Does Rhonda Sue Coleman's murderer roam freely in Hazlehurst?

Community organizers in Jeff Davis County are working to solve a 31-year-old cold case and bring the victim's alleged murderer to justice.

This summer, a new podcast about Rhonda’s case is set to be released by Sean Kipe. The hope for the new podcast “Fox Hunter,” is for someone to come forward with information that leads to the case being solved.

According to information provided on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's website, Rhonda Sue Coleman left a senior class meeting on May 17, 1990, and never made it home. Her car was found abandoned beside the highway in Hazlehurst, and her body was discovered three days later in a wooded area in Montgomery County.

Coleman was a lifelong Hazlehurst resident, a student at Jeff Davis High School, and lived with her mother and father at the time of her death. According to the GBI, an autopsy was completed on Rhonda and no cause of death was determined.

Some people in Jeff Davis County say they not only believe Rhonda was murdered, but they know who her killer is.

In a statement published this week on a Facebook page dedicated to Coleman, representatives stated, "Her killer has never been charged with a crime. He lives, works, and has connections to the following counties: Jeff Davis, Appling, and Wayne Counties with extended family in the Bacon County Area. We haven't had any peace for 25 years, it's time that he feels the same way!"

A flyer that is currently being distributed in Jeff Davis County and surrounding areas by the group behind the push to solve Rhonda's case is published below.

According to information provided on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's website, Rhonda Sue Coleman left a senior class meeting on May 17, 1990, and never made it home.

Her car was found abandoned beside the highway in Hazlehurst, and her body was discovered three days later in a wooded area in Montgomery County.

New information could change course of Rhonda Sue Coleman murder investigation

Who Killed Rhonda Sue Coleman?

Rhonda Sue Coleman was two weeks away from graduating high school in Hazlehurst, Georgia on May 17, 1990. That night, as a part of a Jeff Davis High School tradition, she and fellow seniors gathered at a student’s house to decorate a graduation banner to put up at school. She never returned home that night. Rhonda's burned body was discovered several days later in a remote area of a neighboring county.

The murder of 18-year-old Rhonda Sue Coleman in 1990 has been a thorn in the side of the small community of Hazlehurst, GA for over 30 years. No arrests, no answers, and no justice. The family, friends and townspeople have never let go of the hope of finally getting the answers they so desperately seek.

It’s a quiet spring night in 1990, and 2 men fox hunting in a secluded area of rural South Georgia stand patiently by their truck. Pulled off the side of a dirt road, they wait silently for the sound of their dogs barking to alert them to game nearby. What they hear instead is a vehicle racing down the road towards them. As the vehicle speeds by, the men hear a woman scream. As this general area is known as a sort of “lover’s lane”, they think nothing much of it. Probably teenagers out having a good time. Not until the next morning when news broke that 18-year-old Rhonda Sue Coleman had gone missing the night before, did the pieces fit together a little more clearly. The scream they heard was not that of a young girl having a good time. It was almost certainly a terrified plea, one last desperate attempt to get someone’s attention. It was a cry for help.

Rhonda Sue Coleman slaying in Hazlehurst is another case of delayed justice

Unsolved slaying in Hazlehurst another case of delayed justice

More than 30 years have passed since the day Rhonda Sue Coleman left her home in Hazlehurst and did not return.

Rhonda, 18, was a graduating senior and had attended an event at a classmate’s home on a Thursday. That night, a friend found her car still running by the side of the road, her purse in the passenger seat and her footprints leading from her 1989 Chevy Cavalier to an unidentified vehicle. Three days later, police found her partially burned body in a wooded area the next county over.

Since then, her parents, Milton and Gayle Coleman, have fought valiantly to bring the killer to justice but have been frustrated by the lack of information, the poorly managed investigation and what they believe could be a cover-up by law enforcement.

“Over the years, we can’t get a lot of answers,” said Milton Coleman, who spoke with me by phone as he and his wife drove through town. Whenever they have asked for information, law enforcement officers have said “we can’t answer that,” Coleman said.

They didn’t even know the cause of their daughter’s death, which is listed as unknown on her death certificate.

For decades, the community has supported the much loved couple in their efforts to uncover information about Rhonda’s slaying, but Hazlehurst is a small town and not everyone has always felt comfortable sharing what they know. Milton and Gayle Coleman are both 70 now. They know they don’t have a lot of time left to get justice for their daughter, and they are at the point where they no longer care who they tick off.

Early this year, Sean Kipe, an Atlanta-based podcaster, picked up the threads of Rhonda’s case and unearthed new information, including physical evidence that will be revealed this week in an unanticipated 11th episode of “Fox Hunter.”

Kipe, an actor and musician with 20 years in the entertainment business, stumbled into podcasting, but found success uncovering new information in a 47-year-old murder case during his first podcast, “In the Red Clay.” He was drawn to Rhonda’s story in the hopes of doing the same. “The end goal is to give this family answers and to put the person or the people responsible for her death in prison where they belong,” Kipe said.

Supporters have raised more than $160,000 to offer as a reward for information. Just last week, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation began interviewing new witnesses revealed in the podcast, Kipe said. 

And Milton and Gayle Coleman are helping to draft legislation that would change the way cold cases like Rhonda’s are handled in the future by allowing family members access to certain information and by having a special investigator take another look after a certain time period.

“The case is active and ongoing. There is nothing new to report,” said the director of public affairs for the GBI when I reached out with questions.

A year ago, in an effort to address the unsolved cases across the state, the GBI formed a formal cold case unit to focus exclusively on longstanding unsolved cases, GBI Director Vic Reynolds told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in December 2020. A six-person team, comprised of retired agency investigators, work on cases that may have been open for as long as 40 years.

Rhonda’s case isn’t unique, but her story is particularly relatable.

She was young, beautiful, sporty and popular. She was planning to attend Georgia Southern in Statesboro to study nursing and work with newborns.

If a young woman isn’t safe coming home from a friend’s house on a weekday evening, then how can any woman feel safe?

In 2019, 49 women were murdered by men in Georgia, according to data from the Violence Policy Center. An estimated 9 in 10 women knew their killer.

Rhonda’s parents have long believed she was killed by someone she knew.

Describing how he went off to search for his daughter when she did not arrive home by curfew, Coleman spoke of arriving at the scene where Rhonda’s car had been abandoned. There he found police deputies already on-site. He ran through all the possibilities in his mind, but after a three-day search, on May 20, 1990, her body was found 15 miles from her car. They would find out from news reports that her body was partially burned. They would learn much later, and still unofficially, that the cause of death was strangulation or positional asphyxia.

A few years ago, frustrated with decades of dead ends, Milton and Gayle Coleman hired a private investigator, who began interviewing more people and conducting polygraph tests. But after so many years, people who may have had information have died.

Community members have speculated about possible suspects, but with testimony from Rhonda’s family and friends, Kipe lays the groundwork for an avenue of questioning directed at law enforcement officials.

Although Rhonda was found in Montgomery County, Jeff Davis County took over the case, something that doesn’t sit well with the Coleman family or with Kipe.

In the podcast, Kipe makes a point to interview a number of locals with information about the case, but Rhonda’s family remains frustrated that law enforcement has yet to take significant action.

“Why are there volumes of circumstantial evidence yet no arrests?” Kipe opined when we spoke on the phone. “Why is the district attorney not able to get a copy of the case file? Why is the case file being so highly protected by the GBI?”

Kipe is quick to note that he is by no means anti-law enforcement, but Rhonda’s case is bigger than just Rhonda, he said.

We know things can change with time — new evidence is uncovered, new technology can help evaluate old evidence and new media like podcasts can reach a wider audience.

And maybe, in this case, time will convince someone with information that a young woman’s life is worth more than fear of any consequence.

Family hopes for leads on 28th anniversary of Rhonda Sue Coleman’s murder

Rhonda Sue Coleman was two weeks away from graduating high school in Hazlehurst, Georgia on May 17, 1990. That night, as a part of a Jeff Davis High School tradition, she and fellow seniors gathered at a student’s house to decorate a graduation banner to put up at school, her cousin Natasha Bennett told Dateline.

Who Killed Rhonda Sue Coleman?

After the banner-decorating party, Rhonda, 18, and a few other students went to a nearby convenience store. Rhonda’s friends would later tell police that a little after 10:00 p.m., 

Rhonda said she had to leave to get home by her 10:30 p.m. curfew, and that she planned to stop at a nearby Hardee’s drive-through on the way. She left her friends to drive the three miles to her house, Natasha said.

That same night, one of Rhonda’s classmates, Layla Miller Marshall, couldn’t make it to the banner-decorating festivities because of her work schedule. When she got off work, she stopped at her boyfriend’s house before driving home.

“Rhonda only lived two miles from my house,” Layla told Dateline. Around 10:30 p.m., on her drive from her boyfriend’s house to her own, she passed a car that was pulled over on a dirt road with its lights on.

“As I passed it, I saw that it was Rhonda’s car,” Layla said. “So I turned around and went back.” She said she wanted to make sure everything was OK.

When Layla got out of her own car, she saw that Rhonda’s car was running, the lights were on and that the driver’s door was open. Rhonda was nowhere to be found.

Layla turned off the engine and, since it was in the days before most people had cell phones, decided to go back to her boyfriend’s house and call police. She told Dateline she and her boyfriend returned to the car to wait for the police.

Meanwhile, Rhonda’s parents Milton and Gayle Coleman were worried about their daughter, who was now late for her school-night curfew. Rhonda’s dad Milton told Dateline his daughter was almost never late coming home, and if she was, she would always call ahead of time. Around 11:00 p.m., Milton decided to drive around to see if he could find Rhonda.

After waiting for about 30 minutes at Rhonda’s car with no sign of the police, Layla and her boyfriend went back to the boyfriend’s house to call again, and then returned to Rhonda’s car. Police arrived at Rhonda’s car around 11:40 p.m.

“I received the call from the 911 center about an hour and a half after they found [the car],” Steve Land, retired Chief of Police for Hazlehurst, Georgia, told Dateline. He responded to the call that night, and remembers officers from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, the Jeff Davis County Sheriff’s office, and the Hazlehurst Police Department being at the scene.

Out driving to look for Rhonda, her father Milton came across the police commotion

“I see the blue lights, and I figured she went off the road or got in a wreck,” Milton told Dateline. “When I got there, I found out she was missing.”

Layla said she doesn’t remember a lot of the specifics from that night almost 28 years ago, but she says she will never forget when Rhonda's father pulled up to the scene.
 

“When her dad drove up was one of my most vivid memories. He was asking ‘Layla, where’s Rhonda?’ I said ‘Mr. Coleman, I don’t know.’ And his eyes immediately filled up with water. I could tell he knew something was very wrong right then,” Layla recalled to Dateline.

Retired Det. Land told Dateline that even though Rhonda’s car was found within Hazlehurst city limits, the Jeff Davis County Sheriff’s Department immediately took the case.

Police found Rhonda’s purse inside her car. They also found footprints leading from her car toward the tire tracks of another vehicle. These tire marks indicated that another vehicle, other than Layla’s, had pulled over on the side of the road that night, GBI Region 4 Special Agent in Charge Mark Pro told Dateline.

“It's possible that she knew the person or persons that pulled up to where her vehicle was,” Special Agent Pro, who is a supervisor on the case now, told Dateline. He says that authorities still don’t know for sure.

On May 20, 1990, after three days of ground searches, handing out flyers and helicopter searches, Rhonda’s body was found by a hunter about 15 miles from where her car had been found. It was in a rural, wooded area in Montgomery County, Georgia. Rhonda, whose body had been burned, was fully clothed, Special Agent Pro confirmed to Dateline. She was only 18 years old.

Rhonda’s parents Gayle and Milton, and her cousin Natasha, were with the rest of their family when police told them the news. To this day, Rhonda’s cause of death is listed as “undetermined” by the GBI crime lab.

“The problem is the GBI has been holding the key to our pain for 28 years,” Natasha told Dateline. “They have never sat down with the family and said, ‘This is what happened to Rhonda.’”

Special Agent Pro explained Rhonda’s cause of death is “undetermined,” because of the burned state of her body, which made it difficult to find her exact cause of death.

He said that everyone who saw Rhonda on her last night is a person of interest, but could not comment more to protect the integrity of the investigation. No arrests have been made in Rhonda’s case.

 

“Her case has been worked as a homicide from the start -- it's obviously not accidental,” Special Agent Pro told Dateline.

Since Rhonda’s body was found in May of 1990, Special Agent Pro said the GBI has been conducting “hundreds” of interviews, including interviewing new witnesses within the past year.

Milton and Gayle hired a private investigator, retired GBI Officer Jody Ponsell, in August 2017 to help them find answers in Rhonda’s death. Ret. Officer Ponsell has been conducting independent interviews and working with the Colemans’ attorney on the case. 

Ret. Officer Ponsell was working at the GBI when Rhonda was murdered, but wasn’t immediately assigned to her case. He says the way Rhonda’s case has been handled is “disappointing.”

“There's been a lot of missteps in [the handling of] this case over the years,” Ret. Officer Ponsell told Dateline.

Ret. Chief of Police Land agrees, saying that “if things were handled differently that night, the outcome might be different.”

Rhonda’s mother says that even though it's been 28 years, she feels an emptiness inside her every day. Her parents said Rhonda was a “wonderful daughter,” and that they were an extremely close family.

Rhonda was planning to attend Georgia Southern University to become a pediatric nurse. Her parents received her honorary diploma at Jeff Davis High School just two weeks after her body was found.

“I think about her all the time, wondering what she would be doing today,” Rhonda’s mom Gayle said. “We would like to have some sort of closure. I don't know if we will ever get all the answers, but we're not gonna stop trying.”

Rhonda’s family is providing a $35,000 $160,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of her killer. If you have any information about her case, please contact the Georgia Bureau of Investigations at (912) 389-4103.

Promoting Victims' Rights in Georgia Through "Rhonda's Law"

Sign the Petition for "Rhonda's Law"

Sign the Petition for "Rhonda's Law"

Small towns like Hazlehurst, GA are the backbone of America. They are the places of unsung heroes, of hard-working middle-class men and women. But sometimes, these very same small towns hide the deepest and darkest of secrets.

Such is the case of 18-year-old Rhonda Sue Coleman, who was abducted in May of 1990 after a senior class party and found three days later in a neighboring county. She had been murdered, her body dumped in a wooded area and burned in an attempt to conceal any evidence.

There were dozens of suspects - classmates, ex-boyfriends, and even members of the police force. Despite many people in the community still claiming to know who really killed Rhonda, the lack of hard evidence has caused the case to remain open.

Now, more than 30 years later the Coleman family and the community of Hazlehurst, GA still want answers as to who is responsible for Rhonda Sue Coleman's death. The family worked with Sean Kipe and Imperative Entertainment to produce the "Foxhunter" podcast to re-examine the evidence, unearth new leads, and investigate the role that Law Enforcement may have played in the death of Rhonda.

This investigation has revealed damning evidence that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) has failed to follow up on significant leads in the investigation, refused to allow the new District Attorney to review the case file, allowed former DA Jackie Johnson (Ahmaud Arbury case) unfettered access to the case file along with her investigators, privately admitted to making mistakes in the case, and have actively refused to provide Rhonda's parents with any substantial information regarding their daughter's murder. It was only when Sean Kipe was able to obtain confidential internal emails through open records that the truth was revealed.

Significant questions remain as to why the GBI does not want anyone to know, including the new District Attorney, what is in that case file. What are they hiding?

The biggest travesty of the case was discovered by the family in 2017 when it learned that the Jeff Davis County Sheriff's Department was in possession of fingernail clippings that had never been processed for DNA. Because of the substantial failures of law enforcement, the family was forced to hire their own private investigator who learned of the fingernail clippings through interviews with former agents and investigators. It wasn't until the family began making "significant waves" in the community that the clippings were retrieved by the GBI and submitted for analysis. The family later learned that, circa 2010, a former Sheriff and his investigator had requested that the clippings be processed by the GBI. No action was taken until the family learned about the unprocessed evidence.

While Rhonda's death may never be solved, we don't want her death to have been in vain nor have another family suffer the indignity of not knowing what happened to their loved one. 

The family is calling on the Georgia General Assembly and its legislators to protect the rights of victim's families and to hold the GBI and other law enforcement accountable for their failure to follow up on significant leads that could lead to the successful prosecution of those responsible for the death of a loved one.

The family is asking for the public to join them in asking the Georgia General Assembly to amend Georgia's law and provide for the following:

An independent review board composed of law enforcement agents be empaneled to review homicide investigation case files that have remained unsolved for a period of more than 20 years to ensure that the GBI and/or Law Enforcement have taken any and all measures available to solve said case and to ensure that all evidence has been processed for forensic evidence. To also ensure that no GBI or Law Enforcement official has violated their oath of office by failing to follow up on leads or process relevant evidence.

When a homicide case remains unsolved for a period of 20 year or more, the immediate family of the victim shall have the right to review the entire case file with no redactions to learn about the death of their loved one. There shall also be an agent or investigator present during the review who is familiar with the case to answer any questions that the family may have about their loved one's case.

That Georgia law provide that a District Attorney shall be granted unfettered access to any and all active homicide investigation case files to ensure that no lesser and included charge becomes time barred due to a statute of limitation and to ensure that the GBI and local law enforcement are not impeding an investigation by their failure to follow up on any and all leads in a case or process relevant evidence.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FAMILY'S FIGHT FOR JUSTICE FOR RHONDA, LISTEN TO "FOXHUNTER" ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP

www.facebook.com/rhondasuecoleman

www.foxhunterpodcast.com

What Happened to Rhonda Sue Coleman?

Reward Offered in Rhonda Sue Coleman Murder Case

Small towns like Hazlehurst, GA are the backbone of America. They are the places of unsung heroes, of hard-working middle-class men and women. But sometimes, these very same small towns hide the deepest and darkest of secrets.

Such is the case of 18-year-old Rhonda Sue Coleman, who was abducted in May of 1990 after a senior class party and found three days later in a neighboring county. She had been murdered, her body dumped in a wooded area and burned in an attempt to conceal any evidence.

There were dozens of suspects - classmates, ex-boyfriends, and even members of the police force. Despite many people in the community still claiming to know who really killed Rhonda, the lack of hard evidence has caused the case to remain open.

If you or someone you know has information about the murder of Rhonda Sue Coleman, please call 470-440-1150 - you can remain anonymous

"It was about 25 years before we started making changes in her room," said her dad Milt Coleman. Her mom Gayle added, "We kept everything that she had in her room as it was for about 25 years." 

Their lives were on hold for a quarter century as Milt and Gayle Coleman waited for a break in the murder case of their daughter Rhonda Sue.

She was an only child. And the center of her parents' world.

"Spoiled!" they said together. Then Milt added, "She loved her parents and we loved her. We've always been a hugging family. She was very outgoing. Like teenagers, most didn't want their parents around, she wanted hers around."

The 18-year-old high school senior didn't usually go out on a school night. May 17, 1990 was special. She was working on a senior flag with classmates as graduation approached at Jeff Davis High School in Hazlehurst. Her dad went out looking for her at 10:30 p.m.

That night is still vivid in her mom's mind.

"I don't know. I reckon it was something that a mother feels. But I could feel it in my soul. Somebody had gotten her. Something seriously wrong," she said.

Colman's car was found just up the road. The GBI gave us exclusive access to an evidence photo of it for this report so you can look at it carefully. Lights on. Door open.

Her parents said she would only stop for someone she knew.

"Definitely, most definitely," Milt said. "She would not pull over for someone if she didn't think she knew them, or possibly a blue light," Gayle added.

The disappearance drew a frantic search and national attention.

But a few days later in a recently logged remote tract of land, a man found Rhonda Sue's body.

GBI Special Agent Mark Pro said, "He was surveying the area and located the body and contacted law enforcement"

Twenty-seven years ago

"You don't forget. It may ease a little but you don't forget," Milt said.

And Gayle is haunted by what might have been. "You're always wondering how many grand kids we would have had, or where would she be living at, or would her and a certain cousin be living together some place. It's a daily thing that never goes away," she said.

Now, there's a new push on the case to find Rhonda Sue's killer. The family has hired attorney Ken Smith.

"We've interviewed several witnesses with very favorable results. We tried to interview some witnesses who would not be cooperative which was very telling to us, so this case is not nearly as cold as people think it is," Smith said.

The GBI continues working it too. Agents conducted interviews just last month

"We have gone over many many scenarios of how this could have transpired and we're still looking and trying to figure out the best way to approach this case and develop something that will help us reach an end," Agent Pro said.

Among the evidence photos released to WGXA-TV to try to stir people's memory is one of the convenience store where Rhonda Sue parked her car while she joined her friends that night.

Any information on what happened from the time she left that location to return home until her car was found and even in the hours after, could play a big part in this case.

Agent Pro said for anyone around during that time, any little piece of information could help crack the case. He added, 

"And remember the times they were there, things that they remember and possibly they didn't think was important at the time and now that they've had time to reflect on it, and if they have information that they feel could help us in the case we want them to come forward with it."

But for now a mother, a father and a community wait for answers, with the killer possibly living and working among them.

Gayle offers a mother's plea for justice. "Please if you're that one person out there who may have that one piece of information, it's not going to hurt Rhonda. Nothing's going to hurt Rhonda anymore. Let's come forward let's get this behind us. Get this behind all of us, this family, her friends and this community," she said.

There is a $35,000 $160,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Rhonda Sue Coleman's killer.

You can call the GBI at (912) 389-4103 if you have any information on this case.