Georgia link checked in Mount Pilchuck slayings
Published 11:03 pm Thursday, January 10, 2008
EVERETT — Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives are investigating whether there’s a connection between the July 2006 murders of two Seattle women on Mount Pilchuck and a Georgia case where a drifter is accused of killing a 24-year-old hiker, officials said.
Gary Michael Hilton, 61, is charged in Atlanta with the murder of Meredith Emerson, who was bludgeoned to death three days after she disappeared during a New Year’s Day hike in the Georgia woods. He’s also a suspect in the Florida case of a woman whose body was found Dec. 19 in the Apalachicola National Forest, southwest of Tallahassee.
Seattle librarian Mary Cooper, 54, and her daughter, Susanna Stodden, 26, were found fatally shot on the Pinnacle Lake Trail off the Mountain Loop Highway on July 11, 2006.
Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives have made no arrests in the Pinnacle Lake case.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Rebecca Hover said detectives are aware of the Georgia case and are looking into it — as they would any other similar situation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
