A man is facing federal murder charges after he allegedly attacked two hikers with a machete on the Appalachian Trail.
James Jordan, 30, of Massachusetts was arrested in remote southwestern Virginia early Saturday. Police initially received a report Friday night that a man wielding a large knife had threatened a group of four hikers on the historic trail. Two members of the group managed to escape, reaching police to let them know what had happened.
The other two attempted to escape but were eventually hunted down by Jordan who proceeded to kill the male hiker. The female suffered defensive wounds and was badly wounded. She pretended to be dead in order to escape.
Authorities believe that the man they captured might be “Sovereign,” a well-known hiker who had terrorized people hiking the trail in the past. There have been reports from across Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee of a man chasing and threatening hikers on the remote trail with a machete-like knife.
Jordan was previously arrested for drug possession and criminal impersonation. He gave police a fake ID after a confrontation with hikers in Tennessee and was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty in April.
Odie Norman, publisher of the Hiker Yearbook, told the Washington Post that he had been tracking information and interviewing hikers about Jordan. Norman said he met Jordan briefly after he was arrested in Tennessee and said he did not seem to be mentally sound.
“He was scaring a lot of people, and there was a lot of misinformation going around about him. People were in defense mode when they saw him,” Norman said, saying that Jordan told him he was “on a mission to protect the mountain people from the infiltrators trying to steal their insurance.”
“He said the mountain people are good people but at night, the infiltrators would come. His mind was not normal,” Norman recounted.
Despite there being a relatively small amount of violent crime, given the large number of visitors who hike on the trail each year, there have been murders in the past. In 2008, two fishermen were shot, and in 2001, a Canadian woman was stabbed to death on the trail in New Hampshire.
The trail runs for more than 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine. Each year, “thru-hikers” attempt to hike the entire trail, while others attempt to tackle segments of varying length.
