Latest / Weird Darkness:True crime & The unexplained / Cop Interrupts Serial Killer In The Woods

Transcript

Cop Interrupts Serial Killer In The Woods · Weird Darkness:True crime & The unexplained

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: When you're going out to kill somebody, if you're seen
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: by a single other person on the trail, then that
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: day's screwed.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: In Cherokee County, Georgia, a sheriff's deputy stops to question
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: a man parked on private hunting lands. At worst, the
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: man is guilty of trespassing, or so the deputy thinks
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: as he approaches.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Good.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: What's up, sir?
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: What you doing out here?
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: But behind this man's friendly demeanor.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: Is a calculating predator hiding bloody secrets and a lengthening
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: trail of bodies.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Life has been sweet. We've got to document it. Look,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: I'm taking your picture, Wadandi. Come for immortality, right?
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: If there's deer hunters around, I can be wearing a
• 1:07
  Speaker 5: purple shirt, that red backpack, and they're going to tell
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: me I'm going to get shot.
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: But, you know, that's a common threat.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: When you say, I won't kill anyone today, we'll just
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: go hiking with my dog, have fun. Time ordained anyway.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I'm leaving.
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: I'm getting out of here. God almighty.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: Can I get your ID real quick?
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you sure can. And it's in a... You see
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: that fanny pack right there? Is there any weapons in
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: that fanny pack? Absolutely not, and I'm going to bring
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: it to you.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: The deputy follows the man back to his van, never
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: suspecting for a moment that he is in the presence
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: of a cold-blooded monster who was killed before and whose
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: thirst for violence has not been quenched.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: And when you get down to the bitter end, you
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: ignore all the rules you set, which I did.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: Oh, I do have an expanding timeline right there. Don't
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: get nervous, man.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: The following report is based on official police records, and
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: most of the footage has never been seen before until now.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: The first sign of trouble in Leon County, Florida, comes
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: when 46-year-old nurse Cheryl Dunlap doesn't show up for her
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Sunday school class. But it's not until she misses work
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: at Florida State University the next day, December 3rd, 2007,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: that her friend reports her missing. Her adult son goes
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: by her house, hoping to find an innocent explanation.
• 2:22
  Speaker 6: The dog was still in there. What was your first thought?
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: This ain't good.
• 2:27
  Speaker 7: She's been missing for two days and that dog is everywhere.
• 2:31
  Speaker 7: And if she's not taking it, she makes arrangements for
• 2:35
  Speaker 7: it to be taken care of.
• 2:36
  Speaker 6: That dog was my brother, if you will.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Police soon realized that no one in Cheryl's life has
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: heard from her since the morning of December 1st, two
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: days earlier, when she told a friend she was going
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: to the library. She was logged into the Wakulla County
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Public Library's computer system at 945 that morning. and she
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: cashed a check for $ 100 at 1115 a.m. After that,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: police know nothing. They ask her friends if she might
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: have suddenly decided to leave it all behind.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: She wanted to travel.
• 3:05
  Speaker 8: Literally, her actual words was, she said, Laura, she said,
• 3:09
  Speaker 8: I really want some adventure.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: In my life.
• 3:12
  Speaker 8: But she also said that she wanted them through missions.
• 3:15
  Speaker 8: The first thing that comes to mind when I think
• 3:17
  Speaker 8: about Cheryl is godly.
• 3:19
  Speaker 6: You hear about people that are Christians, but.
• 3:22
  Speaker 8: She was the type of person that she really, really,
• 3:25
  Speaker 8: really tried to live this Christian life.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, the way the Bible said.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: The idea that Cheryl walked away from her job, her friends,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: and her two sons doesn't seem likely. And the likelihood
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: dims that afternoon when Cheryl's car is found parked off
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: the road near Leon Sinks Geological Park. It's been abandoned.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: There's no sign of Cheryl or anyone else.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Then we got the.
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: Call, so they found the car while we were there
• 3:50
  Speaker 6: at the house.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: So we went there.
• 3:52
  Speaker 6: I just sat there watching them process it for a
• 3:56
  Speaker 6: little while.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: And I had heard over the radio that there was
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: a foul odor coming from the trunk.
• 4:01
  Speaker 9: So I wanted to go to see myself if I could.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: If it was or wasn't.
• 4:05
  Speaker 6: So I stood around there and I couldn't smell nothing.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: But there are troubling signs. Her purse and keys remain
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: in the vehicle. Her belongings are scattered across the seat.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: And one of the rear tires is flat. When police
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: take a closer look, alarm bells begin to sound. The
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: tire appears to have been deliberately punctured. Signs of foul
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: play are mounting, and it has Cheryl's friends in turmoil.
• 4:29
  Speaker 6: I've lost a brother suddenly.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I've lost a sister. I've lost my mom and dad.
• 4:36
  Speaker 8: And nothing has shaken me like this.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Absolutely nothing.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Her son, meanwhile, reflects on a memory he fears may
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: haunt him forever.
• 4:45
  Speaker 7: I started trying to call her and ask her opinions
• 4:48
  Speaker 7: about what I should do with my life. She didn't
• 4:52
  Speaker 7: have her phone on that day. I was outside building
• 4:55
  Speaker 7: a pen when she called back. And I told her
• 4:57
  Speaker 7: I couldn't talk right.
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: How long ago was this? A couple of weeks ago.
• 5:04
  Speaker 7: That was the last time you talked to her?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I didn't even talk to her.
• 5:08
  Speaker 6: But that's the last time you heard from her?
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Cheryl Dunlap's picture is splashed across the local media. A
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: couple reports seeing her at Leon Sinks on the afternoon
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: of December 1st. sitting on a bench reading a book.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: From that point forward, her whereabouts are unknown. That is,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: until police learn from Cheryl's bank that her ATM card
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: has been used five times between December 2nd and December
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: 4th to make withdrawals totaling more than $ 700. So if someone.
• 5:37
  Speaker 6: Used the card, they would have to know it or
• 5:39
  Speaker 6: either get it from her. It wouldn't be where they
• 5:42
  Speaker 6: could just look at it and see it.
• 5:44
  Speaker 7: Probably the only way.
• 5:46
  Speaker 10: That she gave up that PIN number was either they
• 5:50
  Speaker 10: threatened her life.
• 5:51
  Speaker 6: Or her grandbaby's lives.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Investigators head to the bank's main branch to see if
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: there's video, while also looking to the public for help.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Do you remember seeing a gentleman that might have roused
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: your suspicion at all?
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: No, there's a lot of people come in here that
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: roused my suspicion.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: I look at every one of them.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Police have a long investigation in front of them, but
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: what they see at Cheryl's bank makes it clear that
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: there's no time to waste. In video of her recent
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: ATM transactions, detectives see what they feared most, it's not
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Cheryl Dunlap using the ATM, but a shadowy figure wearing
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: a disturbing homemade mask. Investigators note that the man is
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: tall and thin, but that's not a lot to go on,
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: even for those who know Cheryl best.
• 6:34
  Speaker 6: Any suspicions as far as people?
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine anybody coming along that type that everybody
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: loves her.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: She doesn't have any enemies. She's not a Lulu that
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: she would just go disappear.
• 6:46
  Speaker 7: Even the description of the Calvary ATM machine, I can't
• 6:49
  Speaker 7: think of Anybody out of description, skinny, tall.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Lanky, can't think of anybody.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: The identity of the man behind the mask remains a mystery.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: But a month later, more than 300 miles to the north,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: another woman would suddenly vanish. And this time, the monster
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: wouldn't stay in the shadows. On January 1st, 2008, a
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: 24-year-old Georgia woman named Meredith Emerson leaves a note for
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: her roommate before heading off on a hike with her
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: black lab Ella. When she still hasn't returned by the
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: next morning, her roommate files a report with the Union
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: County Sheriff's Office. Meredith's boyfriend goes looking for her car,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: which he finds in one of the parking lots at
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Blood Mountain, one of Meredith's favorite hiking spots. He leaves
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: a note on her car and, with the eventual help
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: of friends and police, begins searching the trails and the
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: surrounding wilderness. Soon, news of her disappearance is statewide, as
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: an investigator with the Dawson County Public Defender's Office told EWU.
• 7:47
  Speaker 11: It hit the papers here because where she went missing
• 7:50
  Speaker 11: is not far from here. So the county was put
• 7:52
  Speaker 11: on full alert. I mean, we were aware of the
• 7:55
  Speaker 11: case probably as soon as she was declared missing.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: But despite the intense search effort, there's no sign of Meredith.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Investigators talked to several people who saw Meredith on the
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: mountain on New Year's Day, and it turns out they
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: noticed something else as well. An older man lurking nearby.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: One witness says he even came across a suspicious scene
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: a few minutes after seeing the two. A disturbed portion
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: of the hiking trail, as if there had been a struggle.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Left behind on the ground were several items, including water bottles,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: a dog leash, and most ominously of all, an expandable
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: police baton. Witnesses describe the man they saw with Meredith,
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: a sixty-year-old white male, around five foot ten inches, a
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: hundred and sixty pounds, and they mention another fact as well.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: He had a large, reddish dog with him. Police share
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: these details with the local media, and the tips start
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: rolling in. Could this man be responsible for Meredith's disappearance?
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Could he even be the same sinister figure seen taking
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: money out of Cheryl Dunlap's bank account a month earlier?
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: The cases are eerily similar. Two women, alone by themselves
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: on National Forest land, and now both of them missing.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: In Leon County, Florida, the tips in Cheryl's case are
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: beginning to take on a familiar shape.
• 9:13
  Speaker 12: Ran into this man in his white van, and his
• 9:17
  Speaker 12: dog started barking at us. A big dog, kind of
• 9:21
  Speaker 12: reddish-brownish hair, long hair, I guess.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Again and again, witnesses come forward to describe a very
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: specific man they saw in the area, and most of
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: them agree that it was late November 2007, only days
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: before Cheryl Dunlap went missing.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: And we saw an old man, skinny, I remember he
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: was skinny, looked homeless, walking towards us.
• 9:43
  Speaker 13: A gentleman was standing in front of it and said
• 9:48
  Speaker 13: hello and he engaged in conversation immediately. I noticed stuff
• 9:55
  Speaker 13: strewn around the campsite and the most prominent thing was
• 10:00
  Speaker 13: a beautiful dark red Irish setter.
• 10:02
  Speaker 14: This gentleman with his dog approached me coming out of
• 10:07
  Speaker 14: the woods, and it made me nervous.
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: He had this big long knife strapped to his side.
• 10:12
  Speaker 14: The dog looked like a golden or fairy, but it
• 10:15
  Speaker 14: was like a dark rust color.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Probably 5'9, 5'10. He's an older man.
• 10:20
  Speaker 15: Scruffy in the face, missing a couple teeth in the front.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: He gave me the creeps when I saw him.
• 10:27
  Speaker 6: He weirded us out so much that, I mean, I
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: was just joking, completely joking around when I said this.
• 10:31
  Speaker 6: But when we left, I was like, man, that guy's
• 10:35
  Speaker 6: killed like 10 people.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: An older man, a white van, a red dog. The
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: details coming in are consistent. First in Florida, and then
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: a month later in the Georgia mountains. But it's not
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: until a businessman named John Tabor hears the news that
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: police are finally able to put a name to this phantom.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Tabor calls the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's tip line and
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: says the man they're looking for used to work for
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: him selling house siding right up until the day he
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: demanded money and threatened to kill him. The man drives
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: a white Chevrolet Astro van and he has a red
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: golden retriever he calls Dandy. His name, Tabor tells them,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: is Gary Michael Hilton. and that's when things start to
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: move very quickly. Armed with this new information, the GBI
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: finds Hilton's driver's license records in the system, and they
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: send out an updated be on the lookout report to
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: law enforcement and the general public that includes his name
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: and photograph. Hilton is labeled a person of interest in
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Meredith Emerson's disappearance, and investigators hope to find him before
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: it's too late. Unfortunately, in the Florida case of Cheryl Dunlap,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: hope has already run out.
• 11:42
  Speaker 16: I drove up in there to where I like to
• 11:44
  Speaker 16: walk the dogs in, and I seen some buzzards fly
• 11:47
  Speaker 16: up just right.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Beside the road. On December 15, 2007, 14 days after
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Cheryl Dunlap was last seen, a hunter comes upon a
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: tragic discovery in the forest.
• 11:57
  Speaker 16: I told my son to stay in the truck to,
• 12:00
  Speaker 16: you know, let me see what the buzzards was doing.
• 12:04
  Speaker 16: And I walked out there and It appeared to be
• 12:07
  Speaker 16: a human body. At first, all I could see was
• 12:09
  Speaker 16: just maybe the torso. I didn't see a head. All
• 12:13
  Speaker 16: I could see was maybe neck to waist.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 12:16
  Speaker 16: And I thought it was a deer to start with.
• 12:19
  Speaker 16: And when I looked at it, I seen the leg
• 12:20
  Speaker 16: and the foot sticking out, and I knew what it was.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: The body is nude and is already significantly decomposed. It
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: is found deep in the forest off the main roads.
• 12:30
  Speaker 16: It appeared to have been somebody tried to cover it up.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Police find the body covered in tree limbs and palmetto
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: fronds from the surrounding woods, but that's not enough to
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: hide the damage that has been done to this woman.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Her hands have been removed. Her nipples have been cut off.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: She's been decapitated and left out here to rot. Because
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: of the advanced decomposition and the missing head, the medical
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: examiner could only label the cause of death as undetermined
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: homicidal violence. Four days later, the Leon County Sheriff's Office
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: holds a press conference to announce the grim news the
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: community had feared. The body in the woods belongs to
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Cheryl Dunlap. Authorities in Georgia are desperate to catch up
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: to Gary Hilton before the same fate befalls Meredith Emerson.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: On January 4th, three days since her disappearance, there's a development.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: A black lab is spotted walking into a Kroger supermarket
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: in Cumming, Georgia. It's chipped, and before the day is through,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: they've identified it as Ella. Meredith's dog. When Meredith's father
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: speaks to the press, he says, We're happy that Ella
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: has been found, but Meredith is still out there. Later
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: that day, a woman reports that Gary Hilton called her
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: wanting money. The return number comes from a payphone, and
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: police quickly track it to a quick trip and coming,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: just across the street from where Ella was found. They
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: process the payphone for evidence, but it's what they find
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: in the nearby dumpster that gives them a shock. A
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: woman's purse. bloody clothing, and a wallet with identification cards inside.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: The driver's license and student ID cards belong to Meredith Emerson.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: If the hunt for Gary Hilton could ever become more intense,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: it just did. And that night, police get the 911
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: calls they've been hoping for.
• 14:14
  Speaker 17: Hi, I'm calling from Cambridge Square Shopping Center, and I'm
• 14:18
  Speaker 17: calling about that person, Gary Hilton, in connection with the
• 14:22
  Speaker 17: woman that's missing.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: A man matching Gary Hilton's description has been spotted at
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: a Chevron station in Chamblee, Georgia, approximately 30 miles south
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: of Cumming.
• 14:31
  Speaker 17: I'm walking my dog, and at the gas station up here,
• 14:34
  Speaker 17: there's a white van and a red dog wandering around
• 14:38
  Speaker 17: like his red dog.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: It's definitely him.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: The van is there.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: The dog is there.
• 14:42
  Speaker 18: I saw his face.
• 14:43
  Speaker 17: He's got a whole bunch of stuff he's pulling out
• 14:45
  Speaker 17: like he's living out of his van, pulling out and
• 14:47
  Speaker 17: organizing his stuff in his van. He's throwing stuff in
• 14:50
  Speaker 17: the dumpster here. He's making multiple trips back to his
• 14:53
  Speaker 17: van and getting out and taken.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: Into a dumpster.
• 14:57
  Speaker 17: 114 to the unit with Sergeant Crowe.
• 14:59
  Speaker 19: We're going to wrap up that location.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Set up PIB. It's definitely him.
• 15:03
  Speaker 13: He's looking around like he's as guilty as sin.
• 15:06
  Speaker 17: He's going to be gone if somebody doesn't get there.
• 15:09
  Speaker 13: I can go take him down if you want.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: No, sir. Stay right there. Okay.
• 15:12
  Speaker 17: He looks like he's finishing up.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: You guys got to hurry. Oh, I'm just shaking. Here
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: we go.
• 15:17
  Speaker 19: Here comes the cops.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Yes. Yes.
• 15:19
  Speaker 20: Police are there?
• 15:20
  Speaker 15: Yes.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 15:23
  Speaker 12: They got him.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Hilton goes flat on the ground immediately and is taken
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: into custody. The police also secure his van and his
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: now-famous red dog, Dandy. But while the arrest goes off
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: without a hitch, every officer on scene can see for
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: themselves the unsettling truth. Meredith Emerson is nowhere to be found.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Hilton is taken to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, where
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: he lies prone on the floor, unwilling to cooperate and
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: complaining of pain from multiple sclerosis.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Mr.
• 15:52
  Speaker 10: Hilton, my name's Clay Bridges. I'm a special agent with
• 15:54
  Speaker 10: the GBI. Over the past couple of days, I've come
• 15:57
  Speaker 10: to know you pretty good. I've spoken with numerous people
• 16:00
  Speaker 10: who say that you're extremely healthy, extremely smart, very intelligent,
• 16:06
  Speaker 10: almost genius level. I would prefer to talk to you
• 16:09
  Speaker 10: if you were Kind of sitting up, and I could
• 16:11
  Speaker 10: look at you a little bit, and I understand that
• 16:13
  Speaker 10: you're a distance runner and that you're a very healthy individual.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: With Hilton unwilling to answer questions, the agent says something
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: that is perhaps intended to get a reaction.
• 16:22
  Speaker 10: Well, I tell you, it's a whole lot warmer down
• 16:24
  Speaker 10: here than it was up on Blood Mountain.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: But Hilton doesn't take the bait, and neither the GBI
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: nor the doctors can get him to talk.
• 16:32
  Speaker 10: We're going to take really good care of you, okay?
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Like we already have.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Yes, sir.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like you've been mistreated?
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Yes, I have.
• 16:41
  Speaker 6: When was the last time you had a good meal?
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I'm through talking to you. I'm making those statements. I
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: don't want to be interrogated anymore.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Well, if you don't want to talk to me then,
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: I'm going to make the decision that right now you're
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: not an immediate life threat and that you could possibly
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: stay here with.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: These gentlemen and continue doing with them.
• 16:59
  Speaker 6: What they need to do with you, okay?
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Put me back in the handcuff.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: There are many signs that Hilton has been in an altercation.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: including a cut on his nose and a badly swollen
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: right hand. GBI agent Clay Bridges leaves Hilton with a
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: final thought.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Remember what I told you about Meredith? You need.
• 17:20
  Speaker 12: To go ahead and just tell us where she's at, okay?
• 17:23
  Speaker 14: There's not much more in your face, aside from it.
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: Being the right thing to do.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Hilton isn't moved by this appeal to his conscience, which
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: is perhaps not surprising if he's the man guilty of
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: killing Cheryl Dunlap in Florida. And the evidence is growing.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: The tips keep coming in Leon County, and police search
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: campsites near where Hilton was reportedly seen. At one, they
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: make a horrifying discovery. A burn pit, amongst which they
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: find charred finger bones and skull fragments. The limited remains
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: make DNA identification impossible, but police are almost certain that
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: the remains belong to Cheryl, and it won't be long
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: before evidence in the Meredith Emerson case draws an undeniable
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: line between the two women. With Hilton unwilling to talk,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: police in Georgia focus on his van. Since Hilton has
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: been living in the Chevy Astro for a long time,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: there's no shortage of things to look through. And along
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: the way, they come up with a fascinating discovery, a
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Sony digital camera and several memory sticks containing some very
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: interesting videos.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Look, I'm taking a picture of what I'm pumping for
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: immortality right now.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: The camera's right there. That's true, it would say. Oh, yeah.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: These home videos give investigators an unprecedented look into the
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: life of a violent drifter.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just a real red, and he has that
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: Irish confirmation also. Okay, come on, honey. Let's get him.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Good boy.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Now you got to stay out here. Okay, now we're
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: going to get ready after he's greeted, and we'll be
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: all happy. You got to stay right here, Wawa. You do.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: The police will soon discover much darker recordings on the
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: memory sticks. For now, they charge Gary Hilton with kidnapping
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: in the Meredith Emerson case. It remains to be seen
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: if additional charges will follow. As police transport Hilton to
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: the Union County Jail in Georgia, his attitude has improved,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: but his willingness to answer questions about Meredith's whereabouts has not.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: You guys are pissed at me, so hey, I ain't... You.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Get the cops pissed off, man, you.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: All right, now, you ain't gonna do nothing squirrely on us, right? Oh, yeah,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: like I can wish you could. He's sitting there with
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: one gun in the holster and the other in his seat.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, Jesus Christ. He's gonna turn around and cap me.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: I am f * * * ed, okay? Totally. I
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: was trying to figure out who I was gonna get
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: my dog to before I turned myself in. I saw
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: the paper. I caught the paper. You're gonna turn yourself in?
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: I saw the paper. I saw I was on the
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: front page of the paper.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: It didn't seem like you were going to turn yourself in.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: Well, hey, you know something? I'm making statements, and I
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: ain't making no statements.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: But Hilton's position on answering questions will soon shift, and
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation will finally get
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: a deep look into one of the most sinister minds
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: they've ever come in contact with. In hours of interviews,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: they'll begin to piece together what happened to Meredith that
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: day on Blood Mountain and what they hear from Gary
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Hilton changes everything.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Since I was four years old, my earliest thoughts were
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: of death. I said, you know something? No one's even
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: missed you. And she said, well, I'd be mad if
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: once you let me go. And I came back and
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: my boyfriend said, have you been gone? I spent three weeks,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: three days with her. We had long talks about everything.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I gave her a book to read. It was kind
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: of like the Lone Ranger. And the Lone Ranger would
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: come galloping into town. They would always say, Who was
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: that masked man? Who was that masked man? Okay, that's
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: what I do to society.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Hilton admits that some of what is driving him to
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: talk is the kidnapping charge, which he believes will likely
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: put him away for the rest of his life.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: They had me on the kidnapping. It was kind of stiff.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: The evidence was good. Right out of the dumpster. It
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: was just a smoking gun. They had me.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: The investigators take a low-pressure approach to the interviews. which
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: gives Hilton all the room he needs to expand on
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: every topic he can think of, including his history of
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: conflicts with the other dog owners he meets while hiking.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: The average dog owner doesn't know jack about dogs. The
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: average animal control officer doesn't know jack about dogs. They anthropomorphize.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: That means assigning human qualities to something. Anthropomorphize, okay? And
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: they assign human qualities to dogs. And what that means
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: is that they want dogs to be like humans, which
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: is be nice. And get along. Well, that's not the
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: way it is in the dog world. Because when dogs
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: talk to each other, you know, they quite often revert
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: back to the wolf world. And the wolf world is
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: more incredibly savage and brutal than you can ever imagine.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Humans don't understand that in the dog world or the
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: wolf world, there are no assault and battery laws. There
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: are no murder laws. And quite often, there is no beer. Okay,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: imagine such a world where there's no murder laws.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Before Hilton can go too deeply into his fantasy of
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: a world without laws, he explains how to handle confrontations
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: with dogs and their owners.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: My goal in a stick fight with a human or
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a dog is not to make contact with a dog.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: A successful stick fight is preventative. To me, it's shaping
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: it with a stick and not making contact.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Because it takes it to a whole other level when
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: you make, especially with a human being. You hit a
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: human being with a stick, regardless of the situation, it's
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: probably going to ruin your day, buddy. And it may
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: not go your way either. Even though it always has.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I've had the police call on me 30 times at least,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and no exaggeration, in 17 years.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Hilton's history with the police is well documented. And not
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: all of it concerns other dogs. He has a history
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: of theft, telephone fraud, arson, and was even accused at
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: one point of attempting to murder his own stepfather. His
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: conflicts with the law haven't settled in recent years, as
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: demonstrated by police dash cams and his own home videos.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: What do you have on your hands there?
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Don't ask me, man.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: He's about to take off.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Sir, I can't hear you.
• 23:42
  Speaker 21: I've got nothing but respect for you, but if you're.
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: Going to continue to create a problem, we can take
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: it to.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: The next level.
• 23:49
  Speaker 22: Putting out leaflet soliciting?
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: You're the lawman, you are the law. I'm going to
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: check it out, and if it ain't the law, then
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: you're wrong. You come talk to me. I'm not talking
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: to nobody. I'm filing and I'm suing because you're interrupting
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: my work. Go right ahead.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: But it's one particular encounter with the cops that catches
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: the public's attention after his arrest.
• 24:07
  Speaker 23: He bumped into a Cherokee County deputy up on some
• 24:10
  Speaker 23: private hunting property back in Yeah.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: It was October or something, and that was why they
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: publicized it.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: I've got maps of the area, and.
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: I was headed to Cahutta, actually from Lawrenceville, but I'm
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: out of Shambler.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: And I camped out here 20 years ago. I can
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: show you, I've got a WMA map right now. You
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: may have, 20 years ago it probably was okay.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: When the footage comes out, cops working the Cheryl Dunlap
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: case notice the cap Hilton is wearing. It bears a
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: striking resemblance to the one in the ATM footage from
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Leon County.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: You know, I just wanted to play some camp because
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: I'm on my way to Canada. I'm leaving. As a
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: matter of fact, I'm getting my maps together. I got
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: to buy some maps. Did you hear that?
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Did he get on tape, my joke about deer hunters?
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: What's the three reasons a deer hunter goes to Canada? Yeah, yeah.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I made that up. I'm a comedian, too.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: But I have a little joke about these southern outdoorsmen.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: They come out in the woods for three reasons. One
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: is to get drunk. The other is to poach. And
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: the other is to change the oil in their truck.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: I just stopped it. I just started.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: But though Hilton has suspicious items in his possession... Oh,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: Have an expanding timeline right there. Don't get nervous. I
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: won't get out of the truck without him.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: The deputy lets him go on his way, unaware that
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: he's releasing a vicious predator back into the wild.
• 25:28
  Speaker 23: Is it almost like a little acting on your behalf to,
• 25:33
  Speaker 23: I don't know, kind of.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: steer this law enforcement officer away from you? Well, with him, no.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I was being perfectly candid with him.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Hilton says that certain police officers will immediately recognize when
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: they're dealing with a pro.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: You and I were talking earlier, and you described yourself
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: as a pro. I mean, in talking about that I,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: as a police officer, when you and I encounter one another,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I'm going to know you're not. I know what you mean,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: but how do you define that as far as how
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: are you a pro? I'm a pro in that I'm
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: not just stylin'. You see, the average civilian, their entire
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: life is a style. Nothing is real. They're talking the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: talk and they're not walking the walk. And they're styling.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: And that's why you see posers. That's my word. Perfectly
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: precious posers. That's what yuppies are.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: Hey, I love you. Mr. Hilton, take care. Be safe.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: There's a large number of police officers that are highly
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: experienced and that they are pros, and they recognize a
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: pro when they see a pro, and I'm a pro.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: This wouldn't be the last time Hilton would manage to
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: keep his true nature hidden from law enforcement in the
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: closing months of 2007. On November 17th, only two weeks
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: before Cheryl Dunlap went missing, a Forest Service ranger spoke
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: to him near a campsite in Leon County.
• 26:57
  Speaker 11: From what he told me, he was returning to his campsite, and...
• 27:03
  Speaker 11: He was walking along the road.
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: He had a dog and a walking stick.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: The ranger runs the tag on his white Chevy Astro
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: parked back at the campsite.
• 27:12
  Speaker 6: Who did the van come back to? It came back
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: to Gary Michael Hilton.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: It will soon come to light that Hilton already had
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: blood on his hands before speaking to these officers. Nonetheless,
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: he's in custody now. And in a series of audio
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and video interviews with the GBI, he will finally reveal
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the full story behind what happened New Year's Day on
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Blood Mountain.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: But anyway, it's a good place to hunt in that
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: you have a huge selection. But it's a bad place
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: to hunt in that you... Because they have a lot
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: of people.
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: People.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: So the way you would do it... So the way
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: you would do it would be to lurk in a blind,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: so to speak, off the trail, observe with binoculars, and lurk.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: But I didn't do that either because I like to hide.
• 27:57
  Speaker 23: What I'd like to know is, is how accomplished of
• 28:00
  Speaker 23: a hiker are you?
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've been to... I'm going to tell you something.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you something.
• 28:07
  Speaker 24: I've never met anyone ever, and people are full of
• 28:11
  Speaker 24: shit on this too, but I've never met anyone anywhere,
• 28:14
  Speaker 24: any way, that has the time in the woods and
• 28:17
  Speaker 24: the time on the trail that I have.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: That I have. I've never walked full time anyway in
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: my life. except for the U.S.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Army.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Tilton was enlisted in the Army as a young man
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: before being discharged for demonstrating symptoms of psychosis, an early
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: glimpse of the darkness to come.
• 28:35
  Speaker 19: Did you know Meredith Emerson before the other day?
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: No.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: At what time?
• 28:43
  Speaker 19: When did you first become aware of her, or when
• 28:45
  Speaker 19: did you first see her?
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: On the mountain, at the intersection of the Herbert Rees
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: Connector Trail and the AT, at that intersection.
• 28:55
  Speaker 19: How did you strike up a conversation with her, or whatever?
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: Dogs, you know, people that have dogs. Dogs are going
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: to meet, and anytime I encounter someone with a loose dog, specifically,
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: which both of ours were, a larger dog, I immediately
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: determine the sex of the dog because I have a male,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: and I don't allow my dog to meet adult males.
• 29:18
  Speaker 19: So you asked her what sex her dog was?
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that kind of thing. And she stopped at that
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: location to eat and... eat some trail mix, and give
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: her dog water.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: After a brief exchange, the two continued hiking, and the
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: 24-year-old athlete quickly put distance between herself and Hilton. But
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: soon enough, Meredith was gone. come back down the trail,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: and this time, Hilton would be ready.
• 29:44
  Speaker 25: Did you form an opinion at that point, or did
• 29:47
  Speaker 25: you form an idea at that point that you wanted.
• 29:49
  Speaker 19: To abduct her at that point?
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah. This was driven really by nothing but, well, the
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: desire to obtain her card. That was the sole purpose?
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: You wanted her card? Yeah, and rather than pick a
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: guy who would... Or a couple? Hilton's aside about his
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: ability to take on a man is perhaps unsurprising given
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: his many thoughts about masculinity.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: And the differences between the genders.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: But that's what a woman wants you to do as
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: an adult, is to play house, okay, and to have children.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: How many nine-year-old boys, now, don't get me wrong, I
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: understand that for many men, having children is the greatest
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: thing in their life, but nevertheless, how many nine-year-old boys
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: have you known that have said, oh, you know, I
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: don't want to be a soldier or a pilot or astronaut,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I want to grow up and have a family.
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: Both of them.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: You look at any man's home, it ain't a man's home.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: It's a woman's home. And what is this man thing?
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Having a nice lawn.
• 31:12
  Speaker 18: Oh, Jesus Christ, give me a break.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Out there cutting grass and digging in the dirt like
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: an animal.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: According to Gary, it all comes down to an imbalance
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: of power.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Part of my dislike, or I wouldn't call it hatred,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: but almost, for women is that they have all the advantages.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And if that's how they get men to do what
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: they want them to do. Always, yeah. Either you do
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: what I want, or in the end, I'm going to
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: give it to someone else. For women to threaten to
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: give it away, that's what I mean. And for them
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: to let you know that they could give it away,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: and they have given it away, increases the value of it.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: It's marketing. But a sophisticated woman understands that to threaten
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: to give it away increases the value, and actually giving
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: it away to someone else decreases the value. And some
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: women aren't smart enough to know the difference, and they
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: felt that way.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: It's not just Gary's thoughts on women that cast doubt
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: on his narrative that he only confronted Meredith for her
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: bank cards. It's also the fact that no money has
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: been withdrawn from her account. But as the investigators soon learn,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Meredith Emerson is not a woman to be trifled with.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: The act occurred, the demand occurred, at the point where
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: the water bottles and baton were found. That's where the
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: demand occurred.
• 32:31
  Speaker 19: Okay, and by demand, what do you say?
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: What do you say? Okay, and when you.
• 32:38
  Speaker 19: Did that, and when you said that, did you produce
• 32:41
  Speaker 19: the baton, or what did you produce?
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: The bayonet is probably still up there. I lost control
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: of what she bought. And as I read in the paper,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: she's a martial artist. I read in the paper she
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: practiced martial arts.
• 32:56
  Speaker 19: Okay.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: And she fought. And she grabbed the knife. Okay. I
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: lost control of the knife.
• 33:01
  Speaker 19: Okay.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: And she grabbed the knife blade and slightly, very slightly,
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: cut her hand on the webbing between her thumb and forefinger.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: I was not aware of that until... Later on, and
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: I said, where'd you get that cut at? She said,
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: when I grabbed the knife. Okay. But she grabbed the
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: knife and fought. Okay. And then I produced the baton. Okay.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: She fought that, and I lost control of the baton.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: And I'm good, too, with this girl. I think it
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: was you, probably. One of the GBI says that little
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: 120-pound girl about probably clutched a whip here. Well, she
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: about did.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: But Gary can't admit that he was in any real trouble.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Not to the investigators. and perhaps not even to himself.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: It was not my finest hour. It was not my...
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm better than that.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: I am.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: But I found out she was a black belt. Which
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: don't mean they're styling these black belts. They're styling. They're
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: not fighters. They're learning to do some little... But on
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: the other hand, doing that kind of thing does increase
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: your coordination, your hand-eye.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Etc.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: And it gets you more used to hand-to-hand combat as
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: opposed to an untrained person, even though they're not really fighters.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: And she really, she didn't do no, it's just that
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: she had no, she was real quick with her hands
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: and had no hesitation about grabbing weapons and everything. And
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: not only that, she was hard to subdue. Fought like hell, man.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Fought and fought and fought and fought and didn't look
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: like any control over her. and got her 10, 15
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: feet away from the trail on that little side trail
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I told you about, she started fighting again.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: But what Gary characterizes as a fight sounds more like
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: a merciless beating.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: I had to hand fight her. And that's where I
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: got this hand. I probably have multiple fractures in my
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: right hand now. Okay. However, I'm not in pain, and
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: I don't think any of them are displaced. I had
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: to hand fight her, and I still couldn't get control
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: of her. She would feign or pretend that I was
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: in control and then start fighting again.
• 35:01
  Speaker 18: Right.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: So I had to hit her a number of times.
• 35:05
  Speaker 19: Did you hit her every time with your right hand or.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Okay. These are straight in punches.
• 35:11
  Speaker 19: In the face?
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or the head. Okay. As to what extent she
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: was injured, her two eyes were somewhat blackened. She may
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: or may not have a fractured nose. I checked with
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: her a number of times. She was not in any
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: pain other than afterwards. She was not in any pain
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: other than a headache. I offered her and gave her aspirin.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Hilton tells the investigators that once they were safely off
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: the trail, he was able to finally subdue her.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: So I got control of her again, quieted her down,
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: got control of her again, and I kept her moving.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: down that closed trail around the corner of the mountain,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: so to speak. And at that point, I produced a,
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: it's like a duck tie. Oh, it's like handcuffs that
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: police use. Zip tie? Zip tie, yeah. But these were
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: just commercial zip ties. Do you remember what color they were? Yeah, black.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: They're not there anymore. Oh, you'll probably find them in
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: the dumpster on the way, probably.
• 36:14
  Speaker 19: Did you have a rubber band around them?
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: Yes. Okay, we did find one there. Oh, you did?
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: So I zip-tied her to a tree, and I knew
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: that I had to go and clean the crime scene.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Hilton's use of zip ties in Meredith's abduction draws another
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: connection to the Cheryl Dunlap case. Investigators searching several of
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Hilton's Leon County campsites find a number of items he
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: left behind, and zip ties are prominently among them. But
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: it's something else that Hilton leaves on Blood Mountain that
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: will make the connection undeniable.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Okay. Okay.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: And they were headed downslope.
• 37:07
  Speaker 19: Were you crouching behind a rock at that point?
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: I had been looking at them, and then I laid
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: down flat in the trail above them. Because if a
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: trail is cut into a slope and someone's below, if
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: you lay in the flat, you're deflated or inflated, so
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: to speak. And I laid down in the trail at
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: that point, and the stuff was gone.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Among the items Hilton lost on a mountain were his
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: expanding police baton, Meredith's leash and water bottles, and the
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: dagger-like knife he calls a bayonet. When investigators with the
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Florida Department of Law Enforcement compare the blade of the
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: bayonet to the hole in Cheryl Dunlap's tire, any doubt
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: is put to rest. It's an exact match.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: If I've been back to the crime scene, just a
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: few minutes ago, sooner, just several minutes sooner, I would
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: have beat those people that found the bat and I
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: would have picked it up. But if it was, I
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: had to bite her twice and bring her all the
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: way around the corner of the mountain and then secure
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: her to a tree in spite of her protestations and
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: then go back for it. So she caught me fair
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: and square. One thing I.
• 38:23
  Speaker 23: Didn't ask you about this, since you're on that point,
• 38:26
  Speaker 23: one thing I didn't ask you about, did you have
• 38:28
  Speaker 23: to put Something to keep her quiet, a gag, so
• 38:31
  Speaker 23: to speak, or anything like that?
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Was she unconscious at that point?
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: Never.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering why.
• 38:38
  Speaker 23: She wasn't yelling when you just tied her to a tree.
• 38:41
  Speaker 23: And when you went back to clean the crime scene
• 38:43
  Speaker 23: is what I'm getting at. There comes a point they
• 38:45
  Speaker 23: fight and then they submit.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: And a lot of it is because of me. Right.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: I reassure them. I reassure them. That it's going to
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: be okay, but just quit fighting or you're going to
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: get hurt. I tell them, listen, honey, I'm going to
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: spend life in prison just because you said no.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Gary has a great many ideas about how a victim
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: should behave under Meredith's circumstances.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: But, you know, the advice to people if they're abducted
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: is to engage your abductor and to make yourself a
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: person to them and not have them think of you
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: as an object. To engage them, to tell them your name.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: to tell them about yourself. tell them about your family
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: tell them about what tell your abductor that you know
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: tell them what you study what your dreams and hopes
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: and plans and schemes are and try to engage them
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: and make yourself a person rather than an object because
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: the abductor is psychopathic he's looking at you in a
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: human way and You want to make yourself a human.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: No, no, no.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: It was always me. It was always me engaging them.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: First thing I ask them is, what kind of.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: Music do you like?
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: What's your favorite song? What do you do for work?
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Where do you go to sleep? What do you do?
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: And talk to them. It calms them down. It calms
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: them down. But none of them ever did that to me.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: Hilton tells the investigators that he would act much differently
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: if put in that position.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't even see nothing. I don't know a thing.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: I had big alarms raised, I'd be pitching the whole
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: damn time.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Meredith, who wasn't fortunate enough to have Hilton's instructions on
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: how to be a victim, is subdued by other means.
• 40:59
  Speaker 19: What did you do at that point?
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: Went back to her and cut her loose. And she
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: was not taught at all except I put a loop
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: around her neck. What kind of loop? Just a nylon cord,
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: 300 pound test, just It wasn't even tied. It was
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: like a loop.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I put a loop line around her neck and just
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: like a leash, like a dog's leash. And that's the
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: only way she was secured.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: And I told her that I had a gun and that,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: you know, I was going to shoot her right now.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't have a gun, but I had a BB
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: pistol that looked like a gun. And I was going
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: to shoot her right now. And, you know, she took
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: off running or something. You know, because you got to
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: do that because Most girls could probably outrun me. You know,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: not that fast. And after that, from then on, she
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: totally cooperated. We traversed the Blood Mountain through the sticks up,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: down through the drainage up. She was totally cooperative with me.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: Let me ask you this.
• 42:04
  Speaker 19: At this point, was her hands free?
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:06
  Speaker 19: Okay, you didn't have those at the time?
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: You just had the new thing? Yes, and I told
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: her I had a fistful, which I did, but I
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: told her I had a firearm. And I would shoot her.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: By that time and from that time on, she was compliant,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: totally compliant. And I was solicitous of her behavior, of
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: her condition, and of her comfort from then on also. Okay.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: My fail was not to torture her.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: Hilton says that he took Meredith down the mountain before
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: tying her to another tree and again making what he
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: calls the demand.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: I told her, well, I was going to have to
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: get her cards and PIN number out of the car,
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: which was in her purse, under the seat.
• 42:46
  Speaker 19: Let me back up. Did she tell you where her
• 42:48
  Speaker 19: purse and PIN cards were?
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay.
• 42:52
  Speaker 19: And she told you where her cards were at that point?
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. She told me incorrectly, but it was just under
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: the wrong seat. It was under the driver's seat, back
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: into the passenger seat. Okay.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Hilton says he approached the parking lot cautiously, knowing there
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: was a chance that the hikers above had called the police.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: When he arrives, however, the coast is clear, and he
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: moves his van next to her car.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: So I walked her up next to her car, opened
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: the side door of my van, and put her in
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: my van, and then took a chain, put her in
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: my van, and laid her down. And I had two
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: lengths of chain padlocked to the seat mounting, the front
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: seat mountings, one chain. In other words, the seat mount,
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: you know, where the seat of the passenger of the car.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: Both of those chains were padlocked by one end to
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: the seat mount. What did she say to you?
• 43:43
  Speaker 19: Did she say anything at that point?
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: She said they told me not to get in the
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: van or in a vehicle or something like that. And
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: then I determined from her where her purse was, which
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: was under the passenger rather than the driver's side. Okay.
• 43:59
  Speaker 19: Did you have to force her into the van, or
• 44:01
  Speaker 19: did she cooperate?
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: No, she protested, but, yeah, no, she was compliant from,
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: you know, I didn't, there was no physical force at
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: any time after that. Okay. After that, up on the mountain. Oh, okay.
• 44:15
  Speaker 19: So she protested and said.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: They told me not to get in the vehicle. I said,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: get in the damn thing.
• 44:22
  Speaker 19: And she went in?
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Gary says that after Meredith was secured by chains in
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: his van, he put her dog Ella in her car
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: before heading to nearby Blairsville with the intention of finding
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: an ATM. But soon, Gary says he had a change
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: of heart.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: Got several miles away as we were driving away, and
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: she's still voicing concern about her dog. I wanted her
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: to be calm and, you know, as she could be,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: and I knew she was anxious about her dog. So
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: I said, well... Do you want me to go back
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: and get your dog? She said yes. So I turned around,
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: went back, and got her dog.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Of all the details Gary has given thus far, this
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: act of kindness is perhaps the hardest to believe. And
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: yet the investigators know that it must be at least
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: partially true, because Ella was finally found incoming, nearly 50
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: miles south of Blood Mountain. Then again, Gary appears to
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: have a compassion for dogs that doesn't extend to humans.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: People are enculturated and programmed to only believe that life
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: is valid if they're doing it with others. So the
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: problem with these poor loners, these sociopaths, is they're so
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: programmed like that that in spite of themselves, they don't
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: know themselves. They don't understand that there's no hope for them.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: They don't understand that they're a round peg in a
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: square hole and that they're never going to fit in.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: They don't understand that there's no way in the world
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: that they are going to get real satisfaction out of
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: a human relationship. I didn't understand myself until actually when
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: I got a dog. And all of a sudden, I
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: was no longer alone, and I didn't have that wrenching
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: sense of loneliness and being alone, but yet there would
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: be no salvation in the company of others. You're alone,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: your life is empty, alone, lonely, but there's no salvation
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: or satisfaction in the company of others. It's a terrible,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: I see many, those are the worst kind of people.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: They're tragically unhappy.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Of course, Gary's thoughts on the errors of humanity go
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: well beyond sociopaths like himself.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: And there's a psychiatric school of thought that says existential
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: anxiety is responsible for most of human neurosis. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Because we're the only... Did that bother you back then?
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Since I was four years old, my earliest thoughts were
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: of death and that I was going to die.
• 46:48
  Speaker 6: Really?
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: When I was four years old, I can place it
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: because of the situation I was in when I thought it.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: And when I was four years old, I can remember
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: looking at my hand and pondering the fact that this
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: hand one day will be a skeleton. Yeah, when I
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: was four years old. What was the situation if you
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: don't know that? No, it was an intellectual thought. It
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: was the awareness of my future and my life. The
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: humans are the only animal that I know of that
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: really has to cope with it all. It's really hard
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: to tell. Hard to tell, but it's a tremendous psychic load.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: The knowledge of our future non-being or the inevitability of
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: our death is the thing that shakes our entire life.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Rather than lure Hilton back to the point, the investigators
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: appeal to his ego.
• 47:36
  Speaker 23: All your travels and camping and stuff, you get By yourself,
• 47:41
  Speaker 23: you get a lot of time to think and gain
• 47:45
  Speaker 23: a lot of insight.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Lawyers and everyone else ask me constantly, how come you're
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: so seemingly intelligent? Are you well-read? Are you well-educated? You're right.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: You hit it right on the head. That's very perceptive
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: of you. The reason I'm so seemingly intelligent is that I,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: alone amongst almost anyone, including you dudes, have time to
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: actually stop and think about things. You don't have time
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: to stop and think about things. You are so busy
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: distracting yourself because you're running from really the reality of
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: the situation, which is you're going to die. And you
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: are so busy just frantically desperately distracting yourself with every
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: kind of thing in the world, including your work. Now, again,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I'm not judging you. I mean, you're just human beings.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: That's all you are. You're just human beings and God
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: bless you.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Gary says that his time in the woods has given
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: shape to his character.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: You got time to think. That's one of my personalities.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I'm a philosopher, I'm a soldier, I'm a scientist, and
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: I'm an artist. And those are all distinct personality types
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: that represent different distinctly different things, and I'm all of them.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: What's your artistic side? What do you mean by artist? Well,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: by artist, I mean truly in the sense of being
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: an artist in that you see everything in terms of
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: not the linear, but the oppression of it, and so forth.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: And as far as the medium goes, I'm an artist
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: that people ask me, I tell them I'm an artist,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: and they say, well, what's your medium? Are you a sculptor? No,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: my artist, my art is my life. And my art
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: is weird.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: No. Laugh!
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I'm an artist. My art is my life. My art
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: is weird. Laugh! Laugh! No, I'm actually buying into this.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Of course, it's true.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: It's all true.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: It's true. It's real. Everything I'm telling you is true.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Everything I'm telling you is real.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: It exists.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: Hilton tells them that he even made the decision to
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: yank some of his teeth out for the purpose of
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: his art. And, of course, to stand out even more
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: from the rest of society.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: You've got a grinning I call it a dental display,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: is what I call it. It's like chimpanzees and other race,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: they do a genital display. You ever see a chimpanzee
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: in a zoo? They'll go like that. That's a genital display. Well,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: they do a dental, human, do a dental display. That's
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: why I love my teeth. These are both artistic, philosophical statements,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: and they're practical, too. If someone's with me, I'll go,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: you're pretty. It scares the out of any damn human,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: but they know I'm for real. I ain't no Debbie.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: See?
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I ain't posing. I got my pot and teeth in.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: And I present this fantastical spectacle to people. But I understand.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: They can't understand it because it's so fantastical. It's kind
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: of like the Lone Ranger. And the Lone Ranger would
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: come galloping into town. They would be all the schmuck townspeople, right?
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: And here the Lone Ranger would be wearing this mask,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: a skin-tight outfit. a really elaborate two-gun rig mounted with
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: silver with chrome pistols and just a theatrical outfit. He'd
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: be mounted on this beautiful Palomino. He'd have this trippy
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Indian named Tonto. And if the Lone Ranger would ride
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: out again, what would they always say about the Lone Ranger?
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: You don't remember. They would always say, Who was that
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: masked man? Who was that masked man? Okay, that's what
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: I do to society.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: Though many of his home videos show Gary alone with Dandy,
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: some of them do show him interacting with others, such
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: as this Papa John's manager who seemed less than impressed
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: with Hilton's version of the mysterious stranger.
• 51:36
  Speaker 22: You tell these guys to quit terror driving, you tell
• 51:39
  Speaker 22: them not to drive more than five miles an hour
• 51:42
  Speaker 22: above the limit, you tell them to keep at least
• 51:44
  Speaker 22: a vehicle length, at least, and it should be one
• 51:47
  Speaker 22: vehicle for every 10 miles an hour.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: If this is Hilton affecting society at large like the
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: Lone Ranger, one can only imagine the impression he made
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: on Meredith Emerson. But while the 24-year-old may have no
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: longer physically resisted Hilton after Blood Mountain, she wasn't done
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: fighting him.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: I was saying that when it comes to individual human beings,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: the answer is rarely simple. I simplify groups of human beings.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: And you really have to, actually, to preserve your scalp,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: for that matter. You have to make broad judgments about
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: groups of human beings. But always understanding that individual human beings,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: the answer is rarely simple.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: It rarely is.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: The individual Hilton abducted on that mountain still has some
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: surprises in store. And when Hilton prepares to drain Meredith's
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: bank account like he did Cheryl's, he realizes it won't
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: be quite so easy.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: Went to the Appalachian Bank, attempted to run the cards.
• 52:44
  Speaker 19: And they didn't work?
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: Didn't work. I parked across the street. How many cards
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: did you use? I had three, but I'm really not
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: sure because she had me run them so many times
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: that I'm not sure. You know, she had me run
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: them in Blairsville. Then I went to Gainesville. Then I
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: went to Canton. I tried multiple times. The card wouldn't work.
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: It was either invalid or unauthorized, one way or the other.
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: So I came back, went back to the van. I said, honey,
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go. She danced me around with two
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: more pin numbers. Well, I think I did this, or
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: I just changed it over, and I'm not sure, and
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: this and that, and I changed it, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: Go try it again. It'll work.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: This number, give me another two numbers. Not working, huh?
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: You might as well just give it up. I don't
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: know what purpose of this, et cetera.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Meredith convinces Hilton that he may need to try at
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: another bank.
• 53:43
  Speaker 19: Four or five times she kept trying to convince.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: You that it would work. She did convince me. She
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: ran me back. I'd come, I'd go try it like
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: an idiot. You know, like some internal optimist. I had
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: to go out of the van, walk the 100 yards
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: or wherever to it, run it, you know, come back.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: She'd give me some other story. Right. Or another car.
• 54:06
  Speaker 19: Right.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: I got three I have to work with. Yeah. I
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: don't know why the reason for all this was. I
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: told her later, I said, I'm not even going to
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: ask you why. It's just that I'll never understand why
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: the purpose of you doing this for her.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: It may be that Meredith's strategy was twofold. One, as
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: long as he didn't have access to her accounts, her
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: life remained valuable to Hilton. Two, every failed ATM transaction
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: left a digital footprint, potentially giving police a direct line
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: to their location.
• 54:35
  Speaker 19: Did you attempt to conceal your face in any way
• 54:38
  Speaker 19: when you used it?
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I did conceal my face.
• 54:40
  Speaker 19: How did you conceal your face?
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: I held a towel over my face.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: It's another chilling echo to the Cheryl Dunlap case in Florida.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: The only question is whether Meredith's resistance would allow her
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: to escape Cheryl's grisly fate.
• 54:54
  Speaker 19: So when you left the bank attempts down in Gainesville,
• 54:58
  Speaker 19: which way.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: Did you go? Back to Dahlonega. Okay. Now it's too late,
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: and I've had it. I'm like in the shape I
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: am now, you know. With the MS, some days I
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: can't get out of bed, and then some days I'm
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: good for a few hours, and my time is up.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: As far as being able to function or even think.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: And I started north with the object of getting a
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: campsite somewhere.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: Gary says they found a place to camp that first
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: night in Dahlonega, Georgia. but not before a close call
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: nearly put a quick end to his plans.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: The snow was coming in at higher elevations, and it
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: was accumulating rapidly. And there was probably two inches on
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: the ground on the road very quickly. Mm-hmm. and I
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: was losing traction and control. And then I came around
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: a curve, and the car had sort of slid off
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: the road, and there was a sheriff's deputy there with
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: his blue light, and turned around and went back down
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: just right past the sheriff's deputy again. She saw the
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: blue light and everything, but... and was only loosely secured.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: Having eluded law enforcement, Hilton made camp with his hostage.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: Camp there. I gave her the best bag. I gave
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: her the mattress that didn't leak. I got a plus
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: five degree bag. Well, I had five bags with me.
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: You know, each dog got a bag. Each dog got
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: a 20-degree bag.
• 56:25
  Speaker 19: Where did you camp, in the van or outside?
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she helped me offload the van. I just done change.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: She was free. She was only secure while we were moving.
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: She was not tied up. And while we were asleep,
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: I would tie a long length of, nylon cord around
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: her ankles, quadruple knotted, and then quadruple knotted at an
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: anchor point in the van. That was simply to keep
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: her from jumping up and taking off while I was asleep. Now,
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: I gotta ask you this.
• 56:54
  Speaker 19: Was there any sexual activity between you two? And keep
• 56:58
  Speaker 19: in mind now, we will be able to find out,
• 57:00
  Speaker 19: but I'm asking you now if it's accurate or not.
• 57:04
  Speaker 19: Was there any sexual activity between the two of you?
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah. There was? Yes, one time, first night. I told her, honey,
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: it wasn't forcible, but of course it was unwanted.
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: Right, right.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: But it wasn't forcible.
• 57:18
  Speaker 19: Okay.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: And I told her, honey, I told you I was
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: going to let you go. You run me around. You
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: run me all over North Georgia. Maybe put 150 miles
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: on my van. We still don't. You've lied to me.
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: Give me some time. And she did.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: Hilton says that despite being abducted, beaten, and violated, Meredith
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: was enjoying herself.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: She's not having a bad time. She's been kidnapped. She
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: wasn't in mental distress other than any kind of real.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: I was solicitous of her comfort and everything else.
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: It's hard to know if this is delusion talking or
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: simply another reflection of Hilton's disdain for women.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, the last piece of I had except for
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: here was in 89, was in January of 89. And
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: I never kind of dropped out of the game, man.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: I was never so happy after I did that. Oh, yeah.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: Once you stop getting led around by the, and we
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: all are. All of us are. That's right. That's right.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: That's why we become less than men. That's why we
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: start doing a woman's agenda. Oh, I'm going to tell
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: you something, and you take it from me.
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: Really? No.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: You know what you're being fooled by? You're all being fooled.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: You're being fooled by a woman's instinct, not her free will.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Her instinct is that of nurturing. That's because instinctually she
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: raises the kids. And you're being fooled by her nurturing
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: instinct that she has a soft spot for kids and
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: small furry animals. But I'm going to tell you something.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: You take it to the bank, pal. And you take
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: it from a guy that begged professionally for over 20 years.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: The sex that is the most avaricious, accumulative, gravy and
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: heartless is women.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: Hilton seems to detect no irony delivering this sermon on
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: women before returning. to the story of how he kidnapped one.
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: I determined the next day that I would go to Canton.
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: And one reason I headed in that direction is that
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: I had a person I knew that I thought, you know,
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: a plan B would be to try to get some
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: money from her. She was in that direction. I don't
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: have any money. I had $ 45 on me and spent
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: $ 30 of my last $ 45 on gas. So I had
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: no gas, no money. But anyway, that's one reason I
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: headed in Canton. So I'd go on to Cartersville if
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: necessary and try to get some money.
• 59:45
  Speaker 19: Who is this person that you were going to get
• 59:46
  Speaker 19: money from?
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: The person I was calling from the gas station in
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: Cumming where the clothes were found. That's the call I
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: was making. She refused me and hang up.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: With Meredith thwarting his attempts to steal from her, Hilton
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: says he reached out to a man he used to
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: work for.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 19: I know that you made a phone call from.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: Marble Hill also. At one point. You mean from the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: huddle house? Right. That was to my employer, John Tabor,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: to get to beg my old job back. Right.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: By the time Hilton called Tabor, early descriptions of the
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: man seen with Meredith on Blood Mountain were already circulating
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: through the media. Tabor not only identifies Hilton to the police,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: he tells Hilton he'll leave a check for him at
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: his office. Police stake out the location, but Hilton never shows.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: We all, even guys like myself, that are just totally sociopathic,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: we still need some human to trust. Right. Even if
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: we're not close to them.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: To trust them, even if it's a business associate. I
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: called Tabor up and asked him. I told him I
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: needed money, and I wanted to start working again for him.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: And I was really sincere in trying to start work
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: again for him because I saw that this Robert wasn't
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: getting it because I hadn't... I haven't gotten any money
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: off her. You know, I haven't gotten a dime. I've
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: spent money on her. I had $ 45 to my name,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: and I'd spent $ 30 of it driving all over North
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Georgia trying to work her ADN card on the bogus
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: number she gave me. I've lost money on that deal.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: If Tabor had said, instead of trying to entrap me,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, what's the use of that? I mean, really.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: Because if they knew who I am, they're going to
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: catch me anyway. If Tabor had said, hey, Gary, they
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: know it's you. They know it's you. They're on to you.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: They're looking for you now. Because I wasn't in the
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: paper that day. I joked about it with a girl.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: This was the second day or third day I'd had her,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: second or third day I'd had her, and she still
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't in the paper. I said, you know something? No
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: one's even missed you. And she said, well, I'd be
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: mad if once you let me go. And I came back,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: and my boyfriend said, have you been gone? She said,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: we were laughing about it, because nothing had appeared in
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: the paper.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: Hilton manages to avoid the trap Tabor and police set
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: for him, and at least according to him, spent a
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: pleasant day with his victim out in the woods.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: Went to Dawson Forest and camped there, and you know,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: I think we spent two nights there because we went
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: hiking the next day. Yeah, we went hiking, yeah. We
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: went hiking, yeah. We spent two days, two nights there.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: And we were 11 degrees outside air temperature there, so
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: I had stoves going. I have stoves to use as
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: a heater. And I had the van going from time
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: to time and keep warm. And we spent two nights
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: there because we went hiking one day the next day.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: We took the both dogs and went hiking along Shoals Creek. Okay.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: We had a good time.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 19: How did you keep her from running off while you
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 19: were hiking?
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: No, I told her, remember two things. One, if you
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: bust out through the woods, the pursuer has the advantage.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: Because the pursuit has to break brush. If you bust
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: out running down the road or anywhere else, I'll shoot
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: you down. And I'm a good shot left or right-handed
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: because my right hand was up, which I am. And,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: you know, that was it. She was not having a
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: bad time at all and enjoying herself on the hike,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: I could tell that. Commenting on how beautiful it was.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: We hiked for several hours along Shoal Creek.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: Again, Hilton is insistent that Meredith was enjoying her time
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: as the victim of a violent kidnapping. A story that
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: doesn't gain believability the more he repeats it. And if
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: his intention is to convince the agents that he has
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: a heart underneath the cruelty, the conclusion to his story
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: erases that possibility.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: And then the next day, we got up and told
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: her she was going home. I said, I'm giving you
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: all your stuff back. I had all her stuff backed
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: up together. I made a point of showing her. She
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: always helped me load and unload, especially because my hand
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: was messed up. So in other words, consistent with being kidnapped,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: she was having a good time. You know what I mean.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: I won't say she's enjoying it, but she was into it.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: She was at ease, totally at ease. Well, let me
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: ask you this.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 19: Did you guys leave the site you were camping at
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 19: at that point?
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: No, no. Okay. No, we're packing up and telling her
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: I'm taking her out. I'm going to release her.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: Hilton says they left the campsite together, but soon he
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: pulled the van over in another area of Dawson Forest.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: In between, he says, there was another close call.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: And there was a pickup there, and as he drove by,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: I waved at him. It was law enforcement. Really? Yeah.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: It was that close. It was that close. She wasn't
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: even secured either.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: Having once again caught a lucky break, Hilton took Meredith
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: to a secluded spot.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: Walked her into the woods, got two sleeping bags. I
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: got a mattress for her to sit on, two bags
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: to put over her, a lens of a chain, secured
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: it to a tree, walked back to the van. I'm
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: staggering around by now. You know, I'm just, I've had it.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: I can't even think straight. I'm, you know, I'm just staggering,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: you know. I have all those groceries. I'm just staggering. Went,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: kind of got myself together, made some coffee and everything.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: Walked back. And at that point, she was there. She said,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: I was afraid you weren't coming back. I said, glad
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: to see me. And she said, I was afraid you
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: weren't coming back. I gave her a book to read
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: and everything else there.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: But he grabbed something else when he was back at
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: his van, an iron bar. At long last, Hilton reveals
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: the horrifying truth, a truth police suspected from the moment
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: they found the bloody clothes in that gas station dumpster.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: And I walked up and made as if to unsecure
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: the chain, struck her with the bar. What bar? It
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: was a jackhandle, just a straight jackhandle. Jack handled a
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: solid iron bar. Struck her with that. She said, no,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: let me go. Put her hands up. I kept striking her.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: You'll see some defensive wounds to her hand. She lost consciousness,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: and I kept striking her to ensure she was dead.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: Hilton says that Meredith had to die to ensure his freedom.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: Once you've taken someone, you're either going to kill them
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: or you're going to get caught. It's as simple... to that.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: In my situation, look at me. I got the dog.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: I got the van. I'm me. I'm famous anyway, regardless.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: And I knew it. Once you've taken someone, you either
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: kill them or you get caught. If you release them,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: you're going to get caught. I mean, am I right
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: or not? If I would have been sure. Well, she's
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: seen the van. She's seen the bag. She's seen the dog.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: All she has to do is put that out And 10,000
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: people would be caught, including paper. He was just the
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: first one, you know. Of course I knew it. You
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: either kill them or you get caught. Of course I
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: was able to do it because of my general rage
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: against society. Of course.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: Hilton's rage is evident as he describes what he did next.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: Removed her head. Removed the head with a serrated knife,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: which you probably have in the dumpster, I think.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 19: A serrated knife?
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like a butcher knife or a kitchen knife. A long.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 19: And that was in the dumpster as well.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: Was that.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 19: I mean, is that difficult to do, to take somebody's
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 19: head off? I've never seen that done.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, is it.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 19: I'm not asking for my.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: I understand. Right. And it doesn't seem real. It doesn't
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: seem real looking back on it.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 19: I can't imagine a kitchen knife being able to do that.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: This is a knife with a blade this long. Okay.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: It's serrated, and so it's a saw. Oh, okay. I
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: got you. It's just sawing. All you got to do
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: is keep sawing, sawing, sawing, sawing, sawing, and then get
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: through the joint. It's just like you would... That's what
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: it's made for in the kitchen, to cut up meat.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: Hilton says that his decision to cut Meredith's head off
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: was purely practical.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 15: The only reason, by the way, the head was removed
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 15: was forensically.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: In other words, the hair is full of fiber. I
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: poured liquid bleach all over her to any DNA, and
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: I knew bleach would not destroy fibers, but that any
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: DNA she may have picked up, from my clothes. She'd
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: been wearing my clothes for now, what, three days or something.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: And so I poured liquid bleach over her. And again,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: this was not done to preclude identification or for any
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: other reason other than at that time, I didn't know
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: that I'd even been associated with it. So I'm And
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: I felt, I knew the body would be found sooner
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: or later. These bodies, the body in here, sooner or
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: later is going to come to light. It is. And
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: this is not the first body that... been discarded.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: Hilton's last remark seems to go unnoticed, but one could
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: reasonably wonder if the image in his mind at that
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: moment was that of Cheryl Dunlap, whose decapitated body was
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: left in the woods, just like Meredith's.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: Then I left, headed south to that gas station where
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: I made the call to try to get some money.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: I'm down to... I think it was $ 18, something like that.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: I'm getting full of glass.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 19: This was incoming?
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that gas station. I took her dog with me,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: and I found a location where I knew the dog
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: would be okay. It's a bustling, bustling center. And I
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: knew that the dog would be picked up. And I
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: also knew the dog was microchipped.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 19: How'd you know that?
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: She told me. If I wanted to ensure that no
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: one would associate the dog with her, I would have
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: killed the dog. Right. But there's no way I could
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: do that. Right.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: The investigators are left to wonder how it is that
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: the serial murderer before them draws the line at the
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: killing of a dog. But perhaps it's right in line
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: with his life story. The ruthless wanderer with no regard
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: for anyone other than his one trusted companion.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: My boy. He's my baby.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: Battery, memory's probably, probably doing, gonna go any second. This
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: is Tucker, yes, once more before we die. Totally Tucker.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: Totally Tucker. Yeah, me and the boy, me and the
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: boy were running this October 92, almost daily. Yep, sure were.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: But we are having, having a good time.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: Dandy ends up being adopted by Nancy from the public
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: defender's office. who told Iwu that the dog picked up
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: some disturbing habits in his travels with Hilton.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 11: He would stalk people when we were walking. He would
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 11: get behind a tree, for instance, and he would watch people.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 11: And I would tell him, we're not doing that. We're
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 11: not doing that anymore. We're not doing that. Come on,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 11: we're not doing that anymore.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: After letting Meredith's dog free and coming, Hilton realized that
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: he was a wanted man.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: If I had bought a paper that morning on Friday
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: instead of that afternoon, she would have been alive. Because
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: there they had my pictures on the front page, a
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: color picture on the front page of the AJC, looking
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: for me and everything. I wouldn't have killed her. I mean,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: for Pete's sake, no.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: Hilton was arrested only a few hours later at the
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: Chevron in DeKalb County. But while the manhunt was finished,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: the story was far from over.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 10: Was this difficult for you at all to do this?
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 19: As far as take her life, was it difficult at all?
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, do.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 19: You have feelings one way or the other about it,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 19: or you just needed her for a necessity for you?
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: No, no. But it was like an out-of-body experience. Okay.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: It was surrealistic. Of course it's surrealistic. Removing a head
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: is just unreal. Right. Unreal. And, you know, you look
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: back on it and you say, that wasn't even real.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know what it was. I was just in...
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: You might say an altered state. I just don't know.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: It was hard. Okay. It was hard. Okay. It was hard.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: You've got to remember, we had spent several good days together, actually. Right, right. Actually,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: she did not have an unpleasant time.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: But Hilton says that he knew from the beginning how
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: Meredith's story would end.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you right now, there was never
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: any plan to let her go. Okay. I knew that
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: if I let her go, I would be instantly ID'd.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: Once you've done it, you're either going to kill her
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: or get caught. There's no other solution. It's not that,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: you know. And if that sounds cold and cruel, yeah,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: it was.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: Hilton's confession is thorough, but it comes at a high price.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: They agree to take the death penalty off the table
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: in exchange for Hilton's guilty plea, his full confession, and
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: one final piece of information they need to bring closure
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: to this horrific case.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 9: What I'd like to do is let you know, uh,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 9: Tell us where the body is and try to direct
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 9: us to it the best you can because it's very
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 9: important that we locate the body as soon as we
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 9: can this evening.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: Hilton points out the exact spot in Dawson Forest on
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: a map, but says the investigators may have a difficult
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: search ahead of them.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 15: It's going to be a little harder to find. You're
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 15: going to need a dog for this, I believe.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: Can you help us?
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 15: Well, I'll help you.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 15: It's uncomfortable for me to go there, though. But I understand.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: I'm going to help you. I've got to help you.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: Hilton overcomes his discomfort and leads the investigators to Meredith's body,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: though they run into some minor complications on the drive.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: It's an indication of how much publicity this case has gotten,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: publicity that Hilton is only too aware of.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: You are my God. I mean, I've read a little
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: of the news that my lawyers brought me a little bit,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: but I don't really want to read it. They don't
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: understand that except for this rampage, I was the injured party.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: I kid you not. And all of society trying to
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: get me in trouble.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 18: If they had their way, they would tell lies to
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 18: the cop.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: The cop would arrest me and send me to the penitentiary,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: take my dog away, and ruin my life just because
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: they don't want to be wrong. Okay, it's as simple
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: as that. You talk about cruel and heartless, man. And
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: you talk about, you know, hey, kill. You know, you
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: start getting that thing, you know, you're just raising in society.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: Hilton may be disgruntled with some of the coverage, but
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: he also seems to take a certain pride in it.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: Such as when he recounts how he handled the perp walk.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Did you see the way we, did you see it
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: on TV? Oh yeah, running. I'm the one that wants
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: to do that. You see, I was going, I was
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: leading them. And they'll open that door, another one open
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: that door, and I'm the one that just dives in
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: head first, you know, kind of.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 18: Like a Hollywood celebrity that's been bad and now is
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 18: trying to do, you see what I mean?
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: The more you limit it, the bigger demand it makes. Now,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: if I'd have come walking out like Eric Rudolph, that
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: is said, he's a smug.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: As all he is.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: But when I come, right, it is.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 18: But, you know, when I come running out there and
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 18: then dive into the car wearing the vest, it's a mystique.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: The cops send the press gathered near Dawson Forest away,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: and Hilton takes the investigators to the exact location of
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: Meredith's body, only to reveal that he placed her head
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: and clothing in a separate area down the road.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 25: As we walk, I'm going to ask you a couple
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 25: more things, okay, if you don't mind. You said that
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 25: there was one sexual encounter.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Was that the only one?
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 19: There wasn't anything post-mortem, right?
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: No. Okay.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: Meredith Emerson's autopsy reveals a wide range of serious injuries
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: consistent with Hilton's story. In addition to post-mortem chemical burns
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: from the bleach, the medical examiner finds contusions and several
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: broken bones. It's determined that she died of massive crushing
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: head injuries, having been struck at least 19 times with
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: a blunt instrument. At the site of her body in
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: Dawson Forest, Hilton is asked one last question.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 19: Is this the first time you've ever done anything like
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 19: this before?
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: Hilton's lawyer advises him not to answer, but soon enough
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: investigators will know the truth. Hilton's reign of terror didn't
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: begin with Meredith Emerson or even with Cheryl Dunlap in Florida.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 23: A federal investigation will reveal that on October 21, 2007.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: A retired couple visiting Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: had the misfortune of running into Gary Hilton. In a
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: recent interview, Hilton said that he spotted John and Irene
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: Bryant as they got out of their car, accosted them,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: and demanded their credit cards. When John Bryant refused, Hilton
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: says he beat him with his police baton and pepper
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: sprayed him. Irene tried to then attack Hilton with her
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: walking stick, and he knocked her to the ground with
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: the baton as well, and ultimately murdered her right there
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: in the forest. Her body was discovered a month later,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: but John's whereabouts remained a mystery for months.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: My attorney has informed me this morning that they have
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: found the body, a body in North Carolina. They found
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: the skull and a pelvis, and it's off of Old
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: Murphy Road, and it's on Forest Service Road. And they
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: found the body, so maybe he's no longer missing.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: After kidnapping John Bryant and getting $ 300 out of his
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: bank account, Hilton drove him to the Nantahala National Forest.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: and shot him in the head.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 21: The authorities aren't able to precisely put his death on
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 21: an exact date, but it happened relatively quickly because Hilton
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 21: was alone five days after the Bryants vanished.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: When that Cherokee County deputy rolled up on the afternoon
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: of October 26th.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 4: What you doing out here?
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 5: Well, you're the fourth person to come along.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: Am I?
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 4: And ask me that. If there's deer.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 5: Hunters around, I can be wearing a purple shirt, that
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 5: red backpack, and they're going to tell me I'm going
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 5: to get shot.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: But, you know, that's a common threat. They're very particular.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: I understand. Can I get your ID real quick? Yeah,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: you sure can. And it's in a.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 4: You see that fanny pack right there? Is there any
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 4: weapons in that fanny pack? Absolutely not, and I'm going
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: to bring it to you.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 18: Okay.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 19: So are you a hiker or long-distance camper or hiker?
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: Hiker.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 4: I love the walls, though. Hey, check it out, man.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: Do you need anything else here?
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: No, I'm just going to run this.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 20: Make sure nobody wants you, and then probably just pay
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 20: to get your stuff and get out of here.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: I'm trying.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: I'm trying.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 4: I'm trying. I'm just.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: Watch it. You want to finish backing up doing what
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 3: you're getting your stuff together? I'm going to go run
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: this real quick, and then I'll let you get out
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 3: of here.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 4: Get away from him.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: I know, you know, police officers.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 4: Oh, no, I'm fine. If she was going to do something,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: she would have already done it, and she's... I just
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 4: hesitate to break the law standing in front of a
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: police officer. He's not on the list.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 24: Mr.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: Hilton, nobody wants you.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 5: Well, if they do, it's popped up in the last
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 5: six hours or whatever.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 4: Twelve hours because they were running me on 20 thinking
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: I'm drunk. Now they're in here thinking I'm going to
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: take one of their deer.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: Because Gary's crimes took place on National Forest land, he's
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: in danger of federal prosecution, a risk he brought up
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: several times when talking to Georgia investigators.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to dig my heels in. I don't
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: want federal custody. They're going to send me to supermax.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: I just know they are. So it's where they send
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: the notorious, infamous people. That's kind of my super maxim.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 23: Well, I mean, it's debatable on who calls you notorious
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 23: and who calls you, you know, just.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: A mad guy.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: Hilton's guilty plea in the Meredith Emerson case sends the
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: wheels of justice spinning rapidly. He's sentenced to life in
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: prison for the murder on January 31, 2008, less than
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: a month after his arrest.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: When you're going out to kill somebody, if you're seen
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: by a single other person on the trail, then that
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: day's screwed. But when you procrastinate because you don't want
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: to get up and kill someone, and you let it
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: go and you say, I won't kill anyone today. We'll
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: just go hiking with my dog and have fun. We're
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: doomed anyways. And so you get down to the point where, well,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: it was like Meredith. I had $ 40 money and several
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: days' food. I was going to have to kill somebody
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: in that period of time. And when you get down
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: to the bitter end, you ignore all the rules you set.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: Part of it is I'm curious. You know, as an artist,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: and as a sociopath, if you're doing this, you would
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: like to select your victim's. On an artistic sense. But
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: when you get down, you procrastinate and yet someone's got
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: to fall.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: But nevertheless, I want to know them and to see what,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: you know, who I have got rather than just a
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: faceless person you're going to kill. Again, I'm remorseful over
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: Meredith because just for the fact that if nothing else,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: she drove a Chevy Cavalier. I can't tell you how
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: much I respect that. Why is that? Why, yep, he's
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: going to drive a little cheap white Chevy Cavalier. I
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: asked her why. She told me that it's sensible reasons
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: and everything. I respected her to no end for that.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: She didn't have a brain in her head, but hey,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: neither do you either. And sure, her life was just stupid,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: but the thing is, it was full, and she was
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: happy at it.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: Hilton was indicted in federal court for the murders of
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: John and Irene Bryant in 2011, and he ultimately pled guilty.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: He received four consecutive life sentences in 2013. Listen, there's
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: no way.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: I can make it on the outside. I've told you before,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: I'd have to turn right around, walk back in here.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: I'd have no place to go, nothing to do.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: But there's one more murder for which Hilton is being prosecuted,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: and the district attorney in Leon County, Florida, is determined
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: to get justice for the death of Cheryl Dunlap.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: But you tell them I'll fight it all away, and
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: if they want to spend $ 10 million.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 24: To try to execute a man who's not going to
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 24: live long to get executed, hey, just bring it the
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 24: hell up.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 15: But I ain't going to lay down for it.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: Hilton pleads not guilty in Florida, which means he will
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: go before a jury for the first time. And in
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: addition to hearing the physical and circumstantial evidence tying Hilton
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: to Cheryl's murder, they will hear from Hilton himself in
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: the form of the recordings he made with Dandy.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: I've gained 20 pounds in three months, three or four months.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: But it's not Hilton's seeming attempt at a video blog
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: that prosecutors want the jury to see. It's a recording
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: from December 3rd, 2007, only two days after Cheryl Dunlap
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: went missing.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: You got one there? The jurors also hear mention of
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 3: a man named Samuel Rayl.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: Who was Hilton's lawyer and friend in the 1980s. Rao
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: told Florida investigators that Hilton had been an advisor on
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: a low-budget thriller he produced called Deadly Run. Hilton, he said,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: was the one who came up with the movie's premise,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: a serial killer who releases women into the woods so
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: he can hunt them down and kill them like prey.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: Despite all this, Hilton appears to be confident about his
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: chances when he spoke to another prisoner in the Leon
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: County Jail.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 20: This man here, the guy chopped a woman up, Killed
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 20: her dog up in Georgia and all that too, ain't you?
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 20: She said, yeah. I mean, crazy or what? I said, no,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 20: not crazy. I looked at her and gave her that
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 20: little evil grin. I said, you're going to play it crazy,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 20: aren't you?
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: But the evidence against Hilton is powerful. Investigators have found
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: Cheryl Dunlap's DNA in Hilton's van, and while they were
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: never able to positively identify the bone fragments from the
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: burn pit, they discover a cigarette butt at the campsite
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: with Hilton's DNA. The jury's decision is unanimous. In April 2011,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: Gary Michael Hilton was found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: and grand theft. In a 2025 interview, Hilton confessed to
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: Cheryl Dunlap's murder for the first time, saying he abducted
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: her off the trails in Leon Sink's Geological Park because
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: he was running low on food. After running her ATM
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: card several times over the coming days, he ended her
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: life with a gunshot to the back of the head.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: the judge hands him the one sentence he's been trying
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: desperately to avoid, death. Today, almost 20 years after what
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: he calls his rampage, Hilton awaits execution at Union Correctional
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: Institution in Rayford, Florida. If you'd like to see select
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: new videos early and help us keep uncovering case files
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: that rarely come to light, you'll find extra footage and
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: unseen details on our Patreon. Channel memberships here on YouTube
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: also include early access to select new videos.