Convicted killer Gary Michael Hilton's admittedly unprepared defense team has rested after just one witness, with the Leon County, Fla., jury expected to receive the case Tuesday.
Hilton, who pleaded guilty in January 2008 to killing Buford hiker Meredith Emerson, is charged in the December 2007 murder of Florida Sunday school teacher Cheryl Dunlap. Public defender Ines Suber sought to delay the start of the Jan. 31 trial -- which came exactly three years after Hilton was convicted in Dawson County for Emerson's murder -- saying she did not have ample time to prepare.
The defense's only witness, Dr. Adina Schwartz, disputed state evidence that a slash mark found in Dunlap's tire was made by Hilton's bayonet, calling it a "subjective" conclusion, according to WCTV in Tallahassee. Schwartz testified Monday that investigators could not account for variables such as the composition of the tire or the angle of the knife.
Though Hilton declined to take the stand, the jury heard him speak in "home movies" inadvertently captured on the drifter's camera. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, "Hilton [was] heard mumbling, humming, singing and making pig-like grunting noises as he [rummaged] around [his] van.
At one point he can be heard saying "killed them with that" and "killed those [expletive]."
Then, the paper reports, Hilton said, apparently to his dog, "Now we're done, we're going to the park. But first I have to go hide this somewhere else."
Prosecutors also presented evidence that Hilton told investigators he didn't start killing until September 2007 -- one month before an elderly North Carolina couple disappeared in the Pisgah National Forest. Hilton has not been charged in the deaths of John and Irene Bryant, but investigators say he is a prime suspect.
Hilton, if convicted in Florida, could receive the death penalty -- a sentence he avoided in the Emerson case by leading officials to the UGA graduate's body, which he had hidden in the Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area north of Cumming.
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