By Joel Frady

Frederick Philip Hammer, 49, of Crumpler, walked into the Grayson County Courthouse in Independence, Va., shortly after 11:30 a.m. on Friday, May 22, shackled and dressed in a red prison jumpsuit.

It was the last of several times that Hammer has entered the courtroom since the preliminary trial on Aug. 4, 2008 after the deaths of three men, but there was one major difference: He pleaded guilty, and only an hour after he entered the courtroom, he received his sentence.

He was given seven sentences of life in a Virginia detention center without the possibility of parole and 23 additional years in a detention center.

Hammer was also fined $600,000 and ordered to pay the court costs, including all attorneys’ fees.

Almost 16 months after the murders of Ronald Frederick Hudler, 74, Frederick Donald Hudler, 44, and John Steven Miller Jr., 25, and months of meetings between the defense and prosecution went by without a trial date, Hammer confessed to nine of the charges that had been brought against him, including five counts of capital murder, one count of robbery and one count of grand larceny.

Hammer was arrested Jan. 26, 2008 — two days after the discovery of the bodies of Ronald Hudler, the farm owner, his son, Fred, and employee Miller at the elder Hudler’s home in Mouth of Wilson, Va. The home is near the Ashe/Grayson County (Va.) line.

Miller was found in the garage with multiple gunshot wounds.

Fred Hudler was discovered in the driveway with a single gunshot wound.

Law enforcement at the time of the murders said Ronald Hudler was thought to be in the home, heard the shots and came outside to investigate.

Investigators believe he was then forced back into the home, where his body was discovered in the living room. Hudler had been shot once in the head.

“Do you realize that the commonwealth would have to prove you’re guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?” asked Circuit Court Judge Brett L. Geisler, before Hammer waived the right to a jury trial.

“I do,” Hammer said.

Hammer’s plea change came approximately three weeks after new evidence in the case was discovered – and it was Hammer who inadvertently led officials to the evidence.

According to Ashe County Sheriff James Williams, officials at the New River Valley Regional Jail in Dublin, Va. – where Hammer was being held – found a letter from another inmate that described “money [the inmate] was going to come into when he got out of jail.”

Williams said that Hammer and the inmate had forged a place, and that Hammer “had given specific instructions” to his fellow inmate to destroy evidence stored in a barn “in sight of” Hammer’s camper at Cripple Creek.

The Grayson County Sheriff’s Office contacted Williams to obtain permission to search the barn, at which point they found two cigar boxes of coins; a Yadkin Valley Bank slip that contained $100 bills; and a .22-caliber Magnum rifle with a broken scope.

The scope matched the pieces of broken glass – assumed to be from a scope – that were found at the crime scene. The serial number on the gun also matched a rifle that Hammer purchased in the mid-1990s.

Geisler repeated the nine charges for Hammer, and asked how he pleaded.

“Guilty,” Hammer said after every charge.

Before his sentencing, Hammer was asked if he wanted to make a statement.

“What happened that day should not have happened, and I’m sorry,” he said.

He noted that he simply wanted to commit a burglary and thought he was “going to be in and out.”

After complimenting officials and speaking briefly to the Hudler and Miller families, he said: “I probably deserve to die … I wish I was dead for what I did, but I can’t change that.”

Hammer also said that “he had nothing to do” in the disappearance of Jimmy Blevins or the murder of Tim Shatley, both cases unrelated to the deaths of the three men he killed.

Geisler sentenced Hammer to life in a detention center without the possibility of parole and a $100,000 fine for all five counts of capital murder; one life sentence for the robbery charge; 20 years in a detention center for the grand larceny charge; life in a detenion center and a $100,000 fine for the charge of statutory burglary; and three years for the charge of the use of a firearm in commission of a felony.

Hammer will serve the sentences consecutively.

“Take charge of Mr. Hammer,” Geisler told Grayson County sheriff’s deputies after issuing the sentence, at which point Hammer waved to his wife and was escorted from the courtroom.

Williams said that he was “happy for the victim’s families. It’s been a long and arduous journey. I know this brings a sense of relief to them.”

He noted that he was “glad the community in Ashe County does not have to worry about Freddie Hammer any more.”

Williams said that Hammer is still the “primary suspect” in the Blevins case and that any link between Hammer and Shatley is “pure speculation.”