ajc.com > Metro > Gwinnett
Hiker suspect probed for missing Clemson U. student
By JEFFRY SCOTT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/18/08
A Clemson University student who went missing in April 1998 and whose 1990 Chevy Beretta was found abandoned 10 days later at Table Rock State Park in Pickens, S.C., is the latest unsolved missing person case investigators are studying for potential connections to accused killer Gary Michael Hilton.
"We're working with Georgia authorities to see if we can establish a timeline that puts Hilton in the area at the time of Jason Knapp's disappearance," Pickens County Sheriff Tim Morgan said on Friday. "Presently, we know there are a couple more Hilton cases pressing, in North Carolina and Florida, but we're in the mix. Anytime there is a case like this, we check to see if we can establish a connection."
The park was searched extensively after Knapp, a 20 year-old sophomore, disappeared on Easter Sunday 1998. Knapp's fingerprints were found on a park admission ticket showing he arrived at Table Rock, about 30 miles from his residence in Clemson, between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Receipts were found in his locked car that showed he went to a McDonald's earlier in the day.
Knapp's mother, Deborah Boogher, of York, Pa., said Friday she has not been following the Hilton case and only heard about it when an investigator from the Pickens County Sheriff's office sent her an e-mail last week saying there may be a connection between Emerson's accused killer and her son.
"I thought, 'Oh my God, I hope he [Hilton] was nowhere near where my son was," Boogher said.
Since her son's disappearance, Boogher said she has made yearly trips to Table Rock in his memory. "But I can't dwell on the negativity of what might have happened," she said. "I like to think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or he had an accident."
Morgan said investigators began looking into the connection last week when Hilton, 61, was charged in the New Year's Day abduction and Jan. 4 murder of Buford hiker Meredith Emerson, 24. .
Morgan said Pickens investigators, the GBI and the FBI have not been able to place Hilton in the Pickens County area at the time of Knapp's disappearance. Hilton has already been linked to cases in two other states:
Florida investigators say they have tied Hilton to the disappearance and death of Crawfordville, Fla., school teacher, Cheryl Dunlap, 46, who was last seen on Dec. 1 and whose body was found two weeks later in Apalachicola National Forest, near Tallahassee. Florida 2nd Judicial Circuit District Attorney William Meggs said last week he had enough evidence to bring charges against Hilton in the Dunlap case but there was no hurry because Hilton is already in custody, in Dawson County jail.
North Carolina investigators said this week they have a "positive link" between Hilton and the Oct. 21 disappearance and deaths of an elderly couple in Pisgah National Forest. The body of Irene Bryant, 84, was found on Nov. 9; authorities presume her husband John, 79, is dead. His body has not been found.
North Carolina officials also confirmed this week they are looking for links between Hilton and the December 2005 disappearance of Florida woman Rossana Miliani, 26, who went missing shortly after telling her family she was going hiking in Bryson City, N.C.
Jennifer Canada, a spokeswoman for the North Carolina Department of Justice, said this week, "I can confirm that the State Bureau of Investigation is considering the possibility of a connection" between Hilton and the Miliani case.
http://ajc.printthis.clickability.com/pt/c...l&partnerID=557