the deputy replied.
Ballard had just talked with Gary Hilton in northwestern Georgia, a day after a man fitting Hiltonâs description had used the Bryantsâ ATM card in Ducktown, Tennessee, about fifty miles away. In spite of an intense search, the police could not find John Bryantâs body and had no suspect for the murder of Irene Bryant.
Â
On December 1, 2007, Cheryl Dunlap left her house in Crawfordville, Florida, to take advantage of the one free day each week that she had to herself. Dunlap telephoned a friend about nine in the morning to say that she was going to the public library in Medart, just a few miles away. Crawfordville is in Wakulla County, a sparsely populated area that is a bedroom community for suburbanites who work in the state capital of Tallahassee, located about twenty miles farther north. The town is some three hundred miles south of Blood Mountain, from where Meredith Emerson would be kidnapped. The terrain in that area of Florida is heavily wooded and encompasses several parks, some of which bump shoulders with the Appalachian Trail.
Cheryl Dunlap was a healer, not just of the body, but of the spirit. Her long hours were not from obligation but from personal commitment. A registered nurse, Dunlap worked at Thagard Student Health Center at Florida State University (FSU), and was considered one of the best. According to the logbooks, she often saw patients right up to the last minutes of her shift.
Dunlap was the mother of two sons, Mike and Jake, and had been divorced from their father since they were little boys. Mike lived in Crawfordville and Jake was serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq. The other passion in Dunlapâs life was her faith. She lived in Crawfordville all of her life and was a sixth-generation member of the White Church Primitive Baptist, a church with a congregation of a little more than sixty members. Jake won an award there for attending Sunday school every week for seven years. The church had a small congregation, but they were an active group of hardy souls.
They pitched in to help one another remodel homes; and even though it was small, the church had outreach programs and performed missionary work in foreign lands. Besides being a full-time single mother and nurse, Dunlap sang in the choir and taught Sunday school and Bible school. Dunlap was so passionate about her faith that she even made time to attend and graduate from the FIRE School of Ministry in Pensacola. Following graduation she made several trips to China and South America as a missionary, who worked in medicine and spread the Gospel.
When Hurricane Ivan threatened the central Alabama Gulf Coast in September 2004 with 165-miles-per-hour winds and lashing rain, more than two hundred thousand people in the area fled their homes in Florida and Alabama as the fifth strongest hurricane ever to develop in the Gulf Basin came closer. In spite of a slight weakening, Ivan was still a Category 3 hurricane, with sustained winds of 125 miles per hour, when the storm struck the Alabama and Florida coasts.
This killer storm produced a storm surge as high as ten to fifteen feet from Destin, in the Florida Panhandle, westward to Mobile Bay/Baldwin County in Alabama. One wave, which was measured by the buoy from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reached the monster height of fifty-two feet in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Mobile, Alabama.
The storm caused catastrophic damage and loss of life from Florida through Nova Scotia. The worst damage was along the Alabama and Florida coasts with wind and water sweeping away buildings, ripping up trees, and even knocking down a huge section of a bridge on Interstate 10. Thousands were injured and left homeless without fresh water, utilities, medical aid, communications, and food.
Dunlap was one of the first to volunteer and spent several weeks in the most needful areas dispensing medical aid and spiritual comfort. It was a job for
Ballard had just talked with Gary Hilton in northwestern Georgia, a day after a man fitting Hiltonâs description had used the Bryantsâ ATM card in Ducktown, Tennessee, about fifty miles away. In spite of an intense search, the police could not find John Bryantâs body and had no suspect for the murder of Irene Bryant.
Â
On December 1, 2007, Cheryl Dunlap left her house in Crawfordville, Florida, to take advantage of the one free day each week that she had to herself. Dunlap telephoned a friend about nine in the morning to say that she was going to the public library in Medart, just a few miles away. Crawfordville is in Wakulla County, a sparsely populated area that is a bedroom community for suburbanites who work in the state capital of Tallahassee, located about twenty miles farther north. The town is some three hundred miles south of Blood Mountain, from where Meredith Emerson would be kidnapped. The terrain in that area of Florida is heavily wooded and encompasses several parks, some of which bump shoulders with the Appalachian Trail.
Cheryl Dunlap was a healer, not just of the body, but of the spirit. Her long hours were not from obligation but from personal commitment. A registered nurse, Dunlap worked at Thagard Student Health Center at Florida State University (FSU), and was considered one of the best. According to the logbooks, she often saw patients right up to the last minutes of her shift.
Dunlap was the mother of two sons, Mike and Jake, and had been divorced from their father since they were little boys. Mike lived in Crawfordville and Jake was serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq. The other passion in Dunlapâs life was her faith. She lived in Crawfordville all of her life and was a sixth-generation member of the White Church Primitive Baptist, a church with a congregation of a little more than sixty members. Jake won an award there for attending Sunday school every week for seven years. The church had a small congregation, but they were an active group of hardy souls.
They pitched in to help one another remodel homes; and even though it was small, the church had outreach programs and performed missionary work in foreign lands. Besides being a full-time single mother and nurse, Dunlap sang in the choir and taught Sunday school and Bible school. Dunlap was so passionate about her faith that she even made time to attend and graduate from the FIRE School of Ministry in Pensacola. Following graduation she made several trips to China and South America as a missionary, who worked in medicine and spread the Gospel.
When Hurricane Ivan threatened the central Alabama Gulf Coast in September 2004 with 165-miles-per-hour winds and lashing rain, more than two hundred thousand people in the area fled their homes in Florida and Alabama as the fifth strongest hurricane ever to develop in the Gulf Basin came closer. In spite of a slight weakening, Ivan was still a Category 3 hurricane, with sustained winds of 125 miles per hour, when the storm struck the Alabama and Florida coasts.
This killer storm produced a storm surge as high as ten to fifteen feet from Destin, in the Florida Panhandle, westward to Mobile Bay/Baldwin County in Alabama. One wave, which was measured by the buoy from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reached the monster height of fifty-two feet in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Mobile, Alabama.
The storm caused catastrophic damage and loss of life from Florida through Nova Scotia. The worst damage was along the Alabama and Florida coasts with wind and water sweeping away buildings, ripping up trees, and even knocking down a huge section of a bridge on Interstate 10. Thousands were injured and left homeless without fresh water, utilities, medical aid, communications, and food.
Dunlap was one of the first to volunteer and spent several weeks in the most needful areas dispensing medical aid and spiritual comfort. It was a job for
Similar Books
