Georgia ? A drifter charged with kidnapping a 24-year-old hiker led authorities to her body Monday in the mountains of northern Georgia, investigators said, hours after a judge denied him bond in her New Year’s Day disappearance.

Authorities also were examining whether the death and the disappearance of two elderly hikers in October in North Carolina were related to the Georgia case.

Gary Michael Hilton, 61, showed investigators the spot where Meredith Emerson’s body lay, said John Cagle, an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Field Division.