Conviction in cold case: Guilty plea in rape and murder of 14-year-old Rural Hall girl
Forty years ago, Ronda Blaylock, a 14-year-old ninth-grader at Atkins High School in Winston-Salem, vanished. Three days later, her body was discovered. Authorities said she had been raped and stabbed to death. On Thursday, Robert James Adkins, a 64-year-old Surry County man, pleaded guilty to charges connected to her death. Adkins entered guilty pleas in Surry Superior Court to second-degree murder and second-degree rape. He had initially been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree forcible rape. Judge Angela Puckett of Surry Superior Court sentenced him to 21 years to ...