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Rhonda Hinson Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:27
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chili, and once again
0:30
Speaker 1: it's just going to be Jewels and myself doing our
0:32
Speaker 1: next series of episodes because, as you probably know, Ashley
0:35
Speaker 1: has started a new career as a teacher, so she
0:37
Speaker 1: is quite busy right now. So we're giving her a
0:40
Speaker 1: break and we're going to go back to our format
0:42
Speaker 1: where I share the details of a case with Jewels
0:45
Speaker 1: that she's not familiar with, and she will give off
0:47
Speaker 1: her reaction to all the information I share. So, Jules,
0:50
Speaker 1: have you heard of the murder of Ronda Hinson?
0:53
Speaker 2: This one isn't ringing any bells for me?
0:55
Speaker 1: Okay. It was featured on Unsolved Mysteries and I covered
0:58
Speaker 1: it on The Trail Went Cold all the way back
1:00
Speaker 1: on episode number four, which would have been nine years ago.
1:04
Speaker 1: And I remember in twenty nineteen, an independent journalist named
1:08
Speaker 1: Larry Griffin started publishing a new series of articles about
1:12
Speaker 1: the case in a North Carolina based publication called The
1:15
Speaker 1: Wilkes Record. And this was a major deep dive involving
1:18
Speaker 1: tons of research where we learned pretty much everything about
1:21
Speaker 1: Ronda's life, the other people in her life, and the case.
1:24
Speaker 1: And I learned so much more new information about this
1:27
Speaker 1: case that I did not know before, and I figured
1:29
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to revisit this one sometime on
1:31
Speaker 1: the trail went cold. But the problem is is that
1:34
Speaker 1: a series of articles just kept going and going and going,
1:37
Speaker 1: and he kept publishing new ones, and he made it
1:40
Speaker 1: all the way to part eighty nine. There were literally
1:43
Speaker 1: eighty nine articles about this and it did not conclude
1:46
Speaker 1: until twenty twenty one. I did finally revisit this case
1:50
Speaker 1: on a Patreon exclusive bonus episode I released in December
1:54
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, but I wanted to go back
1:56
Speaker 1: to it now, and I've thought it would be fun
1:58
Speaker 1: for us to discuss the case.
2:00
Speaker 2: Wow, that's so in depth.
2:02
Speaker 3: That sounds like Tim and Lance's coverage of Mara Murray
2:06
Speaker 3: just so right into the minutia.
2:09
Speaker 1: Exactly like you pretty much learn everything about Ronda's life.
2:12
Speaker 1: And of course it caused me to look at this
2:14
Speaker 1: case in an entirely different life because the Unsaw Mystery
2:17
Speaker 1: segment they produced in nineteen eighty nine barely even scratch
2:21
Speaker 1: the surface of how crazy this case was. And of
2:24
Speaker 1: course there's no way I'll be able to share all
2:26
Speaker 1: the information from his articles on this particular series of episodes,
2:29
Speaker 1: So I'd encourage if you want to learn more afterwards,
2:32
Speaker 1: to seek out Larry Griffin's like eighty nine part series
2:35
Speaker 1: of articles about the murder of Ronda Hinson.
2:37
Speaker 3: I love when a journalist really sinks their teeth into
2:40
Speaker 3: a case and they not only provide the necessary nuance,
2:44
Speaker 3: but more contextual clues about who this person was, whatever
2:49
Speaker 3: potential entanglements they had, their relationships, what their job was like,
2:53
Speaker 3: what they liked, what they disliked. I love getting that
2:57
Speaker 3: really holistic viewpoint of who a victim was, so we
3:02
Speaker 3: can really truly understand who they were in their life
3:05
Speaker 3: and how this certain thing happened to them.
3:08
Speaker 2: And I think so.
3:08
Speaker 3: Often when we look back at you know, probably you
3:11
Speaker 3: look at your earlier episodes when there just wasn't the
3:14
Speaker 3: material for some of these cases, and you're looking at
3:16
Speaker 3: unsolved mysteries, you just you miss out in a lot
3:19
Speaker 3: of nuance.
3:20
Speaker 1: It's true, like it becomes pretty obvious as we as
3:23
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this that Ronda's personal life
3:25
Speaker 1: played a big role in what happened to her, and
3:28
Speaker 1: that now that we've got the full context, it's now
3:30
Speaker 1: seems we have a very solid theory about what might
3:33
Speaker 1: have happened. So the case takes place in nineteen eighty
3:37
Speaker 1: one in Burke County, North Carolina. Rondi Hinson was nineteen
3:40
Speaker 1: years old at the time and was living in the
3:42
Speaker 1: small town of Valdis with her parents, Judy and Bobby Hinson,
3:46
Speaker 1: and she also had a younger brother named Robbie. And
3:49
Speaker 1: after graduating from high school, Ronda did not seem to
3:52
Speaker 1: have much interest in attending college, so she got a
3:55
Speaker 1: job working in a clerical position at the Hickory Steel Company,
3:58
Speaker 1: which was located in the town of Hickory, about fifteen
4:01
Speaker 1: miles from her home. And on the evening of December
4:05
Speaker 1: the twenty second, Ronda decided to attend a workplace Christmas
4:08
Speaker 1: party which was being held at the Hickory American Legion Hut.
4:12
Speaker 1: And as far as our parents knew, she was probably
4:14
Speaker 1: going to be spending the night with a friend because
4:16
Speaker 1: she had a shift at the company the following morning
4:19
Speaker 1: and wanted to save herself the drive and if you
4:22
Speaker 1: watch the Unsolved Mystery segment, Judy Hinson talks about how
4:25
Speaker 1: at one am she was suddenly awoken from her sleep,
4:28
Speaker 1: having what she described as a eerie premonition, and she
4:32
Speaker 1: had this feeling that something bad had happened. So she
4:35
Speaker 1: got her husband, Bobby up and asked him to check
4:38
Speaker 1: the police band and he started hearing reports about a
4:40
Speaker 1: shooting that occurred, even though no details were broadcast, And
4:44
Speaker 1: sure enough, a couple hours later, a pair of detectives
4:47
Speaker 1: would show up at their home and inform them that
4:50
Speaker 1: Ronda had been shot. So this was a pretty eerie premonition.
4:55
Speaker 2: That is intense.
4:56
Speaker 3: I can't imagine what it would feel like to think that,
4:59
Speaker 3: or to I feel in your bones that something like
5:01
Speaker 3: that is going to happen, and then your logical mind
5:04
Speaker 3: is telling you this isn't going to happen, like you're
5:07
Speaker 3: not right, you're not correct. But I think that whether
5:10
Speaker 3: it's mother's intuition, or whether it's some kind of otherworldly
5:16
Speaker 3: thing that we have yet to explain, or it's quantum
5:19
Speaker 3: entanglement where you know we are connected to those who
5:23
Speaker 3: are close to us when it's from a DNA type
5:26
Speaker 3: of a bond, or you could say that everybody is
5:29
Speaker 3: connected if we are going to ascribe to the Big Bang.
5:31
Speaker 3: So there's lots of different ways to look at why
5:33
Speaker 3: somebody gets a premonition in how it could actually come true,
5:37
Speaker 3: or any other type of psychic phenomenon. But that is
5:41
Speaker 3: pretty mind blowing for me when that happens in a case.
5:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can understand why this would be a
5:47
Speaker 1: case that Unsolved Mysteries would want to feature, because they
5:49
Speaker 1: not only feature true crime, but they also looked at
5:51
Speaker 1: the paranormal. And this wasn't the only case where someone
5:55
Speaker 1: said that I had a weird feeling or I had
5:56
Speaker 1: a weird premonition that someone I loved was going to
5:59
Speaker 1: be harmed, and then sure enough it actually came true.
6:02
Speaker 1: But here it was particularly shocking because this was a
6:04
Speaker 1: small town in North Carolina, which was not known for
6:07
Speaker 1: violent crime. So one of the odds that you would
6:09
Speaker 1: just be waking up with this bad feeling in the
6:11
Speaker 1: middle of the night about your daughter and then a
6:14
Speaker 1: couple hours later discovered that she had been murdered. So
6:18
Speaker 1: it turned out that Ronda had not decided to spend
6:21
Speaker 1: the night at her friend's house. She was planning to
6:23
Speaker 1: drive home, and her car had been discovered in a
6:27
Speaker 1: ditch on Mineral Springs Mountain Road at about one point
6:30
Speaker 1: fifteen am, and it was only about a half mile
6:32
Speaker 1: away from her parents' house, the driver's side door was opened,
6:36
Speaker 1: the engine was still running, but Ronda was lying dead
6:39
Speaker 1: on the ground a few feet away from the vehicle.
6:42
Speaker 1: And it turned out that she had been killed by
6:44
Speaker 1: a single gunshot wound, which had been fired from a
6:46
Speaker 1: high powered rifle. And incredibly, it turned out that the
6:49
Speaker 1: bullet had traveled through the car's trunk, through the back
6:53
Speaker 1: seat and the driver's seat before it pierced Ronda straight
6:56
Speaker 1: through the heart and her lung, killing her instantly. Because
7:00
Speaker 1: she was found at the side of the road with
7:02
Speaker 1: her arms at her side, they figured, no, there's no
7:05
Speaker 1: way she could have crawled out on her own because
7:07
Speaker 1: she would have been killed instantly. So they figured that
7:10
Speaker 1: someone had to have gone over to her car after
7:12
Speaker 1: it crashed into the ditch and removed her body and
7:15
Speaker 1: placed it on the road. But it was just so
7:17
Speaker 1: freaky because it looked like a shot that likes some
7:19
Speaker 1: high powered assassin would have fired. Because one of the
7:22
Speaker 1: odds that would have traveled through all these obstacles and
7:25
Speaker 1: get Ronda like point blank in the heart.
7:28
Speaker 3: I think it comes down to that question, is it
7:30
Speaker 3: because somebody has this incredible level of skill, or is
7:34
Speaker 3: it just one of those low probability shots that just
7:38
Speaker 3: happened in this case.
7:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the big mystery here about whether this
7:42
Speaker 1: was premeditated murder or a freak accident, because obviously a
7:45
Speaker 1: nineteen year old girl is not going to be someone
7:48
Speaker 1: that you would picture being shot by a sniper from
7:50
Speaker 1: an elevated position and in a professional assassination. So it
7:54
Speaker 1: just seemed like it might have been dumb luck, that
7:56
Speaker 1: maybe someone was just playing to fire a shot at
7:59
Speaker 1: or a scare or something like that, and just by
8:01
Speaker 1: a freak accident, it traveled through the trunk, the back seat,
8:04
Speaker 1: the driver's seat, and then got her right in the heart.
8:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awful. I mean, she didn't have any connections
8:10
Speaker 3: to anyone who was in the military or who had
8:13
Speaker 3: any great deal of skill with a rifle. I mean,
8:16
Speaker 3: this is South Carolina.
8:18
Speaker 1: Correct, North Carolina, North.
8:20
Speaker 2: Carolina, one of the Carolinas.
8:22
Speaker 3: Okay, so people there, I don't know how much of
8:26
Speaker 3: a gun culture there is, but I feel like there
8:29
Speaker 3: is a gun culture. Would I be correct in saying that.
8:32
Speaker 1: Yes, Because they felt that the murder weapon was a
8:34
Speaker 1: hunting rifle, and hunting was very popular in that particular area,
8:38
Speaker 1: so it did not seem out of the ordinary that
8:40
Speaker 1: she would know one or more people who would have
8:42
Speaker 1: owned a hunting rifles. So at the time, it didn't
8:44
Speaker 1: really stick out that there was anyone that seemed like
8:47
Speaker 1: a likely candidate to have fired a shot like that
8:49
Speaker 1: at her. So when you looked at the route from
8:54
Speaker 1: a Hickory to Bald's, what she would need to do
8:57
Speaker 1: is travel west on Interstate forty and then use the
9:00
Speaker 1: Exit one twelve off ramp to drive onto Mineral Springs
9:03
Speaker 1: Mountain Road where she was found. And the off ramp
9:06
Speaker 1: was located next to a bridge which ran over the
9:08
Speaker 1: road and Ronda's car was only two hundred yards away
9:11
Speaker 1: from it. And an eyewitness would come forward and say
9:14
Speaker 1: that sometime between twelve fifteen and twelve thirty am, about
9:18
Speaker 1: forty five minutes before Ronda was discovered, they were driving
9:21
Speaker 1: under the Interstate bridge and noticed a blue Chevrolet containing
9:24
Speaker 1: two white males park there. About twenty five to forty
9:28
Speaker 1: minutes later, another motorists claimed that they were driving on
9:31
Speaker 1: Mineral Springs Mountain Road. It was a truck driver named
9:33
Speaker 1: Reggie Smart and noticed what appeared to be a Chevrolet
9:37
Speaker 1: vehicle speeding away from the scene, and it appeared to
9:40
Speaker 1: be blue or gray, and he described it as having
9:43
Speaker 1: a bumper that looked like it was messed up and
9:46
Speaker 1: had damage to it. And then almost immediately thereafter, Smart
9:49
Speaker 1: said that he drove past Ronda's Datson while it was
9:52
Speaker 1: in the ditch and noticed an unidentified man standing by
9:55
Speaker 1: the driver side door and a woman who appeared to
9:58
Speaker 1: be slumped over the steering wheel in the front seat.
10:01
Speaker 1: And then shortly thereafter he drove back, he passed by
10:04
Speaker 1: what appeared to be a dark transam, which likely belonged
10:07
Speaker 1: to the man standing next to Ronda's vehicle, And at
10:10
Speaker 1: the time Smart just thought this was a couple who
10:12
Speaker 1: had been drunk or something like that, so he didn't
10:15
Speaker 1: think it was anything serious. But then when he found
10:17
Speaker 1: out that Ronda had been killed at that location, he
10:20
Speaker 1: instantly contacted the police and they placed him under hypnosis
10:24
Speaker 1: to see if he could remember any more details. But
10:26
Speaker 1: even though he was certain he had seen a man
10:28
Speaker 1: pulling Ronda out of the front seat, he did not
10:31
Speaker 1: get a good look at his face to provide a description,
10:34
Speaker 1: but it seemed obvious that the person who did this
10:36
Speaker 1: was probably the person who shot her, because otherwise, why
10:39
Speaker 1: wouldn't they have contacted the police.
10:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, that I can't really think of any other explanation
10:46
Speaker 3: for why somebody would pull her body from the vehicle
10:49
Speaker 3: except for to see if she was indeed alive, to
10:51
Speaker 3: see if they could render aid. And imagine if you had,
10:54
Speaker 3: by accident shot her and then you go to the
10:58
Speaker 3: vehicle and you realized she's dead, like there's absolutely nothing
11:02
Speaker 3: that you can do to help her, and maybe somebody
11:05
Speaker 3: just went into self preservation mode, going, no, one's going
11:08
Speaker 3: to understand why I'm randomly shooting at vehicles, trying to
11:11
Speaker 3: scare people, just trying to have a I don't know,
11:14
Speaker 3: quote unquote good time. I don't know if that's what
11:16
Speaker 3: this person or people were doing, but I could see
11:20
Speaker 3: that law enforcement would end up charging them with men's
11:23
Speaker 3: slaughter potentially. So if you're looking at jail time, I
11:27
Speaker 3: could see pulling the person's body from the vehicle and
11:29
Speaker 3: going I can't do anything for them, and then panicking
11:32
Speaker 3: and leaving, Or if it was somebody who had intentionally
11:36
Speaker 3: done it, maybe you're going to see if this person
11:38
Speaker 3: is alive. But I think that you could see that
11:40
Speaker 3: without having to pull them from the vehicle, So that
11:43
Speaker 3: makes me lean towards that it was an accident.
11:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's why opinions were sharply divided for many years,
11:49
Speaker 1: because if it was a premeditated murder, it's a huge
11:51
Speaker 1: risk to actually go up next to the vehicle and
11:54
Speaker 1: handle her body. Because as we saw, Reggie Smart passed
11:58
Speaker 1: by and saw him and this person and was just
12:00
Speaker 1: very lucky that he didn't get a good enough look
12:03
Speaker 1: to provide a description. And I think that a person
12:05
Speaker 1: would only do that if they were surprised that Ronda
12:08
Speaker 1: was killed, that they fired off a shot but wasn't
12:10
Speaker 1: intending to murder her, and then just had to go
12:13
Speaker 1: over and check. And once they realize, oh my god,
12:15
Speaker 1: she was killed, instantly I have to high tail it
12:17
Speaker 1: out of there. And the whole description of the two
12:20
Speaker 1: men seen in the car, it's interesting how Reggie Smart
12:24
Speaker 1: saw the car matching that description, the white or sorry
12:27
Speaker 1: the gray or blue Chevrolet speeding off while this second
12:31
Speaker 1: man was standing next to Ronda's body. So they wondered
12:35
Speaker 1: maybe they were sitting in the car together and one
12:38
Speaker 1: of the guys decided to high tail it out of there,
12:40
Speaker 1: while the other person decided to stay at the scene
12:42
Speaker 1: and check if Ronda was still alive.
12:45
Speaker 3: That's possible, and I could see a world where if
12:49
Speaker 3: it was their objective to end her life, that you
12:52
Speaker 3: would want to go and verify that you.
12:54
Speaker 2: Did indeed do that.
12:56
Speaker 3: So I cannot see pulling her body out of the vehicle,
13:00
Speaker 3: because you could check a pulse. You can see if
13:02
Speaker 3: somebody is deceased by just checking a pulse, by seeing
13:06
Speaker 3: are they breathing, checking for breath, without hauling them out
13:09
Speaker 3: of the vehicle. So that step is like the one
13:12
Speaker 3: step that I'm like, oh, I don't know, But if
13:15
Speaker 3: you were trying to kill her, then I could see
13:18
Speaker 3: wanting to verify that you did indeed finish the job.
13:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that might be what happened that maybe just
13:24
Speaker 1: if it was a premanitated murder one of the people,
13:27
Speaker 1: maybe because they had their own vehicle, this dark trans am,
13:30
Speaker 1: they just wanted to double check while their accomplice just
13:33
Speaker 1: sped away from the scene.
13:35
Speaker 3: Can you imagine though, if it was indeed, if that
13:37
Speaker 3: is indeed what happened, You're there checking to verify if
13:40
Speaker 3: you were successful at killing somebody, or you accidentally killed somebody,
13:44
Speaker 3: and your buddy's just like deuces seal you later and
13:47
Speaker 3: speeds off.
13:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be pretty shocking, So I can only
13:50
Speaker 1: imagine that they had quite an argument or so if
13:53
Speaker 1: they were in on this together. So, of course, because
13:57
Speaker 1: Ronda had been killed, her parents started like looking back
14:00
Speaker 1: and trying to think if there were any strange behaviors
14:03
Speaker 1: that might have given some hints about who would have
14:05
Speaker 1: had a motive to kill her. And I know that
14:08
Speaker 1: to Ronda always used to drive everywhere on her own,
14:11
Speaker 1: but in the weeks and months prior to her death,
14:13
Speaker 1: she started telling her father to accompany her whenever she
14:17
Speaker 1: took trips into town, and during one of these trips,
14:20
Speaker 1: Ronda suddenly told Bobby that she had something bad to
14:23
Speaker 1: tell him, which he probably wouldn't like, and Bobby said
14:27
Speaker 1: urged her to come clean, saying, whatever it is, just
14:29
Speaker 1: tell me, but Ronda said she would think about it
14:31
Speaker 1: and never did tell him what was wrong. And a
14:34
Speaker 1: short time later, Ronda had a conversation with her mother, Judy,
14:38
Speaker 1: and she randomly decided to ask if it was ever
14:40
Speaker 1: okay to date a married man, and Judy told her
14:44
Speaker 1: that it was not okay because it would only lead
14:46
Speaker 1: to people getting hurt. But Ronda pretty much ended the conversation,
14:49
Speaker 1: never provided any context about why she asked this, and
14:53
Speaker 1: they never found any information that she was having an
14:55
Speaker 1: affair with a married man. But of course people started
14:58
Speaker 1: to wonder because of this, we question, in this weird
15:01
Speaker 1: conversation with her father, was there something bothering her and
15:04
Speaker 1: was there someone out there who might have had a
15:06
Speaker 1: motive to Harmer.
15:08
Speaker 3: I would say, based on her actions, it's pretty easy
15:12
Speaker 3: to deduce that she felt like she was in some
15:14
Speaker 3: kind of danger, because I can remember being a nineteen
15:17
Speaker 3: year old girl.
15:18
Speaker 2: You love your independence.
15:19
Speaker 3: The last thing that you're going to do, unless you
15:21
Speaker 3: feel unsafe, is to ask your dad to accompany you everywhere.
15:25
Speaker 3: I would say that is extremely atypical, especially since it
15:29
Speaker 3: was a new thing that she was doing. And then
15:31
Speaker 3: to ask that very specific question about a married man,
15:35
Speaker 3: I would say that there's a very high probability that
15:39
Speaker 3: she was sleeping or it had a relationship with a
15:41
Speaker 3: married man, because otherwise, why would you ask that question
15:45
Speaker 3: unless you were thinking about doing it.
15:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's what they wondered, is that maybe she
15:50
Speaker 1: hadn't actually gone through with it, but she was thinking
15:52
Speaker 1: about it. Maybe she had a crush with another married
15:55
Speaker 1: man she knew. But of course you feel so bad
15:57
Speaker 1: for Judy and Bobby in these situations because after she's killed,
16:00
Speaker 1: they're just kicking themselves saying that I really should have
16:03
Speaker 1: pushed her harder about this, maybe we could have prevented
16:05
Speaker 1: her death. But at the time they just wanted to
16:07
Speaker 1: give ron to some space and pretty much said, well, well,
16:10
Speaker 1: we'll let this go, and if ron wants to tell
16:13
Speaker 1: us something, she will, and they never dreamed that she
16:15
Speaker 1: would wind up dead a short time later.
16:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got to feel bad for the parents, especially
16:21
Speaker 3: your father, because I can't imagine you're told I've got
16:24
Speaker 3: something big to tell you, but she doesn't share with him.
16:27
Speaker 3: That is going to literally haunt him for the rest
16:30
Speaker 3: of his days, because every day you're going to kick
16:33
Speaker 3: yourself and go.
16:34
Speaker 2: Why didn't I push harder? Why didn't I ask her?
16:37
Speaker 3: And the answer is probably she wasn't ready to share
16:40
Speaker 3: that information, or she would have shared it with him already.
16:44
Speaker 3: And as sad as it is, you can't change what
16:47
Speaker 3: wasn't shared in the past. And I just I feel
16:51
Speaker 3: so deeply for them because to have your nineteen year
16:54
Speaker 3: old daughter taken away from you is difficult enough, but
16:57
Speaker 3: when you couple it with the mysterious circumstances, asking about
17:00
Speaker 3: the married man having her father accompany her saying there's
17:04
Speaker 3: something big that she needs to tell him, and then
17:06
Speaker 3: she's just she's gone.
17:07
Speaker 2: It's so sad.
17:09
Speaker 1: It is. And this is not the only cold case
17:11
Speaker 1: I've seen where parents said that their child was exhibiting
17:14
Speaker 1: strange behavior and making cryptic remarks prior to their death,
17:17
Speaker 1: and of course they wish they had done things differently
17:20
Speaker 1: and pressed them harder about it to find out what
17:22
Speaker 1: was wrong. But of course, hindsight is twenty twenty. And
17:26
Speaker 1: there's another strange event that happened because in the weeks
17:28
Speaker 1: leading up to her death, Ronda started growing paranoid and
17:31
Speaker 1: suffering from insomnia, and she would often get up in
17:34
Speaker 1: the middle of the night to compulsively take showers. And
17:37
Speaker 1: when her mother asked why she kept doing this off
17:39
Speaker 1: and Ronda simply said that it was because she quote
17:42
Speaker 1: unquote fell dirty. And of course, after her murder, police
17:46
Speaker 1: officers were telling her that this is behavior that is
17:49
Speaker 1: frequent in sexual assault survivors, where sometimes they will just
17:52
Speaker 1: feel a compulsive need to take showers because of what
17:56
Speaker 1: they'd experienced, so of course now they were wondering if
17:59
Speaker 1: something like that might have had in to Ronda, and
18:01
Speaker 1: she just never told them about it.
18:03
Speaker 3: That hit me like a punch in the gut, like personally,
18:07
Speaker 3: because I myself, I'm a survivor of sexual assault, and
18:11
Speaker 3: so I know that feeling that you said, and on
18:14
Speaker 3: like a.
18:15
Speaker 2: Cellular level, that visceral feeling of.
18:17
Speaker 3: Feeling dirty, needing to feel clean, and needing to wash
18:21
Speaker 3: one's self to do so.
18:22
Speaker 2: So I completely can identify with that.
18:26
Speaker 3: And I can't see any other scenario where somebody would
18:30
Speaker 3: say I feel dirty unless they made choices that they
18:34
Speaker 3: weren't happy with. But to me, it speaks to very
18:38
Speaker 3: high probabilities that there was likely some type of sexual assault.
18:43
Speaker 3: Maybe somebody was threatening her or making her feel unsafe
18:47
Speaker 3: and in doing.
18:48
Speaker 2: So, there was a sexual assault.
18:50
Speaker 3: Because oftentimes it's not necessarily about the sex, it's about
18:54
Speaker 3: the power. So if somebody's trying to intimidate her, it
18:57
Speaker 3: seems like that could be a tool I wish to do.
19:00
Speaker 1: So, Yeah, we're gonna be talking more about this later.
19:03
Speaker 1: How it's never been conclusively proven if Ronda was sexually assaulted,
19:07
Speaker 1: but we will find out that there was someone in
19:09
Speaker 1: her personal life who sounds like they could have been
19:12
Speaker 1: capable of doing that. But of course, sadly, back in
19:15
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, there was just not as much understanding
19:17
Speaker 1: about sexual assaults, so I don't think it even occurred
19:20
Speaker 1: to Ronda's parents until after they were told by police
19:23
Speaker 1: that this was common behavior, And of course they wound
19:26
Speaker 1: up like getting angry with themselves again saying that they
19:28
Speaker 1: should have pressed Ronda harder about it, but they just
19:31
Speaker 1: never imagined that she would wind up dead in a
19:34
Speaker 1: very short time. So, like I mentioned earlier, the case
19:37
Speaker 1: was featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries which aired
19:40
Speaker 1: in November of nineteen eighty nine, and all the information
19:43
Speaker 1: I've just shared with you is all the information that
19:45
Speaker 1: was presented in that segment. But as we're going to
19:48
Speaker 1: find out, there's a lot more that they didn't reveal,
19:50
Speaker 1: which will cause you to look at this case in
19:53
Speaker 1: a different light and offer a lot of insight. It
19:56
Speaker 1: would turn out that some latent, unidentified fingerprints have been
19:59
Speaker 1: found on the window of the driver's side door of
20:02
Speaker 1: Ronda's vehicle, which did not belong to her or anyone else.
20:05
Speaker 1: For her family, but in the nineteen nineties, Ronda's parents
20:08
Speaker 1: learned that the police had lost this windshield and the
20:11
Speaker 1: fingerprint evidence, so unfortunately it's never been matched to anyone.
20:15
Speaker 1: And they did DNA testing on her sweater in two
20:18
Speaker 1: thousand and seven and found traces a male DNA which
20:21
Speaker 1: did not match anyone else from her family either and
20:24
Speaker 1: has yet to be matched to anyone. But they figured
20:27
Speaker 1: that the DNA was probably left there by the person
20:29
Speaker 1: who handled her body and left it by the side
20:32
Speaker 1: of the road.
20:34
Speaker 3: Well, it's always nice when there's DNA, and at least
20:38
Speaker 3: moving forward, there's a potential that it could be linked
20:42
Speaker 3: through genetic genealogy or by some other means, so at
20:47
Speaker 3: least there is a profile there, So there's a potential
20:51
Speaker 3: that if that person ever gives their DNA or a
20:53
Speaker 3: family member does, that they could be identified.
20:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been reported that there's only one person that
21:00
Speaker 1: has ever been ran against the DNA. It was a
21:02
Speaker 1: young man named Brian Lohman, who had asked Ronda out
21:06
Speaker 1: on a date shortly before she was killed. But of
21:09
Speaker 1: course the DNA did not match, and Brian is not
21:12
Speaker 1: considered to be a suspect. But surprisingly it has not
21:15
Speaker 1: been run against anyone else, even though, as we're going
21:17
Speaker 1: to talk about, there's some other people in Rhonda's personal
21:20
Speaker 1: life that it should have been compared to because there's
21:22
Speaker 1: a good chance it might match them. So it might
21:25
Speaker 1: just be a thing where maybe they have asked other
21:27
Speaker 1: people but they've refused to comply, and because they're not
21:31
Speaker 1: technically a suspect or a person of interest, the police
21:33
Speaker 1: have just never collected their DNA.
21:36
Speaker 2: So they haven't put it into a database.
21:39
Speaker 1: Not that I know of. No, surprisingly, I mean maybe
21:42
Speaker 1: because it's kind of a small town police department, But
21:45
Speaker 1: obviously I can understand them not doing it in two
21:47
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. But now that we're in twenty twenty
21:50
Speaker 1: five and we have genetic genealogy and DNA could be
21:53
Speaker 1: matched to anyone, is surprising that they haven't done more
21:56
Speaker 1: with this evidence.
21:58
Speaker 3: I feel like they have the answer to the likely
22:01
Speaker 3: who could have potentially done.
22:02
Speaker 2: This in their evidence.
22:05
Speaker 3: If they actually pursued this and did the testing that
22:07
Speaker 3: they needed to do, put it into a database explore
22:10
Speaker 3: genetic genealogy, they likely could.
22:12
Speaker 2: Find an answer. Just like with you and all of
22:15
Speaker 2: your list Verse top.
22:17
Speaker 3: Tens, with the John and Jane does, and like nine
22:20
Speaker 3: of them have got their identities back now exactly.
22:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, like so many cases that I've written about ten
22:25
Speaker 1: years ago have wound up being solved, and a whole
22:28
Speaker 1: bunch of John and Jane Doees have been identified because
22:30
Speaker 1: of DNA. But though, as we're going to talk about,
22:33
Speaker 1: I should add the disclaimer that it's never been conclusively
22:36
Speaker 1: proven that the DNA belongs to the person who killed hers,
22:39
Speaker 1: So it is possible that even if they did match
22:41
Speaker 1: it to someone that it wouldn't be enough evidence to
22:44
Speaker 1: prove that they conclusively committed the murder. But we'll go
22:47
Speaker 1: into more of that later on.
22:49
Speaker 3: Do they get into what kind of DNA it was like,
22:52
Speaker 3: if it was like spit or semen or blood or
22:55
Speaker 3: skin cells.
22:56
Speaker 1: They didn't really go into details. I am assuming it's
22:59
Speaker 1: probably touched DNA. I don't think it was spit or
23:02
Speaker 1: anything like that. That maybe just when they handled her
23:04
Speaker 1: body they left her DNA on the sweater, And of
23:06
Speaker 1: course back in nineteen eighty one they wouldn't have been
23:08
Speaker 1: thinking about that.
23:10
Speaker 2: But was touched DNA even a thing in two thousand
23:12
Speaker 2: and seven, I.
23:15
Speaker 1: Think it was. Yeah, I can't be one hundred percent sure,
23:18
Speaker 1: but I know that DNA testing has advanced so much
23:21
Speaker 1: that maybe if they did further testing on the sweater,
23:24
Speaker 1: they could find better DNA evidence.
23:26
Speaker 3: Okay, So, according to Perplexity, touch DNA also known as
23:32
Speaker 3: trace DNA, began to be used in forensic science in
23:35
Speaker 3: the early two thousands. The concept of analyzing DNA from
23:38
Speaker 3: skin cells left behind by touch was first explored in
23:41
Speaker 3: the late nineties, with genetic profiles from finger marks being
23:44
Speaker 3: described in nineteen ninety seven by Ravan or Shot. However,
23:50
Speaker 3: it wasn't until the early two thousands that touched DNA
23:52
Speaker 3: became a widely used tool in forensic investigations. So, yeah,
23:56
Speaker 3: that checks out two thousand and seven. It is likely
23:58
Speaker 3: it could have been touched DNA. I was thinking that,
24:01
Speaker 3: like touch DNA wasn't until like the twenty tens, so
24:04
Speaker 3: that it must have been fluid, and it's hard to
24:06
Speaker 3: explain away fluid. But then again, you also can't put
24:10
Speaker 3: a date on that. Somebody could have some kind of
24:13
Speaker 3: fluid on a sweater and if you haven't washed that sweater,
24:15
Speaker 3: and you could have worn it like six months ago
24:18
Speaker 3: not washed it, warn it again, and that DNA is
24:21
Speaker 3: from somebody that you came in contact with months.
24:23
Speaker 1: Ago, that's true. I mean, for all we know, she
24:25
Speaker 1: could have gone to the Christmas party and dance with someone,
24:28
Speaker 1: and that person could have left their DNA on her sweater.
24:31
Speaker 1: So you just can't conclusively prove that the DNA was
24:33
Speaker 1: left there by the killer, because anyone could have touched
24:36
Speaker 1: that sweater over the course of the night, or even
24:39
Speaker 1: weeks or months earlier. So when I first put together
24:42
Speaker 1: my trail went Cold episode. The last source I use
24:45
Speaker 1: was an article that was published in December of twenty fifteen,
24:48
Speaker 1: around the anniversary of Ronda's murder, and at that time
24:52
Speaker 1: they interviewed Judy and Bobby Hinson, and they both had
24:56
Speaker 1: devisive opinions about how this crime was carried out, because
25:00
Speaker 1: he was certain that it was a planned, premeditated murder,
25:02
Speaker 1: but Bobby was leaning towards it being just kind of
25:05
Speaker 1: a freak accident where someone was firing off a gun
25:08
Speaker 1: that night, wasn't intending to kill anyone, but just by
25:11
Speaker 1: a force of nature, it just wound up passing through
25:13
Speaker 1: the trunk of her car and hitting Ronda in the heart.
25:16
Speaker 1: And he was hoping that if someone did that that
25:19
Speaker 1: they would come forward and at least admit what happened,
25:22
Speaker 1: and I have to admit that at the time I
25:24
Speaker 1: put together my podcast episode, I did lean more towards
25:27
Speaker 1: this being a freak accident because they never named anyone
25:31
Speaker 1: as a suspect or person of interest, They never revealed
25:33
Speaker 1: any information about Ronda having anyone in her personal life
25:37
Speaker 1: who had a motive to kill her. And also the
25:39
Speaker 1: fact that we have description of two cars that were
25:42
Speaker 1: seen next near the murder scene, the gray or blue
25:45
Speaker 1: Chevy and the dark trans Am. So I'm thinking to myself,
25:48
Speaker 1: if Ronda had any friends or acquaintances who drove vehicles
25:52
Speaker 1: matching that description, we probably would have heard about it
25:54
Speaker 1: by now. So that's why I was leaning towards the
25:57
Speaker 1: idea that a stranger did this, and I kind of
26:00
Speaker 1: formulated a theory. Have you ever seen the Brad Pitt
26:04
Speaker 1: Cate Blanchett film Babel.
26:06
Speaker 3: Yes, that was exactly what came to my head when
26:08
Speaker 3: you initially were explaining the case.
26:11
Speaker 2: I'm like, isn't that like the plot of Babel?
26:13
Speaker 1: Yes? Great, great minds think alike, that's cool, that's cool
26:16
Speaker 1: that you've seen it. But yeah, I mentioned it during
26:18
Speaker 1: my original episode because as you're a call, there's a
26:21
Speaker 1: storyline in there about these two kids in the Moroccan
26:24
Speaker 1: desert who decide to fire off a rifle from a
26:26
Speaker 1: high cliff, and by a freak occurrence, the bullet winds
26:29
Speaker 1: up passing through a tour bus that's like several miles
26:32
Speaker 1: away and why owns up seriously wounding Kate Blanchett's character.
26:36
Speaker 1: And of course these boys panic because there's a police
26:39
Speaker 1: investigation trying to find out who the shooter was, even
26:42
Speaker 1: though they were just playing firing off the rifle and
26:44
Speaker 1: just never dreamed that it would pass through this bus
26:47
Speaker 1: so far away. So I was thinking it was a
26:49
Speaker 1: similar situation with Ronda's killer, that maybe they got drunk.
26:52
Speaker 1: We're firing off a hunting rifle from an overpass just
26:55
Speaker 1: for the hell of it, and then by a freak occurrence,
26:58
Speaker 1: the bullet passed through Ronda's trunk and wound up killing her.
27:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was exactly where my mind went, and I
27:05
Speaker 3: thought this has to be an accident, because if it
27:08
Speaker 3: wasn't an accident, even if you are this highly trained sniper,
27:13
Speaker 3: you're working with a lot of variables when you're shooting
27:15
Speaker 3: through a vehicle. I would think that you would likely
27:18
Speaker 3: make at least two shots just to make sure that
27:20
Speaker 3: you hit your target. And are we going to assume
27:24
Speaker 3: that this is a highly trained sniper, I mean probably not.
27:26
Speaker 3: Even if they're a hunter, I would still think that
27:30
Speaker 3: you might want to take more than one shot if
27:32
Speaker 3: that was your intent.
27:35
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well that was my original theory and kind of
27:38
Speaker 1: a spoiler alert, but I'll say that I've now changed it.
27:41
Speaker 1: I'm still not sure if this was a murder and accidents,
27:43
Speaker 1: but I don't believe it was done by a complete stranger,
27:46
Speaker 1: because now I have learned about someone who may have
27:49
Speaker 1: had a motive to do this. So in that same
27:52
Speaker 1: article from December of twenty fifteen, it mentioned that Ronda
27:56
Speaker 1: had a boyfriend at the time, which I did not
27:59
Speaker 1: know it was not me during the unsawd mystery segment,
28:02
Speaker 1: and had mentioned that he was attending North Carolina State
28:06
Speaker 1: University in his freshman year but had recently come home
28:09
Speaker 1: from the holidays. And it was not until I read
28:11
Speaker 1: Larry Griffin series of articles that I finally learned more
28:14
Speaker 1: information about him, and a number of red flags went up.
28:18
Speaker 1: His name was Greg McDowell, His father, Charles McDowell, was
28:22
Speaker 1: a pastor at a local church, and Greg and Ronda
28:26
Speaker 1: have been together for about two years at that point,
28:29
Speaker 1: and even though they seemed like the perfect couple at first,
28:32
Speaker 1: a lot of people thought that Greg was starting to
28:34
Speaker 1: become more controlling and possessive of Ronda. He loved to
28:37
Speaker 1: obsessively write notes to her, but then would get frustrated
28:40
Speaker 1: if he felt that she wasn't reciprocating his feelings enough,
28:44
Speaker 1: and Judy noticed that as the relationship went along, Ronda's
28:47
Speaker 1: behavior began to change. She started doing worse in school,
28:51
Speaker 1: and when Greg went off to North Carolina State University
28:54
Speaker 1: and Ronda remained in town, he frequently phoned and wrote
28:58
Speaker 1: to her, and things got really bad right before the
29:01
Speaker 1: holidays because he had been he'd always been very critical
29:03
Speaker 1: about Ronda's weight, and then wrote her a letter saying
29:06
Speaker 1: that by the time I come home for the holidays,
29:08
Speaker 1: I want you to lose a few pounds. And it
29:11
Speaker 1: also turned out that Greg's mother, Betty McDowell, worked at
29:15
Speaker 1: the same employer as Ronda, the Hate Grey Steel Company,
29:18
Speaker 1: and she apparently told her son, don't worry, I will
29:21
Speaker 1: take this opportunity to keep an eye on Ronda. While
29:23
Speaker 1: you're at university, so number of red flags there.
29:28
Speaker 3: This is disgusting the fact that you've also got the
29:31
Speaker 3: mother enlisted to help, quote unquote keep an eye on Ronda.
29:35
Speaker 3: What are you keeping an eye on? Making sure she's
29:37
Speaker 3: not flirting with other guys, making sure she's the appropriate
29:40
Speaker 3: amount in love with you, making sure that during lunch
29:44
Speaker 3: she's eating a calorie reduced meal so that she can
29:47
Speaker 3: lose weight. I hate when any man or woman, or
29:50
Speaker 3: anyone tries to interfere with somebody's body autonomy and tell
29:54
Speaker 3: them that they need to be a certain weight in
29:56
Speaker 3: order to be attractive. People, especially women, feel enough pressure
30:02
Speaker 3: from society to look a certain way. They certainly don't
30:05
Speaker 3: need a partner like McDowell who's going to be saying
30:08
Speaker 3: you need to lose weight and also pushing his emotions
30:12
Speaker 3: on her in like this very controlling manner that if
30:16
Speaker 3: she doesn't reciprocate that, she somehow isn't a good partner.
30:20
Speaker 3: And it's like, we all have to come to whatever
30:24
Speaker 3: emotional feelings we have within a relationship in an organic manner.
30:29
Speaker 3: You can't be forced or coerce by another person, because
30:32
Speaker 3: that isn't a true emotional evolution and the fact that
30:36
Speaker 3: he's trying to force her emotions to evolve.
30:39
Speaker 2: You just can't.
30:40
Speaker 3: That isn't a genuine connection, And it feels like there's
30:43
Speaker 3: some kind of coerceive control going on here.
30:46
Speaker 1: Oh definitely. And the more I tell you about the McDowell's,
30:48
Speaker 1: as we go along, you'll realize that they were a
30:51
Speaker 1: pretty weird family in general. And I mentioned earlier that
30:54
Speaker 1: Ronda just didn't have much interest in attending college. I
30:57
Speaker 1: think she was just excited to stay in her hometown
30:59
Speaker 1: where her first job, and people now in retrospect think
31:03
Speaker 1: that she was kind of excited to have some independence
31:05
Speaker 1: because she figured, well, Greg will be away at school,
31:07
Speaker 1: I'll finally get to work my own job and have
31:10
Speaker 1: some freedom and independence. But of course he was constantly
31:13
Speaker 1: checking on her and was pretty much using his own
31:15
Speaker 1: mother as a spy, so that made her get even
31:19
Speaker 1: more unhappy, even though like they were barely seeing each
31:21
Speaker 1: other anymore. So I know that Ronda initially said that
31:26
Speaker 1: she did not really want to go to the Christmas party,
31:29
Speaker 1: but people became a parent that she really did want
31:32
Speaker 1: to go, but she wanted to go without Greg because
31:34
Speaker 1: he figured that if he came along, he would probably
31:37
Speaker 1: boss her around, embarrass her, and prevent her from having
31:40
Speaker 1: a good time, So she ultimately put her foot down
31:43
Speaker 1: and said, I'm going to the Christmas party, Greg, but
31:45
Speaker 1: I want you to stay home, and that apparently made
31:47
Speaker 1: him quite upset. So on the night of December the
31:50
Speaker 1: twenty second, while she was getting ready for the party,
31:53
Speaker 1: Ronda received several phone calls at home from Greg, and
31:56
Speaker 1: while her parents did not know the content of these calls,
31:58
Speaker 1: they said that none of them last longer than three minutes,
32:01
Speaker 1: and it appeared that Ronda was going out of her
32:03
Speaker 1: way to prevent them from overhearing her conversations. But from
32:07
Speaker 1: what they did here, Ronda's parents felt that Greg was
32:11
Speaker 1: doing what he could to make Ronda feel bad for
32:13
Speaker 1: not inviting him to the party and trying to ruin
32:15
Speaker 1: her night.
32:16
Speaker 3: I love that she didn't invite him to the party
32:18
Speaker 3: and was like, you've got to say this one out.
32:20
Speaker 3: I want to have fun, but it just sucks for
32:23
Speaker 3: Ronda that his mother is there and like keeping an
32:27
Speaker 3: eye on everything that she's doing. I can't imagine what
32:30
Speaker 3: that would feel like that like you're finally you have
32:33
Speaker 3: this financial freedom, you have this freedom in having this
32:36
Speaker 3: job and you're really excited about it. Sounds like a
32:38
Speaker 3: decent job, and yet you're being spied on all of
32:43
Speaker 3: the time. You've got these watchful eyes. Any conversation that
32:46
Speaker 3: she has with any male in the work environment, I'm
32:50
Speaker 3: sure is going to be scrutinized heavily by McDowell's mother.
32:54
Speaker 3: I'm I just I feel like you would just feel
32:58
Speaker 3: so trapped, even in this situation where he's so far
33:02
Speaker 3: away at university. You've got all this distance, but yet
33:05
Speaker 3: you don't even have the freedom that should come along
33:07
Speaker 3: with that.
33:08
Speaker 1: It's true, yeah, so, And I don't know the timing,
33:11
Speaker 1: but it would be crazy if it turned out that
33:12
Speaker 1: Betty got the job at the steel company after Ronda
33:16
Speaker 1: did for the express purpose of keeping an eye on her.
33:19
Speaker 1: And makes me wonder too, because it sounds like Greg's
33:21
Speaker 1: father was also controlling and probably didn't want his wife working,
33:25
Speaker 1: so she might have actually been allowed to get this
33:27
Speaker 1: job just so that she could keep an eye on Ronda.
33:29
Speaker 1: It was just a very weird situation.
33:31
Speaker 2: Do you feel like Ronda was working her way up
33:34
Speaker 2: to dumping him?
33:36
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, And as we're going to talk about,
33:38
Speaker 1: there been speculation that maybe she did eventually tell Greg
33:42
Speaker 1: that she was breaking up with them, and that this
33:43
Speaker 1: could have set him off on this particular night.
33:46
Speaker 3: Because I feel like, if you're going to tell a
33:48
Speaker 3: guy that he can't come to a Christmas party with you,
33:51
Speaker 3: just in my own personal opinion, I would be pretty
33:54
Speaker 3: ready to dump them at that point. If I don't
33:57
Speaker 3: really care about their feelings and them coming to a
34:00
Speaker 3: party that should be for me and then my significant
34:03
Speaker 3: other and it's like, no, sweetie, you can sit this
34:06
Speaker 3: one out, I would be ready to be like, see
34:08
Speaker 3: you later. This relationship isn't working for me. I feel
34:11
Speaker 3: like she's just taking baby steps in order to get
34:14
Speaker 3: to that point.
34:15
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking as well. Like, she never told
34:17
Speaker 1: anyone that she was planning to break up with Greg,
34:20
Speaker 1: but I could see a lot of warning signs to
34:22
Speaker 1: indicate that she was going to do this in the
34:24
Speaker 1: near future. So, like I mentioned earlier, after the party,
34:28
Speaker 1: Ronda was planning to spend the night at a friend
34:30
Speaker 1: of hers named Sherry Pittman because she lived in Hickory
34:33
Speaker 1: and Ronda had to work the following morning, so she
34:36
Speaker 1: figured she would stay there in order to save herself
34:38
Speaker 1: a drive, but according to Sherry, after Ronda drove her home,
34:43
Speaker 1: Ronda went to the phone and had a conversation with someone,
34:47
Speaker 1: and it turned out it was probably Greg, even though
34:50
Speaker 1: they never actually heard the conversation. But according to Sharry
34:53
Speaker 1: and her mother, Ronda just suddenly changed her mind and said,
34:56
Speaker 1: I'm not going to spend the night, I'm going to
34:58
Speaker 1: go home now. And Ron then said that she had
35:01
Speaker 1: spoken to Greg and he was extremely angry, so she
35:03
Speaker 1: just didn't want to stay there and would go home instead.
35:06
Speaker 1: And this is a very important detail because other than
35:09
Speaker 1: the Pittmans, Greg would have been the only one who
35:12
Speaker 1: knew that Ronda would be returning home that night and
35:15
Speaker 1: driving that particular route where she would get off the
35:18
Speaker 1: Interstate and go down the off ramp onto Mineral Springs
35:21
Speaker 1: Mountain Road back to her house. When Greg was initially
35:24
Speaker 1: questioned by the police, he said that when he received
35:27
Speaker 1: the phone call from Ronda, he initially thought that she
35:29
Speaker 1: was calling from her own house, but then he later
35:32
Speaker 1: changed his story and said that, oh yeah, I knew
35:34
Speaker 1: that she was calling from Sherry's house. And that seems
35:37
Speaker 1: pretty damning because once again, there would have been no
35:39
Speaker 1: one else who knew that Ronda would be on that
35:42
Speaker 1: particular road at that particular time of night.
35:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the probability that it's some stranger seems extremely low.
35:50
Speaker 3: And the fact that he freaked out about her staying
35:54
Speaker 3: at Sherry's I can only imagine how that conversation went, like,
35:58
Speaker 3: you're probably with a guy. You're probably just hiding that,
36:02
Speaker 3: and you're cheating on me, and you know, how dare you?
36:05
Speaker 3: You better get your ass home type of a situation.
36:08
Speaker 3: And then I can't think of any other reason where
36:11
Speaker 3: she'd be like, oh, it's just easier for me to
36:13
Speaker 3: go home than have to deal with all of this
36:15
Speaker 3: from him. Because if it was just you're staying at
36:18
Speaker 3: your girlfriend's house and he wasn't accusing you of any
36:20
Speaker 3: of that stuff, then I wouldn't see it being such
36:23
Speaker 3: a big deal. But I'm sure that he was just
36:26
Speaker 3: making a big deal about it because at that time
36:29
Speaker 3: of the night to actually get up and drive home,
36:32
Speaker 3: you were probably really worried about some kind of nuclear
36:35
Speaker 3: fallout from.
36:36
Speaker 1: Him, exactly, Like, it's so impractical to drive fifteen miles
36:40
Speaker 1: back to your parents' house when you could just get
36:42
Speaker 1: up the following morning and go to work. In the
36:44
Speaker 1: same town. But one theory which has been pushed forward
36:47
Speaker 1: is that, even though they can't confirm this on this conversation,
36:50
Speaker 1: there's a possibility that maybe Ronda was going to arrange
36:53
Speaker 1: a meetup with Greg somewhere later that night, and maybe
36:56
Speaker 1: she was finally going to break up with them, but
36:58
Speaker 1: that's when things escalated and when horribly wrong. So, like
37:02
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, after Judy had that weird premonition and
37:06
Speaker 1: woke up in the middle of the night and her
37:08
Speaker 1: husband checked the police band and heard about a shooting,
37:11
Speaker 1: they decided to call the Pittman residence to find out
37:13
Speaker 1: if Ronda was there, and were surprised to learn from
37:16
Speaker 1: Sherry that Ronda had changed her mind and decided to
37:19
Speaker 1: go home, which got them very worried because it only
37:22
Speaker 1: takes fifteen miles to get there and she should have
37:24
Speaker 1: been home by that very point. So they decided to
37:27
Speaker 1: call the McDowell residents to see if Greg or anyone
37:30
Speaker 1: else from the family knew where Ronda was, and the
37:33
Speaker 1: call was answered by Greg's father, Reverend Charles McDowell, and
37:37
Speaker 1: he told Bobby that he would go out and look
37:39
Speaker 1: for Ronda, and sometime later he came across Ronda's vehicle
37:43
Speaker 1: on Mineral Springs Mountain Road, which had now been courted
37:46
Speaker 1: off as a crime scene because they found her body.
37:49
Speaker 1: At this particular point, Ronda's family had not been notified
37:52
Speaker 1: about what happened to her, so Charles volunteered to accompany
37:55
Speaker 1: the two detectives to the Hintson residence, where they were
37:58
Speaker 1: finally told that Ronda had been murdered. Shortly thereafter, the
38:03
Speaker 1: Hinson's decided to call the McDowell residents to notify Greg
38:06
Speaker 1: about what happened, and then Charles got on the line
38:09
Speaker 1: and suggested to Greg that he and his mother should
38:11
Speaker 1: come by the Hinson residence to see him there, and
38:15
Speaker 1: they soon arrived, but Judy and Bobby would later say
38:18
Speaker 1: that Greg appeared to be freshly showered and shaved, which
38:21
Speaker 1: they found very unusual because he had claimed that he
38:24
Speaker 1: was woken up in the middle of the night by
38:26
Speaker 1: their phone calls, so there's really no reason he should
38:28
Speaker 1: have gotten into the shower and shaved after being informed
38:33
Speaker 1: that his girlfriend had been murdered, and then he apparently
38:36
Speaker 1: spent the next several hours sitting on the bed inside
38:39
Speaker 1: Judy and Bobby's room and he never spoke to them,
38:42
Speaker 1: and he only got up a few times to go
38:44
Speaker 1: into the bathroom in order to vomit.
38:46
Speaker 3: Oh, it's so difficult to understand how somebody is going
38:50
Speaker 3: to respond to grief. And I know there isn't one
38:53
Speaker 3: like a one size fits all, but I will say
38:56
Speaker 3: that it is very odd that he's freshly showered and
38:59
Speaker 3: probably selling of Irish spring or whatever. And you know
39:03
Speaker 3: that smell like when somebody's just freshly showered, and like
39:07
Speaker 3: it lasts in the morning, but like if it's six
39:09
Speaker 3: hours later, even four hours later, that smell of soap
39:12
Speaker 3: or unless somebody's using cologne or whatever has likely dissipated.
39:16
Speaker 2: So I would say that.
39:17
Speaker 3: Their observation that he showered recently is probably accurate. And
39:22
Speaker 3: you'd have to then wonder, why are you trying to
39:25
Speaker 3: wash away evidence and then sitting in isolation and not talking.
39:30
Speaker 3: Are you trying not to incriminate yourself? Are you feeling guilty?
39:34
Speaker 3: And I would say that the vomiting would back up
39:37
Speaker 3: the fact that he likely maybe he didn't intend to
39:40
Speaker 3: kill her, maybe he did intend to just scare her
39:43
Speaker 3: and in the end he killed her, But he had
39:46
Speaker 3: to have known that there was a possibility that he
39:47
Speaker 3: could have injured her, and then dealing with the ramifications
39:51
Speaker 3: for his choices is leading him to be physically ill.
39:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, people deal with grief in different ways,
39:59
Speaker 1: And just because he didn't want to speak to Ronda's
40:01
Speaker 1: parents does not necessarily mean he's holding back and incriminating
40:05
Speaker 1: a secret. But the fact that he didn't just cry
40:07
Speaker 1: but then wound up vomiting is a sign that, like,
40:10
Speaker 1: he was feeling physically ill over the whole thing, and
40:12
Speaker 1: you would think that that would be the result of
40:14
Speaker 1: guilt rather than just grief.
40:16
Speaker 3: I mean, I will say too, just to play Devil's advocate,
40:20
Speaker 3: I've been so upset in scenarios where I've been physically
40:25
Speaker 3: ill and it's not over grief. It's over something that's
40:27
Speaker 3: been done to me. So there is a possibility, but
40:31
Speaker 3: I would say that in most instances it would come
40:35
Speaker 3: from people probably feeling sick about what they've done. Like
40:38
Speaker 3: you hear about people getting sick at murder scenes, right,
40:41
Speaker 3: vomiting after they've done that, because it's just your body
40:45
Speaker 3: has this visceral reaction to committing this egregious act against
40:50
Speaker 3: another human being. Unless somebody is like a stone cold
40:53
Speaker 3: psychopath and they have absolutely no feeling about it. But
40:57
Speaker 3: I would just say that it does seem odd. But again,
41:01
Speaker 3: like we both mentioned, people respond to grief in different ways,
41:05
Speaker 3: so we're looking at it through the lens of all
41:07
Speaker 3: of these other weird behaviors that he's exhibited leading up
41:10
Speaker 3: to her death, and now we're seeing this in the aftermath.
41:14
Speaker 2: So it looks odd.
41:16
Speaker 1: It does. Yeah, like this on its own wouldn't be
41:18
Speaker 1: very incriminating, but when you combine it with some of
41:20
Speaker 1: the other strange behavior from Greg and his family, you
41:23
Speaker 1: can see why this is considered to be suspicious. So
41:27
Speaker 1: that brings it in to part one of our coverage
41:29
Speaker 1: about the murder of Rond Hinson. But join us next
41:32
Speaker 1: week for our coverage on part two.
41:35
Speaker 4: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
41:37
Speaker 4: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
41:39
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
41:41
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
41:45
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
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Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
41:51
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
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Speaker 1: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
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Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
42:01
Speaker 1: The Trail Went Cold's original feed, So they're exclusive to
42:04
Speaker 1: Patreon and if you join our highest tier, Tier three,
42:07
Speaker 1: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
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Speaker 1: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaved Mysteries,
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Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
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Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
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Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
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Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
42:28
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
42:31
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
42:34
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
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Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
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Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
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42:44
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
42:45
Speaker 4: about the Jewels and Nashty Patreons. So there's early ad
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Speaker 4: free episodes of the Path Went Chili. We've got our
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Speaker 4: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
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Speaker 4: so they're not very many, but they're just too short
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Speaker 4: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those.
43:00
Speaker 4: We hope you'll check out those patreons will link them
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Speaker 4: in the show notes.
43:04
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
43:06
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
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43:11
Speaker 1: You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
43:14
Speaker 1: You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So
43:17
Speaker 1: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
43:20
Speaker 1: trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
43:22
Speaker 4: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy