EP. 257 - SERIAL KILLER: THE BEAST OF BLOOD MOUNTAIN: PART ONE: THE BEGINNINGS

Warning. The following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned. Every year, there are around 500 million people who visit the national parks and forests here in the United States. For many, there are a place of connection, a place that unites us with what really matters. And at the same time, there are places that remind us of our humanity and how small we are in the grand scheme of things. Being out in the wilderness is a beautiful feeling, but in the back of our minds, we're all aware that lurking just beyond the trees are black bears, wolves, and mountain lions. Dangerous creatures that can hurt you, but they aren't the most dangerous creatures hiding in the shadows. Between 2007 and 2008, they weren't the most dangerous by a long shot. It wasn't the weather or getting lost or bears that hikers fear the most. It was a man, one man in particular who dubbed himself the beast of Blood Mountain. This is the story of serial killer Gary Hilton. I'm Courtney Browen. And I'm Colin Brown. And you're listening to Murder in America. [Music] [Music] John Davis Bryant and Irene Francis Wood were always destined to be together. Despite being born worlds apart, it seems as if there was a thread connecting them, bringing them closer and closer together throughout their lives. Irene was born underneath the green canopy of Portland, Oregon on April 15, 1923. 2,000 miles away and three years later, on October 29, 1926, her soulmate John, who went by Jack, came into the world, surrounded by the prairies of Princeton, Illinois. They grew up in vastly different landscapes, building completely different lives, yet somehow they always seemed to be moving toward one another. At just 17 years old, Jack enlisted in the Navy as part of the V12 program, a program initiated during World War II that allowed active duty members to bypass boot camp and instead earned college degrees without having to foot the bill themselves. In exchange, they would serve the Navy using the education they had been given. In Jack's case, he came out of the V12 program with an engineering degree from Northwestern University. After completing his education, with World War II still underway in the Pacific, he was sent to serve as an engineer aboard the Destroyer Ship Cecil. The ship had been involved in the invasion of Iwo Jima and delivered troops to the shores of Okinawa. But by the time Jack joined her crew, it was embarking on one of its most shocking journeys yet, setting sail for the bikini atoll where the entire crew watched as the US dropped two nuclear bombs as part of its atomic testing. For the most part though, Jack wasn't seeing the shores of islands or even the sea. He was below deck during a service. In the dark bowels of the ship, he kept things running, tending to the electric, plumbing, and engine as the Cecil trudged through the humid Pacific theater. In the engine room, the heat was stifling. The roar of the ship's systems was deafening, and the real, natural world felt an eternity away. Perhaps that's why, after leaving active duty in 1947, he went down a completely different path, one that would take him back into the natural world he loved. He joined the Bureau of Reclamation, a federal agency that manages water resources. He was then moved to Hungary-Horsespontana to work on the hydroelectric dam there. Located on the edge of Glacier National Park, Hungary-Horse is a place of absolute beauty. Towering mountains, lush forests, and meadows full of wildflowers make it truly, one of the most idealic places on earth. It was worlds away from the engine room that Cecil had called home for so long. He was enamored by the nature around him, and soon he was enamored with something else. Irene grew up in Portland, and she later earned her doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from Washington State College. Not only was she the first person in her family to earn a college degree, but she also became one of the first female veterinarians to practice in the state of Montana. After graduating, Irene became a vet in Missoula, Montana, eventually opening up her own practice, and it was there in mid-1948, when she was set up on a blind date with Jack. Sparks flew the moment they met one another, and the foundation of their long-lasting love was built on the only thing they were more passionate about than each other, nature. Their first handful of dates were spent exploring the Rocky Mountains and nearby Glacier National Park. There they picnic, worked their way towards summits, and admired the landscapes together. Being an animal lover, Irene loved to see what she could find in the park, brown bears elk, or even the tiniest picas. For Jack, it was all about the plants. His father had been a horticulturist, and passed that love down to him. So there, between the wild plants and animals of the Rockies, the two fell in love with one another, and over the next year, the adventures didn't stop. They traveled near and far, hiking, kayaking, and camping together, growing closer with every journey they took into the great outdoors. And with every trip, they fell more and more in love, until, in the summer of 1949, they decided there was no point in waiting any longer. On a warm sunny day in July, the two were wed at a chapel on the peak of Whitefish Mountain, overlooking Glacier National Park below. They were surrounded by the peaks and valleys that had brought them together, and they knew in their hearts that they could handle the peaks and valleys of life that laid ahead, as long as they had one another. Until they're dying breaths, they kept their promises, and they never stopped chasing adventure together. Over the years, they raised four children, Robert, Mark, Terry, and Holly. And eventually, they moved to the charming lake town of Scanateles in upstate New York. While living there, Jack went on to earn his doctorate from Cornell in 1961, and Irene ran her own veterinary practice while raising their four kids. After graduating, Jack built a career in law, co-founding a construction law firm in Syracuse and serving as the town attorney for Scanateles. He was well known for under-billing clients and refusing to raise rates, even after colleagues urged him to. To him, serving as community was more important than earning a few extra bucks, and he carried those acts of service throughout his life. He was a doer, and so was Irene. In between their jobs and raising their kids, they still found time for their other passions as well. Irene studied judo and karate, and even went to college herself, taking graduate level courses in horticulture, just like her father in law. She began teaching gardening classes, and even became the president of the town's gardening club. Their four kids remember their childhood with their active parents fondly, especially when it came to the love and respect they instilled in them when it came to nature. Their daughter Holly told the Asheville citizen times, "Dad was very ecologically inclined. We used to go out as a family on Earth days and pick up trash and take care of the environment. We were brought up that way." Before they knew it, those kids that they took picking up trash on Earth Day, camping on the weekends, and fishing on long summer nights were grown up and out of the house. Jack and Irene were empty nesters, but it didn't change their zest for life or their love for their family. The couple began to travel even more, sending photo updates to their kids, and calling them to fill them in on all the beautiful places they had adventureed together. Sometime in the 1980s, Jack achieved his lifelong dream. He officially completed hiking the entire 2,145 miles of the Appalachian Trail, spanning from Georgia, all the way up to Maine. Now, Jack was what is referred to as a segment hiker, meaning that he hiked all the portions of the trail over the years, covering every mile of the trail across several seasons, rather than all at once. And despite suffering from arthritic back pain, he pushed through. His dedication never wavering. His daughter Holly told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, quote, "He was a very strong-willed person. He had some medical problems, but he wouldn't allow it to hold him back. He kept slogging away. My parents were unique people, and that they considered what they wanted out of life and then pursued it." Everyone thinks they do this, but few actually do. Little things that are in reality, unimportant, tend to get in the way. My parents lived a full life, and were a delight to know. Soon after. Jack completed his dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail, in 1991, the couple moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina, just south of Asheville. It was a perfect fit for their retirement years. The weather was more fair than Montana or upstate New York, when the nature surrounding them was just as beautiful. DuPont State Recreational Forest was nearby, with its roaring waterfalls and winding trails. Jump off rock offered views stretching across four states on a clear day, and just beyond their doorstep, the Blue Ridge Mountains rose up through Pysga National Forest. It was a perfect home base for them, and very quickly their neighbors came to love them. People up and down the road would call Irene just to let her know they were deer nearby, knowing that she'd want to go see them. After all those years, she still got excited at the site of something as simple as a deer. At the time, the couple loved grandiose pastimes as well. In their retirement, they traveled constantly, through Europe, New Zealand, and across North America. Irene could recommend a hotel in Paris, Enbira, or Wellington without hesitation. Their Christmas cards were self-portraits from whatever adventure they had most recently returned from, and their vacation photos were full of smiling strangers happy to have met them. By the early 2000s, the couple had 11 grandchildren who were always thrilled to go to grandma and grandpa's house. They frequently took all 11 of their grandchildren hiking together, and it was a perfect full circle experience for them. They had met and fallen in love in the Rockies, and now in their elderly years, they could teach their grandchildren to fall in love with the Blue Ridge Mountains. Little did they know that it was at that very range, or they wouldn't meet their end. By October of 2007, Jack was 80 years old. Irene was 84, but despite their ages, they still remained active, and so on the afternoon of October 21st, 2007, they decided to lace up their hiking boots and head out for a peaceful Sunday adventure on one of their favorite trails. The Pinkbeds Loop Trail sits in the heart of Pizga National Forest, a gentle well-worn path that winds through the wide mountain bog surrounded by wildflowers. The nearly flat boardwalk loop crosses small creeks and is lined with tall pines. As Jack and Irene stepped out of their maroon fort escape, that brisk fall afternoon, they were greeted with the kind of autumn day that reminded them, exactly why they had chosen to retire in the mountains. And as they embarked down the trail, hiking poles and their grasps, they were eager to enjoy the gentle hike together, that they had done dozens of times before. Unfortunately, this time would be very, very different. Unbeknownst to them, as they pulled into the parking lot, someone was lurking in the shadows of the trees, watching their every move. 61-year-old Gary Hilton knew what he was going to do to Irene and Jack, before they even reached the trailhead. He was hungry, he was desperate, but above all, he was deranged. As Jack and Irene turned onto the first stretch of the boardwalk, Gary emerged from the tree line, appearing out of nowhere. Before Jack and Irene could even react, Gary snapped at them. "We're going to take your credit card and run it." It wasn't a question, not a plea, it was a statement. Like he was telling them this guy was blue, but Jack, who was well over six feet tall and built like an ox, laughed him off, telling him with a disbelieving chuckle, "Oh, go to hell." Jack had literally seen atomic bombs being tested. He had sailed in the Pacific during World War II. He'd been through countless hardships in life, and there was no way in hell. He was just going to hand over his card to a stranger playing tough guy in the woods, but his dismissal only infuriated Gary. In a flash, he pulled out a retractable baton, and as the couple passed him by, he swung it as hard as he could, delivering a sharp blow to Jack's left knee. The pain was immediate, but Jack didn't hesitate. He whirled around striking Gary with his trekking poles. Jack was a fighter, but the flimsy poles were no match for the baton Gary was wielding. Dodging the blows, Jack was delivering. Gary lifted the baton over his head, and this time swung it around, striking the side of Jack's head with a resounding crack. Dizzy disoriented and in pain, Jack crumbled to his knees, but Gary wasn't done. As Jack tried to catch his breath, Gary pulled out a can of pepper spray, and he unleashed it in Jack's face. Suddenly everything burned, Jack's eyes stung and twitched with pain as tears flooded down his face. His lungs screamed. His tongue felt like it was on fire, and through the agony, he yelled out to his wife of 58 years. Irene, I can't see him. Hit him. In just 20 seconds, Irene's world had been completely flipped upside down. She happened to be a few paces ahead of Jack when Gary attacked, which meant while she avoided the initial blows in pepper spray, she had been forced to watch and horror, as a madman attacked her husband. Now at some point in the scramble, Irene pulled out her phone and desperately tried to call 911, but tragically the call didn't go through. Perhaps there wasn't good cell service. Perhaps Gary attacked her before she had the chance. Regardless of the reason, one thing became abundantly clear. No one was coming to help them. Jack knew that. Irene knew that as well, and so they only had one option. Fight. Without hesitation, Irene squared up on Gary, grounding herself in a fighting stance. One of the many she had learned throughout her years of karate, and then with all of her force, she lifted one of her trekking poles and drove the thick metal spike on the bottom, directly into Gary's chest. For a brief second, as the spike drove into his flesh, it seemed like she might have a chance. But then, in an instant, he snatched the pull away from Irene and slammed the baton against her side, sending her crumbling to the ground. Irene and Jack lay in the dirt beside each other, overwhelmed by the whirlwind of what had just happened. But even in the confusion, Jack wasn't going to let Gary get what he wanted. Eyes and throat burning, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Then, as Gary watched, Jack threw card after card into the forest, scattering them beneath the vegetation, trying to, at the very least, keep Gary from getting them. In a later interview with the police, Gary stated that that was what had shocked him the most. At times, he laughed when recounting the memory because he found it so surprising. At the time, however, Gary was infuriated, as quickly as he could, he raced to his van which was parked nearby and returned with a roll of duct tape. It was all happening so fast. Every single thing that this complete stranger did seemed more unbelievable than the last. All Irene and Jack could do was fight. But they were in their 80s. They had been taken by surprise, and unfortunately, they were outmatched by the coward attacking them. Gary managed to overpower Jack and wrangle his hands behind his back. There, he duct tape them together, rendering him unable to move. And with Jack tied, he lifted him up and managed to get him into the back of the van. But there was still one problem. Irene. By this point, Gary was exhausted. Rather than use physical force, he hoped to scare Irene into complying. So he put on as he described it, his best, quote, "dirty hairy voice" and demanded that she get in the back of the van. But Irene refused. Over and over again, she screamed at him, saying that she wasn't going to get in the van. Feet away, tied up in the back of the rusty Chevy Astro, Jack was forced to listen, as his wife of over five decades argued with the killer. And then, he was faced with an even worse sound. Gary stood over Irene with his police baton, and it was there where he bludgeoned her over and over and over again. He later said, quote, "I hid her and her blood blew up on me and hit me in the eyes and turned my vision red that was nasty, just nasty," end quote. Irene fought, holding up her arms to try and shield her head from the blows. Her forearms and fingers snapped under the strikes of the baton, splintering and breaking until finally there was no fight left in her. Gary only stopped the attack when he was certain that 84-year-old Irene was dead. Then, as if nothing had happened, he strolled back to the van, leaving her body in the woods. Inside the back of the van, Jack heard it all, his wife being hit, her screams of agony, the splatter of blood, and finally the silence. There was nothing he had been able to do, but listen, he couldn't stop it, couldn't console her, couldn't hold her hand as she took her last breath. Then he listened, as his wife's killer got to the front of the van, started it up and drove away with him rolling around in the back. For 100 miles, roughly two hours, they drove over twisting mountain roads down busy freeways, and eventually onto the dirt roads of North Carolina's Nanta Hulla National Forest. All the while, Jack Bryant sat helplessly as the world moved around him and as the man who killed his wife sat just feet away. Then finally, the van came to a stop. The second it did, Jack saw his opportunity. When Gary opened the door, Jack managed to scramble onto his feet and run. His hands were still duct taped. He knew he probably wouldn't make it far, but based on Gary's sadistic actions thus far, he must have realized. Escaping was his only chance at survival. He ran as fast as he could, Elbow's cocked out to the side as he fought against his rear. strains. He made it as far as an embankment, along the dense rainforest tree line, until eventually, he tripped. Mud gave way, and in his slip, one of his arms became wedged in between two trees. There was a snap. The bone in one of his forearms broke, sending searing pain through his body. And that was, unfortunately, the least of his worries. Because just feet away, Gary Hilton was following behind. And this time he wasn't carrying a baton. He was carrying a gun, as Jack laid on the forest floor. Gary stepped beside him. He pressed his 22 magnum against Jack's head, and then he squeezed the trigger. Jack Bryant was killed just eight day shy of his 81st birthday. And sadly, it would be a while until anyone realized, both he and Irene, were missing. The bodies of Jack and Irene Bryant sat 100 miles away from each other, decomposing on the floor of two different national forests. You would think that someone would notice they were missing immediately. But the thing was, Jack and Irene had always been the type to be on the go. Their neighbors watched the newspapers pile up on their porch, but initially, they just believed that the couple had embarked on a trip somewhere, like they so often did. One neighbor even recalled that the couple kept a suitcase ready to go, complete with two toothbrushes, and case Jack spotted a last minute travel deal. For the Bryant's four kids, their parents absence was strange, but not completely unheard of. They often camped or hiked off the beaten path, where phone service was spotty, if it even existed at all. But as the days turned into a week with no response from their parents, the panic started to set in. All four kids continued calling, trying over and over again to no avail. None of the kids lived within driving distance of North Carolina, which meant that, initially, all they could do was try to contact their parents, their friends, and their neighbors. Finally, on November 2nd, 13 days after Irene and Jack disappeared, their son Bob had enough. He called the Henderson County Sheriff's Office and reported his parents missing. Whether the police searched the home or not has never been made public. But regardless, Bob wasn't waiting around for them to do so. He was going to do what his parents had done all their life. Take action. On November 6th, Bob purchased a one-way ticket from his home in Texas and flew to North Carolina, where he rented a car and immediately drove to his parents' home in Hendersonville. I can't imagine the anxiety that must have been brewing inside of Bob as he walked to the front door of that quaint home in the Tamarack subdivision. But when he opened the door, he was met with nothing unusual. There were no signs of a break-in, no signs of a struggle. Not a single thing was out of place. The only thing missing was his parents' hiking backpacks. There was nothing to indicate that anything sinister had happened to the couple, but his head spun with horrible possibility after horrible possibility. So from there, Bob called the Henderson County Sheriff's Office and reported them missing. And while the police worked the case, Bob got into his car and decided to try and find his parents himself. All the while, he kept his siblings across the country updated. But they were just as dumbfounded as he was. His sister Holly told the Asheville citizen times, "My parents wouldn't get lost or disappear. They made no sense at all." Things made even less sense when Bob pulled up to one of his parents' favorite places to hike. His guy, National Forest, saw their maroon forward escape. The Ford was parked in the parking lot near the trailhead. In some ways, finding the car was a relief. At the bare minimum, the family had a clue. But that discovery brought even more questions and concerns. After all, the pink-bed loop trail was a well-maintained, easy trail. The Brian had spent their lives traveling the world, forging their own trails and the Rockies, and hiking the Appalachian Trail in spite of chronic pain. So the idea that they could get lost or go missing on such an easy trail immediately filled the family with worry. And when Bob did the loop himself, calling out to his parents, that uncertainty turned into dread. Immediately, a search began around the five-mile pink-bed loops trail area. And over the next three days, a search party of local volunteers trudged through the bitter November air for any sign of their sweet neighbors. North Carolina search and rescue worked alongside law enforcement, who led search dogs north through the dense forest. Meanwhile, volunteers worked in a grid formation, coming foot by foot, always ensuring that they were within eye-shot of the people to their side. Out there in the wilderness, the only sounds to be heard were the crunch of boots against the fallen leaves. In the tumbling of the creek, as it rushed over its rocky bed, and as the search continued, there was a question in the back of everyone's mind, was this a rescue operation? Or was it a recovery? No one would say it allowed, but it seemed as if they all knew. Because as they trekked through, no one even called out the couple's names. It wasn't until the third day of the search that Henderson County Sheriff Rick Davis said would everyone knew that it would have to be a "miracle" for this to have a positive outcome. End quote. Soon enough, the search intensified. They even deployed a helicopter to gain a new vantage point. Yet day after day, the forest gave them nothing. Fortunately, behind the scenes, investigators were finding other clues, pointing them in the direction of Irene and Jack. The first clue was the drop 911 call made from Irene's phone on October 21st, around 4 pm. Unfortunately, police were unable to lock onto the precise location of the call using GPS coordinates. Because the call was dropped and the signal was lost, they had very little information to go off of. But that call provided them with something vital, a timeline. Now, law enforcement knew what day Jack and Irene had met their fate, whatever that fate may have been. And soon, more pieces of the puzzle began to come together. On November 8, detectives with the Transylvania County Sheriff's Office turned to Jack and Irene's financial records, and immediately they found a clue. Someone had used the couple's card to withdraw $300 from an ATM at a bank in downtown Ducktown, Tennessee, over 130 miles from the location of their car. The withdrawal date was October 22nd, less than 24 hours after Irene made the 911 call. For investigators, that was like hitting the jackpot. Because if there's anywhere that's sure to have surveillance cameras, it's a bank ATM. So, they requested the footage, and soon after, they sat at a desktop computer in their office, reviewing it. The footage showed a slim Caucasian male withdrawing the money around 7.35 pm. They had the man on camera. Unfortunately, though, that man had a yellow rain jacket pulled up around his face, obscuring his identity. All investigators could confirm from the footage was that the man was not Jack Bryant. It was a promising lead, but without knowing who the man was, investigators still had critical gaps to fill. They released the photos to the public, hoping that someone would come forward with information so they could identify the man. But as the days wore on, no one did. The man in the photos they released to the press remained a mystery. Meanwhile, the search continued. And on November 9th, the day after police reviewed the bank surveillance footage, searchers made a discovery. Just 25 yards from the abandoned Ford Escape on the Barnett Branch Trail. Searchers uncovered the decomposing body of a woman that had been hiding beneath freshly fallen autumn leaves. She was wearing pants, a t-shirt, a bra and underwear, one white sock, one blue sock, and one hiking boot on her left foot. A long-sleeved shirt and a right hiking boot were found nearby. Everyone knew the moment they discovered the body that it was Irene, but it wasn't until November 12th, after the autopsy was completed. That the body was positively identified as that of 84-year-old Irene Bryant. And as if the identification wasn't hard enough on Irene's loved ones, the details of her death made it even worse. The report indicated that she had been bludgeoned to death with a blunt object. Her left forearm was broken. And every finger on her left hand had been fractured from her trying to stop the repeated blows to the head. On top of that, her right arm just below the elbow had been disjointed, in medical examiner terms that can either mean that the body part was dismembered post-mortem, likely by animals, or it was dislocated prior to death. But giving Gary's later description of her death, it seems as though the latter is sadly most likely. Irene's death had not been an easy one. For her family, that only added insult to injury. Her daughter Holly told the Asheville Citizen Times quote, "I keep hoping I will wake up and it won't be real." And it wasn't just the brutal death that she and her brothers were forced to face. It was the fact that their father was still missing, and the man who killed both of them was still on the loose. Little did anyone know. Just five days after Gary killed Jack and Irene, law enforcement actually received a call that led them straight to him. On October 26, 2007, Deputy Will Ballard responded to a trespassing call on a private hunting reserve off Upper Sweetwater Trail in Cherokee County, Georgia. Several hunters had reported that a man was setting up camp in a van on the property, and given that it was a hunting reserve, many of them warned that he could get hurt. When Deputy Ballard arrived, he discovered the 61-year-old man already packing up his make sure you're there. camp. The man explained that he had camped there in the past and had no idea that it had become private property over the years. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm leaving. God Almighty, I'm getting out of here." While followed was a 20-minute conversation in front of Ballard's dash cam, while the man finished packing his belongings into his van. He was friendly, talkative, cracking jokes, and sharing stories about his time as a paratrooper. When Ballard asked for his ID, the man said it was in his fanny pack over by the van and asked if it was okay to grab it. Ballard asked if he hadn't he weapons on him. The man responded as if he were shocked by the question, telling him "absolutely not." Then, almost as an afterthought, he mentioned that he did have a retractable police baton, but told the deputy not to be nervous. Here's a short clip from their interaction. "What's you doing out here?" "I'm coming along home, and ask me that. If there's deer hunters around there, I can be wearing a purple shirt that red backpack, and they're going to tell me I'm going to get shot, but you know, that's a common thread. They're really pretty. I understand. "Can I get your ID real quick?" "Yeah, you sure can, and it's in the, you see that fanny pack right there?" "Yeah." "Is there any weapons that fanny pack?" "Absolutely not, and I'm going to bring it to you." "I love the laws, though. Hey, check it out, man. Do you need anything else here?" "No, I'm just going to run this. Make sure you're not. Nobody wants you, and then probably just stay to get stuff and get out of here." "I'm trying. I've got it." "I'm trying, I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm just watching. You want to finish packing up doing what's getting your stuff together? I'm going to run this real quick, and then I'll let you get out of here." At that point, Ballard took his ID and ran a standard check for warrants. None came up, so he sent the man on his way. On Binance to him, he had just allowed a deranged serial killer to go free and claim two more victims. Cheryl Dunlap and Meredith Emerson. At the time, however, the name Gary Hilton meant nothing to anyone, but there had been signs brewing his whole life that things weren't right. Gary's troubled life began long before his crimes. His parents Cleo Reynolds and William Hilton had only been married and living together for three months when she fell pregnant in the spring of 1946. World War II had just come to an end. Across America, families were searching for stability and settling into a new era of optimism, following years of war and sorrow. But in the Hilton home, that stability never came. By the time Gary came into the world on November 22, 1946, his parents' relationship was on shaky ground. William, who served as a US Army soldier, was only home on occasion, claiming that he often had to work overseas and Germany. The arrangement had been unsettling for Cleo from the get-go, but after the birth of Gary, she decided it was time to do some digging. She hired a private investigator who came to her with shocking news in January of 1947. As it turns out, her husband, William, was married, not just to someone else. He had managed to marry four different women and carried on lives with them in cities around Georgia. Now remember, this was at a time where there was no centralized database. No way of really knowing if someone had been previously married. Over the years, William just had to make sure he married women in different counties. And for quite some time, it seemed to work out for him. But when Cleo learned of his different marriages, she knew immediately that their marriage wasn't going to work out. Deva stated she had their marriage annulled. And from that moment on, William was out of Gary's life. Cleo was a single mother determined to make things work, but it wasn't easy. While Cleo was working trying to hold things together financially, she had no choice but to place Gary in a local day care in Atlanta. But it didn't last long. Cleo later recalled that he had a hard time with separation. When she would drop him off at his daycare, he would cry all day long. The daycare workers would try and console him, but nothing seemed to work. Now, this is common with lots of kids, but Gary was a special case. His separation anxiety was so extreme that it eventually became a liability for the daycare. At one point, he locked himself in the daycare bathroom, refusing to open the door until his mom came to get him. Inside, he cried and cried for hours on end. Following that, Cleo had no choice but to pull him out of daycare. Fortunately, she had an alternate option, at least for the time being. Because during Gary's toddler years, Cleo was working as an executive assistant at a Venetian blind company. The job required her to travel quite a bit, so instead of finding a new daycare for Gary, she decided to start taking him along with her. And to her relief, Gary seemed to really like it. He behaved himself when she was working with clients, and for a while, things felt calm. It was just them against the world. But soon, things changed. Cleo's boss asked if she could transfer to the company's Tampa, Florida location, and Cleo agreed. And from there, she and Gary packed up their things and left Atlanta, Georgia behind. By the time they arrived in the Sunshine State, it was the early 1950s. The war was far behind them. The economy was booming, and Cleo was successfully making a life for herself as a single mom, in spite of Gary's father refusing to pay child support. Tampa felt like the fresh start of a much needed new chapter after years of struggle. But with the move came changes. Cleo was no longer traveling for work, which meant she had to figure out who was going to watch Gary while she worked. Fortunately, immediately after moving into their home in Tampa, Cleo and Gary became close with their neighbors. One couple who lived nearby saw Cleo as a single mother in need of a village. So, they stepped up, determined to be that for her. They offered to watch Gary while Cleo worked. For Cleo, the arrangement meant the world. They seemed like decent people. Cleo was also happy that Gary finally had a good male influence in his life. After his father left, he hadn't had that. And luckily, Gary seemed to like the couple as well. For about six months, their arrangement was working out nicely. That is until one day in 1952, when the wife approached Cleo in tears and told her in hushed tones that she was worried about Gary's safety in her home. According to her, her husband had taken Gary to a park with an alligator pit, which is an uncommon in central Florida. But what was uncommon was that the man had picked up eight year old Gary and acted like he was going to throw him into the pit with the gators. He swung him over the pit, laughing while Gary struggled in his arms terrified. Cleo was devastated when the wife told her what had happened. Later, Gary confessed to her that he had been scared to death. The experience was traumatic for him, so much so that Cleo immediately pulled him out of the neighbor's care. And once more, it was back to the drawing board. Fortunately, this time Cleo discovered a new, more permanent solution for her child care issue, placing Gary into a boys club of America. She later recalled, "It was near my work. I would pick him up after work. Gary really enjoyed it there. It was an after-school activity where he seemed to be getting along." For Gary, getting along had always been a bit of a challenge. He was naturally quiet and reserved, and it took considerable effort for him to interact with the other boys. But he enjoyed playing cops and robbers, tinkering with toy cars, and especially learning how to shoot. He quickly proved to be a natural marksman, a skill that would later become one of the most chilling aspects of his adult life. In retrospect, there are many chilling themes that began to emerge in his life at around this time. And now for a brief ad break. In 1956, when Gary was just 10 years old, he was playing in a small apartment. That day, everything inside was his to explore. The couch became a mountain to scale, the whole way, a jungle. Eventually, he found himself playing with a murphy bed, the kind of bed that can fold up when you're no longer using it. And somehow, while playing, the metal bed fell on top of him. Instantly, Gary let out a blood-curdling screen, the kind of screen that let Cleo know. This wasn't a scrape on the knee or a broken bone. It was something even worse. She sprinted into the room, and the minute she saw her son, her blood ran cold. Gary's face was drenched in his own blood. When the bed had collapsed on top of him, the metal had effectively scalped him, slicing off a portion of his skin at the top of his skull. Then it was Cleo's turn to scream. Horrified, she ran out of the house, begging someone, anyone to help her. A neighbor helped her carry Gary into the back of his car, and swiftly they were off to the hospital. The neighbor was at the wheel. Cleo was in the back seat, holding towel after towel to her son's bleeding head. It was a traumatic sight. There was so much blood saturating everything in the vehicle. His clothes, her clothes, the towel, the seat. But all the while, Gary wasn't disturbed or panicking. In fact, he was eerily fascinated, as the car raced towards the hospital. He excitedly asked his mom over and over. Can you see my brain? Cleo had no idea by this point. Her son had developed an unnatural obsession with gore, blood, and violence. One that was only made worse by his injury. Because when he arrived at the hospital, he was given 200 stitches and diagnosed with permanent brain damage to his frontal lobe. Throughout his time at the hospital, his behavior was unusually hyperactive, even during his painful treatment and recovery. He was constantly moving around, unable to sit still, despite the severity of his injury. The staff struggled to keep him settled. Now in retrospect, he was displaying behavior as commonly associated with ADHD, difficulty sustaining attention, highly impulsive, constant movement, and disruptive energy, but looking even deeper. An injury of that scale at such a young age would go on to impact his ability to control impulses and make sound decisions for the rest of his life. And things were even further complicated by more changes that lead just around the corner. At the time of his injury, his mother had been dating an Argentinian man named Nilo Debag. He was described as having a strong, aggressive personality. Cleo admitted that Nilo was jealous of her relationship with Gary, and he was known for his fiery temper. He would yell at Gary quite a bit. She said he never had him. He never abused him physically, but I would say he was mentally abusive. In spite of the mental abuse that Nilo subjected Gary to, Cleo married him, and the family of three embarked on a brand new life that was even less stable than the one they were used to. You see, Nilo worked with race horses, and the family's life often followed that work, which meant that they had to travel frequently with the horses from place to place. Gary sometimes helped care for them, but it was a life he wasn't familiar with with the man who didn't seem to like him. Nilo came from a strict Argentinian household, and he carried that into his own parenting. He expected perfection, and if he didn't get it, he wasn't happy. Naturally, this led to a strained family dynamic. Sadly for Gary, there was no real escape from the stress in his life. At home, he struggled with his stepfather. At school, he struggled with something else entirely. With every move due to Nilo's job, Gary was forced to switch schools. By 1958, he had grown accustomed to changing schools, but each new school brought the same pattern. He was hyperactive, loud in class, and struggled to take turns or follow the rules. He was quickly labeled a problem child and ostracized by those around him, including teachers who found him difficult to manage. Yet beneath the behavioral issues was an intelligent boy. While other children played outside, Gary preferred sitting alone and reading the encyclopedia. He had an IQ of 120 and even skipped a grade. To escape the chaos at home, he often found himself outdoors. Gary enjoyed fishing, hunting, boating, swimming, and hiking, and found solace being outside. He would later say that it helped shape his character. - You got time to think. That's one of my personal needs of a philosopher, I'm a soldier, I'm a scientist, and I'm a nurse. - And those are all distinct personality types that represent distinctly different things. And I'm all of them. - But he couldn't escape into nature all the time. And at home, there was only one person he was allowed to be, the perfect son. When Nilo spoke, Gary obeyed. On one occasion, Nilo punished him for a minor mistake. By tearing up the jacket, he had gifted him. It's also around this time when Nilo even suggested that Gary drop out of school to begin working, after all, that's how he was raised. Needless to say, for many years, things were rough. There was tension in the home. They were constantly moving around due to Nilo's job. And more than anything, they just wanted some stability. So finally, they decided to settle down in Hylia, Florida. However, the move did not bring peace. Cleo and Nilo's marriage was splintering. Finally, in 1959, when Gary was just 13 years old, Cleo decided she wanted a separation. But it seemed as if Nilo wanted to force the marriage to work. After every fight, every ultimatum Cleo gave him. He came back, desperately trying to reconcile. During one of his repeated attempts to win his wife back, a conflict escalated. Gary was in the house. He could hear his mother in stepfather yelling, getting more and more heated by the second. And finally, Gary decided that he had had enough. There was a shotgun that sat in the corner of the room. A family friend had left it behind. But Gary knew how to shoot it. In fact, he was good at it. Without hesitating, he rushed into the room. His mom and stepdad were fighting in. And he pointed the gun at Nilo. Gary yelled at him to leave, threatening to call the police if he didn't. But Nilo seemed unfazed. Instead of leaving, Nilo pulled a mattress of a nearby bed and held it in front of him as a shield, daring Gary to fire. And so he did. Gary pulled the trigger, sending a slug straight through the cotton and into his stepfather. But surprisingly, Nilo survived. I guess the mattress cushioned the blow. And believe it or not, he and Cleo even reconciled afterwards. But rather than pressing charges, Nilo let it go. However, following this incident, Gary was sent briefly to a psychiatric ward in Miami. Over several weeks, he was evaluated. And eventually, he was deemed safe to return back home. But unfortunately, his family didn't want him. Cleo told the hospital that she needed more time to come to terms with what Gary had done and that she wasn't ready to have him home yet. So for several months, Gary floated from foster home to foster home. Until finally, heading into 1960, Cleo accepted him back into the family home. From there, things at home seemed to stabilize. At least for a time. Gary enrolled at Miami Springs, Junior High School. And once again, he was the new kid, the odd one out. But one kid at school immediately connected with Gary. 15-year-old Leonard Squafani, Junior, who went by Dino. He picked Gary to be on his team for gym class one day. And from there, the two maintained what became one of Gary's only friendships. Over time, Gary became pretty desperate to impress his new friend. Every morning, when they walked to school together, they would pass the Marionny Brothers fruit stand on the way, which was covered in chicken wire to keep out thieves. And one day, as they were walking by, Gary decided to slip his hand through the gap and steal a piece of fruit. He proudly showed Dino this trick. And after that, things began to escalate. Gary began to steal time and time again in front of his new friend. At one point, while the pair were fishing on the Miami River, he spotted a loose motor sitting on a dock boat. Gary had a little canvas boat that could use a motor, so without hesitating, he took it. The older he grew, the more he seemed to accept and lean into the impulses he had all of his life. And as middle school turned to high school, Gary continuously committed petty theft, cut school to smoke cigarettes with Dino, and made bizarre, off-putting comments every chance he got. Dino later relayed to author Fred Rosen in Trails of Death. I just thought he was weird. He would say strange things. I was his only friend. He told me that he had a girlfriend named Linda. He used to tell me that he used to go down on Linda during her period. Even then, he had a taste for blood. And surprisingly, Gary wasn't lying about having girlfriend. Throughout high school, he managed to maintain a few romantic relationships. In the ninth grade, he started dating a girl named Sandy Herman Carr. They were both 14, experiencing their first love, and surprisingly, Sandy only had good things to say about her experience dating Gary. She later described him as outgoing and funny as someone who was intelligent and loved to read. When things got tough, he was actually there for her. She recalled at one point, when she faced an abusive situation at home, Gary was the one who swooped into the rescue and helped her get out. She had no idea that the thoughts swirling in Gary's head about women were incredibly perverse during this time. Really, he had given her no signs. But by that point, midway through high school, his parapheralia was well established. In an interview with journalist David Scott, in his segment called Interview with the Killer, Gary explained that from a young age, perverse sexual thoughts dominated his mind. He stated, quote, "That's one of the reasons I am a killer. I've had parapheria all my life. When I discovered masturbation, my parapheria, as I was doing it for years, there were women in nude and they were spread over a tree stump. And I would come over with a sword," end quote. Then in his fantasy, he would slice the woman open. When he imagined that, slicing the woman with a sword, he would ejaculate. According to Gary from that point on, violence and gore became the driving force behind his sexual desires. None of his high school girlfriends had ever come forward stating that he displayed these urges. It was something he kept to himself. However, some people questioned if there are victims out there from that era, women that Gary took advantage of and tried out his budding fantasies on. But at home and at school, no one had any inkling that he was having fantasies of rape and torture. However, it became increasingly clear that Gary was on a path towards destruction. Throughout high school, Gary's relationship his parents became even more afraid. He was flunking out of school, skipping class to smoke and play the drums with his friends. Music had become a passion of his, one that he chose over anything else. And soon, his mother found herself at her wit's end. Cleo was very closed off when it came to revealing personal matters to friends and neighbors, but she did disclose that Gary had been seeing a psychiatrist, where he was said to have been diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder. What was happening in the home around this time, we just don't know. While Gary is talked at length about portions of his life, he repeatedly skims around these years. What we do know is that, in 1961, his mom had had enough of his behavior. She asked a couple, Thomas and Margaret Prachoo, to take in her son, because she could no longer handle him. And with that, his relationship with his mother was seemingly severed forever. Now, this couple lived only a few blocks away from the Hilton residents, yet neither Cleo nor Nilo ever came to visit their son. Thomas, some military man, said Gary had a tendency to push limits, but he believed that this behavior was normal for a boy his age. After living with the Prachoo's for some time, Gary decided to drop out of school to play drums full-time at a nightclub in Miami Beach. He was fired almost immediately, though, when the club found out he was under age. With nothing to do, he found himself aimlessly roaming the streets of Halea at night. By his late teens, he knew his life was going nowhere. After JFK's assassination in November 1963, and a constant news cycle surrounding Communist China and the ongoing Cold War, Gary decided to join the US Army. On February 10, 1964, at just 17 years old, he enlisted in the United States Army. The military offered him sort of structure he'd never had before. He trained as a paratrooper, eventually being assigned to the David Crockett Platoon, a specialized unit tasked with deploying small nuclear-tipped explosives. Platoons of this caliber were often described as near-suicide missions because one mistake involving the weapons could be catastrophic for the soldiers handling them. In the beginning, Gary appeared capable. He was considered highly intelligent with a high IQ. Some military officials even thought that he was bright enough to join their specialized tactical units, which was a huge honor. By 1966, Gary was stationed in West Germany, and it's here where he decided to finally earn his GED. It's also in Germany where he met a woman named Ursula, and the two quickly fell in love. Gary eventually wrote to his mother to tell her he was going to marry Ursula, and after years of strife and a strained relationship, Cleo finally began to feel connected to her son again. She rapidly began making plans to fly to Germany for their wedding, but before she got a chance to hop on the plane, a second letter arrived. In it, Gary nonchalantly disclosed that he and Ursula had already gotten married. Once again, her son's impulsive behavior was on display, but still, Cleo was happy for him. For this brief period in his life, things were finally looking up. Gary was moving toward the stable future that had long alluded to him, and if things had stayed that way, his life may have turned out completely different. Unfortunately though, it wasn't long before Old Patterns returned, and his mental health struggles arose in a brand new, terrifying way. As we mentioned earlier, before Gary enlisted, he had been taken to a psychiatrist where he was diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder. He was receiving treatment, and the structure of the army seemed to smooth out the challenging parts of his disorder, but when he was just 20 years old, his mental health reached an all-time low. Soon he began hearing voices, seeing things that weren't there. At all hours of the day, terror gripped him. He believed he was being hunted like an animal. He later described it as a "full schizophrenic breakdown." His hallucinations became so severe that the army had to hospitalize him for over four weeks. Doctors treated him with thorazine, a powerful anti-psychotic medication. Used at the time to sedate psychiatric patients, and once the auditory hallucination subsided, Gary found himself stuck in a downward spiral. Sadly, his potential no longer mattered. The army had seen him struggle mentally, and because of that, they had to cut him loose. On July 12, 1967, Gary Hilton was discharged from the army under honorable conditions due to mental defects and unsuitability for military service. Rather than receiving a psychiatric discharge and being provided resources to help with his psychosis, he was released back into civilian life. There is no indication that anyone continued monitoring his condition after his release, or evaluated how he adjusted outside the structure of military life. He was simply sent back into the world. But by outward appearances, he still seemed capable of building a normal future. Gary was considered conventionally attractive, physically fit, and spent most of his free time outdoors, especially long distance running. If you didn't know any better, you'd think he was a perfectly average guy. But creeping beneath the surface, the turmoil of his younger years was causing his life to become increasingly unstable. The emotional volatility of his childhood, a mother who chose an abusive man over her own son, the head trauma caused by the Murphy bed, and the psychiatric symptoms that reappeared during his time in the service all kept him from maintaining a normal life. Soon after his return to civilian life, his wife Ursula left him. She's never spoken publicly about their marriage, but just like that, Gary had seemingly lost everything. Understandably, after the divorce, he seemed lost. He didn't really know which direction he wanted his life to go in. And within a year, he had gotten his Florida chauffeur's license and was picking up work driving cabs and limos. But that wouldn't last long either. On January 24, 1973, he was caught driving drunk. His chauffeur's license was revoked for a year, and he never bothered to get it back. After that, he drifted up to Decalgue County, Georgia, where he met a woman named Dina Baugh. They got married in August of 1977. However, the marriage only lasted 10 months before they divorced in May of 1978. Less than a year later, he met his third wife through his hobby as a runner. Her name was Betty Galloway. When they met, she was a state park ranger at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta, which Gary seemed to take an interest in as he was also an avid lover of the outdoors. Betty later said the first thing she noticed was his legs. They were lean from years of distance running, and then she noticed his bright blue eyes, which she later described as looking like the devil in disguise. Betty was a recently divorced single mother with two kids, and she thought Gary was a catch. He was handsome, smart, and he appeared to have a stable career. Gary told her he was an advertising. He even took her to his office, showed her the cubicles and the phones and the whole professional setup. Little did Betty know, the entire operation was just a criminal act in disguise. Day after day, Gary would call people in businesses under the pretense of raising money for various charities. In reality, it was a scam. He would solicit donations over the phone, then pocket the money for himself. Betty thought he was a successful businessman making an honest living. So, after dating him for just a few months, she agreed to marry him on March 1, 1979. At that point, Betty had left her job as a state park ranger, and instead took a role as a corrections officer at a nearby facility. Soon after landing that job, Gary began trying to convince her to join his advertising team. He was always bragging to her about the possibilities working for him could unlock. She could take more time for herself, stay home with the kids, and she would be working with her husband part time. So, Betty took a leap of faith. She quit her job as a corrections officer, and she started working for Gary. But the very first day she walked into the office, just two and a half months after they got married, Betty realized that the entire operation was a con. It was a boiler room operation, and Gary was running it. So not only had she given up her job, trusting that her husband had an opportunity for her, but she also discovered that she was married to a liar. And for Betty, that couldn't stand. One night when her children were out of the house, she confronted him. She told him that she refused to let her kids be exposed to his con, and that he needed to stop his operation immediately. Surprisingly, Gary didn't respond with violence or anger. He agreed with her. He told her what he thought she wanted to hear, that he would get a regular job. But Betty's trust in her husband was gone. She knew right then and there that she was going to divorce him. The only question was, when? She started making plans quietly, calling her old chief at the corrections department to get her job back, and hiding away every dollar and scent she possibly could. Meanwhile, she kept her eyes open, monitoring every mistake that Gary made. And as you've likely guessed, there were a lot of them. Whenever Gary took it upon himself to discipline her children, he did so with violence. At one point, she walked in on Gary's striking her five-year-old son with a belt over and over. Immediately, she intervened, only for Gary to strike her across the face for getting in the way of her son's punishment. But by that point, Betty wasn't playing nice. Much to Gary's shock, she swung back at him, hitting him across the jaw. And from there, things quickly deteriorated." In the summer of 1979, Gary took the family on a camping trip to a nearby lake. Betty didn't like to swim, so she sat at the picnic table and watched Gary and the water with her kids. From a distance, it looked fine, just a stepdad roughhousing with the kids in the water, tossing them around, splashing them, having a good time in the sun. But then, things changed. Betty's nine-year-old daughter emerged from the water, walked straight to her mother's side, and sat down at the picnic table beside her. She didn't say a word, but she looked distant, shell-shocked. Right away, Betty knew something was wrong. She gently prodded her daughter, until finally, she told her mom what made her so distraught. When Gary was roughhousing, he picked her up to throw her in the water, and he placed his hands somewhere they shouldn't have been. He slipped his hands under her bathing suit. Fortunately, Betty's daughter knew it was wrong, and she felt comfortable enough to go to her mom about what happened. And Betty did everything right. She kept her composure, consoled her daughter, promised her that she would take care of things, and that it would never happen again. Inside, Betty must have been enraged, but on the outside, she acted like nothing was wrong. Because remember, the family was in the middle of absolutely nowhere. She later said that she genuinely believed that if she confronted Gary with what she knew, out there in the wilderness without any witnesses, he could have killed her in the kids and abandoned them somewhere in the woods. So for 24 hours, Betty put on a brave face. She acted like she was having fun camping with her family. All the while, she knew her family wasn't what she thought it had been. She knew that the man she married was evil, and that the second they got home, she was going to leave him. The following day, soon after they arrived home, Betty sent the kids out to play, in the kitchen, she confronted him, calling him out for touching her daughter inappropriately, and shockingly Gary didn't even deny it. In fact, he seemed surprised that Betty was so worked up about it. He told her plainly, quote, "She's not my real daughter, as if that somehow made his molestation okay." Betty rightfully flew into a rage. She got and Gary's face, and she snarled at him. "If you ever touch my kids again, I'll cut your balls off." Fortunately, Gary never got a chance. That very day, Betty took her kids to her mother's house and filed for divorce. Before the divorce was finalized, Gary was arrested for telephone solicitation in relation to the con business he was running. The charges were eventually barging down to a misdemeanor, and he wasn't forced to serve time. After that, he and Betty went their separate ways. But it wasn't her last time seeing Gary. A little while later, when Betty was working as a cop, Gary ran into her, quite literally. While working at an accident scene, he appeared on the road. And right there, he apologized for his past behavior. He acknowledged that he screwed up, and he even handed her a small envelope that contained $250 bills. Attached was a note that read, "I'm again sorry for what happened all those years ago. This in no way makes up for anything, but here's something, so give it to the kids." Betty would later say that her first thought was, "Where did he get this money?" Her second thought was that he had, once again, been running cons. She knew that despite the letter, he was not a changed man. And clearly he wasn't, because Betty was not the last woman who he had problems with. Just two years after divorcing Betty in 1982, Gary was picked up for arson after setting fire to a younger girlfriend's car. Somehow, he beat the charge. However, many more charges were to come. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, he racked up several, including carrying a concealed weapon and theft by deception. By 1994, he was facing 21 counts of solicitation in Cobb County. But each time, he managed to work out some kind of deal and walked away with minimal consequences. For the most part, Gary felt untouchable. It's a belief that he maintains to this day, and one that was especially prominent throughout the 90s when he met up with a film producer named Samuel Ryle. In 1994, Samuel Ryle ran the production studio Sawani River Picture Company, which produced direct-to-video movies. Upon meeting him, Gary was intrigued. In fact, he pitched his own idea for a movie to Samuel. A story where beautiful women were kidnapped and sent loose in the woods where they were then hunted down by a man like Bray. The film Deadly Run was put into production in 1995 with Gary as a consultant. He helped scout locations for the film, eventually deciding on an area near Blood Mountain in Chattahoochi National Forest. It's a location that Gary would remember. In the meantime, he had the production of Deadly Run as a means for living out his twisted fantasy, a fantasy that stemmed from Gary's deeply rooted beliefs about gender roles. He viewed women as the weaker sex and believed that they existed primarily for male gratification. He especially hated what he called women's advantages. In this clip, taken from his 2008 interrogation, Gary goes into detail about his beliefs. He said, "This is the way you are given away, and they have given it away. Increase the value of it. However, there is a marketing, but a sophisticated woman understands that the threatened to give it away increases the value and actually giving it away to someone else decreases the value. And some women aren't smart enough to know the difference. They felt that way. Once you stop getting laid around by the "and we all are," all of us are, that's right. That's why we become less than them. That's why we start doing a woman's agenda. "Oh, I'm going to tell you something. You take it from me." Really? No, you know what you're being fooled by? You're all being fooled. You're being fooled by a woman's instinct, not her free will. Her instinct is that of nurturing. That's because she's instinctually, she raises the kids. You're being fooled by a nurturing instinct and she has a soft spot for kids and small furry animals, but I'm going to tell you something. You take it to the bank now, and you take it from a guy that is big, professionally, for over 20 years. The sex that is the most aberacious, accumulated, greedy, and heartless is women." By 1997, following the release of the film, Gary transitioned into living a life of solitude. He fully embraced the life of a drifter and a survivalist. He could do what he wanted, when he wanted, including smoking marijuana and dabbling in other drugs. He grew increasingly paranoid, anti-social, and detached from people, finding comfort only in the wilderness, his dog, and his guns. But to get by, he needed cash. So he hit up an acquaintance, Jack Taber, who offered him a job selling house-signing. Jack even gave him a rental home to live in on his property. This was perfect for Gary. The work was lax. He had plenty of time to be out in nature, and for the most part, he was able to be alone. But as time went on, his interest in the work part of he and Jack's arrangement began to wane. When the 2007 recession hit, and work became more challenging, Gary lost interest entirely. And Jack was put into a terrible position. For years, he had been advancing Gary money as a friend. Money that Gary never paid back. And with the recession on everyone's doorstep, Jack couldn't afford to do it anymore. The arrangement they had constructed over the past 10 years was falling apart. And with the destruction of the arrangement, Gary lost his housing. By the summer of 2007, he was essentially homeless, living in his Chevy Astro van, and parking in the only places he felt at home. National forests and hiking trails. Around that same time, he began to use drugs more frequently. He drank up to eight cups of coffee a day, smoked cigarettes in marijuana, and even got a prescription for Ritalin from a doctor he had found in Atlanta, who prescribed the to him without a proper diagnosis. Keep in mind, this is a man who already had a history with psychiatric problems. Drugs and prescription medications can make those problems even worse. Which really seemed to be the case here, because in the summer of 2007, he randomly approached his ex-boss, Jack Taber, at his business. Gary demanded that Taber give him $3,000. Given his track record and his unhinged behavior, Jack declined to loan him the money. But it's what Gary said next that changed Jack's life forever. He looked at him, squaring the face, and told him, "You know, you've got a great life, a beautiful wife, this beautiful young son. It would be such a shame for you to lose all that." Soon enough, Jack moved his family out of the area. It was clear that Gary was becoming more reckless and desperate, and over the next several years, that behavior only got worse. Now by this point, Gary had been living off the grid for a while. In his trusty Chevy Astro van, he carried everything he needed, camping gear, food, heavy outdoor clothing, in his dog, an Irish setter named Dandy, who rode beside him in the passenger seat. he spent most of his days taking Ritalin, Drift A. in and out of national forests and getting completely wired out in the wilderness, all by himself. For the summer of 2007, he had the $3,000 he had scared out of Jack Taver to keep him afloat. But as the weeks passed, the money disappeared. Soon enough, he was running low on Ritalin and food as well. By the time October 21st came around, he had very little to his name, just one Ritalin pill, $2, and two scoops of instant coffee. That afternoon, when he saw Irene and Jack Bryant, he saw two opportunities and one. A chance to live out the dark fantasies that had been brewing inside of him and a chance to get some cash. So around 4pm, as the couple tried to go on that peaceful hike, he ambushed them, killed them, stole their credit cards, and fled. While investigators frantically worked to solve the case, Gary Hilton set up shop over 400 miles away, living in his van in Appalachia Cola National Forest, just outside of Tallahassee. But remember, when he killed Jack and Irene, he only got away with $300. And when you're an addict, $300 is gone in a blink of an eye. By mid-November, he was out of food, out of money, and desperate to feel alive again. And just like he had weeks ago, he began to watch trailheads, watching potential targets to attack and rob. Only this time, he'd take things a step further, and that step would ultimately lead police on a race against the clock. Because the next victim he targeted, a Sunday school teacher, didn't go down without a fight. And what followed for police was a horrific realization. They didn't just have a murderer on their hands. They had a serial killer, and the only way he was ever going to stop was if they put an end to him. If you're a Patreon member, part two, the final part of the story is available now early and at free. If not, join us next week where we explore Gary Hilton's downfall and the hunt for the beast of Blood Mountain. One of the main sources used for this episode was Fred Rosen's book titled Trails of Death, the true story of National Forest serial killer Gary Hilton. In honor of all the victims of Gary Hilton, we'll be making a donation to the Fowler O'Sullivan Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the families of missing hikers locate their loved ones and get support in their time of need. Hey everybody, thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Murder in America. If you guys want to get access to versions of this show that are ad-free and versions that are posted early, like when we do these two part episodes, we use the post both parts at the same time. Please consider joining us over on Patreon. On Patreon, you can get access to early ad-free versions of every episode of the show. And in addition, if you've already listened to every episode of our show, on Patreon, exclusively, we have an entire library of bonus episodes. These are full length episodes of the show. Just like the episode you just listened to, so if you want to help support what we do here and support the team that helps bring the show to life, please consider supporting us over on Patreon. Also, don't forget to leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to the show, whether it's on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever, and also follow us on Instagram @MurderInAmerica to see photos from every case that we cover here on the show. Anyways, y'all, we'll be back next week with part two of this series, the final part. Thank you guys for tuning in. I hope you all have an incredible weekend if you're listening on Friday. And yeah, we'll catch y'all on the next one. [BLANK_AUDIO]