All language subtitles for Murder.360.S01E07.Killer.in.the.Forest.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-FLUX

All she's doing is,
on New Year's Day,

taking a hike with her dog.

The blood was wet.

It was fresh.

That was disturbing.

It was a calm
place, she thought.

And then she was kidnapped.

The way in which
this person gets money

is by abducting these victims.

He fits the definition
of a serial killer, by far.

I mean, he's just pure evil.

It was too much
to even comprehend.

And she kept repeating,
he's going to kill me.

And he shoots my daughter.

That's about the
only time in my career

that I just wanted
to shoot him.

You can run.

You can't hide.

North Georgia
is a really unique area.

It's a very mountainous area.

National Forest
land is abundant.

Blood Mountain
is actually the highest

peak in Georgia that the
Appalachian Trail crosses.

It's beautiful.

There's waterfalls
and great mountain views.

And so we have lots
of tourism and lots

of hikers and campers
in these areas.

The forests, as they
are, are remote locations

throughout the United States.

But they bring leisure
to most people,

but sadly can be an
opportunity for those

looking for
horrific activities,

criminal activities
to take place.

My name is Clay Bridges.

I was working for the
region 8 GBI office.

And we would be
called in any time

there was a missing
person, homicide,

suicide, those type thing.

I was driving home
and received a telephone

call from the chief deputy of
Union County Sheriff's Office.

He contacted me and said
that they had a missing

person on Blood Mountain.

So my first action was to
learn as much as I could

about her, as to what
could have happened to her.

Meredith Emerson
was 24 years old.

She lived at the time in a
northern suburb of Atlanta.

And she was an avid hiker.

By the next day, when Meredith
Emerson did not show up

for work, and the fact that
the weather conditions on Blood

Mountain had deteriorated
greatly, we all were concerned

that even if it was an injured
hiker or just a lost hiker,

or got off the
trail and was lost,

could anybody survive
that kind of environment?

We set up a command post
at the Vogel State Park,

which is right there
at the base of the mountain,

just running down
any kind of leads.

So a lot of what we were
doing was making phone calls,

just trying to-- you
know, anybody in the area,

trying to identify anyone
who may have seen anything.

The tips we began to receive
were sightings of Meredith

and her dog, Ella,
that she took with her

that morning to go hiking.

I went to the parking
lot of the

Herbert Reese
Memorial Trailhead

there at Blood Mountain.

I call that
the approach trail.

When we discovered
her water bottles

and some of her effects
at the trail,

we felt like
something bad had happened.

There was also a police
baton found in the area.

That was concerning for us.

And, you know,
I wonder if someone

had tried to strike
her with that.

The ground was so
disturbed in that area

where the-- you could tell it
was a very violent fight that

had taken place right there.

That was the trigger that
prompted them to contact

my office, just in case
this was going to be

more than an overdue hiker.

All she's doing is,
on New Year's Day,

taking a hike with her dog.

I was there on January 2nd
when all this came to light

and searches began to happen
there on Blood Mountain.

We needed to close the
trail and the parking lot

and move down to the
state park, where

we set up our search effort.

You can walk
for literally days

and not come across a road.

It's just vast amounts of--

vast amounts of
woods, nothingness.

If someone disposes of a
body in a national forest,

you'll never find them.

We have lots
of tourism and lots

of hikers and campers
in these areas.

So a lot of what we were
doing was making phone calls,

just trying to--
you know, anybody in the area,

trying to identify anyone
who may have seen anything.

We pushed out
information asking

the public to call our
tip line if they had

seen Meredith on the trail.

We began to get reports
of a strange-looking man

with Meredith on the trail.

They all described him
almost identical-- you know,

older gentleman, very fit,
wearing high-end hiking gear,

but he has duct
tape on his shoes.

He's got a dog with him.

And they saw him
around a white van.

The very first thing
I did, I checked her phone

records and her bank records.

We determined that
Meredith's debit card

had been attempted
to be used at various ATMs

off the mountain.

There was one attempt 45
miles away the first night.

There was another attempt 80
miles away from the abduction

site the next day.

At that point,
we were actually contacted

by law enforcement
in North Carolina

and said, hey,
we had a couple just

like that,
that were hiking, that

went missing without a trace.

John and Irene Bryant were
in their late 70s, early 80s.

They were experienced hikers.

And they took out one
afternoon to just do

a day hike in the
Pisgah National Forest,

which is probably a
couple hours from our office

here in Georgia.

And the Pisgah National
Forest is extremely remote,

consists of several thousand
acres of forest land.

John and Irene Bryant
were very friendly people,

well-liked in the community.

And they had told someone
that they were going hiking

in the National Forest area.

They disappeared.

And so, when the
authorities began

to search for John and Irene,
they found the body of Irene,

but not--

no signs of John.

They stated that she had been
killed with blunt-force trauma.

And it was a cylindrical
object with what looked like

maybe a ball at the end of it.

I immediately thought,
there's a police-style baton

up here on this trail.

We believe John
tried to call 911.

And the call
was almost immediately

dropped because the
signal was too low.

Later on in the same
day, John's debit card

was used at an ATM
in an area called Ducktown,

Tennessee, which is about
two hours from the Pisgah

National Forest.

And that's when North
Carolina officials

also told us about the Florida
case concerning Sherry Dunlap.

My name is Gloria Tucker.

My cousin, Cheryl Dunlap,
which I referred to her

as Sherry all the time,
she was a beautiful person

inside and out.

She had two grown children.

She was divorced.

She was somebody who kept
herself busy, primarily

serving other people.

She was a devout Christian,
very involved in her church.

Sherry loved her children.

She had two boys.

She took home the burden of
really caring for the boys

totally all by herself.

She was just
a very home-oriented

person who wanted to help
other people have a good life.

She went for a day
hike in the Apalachicola

National Forest in an
area called Leon Sinks.

It's very much like any
other national forest.

There's hiking trails, you
know, just a very nice area

to spend time.

And then she was kidnapped.

The search for Cheryl
was on down there,

very similar to
the search for John

and Irene Bryant
in North Carolina.

They had volunteers who
came into the forest

to look for Cheryl.

And not too far
into the search,

Cheryl's car was found
just outside the forest.

And the driver's side rear
tire had been punctured.

He had his face taped up.

He didn't want anyone
to recognize who he was.

The county, at that time,
was just in an uproar.

Some hunters in the forest

saw some buzzards circling
in the area and went over

and found
the remains of Cheryl.

Her head had been removed,
as well as her hands.

But they were able to
identify her through some DNA.

It was unnerving,
you know, the manner in which

Cheryl Dunlap had been found.

I didn't want to
know anything about it.

But several people told my
sister and myself about it.

So, you know, it was--

it wasn't a good thing.

It's just an overwhelming
feeling when you have to deal

with that much tragedy.

Just a terrible thing.

When we learned
of those cases,

then we began to talk
to both jurisdictions

about the similarities.

The photographs of the
person walking up to the ATMs

was very, very similar.

The way in which
this person gets money

is by abducting these victims.

And then, when we got our
photographs from our ATMs,

there was no doubt that
it was the same person.

We got a telephone
call to the tip line

from a lady about 60 miles
south of Blood Mountain who

said, I think I just
saw Meredith Emerson's

dog walk into a grocery store.

And the video surveillance
at the grocery store

shows it walking
around, almost--

it almost looked like
it was asking for help.

We were able to pick
up the dog very quickly

and identify the dog as
Ella through an ID chip

that she had in her.

So we knew that Ella
was in an area 70 miles

south of the abduction site.

And the agents
I sent down there found

a dumpster in the parking lot.

And they decided
to look in the dumpster.

And that's where we
found the things that

I had hoped that we wouldn't.

We found bloody clothing.

We found Meredith's
driver's license and wallet.

We found other clothing,

men's clothing
with blood on them.

And this is not
just blood stains.

This was blood that you could--

so much, you could
wring it out.

The blood was wet.

It was fresh.

That was disturbing,
because up

to this point,
we were all holding out

the hope that Meredith's alive.

We're going to, you
know, capture the bad guy

and recover her.

And it's going to
have a happy ending.

My name is John Tabor.

I own a telemarketing
operation.

I was working out and caught
the top of the news

where they--

they broke to cover
this case of the missing

girl up in North Georgia.

They said that
there was evidence

of a struggle in
the parking lot

where they found
Meredith's vehicle.

But what really got
my attention was,

they said they found an
expandable police baton.

That's what really made
me stop in my tracks.

I knew someone
who used to work for me

who carried a police baton.

And now I'm just staring
at the television.

I just remember
just going numb.

John Tabor
contacts us and says,

I know who you're
talking about.

His name
is Gary Michael Hilton.

I first met Gary Hilton
when he replied to a help

wanted ad for telemarketers.

He was very fond
of the outdoors.

And he was a smart individual.

He could do rather
complex mathematics

in his head and spit
numbers out that most

people couldn't do.

He did his job.

And my impression was just
that he never got along

that well with other people
and just, therefore,

seemed to prefer
the company of his dog

rather than other humans.

He worked in that office

uneventfully for a decade.

I got frustrated at some
point, where it just

became obvious that he had lost
interest in actually working.

And then, suddenly,
within a matter of a few weeks,

he became extremely
distant and belligerent.

I realized at that point
that this is a real problem.

The situation just
spiraled downward rapidly.

I decided to stop by
the office

one evening unannounced.

The first thing
I noticed, there were

no lights on in the office.

And the back door was wide
open, which was also unusual.

I just had
this feeling of doom.

Nothing seemed right.

Everything seemed out of order.

And then suddenly,
he pops out of a doorway.

So I immediately
noticed that he was much

more disheveled than normal.

And I noticed that several
of his teeth were missing.

And I was pretty
shocked by that.

And I just said, oh, well, you
know, what happened to you?

He said, I pulled them out
with this pair of pliers.

He said he did it so it
would frighten people

when they looked at him.

I knew at that point, I needed
to get the hell out of there

as soon as I could.

I felt like something bad
could happen at any moment.

It really hit home when

he demanded a certain
amount of money, $3,000.

And he said,
you know, John,

you've got a great life,
beautiful wife,

this beautiful young son.

It would be such a shame
for you to lose all that.

It's a hell of a thing
to be confronted with.

I agreed to write
this check for him.

I told him I would put it by
the front door of my house,

and he would come get it,
so I did.

I wrote the check

put it by the front door
of my house.

And Hilton came
out of the woods,

out of nowhere,
at exactly the same time

as I was walking
down the driveway.

So we literally are
now facing each other.

And all I can remember
thinking at that point was,

wow, I wish I had on a
bulletproof vest and a firearm

right now.

I felt incredibly vulnerable.

I knew at that moment, I needed
to get inside that front door

of my house
as quickly as possible,

because I had a Glock
9-millimeter positioned

close to the front door.

I dropped my belongings on
the floor, got my firearm,

chambered the round, and came
right back out the front door

with the gun pointing
in the direction he was in.

He was now
maybe a hundred feet away,

and he was fleeing back
off into the woods.

I believed that one of us
was going to end up dead.

We found out of his
bizarre encounters

with law enforcement
in the past.

For instance, he would be
confronted in the forest

for camping
in an unauthorized area.

That was captured on video.

And he was acting
extremely bizarre.

When we look at people
who have gotten in trouble

with the law,
they don't necessarily

fit our idea as a society
of acceptable behavior.

That's where most serial
killers kill, in an area

where they are the
most comfortable,

and they feel
the most in control.

He has the upper hand.

He knows this area
backwards and forwards.

So it was easy
for him to scout,

to have this fantasy
of whatever he's doing.

He knows exactly what to
do to get these people to do

what he wants them to do.

Authorities hold out little
hope of finding 24-year-old

Meredith Emerson alive.

At that time,
the newscast was,

missing young girl up here
in North Georgia mountains.

I remember running upstairs
after watching that broadcast

and telling my wife,
you know, hey,

you're not going
to believe this.

But did I just hear
an expandable police baton?

Because that's
something that I knew

Hilton had with
him all the time.

He used those to protect
his dog from other dogs

approaching his dog.

And again,
I had never met anyone

in my life that carried
around a police baton

unless they were
a police officer.

And I said, I think I
need to call the police.

I basically just said--

told them who I was
and that I knew someone

who carried a police baton.

He fit the description, had a
dog that fit that description.

I told them his name.

I told them the vehicle
that he was driving.

John Tabor says, I can give
you the tag number to the van

because I bought it for him.

So we pull a driver's
license photo of him

and put it out onto
the news media.

Maybe six hours after I
made that phone call, and--

this is the part
that still stuns me today--

my phone rang.

And it was him.

After seven months of
absolutely no communication,

and there he was, on the
phone with me, out of nowhere,

like a ghost.

I'm just, you know,
sitting in my car

in a state of disbelief.

And I played along.

And he said he needed some
money to get started,

you know, to get back
to work and whatnot.

And I said, hey,
that's no problem.

How much do you need?

We discussed an amount.

And I said, yeah,
I'll be more than

happy to give you the check.

I tried to meet him
right then and there.

I said, well, where are you?

I'll bring you
a check right now.

He just said that
that's not possible.

I can't meet you.

He could not meet me then
under any circumstances.

But within the next
couple of days,

he would come get the check.

Once we learned that there
was a possibility that Hilton

would go to pick up the check,

we got with the local
jurisdiction in Atlanta.

And they deployed their SWAT
team around the business.

And they were prepared to
grab him if he showed up.

They stayed all night, into
the next day, and into Friday,

and he didn't show up.

It wasn't that long until a
citizen called 911 in that

jurisdiction
in Atlanta and said,

I think I'm looking
at the guy that y'all

have been looking for all
week with the missing hiker.

DeKalb 911.

What's the exact location?

Basically stayed
on the phone,

watching him, while the
officers were responding

to take him into custody.

He was not talking.

But we knew that there
were answers to some

of our questions in the van.

Three bloody fleece tops and
a bloodstained piece of a car

seat belt were
found in a trash bin

beside a convenience
store where

Hilton had used a pay phone.

Hilton had attempted
to vacuum and wash

portions of his van.

Basically, everything that
had blood on it, or he thought

had blood on it, or anything
that could tie him to Meredith,

he was trying to rid his
van of it, basically.

We had DeKalb County transport
him to our headquarters.

When I arrived at the scene,
Gary's vehicle was there.

There were witnesses that had
seen Gary taking items out

of his vehicle and throwing
them in the dumpster

at the convenience store.

So I had a long
night ahead of me.

I had to go through
the dumpster,

process every item
in the dumpster

behind a convenience store.

I then had Gary's van,
which we made the decision

to tow the van and process it
in a controlled environment

back in our lab.

When I first met him, he was
on the floor in a conference

room in GBI headquarters.

Gary was lying on the
floor in a fetal position

and kept saying that he
had multiple sclerosis,

and he needed an immediate shot
of folic acid,

and just kind of talking crazy.

He had a fingernail
gouge into his nose,

a pretty substantial cut on
his nose from a fingernail.

It looked to be a
defensive wound someone

else had inflicted on him.

And his hand
was obviously broken.

And I said, hey,
I just want to talk

to you a little bit about
where Meredith Emerson is.

He said, I believe
verbatim, he said,

I'm answering no questions.

I'm waiving no rights.

I want an attorney present
with me before any questioning.

In Georgia,
police are questioning

the man last seen with missing
hiker Meredith Emerson.

Emerson disappeared
on New Year's Day

after going to a state park
for a hike with her dog.

Once we had his van,
we had tons of evidence.

The first obvious blood
pattern that was located

was on the back
of the driver's seat.

So we cut it out.

We had blood in the van
that matched Meredith Emerson.

Cheryl Dunlap's
car had a flat tire.

And there was a bayonet
that we recovered,

like a
military-style bayonet knife.

And Florida forensics
were able to match that

to the puncture in the tire.

In a couple of the videos,

where Gary is trying to get
money out of the ATM,

he's wearing a yellow
jacket with a piece

of reflective material on it.

That jacket was in the van.

In Georgia,
there is a criminal statute

called kidnapping
with bodily injury,

which carries a life sentence.

So we knew that we
had him for that.

We got a call
from the prosecutor

and said, OK, he's
willing to meet and tell

you where Meredith is.

He is such a narcissist

that he believes that he
is the best at what he does.

And I believe that
for him to be caught

was almost humiliating
to him, because he was

smarter than anybody,

smarter than any of us
in the room with him.

Everything I've studied
throughout my career

tells me that he's probably
a sexual sadist psychopath.

One thing that he
wanted very much

was to have the death
penalty taken off the table

before he would talk.

At that point,
we knew we had John Bryant

DNA in that van.

Some boots had Cheryl
Dunlap's blood on it.

So we knew we had a couple
of more bites at the apple

of giving him
the death penalty,

and agreed to go ahead
and take

the death penalty off
the table for Meredith

and recover her body.

Went up to the jail.

And Clay and I
went into a room.

And they brought him in.

And I said, I understand
that you want to tell

us where Meredith is now.

And so he began
to tell us the story.

Meredith decided to go for a
hike and a jog on New Year's.

Gary sat up in the woods
and surveyed the parking lot

and made the decision on
who he was going to abduct

and carried out his plan.

Hilton basically
saw her on the trail.

She had a dog.

He had a dog.

He knew that he could
strike up a conversation

about the dogs.

Eventually, she said, OK,
I'll talk to you later.

And she pretty much
ran up the trail.

And she probably
sensed that there

was something-- something
wasn't good about it,

and left him behind.

So he concealed himself
along the trail.

Some people had actually
seen him hiding,

crouching behind the rocks.

Gary Hilton waited
on Meredith as she was

coming back down the trail.

And he attacked her.

Meredith was trained
in martial arts.

And Gary Hilton
would later tell

us that she almost took him.

In other words,
she almost beat him up.

He finally got control of her
by convincing her he had a gun.

And so he makes his way
back down to the parking lot

and forces Meredith into
the van, along with Ella,

and they leave.

The bank should have known
that her PIN and her card

was used.

For whatever reason,
since no money was taken out,

they didn't classify that
as being used, or something.

But I feel confident
that in Meredith's mind,

she was doing that

in hopes that we would
be able to track her

and be able to find her sooner.

She was thinking,
well, if I can just

keep him at bay just
a little bit longer,

they're going to find me.

They're going to find me.

I listened to
all that and him

describe how he took her life.

And once he was taken away,
it all flooded in on me,

and I just began to cry.

It was nothing
I've ever experienced

before, nothing like anything
I've ever been around.

It was too much to even
comprehend,

how he could be that cruel,

that evil, and commit
the horrific acts that he did.

It's sickening.

It makes me sick today,
just thinking about it.

I'm sick to my stomach.

I wish I had killed him.

After the fact,
finding out

everything that she did and how
close we came to catching him

on numerous occasions,
and she was still alive,

to this day,
it breaks my heart.

He agreed to tell
us where the body was.

And he started
showing us on a map.

And he said,
the head will be missing.

So we took Hilton
to that area.

We take him with us
down there because I

was not sure at all that
we could find both scenes.

And so we were able
to find Meredith's body.

Well, the body was
covered with leaves

and limbs and debris.

Literally, you could be
standing a couple of feet away

and not know there
was a body there.

So he had done a very good
job of concealing the body.

He had taken her
head off and moved it

to another location about
a mile away from her body.

And we walked him down a
little road inside the forest.

And he told me to walk
up over a small bank

to a dead tree that would
be lying on the ground.

On one end of the tree
would be some

of Meredith's clothing.

And toward the other
end would be her head.

And we secured both
scenes and went to work

that night in the forest.

Gary Hilton was very arrogant.

He was very nonchalant
about what he had done

and why he had done it.

I asked him why he
had removed her head.

And he said,
for forensic purposes.

Gary Hilton didn't do that
for forensic purposes.

He did it because he liked it.

As soon as I was able to find

Meredith's head

I guess that's about the
only time in my career

that I just wanted
to shoot him.

He has absolutely no
redeeming features at all.

So we got him out
of there very quickly

and took him back
up to the jail.

It was the most horrific
thing I think I had ever heard.

You really start
getting a sense

of this dehumanization and
complete lack of any ability

to care about anybody else.

He seemed to have no trouble
whatsoever murdering Meredith.

But he cannot murder Ella.

And I think that's
very, very significant.

It just speaks to the
lack of attachment

that Gary Hilton seems
to have with anybody.

John Bryant
was taken, held captive

in the back of Hilton's van.

He chained him around the
neck and padlocked the chain.

And takes him
to another park.

And then he kills him, uses
his bank card, and gets $300.

And that is what he gets
in exchange for, you know,

just a beautiful couple's life.

And it was later
on that John's body

was found in the
Nantahala National Forest.

And he was identified by
his pacemaker, I believe.

He had a pacemaker inserted.

And it was still
within his remains.

I do think,
once he crossed the line,

once he murders Irene and John,
I think there is no going back.

And I think he
would have continued

to kill until he was caught.

It tells us a lot about Gary
Hilton in terms of how he views

his victims,
essentially as objects

that he's got to now figure out
how to disguise and get rid of.

We know he allegedly
had a psychotic break.

And there have been several
people who've said that perhaps

he had some severe
mental illness,

like schizoaffective disorder
and those kinds of things.

He goes in all these rants.

He talks about all
these things that

don't seem to have anything
to do with the reason

he's being interrogated about.

He absolutely does
seem to be, you know,

disturbed in some respects.

There is no doubt
in my mind that he

killed many other people.

You don't wake
up at 61 and start

doing these kinds of crimes
the way he does them.

Dismembering bodies
is not something

you just decide to do.

There's no way to know that
unless he tells you that,

unless you can prove
to him that you

can prove that he did do it.

I think
that Gary Michael Hilton

is a coward.

What he did to Meredith
and what he did to Sherry,

just absolutely,
totally wicked.

Gary Hilton's
absolutely evil.

You look in his eyes,
and you can tell that.

He brags about being the
smartest guy in the room.

Yeah, even though he
has a fairly high IQ,

he made some serious
mistakes in these cases

that helped us prosecute him.

But he's a typical serial
killer, very narcissistic,

holds himself in
very high regard,

has to be the center of
attention when you talk to him.

He fits the definition of
a serial killer, by far.

I honestly believe that
there's countless victims that

fell victim to Gary Hilton.

But he will never
say anything about it

unless his execution date is
set and the time draws near.

He may bring something
up just to remain alive.

So I'm holding out hope
that when that day comes,

and hopefully in the
near future, that he will

start to open up a little bit.

But unless you can show Gary
Hilton that he is caught,

he will admit to nothing.

He's just pure evil.

You can see it in his eyes.

I've never met
anybody that you could

literally look in their
eyes and see evil, but him.

And he is.

He's truly evil.

He called himself
a sick ripper.

He was an affable
southern gentleman,

had a good sense of humor,
and was very easygoing

and laid back.

He shows that picture and
tells a jailhouse inmate,

I'm the one that murdered
this young woman.

She was stepping
into a death chamber.