Welcome back to our coverage about the murder of Rondick Hinson. Let's jump back right into this case. But of course, in the original investigation, Greg was never considered to be a suspect because his parents said he was home all night. He was here, he couldn't have been out. But of course you have to take it with a grain of salt when people's own family members offered them an alibi.
Yeah, I don't really think you can really rely too strongly on familial alibis because parents are willing to lie for their children. It just comes down to it. I think siblings are willing to lie. He's actually parents. They always want to protect their children, and they're not only protecting their children when they do that, they're also protecting the integrity of their own names. And I don't think
that we can underestimate how important that is. Nobody wants the stain of having your child be a murderer, So I can understand why parents will do things like this. We saw this in the Gabby Patito case with Brian Laundry's parents.
It's laundry, right, yeah, laundry.
Yeah, we saw it with his parents. The lengths that they were willing to go to protect him.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there are some examples where parents are willing to do the right thing. But also, Charles McDowell was a pastor at the local church, and he sounded like someone who was very concerned about his family's image and maintaining being a pillar of the community. So he would fit the profile of someone who would cover for his son if he had killed someone.
It's not a very Christian thing, no.
Definitely not. But there would be another odd incident at around seven am later that morning, two of Ronda and Greg's best friends were another couple. Their names were Mark Turner and Jill Turner, even though their families both seemed to have the same last name, but it's just a coincidence. They weren't related to each other, but they heard about Ronda's death, so they decided to pay a visit to
the McDowell residents in order to offer their condolences. But when they arrived, Greg and Betty were there, but Charles was not, and since he was a private pilot with his own plane, Betty explained that he had left on a flight to South Carolina in order to pick up some relatives who would be visiting the family for the
Christmas holidays. When the Hints were told about this, they found it very weird because a couple of days earlier, Greg had asked them if they could spend the holidays at their house because his parents were planning to travel to South Carolina and spend Christmas with their relatives and
he didn't really want to do that. But now, for whatever reason, Charles had changed his plans and was going to pick up these relatives and bring them back to his place, even though this was only about six hours after finding out that his son's girlfriend had been murdered. Flight logs did confirm that Charles's plane did take off, but I don't think it's ever been officially confirmed if
he brought back any relatives. And of course there has been speculation that he might have been using this opportunity to dispose of evidence because he was a known hunter, so Greg would have had access to a rifle if it was in fact the murder weapon. And there would be another unusual situation when Mark and Jill were leaving and driving out of the driveway when Greg suddenly came out and waved them down, and after Mark stopped the car, Greg handed him a box of condoms and said, quote,
I don't want them to find out we were having sex. What? And it's like I cant understand, Like this is a Christian family who may have disapproved of premarital sex, but it's like most people aren't going to be thinking about something like this, hiding condoms after finding out that your girlfriend has been murdered.
That's so weird. But I've got to think, if Charles is a pastor at a church, does he really need to take his lane to dispose of evidence? Couldn't you hide evidence on church property? Like what is the probability that they're going to be able to get a search warrant for church property?
Yeah? I thought that is kind of an exaggeration that if he needed to dispose of evidence, you could just drive somewhere and dispose of it. You don't have to take a plane out there. But still we've never even found out if he was telling the truth about bringing relatives back to the house and picking them up, So it just seems odd that he would take this impromptu plane ride so soon after finding out what happened to his son's girlfriend.
I think it's absolutely bizarre, But I could see a scenario where they were originally planning to go to South Carolina for the holidays, but then given everything that happened, they were like, Okay, we're going to talk to the family and see if they're now willing to come up here and be around us during this very difficult time. But the one thing that I've got a difficult time reconciling is the time frame. Would you really go six hours after finding this out that Ronda was dead?
Yeah, because supposedly Charles had been woken up at like quarter after two in the morning, so he obviously didn't get much sleep. So would you instantly feel gung ho to start flying a plane after you must be tired just to go pick up the relatives, Like why not have a nap or something and then go later in the day if you really wanted to bring your relatives back there. So my next story is going to paint the mcdowells in an even more unflattering light. And this
is particularly weird. But Ronda's funeral service was held on Christmas Day at the same church where Charles was the pastor, so he wound up giving the eulogy. But the Hintsons thought that it was very weird because he barely seemed to be mentioning Ronda at all, didn't really want to say a lot of good things about her, even though she was a victim, and he stated that he barely knew Ronda, even though she had been his son's girlfriend
for the past two years. And then he flat out shocked everyone by saying, quote, I don't know if Ronda went to Hell or not. And of course this enraged the Hinsons, and then after the service, Judy decided to confront him and say, why would you say something like that? And he told her that since Ronda wasn't affiliated with this particular church, he couldn't know for certain where she was. And he then stated, quote, there was a lot of good people in Hell. Just because a person is good
doesn't mean they are not in Hell. I know a lot of good people who have gone to Hell.
End quote excuse you, Like, how dare you say that about this deceased nineteen year old girl. Ronda did absolutely nothing wrong to have you say that she could possibly be in hell. And then he qualifies his statements that there's lots of good people in Hell. Like her parents don't want to hear that what an absolute pos.
Yeah, it's just so bizarre to me. I love to think I know a lot of good people who have gone to Hell. How could you possibly know that, to let you been there? How could you know where these people have gone after they died. But it just seemed
like there's some major projection here. And some people have theorized that maybe he blamed Ronda for causing his son to kill her or something like that, saying that she did something bad to him so that Greg had no choice but to kill her, And in order to project he started saying disparaging things about at her own funeral service with her family and attendance, and trying to say that she went to hell, even though she's an innocent nineteen year old girl who did nothing wrong.
I think we see something similar in uh. I think it's the case of Djunko Feruda in Japan. I think it was like the Hello Kitty murder.
Oh yeah, I know that one.
It is absolutely vile what they did to this young girl. But in the end, after she's deceased and she's buried, the mothers of some of these boys were just they were so angry about what happened that they would go, and they would desecrate her grave on multiple occasions, and it's like, why don't you put the blame where it belongs, squarely on the shoulders of your son. Why are you blaming this poor girl who was tortured for like a
month or something like that. I can't remember all the details of the case, but it was horrific, and so it's very possible that we're seeing something similar.
Yeah, I definitely heard about that case where they pretty much blamed the murder victim who was tortured for ruining their son's life, even though they were directly responsible for what happened. And that just may be Charles's mentality where even though his son killed someone, he's doing nothing but blaming the victim. And to make this situation even more odd, Charles resigned as the pastor at the church only two days after the funeral, and he never gave an official reason.
But as the years went on, it would turn out, surprise surprise, that Charles had been conducting an extramaral affair with one of the parishioners, and he eventually got divorced from Betty after thirty years of marriage, which says a
lot about his character. And the last time that the Hinson's ever communicated with Charles was about two years after Ronda's murder, where he stopped by their house and had a conversation where he made yet another odd remark, stating, quote, the case will never be solved, nothing will help Ronda now and other people should not be hurt because of this end quote.
Oh my dear lord, what is up with this man? Somebody stop him from speaking because nothing good comes of it, and he just gives these vague, these vague statements, but yet they're very telling. How do you know this for a fact? You are stating that nobody will find out? How do you know you would know if you would dispose of evidence and you had seem to it that there is no way that anything could be tied to
potentially your son. Otherwise, if he had nothing to do with it, and this was somebody else, or this was a complete accident, why are you showing up on their doorstep and showing concern for the potential that it could hurt somebody aka his son, whoever would be charged with it. So it feels to me that he's got some inside knowledge or some involvement in what happened. To Ronda.
Yeah, it's just very, very self absorbed because ordinarily, yes, you want the person who committed a crime to be hurt because they should be punished for what they did. So why would he be saying something like that unless he felt that his son and his family name would
be hurt if this case was ever solved. So now let's get back to the whole Ronda taking showers thing and the speculation that she was a victim of sexual assault, because it turned out that prior to her death, Ronda told her best friend Jill, as well as one of her cousins, that Reverend McDowell had made any appropriate advances
toward her. She described an incident where she was exiting the bathroom at the residence and Charles decided to like walk up close to her and corner in the hallway and kind of violate her space, even though he did not actually physically touch her. But there was another time where Ronda went out to a restaurant with the McDowell family and she said that Charles sat beside her and placed his hand on her knee while they were eating. And while she never actually described being raped or sexual
assaulted or any the situations escalating after that. That's still troubling behavior, so would not surprised me. Possibly if Charles at one point did a lot more than just put his hand on her knee, but she was reluctant to say anything, and that could have been the reason that she just decided to get up in the night and start having these constant showers.
It's possible that that's all that happened. It's also possible that more happened, because when one is sexually assaulted, there's a lot of shame that's attached to that, and a lot of times the victim will blame themselves for the actions of this other person, although incorrect, it's never their fault, but I know from personal experience you can feel that way.
And so to then share more information and to go, God, I put myself in this situation and this ended up happening, and now I just feel too ashamed to even like articulate it, because that makes it real, It makes it like a tangible thing once you say it out loud
to somebody else. And then also to admit that I was in this position, like I saw the potential that this could happen, yet I still ended up in this position, and this happened to me, And it's just so typical for a victim to blame themselves when it's obvious that this is Charle. She's a teenage girl and the girlfriend of his son, and he's making these advances and he's
just a disgusting human being. And I truly hope that nothing more happened to Ronda than what she described, But we're just never going to know the truth unless Charles is one who's going to come forward and admit that he did something to her, and we know that's not going to happen.
Definitely not. But the fact that he lost his marriage because he had an affair with one of his parishioners
shows that he is capable of stuff like that. And of course it adds more context to the conversations that she had with her father, saying that I have something bad to tell you and you're not going to like it, and she's probably feeling secret shame, like maybe she wanted to tell him about the incident where he put his hand on her leg, or maybe tell him about something worse, but he's she's thinking to herself, well, this is my boyfriend's father. He's also a pastor and a pillar of
the community. So no matter what I say, even though it's all his fault, a lot of people are probably going to blame me for it, for leading him on or something like that. And she probably felt a lot of sa secret shame, and that's why she wanted to remain silent.
Refresh my memory. What the exact question was that she asked about a married man, Well, I was just.
Going to bring that up, and she asked her mother, is it okay to date a married man? And of course her mother said, no, it's never okay. It could hurt a lot of people, and that's when she dropped
the subject. And yes, there has been speculation that she may have been referring to something that was going on with her and Charles, but it's also possible that it's a red herring because apparently a couple of years afterwards, one of Ronda's co workers admitted to the family that she had been having an affair with another married man
at her workplace and had told Ronda about it. So it's very possible that Ronda was just asking questions because of something her friend did, and it wasn't something that was going on in her own personal life.
That seems more likely to me personally, just because I don't see any world in where Ronda would be into the idea of having an affair with Charles, because she seemed to be so off put by him cornering her and then invading her space, and then again putting his hand on her leg in a way that she felt uncomfortable. That doesn't align to me with somebody that is thinking about potentially having an affair with this man. So, yeah, I agree with you. It does sound more like a red herring.
I think so too. I don't think she would ever want a consensual affair with him because she always was repulsed by him, so if anything happened, it was probably
because he forced himself on her. And while we're on the subject of red herrings, it's possible that the eyewitness account from Reggie Smart, the truck driver who said that he saw a man pulling Ronda's body out of the car, might be nothing more than a red herring, because it's kind of I always assumed that this was the person who killed her, But it turned out that the people who reported the discovery of Ronda's car were a pair of men named Tim Ponce and Mark Nickel, and they
claimed that sometime after one am, they were driving down Mineral Springs Mountain Road and decided to pull over when they noticed Ronda's datson in the ditch, and when they watched for a closer look. Oddly, they said that even though they saw a bullet hole and they saw some blood, they claimed they did not see Ronda's body lying on the ground, which seems odd like why wouldn't her body
be there? But their story was corroborated by three other eyewitnesses in a blue Toyota pickup truck who were driving through the area and pulled over to check what was going on, and that's when Ponds and Nicol said that they were going to the police, so the two parties went their separate ways. Ponce and Nickel went into town and managed to flag down a patrol officer and lead them back to the scene, and by the time the officer arrived, he was able to confirm that yes, Ronda's
body was on the ground and on the surface. The whole situation doesn't seem to make a lot of sense because I don't think like someone would kill Ronda, move her body away and then put it back by the time the police went there. But what's interesting is that Ponce and Nickel actually drove a dark transam which marched the description of the vehicle that Reggie Smarts. So it seems to me that the man who pulled her body out was probably Ponds or Nickel, but for reasons unknown,
decided not to tell that story to the police. They just said that they discovered the car and did not handle the body. And I don't know why they would do that. Maybe they thought that they would be incriminated in the crime if they admitted to touching the body.
But when you look at the timeline and you look at like the description that Reggie Smart provided, the only explanation that makes sense because he had seen a gray car driving away from the scene which likely had Ronda's killer, is that these two guys, these bystanders, were the one who moved her body and then stayed silent about it and may have compromised the investigation because I have a feeling that if they checked the DNA found on Ronda's weather,
it might wind up matching Tim Ponce or Mark nicchol.
Oh my god, I agree with you. That sounds like the most likely scenario. Otherwise, how else did her body get out there? And maybe they were just thinking like, oh, I don't want to be tied to this, and you're right. If they run the DNA and it matches one of them, it just if they would have explained a way why
their DNA was there in the first place. And I mean, we can read between the lines and say they were likely scared and so they didn't want to be involved in this any more than they needed to be, and so they weren't thinking in nineteen eighty one that they could be incriminating the scene with touch DNA, because it literally wasn't the thing exactly.
They would have been thinking about that. But I can only imagine what they might have felt when they watched the Unsolved Mystery segment years earlier, because that lead with the guy pulling Randa's body out of the car was like the biggest development. They were hoping to identify this man because they felt he was Ronda's killer. So I always wonder if they watched that thinking that, ooh, we were the ones who did that, and we did kill her. But if anyone finds out, we're going to get into
a lot of trouble. So we're gonna stay quiet about it.
If that is the case, they probably went through a bunch of years where they had an incredible amount of anxiety and they were constantly worried that they were going to get caught, and then eventually it probably slowly, year by year dissipates a little bit, and then eventually they're thinking, Okay, look, we got away with the Scott free nothing's happened. But if they were to come forward now and give that context that yes, this happened, this is why we didn't
disclose it. And if you run that DNA, it's very possible it could be either of our DNA, it would be incredibly helpful in the case.
I think so. And Pont and Nickel were never mentioned in any public accounts of the case until Larry Griffin wrote that series of articles starting in twenty nineteen. And when I read that, I was like, ah, yeah, that was probably them. But I have no idea if these two men are still alive, and I'm thinking that they should come forward, given that their names are already out there and people know that they probably moved the body. So yeah, the main reason I think it's a red
herring is that l Azure. Recall, Reggie Smart said that before he saw this guy, he had seen what he described as a blue Chevelle driving away from the scene, and about a half hour before that, other witnesses had reported seeing a car matching that description parked under the overpass with two men sitting inside. So it seems very likely that that car was involved in Ronda's murder. And it turned out that Greg was driving a blue nineteen seventy six Chevy Nova at the time, which was registered
to his father. And even though Smart thought that it looked more like a gray Chevelle, Chevelle's looked similar enough to Nova's that he easily could have mistaken them, and because there were poor lighting conditions, he could have also
mistakenly believed that the blue paint was gray. And most importantly, as you recall, Smart described the front of the vehicle as looking messed up, and the McDowell's family Nova did have damage to the front end at that time, So in retrospect, it seems very likely that that was the McDowell's car speeding away from the scene right after Ronda's murder.
Wow, that does seem to be pretty good evidence that it was the McDowell's car, and honestly, to the surprise of no one, the fact that their car was a the scene. Who was present in that car? Do you think that it was potentially junior and senior, like if it was Charles, Charles ng Greg.
People have pushed that forward as an idea. But what's crazy is that when we discover Ronda's vehicle, the driver's side window was rolled down, and because it was a very cold night, they don't think that she would have
rolled it down just to drive home. So they've always suspected that she did stop and talked to someone, and they figured that she might have done that for Greg, but they thought that if Charles had been at the scene with them, she probably wouldn't have stopped for him because she was afraid of him, and I think she would have considered it be a red flag. Charles and Greg were at the scene together. But in a couple moments, I'm going to bring up another potential suspect who could
have been the second man inside the vehicle. So another thing that looked incriminating from the McDowell's is that when Ronda's vehicle was discovered, there were three items in the back that her family swears were not there when she originally left the house for the Christmas party. One of them was a letter jacket from Eastbrook High School, which
belonged to her. Another one was a hooded gray sweat jacket which also belonged to her, and also a stuffed pink snake which Ronda had won as a prize for Greg during a trip to Myrtle Beach that they had
taken during the summer of nineteen eighty one. So before she left for the Christmas party, Ronda had asked her father if he could drive the car up to the front door for her because she wanted to avoid getting her shoes dirty, and Bobby would say that he was absolutely certain that those two jackets and the pinak snake
were not in the back seat. Well, he was in the car, and as you recall, Ronda drove her friend Sheery Pittman home from the Christmas party, and Shery would also say, I don't recall seeing those items in the back seat when I was dropped off. So it seems that somehow, within the next thirty to forty minutes after Ronda left Sherry's house, those items wound up on the back seat by the time her car was discovered in the ditch.
That is so weird, isn't it. I guess if you couple it with the fact that the windows rolled down, there is a very high probability that she bumped into somebody she had to otherwise, how did those items get there and why would her window be rolled down?
Yes, it totally fits the timeline because it did turn out that a few days prior to her death, Ronda had left her school letter jacket at Greg's residence, and as far as anyone knew, she didn't get it back because when Ron left for work on the morning of December the twenty second, she asked if she could borrow her brother Robbie's jacket because she did not have her own.
So this could be a thing where Greg pulled her over because this is a route she always drove home, so he would have known she would have been there, so he could have flagged her down and says, I'm going to give you back the jacket, and that's what
convinced Ron to pull over and roll down the window. Though, the presidence of the snake is a weird thing, because why would Greg bring like this pink snake to like the side of the road to give to her in the middle of the night, unless it was maybe something saying, oh, remember when we went to Myrtle Beach this and won me like a pet snake that shows much better times and cho when our relationship was in a good place.
Maybe it would have been a manipulative thing to convince ron and not to break up with him or something like that. But whatever happened, I know that both Bobby and Sherry were certain that that pink snake was not in the car earlier that night, and somehow showed up there before she was killed.
I can't think of any other explanation than what you
just said. If it was something that was going to be used to try to either to aid drop her guards so she's relaxed and he can then take a shot at her, or be try to get her back in some way, And maybe he felt as though he wasn't going to get her back, or his actions or his efforts weren't going to be rewarded in the way that he was hoping, so then he basically enacted his contingency plan, which was to take a shot at her, either to scare her or to harm her.
Yeah, possibly, and I don't know if he was planning to kill her, Like maybe he thought he was only going to scare her. But the fact that he had a hunting rifle with him to begin with is obviously a major red flag because if this was just a meetup where you wanted to speak with her or just flag her down to return her jacket, you would not need to bring a rifle to the scene unless you were planning it to do something. And maybe he thought, well,
we're going to reconcile or something like that. But maybe at that moment she told Greg that she was going to break up with him and that's when he lost it. And they figured that the rifle was probably fired while Ronda was driving away, so it could have just been like maybe he was planning to fire a warning shot and just never dreamed that it would just go right through the trunk and through the back seat in the front seat and pierce her right through the heart.
Yeah, it sounds like he maybe was just trying to scare her, because I think if he was trying to kill her, you would take more than one shot.
That's what I'm thinking as well. Yeah, I don't think it was premeditated But the thing that really really confuses me is the presence of the second jacket in Ronda's back seat, which was a hooded gray sweatsh jacket. It turned out that she had gone Christmas shopping with Mark Turner, who was the boyfriend of her best friend Jill, and wound up leaving her hooded sweat jacket in his car.
And I know that Mark and Jill had spent the evening of December the twenty second hanging out together before Mark drove Jill back to her residence and dropped her off at around twelve twenty five am on December the twenty third, which was about thirty to forty minutes before
Ronda's body was found. But what's weird is that Jill claimed that when she exited Mark's car, she noticed Ronda's sweat jacket in the back seat, and she asked Mark if she could take it and give it back to Ronda at a later time, but Mark said no, it's okay. I'm going to give it to Greg and then he can return it to Ronda. And then Mark drove away.
And this was only about a half mile from the spot where Ronda was killed, and Mark probably would have been heading in that direction when he was heading home, And of course they questioned him afterwards, saying that do you recall how the sweat jacket that was in your car in Ronda's car within the next half hour, And Mark said, honestly, I have no recollection of ever giving
the jacket back to her. And he says, but I had been suffering from a back injury at the time, and I've been taking a lot of pain medications, so that whole era is a blur, So I honestly don't remember what happened. And so that also looks pretty suspicious.
That's majorly suspicious. And how long after Bronda's murder did they question him.
I think it was like maybe a couple weeks or so, but not long afterwards. And I'm thinking, though, even if you were on a lot of pain pills at the time, I think the night when your girlfriend's best friend when murdered would be a memorable enough event that you would remember a lot of the events that happened. And remember if you had given the jacket back to Ronda or Greg.
And if you were still messed up on pain pills, why are you awake at that time? They're a downer, not an upper. So you're still awake and you're cognizant enough to be driving around. Sure, you could be really messed up, but I would think there's a probability that she would remember that. It's not like he's being asked three years later exactly.
Yeah. So, And as you recall, there were a number of witnesses who saw it, like the blue Chevy underneath the overpass, and they said that they saw two men in there, not just one. So I think it's very possible that Mark was heading in that direction he noticed Greg park there and decided to stop by and give him the jacket, and that maybe Greg wound up giving the gray jacket Toronda when she stopped by a short
time later. But in Mark's defense, he was driving a gold nineteen seventy seven Buick Regel at that time, and even though a bunch of eye witnesses reported a number of different vehicles near the scene, no one has ever seen reported seeing a gold Buick Regal anywhere in the vicinity, so Mark cannot be placed there. But I'm thinking to myself, if this was just an inocentt case where Mark saw Greg stopped by and gave him the jacket and then drove away and Ronda's murder took place like after he
already left. Then Mark technically didn't do anything wrong, So why has he remained silent all this time? Like? Why is he lying about giving the jacket to Greg? Did he really want to cover for him to like let his friend get away with murder.
It sounds like he's got a lot more to do with it than just simply dropping off the jacket. Maybe he was just more aware of what happened, and maybe he's of the mindset where he doesn't want to rat on his friend. I don't know, or maybe he thinks he's more complicit because he stood by and watched it happen and then did nothing. I have no idea why, like, other than being more involved than he's alluding to their
being a potential that he was. He's basically saying, oh yeah, like I may have given her that sweater or anything might have happened. I don't remember. I was messed up on pain pills. He's trying to basically blackout that whole night and say like I don't really remember anything so that we can't like tie him to anything specifically. And I agree with you if he had just simply handed that sweater over, that's what you would say. You would
want to get to the bottom of what happened. So it just leads me to believe that he knows a lot more than he's telling us.
That's what I'm thinking as well. And it's also worth mentioning that Jill and Mark wound up breaking up a short time later, and she would say that one of the contributing factors is that she thought that Mark was acting very cold and insensitive towards her about Ronda's death, even though she had lost her best friend. So it almost feels like he has some sort of guilty knowledge as well. And I do think there's a good chance that Mark may have been the second man seen inside
the blue Chevy alongside Greg. But like I said in his defense, Mark's own vehicle, a gold nineteen seventy seven Buick Regal, has never been placed at the scene, so if he was inside Greg's vehicle, I'm wondering where he parked the Buick Regal, and maybe if the witnesses just didn't see it. But I do think that after the murder took place, that if Mark was present, that he and Rake high tailed it out of there, and there's separate vehicles and have remained silent about it ever since.
Yeah, that sounds like you're pretty good theory, because otherwise, if I guess if you parked your view a regal somewhere that like nobody could see, I don't really know what the landscape was like there, if there was somewhere that you could park to easily conceal a vehicle, and then maybe he just jumped in with Greg. That is entirely plausible. But do we know how loose the two of them were?
Uh? I mean, they were friends, but it sounds like they were more like mutual friends, maybe just because he happened to be dating Ronda's best friend Jill. So I wouldn't say that they were close enough that if Greg committed a murder that Mark would be willing to stay silent and cover for him, unless he was somehow complicit and did something that could have got him charged with
something criminally. But yeah, it does seem likely to me that after this took place, they went their separate ways and then Greg drove home told his father about what they did, and they helped cover for him and get rid of ittential evidence, and of course Charles decided to take the lead because when he got the call from the Hintsons about an hour later, he drives off to like the murder scene and accompanies the detectives to the
hints In residences when they're informed about what happened to Ronda, so he can keep an eye on everything that's going on in the investigation. So, of course, when Larry Griffin wrote his series of articles many many years later, Greg did not want to talk to him. Betty did not want to talk to him. His mother, I think she
was in a nursing home at that point. But surprisingly, in December of twenty twenty one, Charles, who was in his mid eighties at that point and had since remarried, agreed to sit down and give an interview to Larry Griffin. But his answers were considered to be evasive, and of course he denied any allegations that he was involved in Rhonda's murder or had made any inappropriate advances towards her.
But at one point, even though Griffin never even brought up the subject of DNA, and Charles suddenly stated, out of the blue, quote and I don't believe they have my DNA either. I wasn't at the scene that night, so I didn't leave any DNA. I have never given any DNA to anyone, and I don't think they have Greg's either. End quote. And once again he said this completely out of the blue, even though Griffin never even brought up the topic of DNA.
Yeah, I would say that that is unprompted. Basically, he's leaking some of the truth there. There's some kind of admission where he's the dude, doth protest too much, like Charles, you're doing too much. You should have said nothing at all, because every time you open your mouth, it's like these vague admissions.
Exactly, And technically what he's saying might be true, because if the DNA belongs to Tim Plants or Alan Nicol, they probably were the ones who left it there. So it is true that neither Greg or Charles's DNA will be found at the scene. So he's saying that, so, hey, since I volunteered this, that proves that we have to be innocent because you have no physical evidence linking to
the crime. But it just sounds like projection, like he's trying to like divert the suspicion away by talking about the evidence which seems to clear him.
I think it's weird that Greg's DNA wouldn't be at the scene. It's a vehicle, it's his girlfriend's vehicle, and if he handed her those items of clothing, I would just think that, like his DNA would be all over that vehicle. It would be more odd to me if there was no DNA of his bound exactly.
Like I'm sure that his DNA might not be on the sweater, the touch DNA, because I'm not entirely sure he touched her body that night, but it's reasonable to assume that his DNA is going to be on the jacket and the snake and a number of items in the car. And for all we know, maybe his fingerprints were on the window that conveniently went missing during the mid nineteen nineties. So there is evidence Lincoln into the scene. But yeah, it's it really does seem like there's a
family cover up. And Greg is now in his sixties. He's gone on and gotten married and moved on with his life, And as far as I can tell, Charles is still alive. I think he would be eighty seven or eighty eight years old this year. But I think the good news is that Judy and Bobby Hinson are also both to alive in their eighties and they're still
seeking answers. I know that they have constantly talked to Larry Griffin and the local media keeping Ronda's case in the spotlight, So they are still holding out hope that they will see a resolution in this case before they pass away.
Yeah, my heart really goes out to Judy and Bobby. Feels like such an injustice when you have evidence go missing and you have these really good suspects who behave very very strangely, and Charles just who keeps popping up and saying stupid things, and Greg who behaved in a
strange way in the aftermath. When we couple it with his coercive, controlling type behavior prior to Ronda's death, When we look at the way that he acted, the throwing up and the not speaking to anybody, everybody grieves differently. That is for sure a blanket statement that we apply to pretty much every case. When you try to analyze
somebody's grief process, you really can't. All we can do is look at Greg in a holistic manner and say, this is a guy that it seems like there's a very strong likelihood that, personally, I believe that he was trying to scare her, maybe injure her. But I don't believe that he was trying to kill her, because I think if he was, he would have taken multiple shots, not just assumed that one shot would finish the job.
That's what I'm thinking as well, And his constant vomiting later that morning gives me the impression that, like, if he had planned to kill her all along, he probably wouldn't be so overwhelmed with anxiety and guilt. But I think it was hitting him that I killed my girlfriend even though I wasn't intending to, And now I'm going to have to face the police and become a potential
suspect any murder investigation. But of course, the big question now that I've heard all this new information is like, why wasn't any of this mentioned on Unsolved Mysteries back in nineteen eighty nine, Because if I known about Greg McDowell and Charles McDowell and all this incriminating information, I would have looked at this case in a much different light when I covered it on the Trail Went Cold nine years ago, and I know Unsolved Mysteries has a
history of suspects who have been willing to appear on camera and try to proclaim their innocence, and we've seen people like Jewel kal Or who have been themselves, yeah, the ultimate example where they just don't care how they look and make themselves appear even worse and more suspicious. But we've heard nothing about Greg McDowell or Charles McDowell.
And I'd be curious to know if Unsolved Mysteries ever asked them to be interviewed and they said no, and they were probably thinking to themselves, well, they've never been named as suspects or persons of interest, so for legal reasons,
we can't mention anything about them on this episode. And if you watch it today, if there are just so many red herrings, like the married man and like the man seen pulling the body out of the car, you realize that none of this has anything to do with it, and that the solution is probably a lot more simple.
And I think if you were going to get anybody to talk, you'd likely be able to get Greg to like dig his own grave, because he seems to like to talk. Not Greg, Sorry, you're be able to get Charles to dig his own grave, whereas I think that Greg is a little more trepidacious, and he seems to be more cautious, maybe because he truly is guilty, that he feels guilty about what he's done. And if we're to look at the vomiting and we're too from that
context of he feels really bad. It wasn't his intention to kill her, it was just to scare her, then maybe he doesn't trust himself to be able to hold back his guilt and to not appear like he feels really sorry for his actions. If he's to speak to somebody, so he's going to operate cautiously and to say I'm not going to talk to anybody because it's not going to help me in any way, shape or form.
Yeah, I think that's exactly what happened, because he has never been extensively interrogated, and I think it was because his parents automatically provided him with an alibi right away, saying he was home all night. And of course this is a small town not used to dealing with homicides, and Reverend Charles was a respected pastor in the communities, so they're probably never thinking that a guy like that is going to lie to protect his son from being
a murder suspect. So Greg had never had to be extensively interrogated, and I don't think he's spoken to the police at all these past four decades. But he does fit the profile of someone if you got him in an interrogation room and you pushed him hard enough, then maybe he would eventually break and confess. But I think
he's self aware enough not to do that. Whereas Charles McDowell, I could see him going on Unsolved Mysteries, pulling a jewel Kayler saying it was rough losing lurand at first, but now all things are pretty good.
What one hundred percent? That is exactly the trajectory I was seeing too. I'm like, I'm surprised that Charles didn't do it, just because from what you've told me, I get the impression that he's like a little bit of a showboat.
He is, yes, and the fact that he was so willing to speak with Larry Griffin all these years later, even though the case is going back into the spotlight, seems to me that he's someone who will defend his innocence no matter what, even if he could potentially incriminate himself.
I love that Larry Griffin did this really deep dive and we're getting this view of Ronda that we would have never got, and all of these other people who are connected to or in tangentially connected to her, and all of these potentials and something that we looked at that could be this thing, maybe she's having an affair with a married man. Well, no, it's likely just a red herring because her friend asked her about that, because
that was their experience and not Ronda's. And being able to find this context with all these gross interactions with Charles that we maybe can tie to these showers that she was taking and saying that she felt dirty and the big thing that she had to tell her dad that she just never got a chance to do. It's just so important in these cases to know these small details.
So I really think Charles Griffin, wherever he is, for giving us this context and this nuance all of the layers of this case were able to look at it from a completely different lens.
Yes, And I am actually hoping that he does a long form podcast at some point because there are just so many articles that I'm thinking to myself, this needs to be resented in podcast forms so that no more people get this whole story because the newspaper he wrote it in, the Wilkes Record, is a pretty small one, so I'd wag sure that the vast majority of people out there have never read this and are basing their assumption about this case based solely on the unsolved Mystery segment,
which is now outdated and doesn't give the whole story. So I do hope that all this work eventually pays off and that maybe this will be featured on a bigger true crime show and a documentary series or a podcast series, because once you know the whole story, it seems pretty obvious that yes, this was not an accident by a stranger and was not ron to being killed
by a married man. It just seems like she was killed by a strange boyfriend, Greg McDowell, and that he has somehow managed to get away with it for over forty years now.
Yeah, this would make a really excellent long form podcast. So yeah, I really hope Charles Griffin does that because you could really just get into the details here. There's so many interesting el men's and connections, so I would really hope he's got so much material to go with.
Oh, definitely. Yes. Like I mentioned earlier, is I'd encourage after listening to this everyone like read these articles if he can, because there's so much information I couldn't get into here, because it goes so in depth about Ronda's life and so many of the other people in our life, and a lot of the stuff about the original investigation that it provides such a clear picture about what happened in this case.
I'll get you to send me a write up on this case, link your sources so then people can go down to our sources and they can explore these articles that Charles Griffin wrote, because I know that a lot of people are going to finish listening to this episode and want to know more.
Yes, and it's eighty one parts long, so pre prepared for a very large rabbit hole. So before we conclude any further thoughts on the murder of Ronda Hinson.
No, this was a really interesting case. I'm glad that you chose this to share this with me, especially because it's got such vintage vibes that it goes back nine years to episode number four of The Trail Went Cold, back when you were a baby podcaster.
Yes, yes, I probably cringe if I go back and listen to that episode now. But when people have always asked me over the years, is there any case you'd covered on The Trail Went Cold where you've changed your original thoughts since you released the episode. I always mentioned this one because, like I mentioned in that episode, I leaned towards ron as death being an accident with a stray bullet by a complete stranger. But now I've done a complete one eighty and think that she was likely
killed by her boyfriend. So that ends our coverage about the murder of Ronda Hinson. Thank you so much for listening to us, and we will have Ashley back for our next Theories of episodes. But until then, have yourself, say a great series of weeks, Robin.
Do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold? Patreon?
Yes, The Trail and Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and signed thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon if you join our five dollar tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured on The Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon and if you join our highest tier, Tier three,
the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was
the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three.
So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jeweles and Nashty. Patreon so there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili minis, which are always over an so they're not very many, but they're just too short to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those, so we hope you'll check out those patreons, we'll link them in the show notes.
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Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy