ATLANTA - A waitress at a Huddle House in Pickens County says murder suspect Gary Michael Hilton stopped there just hours before authorities released his photograph.
Waitress Amanda Peacock -- who lives in Ball Ground -- tells The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Hilton was agitated and kept asking to use a pay telephone Thursday. She says he was told the restaurant had no pay phone and was allowed to use the restaurant's phone.
A few hours later, Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents arrived at the restaurant with photographs of Hilton, asking whether he had been there. Authorities believe within 24 hours, hiker Meredith Emerson was killed by the 61-year-old Hilton. Authorities found her body Monday night in Dawson County -- about 10 miles from the restaurant.
Peacock says Hilton left the restaurant about 5:05 p.m. and thanked her for the use of the phone on his way out. She says he told her -- quote -- ``I just got my job back. That phone call helped me out a lot.''
Authorities say an autopsy showed that the 24-year-old hiker was alive for three days after she was kidnapped on a hiking trail in north Georgia on New Year's Day. She was decapitated.
Hilton was ordered held without bond Wednesday in Dawson County on a charge of murder in Emerson's death and authorities say he is now the prime suspect in a similar killing in Florida -- and the Dawson County District Attorney says he wasn't privvy to the deal cut with Hilton to waive the death penalty if he led investigators to Emerson's body. (See separate story.)
Sunday
January 26th, 2025
11:35PM
