The man now in custody for a triple homicide at a Georgia country club golf course on Saturday was arrested hours after the shooting in another county for multiple vehicle violations, having a fake ID, and driving while intoxicated.
Bryan Rhoden bonded out of DeKalb County Jail on Tuesday, jail records show, but he was arrested again Thursday and charged with the murders of Pinetree Country Club golf pro Gene Siller, 41; Henry Valdez, 46; and Paul Pierson, 75.
Cobb County Police Chief Tim Cox released little information about the murders or the arrest during a news conference Thursday night, but he said Rhoden has been jailed on three counts of murder, three counts of aggravated assault, and two counts of kidnapping.
Siller was shot dead on the 10th green at about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday when he went out to investigate a white pickup truck that had driven onto the fairways, as CrimeOnline previously reported. Police believe the shooter abandoned the truck when it got stuck above a sand trap and fled on foot. When police investigated, they found the bodies of Valdez and Pierson in the truck’s bed.
Cox said Rhoden’s name came up in the investigation “within a few days” of the shooting but declined to say how investigators began to focus on him. He said that Rhoden was the “lone shooter” involved in the crime.
Cox said investigators are certain Siller was unknown to either the other two victims or the shooter and was killed when he came upon the white Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck — which was registered in Pierson’s name — on the golf course. He said detectives were “exploring the relationship between the two victims in the vehicle” and Rhoden.
Asked how long the men in the truck bed had been dead when investigators found them, Cox said that “the discovery of all the individuals who were deceased was made pretty rapidly” after their deaths.
In DeKalb County, Rhoden was arrested later on Saturday and booked into jail early Sunday morning. He was charged by Chamblee Police with a headlight violation, acquiring a license plate to conceal a vehicle’s identity, operating a vehicle without insurance, driving an unregistered vehicle, driving under the influence of alcohol, and using a false identification document. At the time of that arrest, his name was not known to detectives looking into the golf course murders.
Cox said investigators received a warrant for Rhoden’s arrest earlier in the day on Thursday, and detectives arrested him at about 5:30 p.m. after asking him to come to the Chamblee Police Department to discuss another case. Chamblee is about 26 miles from Kennesaw, where Pinetree Country Club is located.
The investigation is still open, Cox said, and investigators aren’t releasing further details for now.
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[Featured image: Bryan Rhoden/DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office]
