Following the arrest of serial killer Gary Hilton outside a convenience store in Georgia, law enforcement officers were gripped with unease upon discovering that the body of a missing hiker was not found with the suspect.
Tasked with the daunting mission of locating hiker Meredith Emerson’s remains in the Georgia segment of the Appalachians, authorities resorted to what they termed “a deal with the devil.”
Former Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent John Cagle recounted the tense negotiation process in “Blood Mountain,” a new limited series on Fox Nation. “I went up to the jail where we were holding Hilton. I met with his lawyers. I asked them to go talk with him, and I told them that I wanted to know where Meredith Emerson was right then,” Cagle revealed.
“They talked to him for several hours and came out and asked me if I would call the local prosecutor to see if he would be willing to consider taking the death penalty off the table in return for the location of Meredith Emerson,” he continued.
Fox Nation’s two-part series “Blood Mountain” delves into the disappearance of Emerson, Hilton’s apprehension, and his subsequent confession and conviction in other homicides.
Hilton’s arrest occurred on January 4, 2008, moments after he was spotted cleaning out his van by a witness. Responding swiftly, police captured Hilton, who appeared visibly guilty.
The arrest transpired three days after Emerson vanished on January 1 while hiking Blood Mountain, the tallest peak on Georgia’s Appalachian trail.
“Meredith spent a lot of time outdoors,” recalled Emerson’s friend Brent Seyler in the Fox Nation series. “She was all about her dog, and she was all about nature. She loved being outside.”
Despite her Colorado origins, Emerson was undaunted by the challenging and perilous ascent of Blood Mountain. However, she was ill-prepared for the nightmare awaiting her in the wilderness.
In Hilton’s chilling confession, he disclosed not only the location of Emerson’s body but also the grisly details of her demise. The perpetrator, dubbed the National Forest Serial Killer, admitted to luring Emerson deep into the woods and fatally striking her with a tire tool. Hilton further revealed the existence of two crime scenes: one containing her body and another, a few miles away, housing her decapitated head.
“I’m going to tell you right now, there was never any plan to let her go,” Hilton coldly asserted in police recordings.
Hilton pleaded guilty to Emerson’s murder and received a life sentence in prison.
Following the Emerson case, Georgia authorities collaborated with counterparts in North Carolina and Florida to probe Hilton’s potential involvement in two other unsolved homicides.
Law enforcement soon linked Hilton to the murder of 46-year-old Cheryl Dunlap, whose body was discovered in Apalachicola National Forest in Leon County, Florida.
Two years after receiving a death sentence, Hilton admitted to the murders of elderly couple John and Irene Bryant, aged 80 and 84, respectively, who vanished while hiking in North Carolina in October 2007.
Hilton was condemned to death for Dunlap’s murder.
“A life for a life,” remarked Dunlap’s cousin, Marsha Misso, in Fox Nation’s “Blood Mountain.” “I feel like he deserved the death penalty, and I was glad he got it.”
Critical evidence in all cases stemmed from the van Hilton possessed at the time of his 2008 arrest.
“An enormous amount of articles were in the van. A lot of evidence that had blood on it. A lot of items in the dumpster,” explained Cagle during the Fox Nation series.
Hilton remains on death row in Florida.
“The national forests are great places to go to get away from just about anything you can think of,” observed Cagle. “But hikers need to be aware of their surroundings,” he cautioned during the Fox Nation special.
To explore more about the National Forest Serial Killer and the harrowing negotiation process, viewers can tune into Fox Nation’s two-part series “Blood Mountain,” now available for streaming.
