the friends raced up the blood mountain feeder path to the appalachian trail, but no trace of meredith or ella. so by night itfall the search became all the more urgent as a cold front moved in and temperatures on the mountain plunged below zero. at daybreak, thursday now, the friends were joined by deputies from the local sheriff s office. john kegel, just shy of retirement, was the agent in charge for the georgia bureau of investigation, the state s top cops. we received a request from a local agency to help with a missing hiker. the case of the hiker missing for two days didn t look good to the seasoned detective because of some disturbing items that had been recovered on the trail. what were the things found out on the trail area that you thought were alarming? a couple of water bottles, a dog leash and a police expandible baton. this is a piece of professional gear. it is. you see almost every police
place in north carolina, involving a husband and wife, that the wife had been murdered in the piska national forest. that detective was working an unsolved case that had cops in north carolina bewildered. david mahoney, a sheriff of transylvania county, a beautiful name with an ominous name that has nothing to do with fangs dripping blood. we have wonderful attractions here, all of those things with the slower pace of life is brings and keeps folks here. folks like john and irene bryant, who after raising a family retired here, far from the brutal winters of upstate new york and close to the hiking trails they loved. holly bryant is the youngest of their four children. they loved the outdoors. when they were first married, they used to go out hiking in the mountains. they would take us hiking and as they got older, they d take the grandchildren out hiking, too. the bryants had a lifetime of outdoors experience, had hiked
from blood mountain to these woods called dawson forest, about 30 miles to the south. it was from around here that hilton had made those phone calls to his ex-boss. remember, by then, meredith s bloody clothing had been retrieved from a dumpster, not a good sign at all. but as long as there was the most remote chance she was still alive, the search was going to continue. but lead agent john kagel knew these vast wood lands very well, and he knew the odds of finding needles in hay stacks. he saw only one option as repugnant as it was, and that was to cut a deal with gary hilton. sunday morning we got him a lawyer, and i had a talk with the lawyer and essentially laid out our case. hilton s lawyer then conferred with his client. the district attorney was brought into the loop and a deal went down. hilton would plead guilty to murder because that is what it had been. and then he said he d lead investigators to meredith s body in exchange for taking the death
david mahoney, a sheriff of transylvania county, a beautiful name with an ominous name that has nothing to do with fangs dripping blood. we have wonderful attractions here, all of those things with the slower pace of life is brings and keeps folks here. folks like john and irene bryant, who after raising a family retired here, far from the brutal winters of upstate new york and close to the hiking trails they loved. holly bryant is the youngest of their four children. they loved the outdoors. when they were first married, they used to go out hiking in the mountains. they would take us hiking and as they got older, they d take the grandchildren out hiking, too. the bryants had a lifetime of outdoors experience, had hiked all over the world. my father completed the appalachian trail, which is 2,000 miles, from georgia to maine. they ve traveled extensively to new zealand and all through
she d marked in her hiking guides. there were four of us in the car, trying to call park rangers, anybody that may have seen her or her car. then a friend of hers called her car, called us and said, i found it. there was snow on it. the car was in a parking area at the base of blood mountain. we just drove as fast as we could there, and just knew that sinking feeling when you first see it. the friends raced up the blood mountain feeder path to the appalachian trail, but no trace of meredith or ella. so by nightfall, the search became all the more urgent as a cold front moved in, and temperatures on blood mountain plunged below zero. at daybreak, thursday now, the friends were joined by deputies from the local sheriff s office. john kegel, just shy of retirement, was the agent in charge for the georgia bureau of investigation, the state s top cops. we received a request from a local agency to help with a missing hiker. the case of the hiker missing for two days didn t look g