Georgia investigators meet with those from N.C., Florida

CLEVELAND - Authorities from Georgia, Florida and North Carolina met Tuesday in Cleveland to discuss possible links between hiker-murder suspect Gary Michael Hilton and other cases.

GBI spokesman John Bankhead says the FBI, prosecutors from north Georgia, the National Forestry Service and law enforcement authorities from Florida and North Carolina attended the meetings.

Bankhead said Georgia investigators were presenting evidence collected in the murder of 24-year-old Meredith Emerson to determine if it might be useful in investigations elswhere.

In the latest case, authorities are investigating whether Hilton might also be involved in the 2005 disappearance of a 26-year-old Florida woman missing after she went hiking in western North Carolina. Rossana Miliani was last in Bryson City on December 7th, 2005.

Georgia authorities have charged the 61-year-old Hilton with murder in the death of Emerson, who vanished New Year's Day while hiking in north Georgia and whose decapitated body was found the following week.

He is also a suspect in the death of 84-year-old Irene Bryant, who was found near a hiking trail in western North Carolina last month. Her husband, 80-year-old John Bryant, is still missing.

Florida authorities say Hilton is a suspect in the death of Cheryl Hodges Dunlap, whose decapitated body was found in Apalachicola National Forest in northwest Florida on December 15th.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2008/1/205840