Criminology - Rhonda Hinson

Episode Date: December 18, 2022

On December 22nd, 1981, 19-year-old Rhonda Annette Hinson headed to an office Christmas party. In the early morning of the 23rd, she was found about a half mile from her home lying outside her car on the should of the road. The police determined that Rhonda had been shot by a high-powered rifle that went through her trunk, back seat, and into the driver's seat. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the baffling death of Rhonda Hinson. Witnesses came forward the descriptions of cars seen near Rhonda's car. Police had to figure out if these were people involved in Rhonda's death or people who stopped to see what was happening. What clouded the waters even more was that it was revealed that Rhonda was not supposed to come home that night, and only a few people knew of her change in plans. The police looked closely at Rhonda's boyfriend, Greg, and a friend named Mark, whose girlfriend said she saw Rhonda's sweater in his car before Rhonda was killed. That sweater was later found in Rhonda's car. 41 years later, two big questions remain. What exactly happened in the death of Rhonda Hinson, and who was involved? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Turn your food waste into dirt with the press of a button with Lomi. Use the code CRIMINOLOGY to save $50 at lomi.com/CRIMINOLOGY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 237 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morpher. Morph. How you doing, man? I'm doing good. I'm excited. I'm pumped up for Christmas time, holidays, and this is our last episode of the year.

So looking forward to this. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm getting ready for vacation. You know, you and I are taking a week off. It's not something that we do a lot. So I look forward to it. And I'm taking the whole family. And we haven't really had a family vacation in, I want to say at least four years.

I know it was pre-COVID. So I know everybody's just really excited to get away because we haven't done it in a while. Yeah, that should be fun. So let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Whitley Jordan, Rosie. 16, Kyle and Charlotte, Gia Bowens, Cato White, and Kristen Adams. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much to everyone that helps support the show. It means a lot. And for anyone out there listening that would like to help support the show, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology.

All right, buddy, it's time to jump into this episode. We just mentioned it. It's almost Christmas. And like most of you, we're definitely grateful for the extra time. We get to to spend with our families. I know a lot of people love Christmas, holidays, and really just downtime in general, but doing this sort of thing that you and I do every week discussing the stories of families who will never be whole again after losing a loved one. It really kind of puts things into perspective for us. When you realize that some of the families we talk about on criminology will forever

have an empty seat at their table on Christmas. One less present to buy. Someone missing from the family Christmas photos. It's the holidays when many of these families feel that pain the most. But for some families, that pain is really amplified because it was around Christmas when they lost their loved one to violence. And one such family is the family of 19-year-old Rhonda Henson. They have been searching for answers now.

For 41 years since Rhonda was killed in cold blood in 1981, just days before Christmas. Some listeners may be familiar with Rhonda's story, if they're longtime watchers of Unsolved Mysteries. Rhonda's case was featured in a memorable segment on that show. On December 22nd, 1981, 19-year-old Rhonda Nett Hinson attended an office Christmas party at the American Legion Hall in nearby Hickory, North Carolina. She did clerical work as a key punch operator at the Hickory Steel Company, and they held their holiday gathering just three days before Christmas. For Rhonda, this was her first big company Christmas party, and she was excited for it. Rhonda had worked before, but her last job had been a dairy queen while she was in high school,

and as this was her first big office Christmas party, she was really looking forward to having fun with her new colleagues. Rhonda's mom, Judy, would later tell Fox News. She looked the most beautiful I had ever seen her on that night. Tragically, Rhonda's life was cut short that night. And 41 years later, her family's still seeking justice. Rhonda Annette Henson was born on December 13th, 1962, in Great Falls, South Carolina. To parents, Bobby, and Judy Henson, she had a younger brother, Robert Jr.

Rhonda attended Eastburg High School in her hometown of Valdez, North Carolina. Valdez is a town of less than 4,000 people and is located about 70 miles northwest of Charlotte. In high school, Rhonda was popular and athletic. She excelled in tennis, basketball, and track. She danced, twill baton, and marched in Charlotte's annual Thanksgiving carousel parade. She also worked a part-time job at the local Dairy Queen. And despite her active and busy lifestyle, she had a steady boyfriend. named Greg McDowell.

In June 1981, Rhonda graduated from Eastburg High School, excited for what the future had in store for her. Not long after graduation, Rhonda's parents helped her by a tan, 1981-Dotson-2-10 MP6. She loved her new car, and she was ready to take on the responsibility of paying for it.

It was then that she landed her job at Hickory Steel off Highway 321 on Old Lenore Road in Hickory, North Carolina, roughly 17 miles east of her family's home in Valdez. And more if I know a lot of people listening will probably remember back fondly on their first new car and maybe even their first car because a lot of people have those thoughts as well. But I remember my first new car. And man, I just thought that was the best. best thing ever. It really was kind of like the first thing that I felt as though was really mine.

Like I owned it. I was paying for it. And I remember, you know, washing it all the time, cleaning out the interior, making sure that the tires shine. I just took a lot of pride in that first new car. Yeah, I was the same way. And I, there's a certain sense of responsibility that comes with a, a new car. You know, if you buy it, my first, very first car was a couple hundred hours, a beater. I, you know, I milked it as much as I could and did what I could with it. But once I got a decent job and decided I needed a good, reliable transportation, I got a new car, I was excited to keep it up, to keep the maintenance up on it, to clean it up and show it off, and took a lot of pride in it. Ronda left the company's Christmas party at around midnight with two of her

friends and dropped them off around 1230 a.m. before heading home. As we'll get into later, this was the last second change of plans. She had just 10 more miles to drive to her parents' house and Valdez, so she should have been home before 1 a.m. But right around 1 a.m., Rhonda's mom, Judy, sat up in bed. She had been startled awake by a dream or a bad feeling. She just knew that something bad had happened to Rhonda. She would later tell unsolved mysteries. I woke up feeling panicky, scared, because I felt like something had happened to Rhonda. I felt like Rhonda was dead. I felt like she had been in an automobile accident.

Judy was so disturbed that she woke up her husband, Bobby, who turned on his scanner to listen for any emergency calls. He was startled to hear chatter over the scanner. It turns out that just half a mile from their home there had been a homicide that night, apparently a shooting on Mineral Springs Road. The victim would turn out to be their daughter, Rhonda Hinson. So, Morph, there's a lot of things that I don't believe in,

you know, as it pertains to kind of the paranormal and things like that, I haven't really fully bought into a lot of that stuff. One thing I truly believe in is a mother's intuition. I've just heard too many stories, personal stories, people that I know very well, who have had, you know, I don't know if you want to call them premonitions or feelings about things that. that later turned out to be true in connection with their children. It's hard to argue the timing of something like that, to just wake up with that feeling and it actually happened. And I've, you know, the same thing I've heard that their twins, for example,

have some kind of connection sometimes where one will feel the other's pain. And I know that's been documented. So really interesting. Ronda's Dotson-2-10 was found by a police officer on patrol on the shoulder on the opposite side of the road she was traveling on, but still pointed toward her home. The driver's side door was open and Rhonda was laying outside of the car with her arms neatly down by her sides. The medical examiner would later determine that she had been shot by a high-powered rifle, later determined to be a 30 caliber. The bullet had gone through her trunk, the car's back seat,

and the driver's seat before it finally hit Rhonda damaging her. heart. She would have been conscious for an estimated 10 to 15 seconds after being struck. At first, investigators thought the shooting could have been a stray bullet, perhaps from a poacher's gun, illegally hunting at night, but then they were faced with the question, who pulled Rhonda out of her car? It was thought that she likely would not have been conscious for long enough to unbuckle herself, unlock her door, and get out of the car. And based on the position of her arms, it didn't seem like a natural position. And it looked like they had been placed at her sides. Police quickly shifted their thinking to Rhonda being a murder victim.

No one with a clear motive really stood out to authorities. Rhonda was well-liked. She was new at her job at the steel company, but she really liked the job and got along well with her coworkers. She hadn't missed the day there in the three months she worked there. Bobby and Judy did recall some strange behavior from Rhonda shortly before her murder, though, which started a few weeks after she graduated from Eastbrook High School. Rhonda hadn't been sleeping much, and sometimes Judy would hear her take showers in the middle of the night. Judy asked Rhonda once why she was bathing at such a late hour, and Rhonda explained to her mom that she felt dirty. She also asked Bobby to go with her on trips into town, even though she had always been comfortable going alone. During one of their car rides,

she told Bobby that she wanted to tell him something bad. And Bobby was all ears, but Rhonda second-guessed herself and told me she would think about telling him later. Judy relayed to police that Rhonda had also asked her if it was okay under any circumstances to be in a relationship with a man who was married. And Judy advised her daughter that it would be just asking for trouble and cause people to get hurt. And Rhonda quickly changed the subject. Police came to believe that Rhonda may have been targeted that night and that her killer laid in wait knowing she would drive by on her way home.

They implored the public to come forward with any tips and their pleas worked. One witness came forward saying they had been driving on Mineral Springs Road that night between 1215 and 1230 a.m. And recalled seeing a blue Chevrolet parked facing north next to the off ramp of Interstate 40. The same off ramp that Rhonda would have used to exit. The witness could see that there were two white males inside the car, but outside of that really couldn't provide much more in the way of details. A second witness came forward and said that they remembered seeing Rhonda's car, pulled off the road where it was later found. As this witness drove by, she could see Rhonda was still inside her car, sort of slumped over the steering wheel.

There was a man at the driver's door trying to rouse her. At the time, the witness figured they were a drunk couple and just kept driving without getting a good look at the unidentified man. After undergoing hypnosis, the witness recalled seeing a blue 70s model Chevelle with gray primer and a damaged front end leaving the scene with only one man inside the car. The man that the witness saw standing beside Rhonda was somewhere between 5'10 and 6 feet tall. The witness also remembered a second car parked down the road from Ronda's car. It was a black or dark blue train than. Another witness, a woman named Marguerite Fletcher, came forward and remembered seeing two cars as well. She drove by around midnight before Rhonda was killed and recalled seeing a blue Chevrolet,

parked on the wrong side of the road, facing north toward Valdez, as she got to the bottom of the offering. When she turned and looked in her rearview mirror, she noticed a second car, a tan-colored car, described as a late model tan hatchback, parked further down the road under the interstate bridge. A man was walking toward the back of the car or the trunk like he was getting something. Another person saw the tan car parked under the bridge that night as he headed to Hickory to buy very last minute Christmas gifts. He also recalled that it was a hatchback.

Police knew it was crucial to find these cars that witnesses had seen and their drivers because they could be potential suspects or at the very least, possibly witnesses. The driver of the Trans Am seen in the area was tracked down by police. Tim Pons and Mark Mikkel were driving Mark's blue Trans Am that night. They claimed they had been drinking and were headed to their friend's cabin in Mineral Springs. When they saw Rhonda's car, they pulled over and went to check on her. Their story is that they never tried to open any of the doors, and that when they got there, They only saw blood on the seat in a bullet hole, but not Rhonda herself. According to them, she wasn't in or around the car.

Tim Pons got closest to the driver's door, but they decided to leave and go get the police. Around the same time, their friends Jerry Baker and Todd Garrow, who were also on the way to the cabin past the scene. They also stopped and asked Tim and Mark what happened. Tim and Mark replied that they didn't know but they were going to get police. With that, they all took off from the scene. About 12 minutes later, authorities arrived on the scene, and the first officer to respond found Ronda lying outside the car. Due to Ronda's injuries, it's not likely that she had wandered off and later come back to her car.

So if these two men were truthful, who pulled Ronda out of the car, and where was she when they were at the scene? Tim and Mark both say they didn't kill Ronda, and their friends Jerry and Todd were there at the scene, and they didn't see anyone else around. Yet 12 minutes later, after they left the scene, Ronda would be found dead near her car. by the police officer. With no clear motive or enemies, police considered the possibility

that Ronda wasn't specifically target, but rather that a sniper was out there that night randomly shooting at cars. In fact, there was possible evidence to support that this could have been the case. There were incidents in the area after Ronda's murder with at least two trucks being hit by either bullets or rocks, according to multiple AP news articles, both in the same week in January 1982, just weeks after

Rhonda was killed. Eventually, three men were arrested for throwing rocks, bottles, and other objects at random vehicles from an overpass, but not for shooting at vehicles. Arrested in 1982 were 21-year-old Bobby Ray Simpson, 18-year-old Gregory Lynn Vines, both of Connolly Springs, North Carolina. Carolina, and 19-year-old Gwen Richard Metcalf of Valdez. The trio were charged with misdemeanor damage to property. It's unclear if any of them were investigated for any more serious crimes, including Rhonda's death. So with no evidence of a random sniper shooting vehicles in the area, police once again turned back to the theory that perhaps Ronda was targeted. But again, the problem for them was that she seemed to have no enemies and she was well-liked.

there were no real motives to pursue, although they had considered whether perhaps Rhonda had been involved with a married man, and that maybe the wife of someone she was having an affair with, or the married man himself, had killed Rhonda when she broke it off, threatened to tell his wife, or refused his advances. The clues in this case didn't really point in any one direction. Rhonda's parents each had different opinions as to what happened to their daughter. Judy Hinson told Fox News, I think she was targeted. My husband thinks it was just a random shot, by some people in that area playing around with a rifle. The investigation in Ronda's case stalled.

An in-depth investigative reporting series, an 89 part series, in fact, by Larry Griffin of the Wilkes record, tells us much more about what may have happened to Rhonda Henson that night in 1981. Much of the following details, theories, and talking points are based on that series by Griffin.

No one knows who Rhonda was talking about when she asked her mom about being in a relationship with a married man or even why she asked. She could have been asking for a friend or considering dating someone married, but we do know that Rhonda was in a relationship with an unmarried man, someone her age. She had been dating Greg McDow for two years. Just three months before she was killed, Rhonda had confided in her cousin, Christina Harden, that Greg's father, Charles McDowell, had touched her inappropriately and always tried to be close to her. During a trip to Myrtle Beach in the summer, Greg had been in the shower, and Rhonda went to get something out of the lower shelf of the fridge.

As she bent over, she felt arms around her, which she assumed belonged to Greg, but when she turned around, she realized it was Charles. Greg was still in the shower. As for the relationship between Rhonda and Greg, Greg had reportedly once pushed Rhonda after becoming jealous over an interaction between her and a male tennis player. So a history of Greg putting his hands on Rhonda was troubling to many people. Rhonda's actions the night of the Christmas party have been closely scrutinized. Before she left for the party, Rhonda asked her dad to move her car up the driveway for her so that she didn't get her shoes muddy, to it. Some people seemed to think, though, that she was worried about something else and was afraid to go outside. It also came to the light that Rhonda wasn't even supposed to return home that night

from the work party. She had planned to stay over at her friend and colleague Sherry Pittman's house. When Rhonda got to Sherry's after the Christmas party at around midnight, Rhonda called Greg to check in with him. Both Sherry and Sherry's mom overheard Rhonda tell Greg she was going to head home soon, and eventually Rhonda came out of the bathroom. It looked like she had been crying. Greg was apparently mad that she had been at the Christmas party. Judy Henson told Fox News that there was some uncertainty around Rhonda going to the party in the first place, stating she was torn about whether to go to the party, but never told us why. On the day of the Christmas party, Rhonda walked to work that morning because of the weather.

She apparently didn't want to drive. She tried to walk out the door without a coat, but Judy stopped her. Rhonda explained that she had left her sweatshirt and her friend Jill, boyfriend's car after a shopping trip and that Greg had her letter jacket so she didn't have a coat. Her mom found her a multicolored jacket to wear so that she didn't steal her brother Robbie's coat and leave him with nothing warm that day. As Rhonda walked to the highway to catch a ride to work, she passed an accident and a small crowd of onlookers. One of the people standing there, Brian Lohman, asked Rhonda on a date as she passed. But,

she explained she had a boyfriend and she kept walking. Brian would become a suspect briefly, but the evidence that he may have killed Rhonda was not very compelling. Rhonda had gone back and forth about going to the Christmas party, reportedly because of Greg and how he may react. Rhonda waited to put her name on the RSVP list as long as she felt she could, and immediately after that, Greg's mother Betty, who also worked at Hickory Steel, put her and Greg's names on the list. Judy Henson recalls that Rhonda didn't want to go to the party with Greg, and that if she showed up and Greg and Betty were there, she would leave. It was pretty clear that the relationship between Ron and Greg wasn't in the best shape. When they first started dating,

Greg sent Rhonda a lot of love letters, and it won her over. But as time passed, she stopped sending letters back to him. His irritation showed, and his tone reportedly became passive-aggressive. Eventually, Greg's letters began to ask her things like if she would be successful on her diet and would be two pounds lighter the next time they saw each other. To many people reading these letters, it didn't sound like Greg was a loving, encouraging partner, but rather criticizing Rhonda. So he had this friction between Rhonda and Greg and this accusation by Rhonda that Greg's father had acted inappropriately around her. It seemed like Rhonda wanted a break from the situation.

Now, more if I don't claim to be an expert in relationships, I have been married to 26 years, I feel pretty safe and saying that most women and most people, for that matter, would not want to receive a letter asking them if they would be two pounds lighter the next time a person saw them, their significant other. That seems so strange to me. And I would think it would be very off putting to the other person. Yeah, I could see a supportive letter like you're doing great on your diet. I'm so proud of you, keep up the good work or something, but it did sound from the tone that he was telling her, hey, you need to do better here.

Well, and sometimes we read into things like this, but you get the feeling that maybe there were some control issues there. And maybe that's just me reading into it. But I think you could make that argument. Yeah, and I think in a case like this, you really start putting everything under the microscope and the people that are involved in looking for things. and a lot of things sometimes come to the surface. Rhonda was supposed to be safe and sound at the Pittman home that night, the night she was killed. Judy Henson waking up with a bad feeling right around the time that Rhonda was shot

leaves many wondering if she was awoken by the noise of the rifle just a half a mile away in the dead of the night. One interesting note for the timeline of events is that Judy didn't wake up and immediately have her husband turn on the scanner. First, they made some calls. They called the Pittman house, where Rhonda was supposed to be, but they informed the Henson's that Rhonda had left and was headed home. They next called the McDowell home, where Greg's father,

Charles, answered before giving Greg the phone. Greg told the Henson's that Rhonda was supposed to call him when she got home from the Pitman's. They called Rhonda's best friend Jill, and she told them, that she hadn't seen Rhonda. At some point, investigators ruled out the possibility of a random shooting or stray bullet killing Rhonda. They concluded that someone was aiming at Rhonda's car, likely not trying to kill her though, maybe just scare her. If someone had wanted to actually kill Rhonda, it makes more sense to shoot through the rear window, not the trunk, and to aim for her head. The path of the

bullet ending up in Rhonda's heart would be an almost impossible shot to make on purpose, which is why the authorities think it was an intentional shot in a shot in a moment. of the car that unfortunately wound up killing Rhonda. A random killer would have also had no reason to open her driver's side door. Ronda was apparently deliberately moved from the car, and she wasn't found in a position she would have landed in if she had fallen out of the car. The angle also seemed to indicate that the shooter was on their knees at the time, if they were aiming deliberately, although it's not clear if police pinpointed the exact spot where the shooter fired from. Many people have theorized that possibly Ronda had been stopped,

by something or someone in the road because her car appeared to have rolled backward. Her car, which had a manual transmission, would have been in neutral if she had to stop on the highway, but she didn't have to stop for her car to not be in gear and allow it to roll backwards. They felt that her car either being completely stopped or creeping along in neutral would have presented the shooter with an easier target. Investigators listened to the sound of cars as drivers heading up the hill switched gears. Most cars shifted into third around the area where Rhonda would have been shot, indicating that she was in the act of shifting from second to third, which requires a pass-through neutral.

It's thought that she was shot before she could finish shifting. She only had one hand, her left hand on the steering wheel, since she was shifting. The bullet, incapacitating Rhonda, could have caused her to drag the wheel slightly to the left. Stuck in neutral, the car then could have rolled backward across both lanes and onto the shoulder, where it was found. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved.

until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to another round of Boardroom or Miroboard. Today we talk retrospectives with Agile Coach Maria. Let's go. First question. You've spent two hours in a team retro, but the only input you've heard is Dave's.

Boardroom or mirror board? Boardroom. In Miro, Dave can't hog the space because everyone can add thoughts anonymously, online at the same time. Correct. Next, you need the team to act on feedback fast, so you turn all those retro notes

into GERA tasks instantly. Mero all the way. And I can assign those tasks to teammates. You're nailing this. Now, you see hundreds of sticky notes from the retro. A real mess. But you organize them into five themes in just seconds. Miro.

I basically get back an entire hour when I use its AI tools for clustering. And she's done it. Join over 60 million people running actually enjoyable and actionable retros in Miro. Get your first three boards free at Miro.com. That's MIRO.com. The scenario that makes the most sense for many is that someone was standing behind Ronda's car as she drove down the road and angrily fired one shot from the hip. When the bullet actually hit Ronda's car, the shooter was likely surprised.

When her car stopped moving and started rolling backward across the road, they were likely scared running over to see if she was okay. In this theory, the person would have found Rhonda slumped over the steering wheel in her car and shook her trying to wake her up, maybe thinking she had hit her head when the car stopped. As they dragged her out of the car, they would have seen the blood in the bullet hole, realizing what they had done, they fled. So this theory essentially has someone intentionally shooting at Rhonda's car but not necessarily trying to hit her.

Of course, someone could have knelt down and aimed for Rhonda's tail light and missed. It's also possible that the killer is not the one who dragged her out of the car. It's entirely possible that one of the witnesses, though innocent, lied because they were shaken and didn't want to get into any trouble. In this scenario, the killer either leaves after firing their rifle and one of the people passing by is the first to stumble upon Ronda, fatally wounded. in her car, they could have tried to wake her up. And when that didn't work, tried to pull her out of the car only to realize that she had been shot. And it was much more than they were prepared to deal with

so they took off. Rhonda's driver's door window was rolled down partially, something she would have never done at night, according to those who knew her and had driven with her. This seems to indicate that she did stop for someone. Though it wasn't in the middle of the road. road, like an ambush, more like a scenario in which she recognized someone and felt safe enough to roll her window down. At the end of the day, many people feel that most of the clues, including Rhonda's window being down, point straight to Greg McDale. He was already reportedly upset with her for going to the Christmas party, and she left the Pittman's house crying because of how angry he was. At 12.25 a.m., shortly before Rhonda was shot, her best friend Jill

was dropped off at home by her boyfriend Mark Turner. They had fallen asleep, and she was late for a midnight curfew. As she said goodbye to Mark and hugged him, she turned and noticed Ronda's gray sweater in the back seat and asked Mark about it. He explained that Ronda had left in his car a few days before when they went Christmas shopping together. Their trip had been kept secret from Jill because they had been shopping for a Christmas present from Mark. Jill offered to make sure that Ronda got the sweater back, but Mark said he would give it to her boyfriend, Greg, who he was friends with the next time he saw him. Jill headed inside and went to sleep,

getting a call from the Hinson's about two hours later as they tried to locate Ronda. So somehow in the span of 30 minutes, that sweater made it from the back of Mark's car to the rear of Ronda's Dotson. So that very sweater was found in Ronda's car by investigators taking an inventory of items at the crime scene.

For his part, Mark says he has no recollection of how Rhonda would have gotten the sweater in that short period of time for it to have wound up in her car that night. He had hurt his back playing basketball days earlier and had been taken to the emergency room and prescribed medication, which he believes has impacted his memory of the night. Also found in Rhonda's car was her Eastburg High Letter Jacket, which Greg McDow had in his possession earlier the morning of the 26th. second and a pink snake stuffed animal that was usually on Greg's dresser. A lot of people have questioned how this jacket ended up in her car. Rhonda's father who moved her car for her.

Her mother who used the car that day briefly while Rhonda was at work and Sherry Pittman all agree. The pink snake was not in the car earlier that day and they definitely would have noticed it. Some people interpret all of this as being indicative of a breakup and further evidence that Greg may have had a motive to kill Rhonda. In many breakups, couples would give each other back all of their belongs when their relationship was over. That seems pretty normal, nothing suspicious. But Rhonda and Greg were still together when she left for the Christmas party on the 22nd, and after midnight when she left the Pittman home. Some people theorized that this indicates that Rhonda pulled over to talk to Greg, and he gave her back her stuff.

The way they were placed in the car almost looks like they had been thrown in or tossed in in a huff. Other people theorized that Mark may have killed Ronda, since Ronda's sweater that was in his car 30 minutes before she was killed, wound up back in her car at the crime scene. So this seems to present only one real possibility that Mark somehow in that short period of time met up with Greg and gave him Ronda's sweater. And then Greg gave it all back to Ronda before she was shot. or somehow both Mark and Greg interacted with Rhonda leading up to her murder, and both of them gave her her belongings back.

The issue is there's really not much time for Mark and Greg to get in contact with each other and arrange to meet each other anywhere in a matter of minutes before Rhonda was killed. One possible scenario, however, is if Greg was already parked on the side of Mineral Springs Road when Mark was headed home. He might have passed. back through and recognized Greg's car. Maybe he stopped, thinking Greg was having car trouble, only for Greg to mention he was waiting for Rhonda. So he could have given the sweater to Greg to give back to Rhonda at that moment and then left. Jill recalled the car that Mark drove her home

in that night was a tan, two-door car. A theory is that Mark was headed home from Jill's house, saw Greg, stopped and talked to him and then headed home. Rhonda then met up with Greg. They argued and broke up, and as she drove off, she was shot. Accidentally, impulsively, or planned, nobody knows. It then seems as if Tim Pons or one of his friends came along, and one of them was the man witness as checking on Rhonda. In this scenario, it would explain the various cars seen around the crime scene that night. Mark Turner's car would have been the tan car. Tim Ponds and Mark Mickle would have been driving the Trans Am, and the blue Chevel described by a witness might actually be a Blue Chevy Nova, the kind of car reportedly driven by Greg McDale that belonged to his father.

One of Rhonda's coworkers recalled Greg picking Rhonda up from work for lunch one day in the Blue Chevy and noticed front-end damage on the car, which also matched an eyewitness description. Greg had talked to Rhonda right before she left her home. If he was going to confront her or ambush her, he knew what route she'd take. If Greg had been driving the car, parked under the interstate beach, bridge, then Rhonda would have had to turn left, the wrong direction, to meet up with him at the same spot. She would also then be facing away from home, so she would probably have had to make a U-turn to face north again. It makes sense to many for Rhonda not to want to meet at her home

late at night, have an argument with Greg that might wake her parents up. If she stopped to talk to Greg and rolled her window down, he could have shoved her belongings at her through the window. Again, Ronda being so safety conscious would not have rolled down the window for anyone she didn't know at that time of night. Due to this, there have also been theories that she was pulled over by a police officer who committed the crime and it was covered up. The Ronda normally called her parents when she was on her way home. The sudden change of plans in late hour meant.

that she didn't call to alert them. Only Sherry Pittman, her mother, and Greg McDowell knew that Rhonda was headed home that night. So if someone was lying and wait for Rhonda to pass by in an effort to ambush her, it was a short list of people that would have known when and where to strike. After the Hintzons called the McDowell home, Greg asked his father Charles to go look for Rhonda. Charles started by driving to the Pittman home and taking the route Rhonda would have taken home. Sherry Pittman has no idea how Charles knew where she lived. When he got to the crime, crime scene, Charles explained to officers who he was and what he was doing there, looking for Rhonda. And he was directed to go to the Hinson home. Once there, he called Greg and told him to come

over and join him. At the Henson home, Greg McDow reportedly made a beeline to Judy and Bobby's room and sat down motionless, not saying a word to anyone. The only time he wasn't sitting there in the days was when he was throwing up. Suspicion by many online still falls on Rhonda's boyfriend Greg McDow. Of course, Greg has never been charged in relation to Rhonda's murder. And if he is a suspect in the case, police aren't saying. Other people point to Mark Turner. After all, his own girlfriend saw him with Rhonda's sweater minutes before she was killed. And that sweater wound up in Rhonda's car at the crime scene. And as we mentioned, he claims that due to medication he was taking. He has no memory of how and if he returned that sweater,

either to Rhonda or to Greg. Jill and Mark Turner eventually broke up. Their relationship going downhill after Rhonda's murder due to Mark's coldness and lack of support toward Jill, his accounts of the night have been pretty shaky at best. But like Greg McDowell, Mark Turner has never been arrested in relation to this case. As far as physical, physical evidence in this case. A 30-caliber rifle round is the main clue, and maybe one day ballistics can match that round to a suspect's gun, but as of now, that hasn't happened. The lid of Rhonda's trunk was stored outside of the evidence room out in the open, and eventually lost. Fingerprints were taken from most of the doors of Ronda's Dotson, but police didn't bother

fingerprinting the passenger side door since it was locked. The prints too have been lost, so to put it mildly, the police in this case had been careless with evidence. and if you're Rhonda's family, that has to make you angry. Authorities have not stopped working on this case, despite the length of time that's gone by and the lost evidence. In 2001, Sheriff John McDevitt explained the complexity of the investigation to a newspaper called The Record. He said, one of the most discouraging factors of this case is there are so many suspects.

I've never zeroed in on one suspect and, wouldn't be surprised to clear or arrest any of the suspects. I can sit down with you and convince you that 10 people did it. But none of the suspects are any better than the others. In 2007, two investigators, Captain Becky Weatherman and SBI agent Mark Sharp were in the audience at a seminar regarding touch DNA. After this seminar, the two realized that they may have evidence they didn't even know they had sitting there the entire time. They told the record that they realized one of the few pieces

of evidence kept at the sheriff's office. Henson's sweater likely contained DNA from the person who pulled her from the car. Analysis at the SBI lab found that the DNA on the armpits of Ronda sweater, likely where someone hooked their arms or hands under hers to pull her from the car, did not belong to Ron. Who it does belong to is still a mystery to this day. There has never been a match, despite having been entered into Codas and the National DNA Index system.

Importantly, though, it did not match Brian Lohman, the young man who had asked Rhonda out on the morning of the 22nd. In 2015, Sheriff Steve Wisenet of the Burke County Sheriff's Sheriff's Sheriff's Office said to Fox News, we recently pursued what appeared to be a promising and viable lead several months ago that fell to produce the results we had hoped for, indicating that the case was still actively being investigated at the time.

In December 2021, investigators announced that they had new leads in the case, but they haven't disclosed what those were and the case is still open. They told socTV.com, we hold it deep in our heart to try and make an arrest, at least to find out who's responsible so the family can be at peace with it. Rhonda Henson loved the Christmas season, and she was born just days before Christmas and died days before Christmas. She was laid to rest on Christmas Day, 1981, 41 years ago. And for the last four decades, Rhonda's family has wondered, who murdered her and what.

If you have any information about Rhonda's murder, please call the Burke County Sheriff's Office at 828-438, 5506 or contact crime stoppers by calling 828 43733333. You can remain anonymous. There has been a $20,000 reward for information in this case. So more if, you know, as we wrap this one up, and I think to many, this is a very baffling case. There are a lot of players. And when you think about Greg, Mark, some of the individuals who, you know, happened upon the scene. The problem is, obviously, to this point in time, there is nothing that police have that concretely points to one person specifically, at least to the point where, you know, they would be able to charge someone.

But I think one of the reasons why so many people are fascinated by the death of Rhonda Hinson is because of all the mysteries that surrounded. You know, first, there are a number of people with whom she interacted that night or is thought to have interacted with that night. And then you have this shot from a high caliber rifle that, you know, ended up killing her. I want to go back to that shot for a minute and kind of talk about it. you know, if someone was deliberately trying to kill her, that would be a very tough way to do it.

Now, obviously, it did kill her. But to think that a bullet fired through a trunk, a back seat, and then traveling through the front seat would find its mark. There are no guarantees there whatsoever. Yeah, I think if someone was targeting her and wanted to kill her and, ensure that she was dead, they could have just as easily, you know, figured out a way to pull her over, walked up to the car, and shot her at close range through the window. So the idea that they would try this sniper-style shot, you know, we see in the movies and, you know, sometimes we see on police chase videos or something like that where they're shooting back and forth between moving

vehicles. But I think in reality, it would be very hard for anyone to get a shot at a moving vehicle and be so precise that they're able to hit the driver in the way they did and do that intentionally. So to me, it seems more of just a pot shot and whether that was fired by someone she knew or just some random person. I just don't think there's enough at the end of the day to conclude in my mind. No, because for me, there's just no way to know how that bullet would react going through, you know, so many different layers and different materials. You know, but to your point, was this fired by someone who was angry with her and maybe didn't mean to kill her, but fired a shot in anger that ultimately did kill her?

Or was it a shot fired indiscriminately that ended up killing her? So you've got that question. And then you, you know, you have the questions. surrounding her relationship with her boyfriend, possible breakup. There's the sweater with Mark. I mean, there's, there's just a lot to this. It's been 41 years.

And I think you and I, maybe when we started this podcast, would have said, ah, it's been so long. I don't know how this thing will be solved. And I don't think that way anymore. With some of the cases that we're seeing solved now,

I mean, they just identified the boy in the box. And so I'm more hopeful than I've ever been about some of these older unsolved crimes getting solved. Yeah, I'm hopeful as well. And I think in this case, one thing we still have, despite some of the lost evidence we mentioned, is that hopefully they still have the ballistics evidence and maybe that bullet can be matched up one day with someone's rifle. And they can tie that rifle to someone. and know for sure that it's the rifle that killed Rhonda. And one thing we don't know because there haven't been a lot of details released is if anyone at the scene that night or anyone that Rhonda knew had that kind of gun.

And if that gun's been checked for ballistics, you would have to think that if it was and there was a match, they probably would have charged someone. So either it hasn't happened or they just haven't been able to link it so far. Yeah, my fear on that front is that whether you fired the shot purposefully or accidentally, once you found out that Rhonda Henson died, a person most likely would have found a way to get rid of that gun. That's my thought. Yeah, especially if they're trying to cover up their involvement. But you never know. Like I said, we will have to wait and see.

It does sound like they're still, you know, actively. working this case. So there's hope. Yeah. And I'm at the end of the episode, I'm still left here with this whole 30-minute window. That's what nags me the most is because not many people knew that Rhonda was going home that night. She wasn't planning to. So if someone targeted her, that sort of makes a short list. And then we have the sweater that wound up in her car that just 30 minutes before was in someone else's car, a lot of stuff here to explain that's sort of loose ends that haven't been tied up. And, you know, maybe if police could tie some of those things up, it would help them solve this case. And you just mentioned the 30-minute window and not many people knowing

her plans. I think it's why so many people are focused on Mark and Greg, because there's just not that many people who knew where Rhonda Henson was going to be. Now, Now, I think what we haven't talked about, and I'd be remiss if I didn't, is a stranger, complete stranger. But then you have to factor in the sightings of all the vehicles and things like that. So is it impossible that she was killed by a complete stranger? I would say no, but I don't think most people believe that because of, you know, the sightings of the tan vehicles. the blue Chevy and those things kind of lining up with some of the players that we talked about. But that's it for our episode on Rhonda Henson.

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we hope everyone listening has a happy and safe holiday. So for Mike and Morf. We'll talk to you in two weeks. Happy holidays, everyone.