True Crime in the Great Outdoors
The most shocking crimes from national parks, camping trips, backpacker murders, and hiking incidents
The Terrifying Case of Gary Michael Hilton, the National Forest Serial Killer: Part 4 Other murders
In addition to Meredith Emerson, Cheryl Dunlap and John & Irene Bryant, Gary Michael Hilton, the “National Forest Serial Killer” has been linked to the following disappearances and murders.
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The Terrifying Case of Gary Michael Hilton, the National Forest Serial Killer: Part 2 Cheryl Dunlap
Rossana Miliani, disappeared December 7, 2005, Bryson city
29-year-old Rossana Millani was last seen around noon on December 7, 2005, at the Ramada Inn on Painttown Road in Cherokee, North Carolina. She was from Miami, Florida and was vacationing in North Carolina.
That day, she called her father from the hotel and told him she was going hiking on the Appalachian Trail. On her disappearance, she rented a storage space at Ye Olde Mini Storage on River Street in Bryson City, North Carolina.
When she was last seen, Miliani had a large light beige suitcase with a broken handle, a matching carry-on bag, a laptop computer, a sleeping bag, a camera, a cellular phone, and some other personal items with her; none of these have been recovered. She has not withdrawn any money from her bank account since she went missing, although some funds were deposited there on December 31.
A store clerk who read about Miliani's disappearance in the newspaper on the second anniversary stated she sold a backpack to Miliani and an unidentified man about 60 years old, with gray hair at his temples. He may have been wearing a hairpiece. He said he was a traveling preacher. The clerk said Miliani appeared to be nervous during the transaction.
In June 2009, a private investigator working on the case issued a sketch of a man who was seen with her before she vanished.
Sketch of man with Rossana Millani
Rossana's father, Anibal Miliani, was convinced that the man in the store was Hilton. “She called me almost every night to check in,” he said. On December 6, 2005, she called her dad from a Cherokee Ramada Inn roughly five miles from Bryson City. Rossana, who had taken the bus from South Florida to North Carolina earlier that day, told him she wanted to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail.
Michael Scot Louis, 27, body found Tomoka State Park, Florida, December 6, 2007
The torso and legs of Michael Scot Louis, 27, of South Daytona, were discovered on December 6, 2007, in black plastic bags on the banks of the Tomoka River inside Tomoka State Park. His head has never been found.
Michael's Firebird was found in the parking lot of his apartment complex in South Daytona. The keys were still in the ignition, but the car was a considerable distance from Louis’ apartment, "the length of a football field.”
Louis’ unwashed laundry and two guitars were inside the car. The authorities suspected Hilton of committing the crime, but he was not charged.
Judy Smith, remains found Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina September 7, 1997
On September 7, 1997, father and son hunters in North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest found human bones, clothing, and some other items scattered in the woods near a campground close to Stoney Fork picnic area. Some of the bones had been scattered, but the rest were wrapped inside a blue blanket and buried in what was described as a shallow grave beneath a tree. With the body was $167 in cash, a blue and black backpack, not the red one Judy favoured, some clothes, a wedding ring and a pair of sunglasses.
The remains, were identified as belonging to a woman between the ages of 40 and 55 with a seriously arthritic knee. Due to holes and cuts on her bra, and similar cutting marks on the bones, investigators ruled that the unidentified decedent had been stabbed to death.
Dental records and the arthritic knee soon led the body to be identified as that of Judy Smith (born Judith Eldredge; December 15, 1946, in Hyannis, Massachusetts), a 50-year-old nurse from Newton, Massachusetts, who had last been positively seen alive by her husband Jeffrey at a hotel in Philadelphia almost five months earlier. When she had not shown up after a day sightseeing in the city, he had reported her missing. Until the bones were found, the search for her had been concentrated in the Philadelphia area, where several sightings had been reported, although some of them may have been of a homeless woman who strongly resembled Judy.
Judy decided to go with her husband, Jeffrey Smith, to the Northeast Pharmaceutical Conference, which was being held from April 9-11, 1997. Jeffrey was a legal representative for the conference, which is an organisation of executives and medical researchers from New England. It was the couple's first trip together in the ten years they had been together and the few months they'd been married. After the conference, they were scheduled to meet with friends in New Jersey and then return home to Massachusetts. They both arrived on April 9.
On April 10, Judy spoke with her husband in the morning before he went to the conference, telling him that she wanted to go sightseeing all around Philadelphia, seeing tourist attractions like the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall while he worked. She was supposed to meet him back at the hotel that evening at 5.30pm so they could attend a cocktail party together at 6pm.
When Jeffrey arrived at the hotel room at 5.30pm that evening, Judy wasn't there. Assuming they'd had a miscommunication, he went down to the party, but he didn't find her there, either. He checked both the hotel room and party several times all night, but she never turned up.
Worried, especially since all her valuables and belongings were still in the hotel room, he called a cab to take him along the route of the Philly PHLASH tour buses, which Judy had said she planned to board that day as she explored the city.
He caught no glimpse of his wife along the route, so he went to the police to try to file a missing persons report, but the police were reportedly dismissive since she hadn't been missing for 24 hours yet. So, Jeffrey went to then-Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell and former Pennsylvania House Representative John Perzel, who were at the conference, and got them to open the investigation instead.
Jeffrey was immediately named a suspect in his wife's disappearance and murder, but the police don't believe it was him given his medical conditions at the time
After a whirlwind of sightings around the Philadelphia area, including an unhoused woman who closely resembled Judy in appearance who also worked at a mall about 22 miles (35km) from where she was last officially seen, said she spotted her when she was working as a cashier.
The woman said she was trying to buy clothes for her daughter, Amy, who she said never liked what she picked out, and that she was wearing a red backpack, her signature style. Amy later told the police that it was true: She often didn't like the clothes her mother picked out for her.
The trail went cold after that. One witness said they saw Judy at the local Greyhound bus terminal on the day she vanished, and another unhoused person said he thought Judy was sleeping next to him one night in a park.
A lot of witnesses described Judy as disoriented and suffering from some mental afflictions as they said she was incomprehensible and seemed confused as to where she was or what she was doing.
The police were also looking into Jeffrey as a suspect. When evidence seemed to point to the fact that he was genuine, however, a new theory developed that Judy may have simply been going through a midlife crisis and had decided to leave him to start a new life.
Jeffrey and Amy both however said that Judy wasn't that kind of person as they struggled with her loss and worked tirelessly to find her. Amy said Jeffrey and Judy seemed to have a good marriage, and Jeffrey said leaving randomly would have been out of character for Judy.
A friend of Judy's, Carolyn Dickey, wasn't so sure about that, however, and said that the marriage between the two had turned "tenuous" and that she believed something was happening that would have caused her to want to get away from Jeffrey.
Jeffrey was never officially cleared in the investigation, but the police don't believe it's likely he was the one who killed Judy, as he was suffering from health problems and wouldn't have been able to commit the crime without leaving evidence or witnesses.
Two witnesses came forward from North Carolina, specifically Asheville, a city in the western portion of the state about halfway between Knoxville, Tennesee, and Charlotte, North Carolina, which are about 110 and 125 miles from Asheville, respectively.
The first witness claimed to have seen Judy just days after she disappeared, stating that she was a cashier and had helped Judy check out. She said the woman seemed "very alert" and was "very pleasant" as she said she didn't notice anything wrong.
The other witness, who said she was a deli owner, said she saw Judy drive up to her store in a grey sedan and purchase $30 worth of sandwiches as well as a toy truck.
The investigation into the killing has been complicated by the unresolved question of how Smith got to North Carolina from Philadelphia, 600 miles (970 km) away. She and her husband planned to stay in the Philadelphia area and visit friends after the conference he was attending ended; she had not expressed any desire to visit the Asheville area where her body was found. Yet when found she was wearing clothes more appropriate for hiking than those she had on when last seen in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia police initially considered Jeffrey Smith a suspect, casting doubt on the idea that his wife had even been to the city in the first place. However, his involvement was ruled out due to severe health problems making it unlikely that he could have disposed of her body where it was found. Jeffrey died in 2005.
The Philadelphia police, the FBI, and the Buncombe County sheriff's office continue to investigate and it has been linked to Gary Hilton.
Jason Andrew Knapp, disappeared April 12, 1998, Table Rock State Park, Pickens, South Carolina
Jason Knapp, 20, was last seen at his apartment in the 100 block of Calhoun Street in Clemson, South Carolina, on Easter Saturday, April 11, 1998.
That evening, Jason rented a movie with two of his roommates, and at about 10.30 pm, they left him alone watching the film. It’s the last time anyone saw him alive.
His car turned up at Table Rock State Park, 30 miles from his home, but there was no sign of Jason. He had vanished without a trace.
In the fall of 1997, the Michigan college that Jason thought would move him forward wasn’t working out, so he transferred to Clemson University in South Carolina to start a mechanical engineering degree. In the spring of the following year, Jason was doing well academically and would talk to his mother nearly every day, sharing her plans to find an apartment with a friend for the summer and fall.
Jason was in good spirits and had just been inducted into the elite Pershing Rifle Corps at Clemson University. He was looking forward to school ending and making plans for the summer.
Some of Jason’s fellow Army ROTC friends became concerned that he had not attended physical training and ROTC classes for a few days and called the apartment inquiring about him. Jason’s roommates then became concerned as to his whereabouts.
At first, they thought he had just taken off for a few days and would be back. They contacted a close friend of Jason's who was attending college in Pittsburgh, PA, thinking that maybe he had gone to visit her for a few days. She informed them that they had not talked to each other for over a week.
When Jason did not return by Friday, April 17, 1998, the roommates decided to call his mother, Deborah A. Boogher. The same roommate who had last seen Jason placed the call. She immediately contacted the police, and they went to the apartment to search for him.
His mother said, "I did not find it unusual that he did not call me that week. I knew that most of the problems that were upsetting him had been resolved and that he would be studying for finals and getting all his assignments up to date. I just assumed that we would be talking over the weekend and making final arrangements about a new apartment for the following school year, and deciding on a date for me to come down and help him get packed up to return home for the summer. How wrong my assumption would be."
Jason’s 1990 white Chevy Beretta was found on April 21, locked and parked in the first row of spaces along the lake at Table Rock State Park in South Carolina, around 30 miles from his home. He was more of a mountain biker than a hiker, but he could have gone to walk the trails.
Inside the car, authorities found a Park pass for Table Rock State Park that had been bought between 3 and 5 p.m. on Easter Sunday, April 12, and tests later showed Jason’s fingerprints on the pass. Also inside the car were receipts from earlier in the day at a Wendy’s restaurant in Clemson where he bought food at around 1.30 p.m. and an Ingles grocery store in Seneca, where he had bought a six-pack of root beer and some fruit juice.
A park ranger at Table Rock State Park had seen the car for more than a week but wasn’t suspicious at first because hikers often left their cars parked for several days without signing the guestbook at the trailhead.
Around 3,400 man-hours of searching by volunteers and search and rescue professionals, including dog teams from North and South Carolina, were done. No clue was found to prove Jason was ever at the park except for his car. He had vanished.
Investigations by police also indicated that Jason had withdrawn $20 from his bank account and that no other activity had taken place on the account since then. Fifty dollars in change was found in the console of the car.
Checks on his apartment showed his checkbook was there and subsequent examination of his bank account showed it contained a considerable amount of money, which had been untouched. His suitcase, all of his clothes and other personal belongings were still in the apartment.
There was no evidence that he planned to harm himself, as his rifle and some ammunition were found in the closet of his bedroom in the apartment untouched. His bed had been stripped, and the bed linens rolled into a ball as if he had planned to return to do laundry.
His mother, Deborah Boogher, pointed out to investigators how obsessed Jason was with his car stereo. In 1998, having a detachable face on a car stereo was normal, and they said it was very unusual for him not to remove it on the day of his disappearance if he was to go hiking. He was obsessive about removing it, mainly if he was leaving the car in a public parking lot at Table Rock, where petty crime could easily occur.
She also wrote 2011, "We have no idea what happened to Jason. He never talked to me or anyone else about this park. On December 26, 2000, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Even though the doctors assured me that all of the cancer was removed, and I received a clean bill of health in November 2001, it has made me acutely aware that something could happen to me before I find out what has happened to my son. I have made a pact with God to keep me healthy and give me the strength to find him. I will not die without knowing what has happened to Jason. I have spent the past four years trying to get Jason's story on national television. It has all been so frustrating. I want to find my son. I need to find my son. He was my whole world and I miss him terribly. The longer he is gone the harder it gets. The pain does not go away. There is this gaping hole in my heart that will never heal. I sincerely hope that you can help us in our search. Perhaps your help could provide the clue that would help the police locate him. Please find it in your heart to help me find my only son, my only child."
Deborah regularly met with the Park’s manager Poll Knowland who retired in 2017. Following the Pickens County Sheriff's Department being handed the case they interrogated several killers, this included Gary Hilton in 2008 about the disappearance since no one knew where Hilton was the day Jason went missing. But Hilton claimed during an interview that he he didn’t know anything about Jason. In 2016 an updated photo of what Jason would look like at the time was released to try and gain new leads. On January 31, 2018, following 20 years of searching his parents had him legally declared dead as a result of how much time had passed.
John Knapp, Jason’s father, who had been divorced from Deborah for around 2 years before the disappearance, has said he has heard from more than his share of “kooks and nuts” claiming to know what happened to his son. One wrote a letter saying he knew where Jason was buried and said the grave would be recognizable by a hand reaching out of the ground. Another time, a telephone caller told him that the next time he opened his mailbox, it would explode.
Through the years, he said, he wondered if his son might even have picked up a hitchhiker plottingto prey on unsuspecting park guests, “Always in the back of my mind, I thought he might have run into some Eric Rudolph-type”
John wonders why Jason went to TableRock. “As far as anyone knows, he’d never been there before. He hadn’t mentioned it to friends. He wasn’t a hiker, he was a mountain biker. But his mountain bike was at home in Pennsylvania. We had so many dreams and expectations,. You just keep wondering how this could happen.”
Deborah said, “I’d like to know what happened to Jason, but I’m absolutely terrified to think someone might have killed him for no other reason than they didn’t like the way he loo