By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- A jury convicted Gary Michael  Hilton of murder Tuesday in the decapitation slaying of a woman in the Florida Panhandle, a case that resembles a Georgia killing for which the man is already serving a life sentence.

Hilton, 64, sat stone-faced as Circuit Judge James Hankinson read the verdict after the 12-member jury had deliberated for three hours and 40 minutes.

Hilton could get a death sentence for murdering 46-year-old nurse and Sunday school teacher Cheryl Dunlap of Crawfordville. He also was convicted of kidnapping and stealing the victim's ATM card but acquitted of taking her car.

Jurors will return Thursday to hear testimony about whether to recommend death or life in prison, the only other penalty allowed for the murder conviction. Hankinson will not be bound by their decision, but he must give it great weight.

Hilton received a life term in Georgia after pleading guilty to murder in the January 2008 slaying of 24-year-old hiker Meredith Emerson

The bodies of both victims were found in forests, and each had been beheaded.

Hilton, who declined to testify, also is a suspect in at least three other killings in Florida and North Carolina.

Chief Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman asserted in her closing argument that Hilton, balding and wearing a coat and tie as he sat hunched over at the defense table, looked and acted differently when Dunlap disappeared on Dec. 1, 2007. She said he was ``a woodsman, a survivalist and proficient bayonet fighter'' when he allegedly killed Dunlap after she'd gone to a park area in the Apalachicola National Forest southwest of Tallahassee.

``Most importantly the real Gary Hilton was a hunter, a hunter able in his words to disassociate killing from the restraints society has placed on it,'' Cappleman said. ``But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Gary Michael Hilton was not hunting deer, he was not hunting birds, he was hunting Cheryl Dunlap.''

She acknowledged no one saw the victim being abducted or killed, but said a mass of evidence linked Hilton to the slaying, including DNA and Hilton's own words on a self-made video and to another jail inmate.

The evidence also indicated Dunlap was killed two days after she'd been kidnapped, the prosecutor said.

``Once he caught his prize, he took his time with her,'' she said.

While showing the jury a picture of the victim's body, the prosecutor asked, ``What does it take to saw off a human head?''

Assistant Public Defender Ines Suber told jurors the state's evidence was entirely circumstantial. She challenged the reliability of prosecution witnesses as well as DNA and other laboratory testing Cappleman presented. She noted one sample taken from the victim's body was contaminated by a laboratory technician's DNA.

Suber said no fingerprint evidence connected Hilton to the crime and that a medical examiner was unable to verify that skull and hand bones found in a fire pit at a campsite he allegedly used belonged to the victim.

``We have absolutely no evidence, no direct evidence, that Mr. Hilton committed murder in this case,'' Suber said.

In rebuttal, Cappleman said the charred bones could not be identified nor could Dunlap's fingerprints be obtained ``because of the defendant's own handiwork.''

The victim's hands as well as her head had been chopped off.

Cappleman also said jurors should listen to Hilton's own words.

She replayed digital videos, which technicians were able to extract from his camera although they'd been erased, made in the days following Dunlap's disappearance. Hilton can be heard using crude language to say he was going to get some good sex someday and then adding ``She was no good. She was nasty.''

He also talked about hiding ``stuff'' and said ``Yeah, I killed those ...'' using a vulgar term for women.

Cappleman also quoted testimony by a Leon County Jail officer who said he overhead Hilton tell another inmate that if the state would give him life that he'd tell authorities where to find Dunlap's head.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)