Cold Case Kennesaw Murder: Conviction Announced

MARIETTA, GA -- A South Carolina felon has been convicted in a murder that occurred during an armed robbery in Kennesaw on Dec. 7, 2000, that netted just $304.

The announcement came from Cobb County DA Vic Reynolds on Tuesday morning.

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

The man who vaulted the counter was armed with a handgun and demanded money from the front-desk clerk. During the commotion, the hotel’s night manager, Rodney Castlin, 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, while the hotel clerk and the guest who had been robbed went for help. Two nurses who were staying on the first floor attempted to render first aid to Castlin before paramedics arrived.

Castlin, 36, a married father of one whose wife was eight months’ pregnant at the time, was dead on arrival at Kennestone Hospital.

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. 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.

Both the front-desk clerk and the guest from the computer room testified that the robber who went into the computer room never approached the front counter. Also, the newly built hotel had only been open for two weeks at the time of the crime.

After a week-long trial, jurors 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.

Cobb Superior Court Judge Robert E. Flournoy III will sentence Randolph at a later date. He faces life in prison.

Cobb Police and the Cold Case Unit of the Cobb District Attorney’s Office investigated this case, and the Cobb Sheriff’s Office assisted in the arrest.

DA Reynolds established the Cobb County Cold Case Unit in February 2014 to identify, investigate, solve and assist in the prosecution of hundreds of unsolved murder and sexual-assault cases in the county.

Image: Rodney Castlin, Cobb DA's Office