Content warning: This article contains descriptions of violence, murder, and sexual violence.
On January 1, 2008, Meredith Emerson, 24, headed to Blood Mountain, Georgia’s Chattahoochee National Forest with her dog, Ella, for a day on the trails. Instead of a day of adventure, she crossed paths with Gary Michael Hilton, a drifter who would later become known nationwide as the “National Forest Serial Killer.”
Emerson’s murder initially looked like a missing person report, but it eventually drew massive national attention. Search teams combed through the mountains looking for the missing hiker. The scale of investigation expanded to three states when the police realized that Emerson wasn’t Hilton’s first victim but only the latest.
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A massive manhunt in January 2008 led to his capture. Years later, he revealed the brutal details of Emerson’s murder.
In an episode of Court TV’s Interview With a Killer, Hilton revealed what exactly happened with Emerson and his other victims.
During the interview, Hilton openly admitted that he targeted Emerson almost immediately after seeing her.
“She fit the profile,” Hilton said, describing Emerson as “good-looking, young,” and hiking alone.
With three weapons in hand, Hilton thought getting Emerson would be easy. However, the University of Georgia graduate was trained in martial arts and gave him a tough fight.
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He initially confronted her with a bayonet and was shocked when she attacked the weapon and took it out of his hands.
“She had real quick hands, and she grabbed the knife blade.”
“She grabbed it, and I was so slack, I was like mollygagging around. Didn’t have a good, firm grip on it. And she twisted it right out of my hand.”
Although in the process, she slightly cut her head.
His second go-to weapon was a police baton. Emerson was able to get the baton off his hands. He eventually had to hand-fight her. He said:
“She would feign or pretend that I was in control and then start fighting again. So I had to hit her a number of times, straight punches to the face or the head. Right, but I had control of her.
“I had her with my left hand the whole time. So what happened? I beat her a–.”
Emerson bravely fought Hilton, and he ended up having multiple fractures in his right hand.
Reportedly, Hilton held Emerson and her dog captive in his van for several days after abducting her before eventually killing her with repeated blows to the head.
The interview took a darker turn when Hilton was questioned about empathy. On being asked if the concepts of “empathy, mercy, decency” ever registered with him, Hilton simply answered “Yes” and went on to explain that he has four distinct personalities: a soldier, a scientist, an artist, and a comedian.
He hinted that it was the soldier’s personality that made him kill those people. He said:
“The soldier personality is emotionless. Kill them all, let God sort them out. That’s the soldier mentality.”
However, he quickly defended his crimes and torture of victims and said:
“I didn’t torture anybody.”
Hilton also referred to himself as the “Beast of Blood Mountain” and boasted that he became “the oldest serial killer in American history” after beginning his killing spree at age 61.
Hilton has been diagnosed with multiple mental health conditions. A psychiatrist diagnosed him with “sociopathic character disorder” when he was 14 years old after he shot at his stepfather with a shotgun. He admitted to having strong paraphilias, too.
