National Forest Serial Killer is finally admitting to one of his murders after almost 20 years. He admitted to the murder of a Florida nurse, who died all the way back in 2007.
This should bring some amount of closure to the woman's family. Gary Michael Hilton, also known as the National Forest Serial Killer, is on death row for the 2007 death of nurse Cheryl Hodges Dunlap. The Army veteran used his survivalist skills to track and stalk his victims across several national parks in several states.
"It's time," Hilton, 78, said in an exclusive interview with Court TV's David Scott via People. "It's time after 17 years to break my silence."
He is also serving consecutive life sentences for killing both John D. Bryant and Irene W. Bryant in 2012 and Meredith Emerson in 2008. Previously, he had confessed to all three of these killings. But the National Forest Serial Killer refused to admit to the murder that landed him on death row. That is about to change.
National Forest Serial Killer
Court TV sat down with Hilton for their crime series Interview with a Killer. He admits to killing the nurse. "Let me give you a news scoop," he told the reporter. "I did it. I'm confessing to a murder on camera. And I'll be glad to tell anybody I did."
"By now I've come face to face with my share of killers, but nothing could have prepared me for the likes of Gary Michael Hilton," the reporter told PEOPLE. "He is the most prolific of the murderers we've covered and perhaps the most maniacal. What struck me was the absolute void of empathy, as if it was not in his DNA.
"If we are ever to stop these crimes and killers we have to understand them and Hilton opens an important window in the mind of a man who brutally took four lives. We also tell an inspiring story of how his final victim, Meredith Emerson, courageously helped police stop him and lost her life in the process."
