"Born in Atlanta, Ga. to William E. Hilton and Cleo M. Reynolds, Gary Hilton once pursued a promising life. Although he had dropped out of high school, Hilton enlisted in the Army in 1964 and obtained his G.E.D. According to Military records, Hilton spent some time in Germany and received basic airborne training. After his honorable discharge in 1967 however, Hiltons apparently upstanding lifestyle deteriorated into a spiraling series of failed marriages and encounters with the law.
According to Georgia state records, Hilton received a divorce from his first wife in Miami in 1971 citing irreconcilable differences. He then married Dina Evonne Baugh in 1977 in DeKalb County, Ga., but that marriage lasted less than a year. On March 19, 1979, Hilton married his third wife, Betty Sue Edwards Galloway, who at the time was employed as a law enforcement officer for Atlantas Stone Mountain Park. Just seven months later, this marriage also ended in divorce. According to court records, Hilton had no children. None of his former wives could be reached for comment.
Gary Hiltons first known arrest was in 1972 for receiving stolen property in Miami-Dade County, Fla. Records show that case was eventually thrown out.
Apparently looking for a fresh start, Hilton spent the remainder of the 1970s in Atlanta. It was in Georgia, where Hiltons criminal record grew. He was charged in 1982 for marijuana possession and was sentenced to four years probation.
Petty crimes continued to pock mark Hiltons now widely publicized life as a nomadic camper. He was lasted as a fugitive by Georgia authorities from 1994 to 1995 for repeatedly scamming money from individuals in Marietta, Ga. According to court documents and victims who spoke with Inside Edition, Hilton repeatedly posed as an advocate for veterans and disabled children in order to dupe people into donating cash and checks that he claimed would be used for charitable causes.
"He was a skilled con man in his own way," said Gary Hill. Hill and his brother Gene eventually banned Hilton from their business, G&H Horseshoe Sales, after the state of Georgia notified them Hilton preyed on people's kindness by posing as a representative of the Georgia Veterans Journal.
Court records indicate Hilton never walked away with much money from his visits, but managed to swindle roughly $500 from his unsuspecting victims, some on a repeat basis, from 1990 to 1993.
Gene Hill said he did not immediately correlate the shifty, quick speaking - albeit polite - Hilton with the aged, "wretch of a human being" he saw plastered across his television screen in connection with the gruesome decapitation of Emerson. Hilton has been charged with the murder of the 24 year old hiker.
For Joan Farlow, a retired child daycare owner from Austell, Ga., the recent charges against Hilton evoked a sinking realization of the times he chatted her up at Smyrna Playskool to get a few dollars for his bogus charity. Farlow said she now fears his access to her school may have placed the scores of children entrusted to her at risk.
"I guess you never think that people like that would come in contact with you. It always happens to somebody else," said Farlow, who assumed the school was donating to veterans. Hilton stopped popping by, she said, when apparently he got word that state authorities were after him.
Authorities finally caught up to Hilton in May 1995 and arrested him on a warrant detailing 21 felony counts of unlawful solicitation and two misdemeanor counts of simple battery stemming from a violent episode in early 1995.
In April, 1995, former roommate Christopher C. Johnson, who characterized Hilton as a very odd man, says he witnessed Hilton's violent persona when Hilton rented a room at Johnsons Marietta, Ga., home for roughly six months.
He just had this erratic behavior with everything, recalled Johnson, who now lives in eastern Mississippi.
Never feeling threatened by Hilton, Johnson said the two mostly got along well, even joking about their third roommate, a man neither particularly liked.
It was at this time that Hilton got into another wrangle with police when he physically attacked the third roommate in an attempt to throw him out of the house. Hilton was charged with two counts of simple battery that were later dismissed.
Court records also show a judge ordered Hilton to serve five years probation in June 1995 after pleading guilty to 21 counts of unlawful charity solicitation. During his probation, he was forbidden from consuming alcohol or possessing a firearm. He was also ordered to pay $424 restitution and court fees.
Prior to that incident, Johnson said Hilton, then in his late 40s, was harmless enough, taking his golden retriever for daily walks in nearby Kennasaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.
It was also during this time Hilton showed Johnson a collapsible baton he brought on his walks for self protection perhaps the same baton Georgia authorities believe may have been used as a weapon in Emersons death.
But aside from having a bizarre personality specifically a hyperactive, excited speech pattern and sometimes disturbing smile Johnson said Hilton mostly kept to himself and always kept his knapsack nearby, as though he needed to leave in a moment's notice.
Six months later, Hilton was arrested again in DeKalb County, Ga. for stealing books he was hired to sell for the American Book Display Company. Instead, he attempted to sell them for personal profit at a local flea market.
Again, Hilton slipped through the clutches of a jail term and instead received five years probation and was ordered to pay $5,619 in restitution. It is not clear from court records if Hilton ever fulfilled his restitution payments.
From Inside Edition
Marissa Yaremich
INSIDE EDITION Staff