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Thomas found guilty in Heather Rhodes' murderFri, 10/03/2008 - 2:45pm
By: Ben Nelms
Update: Roderick Calvin Thomas was sentenced Friday morning to life without parole by Coweta County Superior Court Judge A. Quillian Baldwin in the murder of 17 year-old Heather Rhodes on March 30, 2004. Thomas was found guilty Thursday on two dozen counts related to Rhodes’ murder, the shooting of two men at a Newnan apartment and the attack on several others present. “He killed that girl. We went in there to rob them and things went wrong.” Those were the words of 32 year-old Newnan resident Marquis Cannon Wednesday in Coweta County Superior Court, coming at the end of two days of testimony from multiple witnesses in the murder trial of Roderick Calvin “Rick” Thomas, charged in the shooting death of then 17 year-old Heather Rhodes. Thomas faces 24 charges in the incident and the possibility of life without parole if found guilty. At press time Thursday, the prosecution and defense were wrapping up their closing statements. The jury was expected to begin deliberations later in the day. In her opening statements Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Linda Caldwell said Thomas, aged 24 at the time of the incident, and Cannon forced their way into the apartment looking for drugs and money while a third man, Rayshun Holston, waited outside in a getaway car. ”Terror, sheer terror,” Caldwell said. “That best describes March 30, 2004. That night changed lives forever.” Caldwell said Thomas shoved a shotgun down the throat of apartment resident Eric Weiner, shot the other resident, Mandel Mahama, as he attempted to escape, shot Heather Rhodes at point blank range in the living room, then shot Steven Devereaux as he hid behind a chair in the living room. Heather’s body was later found to have 212 shotgun pellets in her arm, chest, lung, aorta and esophagus after the shotgun blast tore through her forearm and biceps and entered her abdomen, Caldwell said. “Heather Rhodes was still standing with her hands up saying, ‘don’t shoot,’ but he shot the 17 year-old high school senior who had been doing her homework. She died with the pen still in her hand,” Caldwell said. Caldwell described how the assailants had forced their way into the apartment after Mahama had partially opened the front door. Chaos ensued, Caldwell said, with one of the assailants screaming, “Someone’s going to die tonight.” Caldwell said the motive for the robbery was drug-related. Mahama and Weiner did sell pot, she said, and people in the apartment were smoking pot. There was $1,200 in the apartment that Mahama had hidden under a rug in the living room, Caldwell said. If only he had given that money, but we do not have that luxury, said Caldwell. Mahama and Weiner later testified Tuesday that they each sold approximately one ounce of hydroponic marijuana per week. The presence of marijuana and potential money from the sales was the ostensible reason for the robbery. Many of the visitors to the apartment the night of the shooting testified that they had smoked pot while at the residence. In his opening statements, defense attorney Jim Berry said the case boiled down to one word. “Trust, that’s what this case is all about. The question is who (is to be trusted)” Berry said to the jury. “The evidence against Roderick Thomas is coming from the other two, Marquis Cannon and Rayshun Holston. Their stories are full of attempts to lessen the blame on themselves. They were charged with the same charges (as Thomas) but reached a deal. All they’ve got to do is tell you to trust them. There’s no physical evidence, no corroborating evidence, no gun was ever found, not one victim can tell you (Thomas) is the guy they saw, no ballistic evidence from the four shotgun casings found. This happened four years ago in five minutes of terror. All the victims agreed that two people went in and no one saw a getaway car. We believe you can’t believe what (Cannon and Holston) say. It’s self-serving.” Though the assailants were inside the apartment for less than five minutes, according to accounts, that brief amount of time ended in a bloodbath, with Starr’s Mill High School student Heather Rhodes gasping for her last breaths on the living room floor after being hit at point-blank range with a Mossberg 12-gage pistol-grip shotgun. One of Heather’s friends held her as she died, unable to make out what she was saying. Also injured was Steven Devereaux, shot in the hip, and Rhodes’ boyfriend Mandel Mahama, who rented the apartment with 19 year-old Eric Weiner, shot in the side as he ran toward the front door and subsequently fled to a nearby apartment complex. None of the eight people in the apartment at 10:30 p.m. on March 30, 2004 that survived the attack could identify Thomas, as the two intruders were wearing hoodies and masks covering the bottom half of their faces. That difficulty left the prosecution with the testimony of Holston and Cannon. Holston, who previously pled guilty to lesser charges and is awaiting sentencing to serve five years, testified against Thomas, his cousin, Wednesday morning. But it was the testimony of Marquis Cannon that afternoon that identified Thomas as the shooter. Cannon stood in the jury box, squinting through his glasses as he was asked to identify the man alleged to have killed one and injured two others on that late-March night. Defense attorney Jim Berry questioned whether Cannon was able to accurately identify Thomas as the shooter. Cannon responded immediately and definitively when Caldwell presented him with a photo of Thomas. Moments earlier, Cannon said he and Holston had decided earlier in the day to go to the apartment to rob the occupants. Thomas joined them later that day and the three set off to do the “lick.” Cannon said that, once at the apartment door, he feared for his own safety if he had not gone through with the robbery. Cannon said he was unarmed. His testimony was not disputed by the occupants that testified. Rhodes, who according to the occupants had moved into the apartment during the past two or three months, was one of nine people in the Newnan Lakeside Apartments residence at the time of the incident. The six visitors inside the apartment were friends of one or more of the occupants. A scuffle began between Cannon and Mahama in the living room shortly after the two robbers entered the apartment, according to testimony given by Mahama and later disputed by Cannon. Mahama said it was during time time they rolled on the floor that he slipped $1,200 dollars in cash under the rug. Down the hall, the man with the shotgun corralled the remaining half dozen men in a bedroom, ordering them to take off their clothes and lay on the floor, according to several of the apartment visitors that testified. Demanding to know, “Were is it?” the man with the shotgun then ordered the six to go into the bathroom and get in the bathtub naked while he held Weiner against the sink, shotgun rammed down his throat, pressing the back of his head against the bathroom mirror. At one point Mahama left the living room, also having taken off his clothes. While in the vicinity of the bathroom area, Mahama began to run toward the living room and was shot in the back. He ran to the front door, unlocked it and ran out. He was followed by Cannon, who maintained that he was running away from the scene and was not attempting to chase down Mahama. Cannon was found later that evening at a nearby restaurant and subsequently arrested. Responding to questions by defense attorney Berry about his plea and the 14-year prison term without parole he will receive once sentenced, Cannon said, “I don’t feel like I did nothing so it’s not a good deal. But I was there and participated and somebody got killed.” Aside from witnesses in the apartment not being able to identify either of the robbers, neither the getaway car nor the shotgun have been located. Thomas was arrested five weeks later hiding in a closet in Union City, according to testimony. Thomas was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, nine counts of aggravated assault, five counts of kidnapping, two counts of armed robbery and burglary, one count of making terroristic threats and three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. Thomas recieved three merged life sentences without parole, two additional life sentences, 75 years consecutive for several of the charges and 245 years concurrent for the remaining charges. The district attorney’s office decided against seeking the death penalty, opting for a sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted. In a Sept. 29 press release, District Attorney Peter Skandalakis said he met with the defense counsel and Roderick Thomas, with all agreeing that the death penalty request would be withdrawn as a sentencing option in exchange for the judge having the authority to sentence Thomas to life without parole. “We decided against seeking the death penalty because of the strength of the case. We felt that our case relied mostly upon the co-defendents testmony a that a death penalty-qualified jury would not have imposed that penalty,” Skandalakis said after the trial. “After we sat down and got both co-defendents to cooperate and after we looked at all our evidence and considered the co-defendent testimony we felt it would be appropriate to seek life without parole.” With Judge Baldwin’s reading of the verdict Thursday afternoon, Heather’s mother and father, Shelby and Mike Thompson, were brought to tears. Sitting on the front row in the courtroom, they hugged each other, tears silently flowing. Shelby Thompson on other occasions during what was a very difficult trial wept silently, head down, in her seat. Several of the victims present to hear the verdict also hugged each other in silence. Across the courtroom, Roderick Thomas’ mother wept openly, comforted by other family members. Her tears and muffled wailing continued after the jury had been dismissed and courtroom cleared. Prior to being sentenced Friday morning to life without parole, Mike and Shelby Thompson and several others offered victim impact statements in which they asked Judge Baldwin to impose the maximum sentence possible. Shelby spoke of Heather as a baby, as young child, and as the young woman that spent so much time with her family in Fayette County up until the day of her murder. All her belongings were still at her home. “I will always remember Heather as my beautiful baby who stuck with me no matter what. She was a true friend, someone who loved me unconditionally,” Shelby said between the sobs that filled her statements. “There’s not a minute in the day that goes by that I don’t miss seeing her beautiful face. It is an emptiness I cannot even describe. I feel as if someone has stolen my life or killed part of me, too. There are so many things this person that killed my daughter has stolen from me, but most of all he has stolen the greatest love I had ever felt in my life and turned it into the deepest misery and agony that any person has ever known.” Mike Thompson’s words followed those of his wife. He noted how the defense during the trial used the theme, “trust me,” and how the prosecution used,”believe me.” "For my family, the question is “why.” Why would you shoot a girl that was no threat to you? She was a strong young woman, independent, an important person and would have been an important person in society,” Mike said, unable to hold back the tears. “Now that this trial is over I ask that everybody... don’t forget Heather. Keep her in your heart... don’t leave her behind.” Heather Rhodes was a senior at Starr’s Mill High School. She was remembered by school officials at the time of her death as having a sweet demeanor and being “very energetic and very polite.” She was a member of the Vocational Opportunity Clubs of America and Future Business Leaders of America. login to post comments
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