An autopsy report has found that Meredith Emerson, the young hiker whose body was found Monday evening in the north Georgia woods, was killed three days after her disappearance; the man suspected to have killed her has been arrested several times since the 1970s and could be connected to other cases of missing people.

Gary Michael Hilton, the 61-year-old man who led investigators to Meredith Emerson’s body in the north Georgia woods, is believed to have killed the hiker with blows to the head.

Authorities say Meredith Emerson, 24, who went on a hike with her dog on New Year’s Day on the Freeman Trail in Vogel State Park, located in North Georgia at the base of the Appalachian Trail, was alive for three days after she went missing.

Dawson County District Attorney Lee Darragh said Emerson died of fatal injuries to her head.

Hilton was charged with murder after he led investigators to the decapitated body of the young woman in Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area, five miles southwest of Dawsonville, Monday evening.

The state's chief medical examiner, Kris Sperry, found that Emerson died before being decapitated, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said.

Hilton cooperated only after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty against him in the case, Union County District Attorney Stan Gunter told The Associated Press.

He had already been charged Saturday with kidnapping with intent of bodily injury. He appeared Monday before a judge who denied his request for bail. He is being held in the Dawson County jail and is scheduled to appear at 1 p.m. Wednesday in a Dawson County courtroom on the murder charge that was added Tuesday.

Authorities have not disclosed what led them so soon to Hilton. Emerson’s dog, which she had taken with her on the hike, was found Friday afternoon wandering around a parking lot. Emerson’s bloody clothes and other belongings were found in a nearby garbage bin at around the same time.

That night, Hilton was taken into custody. According to his arrest warrant, he had tried to use her credit card, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. He was the last person seen with the young woman on a hiking trail.

Bankhead said authorities would not release information regarding how Emerson met Hilton and what happened between the time she disappeared and when she was killed, he was quoted by the paper as saying.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hilton is a drifter and has been arrested several times over the last three decades, on charges of arson, hit-and-run and physical assault. He has been convicted of two felonies, one for the possession and distribution of marijuana, another for theft by taking.

Authorities said they are looking at possible connections between Hilton and other disappearances and presumed murders.

There is the case of a couple in their 80s who disappeared in October while hiking in the western North Carolina mountains. The woman’s body was found in November, but the man remains missing and authorities think he may have been kidnapped so he would provide the couple's bank account security number.

There is also the case of a woman whose body was found Dec. 19 in the Apalachicola National Forest, southwest of Tallahassee, the AP reports.

Both times, the missing persons’ ATM cards were used after their disappearance.

Stan Gunter, Union County District Attorney, told the AP that the agreement Georgia authorities made with Hilton to lead them to Emerson’s body is valid only in the prosecution in that case; other jurisdictions could seek the death penalty for killings there if they find connections.

Meredith Emerson’s godmother, Peggy Bailey, said Tuesday that a memorial service would be held at 2 p. m. Friday at Central Presbyterian Church in Athens for the young woman. Another service will be held sometime later in her hometown of Longmont, Colorado.