Meredith Emerson murder Discussion Thread #2

[KittyMom]

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/florida/news-article.aspx?storyid=99677

Peering Into The Mind of Gary Hilton

By Keith Whitney
WXIA-TV 11alive Atlanta

ATLANTA, GA -- 11Alive News asked a forensic psychologist to review and provide analysis of a police dash-cam video of murder suspect Gary Hilton.

Two murders are now linked to Gary Michael Hilton, the suspect in the murder of 24-year-old Meredith Emerson.

The second homicide is that of 46-year-old Cheryl Dunlap of Florida, who was killed and robbed while hiking two weeks before Emerson’s death.

"He is the primary focus, he is the primary suspect, he is the target of our investigation," pronounced Maj. Mike Wood of the Leon County Sheriff’s Department in Florida.

Detectives there said Hilton was seen -- and stopped -- in the Apalachicola National Forest by Rangers.

"He was encountered by law enforcement in a routine check by US Forestry officers who ran his tag out in the national forest," Maj. Wood said. "There were no wants or warrants that came back."

Hilton was also stopped by a deputy in Cherokee County last October, an incident that was recorded by the patrol car's dash-cam. October is the same month John and Irene Bryant were murdered in North Carolina. Agents there are also trying to determine if Hilton had a role in the couple's killing.

The Cherokee County dash-cam video revealed a side of Hilton's demeanor that is hard to reconcile when compared to the monster behind the murder-decapitation of Emerson. Hilton is seen in the video smiling and joking with the deputy, full of explanations as to why he is trespassing in the private hunting preserve.

"First of all, he's not a person with a mental illness," observed forensic psychiatrist Dr. Dave Davis. "He doesn't have any problem with his speech being able to understand what's going on in the interview. He's actually glib."

11Alive News asked Dr. Davis, who has not treated Hilton, to review and analyze the dash-cam video. Davis said that if Hilton is guilty of the hikers’ murders, he is likely a master conman.

"Psychopathic people, or what we call anti-social personality disorder can appear quite normal," explained Davis. "All these people have sadistic personality characteristics. If he's committed these crimes, he could well be a sadistic psychopath."


Created: 1/9/2008 10:46:30 PM
Updated: 1/10/2008 12:01:33 PM

[KittyMom]

http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=206017

BLAIRSVILLE - About 300 people braved the single-digit temperatures in Blairsville Sunday to pay tribute to murdered hiker Meredith Emerson. Participants took part in a memorial walk at Meeks Park.

[KittyMom]

http://www.fayettedailynews.com/article.php?id_news=474

Virginia Baker attended Meredith Emerson’s memorial service last week and tried to help her mother with the pain.

“She tried to comfort her, but Meredith’s mother was still in shock,” said Lindsay Baker.

“But we know exactly what she is going through, and Virginia just wanted her to know that we are here if she ever needs to talk.

“Because one day, she’ll wake up and all the friends will be gone, all the flowers on the grave will be dead, and she’ll realize that her daughter is dead.

“It hits you like a brick. It’s the worst feeling you can ever imagine.”

:(

[KittyMom]

http://media.www.redandblack.com/media/storage/paper871/news/2008/01/29/News/Fund-Created.For.Slain.Alumna-3172632.shtml

Family, friends and professors of slain University alumna Meredith Emerson said she had a passion for French language and culture. With the newly-created study abroad scholarship in her name, students with a similar passion can experience life in French-speaking countries.

Titled the "Meredith Hope Emerson Memorial Fund for Study Abroad," the scholarship will give one University student each year the opportunity to study in a French-speaking country, according to a Jan. 25 release.

[KittyMom]

http://www.timescall.com/news_story.asp?ID=6117

The Rev. Jane Filkin acknowledged that Meredith Emerson’s death forced people to ask some hard questions about life. But she also called upon a Scripture that was cited during Emerson’s Georgia funeral: Romans 8:31-39, which concludes, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“Meredith’s death reminds us that evil and darkness exist,” Filkin said. “But this passage reminds us there’s a greater story here. ... Though she was taken from this world with brutality, this passage calls her a conqueror. I don’t want us to miss that.”

[KittyMom]

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=bhleefk.o280i6o&Uy=cw9v77&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1

Posted by lodgecamp on January 26, 2008 at 10:10 a.m. (Suggest removal)

When my climbing partner and I heard this tragic story we were preparing to embark on a climbing expedition to Mexico to ascend Citlaltepetl, aka: Pico De Orizaba. At 18,500ft it is the third highest mountain in North America. As a way of extending our deepest condolences to Meredith's family and friends and in honor of her spirit we made this banner and carried it with us on the mountain. Our intent was to get the DC to print the picure this week so we hand delivered a digital copy to the office down town but apparently they chose not to use it. Please feel free to follow this link and view our memorial to Meredith. sincerely, Shawn Collins and Jennifer Klich, Boulder,Colorado www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bhleefk.o28...

[KittyMom]

http://www.cbs46.com/news/15183663/detail.html

POSTED: 9:17 am EST January 31, 2008
UPDATED: 12:20 pm EST January 31, 2008

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. -- Gary Hilton is expected to plead guilty Thursday in the slaying of hiker Meredith Emerson.

Hilton will make the plea at a hearing at 1 p.m. in Dawsonville.

Union County District Attorney Stan Gunter said he was told by his counterpart in Dawson County, Lee Darragh, that Hilton "is entering a guilty plea."

Gunter said Darragh did not provide details and that he didn't ask for any.

It's not clear what charge Hilton will plead guilty to or what sentence he might receive as part of any plea agreement.

Gunter had told reporters previously that Hilton had led authorities to Emerson's body earlier this month in exchange for an agreement that prosecutors not seek the death penalty against him for Emerson's killing. Darragh has not made clear in public comments since then whether he would honor that agreement.

Emerson disappeared on New Year's Day while hiking with her dog at Vogel State Park in Union County. That is when Hilton kidnapped her, according to prosecutors.

Authorities said Emerson was alive for three more days.

Investigators found her decapitated body Jan. 7 in a Dawson County forest after Hilton led them to the area, authorities said.

Hilton was charged with murder.

Hilton is also being investigated in several other killings.

[KittyMom]

http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=110441&GID=Y+08/m5xkCfMhzrwrlykLw7xlDyiFpZJYQfVPRys14A%3D

Wearing shackles, a bullet-proof vest, and an orange jail uniform, Georgia drifter Gary Hilton, 61, has just entered a guilty plea to the murder of UGA graduate Meredith Emerson.

The guilty plea came just three hours after a 23-member grand jury in Dawson County handed down a true bill indictment of murder against Hilton.

During a hearing that got underway just after 1 a.m., District Attorney Lee Darragh read the murder indictment and said Hilton had signed a plea of guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. Investigators told Hilton that he could make such a deal if he were to lead them to Emerson's body, which he did earlier this month.

Emerson's relatives, who live in Longmont, Colorado, entered the courtroom to confront Hilton when they make a statement at the hearing.

[KittyMom]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/01/31/hilton.plea.ap/index.html

DAWSONVILLE, Georgia (AP) -- A drifter pleaded guilty Thursday to murdering a young woman who went missing while hiking in the north Georgia mountains. He was swiftly sentenced to life in prison.

Gary Michael Hilton, 61, attended the hearing in an orange jumpsuit and a bulletproof vest. He signed a plea agreement earlier in the day, District Attorney Lee Darragh said.

Judge Bonnie Oliver told Hilton that she agreed with the plea deal, which would allow parole after 30 years, because he likely would have died in prison before the state could have executed him had he been sentenced to death.

Meredith Emerson's father, David Emerson, said no punishment for Hilton is too great.

Darragh said Hilton intended to abduct the 24-year-old woman to take money from her bank accounts but eventually he knew he would take her life.

Darragh said Hilton told Emerson he was going to let her go and then struck her several times with a jack handle until she died.
Emerson was believed to have been kidnapped in Union County and killed in Dawson County, authorities have said.

She was beaten to death, then decapitated three days after her disappearance, according to an autopsy report. Her body was found nearly 50 miles from where she vanished during a New Year's Day hike.

Hilton was the last person seen with Emerson on the hiking trail and had tried to use her credit card, according to his arrest warrant.


Total crap...he knew when he approached her he would kill her. He'd done it before.

[KittyMom]

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2008/01/31/threedays_0201.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

'I would like to think she was doing everything she could,' DA says

Meredith Emerson, who had a green belt in judo, put up such a fight against Gary Michael Hilton that he dropped his police-style baton while trying to kidnap her in the mountains of North Georgia on New Year's Day.

A diminutive but scrappy woman who stood 5-foot-4, Emerson continued to resist Hilton during the next three days, repeatedly giving the 61-year-old drifter incorrect pass codes for her ATM cards.

The young woman, a vibrant 24-year-old with a steel will, may have acted not just to save herself, but to help authorities apprehend her captor.

"It is unclear, I would like to think she was doing everything she could to ensure that he would perhaps get caught during his efforts to use the ATMs," Dawson County District Attorney Lee Darragh said.

Hilton was arrested on Jan. 4, and later led authorities to Emerson's body. Darragh described Emerson's three-day ordeal in court Thursday moments before Judge Bonnie Oliver accepted Hilton's guilty plea to murder and sentenced him to life in prison.

With Emerson's parents watching from the second row, Darragh gave the following account, which was drawn from authorities' interviews with Hilton, and confirmed by his public defender, Rob McNeill.

[B]Emerson was not the first hiker Hilton approached on a trail on Jan. 1. He considered another potential victim, but "she was with other people."
Emerson became his focus for two reasons: She was alone on Blood Mountain, and she was female.

He wanted her money. And he knew that he would eventually kill her.

Witnesses had reported spotting Hilton following Emerson in the mountains that day.

One witness, a former law enforcement officer, said he saw Hilton carrying a police-style baton and a large knife on his belt. That witness later found two water bottles, a dog leash and some dog treats along with the baton on the edge of a hiking trail.

"There was in fact a struggle at that location between Ms. Emerson and this defendant," Darragh told the judge as Hilton sat to his left, wearing a dark bulletproof vest over his orange jail uniform and staring straight ahead. "This defendant, however, was able to place her under his control eventually."

Hilton took Emerson back to her car, where he stole her purse and ATM cards. Then he placed her in his van and drove her around to various locations in North Georgia, seeking to get money out of ATMs with her cards. She kept giving him incorrect PIN numbers.

He never was able to withdraw any money from Emerson's account. He was videotaped trying to do so at an ATM machine in Canton.

On Jan. 3, Hilton called a former employer, seeking some money and his old job back. The next day, Hilton told Emerson he was going to let her go.

He "secured" her in Dawson Forest, went to his van and returned with the handle of a car jack. He struck her on the head several times until she died. In hopes to conceal his crime after beating her to death, he decapitated her.

"He used the phrase that he did those things for 'forensic purposes,'" Darragh said.
Hilton was given an opportunity to address the court after his guilty plea but refused. When the hearing ended, sheriff's deputies led Hilton to a side exit, where he appeared to frantically reach for the door handle.

McNeill, his attorney, said Hilton is remorseful but decided not to address Emerson's parents in court because "anything he could say would be hollow and empty."

"He realizes what he has done to the family," McNeill said. "He realizes what a special person Meredith was."

She "actually did fight him in the beginning until she was unable to anymore," Darragh told reporters after the court hearing.
Added McNeill: "She was absolutely a hero. She did everything she possibly could" to survive.

The chicken --it! Frantic to find the handle 'cause he was too much of a coward and face what he'd done. And his atty was flinging crap about Hilton's remorse. The only remorse this creep has is that he didn't get away AGAIN.

[animallady]

If Hilton were truly remorseful he would confess all of his crimes to LE.

:1222423: Meredith was a beautiful, intelligent, courageous young woman.

:1222423: My prayers are with her loved ones.

[Pandabear]

:1222423: to Meredith for her courage in fighting back and :1222423: to her family and friends. You are in my thoughts and prayers.


I wonder, does this guilty plea and sentencing to life in prison affect the charges brought against him in the Bryant case? Could he still be sentenced to death in that case?

[KittyMom]

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2008/01/31/hilton_0201.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

UPDATED: 9:19 p.m. January 31, 2008
Hiker's parents blast killer
Drifter pleads guilty to murder, is spared death

Thirty days after their daughter was last seen alive, Meredith Emerson's parents confronted her killer Thursday in a Dawson County courtroom with angry words and raw emotion.

Flanked by five armed deputies, Gary Michael Hilton acknowledged his guilt in the brutal decapitation of the 24-year-old hiker remembered by her father as "an inspiration who stood for all things good."

Hilton will immediately begin serving a life sentence in the Georgia state penitentiary in Jackson. He will not be eligible for parole until 2038, when the drifter and petty criminal will be 91 years old.

Hilton's plea is the latest development in a case that has shocked Georgians, spread fear among hikers and captured national media attention.

The murder case has moved swiftly to a close since Emerson went missing on New Year's Day. That day, witnesses saw Hilton, 61, talking to Emerson on a hiking trail on Blood Mountain in Union County. On Jan. 4, authorities found bloody hiking clothes belonging to Emerson in a garbage bin near a Cumming convenience store where Hilton had placed a call from a pay phone, according to an arrest warrant.

The next day, police captured Hilton near Chamblee after 911 callers spotted him cleaning out his white van at a service station on Ashford Dunwoody Road.

In the Dawson courtroom Thursday, Hilton wore a bulletproof vest and displayed no emotion. He made no eye contact with his victim's parents, who sat just a few feet away though at one point during the proceedings, Meredith's father, David Emerson, stared quizzically in Hilton's direction.

In his statement to the court, Emerson revealed bitterness toward Hilton: "I only pray that he suffers immensely for his heinous acts and that even his fellow inmates recognize his evil and malevolence for mankind and treat him with appropriate measures."
As he returned to his seat, David Emerson broke down in tears.

Hilton stared straight ahead as Susan Emerson, Meredith's mother, took the stand with a biting statement of her own.
"I believe he is nothing more than a bully and a weak-minded coward who preys on others," she said. "He fancies himself a survivalist while anyone can see he's a scared little man on the run. He's the fool who goes through life too ignorant to realize he is a fool. Meredith has exposed him."
Hilton chose Meredith as a victim because she was "female and alone," said Dawson County District Attorney Lee Darragh.

Known for her fitness from hiking, running and practicing martial arts, Meredith fought with Hilton, who had trouble subduing her, Darragh said. In their struggle, he dropped a police baton he'd recently bought a clue that search teams would later find.

Hilton's motive was financial, though he never obtained any money from Emerson's bank account, Darragh said. She repeatedly gave her captor false PIN numbers as he attempted to withdraw money from ATM machines, he said.

On her final night of captivity, Emerson was tied to a tree in Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area. She died Jan. 4 from repeated blows to the head from the handle of a car jack.

After he was arrested in DeKalb County the following day, Hilton refused to tell officials where he left Emerson's body. But once Union County's chief prosecutor promised not to seek the death penalty, Hilton relented.

Darragh was bound by that agreement not to pursue a death sentence, said UGA law professor Ron Carlson. Thursday's murder conviction, however, could make it easier for prosecutors in Florida and North Carolina to seek the death penalty if Hilton is implicated in three other slayings in which he's named as the prime suspect.
"It doesn't make any difference if the judge sentences him to life or life without parole," Carlson said. Considering his age and deteriorating health, Hilton is unlikely to face a death sentence, which can be drawn out by years of appeals.

Hilton's court-appointed attorney, Rob McNeill, confirmed his client has stage II multiple sclerosis, a chronic and incurable disease that affects the central nervous system. The disease kills parts of the brain that help carry electrical signals and can lead to muscle weakness, poor coordination and balance and other problems.

Though Hilton remained silent in court, McNeill said Hilton realizes the harm he's caused. "He understands now what a special person Meredith was," McNeill said.

Asked what triggered the murder, McNeill said Hilton was devastated by the loss of his job working for a Chamblee siding company.

"There were some other factors," McNeill said, but he would not elaborate.

The defense and prosecution agreed they had never worked on a murder case that concluded so quickly.

"January on its last date is safer than January on its first [when Meredith was abducted]," said Peggy Bailey, Meredith's godmother.

It's unknown whether Hilton's plea Thursday could touch on any of the other murder cases in which he has been named a suspect.

•Florida authorities say Hilton is a suspect in the slaying of Cheryl Hodges Dunlap, 46, of Crawfordville, Fla. She disappeared Dec. 1 and was found dead in Apalachicola National Forest on Dec. 15.

Florida State Attorney Willie Meggs said the Dunlap case was still being treated as a "law enforcement matter," and that officials are continuing their investigation.

North Carolina officials have named Hilton as a suspect in the October slaying of avid hikers John Bryant, 79, and Irene Bryant, 84. The Bryants were last seen alive Oct. 20 in the Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina. Irene Bryant's body was found bludgeoned three weeks later while John Bryant remains missing and is believed dead.

The news of Hilton's pending guilty plea was well-received by North Carolina authorities.

"I'm glad to see they're moving in this direction and getting this guilty plea, and that it might provide some closure to the family of Miss Emerson," said David Mahoney, sheriff of North Carolina's Transylvania County.

Mahoney said he expects Hilton's plea "could certainly open some doors to us that haven't been open before." Although North Carolina officials have not charged Hilton, Mahoney said he anticipated they will charge him with murder.

In Palm Bay, Fla., Bryant's family remained hopeful John's body would be found.

"I'm sure [Hilton's] attorneys are talking to him now," the Bryants' daughter, Holly, said Thursday morning. "I'm sure they are trying to get a deal to save his life, but I hope that they find my father's remains."

Jeremy Redmon and Rosalind Bentley contributed this article.