the crime scene, just a few minutes sooner, just several minutes sooner, i would have beat those people that found the bat and i would have picked it it up. he talks about fighting. yes. with meredith. that she almost took him. i don t really believe everything he says, but that part i believe. there s no doubt that she fought. you know, maybe it s a little bit that kind of gives you a little smirk to know she almost got him. she gave him a run for his money and i m sure that he may have thought, i maybe should have chosen somebody else. eventually hilt hadden wore meredith down. by then they were way off the main trail. hilton tied his captive to a tree and doubled back to that site where he had been stripped of his weapon. the bay owe net was gone, lost on the forest floor and the hiker had picked up the baton. hilton returned to meredith. i told her i had a gun and, you know, i was going to shoot her as now. skirting the main trail, he led meredith to his van in the tr
and bludgeoned meredith emerson to death. in an attempt to thwart investigators, he decapitated and poured bleach over the body. this is gruesome beyond belief. yes. for what reason? i don t know. hilton had confessed to killing meredith emerson. but what about those other cases in the national forest? a woman in florida, the elderly couple in north carolina. he would not talk about anybody to us other than meredith. because you have to wonder when the switch was thrown in this man. i know. how many decades does this maybe go back? i don t know. do people just wake up when they re 61 and start to do these kinds of crimes the way he did them? you know, i would think not. meredith emerson went missing new year s day. less than a month later, gary michael hilton appeared in a georgia courtroom and pleaded guilty to her murder. meredith s parents were there. her mother susan addressed hilton.
you dudes, have time to actually stop and think about things. he ll rattle on as long as someone will listen to him. yes, on any topic under the sun virtually, huh? yes. pick a topic. any topic. how about voluntarily convictology? don t you know the super volcano under yellowstone, there are over 70 super volcanoes? when it erupts it basically blankets in a cone the whole eastern seaboard of the u.s. under several feet of ash and would just destroy any civilization in that area. the fast-talking flimflam man was on display in some of hilton s home videos found in his van. here is hilton giving a cop that stopped him some lip. you tell me he you re the lawman. you re the law. i m going to check it out. if it ain t the law and you re wrong come talk to me. i m not talking to nobody. i m filing and suing because you re interrupting my work. you hear gary braking about how smart he is, how well he does his job.
meredith s name was meredith hope emerson. we all hoped she was alive. but, you know, the longer these things carry on, as time passes, you continue to hope but it diminishes after time. as the manhunt continued, there was a glimmer of hope. friday morning, four days after meredith vanished, the u.s. marshal s rvice traced activity on meredith s bank cards. the card was used at a local bank, 15 miles from the abduction site, and then again 50 miles south of the abduction site and then the next day 80 miles. these were attempts, where no money was taken. which suggests what? suggested that meredith wouldn t give him the right p.i.n. which also suggests maybe she s still alive. that s right. investigators had been able to trace the phone gary hilton used earlier to call his old boss john tabor to set that trap
he didn t let on that he was the subject of a man hunt? absolutely not. he apparently had no idea. he apologized at length for his past behavior and on the terms of which he left, he said that he was ill and that now he felt better and he realizeed the errors of his ways and he was ready to get back to work. start elled but thinking past, tabor tried to lure hilton to an agreed-upon location with the promise of money. i was trying to play it cool, like i didn t know anything about what was going on. i told him that i would give him a check for $800. we discussed a place to leave the check. were you baiting that place he knew to come and show up? it was certainly my objective to get him to a place where authorities could apprehend him. the trap was set at a building owned by tabor where hilton had lived for a while. the s.w.a.t. team was dispatched. would hilton fall for the pick up some money ruse? and what about the missing woman? in your gut, did you think meredith wa