[at-l] (Guest Post) Williams Winans Murder

[bullard@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Jim Bullard)]

At 02:24 PM 1/31/2003 -0500, rick boudrie wrote:
>>Seven through hikers murdered.  I think that you may be
>>wrong.
>
>I may be wrong.  On this topic my information is limited to what is on the
>internet.
>
> From what I have seen, 7 hikers of any clasification have been killed on the
>AT itself.  Of these, I believe 5 were reported to be thru hikers:  Janice
>Balaza (1975), Susan Ramsey & Robert Mountford (1981) and Molly LaRue &
>Geoffrey Hood (1990).
>
>Most everytime this topic has come up you see a chorus of very experienced
>hikers sharing how safe the AT is.  It is said that one is more likely to be
>murdered in thier home town than out on the Trail.  For some time now I have
>been bothered by those comforting reports when I consider the fact that one
>THRU HIKER has been murdered for every 1500 THRU HIKERS that report to have
>hiked the entire AT.
>
>Rick B

Those 5 hikers were not out there among only thru hikers.  There were lots
of other folks on the trail too, probably millions during that same time
period.  I can't swear to it because I don't have the data in front of me,
but as I remember the stuff I read on AT murders some of those (most?) were
AT hikers but not thru hikers anyway.  To get an accurate ratio you need to
do it based on exposure, the total number of all hikers exposed to the
possibility of such an incident, not just a select portion of them.

Saunterer