Strange happenings followed the unsolved murder of 20-year-old Robin Coultas Rodriguez, a new mother who disappeared in 1976 while working the night shift alone at one of the first convenience stores on the Coast to open 24 hours a day.
The Biloxi woman, with a son who was less than a year old, disappeared from a Li’l General store in west Gulfport. She was found dead hours later in a mud hole at the Wolf River near Pass Christian. She was naked, bound and strangled to death, and her car turned up in Long Beach.
A couple of weeks after her body was found, an unidentified man began making threatening phone calls to employees at the store at 15th Street and 42nd Avenue. One woman received the calls at her home, and then her family dog was found cut to pieces on her front doorsteps.
The unidentified man didn’t want them to talk to authorities, former employees told the Sun Herald in recent interviews. They believe he was the killer.
“We were very scared, but we told detectives everything we knew,” Wesley Gervais said. “Lord, I hate it happened. I’m the one who hired her. I was just devastated.”
Gervais, now 69, was the store’s manager. The store changed owners through the years, but is still in business, run by a family who said they were unaware of its history.
Rodriguez’s killer has escaped justice for 34 years.
Read the complete story at sunherald.com
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