FBI video: Authorities haven’t given up on 3 Lumberton women killed in 2017
LUMBERTON, N.C. (WBTW) — Christina “Kristin” Bennett, Rhonda Jones and Megan Oxendine: Their deaths in 2017 in Lumberton remained unsolved, but authorities haven’t given up hope of catching their killer.
“These women were mothers, daughters, sisters,” FBI Special Agent Glen said in a newly released video about the investigation. “These women have family that have been mourning for seven years now.”
The bodies of the three women were found within a four-block radius in Lumberton. Bennett was found dead inside a home on Peachtree Street on April 18, 2017. That same day, Rhonda Jones was found dead outside a home on E. 5th Street. Oxendine was found dead outside a home on E. 8th Street on June 3, 2017.
“We’re still trying to confirm exactly when Kristin, Rhonda and Meagan were last seen and who they were with,” Lumberton Police Lt. White said in the nearly two-and-half-minute-long video. “We need that timeline to assist in our investigation and give the families of these women [some] much need answers and some closures.”’
The FBI is offering a $75,000 reward for information that helps solve the case.
“Cases nationwide are being solved, ones that are 5 years old, 10 years old, 20, even 30 years old, with new technology and new methods of investigation,” Glen said. “All it takes is that one small piece, maybe a small piece that’s reanalyzed, and we are confident that it’s just going to take one small bit of information, one reanalysis to solve this.”
A year ago, Lumberton Police Chief Michael McNeill said “this is not a cold case.”
“We continue to actively develop and follow leads,” McNeill said. “These women deserve justice, and we will not stop until they get it.”
Two years ago, Jones’ mother, Shelia Price told News13 that her life had been a nightmare since her daughter was found naked, upside-down in a dumpster with fractures on her face and chest. She said she thinks about the day their bodies were found all the time.
“That’s where I’m still at today because I don’t know who killed my daughter- why, where, when?” Price said. “I don’t even know what day my daughter died, all I know is when she was found.”
In the years since the deaths, Price founded “Shatter the Silence,” an advocacy group for missing and murdered people in the area.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the FBI’s Charlotte, North Carolina office at 704-672-6100 or Lumberton police at 910-671-3845. Tips can also be submitted online at tips.fbi.gov.
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Dennis Bright is a Digital Producer at News13. He joined the team in May 2021. Dennis is a West Virginia native and a graduate of Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. Follow Dennis on, Facebook, X, formerly Twitter, and read more of his work here.
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