Golf Course Shooting Suspect Has Faced Numerous Charges, Little Jail Time in the Past

The suspect charged in the July 3 triple homicide at the Pinetree Country Club golf course has been arrested a number of times in recent years on charges stemming from shooting, battery, drug and speeding cases, but has not spent much time behind bars, records show.

Bryan Anthony Rhoden, 23, spent three days in jail in 2016 after being charged in a shooting at Georgia State University, where he was an 18-year-old student at the time. A 19-year-old was shot three times with Rhoden’s Glock .40 and Rhoden was shot once in the chest following an attempted drug transaction, authorities said at the time. Then Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard did not pursue charges against either party involved. Jeff DiSantis, spokesman for current DA Fani Willis, said this week he didn’t know why the charges weren’t pursued.

Bryan Anthony Rhoden

In January 2020, Rhoden punched one officer with the Atlanta Police Department’s Airport Drug Interdiction Unit and elbowed another, records show. 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.

Less than four months later, Rhoden was arrested after Atlanta police found 44 marijuana joints and $3,000 in cash in his bag during a traffic stop, according to an incident report. He was arrested in Indiana in August 2020 after leading state troopers on a high-speed chase following an attempted traffic stop, the Pharos-Tribune reported.

He was arrested twice in the past 11 days, the final time on charges stemming from the three shooting deaths.

Hours after the golf course shootings, he was arrested on traffic charges in Chamblee, records show. Rhoden was booked into the 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.

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Following a brief hearing Friday evening, Rhoden is now held without bond in Cobb County. He faces three counts of murder, three counts of aggravated assault and two counts of kidnapping in Saturday’s shooting deaths of golf pro Gene Siller, 46, and the two victims found in the truck, 46-year-old Henry Valdez and 76-year-old Paul Pierson.

Gene Siller

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{snip} Investigators said Valdez, who lived in Anaheim, California, and Pierson, who lived in Topeka, Kansas, were found dead in the back of a Dodge Ram after Rhoden drove it onto the golf course. {snip}

Siller was shot in the head when he went onto the course to investigate, authorities said. {snip}

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Rhoden’s social media profile portrayed a successful rapper with boundless aspiration.

“I put a lot of work into making my first tape as diverse as possible to show you there’s no limit to what I can do and appeal to everyone,” he said in an Instagram post announcing the June release of his first mixtape, “Made It Out,” recorded under the name B-Rod.

Images on his feed show him posing on the hood of a Rolls Royce, holding stacks of cash and showing off jewelry and luxury-label fashion accessories.

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