Cheryl Dunlap died as the result of "undetermined homicidal violence," the medical examiner who conducted her autopsy testified Tuesday, and her dismembered body lay rotting and exposed to scavenging animals in the woods for a week or more before it was found by a hunter.
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Dr. Anthony Clark said he could not determine whether the 46-year-old Crawfordville nurse was shot, beaten or strangled, but concluded that the cause of death had to have been a traumatic injury to her head or neck. Dunlap's head was sawed off with a sharp knife just above her C7 neck vertebra, and Clark said he found no other injuries in what was left of her body that could have killed her. The decomposition of Dunlap's body also made it impossible to determine if she had been sexually assaulted.
Clark's graphic findings and autopsy photographs came on the third day of testimony in the capital murder trial of Gary Michael Hilton. The 64-year-old drifter is accused of kidnapping and killing Dunlap in December 2007, then cutting off her head and hands before incinerating them in a burn pit at a makeshift campsite in the Apalachicola National Forest.
Hilton's lead attorney, Assistant Public Defender Ines Suber, questioned Clark's use of the term "violent" in his cause of death determination, and argued that was for the jury to decide, but Circuit Judge James Hankinson overruled her objection.
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Later during the medical examiner's testimony, Hankinson snapped at Suber to "be quiet and sit down" after she repeatedly interrupted Chief Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman's questioning of Clark.
After jurors left the courtroom, Suber asked for a mistrial, contending Hankinson's admonishment could have prejudiced the jury against Hilton. The judge also denied that request.
"I told you to sit down and be quiet because you persisted," he told Suber. "That was unprofessional."
Further legal wrangling caused proceedings to be adjourned early when Suber objected to the testimony of a Georgia investigator because he was not included on the state's witness list, rendering her unable to prepare for his testimony.
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Cappleman conceded that she inadvertently left Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Mitchell Posey off the prosecution's witness list. Posey documented a host of items from a Georgia convenience store trash bin that prosecutors say link Hilton to Dunlap.
Posey found the evidence, including Dunlap's hiking boots, a forest service citation issued to Hilton and garbage similar to refuse left behind at his two Leon County campsites, while investigating the disappearance of Georgia hiker Meredith Emerson. Hilton confessed to killing and beheading the 24-year-old in January 2008, about two weeks after Dunlap's body was found.
Rather than strike Posey's testimony, Hankinson sent the jury home around 2 p.m. and gave Suber the afternoon to depose the investigator.
Before testimony was suspended for the day, Posey confirmed his discovery of other items presented to the jury, including pants and finger-less gloves similar to those witnesses have said Hilton was wearing in the woods around the time of Dunlap's death. Items in the garbage bags linked to Hilton by witness testimony included locks, metal chains and a large knife sheath.
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Jurors have appeared engaged throughout the proceedings, taking notes, scrutinizing photographs and listening with rapt attention to testimony. Courtroom attendance has been light, with a smattering of spectators, including college interns, courthouse personnel and about a half-dozen members of the media.
Dunlap's aunt has sat stoically in the gallery throughout the proceedings. She left the courtroom during the medical examiner's testimony.
The trial will resume this morning.
Read more: Medical examiner: Dunlap died of injury to her head or neck | tallahassee.com | Tallahassee Democrat
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