Since the 2008 confession and conviction, Gary Michael Hilton was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Florida for the murder of a woman in the Apalachicola National Forest and subsequently denied an appeal in 2017. He was also convicted of similar murders in North Carolina and sentenced to four life sentences. He beheaded the victims.
In June 2011, a federal grand jury indicted then-64-year-old Gary Hilton for kidnapping, robbery, and two counts of murder in the deaths of 80-year-old John Bryant and his 84-year-old wife, Irene Bryant. The couple was last seen in October 2007 on a trail in the Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina. Hilton pled guilty to these crimes. As of 2021, Hilton remains on death row. Investigators suspect that he has other victims besides the four murders for which he has been held responsible/convicted.
One of the film's consultants, Gary Michael Hilton, who came up with the basic plot of a serial killer stalking women in the woods, confessed in 2008 to abducting a woman and murdering her in the woods 30 miles from where the film's killing scenes were shot. Michael Hilton, a drifter previously convicted of killing and beheading hikers in Florida and Georgia, was sentenced to four additional life sentences in federal prison for kidnapping and murdering a North Carolina couple in a national forest.
Gary Michael Hilton, 66, pled guilty in March 2012 to killing John and Irene Bryant in 2007. Hilton camped out for victims before he ambushed the Hendersonville couple, who were in their 80s, as they hiked in the Pisgah National Forest in Transylvania County. He also pleaded guilty to robbery and firearms offenses.
U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger ordered that Hilton's federal life sentences be served consecutively with an earlier life sentence for murdering 24-year-old hiker Meredith Emerson in northern Georgia in 2008. Federal sentences do not have the possibility of parole.
Hilton was already on Florida's death row for killing Cheryl Dunlap, 46, of Crawfordville, Florida, who was found dead in north Florida's Apalachicola National Forest where Hilton had camped. Emerson, of Buford, Ga., and Dunlap were beheaded.
The bodies of the four victims were found over a span of several months starting in late 2007.
Gary Michael Hilton, 66, pled guilty in March 2012 to killing John and Irene Bryant in 2007. Hilton camped out for victims before he ambushed the Hendersonville couple, who were in their 80s, as they hiked in the Pisgah National Forest in Transylvania County. He also pleaded guilty to robbery and firearms offenses.
U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger ordered that Hilton's federal life sentences be served consecutively with an earlier life sentence for murdering 24-year-old hiker Meredith Emerson in northern Georgia in 2008. Federal sentences do not have the possibility of parole.
Hilton was already on Florida's death row for killing Cheryl Dunlap, 46, of Crawfordville, Florida, who was found dead in north Florida's Apalachicola National Forest where Hilton had camped. Emerson, of Buford, Ga., and Dunlap were beheaded.
The bodies of the four victims were found over a span of several months starting in late 2007.
Nicci Roessler's debut.