Serial killer Hilton in Buncombe jail awaiting trial
ASHEVILLE — Serial killer Gary Michael Hilton now sits in the Buncombe County jail awaiting trial for the kidnapping and murder of a Henderson County couple.
The U.S. Marshal Service brought Hilton to North Carolina from a prison in Raiford, Fla., following his indictment by a federal grand jury last month in the slayings of John and Irene Bryant. Hilton, 65, is scheduled to appear before a judge in U.S. District Court in Asheville on Monday for an arraignment and detention hearing. Prosecutors said in court papers they plan to seek the death penalty.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said he will remain here until the case is concluded. The Marshal Service contracts with the Buncombe jail to house federal inmates awaiting trial.
John Bryant, 80, and Irene Bryant, 84, of Horse Shoe, disappeared on Oct. 21, 2007, while hiking in the Pink Beds area of Pisgah National Forest in Transylvania County.
Searchers found the body of Irene Bryant near a trail off Yellow Gap Road in the national forest north of Brevard. She died of multiple blows to the head and had her right forearm severed, according to an autopsy.
Someone used the Bryants' ATM card in Ducktown, Tenn., the day after she was killed.
The skeletal remains of John Bryant were later found by a hunter about 30 yards down a bank off a U.S. Forest Service road near Franklin. An autopsy determined that he died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Hilton has already been sentenced to death in Florida for a murder in that state, and he was sentenced to life in prison for the slaying of a hiker in Georgia. Authorities said those cases have similarities to the killings of the Bryants.
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