Mother, 2 Sons Indicted In Violent Hijackings
Vallia Friend, 48, and sons Eugene, 27, and Travis, 20, are also accused of killing Samuel Lam, an independent driver from Portland, Maine, and kidnapping another driver.
Police got a break in uncovering the ring when the brothers were arrested in early May after a routine traffic stop in Trenton, Ga., while returning from Texas in Lam’s truck
5-24, p. 20). The two Friends remain in custody in the Dade County, Ga., jail.
David J. Novak, assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said the three Friends face one count of conspiracy to interfere with commerce by violence and two counts of violating a federal carjacking statute.
The indictment does not carry a murder charge, but it spells out what authorities think happened.
They say Vallia Friend and a female accomplice, who was not named, encountered Lam on April 25 at a rest area on I-95 and offered him sex at a motel, where the brothers attacked him. Later, investigators believe, the brothers beat Lam unconscious, bound him with duct tape, took him to a swampy area near a lake, where they shot the driver and left him to die.
Lam’s body has not been found, and authorities have not formally charged the Friends with murder. But if the connection is proved, Novak said, his office will seek the death penalty.
The suspects also were accused of kidnapping and beating 62-year-old truck
river John Cummings on April 10 near Emporia, Va. His truckload of logs was also stolen.
The indictment alleges that the three Friend family members started stealing unattended trailers in 1996 and later began picking out hijacking victims.
Helen F. Fahey, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said the investigation is continuing.
