Man pleads guilty to killing of golf pro Gene Siller and 2 others in Atlanta area country club in 2021
By Sara Smart, CNN
(CNN) — The man accused in a 2021 triple homicide, including the killing of golf pro Gene Siller, pleaded guilty to murder charges Friday and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, prosecutors said.
Bryan Anthony Rhoden, 26, pleaded guilty to 17 counts including several felony murder charges in the killings on July 3, 2021, at a golf country club in the Atlanta area, according to a news release from the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office.
Rhoden was arrested and charged days after the fatal shootings of Siller as well as Paul Pierson and Henry Valdez at the Pinetree Country Club in Kennesaw, Georgia, about 25 miles north of Atlanta.
At the time, police said Siller was shot dead on the country club’s golf course because he witnessed a crime involving Rhoden and the other two men.
Rhoden and Valdez met with Pierson at an auto shop in Jonesboro, Georgia, which is about 40 miles south of the country club. Pierson was instructed to bring marijuana to the meeting, the district attorney’s office said. At some point, Rhoden held Valdez and Pierson captive with zip ties and duct tape before placing them in the back of a truck later found on the golf course, the district attorney’s office added.
Then police were called to the country club to a report of a person shot. They found 46-year-old Siller – who was the club’s director of golf – shot in the head near the green of the course’s 10th hole, police said at the time.
He left behind a wife and two children, ages 6 and 7, according to the country club.
Rhoden pleaded guilty to three counts of malice murder, seven counts of felony murder, two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury, three counts of aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during commission of a felony and tampering with evidence, prosecutors said.
He was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. He received two additional life sentences, five years in prison and one year in prison related to the charges.
“In the face of tragedy, justice prevailed today,” District Attorney Flynn D. Broady Jr. said in the news release. “We stand with the families whose lives were shattered by this senseless violence.”
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