TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The man who admitted killing 24-year-old Georgia hiker Meredith Emerson last month was indicted Thursday in the death of Cheryl Hodges Dunlap, whose body was found Dec. 19 in the Apalachicola National Forest.
The Leon County grand jury indicted Gary Michael Hilton, 61, on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and two counts of theft.
Recommended Videos
Investigators knew Hilton was in the area at the time 46-year-old Dunlap disappeared Dec. 1 because he ran into a forestry agent who wrote down his vehicle's tag number and ran it through the police database, Leon County Sheriff's Office Maj. Mike Wood said in January.
Wood said Florida authorities had received numerous tips from citizens in the Dunlap case, including one from a hunter who reported seeing a "homeless-looking, disheveled man with a knife" Dec. 7 in the national forest.
The hunter, who said he warned the man the forest was a bad place to be during hunting season, notified police of the encounter Dec. 19, after Dunlap's body was found.
A Florida law enforcement source said that Dunlap also was decapitated, as was Emerson.
Leon County investigators named Hilton the prime suspect in Dunlap's slaying in early February and recently brought two truckloads of evidence from Georgia to Tallahassee.
"This indictment of Gary Michael Hilton is a result of excellent cooperation and hard work between many agencies and jurisdictions," said Leon County Sheriff Larry Campbell. "I am confident that, based on the forensic evidence collected and the investigative efforts of all the law enforcement officers involved, a dangerous killer will be brought to justice in Leon County."
Hilton pleaded guilty to murder in the death of Emerson in Georgia late January and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Florida law enforcement officials said Hilton would be transferred to Leon County at some point, although we do not yet know when.
North Carolina authorities have also named him a suspect in the deaths of John Bryant, 80, and his wife, Irene, 84, who disappeared while hiking in Pisgah National Forest Oct. 21.
Officials in Ormond Beach, Fla., were also investigating whether Hilton was involved in the death of a man whose decapitated, dismembered body was found spread among several trash bags under the Tokoma River Bridge.
