Matthew “Odie” Norman, a man who publishes a hiker yearbook for the Appalachian Trail, told Johnson City, Tennessee, TV station WJHL that he bought a bus ticket for the accused Appalachian Trail attacker to go home before this weekend's deadly machete attack, hoping he’d leave.
Norman said he had dinner with James Jordan -- who’s facing a murder charge in the attack that left a man dead and a woman injured early Saturday morning in Wythe County -- and tried to convince him to go home to family members.
“He was suffering from delusions for sure. He thought that the mountain people were in danger of having their insurance stolen from infiltrators and he had a list of the infiltrators,” Norman said.
He regrets not being able to stop him.
“I told the hiking community that they were safe and then he came back and murdered someone,” Norman said.
He said he’s talked to other hikers who’ve met with the woman who survived.
“She was sitting up, she was talking. I saw a picture of her holding a thumbs up,” he said.
Investigators said she is from Nova Scotia.
On Tuesday, investigators identified the man who died as Ronald Sanchez Jr., who lived in Oklahoma.