At the Hands of a Stranger (30 page)

Suber said the state contended that Cheryl Dunlap intended to go to Leon Sinks, but there was no evidence that was her plan. The witnesses who saw Cheryl at Leon Sinks couldn't see her face. “How can we infer from that, that it was her plan [to go there]? The state says she was taken from Leon Sinks, says she was kidnapped from there. The witnesses assumed the photo in the newspaper was the woman they saw. They didn't see Mr. Hilton at Leon Sinks. What evidence did the state present that proved he did it, or did it at Leon Sinks?

“Remember the person who said you pay to get into the park? Are we now to infer that Cheryl Dunlap did not pay to get into the park?” (Cheryl's car was found outside the park.) “The state does not put reliable, trustworthy evidence in front of you. Use your common sense.”

Suber said the car had been processed for prints and everything was analyzed, but nothing was found in the car. No prints, zero evidence Mr. Hilton was there. What evidence did they bring you here? Nothing that matched Gary Hilton, the defense attorney maintained.

“Because they don't have any prints, they called their witness to say she saw Mr. Hilton by the car. Was she reliable and trustworthy? The first time she talked to the police, she described the individual as being six feet to six feet two inches tall, medium build, wearing a denim blue shirt—a man in his forties, with dark brown hair, no glasses, no hat. At that time she was considered so correct, law enforcement compiled a lineup on December eleventh. She picked a man out of the lineup. A few years has passed, until now. You don't turn from forty years till now to point at Mr. Hilton.”

In Suber's deposition of the witness in question, she said the woman told law enforcement she was wrong after seeing Hilton in the newspaper. Suber claimed the witness had completely changed her story: “Is that reliable to you? Mr. Hilton does not have to prove anything. It is pretty scary that the state would put that kind of evidence in front of you to even consider. Use your common sense.”

Regarding the witness who had talked to Hilton at Glenda's store, then passed him twice on the forest roads, Suber claimed the witness had first said Hilton was wearing a dark blue shirt, then changed to the striped shirt seen in the ATM videos.

“She talked to Mr. Hilton, if you are to believe her. There were no prints on the phone at Glenda's. The defense has to prove nothing. That's the law. You agreed during jury selection to follow the law. Use your common sense.”

Suber told the jury that there had been no evidence presented about the mask presumably used at the ATM.

“Now, they come with a bayonet found at some mountain, some trail, contending that is the tool that punctured Cheryl Dunlap's tire. Clay Bridges says Mr. Hilton made a statement. He claimed Mr. Hilton had told him that he dropped a bayonet. How many bayonets were there in the whole world? And Mr. Cecci said he went to a trail, a place we don't know where, and found a bayonet.”

Then Suber went to the items found in the Dumpster: “Prints on that? No, we don't even know whose blood that is. The state said there was no direct evidence on that. We don't know the weather conditions [items had been exposed to previously] when things were found there.

“Now, the state knows they have problems. They can't tie these things to Mr. Hilton. There was no prints or reliable DNA. So what do they do? They hire a tool mark examiner, Jeff Foggy, who has never testified in any court on tool marks. He is a firearms specialist, not a tool mark specialist. At the time he tested the bayonet, he had only tested about fifteen other tools, and none was a bayonet. He agreed that when an analyst is trying to replicate something, it should be as close as possible [to the items involved originally].

“Did he use the same tire, trying to replicate in the test? No, instead of the [same company and type] as on Cheryl Dunlap's car, he took some type of tire, placed it on a table, and made punctures. Use your common sense.”

Suber said that Cheryl Dunlap's car had been searched three times after being found on the side of the road, and no beads had been found on the floorboard. She implied that the beads found at the campsite and in the backpack could have been planted.

“The car was towed to Leon County from Wakulla County,” she said, “So, lo and behold, comes Amy George and now she finds sixteen beads, maybe from a bracelet or necklace. A witness said they had never seen Cheryl Dunlap wearing the beads. Were they the granddaughter's beads? We don't know. And that granddaughter has a mother, who could have come here and testified about the beads. Use your common sense as to why they were not brought to the courtroom.”

Suber also pointed out that there was no proof that the head and hand bones recovered from Hilton's campfire pit belonged to Cheryl Dunlap, and said that a forensic anthropologist could not even say whether or not they belonged to a woman or man. She also called into question the metal items found in the fire pit.

“Who came to testify those were bra hooks? Hooks and zippers can be attached to any kind of clothing. See mine?”

Suber showed the jury a zipper in her skirt, attempting to make the point that the burned zipper and hooks in the fire pit could have come from anywhere other than Cheryl Dunlap's intimate undergarments and clothing.

By this time the jurors were fidgeting in their chairs, and a reporter for the
Tallahassee Democrat
who was posting Twitter messages from the courtroom wrote that the jury was looking bored, restless, and tired. The bloggers were posting a number of irate messages about Suber's constant mispronouncing of Cheryl Dunlap's name, calling her “Dinlap” and “Dunlop” so often that Suber finally apologized to the jury, but she kept on mispronouncing it all the same.

With a few more remarks ending with the phrase she had attempted to drive home to the jurors numerous times during her presentation, Suber's final words to the jury were “Use your common sense.”

 

In her final rebuttal Georgia Cappleman made what was arguably her best, hardest hitting case against Gary Michael Hilton during what had been a highly effective prosecution. She systematically tore apart all of Ines Suber's arguments.

“The defense says there is no evidence in this case. It's all circumstantial, just a bunch of garbage,” Cappleman told the jury. However, she said, witnesses had put Hilton there at numerous locations in the forest, at Cheryl's car, and at the Dumpster in Georgia, where so much evidence had been found.

“The defense says the state has no evidence of kidnapping. Don't worry about [other] evidence—it's just an elaborate charade to get you to convict the wrong man, they say. The DNA is contaminated. Don't worry about the bayonet, they say. All the evidence is all garbage, they say.

“The camera doesn't lie, folks,” Cappleman said, and proceeded to play for the jury the numerous audio clips with Hilton himself making damning statements that were recovered from the memory stick of his camera. Some of the items had not been previously heard in court, and these were shocking to both the jury and the courtroom viewers.

“We're gonna get some good pussy one of these days, boy,” Hilton apparently was speaking to his dog. “She was no good. She was nasty.”

Seven minutes later on the recording, he said, “I have guns hidden …. I killed them with this …. I killed those bitches.

“We're going to the park, but first I got to hide this someplace else.”

Thirteen minutes more into the tape: “We gotta ride a little. I gotta hide that stuff.”

Seventeen minutes and forty-five seconds into the tape: “I'm just going back in there to hide some stuff, that's all.”

Twenty minutes and thirty seconds, with the camera briefly showing a flash of the sky and tall pines: “Gotta do something with this here.”

Cappleman turned to the jury. “Can we trust Mr. Hilton's words? ‘Killed them. Guns hidden. Nasty. Hide stuff ….'”

She reminded the jury of the conversations overheard by Caleb Wynn, the corrections officer, when Hilton was heard to say, “If the state would give me life, I'd tell them where the head is,” and Hilton saying the only thing he regretted was getting caught. He admitted to using the bayonet, and said, “All the questions would be over with, if I could get life.”

Cappleman noted that Hilton had given Clay Bridges a description of the bayonet and told him where it could be found, and it was retrieved from that location.

During this time the defense made a constant stream of objections—all of which were overruled by the judge.

“Hilton destroyed Cheryl Dunlap's fingerprints. You can't identify the head and hands because they were burned to destroy the evidence. He dumped her body in the woods to be riddled with maggots. She died an unimaginable death.”

Cappleman had the complete attention of the jury as she made her final statement regarding Gary Michael Hilton: “Today is his day for justice. There is only one verdict that does any justice in this case. Please find him guilty.”

 

At 12:30
P.M
., the jury was sent out to begin their deliberations, after getting their final instructions from Judge Hankinson. At around two o'clock, they sent the judge a request to hear once again the videos with Hilton's voice talking to his dog, and also segments of the audio of the transport from Georgia back to Florida, when he spent around four and a half hours on a rambling monologue.

Ines Suber immediately objected to them being played, renewing her objection to the videos as evidence. Judge Hankinson cut her off midsentence, and she immediately renewed all her objections concerning the transport audio. Hankinson stopped her again, saying the only items that can be played are those already in evidence. Then the jury was brought in to hear what they had requested.

During the time they were listening, the jurors strained to hear what Hilton was saying, and some were staring intently at him as he rocked back and forth, pursed his lips, looked down, and at some points seemed to smile.

The jury left the courtroom at 4:05
P.M
., and five minutes later the bailiff came out and announced a verdict had been reached. The jury filed back in and Judge Hankinson was handed their decision: They had, indeed, done as Suber had requested and had used their common sense. Gary Michael Hilton was found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and grand theft. The only charge he had managed to dodge was grand theft auto. The jury would now decide what sentence they would recommend to the judge; it would now be up to them whether or not they would ask Judge Hankinson to impose the death penalty.

 

When the next day of the trial began, the start of the penalty phase, defense attorney Paula Saunders began the morning with a series of objections and motions, claiming the defendant was not getting a fair trial. Saunders wanted to have some of Hilton's statements thrown out, including remarks made during interviews, such as “You either kill them, or you get caught,” “Blood Mountain is a good place to hunt,” and his remarks about stalking women in the mountains, and referring to himself as a “pro.” The defense attorneys said those statements were prejudicial and were not relevant to the murders of either Cheryl Dunlap or Meredith Emerson, and cast Hilton in the role of a serial killer.

Judge Hankinson appeared to be out of patience with the defense, and SA Meggs said that Hilton's remarks were “highly relative to the issue here today.”

Saunders brought up the Aileen Wuornos case several times, trying to keep out aggravating factors, saying the state was “introducing a lot of hypothetical and highly prejudicial things into this case,” but the judge denied all objections, ruling that Hilton's statements about Meredith Emerson and all of the other cases would be heard by the jury.

The judge, the defense, and the prosecution discussed correct jury instructions, and Hankinson said he would give standard instructions. When the jury was brought in, he told them, “You have found Gary Michael Hilton guilty of first-degree murder. Now the state and the defense will present evidence so you might determine if aggravating circumstances exist to justify the death penalty, or if mitigating circumstances exist to justify life in prison.”

The jury would give an advisory sentence, he told them, but it would ultimately be up to him to pass sentence.

 

After short introductory remarks by Willie Meggs and death penalty specialist Robert Friedman, on behalf of the defense, the state called its one and only witness, Special Agent Clay Bridges. Bridges once again related his career experience and qualifications for the jury: nearly twelve years with the GBI, following nine years of uniform patrol in Clarksville and Gainesville, Georgia.

Bridges played a key role in the massive investigation of the Meredith Emerson case. He interviewed Hilton at the Union County, Georgia, Sheriff's Office, and later in UCSO vehicles with Sheriff Scott Stephens, Hilton and his attorney, and the attorney's investigator.

Hilton's van had been taken and the evidence was being collected, Bridges said. Hilton had given directions to Meredith Emerson's body and confirmed the suspicions of law enforcement that she was dead.

“We spent one to one and a half hours in the car on the way to Blood Mountain,” Bridges said. “We found the body nude, on top of the ground, decapitated, with bleach burns, covered with brush and leaves. We could not find the head.”

Bridges said Hilton took them to the location where he said the head could be found.

“He said he removed the head and clothing to cover up evidence.”

Hilton had said he lost his baton during the struggle with Meredith Emerson.

“Seth Blankenship saw Hilton and Meredith on the trail and noticed his baton and bayonet,” Bridges said. “Later he saw water bottles and a leash on the trail and turned them in to the store at the bottom of the trail.”

Hilton told officers that he had lost the bayonet when Meredith fought with him. Bridges sent Mark Cecci to go back with a metal detector to the location Hilton had indicated and look for it; Cecci found it.