Nearly 40 years after Leake Academy student Shondra May was slain, her alleged killer has been arrested.
Authorities took 63-year-old Rubin Weeks into custody on Tuesday. He is accused of abducting and murdering May in 1986. The victim was 17 at the time.
May, a high school senior, is reported to have gone missing after leaving her shift at a local McDonald’s fast food restaurant. May’s mother later spotted her teenage daughter’s vehicle near their driveway, but the victim was nowhere to be found.
Just under a month after her disappearance, May’s nude body was found in Bolton, just outside of Jackson, by an off-duty first responder. She was reportedly confined with industrial tape and covered in bags. To make matters worse, the chilling discovery was made on the date that would have marked the female’s 18th birthday.
Weeks, a known criminal and original suspect in this case, was convicted of a 1991 kidnapping and raping of a Missouri woman and sentenced to 30 years behind bars. The suspect snatched Jolynn Alicia [Doe], who was 21 when she was assaulted, from her vehicle before taking advantage of her, just as he reportedly did with May. But instead of killing the Missouri woman, Weeks tied her up with duct tape and left her on a county road where she was able to free herself and get in touch with authorities.
May is believed to have been left alive for multiple days after being kidnapped. Authorities suspect that she had been involved in a sexual encounter not long before her body was found. Though the case was dormant for several years, efforts by law enforcement in Mississippi ramped up in recent years to seek closure.
Now, Weeks is in the custody of law enforcement just under four decades after May’s death. No bond information has been released at this time.
