00:00:03
[ominous music] She said, no, let me
go, put her hands up. I kept striking her and
she lost consciousness.
00:00:18
And I kept striking her
to ensure she was dead. He cut off their hands. He cut off both their heads.
00:00:26
He was a wicked, wicked person. It was too much
to even comprehend how he could be that
cruel, that evil,
00:00:36
and commit the horrific
acts that he did. Makes me sick to my stomach. It's a very densely
forested area,
00:00:45
very difficult area
to search for things like blood or hair or fibers. You can't catch me.
00:00:55
I am here in it's vastness
of the United States. And it is up to you to
try to find me or stop me
00:01:01
because I'm going to keep
doing this horrific act. It was nothing I've
ever experienced before.
00:01:17
I mean, he's just pure evil. You can see it in his eyes. [theme music] EMMA DONALDSON: The Appalachian
Trail is a collection
00:02:01
of national parks
covering 2,000 miles across 14 eastern US states. Its vast, untamed
landscape is a favorite
00:02:11
among hikers and hunters. The southern tip of this
wilderness is in North Georgia.
00:02:17
Its very mountainous area. National forest land is
abundant in north Georgia. We have lots of
small towns in Georgia,
00:02:26
usually 20, 30 miles apart. But in between those
cities, they're just remote, rugged mountains.
00:02:37
You can walk for literally
days and not come across a road. If someone disposes of a
body in the national forest,
00:02:46
you'll never find them. EMMA DONALDSON: Fulton
County, Georgia, is where divorcee Gary Hilton
spends his time away from work.
00:02:58
My name is John Tabor. I own a telemarketing operation. And I first met Gary Hilton
when he replied to a help
00:03:07
wanted ad for telemarketers. He was very fond of the outdoors
and enjoyed taking his dog out
00:03:14
into the national forests
where they would camp for maybe a week at a time. He had proved himself to be a
reliable and valuable employee.
00:03:25
He was a smart individual. He was great with numbers. He could do rather
complex mathematics
00:03:32
in his head and spit numbers out
that most people couldn't do. It was a fine
working arrangement.
00:03:38
He did his job, and
that was pretty much it. He never got along that
well with other people
00:03:45
and just seemed to prefer
the company of his dog rather than other humans. He worked in that office,
uneventfully, for a decade.
00:04:02
Construction companies in
general, mine included, were hit hard where there was
a dramatic drop in business.
00:04:09
So I shut the phone room down. And he was very
concerned about that. He suggested that he do his
own marketing on my behalf,
00:04:19
and then I could just
pay him commissions based on his production. So Gary and I came
to an agreement
00:04:28
where he would actually
live in the office so he could keep
an eye on things, since I really didn't have any
need to go to that location.
00:04:37
So it seemed like a
win-win situation. He wasn't being very productive. Based on his long
history, I would
00:04:49
advance him money for
his living expenses and whatnot with
the understanding that eventually
we would catch up.
00:04:57
I got frustrated at some point. It just became obvious
that he had lost interest in actually working.
00:05:07
At some point, you have
to put your foot down. And then suddenly, within
a matter of a few weeks,
00:05:13
he became extremely
distant and belligerent. And it got to the point
where he demanded money.
00:05:23
It was shocking to me that he
would actually do such a thing and take that position.
00:05:29
I realized at that point
that this is a real problem. The situation just
spiraled downward rapidly.
00:05:37
It didn't make any sense. EMMA DONALDSON: At this point,
despite their long working
00:05:42
relationship, John knows very
little about Hilton's past. He had a traumatic
start to life.
00:05:49
As a child, his parents
moved around a lot. And at age 13, he
shot his stepfather.
00:05:55
When we look at a 13-year-old
child who deliberately picks up a rifle and shoots his
stepfather out of frustration,
00:06:05
out of rage, or whatever, that
is a bright red warning sign-- [gunshot] --that this is somebody who,
when they are angry enough,
00:06:13
is willing to do
something like that. EMMA DONALDSON: His
early childhood featured
00:06:19
another traumatic incident. At age nine, he
suffered a brain injury. He had been hit in the
frontal lobe with a Murphy bed,
00:06:28
had fallen on him when
he was a young kid. It is a very serious injury. He has over 200 stitches.
00:06:35
And several people
in the hospital report that he becomes
very hyperactive while he's in the hospital,
they have difficulty kind
00:06:42
of controlling him. And when we look
at serial killers, it's interesting that
about a quarter of them
00:06:49
have a history of head trauma at
some point in their life, which can damage their frontal lobe.
00:06:53
It can lead to problems with
judgment, decisionmaking, and all kinds of things. EMMA DONALDSON: At age 18,
Gary enlisted in the US Army
00:07:04
as a paratrooper. But after three years, he
had a schizophrenic episode and was discharged.
00:07:11
He drifts around during
the '70s, during the 1980s. He has three failed marriages.
00:07:18
He kind of goes from job to job. He is somebody who
is really living on the fringes of society.
00:07:24
Here's someone that's
saying, my look is going to present that, my appearance. My whole genre of who I am is
going to say, stay away from me,
00:07:34
I'm different from you. I don't want to be a
part of this society. I had to satisfy my
own curiosity as to what
00:07:47
was going on with this man. So I decided to stop by
the office unannounced. So I pulled into
the parking lot.
00:07:58
There were no lights
on in the office. Parking area was dark. It was just dark everywhere.
00:08:04
The back door was wide open,
which was also unusual. The whole situation
was just creepy.
00:08:11
I just had this feeling of doom. Nothing seemed right. Everything seemed out of order.
00:08:16
I remember reaching to
turn light switches on, but none of the
lights would come on.
00:08:22
And then suddenly, he
pops out of a doorway. So I immediately
noticed that he was much
00:08:28
more disheveled than normal. And at that point,
he smiled at me. And I noticed that several
of his teeth were missing.
00:08:37
And I was pretty
shocked by that. I just said, what
happened to you? And he goes, oh, yeah, my teeth.
00:08:44
He goes, you know, he
said, I pulled them out with this pair of pliers. OK? He said, yeah, he said he
did it so it would frighten
00:08:52
people when they looked at him. Wow. I knew at that point I needed
to get the hell out of there
00:08:59
as soon as I could. I just felt like something bad
could happen at any moment. Around this period of
time, we see this kind
00:09:09
of erratic aggression appear. And he seems to be getting
some enjoyment out of that.
00:09:15
Several people reported
being afraid of him at these national parks. He is enjoying being menacing.
00:09:22
And I think what
that is reflecting is this increased agitation
he's experiencing,
00:09:28
this increased anger, and
this increased violence risk. He is ramping up. The more he does
these kind of things,
00:09:36
the more he changes
his appearance, the more he talks
about liking the fact that he's scaring people.
00:09:42
I mean, those are things
that really do tell us. They're like little red flags
on this path to violence.
00:09:50
EMMA DONALDSON: With
the goodwill of John Tabor now wearing
thin, Gary Hilton makes
00:09:54
a stark demand for $3,000. I kind of laughed when
he first made the demand. It was only after he followed
up with that and said,
00:10:03
well, you know, John, you've got
a great life, beautiful wife, this beautiful young son.
00:10:10
It would be such a shame
for you to lose all that. I just knew that something
bad was going to happen,
00:10:15
and probably would
be sooner than later. EMMA DONALDSON: Gary Hilton
has threatened to harm
00:10:27
the family of his
former boss, John Tabor, unless he hands over $3,000. Terrified, John has
moved his family away.
00:10:38
But that was my first move,
get them out of the house. Someplace where he had
no idea where they were.
00:10:44
I agreed to write
this check for him. I told him I would put it by
the front door of my house
00:10:50
and he would come get it. Hilton came out of the
woods out of nowhere in exactly the same time as I
was walking down the driveway.
00:10:57
So we literally were
now facing each other. And all I can remember
thinking at that point was,
00:11:03
wow, I wish I had a bulletproof
vest and a firearm right now. I felt incredibly vulnerable.
00:11:10
I knew at that moment I needed
to get inside that front door of my house as
quickly as possible
00:11:16
because I had a Glock
9 millimeter positioned close to the front door. I dropped my belongings on
the floor, got my firearm,
00:11:24
chambered the round, and came
right back out the front door with the gun pointing in
the direction he was in.
00:11:32
He was now maybe 100 feet
away, and he was fleeing back off into the woods. I believe that one of us
was going to end up dead.
00:11:45
EMMA DONALDSON: After
this terrifying encounter, Gary Hilton stops
living at John's office
00:11:50
and appears to vanish. Months later, police
encounter him on private land on the Appalachian Trail.
00:12:04
His emotions kind of
vastly all over the place. And in fact, he ends up at one
point saying, hey, I love you.
00:12:19
Which, again, shows how
this person is kind of losing control, I think not
only of their thought
00:12:23
processes, but their emotions. He seems to have no
awareness of how he's coming across to the other person.
00:12:36
And that also is a
hallmark of deterioration when somebody loses the ability
to self-reflect and realize
00:12:43
and change their
behavior when they're saying things that are
inappropriate or don't
00:12:48
make sense. [ominous music] The forest, as they
are, are remote locations throughout the United States.
00:13:05
But they bring leisure
to most people, but sadly, can be an
opportunity for those
00:13:10
looking for horrific
activities, criminal activities to take place. John and Irene Bryant were
in their late 70s, early 80s.
00:13:22
They were experienced hikers. In fact, John Bryant was
what is called a True Hiker of the Appalachian Trail.
00:13:28
That means he's traveled a
complete distance of the trail from Georgia to Maine.
00:13:33
The Pisgah National Forest
is extremely remote. It consists of several
thousand acres of forest land.
00:13:41
They went into the forest
and parked their car. And very soon, they were
confronted by Gary Hilton.
00:13:56
Gary Hilton immediately
killed Irene. Her cause of death was blunt
force trauma to the head.
00:14:04
John Bryant was
taken, held captive in the back of Hilton's van. He chained him around the
neck and padlocked the chain.
00:14:14
And takes him to another park. And then he kills him. He uses his bank
card and gets $300.
00:14:23
And that is what he gets
in exchange for, you know, just a beautiful couple's life.
00:14:28
When the authorities began
to search for John and Irene, they found the body of Irene,
but no signs of John other
00:14:36
than the ATM activity. And it was later on that John's
body was found in the Nantahala
00:14:43
National Forest. It was determined that he
was murdered with a handgun, shot in the head, and left
at a different location
00:14:53
within the national forest. A natural reaction
is, wow, this was a horrific thing that I did.
00:15:02
But then I think there's
a reality that sets in-- but I'm getting away with it. And if that urge pulls
at me to do it again,
00:15:11
you certainly can
see the logic to say, I can ease my tension
by doing it again;
00:15:17
which allows for what we now see
as serial killers taking place. [ominous music]
00:15:33
My name is Gloria Tucker. I live in Tallahassee, Florida. My cousin was Cheryl
Dunlap, which I referred
00:15:45
to her as Sherri all the time. Oh, I loved her immensely. I loved Sherri to pieces.
00:15:51
She was such a kind person. She went for a day hike in the
Apalachicola National Forest,
00:16:00
in an area called Leon Sinks. It's very much like any
other national forest. There's hiking trails,
creeks, and, you know, just
00:16:11
a very nice area to spend time. It was a calm
place, she thought. A nice place, a beautiful place.
00:16:17
And she just kind
of contemplated and read a little book. And then she was kidnapped.
00:16:30
He tied her to a tree at
first, and then he drove to Tallahassee to the bank. He had taped his face up.
00:16:42
I think it was two
or three times he got money out of her account. He kept her there alive
for two or three days.
00:16:52
He made her march over to
a tree to tie herself up. And as she was going,
he pulled the gun
00:17:00
and shot her in the head. I think money can
be a factor involved, but control is another.
00:17:08
Taking someone's life is the
ultimate control over someone. It tells us a lot about Gary
Hilton in terms of how he views
00:17:18
his victims essentially
as objects that he's got to now figure
out how to, you know,
00:17:22
disguise and get rid of. He isn't necessarily
seeing this person as a person at this point.
00:17:29
So it doesn't mean he's
getting satisfaction, but it does mean that
this is somebody who we're
00:17:35
thinking, where are
the limits in terms of what this person would do. Some hunters in
the forest saw some
00:17:44
buzzards circling in
the area, and went over and found the remains of Cheryl. Her head had been removed,
as well as her hands.
00:17:57
But they were able to
identify her through some DNA. EMMA DONALDSON: With 400
miles between murders,
00:18:06
police in Florida and
police in North Carolina are unaware they're dealing
with a serial killer.
00:18:13
But Hilton's next
victim would fight back. In our world, she's
the hero in this case.
00:18:18
She kept fighting. She almost beat him. She almost got the best of him. [ominous music]
00:18:32
Meredith Emerson was
the All-American girl-- very bright, very brave,
had recently graduated
00:18:40
from the University of Georgia. She lived at the time in the
northern suburb of Atlanta.
00:18:45
She was a very
experienced hiker. She had hiked those
mountains out in Colorado.
00:18:50
So, you know, these
mountains out here really can't compare to those. The Blood Mountain is actually
the highest peak in Georgia
00:18:57
that the Appalachian
Trail crosses. There is a lot of hikers
come to this area. Although there's not a
heavy populated area here,
00:19:07
it's certainly a heavy traffic
area during the daytime. So Gary Hilton was very
bold to choose this spot.
00:19:17
All she's doing
is a New Year's day, taking a hike with her dog. Gary sat up in the woods
and surveyed the parking lot
00:19:25
and made the decision on
who he was going to abduct. What you're looking
at is upping the ante,
00:19:31
going toward someone who
is more fit, more young, but almost meeting his match. Hilton basically
saw her on the trail.
00:19:39
She had a dog, he had a dog. He knew that he could strike up
a conversation about the dogs.
00:19:46
Eventually, she said, OK,
I'll talk to you later, and just basically left him. She pretty much
ran up the trail.
00:19:51
And she probably
sensed that there was something wasn't good
about it and left him behind.
00:20:00
So he concealed himself
along the trail. Some people had actually
seen him hiding,
00:20:06
crouching behind the rocks. That combination
of isolation-- him being out in the
woods, seeing himself
00:20:13
as a survivalist--
you really start getting a sense of this kind of
dehumanization and complete lack
00:20:20
of any ability to care
about anybody else. This is the area where
Meredith Emerson initially
00:20:29
hiked up this to the trail. Gary laid in wait in this
area right here for Meredith.
00:20:35
Gary Hilton
waited on Meredith. As she was coming back down
the trail, he attacked her.
00:20:43
She turns around, and she
basically goes after him. She grabs his bayonet,
which, it just stuns him.
00:20:50
And she absolutely puts
up the fight of her life. Boy, does she put up a battle.
00:21:15
Meredith was trained
in martial arts. She almost beat him up. And they rolled off the
trail, down into the woods,
00:21:22
away from the trail. The ground was so
disturbed in that area. You could tell it was a
very violent fight that
00:21:30
had taken place right there. He finally got control of her
by convincing her he had a gun.
00:21:51
EMMA DONALDSON: When
Meredith Emerson doesn't return from
walking her dog, her boyfriend
reports her missing.
00:21:58
We blast out a picture
of Meredith and her dog. The very first thing I
did, I checked her phone
00:22:03
records and her bank records. The bank had reported to us
that her bank account had
00:22:08
not been attempted to be used. [ominous music] I feel confident that
in Meredith's mind,
00:22:24
she was doing that in hopes that
we would be able to track her and be able to find her sooner.
00:22:31
The idea of not giving
the full PIN number allows for more opportunities
to get away from this situation.
00:22:57
EMMA DONALDSON: With police
unaware that Meredith's card is being used, Hilton's
abuse escalates.
00:23:20
His explanation for why he
raped Meredith is because he says that she owed him that.
00:23:30
Because she gave him the
runaround about the PIN number. She showed conniving instinct.
00:23:36
She was able to
fight off him and be a little smarter than him. Sadly, the rape part
of it was an added
00:23:44
penalty for how much she showed
to fight off this horrible act. And so I think that's very
interesting to think about that.
00:23:52
What does that mean? The fact that, you
know, in his head, this is how he's
justifying the rape.
00:23:56
So I don't think that sex
was a primary motive for him. But I definitely
think, you know,
00:24:01
he definitely has some
issues in those respects. [ominous music] We set up a command
post at the Vogel
00:24:20
State Park, which is right there
at the base of the mountain. When we discovered her water
bottles and her backpack
00:24:26
and some of her
effects at the trail, we felt like something
bad had happened. There was also a police
baton found in the area
00:24:34
that was concerning for us. So a lot of what we were
doing was making phone calls,
00:24:39
trying to identify anyone
who may have seen anything. There were so many people
that had contacted the tip line
00:24:44
and said, there's a strange guy
that was on the trail that day. They all describe
him almost identical.
00:24:49
You know, older
gentleman, very fit, wearing high-end hiking gear but
he has duct tape on his shoes,
00:24:56
he's got a dog with him, and
they saw him around a white van. EMMA DONALDSON: Police
investigating the John and Irene
00:25:03
Bryant murders in North
Carolina and the separate force investigating the Cheryl
Dunlap murder in Florida
00:25:09
soon contact the Georgia Bureau
of Investigation who are running the Meredith Emerson case.
00:25:15
When we learned
of those cases, then we began to talk
to both jurisdictions about the similarities,
and there were several.
00:25:27
The US Marshal Service
offered their assistance. We basically gave them all
the information for Meredith,
00:25:34
all the information
for Gary Hilton, and they ran them
through their system. And they basically
came back and said,
00:25:40
you know, her card was tried-- somebody attempted to use
her card at this location,
00:25:44
this location, and this
location on the 1st and the 2nd. And I said, no, the bank's
not telling me that.
00:25:55
The bank should have known that
her PIN and her card was used, yet no money was taken out.
00:26:08
The photographs of the
person walking up to the ATM was very, very similar. And then when we got our
photographs from our ATMs,
00:26:19
there was no doubt that
it was the same person. There was mention
of a van in Florida
00:26:27
where Gary Hilton was actually
confronted with a park ranger. We had a van in our case.
00:26:33
So everything began
to line up fairly quickly as soon as we found out
of both of those jurisdictions.
00:26:40
I think he had been pretty
self-assured up until now. I think he really
did, in his mind,
00:26:44
convince himself
that he was going to continue along the path. Nothing bad was-- you know,
nothing bad was going to happen.
00:26:50
And I think this does
start the beginning of the end for Gary Hilton. EMMA DONALDSON: Gary
Hilton has been holding
00:27:02
Meredith hostage for
two days, 60 miles south of Blood Mountain. Hilton's former
boss, John Tabor,
00:27:09
hasn't heard from him
in over seven months. I still remained armed
with my pistol on my person
00:27:16
and my assault
rifle in my vehicle. I would still have someone
sweep the woods, if you will,
00:27:26
do a quick walkthrough,
make sure he wasn't there before I drove home at night. I never felt completely
comfortable, so that's why
00:27:34
I remained armed 24/7. My home gym is actually where I
was when I first heard about it.
00:27:44
And I was working out and
caught the top of the news where they broke to cover
this case of the missing
00:27:54
girl of north Georgia. They said that
there was evidence of a struggle in the
parking lot where
00:27:59
they found Meredith's vehicle. But what really got my attention
was they said they found
00:28:06
an expandable police baton. That's what really made
me stop in my tracks. And now I'm just staring
at the television
00:28:14
going, oh, wait a minute. Did I just hear an
expandable police baton? Because that's
something that I knew
00:28:19
Hilton had with
him all the time. So when I heard that, I just
remember just going numb.
00:28:27
Thinking, wow, I knew it
was something I had to do. So I called and I
ended up getting,
00:28:33
this was a Union
County Sheriff's Department on the phone. He says, I know who
you're talking about.
00:28:39
His name is Gary Michael Hilton. I can give you the number,
the tag number to the van,
00:28:44
because I bought it for him. People heard him
yelling at the dog and said they thought
he was saying Danny.
00:28:52
And he actually said, no. His dog's name is Dandy. So we knew we were probably
talking about the right guy.
00:29:00
So we pull a driver's
license photo of him and put it out
onto the news media so it carries nationwide again.
00:29:09
Maybe six hours after
I made that phone call, I was trying to wrap up
some business before heading
00:29:14
to Colorado for vacation. And this is the part that
still stuns me today. My phone rang.
00:29:22
I answered the phone like
normal, and it was him. For seven months of
absolutely no communication,
00:29:33
there he was on
the phone with me. Out of nowhere like a ghost. If there was anything
I was afraid of,
00:29:42
it was not being
able to fight back. That was my fear. Fight to the death. Bring it on.
00:29:47
I'm ready. [ominous music] EMMA DONALDSON: Gary Hilton has
been holding Meredith Emerson
00:30:03
hostage since New Year's day. She's refusing to give
him her bank PIN number, and he's desperate for money.
00:30:12
So he's traveling
to his former boss's house, where he hopes
to pick up a check,
00:30:17
and calls him on the way. The last time the pair
spoke, Gary Hilton threatened John's family.
00:30:25
I'm just sitting in my
car in a state of disbelief. He immediately apologized
for what had happened
00:30:33
and told me that he wanted
to come back to work. But I played along. I acted as if I didn't
know about anything.
00:30:52
And he said he needed some
money to get started, you know, to get back to work and whatnot.
00:30:58
And I said, hey, that's no
problem, how much do you need? We discussed an amount--
00:31:02
$700, $800, I
forgot what it was. But I said, yeah,
I'll be more than happy to give you the check.
00:31:07
I said, well, where are you? Because I was ready to get this
over with one way or the other.
00:31:13
But then he explained, he just
said, that's not possible. He could not meet me then
under any circumstances.
00:31:18
But within the next
couple of days, he would come get the check from
the office, and that was it.
00:31:26
Once we learned that there was
a possibility that Hilton would go to his former employer's
office to pick up the check,
00:31:33
we got with the
local jurisdiction, and they deployed
their SWAT team. And they were prepared to
grab him if he showed up.
00:31:40
And we were hoping that
he would because if he showed up, most likely he
would have Meredith with him.
00:31:46
But he didn't show up. [ominous music] After finding out
everything that she did,
00:32:52
you know, how close we
came to catching him on numerous occasions and she
was still alive, to this day,
00:33:00
breaks my heart. [ominous music] I was very familiar with
that area called Dawson Forest
00:33:10
Wildlife Management Area. He had taken her
head off and moved it to another location about
a mile away from her body.
00:33:22
EMMA DONALDSON: At this point,
Gary Hilton decides to release Meredith Emerson's dog, Ella.
00:33:27
He seemed to have no trouble
whatsoever murdering Meredith, but he cannot murder Ella.
00:33:36
And I think that's
very, very significant. It just speaks to the
lack of attachment
00:33:41
that Gary Hilton seems
to have with anybody. We got a telephone
call to the tip line
00:33:47
from a lady about 60 miles south
of Blood Mountain, who said, I think I just saw
Meredith Emerson's
00:33:55
dog walk into a grocery store. Video surveillance
at the grocery store shows it walking around.
00:34:03
It almost looked like
it was asking for help. We were able to pick up the
dog and identify the dog as Ella
00:34:09
through an ID chip
that she had in her. So we knew that Ella was in
an area of 70 miles south
00:34:15
of the abduction site. We had another call
to the tip line from a lady who had known Hilton
in the past, who told us he just
00:34:24
called her asking for money. And she told us,
she told Hilton, don't you know the world
is looking for you?
00:34:33
And he hung up. She called immediately, and we
were able to trace that phone number to a telephone
at a gas station
00:34:41
just across from the grocery
store where Ella had been found. So there was a lot of activity
around that gas station.
00:34:50
The agents I sent down
there found a dumpster in the parking lot, and they
decided to look in the dumpster.
00:34:59
That's where we
found the things that I had hoped that we wouldn't. We found a bloody clothing.
00:35:06
We found Meredith's
driver's license and wallet. We found other clothing-- men's
clothing-- with blood on them.
00:35:15
This was so much blood that
you could wring it out. The blood was wet. It was fresh.
00:35:22
That was disturbing, you know. Because up to this
point, you know, we were all holding out the
hope that Meredith's alive.
00:35:28
We're going to capture the
bad guy and recover her. Based on what we found
in the dumpster, none of us
00:35:36
really thought that
someone could survive and lose that much blood. He goes to another convenience
store at that location,
00:35:48
or down near that location,
and tries to clean more stuff out of his van. Basically, everything that
had blood on it, or he thought
00:35:58
had blood on it, or anything
that could tie him to Meredith. And it wasn't that long until
the citizen called 911 and said,
00:36:08
I think I'm looking
at the guy that you all have been looking for all
week with the missing hiker.
00:36:31
And basically
stayed on the phone watching him while
officers were responding to take him into custody.
00:36:48
He was not talking. But we knew that there
were answers to some of our questions in the van.
00:36:56
EMMA DONALDSON: With
Hilton now in custody, police look for
evidence that links him
00:37:01
to the murders of John
and Irene Bryant, Cheryl Dunlap, and Meredith Emerson. We had DeKalb County transport
him to our headquarters,
00:37:09
which is in DeKalb
county, in a conference room in GBI headquarters. When I first walked
into the conference room,
00:37:17
Gary was lying on the
floor in a fetal position and kept saying that he
had multiple sclerosis
00:37:26
and he needed immediate shot
of folic acid, and just kind of talking crazy. Clay Bridges had actually laid
down on the floor with him
00:37:33
and talked to him
for a few minutes. He had a fingernail
gouge into his nose. Pretty substantial.
00:38:02
It looked to be a
defensive wound someone else had inflicted on him. His hand was obviously broken.
00:38:08
It was swollen. He just stayed quiet. I had learned some
things about him. He had one dog in particular
that he really cared
00:38:16
for that was named Ranger. And he had actually
built a shrine to him where he had buried him at.
00:38:23
At one point, I told him that
I was going to go move Ranger and see how he liked it.
00:38:27
He became angry. He became really angry. He, you know, cut
his eyes up at me and showed me his
broken teeth and said,
00:38:36
just put the needle
in my arm [bleep]. There was so much in the van. So we got blood transfer
pattern that matched
00:38:47
John Bryant, so that was huge. We had blood in the van that
matched Meredith Emerson.
00:38:54
Cheryl Dunlap's car
had a flat tire, and there was a bayonet
that we recovered. And Florida forensics
were able to match that
00:39:01
to the puncture in the tire. EMMA DONALDSON: Despite the
extensive evidence linking
00:39:07
Hilton to the four
murders, police haven't found Meredith Emerson's body. But with Hilton due to
face the death penalty,
00:39:14
they propose a deal. They basically
came back and said, he'll tell you if you take the
death penalty off the table.
00:39:21
At that point, we knew we
had John Bryant in that van. Some boots had Cheryl
Dunlap's blood on it.
00:39:29
So we knew we had a
couple of more bites at that of giving him
the death penalty,
00:39:34
and agreed to take
the death penalty off the table for Meredith
and recover her body.
00:39:42
He started showing us on a map. He said, yeah, the
head will be missing. When it came time to do
the recovery of the body,
00:39:51
we started at night. We brought out temporary
lighting to set up. We worked throughout the
night, did the recovery.
00:39:58
Then we came back the
next morning at sunrise and processed the scene
over again in the daylight.
00:40:03
Well, the body was covered with
leaves and limbs and debris. Literally, you could be
standing a couple of feet away
00:40:10
and not know there
was a body there. So he had done a very good
job of concealing the body.
00:40:16
Her head was about a mile from
that site, lying near a log and get covered in leaves.
00:40:40
I interviewed him
about the crime itself. And truthfully, it was
the most horrific thing
00:40:46
I think I had ever heard, even
as a law enforcement officer, watching horror
movies, any aspect.
00:40:52
It was undoubtedly one of the
most devastating gut punches that I have taken. You know, she was thinking,
well, if I can just keep him
00:41:13
at bay, you know, just
a little bit longer, they're going to find me. They're going to find me.
00:41:18
And then to listen
to all that and him describe how he took her
life, once he was taken away,
00:41:24
it all flooded in on me
and I just began to cry. It was nothing I've
ever experienced before.
00:41:31
Nothing like anything
I've ever been around. [ominous music] EMMA DONALDSON: At
his first trial,
00:41:41
Gary Hilton is found guilty for
the murder of Meredith Emerson. He's sentenced to
30 years in prison.
00:41:48
At a second trial for the
murder of Cheryl Dunlap, Hilton is found guilty. He receives the death penalty.
00:41:57
At a third trial for the murders
of John and Irene Bryant, Hilton is found guilty.
00:42:03
He receives a sentence
of life imprisonment. [ominous music] I mean, he's just pure evil.
00:42:17
You can see it in his eyes. I've never met
anybody that you could literally look in their
eyes and see evil but him.
00:42:26
And he is, he's truly evil. I think when you
look at Gary Hilton and you look at
his background, I
00:42:34
think a lot of his not
fitting in was more a reflection of his personality,
his lack of coping skills,
00:42:42
and this trauma he
experienced as a child. I do think once
he crossed a line, once he murders Irene and John,
I think there is no going back.
00:42:53
And I think he
would have continued to kill until he was caught. It was too much
to even comprehend
00:43:01
how he could be that
cruel, that evil, and commit the horrific
acts that he did.
00:43:11
It's sickening. It makes me sick today, 16 years
later, just thinking about it. I'm sick to my stomach.
00:43:18
[somber music] [theme music]