Tonight's update:
{UPDATE] 2-7 6:10pm
Hikers and hunters dominated this second day of testimony in the kidnapping and murder trial of Gary Michael Hilton.
This afternoon, several hikers and hunters described chance meetings with Hilton in the Apalachicola National Forest , and this morning, most of the testimony came through the lens of a camera.
A masked man visited the ATM at this Hancock Bank on West Tennessee Street ... three consecutive days after Cheryl Dunlap disappeared.
Monday ... photos of that masked man stretched more than a hundred inches tall on a screen in courtroom 3A.
"Did you conduct some video analysis in reference to State of Florida versus Gary Michael Hilton?"
"Yes, I did."
Agent Ronald Weyland with the Orange County Sheriff's Office analyzed the ATM video and captured and cropped several stills from that video. He says it appears the man wore the same blue striped dress shirt each day. The first two days, he says, the man used white medical or athletic tape to make a mask, but the third day - when it was daylight - he appeared to hold just a cloth over his face.
Weyland also noted something unusual on the man's hip.
Weyland says, "And on his left side, there appears to be a holster with a gun inside of it."
Jurors in this case are allowed to ask questions and one wanted to know if Weyland estimated the height and weight of the man in those bank tapes . He said no. "The encounter was in Cherokee County along Harden Bridge Road."
Cherokee County Georgia deputy William Ballard confronted Hilton in October 2007, and told him camping wasn't allowed in the wildlife management area there.
Hilton's last words to the deputy that day "Be safe."
This afternoon several hunters and hikers took the stand and described meeting Hilton in the forest. One took police to the spot where he last saw Hilton and they discovered a beheaded dog. It is not clear if that was Hilton's dog or another one. Amy Long will have more on this afternoon's testimony on Eyewitness News later tonight.
There has been lots of back and forth over the admissibility of evidence today because the info is graphic information, but important information. Prosecutors contend there was a human head and hands found in the burn pit at Hilton's campsite off Joe Thomas Road, but their expert cannot tie them to Cheryl Dunlap and cannot even say definitively if they belong to a woman. Defense attorneys tried to have this evidence thrown out, but the judge said no. Defense attorneys also fought to keep pictures of Dunlap's uncovered body out, but jurors will see those too.
http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/J...hael_Hilton_Case_Begins_Monday_114908669.html
