Three Life Sentences Plus 35 Years in 2000 Cold-Case Murder

MARIETTA, GA -- ames Randolph, who was convicted last month of killing a Kennesaw hotel manager during an armed robbery on Dec. 7, 2000, has been sentenced to serve three consecutive life sentences plus 35 years.

Kelley Castlin, the widow of victim Rodney Castlin, addressed the court Tuesday morning, explaining the hardship she and her children have endured for more than a decade, not knowing who killed her husband. Kelley was eight months pregnant at the time with the couple’s third child, a daughter who never got to know her father.

“A precious life was taken from us,” Kelley Castlin said. “We just really want justice to be served. I would like a sentence of life without parole, to make sure that no other family has to experience what we went through.”

About 10:30 p.m. on Dec. 7, 2000, two men entered the Wingate Inn off Interstate 75 near Barrett Parkway. One man vaulted over the counter, while the second man went into a small computer room near the front counter and robbed a guest.

The young, thin man who vaulted the counter was armed with a handgun and demanded money from the front-desk clerk. During the commotion, Castlin, the hotel’s night manager, emerged from a back office, and the gunman then confronted Castlin about the hotel’s safe.

After Castlin replied that there was no safe, the gunman went back to the desk clerk and hit him on the back of the head with the handgun, knocking him out for at least a few seconds, and then shot Castlin once with the .22-caliber weapon. The bullet struck Castlin in the chest and exited below a shoulder blade. It was later recovered from the floor.

The two robbers then fled to a waiting car with just $304, while the hotel clerk and the guest who had been robbed went for help. Castlin, 36, was dead on arrival at Kennestone Hospital.

Cobb Police processed the scene and lifted a useable fingerprint, which was run through Georgia’s fingerprint database in 2000, 2005 and 2009, to no avail. At that time, police agencies had limited access to the FBI’s national fingerprint database. In 2012, though, the fingerprint was run through the national database and the name of James Lirenzo Randolph returned as a possible match. Cobb Police fingerprint examiners then compared the print from the hotel to the known print of Randolph and determined it is a match. Other evidence corroborated that Randolph shot Castlin.

In October 2014, Cobb Police charged Randolph in the cold-case killing, and he was arrested shortly thereafter by U.S. Marshals in Richland County, S.C.

Last month, after a week-long trial, a Cobb jury convicted Randolph, now 34, of malice murder, felony murder, criminal attempt to commit armed robbery, two counts of armed robbery, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during commission of a felony.

Randolph addressed the court and the victim’s family.

“I can’t do nothing about the past,” Randolph said. “I feel they pain. … I apologize that they lost a loved one. I feel how they feel because I lost two loved ones. Eh, sorry, man.”

Chief ADA Don Geary, who prosecuted the case, reminded the court of Randolph’s lengthy criminal record, including an armed robbery in South Carolina that occurred just days before Castlin was killed. Geary sought the maximum punishment on each of the counts, while the defense asked for a sentence that would provide an opportunity for parole.

“This defendant no more deserves that (the opportunity for parole) than Rodney Castlin deserved what he got,” Geary said. “This gentleman is a criminal. If we let him out, it’s not if he’ll hurt someone else, it’s how soon. … This man has proven that he’s someone the public needs to be protected from.”

This is the first case handled by the Cobb County Cold Case Unit, which was established in the DA’s Office in February 2014, to go to trial.