The two photos, taken one week apart, told the story of a family’s immeasurable grief.
The first showed Gene Siller, smiling with his wife and two young boys along the South Carolina shore. In the second, one of those boys hugs his father’s casket.
On Friday, Siller’s widow shared the photos in a Cobb County courtroom after the man accused of killing her husband and two others took a plea deal. Bryan Anthony Rhoden, 26, was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to the 2021 golf course shooting.
Ashley Siller said the details she heard of her husband’s death during Friday’s hearing were “offensive, humiliating, and more disgusting than I’ve ever imagined.” Siller’s impact statement was accompanied by photos of her family both before and after her husband’s death.
“He didn’t die in a car accident. He didn’t die of cancer,” she said. “He died on a golf course doing his job. By a complete stranger. He went to work and never came home.”
In exchange for Rhoden pleading guilty to all 17 counts he faced, prosecutors agreed not to pursue the death penalty, Cobb District Attorney Flynn Broady told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The charges include three counts of malice murder, seven counts of felony murder, two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury, and three counts of aggravated assault.
“The families and the state have agreed to accept the plea deal from Mr. Rhoden in exchange for withdrawing our request for the death penalty,” Broady said in a phone call. “He’s pleaded guilty to the entire indictment.”
In July 2021, Paul Pierson, 76, and Henry Valdez, 46, were found tied up and shot in the back of Pierson’s Dodge pickup truck on the 10th hole of Pinetree Country Club, not far from Kennesaw State University’s main campus. Pierson lived in Topeka, Kansas, and Valdez was from Anaheim, California.
Gene Siller, the course’s beloved golf director, was shot and killed when he went to investigate, authorities said. The club was gearing up for its Fourth of July festivities and was busy at the time.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Witnesses said Siller went to find out why the truck had driven onto the fairway and gotten stuck near a sand trap when he was shot and killed by Rhoden, who fled on foot.
The brazen killings stunned the community, and it was several days before Rhoden was charged.
Broady was reluctant to disclose the connection between Rhoden and the men who were found tied up and shot to death in the back of the truck, but said Rhoden “was into drug trafficking and basically ran a drug organization.”
Prosecutors said he had “a multi-million dollar drug empire,” and that Rhoden bound and gagged Valdez and Pierson at a Clayton County auto shop where Pierson had been instructed to bring marijuana. Warrants said the two men were zip-tied, duct-taped and put in the truck. They were then driven some 41 miles to the country club, where they were killed by Rhoden.
Broady said the brutal slayings were among the most heinous murders in Cobb’s recent history.
“That is one of the reasons why we initially requested this to be a death penalty case,” the district attorney said.
Family members of both Pierson and Valdez also spoke in court of how the brutal killings shattered their lives. Pierson’s wife and son spoke, along with a sister of Valdez.
Pierson is also survived by four grandchildren, but he died before his great-grandchild was born. A whiz at mechanics, he was humble, kind and fiercely loyal, his widow told the court.
“My husband was also my best friend, my confidante, the love of my life,” Grace Pierson said.
Stephen Pierson said he often worried because his father traveled frequently.
”The tragedy really here is that my dad and Henry walked into a trap that was sprung on them by Bryan,” Stephen Pierson said. “It appears as though the attempt was to drown them in the lake like they were garbage, like they didn’t matter.”
Erma Tapscott said she had planned to spend the Fourth of July that summer with Valdez. Instead, she and her family have endured 944 days of pain since he was killed.
“I love you, Henry,” Tapscott said before leaving the stand.
In addition to Rhoden, two others are charged in connection with the triple slaying.
Justin Caleb Pruitt was indicted on two counts of felony murder and two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury. Warrants allege Pruitt acted as a “co-conspirator and accomplice” in helping to tie up Pierson and Valdez. Taylor Nicole Cameron, who investigators allege later retrieved the weapon used in the killings at Rhoden’s behest, was charged with criminal attempt to commit tampering with evidence.
Both of those cases are pending, prosecutors said.
Records show Rhoden was arrested in DeKalb County hours after the three bodies were discovered on the course, but authorities had not yet linked him to the crimes.
Credit: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rhoden was taken into custody in Chamblee on a misdemeanor DUI charge and numerous traffic violations after police stopped a black Maserati he was driving. He had been pulled over for a missing headlight, but warrants said he also had a fake ID, no insurance and that he was driving an unregistered vehicle.
He was released on bond three days later, then arrested on the Cobb murder charges two days after that. Police said they lured Rhoden, an aspiring rapper, back to Chamblee police headquarters under the guise of returning “a large sum of money” that had been seized during his traffic arrest. He has been held in the Cobb jail since.
Staring out across the crowded courtroom Friday, Ashley Siller said telling her sons they would never see their father again was the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.
“He loved our two little boys more than he loved life itself,” she said. “He was the proudest daddy … And now they’ll never see him again, and I am so, so angry.”
“We are Siller strong,” the widow said before leaving the stand. “But I promise you, we will never, ever, ever be the same.”
