Charles Edward “Bo-Bo” Rowland
Possible serial killer linked to 6 Macon slayings was recently convicted in nearby murders By Joe Kovac Jr. Updated April 26, 2022 4:50 PM Twiggs County sheriff's officials and the GBI on Monday released surveillance footage showing a man they believe is responsible for the Saturday slayings of Fred and Peggy White. By Twiggs County Sheriff's Office A Macon man with a violent past, whose rap sheet includes the shooting deaths of a Twiggs County husband and wife last year, has confessed to killing three other people at an east Macon boarding house in November 2020, The Telegraph has learned. Charles Edward “Bo-Bo” Rowland has reportedly implicated himself in a total of nine deaths in Georgia, including three victims in a trio of other Macon slayings, and one victim in an Atlanta-area killing. In the months after Rowland’s arrest in the shooting deaths of Fred and Peggy White last fall in the Dry Branch area east of Macon, investigators at the Twiggs County sheriff’s office — with Rowland’s help — began piecing together Rowland’s ties to unsolved homicides. Charles Edward “Bo-Bo” Rowland pleaded guilty to murder last month in the September 2021 shooting deaths of Fred and Peggy White at their Twiggs County home.
Charles Edward “Bo-Bo” Rowland pleaded guilty to murder last month in the September 2021 shooting deaths of
Fred and Peggy White at their Twiggs County home. Jason Vorhees The Telegraph The Twiggs investigators’ behind-the-scenes probe came to light early this week when a man who had been held at the Bibb County jail charged with murder in the triple slaying at that east Macon boarding house was released from jail.
Twiggs Sheriff Darren Mitchum on Wednesday told The Telegraph that Rowland, who last month pleaded guilty to killing the Whites and was sent to prison for life without parole, had in recent weeks met with local investigators at the state prison near Jackson where he is incarcerated and confessed to the boarding house slayings. The case against a man currently charged in those three deaths, Ronald Green Jr., 52, who had been locked up for 17 months until he was released Tuesday afternoon, has been dead-docketed while the investigation into Rowland’s possible connection to the slayings continues. But murder charges against Green have not been dismissed.
Mitchum said Rowland, 49, has told police they “had the wrong man” in jail, referring to Green. Green was recently indicted in the bludgeoning deaths of two tenants and the landlord at that eastside boarding house. Those killings, thought to have involved a machete, happened the night of Nov. 7, 2020, at 925 McCall Road off Jeffersonville Road near the Lakeside Reservoir. Another tenant there was critically wounded in the attack. Green’s attorney, Floyd M. Buford Jr., said Wednesday that Green had “been adamant” about his innocence and that Green had no connection to the case or to Rowland. Green had been a past resident at the boarding house and had been accused of threatening someone there. “He’s obviously very pleased that he’s released,” Buford said. “He contends that he never should have been arrested.” In a statement Wednesday, Bibb District Attorney Anita Reynolds Howard did not name Rowland but said that an “individual” whose claim of responsibility for the boarding house killings had come to the attention of officials here in the past few weeks.
“After interviewing the individual and initial corroboration of some of the details provided,” the statement said, “the Office of the District Attorney believed that it had an ethical responsibility in the administration of justice to ask the Court to dead docket (the case against Green).” Bibb Sheriff David Davis said it was “only right” to release Green from jail in light of the new developments while the investigation into the boarding house slayings progresses. Davis said Bibb investigators “are still assessing” other information that Rowland may have shared about other open cases. Building a relationship In the wake of Rowland’s arrest in the Whites’ murders last fall, Mitchum, the sheriff in neighboring Twiggs County, along with his chief deputy, Buddy Long, developed a rapport with Rowland.
Charles Edward “Bo-Bo” Rowland, left, pleaded guilty to murder last month in the September 2021 shooting deaths of
Fred and Peggy White near their Twiggs County home. Charles Edward “Bo-Bo” Rowland, left, pleaded guilty to murder last month in the September 2021 shooting deaths of Fred and Peggy White near their Twiggs County home. Jason Vorhees The Telegraph After hours of interviews with Rowland, he revealed to Mitchum and Long that he was responsible for a killing in Atlanta as well as two unsolved shooting deaths in Macon. Rowland also claimed responsibility for another Macon homicide in which a victim was stomped to death, the sheriff said. “And a lot that, unless you were there, you wouldn’t know,” Mitchum said of details Rowland provided. “Specific information.” It was not immediately clear which unsolved killings Rowland has apparently linked himself to, but they are thought to have happened within the past half decade or so. Records show that Rowland has in the past lived in Marietta and Gainesville. The Twiggs sheriff said bullet shell casings from the Whites’ shootings have so far matched those found at the scene of at least one unsolved homicide in Macon. Mitchum said Rowland has agreed to show investigators where he hid the machete in the boarding house attack and also show them where a gun involved in one or two of the unsolved killings can be found. But first he wants assurance from prosecutors that they won’t seek the death penalty against him, the sheriff said. “With our dealings with (Rowland),” Mitchum said, “everything he has said, he was right about. … I’m inclined to believe what he’s saying.” The sheriff said he hoped that details Rowland can possibly provide will help bring “some closure for those families” of the people slain. Charles Edward “Bo-Bo” Rowland pleaded guilty to murder Monday in the September 2021 shooting deaths of Fred and Peggy White at their Twiggs County home. Charles Edward “Bo-Bo” Rowland pleaded guilty to murder Monday in the September 2021 shooting deaths of Fred and Peggy White at their Twiggs County home. Jason Vorhees The Telegraph Mitchum said Rowland has said that his motives in the killings always involved robbery or burglary, that financial gain was the “why” behind the attacks. The sheriff said that Rowland seemed somewhat “proud of the things he’s done,” meaning the killings, but that it wasn’t so much that Rowland bragged about them but rather that he was “kind of getting enjoyment” from them. Mitchum said Rowland showed “no remorse.” “He’s very cunning,” the sheriff said, explaining that Rowland would parry with investigators to see what they knew as they divined what details they could from him in solving the Fred and Peggy White murders last fall. A violent past Rowland’s criminal past, gleaned from court records, is rife with violent run-ins. In mid-February 1990, when he was 17, Rowland attacked a woman who owned Father Goose International Toys on Forsyth Road during a robbery. Armed with a large glass jar he picked up in the store, he stole $1,000. Rowland punched the store owner and struck her in the head with the jar, busting the jar and cutting her. Days earlier, Rowland stole a woman’s wallet and another woman’s purse. Later that year, he pleaded guilty to armed robbery and aggravated assault in the toy store attack and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The Riggins Mill Road home of Fred and Peggy White in rural Twiggs County near Dry Branch. The Riggins Mill Road home of Fred and Peggy White in rural Twiggs County near Dry Branch. Joe Kovac Jr.
jkovac@macon.com Nine years later, in 1999, Rowland, who for a time lived on North Atwood Drive near the Macon Mall, was paroled. But he didn’t stay out of trouble. In June 2000, he was indicted in connection with a string of check forgeries — signing stolen checks and cashing them. He later pleaded guilty to a forgery charge but doesn’t appear to have been sent back to prison. Then in early April 2001, he was accused of shooting a man in the chest during an armed robbery as he tried to steal the man’s wallet. Those charges were dropped. But a week or so later on April 14, 2001, Rowland assaulted Bibb sheriff’s deputy Michael King at the county jail with a concrete block, bashing King in the head and face during an escape attempt. King, a former Macon police officer who died in 2018 at age 65, had to retire because of the injuries Rowland inflicted. Convictions in the assault on King and on the escape charge landed Rowland in prison until April 2013. Before he was sent away, his appointed lawyer sought a psychiatric evaluation for Rowland, who according to court documents had “been placed on suicide watch while incarcerated due to mental instability.” The 2001 filing said Rowland’s attorney “has reason to believe that (Rowland) is suffering from some mental disease, injury or congenital deficiency.” Nothing in the court records shows the results of any subsequent medical examination.
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