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Hammer says he supplied pills; and sheriff
says suspect failed polygraph
By Jerry Sena
Editors Note: This is the third and final installment in a series
examining the connection between Fred
Hammer and Jimmy Blevins, who disappeared last February shortly
after a meeting with Hammer. The interviews that appear here were
conducted, for the most part, before Hammer was arrested in connection
with the murders of Ronald Hudler, Frederick Hudler and John Miller
in the Grassy Creek area on Jan. 24.
Jimmy Blevins would sometimes spend days away from his trailer,
his mother said, but never this long.
"You know somebody did something to him, because, he just
didn't take off," Janet said. "I don't know what else
to say. Well, he got along with everybody. He's not the kind of
person who'd just take off.
"He thought he was gonna be back shortly because he left
his crock pot on and his lights and TV," she said.
"And, if Jimmy had went back in his trailer there, he would've
called somebody and said, 'Fred gave me $300,' or whatever,"
Janet continued. "He would have. That was his thing to do
was get on that phone and talk for an hour at a time. Because
when he was off (work), he'd call me like three or four times
a day and just talk.
"Now, he wouldn't talk all that much when he'd come down
here at the store. But on the phone, you know, he had certain
people he'd call. And he'd call me if he was off, three or four
times a day. In fact, I'd think, 'Oh, god, here comes one of them
hour-long telephone calls.' It'd be really nice to get one now.
You know how you are, I mean, that's the truth. That's the way
it was."
She said the key in the lock on the door leading to the addition
to his trailer, where his crock pot was located, provided another
sign that Jimmy had left unexpectedly with his visitor.
"He left a key in the lock," she said. "To open
that door you had to have a key. And I think he'd started to see
about what he was cooking. And, the person pulled up and got him.
If he brought him back, then someone else had to be there to get
him."
Thelma Hurley noticed Jimmy missing that Sunday.
"On Sundays we always went to town. We'd buy our groceries.
And if Jim needed anything, we picked it up for him," she
said. "And I called down there Sunday morning and I didn't
get no answer. And I thought, 'Well, that ain't right.' I thought,
'Something's wrong.' Well I kept calling up until I guess it was
about 11 o'clock and it still kept a-ringin'. We didn't go anywhere
that Sunday.
"I called Janet and I said, 'I can't get Jimmy.' I said,
'Must be something wrong.' And she said, 'Well, maybe he didn't
get back in last night and went off and stayed at a friend's.'
And I said, 'Well, Fred picked him up and he didn't bring him
back.' "
Fred claims he did bring Jimmy back. He'd come over that night
not just to bring him some of the money he owed him, but to talk
to him about his drinking and a prescription drug habit he said
Jimmy had developed in recent months.
"I don't know exactly what time it was, but, I went down
there and I said, 'Jim, come on. Let's go for a ride,'" Hammer
said.
Phone records indicate Blevins had placed a call from his home
to a friend, Pete McCoy, at 5:15 and Thelma Hurley said she saw
Fred pull up before dark. The sun had set at 6:15 that night.
"He was drunk and he was - he was spaced out is what I can
tell you, on alcohol and I believe he said he was poppin' 'footballs'
or something - little pink pills that look like a football,"
he said. "That's what they call them, footballs."
Some oxycontin pills are known as pink footballs.
"I says, 'We need to talk,'" Hammer said. "So,
he got in the truck, he brought a couple of beers with him. He
handed me a beer. He's got a big heavy jacket so he could put
three or four beers in there. And we drove around for a bit and
we stopped there by the river. And I said, 'Jim you're gonna have
to quit this.' I says, 'I can't keep working you if you're gonna
end up being a druggie. I knew he was high. He was off in another
world when I was talking to him. I said to him, I said, 'Jim,
I ain't gonna take you to get no more pills.' He asked me - he
begged me to take him - and I wouldn't do it. And I said, 'See
what I mean? I can't do this. I mean, I just can't do it. You're
hurtin' yourself more than you're hurtin' anybody. And, whether
or not he called somebody to come get him before I picked him
up, or after I picked him up, I don't know.'"
Janet Blevins was enraged at Hammer's claim that her son was using
drugs.
"Jimmy drank," his mother insisted angrily. "He
did not do drugs. If he was doin' drugs I would have known about
it. Fred Hammer will look you square in the eye and lie right
to your face."
It would be difficult to find many in Ashe County to disagree
with Janet Blevins' assessment of Fred Hammer today.
But Fred claimed he had only tried to help Jimmy at every turn.
"I had personally gone out there two different times and
remodeled his house - for free," Hammer said. "To try
to get him, to... I try to help people as much as I can. But sometimes
there's a limit. If you're not gonna help yourself I'm not gonna
help you. That's the way I see it. I'm never gonna give up on
ya. But as long as you show me you're helping yourself, I'll help
you."
Willie Hurley, Jimmy's grandfather, is elderly and ailing.
"He's just not been in good health since this all happened,"
Thelma Hurley said.
Willie Hurley doesn't hear too well and much of the interview
is spent shouting questions or waiting for his wife, Thelma, to
repeat them when Hurley says he didn't hear.
Brenda Hammer said it's no wonder the Hurley's didn't hear Fred
bring Jimmy home; the television is often turned up high so Willie
Hurley can hear it. But Thelma Hurley said the truck made such
a racket it was hard to miss.
"You'd hear it coming before you ever saw it," she said.
"(It made) this big noise that you couldn't forget. Like
a muffler or something. Because Fred's wife would call over and
say, 'Has Fred dropped Jimmy in?' and I'd say, 'Well, I don't
think so, I haven't seen him.' And she'd say, 'Well, you know
you wouldn't have to see him because you'd know the truck was
comin' in.'"
And Janet is doubtful of Fred's claim that he left Jimmy off at
the bottom of the driveway because he couldn't see clearly in
the dark to back down.
"Fred said he never went up in there because he couldn't
see out of the tinted windows in his vehicle," she said.
"But he's pulled in with a load of wood on there before and
backed down. Fred said he brought him back, but we don't know.
And that's just the last that anybody's seen of him."
Brenda Hammer said her husband returned to their home on Old N.C.
16 just before 8 o'clock.
"I know because there was a show about horses on the Discovery
Channel that night. She (their granddaughter) loves horses. And
Fred said he'd be home in time to watch the show with her."
Hammer said he volunteered to take a polygraph test when suspicion
over Blevins' disappearance fell on him.
"I told Peyton (Colvard) I'd take the test," Hammer
said. "I wanted to take it to clear my name."
But following the test, authorities refused to release the results
to Hammer. He was furious. He demanded to know why they'd reneged
on their promise. He repeatedly called the polygraph administrator
- even reaching her at her home - demanding to know what the result
had been.
"Fact is he did take the polygraph and he flunked it,"
Sheriff Williams said. "And he didn't just barely flunk it,
he flunked it kaboom. But we didn't tell him for a while. The
SBI thought it was better not to. He called their polygraph operator
- she was a female - called her at home. They got a little bit
upset about that. And he was mad because we wouldn't tell him."
Hammer still insists he was never told the results. He's since
attempted to take out insurance policies on some people he views
as antagonists and potential targets for a lawsuit, Sheriff Williams
included.
"We've had two or three calls saying he was trying to take
out life insurance policies on us," Williams said. "And
I confronted him about it and asked him why he was doing that
if he was expecting me not to be around too long. He said that
his father had sued someone and that the guy died or something
before his dad got the suit settled. I guess he was just hedging
his bet or something, I don't know. I guess that's what all this
is about." |
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