Wicked Wanderings
Delve into the enigmatic realms of the mysterious, unearth tales of haunting encounters, explore the chilling depths of true crime, and unravel the threads of the unexplained. Join us on the Wicked Wanderings Podcast for a riveting journey through the realms of the unknown and the haunting mysteries that linger in the shadows.
Wicked Wanderings
Ep. 68: The National Forest Killer
Could the treasures of ancient Rome be hidden within the Vatican's walls? We embark on a speculative journey into the historical mysteries of the Roman Empire's wealth and its potential ties to the Roman Catholic Church. Gathered in a cozy holiday atmosphere with special guests Rob, Jonathan, and our mom, we enjoy a spirited conversation that weaves together familial warmth with the enigmatic allure of history. This festive setting provides the perfect backdrop for pondering how much of the past is hidden in plain sight.
Then, brace yourself for a chilling exploration of Gary Hilton, the National Forest Killer. Between 2007 and 2008, Hilton's sinister activities left a trail of horror from North Carolina to Florida, targeting isolated individuals in national forests. We dissect his methodical madness, the peculiarities of his crimes, and the broader implications of his actions. As we unravel specific cases like the tragic ends of John and Irene Bryant and Cheryl Dunlap, a haunting picture emerges, illustrating a man whose cruelty contrasted sharply with his odd displays of empathy toward animals.
The episode takes a deeper dive into the peculiarities of Hilton's capture, including the curious case of his green van and his strategic bargaining to save his beloved dog. Was Hilton's history of violence even longer and darker than initially believed? We contemplate this possibility, drawing parallels with other notorious criminals and reflecting on the psychological complexities that defined Hilton's twisted persona. Join us for a gripping exploration of the blurred lines between history's mysteries and the shadowy aspects of human nature.
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Wicked Wanderings is hosted by Hannah & Courtney and it's produced by Rob Fitzpatrick. Music by Sascha Ende.
Wicked Wanderings is a Production of Studio 113
So there's this guy on TikTok that has this theory. So you know how the Roman Empire fell. Right, he's saying that the Roman Empire never fell. Rome fell, but the Roman Empire and all the money and prestige that went with it is in the church. So the Vatican, the Catholics. I think that's interesting.
Speaker 2:The Roman Catholics.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:I think it's a really interesting theory. I think it's a really interesting theory. I think it's a good theory, but I don't necessarily. I mean they've not made the connection between money from the Roman Empire and the current Roman Catholic Church.
Speaker 1:Doesn't mean it's not there.
Speaker 4:Their monuments, their roads, their buildings are still there, but I think it's separate from the Catholic Church.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's a cool theory, but I don't think that there's any real fact that can back that up.
Speaker 4:But there is a lot of wealth in the Catholic Church still and there are a lot of paintings and very valuable artifacts that we don't see, probably will never see.
Speaker 1:Anybody else, go ahead, tell me I'm wrong. Valuable artifacts that are in the we don't see.
Speaker 3:Probably we'll never see anybody else go ahead tell me I'm wrong, okay hi, I'm hannah and I'm courtney.
Speaker 1:Join us as we delve into true crime, paranormal encounters and all things spooky.
Speaker 5:Grab your flashlight and get ready to wander into the darkness with us.
Speaker 1:This is Wicked Wanderers. Hello Courtney, Hi Anna. This episode is a little different because we're not at my house, we're at my mom's house and we have special guests. So, hi Rob, Hello. And we have my mother here, hello and my brother, jonathan, which some people actually asked for. So here he is.
Speaker 2:Hello, I do want to say Merry Christmas to everyone, because this episode is coming out on the 25th, so if you are opening up presents with everyone while listening to Wicked Wandering, thank you very much, merry Christmas.
Speaker 5:We should probably toss in.
Speaker 4:sometimes we use explicatives, so if you're around family with children. Yeah, yeah, caution on that. Turn it down.
Speaker 1:So today's episode is actually brought by the one, the only, jonathan.
Speaker 3:So I wanted to talk today about Gary Hilton, who's known as the National Forest Killer.
Speaker 1:That's a very big name.
Speaker 2:Any relation to the Hilton Hotels, Hiltons.
Speaker 3:No, I don't think this is like Paris Hilton's uncle, but anyway, Look, do you imagine?
Speaker 2:Well, depending on what year it was, you know, I didn't know if it was a descendant of any sort, you know. So it was a legitimate question.
Speaker 3:No, this guy is like born 1946. So he's like in his late 70s now. Is that right? No, yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:Thank you, anyway. So this I'm going to talk about a series of four murders that he was accused of and was actually tried for that take place between 2007 and 2008. Honestly, like our story starts in October 2007 and kind of wraps up in February, though the trials were anywhere from between 2009 and 2012 for murders that took place over those couple of months with. Is that because most of his murders actually occurred within national force, the FBI was involved because their national force is federal level, which is super interesting.
Speaker 3:So they had all these FBI profilers. Take a look at Gary Hilton and everything he had admitted to and he went on trial for, and they all agree that, even though he was in the 60s by the time he started these murders that he was actually convicted of uh, these were definitely not his first.
Speaker 1:Uh, these were among his last I was gonna say, because that's kind of like a weird time to start killing people. Yeah, exactly, just decide hey this is where I'm gonna yeah, and then he was busy. Now, what am I gonna do?
Speaker 3:so if you take a look at and look up Gary Hilton, there's a whole list of other murders that anywhere from like the mid 90s straight through the 2000s, before he ends up in jail that are like his MO, but neither not enough evidence or didn't quite fit everything else he had done or he hadn't admitted to. So a lot of interesting things, um, but we're talking about the uh, the key three scenarios, the four murders that led to his capture and sentencing in 2007, 2008, uh, but again, as I mentioned, there's a lot of other ones that are connected to him. Uh, just nothing's proven, um, and then I'll be talking about an attempted kidnapping by him that I have a direct connection to, um, and so I wanted to start with like I'm sorry that just is a great like all right one truth and a lot no, two truths and I, yeah for a party he just like drops all that on us
Speaker 3:and he's like wait, I'm gonna get there. I'm gonna get there.
Speaker 3:Now stick with me for like an intro to a movie plot twist so do you want to take a look at his mo before we go into the uh, four stories that they have, because I think it's important to kind of like keep those things in mind as we're talking about, um, these murders and one attempted abduction. Um, because it is a little bit different than other serial killers, right, um, we're used to talking about serial killers that they liked a certain physical appearance or a certain age, or um well, no, never mind.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say certain hunt and ground, but obviously he has a certain ground, never mind definitely he aligned with a certain area but his murders take place everywhere between north carolina, georgia and florida.
Speaker 3:So I actually went and took a um as I was reading more about him, actually went on Google Maps and mapped all of these locations so where these four people were abducted, where they were, their bodies were found and then any other key moments in their murder trials where Gary Hilton kind of popped up and it's all in this kind of very straight corridor from North Carolina Tennessee border straight down through Georgia to the Tallahassee area in Florida, which is really interesting. It also makes sense because Atlanta is roughly in the center of that range and that's where he lived. It also makes sense because Atlanta is roughly in the center of that range and that's where he lived. So a couple of key things about his MO One Gary Hilton was always looking for someone who was vulnerable. So in general he wasn't specific on age young versus old. He wasn't looking for a particular look or a particular ethnicity or a particular job, etc.
Speaker 5:He was looking just for. That's what I was gonna ask no, not that either.
Speaker 3:Just started with vulnerability, so this could mean very young somebody who looked like they were a teenager or in college, uh, or someone who was very old. His first two victims that we're going to be talking about, the bryant, were in their 80s, um.
Speaker 5:Who does that? Old people. I mean kids too, but old people I know.
Speaker 3:He was looking for them to be alone. Now the Bryants were the first murder I'm going to mention Again. They were in their 80s but also they were together. But they also had a lot of vulnerability because they were senior citizens in a national park. He was also looking for vulnerability.
Speaker 3:He liked that most of his victims were from out of state. So there's a few caveats to that in some of his accused murders, but that's kind of like key number two he always liked a victim who was from out of state because they weren't nearly as familiar with the area, particularly the national parks, as he was. And on top of that, when they were murdered people wouldn't likely be missing them as quickly. So there's one particular victim, cheryl Dunlap, who was immediately missed because she didn't show up to teach Sunday school. So immediately they went looking for her. But most of these people were like on vacation, they were going to national parks, they were hiking and some people didn't report them for up to two weeks later, right, because you're waiting for your family to come back from a trip.
Speaker 1:You're not thinking, oh, they're just busy, they're having a good time, that's why I can't get in touch with them it kind of reminds me of the case that you did where uh, I forgot his name, oh it was. You read two books on him. Yeah, oh gosh, oh gosh. Tony Tony Costa, and those girls that they were just in the same housing with him, yeah, yeah, it was total fluke.
Speaker 5:They ended up basically staying at this house, where he was not a seasonal boarder, but he was there for a longer term, and so they ended up just bumping into him. When they were away on a weekend trip, and it took them until know monday morning, one of them didn't show up for work in order to be reported missing, because she was a school teacher and she would have never missed. But what was the one that they said? She went to mexico. Oh yeah, well, she was. Um, I think they described her as a hippie. So it was like, oh, you know, she's fleeting, she's here, she's there, she's, you know, sexually free, she's using drugs. They were just kind of like oh yeah, she's in mexico, but it was like four weeks before somebody actually was like you know.
Speaker 5:Maybe we should check on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the last piece I'll mention in his MO is near or in a national forest, so I'd already kind of mentioned that. But this was the really big identifier. That's why he's called the National Park of the National Forest Killer A really big deal for him and the reason we call him what we do. He either found his victims in these forests, found them near them and then took them into the forest for their murder and then most often disposed of them in national forests Did not necessarily need to be the same national forest in which they were murdered, which is also really interesting.
Speaker 1:It is yeah.
Speaker 5:I mean how?
Speaker 1:many bodies are probably in the woods that we just don't know about.
Speaker 5:Well, at least you know where to check National Forest.
Speaker 3:So let's start with our first three murder cases, four individual murders John and Irene Bryant, which I already mentioned. This is October 2007. This is kind of what kicks off the snowball. That kind of gets them captured in the end. They're a retired couple in their 80s. They left their home in Horseshoe, north Carolina. So this is right on the border basically with close to Tennessee, but also the other borders of South Carolina and Georgia. They all kind of converge in the same area. So they leave their home in Horseshoe, north Carolina, to hike in the Pisag I'm going to mispronounce that National Forest. This is about a 35-minute trip. So after two weeks family members call in law enforcement and they're like, hey, we can't get a hold of them. This is really strange. And after several searches they find Irene's remains in early November. So disappear in October. Do multiple searches early November, so disappear in October. Do multiple searches Early November. We're a month later. They find Irene's remains.
Speaker 3:Just the one, not her husband, but not her husband John.
Speaker 5:Interesting okay.
Speaker 3:Because it was a national force, the FBI was called in. That's why we get a really good profile of Gary Hilton in the end, because there's so many FBI profilers on the case in the end. And they also launched a ten thousand dollar reward for information right at this point. Uh, they still thought john was alive. They thought he was just being killed captive by whoever murdered irene during this time. They also discovered that john made a 911 call the day of their disappearance back in october, but the signal dropped because they were in the National.
Speaker 1:Forest. So they never suspected John, like, even though he didn't kill his wife. I just you know.
Speaker 5:That's so true, though, if you think about it too Like oh, he tried to place the 911 call Conveniently, it dropped, he's nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 1:They immediately were like he's being held captive. It's an interesting joke. For me, I would be like oh no, it was the husband. We always assume it was the husband right F those husbands.
Speaker 5:It's always them.
Speaker 3:And in addition to that, right around the same time they discovered a Caucasian man had used the Bryant's ATM card to withdraw $300 from a bank in Tennessee. This is right over the borders, not that far away. So now we have a partial, obscured visual of the man we'll later know as gary hilton, um so kind of taking a pause there, moving kind of chronologically into the next murder, cheryl dunlap. So, uh, we're now in december, um months later, and all of this is going on around the tennessee slash north carolina border. Cheryl Dunlap this is now December 2007,.
Speaker 3:Middle-aged woman from Crawfordville, florida, so think we're now far south hour south, straight through Georgia, into the border with Georgia and Florida. She didn't show up to teach Sunday school in early December and her absence was immediately reported to authorities on that following Monday. Later that week a search party of over 180 people was organized, with absolutely no results. At this point they were still hoping she was alive by mid-December, so hardly like. Two weeks later, a hunter stumbled on decomposing remains of a white female in the Appalachicola State Forest, which were later identified as Dunlaps.
Speaker 3:Aww and I want to talk about the Appalachicola State Forest in just a second. At the exact same time when they finally find her remains, they see that her ATM card had been used in Tallahassee five times, withdrawing a total of $700.
Speaker 5:Wow, which is so interesting. Yeah, it's like he's not killing for money, because you're not getting very much.
Speaker 1:I mean, I hate to say that there'd be a lot of value on taking someone's life.
Speaker 5:There isn't for me, but I would imagine it wouldn't be a couple hundred dollars.
Speaker 1:How is he killing them again? I don't think he's got there yet. Okay, all right, sorry if I'm skipping ahead.
Speaker 3:I could talk a little bit about that moment, like, hey, this is what's available to me. Yes, and there are some things about Gary Hilton Like he's known as this kind of really strange guy who always hikes with his dog through national parks, particularly up in Georgia, where he was living outside of Atlanta. He's known as a hothead and a little bit crazy.
Speaker 5:Okay. He's known as a hothead and a little bit crazy, so that would fit the opportunistic like oh you're here and you're inconveniencing me in some way, and here's a lamp.
Speaker 3:And you're vulnerable and you're in a national park, or I brought you to a national park. Some of it, some of the ones he's accused of, sound like they were totally premeditated.
Speaker 5:Okay.
Speaker 3:Because he's moving people and bodies all over the place and then some of them just look like he was in the national forest and he just decided you're alone, you're my person, bludgeon you to death the ones, hannah and I love the most the classic.
Speaker 5:What is going on inside their head?
Speaker 1:seriously, is it?
Speaker 5:one motive, is it multiple? And then it's like, how does somebody get to that point?
Speaker 1:because another point to it can't be money motivated, like if it is opportunistic and they're vulnerable, just mug them and take their debit card.
Speaker 5:They don't know how to kill them knowing.
Speaker 3:Okay, they must have money right because right now he has two murders, one suspected murder under his bell, at the very least, uh, and he's only stolen about a thousand dollars right.
Speaker 5:I mean he is going after what seems like sometimes like tourists too, but does he know that they're tourists? You know what I mean? Because someone who's going places and they're traveling you're going to expect that they have cash on them, or that they have at least enough money and funds on their debit card, because they're traveling they're going to need money.
Speaker 3:So like Cheryl Dunlap is like one person who doesn't perfectly fit the MO, but he did admit to her murder. I mean she was a local person. So Apalachicola State Forest is right around the area of Tallahassee where she lived. So this was not an in-state out-of-state. This was just vulnerability Fascinating.
Speaker 4:Very.
Speaker 3:But before I get to talk a little bit about the Apalachicola State Forest because it'll come up in the attempted abduction later that I'll talk about is that in general. By this point, with Cheryl Dunlap, there were concerns by the community that a killer was operating on the Georgia-Florida border, but authorities thought that she was just an isolated incident. But they continue to look for suspicious green truck, which will pop up in many of the murders he is convicted of as well as accused of. So let's take a moment to talk about the Apalachicola State Forest, right? This is a huge area of land around Tallahassee, florida, that basically goes south from Tallahassee all the way to the Florida Panhandle Coast. That's, on the Gulf of Mexico, right? So think of it as this incredibly dense kind of creepy, swamp-like forest, and it will, of course, pop up again, not just with Cheryl Dunlap, but also with the attempted kidnapping that I'll talk about at the end.
Speaker 1:So currently we have three victims, but only two have been found.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:We found we have the John and Irene Bryant. We're assuming John is still abducted. Irene's body has been found and then we have finally found Cheryl Dunlap's body as well, and we're only in mid-December 2007.
Speaker 5:And how long sorry, how long has it been since John and Irene? They're just assuming he's been captive for like four weeks.
Speaker 3:That was roughly early October, so now we're in mid-December.
Speaker 5:So we're like pushing eight weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're in the december, okay, so we're like pushing eight weeks. Yeah, we're like going past 10 weeks, yeah, okay, which already like, even if not knowing a backstory of this guy.
Speaker 5:It'd be so weird for him to hold an 80 year old man captive right, I still think my, my own, just not where I'm like how do we not know that? How are we not questioning? The husband did this and he's just off living his best life.
Speaker 3:I mean they read with200. The only thing I can add to that is that they did find the Bryant vehicle parked in the parking lot for the National Forest, where they were hiking. I can see how they did that, and that was found a few days after they disappeared, well, after they had been called in two weeks later. So I feel like I'm hip hopping and skipping, but I hope this comes out clear.
Speaker 1:Nope, that's what happens with these podcasts.
Speaker 5:We do that every single time, cause in order to tell it you're like. Well, you have to understand this first.
Speaker 3:Uh, next victim was Meredith Emerson, and this is actually New Year's day, 2008. So this is only a few weeks after.
Speaker 1:You go in, he's like 2008's my year.
Speaker 3:Uh, 24 year old.
Speaker 1:Uh, she uh, 24 year old.
Speaker 3:Uh, she goes for a hike on uh, a blood mountain, which is actually, oh god, in georgia's vogel state park.
Speaker 3:Uh, with her black lab, ella, uh this park is in northern georgia, not too far from the north carolina border, um, and uh, the national forest where the bryants went missing, um, so bring us back to kind of think about this kind of corridor. So we're thinking about the close borders of North Carolina, georgia, south Carolina and Tennessee, and then the border of Georgia and Florida, where we have most of these events taking place at the moment. This part really hits me. While she's on this hike with her black lab, several witnesses later came forward and said that they had passed her on the trail and said that mysterious older man with a dog was following her.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 3:And they multiple different.
Speaker 5:They just didn't do anything, and nobody did anything about it.
Speaker 3:keep following they were just like oh, that man's really creepy and he has a dog and he keeps following her I'm not gonna call him out or call the police and there's multiple different hikers that you passed on that day so, rob, I really want to bring you in on this.
Speaker 1:Like you hike a lot right on the appalachian trail yeah can you tell the difference between people? Oh, we're on the same. We're going north or south or whatever. And then someone being creepy and following very close.
Speaker 2:No, not really.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 5:I suppose in hindsight and I'm thinking about it we've all been someplace and we're like, oh, that didn't seem weird at the time. But then somebody says, oh, there was a person doing this at the Holyoke Mall. And we're like, oh, I was there and there was a man doing this, and there was a man doing this. So I wonder if it's just people saying like, oh, after the fact.
Speaker 3:Well, 2020 vision. They were there, he was kind of creepy, now that you mention it, but I didn't think so at the time. I just hate that like 2020 vision going back and going like oh he looks kind of creepy, but she'll be fine. I think I would.
Speaker 5:I would say something I think especially now.
Speaker 4:I would still probably like check in with her, even as a stranger being like you're, a single woman alone on the trail?
Speaker 3:Do you know this single man? So, but so that's January 1st 2008. By January 3rd, they find her car and also identify the man who followed her as Gary Hilton. So, as the investigation continues, they're getting more information about Gary Hilton. He's known as a drifter with really strange behaviors and an extraordinarily bad temper, who often walked his dog, particularly in Vogel State Park in Georgia, and he is now, by this point in January 2008, an official person of interest, but only in Meredith Emerson's disappearance by January 4th. Again, this investigation is going a lot faster than the last year that we talked about Meredith's dog. Ella was found wandering in a local grocery store parking lot and was returned to Meredith's family.
Speaker 5:Oh, I'm so glad he didn't hurt the dog.
Speaker 3:I wanted to just mention that. Yes, by January 5th they find multiple items belonging to Meredith Emerson in a dumpster of a quick trip convenience store in Cumming, Georgia. This is a little bit of a distance from where she disappeared. Were directly tied to her, like her university.
Speaker 3:ID her driver's license, bloodied clothing, bloodied wallet and, most important, a bloodied car seat belt, which will come out later, because these items would directly lead to Hilton's arrest, though the search for Meredith Emerson's body in the Chattahoochee State Forest would still continue, and that's kind of the area around the Vogel State Park Upon examining Hilton's green van because, remember, we're starting to hear green van popping up in multiple different scenarios, particularly Dunlap's murder authorities found that the rear seatbelt was missing and perfectly matched the bloodied seatbelt that they found in the dumpster in georgia uh, that had um meredith emerson's uh blood on it I wonder why he cut it out, nina, something quick as well I can think of.
Speaker 5:It was there. And if you've got a pocket knife, wait to to what? To, I'm assuming, strangle somebody or restrain them in some capacity?
Speaker 3:I think that's a really would seep out, for I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 5:It's opportunistic. It's right there and you need something quickly. If you're carrying a pocket knife because you're hiking I mean most people who hike, right, they carry a pocket knife you just quickly. Okay, this person's doing something. I didn't plan on it.
Speaker 1:I just cut this out like a piece of rope just wonder if it was strangulation where the blood came from, because with strangulation you don't get blood because he was mostly known for like blunt force but restraining or I don't know.
Speaker 3:Maybe he hit her and then took her body someplace and she bled out onto the seatbelt so he had to cut it out, so it wasn't in his van and the reason they were able to able to uh connect gary hilton with the green van um and then with her murder after all of these other things, is that multiple witnesses came forward after they said we're looking for this like very particular green van. They were like, oh, there's this like really creepy guy at the local gas station cleaning out his creepy green van, and that's where they found him and arrested him.
Speaker 5:And nobody would have thought that was creepy until someone was asking about it?
Speaker 3:I would have thought it was creepy.
Speaker 3:But again, this is a total. Another moment where he's taking a victim from one state forest and actually moving their body to another one or another part of the state forest Weird, so he's getting a little erratic, I think. By this point, once he's arrested, arrested and again he's only being accused of one murder meredith emerson's uh. In exchange for the guaranteed rehoming of his dog and dropping the death penalty, um, he agreed to share where meredith emerson's body was. This led authorities to find her decapitated body, uh, at the dawson Management Area.
Speaker 5:There's your seatbelt situation.
Speaker 3:Quite a distance from Vogel State Park, where she originally disappeared.
Speaker 1:So they were going to give him the death penalty for one murder?
Speaker 2:Well it was on the table. I feel like that's very unheard of.
Speaker 4:They probably did it in order to make him do a deal.
Speaker 5:They probably said this is what we're putting out there in order to barter.
Speaker 4:Can I ask you behavioral analyst experts?
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 4:Okay, how does someone who was obviously so psychopathic if that's the right word be so just empathic and so caring about his dog? That seems to me almost. I don't know, it just seems, yeah, it's just seems.
Speaker 5:Yeah, the way we relate to animals and objects, I would say, is very different than the way we like interact with other people. I think, working with the autistic population, I've learned that they can, you know, they might have a favorite object, right, hannah, where they're like I love this lamp and I'm never gonna let anybody touch it. And it's different than the way they feel about people. It's, it's a different type of attachment, I would say, and it's actually not unusual.
Speaker 1:No, so when you, when you talk about like psychopaths, like, oh yeah, they start killing animals when they were younger, yes, there is that one piece to them that could make them a psychopath, but there are a lot of cases where they actually have an animal that they love and they they're upset when they get hurt, which is interesting.
Speaker 4:I just find that remarkable.
Speaker 1:Thank you. It is an interesting thing.
Speaker 4:It's a non-judgmental being Right, because you know dogs don't always behave and no matter how much you love them, you can lose your temper if they're not behaving or doing what they're supposed to do. And it seemed like how could he have a dog that he loves so much that he's giving away his own freedom to make sure his dog is taken care of?
Speaker 1:And he also didn't hurt Meredith's dog.
Speaker 4:And that's true, I know I was happy about that.
Speaker 3:I wanted to make that mention specifically. Like A, I wanted as part of the story to be like at least the dog got back to Meredith's family, you know, got back to, um, meredith's family.
Speaker 3:but also I'm wondering if he purposely moved the dog or, uh, uh, secured meredith's dog, ella, in a way that like he was going to murder meredith one way or another, but like he felt empathetic for the dog and maybe got the dog to a very public place, because the dog was like would have had to walk quite a distance from the state park where Meredith went missing to get to a Kroger parking lot where he was obviously seen, or she. Okay, so I wanted to make that connection too, which I thought was really interesting. Okay, cool, so by this time we're basically in January 2008. By next month, february 2008, a hunter found a skull in the Nantahala State Forest with a pelvis and spine about 20 yards away. These would later be found to be John Bryant's body or part of his body anyway, he was dismembered then.
Speaker 3:So there's this weird as I was doing even more reading and I didn't include it specifically here because it was getting a little complicated, but towards this, like 2007, 2008,. It's almost like Gary Hilton was experimenting with some things yeah. Like you know, one of his victims that we already talked about, her head had been removed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, his MO is very erratic.
Speaker 3:But like he has some core pieces but like some of the bodies were found completely intact. But as we get later and maybe he's getting more frenetic or there are more things, he's like, you know, dropping some things, so to speak, in trying to cover up after himself. He's like experimenting with, like okay, if I were to decapitate their head and move the head somewhere else, maybe it's more difficult to identify the body and put it back to me.
Speaker 5:The only other thing I can think of is maybe he was trying to make it look like all of them weren't connected. So, like a lot of people who are looking at behavior, they're going to say, okay, well, it was very different, you know locations or, like you said, not fitting the same type of person. I feel like maybe he could have been saying okay, I know there's somebody else out here doing this kind of thing.
Speaker 1:What if I yeah, there's dumping grounds. Because didn't Bundy have dumping grounds?
Speaker 2:He always had an area.
Speaker 3:Yes, he did.
Speaker 1:Yes, he did.
Speaker 3:Bundy. But just to make another note, where John Bryant's body was found was quite a distance from where they had originally disappeared and where they found his wife Irene's body.
Speaker 5:So by this point he's not just murdering victims taking their atm cards and running and just leaving their bodies spending some quality time.
Speaker 3:He's moving them around they're moving across um some state lines.
Speaker 5:In some cases he's moving body parts it's hard not to flick messages in there like like is he trying to lead like one in every place? Does he ever duplicate like two murders in one location?
Speaker 3:um, I think it's difficult to establish that pattern with only these four.
Speaker 5:Yeah, because they could just be in different places, because they were, but like the Bryans they were all both in one spot. So he put one there and then he moved to one, then he moved.
Speaker 3:John and some experts thought that maybe John was abducted and Irene was murdered and left nearby and he held on to John for a couple of days to try and get more bank details from him before finally murdering him.
Speaker 1:But I'm going back to like the bones, like is it possible? Like okay, so he could have, he mutilated the body, obviously, but it's possible that the bones were just dragged away by animals. That's also true. It's true, that's true.
Speaker 3:Because we have to remember that they went missing in October 2007,. And his body wasn't found until February 2008.
Speaker 5:Yeah, he was out there a while.
Speaker 3:So he could have dragged John along for the ride for a couple of weeks and then decided this is where I'm going to drop him.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:And then we still, by that point, even if it's early November, we have November, december.
Speaker 1:January Right, we basically have three to four months and they don't really have much of a winter down that far, right.
Speaker 5:That's correct. There's no heavy snow. It's not like here, where it's preserved.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because it's cold. Is he using the state forest Isolation?
Speaker 2:Probably.
Speaker 5:That's true.
Speaker 3:That's what I would think I mean it's definitely connected to. He's known to hike trails in a variety of different state forests with his dog, so he has great familiarity with the places where he's finding victims or murdering them or dropping them off afterwards. I also think the isolation makes a big deal. I think there's a variety of factors of why he picked national forests the way he did. But again, he's moving across four states but all national forests.
Speaker 4:He's obviously living in that green van, so chances are he might be camping in those forests. So that's home territory for him.
Speaker 3:And it would actually be. You know so. So by this point we're in early 2008. Um, all four of the bodies that have we talked about have been found. Um, and the trial for the dunlap's uh, dunlap's murder wouldn't take place until 2009, and the bryant murders, which were, in this case, the first murders on our set, wouldn't have placed until 2012. Um, but with the dunlap murder, um, somebody came forward with they had found a whole bunch of his um camping equipment, because by this time he's in jail in early 2008.
Speaker 3:In 2009, they found all of his camping equipment abandoned, and so they gave it to investigators and they used it as a lot of evidence for the Dunlap murder trial. So those are the murders I want to talk about Three different kind of situations, four different murders and then one attempted abduction. And so this is where it kind of gets connected to me, because it was actually my ex-brother-in-law. So almost every year when I was married, my ex and I would join his family on an island called St George, and this is off the panhandle of Florida beautiful Bay of Mexico. It's basically an oversized sandbar, but it's actually really stunning. To get there. We'd have to take a really exhausting trip from New York City, basically getting up at 3 am to catch an early flight from LaGuardia or JFK and then getting to Atlanta, waiting several hours so we could take out basically a hopper flight to Tallahassee, and if you've never been to the Tallahassee airport, it technically has two terminals, but it's just one long hallway.
Speaker 1:Worse than Bradley.
Speaker 3:It is one long hallway with, I think, maybe four gates, two of which they use Wow.
Speaker 3:So it's tiny, tiny, tiny tiny. And then once we got to Tallahassee, we'd either rent a car or we would get picked up in Tallahassee and then there was a several-hour drive to get down to the coast and most of this was through the Apalachicola State Forest. While we were on our way, probably about 45 minutes from the Tallahassee Airport going south towards the coast, we would stop at a Walmart supercenter to load up on all the things we would need to have in the house at the beach for a week, because this was really the only major grocery center between Tallahassee and St George and prevented us from having to go to that very expensive local Piggly Wiggly that was on the island. And of course, this Walmart is almost completely surrounded by the Appalachical Estate Forest.
Speaker 3:And each time a member of my ex's family would mention oh, remember that time Stuart was almost abducted and everybody would laugh and they would tell the story over again. And it was honestly the last year I ever went down with them. I started asking a lot of questions, you know, and they would repeat the story and kind of go over and sometimes they would have a few new details or and again it was kind of very jovial and funny because nothing actually happened. But basically, while I was asking them questions it was like oh, tell me more. You know we're in the Apalachicola State Forest, it's Tallahassee, it was an abduction.
Speaker 3:And I'm Googling things around and I finally go oh, and they had mentioned it's an older, kind of strange looking older white man who had kind of approached my brother-in-law and I found a photo of Gary Hilton and I said is this the guy? And they turned around and go yeah, that's him. So that's Gary Hilton. So yeah, here's the story. Story goes, and I think this happened in about 2007. So this would be a little bit. This would basically be the summer before the murders we just talked about took place.
Speaker 4:How old was Stuart at the time? John?
Speaker 3:He would have been a late teenager, but Stuart's also very young youth, very young, youthful looking. So he would have looked even younger, probably would have been 17, 18 by the time. So on their annual family trip down from Atlanta, driving through Tallahassee to get to St George Island, they stopped, as they did every year at the same Walmart in the Appalachian State Forest to stock up. My brother-in-law, stuart, was basically a late teenager at the time, very youthful looking, and after he was shopping in Walmart with his parents, he walked out to the car solo, and the car, of course, because they came from Atlanta, had out-of-state plates with Georgia on the back Alone. He was then approached because he hadn't gotten to the car yet because he didn't have a key, was approached by a disheveled older man who asked him for help. He said that he needed to ride to local mechanics as his car had broken down so that he could get a tow. This wasn't entirely unusual. I mean, it's the South.
Speaker 1:Everyone's very friendly.
Speaker 3:Always trying to help your neighbor Not everybody had cell phones there, especially in this area of Florida. So nothing unusual but for you know, asking somebody for help. But something felt very off and as the man got closer to Stuart, my father-in-law exited Walmart at that time, saw something was going on, that his son was kind of being backed up to the car by this older kind of disheveled looking man, and ended up yelling at him and the man ran away, got into his car and left, so obviously his car had not broken down.
Speaker 5:Right right.
Speaker 3:Basically, the man had realized that Stuart was not alone and took off in his own car. The strangest part of this story and I think this ties back to Gary Hilton's like extreme.
Speaker 1:Mania.
Speaker 3:Well mania, but also like anger and flared temper. As he left, he yelled back you damn Yankees. And then that was it. During the retelling of the story, though, the family would always tease my mother-in-law, who, they said at the time, was much less upset that her son had almost been abducted and much more upset that she'd been called a Yankee, which I always thought was funny.
Speaker 1:That's very offensive more upset that she'd been called a Yankee, which I always thought was funny.
Speaker 3:That's very offensive. But to bring this back to Gary Hilton's MO vulnerability, he was obviously from out of state. He looked like a teenager, but even younger. He was alone. Definitely from out of state, as I mentioned, georgia State plates and basically in the middle of the Appalachicola State Forest where we know later he would murder. So why don't I go back? Do you want me to go back as far as the Yankee explanation?
Speaker 3:Well, I want to know why the guy, gary, called you guys a Yankee, because wasn't your in-laws from Georgia, which is not Yankee territory, no, but the understanding that I have is that because so many people from northern states have moved to Georgia, it looked like they were just a family, probably from the north, who had moved to Georgia and they were taking up room in places like Florida going on vacation, that's interesting and honestly, down south there's fewer things that are more insulting than being called a Yankee.
Speaker 1:That's interesting.
Speaker 3:We're an insult who knew but wanted to go back, kind of like let's stack up this, you know, potential abduction by Gary Hilton back to his core MO. As I mentioned, vulnerability, so we have a teenager who looks even younger than a teenager, um, completely alone, um. And number two, also vulnerability, out of state, obviously, because they had georgia state plates and right in the middle of the apalachicola state forest, where we've already learned um that, uh, cheryl dunlap, uh would be dragged, murdered and then found later. So Hilton is still in jail, with multiple life sentences as well as a death penalty from Florida. He's in Georgia currently. He's suspected in at least five other murders, but there's many others. As I mentioned, the FBI strongly believes that he didn't start murdering people in his 60s and the earliest one connected to him is basically the mid-90s, which would still be kind of late.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 30s yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think there's a lot more investigation that could actually happen here and cover some really interesting links, but one that I just want to quickly mention before I'll close is that murder of Judy Smith, which is a really famous case of a Massachusetts teacher who went to Philadelphia with her husband when he was on a business trip and disappeared and she was found in hiking clothes, murdered in I believe it was a Georgiaorgia state park, um, and there's all these funky things connected to it. Like nobody knew she wanted to go hiking, how did she get from philadelphia?
Speaker 3:to georgia right what was she doing with hiking clothes when she was going to philadelphia to hang out for a couple of days? Well, her husband was at a conference that is very weird so they think it's directly connected to Gary Hilton Interesting, but they're not quite sure, sky.
Speaker 5:Like he has a hiking fetish. He's just like I'm only going to kill people in their hiking clothes Like a game. I mean I start to think like almost messed up, Like oh, I've captured you, I'm going to abduct you and then force you to run for your life. Maybe you know. Abduct you and then force you to run for your life in the, Maybe that's part of it, Does he?
Speaker 1:have a family at all.
Speaker 3:Not anything that I saw, but what I read.
Speaker 1:So the dog was his family pretty much Interesting, john. That was fascinating. That was fascinating. I have questions. I need answers.
Speaker 5:And I've never heard of any of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was great. Thank you for doing that. That was awesome.
Speaker 2:That was great.
Speaker 1:Anyone else have any questions?
Speaker 2:Nope, I got nothing.
Speaker 1:Johnny, thank you so much. Please do another one. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:You know whenever you're ready. Maybe not immediately.
Speaker 5:She's waiting, staring at you. Are you going to?
Speaker 2:start now. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you everyone and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you for having me, thank you everyone, and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. Yes, merry Christmas.
Speaker 1:Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanzaa. Yeah, Kwanzaa's on the 26th.
Speaker 2:And Happy New.
Speaker 1:Year.
Speaker 2:And Happy New Year.
Speaker 1:We'll have one come out on New Year's Day.
Speaker 2:Yes, we will, yes, and we've got a special episode for that, so stay tuned.
Speaker 1:All right, bye Wanderers.
Speaker 3:Bye, adios.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening today. Wicked Wanderings is hosted by me, Hannah, and co-hosted by me.
Speaker 2:Courtney, and it's produced by Rob Fitzpatrick.
Speaker 1:Music by Sasha M. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to leave a rating and review and be sure to follow on all socials. You can find the links down in the show notes. If you're looking for some really cozy t-shirts or hoodies, head over to the merch store. Thank you for being a part of the wiki wanderings community. We appreciate every one of you stay curious, keep exploring and always remember to keep on wandering. Thank you.
