Suspect had served time for similar crime in Missouri
One of Scott County’s most notorious murder cases may have been solved this week. Rubin Weeks, 63, was arrested Tuesday by the Scott County Sheriff’s Department for the 1986 abduction and murder of then 17-year-old Shondra May. May was a senior at Leake Academy when she disappeared after leaving her job at McDonalds in Forest.
Weeks was previously a suspect in May’s murder.
In 1992 this paper reported that Weeks, who was then a Missouri prison inmate convicted of kidnapping and rape, was a suspect in May’s murder. Then Scott County Sheriff William Richardson said at that time that Weeks, who had formerly lived at 527 Longview Street in Forest, was serving a 30-years sentence after having been convicted as a habitual offender in the October 1991 kidnap and rape of a Millersville, MO woman.
Richardson said then that Weeks had contacted him and Hinds County officials and “expressed a desire to confess to what he said was his role in the crime.” Highway Patrol investigators traveled to Missouri to question the suspect and he volunteered to return to Jackson for questioning by then Hinds County Sheriff Malcolm McMillian since May’s body was found in Baker’s Creek near Bolton in Hinds County.
Prior to his Missouri incarceration, Weeks had previously served time in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman on Scott County convictions for breaking and entering and forgery in 1980, a Rankin County burglary in 1988, and again on forgery charges in Bolivar County in 1990.
In the Missouri case Weeks allegedly kidnapped and raped the woman after following her when she left her job at the Days Inn motel. Missouri authorities said that Weeks apparently convinced the woman to stop her car by flashing his own car lights in rapid succession. In the May case authorities also suspected the abductor convinced the young woman to stop her car just before she reached her home.
In the Missouri case, authorities also said that the victim was bound with tape at the wrists, ankles, knees and mouth, and left at the scene of the assault. The victim was later able to free herself and find help. May was also bound with tape when her body was found. Sheriff Richardson said in 1992 that the tape used in the Missouri abduction was “apparently similar” to the tape used in the May murder.
According to previous reports in this paper, on Feb. 4, 1986, May went to school that morning at Leake Academy. That evening, about 6 p.m., she clocked in at the local McDonald’s for her shift. It was a slow night, though, and she clocked out at 7:24 p.m. Before making it home, she slipped into the TG&Y to purchase an oversized Valentine’s Day card.
It was there that May was last reported seen alive. At 8:15 p.m., her mother became worried when she did not arrive home when expected. May’s abandoned car was found about 75 yards from her home. Her purse, car keys, and glasses were found in the car. The only thing missing from the vehicle was her driver’s license.
On the morning of February 26, on what would have been her 18th birthday, May’s nude and bound body was found floating face down in the six-to-ten feet deep muddy water by a fisherman. Her hands, feet and neck were tied together in what investigators called “hog tied” fashion with fiber reinforced tape.
Then State Medical Examiner Thomas Bennett ruled that the cause of death in the case “was inconclusive” but a second autopsy conducted by Hinds County Coroner Robert Martin and Jackson Pathologist Dr. Rodgrigo Galvez ruled the cause of death “strangulation.” It was estimated that she had been dead “five to ten days” before her body was discovered and the autopsy revealed evidence of a forced sexual assault.
This story was still developing at press time on Tuesday.
