The Overlook

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Dilya Diambra, and the case I'm gonna tell you about today takes place at Big Witch Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. It's the story of a dedicated park ranger who dared to stand between a gun-wielding man and innocent visitors near the Great Smoky Mountains. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this geographic region, Big Witch Overlook is a 20-minute drive northeast of Cherokee, North Carolina. It's situated in the western part of the state very close to North Carolina's border with Tennessee. The Overlook itself sits about 4,100 feet in elevation and has a large parking lot where people can take in the views of the nearby mountain ranges. According to the website, visit CherokeeNC.com, the area was named after a Cherokee tribal figure named Big Witch, who was known for his skill in catching eagles and harvesting their feathers for ceremonies. On the first day of summer 1998, a park ranger tasked with keeping visitors safe attempted to catch something there, too. But in the blink of an eye, made the ultimate sacrifice to fulfill his duty to protect the innocent lives around him and the parkland he loved. This is park predators. [Music] Shortly after two o'clock on Sunday, June 21, 1998, a man from Minnesota who'd been cruising on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina with his two kids experienced something extremely unusual while sitting in their car at Big Witch Overlook. The family glanced over and noticed a man without a shirt on walking through the parking lot holding a rifle. When the stranger got closer to their car, he asked for chewing tobacco and when the father answered that they didn't have any. The guy aimed the barrel of the firearm at one of the family's open windows. And the father's response to this disturbing gesture was to shove the barrel away and drive off. Around that same time, another concerned visitor who'd spotted the gun-wielding stranger grabbed her cell phone and called the authorities to report what she saw going on. A transcript of that 911 call published by the Asheville Citizen Times explains that the woman described the rifle-toting man as walking down the middle of the road appearing to be drunk. She also expressed that she was worried he would get hit by a passing car, or worse, shoot someone. About 15 minutes after emergency dispatchers received that information, two NPS Rangers named Joseph Joe Kalodsky and Al Miller, who happened to be close to Big Witch Overlook, jumped into their respective vehicles and drove to the scene. Based on reporting by the Associated Press and an NPS Incident Report on this case, it appears Joe and Al normally worked in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, versus along the Blue Ridge Parkway. But for whatever reason that afternoon, they were both physically closer to the Overlook than the Blue Ridge Parkway Rangers were, so it seems that's why they were the first units to respond to the scene at Big Witch. Anyway, when the pair arrived around 2.40pm, Joe actually ended up driving right past the suspect. And it was at that moment he realized he and his counterpart needed to come up with a more solid game plan before engaging the guy. So Joe communicated to Al that he should probably just keep driving and steer clear of the suspect while they ironed out their next move. However, not long after deciding that, Joe circled back to where the suspect was and got out of his NPS vehicle and approached the armed man. Shortly after doing that, the next closest park ranger, a guy named Tony Welch, got to the scene. As soon as Tony put his car in park behind Joe's and reached for a shotgun, he heard a loud gunshot ring out and then saw Joe, who was out of his vehicle standing next to his car's front door, collapsed to the ground. Tony immediately grabbed his radio and reported that a fellow officer was down. But while he was still speaking, the suspect turned and fired at him, too. Rounds from the offender's gun shattered the passenger side window and Tony's vehicle and forced him to retreat to the rear of his cruiser to take cover. After a few seconds, he returned fire at the gunmen, who by that point had taken cover in some shrubs about 25 yards away. After firing at the suspect, Tony managed to get back into the driver's seat of his cruiser, reversed it about 100 yards and put distance between him and the attacker. Several more gunshots rang out, but Tony managed to get out of harm's way unscathed. When he looked back to where the shooter had been hiding, he realized the guy had since taken off into the woods. According to an article by the Associated Press, in the chaos of the moment, Al Miller, the ranger who'd initially responded with Joe, wasn't near the scene. He'd stayed back aways waiting for further instructions from his counterpart. So it doesn't seem he'd been in a position to get to Joe like Tony had been, which I have to imagine was probably a horrible feeling for Al. Shortly after Joe went down and the suspect fled, Tony returned to where the fallen ranger was lying and discovered that he'd been shot once in his chest right above his bulletproof vest. As quickly as first responders could work, they got Joe out of the area and life-flighted him via helicopter to a medical center in Knoxville, Tennessee. But unfortunately, he was later pronounced dead. In all, more than 70 members of law enforcement from various agencies responded to the scene, because with the shooter still at large, it was going to be an all-out manhunt to locate him. The general suspect description that eyewitnesses who'd been at Big Witch overlook provided to authorities was that the shooter was a man in his forties who had short hair and was wearing blue jeans. Because the crime had occurred on federal land, the FBI was the lead agency over the case. And thankfully, it only took a few hours for agents and partnering law enforcement entities to track down the alleged perpetrator. According to an NPS incident report for this case and coverage by the Asheville Citizen Times, around 6 p.m. on Sunday, so about four hours after the shooting. Two game wardens who worked for the Cherokee Indian Fish and Wildlife Management Agency noticed a shirtless man walking along a road near the tribe's reservation, who looked out of place. The man was shirtless and had bug bites and scratches all over him, and he appeared to be wet. So, suspecting something was up and the guy might be related to the shooting call that had gone out over police scanners, the game wardens stopped him. They asked him if he was involved in the shooting incident up the road, but he denied it. When asked again, the wardens later reported that the man didn't respond and just hung his head. Not long after taking the guy into custody, Park Ranger Tony Weld derived and positively identified the man as the person who'd shot at him and Joe. By 6.30 p.m. authorities formally identified the suspect as 47-year-old Jeremiah Locust Sr. He was a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and worked as a landscaper for the nearby Okona-Lufti Indian Village. After his arrest, investigators charged him with one count of first-degree murder, which was an offence that carried a potential maximum sentence of life in prison or death. Back at the crime scene, investigators processed the area where Joe's shooting had taken place, and in the general area where Ranger Tony Weld had seen the shooter obscuring himself in the brush, they discovered two spent rifle casings. A tracking dog then followed a sent trail from that spot for about 300 yards and led investigators to an abandoned bolt action rifle, leaning against a tree, as well as several spent shell casings scattered on the ground. Along the way, authorities had also noted and collected numerous shoe impressions in the mud and dirt, which when compared to the boots Jeremiah had been wearing when he was arrested, were a match. The firearm he was suspected of using was a finish-made model, which investigators confirmed he'd purchased at a prior date. When authorities searched Jeremiah's home, they found ammunition that was the appropriate caliber for that gun, and was the same caliber as the spent rounds that had been discovered at the crime scene. The gun itself was kind of a unique firearm, it was known for being a military rifle used during World War II by soldiers from Finland and Russia. But it was often sold after market in the US at military surplus retailers. So with all that evidence coming together rather quickly, plus a swift arrest, there wasn't really much of a question about who had committed the crime. But rather, why? The brazen murder of a veteran park ranger was unheard of for this region. The incident shook up a lot of visitors to the parkway and made people question if it was as safe as they'd always assumed it was. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, an NPS spokeswoman told the press that Joe was the first great Smoky Mountains national park ranger to be killed while on duty. Thirty-six-year-old Joe, who was originally from Pennsylvania, had been working for the NPS for 13 years. At the time of his death, he left behind his wife of nearly 15 years and their three young kids. In fact, the day he was killed was Father's Day, which I have to imagine only compound in his family's pain that much more. Joe's neighbors and co-workers who spoke with the Asheville citizen times described him as a quiet but friendly man who always went out of his way to help people, even folks he didn't know. They explained that he was a good father, a religious man, and a dedicated park ranger. Before being stationed in the Smokies, he'd worked for the NPS at Naches Trace Parkway in Mississippi and two national historic parks in Pennsylvania. The day after investigators arrested Jeremiah for the murder, he was arraigned in federal court in Asheville, North Carolina and subsequently held without bond. That same afternoon per special request from Jeremiah's court appointed defense lawyers to have him tested for possible substances. US marshals took Jeremiah to a facility for blood testing. His lawyers wanted to determine whether or not he'd been under the influence of a controlled substance or alcohol at the time of the crime. And the only way to know that was to screen his blood. But by the time the court ordered for that testing was granted and the procedure actually took place, at least 24 hours had passed. So there was the possibility that even if he had been under the influence of a substance at the time of Joe's shooting, Jeremiah's body would have likely processed a lot of that if anything had been in his system. And as far as his alleged motive for the crime, well, that was going to prove difficult for anyone to pin down. Jeremiah's relatives, who spoke with the press shortly after the incident, said he was a father of five who led a pretty unassuming life. He'd reportedly never had problems with anyone, was happily employed, and even saying gospel music in churches. His family members told reporter Sandy Wall that their best guess as to why he'd done what he'd done was that something must have happened to him that caused him to suddenly snap. His brother-in-law put it more specifically when he told the Asheville citizen times, quote, "If you talk to a thousand people or 2,000 people, you'll hear the same thing. Something in the last two weeks just pushed him over the edge. We're the family, and we don't know what happened." Something physically got him totally messed up. He's not a drunk. He's not a rabble rouser. If he did it, he was out of his mind. Something pushed him over the edge, end quote. Jeremiah's brother-in-law went on to express that it was possible Jeremiah's recent drinking or perhaps complications from having high blood pressure and diabetes could have contributed to his actions that day. In the hours after his arrest, investigators questioned Jeremiah at length, but according to what his relatives told newspapers at the time, he claimed to have no memory of his actions or whereabouts on Sunday afternoon. He'd later claimed that he didn't even know where his old mobile white station wagon was. However, investigators claimed he eventually revealed it had gotten stuck in the woods about three miles away from the Blue Ridge Parkway. On June 25, four days after the murder, Joe's loved ones held his funeral service at a church in Bryson City, North Carolina. The building could only accommodate a few hundred people, so most of the attendees were in overflow seats beneath a large tent outside the church that could hold several hundred more people. An organization called Friends of the Smokies established a memorial fund for the Kaladsky family to help with any financial burdens that arose from Joe's passing. Prior to the funeral, the then US Secretary of the Interior released a statement about the shocking crime, which read in part, quote, "Most Americans who visit our national parks know firsthand the dedication and professionalism of the National Park Service Rangers. Few consider the amount of courage and commitment that Rangers everywhere freely give to protect people whenever there is need. From daring mountain rescues to countless times where they have put their lives at risk to rescue others from natural disasters, treacherous waters, temperatures, and terrain. However, it is a sad truth that this nation's most beautiful places cannot always be shielded from someone with intent to do evil." Almost two weeks later, in early July, a grand jury formally indicted Jeremiah on four counts, including two first-degree murder charges for allegedly killing a federal officer who was on duty at the time of his death, and also during the act of assisting another federal employee, as well as attempted murder for shooting at Park Ranger Tony Welch. Jeremiah was also indicted for one count of assault with a dangerous weapon. Like I mentioned earlier, the severity of his alleged offenses made him eligible for the death penalty, but it was going to be up to the US Attorney General at the time to make that call. Tribal leaders from the Eastern band of Cherokee Indians wrote the A.G. a letter asking that the government forego seeking capital punishment because they claimed, as did Jeremiah's relatives, that he should be shown leniency for taking into account his pre-existing health issues. To try and understand what had prompted him to commit such a violent crime, prosecutors asked the court for Jeremiah to undergo a psychological evaluation, which wasn't really something the defense supported. According to reporting by Susan Dryman for the Asheville Citizen Times, Jeremiah's lawyers were adamant that he was competent to go to trial, yet the court seemed to feel differently. It appears that in the weeks between the crime and Jeremiah's indictment, authorities had uncovered some questionable behavior he displayed just prior to the murder. For example, the guy witnesses had seen on the parkway had apparently been casting a fishing pole off the parkway, where there are zero bodies of water. And then, of course, that same guy was seen by multiple eyewitnesses wandering around shirtless with a rifle and pointing it at visitors. So, despite the defense lawyers' insistence that Jeremiah was good to go, the presiding judge articulated that the 47-year-old needed to be evaluated. The judge put it this way, quote, "Somebody may have been suffering some sort of mental defect or he was just plain mean." There's some evidence that something very, very strange was going on out there with somebody, very strange or very calculated, end, quote. Reading between the lines, "My assertion as to why prosecutors for the government requested the psychological evaluation was to possibly get ahead of any diminished capacity or insanity defense that Jeremiah's lawyers had notified the court they intended to claim." An FBI agent testified in court that no alcohol was found at the crime scene or in Jeremiah's vehicle, which if this was a situation that was somehow related to his recent drinking, like his relatives claimed, I would have expected authorities to have found at least some evidence that supported that, but they didn't. Anyway, after Jeremiah's psychological evaluation occurred in September, the final decision on whether he was or wasn't competent to stand trial finally came a few months later. The ruling was that he was mentally competent and his trial date would be scheduled for mid-January 1999. In early January, his lawyers filed a number of motions asking for funds for experts who could evaluate Jeremiah's mental state at the time of the crime, as well as for money to help fund efforts to track down witnesses who'd allegedly been at big which overlook on the day of the murder. Witnesses who, according to the defense, had reported a totally different version of the crime. According to court records, Jeremiah's defense team claimed there was a woman named Ruth who'd been telling people in the months after the crime that she and her boyfriend had been visiting the Blue Ridge Parkway on June 21, and they'd found Jeremiah passed out drunk in the grass with a rifle nearby. According to Ruth's telling of the story to at least two other people, she claimed that her boyfriend had picked up Jeremiah's gun and shot at a park ranger. After the incident, he then returned the gun to where Jeremiah was lying down and forced Ruth to flee with him. Ruth claimed that after the crime, her boyfriend had held her hostage and threatened her life as she reported what had happened to the police. According to the court documents, Ruth said she'd ignored her boyfriend's warning and gone to the FBI to report her story, but the agents dismissed her account and expressed they weren't interested. But here's the tricky part. As more information about Ruth's claims made their way to the defense, it became clear after speaking with a social services employee who knew Ruth well that one, she and her male companion who she'd claimed was the real killer had a history of domestic incidents. And two, in January 1999 when her testimony was being sought by the defense, she was nowhere to be found. Jeremiah's lawyers asked the court to issue a material witness warrant for her and that motion was granted the same day. But I didn't find any other mention of her in the court records after that. But folks who were successfully subpoenaed included a handful of other witnesses who'd been on the parkway at the time of the crime. Some of their statements to law enforcement seemed contradictory to the established narrative of what responding officers claimed happened. For example, court records explained that a man driving with his wife and son told investigators that when he saw Joe standing in the roadway next to his marked NPS vehicle, he wasn't just standing straight up. He was turning back and forth, looking at each side of the road ducking his head, almost as if he was reacting to the sounds of gunfire coming from both directions. The same witness relayed that when he saw Ranger Tony Welch arrive on scene and pull his cruiser behind Joe's. Tony's vehicle was already shot through, which was not what Tony had claimed. He'd said his window in vehicle was shot out after Joe was killed. There were also several other eyewitnesses who told the FBI that the confused-looking man they'd seen wandering the parkway was what they described as a white male with facial hair, who had shoulder-length dark hair and was over six feet tall and weighed more than 235 pounds. But Jeremiah's lawyers pointed out that he was not a lot of those things. He didn't have facial hair except sideburns, and he didn't have long hair. However, there were also some witnesses who described the meandering suspect from the shooting scene as having long sideburns, which one could argue was a description more in line with Jeremiah. So, to be honest, the eyewitness sightings, though important, were somewhat all over the place. However, that didn't matter to the defense. What they saw in the statements were discrepancies, discrepancies that I'm sure they suspected might just be enough to raise reasonable doubt for jurors. And it wasn't just reasonable doubt the government had to be prepared to counter against. The defense also had something else up their sleeve. A very dangerous, very high profile, alternate suspect. About two years before Joe was murdered, a now infamous domestic terrorist named Eric Rudolph detonated a bomb at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, which killed one woman and injured dozens of other people. He went on the run and planted several more bombs before eventually disappearing into the rugged landscape of Western North Carolina, which is where Eric had grown up and learned to survive in the outdoors. In June 1998, he was still very much in the wind, and the manhunt to find him in National Forest that encompassed the southeast part of the country was still ongoing. The area he was suspected of laying low in was estimated to be about 50 miles west of Cherokee North Carolina. So, although the case against Jeremiah seemed pretty cut and dry for Joe's death, there was a lingering suspicion, at least for his defense team and even some witnesses who didn't think Jeremiah perfectly matched the description of Joe's shooter. That Eric Rudolph could have been the real killer. He was white and was believed to have facial hair while on the lamb. He also had a deep-seated dislike for law enforcement. Now, in court documents for Joe's case, investigators with Jeremiah's defense team claimed they'd interviewed a detective with the Cherokee Indian Police Department, who'd stated that while he'd been interviewing an eyewitness to Joe's death, he'd shown that witness a photo of Eric Rudolph. And the witness remarked that if Eric had slightly longer hair and darker skin complexion, he could be the same man who'd shot Joe. And Jeremiah's defense team was committed to presenting this alternate suspect theory in court. Sandy Wall reported for the Asheville citizen times that during a preliminary hearing just a few days before Jeremiah's trial was set to begin. His lawyers told the court that the description witnesses had provided about the shooter more closely described Eric Rudolph, not Jeremiah. And it seems the defense's urgency with regards to pointing the finger at a wanted fugitive who happened to be in the same geographic region was potentially in response to the fact that federal prosecutors had announced they intended to seek the death penalty against Jeremiah. So of course his lawyers were doing everything they could to combat the government's case and keep their client off death row. And for clarity, Eric Rudolph remained on the run until his capture in 2003. He was charged and later pleaded guilty to his crimes but was never formally connected to Joe's murder. When Jeremiah's trial began by mid-January 1999, one of the first witnesses to take the stand was Ranger Tony Welch. He recounted in detail his experience on the day of the crime and what he remembered about seeing Joe gun down in cold blood. The prosecution's case was fairly straightforward. The government claimed that Jeremiah had departed his home on the Cherokee reservation on the day of the crime armed with his rifle, a shotgun, nearly two dozen rounds of ammunition, a flashlight, binoculars, and a radio scanner. All with the premeditated intent to kill someone. They argued that when his vehicle became stuck in the mud, he had to change his plans. And after leaving his car, they said he partially undressed, stashed some of his belongings like his shotgun and binoculars in the woods, and then headed towards his intended target on foot. Prosecutors suggested, armed with the rifle, scanner, ammunition, and flashlight, Jeremiah had walked in the direction of the Blue Ridge Parkway to "stock park rangers." The defense obviously dismissed that theory though. They argued Jeremiah was incapable of carrying out such a violent offense, and if he was involved, had likely just been inebriated the entire time. They summarized their best explanation for his actions as him becoming disoriented after complications that arose from the amount of alcohol in his system and his diabetes. As part of that argument, one of his lawyers emphasized how much of a failure it was that authorities hadn't required him to do a breathalyzer test, or taken a sample of his blood right after his arrest, versus more than 24 hours later. Supporting the government's case, though, was an expert from the FBI, who concluded the muddy shoe impressions that trackers had followed from the crime scene, were made by the souls of the boots Jeremiah was wearing when he was arrested. But a lot of the other physical evidence wasn't so black and white. A fingerprint analyst from the FBI had been unable to pull fingerprints from the alleged murder weapon, and a federal firearms expert could only conclude that Jeremiah's gun had shot the rounds for the empty shell casings found at the scene, but not who had fired them. When it was the defense's turn to refute some of the government's findings, they let Jeremiah take the stand and speak for himself. According to an article by Sandy Wall for the Asheville Citizen Times, he admitted to drinking two beers on the morning of the murder and going into the woods with his rifle. However, he emphasized that he had no memory of being on the Blue Ridge Parkway, or killing Joe Kalodzky. Jeremiah told the court he felt sorry for what had happened to Joe, and for what the Rangers family was going through, but there was nothing more he could offer as far as what had transpired. According to him, the afternoon of June 21 was just all one big blur. When pressed on cross-examination, though, he did recall hiding some of his personal belongings in the woods after his station wagon got stuck. But he said the only reason he'd done that was because he was worried someone would steal the items. In the end, jurors did not buy his story. And on January 30, 1999, they convicted Jeremiah for Joe's murder, as well as the attempted murder of Ranger Tony Welch. Shortly after the verdict came in, federal prosecutors announced that they planned to withdraw their previous motion that stated they were going to pursue capital punishment, which meant the maximum sentence Jeremiah could receive was life in prison without parole. According to Sandy Wall's reporting, the government's decision to take the death penalty off the table came after prosecutors consulted closely with Joe's family. Joe's widow didn't immediately speak with the press after the verdict, but in statement she'd made during his memorial service, it was clear she was of the mindset that no one should seek revenge for what happened to her husband. She'd emphasized during his memorial that she didn't want people to hold hatred in their hearts. In early February 1999, with the trial over, great Smoky Mountains National Park issued a press release, which featured a statement from Joe's wife that read in part, quote, "As for my feelings concerning the outcome, there is a small degree of closure. The difficult times are still ahead, and neither family will ever behold again." Joe did not care about a person's cultural or ethnic differences. He liked to learn through his friends about those differences. Joe always knew that we really are all the same in the things that matter most. Family, friends, and God. This situation was about a man doing his job protecting the resources and people in an area so precious in natural and cultural history that the people of this country chose to preserve it for all times. It is also about a man who made very poor choices, but they were choices he had to make for himself. No one told him what to do that day. It was Locust's decision to shoot my husband. End quote. Six months later, in late August 1999, Jeremiah was formally sentenced to two life terms in prison plus 240 months. He was also ordered to pay nearly $900,000 in restitution to Joe's family. Because he was a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, he was guaranteed at least some regular income from the tribe's gambling operations earnings. And it was that money that he was ordered to give to his victims' wife and kids, as well as his own children who were still under the age of 18. Now, for the Kalatsky family, his sentencing should have been one step towards healing, and marking the final chapter in the tragic events that had upended their world. But unfortunately, that wasn't the case. In July 2020, 24, more than 25 years after being convicted. Jeremiah, who was in his early 70s, petitioned the Western District Court of North Carolina for a reduced sentence. Court documents explain that he wished to be compassionately released to either supervised release or home confinement due to ongoing chronic medical conditions related to aging, and that because he claimed COVID-19 and its variants were threat to his well-being. His wife, children, and numerous relatives and friends wrote letters in support of him, but the government was very much against him receiving early release. As were Joseph Switto, extended relatives and children who were adults by that point. Those folks penned lengthy victim impact letters to the court asking that Jeremiah's request be denied. And it was. On February 6, 2025, the final order read, quote, "Considering all of the relevant circumstances, the court concludes that a reduction of the defendant's sentence to time served would not reflect the seriousness of the defendant's offense, would not promote respect for the law, would not provide just punishment, would not afford adequate deterrence, and would not protect the public from the defendant's further crimes." End quote. Today, Jeremiah Locke's senior remains incarcerated at a federal penitentiary. In the aftermath of Joe's death, Great Smoky Mountains National Park memorialized him in a variety of poignant ways. In 2000, a rare species of catas fly found only in three specific areas of the park was named in his honor. In 2022, a memorial sculpture for him was unveiled at the Sugarlion's Visitors Center in the park. It was created by a Knoxville-based artist and features a tree stump with an NPS park rangers hat on it, along with a metal plaque that displays Joe's name, title, and dates of service. There's a bench right next to the memorial, and I encourage any of you listening who might find yourselves there one day to sit and remember his sacrifice. I suspect only good things can come from stopping and enjoying the place he gave his life to protect. Park Predators is an audio-check production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com, and you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram @ParkPredators. I think Chuck would approve.