The two murdered men found bound and gagged in a pickup truck after golf pro Gene Siller was gunned down on his Georgia club knew their suspected killer through a drug trade, according to a report.
Bryan Rhoden — a 23-year-old rapper known as “B. Rod” — is accused of shooting Siller once in the head after he “witnessed an active crime taking place” at the Atlanta-area Pinetree Country Club he ran.
Police then found two other men — Henry Valdez, 46, and Paul Pierson, 76 — shot dead and stashed in the back of Pierson’s Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck, which was abandoned on the course.
Police have insisted there is no known connection between the suspected triple killer and the golfer — but a friend of Valdez told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Rhoden knew the other two victims.
Valdez was a California-based cannabis “broker” who worked with a “very small circle of people he trusted,” including Rhoden, Valdez’s friend, Alejandro Guerrero, 44, told the paper.
Rhoden was a “nice guy,” and he and Valdez also followed each other on Instagram, Guerrero said.
Valdez had an Orange County dispensary named Hope for Humanity, and felt no shame about his trade — once telling a prospective landlord that his occupation was a “drug dealer,” Guerrero told the AJC.
“If anything, he was too open,” Guerrero said. “Cannabis is medicine, that’s how he looked at it.”
Valdez had served jail time following a 2004 arrest in Illinois for manufacturing and distributing more than 5,000 grams of cannabis, the paper noted, citing public documents and confirmation by the friend.
Pierson — who was in Georgia from Topeka, Kansas — was a longtime associate of Valdez who also had previous dealings with the suspected killer, the paper said, without elaborating. Pierson’s relatives have not responded to requests for comment, AJC said.
Rhoden was busted hours after the shooting for DUI and other driving offenses after he was stopped about 25 miles away in a black Maserati, the paper said. He was released two days later.
He was then arrested for the three murders last Thursday when he went back to a police precinct to get a “significant amount of money” seized during the traffic stop, Chamblee police told the paper.
Rhoden is now being held in custody on three counts of murder, three counts of aggravated assault and two counts of kidnapping.
His lawyer, Bruce Harvey, cautioned against a rush to judgment but declined comment during ongoing investigations, the paper said.
Rhoden was busted in January last year as he boarded a plane to Los Angeles after a police K-9 sniffed marijuana on $19,000 in suspected drug money that was seized and forfeited, officials told the paper.
Rhoden allegedly punched one officer and elbowed another and was charged 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, AJC said.
In 2016, he was charged with shooting a 19-year-old in the chest following an attempted drug transaction, authorities said at the time.
The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office later declined to prosecute either party, but it is unclear why, the paper said.
