Road Ends in Florida for Gary Michael Hilton

A Tallahassee jury of six women and six men deliberated one hour and 20 minutes before unanimously recommending a death sentence for a serial killer who avoided execution in Georgia. Gary Michael Hilton will be sentenced to death for the kidnapping, robbery, murder and dismemberment of Cheryl Dunlap.

Circuit Judge James Hankinson will officially sentence Hilton in about two weeks.

"I think it was the right verdict," said State Attorney Willie Meggs. "If there was ever a case for it, this was it." Meggs said he was surprised at the rare unanimous decision for death.

Family members of Dunlap, a nurse and a Sunday School teacher from Crawfordville, expressed approval of the jury's decision.

Family Pleased With Verdict

"I am so pleased, 12 to zip," Dunlap's cousin Gloria Tucker said. "I am so overwhelmed that these 12 saw it exactly as it should be."

Hilton avoided the death penalty in Georgia in a plea deal that gave him a life sentence in exchange for leading investigators to the decapitated body of 24-year-old Meredith Emerson, who was abducted from a hiking trail in the north Georgia mountains in 2008.

He is also the main suspect in the deaths of a couple killed in North Carolina in a National Forest, but he has not been charged in that case.

See Also:
Jury Recommends Death Sentence for Hilton

Background:
The Gary Michael Hilton Case

Forum:
Discuss The Emerson Case

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