Posts Tagged ‘ Gary Hilton ’

Gary Hilton Trial Delayed

ASHEVILLE — With more than a half million documents available for review by attorneys for serial killer Gary Michael Hilton, a judge has again delayed the trial to give them more time to prepare.

U.S. District Court Judge Martin Reidinger set a hearing date of Feb. 27, according to court documents filed this week. Hilton’s next court appearance had been set for Jan. 4.

The court filings also indicate the possibility of a plea deal with federal prosecutors in the kidnapping and killing of a Henderson County couple.

“Counsel has been diligently reviewing and indexing all documents in this matter, as well as conducting plea negotiations in this matter,” attorney Joseph VonKallist wrote. “Counsel does not believe that review of the discovery and further plea negotiations can be realistically conducted before the start of the upcoming criminal term.”

Hilton, 65, was charged in July with the slayings of John and Irene Bryant, who disappeared while hiking in the Pink Beds area of Pisgah National Forest in Transylvania County on Oct. 21, 2007.

Prosecutors have filed court papers indicating they plan to seek the death penalty. The trial is to be held in federal court in Asheville.

VonKallist said he has obtained more than 250 CDs and 44,000 pages of text related to the case against Hilton.

“Counsel has been given access to an additional 500,000 documents prepared and gathered by the prior defense team who represented Mr. Hilton in Florida,” he said in the request for a continuance.

Hilton has already been sentenced to death in Florida for the murder of a nurse out for a hike in that state, and he was sentenced to life in prison for the slaying of a hiker in Georgia. Authorities said those cases have similarities to the killings of the Bryants.

Searchers found the body of Irene Bryant, 84, near a trail off Yellow Gap Road in the national forest north of Brevard. She died of multiple blows to the head and had her right forearm severed, according to an autopsy.

Someone used the Bryants ATM card in Ducktown, Tenn., the day after she was killed.

The skeletal remains of John Bryant, 80, were later found by a hunter about 30 yards down a bank off a U.S. Forest Service road near Franklin. An autopsy determined that he died of a gunshot wound to the head.

Article here 

 

 

Gary M Hilton receives the death penalty

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – After an hour of deliberations, a jury unanimously recommended Monday that Gary Michael Hilton, the drifter found guilty in the 2007 slaying of a nurse whose beheaded body was found in a national forest, should get the death penalty.

Circuit Judge James C. Hankinson said he will give “great weight” to the jury’s recommendation.

Hilton was found guilty last week of killing 46-year-old Cheryl Dunlap, a Sunday School teacher and Florida State University nurse, who was found dismembered in a national forest in the Florida Pandhandle, where the 64-year-old drifter used to camp.

“We are extremely pleased with the death verdict and even more so that it was unanimous. Obviously the jury saw what needed to be done to bring justice and that’s what Mr. Hilton got today and Ms. Dunlap and her family got,” prosecutor Georgia Cappleman told CBS affiliate WCTV as she left the courtroom.

State Attorney Willie Meggs said he was surprised by the unanimous verdict, but said if there were ever a case for it, this was it.

CBS News

I hope that this is not another killer that gets to stay on death row for years and years.

Hilton and Rodriguez updates

Gary M Hilton

Gary Hilton has been found guilty in Florida. The jury is deciding his fate.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A jury convicted a drifter of murder Tuesday in the decapitation slaying of a woman in the Florida Panhandle, a case that resembles a Georgia killing for which the man is already serving a life sentence.

Gary Michael Hilton, 64, sat stone-faced as Circuit Judge James Hankinson read the verdict after the 12-member jury had deliberated for three hours and 40 minutes.

Hilton could get a death sentence for murdering 46-year-old nurse and Sunday school teacher Cheryl Dunlap of Crawfordville. He also was convicted of kidnapping and stealing the victim’s ATM card but acquitted of taking her car.

Jurors will return Thursday to hear testimony about whether to recommend death or life in prison, the only other penalty allowed for the murder conviction. Hankinson will not be bound by their decision, but he must give it great weight.

Hilton received a life term in Georgia after pleading guilty to murder in the January 2008 slaying of 24-year-old hiker Meredith Emerson

The bodies of both victims were found in forests, and each had been beheaded.

Hilton, who declined to testify, also is a suspect in at least three other killings in Florida and North Carolina.

Full story

Another Link about HIlton

Antonio Rodriguez

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Antonio Rodriguez aka the Kensington Strangler, might be facing the death penalty. The prosecutor plans to seek it in his case.

Prosecutors to seek death penalty against alleged serial killer

February 09, 2011|By the CNN Wire Staff

Philadelphia prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against suspected serial strangler Antonio Rodriguez, according to District Attorney spokeswoman Tasha Jamerson.

Rodriguez appeared at a preliminary hearing Wednesday where two police detectives read confessions Rodriguez gave regarding three women he allegedly killed and sexually assaulted between November and December of last year, according to Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Bretschneider.

Nicknamed the Kensington strangler, the 21-year-old Rodriguez was arrested after DNA testing linked him to the attacks in the city’s Kensington district, according to Detective Justin Frank.

Full story

I wish both sets of prosecutors luck!

It’s about time

I just posted about Gary Ridgway being charged with an additional murder. He is expected to enter a guilty plea for the murder of Rebecca Marrero, a 20-year-old mother of a 3-year-old daughter. This murder happened 28 years ago.

But Ridgway is not the only serial killer whose past is running up behind him and biting him on the butt.

Rodney Alcala is going to be going back to New York to be tried for the murders of Cornelia Crilley, a 23-year-old flight attendant who was raped and strangled in her Manhattan apartment in 1971 and Ellen Hover, 23, the daughter of a Hollywood nightclub owner who was found slain in 1977 not far from her family’s estate in Westchester County. (Source)

Gary Hilton is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and theft charges.  Jury selection is under way for Hilton’s murder trial in the 2007 death of 46-year-old Cheryl Dunlap, who was a nurse at Florida State University. Cheryl disappeared Dec. 1, 2007. Hunters found her decapitated body two weeks later in the Apalachicola National Forest, southwest of Tallahassee. (Source)

Chester Turner has also been charged with 4 more murders. The newest charges are for the murders of: Cynthia Annette Johnson, 30; Elandra Bunn, 33; Mary Edwards, 41; and Debra Williams, 32. ( Source)

Peter Tobin (imo: aka Bible John) is facing more charges. Several women have come forward to say that he raped them. Law Enforcement is also still investigating and connecting him to more murders. These crimes go back to the late 1960’s. (Source)

The murders tied to Lonnie David Franklin Jr aka The Grim Sleeper, continue to grow as police investigate at least two more possible victims. (Source) There maybe more still to come if the photos are any indication of what he did.

I am glad that these killers are having to answer for their crimes. Even f they are already in prison, they should not be allowed to hold these ‘secrets’. The people who they killed should not be the killer’s personal fantasy, some sick secret they can take to their graves. The people that loved and cared about these people should be allowed to have some type of closure.

I know that if someone I loved went missing I would want to know what happened to them. I can not imagine the pain and fear that come with a missing loved one, it would be made all the worse by the hope that not knowing could bring.

I also would want a face to hate. It has to be better to know what (kind of) happened then to be left in the dark. I would want a face to throw things at if something happened to my loved ones.

These ‘people’ (for lack of a better word for the killers) need to be held accountable and the loved ones have a right to know.

Law enforcement needs to stay on top of so-called cold cases. DNA has done much for this field of investigation. I can only hope that there are more leaps and bounds to come.

It looks as if there will be. Cold cases are being re-examined all the time and there seems to be a moderate amount of success.

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