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.

Rhonda Sue Coleman's parents seek justice 31 years after her murder

31 years after Rhonda Sue Coleman’s murder her parents still seek answers

Rhonda Sue Coleman was murdered on May 17, 1990 near Hazlehurst in Jeff Davis County

The evening of May 17, 1990, Rhonda Sue Coleman's parents saw her for the last time. In the 31 years since her murder, Milton and Gayle Coleman have never stopped loving her, or wanting answers to what happened.

The evening of May 17, 1990, Rhonda Sue Coleman walked into her parents living room and said goodbye. The 18-year-old was heading to a party where she and other seniors at Jeff Davis County High would paint graduation banners.

The Colemans never let their daughter go out on a school night, but decided to make an exception. It would be the last time Milton and Gayle Coleman would see their only child alive.

“She leaned over, put her hand on the chairs and said she was fixing to leave,” her mother recalled recently in an interview with The Telegraph. “I literally watched her walk out that door.”
Rhonda gave Gayle a kiss and said, “I love you.”

Rhonda didn’t arrive home by her 10:30 p.m. curfew. It was unlike her to come in late, but when she did, she always called. It wasn’t long before her father began looking for her.

A neighbor, Layla Marshall, spotted Rhonda’s 1989 Chevrolet Cavalier parked on a dirt road with its lights on, the engine running and purse inside. The driver’s door was open, but Rhonda was gone.

Crime Scene Photo: Rhonda's 1989 Chevrolet Cavalier was found with door open, engine running

Marshall called the sheriff’s department. Rhonda’s father and a sheriff’s deputy got there at the same time.

“We were looking before we got the news,” Milton Coleman said. “Three days later, we found out she was found dead.”

Coleman’s body was discovered in neighboring Montgomery County by a hunter about 15 miles away from her car. Her body was fully clothed and partially burned. Investigators have never divulged how Coleman was killed.

For the last 31 years, questions have lingered in the small town of Hazlehurst, about 90 miles southeast of Macon.

Who killed Rhonda Sue Coleman? Why? How? And how have they kept it a secret?

‘One brick at a time’

Over the years, investigators have followed leads in the case, but no arrests have been made.

Jason Seacrist, assistant special agent in charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Douglas office, said recently he was unable to comment on whether there were any new leads.

In the months after Coleman was killed, her mother and father struggled to cope.

“It was hard. Basically, you rearrange your whole life,” Milton said. “That was our life. She was our life. When you take that section out of it, you’ve got to start again. It was rough.”
Gayle Coleman said it was difficult to leave the house.

“We had to rebuild our relationship without her. You have to start from the ground up,” she said. “We didn’t want to go out around town because you would see people and you could see the pity in their eyes. We didn’t want to see that.”

Hazlehurst and roughly 4,200 residents rallied around the Colemans after the murder. Many of the town’s businesses shut down on the day of Rhonda’s funeral, including the Piggly Wiggly where she worked. More than 1,000 people attended the service, some standing against the walls two and three deep as others spilled out into the vestibule of Southside Baptist Church.

There were more than 20,000 flowers laid at the roadside along Bell Telephone Road, just south of town where Coleman’s car was found. Milton said the outpouring of love from the community was a direct reflection of the type of person that Rhonda was. Gayle said that locals served as a brace for the couple as they sought to rebuild their lives, as she put it, “one brick at a time.”

“They were holding us up. We knew they were there. They helped us,” Gayle said. “There ain’t a soul in Hazlehurst that we still couldn’t call at midnight and they wouldn’t be right there.”

‘That was her future, and they took it away from her.’

Rhonda was 5-foot-5 with blonde hair and blue eyes.

When she and her folks lived uptown inside the city limits, she was into golf carts and motorcycles. The Colemans recall telling her that if she saved up enough for half of a motorcycle that she wanted, they would pay the rest.

It took Rhonda just three months, and Milton built her a track in the backyard to ride on.

Later when they moved to the country, Rhonda grew interested in horses, hog shows and ATVs. She also loved cars. She was on her fifth vehicle by the time she was 18 as the family routinely traded them in and out.

One Christmas, her parents surprised her by trading her car in for a four-wheel-drive truck. Her last vehicle, the Cavalier, was her first brand-new car.

“I liked to buy vehicles and fix them. She would take them,” Milton said with a laugh. “That is how she would wind up with so many vehicles. She learned to drive by driving an old truck in the field back behind the house. It wasn’t worth nothing, but you put them in that truck and turned them loose.”

Rhonda had a love for real and stuffed animal. Her parents got a red cocker spaniel named Princess Molly Bock as a graduation gift.

Milton and Gayle weren’t just Rhonda’s parents: they were her best friends. Unlike most teenagers, Rhonda preferred bringing friends over to her house to hang out, rather than going out.

Gayle said Rhonda had one serious boyfriend over the years.

When she was with her parents, Rhonda was never too bashful to tell them, “I love you,” or hug them no matter who was around. They had a special bond.

In the wake of Rhonda’s death, Gayle said her relationship with Milton was strained at times. But they clung together as they tried to learn to live without their daughter.

“We could have — if we had let it — end up divorced,” Gayle said. “But I believe that her love was the glue that held us together.”

Trice Thompson, Rhonda Sue Coleman
John Strickland, Greg Newham

The couple considered moving out of the home they’d shared with Rhonda.

But, as Milton said, “That is home. We can’t do that.”

For 23 years, Rhonda’s bedroom remained as she’d left it. The Colemans eventually removed her clothes from the closet and cleaned out her dresser. They turned it into a room for their great-niece. Gayle believes Rhonda would be proud to know that her room is again being lived in.

Certain times each year are hard for the Colemans. Graduation season is tough because they never saw Rhonda walk across the stage.

Rhonda wanted to be a nurse in the maternity ward of a hospital, eventually settling down and getting married. There was already a plot of land in Hazlehurst for her to build a home on and still be close to her parents.

“I think about watching her daddy walk her down the aisle to get married,” Gayle said. “I think about sitting in the waiting room waiting on that first grandbaby. I think about if we would have had two or three grandbabies. You just wonder. That was her life. That was what she was going to do. That was her future, and they took it away from her.”

Still searching for justice

Jeff Davis County Sheriff Mark Hall, who was killed in the line of duty in 1992, investigated the case in the days after the murder. He told the Telegraph in 1990 that authorities believed Rhonda knew her assailant based on evidence gathered at the crime scene. He said it looked as though she had stepped out of her car to talk to someone.

“A pretty, sweet, little girl like that who had never done anything to anybody, and for some maniac — I don’t know what the hell else you would call him — to do a thing like that to her,” Hall said. “We have questioned a lot of people, but no one has been arrested yet.”

In the months that followed, GBI Agent Martin Moses was assigned to Coleman’s case due to its magnitude. The crime was widely reported across the region, making headlines in Atlanta papers. Moses also began probing another local woman’s death.

In November of 1989, Jeannette Carter, 34, was bludgeoned to death six months before Coleman was murdered. Investigators later said the two cases were not related.

Over the years, the Coleman case has been passed along to various investigators.

After five and half years, GBI investigator Pam Rushton delved into the investigation. Rushton said that the evidence showed that a vehicle had pulled in behind her but that there were no signs of a struggle.

“This was a senseless murder,” Rushton said in an interview with The Telegraph around the eighth anniversary of Rhonda’s slaying. “At some point the truth’s going to come out.”

Jason Seacrist, another GBI agent, is one of the latest in a line of investigators to help with the case. He couldn’t get into any specifics on where the GBI’s investigation currently stands, but Seacrist did say that in a case like this, investigators are always looking into new evidence and using new technology.

“Letting the victim’s family know what happened and being able to give them some answers is ultimately one of the most fulfilling things,” he said. “And we want to hold whoever is responsible accountable.”

The Colemans hired a private investigator a few years ago named Jody Ponsell.

Ponsell, a retired GBI agent and native of southeast Georgia, examined several facets of the case for Coleman’s family and their attorney. Having worked as a narcotics agent throughout the region around the time Coleman was slain, Ponsell was familiar with local law enforcement officials. He knew the terrain. With an easy drawl and a meticulous manner, he was no outsider.

Ponsell now works as an investigator for the district attorney’s office in the area that includes Jeff Davis County. Citing the ongoing official investigation, he declined to discuss what the authorities and what he himself may have learned about Coleman’s death.

However, reached by phone recently, Ponsell said he hopes that answers emerge.

“I’m no different than any of the other officers that have worked on that case,” he said. “It’s very near and dear to all of us. ... Everyone wants to see an opportunity arise at some point for justice for Rhonda and for her family.”

Rhonda’s father, Milton, said Ponsell’s investigation led to some eye-opening revelations, but he could not disclose what they were.

The Colemans continue to pursue justice for their daughter and honor her with ads in the local newspaper on special occasions. They never want anyone to forget about Rhonda, especially those who may be responsible for her murder.

“Every year we put things in the newspaper at Christmas and on her birthday,” Gayle said. “We put it on Facebook so that (her killer) can see it.”

Milton and Gayle are hopeful that one day soon justice will be served. They often think about what that day might be like when they get the news.

Milton had just one word to describe it: “closure.”

Gayle said it would hopefully bring answers to the questions that many have wondered about over the years.

“It would stop us from constantly wondering who it is, constantly wondering why and how,” Gayle said. “It would put that part of our mind at rest.”

‘Learned the meaning of love’

Over the years the case has attracted interest far and wide.

From local news outlets to NBC’s “Dateline,” Rhonda’s murder has been the subject of speculation and discussion for more than three decades.

This summer, a new podcast about Rhonda’s case is set to be released by Sean Kipe, who recently produced “In the Red Clay,” a podcast that details the story of Billy Sunday Birt and his time with the Dixie Mafia.

The hope for the new podcast from Kipe, “Fox Hunter,” is for someone to come forward with information that leads to the case being solved. Kipe plans to help increase the $25,000 reward on the podcast by getting listeners to help donate to a fund.

The Colemans still hope, after 31 years, that Rhonda’s murder will be solved. Love, they said, has kept them going.

“It was mutual. That was the love we had,” Milton said. “We didn’t doubt our love for her or her love for us.”

The person who killed Rhonda Sue Coleman may have taken her from her parents, her family and her friends, but she still lives on through the love that Gayle and Milton share with one another.

“We knew what love was in our families growing up,” Gayle said. “When we had her, we really learned the meaning of love.”

Milton and Gayle Coleman have never stopped loving Rhonda Sue, or wanting answers to what happened and who killed their daughter in 1990

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.