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ATLANTA—The suspect in the killing of a 24-year-old hiker called his former boss from a Huddle House in north Georgia just hours before authorities arrived at the building.

John Tabor, who owns a siding company, said Gary Michael Hilton used the restaurant’s phone to call him on Jan. 3, shortly before authorities asked employees and customers at the restaurant whether Hilton had been there.

Tabor told WXIA-TV that he had already tipped off authorities that he thought Hilton might be Meredith Emerson’s kidnapper. When Hilton called, he said he helped set up a trap.

“He said he was ready to come back to work. He said needed some money to get started. I told him I would leave him a check (at the office) that he could retrieve the following day,” Tabor said.

He said that was the last time he had talked to Hilton, who apparently was on his way to the office in DeKalb County when he was arrested at a service station cleaning out his van.

Hilton is charged with kidnapping and killing Emerson, who authorities say was bludgeoned to death on Jan. 4, three days after she disappeared during a New Year’s Day hike.

She originally was from Longmont, Colo.

Florida authorities also say he is a prime suspect in the death of a woman whose body was found last month in a national forest there.

Waitress Amanda Peacock said that a “fidgety” Hilton kept asking to use the phone while he was in the restaurant, which is in Marble Hill, Ga. When he was told the restaurant had no pay phone, he was allowed to use the restaurant’s phone, and talked with Tabor for what seemed like 20 minutes.

“He was acting all fidgety and everything. He was not acting normal,” Peacock said. “I didn’t see him on the news, but I was kind of suspicious—I get suspicious if someone wants a pay phone.”

Before he left the restaurant around 5 p.m., he thanked Peacock for the use of the phone on his way out.

“I just got my job back,” she said Hilton told her, adding that “he said ‘thanks’ like 10 times.”

A few hours later, GBI agents came to the restaurant with photographs of Hilton, asking whether he had been there. They say Emerson was killed by Hilton within the next 24 hours. Authorities found her body Monday night in Dawson County—about 10 miles from the restaurant.

“I freaked out,” she said. “If we would have known about this man, we could have done something for her. I honestly do.”

Tabor said Hilton has worked “on and off” for 10 years, to help the suburban Atlanta siding company market its services. He said Hilton was not working for the company at the time of his arrest.