He got away with murder, then kept killing

In a debris-strewn pit in rural Ashe County, N.C., authorities last week unearthed the decaying corpse of Jimmy Blevins, a laborer missing and presumed dead for more than two years.

The spot had been identified by Frederick Phillip Hammer, a serial murderer now serving multiple life terms for three In Cold Blood-style executions at a tree farm in nearby Grayson County, Va.

When Ashe County Sheriff James D. Williams first questioned Hammer about Blevins' disappearance, Hammer professed ignorance about the whereabouts of his nephew by marriage.

After the interview, Williams remembers looking at his deputy and remarking, "That man knows absolutely nothing about Jimmy's disappearance, or he's the smoothest liar I've ever seen."

The deeper he dug into Hammers' past, the more he came to believe the latter, following a trail that led back to Philadelphia.

There, in a rowhouse in the Eastwick section, Joan Uffelman finally feels a measure of closure, with Hammer now behind bars. But her mind still wanders back to his first trial in City Hall, and she can't help but wonder whether all these other people really had to die.

From Ashe County, Sheriff Williams' investigation brought him here:

A stretch of Delaware Avenue, late on the night of Oct. 13, 1978.

Freddie Hammer, 18, a worker at a Philadelphia construction site, hitchhiked along the roadside. He later claimed to have been picked up by Charles Uffelman, an off-duty Philadelphia police officer heading home after dinner and drinks at DiNardo's restaurant.

Within minutes, Hammer fatally slammed Uffelman in the back of the head with a four-by-four, ripped his wallet from his pocket, and fled in the officer's silver Monte Carlo.

About an hour later, Hammer, who lived at the time in Kirkwood, Lancaster County, was stopped for speeding in Uffelman's car in Chester County by two state troopers.

Initially, Hammer denied involvement in the murder, but he began changing his story when he realized police had linked him to Uffelman's car. First, he said that Uffelman became ill, stopped the car, and vomited at curbside. Hammer said he slapped him in the face to revive him. That caused Uffelman to punch him, prompting Hammer to grab a nearby board to defend himself.

Hammer admitted to police that he stole about $200 from Uffelman.

Seven months later, during Hammer's lengthy trial, he admitted killing Uffelman and gave a new explanation on the witness stand: The crime occurred after he rebuffed homosexual advances by the off-duty officer. The allegation outraged Uffelman's family and colleagues in the courtroom.

Throughout the trial, Common Pleas Court Judge Robert A. Latrone frequently expressed incredulity at Hammer's testimony and sharply questioned the defendant from the bench in a manner Hammer's lawyers thought was highly prejudicial.

Jurors deliberated for 30 hours and ultimately rejected Hammer's story, convicting him of third-degree murder in what was clearly a compromise verdict: They acquitted Hammer of robbery, knowing that would most likely reduce his ultimate sentence.

Latrone eventually imposed a sentence of 71/2 to 15 years in prison, less than the 10 to 20 years sought by the prosecution.

Hammer appealed, citing Latrone's conduct during the trial. The state Supreme Court agreed that his actions had been prejudicial, overturning the conviction in June 1985 and sharply chastising Latrone for acting as an "advocate for the prosecution."

At one point during the trial, the high court said, the judge responded with belligerence to an objection from the defense: "All right. You object. I overrule it. OK? I just overruled."

When the trial was over, the court noted in its opinion, Latrone delayed filing an opinion on posttrial motions for three years and 10 months. "Such judicial lethargy must be strongly condemned," the court said.

Latrone died in 1999.

A second jury acquitted Hammer on May 23, 1986. Bob Marano, the prosecutor, remembered Hammer as a "handsome young kid" who seemed to connect with a predominantly young female jury, as he had at his first trial.

Marano also said he was handicapped by his inability to introduce evidence related to the robbery, which the first jury had taken off the table.

Mark Uffelman, one of the victim's three sons, said the absence of the robbery charge prevented the jury from knowing Hammer's motive, leaving jurors susceptible to Hammer's "outrageous" claims about his father's purported homosexual advances.

Uffelman, a nearly 30-year veteran of the Philadelphia force who proudly wears his father's badge, said he considered the retrial "a joke."

Hammer was released from prison in November 1987, 12 years earlier than if he had been given the full sentence prosecutors desired at his first trial.

"What happened is that the jury was taken in by him," said Arthur Tuinstra, a Pennsylvania state trooper who helped apprehend Hammer and attended the trial. The two were neighbors in Lancaster County. "He looked like an altar boy. I watched him grow up; he was no altar boy."

Following his release, Hammer relocated to the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where his stepfather owned property. He settled in Ashe County and worked long hours as a handyman, friends and associates said in recent interviews.

He also ran a firewood business out of the modest home in Crumpler that he shared with his third wife, Brenda Blevins Hammer, who declined to be interviewed for this article.

Friends described Hammer as a charming, smart workaholic who enjoyed camping and horseback riding. They are now shocked that the man they knew could commit such violent crimes.

They are also mystified by the financial problems that began plaguing Hammer and his wife in 2002, when they filed the first in a series of bankruptcies that revealed escalating debt.

They listed their assets as $47,630 and liabilities as $177,436 in 2005.

Hammer was convicted for writing bad checks in 2007. Cracks appeared in his normally jovial demeanor.

Jackie Hart, who works at the State Line store on Jefferson Highway in Grayson County, Va., recalled Hammer, who was a regular customer, walking up to the counter, pulling his cap down over his forehead, moving close to her, and simulating a handgun with his thumb and forefinger pointed at her face.

"What would you do if someone suddenly demanded all your money?" he asked menacingly before smiling to indicate a jest.

Hart was not amused.

Around that same time, Hammer decided to revisit his past. On Feb. 14, 2007, he placed a call to Joan Uffelman.

"Don't hang up," she remembers him saying.

After nearly three decades of silence, Hammer wanted to talk, Joan Uffelman said.

"He told me that everything he said at trial was a lie and that he hoped I could forgive him," she said. "I told him that I wasn't sure I could."

Hammer's call stunned and upset her, dredging up the horrors of the proceeding 30 years. Her children feared he would call again.

Ten days after the call, Hammer was seen at the home of Jimmy Blevins, who worked for him and was his wife's nephew. The two drove off together, and Blevins was never seen again.

His disappearance led James Williams, the Ashe County sheriff, to question Hammer. Soon enough, he would not be the only law enforcement officer interested in the firewood dealer.

In January 2008, Hammer stopped by the Hudler Carolina Tree Farm in Grayson County, Va., where he had spent many hours working for Ron Hudler, who he learned was out of town until the end of the week.

Hudler, 73, a retired General Motors executive and community leader, was enjoying a successful second career on what had become one of the country's largest tree farms. Hammer knew Hudler kept large amounts of cash on the property, authorities said.

Two days later, on Jan. 24, 2008, Hammer returned to the Hudler property and fatally shot Hudler, his son, Frederick, and John Miller, an employee.

Authorities said Hammer shot Hudler's son four times in the farm's driveway - in the nose, in the back of the head, and twice on the left side of the head.

Miller, whose body was found in a garage, was shot twice in the back of the head.

When the elder Hudler came outside in his bedroom slippers to investigate the gunfire, Hammer forced him at gunpoint back inside his home to retrieve a safe. Hammer then shot him once in the back of the head at close range.

He then fled with two metal gun cases, two briefcases containing documents, and a small black safe containing a TAG Heuer watch and $10,000 in cash.

Within 12 hours, a "calm and smooth" Hammer was questioned and caught in lies about his whereabouts, said Grayson County Sheriff Richard A. Vaughan.

Authorities began compiling evidence, which included surveillance videos and paint chips from Hammer's hand truck that matched paint left on Ron Hudler's safe. He was arrested in the slayings within days.

In early May, investigators found the stolen $10,000 and one of the weapons used in the crime - exactly where Hammer had told another inmate it was hidden at a Cripple Creek, Va., campsite.

On May 22, to avoid risking the death penalty, Hammer pleaded guilty to the triple slaying. He was immediately sentenced to multiple life terms with no possibility of parole.

"Once you've committed murder and gotten away with it," said Vaughan, the Grayson County sheriff, "you think you're invincible."

Hammer agreed in a letter in June to a jailhouse interview with The Inquirer at the Powhatan correctional center southwest of Richmond. But he was soon placed in solitary confinement. Follow-up letters from Hammer, written in solitary, began arriving shortly thereafter.

Penned in longhand on white lined notebook paper, the missives were replete with references to the Uffelman murder and his other acknowledged crimes, which he called "bad habits."

His writings were filled with narcissistic speculation about how he would be judged by God. He said he thought heaven was, for him, still a possibility, though he acknowledged he belongs in prison.

"I did call Mrs. Uffelman on Feb. 14th, 2007," he wrote in a letter dated June 29. "I called her to ask for forgiveness of all the lies which were spread about her husband, family, etc."

In a July 29 letter, he added: "I would love to talk about that night, Oct. 13, 1978 'Bad Friday.' There is a lot to be said about that night. . . . And yes that night laid the ground work for the rest of my life."

Of the Hudler murders, he wrote in a July 10 letter: "God told me early on in the Hudler case that where I belonged was where I'm at now."

Even in his earliest letters, he intimated that he had killed Blevins and knew the whereabouts of Blevins' body. In his June 29 letter, referring to the Ashe County Sheriff's Department, he said he held "the only key to their problems."

In his final letter, on Aug. 1, he described meeting with Williams, the county sheriff, two days earlier and agreeing to reveal the location of Blevins' body if his conditions were met. They included moving him to a prison closer to his home.

In the letter, he admitted killing not only Blevins, but a man named Tim Shatley in 2005.

Three days after he wrote the letter, authorities found Blevins' body, exactly where he said it would be.

Williams said investigators were not yet convinced that he killed Shatley but would continue pursuing the matter.

Williams said Hammer had exhibited two personalities.

"There was the hardworking family man," Williams said, "and there was Freddie Hammer the mass murderer."

Back on the 2600 block of South 76th Street in Eastwick, a quiet, working-class neighborhood in Southwest Philadelphia, Joan Uffelman is glad that Hammer's true nature has been revealed.

She still vividly remembers the night her husband was murdered, when three officers, including her husband's best friend, came to this same house to tell her what had happened.

Her son, Mark Uffelman, who was waiting to join the force when his father was murdered, is now a veteran police officer himself. He was shot last year after he and his partner interrupted a robbery at Eighth and Fitzwater Streets in South Philadelphia.

Mark Uffelman said that he initially believed Hammer did not set out to kill his father. He was able to put the murder behind him after a few years.

"I wasn't going to walk around with hate trying to find Freddie Hammer. What good would that do?" he asked. "Now, it seems that he really was evil," he said.

His mother, sitting in a living room filled with old family photographs, agreed.

"His true side's coming out again," she said. "He's finally getting what was due to him a long time ago.

"And," she sighed with relief, "he can't hurt anyone else."