Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, your host on Pushing Up Lilies. In this episode, we’re taking a closer look at the heartbreaking 1981 murder of 19-year-old Rhonda Hinson, a North Carolina teen whose life was brutally cut short just two days before Christmas. Found on the side of the road, Rhonda’s tragic death sent shockwaves through her community and remains shrouded in mystery decades later. We’ll piece together the known details, explore the lingering questions, and examine the emotional aftermath that still resonates with her loved ones. Join me as we dive into this cold case, hoping to shed light on a Christmas tragedy that continues to haunt those seeking justice for Rhonda. * Listener discretion is advised.
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0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I'm your host, Julie Mattson.
0:10 Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual, and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:31 Hey guys, it's Christmas.
0:33 I noticed the other day that a lot of the stores I like to shop at are open till 11 at night and so it was really nice because when I discovered it, I went at about 10:30 and there was literally no one there.
0:46 I have to say it's the first time I've ever been in Home Goods by myself.
0:51 It was pretty amazing.
0:53 I could be locked in there all night, and it wouldn't hurt my feelings at all.
0:56 I love HomeGoods and TJ Maxx and Marshalls.
0:59 Those are stores that I shop in all the time.
1:02 I feel like if you don't go weekly, you're going to miss some of the new stuff that they put out.
1:07 Anyway, I hope everyone is done with their Christmas shopping.
1:10 I am one of the lucky ones that gets to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year.
1:18 I could have taken off because I do have seniority in our office, but I feel like every once in a while, even with seniority, it's important to let your coworkers be off, so that they can enjoy their families, and, you know, that's kind of part of being in this field and also being a nurse, you know, that people die all the time and you're just going to have to be on call occasionally on a holiday.
1:47 We have to remember our police officers and firefighters and death investigators and nurses and dispatchers and all those who have to work on the holidays.
1:59 They don't always get time off.
2:02 I'm fortunate when I work holidays or when anyone from our office works holidays, we get to work from home.
2:08 Not everyone has that luxury.
2:11 It's something that we definitely don't take for granted because we know that that could go away at any given time.
2:18 For right now, it is really nice not to have to sit in the office all day and wait on phone calls.
2:24 That way, we can still spend some time with our families during the holidays.
2:28 Hope everyone is being safe.
2:31 I know that today I've had several hospice calls.
2:34 It's always sad to me when I get calls for people that die any time of year, but especially around the holidays, especially when it's unexpected.
2:45 The hospice deaths aren't.
2:47 So hard to swallow, but the other unexpected deaths where young people are experiencing chest pain and then code in the emergency room, those are always difficult to deal with because I mean, we do have to talk to their family after the fact and you know, you just feel terrible for them because you know that it's the day before Christmas and they just lost their loved ones.
3:14 Anyway, I ran across a story, and I know last year around Christmas time I covered Christmas deaths, and you know, as if death is not depressing enough, why do we have to talk about deaths that happen on Christmas?
3:30 I just decided to kind of veer off that path this year for whatever reason.
3:35 I feel like a lot of the stories are overtold.
3:38 And I don't want to bore y'all with things that you can find on the internet at the drop of a hat.
3:45 Anyway, I ran across the story of a 19-year-old.
3:49 Her name was Rhonda Henson, and she lived with her parents in rural Valdez, North Carolina.
3:57 That's about 70 miles northwest of Charlotte.
4:01 She worked as a key punch operator for the Hickory Steel Company.
4:07 Everyone loved her.
4:08 Everyone thought very highly of her, but I think for several weeks before her death, she wasn't acting like herself, and no one really knew why.
4:19 You know, sometimes we all have moods, and we all have things that get us down.
4:24 Some people don't talk about it.
4:25 It's good to talk about it, but not everyone does and not everyone can.
4:30 But apparently something was going on with Rhonda and she didn't really feel comfortable talking to anyone about it because no one really knew why she was acting strangely.
4:41 On December 22nd of 1981, this happened before I graduated high school, the Hickory Steel Company hosted a Christmas party.
4:53 At the party, Rhonda seemed to have gotten over whatever it was that had been bothering her.
4:58 She danced and she mingled with people, and she seemed happy.
5:04 Everyone that was at the party felt like finally whatever it was, was no longer tormenting her and that she was finally enjoying herself.
5:15 The party ended shortly after midnight on the morning of December 23rd.
5:24 Rhonda had graduated high school just six months earlier.
5:28 So like I said, she had a job.
5:30 But while she was in school, she made good grades.
5:33 She was very popular.
5:35 She was very good at sports, very athletic, and she was particularly good at tennis.
5:42 But again, everyone noticed that she had seemed kind of depressed and preoccupied and not quite herself for about, like I said, 3 weeks prior to her death.
5:56 She was also having physical symptoms.
5:59 She began suffering from insomnia, like many of us do.
6:04 As I've gotten older, I tend to wake up every morning at like 3:30.
6:09 I don't know what it is about 3:30, but I wake up every morning about 3:30.
6:13 I'm wide awake and I cannot get back to sleep.
6:16 Rhonda suffered from insomnia and occasionally she would get up in the middle of the night and take a shower, like she felt dirty.
6:27 She got to where she really wouldn't go anywhere alone.
6:31 It was abnormal for her to want to be anywhere by herself.
6:35 But again, she never really talked about what was bothering her, so no one knew, but everyone noticed and, you know, it makes you wonder, did anyone really just come out and ask her.
6:49 I know that she apparently had a lot of really close friends.
6:52 She had a boyfriend at the time.
6:55 I'm just kind of curious if anybody ever just like took that step and asked her what was going on.
7:03 But Rhonda told her dad Bill that she needed to tell him something, but she was afraid to tell him.
7:12 She appeared to be ashamed of whatever it was, and she assured her dad that she had not done anything wrong, she hadn't done anything illegal.
7:23 She wasn't at risk of being arrested.
7:25 It was nothing like that.
7:27 But there was something she was ashamed of that she needed to tell her dad, but she never disclosed to him what it was.
7:36 So the conversation kind of went unfinished.
7:40 A couple of weeks later, Rhonda asked her mom Judy if it was OK for a woman to date a married man.
7:48 It's always a hard question for a mom, but Judy, like every other mom, told her that it was not OK.
7:56 Judy wasn't quite sure why Rhonda asked the question.
8:01 Rhonda never reiterated why she was asking, and Judy didn't really feel comfortable pressing her about it, so she really didn't ask her any other questions.
8:12 Probably just assuming she was talking about a friend's mom or someone she knew or something she had seen on television.
8:20 There was no press to further question Rhonda.
8:26 Rhonda's friends had talked her into attending the Christmas party at the American Legion in Hickory, which is where the steel company had their Christmas party.
8:40 Rhonda drove her Datsun 210 from her home to her friend's home in Hickory, and then she left her car there, and the friend drove her and another girl to the party.
8:53 So, three girls going to a party together.
8:55 Again, here's Rhonda.
8:57 Not really wanting to travel anywhere alone.
9:01 The party ended at midnight and the friend driver dropped the third friend off at her home and then drove Rhonda back to Hickory where her car was.
9:13 Now from there, Rhonda made a phone call to her boyfriend, Greg McDowell at the time, and the two chatted.
9:21 The party that Rhonda went to.
9:24 As most company Christmas parties, you're allowed to bring a significant other.
9:28 Rhonda was allowed to bring a significant other to this company party, but Greg chose not to attend, and I don't know what the reason is, but this kind of brings us about some suspicion later as far as I'm concerned.
9:45 Now Rhonda then began the 10-mile drive back to her house from Hickory.
9:51 Apparently, she was fit to drive.
9:55 Those at the party said that she didn't have much to drink, that she seemed fine, they didn't feel like she was intoxicated or that her driving abilities would be anything other than normal.
10:09 Bob and Judy, her parents said that Rhonda told him that she planned to stay at the friend's house so she wouldn't have to drive home alone that late, which kind of goes into play with what she'd been, you know, not wanting to be alone, to go out alone and that kind of thing.
10:27 It fits that, but apparently at some point, she changed her mind, and so she did decide to drive home.
10:36 Now Rhonda got on I-40 and exited onto the Mineral Springs Mountain Highway 350 off-ramp.
10:44 She turned right and began traveling up a steep hill towards her home.
10:49 At 1 o'clock in the morning, her car was found along the ramp about half a mile from her home, so she was almost home.
10:59 When her car was found, the vehicle was running, and the driver's side door was open.
11:06 This is always frightening to me because a group of teenage boys found Rhonda dead a few feet away from the vehicle, lying in a ditch kind of beside the driver's side door.
11:20 You can imagine being a teenager, like finding a dead body.
11:24 I know that not too long ago here we had a body, someone was murdered and dumped in a nearby creek and teenage boys found her.
11:35 And then we also had one that was murdered and stuffed into a duffel bag and was found floating in the lake and teenagers found her too.
11:46 I can imagine those boys have PTSD.
11:49 It's something that I as a death investigator, see every day, but not something that a teenage boy would probably ever expect to see in his lifetime.
11:59 An autopsy was done and determined that Rhonda had been killed by a single bullet fired from a high-powered rifle, and the bullet had apparently by the looks of the car passed through the trunk.
12:13 It went through the back seat and then through the driver's seat and pierced her lungs and her heart.
12:21 It appeared that Rhonda's car rolled backwards across the opposite lane into a ditch after she was shot.
12:29 She was on that steep hill near that exit just almost home.
12:33 Once she was shot and lost consciousness, her car rolled backwards across into the opposite lane into the ditch.
12:41 Police believe that the assailant pulled her body out of the car and placed it into the ditch, and this is another really interesting part of our job.
12:52 When the injuries are consistent with the person not being able to move.
12:58 Then we know that someone moved them.
13:01 In a case like this, trace evidence would be very important.
13:06 DNA found on the clothing.
13:10 And so there's a good chance they did DNA trace because when I tell you more about the story, you'll understand.
13:16 But because of that, police believe that the assailant or the person that shot her pulled her body out of the car and placed it in the ditch.
13:25 The injuries were consistent with someone who would die instantly or believed to be at least instantly incapacitated, so that she wouldn't really be able to crawl or get out of the car at all on her own.
13:39 A woman driving under the I-40 bridge on Mineral Springs Mountain Road between 12:15 and 12:30 observed a blue Chevrolet facing north along the off ramp that Rhonda used to take the exit, and there were two white nails in the vehicle.
13:58 So this is, you know, someone that's come forward afterward, found out what happened, and added what they thought they had seen that would contribute to the investigation.
14:09 It was determined that the sighting was about half an hour before Rhonda was shot and only about 200 yards from where her body was found.
14:19 There's a very good chance that this vehicle and these two men were involved in her death.
14:26 Now later that morning, another witness passed a similar car driven by one white male speeding away from what was believed to be the murder scene.
14:36 Now I don't know how much later that morning.
14:38 They didn't really give me a time, but I guess the point is there were people in the area close to that time.
14:45 They were probably never identified because at the time, no one even knew she was dead and there was no suspicion.
14:51 I guess it pays to play really close attention because you never really know when something's going to happen, and you'll have to try to remember things.
14:59 As that witness continued down the road, he saw Rhonda's vehicle parked and noticed a woman slumped over the steering wheel and a man standing at the door.
15:11 Again, he paid very little attention.
15:14 He thought that because it was early, early in the morning that it was probably a drunk couple that he was helping her and she wasn't feeling well and so not knowing, he didn't pull over, which thank goodness, because he probably would have gotten shot too, really when you think about it.
15:31 There's a very good chance that this was after she was shot, this man standing over her is the one that moved her out of the vehicle.
15:39 Under hypnosis, and this is so cool because it's like even back then, OK, this is back in'81, they were doing hypnosis.
15:47 I would love to do that.
15:48 If anyone's done that, like, let me know.
15:50 I'd love to hear.
15:51 But under hypnosis, the witness recalled the car as a blue 1970s model Chevelle with gray primer on it, and the front of the vehicle appeared damaged.
16:03 The man that he saw was approximately 5'10 to 6 ft tall with a medium build and dark brown hair.
16:10 It is crazy to me that hypnosis can bring those memories back.
16:16 I just really be curious to see if anybody's had that done before.
16:20 The witness also saw a second car, believed to be either a black or blue Trans Am parked down the road.
16:28 Investigators believe that's the car that may have been driven by the killer.
16:33 Some friends, you know, everyone develops their own opinion about what happened, but some friends believed that she had a crush on an older man and had been fantasizing about someone older who was married, or that she was already actively having an affair with a married man.
16:56 Some people believe that because she asked her mom if it was OK, and so the general consensus was maybe that was something that was going on with her.
17:06 Now the habit that Rhonda had of getting up in the middle of the night and taking a shower, indicating that she felt dirty, those are actions that are often taken by women who have been sexually abused.
17:22 There was apparently no evidence of sexual abuse or sexual assault.
17:27 She had never outcried to anyone, and they just kind of thought that that behavior was a little bit odd and was possibly indicative of somebody who had been assaulted, feeling dirty or feeling used, those types of things, getting up several times during the night.
17:45 Now others believed her death to just be random.
17:48 You know, some people thought, oh, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
17:53 Someone mistook her for someone else, a case of mistaken identity.
17:58 The mention of two men nearby suggested maybe an organized hit and a possibility that she was killed by mistake, again that they mistook her for somebody else.
18:10 But some also believe there's a slight possibility that she was shot by somebody just shooting for fun.
18:18 Out in the country, you know, in the middle of nowhere, early in the morning thinking they can't hurt anybody cause nobody's around, nobody's up, nobody's in the area, or even a hunter.
18:28 Now I don't know how often hunters were out at one in the morning in that part of North Carolina, but some believed that that was also a possibility.
18:37 Now, of course, Rhonda's death was ruled a homicide.
18:41 They said that there was evidence that she was stalked on the night of her death.
18:47 I could not find any documentation as to why the police thought that.
18:52 I can say that I read somewhere that about one o'clock that morning, Rhonda's mother Judy woke up with a strange premonition.
19:00 She felt kind of panicky and scared.
19:03 She felt like something had happened to Rhonda and felt that maybe she had been in a car accident.
19:09 You always hear about parents having those weird feelings that something was wrong.
19:15 Because they did suspect that she had been moved out of the vehicle, they did do fingerprinting and latent fingerprints were found on the open door and unidentified DNA was found on the driver's side door and also in the armpit of her sweater.
19:33 Curious if they have tried to run that DNA again.
19:37 You know, technology is much better now than it was back in'81.
19:41 I'm just curious if they've tried to rerun.
19:43 I mean, I'm going to assume that they have because this case was not here and I'm not close with the police where I can ask those questions.
19:51 They suspect that that DNA could have been from the person who pulled her from the car.
19:57 It could have also been from a good Samaritan.
20:00 I feel like a good Samaritan at that point would have called 911 and someone would have come to the scene sooner instead of her being found by teenagers.
20:09 It was likely her killer.
20:11 There was no DNA match again indicating that her killer had ever committed any kind of major crime.
20:21 Again, I don't know how long it's been since that DNA was run.
20:24 I'd be curious if they ran it again, if they would find anything.
20:27 I'm sure the cold case guys are on that.
20:30 I'm not going to pretend I know more about that than they do, but apparently nothing found ever suggested her boyfriend, but I had found writings stating that he was never really questioned.
20:45 It was suspicious to me that he was invited to the party and didn't want to go.
20:52 I feel like I would ask a lot more questions as a death investigator, you know, why didn't he go?
20:57 Where did he go?
20:59 Why did he choose to stay home or go wherever it was he went that evening?
21:04 What the conversation with Rhonda was when she was on her way home, and how long they spoke and that kind of stuff.
21:13 That's all stuff I don't know.
21:15 The cool thing about being a death investigator is we can be nosy, and we get paid for it, and it's OK.
21:22 I love to ask those kinds of questions and sometimes we may ask more than we need to, but if it helps us kind of help to put the puzzle together, then it is definitely acceptable.
21:34 But nothing found suggested her boyfriend.
21:39 They put out a $20,000 reward for information leading to the killer's ID and still to this day, any information or anybody with information is asked to call the Valdez Police Department.
21:54 Their number is 828-879-2102, so her killer has never been identified.
22:02 Now there is talk that there was negligent mishandling of physical evidence in the case.
22:08 Apparently there were as many as 5 people who happened upon the crime scene.
22:14 And had been drinking that were allowed to leave the crime scene and their names didn't appear on the police report.
22:22 And so there was a question about their identities being protected for some reason, maybe because of the status of their families in the community.
22:32 Apparently Rhonda had begun dating Greg McDowell sometime in the fall of her junior year in high school, and they seemed ideal for one another.
22:42 He was fond of writing notes to Rhonda, which I guess he thought that Rhonda wasn't reciprocating his feelings as much as he wanted her to.
22:51 Those constant notes kind of made Rhonda's mom worry that Greg was a little bit possessive.
22:58 And when all this was going on prior to her death, that's when friends and family kind of noticed her changes in behavior and her grades went down, so she started kind of doing poorly in school.
23:10 The fact that again they spoke when she was leaving to go home that maybe he was possessive.
23:17 Questions about the police not really questioning the boyfriend at the time.
23:22 A lot of things make me think that this maybe wasn't investigated the way it should have been.
23:29 Again, so many things as a death investigator, questions that I would ask now that, you know, they may not even known to ask back in'81.
23:40 But I mean they knew enough to collect DNA because they actually found that it was from an unknown person, any DNA that was found, so it wasn't, you know, her parents.
23:52 It wasn't somebody that was in the system.
23:53 It wasn't someone that had been in trouble before.
23:58 I would think there again, you know, run it again, you're very likely to get a match because somebody who committed that crime has likely committed another crime since then.
24:09 Like I said, I'm sure the cold case guys are on that.
24:12 I'm not going to pretend to know how to do their job.
24:14 You know, this kind of reminded me because many times people see a car on the side of the road that looks like it's been involved in an accident and they just assume that the person died of a car accident, but I think I was talking to someone about this the other day.
24:29 You know, it could be that they were shot in the back of the head prior to, you know, quote unquote wrecking their car, which was the case here with Rhonda, and then they could look at the car and know that because of the accident and the speed.
24:43 That the injuries would not have killed her.
24:46 You know, we also have people whose vehicles are found on the side of the road wrecked that have had a heart attack and, you know, ran the car off the road and struck something at a low speed and didn't have any bodily injuries.
25:02 Something that, you know, looks like a car accident isn't always a car accident, you know, in this case where Rhonda was shot.
25:10 You know, back in the day, it could have been just mistaken for a vehicle accident that could have been, she was ejected, you know, there was an investigation done for sure.
25:20 I'm just not saying 100% that everything was done correctly.
25:24 When I hear about stories like this though, I just wish I was there so that I could ask all the questions.
25:29 And of course, like I said, everything technology, DNA, everything has come so much further.
25:35 Since 1981 that, you know, I feel like it would be easier.
25:41 And now, you know, I've told y'all before we go to nearby businesses and we look at cameras, well, not we, I'm not going to say I do.
25:49 I get to see the video, which is kind of cool, but Businesses having cameras outside now pick up a lot of things that happen on the roadway.
25:58 It's amazing how the time that something happened can help actually solve a crime because if that had happened now, 9 times out of 10, it would have been caught on camera by a business somewhere in the area, or at least the vehicles could have been looked at closer, and they could have figured out more like who they were.
26:19 Kind of an interesting story.
26:20 I hate that it's unsolved.
26:23 I hate to go back and look at cases and see that they were never able to find who killed someone.
26:29 I know it has to be hard for the families.
26:31 You know, this incident happened around Christmas time, years and years ago, and you know that that makes this time of year really difficult for any of her family members that are still living.
26:44 It's just something that you can't forget.
26:46 I do feel really bad for people who are having to go through the holidays without their loved one.
26:54 I hope being on call tomorrow that my phone does not ring a lot.
26:58 Typically, knock on wood, holidays are good to me, but I haven't had to work one in a number of years and so this year may be different, but I hope it's not.
27:10 I know that we've had some bad weather here today.
27:12 It's been pouring down rain and my hairdresser worked on Christmas Eve and so did my lash tech.
27:19 I got my hair and lashes done today, which is kind of odd because back in the day everyone was off like the week of Christmas, everything was closed.
27:28 This year I feel like I've seen places where the holiday spirit seems really.
27:34 Active and then I've seen people post on Facebook that they're just not feeling very Christmassy this year.
27:41 Whatever your feelings are, I hope that you get to spend the day with someone that means a lot to you and just remember it's not about the gifts.
27:50 Spending time with family and friends is what's important, and I wish the best for everyone.
27:57 Looking forward to a new year.
28:00 We are really about to, I know I keep promising y'all, we are really about to gear up our cereal box subscription.
28:08 And I think you're going to be really excited about the contents.
28:12 As always, shoot us an email if you'd like to be a guest host or if you have a story you'd like to tell Julie at PushingUpLilies.com.
28:20 And don't forget that we have a Patreon now and you can get special episodes and videos available to those who join.
28:27 Again, I wish you the best into the new year and I look forward to talking to you in 2025.
28:33 Bye y'all.
28:34 Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
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28:46 This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public.
28:49 Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.