Arrest Made in 1986 Abduction‑Slaying of Mississippi Teen Shondra May
By James Seidel | CC News Network
FOREST, Miss. — Shondra May: Nearly 39 years after Shondra May was kidnapped on her way home from work, Scott County deputies on Tuesday arrested Rubin Earl Weeks, a longtime suspect whose red hair and criminal history have shadowed one of Mississippi’s oldest cold cases.
Weeks, 60, was taken into custody at his camper in Rankin County without incident, Sheriff Mike Lee said.
Shondra’s Movements
In February 1986, 17‑year‑old Shondra May finished an early shift at a McDonald’s and left work ahead of schedule. She stopped at a TG&Y store to pick up a Valentine’s card, then drove toward her rural Scott County home—and vanished.
When May failed to arrive, her mother began calling friends. Relatives soon located Shondra’s car idling in the roadway just short of the driveway. The engine was off, the radio still playing, the driver’s window slightly open. Her purse, keys and other belongings remained inside; only her driver’s license was missing.
For 22 days there were no answers.
On May’s 18th birthday, a fisherman discovered her nude body in Baker’s Creek near Bolton, about 40 miles away in Hinds County. She had been bound with industrial tape and stuffed inside plastic bags.
Rubin Earl Weeks and His Eventual Arrest
Weeks was questioned in 1986 but never charged. In 1991 he was convicted of kidnapping and raping a Missouri woman in an assault that investigators say mirrors May’s case: the victim was pulled from her car, bound with tape and left in a rural area. Weeks served 30 years in a Missouri prison before his 2022 release.
A multi‑agency cold‑case task force reopened the May investigation last year, re‑examining taped statements, forensic evidence and Weeks’s prior admissions. “I think he knew this day was coming,” Chief Deputy Brad Ellis said of Tuesday’s arrest.
Weeks faces counts of capital murder and kidnapping. He is being held without bond in the Scott County Detention Center. Court dates have not been set.
Sheriff Lee, who was 16 when May disappeared, credited decades of work by previous investigators and new DNA tools for the breakthrough. “This arrest brings us one step closer to justice for Shondra,” he said.
The probe remains active; detectives urge anyone with information on related crimes in the mid‑1980s to contact the Scott County Sheriff’s Office at 601‑469‑1511.
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