Macon man arrested in Twiggs double murder spent decades in prison for violent crimes
On Saturday, the morning of his 49th birthday, Charles Edward “Bo-Bo” Rowland, allegedly traveled to the countryside home of Fred and Peggy White in neighboring Twiggs County and shot them to death.
Rowland, a Macon man who had spent nearly half his life locked up in state prison, was arrested Monday afternoon on murder charges in a case that has unsettled locals and even left the Twiggs County sheriff struggling for words to describe its “heinous” and “senseless” nature.
The arrest came shorty after the Sheriff Darren Mitchum shared security-camera footage from the Whites’ home on Riggins Mill Road near Dry Branch, which showed a pistol-toting man at the couple’s back door shortly after 7 a.m. Saturday.
The couple were later found shot dead with bullet wounds to the head not far from their Riggins Mill Road home, which lies near the northern end of Sgoda Road east of Interstate 16 near U.S. 80 and a two-century-old Baptist church.
Rowland faces charges that include two counts of malice murder, two counts of felony murder and burglary.
Rowland’s criminal past
His 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 found in the store, he stole $1,000. Rowland punched the woman and struck her in the head with the jar, busting the jar and cutting her.
Days earlier, Rowland allegedly stole one 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.
Rowland, who for a time lived on North Atwood Drive near the Macon Mall, was paroled nine years later in 1999. 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 try to steal the man’s wallet. Those charges were later dropped.
But a week or so later on April 14, 2001, Rowland assaulted Bibb County 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 such medical examination.
This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 11:54 AM.