within hours of discovering irene bryant's body, detectives learned $300 had been withdrawn from the bryants' accounts using an atm card in tennessee. >> the man had concealed his head and face and was able to successfully use the bryant's atm. >> whoever was making the withdrawal, it wasn't 79-year-old john bryant. but time was working against the law man. >> we spent weeks everywhere in that spientire area. we did everything from vehicle patrol, atv patrol, horse back, on foot, everywhere. >> john bryant had seemingly vanished from the face of the earth. the fbi posted a $10,000 reward for information. but the bryant case went cold until meredith emerson loomed on the lawman's radar. >> our lead investigator began following that case. immediately there were some similarities that we saw between the two cases. both of these incident os occurred on forest service land. we really felt like the two were probably connected. we may go years without a homicide. this was very, very different. do we have a killer running around loose in the national forest? >> in georgia the searchers lookin

but despite his denials, he remained the prime suspect in the murder of the elderly couple irene and john bryant. mr. bryant's remains were found in january in the north carolina forest. >> as a result of the investigation in georgia i was absolutely convinced at that point that gary hilton was our suspect. >> but there was another open homicide case that seemed to fit gary hilton like a custom-made suit. down in florida, the body of sheryl dunlap had been found in a national forest. her at card stolen, the remains decapitated. detectives thought that fit hilton's m.o. to a "t." and gary hilton, still playing the smartest kid in the class defied florida to after him, all that time, all that money. >> if they want to spend a million dollars, 2 million, then another 2 million to get death d th another 8 million to defend the death penalty and get around to executing me 17 years from now when i'm 78 years old and i'm decrepit, hey, they can do it. >> two tough florida prosecutors it turns out would be the match of his defiant talk. >> my belief is this is an evil, bad person and there ought to be a