The man facing the death penalty in the July 2021 killings of three people at a Kennesaw-area country club pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday morning.
Cobb County prosecutors announced in May they would seek the death penalty for Bryan Rhoden, who is accused of fatally shooting three men at the Pinetree Country Club over last year’s busy Independence Day weekend.
Two victims were found tied up and shot in the back of a Dodge truck on the 10th hole. Gene Siller, the course’s beloved golf director, was killed after going to find out why the pickup was stuck near a bunker, authorities said.
The brazen killings stunned the quiet community, and it would be several days before Rhoden was arrested and charged.
Justin Caleb Pruitt was indicted earlier this year on two counts of felony murder and two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury. Taylor Nicole Cameron, who investigators allege retrieved the weapon used in the killings at Rhoden’s behest, is charged with criminal attempt to commit tampering with evidence.
Paul Pierson, 76, and Henry Valdez, 46, were found in the back of Pierson’s truck on the golf course, near Kennesaw State University’s main campus. Pierson lived in Topeka, Kansas, and Valdez was from Anaheim, California.
Siller, the course’s golf pro, had no connection to the suspects or other victims. Investigators said the 46-year-old husband and father of two “happened upon a crime in progress” and was fatally shot as employees and members looked on in horror from the clubhouse.
Rhoden, an aspiring musician with a lengthy arrest history, took to Instagram for the first time earlier this year, decrying what he called “erroneous” allegations against him and saying news reports about the killings “could not be further from reality.”
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
“In my absence, I ask that the people keep an open mind as to what led to the unfortunate turn of events and who is responsible,” the post said.
Pruitt’s warrant, issued late last year, alleges he acted as a “co-conspirator and accomplice” in helping bind Pierson and Valdez with duct tape and zip ties at a building along Jonesboro Road in Clayton County. He is also accused of helping transport the men more than 40 miles to the golf course, where investigators say Pierson and Valdez were killed by Rhoden.
Because prosecutors are only seeking the death penalty for Rhoden, his case will be severed from Pruitt and Cameron’s trials, Superior Court Judge Robert Flournoy III said from the bench.
Flournoy is retiring at the end of the year, so the case will be handled by incoming Judge Sonja Brown, who has been attending Rhoden’s hearings.
Rhoden, who lived in Atlanta at the time of his arrest, is being represented by two attorneys from the Georgia capital defender office and a third from the Southern Center for Human Rights. Several of the defendant’s relatives came to court for Monday’s arraignment.
More than a year and a half into the case, defense attorney Emily Prokesch raised concerns that her team still doesn’t have access to certain evidence, namely the results of DNA tests conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on behalf of investigators.
“One of the things that’s most concerning to us, especially given the fact that this is a death penalty case where the state is seeking to kill someone ... It has become clear that there is some DNA testing that has been done,” she said. “We do not have any of the data. We don’t have any evidence regarding the testing that’s been done.”
Senior Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Green told the judge the state has turned over everything it has in the case, but said some of the ATF’s crime lab reports won’t be available to either side until they’re completed.
“We’re being very forthcoming (with) everything we have,” said Green, promising to share any other discovery evidence the prosecution receives as soon as it becomes available.
Rhoden’s case marked the first time Cobb District Attorney Flynn Broady sought the death penalty since becoming district attorney in January 2021. Prosecutors also planned to seek the death penalty against Christopher Golden in the Sept. 8 killings of two Cobb County deputies, but agreed to let Golden plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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