In surprise plea, killer of Twiggs County husband, wife admits guilt in ‘heinous’ murder
A Macon man who murdered a Twiggs County couple near their home in September in one of the more shocking slayings in recent Middle Georgia history pleaded guilty Monday.
In something of a surprising and swift plea, Charles Edward “Bo-Bo” Rowland, admitted his role in the couple’s shooting deaths in a case the sheriff here described last year as “senseless” and “heinous” targeted killings carried out by a career criminal who had targeted his victims for cash and guns.
The shootings of Peggy White, 65, and her husband, Fred White, 69, at their Riggins Mill Road home east of Interstate 16 near Sgoda Road were soon linked to Rowland after security-cam footage captured images of him at the Whites’ back door.
In court here on Monday morning, Rowland, 49, who has spent decades behind bars for convictions in other violent incidents in Macon — including a 2001 attack on a Bibb County sheriff’s deputy during an escape try — was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The sentences for both killings, which were for malice murder, were to run consecutively. In lesser cases, such sentences mean that after someone serves the time for one crime, the sentence or time to serve for subsequent crimes begins. In Rowland’s case, it appeared that prosecutors sought such punishment — in essence two life sentences back to back — to emphasize the brutality of his acts.
At Monday’s hearing, Rowland and his attorney were, for a moment, caught unaware of the prosecution’s intent to seek the consecutive prison terms, symbolic as they were.
Standing before Superior Court Judge Jon F. Helton, the gaunt, shackled Rowland then agreed to the terms.
“One life, two life, it don’t matter,” Rowland said. “I’m good.”
The plea comes six months after Rowland’s arrest, on the heels of an exhaustive investigation. While it is unusual for a suspect to plead guilty to murder and agree to life without parole, considering Rowland’s extensive criminal past, had he been found guilty at trial he would have in all likelihood faced a similar fate.
Prosecutors said that Rowland had gone to the Whites’ home on Sept. 10, 2021, intent on breaking in, but that when he arrived he noticed a security camera mounted in a patio and, fearing he’d been seen, retreated to the nearby woods.
Peggy White had at the time been home alone. Soon, her husband arrived. After waiting a while in the woods, Rowland decided to leave. He had parked nearby across from the neighboring Stone Creek Baptist Church. As he walked along Riggins Mill Road, going back to his truck to leave, by chance, the Whites, themselves heading for Dublin, happened by and saw Rowland walking.
They figured that perhaps he needed help. He said his truck had run out of gas. They offered to give him a ride. He got in with them.
But, prosecutors said, Rowland feared the couple must have seen him scoping out the house, that the security camera had recorded him and that the Whites were on to him.
He pulled a gun and had them stop in some woods not far from the church.
Rowland then shot Fred White in the head outside the couple’s truck and shot Peggy White in the head while she was inside it.
This story was originally published March 21, 2022 at 10:28 AM.