The Murder Police Podcast
The Murder Police Podcast
Where Is Rhonda? The Mysterious Disappearance of Rhonda Day | Part 1 of 2
Join us in this intriguing investigation into the disappearance of Rhonda Day in 2018. Uncover the mysterious circumstances surrounding her vanishing and follow the clues to discover the truth behind where Rhonda is. Watch now to unravel the enigma of the missing Rhonda Day. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more true crime content!
When a loved one vanishes without a trace, the world seems to hold its breath. Our podcast this week breathes life into the tale of Rhonda Day, guided by the intimate recollections of Destiny and Melissa, her heartbroken family members. Together, we craft a living portrait of Rhonda, a soul characterized by her generosity and fierce love for her grandmother. Stories of her youthful curiosity blend with those of her adult kindness, like the time she tenderly cared for a post-surgery relative or painted rocks with the community, all signposts of a life dedicated to others. Amidst the laughter and tears, we channel the essence of a woman whose absence has left an indelible void, hoping that these shared memories might spark a clue to her whereabouts.
Transitioning through the emotional landscape of Rhonda's narrative, we also celebrate her humorous and animal-loving spirit. Her playful pranks echo in our conversation as much as her compassionate work with the elderly and her escape into the world of books. But it's not just tales we trade; we grapple with the hard truths of her disappearance, considering how her trusting nature and struggle with substance use could have intersected with her fate. Rhonda's story is more than a mystery; it's a call to awareness, a reminder of the vulnerability we all share. Destiny and Melissa join us in this space of reflection, a sanctuary of remembrance for a life that continues to touch ours even in absence.
Previously covered by Vanished Pod: https://www.thevanishedpodcast.com/episodes/2020/3/9/episode-215-rhonda-day
and by Cason Hudson on YouTube: Where is Rhonda Day? Missing in Louisville, Ky.
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Destiny:Get ready for true crime with the real detectives on the Murder Police Podcast.
Melissa:And she went to Louisville that's where her friend lived and then she didn't come home that night and she always, always come home. She never stayed away from home. Like I said, she lived with her grandmother. She knows that her grandmother would worry about her and she had called my mom the night before and said Grandma. Warning the podcast you're about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Where is Rhonda Day? Part 1 of 2.
David Lyons:Well, today we are with Destiny and Melissa, so let's introduce everybody. Destiny, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you're related to Rhonda.
Destiny:Rhonda is my cousin. Her mom is my great aunt. I'm about to be 22.
David Lyons:Gotcha and Melissa same.
Melissa:Hi David, nice to be here. I am Rhonda's aunt and I'm here to try to help find out anything we can, and to let you know Rhonda Good deal.
David Lyons:I think that's the important part that we're looking for to do today is I really want the audience to see who Rhonda is, to be able to pray for her, to be able to help look for her, maybe to shake some things loose and bring this to a resolution hopefully a good resolution and to keep the word out. Let's start with this. I'm going to open the floor to both of you. Just tell us who Rhonda is from the youngest age, as you all can remember Destiny I know that you're just 22, so you won't go back as far as Melissa goes but tell us about who she is, her passions, her hobbies, her interests, her personality, anything you can think about that would let people know who Rhonda is.
Destiny:Rhonda is a sweet person that always loved to be with the family and she loved to take care of my great-grandma when great-grandma was in the hospital. Before Rhonda went missing, Rhonda stayed in the hospital with grandma good deal kind of a round-the-clock caretaker, were they pretty close?
Melissa:very close very close gotcha. She lived upstairs over top of her grandmother okay, gotcha.
David Lyons:And how do you know any idea how long she lived with her grandmother, just roughly.
Melissa:Oh, many, many years, many years, many years. Okay, yeah, many years. I'd say probably 10 or more.
David Lyons:Gotcha. Well, tell it, okay. So we know that she's close to grandma and we have to assume that this is really rough on our grandmother If they were that close it's got to be rough and hopefully that's why we want to get answers for this, for sure.
Melissa:Tell for this for sure. Tell us a little bit more who she was. Let's go back. Can we go back to her childhood? Okay, that would be. She was a very inquisitive child. She always, like, stopped and smelled every flower, stopped and looked at every bug. And my sisters? They would take their kids out to go for a walk and the other child, the cousin, she'd be running ahead and Rhonda Faye would be behind and they would always say come on, rhonda Faye, slow down. Dana. You know she just always loved bugs, animals. As a matter of fact, her and my daughter used to play in a creek and this creek cows played in it too, and that was just up Rhonda Faye's alley. You know she's in a creek with animals and she loved it and that kind of carried on into when she became an adult. She was the type that would pull off the side of the road to take a turtle out of the road, gotcha.
Melissa:You know she had a very funny sense of humor. When she was real small I took her to Walmart. There was a Santa Claus there. When she was real small I took her to Walmart there was a Santa Claus there and I always had nicknames for everybody, and her name is Rhonda Faye, but I called her Faye Ray, and Santa Claus come up and said what's your name, young lady? And she got this little smirk on her face and I could tell she was going to say something she knew that would throw the Santa Claus off. She said Faye Ray and she just looked at him like what do you think of that name?
David Lyons:Oh love.
Melissa:And so then also that nickname carried on into when she got married and she married a man with the last name Day, and she and I would just laugh because her name was Fay Ray Day.
David Lyons:Oh Lord.
Melissa:So I mean just stuff like that that we laughed about all the time. And I know there was a time when my daughter that was the humor side of her, if you want to see her heart was my daughter had surgery and if you've ever had anybody had wounds that had to have a wound back, they had to have their bandages changed twice a day. Right, and after she got out of the hospital I was going to have to come home from work every day and change her bandages and Rhonda said no. Aunt Melissa said I'm going to come down and change them while you're at work. And she came down every day, changed Amy's bandages and took her to the doctor so I wouldn't have to miss work. So she really she had an affinity for to help. You know I can also. There was this.
Melissa:One lady told me about a time that Ron Fay got all her paint brushes and her paint together and they took the kids down to the park. Well, there was a time when they had these rocks that you had to paint and you put dates on them and where you were from and you hid them and people would go looking for them and that they painted a bunch of stuff for the kids. They hit them and then they went rock looking and that they had found a rock from Florida. So they just found that very interesting, that you know that they found that. And then of course I look around here and we're here at the library and Rhonda Fay was a very big reader. There was a librarian that told my sister that Rhonda was the most prolific reader that they had ever had. So she was very intelligent. She went to Bernheim one time, took kids and she was like a tour guide, you know. She would explain everything as they walked, what it was and everything. So she was not only funny, smart, you know, but she just learned a lot. I love to love, I loved to learn.
Melissa:My mother told me that Rhonda Faye always took good care of her. Rhonda Faye worked at a secondhand store. She was always buying things and bringing stuff home to Mom. She would take Mom to her doctor's appointments. They were just really, really close.
Melissa:My mom also said we were talking about we always do this. What if Rhonda Faye walked through the door? What would we do? And somebody said, well, I think I'd spank her butt. And my mom said, no, you wouldn't, because I'm going to grab a hold of her and I'm going to hug her and never let her go. So you'd have to pry me off of her. That's just how close mom and Rhonda were.
Melissa:I know that Rhonda, she had a brother that was 10 years younger than her and they got into trouble together. But she was kind of responsible for going down the road that they went with Michael Gotcha and she let him in kind of on the drug scene and after she disappeared we found in her Bible like a prayer list, and one of the things on her prayer list was babies without mamas. So it's always the downtrodden those that she felt sorry for. And then she also had a little note that said God, if this is wrong I'm sorry. So we've had a lot of wonder what she meant, wonder what she meant, but I really really think she had a lot of guilt for Michael going down the road that he went down.
David Lyons:Sure.
Melissa:And I really think, I really do think that she was praying that whatever it takes to get my brother clean, that she was willing, and I don't think it's a matter of coincidence that he signed himself into drug rehab on her birthday right after she went missing and thankfully he's six years clean, he is preaching the Word of God, he's got a family, so I really think that Rhonda would say it was worth it, whatever has happened to her. What a remarkable story. I think she would say it was worth it.
David Lyons:Yeah, and it sounds like that big heart is probably genuine. Very maternal, very maternal. I just found out this morning that Rhonda used to work for this library system here in Bullitt. County. Yes, she did, yeah, and here we are, and I kind of talk about Kismet. Is the idea that we're actually borrowing a room from them and that she used to work here when she read. Do you have any idea what her biggest interest in reading was?
Melissa:I know she did read a lot of Stephen King novels, but I think she just loved to read anything, right, anything. She just loved to read. Maybe it took her to a different place, but then and it also helped her to learn. You know you, just if you can delve into reading, you can delve into other life, other you know worlds, and she just loved to do that.
David Lyons:And that kind of fits with that interest in things like bugs. I mean is is trying to get as much as you can in that too, so she's an avid reader. What read? Or what would in her sense of humor what was the kind?
Melissa:of what was that like? What do you? What do you think her sense of humor circled around the most. I think she just liked to make people laugh. She probably probably saying things that would just take somebody off guard like your brother.
Destiny:Like your brother, my brother's terrible, but that's why can I say something, yeah, absolutely how my grandma mentioned she loved cat and animals. Rhonda never left home without her cat and also Rhonda had a cat that my great grandma loved. You could explain the?
Melissa:rest of it. Rhonda had a cat that was beautiful. It was beautiful. She just brought it in because she always took care of any kind of animals you could find and my mother fell in love with it. So of course she she'd wanted it for herself, but she brought it and gave it to my, to my mom, and mom still has that cat to this day.
David Lyons:and uh, just a thing, that ronda faye, if she thought she could make somebody happy, that she would do it and we'll come back to the cat in a little bit, because that's actually one of the things that makes this whole thing very suspicious is that when somebody leaves things that we know that they love and they attend to all the time, but we'll circle back around to that because that's actually a pretty important part of Rhonda's story. So growing up and everything let's go into. You said she had married somebody by the last time of day and we don't have to really go into that. But so she's been married before. She's been married twice, twice gotcha, and we don't have to name names but any children in any of those relationships.
Melissa:She has one son. He's in his 20s now.
David Lyons:Gotcha.
Melissa:And she had two grandchildren.
David Lyons:Gotcha. So we talked about the fact she's got a great sense of humor, an avid reader, very curious. What about other hobbies besides reading? Do you remember anything growing up that she was interested in Other hobbies besides reading? Do you remember anything in her?
Melissa:growing up that she was interested in. Well, she would bring her nephew to my house to go swimming all the time. Okay, you know, I had to let her know I don't have to be home. She'd want me to be home. I'd say, just bring him Gotcha. And now her nephew has not been swimming again since she left. Oh, that's sad. Yeah, I'm trying to encourage him to come back this summer and go swimming.
David Lyons:Yeah, there we go again. The impact that these things have on families and people that are close to people. It changes people's lives.
Destiny:Yes, it does In a very negative way for sure.
David Lyons:How about jobs? Can you remember the first things that she did? I do know she's waitressed before. Okay.
Melissa:And she also, like I said, she worked at an old folks home. She loved old people.
David Lyons:Okay.
Melissa:You know she liked to take care of them. So you know, just listening to even things that I'm saying right now, it's a nurturing kind of thing, that's what we keep coming back to. Yeah, she loved the old people and she took care of them and she worked at, like I said, the library, and she also worked at a secondhand store.
David Lyons:Gotcha. And one thing, too, again, that we'll keep in the back of our minds the listeners will too is that when we talk about risk factors, is that sometimes, when we're nurturing people, we're a little vulnerable? And I don't know if it has anything to do with this case, but we tend to go into gray areas with people because we believe more than they do sometimes.
Melissa:Right, yeah, I think, though, to her detriment, she trusted everybody. There we go. You know, when I think about her disappearance, it probably, if she had run out of gas or something, it wouldn't have been anything for her to just say okay, come, take me to go get gas.
David Lyons:Exactly and I think she would trust anybody. Yeah, get gas and I think she would trust anybody. Yeah or, or it uh, it's somebody stopping at the side of the road, right, you know, and things like that, and we'll get to how that that all plays out and and how they're. That's one of the many possibilities I think in this whole thing. That's there. Uh, destiny, can you think back to at 22? Can you think back to the first memories you have of ronda and the relationship you all had?
Destiny:Was it cheesecake? She made like pumpkin cheesecake.
Melissa:Sometimes special cheesecake, I think.
Destiny:She made the best cheesecake ever for Thanksgiving.
David Lyons:There we go.
Destiny:Yes, gotcha, everyone loved it. My mom took, wasn't it? My mom and Aunt Amy? No, rhonda and my Aunt Amy made my mom eat cat food.
Melissa:Oh Lord, yeah, that was funny the one time that she tricked my daughter into eating some cat food and they thought it was funny until my dad made her eat cat food oh, To show her what it was like If you can make somebody else do it. But that's just a childhood prank that she thought was funny.
David Lyons:And it was Rhonda who had to eat cat food. Yeah, rhonda had some. I eat cat food. Yeah, ron, if I had my, had my daughter, her mother, just eat some cats. Yeah, I had four crazy brothers growing up and I was in the middle and that we might have beat that once or twice, but that's still pretty good, that's a, that's there, so it uh.
David Lyons:That gives me ideas about wendy, but anyway, when I get back home, yes, maybe we'll try that on her and see how she likes that. Well, can you think of anything else about her that we needed to know? If we can just touch on the drug use, because that's a risk factor too, I don't want to delve on it. And again, one thing I always like to make sure people understand is that there's nobody or no family that isn't vulnerable to that, and I've experienced it in my family more than once. So we have to understand that we can't look at people differently because of that, and sometimes it's a vulnerability. How was she doing at the time that she disappeared? Pretty much in good shape.
Melissa:Well, she had gotten clean, Gotcha, and then I had heard recently that she had gotten back into it, gotcha. Okay, I didn't know a lot of what kind of drug or anything like that, because that was a world that was apart from her family life, gotcha, you know. So we can't I can't delve a lot into. I know that she started out with marijuana and, like I said then, when her brother he was 10 years younger, when he got to be a teenager, she got him into it, gotcha. When he got to be a teenager, she got him into it Gotcha. But as far as I think, from what I've heard, pills was her go-to drug.
David Lyons:Easy to obtain. Yeah, and again, that's important in a case like this. Only because, if there's a nexus between that, the people listening, we need to talk to people in those communities, in those people to see, because that's where an answer might lie to. Well, let's go and get into that. We're here today because she's missing and arguably, as the listeners hear you tell the story, it's very suspicious, is that?
Destiny:it's not normal.
David Lyons:There's not a lot to it. We've done shows about missing person investigations and I did tons of those when I was a detective at the police department and we try to educate people on the idea that lots of adults just do leave, most just have some kind of a circumstance, and what we're always looking for is those handful of things where everybody would agree that, say, this just isn't a case probably where somebody uprooted and changed their life or suffered a traumatic brain injury or mental health issues.
David Lyons:Arguably, there's something fishy about ronda going missing, so can you take us back to uh july of?
Melissa:2018, july 28th, um she was wanting to go visit a childhood friend. It was a cousin of her best friend.
David Lyons:Gotcha.
Melissa:And she needed gas money. So she went to my grandmother, who she lived with, and asked to borrow $5 for gas. So we know she didn't have a lot of gas.
David Lyons:That would be a couple gallons back then, right.
Melissa:Right, and we even went to the truck stop and they looked on their film and she was there getting gas. So we do know that she did get the gas and she went to Louisville that's where her friend lived and then she didn't come home that night and she always, always came home. She never stayed away from home. Like I said, she lived with her grandmother. She knows that her grandmother would worry about her and she had called my mom the night before and said Grandma, I'm going to be a little bit later than usual, but I'm going to be home, said you can go ahead and lock the door if you need to. And mom said no, I'm going to leave it open for you. Well, so that shows to me that she was intent to come home. She was going to come home and then she didn't come home that night.
Melissa:So my mom called me the very next morning and she said Melissa, how do you report a missing person? I said well, who's missing? She said Rhonda Faye. And I said what do you mean missing? She said well, she always comes home. She didn't come home last night. So my mom automatically knew something was up, because it was so out of her character not to come home. So I said well, mom, she's 42, and she was going to a guy's house. We don't like it if she spent the night, but she's 42. We can't do anything about it.
David Lyons:True.
Melissa:So we just kind of thought maybe that's what it was. She spent the night with her friend, and when she didn't come home the second night we reported her missing.
Destiny:Right.
Melissa:And my sister and her Aranda's brother, mike. They went to this friend's house and they asked him if he had seen her or where she was house. And they asked him if he had seen her where she was, and he said he had seen her at 5 am that morning in his driveway playing on her ipad. Well, she sometimes did that sat in her car and played on her ipad, right so uh, but the thing about that, though, too, is at home. Her ipad charger and her phone charger were on her bed at home right Right.
Melissa:So that's another point to me. She planned to come back.
David Lyons:Sure.
Melissa:You know, or she would have brought her charger if she was planning to go and be gone for a while.
David Lyons:For logistics, for the listeners and for our YouTube people, I'll have some maps and some video about what all this looks like. So she leaves Lebanon Junction and what that's 30 to 40 minutes to Maria.
Destiny:Anna Drive.
David Lyons:And also what people might want to understand. I think that we call that area Pleasureish Park. Yes, prp, I'm an old Louisville boy. Yeah, prp, I'm an old Louisville boy. Yeah, prp. And that's roughly southwest of the heart of Louisville, very close to the Ohio River.
Destiny:Yes.
David Lyons:So I'm trying to give people, I'm trying to paint a picture of where that is. So she, and what kind of car did she have?
Melissa:again, she had a blue Chevy Aveo Okay, and it was found just 1.3 miles from my friend's house 1.6 miles, 1.3 miles Okay.
David Lyons:Pretty close, pretty close. Yes, on Cane Run.
Melissa:Cane Run yeah, Cane Run Cane.
Destiny:Run.
Melissa:Road.
David Lyons:Yeah, so, and again, just keeping the logistics, we're talking 30, 40 minutes away, a couple gallons of gas, Unfortunately. When I was a friend again, how long had they known each other and what kind of friendship was it?
Melissa:From what I know, it was a childhood friend, gotcha. She was best friends with his cousin, Okay, and so they kind of played together as kids, you know, and then it grew into when they were adults. Now Mike says that they all partied together.
David Lyons:Okay.
Melissa:So I would think probably a party friend.
David Lyons:There we go Somewhere. That if we were back to dabbling in that stuff as you would like us to like? That's why we have to recognize that as a risk factor in here for sure too. So she goes there and and this may be going past what you have, but he sees her in a driveway. It did he ever mention anybody that you're aware of of when she left the door of his house to go to the car?
Melissa:no, I have not heard that. All I know is I he said he saw her sitting in his driveway when he went to let his dog out and that she waved at him and then then she pulled out of his driveway is what it says, so we believe he saw her leave the driveway. Yes, yes, Now. The car was not found until five days after.
David Lyons:Right, that was early August.
Melissa:Yes, yes. So I have some question about why none of us saw it or anything when we went down there.
Destiny:Right.
Melissa:You know, I don't know.
David Lyons:You know, because again and again on YouTube I'll put a map and I'll show, because it was in a parking lot of the there's a refinery, if I remember correctly, there, so I'll have those graphics and that's the thing. Is okay, we're talking. I think August 3rd it's discovered is when we look at a case like this is we have to start wondering was it always there of the day of the missing? And here you go, now you're saying you've all been in that area and didn't see it right, we did not see it exactly, which is odd, isn't it destiny?
David Lyons:yes is uh, so if, if we who knows, is that you've got a series of days in there where that vehicle may have been there and I've seen a picture of where in there where that vehicle may have been there, and I've seen a picture of where it was at.
Destiny:It was right off of Cane Run, if I remember correctly. Yes, it was.
Melissa:You almost hit it Now we did have somebody, though, that did contact us and say hey, you know there's more to this story, so go find the next episode. And listen.
David Lyons:The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims, so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and a link to the official Murder Police Podcast merch store where you can purchase a huge variety of Murder Police Podcast swag. We are also on Facebook, instagram and YouTube, which is closed caption for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the Murder Police Podcast and you will find us. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars and a written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you download your podcasts. Make sure you set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop, and please tell your friends.
Destiny:Lock it down, Judy.
