The unsolved murder of Rhonda Hinson

[Kane]

Today, Lifetime reran a segment about the 1981 murder of Rhonda Hinson. The murder in question occured in North Carolina. The segment, which aired in 1989, had no updates, so this case is officially unsolved.

Rhonda Hinson was murdered while en route home from a Christmas party. A motive was never established, but as mentioned in the segment, there were some things about Hinson that seemed odd. For example: according to her mother, Rhonda sometimes took showers late at night (which is typical for a woman who had been sexually abused). In addition, she once asked her mother whether or not it was okay to be involved with a married man.

If you ask me, I'd say that I personally think one or both of these factors may have, in some way, led to her death. My theory is that she either had an affair with someone or knew of someone who was having an affair.

The segment also mentioned that someone was apparently stalking Rhonda on the night of her murder, as well as the idea that she would never stop for a stranger. These details lead me to believe that she knew her killer.

Here's the link: http://www.burkesheriff.org/hinson.htm

[dynoguy88]

I saw the segment today as well. (the only other time I saw it was in 1989 when it first aired)

A murder case like this confuses many people. Rhonda was a well liked person who, to everyone's knowledge, never did anything wrong. Apparently, her strange behavior in the weeks prior to her murder is probably the only thing to go on.

Maybe she was just planning on having an affair with some guy, but decided it was wrong and was planning on telling the wife, so she was "shut up" before got the chance, who knows?

It saddens me to hear that the case still hasn't been solved.

[Kane]

Originally posted by dynoguy88
A murder case like this confuses many people. Rhonda was a well liked person who, to everyone's knowledge, never did anything wrong. Apparently, her strange behavior in the weeks prior to her murder is probably the only thing to go on.

Maybe she was just planning on having an affair with some guy, but decided it was wrong and was planning on telling the wife, so she was "shut up" before got the chance, who knows?

It saddens me to hear that the case still hasn't been solved.

It really is sad that no one has ever been charged with the murder of Rhonda Hinson. It's been a little over 20 years, and that's way too long. She shouldn't have been taken so soon in the first place.

That's an interesting theory, Dyno. Maybe she was about to get involved with a married man, but decided against it, only to be killed before she could rat on the wife. But whatever really happened that tragic night in December of 1981, it is apparent to me that Rhonda Hinson's murder had something to do with her odd behavior. It just can't be coincidental.

[Evadual]

I saw this case recently and I would probably say that Rhonda did know her killer. It makes a lot of sense with the odd behavior, and the fact she was found less than a mile away from her home. It appeared she may have been stalked and she did get shot from behind through the trunk of her car. I doubt that some person she didn't know, some stranger would just kill her for no apparent reason. In the UM episode, Robert Stack said there were a couple of white males spotted as well as a blue car, so who knows. There was also a guy who went under hypnosis and he saw a guy, not very big, 5'10 to 6'0 tall beside Rhonda's car moving her body around.

[themaninblack]

have there been any updates on this case?
at least one characteristic of the killer to go on would undoubtedly be expert marksmanship due to the path of the bullet.

[Viktory]

According to an article posted in the Morganton, NC newspaper in June, 2005, investigators have developed some new suspects in the Rhonda Hinson murder.

http://www.morganton.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=MNH/MGArticle/MNH_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031783370510&path=!frontpage

"Morganton - The Rhonda Hinson murder case has frustrated investigators for nearly 24 years. The Burke County Sheriff's Office may be getting closer to solving it.
"In the last couple of years we've developed some suspects," said Sheriff John T. McDevitt. "We've been looking at the case from a new angle.""

[Awsi Dooger]

Gad, after looking at that sheriff's department link this case will be more memorable to me. That car she was driving is almost identical to my first car, a white Datsun 210. Hers was beige but in that night time picture it can easily pass as white.

That wasn't much of an increase in reward, a few thousand bucks.

[idol]

A spooky tidbit to the story was that her mother woke up around 1 AM feeling something had happened and than both parents turned on the scanner to hear about a homicide.

[idol]

According to an article posted in the Morganton, NC newspaper in June, 2005, investigators have developed some new suspects in the Rhonda Hinson murder.

http://www.morganton.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=MNH/MGArticle/MNH_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031783370510&path=!frontpage

"Morganton - The Rhonda Hinson murder case has frustrated investigators for nearly 24 years. The Burke County Sheriff's Office may be getting closer to solving it.
"In the last couple of years we've developed some suspects," said Sheriff John T. McDevitt. "We've been looking at the case from a new angle.""

Hopefully Spike will have some sort of update on this case.

[DarkDante]

I don't think Spike will be able to update this case anymore than Lifetime was able to during its over a decade long run on that channel.

The problem with a lot of the UM cases that remain unsolved is that although the authorities in a lot of the cases you mentioned in your recent posts (Nyleen Kay Marshall, this one) probably have more information or have even developed new leads since the original UM broadcast, they would be unable to share that information with us because it may involve sensitive information about the case that they don't want to make public.

The Rhonda Hinson case is a perfect example of UM viewers not having all the pieces of the jigsaw. One question that always comes to mind regarding Hinson's murder is obviously why was she murdered in the first place? - There have been some suspicions regarding Rhonda may have been having an affair with an older man but is there any concrete evidence that this may have been happening besides Rhonda's one-off comment to her mother that was documented in the segment.

A few years ago, an article about the case mentioned that the authorities have several file cabinets full of information on the Hinson case and it is likely only a small portion of the infortmation they have on this case is detailed in the UM segment. Like all of the unsolved cases on UM, until the case is solved I don't think the general public will ever know any more information on these cases than what they already know at this time, for obvious reasons.