why go with anybody else? we know their rates are good, we know that they re always going to take care of us. it was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. it was funny because when we would call another insurance company, hey would say oh we can t beat usaa we re the webber family. we re the tenney s we re the hayles, and we re usaa members for life. get your usaa auto insurance quote today. welcome back to dateline extra, i m craig melvin. returning to mystery on blood mountain the florida jury had reached a verdict in the case of gary hilton. here again is dennis murphy. the trial of gary hilton for the murder of cheryl dunlap had taken seven days. the six man, six woman jury needed less than three and a half hours to reach its verdict on multiple counts. the state of florida versus gary michael hilton.
one was the murder of a nurse named cheryl dunlap. florida investigators were certain that gary hilton was their prime suspect. hilton dared florida authorities to spend the time and money to come after him, and they did. here again is dennis murphy. suspected serial killer gary hilton had already pleaded guilty to the murder of meredith emerson in the georgia mountains. but he cheated the executioner there with a plea deal that led police to his victim s body. to the south, authorities in florida were convinced he had murdered nurse and mother cheryl dunlap, whose par lal tial rema we were recover ed two weeks befor meredith emerson went missing. hilton was defying authorities in georgia to make the charges stick. if they want to spend a million dollars, 2 million, to convict me and then another 2 million to get death, hey, they can do it. leon county florida state s
suit. down in florida, the body of cheryl dunlap had been found in a national forest. her atm card stolen, the remains decapitated. detectives thought that fit hilton s m.o. to a t. and gary hilton, still playing the smartest kid in the class defied florida to come after him. all that time, all that money. if they want to spend a million dollars, 2 million to convict me and then another 2 million to get death and then another 8 million to defend the death penalty and get around to executing me 17 years from now when i m 78 years old and i m decrepit, hey, they can do it. two tough florida prosecutors it turns out would be the match of his defiant talk. my belief is this is an evil, bad person and there ought to be a consequence in life to evil
we, the jury, find as follows. as to count 1 of the indictment, the defendant, gary hilton, is guilty of first-degree murder. count two of the indictment gary hilton was found guilty of the first-degree murder of cheryl dunlap. guilty on all counties except car theft. the same jurors would soon reconvene to decide if hilton would die by lethal injection. he had dodged death in georgia and now it was time to see if he could do it again. this man, mr. hilton assistant state s attorney georgia capelman got the initial conviction of hilton. what words did you use to describe this guy? he a s a psychopath and there s crazy sick and crazy mean. he s just crazy mean. he s intelligent, a college graduate. he was a member of our armed forces. he s probably smarter than everybody sitting in this room. there were different rules in this the penalty phase. unlike in the trial, prosecutors were now able to disclose to jurors that hilton murdered meredith emerson on blood mountain an
had been exposed to the elements he thought for at least a week or more. are you able to tell this jury how this woman died? no, ma am. not a cause of death. but what the prosecution did have was forensic evidence galore. hundreds of items recovered from his van and from hilton s suspected campsites deep in the woods. two items here, duct tape with hair and another piece of duct tape or masking tape with hair. one of the items crime scene techs recovered was hilton s video camera. he had tried to delete the images on it. i was able to recover those previously deleted files. florida department of law enforcement lab experts had been able to salvage the audio hilton did not want the world to hear, and with good reason. this is gary hilton two days after cheryl dunlap s disappearance singing into the camera microphone and gassing with his dog dandy. dan, dan, dan, we re doing it, boy