Hilton items found in concealed Ga. campsite

By Larry Hartstein

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A hunter stumbled across camping supplies, clothes and books belonging to convicted killer Gary Michael Hilton in the Chattahoochee National Forest.

The hunter came across the items last Friday at a concealed campsite, and thought they might be stolen or illegally dumped.

“This is an area that we know he frequented,” Fannin County Sheriff's Sgt. Justin Turner said of Hilton.

Hilton is serving life in prison for the January 2008 murder of Buford hiker Meredith Emerson and is awaiting trial in the decapitation of hiker Cheryl Dunlap, a Tallahassee Sunday school teacher.

Emerson, a 24-year-old UGA grad, was hiking with her dog in the Union County mountains when Hilton kidnapped her. Hilton pleaded guilty and avoided the death penalty in exchange for leading authorities to Emerson's body.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation turned over the items to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, GBI spokesman John Bankhead said.

Hilton also is suspected in the slayings of an elderly North Carolina couple, John and Irene Bryant. They disappeared in October 2007 while hiking in the Pisgah National Forest.

Bankhead said the N.C. Bureau of Investigation has been notified, and that Florida authorities will contact that agency if any items can be tied to the Bryants' killings.