INDEPENDENCE -- A man accused of killing three people at a Christmas-tree farm in Grayson County in January was seen driving toward the farm hours before the slayings -- wearing a long, black wig.

That's what Crumpler, N.C., volunteer Fire Chief Leonard Houck testified yesterday in Grayson General District Court. Houck said he passed Frederick Hammer, who normally wears his brown hair cropped short, just after 9 a.m. Jan. 24 as Hammer drove from North Carolina to just inside the Virginia state line, where the Hudler tree farm is located.

As their vehicles passed, Houck said, "I throwed up my hand, and he waved. I noticed he was wearing some kind of wig, a black wig." Houck said he thought nothing of it until authorities later linked Hammer to the tree-farm killings.

Just before noon on Jan. 24, authorities found the bodies of Ron Hudler, his son Fred Hudler, and employee John Miller Jr. All three had been shot to death. A 6-foot safe was found tilted and open in the garage, empty of money.

Grayson prosecutor Doug Vaught contends that Hammer, a Grayson resident and acquaintance of 74-year-old Ron Hudler, went to the farm intending to load the safe onto his truck and haul it away. However, surprised to find the elder Hudler at home, Hammer shot him in the head, the prosecutor said. When Fred Hudler, 44, and Miller, 25, stopped by in the middle of the workday, he killed them as well, Vaught said.

After Vaught brought 14 witnesses to the stand yesterday to tie Hammer to the killings, District Judge Randal Duncan certified three charges of capital murder to a grand jury. The grand jury is set to meet in October to determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence to put Hammer, 48, on trial.

At the hearing, Vaught disclosed the largely circumstantial case he is likely to put on at trial. That evidence includes: