Читать книгу At the Hands of a Stranger - Lee Butcher - Страница 9

Less than three months before Meredith Emerson went missing on January 1, 2008, two gruesome murders had occurred in Florida and in North Carolina. Another North Carolina hiker was missing and presumed dead. None of the police organizations in the different locations knew about the others, and none had a suspect.

The first to go missing were John Bryant and his wife, Irene, who hiked rigorous trails in North Carolina when many of their contemporaries were content to settle down and take things easy. John was seventy-nine years old and in robust health, except for painful arthritis in his back, which he refused to let change his activities. Irene, his wife for fifty-eight years, was a fascinating former veterinarian of eighty-four, with sparkle, verve, and insatiable curiosity.

They were both born in the Pacific Northwest and lived in Montana. Irene and John met there. Since they were both avid outdoors people, their dates were often hikes in the mountains. The first member of her family to attend college, Irene earned a doctorate from Washington State University (WSU) in veterinary medicine. She opened a clinic for large animals. Irene was the first female large-animal veterinarian in Montana, crashing the glass ceiling before most people had a name for it.

After a few years in Montana, the Bryants moved to the Finger Lakes district in Upstate New York, one of the most scenic areas in the Northeast. John was an engineer who worked on the Saint Lawrence Seaway while he earned a law degree at Cornell. After he passed the bar, he opened a practice in Syracuse. He served as the town attorney for Skaneateles, population 7,500, where they lived. He always underbilled for his services. Colleagues urged him to charge more. He told them that some people serve as volunteer firemen; this was his way of giving back to his community. Irene owned a large-animal clinic in New York, but she closed it to become a full-time mother to her daughter, Holly, and two sons. A woman with insatiable curiosity, Irene also took graduate courses in such things as psychology, forestry, and ichthyology.

The Bryants never lost their thirst for adventure and visiting new places. They traveled all over the United States and to various places around the world. They sent friends Christmas cards from their world travels, usually featuring photos of them posing in their hiking gear on the summit of a mountain. When they decided to retire, they still felt the call of the wild and moved to Horse Shoe, North Carolina, a small town near Pisgah National Forest, a place of steep climbs, wild rivers, and a variety of deciduous and coniferous trees. Wildlife was abundant.

Doctors told John that he should cut back on hiking because of the arthritis in his back, but John had other ideas. Hiking was his life. Instead of giving up, he took two years and conquered the Appalachian Trail in successive hikes; each one lasted about a week.

During retirement they hiked two or three times a week in Pisgah Forest, often choosing trails that were too difficult for inexperienced hikers to tackle. They roamed among the four-thousand-foot mountains, which were as colorful as a Claude Monet painting. The couple still enjoyed traveling and kept two full bags packed so they could take off at a moment’s notice—should they find a special rate on a trip they couldn’t resist.

On October 21, 2007, they decided to go for a hike in Pisgah Forest. They told friends and family and said they would call regularly so everyone would know they were fine. But something terrible happened near the Cradle of Forestry and Pink Beds in Transylvania County, near Brevard, North Carolina. There was a 911 emergency call from their cell phone, and it was abruptly disconnected. The call never reached the emergency dispatch office. No one even knew about the telephone call at the time, because there was no reason for anyone to worry about the Bryants, who were careful and experienced hikers.

And then the newspapers started to pile up in front of their house. Neighbors watched with growing alarm and telephoned Bob Bryant, their son, who lived in Austin, Texas. Bob telephoned his mother’s sister, who usually talked with his mother once a week, and she had not heard from Irene Bryant, either. Bob caught the first flight he could from Austin and broke into his parents’ locked house. Nothing seemed to be out of place, but the hiking gear was gone. Bob Bryant telephoned the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO) and reported that his parents had not been seen in two weeks.

The sheriff’s deputies found the Bryants’ vehicle at a trailhead in Pisgah Forest, and a massive search was started. As is standard operating procedure (SOP) today, the area was divided into grids and marked by GPS. Hundreds of trained search-and-rescue people and volunteers combed the trails. Aircraft with spotters and infrared heat sensors streaked across the park looking for live or deceased bodies. Although unlikely, people clung to the hope that the Bryants had merely gotten lost.

That hope vanished on the second day of the search. Deputies discovered that Irene and John Bryant’s ATM card had been used to withdraw three hundred dollars from their account at a People’s Bank ATM at Five Points Drive in Ducktown, Tennessee. The bank’s security camera showed a man in a yellow jacket, with the hood up to obscure his face, making the withdrawal. The jacket had black elbow patches and wide black stripes. Bob Bryant thought that the parka looked like one his father owned.

The unauthorized use of the Bryants’ ATM card made it clear that this was more than a case of missing hikers. Sheriff David Mahoney assumed foul play and feared for the lives of the elderly couple.

On November 9, 2007, Mahoney’s misgivings proved to be right. Irene’s skeletal remains were found beneath a covering of branches and leaves. The remains were forty-six yards from their Ford Escape, on Yellow Gap Road.

Irene Bryant died from blunt trauma to the head and had defensive wounds on her right arm. There were three fractures on the right side of her face, and a massive fracture at the back of her head that crushed the skull. There were several fractures on her right arm, probably received when she tried to protect herself, and the right arm was severed and found several feet from the body. There was no sign of her husband; alarming fear mounted for his safety.

The Bryants’ son Bob couldn’t understand why a robbery had turned into a murder. At their age, he said, his parents posed no physical threat. Had they been confronted by someone who merely wanted money, Bob Bryant said, his parents would simply have handed over their wallets and money. Neither of them would have resisted, he said, unless one, or both of them, had been assaulted.

Mahoney called off the search for missing hikers and sent the volunteers home. This was clearly a homicide—maybe a double homicide—or possibly one homicide and one kidnapping, with assault and bodily harm. The search for John Bryant and his wife’s killer would be continued by professionals. The Transylvania County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO), North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (NCSBI), and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) searched for several more weeks without finding Bryant, alive or dead. There was little hope that he would be found alive. Bob Bryant was asked how he felt when he saw the picture of the man in the yellow parka. “I’m not consumed with hatred or anything like that. I want to find my dad, and I want law enforcement to find these people and give them a fair trial.”

A newspaper delivery driver in Ducktown told the police that she saw a balding, bearded man in a yellow coat with black patches driving a white Astro van at about the same time that the card was used. In the area, during that same time, several people reported seeing a balding, bearded, scruffy-looking man, about sixty years old, weighing 160 pounds.

On October 26, 2007, Cherokee County deputy Will Ballard drove to a private hunting preserve to answer a complaint about an unauthorized camper. The hunting preserve is in northwestern Georgia, about seventy miles from Ducktown, Tennessee, where someone had used the Bryants’ ATM card to withdraw three hundred dollars. Ballard’s dashboard video/audio recorder was operating when he found the trespasser: a bald, weathered man about sixty years old, weighing about 160 pounds. He met Ballard in front of the deputy’s car so that much of their twenty-minute conversation was recorded by the video/audio dashboard device. The man was talkative and animated, sometimes almost jumping in circles as he talked. He had blue eyes and no front teeth.

“Howdy, Deputy,” he said. “How are you today?”

“Can I get your ID real quick?” Ballard asked.

“Yes, you sure can.”

Ballard entered the information into his computer to search for outstanding warrants or BOLOs (be on the lookout for) and continued talking to the trespasser.

“You got any weapons on you? Anything in the van?”

“Oh, just the usual stuff.” The deputy made a move toward the van, but the man hopped ahead of him. “Oh,” he said, as if just remembering, “there’s a backpack with an expandable police baton in it. I don’t want you to get nervous. I’ll get it for you.”

He hurried to the van and retrieved the backpack and hopped back to the deputy. They were out of the dashboard video’s range, but the audio was recorded.

“I was a paratrooper,” the man said. “What I’m doing now is I’m on perpetual professional field maneuvers. You never know who or what you’re gonna meet up here.”

Ballard found no outstanding warrants on the man and told him he should leave.

“It’s the first day of hunting season,” Ballard said. “You should leave before you get shot.”

“I’m leaving. I’m getting out of here!” the trespasser howled, flapping his arms. “God Almighty!”

“Have a nice day,” Ballard said as he drove away.

“I love you!”

“Take care and be safe, Mr. Hilton,” the deputy replied.

Ballard had just talked with Gary Hilton in northwestern Georgia, a day after a man fitting Hilton’s description had used the Bryants’ ATM card in Ducktown, Tennessee, about fifty miles away. In spite of an intense search, the police could not find John Bryant’s body and had no suspect for the murder of Irene Bryant.

On December 1, 2007, Cheryl Dunlap left her house in Crawfordville, Florida, to take advantage of the one free day each week that she had to herself. Dunlap telephoned a friend about nine in the morning to say that she was going to the public library in Medart, just a few miles away. Crawfordville is in Wakulla County, a sparsely populated area that is a bedroom community for suburbanites who work in the state capital of Tallahassee, located about twenty miles farther north. The town is some three hundred miles south of Blood Mountain, from where Meredith Emerson would be kidnapped. The terrain in that area of Florida is heavily wooded and encompasses several parks, some of which bump shoulders with the Appalachian Trail.

Cheryl Dunlap was a healer, not just of the body, but of the spirit. Her long hours were not from obligation but from personal commitment. A registered nurse, Dunlap worked at Thagard Student Health Center at Florida State University (FSU), and was considered one of the best. According to the logbooks, she often saw patients right up to the last minutes of her shift.

Dunlap was the mother of two sons, Mike and Jake, and had been divorced from their father since they were little boys. Mike lived in Crawfordville and Jake was serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq. The other passion in Dunlap’s life was her faith. She lived in Crawfordville all of her life and was a sixth-generation member of the White Church Primitive Baptist, a church with a congregation of a little more than sixty members. Jake won an award there for attending Sunday school every week for seven years. The church had a small congregation, but they were an active group of hardy souls.

They pitched in to help one another remodel homes; and even though it was small, the church had outreach programs and performed missionary work in foreign lands. Besides being a full-time single mother and nurse, Dunlap sang in the choir and taught Sunday school and Bible school. Dunlap was so passionate about her faith that she even made time to attend and graduate from the FIRE School of Ministry in Pensacola. Following graduation she made several trips to China and South America as a missionary, who worked in medicine and spread the Gospel.

When Hurricane Ivan threatened the central Alabama Gulf Coast in September 2004 with 165-miles-per-hour winds and lashing rain, more than two hundred thousand people in the area fled their homes in Florida and Alabama as the fifth strongest hurricane ever to develop in the Gulf Basin came closer. In spite of a slight weakening, Ivan was still a Category 3 hurricane, with sustained winds of 125 miles per hour, when the storm struck the Alabama and Florida coasts.

This killer storm produced a storm surge as high as ten to fifteen feet from Destin, in the Florida Panhandle, westward to Mobile Bay/Baldwin County in Alabama. One wave, which was measured by the buoy from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reached the monster height of fifty-two feet in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Mobile, Alabama.

The storm caused catastrophic damage and loss of life from Florida through Nova Scotia. The worst damage was along the Alabama and Florida coasts with wind and water sweeping away buildings, ripping up trees, and even knocking down a huge section of a bridge on Interstate 10. Thousands were injured and left homeless without fresh water, utilities, medical aid, communications, and food.

Dunlap was one of the first to volunteer and spent several weeks in the most needful areas dispensing medical aid and spiritual comfort. It was a job for which she had unique qualifications. Dunlap was an important member of the River of Life Church. Everyone at the small church knew her.

The children whom Dunlap taught in Sunday and Bible school referred to her fondly as “Ms. Cheryl.” It was surprising when Dunlap didn’t appear on Saturday at the public library in Medart, where she usually went. Although a registered nurse with a good salary, Dunlap lived modestly and didn’t have an Internet connection at her apartment. Surprise elevated to a mood of shock for the congregation at the River of Life Church when Dunlap didn’t show up to teach her Bible studies class on Sunday morning. This type of behavior was totally out of character for her. She would never miss a class without making arrangements for a substitute and letting people know ahead of time. On Monday morning Dunlap didn’t show up for work at Thagard Student Health Center.

Dunlap’s friends and family began to worry when she missed Sunday-school class and were downright frightened when no one heard from her on Monday morning. Laura Walker, one of Dunlap’s closest friends, didn’t stand idly by. She drove past Dunlap’s house on Monday morning and saw that her friend’s Chihuahua was in the apartment. Alarm bells went off in her head: Cheryl never goes anywhere without her dog. She certainly wouldn’t leave it alone for so long.

Walker considered going into the apartment, but she was afraid she might disturb evidence if the police were needed. Instead, she called the Wakulla County Sheriff’s Department and advised them of the situation. “We talk pretty much every day,” Walker told the police. “Even when she was away from her cell or home phone, she still called once a day to tell me she would be out and that she wouldn’t have a phone for several hours.”

Walker told Deputy Tim Ganey, of the Wakulla County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO), that Dunlap had told her that someone broke into her apartment about a year ago. Walker said that the intruder stole Dunlap’s underwear from the dresser drawers and “messed up” the bedsheets. Dunlap didn’t report the incident, according to Walker.

Ganey talked with Dunlap’s supervisor at Thagard and was told that it was unusual for Dunlap to miss work or not let anyone know where she was. “She calls if she’s going to be a minute late,” Ganey was told. The deputy issued a BOLO for Dunlap as her friends mobilized, telephoning anyone they could think of to alert them that Dunlap might be missing. They came up dry. The BOLO read:

Cheryl Hodges Dunlap, 46, of Crawfordville is described as 5'4", brown eyes, and brown hair.

Ms. Dunlap is a Sunday school teacher and did not show up for her bible class, which is very unusual. She is also a state employee and didn’t show up for work this morning.

Just minutes after the BOLO went out, Dunlap’s 2006 white Toyota was found abandoned in Leon County, just north of the Leon/Wakulla County boundary line. Highway 319, where the car was found, was a dark, isolated, two-lane road through a wild, forested area. There was no sign that a struggle had taken place where the car was found. Dunlap’s purse was still in the car, but her wallet, which contained cash, identification, and credit cards, was missing. CSI taped off the crime scene and looked over the car, inside and out, checking for DNA, fibers, and anything else that might give them a clue as to what had happened. Dunlap was nowhere to be found.

The right rear tire was flat, with a puncture on the belt line about an inch and a half wide. CSI saw no indication that the car had been out of control when it pulled off the road. The way it was abandoned, closer to the forest than to the road’s shoulder, was suspicious. There were no skid marks. One theory was that Dunlap had a flat tire, pulled over, and was abducted when she got out to fix it or to seek help. Major Morris Langston said police weren’t sure: Dunlap could have been abducted elsewhere, and her car driven away and abandoned afterward.

The sheriff’s office added an upgrade to its BOLO: Authorities are processing the vehicle and Ms. Dunlap is considered a missing person. Within an hour Dunlap’s face was listed on dozens of “Missing Person” sites on the Internet, along with her description and where she was last seen. Diverse groups, such as the Texas Equusearch, were on the lookout, as were police officers throughout the nation.

In Wakulla and Leon Counties, scores of people mobilized, many from nearby cities, and began the same type of intensive search procedures that were being conducted in Pisgah Forest in North Carolina and in Georgia’s Dawson Forest. Trey Morrison, Pat Smith, and Anthony Curles, members of the WCSO dive team, used underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to explore the murky waters of dozens of lakes and ponds in Florida as they looked for evidence. In addition to the “Video Rays,” as the ROVs are called, the deputies also donned diving gear and searched. The small town of Crawfordville could talk about little else except—as one of her former Bible-school students put it—“Who in the world would want to hurt Ms. Cheryl?”

“I have been racking my brain to try to think of anything that was out of kilter for her,” Laura Walker told Wakulla County deputies. “I talked to her Friday. She was sweet, generous, and had no enemies. I can’t think of anyone who would want to hurt her.”

Dogs trained to find both the living and the dead searched hundreds of acres, and Leon County deputies and firefighters joined their counterparts in Wakulla County to comb the area. Even the Wakulla County Commission members, bank presidents, and the clerk of court joined in the search. They found no blood, no body, and not even field testing showed fingerprints on Dunlap’s abandoned car. Air searches with spotters and infrared sensors found no sign of the missing nurse and missionary.

Members of the River of Life turned to God in prayer meetings; the fact that no body had been found kept them optimistic. Judy Brown noted that everyone was hoping and believed that Dunlap would be found alive. That hope suffered a severe setback when, on the fourth day of the search, deputies discovered that Dunlap’s ATM card had been used at the Hancock Bank on West Tennessee Street on three consecutive days, starting on December 2. The bank’s surveillance camera showed a man in a bizarre mask that appeared to be homemade, wearing a knit cap and thick goggles, making the withdrawals. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and gloves. Every square inch of his body was covered during the times he used the ATM card.

“The video isn’t very telling,” said Major Mike Wood, of the Leon County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO). “The person that used it went to great lengths to disguise himself.”

Hoping the man might return to the ATM again, the police established a weeklong stakeout to watch for him, starting the next week, but the man never returned. From the time Dunlap was reported missing, tips from people began to flood the Wakulla County and Leon County Sheriff’s Offices.

Sandy Goff told deputies that she and her teenage daughter met a man who fit Gary Hilton’s description in a Laundromat at Crawfordville the first or second week in December 2007. The man drove a white Astro van, which she said was “junky” on the inside “because it had a lot of stuff in it.” Goff reported seeing a rolled-up sleeping bag and yellow rope in the van. Accompanying the man was a large red dog. She thought it was odd that he didn’t bring all of his laundry in at once, but rather carried in armloads at a time. He waited inside his van until the laundry needed tending.

“When he looked at you, it was a strange look,” she told a Leon County deputy. “He just stared. He just wasn’t acting like a normal person. It was just a weird vibe. He was giving me the creeps.”

Hilton sometimes referred to himself as a parson, as well as a survivalist, Vietnam War veteran (he wasn’t), and often attended church services while on his “maneuvers.” In late November 2007, Delbert Redditt, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Madison, Florida, saw a stranger enter the sanctuary during services. The man was balding, with a fringe of gray hair, and looked disheveled. Redditt thought the man acted “kind of weird.” Following the service, a member of the congregation prepared a meal for the man from food left over from the church’s Saturday dinner. Redditt and several members of the congregation later identified the man as Gary Hilton.

There’s no doubt that Hilton was in Leon County for several weeks in late November 2007 until sometime in mid to late December. On November 17, Mary King, a federal law enforcement officer, noticed a dirty white Chevrolet Astro parked not far from Moore Lake, in the Apalachicola National Forest. There was no one present. King ran a check on the van’s license plate—Georgia AFQ1310—and discovered that the vehicle was registered to Gary Hilton, and its tag had expired five days earlier.

King found expired warrants issued by a Miami judge on Hilton for receiving stolen goods in 1972, as well as arson. She made marginal notes regarding warrants against Hilton in Miami for driving under the influence (DUI), and also cited: arson, pistol without license, battery. The warrants had been dismissed as part of a routine cleansing of old files. The report also showed that Hilton had a chauffeur’s license revoked.

Hilton arrived after King had checked his record. She told him that she was just checking to make sure things were okay. Since there were no outstanding warrants on Hilton, King let him go after warning him not to violate the preserve’s fourteen-day camping limit.

Two other forest rangers saw Hilton in the area, but the heavily redacted statements released by the police obscure the date. From the contents of the statements, it appears they saw him within days after his encounter with King. Ranger John Smathers reported that he saw a man fitting Hilton’s description in the Apalachicola National Forest near a DUI checkpoint he had set up at the intersection of Dog Lake Tower and Silver Lake Road.

Smathers wrote that it was almost sunset, when he saw a man in a blue jogging suit with leg warmers on the outside of the lower pants. The man wore a cap pushed back on his head, so Smathers could tell he was bald. His body was thin and wiry, and he seemed to be approximately fifty-five to sixty years of age. The man was using poles to help propel him along the trail. He seemed to be speed walking. An unleashed dog, which seemed to be a reddish brown retriever mix, trotted with him. As the man drew closer to Smathers, the hiker leashed the dog. Smathers noticed that the man was also wearing a large black backpack. When the hiker was just twenty feet in front of Smathers, the officer asked him how he was doing. The man quickly explained that he had just been checked by a female officer before he left his campsite. Smathers asked if he just liked to walk. “I do this every day like a military hike,” the man told him. Smathers said good-bye and told him to be careful because people were driving fast. The speed walker assured him that he would take care.

Ranger James D. Ellis saw Hilton as well—this time in the Osceola District of the Apalachicola Wildlife Preserve. Ellis found him in a remote part of the forest, west of Forest Service Road 212 and south of the Forest Service work center. Hilton had driven down a closed road and set up camp in an unauthorized area.

Hilton was surprised when the ranger approached. “How did you find me in this location?” he asked.

“I followed your tire signs.”

“I like long-distance hiking,” Hilton said, “but if you come to a WMA, you’re going to get patted down.” (WMA was shorthand for a Wildlife Management Area.)

The comment made no sense to Ellis and he asked Hilton what he meant.

“You can drive around town all day long but if you come to a WMA, you are going to get patted down.”

Ellis told Hilton that he could only camp in designated areas and that he couldn’t drive on roads that weren’t designated by signs. Then he asked to see Hilton’s driver’s license. Hilton fumbled through his wallet, having trouble finding it; but when Ellis offered to help, he found the license right away. (The ranger’s report has a heavily blacked-out redaction.) Hilton’s driver’s license had expired, and he had been cited for driving on closed roads and camping in unauthorized places. Ellis told Hilton he had to go back to Georgia and get his license renewed.

“I’m going to be driving back this way, and if I see you, I will issue you a one-hundred-seventy-five-dollar citation for your expired license and another one-hundred-seventy-five-dollar citation for driving with an expired license tag,” Ellis told him.

Hilton continued talking and asked about various areas of Apalachicola Forest in Florida.

“You don’t need to go to any national forest areas,” Ellis told him. “You need to go back to Georgia and take care of your driver’s license.”

On December 15, William Kemp and Donald Trussell, employed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, were on patrol in the Apalachicola Forest, when Kemp received a call from the area command center. A group of hunters had found a dead body in the forest; Kemp and Trussell were directed to go there.

It was about eleven in the morning when the two wildlife officials met the hunters at Forest Road 381 and 381E. The hunters said the body was in the woods.

“Do you want us to show you where it is?” one hunter asked.

The officials followed the hunters as they drove a short distance into the woods and stopped. The hunters led the wildlife employees along the side of the road until they came to a pile of palmetto branches and leaves. That’s when Kemp saw the body.

Approaching the scene, I observed, (HEAVILY INKED OUT) was also vegetation type debris that appeared to be piled on top of the body, Kemp wrote.

He and Trussell returned to Forest Road 381 to escort Sergeant Steve Norville and Deputy Alan Shepard, with the LCSO to the body, and then left. The crime scene was actually about a mile from where other responding units had stopped. The CSI from the LCSO taped off the crime scene; and with the help of CSI forensic experts from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), they began the tedious and time-consuming task of testing for even the most minute shred of evidence.

It didn’t take an expert to tell that the woman was dead, but it was not so easy to identify her. Somebody had cut off her head.

Rumors, fueled by fear and horror, began to speed around Leon and Wakulla Counties. Some said that there was at least one serial killer, perhaps two, in the area on a murderous rampage, killing and dismembering women. Hundreds of women signed up and completed safety courses sponsored by LCSO. Compared to the previous six months, applications to carry concealed firearms increased by about one hundred.

Larry Campbell, the Leon County sheriff, held a press conference to dispel some of the rumors. It wasn’t true that there were several killers on the loose. The police were following up on every lead, he said, and people should be cautious, but not frightened.

It was true that the police had no idea who had killed the woman believed to be Cheryl Dunlap.

The small communities were gripped by terror.