispute about money. Blevins helped make deliveries for Hammer's business, Freddie P's Firewood, and did other odd jobs.
But Hammer wasn't paying him, at least not regularly. By Blevins' account, Hammer owed him $1,605 in back wages through Feb. 2007.
He wanted the money, and started asking around about how to take Hammer to small-claims court.
The word got back to Hammer, who told a friend, "If he goes and does something like that, little Jimmy will disappear and little Jimmy will never be found."
Williams said yesterday that Hammer had become angry when Blevins looked into how to recover the money in court.
"(He said)…Jimmy had gone to somebody looking at how to take papers on him, that he'd done a lot for Jimmy and it made him mad he'd went to take papers on him for that money and that was it," Williams said.
A witness saw Hammer pick up Blevins the evening he disappeared. To reach the area where Blevins was found, Hammer would have driven out N.C. 88 into the Clifton community, then crossed a wooden low-water bridge over the North Fork of the New River.
He'd have gone past small stands of Christmas trees, along the river on a dirt and mud track hidden behind trees, before cutting up and climbing a hill.
There was a pit behind a rustic outbuilding there. Hammer was familiar with the property because he'd done odd jobs for the owner, who was cleaning up the tract to get it ready to put on the market.
They'd used the pit to bury debris like boards and wire. Hammer said he shot Blevins there and let the body fall into the pit. He covered Blevins with boards and other debris, intending to come back soon to bury him.
What he didn't know is that a realtor had told the owner that he needed to fill in the pit to help the property sell. A workman came out with a piece of heavy equipment and pushed dirt to fill in the pit, not knowing that Blevins was there.
When Hammer came back to do the job, he found that someone else had already buried Blevins.
Hundreds of people throughout Blevins' community were searching for him, combing the woods and river.
His family knew him as a boyish 41-year-old, someone who liked to cut up and carry on. He loved to garden. He fished in the river near his home, catching trout and turtles.
He came up the hill from his trailer two or three times a day to visit his grandparents, who have both died since he disappeared, never knowing what happened to their cherished grandson.
He called his mother nearly every day, talking to her for hours.
His family loved him deeply, Janet Blevins said.
-Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com
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