ATLANTA — The aspiring rapper accused of killing three people at a Cobb County golf course has been indicted on 15 criminal counts, according to the district attorney’s office.
Bryan Anthony Rhoden was arrested July 8 in DeKalb County and charged with murder in the deaths at Pinetree Country Club, near Kennesaw. Rhoden, 23, of Atlanta, was charged with three counts of murder, three counts of aggravated assault and two counts of kidnapping, according to Cobb police.
On Thursday, a Cobb grand jury indicted Rhoden on three counts of malice murder, five counts of felony murder, three counts of aggravated assault, two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and tampering with evidence, the indictment states.
Pinetree’s director of golf Gene Siller, 46, had gone to the course’s 10th hole on July 3 to find out why a Dodge Ram pickup truck was parked above a sand trap, said golfers who were there that day. Police say he “happened upon a crime” involving Rhoden and the two other victims who had been bound and gagged with tape before being placed in the bed of the white pickup.
The vehicle was registered to one of the victims, Paul Pierson, 76, of Topeka, Kansas, whose body was discovered alongside 46-year-old Henry Valdez of Anaheim, California.
Police have not disclosed a motive for the killings or any information about a possible prior relationship between Rhoden and the victims from out of state. A friend of Valdez’s told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the three men knew each other through the cannabis trade.
Rhoden’s attorney, Bruce Harvey, noted that only one side has been heard from so far.
“This is only the first step on a long journey and the issues will be joined soon,” said the veteran lawyer, who also represented Rhoden in 2016, when the then-Georgia State University freshman was charged with shooting a 19-year-old in the chest following an attempted drug transaction, authorities said at the time.
The Fulton County district attorney’s office, under Paul Howard’s leadership, later declined to prosecute either party. It’s unclear why, said Jeff DiSantis, spokesman for Howard’s successor, Fani Willis.
There would be more run-ins with law enforcement, public records reveal. In January 2020, acting on a tip, the Atlanta Police Department’s K-9 unit stopped Rhoden as he boarded a plane to Los Angeles, DiSantis said.
The dogs smelled marijuana emanating from the bag of cash, more than $19,000, that Rhoden was carrying, DiSantis said. He agreed to forfeit the money but allegedly punched one officer with the Atlanta Police Department’s Airport Drug Interdiction Unit and elbowed another.
He was charged two days later in Clayton County, which has jurisdiction at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, with simple battery on police and obstructing an officer. He was released on $7,500 bond and entered a not guilty plea in August, records show. That case is still pending.
On July 3 — about nine hours after the bodies were discovered in Kennesaw — Rhoden was stopped by Chamblee police while driving a black Maserati with a temporary tag on Peachtree Boulevard, a DeKalb warrant shows.
He was booked into custody at DeKalb County Jail on misdemeanor counts of DUI, a headlight violation, fake ID, driving without insurance, driving an unregistered vehicle and using a license plate to conceal the identity of a vehicle, records show. He was released on bond July 6.
Two days later, Chamblee police lured Rhoden to headquarters to pick up a “significant amount of money” seized during his traffic stop, police later revealed. Cobb investigators had identified him as a suspect at that point, and authorities were in place to arrest him once he surfaced to claim the cash.
Rhoden is being held without bond at the Cobb jail.
