Rhonda Sue Coleman.

MUS-2026-0108

Index entry. Case details compiled from public reporting; our researchers have not verified this file yet.

Rhonda Sue Coleman, 18, left a senior class meeting in Hazlehurst, Georgia, on May 17, 1990 and never made it home. Her car was found abandoned beside the highway, and her body was discovered three days later in a wooded area of Montgomery County. The GBI crime lab autopsy determined no cause of death. No one has ever been charged. The case is partly the namesake of Georgia's Coleman-Baker Act, a 2023 cold case review law, and a 2026 Dateline episode covered it.

1. 1990-05-17

   Coleman left a senior class meeting in Hazlehurst and never made it home; her car was found abandoned beside the highway

2. 1990-05-20

   Her body was discovered in a wooded area of Montgomery County; the GBI crime lab autopsy determined no cause of death

3. 2023-05

   Georgia's Coleman-Baker Act, a cold case review law named partly for Coleman, was signed into law

4. 2026

   Dateline aired an episode covering her case; the reward for information leading to arrest and conviction stands at $150,000

This case is with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. If you know something, say something to them. For public-record leads for our researchers, use the tip line on any open file.

• GBI: Rhonda Sue Coleman unsolved homicide
• CityTowner: Rhonda Sue Coleman case file
• SoapCentral: Dateline episode on the Coleman and Baker cases