ATLANTA (AP) The man serving a life sentence for murder in the death of Georgia hiker Meredith Emerson says he had nothing to do with the disappearance of a Clemson University student.
Pickens County, S.C., Assistant Sheriff Tim Morgan interviewed 61-year-old Gary Michael Hilton on April 17 at the Georgia state prison in Jackson, south of Atlanta. Morgan says authorities are inclined to believe that Hilton was not involved in the disappearance of 20-year-old sophomore Jason Knapp.
In February a grand jury indicted Hilton on charges of murder and kidnapping in the death of a nurse, Cheryl Hodges Dunlap, whose body was found decapitated in a Florida forest. Authorities say he also is a suspect in the deaths of a North Carolina couple, John and Irene Bryant.
Knapp was last seen on Easter Sunday, 1998. He is thought to have disappeared somewhere in Table Rock State Park in Pickens County, about 45 minutes from where the Bryants disappeared.
Morgan says South Carolina authorities questioned Hilton because of similarities in the cases.
Morgan says Hilton faxed a two-page letter to his South Carolina office the day after the 90-minute interview in Georgia. The letter read in part, ``I hope that as a result of this letter and our interview that you will have some good thoughts of me and understand that I'm not all bad.''
Friday
May 9th, 2025
10:38PM
