Death of Meredith Emerson

The view from Blood Mountain where Meredith Emerson went hiking

Meredith Hope Emerson^[3] (June 20, 1983 – January 4, 2008) was a 24-year-old woman who was murdered in January 2008 by drifter Gary Michael Hilton. She was last seen alive hiking with her dog on Blood Mountain in northern Georgia on New Year's Day 2008. Witnesses claimed to have seen her with an older man on the Spur Trail connecting the Appalachian Trail with the Byron Herbert Reece Parking Lot (Georgia). When she did not return home on January 2, 2008, her friends began to search for her, to no success. Her dog, Ella, was found on January 4, 2008 in Cumming, Georgia approximately 60 miles away.

At the time of her disappearance, she lived in Buford, Georgia.^[4][5]

Biography

Emerson was born in Charleston, South Carolina^[6] and was raised in Holly Springs, North Carolina, a suburb of Raleigh,^[7] and Longmont, Colorado. She graduated from Niwot High School.^[8] In 2005, Emerson graduated with honors from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor's degree in French^[9] and was given the Cecil Willcox Award for Excellence in French.^[10]

Investigation

On January 4, 2008, two days after Emerson was last seen, a witness at a Chevron gas station called DeKalb police and stated that "the guy you are looking for is cleaning out his van." The police quickly arrived on scene and were able to stop the accused before he was able to bleach the interior of the van. Crime scene analysts were able to get blood evidence that was later matched to Emerson's DNA. Gary Michael Hilton was then arrested and charged with Emerson's murder.

The prosecution agreed to take the death penalty off the table if he led investigators to her body. Hilton agreed and successfully led investigators to Emerson's body. He claimed that he had asked Emerson for her debit card PIN, and when she failed to give him the correct one, he kept her for four days before killing her. He stated that he could not bring himself to kill her dog and that when it came to the woman herself, "It was hard...you gotta remember we had spent several good days together..."

Conviction

On January 30, 2008, Gary Hilton pleaded guilty to the murder of Emerson. He was sentenced to life in prison with a chance of parole in 30 years. Hilton was later linked to and then charged with three additional murders; the October 2007 murders of elderly couple John and Irene Bryant in North Carolina, and the December 2007 murder of 46-year-old nurse Cheryl Dunlap in Florida. In 2011, Hilton was tried for Dunlap's murder and was sentenced to death. ^[11] In 2012, Hilton pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and murder of the Bryants and was sentenced to life in prison.^[12]

Cause of death

When the autopsy results came back they showed that Emerson was killed on January 4, 2008. She had died of blunt force trauma to the head.

Crime scene photo controversy

On February 25, 2010 Hustler magazine reporter Fred Rosen asked for the Meredith Emerson crime scene and autopsy photos as part of an open records request filed with the GBI. The victim's family requested the request be denied according to attorney Lindsay Haigh. In March, DeKalb Superior Court Judge Daniel Coursey issued a temporary order restraining^[13] the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) from releasing "any and all photographs, visual images or depictions of Meredith Emerson which show Emerson in an unclothed or dismembered state." This order came on the same date that the Georgia House Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously passed "The Meredith Emerson Memorial Privacy Act," preventing crime scene photos from being publicly released or disseminated, according to Rep. Jill Chambers. House Bill 1322 will stop the dissemination of images of victims who in the photos appear "nude, bruised, bloodied or in a broken state with open wounds, a state of dismemberment or decapitation."

"We have to walk the line between open record laws and the constitutional provisions that allow women to be able to be photographed nude or in pornography when they knowingly and willingly offer their bodies for dissemination," Chambers stated. "Meredith isn't in a position to give that kind of permission to have her exploited in that kind of venue...we're not only protecting future victims of crime, we're protecting the integrity of what happened to Meredith."

Hustler's response was through an email that said, "Hustler is aware of the GBI's refusal to honor its reporter's request for copies of the Emerson crime scenes photos, which were to be used in a news story about this crime. Hustler and Mr. Flynt disagree with the GBI's position, and are currently exploring all legal options available to them should the decision be made to go forward with the story."

References