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Investigators dig up road in search for body
Journal file photo
Freddie Hammer
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Published: June 22, 2009
Crumpler - Investigators looked on as a track hoe dug up a portion of Smithey Road beside the North Fork of the New River today in a search for the remains of an Ashe County man missing since Feb. 24, 2007.
They didn't find Jimmy Blevins, but plan to be back at the scene Tuesday, said Ashe County Sheriff James Williams. He said they'd dug a hole about 13 to 14 feet deep and about 70 feet long.
Authorities say that Blevins was likely killed by his uncle, Freddie Hammer. Hammer is serving life without the possibility of parole in Virginia after pleading guilty May 22 to killing three men on a Grayson County Christmas tree farm on Jan. 24, 2008.
"Since Mr. Hammer has been sent away for good now, as we hoped, we had folks come forward with information that led us to this spot," Williams said, standing in the road beside the New River.
When Blevins disappeared from his trailer beside N.C. 16, he left the television on and chicken cooking in the crock pot. A witness said she saw Hammer pick up Blevins and drive off in Hammer's truck.
That's the last time anyone has ever seen Blevins.
Hammer has denied killing his nephew.
At the time Blevins disappeared, Smithey Road was a dirt road and the state was widening it and paving it. Heavy construction equipment was parked nearby.
A witness reported seeing Hammer aboard one of the pieces of equipment, which was running.
"(Hammer) was seen on a track hoe here late in the night, on or about the day Blevins went missing," Williams said.
Hammer, who ran a firewood business and worked as a handyman, was an experienced heavy equipment operator.
"Freddie's good at running them," Williams said. "In a few scoops he could have been 15 feet deep."
On Friday, investigators with the sheriff's office and the State Bureau of Investigation were at the spot with a professor from N.C. State University who operated ground penetrating radar looking for anomalies in the soil. Searchers formed a grid pattern and used those results, along with the witness description, to target an area to dig.
A cadaver dog was at the scene today, occasionally sniffing around the expanding hole.
But even with the tools and information they had, investigators are looking through tons of earth over a large area.
"It's kind of a needle in a haystack," Williams said.
A small track hoe was digging at the scene this morning. A larger track hoe arrived in the early afternoon and by 1:40 p.m. was scooping up big chunks of earth. The digging was stopped after about an hour.
It appeared most of the digging was in the travel lane closest to the river. On Tuesday, workers will use heavy equipment to fill back the hole and compact the soil so the road can be repaved, but they'll also expand the search to both travel lanes along a stretch of the road.
"We don't want to dig up half of it and wonder the rest of our lives if he was under the other," Williams said.
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