At the Hands of a Stranger (12 page)

“Forensically, this guy knew what he was doing,” Bridges said later. “This (Emerson's murder) wasn't the first time the guy did this.”

The search for evidence led to additional backpacks, clothing, and blankets that were stained to various degrees by a rust-colored spatter. Branyon tested the stains with phenolphthalein and determined that the stains were made by human blood. All of the evidence was bagged and identified for further testing at the GBI forensic laboratory.

Most of the outdoor gear was from top-of-the-line producers with standings in their specialties that equal Prada and Ralph Lauren for high fashion. What's more, much of the expensive gear seemed to be so new it had not been used. Some of the brand names were North Face Gore-Tex, JanSport, REI, and Columbia Sportswear Company. There were rolls of duct tape, bloodstained rags and paper towels, several different kinds of outdoor ropes and cords, chains, padlocks, and pornographic magazines. In the cargo area Branyon found an insert inside packaging for a Monadnock expandable police baton.

U.S. Marshals found Emerson's credit cards. The GBI had previously checked with four banks to determine whether any attempts had been made to use Emerson's cards and PINs. The banks told the GBI there had been none. But when the U.S. Marshals offered to help in the search, they found that attempts had been made on January 1, 2, and 3 on two of the cards. The private companies that provided security for the banks apologized and blamed faulty computers. Had the banks' security reported correctly, it would have given the police a better idea of Hilton's movement pattern and could have saved Emerson's life.

As the investigation progressed, the GBI was able to isolate several instances where Meredith Emerson could have been helped and wasn't. None of these instances were the fault of the GBI or others in law enforcement, who all worked like swarms of bees in northern Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, exhausting every lead, every hint of Hilton's life and habits. In the two days since Emerson was reported missing, police had quickly discovered the unidentified suspect's name, and had come within a hairsbreadth of catching him before he killed Emerson.

GBI special agent Mitchell Posey discovered a small library of videotapes of commercially broadcast shows. All of them had a similar motif: crime. There was a tape of
60 Minutes
documenting the case of Dalton Prejean, who was on death row for murdering Louisiana State trooper Donald Cleveland on July 2, 1977. When he was fourteen, Prejean had previously killed a taxi driver and had served time in a juvenile facility. At a hearing near his execution date, a psychologist said that Prejean had suffered from brain damage caused by abuse when he was a child and was unable to think of another solution besides shooting the trooper when he slammed Prejean's brother's head on the hood of the car.

The parole board recommended that the death sentence be commuted, but the governor refused it. Although the U.S. Supreme Court issued a state of execution on the date Prejean was sentenced to die, the
60 Minutes
broadcast ended without revealing Prejean's ultimate fate. (Prejean was executed in the electric chair on May 18, 1990, when he was thirty years old.)

The same videotape included a report on a convicted con artist named Noel Jay Calise, who rented cars and paid in cash to make it harder for police to track him. There was a tape containing recorded broadcasts of
Cops
. Also included was an episode from
America's Most Wanted
that reported on how Patrick Mitchell was arrested for bank robbery in Little Rock, Arkansas. Mitchell went to what he thought of as a safe haven and tried to rob a bank in South Haven, Mississippi. While he robbed the bank, two customers telephoned the police to report a suspicious character. Police were waiting to arrest Mitchell when he left the bank. There were several other tapes whose themes centered on child pornography, kidnapping, and murder.

While investigators gathered evidence at the Chevron station, Gary Hilton had been transported to the GBI Region 8 headquarters. The normally loquacious Hilton, who ordinarily spoke in bizarre and nonstop sentences, did a complete turnabout. As he and his police escorts arrived at the outside steps leading inside the building, Hilton went limp, and would have fallen flat on his face if the detectives had not caught him. They had to carry him inside to the interview room, where he sprawled facedown on the floor, with his eyes wide open. He clammed up. Mum. Not a peep out of him for the next few hours, except to say he needed medication.

Hilton was sprawled on the floor, facedown, when Bridges entered the room and spoke the few words he would utter for what seemed an eternity. Bridges said Hilton turned his eyes on him, but he felt as if the suspect was looking right through him. The GBI agent felt a cold chill and felt as if he had been hit by a hammer, so strong was the anger and hatred emanating from the man on the floor.

“I'm Special Agent Clay Bridges,” he said. “You have the right—”

“I'm not saying anything to you,” Hilton snarled. “I'm not saying anything without an attorney present. I'm making no statements. I'm waiving no rights.”

“I want to make sure you know what your rights are,” Bridges said, and read them to Hilton. Hilton didn't look at him and showed no emotion. The GBI special agent felt as if Hilton could see right through him and was looking at the wall on the other side of the room through him, with a scowl on his face that seemed set in stone.

 

Hilton lay on the floor. He blamed everyone but himself for Emerson's death.

If John Tabor had been square with me,
it
never would have happened. What if I tell the GBI agent,
you
tell Tabor that I killed the girl, but you tell him that girl is dead because he is a fucking smart-ass girl.

And instead of … instead of telling me, Gary, the jig's up, you know … I don't know what the fuck was going through his mind that … he didn't know the girl was dead. The girl wasn't. She was alive. I had the girl. You know, shit's gone down that the girl's missing and apparently been abducted by me. What the fuck was in his mind trying to lure me to … You think you're going to rescue the girl that way?

Like I'm going to bring the girl there … What the fuck was going through his mind? You tell Tabor if he had just told me … and it makes sense. You're … It's intuitive. If he had told me, “Gary, they know it's you. They're looking for you, and if you've got that girl”… just like you told me. The first thing you said to me is “Gary, if there's any way that that girl is still alive, please”—words to that effect—“please tell us.” You were exploring that possibility right from the get-go. Not Tabor. He's too busy being a yuppie, smart-ass girl. Okay? And trying to lay his coy little trap, and …

…Well, I couldn't pick it up that night or the next day, but I might be there the next day. And the girl was still a-fucking-live. I still had that. Now, I got to go off … you know, and I was just, you know, I came unraveled, arrested. I slept almost twenty-four hours a day for …

Oh, yeah, he's kind of weird. Mostly he's afraid of me, and it—it just may be that his wife doesn't know he's … I doubt that. The last night that I was telling him, “John, you're working an agenda that's not working for either of us. It's not working for me because I'm not getting paid. It's not working for you because it's not going to happen, and that is … I will never unlawfully threaten you, John.”

I said, “Now, I can understand there's two reasons why you might think you could go at me into unlawfully threatening you. One is that if you had done to anyone what you have to me, they would be so mad and so outraged that they may well utter an unlawful threat. Secondly is the fact that, well, I'm a stud and the training I've received and the fighting I've done is a matter of public record. The training I received is a matter of public record, and the police have been called on me thirty times. The fighting I've done is a matter of public record.

“But, John, you're forgetting something. In all those instances I acted lawfully. I keep my actions lawful. Now, as far as blackmailing you goes, he had never broached that subject, but I—I wanted to throw this in …. I said as far as blackmailing you goes, what John Tabor … What am I going to do? Tell your wife you're a lousy faggot that lies about everything? Man, I'm sure she's known that for several years.” I told him … and it's my feeling, you know, Jan is dumb, you know.

Again, when you love someone, you have this dreamboat of a guy …. He's a dreamboat for the average, you know … He's forty-four … was born in '64, man. Okay? He's in his midforties. Your average schmuck in his forties is a sack of fucking shit, man. You know, he's done spread out. Man, Tabor's a stroking dude, man. I mean, he's tall and good-looking, and he handles himself beautifully. He's so impeccably mannered. Of course, they pose and they're precious, and that's the way they do it. And so I can understand his wife being blinded by that for several years; but again, she's an attorney. She was first in her class. She's not stupid.

But he never came on to me or shared his experiences with me. Never. Because if you're friends with a faggot—if it becomes an open thing between you that he's a fag, then you're hanging around with a faggot; and in my experience, if you're hanging around with a faggot that's acknowledged to be a faggot … I shouldn't use those words. I think the world of gay guys, by the way. Gay guys, as a group, are more handsome, more talented, more smart, more everything than straight men. They are. They're beautiful, and talented, and everything. Good-looking, too, you know, but one of the ways you tell a guy is a homosexual if he's just too good-looking and dressed too damn well, like Rock Hudson.

Tabor's always known that … for many years … that I knew because he—he knows me better than anyone, and he understands how sophisticated I am. By sophisticated, I mean a sophisticated person understands what they're seeing, and sees almost everything. That's what I mean by sophistication. In other words, I've been to New York City. So, Tabor knows I'm an extremely sophisticated guy, you know, and the only reason I'm not rich is because I'm crazy.

There's a downside to everything. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean … you know, but even at this point, I wouldn't trade it for being the average, incognizant schmuck that's going and plodding along doing a job, career, family, going to church, doing all those dumb-ass, mindless, brain-dead, fucking things, man. I wouldn't trade it even now to be incognizant as the average person. People have the capacity to deny truths that are as big as the nose on their faces. This whole dimming of awareness is a human psychological phenomenon that, number one, reduces tension, and number two, facilitates social interaction. It's a psychologically proven phenomenon that can be demonstrated in the laboratory that we dim out awareness of situations.

It's almost like the guy's got a big wart on his nose, but you don't look at it. That kind of thing? And that's what drives cops mad because cops understand that everybody's got an asshole. All you got to do is look for it, and it can drive you nuts. You know, it's seeing the dark side of things. And I saw the crime scene guy. He had forest mud on his knees and the toes of his boots, and that meant he had been down on his knees in the mud in front of a dead body that used to be a young girl.

Hey, you're authorized, dude, because you know Michael Moore? The guy … that filmmaker, you know? He has referred to Americans as grinning idiots, and no truer words were ever spoken, you know. Especially since 1996, they all have the teeth whitening. You know, prior to 1996, if you would go to a dentist, the dentist would be wearing a lab coat that white right there.

If you went to a dentist and said, “Doc, I want you to make my teeth as white as your lab coat there.” The Doc would say, “Well, I'll do it, but don't tell anyone it was me that did it, because it looks so unnatural.” You know what I mean? Now everybody's that way. They're grinning fucking idiots. I call it a dental display. It's like you took chimpanzees and they do a genital display. You see a chimpanzee in the zoo, they'll go like that. That's a genital display.

Humans do a dental display. That's why I love my teeth. These are the artistic, philosophical statements, and they're practical, too. If someone is fucking with me, I'll go,
“Aaarrgh!”
It'll scare the shit out of them because they know I'm for fucking real. I ain't no dummy. I ain't posing a bit. I got my hot teeth in. Can I help you? How you going to help me? Do I look like I need some help? You're too ugly to help me.

 

Special Agent Clay Bridges paced around the room. He squatted beside Hilton. He tried to flatter him and tried to make him angry. Nothing seemed to penetrate the consciousness of the man on the floor. Scowling, eyes unblinking. Bridges would never forget those cold, unblinking eyes. And when he thought of Meredith having to look at them—while helpless to escape—it about broke his heart.

When he was assigned to the case, Bridges talked to everyone he could who knew Hilton and Emerson. He figured the better he knew the perpetrator and the victim, the better chance he would have of finding Emerson alive. In the nearly eight hours that he had been in the room with Hilton, Bridges had not seen the slightest expression on Hilton's face except the scowl.

The man
must
care about something, Bridges thought. There had to be some way to get through to him. Once he cracked the dam that blocked Hilton's emotions, Bridges hoped the pressure would create a flood of information. How did he find that chink in Hilton's armor?