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Published Friday, October 03, 2008 in Local
Photo by Jeffrey Leo
Roderick Calvin Thomas confers with his defense attorneys during the sentencing hearing Friday morning at the Justice Center.
Thomas sentenced to life without parole
The Times-Herald
Coweta Circuit Superior Court Judge Quillian Baldwin sentenced Roderick Calvin Thomas Friday morning to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole plus 80 additional years for the crimes he committed the evening of March 30, 2004, when he fatally shot 17-year-old Heather Rhodes with a shotgun and terrorized eight others in a home invasion robbery in Newnan.
Baldwin made his decision on sentencing after listening to emotional victim impact statements from Rhodes’ family and her boyfriend at the time, Mandell Mahama. Everyone asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence possible, including Coweta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Pete Skandalakis, who added that if there had been more rounds in Thomas’ shotgun the night of the incident, there would have been more victims shot.
“It doesn’t matter what sentence I give, it will unfortunately not bring Heather back — it’s not going to compensate for this loss,” said Baldwin.
For the crimes that Baldwin described as a “sad and senseless situation,” he sentenced Thomas to life without parole on both malice murder and felony murder to run concurrently. For the three counts of possessing a gun during the commission of a crime, Thomas received five years to run consecutively for each count. On three of the aggravated assault charges, Baldwin sentenced him to 20 years in prison to run consecutively for each charge. For the remaining six aggravated assault charges, Thomas was sentenced to 20 years to run concurrent for each count. Thomas was given 20 years to serve concurrent for each of the two burglary charges. He received two additional, consecutive life sentences for each of the two counts of armed robbery. For terroristic threats, he received five consecutive years. Finally, on the five counts of kidnapping, Thomas received 20 years to run concurrently on each.
“I’ve done my best to see that you never get out of prison,” Baldwin told Thomas. “This is someone with no feeling for the sanctity of life. There was no reason to shoot this person.”
Thomas’ defense attorney, Jim Berry, told the court he will file a motion for a new trial on Monday in an effort to appeal this decision.
Before sentencing, Shelby Thomas, Rhodes’ mother, took the stand to read her statement to the court. She spoke of how close she’d been with her daughter and all the loving things she’ll remember about her. She recounted the way her daughter was “viciously killed” only two months before her 18th birthday and high school graduation.
“There’s an emptiness in me that I cannot describe,” said Thompson. “I feel as if someone has killed a part of me, too.”
Thompson concluded by saying that Thomas has “stolen [her] greatest love and turned it into [her] greatest misery.”
Next, Thompson’s husband, Mike, took the stand. He wanted to know why Rhodes was taken away from them for “no reason whatsoever.”
“She would have been a contributor to society one day,” said Thompson.
He recounted for the court the way he and Rhodes’ mother learned of her death in the middle of the night.
“My wife truly lost her best friend that day,” said Thompson, as he struggled to share how hard it was to watch his wife stay in bed for three days listening to her daughter’s voice on her cell phone.
“Don’t forget Heather — keep her in your heart,” Thompson pleaded, before begging the judge for the maximum penalty.
Mahama, Rhodes’ boyfriend of more than two years at the time of her death, talked about how their relationship was love at first sight.
“She taught me how to love people,” said Mahama. He struggled to speak as he told the court, “I tried my hardest to save her.” Before becoming too upset to continue with his statement, Mahama managed to tell Thomas Friday that he’d taken away his future.
The mother of Stephen Devereaux, one of the victims shot by Thomas during the home invasion, told the court, “We were all robbed that night.”
“I hope you never come out of prison to do this to another family again,” said Mahama’s mother, Emma.
Thomas has spent more than four years in the Coweta County Jail since being taken into police custody on May 4, 2004.
This sentence was handed down at the Coweta County Justice Center in Coweta Superior Court Friday, the day after jurors in the case found Thomas guilty on all 24 counts after deliberating for approximately three hours Thursday afternoon.