and what nature of man is gary hilton? listen to the confession tapes about what he says about meredith s dog ella. he said he knew the dog had the identifying chip when he let the go in the supermarket parking lot. if i wanted to ensure that no one would have associated the dog with her, i would have killed the dog. there s no way i could do that. he was too much of a softy to kill the dog as he explained it. but ella s owner never had a chance. she was dead from the beginning. because i just told you, once you ve done it, you re either going to kill her or get caught. there s no other solution. that sounds cold and cruel, yeah, it was. in his unbelievable cold recollection of the crime, hilton told meredith he was going to let her go after four days of captivity. i told her i m going to take her and 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
the man is there? the van is here. the dog is here, the road dog. and i saw the man s face. i ve been watching the news and i know it s him. i know it s him. he s emptying the stuff out of his van, looking around like he s guilty as sin. i can go take him down if you want. no, sir. stay right there. here comes the cops. yes. yes. police are there? they ve it got him now. two cruisers pulled up on him. gary hilton was under arrest. detectives swarmed over the filthy astro van and inventoried his possessions looking for any clue to meredith s faith. a gbi spokesman updated the media. it s a missing person s investigate investigation right now. that s how we re pursuing it. take me inside your situation room when you get the news atlanta s got him. we re very pleased that now we have this man, but we can t lose sight of the fact we don t
blood, chop off her head and hands, and dump her body. after her opening statement, the state built the brick and masonry are of its story on the time line investigators had so painstakingly assembled. an attorney hiking with her husband in the national forest at leon sinks that saturday morning remembered seeing sheryl. i looked at her, and i said, it it s peaceful out here, isn t it? and she looked at me and she nodded and she smiled and then she exited the boardwalk. then a parade of witnesses testified to seeing hilton out and about in the national forest. there was the motorist who noticed a man near sheryl s car with a flat tire. how confident are you that mr. hilton was the man that you saw at that vehicle? very confident. others remembered dandy, the man s good-looking reddish retriever mix. show you what i ve marked as state s exhibit 37. that s it. that look like the dog you saw that day? yes he. a picture of hilton s dog dandy, exhibit 37, was looking
from people who had hiked the trails that it day. right. and 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 on a hiker in the blood mountain parking lot the night before meredith emerson went missing. a be on the lookout advisory went out for the guy driving a white van accompanied by his reddish dog. it is going to be a white male between the ages of 50 and 60 years old, approximately 160 pounds. it was described as he has bad dental, he had a dark reddish colored retriever. we put out that information through the media in atlanta and actually got a call from somebody who said, i think i know who this is.
i knew that was a place he liked to hang out, that he had a dog with him. and most importantly was the evidence that they had found at the scene. i knew hilton always had an expandible police baton with him. the tip and a name quickly led to a georgia driver s license for 61-year-old gary michael hilton. investigators showed the photo to hikers who i.d. d him as the scruffy mystery man meredith was seen. the man hunt was on. we put the face out. it s plastered all over the atlanta area. yes. the apb went well past the georgia border. hilton s name and picture were all over the regional news. light bulbs began going off to the south around tallahassee, florida s capital, when people saw the photo on tv. the search for gary hilton was about to widen. the person of interest in the meredith emerson case looked familiar to people who think they saw him about the time they learned of the sad case of another woman who had gone miss being, sheryl dunlap, a nurse and mother.