last terrifying moments. as it turns out, her family and friends were right. she fought hard for her life. once again, dennis murphy. in your decades of law enforcement agent, have you ever had a session of interviews like this one? no. no, he was very straightforward and was very nonchalant about the whole thing. will you get down to the point where like meredith, i had $40, money, and several days food. so i had to kill somebody in that period of time. after his initial confession, gary hilton, the man of stoney silence, became a chatter box, spilling out a story that sickened detectives who thought they had heard everything. he began with meredith s abduction here on a hiking trail on blood mountain. he said that he ambushed meredith and her dog ella as she came down the trail. it was a struggle. and meredith with her martial
had her friends were naturally beside themselves. you know, your heart just broke because you think something happened, somebody had a weapon, and her stuff was there. so you re thinking at the very least she s been abducted. yep. and it was so hard because it wasn t something we could talk about until we could prove that. the cops commandeered a park building as headquarters. we began getting information pretty quickly. from people who had hiked the trails that day? right. remembered her. remembered her. right. we got news of a strange looking individual with meredith who also had a dog. thumbnail description of this other person. what were you hearing? strange looking, just a wiry kind of guy. older guy. older guy. we even developed a vehicle description, light van. the lead on the van came from this photo taken by a hiker in the blood mountain parking lot the night before meredith emerson went missing.
if i wanted to ensure that no one would associate the dog with her, i would have killed the dog. but there s no way i could do that. he was toofrp much of a sofo kill the dog, he explained it. but poor meredith, ella s owner didn t have a chance. i just told you once you ve done it, you re either going to kill her or get caught. there s no other solution. if that sounds cold and cruel, yeah, it was. in his unbelievably cold recollection of the crime, hilton said he told meredith he was going to let her go after four days of captivity. i told her i m taking her, i m going to release her. instead hilton went to the van, came back with a tire iron 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 confessed to killing
on the chalk board, taking ella. went hiking. not where, not when, not when i ll be back. it wasn t really anything out of the ordinary. meredith, like roomy julia, was a dog person. she doted on ella, her black lab mix since finding her at a rescue shelter. she had two dogs growing up and she wanted one of her own. she talked about it and researched what she wanted and definitely wanted to rescue a dog, and finally found one, went out, loved her and brought her home. it really was the light of her life. julia, the roommate, didn t know that meredith and ella were heading 40 miles south to blood mountain in the chattahoochee national forest. despite the creepy teen slasher movie name, blood mountain is a popular place to hike in the southeast. the famous appalachian trail to maine takes off from just south of here. back in buford, the roommate spent her new year s day with
confessing to the dog. a hushed courtroom listen today hilton s monologue. [ bleep ]. but first i have to hide it somewhere else. the state s forensic people introduced evidence about cheryl s slashed tire. a tool recovered of a bay net from georgia was the exact match of the puncture in florida. genetic expert joe ellen brown spent two years testing more than 750 pieces of evidence in the case. brown told the jury she was able to match cheryl dunlap s dna to blood on two of hilton s sleeping bags and on the shoe laces of his hiking boots. the major donor does match cheryl dunlap. jennifer portman, a senior writer on the tallahassee democrat was in court every day. how good or bad is the forensic evidence against gary