Gary Hilton

In addition to the homicides mentioned above, Hilton has been investigated and remains a suspect in the following unsolved murders:

• On September 7, 1997, several human bones and personal items were found in Pisgah National Forest, scattered near a campground. The decedent was eventually identified as 51-year-old hiker Judy Smith, who was last seen in Philadelphia five months earlier on April 10, 1997. It has been speculated that she might have been a victim of Hilton, who had left one of his victims in a similar condition near where Smith's body was discovered.[27]
• 20-year-old Jason Andrew Knapp, a Clemson University student, was last seen by his roommate at their residence in University Terrace Apartments in South Carolina on April 11, 1998. His roommate said that Knapp was watching a movie at approximately 10:30 p.m. that evening. Authorities found Knapp's white 1990 Chevrolet Beretta abandoned nine days later on April 21, 1998. The vehicle was parked at Table Rock State Park, in Pickens County, South Carolina. He was declared legally dead in 2018. Due to similarities to his other known crimes, Hilton was proposed as a suspect but he denied any connection to Knapp.[28][29]
• Hairdresser Patrice Marie Tamber Endres, 38, disappeared from her hair salon, Tamber’s Trim ‘N Tan, in Cumming, Georgia, on April 15, 2004, between 11:37 and 11:50 a.m. Her remains were found on December 6, 2005, in Dawson County, Georgia.[30][31] Hilton was known to have been in Forsyth County, because he had been stopped for a traffic violation there. In his statements to investigators, Hilton told them that he would usually go to hair salons to ask for money, usually around lunchtime. Investigators were unable to find an alibi for him on the day of Patrice's disappearance.[32]
• 26-year-old Rossana Miliani, a hiker from Miami, Florida, was last seen at approximately 12:00 p.m. at the Ramada Inn hotel in Cherokee, North Carolina. Miliani called her father from the hotel that day and told him she was going hiking on the Appalachian Trail. A store clerk who read about Miliani's disappearance claimed she sold a backpack to Miliani and an unidentified older white man in his 60s in Bryson City, North Carolina, in 2005. Following Hilton's arrest, the store clerk contacted authorities to note the similarities between Hilton and the suspect.[33][34]
• Michael Scot Louis, 27, a South Daytona resident, went missing on November 21, 2007.[35] A few weeks later on December 6, his dismembered remains were found by a fisherman in Ormond Beach, packed in black bags which had been dumped in the Tomoka River.[36] The remains were not immediately connected to Louis, with identification occurring several days later by a lab in California. His head was never located. Authorities have stated that while Hilton remains a suspect in the murder and was in the area at the time, he is not the sole one.[37][38]

Five hours after police found the items linked to Emerson, Hilton was arrested thanks to two anonymous phone tips, which claimed that he was vacuuming his van at a local establishment.[39][40] He was transferred to the county jail, where he was subsequently charged with kidnapping based on the material evidence connecting him to the case. While he was being held at a federal prison in Atlanta, the search for Emerson's body continued in a 90-square mile area of the Chattahoochee National Forest.[41] Upon examining his van, the same 2001 Chevrolet Astro as reported earlier in tips by witnesses, authorities noticed that it was missing its rear car seat belt, which matched the one located among Emerson's personal items.[42]

In exchange for dropping the death penalty against him, Hilton agreed to reveal where he had disposed of Emerson's remains, leading the investigators to the Dawson Forest Management Area. She had been decapitated, but the coroner determined that it had been done post-mortem in an attempt to prevent identification.[43] Hilton claimed that he had abducted her to steal her bank cards and PIN code and that he had repeatedly hit her with a tire iron, causing her death. He later pleaded guilty to her murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 30 years. In September 2009, a hiker found camping supplies believed to belong to Gary Hilton, which were then turned over to the Florida authorities for use in the upcoming Dunlap trial.[44]

About a month later, Florida prosecutors charged Hilton with Dunlap's murder, claiming that forensic evidence linked him to the slaying.[45] Despite his efforts to fight his extradition, Hilton was brought to Leon County from the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in June 2008, and was remanded to await trial for the Dunlap killing.[46] Attorneys Ines Suber and Steven Been, who specialized in capital murder cases, were hired as his public defenders.[47] At his trial, prosecutors claimed that Hilton had abducted Dunlap from the Leon Sinks Geological Area and held her captive for two days, before eventually killing and then decapitating her body. He had also attempted to eliminate potential evidence by incinerating her head and hands in a fire pit before finally dumping the body in the forest.[48]

When Hilton's defense team claimed that there was no forensic proof, the prosecutors reminded that Hilton had claimed on tape that he had disposed of Dunlap's body, but now deliberately tried to distance himself from it. After four hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty on three out of four charges, with a recommendation to impose the death penalty on the convict.[49][50] On February 22, 2011, he was officially sentenced to death for the crime and sent off to Florida's death row.[51] In 2012, Hilton was brought to trial for the third time for the murders of John and Irene Bryant. As part of a plea deal with the prosecutor, he admitted his guilt in the killings and was sentenced to an additional life term without the chance of parole.[52] During the hearings, Hilton described how he had killed Irene on the spot and then kidnapped John to extort his bank details, before shooting him in the head with a .22 Magnum and then dumping his body.[53]

During and after his trials, criminal profilers from the FBI and agencies from across the country attended the proceedings to interview Hilton.[54] According to criminologist Eric Hickey, Hilton was likely responsible for other homicides before 2007, a claim supported by other veteran profilers, who were skeptical that Hilton had begun killing at such an old age.[55] In 2018, Hilton unsuccessfully attempted to overturn his death sentence, citing his defense team as dysfunctional and ineffective. Both state and federal authorities denied his appeal.[56]

• List of death row inmates in the United States
• List of serial killers in the United States

• Fred Rosen (2011). Trails of Death: The True Story of National Forest Serial Killer Gary Hilton. Titletown Publishing. ISBN 978-0982720691.
• Lee Butcher (October 24, 2011). At the Hands of a Stranger. Pinnacle Books. ISBN 978-0786030460.
• Gloria Tucker (October 30, 2019). Victimized By A Serial Killer. Lulu Publishing Services. ISBN 9781684712069.