Grassy Creek murders

3 killed when robbers went after cash safe

Tree-farm owner, his son and one worker were shot

January 26, 2008

By Monte Mitchell and Sherry Youngquist
JOURNAL REPORTERS

Mouth of Wilson, Va.

Ronald Hudler, the owner of one of North Carolina's largest Christmas-tree farms, returned early from a trade show just hours before his killers came to his Virginia home on Thursday to crack a safe filled with cash, authorities said yesterday.

Hudler's son, Frederick Hudler, and an employee, John Miller Jr., were shot inside the garage where the safe was kept, leading authorities to believe that the two may have surprised the robbers.

Ronald Hudler, 74, apparently heard the shots, came outside his house to investigate, was forced back inside and shot in his living room, authorities said.

Ronald Hudler's youngest son, Bill, found the bodies shortly before noon. Authorities believe the men were killed about 10:30 a.m.

"Based on the investigation, we feel that it may be somebody who was familiar with that farm and that area," said the sheriff of Grayson County, Richard Vaughan.

Vaughan said that authorities are looking at suspects who knew that Ronald Hudler often kept large amounts of money in a gun safe.

They are focusing on about 50 migrant workers who helped harvest trees this past season on the family's farms in Watauga, Ashe and Alleghany counties in North Carolina and in Grayson County in Virginia.

Frederick Hudler, 45, was the father of two young boys; Miller, 25, was the father of a 6 1/2-month-old baby girl.

"I just wish that whoever did it could just look my baby girl in the eyes, could look at my child and know she's going to grow up not knowing her father and know they did this," Amanda Clark-Miller, John's wife, said.

"I really wish that whoever did this knew they took two fathers who loved their children and would have done anything in the world for them."

The killings stunned the community and the Christmas-tree industry, where Ronald Hudler was known as a leading national figure. He had supplied the White House Christmas tree in 1995, and his son Dale supplied handmade wreaths to the governor's mansion. Hudler operated Hudler Carolina Tree Farms, with his three sons, Frederick, Bill and Dale, the mayor of West Jefferson.

The dirt road that leads to Hudler's house begins about 100 yards from the North Carolina/Virginia state line on N.C. 16. From there, it's about a half-mile, past several old weathered barns and across a small creek, to the spot where a sheriff's deputy blocked the road yesterday. The house could be seen in the distance. The road starts in North Carolina, but Hudler's home is in Virginia.

The road is a dead end so that anyone fleeing the scene in a vehicle would have had to cross the state line from Virginia and back into North Carolina.

The house, about 16 miles from West Jefferson, is in a rural area where people are close and neighbors treat each other like family. The nearest store is the State Line Grocery, and it is often a meeting place for farmers. Hudler and his son were well known there.

"We're a small community. It's just heartbreaking," said Clarence Roten, a cattle farmer who knows the Hudlers. "Everybody's got their own opinion. Nobody knows what went down."

Grayson County sheriff's deputies are assembling teams to interview about 50 workers that Hudler employed during the last Christmas-tree harvest.

Authorities said that the robbers got into the safe and took an undisclosed amount of cash. Hudler kept several guns in the safe, but authorities say they are not sure if any were stolen.

Vaughan would not say how many times each man was shot or where. There was more than one weapon used based on the physical evidence at the scene, he said.

"Based on some of the evidence at the scene, we believe there are multiple suspects" Vaughan said. "We do feel that this is an isolated event and that it was contained to this one farm."

Winning the right to furnish Christmas trees and wreaths to the seats of state and national government are huge honors, won in intense competitions. The Hudlers were well known among the state's 1,000 Christmas-tree farms, where news of the killings spread by telephone from farm to farm.

Linda Gragg, the executive director of the N.C. Christmas Tree Association, said that her phone was ringing off the hook yesterday with calls from across the country. She said that people cannot believe that this kind of big-city crime would happen in the area.

"It has just devastated us all," Gragg said. "Our hearts and prayers go out to their whole family."

Christmas-tree grower Harry Yates said that the Hudlers were active volunteers in fighting the industry's big battles, convincing consumers that they would rather have a fragrant Fraser fir than an artificial tree.

"They're very, very solid people," he said.

He said that Ronald Hudler had retired after a career in General Motors, and came back to the family farm. The first Hudler Christmas trees were planted in 1980 on a fourth-generation farm in Grassy Creek. They sold their first trees in 1992.

Miller had worked in construction until he was laid off last spring because of the bad housing market, losing his job just six weeks before his daughter was born.

He was grateful to find a job with the Hudlers and liked the family, his wife said.

He had moved to Ashe County in 1999, from a suburb of Philadelphia. His wife said yesterday that she was thinking about how he had talked about getting out of such a crime-ridden area up north, and it was ironic that he was shot and killed on a peaceful Christmas-tree farm where he had found good friends.

He was especially close to Frederick Hudler. One day not long ago, Amanda Clark-Miller took lunch to her husband. She brought along the couple's baby, Haleiwa, who is named after their favorite place on the north shore of the Hawaian island Oahu. They call her Halei.

Frederick Hudler was holding Halei that day.

"He said, 'I'll just take you home with me and we'll build a fire and watch football,'" Clark-Miller said. "He was a very laid-back and easygoing person."

Halei won't remember how her father played in her room with her for two hours the night before he died. She won't remember how he read a Beauty and the Beast book to her and pressed the buttons for sound effects. She won't remember how he got her a bit upset the other night when reading The Little Engine That Could.

"He loved me more in the seven years we've been together than anyone else could have loved me in a lifetime," Clark-Miller said. Authorities from North Carolina and Virginia came to Hudler's house Thursday when the shootings were first reported.

At first there was some confusion about which state would be leading the investigation, but authorities discovered that although Hudler's driveway begins in North Carolina, his house is in Virginia.

This is Vaughan's first big case in Grayson County.

Vaughan is a newly elected sheriff and was sworn in Jan. 1. He had previously worked 10 years as an investigator in Wythe County, Va. But this is his first month working in Grayson County, he said. And the case is unlike any other that investigators here have faced.

"We might have one murder a year, but nothing like this," Vaughan said.

As many as 50 law-enforcement officials have been assigned to the case.

Yesterday, Vaughan used the old Grayson County bank building in Independence, Va., as a staging area for his deputies, Virginia State Police, Ashe County deputies, Galax police and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Authorities planned to place all of the physical evidence that had been collected on tables and go over each piece one by one.

Ronald Hudler had been out of town for about three weeks. He had attended a trade show in Chicago and then another, with a friend, in Columbus, Ohio, Vaughan said.

They decided to return from the trip a few days early. Hudler arrived home Wednesday night.

Authorities said they believed that he had been at his house for about 12 hours when his son and Miller encountered the robbers.

There were four other workers on the property at the time of the killings, but they were in woods behind the house and did not see anything.

Authorities say they think that the robbers left the farm in a vehicle but have no description of it.

The Hudler family is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the persons responsible.

Virginia State Police set up a command post, and officers were taking tips at 540-580-7775 and 540-580-7776 or 800-782-7764.