The father of a missing Miami woman said a man seen with his daughter the day she disappeared bears a strong resemblance to convicted killer Gary Michael Hilton.
"It looks like [Hilton]," said Anibal Miliani, who lives in Miami. A newly circulated sketch from an FBI-trained artist is breathing new life into suspicions that Hilton may have been involved in Rossana Miliani's disappearance.
Her father hasn't seen or talked to Rossana since Dec. 7, 2005, when the then-26-year-old was spotted with a graying stranger in a Bryson City, N.C., general store.
Hilton, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Buford hiker Meredith Emerson and awaiting trial in the decapitation of a Florida Sunday school teacher, is the sole suspect in two other murders and has been termed a "person of interest" in a third.
The store clerk who waited on Rossana Miliani said the man accompanying her was in his late 50s or early 60s and appeared to be wearing a hairpiece. He told the clerk (who didn't come forward until hearing about the Miliani case much later) that he was a preacher who traveled to campgrounds across the region.
Private investigator Steve Siske, hired by the Milianis, said the clerk thought she appeared nervous. North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation told Siske they plan to interview Hilton, but so far that hasn't happened.
"The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is still considering a possible connection between Hilton and Miliani's disappearance, but that is not the sole focus of our investigation," said bureau spokeswoman Noelle Talley.
Miliani's father doesn't believe his daughter, who has bipolar disorder but traveled extensively, ran away or committed suicide.
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