The good news is, a proposed new fee that would have instituted a $50 charge - per officer - for funeral-procession services provided by the Mount Airy Police Department wasn’t included in the city’s new budget adopted in recent days. Tom Joyce may be reached at 33 or on Twitter escort fee dies others make cut No mitigating factors, those that promote leniency in meting out punishment, were identified.Īdkins reportedly suffers from medical conditions including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension and diabetes. Surry Sheriff Steve Hiatt has said the case was finally brought to a close through the collective work of many present and retired agents and officers of the different agencies involved.ĭuring the recent court proceeding, Judge Puckett cited an aggravating factor in Adkins’ sentencing, involving the fact he was armed with a deadly weapon and used it in the crime. 2, 2019, Adkins - who reportedly had no previous felony convictions - was arrested without incident in the girl’s murder and rape.

The man mostly has resided in Surry and Stokes counties and is said to have been married, fathering a son who is now an adult. Investigators with the task force conducted numerous interviews while focusing on evidence and forensic results that centered on Adkins, which included talking to witnesses in locations such as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Ohio.Īdkins, who has lived on Fisher Valley Road in recent years, reportedy was interviewed at length on multiple occasions in 2017, but not charged at that time. He wore a black T-shirt, faded jeans, white tennis shoes, aviator-style sunglasses and a baseball cap. The suspect listened to a rock radio station and smoked cigarettes. State Bureau of Investigation, Forsyth Sheriff’s Office, State Crime Lab, a state cold case unit and the S.C Law Enforcement Division.Īuthorities knew the killer had straight brownish hair feathered on the sides and light facial hair.

The multi-agency Ronda Blaylock Homicide Task Force included the Surry County Sheriff’s Office, Stokes County Sheriff’s Office, N.C. Sheriff Graham Atkinson, who has since retired to take another job, then formed a special unit in an attempt to stir up new leads using DNA and other modern techniques, bolstered by old evidence in the case being in excellent condition. The trail went cold in 1982 and the case remained unsolved through four decades despite the efforts of different sheriffs in Surry to resurrect interest in the abduction and murder, with limited success.Ī foundation for a breakthrough was laid in 2015. Three days later, passersby discovered her partially clothed body in a heavily wooded area near Sechrist Loop Road in Surry County, 18 miles from where numerous witnesses in Rural Hall saw Ronda and her friend voluntarily get into the pickup. Her parents, Rebecca and Charles Blaylock - who have both died within the past 10 years - reported their only child missing later that day. The female friend was dropped off unharmed at railroad tracks near the intersection of Tuttle Road and Priddy Road, without any indication Ronda was in any danger. The youth was walking a friend home after classes near Rural Hall Bowling Lanes when they accepted a ride from a stranger driving a blue Chevrolet pickup, according to previous reports. Ronda was a student at Atkins High School in Winston-Salem when she disappeared in 1980. The plea arrangement will include the terms running concurrently, or at the same time, rather than back to back, or consecutively. The case ended with the recent sentencing of Robert James Adkins, 64, of 1547 Fisher Valley Road, Dobson, who pleaded guilty to reduced charges of second-degree murder and second-degree rape.Īdkins had been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree forcible rape when arrested in August 2019 after a task force organized to accelerate progress in the cold case linked him to the girl’s abduction and vicious assault.ĭuring a late-December plea hearing in Surry Superior Court, Adkins was sentenced by Judge Angela Puckett to 21 years to 25 years each on the rape and murder charges. 29, 1980 on a rural road in the Pilot Mountain area, after the 14-year-old had been raped and stabbed to death. It began with the discovery of Ronda Mechelle Blaylock’s body on Aug.

A final chapter has been written in a cold case that long captivated the public’s attention, involving the murder and rape of a young girl which went unsolved nearly 40 years.

Charmas baylock