Hilton denies involvement in Clemson student’s disappearance

ATLANTA (AP) — The man serving a life sentence for murder in the death of a Georgia hiker says he had nothing to do with the disappearance of a Clemson University student.

Pickens County, S.C., Assistant Sheriff Tim Morgan interviewed 61-year-old Gary Michael Hilton on April 17th at the Georgia state prison in Jackson, south of Atlanta. Morgan says authorities are inclined to believe that Hilton was not involved in the disappearance of 20-year-old sophomore Jason Knapp.

Knapp was last seen on Easter Sunday, 1998. He is thought to have disappeared somewhere in Table Rock State Park in Pickens County. Morgan says South Carolina authorities questioned Hilton because of similarities in the cases.

Hilton pleaded guilty Jan. 31 to killing Meredith Emerson, 24, who disappeared while hiking on New Year’s Day.

He has been indicted in the death of a nurse, Cheryl Hodges Dunlap, whose body was found decapitated in a Florida forest. Authorities say he also is a suspect in the deaths of a North Carolina couple, John and Irene Bryant.