Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found. Before we get started, I just wanted to say that episodes contain disturbing discussions on
harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this podcast.
Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Why are you laughing? Because you're drinking wine.
I am drinking wine. I've had a heck of a week. Do you want to tell us about it? No. Okay.
Okay, one, two, three, go. Hi everyone. I'm Deb. And I'm Beth.
And we want to welcome you to our latest episode of Dying to be Found.
We are so glad that you are taking your time out of your day today to be with us.
But before we get started, Beth, what's new with you?
Well, I've been putting in a lot of overtime, two 16-hour days, and they asked me to stay again today.
But I wanted to be with you and all of our fans.
We appreciate it. Well, thanks for that because I have a really good story today.
This might be why I'm drinking wine. I really think that this one affects me a little bit emotionally.
I'll tell you why in just a minute. Anything else going on? Nothing.
Okay, so long hours and then you get to spend the evening with me today. Yes.
Goodie. All right. Listen, so we're going to get started.
And today we're going to be diving into a topic that really, really does hurt my heart.
Beth, this story really hits home with me because I'm really familiar with the area that I'm about to talk about.
Today, we're going to talk about Meredith Emerson.
And just upfront, just to tell you, she was abducted in the North Georgia mountains.
And I'm really familiar with these parts of the story.
So when I start talking about where she was hiking, I have been there a dozen times.
And so I've been known to go on day trips with John, with my other family members.
We go out there quite a bit. And I'll tell you what, even Beth, this area, I fell in love with the mountains,
but I also fell in love with John. That is so sweet.
Johnny.
We were out on the motorcycle one day and I've got to tell you, man, there's something about somebody being in leather.
He looks so good that day. I just knew he was mine.
So that's my story. So yeah, we're going to be talking about Meredith Emerson.
She was a 24 year old woman who lived in Beaufort, Georgia, which is about 30 miles or 48 kilometers east of Atlanta.
Meredith was abducted from Blood Mountain in Union County, Georgia on New Year's Day of 2008.
How is that in relation to Stone Mountain?
Stone Mountain is about 25 miles east of Atlanta and Blood Mountain is north of Atlanta.
I would say between the two spots is a good hour and a half drive for you to get there because at some point in time,
you have to get on two lane highways.
Okay.
Well, Blood Mountain is located in Neal's Gap, like I said, north of Atlanta.
And this is the highest peak of the Appalachian Trail within the state of Georgia.
Have you heard of the Appalachian Trail, Beth?
Sure have. I think we learned it in school.
For the listeners who are not familiar with the Appalachian Trail, it's a pretty famous hiking trail that spans over 14 out of the 50 states.
And it goes all the way from Georgia up into Maine.
It runs about 2,200 miles long or 3,540 kilometers and it hosts around 3 million hikers per year.
This would include sectional hikers and through travelers.
So if you're a sectional hiker, then what you're doing is you're taking a day trip.
You're just parking on the side of the road or grabbing a parking spot and just going hiking for the day just to get up to the high peaks.
If you're a through traveler, that means that you are hiking the entire trail.
Now there are some people that will travel for months all the way from Maine down to Georgia or vice versa.
Good Lord.
I know. I mean, I'm just first thing that I'm thinking is bears.
Well, 3 million hikers is an awful large number.
Yeah, but that's spread out over that 14 states.
It is a lot, but I'm going to say the majority of the population of hikers is the day travelers that just go up for the day.
I'm not an outdoor expert, but that's what I'm going to assume.
I know, you know, when I go up to Blood Mountain, there's a ton of people out there at all times.
Yeah, so that's what we're going to be talking about today.
Now a question.
Yeah.
Blood Mountain, was it named before the murder or after?
I think that at some point in time, there was conflict with the native Indians that lived in the area.
So that's why they called it that.
Okay.
Yeah.
On another note, just a little bit more clarification on this.
The mountains that we're talking about where Blood Mountain is located,
I see these mountains that Meredith went to visit on the day that she was abducted far off in the distance.
I swear, Beth, every time I see those mountains, ever since I've heard this story, I cannot not think of Meredith.
She's always on my mind when those mountains come into view.
And that's why it hurts my heart so much because to me it's a little personal and I can only envision what she went through during her ordeal.
I'm very anxious to hear.
Yeah.
I'm going to start by saying that Meredith Hope Emerson was born in Charleston, South Carolina on June 20th, 1983. She grew up near Raleigh, North Carolina, and then moved to Longmont, Colorado, but eventually made her way to Georgia when she went off to college.
She studied French at the University of Georgia.
Go dogs.
That's what they say around here.
Go dogs.
And she graduated in 2005.
Then she eventually moved on to become a sales manager of a local packaging company.
Meredith also held a blue belt in martial arts.
And I'm not really familiar with the order of the belts, Beth.
I did go look this up because I know you've got karate, you've got jujitsu.
If she had a blue belt in karate, then she would be at the fifth out of nine levels.
So she's pretty well versed in martial arts if she were taking karate.
Now in jujitsu, the blue belt is second level, but it teaches you many defensive techniques and takes about one to two years to obtain.
So I think either way, Beth, Meredith was pretty well versed with her martial arts.
She certainly was.
Well, she was also a huge outdoor enthusiast and loved to take her black lab Ella out hiking with her at any given time.
So where you saw Meredith, you would see Ella.
There's a pretty common picture that if you look Meredith up, you will always see the picture of her dog getting a certificate, I think, in training.
Yeah.
On New Year's Day of 2008, Meredith left her roommate a note and said that she would be taking Ella up to Blood Mountain for the day.
And this trip for her coming out of Beaufort, Georgia, was just over an hour drive to get there.
And as I mentioned, this area is common for day hikers.
So there would really be no reason why Meredith could not return home that night.
Well, Meredith did not return home and her roommate ended up reporting her missing the very next day.
Authorities thought that she might have been injured on the trail, so listed her as an overdue hiker when they began their search for Meredith.
It's good that they got right on it.
True. When you have a pattern that you're pretty predictable, it is very good that they did hop on it rather quickly because you'll see it really took very little time from the moment she went missing to actually capture the person who abducted her.
So, yeah, I'm glad they got on it quickly.
Well, as authorities canvassed the area, they had discovered several items left on the Appalachian Trail that looked like they might belong to Meredith.
First, they found some water bottles, a dog's leash and some dog treats.
And they also discovered a police baton in the area where the ground was disturbed as if there might have been a struggle.
I will say that this baton did not belong to Meredith, but once it was found, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations or GBI was called in to take over the case.
Wow, that's something finding something like that.
Yeah, because that was just January 2nd, the very next day.
So for them to come in quickly, like you said,
Meredith's car was discovered abandoned at the base of Blood Mountain in Vogel State Park on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008.
And by Thursday, they had search parties coming in along with 19 police agencies that took part in this search for Meredith.
Holy cow.
The media also played a large role in getting information out to the public, so when the police set up a tip line, calls began coming in almost immediately.
One of these calls on the tip line came from a man named John Tabor, an Atlanta businessman who identified a suspect in Meredith's disappearance as Gary Michael Hilton.
And Hilton was known to be a drifter in the area, and John just happened to employ him off and on as a handyman.
So when this case made headlines, Beth, John was easily able to identify Hilton as a person of interest,
especially since he had just engaged in a 20 minute phone call with him during the time that Meredith was missing.
I imagine that Hilton was probably calling John up to ask him for some side work to get some money,
because as you'll see in just a little while, this is sort of his MO. Anytime he ran out of money is when trouble started.
That's not good.
Well, there are reasons unknown as to why John waited close to three hours after that phone call before calling the tip line.
Who knows? He's a businessman. He probably got busy. He probably didn't see the news.
So when he provided the information to say that Hilton was known to frequent the woods in Union County,
where Blood Mountain was, along with his red dog named Dandy,
then he was able to give police officers a little bit more information.
I'm going to go ahead and just mention that according to Hilton in a later interview,
Meredith was probably still alive when John's call came into that tip line, Beth.
Oh my goodness.
Yep. Wow.
On January 4th of 2008, so that's three days later, Beth,
Hilton tried calling an old girlfriend from a payphone at a gas station in Forsyth County.
All right. Just to give our listeners a visual, the majority of these towns or counties that I'm talking about,
they were all located in the North Georgia area,
but Hilton had called an old girlfriend from a payphone at a gas station in Forsyth County.
And this call took place at a local huddle house restaurant.
Any ideas of what a huddle house is, Beth?
No. What is it?
I'm going to ask you that because you, do you know what a waffle house is?
Yes, I know waffle house because when I drive down to Georgia, my gosh, there's an awful lot of them.
Huddle house is very parallel to waffle house. It's just a different brand.
Uh-huh.
It's exactly the same thing. Yeah.
So Hilton had called his girlfriend from a local huddle house,
but workers there were likely not aware of the news footage that was going around
to give the most recent updates on the case.
And she had told Hilton that police had a suspect.
During this call at the huddle house, Hilton's ex-girlfriend asked him why he was even calling her in the first place.
She asked Hilton if he knew that law enforcement in the entire state was out looking for him.
And Hilton must not have realized that.
I wonder why this particular case drew in so many investigators.
Well, the news media for some reason really had a positive impact on the case.
Hilton must not have realized that the police were onto him so quickly because he immediately hung up
and began cleaning out his van to get rid of any evidence.
OMG.
Yeah. Well, I'm going to take you to the 911 call that came out when Hilton was trying to dispose of the evidence.
And to be honest with you, Beth, I'm getting a little bit better with our audio.
So I was going to see about putting that clip in there, but I need to look up the legalities first.
This 911 call came in from a male witness who was out and about
and identified someone as the person of interest in the missing woman case.
And he was referring to Meredith Emerson.
So during the 911 call, the caller sounded very nervous, but Beth,
he offered to go take this man down and hold him until the police got there.
Wow. And here we go again. Another sleuth.
Yep. There you go. Well, the 911 police said, yeah, no, don't do that.
The police are on their way. They'll be right there.
But that man, he was so good at what he was doing.
If you guys have a chance to go find that 911 call, this caller is an amazing individual.
He was spot on. He was able to identify the man.
He knew the person that was missing.
He was even able to identify the red dog named Dandy that this person was known to travel around with.
Hmm. That's quite interesting.
Yeah. Well, the caller was at a gas station located off of Ashford Dunwoody Road,
just outside of Atlanta, when he spotted the white Chevy Astro van that Hilton was said to be driving.
He was very confident that the driver was Hilton because he had been watching this case on the news.
Well, the caller also said on the 911 call that he was watching this man as he emptied out his van
and threw things into a dumpster at the gas station that he was at.
Good Lord.
So he's pretty much like, please hurry, please hurry and to get here because I'm ready to take this guy down.
And it turned out later, Beth, that Hilton was disposing of three of Meredith's fleece shirts,
her backpack and her Georgia driver's license in that dumpster.
Oh.
Yeah. Well, police drove up to find Hilton vacuuming his van and washing it down with some sort of
diluted bleach solution. So obviously he's guilty or he's acting guilty.
For sure.
And when Meredith's shirts were collected, this hurts my heart.
They still had blood on them, Beth, that had not had time to dry.
And authorities believe that Meredith was killed the same day that Hilton was apprehended,
which was on January 4th.
Meredith's dog, Ella, was found wandering in a grocery store parking lot in Cumming, Georgia,
which is located 50 miles or 80 kilometers away from Blood Mountain.
And they were able to identify Ella due to her microchip.
This is just another reason to be sure you have your pets microchipped, folks.
Yeah, I've got my dogs chipped and it's almost like they live in a different world.
They can go in and out of the backyard frequently, but they never really see what's on the other side,
unless we take them to the dog park.
So I just kind of wanted to talk to you at this moment, Beth, the 911 call comes in.
Hilton's pretty much surrounded.
He's caught red-handed with a lot of Meredith's belongings.
So he was immediately arrested.
And I wanted to kind of go over his background a little bit so you can get a clear picture on the
type of human being that he is.
He is considered a highly intelligent, but very eccentric individual.
Remind you of anybody?
Yeah, dad.
Yeah.
You.
Me?
Yes.
Don't compare me with this Hilton guy.
No.
I'm just eccentric.
You're just eccentric.
I'm intelligent and eccentric.
Okay.
Thanks for the compliment there, Beth.
You're welcome.
All right, so he also had a troubled childhood and ended up joining the military and was a
paratrooper when he turned 18.
Okay.
How many people have troubled childhoods?
I'll raise my hand.
Yeah.
Did we grow up to be serial killers?
No.
No, there's a time and a place to break the chain, people.
That's not an excuse.
Before his arrest for Meredith's abduction, Hilton was a known criminal who had a record of
arrests for possession and distribution of marijuana, theft by taking, plus other
misdemeanors and felonies, including hit and run and arson.
So he's just a bad character all around.
He certainly is.
He lived aimlessly for the past couple of years before Meredith's abduction and once
told his friends that he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and only had six months
to live, so he planned to live out the rest of his days in the woods.
Now I had to go look that up because this sounds fishy to me.
Multiple sclerosis is not a timeline where you are only given a certain amount of time
to live and news flash, this guy's still alive today.
So what a crock.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Yeah, so people who are diagnosed with MS, Beth, are not usually given that time frame,
like six years, and according to the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry,
the average lifespan for patients with MS is 74 to 81 years.
Hilton is in his 70s right now.
He might have MS, but that I only have six years to live.
You should feel sorry for me.
I'm going to go out into the woods.
That's baloney.
Now, when he went to trial, in order to avoid the death penalty, Hilton made a plea deal
with authorities and told them where they could find Meredith's body, which was located
in a state park in Dawson County, Georgia.
Now, again, let's just give you a little bit of a visual here.
Blood Mountain, if you just take the road down into the next county, you can go up and down
a major highway that goes from Dahlonega, Georgia to Dawsonville, Georgia to Cumming.
This is really the area that he was seen quite a bit.
At this point in time, he had said that he had left Meredith in a state park in Dawson County,
which is between Blood Mountain and Cumming, Georgia, and he let them know that her head
would be missing.
Oh my gosh.
That's horrid.
Yeah, and I just keep going back to the fact, Beth, that his employer called the tip line
and she was probably still alive.
This whole story is gut wrenching.
Well, I'm surprised with her blue belt that she wasn't able to defend herself against
this man.
Well, I'm glad you brought that up because I'm going to actually tell you about that
in just a little bit.
Okay.
During his initial interview, Hilton stated that he had targeted Meredith because she
was a woman.
I mean, she's a pretty tiny woman too.
If you looked at her picture, she's pretty petite.
I'm just going to say that the renegade that she is with her blue belt and she could kick
somebody's butt most definitely, she's a tough little woman.
She was pretty petite, but I mean, she's a little renegade and he followed her along
the Appalachian Trail, but obviously found it pretty difficult to keep up with her because
Meredith was 24, athletic and in very good shape because if you've ever walked up that
mountain, yeah, you better be in good shape to do that.
Hilton at the time was also in his 60s and pretty much was and was.
Just going to say it.
Hilton proceeded to lie in wait for Meredith so he couldn't keep up with her, Beth.
So he decided to lie in wait for her until she returned down the mountain from Neal's
Gap, which is that highest peak in the state of Georgia.
And then he ambushed her at Knife Point and a police baton.
Do you remember me saying a little while ago that when the GBI came in, they had found
some things on the trail that looked like they belonged to Meredith?
Yes.
They had also found a policeman's baton and so he had ambushed her with a policeman's
baton and a knife.
So I wonder how he got the policeman's baton.
Well, you know, he was a paratrooper.
So he probably had connections to get those sort of things.
If he had military background, I'm sure it's a little bit easier.
True.
Hilton admitted that Meredith yelled for help and almost got the upper hand, Beth.
This is where her martial arts comes in because she used her martial arts training to
protect herself.
In fact, she was able to disarm Hilton, who had both that knife and that police baton
that I had mentioned that was left behind on the Appalachian Trail.
However, Beth, this is the unfortunate part.
At some point in time, Meredith lost her footing.
Now, she's on a pretty steep hill, so she's trying to work her martial arts.
I don't know what the terminology is, so my apologies to anybody out there who takes
martial arts.
But she was exercising her martial arts and she lost her footing.
And this is when he was able to take control again.
Several witnesses on that hiking trail stated that they saw Meredith walking with an older
man down that mountain.
Get out.
Yeah.
I wonder why she wasn't able to just make a break for it.
I know.
Even if he did have that knife, if he couldn't keep up with her to go up the mountain and
then there were people around, I don't know why people would not have been able to ambush
him.
You know what I mean?
Take him down.
Well, once Hilton got Meredith to his van, she'd asked him, what about Ella, her dog?
So as nice as he was, Beth, he went back to get Ella and then proceeded to use his own
dog, Dandy, to win Meredith's trust while holding her captive.
So they had something in common.
They had dogs.
This guy is really weird.
Yeah.
Well, after Meredith's abduction, he drove to Gainesville, Georgia and attempted to use
Meredith's ATM card around 930 that night.
For the next three days, Hilton tried to get Meredith's PIN number for her ATM card and
attempted to use it at multiple locations in the surrounding North Georgia counties.
But Meredith, my God, she's such a whippersnapper.
She continued to give Hilton the wrong combination in order just to buy herself some
time.
You know, that's a risk because you've got this man who's holding you captive and what's
it going to take to tick him off if you keep giving him the wrong PIN number.
That's right.
Hilton stated that over the three days, he had reassured Meredith that he was not going
to kill her and that she would be released.
He eventually tied her to a tree in the Dawson forest, which lies between Atlanta and North
Georgia mountains where Meredith was abducted.
Hilton thought it would be really nice, Beth, to go take a coffee break at his van.
Wow.
Yeah, so he did that before returning to Meredith and beating her to death with a car
jack and then beheading her.
I have tears.
I know you do too.
Yeah, I do.
I'm telling you, this has got to be one of the most impactful stories that I've ever
heard on other podcasts or TV shows.
And ever since that day, I just had to make sure this story was told.
Meredith's body was recovered on Monday, January 7th of 2008, just one week from the
first time that she had disappeared.
And her autopsy revealed that her cause of death was a blow to the head.
There was like a two and a half hour interview on YouTube that I saw.
I'll put that in the show notes.
I'm not going to give this guy the time of day to sit there and watch, but I wanted to
touch on a couple of his theories because he's so intelligent and eccentric.
After he was caught, Hilton basically had the attitude of I am who I am and this is
what I do.
Okay.
Just accept me for who I am because this is me.
Meaning he had no desire to be respectful or a respectable citizen.
Hold a job or anything else.
He would get his money by robbing, abducting and killing people as if this was normal
behavior, Beth.
For an example, he had said, and I quote, if I'm going to go out and kill someone, I
need to have a reason.
But in Meredith's case, I went against everything I usually follow.
I had $40 and plenty of food, so there was no reason to kill her.
So I just went against everything I said and killed her anyway.
Unquote.
I mean, there's just no reasoning.
No, you can't reason with a criminal.
You can't.
And during his interviews, Hilton voices several theories about his behavior as a
criminal, Beth.
He was quoted as saying, my advice to people, if they're ever abducted, is to
engage your abductor and to make yourself a person to them.
Did Meredith make herself a person to you for three days, Mr. Hilton?
I've actually heard advice in self-defense back in grade nine, and they did say that
you need to make it personal so they know you're a human and just everything that
goes along with it.
I mean, it makes sense.
You'd have to find that avenue to do that.
And Meredith, for all accounts, did try to buy as much time as she could.
And it's just unfortunate.
Yeah, I just don't get why he chose to do this.
Well, because he's a serial killer, Beth.
And that means that she was not the only victim because I'm actually going to
include some of the victims in just a couple of minutes.
Oh, okay.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
I'll tell you what.
Years ago, when I first saw this story, I don't believe that they had connected
Hilton with any other killings.
So he was likely not classified as a serial killer at the time, but he certainly
is today.
And I think just through the investigations, they were able to connect the dots.
Okay.
So that's why he did it.
That's his MO.
On February 25th, the 2008, Hustler Magazine, I don't even know if they're
still in business, but Hustler Magazine asked for photos of Meredith's crime
scene as part of an open records request.
With the open records request, Beth, reporters in the United States are able
to file a request to obtain records on just about everything.
That surprises me.
Can you not do that in Canada?
Well, I don't know.
I'll have to look it up, but I really don't know.
But it just seems so invasive.
Yeah.
And in Meredith's case, I completely agree because Hustler's request was
denied due to the sensitive nature of the case.
We know what happened to Meredith.
And for anybody to want to publish that in a magazine, that is beyond horrific.
Yeah, exactly.
Georgia legislators soon introduced the Meredith Emerson Privacy Act law to
exempt crime scene photos from that open records law.
That's a great thing.
Autopsy photos are already exempt.
As far as I know, Hustler Magazine was never able to obtain those photos.
I don't read the magazine.
Do you know what Hustler Magazine is?
I think so.
It caters to the male population, let's put it that way.
Yes.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
All right.
So I'm actually going to talk a little bit about Gary Hilton as a serial killer
because he did have other victims, Beth.
Dear Lord.
Meredith's case really opened up evidence against him.
And like I said, there were times where the police in different areas were able
to connect the dots.
Dennis is barking.
Why don't you have a wine?
I'm going to have a wine.
That's a lovely wine.
I'm drinking Pinot Grigio.
OK, so I'm going to talk about several people that were connected or maybe not
connected with Gary Hilton.
I'm going to go in chronological order to the best of my ability here, starting
with Judy Smith, who was 50 years of age.
Judy's remains were discovered on a hiking trail in Asheville, North Carolina.
Hilton cannot be directly linked to this case, nor has he ever confessed to killing
Judy Smith.
But authorities strongly believe that he has something to do with her death
because another one of his victims was found tied to a tree in the same facility
that Judy's remains were discovered.
Oh, yeah, he's definitely guilty.
Yeah.
And so, again, if you're thinking about the Appalachian Trail, all of these areas,
his MO is definitely to work the trails, whether it's in North Carolina, Tennessee,
Georgia, wherever he's at, he's going to be working the trails.
Patrice Andres, age 38, was a Georgia hairdresser from Cumming, Georgia.
Patrice was last seen on April 15th of 2004, somewhere around lunchtime.
And again, Gary Hilton cannot be directly linked to this case, but authorities
believe that he abducted Patrice after he admitted that one of his favorite places
to go was to Patrice's hair salon.
Oh, come on.
Right?
Yes.
Money was missing from the salon's cash register when police investigated
Patrice's disappearance.
So again, Beth, he's working the trails.
Anytime he needs money, he's going to rob, steal, kill, whatever he needs to do
to get money.
Rosanna Milana was age 26 from Miami, Florida.
And Hilton, again, cannot be directly linked to Rosanna's disappearance either.
But her father states that his daughter was seen with someone bearing a strong
resemblance to this serial killer.
And Rosanna last talked to her dad on December 6th of 2005 when she told him
that she had taken a bus to North Carolina to go hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Yeah, everything goes towards Gary Hilton.
She was last seen on December 7th of 2005 in Bryson City, North Carolina.
I really don't know where that is, but it's up in the Asheville area.
She was buying a backpack in a general store.
And the store clerk identified Rosanna's companion as a known preacher who
traveled around camp areas and that Rosanna appeared somewhat nervous when he
was waiting on the couple.
So I just don't know how Hilton is able to take control of these people.
I don't neither because he probably is a ruffian looking scraggly and that's how
I...
Oh, he is.
Have you...
Oh, how you're envisioning him?
You are spot on.
You're telling me you did not go look him up yet?
No.
Yeah, you are spot on.
I'm going to do that right now.
Well, while you do that, Beth, I'm going to talk about John Bryant and his wife,
Irene Bryant.
This was the sweetest couple who were in their 80s, Beth, who loved to go out to
the mountains and go hiking.
They were known for their love of hiking and often let their children know that
they would be out for the day enjoying fresh air, which is why their kids were
not initially alarmed when they did not hear from them on October 20th of 2007.
The couple was reported missing on November 9th of 2007 when they never turned up.
So they likely told their family, we're going to go hiking.
Again, if you are familiar with the area, you can easily get a cabin for a couple
days when the Bryant's family did not hear from them, then they just didn't
think anything of it.
But once the authorities were alerted that the couple were overdue hikers, just
like Meredith was, they began their search and discovered Irene Bryant's deceased
body just 30 yards from her SUV in the Pigsaw National Forest in Brevard, North
Carolina.
She had been beaten to death and had died of blunt force trauma with a weapon,
Beth, that was consistent to a police baton.
Come on.
John Bryant was eventually recovered months later in February of 2008 by a
hunter who had discovered his body near an illegal dumping site.
John had died of a gunshot wound to the head.
So that to me was a little off according to Hilton's MO because he's never used a
shotgun before.
Maybe it was John's gun.
Maybe he got a hold of it.
Mr. Bryant was 84 years old.
So did you look up Hilton yet?
Yes, I'm looking at him and he really is a rough scoundrel.
Yeah, scraggly rough scoundrel.
So exactly.
And then his evil look when he's in jail.
Oh, Beth, that has got to be one of the most evil mugshots I've ever seen.
I mean, you can see the devil in his eyes.
Yes, you can.
Getting back to these cases, I just find it funny that he's going for the head.
I just wonder what he's thinking.
True, because if you watch enough documentaries, there's always a reason.
They always have a reason.
And I'm going to tell you right now, it's probably mummy issues.
That's what I was thinking too.
But you're right.
What better way to get the upper hand than just to knock him out, you know?
But then he does take it too far, obviously.
Authorities did believe that Hilton's motive to kill the Bryant couple
was to rob them and use their ATM card, because again, that's what he did.
Bank surveillance videos showed someone trying to use an ATM card on October 22nd
in Ducktown, Tennessee, which is somewhere around 100 miles from where Irene was found.
And the person in this video did resemble, because I've seen the video, Beth,
his mannerism and body type did resemble Hilton.
And at the time when he used that ATM, he was able to withdraw $300 from the Bryant's account.
Bless that couple.
I know.
They must have really wanted their escape and gave him the numbers.
Well, if he led Meredith to believe that he wasn't going to do anything to them,
he probably did the same thing with the Bryant's.
Yeah, for sure.
So Cheryl Hodges Dunlap, age 46, was a Sunday school teacher from Crawfordville, Florida.
Cheryl was first reported missing on December 1st of 2007 and later discovered on December 19th,
dead and dismembered in the Apalachicola National Forest near Tallahassee, Florida.
A local bank caught a masked man on their surveillance camera,
attempting to use Cheryl's ATM card on December 1st.
A state forestry officer encountered Hilton close to the scene.
Beth ran his plates, but did not detain him.
Hilton's next victim was Michael Scott Lewis, age 27.
And on December 6th of 2007, Michael Scott's dismembered torso and legs were discovered
in the Tomoka River inside the Tomoka State Park,
which is located in Ormond Beach near Daytona, Florida, and his head was never found.
So there you go. He did it again.
Good Lord.
I thought that was odd too.
Now he did go after Mr. Bryant, who was the 84-year-old hiker with his lovely wife,
but who knows?
There's no way I could even say how these two are, you know, how their paths crossed.
But in this case, Beth, Hilton cannot be directly linked to this case,
but authorities have a strong suspicion to believe that he is directly linked to Michael Scott's murder.
And this time he went with a male instead of female.
So true.
I'm going to talk here about Nancy Linkesh.
She's not a victim of Hilton, Beth, but she did encounter him.
Nancy was age 36 and a sales rep from Gainesville, Georgia.
Nancy lived to tell the tale of her encounter with Gary Hilton.
She and Hilton had crossed paths on the Byron Herbert Rees Trail in Union County,
which is the same county where Meredith was abducted, Beth.
Right.
She had encountered Hilton one day before Meredith went missing.
The reason we know that Nancy's encounter occurred is because it was brought up briefly
during Hilton's January 31st arraignment when he pled guilty to Meredith Emerson's murder.
So just another witness on the stand.
Hilton had approached Nancy on the hiking trail,
but she happened to be with a group of people who were taking a break from hiking two miles up the mountain.
It was late in the afternoon and the temperatures were dropping.
So Nancy began walking quickly ahead of her group when she saw Hilton.
She was a few hundred yards ahead of her group when Nancy came upon Dandy,
Hilton's red or ginger retriever that was on the trail with Hilton.
So of course they're going to start talking about the dog because if you're like a dog magnet with me,
I like tiny little ones.
You like the bigger dogs.
I do like big dogs.
They're like body pillows.
Give me a chihuahua any day.
They're like a little dog with a big attitude.
I had two chihuahuas.
I remember those chihuahuas.
They were so cute and they didn't bark.
They didn't bark.
No.
As they were descending the mountain,
Hilton walked ahead of Nancy and they talked about Dandy for just a couple of minutes.
When Hilton became agitated,
he told Nancy that he gets so angry with people, Beth,
who come up the mountain that are not prepared.
So she was probably telling him that she was going down the mountain to get her jacket
because the temperatures were dropping.
So that's when he got angry with her and said basically that she was unprepared.
She had assumed, of course, that he was referring to her light outerwear for the hike,
but Hilton abruptly stopped, turned to face Nancy, and then Beth, this is creepy,
he asked her if she was alone.
I'm sure that she said she was with her group,
but then he asked if she had a cell phone and again she said no.
Oh, I hope she didn't give it up.
Her friends soon caught up to her
and both parties ended up taking two different trails in different directions.
But as Nancy and her group reached the bottom of their trail,
they turned around and saw that Hilton was coming down behind them.
Nancy at this point realized in the following days after watching the news
that she had come face to face with Gary Hilton,
who just may have been shopping for his next victim.
That is, that's really scary.
I wonder what emotions and I just wonder everything about the shock she would be in.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Totally agree with you.
I mean, she dodged a bullet.
She did.
So there we have it.
I'm going to go ahead and sum things up.
Gary Michael Hilton traveled around quite a bit in those three days
that led up to his arrest for Meredith Emerson's abduction.
He was seen in at least six counties and talked to numerous people along the way.
During his arrest for the abduction and murder of Meredith Emerson,
he was also identified as a person of interest
or directly connected to at least six other murders,
which I find interesting though.
And he's never confessed to any of these
because he's probably linked to some of these cases
that I had just finished talking about.
And I just find how arrogant that he wouldn't even confess to any of those.
You're obviously linked,
but what arrogance that you're not going to give families peace of mind
when they're already in turmoil, you know?
Very true.
But that's his narcissistic personality.
He currently sits on death row in Florida
for the murder of Cheryl Hodges Dunlap,
who was the 46-year-old Sunday school teacher from Florida
who went missing in the Apalachicola National Forest in Tallahassee, Florida.
So he's on death row for one,
but do remember that he was at least charged
and convicted for Meredith Emerson's killing as well.
Jeez, after all of that, he only is on death row for one killing.
They just don't have enough evidence in several of those other cases.
True. I hate when that happens.
I know. I do too.
You'd think with DNA, there would be evidence.
When was DNA?
DNA came out really at the very beginning of the new millennium.
So even though it was 2007,
I'm sure it was not as sophisticated as it is today.
But I don't know.
He's probably enjoying himself behind bars
because he's got a bed to sleep in.
But rest in peace, Meredith Emerson,
because you in my eyes are a true renegade.
And I personally appreciate
how you tried your best to outwit Hilton,
both physically through your martial arts training
and mentally by not giving up that pin number.
So you go, girl.
You're really not forgotten.
Well, Deb, that was a sad story.
Yeah.
I think it's the saddest one that we've done.
Yeah. I mean, this one, for some reason,
just really hits home with me.
And it's probably because I know the area so well.
That's Meredith Emerson
and the story behind her strength and capabilities.
It's just unfortunate.
Well, I'm glad you told the story
and everybody is now aware of this man.
Should he go up for parole?
Well, in Florida, he is on death row.
So I'd have to look at the laws,
but he will never get out if he's on death row.
Good, good, good.
Yep.
So do you have a teachable moment for us, Deb?
Yeah, Beth, I do have a teachable moment.
If you're going to go out into isolated areas
like hiking trails,
it's always best to use the buddy system.
In Meredith's case, she did everything right.
She used her martial arts training.
She used her wits to buy herself time.
And she even had a dog with her.
But sometimes, Beth, that's really not enough.
And I had mentioned that I personally know the area
where Meredith was abducted.
And we'll say that hikers do tend to have the same camaraderie
when they're on the trails,
because it's like a hobby to people.
When you have the same hobby, you have a lot in common.
You look out for each other.
But in today's day and age, it's important to buddy up.
And think about taking some sort of protection with you on your hikes.
That is one thing, Beth, that I did not see
while I was doing my research.
Did Meredith have any type of protection on her?
She probably thought that Ella was enough to keep her protected,
but that's not always the case.
Take a hunting knife, a stun gun,
even see if you can get a police baton,
and make sure that the protection that you are carrying is legal.
But secondly, these items can easily be strapped to your belt
or on your leg, underneath your clothing.
So just take some protection with you and buddy up.
Well, thank you for sharing this story.
It certainly has me a little bit more spooked
and a little bit more aware of what my surroundings should be.
And keep on the lookout.
Yeah, you just have to in today's day and age.
Mm-hmm.
Just can't be too careful.
No.
So that's Meredith Emerson.
And that's a wrap.
That is a wrap.
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