The body of John Bryant, or rather his skeletal remains, has been found and North Carolina authorities have announced that they will be pressing charges as soon as it’s decided whether he should be seen in State or Federal court.
They do have enough evidence to bring charges and it also meets North Carolina’s minimum standards to seek the death penalty as well.
Technorati: Gary Michael Hilton,Meredith Emerson,Transylvania County,John Bryant,Irene Bryant
While it’s still somewhat tenuous right now there are some similarities between the disappearance of 29-year-old Rossana Miliani in December 2005 and the deaths of Meredith Emerson and Cheryl Dunlap.
Rossana was last seen in Bryson City, North Carolina on December 7th 2005. A store clerk from Bryson City told a private investigator that Miliani came into her store with a white man in his 60s and appeared extremely nervous when they bought a backpack. She also rented a storage space there. The State Bureau of Investigation is considering the possibility of a connection but won’t comment any further.
Miliani had been vacationing in Cherokee, North Carolina at the time of her disappearance. She called her father on that day and had spoken of hiking the Appalachian Trail.
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The 2nd white van belonging to Gary Michael Hilton has also been found. It had been abandoned on a road in White County and towed to a scrap-metal yard. Apparently the van has been stripped and is in bad shape but investigators will be processing it for evidence next week.
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One bit of information I was unaware of is that Transylvania County Sheriff David Mahoney (where the Bryants disappeared/died) confirmed that the North Carolina license plate on the back of Hilton’s van when he was arrested had been stolen from a vehicle registered in Transylvania County.
Gary Michael Hilton, the scumbag who has been busy getting himself charged with murder and kidnapping in the death of Meredith Emerson in north Georgia, sits and languishes in a Dawson County Jail. He is now being investigated in five cases, two in Georgia, one in North Carolina and two in Florida.
I have mentioned several of them so far.
One of the two most talked about recently is the murder of 46-year-old Cheryl Hodges Dunlap, whose body was located in the Apalachicola National Forest back in December of last year. Just like Emerson, she was decapitated.
Florida law enforcement officials now say that they have enough evidence to charge Hilton with murder in that state, according to Leon County District Attorney William Meggs.
Police from Ormond Beach (on the other side of the state) are now investigating whether he was involved in the murder of Michael Scot Louis whose body was found spread among three trash bags on December 6th near Tomoka State Park. The Ormond Beach police are checking DNA evidence from the body to see if it matches Hilton, who is from Florida originally.
The Dawson County (Georgia) prosecutor still has not announced whether or not he is going to seek the death penalty against Hilton. It’s not completely clear whether he will be bound by the promise made by the Union County DA. Even if he doesn’t seek the death penalty it’s quite possible that he will get it from one of the other states where it seems that Hilton made his little death caravan.
My, we have been a busy boy lately.
When I first started reading about Gary Michael Hilton a week ago I had gotten the impression that he had no criminal record and was a bit of an eccentric. Now I think he is far from eccentric but pretty much a psychopath and he has a long string of criminal activity dating back to the early seventies all over the southeast.
In 1983 Hilton was convicted in Clayton County for carrying a pistol without a license in a trial that also saw him convicted of a drug charge.
Between 1979 and 1995 he had a string of charges ranging from stealing a shopping cart, theft, possession of marijuana, hit and run and arson.
In 1972 he was charged in Miami with dealing in stolen property.
I spent the entire afternoon running around Carroll County and then all of the evening out buying frigging cars. I decided that since I was hitting it hard and we both had to get cars that I would get a used one as well just to bring the car payment down. I ended up getting a 2006 PT Cruiser. Pretty decent car. Anyway, that’s not the subject here.
As I mentioned in one of my previous posts about Meredith Emerson, Gary Michael Hilton, the 61 year old drifter that kidnapped, murdered and decapitated the girl is also a suspect now in some more crimes.
Cheryl Dunlap’s body was found last month in the Apilachicola National Forest southwest of Tallahasee Florida according to the Leon County Sheriff’s Department (and CNN). According to Sergeant Rob Reisinger they know Hilton was in the area at the time of Dunlap’s disappearance because he came in contact with a forestry service agent who wrote down his tag number. The encounter was just a routine check and no warrants came back when the agent ran his tag number.
The hunter said he warned the man that the forest was a bad place to be during hunting season. The hunter notified police of the encounter after Dunlap’s body was found December 19. Wood said Florida authorities are preparing to travel to Georgia to meet and coordinate with authorities.
Police in Georgia found Meredith’s body in exchange for Union County dropping consideration of the death penalty, but the district attorney in Dawson County, where her body was discovered said that he was not involved in that deal and it is possible that Dawson County may put the death penalty back into consideration when the Grand Jury meets again in March.
There are also some other similarities with a case in th Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina as well. Irene Bryant’s body was found near her car but her elderly husband John has still not been located.
Cheryl Dunlap livedin Crawfordville and went missing on December 1st. She was discovered by hunters in Apilachicola National Forest on December 16th and investigators had to use DNA testing to find out who she was. She was 46 years old and was a nurse at Florida State University.
Up until now investigators had no suspects in the case but there are similarities. They do have video of a man trying to use her ATM card but I don’t know how goodthey are or if they show portions of his face or not.
Technorati: Cheryl Dunlap,Gary Michael HiltonMeredith Emerson,Apilachicola,Irene Bryant,John Bryant,Decapitation,Murder,Blood Mountain,Vogel State park
One could only wish it were a very long anal probe in his case.
I haven’t posted much lately on the Gary Hilton murder(s) but that certainly doesn’t mean that law enforcement hasn’t been diligently digging into things. There are also some other developments in the Meredith Emerson case that, while not important as things go forward, are pertinent to the case itself.
One of those developments that I just recently learned about is the fact that part of Gary Michael Hilton’s plea agreement included the stipulation that his dog be well cared for. That one I can see happening. Obviously the golden retriever was just a tool that the evil man used to help him get close to people but that doesn’t mean that the dog shouldn’t be well-cared for while he slowly rots in prison.
WYFF in Greenville says that according to authorities, an un-named person close to the case has adopted the reddish golden retriever. Meredith Emerson’s parents took her black Labrador back to Colorado to live with them.
Yesterday WSB in my home town of Atlanta was reporting that among close to 200 pieces of evidence that were taken out of his white Astrovan, Gary Michael Hilton had among his possessions including a bong, a hacksaw and personal lubricant. You know, those three things were at the top of my “stranded on a deserted island” list. How about that! Not. They also found a bunch of clothing, quite a bit of it more expensive than he should have been able to afford and most likely some of it belonged to his other victims. They did find a yellow raincoat as well. This is significant because surveillance pictures at a Ducktown, Tennessee ATM showed someone wearing a yellow raincoat using the Bryant’s bank card after they were reported missing. Apparently Hilton also had a thing for hats. There were plenty of hats found as well as various pornography.
While I’m on the subject of the Bryants, I do remember posting something about a skeleton having been found that the suspected was John Bryant, but I honestly don’t remember if I mentioned that they had positively identified him. It’s been an extremely long couple of weeks at work and I am pretty much brain dead. Back at the beginning of February the Transylvania County medical examiner confirmed that the skeleton found near a hiking trail is John Bryant. Her wife was found dead near their car back in November. Gary Michael Hilton is the prime and only suspect in both of their murders.
What I find interesting is the fact that although Federal authorities are joining the case into the Bryant murder, all of the evidence is being shipped to the Florida State Police for use in the murder of Cheryl Dunlap. I guess maybe they asked first? Hell if I know…
According to the Tallahassee Democrat:
Local investigators went to Georgia today to receive evidence collected from the investigation of drifter Gary Michael Hilton.
Four crime-scene personnel with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Leon County Sheriff’s Office will bring the evidence to the FDLE Crime Lab for processing Thursday or Friday.
Hilton is the primary suspect in the death of Crawfordville resident Cheryl Dunlap, whose body was found in the Apalachicola National Forest in December. He is also a suspect in the deaths of a North Carolina couple, John and Irene Bryant.
They also report that:
FDLE lab personnel will go through the evidence for hair, fibers, DNA, blood and fingerprints, said Maj. Mike Wood, of the Sheriff’s Office.
“There’s just so much evidence that can be mined out of this entire process,” Wood said. “It’s almost beyond description. It’s a little bit overwhelming, quite frankly, but we’re very confident that it’s going to be of benefit to us in the Cheryl Dunlap investigation, as well as the Bryants.’ It has a serious potential to tie the unknown cases at this juncture.”
Local investigators have not had an opportunity to interview Hilton.
“Obviously, that would be an ideal situation,” Wood said. “We would love to do that. But historically, and I can only speak to the Georgia case, Mr. Hilton is not amenable to an interview without conditions that he proposes. And we’re not really in a position right now that we feel compelled to offer him any conditions or concede to any of his conditions. We feel really good about the way this case is moving forward.”
Investigators served a search warrant Tuesday to take a DNA sample from Hilton, which they will use to compare to evidence that has been or will be processed by the FDLE lab.
Having the evidence at the FDLE lab will give local investigators control over what to process first and the ability to prioritize it as it pertains to the Dunlap case.
Along with items of clothing and weaponry as well as the other stuff I mentioned so callously above, other evidence includes swabs of blood from the outside of the sliding passenger door.
Updated 3/1/2008 – Just saw the report over at the same CNN link where Florida prosecutors are planning to seek the death penalty against Gary Michael Hilton even though he’s already serving a life sentence here in Georgia for the murder of Meredith Emerson.
OK, so I know how it works in some states. You serve out your time in one and then get sent to the other to serve it there. How about Georgia and Florida? I really don’t know.
If/when Florida convicts him will get just get shipped there automatically or will he have to serve out his ‘life’ sentence here and then get fried? It sure would be nice if they would just send his ass on down to Florida and save a couple of my tax dollars.
I actually read this report at some point yesterday but in between trying not to smoke by eating candy and sleeping I haven’t really had much free time on my hands 
The Leon County Florida Grand Jury handed down indictments on Gary Michael Hilton, the man convicted in the kidnapping and murder of Meredith Emerson, for charges of murder, kidnapping and two counts of grand theft on Thursday related to the disappearance and murder of Cheryl Dunlap.
Cheryl Dunlap’s body was found back in December southwest of Tallahassee in the Apilachicola National Forest and until Hilton was captured and quite a bit of evidence found police had pretty much hit a roadblock in the investigation.
Investigators are aware that Hilton was in the Tallahassee area on December 1st because he ran into a forestry agent who ran his tag number through the police database according to the Leon County Sheriff’s Department. Although the grand jury has handed down the indictments, the investigation will continue. The police department are in no hurry to charge him because he is sitting in jail in Georgia and they want to make sure that they get an airtight case against him. Not that they are going to be able to find much of an impartial jury in this case.
Hilton is also a suspect in the deaths of John and Irene Bryant who disappeared while hiking through the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina on October 21st of last year.
So are these the only killings he’s been linked to? Hardly. The FBI hesitates before calling him a serial killer as he doesn’t quite fit the profile at his advanced age but all that really means is that he finally got caught. As retired FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt puts it; “This guy didn’t just fall off the turnip tuck and start doing this”.
Pickens County South Carolina officials are waiting until North Carolina completes it’s investigation of Hilton before Pursuing him as a possible suspect in the abduction of Clemson University student Jason Knapp on Easter, ten years ago. Knapp’s fingerprints were on a ticket admitting him to Table Rock State Park.
Hilton is also a suspect in Rossana Miliani’s disappearance in December 2005 in Bryson City, North Carolina. According to reports she was last seen with a white man in his sixties and appeared nervous to the witnesses.
And Megan asks “what about Judith Bradford Smith”? After she left a comment here recently I did a bit of reading on Judith Smith. She disappeared in Philadelphia a few years back and the case took a weird turn when the skeleton turned up near Biltmore Estates. While what I have read doesn’t really seem to fit any of the characteristics of his other murders it certainly wouldn’t hurt to take a look at Hilton in this unsolved case.
Technorati Tags: Gary Michael Hilton, Meredith Emerson, Rossana Miliani, Judith Bradford Smith, John Bryant, Irene Bryant, Jason Knapp, Serial Murderers