The day before she set out for her fateful hike, Meredith Emerson added another trifle to her Amazon.com wish list. This electronic keyhole to modern life gives hints of the 24-year-old's myriad interests. A "Harry Potter" book translated into French. A set of "Sex and the City" videos. A treatise on the power of Christianity. The ideas offered to those shopping for her came with this thoughtful tip: "If you want to buy me a book and can find a used one in good condition, more power to you! Save the money and the tree."

As she typed away, adding some environmentally friendly power strips for her computer gear, she sat in the Spartan apartment she shared with a friend from the University of Georgia. The distinguishing features of the place were all about Emerson, said Julia Karrenbauer, her roommate in the Buford apartment.

File photo (ENLARGE)

Meredith Emerson

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"We always joked that she had bookcases and bookcases of books, and not one was mine, " she said. "Meredith did all my reading for me."

But the pizza and the wine? They did that together, along with others on their girls' nights out.

After all, the stacks of books and practical wishes were only part of who she was. Roommates, friends and even one guy who tossed her around her martial-arts training class described this week an engaging, quick, exuberant young woman with a zest for life and a love of people. As a French major, she reveled in her adopted culture. She had a love of the outdoors. And she projected strength and confidence.

"I liked her right away. She was so feisty, " Karrenbauer said, laughing for the first time in the days since Emerson disappeared New Year's Day while hiking in Vogel State Park.

Gary Michael Hilton, a 61-year-old drifter charged with killing Emerson, led investigators to her body on Monday. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. today in Athens, at Central Presbyterian Church.

That's not far from the pizza joint where Emerson and Karrenbauer met three years ago, while both were students at the University of Georgia.

It was at Transmetropolitan, an Athens spot popular for $5 bottles of wine, where they were introduced through a mutual pal. They became fast friends that spring night, roommates who would share a lot more than a love for cheap wine and big calzones. Both were in their junior year. Both had studied abroad. Emerson had even briefly dated the man Karrenbauer was seeing.

Sitting barefoot on a sofa this week, Karrenbauer talked for nearly two hours about her friend, hoping to personalize what the nation might view as just another sad statistic.

"It's what Meredith would've done for me, " she said.

Deep bonds

Born in Charleston, S.C., Meredith Emerson spent most of her formative years in Raleigh, where Peggy Bailey was one of her seventh-grade teachers. She quickly became much more to Emerson and her family, eventually settling on the title "godmother" just because it was the quickest way to explain the deep friendship. This week, Bailey has been the spokeswoman for the grieving family.

"Even back then, she was very organized, friendly, very cute but not girlie, " Bailey said. "She was an excellent student, outgoing, polite and well-mannered at home and school."

Their friendship continued beyond Emerson's eighth-grade year, when jobs took the Bailey family to Athens and the Emersons to Longmont, Colo., where hiking is ingrained in the culture.

Emerson did well in high school French there and aspired to study international business in college. That led her back to the South and back to Bailey, both of which she sorely missed.

She and her parents were impressed with the University of Georgia campus and its business school.

"I don't think she looked anywhere else after that, " Bailey said.

Emerson graduated from high school in 2001 and moved into Myers Hall with Kristin Scarboro, daughter of one of Bailey's childhood friends.

Scarboro said Emerson immediately claimed the top bunk. They each hung posters from their favorite movies over their desks —- "Gone With the Wind" for Scarboro and "The Godfather" for Emerson —- and spray-painted a chalkboard surface on one wall for notes.

"We really hit it off, " Scarboro recalled. "We agreed on pretty much everything."

That's how Emerson was.

"She could make anyone feel comfortable around her, " said Scarboro, echoing the sentiments of others Emerson knew well. "She was a very loving, caring person and would go out of her way to help someone."

By all accounts, there was nothing closer to Emerson's heart than friends and family.

The Baileys were her surrogate family in Georgia, and she often dropped in just to hang out. She never missed coming for Mother's Day or Thanksgiving or Peggy Bailey's birthday. She took summer vacations with them. She checked on their son, Stephen, as often as she did her own brother, Mark.

She cherished her parents, Susan and David Emerson, and looked forward to spending every Christmas with them. The phone helped her stay close to Mark.

Karrenbauer remembered the first time Emerson told her about Mark's girlfriend.

Ooh, my brother has a girlfriend, and she's so cute, but I can't tell my parents, she recalled Emerson saying. Mark didn't want 20 questions.

That's another thing friends said they liked about Emerson. Secrets shared were secrets kept.

Puppy love

Emerson was so smitten by French culture that she studied there and even dropped her business major in favor of French literature.

After graduating from UGA in 2005 with a degree in French literature, the normally happy Emerson turned a bit sour. She had taken an unrelated job in Athens.

My life is going nowhere, she told Karrenbauer.

Her friend told her of a sales position at the Gwinnett Convention Center. Emerson interviewed for the job and, of course, they loved her.

After commuting to Gwinnett for several months, the women moved into a Buford townhome less than a minute from the Mall of Georgia.

Emerson fell hard for Karrenbauer's dog, Brandy, and decided to get her own. She went on the Internet and found a dog to adopt from a shelter. She loved the face and little pot belly of her new friend, Ella.

Emerson posted pictures of the black Lab mix online. She called with every new development: Ella rolled over on her back. Ella sitting on a towel. Ella chewing a bone.She enrolled in a class to teach Ella to be a physical therapy dog. But when the instructor told her about the need for dogs to go into schools so that children struggling to read could read to them, she jumped at the chance.

"She loved children and animals, " Bailey said.

"Plus, " said Karrenbauer, "it fit right in with that big heart of hers."

Emerson eventually moved on to a job with a Winder packaging company, continuing to live in Gwinnett.

The two roommates still made trips back to Athens, with Karrenbauer taking graduate classes and Emerson visiting the Baileys and attending classes at AKF Itto Martial Arts. She studied Judo and Kyuki-Do, a combination of several forms.

"She loved to come home and tell me what 250-pound man she threw over her shoulder that day, " Karrenbauer said.

Emerson was proud of her green belt in Judo and blue belt in Kyuki-Do, just two away from a black belt.

Bruce Carpenter, one of Emerson's instructors, said other students tended to treat the diminutive, 5-foot-4 Emerson rather gently. And Emerson hated that. When it came time for Carpenter to throw her, it knocked the wind out of her.

"She looked at me and said 'thank you, ' " Carpenter remembered. "She didn't want to be the girl.

"She trained with us like she lived every day —- hard and with everything she had."