Vanished: Missing Tazewell hunter case now being investigated as murder

Nov. 26—EDITOR'S NOTE — The following story is the first in a multi-part series on cold cases across Southwest Virginia.

CEDAR BLUFF, Va. — At first Tazewell County investigators believed that a local man was missing, but now they believe he was murdered.

Eric Smith, a 41-year-old coal miner, left his home on Nov. 8, 2013, to hunt along West Hurt Buggy Road, according to family members. He reportedly took his rifle with him, but left his cellphone and cigarettes inside the house and his wallet in the truck.

Smith has not been seen since.

Now, nine years later, the mysterious disappearance has taken a new twist.

"It is being investigated as a potential homicide," Virginia State Police Special Agent Russell Edwards told the Daily Telegraph.

Smith's case is one of several unsolved murder and missing person cases being pursued with renewed vigor as part of a special initiative by the Virginia State Police.

----In a previous report, Smith's mother, Dreama Smith of nearby Wardell in Tazewell County, told the Daily Telegraph her son's disappearance is a complete mystery.

She said her son was an avid hunter, and a deer hunting excursion was not out of the ordinary.

Smith told his wife he was going to the top of the ridge to hunt and would be back, Dreama Smith said, adding that his wife then drove to Buchanan County with one of their two daughters to decorate a tree for her mother.

"But when he wasn't home that evening after dark she came out and got us," Dreama Smith said.

What followed was a 911 call and a massive search, including local people, law enforcement, rescue squads, a police helicopter and canine units.

"The search and rescue team from Buchanan One (the mining company where Eric Smith had worked as a superintendent) helped," she said. "The whole community helped and were wonderful. The people in the area would not give up and they kept searching and searching, but to no avail."

Every inch of the woods in the area was combed, she said, and nothing turned up.

"It was like he vanished into thin air," she said. "You just can't do that."

Eric Smith's mother has also been perplexed that he did not take his cellphone with him. "He would not have done that," she said. "He would have taken them with him. He was a mine superintendent and he was on call 24/7."

Dreama Smith said there was no indication of any problems.

"He was a happy family man," she said. "He loved his job."

She said his rifle was not even found, it just disappeared as well.

----Eric Smith's co-workers at Consol, the mine where he worked, have spoken highly of his character and work ethic through the years he has been missing.

Don V. Hylton, of Bluefield, Va., who worked with him, described him as a responsible person who was "dedicated to his family."

Eric Smith was the mine's day shift foreman, and he was responsible for making sure the mine was operated in accordance with state and federal regulations, Hylton said.

"If there was a violation or something not done properly by law, he was the person that federal and state inspectors would look at to know why," he said. "It was a position with a lot of responsibility and he had to understand mining laws inside and out."

"It's disturbing seeing someone you work with every day just disappear like this," he said. "He was not a man who would just leave."

Robert Baugh of Glenwood, who also worked with Smith, characterized him as "very dedicated to his job."

"And he was a good coal miner. He was production oriented and he was young to be a mine foreman; and he went up the ladder fast. He was as good a mine operator as I ever had."

----Hylton may have been one of the last people to see Eric Smith alive following an out-of-town training event the two attended.

Those final hours foster a reoccurring nightmare interlaced with twisted facts and distorted memories that, he said, play in his mind.

"My recollections took me to the last time Eric Smith and I spoke," Hylton said. "We shared a ride from the airport near Bristol to Claypool Hill after returning from a week-long class in Atlanta. Our small talk was inconsequential, two coal miners talking about coal mining, our families, and the weather — snow instead of the warm climate in Atlanta. I was never one to get too personal with co-workers, even though I admired the person sitting in the passenger's seat of my car.

"Eric was a dedicated family man, an intelligent coal miner, an excellent supervisor, and I trusted him," Hylton continued. "I respected the person he was. But that wasn't shared on our ride to Claypool Hill. Who could know when I dropped him off to the loving arms of his wife and daughter that would be the last time I would ever see him? Eric Smith is nine years missing. Dead? Murdered? A life well-lived. Too short! If only we could share that ride again."

— Contact Samantha Perry at sperry@bdtonline.com.

— Contact Samantha Perry at sperry@bdtonline.com.