Page 105 - Meredith News Today

Another national forest homicide, this one in north carolina. >> so theb youve got to be saying to your team of vectors, what do we have here? >> thats right. >> now were wondering who we really have here and where is he? and, more importantly, wheres meredith? do we have a killer running around loose in the national forest? >> concerned for meredith deepens, but her friends know something that man on the mountain couldnt. >> a blue belt in akeyed dough and a blue belt in judo. if anyone could...

Definitely wanted to rescue a doeg. finally found one loved her and brought her home. really it was the light of her life. >> julia the roommate didnt know meredith and ella were going 40 miles away to blood mountain. despite the creepy teen slasher movie name, blood mountain is a popular place to hike in the southeast. the famous appalachian trail to maine takes off from just south of here. back in buford, the roommate spent the day with friends and didnt notice meredith hadnt come back home si...

Together tell you a story at all, or suggest something ominous? >> yes. we found those items in an area where the ground had appeared to have been disturbed. we became concerned that possibly a struggle took place there. >> merediths water bottles, ellas leash, and signs of a struggle. nothing about the scene looked good to the veteran lawman, especially that expandible police baton that was found. he called in help. >> we eventually partnered with over 18 or 19 police agencies to help in the se...

Trace of meredith or ella. so by night itfall the search became all the more urgent as a cold front moved in and temperatures on the mountain plunged below zero. at daybreak, thursday now, the friends were joined by deputies from the local sheriffs office. john kegel, just shy of retirement, was the agent in charge for the georgia bureau of investigation, the states top cops. >> we received a request from a local agency to help with a missing hiker. >> the case of the hiker missing for two days ...

Phone at a convenience store near where merediths dog had turned up. you have a living pet, a missing owner and a phone somewhere in the vicinity of this guy you believe is her abductor. >> yes. while the agents are searching in the area of the convenience store, they look in a dumpster. it was in the dumpster we found merediths identification, her purse, bags of bloody clothing. at that point, we felt that this was not going to turn out as we had hoped. >> the purse, three bloody fleece tops. a...

>> but the search in the national forest had become something more ominous than a lost hiker incident. meredith had been last seen in the company of an unsavory looking stranger, and law enforcement was about to identify him. the tip came from john tabor, an atlanta businessman. he was watching the continuing news coverage of missing meredith during his morning workout. >> when they started giving the description of the person of interest, my ears really perked up. i think i just turned white at...

Restaurant 50 miles from blood mountain. hilton it seemed was moving south toward atlanta. metro pd s.w.a.t. concealed themselves in and near tabors building, the old drop point where tabor had promised him $800. >> youre staking out the location? >> he didnt show. >> no-show. >> were still look gt and woeshing, where could this guy be? now we have this guy 50 miles from blood mountain. >> the veteran detective was talking constantly with merediths parents, her father dave amor son. >> i appeal ...

Her dog ella as she came down the trail. it was a struggle and meredith with her martial artsz skills, as hilton tells it, nearly got the best of his. she disarmed him, taking away his knife and the police baton. >> i lost control of both the bat and the knife. she was real quick with her hands and had no hesitation about grabbing weapons and everything. not only that, she was hard to subdue. fought like hell, man. >> hilton said they scrapped so hard they tumbled off the trail. separated by a f...

Was charged with a crime against her, kidnapping with bodily injury. hilton was in custody but he was uncooperative, zipped up, giving his interrogators nothing on merediths whereabouts or what he had done with her. >> merediths middle name is hope and thats exactly what the lord gives us for her. so we are hoping that were talking of meredith in the present tense and that we will be finding her and that she will safely come home to us. >> the searchers in the field, meanwhile, shifted their foc...

That we have to embrace this family and tell them everything, even though what we were telling them was not good news. >> hilton, meredith, her lab ella. the tip line kept ringing with leads good and bad. then four days in, a friday afternoon, a shopper called to say that shed found a black lab mix wandering around a supermarket parking lot. >> surprised to see any dog running loose in the parking lot. then to find out its the one that meredith was -- it was her dog, you know, was a pretty big s...