“I’ve worked for 41 years trying to find out what happened,” Judy Hinson told Dateline. “I’ve never let it go. I won’t let it go.”
Judy’s eldest child, 19-year-old Rhonda Hinson, was killed in 1981, just two days before Christmas in Burke County, North Carolina.
And ever since, the Hinsons have dedicated their lives to finding out what happened to Rhonda.
“She was funny, happy,” Judy said. “She loved everybody. She never met a stranger.”
Judy and her husband, Bobby Hinson, raised their two kids in the small town of Valdese, North Carolina. “Everybody knew everybody else,” Judy told Dateline. “[It] was a very nice place to live. A nice place to raise your children.”
“I got married really young,” Judy said. “My children was my life.”
According to Judy, everybody loved Rhonda. “She had a lot of friends,” Judy said. “She was the most loving, caring person.”
Jill Turner was Rhonda’s best friend. She told the Dateline the two became inseparable when they met in the fourth grade. “She was just a wholesome girl,” Jill told Dateline.
Jill said Rhonda was very popular in school. “She played basketball, she ran track, she was an outstanding tennis player,” she recalled. “She was very likable.”
Jill said the two were especially close their senior year of high school. “We did a lot of double dating,” Jill told Dateline. “We would just do the typical girl things, you know, have sleepovers, go to the movies.”
In June 1981, Jill and Rhonda graduated from high school. “She made the decision that she didn’t want to go to college,” Jill recalled. “She wanted to get a job.”
According to Rhonda’s mother, Judy, in September 1981, Rhonda began working as a keypunch operator at Hickory Steel Company about 20 minutes away from Valdese in Hickory, North Carolina. “She bought herself a new car,” Judy recalled. “[She] was really happy with her new car and her new job.”
Judy told Dateline that about three months into her new job, Rhonda was invited to attend a company Christmas party.
“She wasn’t sure she was going to the party,” Judy said. “She really didn’t want to go but her best friend at work said, ‘Well, I won’t go if you don’t go.’” So Rhonda decided to attend.
It was December 22, 1981.
Rhonda worked earlier in the day and called her mother before returning home to get ready. “At the last minute, Rhonda said, ‘Mom, go to town and pick me up an outfit to wear,’” Judy told Dateline. “She looked prettier than I had ever seen her.”
Judy told Dateline that Rhonda drove to her work friend’s house in Hickory and left her car there. She said the friend drove the two of them to the company party. “Rhonda had told me and her dad that she was going to stay in Hickory at the girlfriend’s house because she didn’t want to drive home alone that late,” Judy said.
But at some point in the night, Rhonda’s plan changed.
According to the Burke County Sheriff’s Office website, Rhonda left the party around midnight and “stopped by a friend’s house to pick up her vehicle and call her boyfriend.” Then, “after leaving the friend's residence, Rhonda drove her beige Datsun 210 two-door west on Interstate 40 and exited onto the Mineral Springs Mountain/Highway 350 off-ramp. She turned right (north) and began traveling up a steep hill toward her home.”
Judy told Dateline that she woke up that night with a bad feeling. “I woke her dad up and said, ‘Rhonda’s not home.’ He said, ‘You know that she’s spending the night with [her friend],’” Judy recalled. “And I said, ‘But I’m really scared, there’s something wrong, I don’t feel right.’”
Something was wrong.
According to the Burke County Sheriff’s Office website, “a high-powered rifle projectile was fired into [Rhonda’s] vehicle. The bullet entered the Datsun through the trunk and continued through the back seat and driver's side seat, entering Rhonda's back and piercing her lung and heart.” It goes on to say that “Rhonda was found lying in a ditch beside the open driver's side door of her Datsun. She was less than a mile from the home she shared with her parents in Valdese. The vehicle was running and apparently had rolled backwards across the opposite lane into a ditch near the top of the grade after Rhonda was shot.”
Judy told Dateline she knew her daughter was gone before she got the news. “I told my husband that Rhonda was dead,” Judy recalled. “He said, ‘Don’t say things like that.’ And I said, ‘I know that she’s dead.’”
Judy was right.
“I think maybe 2:30 a.m., maybe even 3:00, two of the police officers -- the detectives -- and another police officer came to our house and told us,” Judy told Dateline. Despite her ominous feelings earlier that morning, Judy was in denial that Rhonda was dead when the authorities to came to the door. “I said, ‘I don’t think it’s Rhonda. Look, she’s never been sick in her life, had everything to live for, and you’re saying she’s dead? I don’t believe that.’”
Rhonda’s best friend, Jill, recalled finding out about her friend’s murder. “I completely screamed at the top of my lungs and just destroyed about everything in my room,” Jill told Dateline. “It really, really messed with me.”
Jill said she wasn’t the only one in Valdese affected by Rhonda’s death. “There were a lot people initially that were afraid,” Jill said. “There were several weeks that, you know, we were all kind of uneasy.”
Instead of celebrating Christmas together, Rhonda’s friends and family were saying goodbye. “We had her viewing on the 24th and she was buried on Christmas day,” Jill said.
Rhonda’s mother, Judy, told Dateline that although she had no idea who would want to kill her daughter, she said in the days leading up to her death, Rhonda was acting strangely. “I could just tell a difference. She didn’t seem as happy,” Judy recalled. “Her dad worked at a bakery and had to go to work at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. He said when he would pass -- going past the house, [he] passed her window [and] she would be awake looking out the window,” which Judy said was unusual.
Judy told Dateline that Rhonda never told her parents why her behavior was changing. “She was a very private person,” Judy said. “She didn’t tell [us] anything.”
Questions and theories about Rhonda’s murder enveloped the small town of Valdese. The Burke County Sheriff’s Office even posted a couple on their website: “Did the assailant pull her body from the car? Did Rhonda know her assailant? Was this an act of random violence or a case of mistaken identity? Was anyone in the company of the shooter? What was the motive behind firing the fatal shot?”
Jill told Dateline that she has her own theory: That Rhonda knew her killer. “Rhonda was afraid of everything,” Jill said. “She would not have pulled off to the side of the road and said, ‘Hey, let me sit here.’”
Jill said she thinks Rhonda “came off the interstate that night and knew [someone] was going to be there waiting.”
Dateline spoke with Larry Griffin, who said he’s been doing investigative writing for years, but prefers the title of philosopher over reporter. He currently publishes his work in The Wilkes Record. In 2018, he took on Rhonda’s case.
“My youngest daughter happened to be born on December the 13th, 1972 -- 10 years to the day after Rhonda was born,” Larry said. “I thought to myself, ‘OK, well, that probably is a universal sign that I should take a look at this case.’”
Larry told Dateline he has published 95 articles on his investigation into Rhonda’s murder titled “The Killing of Rhonda Hinson,” and believes he knows what happened to her. “There’s no way it was an accidental shot,” Larry said.
Larry believes that there was only one way the bullet could have entered the car at the angle the way it did. He believes someone was “right directly behind the car” when she was shot.
Larry told Dateline that not only does he believe he knows how Rhonda was killed, but he believes he knows who killed her. “This case has been solved for a very long time,” Larry said. “Law enforcement knows who killed Rhonda.”
Dateline reached out to the Burke County Sheriff’s Office for comment and an update on the investigation, but has yet to receive a response. There are no named suspects or persons of interest in Rhonda’s murder.
Rhonda’s mother Judy told Dateline that she doesn’t know if her daughter’s case will ever be solved. “Too much time has gone by. Too many people passed away. Too much evidence has been lost or destroyed,” Judy said. “There are days that I’m so hopeful and I think we’re gonna know, and there’s days that I say, ‘We’re never going to know.’”
Dateline spoke with Judy on December 13, 2022 -- Rhonda’s birthday. “She would have been 60 years old today,” Judy said, tearfully. “It’s been a really hard day.”
According to the Burke County Sheriff’s Office website, “On January 8, 1982, Governor James B. Hunt issued a proclamation offering a $5,000.00 reward for information in this case that will bring the killer to justice. The town of Valdese is also offering a $5,000.00 reward. Along with funds set aside by Morganton-Burke Crimestoppers and private donations and pledges, the reward exceeds $20,000.00.”
Anyone with information about Rhonda’s murder is asked to call the Burke County Sheriff’s Office at 828-438-5506.
