“North Carolina sheriff renews call for help in 1981 killing of woman on I-40”.

A North Carolina sheriff this week renewed his call for help in solving the 1981 fatal shooting of 19-year-old Rhonda Hinson, who was killed in a car on Interstate 40 as she walked home from a party of Christmas.

The combined reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in Hinson's death has increased to $94,700, Sheriff Banks Hinceman said Wednesday on Facebook.

“I believe there is someone with credible information who could help bring the person or people responsible for this murder to justice,” Hinceman said.

“I know it’s been 42 years,” Hinceman said. “If you're worried about what people will think of you, it's never too late to make the right choice.”

Hinson was shot while heading toward Valdese, North Carolina, on I-40 West to the Mineral Springs Mountain Road exit, Hinceman said.

Judy Hinson, Rhonda's mother, told the Charlotte Observer's news partner WSOC that she and her husband still think about their daughter every day.

“If we don’t talk about it during the day, we dream about it at night,” Hinson said. “The most caring and loving child you will ever meet.”

The case has attracted national attention over the years. It was featured in an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” on Netflix and in a December 2022 report from NBC News Dateline.

“She was funny, happy,” Judy Hinson told Dateline. “She loved everyone. She has never met a stranger.

Sheriff's investigators and State Bureau of Investigation agents spent thousands of hours over the decades investigating Hinson's death, Hinceman said.

“My prayer is that the Lord will lay heavy on someone's heart to come forward with credible information that will bring justice to Rhonda and her family,” he said.

The Sheriff's Office has a tip line dedicated solely to the Hinson case: 828-764-9549.