When two hunters are murdered within days of one another in nearby popular Florida hunting grounds, law enforcement realizes they may be dealing with a serial killer. Their journey to catch the elusive killer spans years and multiple U.S. states.View source material and photos for this episode at: parkpredators.com/the-hunters Park Predators is an audiochuck production. Connect with us on social media:Instagram: @parkpredators | @audiochuckTwitter: @ParkPredators | @audiochuckFacebook: /ParkPredators | /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck
Chapter 1: What chilling case is discussed in this episode?
Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra, and the case I'm going to tell you about today is one that is just downright chilling. Everything about it will give you full-body chills because it involves two victims that seem like they should have been the least likely people to have been targeted.
They were hunters, armed veteran outdoorsmen whose killer, in my opinion, took a huge risk attacking them, but somehow succeeded. The crimes unfolded in two different recreation spaces, Osceola National Forest and Camp Blanding Wildlife Management Area, which are both in Florida. According to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's website, Osceola National Forest is somewhere people visit to disconnect with their normal lives and take solace in nature. It's known for having an abundance of trails and great areas to fish, camp, swim, and hunt. It's located in northern Florida, about a 45-minute drive west of Jacksonville. It actually butts right up to the Georgia border.
The Camp Blanding Wildlife Management Area sits about an hour southeast of Osceola National Forest, and it's located basically right between the cities of Jacksonville and Gainesville. It encompasses more than 56,000 acres, some of which is closed to visitors and hunters during the year because the Florida Department of Military Affairs operates on it.
Chapter 2: Where did the murders of the hunters take place?
When portions of Camp Blanding are open, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission monitors its use for fishing, hiking, hunting, and other recreational activities. FWC has strict guidelines that hunters must follow if they want to catch game there.
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On Friday night, November 19th, 1993, a man named Joe Hill arrived at the Cobb Campgrounds in Osceola National Forest to meet up with his dad, 63-year-old Don Hill. Just prior to this, Don had gone ahead of his son and set up a small camper trailer at the campground and spent that Friday hunting in the forest.
When Joe arrived, though, he discovered that his father's trailer was locked, which felt odd to him, because he fully expected his dad to be inside and settling in for the day. The only rational explanation Joe could come up with as to where Don might be was that maybe his dad had taken a quick trip to get supplies or something in nearby Lake City, which was only like 15 miles away.
Because Joe hadn't seen Don's 1989 maroon and silver Chevy pickup parked near the camper trailer when he'd arrived, that indicated to him that Don had probably just left the area for a little bit. Figuring his dad would be back soon, Joe decided to stay put and wait for Don to return. But when one hour went by and then two, that's when Joe realized something wasn't right.
So he used a payphone at the campground to call his mom at his parents' house in Orange Park, Florida. But she told Joe that she hadn't heard from Don since much earlier in the day. I imagine not wanting to send his mom into a panic or anything, Joe downplayed the situation as a big misunderstanding and told her not to be too concerned. However, deep down, he was definitely worried by that point.
Joe spent the night of the 19th either there at his dad's vacant campsite or at his own home. It's hard to tell from the source material. But whatever it was, by the time the sun rose the following morning, Saturday, November 20th, he was determined to figure out what was going on with his dad.
So he decided to drive around Osceola National Forest and look in a few places that he knew his dad liked to hunt in. He searched high and low for any sign of his father's Chevy pickup and even drove on overpasses along Interstate 10, which cuts right through the National Forest. He also drove several main roads and forest roads until finally he spotted the vehicle.
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Chapter 3: What happened to Don Hill in Osceola National Forest?
Joe immediately saw that his dad had sustained a lot of trauma to his head, and the sight was so disturbing that he quickly retreated from the area and jogged back to where he'd parked his own car to get help. Not long after Joe made this discovery, the Baker County Sheriff's Office became aware of the situation and sent deputy sheriffs to the scene.
the Florida Department of Highway Patrol also dispatched some of its troopers to assist in the investigation. Shortly after law enforcement arrived, Don's body in the tree stand it was at the base of was cordoned off and one of the first homicide investigators to arrive was a lieutenant from the sheriff's office named Charlie Sharman.
Charlie had been off duty when he got the call about a hunter who died of an apparent gunshot wound. And actually, when he arrived, Charlie was wearing casual clothes, a sweatshirt, boots, and blue jeans. But despite his informal attire, he jumped right into detective mode.
After observing Don's body and the environment around the tree stand, Charlie concluded that the 63-year-old had most likely not died as a result of a hunting accident. For one thing, Don had been shot at least twice at close range, once in the head and once in his back. The ammunition that had been used appeared to have come from a shotgun, not a Winchester rifle like the one Don was carrying.
Another clue authorities noted was that it seemed as if Don had been assaulted from behind while already in the tree stand or possibly when he was climbing out. There were also a few indications that someone had tried to clean up the crime scene. What exactly those clues were, though, I couldn't find specifically stated in the available source material.
An article by Jim Redman for Outdoor Life magazine and an episode of Cold Case Files called The Hunter Homicides later reported that Don's belt had been cut and a hunting knife in a sheath that he was known to keep on him was gone, as well as his wallet. Investigators suspected that both items had presumably been stolen by whoever had attacked him.
The totality of the crime scene as a whole caused investigators to suspect that Don had not done this to himself. I mean, the fact that he'd been shot twice with ammunition suspected to have come from a firearm that didn't belong to the gun he was hunting with was a strong indicator that he'd not died by suicide or some kind of bizarre hunting accident. That just seemed physically impossible.
Plus, when he was found, he was wearing his bright orange hunting vest, another obvious sign that it would have been very unusual for a fellow hunter to mistake him for an animal or something. The Tampa Bay Times, formerly the St.
Petersburg Times, reported that at some point in the investigation, authorities received a tip about a blue van that had been spotted in the general area where Don was found. But it seems like the details about who was driving that vehicle or what direction it left in were minimal.
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Chapter 4: How did the investigation into Don Hill's death unfold?
But despite searching high and low in that area for Greg, his brother and father didn't find him. So Don left Vigo by the Mazda and drove to Camp Landing's check-in station to report that they'd found the car, but not Greg. The employee working at the check-in station gave that information to an FWC officer named Steve Chance, who then joined Don and headed back to meet up with Vigo.
Steve was a great addition to the search effort because he had more than 20 years of experience tracking and finding people in the woods, especially lost hunters. During his and Don's ride to meet up with Vigo, Steve asked the nearby Jacksonville Sheriff's Office to send a helicopter to help in the search.
But before that aircraft even got off the ground, Steve canceled the flight because when he and Don made it back to Vigo, they learned that Vigo had already found Greg's body. Turns out in the time Don had been gone, Vigo had continued to look for his missing brother and eventually found him lying on the ground next to a fallen tree.
He was positioned on a path just a few hundred yards away from the hunting blind that Don and Vigo had previously checked. I think that was the same one that seemingly was Greg's favorite. Anyway, it was obvious from looking at his body that he'd been shot execution style in the back of his head at close range with a shotgun. And he'd been dead for some time.
Right away, FWC officer Steve Chance noticed several things at the scene that looked suspicious to him. One, Greg's wallet was nowhere to be found, and it was obvious that his belt had been cut. Two, the Remington shotgun that he was believed to have been carrying was also missing, as well as the Smith & Wesson handgun and holster he usually kept on him while hunting.
He was also wearing a bright orange hunting vest, making it seemingly impossible for him to be mistaken in the woods for anything other than a hunter. A Clay County Sheriff's Office homicide detective who responded to Greg's death investigation shortly after his body was discovered was a guy named Jim Redmond.
Jim authored the Outdoor Life Magazine article on this case that I mentioned a little bit earlier, which was a crucial piece of source material. Jim was informed by Officer Steve Chance that the circumstances surrounding Greg's death felt eerily similar to Don Hill's death. It also wasn't lost on him that Don had been slain just a few days prior in a similar type of recreation space.
And some of his personal belongings, just like Greg's, were missing. To help Jim and his team process the crime scene, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement provided crime scene techs to collect evidence and take pictures.
Blood spatter on the plants and ground around Greg's body, as well as his positioning, caused Jim Redmond to suspect that Greg most likely had been kneeling down, possibly praying when his killer shot him from behind. Unfortunately though, there wasn't much else in terms of physical evidence at the crime scene. No shell casings left behind, no hairs, no fingerprints, and no fibers.
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Chapter 5: What similarities exist between Don Hill and Greg Wood's murders?
FWC officer Steve Chance was fairly close by and armed with a scoped rifle just in case things went sideways. But hours and hours went by and nothing happened. The undercover sting operation was a bust and investigators were no closer to identifying who was responsible for the murders. Six months went by, and then a year, and not a whole lot of progress was made in either case.
After year one, Task Force Orion disbanded, and almost two years later in 1995, concerns were still high in the hunting community that someone had gotten away with two brutal murders. In those two years or so, Greg's loved ones erected a memorial plaque for him at the entrance of Camp Blanding Wildlife Management Area.
It stated, quote, in loving memory of Greg Wood, may all who pass here go with peace in harmony with nature and all mankind, 11-24-93, end quote. Jim Redman wrote in his article for Outdoor Life magazine that within six months of the murder, the reward for information was increased to more than $45,000. And he chased down a handful of potential leads in other U.S.
states, including similar kinds of crimes. But nothing panned out. It was frustrating, and investigators began to wonder if perhaps robbery wasn't the killer's only motive. Other than the two victims' wallets and the firearms that had been stolen from Greg and the knife that was taken from Don, there wasn't much else of value for the killer to make off with.
And typically, hunters were not known to carry much cash in their wallets while out in the woods. So theoretically, whoever robbed the victims likely didn't get away with much, which was just another detail that didn't quite make sense to authorities. In the summer of 1996, Jim Redman turned to the media for help.
He agreed to participate in the pilot season of Cold Case Files, which I think at that time was a CBS program just called Cold Case. The segment aired the following year in April 1997, and right away Jim started receiving a bunch of new leads and information. At that point, it had been almost four years since Don and Greg's murders, and investigators really needed to catch a break.
In August of that year, that's exactly what happened. One of Greg Wood's long-lost stolen guns turned up. On August 6th, 1997, nearly four years after Dawn and Greg were murdered, a records clerk for Putnam County Sheriff's Office in Florida sat down to enter a pawn shop ticket into her computer database that kept track of firearms and their serial numbers.
This clerk would then cross reference guns she entered against lists of missing or stolen firearms in the NCIC database. She was surprised to discover that the gun from the pawn shop ticket got flagged as a .357 Smith & Wesson that had been reported stolen out of Clay County some four years earlier.
When she looked to see where it had been pawned, she read that it had been involved in a transaction at a store called Super Pawn in Palatka, Florida.
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Chapter 6: How did law enforcement respond to the murders of the hunters?
Redmond dressed himself in a black sports coat with a white collar underneath, which kind of gave him the appearance of a member of the clergy. On one side of the interview room, he set out all of the crime scene photos of Dawn and Greg, as well as some evidence and the pawn shop ticket for the Smith and Wesson. On the other side of the space, he set up an open Bible.
Softly playing from speakers in the room were the recorded wiretaps that investigators had captured between Paul and Jimmy Ray throughout the course of their investigation. Basically, Detective Redmond was subtly going to imply to Jimmy Ray that he could either choose to tell the truth and come clean, or he could not cooperate and face judgment. When Jimmy Ray arrived around 12.30 p.m.
on the 24th, he was reported to be very surprised and confused by the interrogation setup. But over the course of the next 45 minutes to an hour, he revealed incriminating details about Don Hill's murder in Osceola National Forest. and he said he'd stumbled across Greg Wood's body at Camp Blanding a few days afterwards.
Before continuing to talk, though, Jimmy Ray asked for a bathroom break and was directed to the restroom in the sheriff's office. But several minutes went by, and eventually Detective Redman realized Jimmy Ray had not returned to the interview room. Redman then knocked on the bathroom door several times, but Jimmy Ray refused to exit.
This went on for a little while, but after four more failed attempts to get Jimmy Ray to cooperate, Detective Redman kicked in the door to the restroom and crashed down onto the floor. When he looked over, he found himself staring at Jimmy Ray, who was crouched in a fighting position and pointing the barrel of a gun right in his face.
Jimmy Ray threatened to kill Detective Redman if he didn't leave the room immediately. Turns out when Jimmy Ray had first arrived at the substation, deputies didn't think to pat him down for weapons.
They knew that as a security guard, he had a valid license to carry a concealed firearm, but they assumed that since he'd come in willingly, he wasn't armed, which turned out to be a big mistake on their part. But anyway, after Detective Redman got to safety and strapped himself with a protective vest, the sheriff's office and its SWAT team went into full-blown hostage negotiation mode.
This lasted for nine hours, and during all that time, Jimmy Ray passed several messages to Detective Redman underneath the bathroom door that detailed more about the circumstances surrounding Greg and Don's murders, including how he'd cut both of their belts in the back, a detail that had not been previously known to the public.
During the standoff, Jimmy Ray also scribbled notes and drawings on surfaces inside the bathroom. It was in those writings that he ended up confessing to even more crimes, including the arson of his own home for insurance money and other offenses. At various times, he broke out in singing religious songs and could be heard throughout the sheriff's office building.
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Chapter 7: What fears did the murders generate among outdoor enthusiasts?
So in total, less than $100. It's heartbreaking to think that was his reason for taking two lives, for gunning down in cold blood two men who had families and people who loved them. I think this is a reminder for all of us, especially those of you listening who are into hunting, to be vigilant. In no way are Greg Wood and Don Hill to blame for what happened to them.
They are both innocent victims in this case. But it's important to remember, just because someone may approach you and be dressed like you or appear to share the same hobbies as you, you can't let your guard down. Because sometimes, predators are much closer than you may think. Park Predators is an Audiochuck production.
You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, at Park Predators. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?