wctv.tv update:
UPDATED 2.21.2011 7:20pm by Julie Montanaro
The jury took three and a half hours to find Gary Hilton guilty of the 2007 kidnapping and murder of Cheryl Dunlap, but just an hour and 15 minutes to decide he should be sentenced to death for it.
The foreperson handed over the verdict form a few minutes after 4pm this afternoon.
"State of Florida versus Gary Michael Hilton. A majority of the jury by a vote of 12 to nothing advise and recommend to the court that it impose the death penalty on Gary Michael Hilton, so say we all," read Circuit Judge James Hankinson.
The unanimous verdict stunned the courtroom.
"We are extremely pleased with the death verdict and even more so that it was unanimous. Obviously the jury saw what needed to be done to bring justice and that's what Mr. Hilton got today and Ms. Dunlap and her family got," said prosecutor Georgia Cappleman as she left the courtroom.
State Attorney Willie Meggs said he was surprised by the unanimous verdict, but said if there were ever a case for it, this was it. And he thanked law enforcement agents in two states for all they did to help bring this case to court.
"Words cannot describe what those folks did to get this case to this point," Meggs said. "They dug up the National Forest. They stopped every black truck in Leon County, some of them four and five times.The recovered evidence. They crawled in dumpsters and those folks deserve a lot of credit."
It's been more than three years since Crawfordville Sunday School teacher and FSU nurse Cheryl Dunlap disappeared.
She would be found murdered and dismembered two weeks later.
Her cousin, Gloria Tucker, has been in court every day to hear the testimony and was literally doing fist pumps as she left the courtroom.
"I think it's extremely important to me because I feel that he's deserving of death. He's tortured and tormented his victims and who knows how many of them there were, but he needs to know now that he's going to face death. It may take years, but all those years he's going to know just like his victims knew before they died.that he's going to die," Tucker said.
http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Gary_Michael_Hilton_Trial_-_Penalty_Phase_116396099.html