Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chili, and once again
Speaker 1: it's just going to be Jewels and myself doing our
Speaker 1: next series of episodes because, as you probably know, Ashley
Speaker 1: has started a new career as a teacher, so she
Speaker 1: is quite busy right now. So we're giving her a
Speaker 1: break and we're going to go back to our format
Speaker 1: where I share the details of a case with Jewels
Speaker 1: that she's not familiar with, and she will give off
Speaker 1: her reaction to all the information I share. So, Jules,
Speaker 1: have you heard of the murder of Ronda Hinson?
Speaker 2: This one isn't ringing any bells for me?
Speaker 1: Okay. It was featured on Unsolved Mysteries and I covered
Speaker 1: it on The Trail Went Cold all the way back
Speaker 1: on episode number four, which would have been nine years ago.
Speaker 1: And I remember in twenty nineteen, an independent journalist named
Speaker 1: Larry Griffin started publishing a new series of articles about
Speaker 1: the case in a North Carolina based publication called The
Speaker 1: Wilkes Record. And this was a major deep dive involving
Speaker 1: tons of research where we learned pretty much everything about
Speaker 1: Ronda's life, the other people in her life, and the case.
Speaker 1: And I learned so much more new information about this
Speaker 1: case that I did not know before, and I figured
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to revisit this one sometime on
Speaker 1: the trail went cold. But the problem is is that
Speaker 1: a series of articles just kept going and going and going,
Speaker 1: and he kept publishing new ones, and he made it
Speaker 1: all the way to part eighty nine. There were literally
Speaker 1: eighty nine articles about this and it did not conclude
Speaker 1: until twenty twenty one. I did finally revisit this case
Speaker 1: on a Patreon exclusive bonus episode I released in December
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, but I wanted to go back
Speaker 1: to it now, and I've thought it would be fun
Speaker 1: for us to discuss the case.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's so in depth.
Speaker 3: That sounds like Tim and Lance's coverage of Mara Murray
Speaker 3: just so right into the minutia.
Speaker 1: Exactly like you pretty much learn everything about Ronda's life.
Speaker 1: And of course it caused me to look at this
Speaker 1: case in an entirely different life because the Unsaw Mystery
Speaker 1: segment they produced in nineteen eighty nine barely even scratch
Speaker 1: the surface of how crazy this case was. And of
Speaker 1: course there's no way I'll be able to share all
Speaker 1: the information from his articles on this particular series of episodes,
Speaker 1: So I'd encourage if you want to learn more afterwards,
Speaker 1: to seek out Larry Griffin's like eighty nine part series
Speaker 1: of articles about the murder of Ronda Hinson.
Speaker 3: I love when a journalist really sinks their teeth into
Speaker 3: a case and they not only provide the necessary nuance,
Speaker 3: but more contextual clues about who this person was, whatever
Speaker 3: potential entanglements they had, their relationships, what their job was like,
Speaker 3: what they liked, what they disliked. I love getting that
Speaker 3: really holistic viewpoint of who a victim was, so we
Speaker 3: can really truly understand who they were in their life
Speaker 3: and how this certain thing happened to them.
Speaker 2: And I think so.
Speaker 3: Often when we look back at you know, probably you
Speaker 3: look at your earlier episodes when there just wasn't the
Speaker 3: material for some of these cases, and you're looking at
Speaker 3: unsolved mysteries, you just you miss out in a lot
Speaker 3: of nuance.
Speaker 1: It's true, like it becomes pretty obvious as we as
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this that Ronda's personal life
Speaker 1: played a big role in what happened to her, and
Speaker 1: that now that we've got the full context, it's now
Speaker 1: seems we have a very solid theory about what might
Speaker 1: have happened. So the case takes place in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: one in Burke County, North Carolina. Rondi Hinson was nineteen
Speaker 1: years old at the time and was living in the
Speaker 1: small town of Valdis with her parents, Judy and Bobby Hinson,
Speaker 1: and she also had a younger brother named Robbie. And
Speaker 1: after graduating from high school, Ronda did not seem to
Speaker 1: have much interest in attending college, so she got a
Speaker 1: job working in a clerical position at the Hickory Steel Company,
Speaker 1: which was located in the town of Hickory, about fifteen
Speaker 1: miles from her home. And on the evening of December
Speaker 1: the twenty second, Ronda decided to attend a workplace Christmas
Speaker 1: party which was being held at the Hickory American Legion Hut.
Speaker 1: And as far as our parents knew, she was probably
Speaker 1: going to be spending the night with a friend because
Speaker 1: she had a shift at the company the following morning
Speaker 1: and wanted to save herself the drive and if you
Speaker 1: watch the Unsolved Mystery segment, Judy Hinson talks about how
Speaker 1: at one am she was suddenly awoken from her sleep,
Speaker 1: having what she described as a eerie premonition, and she
Speaker 1: had this feeling that something bad had happened. So she
Speaker 1: got her husband, Bobby up and asked him to check
Speaker 1: the police band and he started hearing reports about a
Speaker 1: shooting that occurred, even though no details were broadcast, And
Speaker 1: sure enough, a couple hours later, a pair of detectives
Speaker 1: would show up at their home and inform them that
Speaker 1: Ronda had been shot. So this was a pretty eerie premonition.
Speaker 2: That is intense.
Speaker 3: I can't imagine what it would feel like to think that,
Speaker 3: or to I feel in your bones that something like
Speaker 3: that is going to happen, and then your logical mind
Speaker 3: is telling you this isn't going to happen, like you're
Speaker 3: not right, you're not correct. But I think that whether
Speaker 3: it's mother's intuition, or whether it's some kind of otherworldly
Speaker 3: thing that we have yet to explain, or it's quantum
Speaker 3: entanglement where you know we are connected to those who
Speaker 3: are close to us when it's from a DNA type
Speaker 3: of a bond, or you could say that everybody is
Speaker 3: connected if we are going to ascribe to the Big Bang.
Speaker 3: So there's lots of different ways to look at why
Speaker 3: somebody gets a premonition in how it could actually come true,
Speaker 3: or any other type of psychic phenomenon. But that is
Speaker 3: pretty mind blowing for me when that happens in a case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can understand why this would be a
Speaker 1: case that Unsolved Mysteries would want to feature, because they
Speaker 1: not only feature true crime, but they also looked at
Speaker 1: the paranormal. And this wasn't the only case where someone
Speaker 1: said that I had a weird feeling or I had
Speaker 1: a weird premonition that someone I loved was going to
Speaker 1: be harmed, and then sure enough it actually came true.
Speaker 1: But here it was particularly shocking because this was a
Speaker 1: small town in North Carolina, which was not known for
Speaker 1: violent crime. So one of the odds that you would
Speaker 1: just be waking up with this bad feeling in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night about your daughter and then a
Speaker 1: couple hours later discovered that she had been murdered. So
Speaker 1: it turned out that Ronda had not decided to spend
Speaker 1: the night at her friend's house. She was planning to
Speaker 1: drive home, and her car had been discovered in a
Speaker 1: ditch on Mineral Springs Mountain Road at about one point
Speaker 1: fifteen am, and it was only about a half mile
Speaker 1: away from her parents' house, the driver's side door was opened,
Speaker 1: the engine was still running, but Ronda was lying dead
Speaker 1: on the ground a few feet away from the vehicle.
Speaker 1: And it turned out that she had been killed by
Speaker 1: a single gunshot wound, which had been fired from a
Speaker 1: high powered rifle. And incredibly, it turned out that the
Speaker 1: bullet had traveled through the car's trunk, through the back
Speaker 1: seat and the driver's seat before it pierced Ronda straight
Speaker 1: through the heart and her lung, killing her instantly. Because
Speaker 1: she was found at the side of the road with
Speaker 1: her arms at her side, they figured, no, there's no
Speaker 1: way she could have crawled out on her own because
Speaker 1: she would have been killed instantly. So they figured that
Speaker 1: someone had to have gone over to her car after
Speaker 1: it crashed into the ditch and removed her body and
Speaker 1: placed it on the road. But it was just so
Speaker 1: freaky because it looked like a shot that likes some
Speaker 1: high powered assassin would have fired. Because one of the
Speaker 1: odds that would have traveled through all these obstacles and
Speaker 1: get Ronda like point blank in the heart.
Speaker 3: I think it comes down to that question, is it
Speaker 3: because somebody has this incredible level of skill, or is
Speaker 3: it just one of those low probability shots that just
Speaker 3: happened in this case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the big mystery here about whether this
Speaker 1: was premeditated murder or a freak accident, because obviously a
Speaker 1: nineteen year old girl is not going to be someone
Speaker 1: that you would picture being shot by a sniper from
Speaker 1: an elevated position and in a professional assassination. So it
Speaker 1: just seemed like it might have been dumb luck, that
Speaker 1: maybe someone was just playing to fire a shot at
Speaker 1: or a scare or something like that, and just by
Speaker 1: a freak accident, it traveled through the trunk, the back seat,
Speaker 1: the driver's seat, and then got her right in the heart.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awful. I mean, she didn't have any connections
Speaker 3: to anyone who was in the military or who had
Speaker 3: any great deal of skill with a rifle. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is South Carolina.
Speaker 1: Correct, North Carolina, North.
Speaker 2: Carolina, one of the Carolinas.
Speaker 3: Okay, so people there, I don't know how much of
Speaker 3: a gun culture there is, but I feel like there
Speaker 3: is a gun culture. Would I be correct in saying that.
Speaker 1: Yes, Because they felt that the murder weapon was a
Speaker 1: hunting rifle, and hunting was very popular in that particular area,
Speaker 1: so it did not seem out of the ordinary that
Speaker 1: she would know one or more people who would have
Speaker 1: owned a hunting rifles. So at the time, it didn't
Speaker 1: really stick out that there was anyone that seemed like
Speaker 1: a likely candidate to have fired a shot like that
Speaker 1: at her. So when you looked at the route from
Speaker 1: a Hickory to Bald's, what she would need to do
Speaker 1: is travel west on Interstate forty and then use the
Speaker 1: Exit one twelve off ramp to drive onto Mineral Springs
Speaker 1: Mountain Road where she was found. And the off ramp
Speaker 1: was located next to a bridge which ran over the
Speaker 1: road and Ronda's car was only two hundred yards away
Speaker 1: from it. And an eyewitness would come forward and say
Speaker 1: that sometime between twelve fifteen and twelve thirty am, about
Speaker 1: forty five minutes before Ronda was discovered, they were driving
Speaker 1: under the Interstate bridge and noticed a blue Chevrolet containing
Speaker 1: two white males park there. About twenty five to forty
Speaker 1: minutes later, another motorists claimed that they were driving on
Speaker 1: Mineral Springs Mountain Road. It was a truck driver named
Speaker 1: Reggie Smart and noticed what appeared to be a Chevrolet
Speaker 1: vehicle speeding away from the scene, and it appeared to
Speaker 1: be blue or gray, and he described it as having
Speaker 1: a bumper that looked like it was messed up and
Speaker 1: had damage to it. And then almost immediately thereafter, Smart
Speaker 1: said that he drove past Ronda's Datson while it was
Speaker 1: in the ditch and noticed an unidentified man standing by
Speaker 1: the driver side door and a woman who appeared to
Speaker 1: be slumped over the steering wheel in the front seat.
Speaker 1: And then shortly thereafter he drove back, he passed by
Speaker 1: what appeared to be a dark transam, which likely belonged
Speaker 1: to the man standing next to Ronda's vehicle, And at
Speaker 1: the time Smart just thought this was a couple who
Speaker 1: had been drunk or something like that, so he didn't
Speaker 1: think it was anything serious. But then when he found
Speaker 1: out that Ronda had been killed at that location, he
Speaker 1: instantly contacted the police and they placed him under hypnosis
Speaker 1: to see if he could remember any more details. But
Speaker 1: even though he was certain he had seen a man
Speaker 1: pulling Ronda out of the front seat, he did not
Speaker 1: get a good look at his face to provide a description,
Speaker 1: but it seemed obvious that the person who did this
Speaker 1: was probably the person who shot her, because otherwise, why
Speaker 1: wouldn't they have contacted the police.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that I can't really think of any other explanation
Speaker 3: for why somebody would pull her body from the vehicle
Speaker 3: except for to see if she was indeed alive, to
Speaker 3: see if they could render aid. And imagine if you had,
Speaker 3: by accident shot her and then you go to the
Speaker 3: vehicle and you realized she's dead, like there's absolutely nothing
Speaker 3: that you can do to help her, and maybe somebody
Speaker 3: just went into self preservation mode, going, no, one's going
Speaker 3: to understand why I'm randomly shooting at vehicles, trying to
Speaker 3: scare people, just trying to have a I don't know,
Speaker 3: quote unquote good time. I don't know if that's what
Speaker 3: this person or people were doing, but I could see
Speaker 3: that law enforcement would end up charging them with men's
Speaker 3: slaughter potentially. So if you're looking at jail time, I
Speaker 3: could see pulling the person's body from the vehicle and
Speaker 3: going I can't do anything for them, and then panicking
Speaker 3: and leaving, Or if it was somebody who had intentionally
Speaker 3: done it, maybe you're going to see if this person
Speaker 3: is alive. But I think that you could see that
Speaker 3: without having to pull them from the vehicle, So that
Speaker 3: makes me lean towards that it was an accident.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's why opinions were sharply divided for many years,
Speaker 1: because if it was a premeditated murder, it's a huge
Speaker 1: risk to actually go up next to the vehicle and
Speaker 1: handle her body. Because as we saw, Reggie Smart passed
Speaker 1: by and saw him and this person and was just
Speaker 1: very lucky that he didn't get a good enough look
Speaker 1: to provide a description. And I think that a person
Speaker 1: would only do that if they were surprised that Ronda
Speaker 1: was killed, that they fired off a shot but wasn't
Speaker 1: intending to murder her, and then just had to go
Speaker 1: over and check. And once they realize, oh my god,
Speaker 1: she was killed, instantly I have to high tail it
Speaker 1: out of there. And the whole description of the two
Speaker 1: men seen in the car, it's interesting how Reggie Smart
Speaker 1: saw the car matching that description, the white or sorry
Speaker 1: the gray or blue Chevrolet speeding off while this second
Speaker 1: man was standing next to Ronda's body. So they wondered
Speaker 1: maybe they were sitting in the car together and one
Speaker 1: of the guys decided to high tail it out of there,
Speaker 1: while the other person decided to stay at the scene
Speaker 1: and check if Ronda was still alive.
Speaker 3: That's possible, and I could see a world where if
Speaker 3: it was their objective to end her life, that you
Speaker 3: would want to go and verify that you.
Speaker 2: Did indeed do that.
Speaker 3: So I cannot see pulling her body out of the vehicle,
Speaker 3: because you could check a pulse. You can see if
Speaker 3: somebody is deceased by just checking a pulse, by seeing
Speaker 3: are they breathing, checking for breath, without hauling them out
Speaker 3: of the vehicle. So that step is like the one
Speaker 3: step that I'm like, oh, I don't know, But if
Speaker 3: you were trying to kill her, then I could see
Speaker 3: wanting to verify that you did indeed finish the job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that might be what happened that maybe just
Speaker 1: if it was a premanitated murder one of the people,
Speaker 1: maybe because they had their own vehicle, this dark trans am,
Speaker 1: they just wanted to double check while their accomplice just
Speaker 1: sped away from the scene.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine though, if it was indeed, if that
Speaker 3: is indeed what happened, You're there checking to verify if
Speaker 3: you were successful at killing somebody, or you accidentally killed somebody,
Speaker 3: and your buddy's just like deuces seal you later and
Speaker 3: speeds off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be pretty shocking, So I can only
Speaker 1: imagine that they had quite an argument or so if
Speaker 1: they were in on this together. So, of course, because
Speaker 1: Ronda had been killed, her parents started like looking back
Speaker 1: and trying to think if there were any strange behaviors
Speaker 1: that might have given some hints about who would have
Speaker 1: had a motive to kill her. And I know that
Speaker 1: to Ronda always used to drive everywhere on her own,
Speaker 1: but in the weeks and months prior to her death,
Speaker 1: she started telling her father to accompany her whenever she
Speaker 1: took trips into town, and during one of these trips,
Speaker 1: Ronda suddenly told Bobby that she had something bad to
Speaker 1: tell him, which he probably wouldn't like, and Bobby said
Speaker 1: urged her to come clean, saying, whatever it is, just
Speaker 1: tell me, but Ronda said she would think about it
Speaker 1: and never did tell him what was wrong. And a
Speaker 1: short time later, Ronda had a conversation with her mother, Judy,
Speaker 1: and she randomly decided to ask if it was ever
Speaker 1: okay to date a married man, and Judy told her
Speaker 1: that it was not okay because it would only lead
Speaker 1: to people getting hurt. But Ronda pretty much ended the conversation,
Speaker 1: never provided any context about why she asked this, and
Speaker 1: they never found any information that she was having an
Speaker 1: affair with a married man. But of course people started
Speaker 1: to wonder because of this, we question, in this weird
Speaker 1: conversation with her father, was there something bothering her and
Speaker 1: was there someone out there who might have had a
Speaker 1: motive to Harmer.
Speaker 3: I would say, based on her actions, it's pretty easy
Speaker 3: to deduce that she felt like she was in some
Speaker 3: kind of danger, because I can remember being a nineteen
Speaker 3: year old girl.
Speaker 2: You love your independence.
Speaker 3: The last thing that you're going to do, unless you
Speaker 3: feel unsafe, is to ask your dad to accompany you everywhere.
Speaker 3: I would say that is extremely atypical, especially since it
Speaker 3: was a new thing that she was doing. And then
Speaker 3: to ask that very specific question about a married man,
Speaker 3: I would say that there's a very high probability that
Speaker 3: she was sleeping or it had a relationship with a
Speaker 3: married man, because otherwise, why would you ask that question
Speaker 3: unless you were thinking about doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's what they wondered, is that maybe she
Speaker 1: hadn't actually gone through with it, but she was thinking
Speaker 1: about it. Maybe she had a crush with another married
Speaker 1: man she knew. But of course you feel so bad
Speaker 1: for Judy and Bobby in these situations because after she's killed,
Speaker 1: they're just kicking themselves saying that I really should have
Speaker 1: pushed her harder about this, maybe we could have prevented
Speaker 1: her death. But at the time they just wanted to
Speaker 1: give ron to some space and pretty much said, well, well,
Speaker 1: we'll let this go, and if ron wants to tell
Speaker 1: us something, she will, and they never dreamed that she
Speaker 1: would wind up dead a short time later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got to feel bad for the parents, especially
Speaker 3: your father, because I can't imagine you're told I've got
Speaker 3: something big to tell you, but she doesn't share with him.
Speaker 3: That is going to literally haunt him for the rest
Speaker 3: of his days, because every day you're going to kick
Speaker 3: yourself and go.
Speaker 2: Why didn't I push harder? Why didn't I ask her?
Speaker 3: And the answer is probably she wasn't ready to share
Speaker 3: that information, or she would have shared it with him already.
Speaker 3: And as sad as it is, you can't change what
Speaker 3: wasn't shared in the past. And I just I feel
Speaker 3: so deeply for them because to have your nineteen year
Speaker 3: old daughter taken away from you is difficult enough, but
Speaker 3: when you couple it with the mysterious circumstances, asking about
Speaker 3: the married man having her father accompany her saying there's
Speaker 3: something big that she needs to tell him, and then
Speaker 3: she's just she's gone.
Speaker 2: It's so sad.
Speaker 1: It is. And this is not the only cold case
Speaker 1: I've seen where parents said that their child was exhibiting
Speaker 1: strange behavior and making cryptic remarks prior to their death,
Speaker 1: and of course they wish they had done things differently
Speaker 1: and pressed them harder about it to find out what
Speaker 1: was wrong. But of course, hindsight is twenty twenty. And
Speaker 1: there's another strange event that happened because in the weeks
Speaker 1: leading up to her death, Ronda started growing paranoid and
Speaker 1: suffering from insomnia, and she would often get up in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night to compulsively take showers. And
Speaker 1: when her mother asked why she kept doing this off
Speaker 1: and Ronda simply said that it was because she quote
Speaker 1: unquote fell dirty. And of course, after her murder, police
Speaker 1: officers were telling her that this is behavior that is
Speaker 1: frequent in sexual assault survivors, where sometimes they will just
Speaker 1: feel a compulsive need to take showers because of what
Speaker 1: they'd experienced, so of course now they were wondering if
Speaker 1: something like that might have had in to Ronda, and
Speaker 1: she just never told them about it.
Speaker 3: That hit me like a punch in the gut, like personally,
Speaker 3: because I myself, I'm a survivor of sexual assault, and
Speaker 3: so I know that feeling that you said, and on
Speaker 3: like a.
Speaker 2: Cellular level, that visceral feeling of.
Speaker 3: Feeling dirty, needing to feel clean, and needing to wash
Speaker 3: one's self to do so.
Speaker 2: So I completely can identify with that.
Speaker 3: And I can't see any other scenario where somebody would
Speaker 3: say I feel dirty unless they made choices that they
Speaker 3: weren't happy with. But to me, it speaks to very
Speaker 3: high probabilities that there was likely some type of sexual assault.
Speaker 3: Maybe somebody was threatening her or making her feel unsafe
Speaker 3: and in doing.
Speaker 2: So, there was a sexual assault.
Speaker 3: Because oftentimes it's not necessarily about the sex, it's about
Speaker 3: the power. So if somebody's trying to intimidate her, it
Speaker 3: seems like that could be a tool I wish to do.
Speaker 1: So, Yeah, we're gonna be talking more about this later.
Speaker 1: How it's never been conclusively proven if Ronda was sexually assaulted,
Speaker 1: but we will find out that there was someone in
Speaker 1: her personal life who sounds like they could have been
Speaker 1: capable of doing that. But of course, sadly, back in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, there was just not as much understanding
Speaker 1: about sexual assaults, so I don't think it even occurred
Speaker 1: to Ronda's parents until after they were told by police
Speaker 1: that this was common behavior, And of course they wound
Speaker 1: up like getting angry with themselves again saying that they
Speaker 1: should have pressed Ronda harder about it, but they just
Speaker 1: never imagined that she would wind up dead in a
Speaker 1: very short time. So, like I mentioned earlier, the case
Speaker 1: was featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries which aired
Speaker 1: in November of nineteen eighty nine, and all the information
Speaker 1: I've just shared with you is all the information that
Speaker 1: was presented in that segment. But as we're going to
Speaker 1: find out, there's a lot more that they didn't reveal,
Speaker 1: which will cause you to look at this case in
Speaker 1: a different light and offer a lot of insight. It
Speaker 1: would turn out that some latent, unidentified fingerprints have been
Speaker 1: found on the window of the driver's side door of
Speaker 1: Ronda's vehicle, which did not belong to her or anyone else.
Speaker 1: For her family, but in the nineteen nineties, Ronda's parents
Speaker 1: learned that the police had lost this windshield and the
Speaker 1: fingerprint evidence, so unfortunately it's never been matched to anyone.
Speaker 1: And they did DNA testing on her sweater in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven and found traces a male DNA which
Speaker 1: did not match anyone else from her family either and
Speaker 1: has yet to be matched to anyone. But they figured
Speaker 1: that the DNA was probably left there by the person
Speaker 1: who handled her body and left it by the side
Speaker 1: of the road.
Speaker 3: Well, it's always nice when there's DNA, and at least
Speaker 3: moving forward, there's a potential that it could be linked
Speaker 3: through genetic genealogy or by some other means, so at
Speaker 3: least there is a profile there, So there's a potential
Speaker 3: that if that person ever gives their DNA or a
Speaker 3: family member does, that they could be identified.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been reported that there's only one person that
Speaker 1: has ever been ran against the DNA. It was a
Speaker 1: young man named Brian Lohman, who had asked Ronda out
Speaker 1: on a date shortly before she was killed. But of
Speaker 1: course the DNA did not match, and Brian is not
Speaker 1: considered to be a suspect. But surprisingly it has not
Speaker 1: been run against anyone else, even though, as we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about, there's some other people in Rhonda's personal
Speaker 1: life that it should have been compared to because there's
Speaker 1: a good chance it might match them. So it might
Speaker 1: just be a thing where maybe they have asked other
Speaker 1: people but they've refused to comply, and because they're not
Speaker 1: technically a suspect or a person of interest, the police
Speaker 1: have just never collected their DNA.
Speaker 2: So they haven't put it into a database.
Speaker 1: Not that I know of. No, surprisingly, I mean maybe
Speaker 1: because it's kind of a small town police department, But
Speaker 1: obviously I can understand them not doing it in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. But now that we're in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five and we have genetic genealogy and DNA could be
Speaker 1: matched to anyone, is surprising that they haven't done more
Speaker 1: with this evidence.
Speaker 3: I feel like they have the answer to the likely
Speaker 3: who could have potentially done.
Speaker 2: This in their evidence.
Speaker 3: If they actually pursued this and did the testing that
Speaker 3: they needed to do, put it into a database explore
Speaker 3: genetic genealogy, they likely could.
Speaker 2: Find an answer. Just like with you and all of
Speaker 2: your list Verse top.
Speaker 3: Tens, with the John and Jane does, and like nine
Speaker 3: of them have got their identities back now exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like so many cases that I've written about ten
Speaker 1: years ago have wound up being solved, and a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of John and Jane Doees have been identified because
Speaker 1: of DNA. But though, as we're going to talk about,
Speaker 1: I should add the disclaimer that it's never been conclusively
Speaker 1: proven that the DNA belongs to the person who killed hers,
Speaker 1: So it is possible that even if they did match
Speaker 1: it to someone that it wouldn't be enough evidence to
Speaker 1: prove that they conclusively committed the murder. But we'll go
Speaker 1: into more of that later on.
Speaker 3: Do they get into what kind of DNA it was like,
Speaker 3: if it was like spit or semen or blood or
Speaker 3: skin cells.
Speaker 1: They didn't really go into details. I am assuming it's
Speaker 1: probably touched DNA. I don't think it was spit or
Speaker 1: anything like that. That maybe just when they handled her
Speaker 1: body they left her DNA on the sweater, And of
Speaker 1: course back in nineteen eighty one they wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: thinking about that.
Speaker 2: But was touched DNA even a thing in two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, I.
Speaker 1: Think it was. Yeah, I can't be one hundred percent sure,
Speaker 1: but I know that DNA testing has advanced so much
Speaker 1: that maybe if they did further testing on the sweater,
Speaker 1: they could find better DNA evidence.
Speaker 3: Okay, So, according to Perplexity, touch DNA also known as
Speaker 3: trace DNA, began to be used in forensic science in
Speaker 3: the early two thousands. The concept of analyzing DNA from
Speaker 3: skin cells left behind by touch was first explored in
Speaker 3: the late nineties, with genetic profiles from finger marks being
Speaker 3: described in nineteen ninety seven by Ravan or Shot. However,
Speaker 3: it wasn't until the early two thousands that touched DNA
Speaker 3: became a widely used tool in forensic investigations. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: that checks out two thousand and seven. It is likely
Speaker 3: it could have been touched DNA. I was thinking that,
Speaker 3: like touch DNA wasn't until like the twenty tens, so
Speaker 3: that it must have been fluid, and it's hard to
Speaker 3: explain away fluid. But then again, you also can't put
Speaker 3: a date on that. Somebody could have some kind of
Speaker 3: fluid on a sweater and if you haven't washed that sweater,
Speaker 3: and you could have worn it like six months ago
Speaker 3: not washed it, warn it again, and that DNA is
Speaker 3: from somebody that you came in contact with months.
Speaker 1: Ago, that's true. I mean, for all we know, she
Speaker 1: could have gone to the Christmas party and dance with someone,
Speaker 1: and that person could have left their DNA on her sweater.
Speaker 1: So you just can't conclusively prove that the DNA was
Speaker 1: left there by the killer, because anyone could have touched
Speaker 1: that sweater over the course of the night, or even
Speaker 1: weeks or months earlier. So when I first put together
Speaker 1: my trail went Cold episode. The last source I use
Speaker 1: was an article that was published in December of twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: around the anniversary of Ronda's murder, and at that time
Speaker 1: they interviewed Judy and Bobby Hinson, and they both had
Speaker 1: devisive opinions about how this crime was carried out, because
Speaker 1: he was certain that it was a planned, premeditated murder,
Speaker 1: but Bobby was leaning towards it being just kind of
Speaker 1: a freak accident where someone was firing off a gun
Speaker 1: that night, wasn't intending to kill anyone, but just by
Speaker 1: a force of nature, it just wound up passing through
Speaker 1: the trunk of her car and hitting Ronda in the heart.
Speaker 1: And he was hoping that if someone did that that
Speaker 1: they would come forward and at least admit what happened,
Speaker 1: and I have to admit that at the time I
Speaker 1: put together my podcast episode, I did lean more towards
Speaker 1: this being a freak accident because they never named anyone
Speaker 1: as a suspect or person of interest, They never revealed
Speaker 1: any information about Ronda having anyone in her personal life
Speaker 1: who had a motive to kill her. And also the
Speaker 1: fact that we have description of two cars that were
Speaker 1: seen next near the murder scene, the gray or blue
Speaker 1: Chevy and the dark trans Am. So I'm thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: if Ronda had any friends or acquaintances who drove vehicles
Speaker 1: matching that description, we probably would have heard about it
Speaker 1: by now. So that's why I was leaning towards the
Speaker 1: idea that a stranger did this, and I kind of
Speaker 1: formulated a theory. Have you ever seen the Brad Pitt
Speaker 1: Cate Blanchett film Babel.
Speaker 3: Yes, that was exactly what came to my head when
Speaker 3: you initially were explaining the case.
Speaker 2: I'm like, isn't that like the plot of Babel?
Speaker 1: Yes? Great, great minds think alike, that's cool, that's cool
Speaker 1: that you've seen it. But yeah, I mentioned it during
Speaker 1: my original episode because as you're a call, there's a
Speaker 1: storyline in there about these two kids in the Moroccan
Speaker 1: desert who decide to fire off a rifle from a
Speaker 1: high cliff, and by a freak occurrence, the bullet winds
Speaker 1: up passing through a tour bus that's like several miles
Speaker 1: away and why owns up seriously wounding Kate Blanchett's character.
Speaker 1: And of course these boys panic because there's a police
Speaker 1: investigation trying to find out who the shooter was, even
Speaker 1: though they were just playing firing off the rifle and
Speaker 1: just never dreamed that it would pass through this bus
Speaker 1: so far away. So I was thinking it was a
Speaker 1: similar situation with Ronda's killer, that maybe they got drunk.
Speaker 1: We're firing off a hunting rifle from an overpass just
Speaker 1: for the hell of it, and then by a freak occurrence,
Speaker 1: the bullet passed through Ronda's trunk and wound up killing her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was exactly where my mind went, and I
Speaker 3: thought this has to be an accident, because if it
Speaker 3: wasn't an accident, even if you are this highly trained sniper,
Speaker 3: you're working with a lot of variables when you're shooting
Speaker 3: through a vehicle. I would think that you would likely
Speaker 3: make at least two shots just to make sure that
Speaker 3: you hit your target. And are we going to assume
Speaker 3: that this is a highly trained sniper, I mean probably not.
Speaker 3: Even if they're a hunter, I would still think that
Speaker 3: you might want to take more than one shot if
Speaker 3: that was your intent.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well that was my original theory and kind of
Speaker 1: a spoiler alert, but I'll say that I've now changed it.
Speaker 1: I'm still not sure if this was a murder and accidents,
Speaker 1: but I don't believe it was done by a complete stranger,
Speaker 1: because now I have learned about someone who may have
Speaker 1: had a motive to do this. So in that same
Speaker 1: article from December of twenty fifteen, it mentioned that Ronda
Speaker 1: had a boyfriend at the time, which I did not
Speaker 1: know it was not me during the unsawd mystery segment,
Speaker 1: and had mentioned that he was attending North Carolina State
Speaker 1: University in his freshman year but had recently come home
Speaker 1: from the holidays. And it was not until I read
Speaker 1: Larry Griffin series of articles that I finally learned more
Speaker 1: information about him, and a number of red flags went up.
Speaker 1: His name was Greg McDowell, His father, Charles McDowell, was
Speaker 1: a pastor at a local church, and Greg and Ronda
Speaker 1: have been together for about two years at that point,
Speaker 1: and even though they seemed like the perfect couple at first,
Speaker 1: a lot of people thought that Greg was starting to
Speaker 1: become more controlling and possessive of Ronda. He loved to
Speaker 1: obsessively write notes to her, but then would get frustrated
Speaker 1: if he felt that she wasn't reciprocating his feelings enough,
Speaker 1: and Judy noticed that as the relationship went along, Ronda's
Speaker 1: behavior began to change. She started doing worse in school,
Speaker 1: and when Greg went off to North Carolina State University
Speaker 1: and Ronda remained in town, he frequently phoned and wrote
Speaker 1: to her, and things got really bad right before the
Speaker 1: holidays because he had been he'd always been very critical
Speaker 1: about Ronda's weight, and then wrote her a letter saying
Speaker 1: that by the time I come home for the holidays,
Speaker 1: I want you to lose a few pounds. And it
Speaker 1: also turned out that Greg's mother, Betty McDowell, worked at
Speaker 1: the same employer as Ronda, the Hate Grey Steel Company,
Speaker 1: and she apparently told her son, don't worry, I will
Speaker 1: take this opportunity to keep an eye on Ronda. While
Speaker 1: you're at university, so number of red flags there.
Speaker 3: This is disgusting the fact that you've also got the
Speaker 3: mother enlisted to help, quote unquote keep an eye on Ronda.
Speaker 3: What are you keeping an eye on? Making sure she's
Speaker 3: not flirting with other guys, making sure she's the appropriate
Speaker 3: amount in love with you, making sure that during lunch
Speaker 3: she's eating a calorie reduced meal so that she can
Speaker 3: lose weight. I hate when any man or woman, or
Speaker 3: anyone tries to interfere with somebody's body autonomy and tell
Speaker 3: them that they need to be a certain weight in
Speaker 3: order to be attractive. People, especially women, feel enough pressure
Speaker 3: from society to look a certain way. They certainly don't
Speaker 3: need a partner like McDowell who's going to be saying
Speaker 3: you need to lose weight and also pushing his emotions
Speaker 3: on her in like this very controlling manner that if
Speaker 3: she doesn't reciprocate that, she somehow isn't a good partner.
Speaker 3: And it's like, we all have to come to whatever
Speaker 3: emotional feelings we have within a relationship in an organic manner.
Speaker 3: You can't be forced or coerce by another person, because
Speaker 3: that isn't a true emotional evolution and the fact that
Speaker 3: he's trying to force her emotions to evolve.
Speaker 2: You just can't.
Speaker 3: That isn't a genuine connection, And it feels like there's
Speaker 3: some kind of coerceive control going on here.
Speaker 1: Oh definitely. And the more I tell you about the McDowell's,
Speaker 1: as we go along, you'll realize that they were a
Speaker 1: pretty weird family in general. And I mentioned earlier that
Speaker 1: Ronda just didn't have much interest in attending college. I
Speaker 1: think she was just excited to stay in her hometown
Speaker 1: where her first job, and people now in retrospect think
Speaker 1: that she was kind of excited to have some independence
Speaker 1: because she figured, well, Greg will be away at school,
Speaker 1: I'll finally get to work my own job and have
Speaker 1: some freedom and independence. But of course he was constantly
Speaker 1: checking on her and was pretty much using his own
Speaker 1: mother as a spy, so that made her get even
Speaker 1: more unhappy, even though like they were barely seeing each
Speaker 1: other anymore. So I know that Ronda initially said that
Speaker 1: she did not really want to go to the Christmas party,
Speaker 1: but people became a parent that she really did want
Speaker 1: to go, but she wanted to go without Greg because
Speaker 1: he figured that if he came along, he would probably
Speaker 1: boss her around, embarrass her, and prevent her from having
Speaker 1: a good time, So she ultimately put her foot down
Speaker 1: and said, I'm going to the Christmas party, Greg, but
Speaker 1: I want you to stay home, and that apparently made
Speaker 1: him quite upset. So on the night of December the
Speaker 1: twenty second, while she was getting ready for the party,
Speaker 1: Ronda received several phone calls at home from Greg, and
Speaker 1: while her parents did not know the content of these calls,
Speaker 1: they said that none of them last longer than three minutes,
Speaker 1: and it appeared that Ronda was going out of her
Speaker 1: way to prevent them from overhearing her conversations. But from
Speaker 1: what they did here, Ronda's parents felt that Greg was
Speaker 1: doing what he could to make Ronda feel bad for
Speaker 1: not inviting him to the party and trying to ruin
Speaker 1: her night.
Speaker 3: I love that she didn't invite him to the party
Speaker 3: and was like, you've got to say this one out.
Speaker 3: I want to have fun, but it just sucks for
Speaker 3: Ronda that his mother is there and like keeping an
Speaker 3: eye on everything that she's doing. I can't imagine what
Speaker 3: that would feel like that like you're finally you have
Speaker 3: this financial freedom, you have this freedom in having this
Speaker 3: job and you're really excited about it. Sounds like a
Speaker 3: decent job, and yet you're being spied on all of
Speaker 3: the time. You've got these watchful eyes. Any conversation that
Speaker 3: she has with any male in the work environment, I'm
Speaker 3: sure is going to be scrutinized heavily by McDowell's mother.
Speaker 3: I'm I just I feel like you would just feel
Speaker 3: so trapped, even in this situation where he's so far
Speaker 3: away at university. You've got all this distance, but yet
Speaker 3: you don't even have the freedom that should come along
Speaker 3: with that.
Speaker 1: It's true, yeah, so, And I don't know the timing,
Speaker 1: but it would be crazy if it turned out that
Speaker 1: Betty got the job at the steel company after Ronda
Speaker 1: did for the express purpose of keeping an eye on her.
Speaker 1: And makes me wonder too, because it sounds like Greg's
Speaker 1: father was also controlling and probably didn't want his wife working,
Speaker 1: so she might have actually been allowed to get this
Speaker 1: job just so that she could keep an eye on Ronda.
Speaker 1: It was just a very weird situation.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like Ronda was working her way up
Speaker 2: to dumping him?
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, And as we're going to talk about,
Speaker 1: there been speculation that maybe she did eventually tell Greg
Speaker 1: that she was breaking up with them, and that this
Speaker 1: could have set him off on this particular night.
Speaker 3: Because I feel like, if you're going to tell a
Speaker 3: guy that he can't come to a Christmas party with you,
Speaker 3: just in my own personal opinion, I would be pretty
Speaker 3: ready to dump them at that point. If I don't
Speaker 3: really care about their feelings and them coming to a
Speaker 3: party that should be for me and then my significant
Speaker 3: other and it's like, no, sweetie, you can sit this
Speaker 3: one out, I would be ready to be like, see
Speaker 3: you later. This relationship isn't working for me. I feel
Speaker 3: like she's just taking baby steps in order to get
Speaker 3: to that point.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking as well. Like, she never told
Speaker 1: anyone that she was planning to break up with Greg,
Speaker 1: but I could see a lot of warning signs to
Speaker 1: indicate that she was going to do this in the
Speaker 1: near future. So, like I mentioned earlier, after the party,
Speaker 1: Ronda was planning to spend the night at a friend
Speaker 1: of hers named Sherry Pittman because she lived in Hickory
Speaker 1: and Ronda had to work the following morning, so she
Speaker 1: figured she would stay there in order to save herself
Speaker 1: a drive, but according to Sherry, after Ronda drove her home,
Speaker 1: Ronda went to the phone and had a conversation with someone,
Speaker 1: and it turned out it was probably Greg, even though
Speaker 1: they never actually heard the conversation. But according to Sharry
Speaker 1: and her mother, Ronda just suddenly changed her mind and said,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to spend the night, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go home now. And Ron then said that she had
Speaker 1: spoken to Greg and he was extremely angry, so she
Speaker 1: just didn't want to stay there and would go home instead.
Speaker 1: And this is a very important detail because other than
Speaker 1: the Pittmans, Greg would have been the only one who
Speaker 1: knew that Ronda would be returning home that night and
Speaker 1: driving that particular route where she would get off the
Speaker 1: Interstate and go down the off ramp onto Mineral Springs
Speaker 1: Mountain Road back to her house. When Greg was initially
Speaker 1: questioned by the police, he said that when he received
Speaker 1: the phone call from Ronda, he initially thought that she
Speaker 1: was calling from her own house, but then he later
Speaker 1: changed his story and said that, oh yeah, I knew
Speaker 1: that she was calling from Sherry's house. And that seems
Speaker 1: pretty damning because once again, there would have been no
Speaker 1: one else who knew that Ronda would be on that
Speaker 1: particular road at that particular time of night.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the probability that it's some stranger seems extremely low.
Speaker 3: And the fact that he freaked out about her staying
Speaker 3: at Sherry's I can only imagine how that conversation went, like,
Speaker 3: you're probably with a guy. You're probably just hiding that,
Speaker 3: and you're cheating on me, and you know, how dare you?
Speaker 3: You better get your ass home type of a situation.
Speaker 3: And then I can't think of any other reason where
Speaker 3: she'd be like, oh, it's just easier for me to
Speaker 3: go home than have to deal with all of this
Speaker 3: from him. Because if it was just you're staying at
Speaker 3: your girlfriend's house and he wasn't accusing you of any
Speaker 3: of that stuff, then I wouldn't see it being such
Speaker 3: a big deal. But I'm sure that he was just
Speaker 3: making a big deal about it because at that time
Speaker 3: of the night to actually get up and drive home,
Speaker 3: you were probably really worried about some kind of nuclear
Speaker 3: fallout from.
Speaker 1: Him, exactly, Like, it's so impractical to drive fifteen miles
Speaker 1: back to your parents' house when you could just get
Speaker 1: up the following morning and go to work. In the
Speaker 1: same town. But one theory which has been pushed forward
Speaker 1: is that, even though they can't confirm this on this conversation,
Speaker 1: there's a possibility that maybe Ronda was going to arrange
Speaker 1: a meetup with Greg somewhere later that night, and maybe
Speaker 1: she was finally going to break up with them, but
Speaker 1: that's when things escalated and when horribly wrong. So, like
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, after Judy had that weird premonition and
Speaker 1: woke up in the middle of the night and her
Speaker 1: husband checked the police band and heard about a shooting,
Speaker 1: they decided to call the Pittman residence to find out
Speaker 1: if Ronda was there, and were surprised to learn from
Speaker 1: Sherry that Ronda had changed her mind and decided to
Speaker 1: go home, which got them very worried because it only
Speaker 1: takes fifteen miles to get there and she should have
Speaker 1: been home by that very point. So they decided to
Speaker 1: call the McDowell residents to see if Greg or anyone
Speaker 1: else from the family knew where Ronda was, and the
Speaker 1: call was answered by Greg's father, Reverend Charles McDowell, and
Speaker 1: he told Bobby that he would go out and look
Speaker 1: for Ronda, and sometime later he came across Ronda's vehicle
Speaker 1: on Mineral Springs Mountain Road, which had now been courted
Speaker 1: off as a crime scene because they found her body.
Speaker 1: At this particular point, Ronda's family had not been notified
Speaker 1: about what happened to her, so Charles volunteered to accompany
Speaker 1: the two detectives to the Hintson residence, where they were
Speaker 1: finally told that Ronda had been murdered. Shortly thereafter, the
Speaker 1: Hinson's decided to call the McDowell residents to notify Greg
Speaker 1: about what happened, and then Charles got on the line
Speaker 1: and suggested to Greg that he and his mother should
Speaker 1: come by the Hinson residence to see him there, and
Speaker 1: they soon arrived, but Judy and Bobby would later say
Speaker 1: that Greg appeared to be freshly showered and shaved, which
Speaker 1: they found very unusual because he had claimed that he
Speaker 1: was woken up in the middle of the night by
Speaker 1: their phone calls, so there's really no reason he should
Speaker 1: have gotten into the shower and shaved after being informed
Speaker 1: that his girlfriend had been murdered, and then he apparently
Speaker 1: spent the next several hours sitting on the bed inside
Speaker 1: Judy and Bobby's room and he never spoke to them,
Speaker 1: and he only got up a few times to go
Speaker 1: into the bathroom in order to vomit.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's so difficult to understand how somebody is going
Speaker 3: to respond to grief. And I know there isn't one
Speaker 3: like a one size fits all, but I will say
Speaker 3: that it is very odd that he's freshly showered and
Speaker 3: probably selling of Irish spring or whatever. And you know
Speaker 3: that smell like when somebody's just freshly showered, and like
Speaker 3: it lasts in the morning, but like if it's six
Speaker 3: hours later, even four hours later, that smell of soap
Speaker 3: or unless somebody's using cologne or whatever has likely dissipated.
Speaker 2: So I would say that.
Speaker 3: Their observation that he showered recently is probably accurate. And
Speaker 3: you'd have to then wonder, why are you trying to
Speaker 3: wash away evidence and then sitting in isolation and not talking.
Speaker 3: Are you trying not to incriminate yourself? Are you feeling guilty?
Speaker 3: And I would say that the vomiting would back up
Speaker 3: the fact that he likely maybe he didn't intend to
Speaker 3: kill her, maybe he did intend to just scare her
Speaker 3: and in the end he killed her, But he had
Speaker 3: to have known that there was a possibility that he
Speaker 3: could have injured her, and then dealing with the ramifications
Speaker 3: for his choices is leading him to be physically ill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, people deal with grief in different ways,
Speaker 1: And just because he didn't want to speak to Ronda's
Speaker 1: parents does not necessarily mean he's holding back and incriminating
Speaker 1: a secret. But the fact that he didn't just cry
Speaker 1: but then wound up vomiting is a sign that, like,
Speaker 1: he was feeling physically ill over the whole thing, and
Speaker 1: you would think that that would be the result of
Speaker 1: guilt rather than just grief.
Speaker 3: I mean, I will say too, just to play Devil's advocate,
Speaker 3: I've been so upset in scenarios where I've been physically
Speaker 3: ill and it's not over grief. It's over something that's
Speaker 3: been done to me. So there is a possibility, but
Speaker 3: I would say that in most instances it would come
Speaker 3: from people probably feeling sick about what they've done. Like
Speaker 3: you hear about people getting sick at murder scenes, right,
Speaker 3: vomiting after they've done that, because it's just your body
Speaker 3: has this visceral reaction to committing this egregious act against
Speaker 3: another human being. Unless somebody is like a stone cold
Speaker 3: psychopath and they have absolutely no feeling about it. But
Speaker 3: I would just say that it does seem odd. But again,
Speaker 3: like we both mentioned, people respond to grief in different ways,
Speaker 3: so we're looking at it through the lens of all
Speaker 3: of these other weird behaviors that he's exhibited leading up
Speaker 3: to her death, and now we're seeing this in the aftermath.
Speaker 2: So it looks odd.
Speaker 1: It does. Yeah, like this on its own wouldn't be
Speaker 1: very incriminating, but when you combine it with some of
Speaker 1: the other strange behavior from Greg and his family, you
Speaker 1: can see why this is considered to be suspicious. So
Speaker 1: that brings it in to part one of our coverage
Speaker 1: about the murder of Rond Hinson. But join us next
Speaker 1: week for our coverage on part two.
Speaker 4: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
Speaker 1: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
Speaker 1: The Trail Went Cold's original feed, So they're exclusive to
Speaker 1: Patreon and if you join our highest tier, Tier three,
Speaker 1: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
Speaker 1: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaved Mysteries,
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 1: Tier three.
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Jewels and Nashty Patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 4: free episodes of the Path Went Chili. We've got our
Speaker 4: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
Speaker 4: so they're not very many, but they're just too short
Speaker 4: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those.
Speaker 4: We hope you'll check out those patreons will link them
Speaker 4: in the show notes.
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
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Speaker 1: You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So
Speaker 1: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
Speaker 1: trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Speaker 4: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy