Cold Case Files - A Bullet To The Heart

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

When night manager Rodney Castin is gunned down in the lobby of his hotel three weeks before Christmas, detectives scour Georgia for his killer; two decades pass before an informant's shocking testimony breaks the case wide open.Check out our amazing sponsors!This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp! Visit BetterHelp.com/COLDCASE to get 10% off your first month.CookUnity - Go to CookUnity.com/COLDX or enter code COLD before checkout for 50% off your first week.HERS - Start your initial free online visit today at ForHers.com/COLDCASE This episode is sponsored by Progressive Insurance! 

I knew it had to be something bad. I knew Rodney was in trouble, but I did not know that he had already been pronounced dead. December of 2000, I made Kelly Caslin a promise that Rodney's case would one day be solved. I lost my first husband. to Caslen a promise that Rodney's case would one day be solved. I lost my first husband. I lost the father of my children.

We know that there was an armed robbery. You may be talking about six, eight, nine pounds of pressure changing armed robbery to the ultimate crime of murder. But this was a complete whodunit. Someday I would find out, someday I would know. And I just held on to that. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only about 1% are ever solved.

This is one of those rare stories. This is one of those rare stories. My husband Rodney had an old soul. There was something about him where it seemed like he had been around for years. He just had a wisdom about him that was very special. Rodney was going to school during the day and he was working at night. And one night I called Rodney and we talked on the phone about our day. And then we ended our call as we usually do with I love you. And that was the last time I talked to him.

It's December 7, 2000 in Kennesaw, Georgia. A slow Thursday night at the Wingate Inn. Just three weeks before Christmas, Rodney Castlin, the hotel manager, is in the back office crunching numbers. Carlos Torres mans the front desk. John Dawes is a forensic investigator for the Cobb County Medical Examiner. Two men came quickly into the front lobby of the Wingate Inn together. One of these men came right at Carlos. He jumped the counter. He pointed a pistol in Carlos's face and demanded the money. Carlos opens the cash drawer, and he took the paper money out and handed it over.

He turns away, and the guy strikes him in the head and says, where's the safe? And that's when Rodney came out from the office. Jessica Knoll is a reporter and cold case investigator for Gone Cold from 11 Alive, Atlanta. The man continues to ask, where's the safe? Rodney tells him there is no safe. And so he takes his 22 caliber handgun

and shoots Rodney in the chest. The two men flee. Carlos tries calling 911, but he panics and can't remember how to dial out. He runs to a nearby bowling alley to call for help. As police race to the Wingate Inn, paramedics try to save Rodney's life, but he's pronounced dead on arrival at Kennistone Hospital.

I was forensic investigator assigned to the medical examiner's office. I received a call from the charge nurse at Kennistone Hospital. She told me that she wanted to report a death that had just occurred. The victim had been shot in a nearby business. When I arrived at the morgue,

I saw the body of Rodney Caslin. The injury was above the nipple line on the left chest. That was, by its size and shape, consistent to me with a small caliber gunshot wound injury. I talked to a few of the detectives that were there at the Wingate Inn. There was some blood and there were some papers thrown about on the floor, hotel documents

that had been inside the castro. The scene was telling us we were looking at one shot being fired. There weren't at that time a lot of clues or leads. Gwen Caslin is Rodney's mother. Rodney was born October the 23rd, 1964. He always liked to keep everybody laughing. He was my heart.

Tracy White is Rodney's friend. I met Rodney when I was nine years old. He was a very infectious person, you know, tall in stature and character, even when he was young. Early Saturday mornings, him and his dad would wash the cars. You know, I would be walking up the street, and Mr. Kousslin was very intent on getting those cars cleaned. So you know, Rodney would be making funny gestures behind him, you know, and things

like that. So we would just bust out laughing. Everybody liked him. I am very proud that I raised a good son. Very proud. Kelly Kasslin Gakotan is Rodney's wife. The summer of 91, I met Rodney. I mean, instantly there was an attraction.

It just felt like we were meant to be. We just enjoyed each other so much. Rodney and Kelly make it official in April of 1995. The following year, they welcome a son, Kyle. Prior to Rodney and I getting married, he had two children already. And just very, very exciting to bring our families together.

Our second child was Kennedy. Kennedy, unfortunately, passed away in 1999 from complications of a birth defect. I absolutely could not have imagined going through any of it without him. We did decide after Kennedy to have another baby. And so in 2000, I was pregnant. Rodney decided that he wanted to start a car wash.

And so he went back to school into business management, and he was working at night. We were just settling in to what we felt was new life for us, and we were happy. During my sleep, I heard, I thought I heard the doorbell. I opened the door, and it was Detective John Dawes. And he said, um, Kelly, there was a shooting and a robbery at the hotel tonight, and Rodney was killed.

The look in her eyes is, uh is something that I won't forget. All the things that she had talked about with her husband that they wanted to do just ended, and you can see it in her face. I know in that moment when the robbers had that gun pointed to his face, I know for sure he was thinking of us. He was so good.

Kelly asked me, how long will this take? When will I know? We're at a stage in the investigation where we know that there was an armed robbery. We know that that gunshot caused Rodney's death, and that's about it. What can we tell this one? How can I make the moment better?

I answered the only way I knew how. What I felt in my gut, I told Kelly that night. I don't know when, but this case is going to be solved. I don't think it's very often that a detective will make a promise to a victim's family that they will solve a case, because it's hard to keep. I was drawn to Kelly in such a way that I had to keep track of this case.

I was just the forensic investigator handling certification of the death. But I knew the guys in homicide and I was going to help however I could, do whatever I could. Back at the Wingate Inn, crime scene investigators comb every inch of the scene. The cash drawer was not only open, but all the paper money was gone. The money taken was $304. Vic Reynolds is a former Cobb County District Attorney. Guns don't go off by themselves. And I think in this particular case, somebody had decided to bump up an armed robbery of

some money, a little over $300, into a case of taking Rodney's life. Nearby on the floor, over against the baseboard, there was a projectile. It was a small caliber. So that's what we were looking at. Then, the crime scene technician calls attention to the hotel's front counter. On the registration counter, she used a flashlight and illuminated what appeared to be a left palm print and the fingertips associated with that palm. Some of them smudge, some of them not. Prints aren't as easy to come by as people think they are. The next big hurdle is finding out who that print belongs to.

This is a hotel registration desk. How many people have touched that in the last day? It could be someone who just checked into the hotel. It could be the guy who took the money and shot Rodney. We don't know who this print belongs to. A palm print and a projectile. It's not much to go on. Looking for more, detectives turned to the crime's closest eyewitness, the injured and shaken desk clerk. In the interview with Carlos Torres, we were able to determine that we were looking for

a black male. He was estimated to be 20, 25 years of age, wearing a white jersey, perhaps with a number on it. But his face wasn't covered. Carlos tells police he ran to the bowling alley in a panic where he called 911. Investigators then discover there were two 911 calls that night. One came from Carlos, the other from a hotel guest. This hotel guest had gone into the computer room just off of the lobby that night. And while there, these two guys come running in the Wingate Inn. One jumped the counter behind the register and then shot Rodney Castlin.

The other came directly at this hotel guest in the computer room. This suspect demanded the hotel guest get on the floor, empty out his pockets. This hotel guest described this guy as a black male, about 5'6", with a thin build, wearing a black face cover. So now we have the armed robbery of the hotel guest and we have the murder of Rodney Castlin. Detectives want to get a look at the unmasked suspect, but the hotel doesn't have security cameras. There were detectives sent out to check all the businesses to see if they had cameras.

We did hear from one of our uniform guys that earlier, about three to four hours before the armed robbery and murder at the Wingate Inn, the clerk from Exxon Station called and reported two suspicious males occupying a gray, early 1990s Lincoln town car. This store has video, and we want it. But the video was such poor quality. The pixelization was horrible.

You couldn't have made out any facial features. The vehicle was never in a position where we could have gotten the tag number. So it didn't hold the value that we wanted. Couple of detectives went literally door to door throughout the hotel, waking people up, finding out how long have you been here? Did you see anything? Certainly, at a hotel, you're hoping that somebody

may have been in the parking lot. They may have seen somebody flee. Of all the contacts that were made, we were not able to gather any information from anyone. We have no idea where these suspects came from and in what direction they left in. I-75 is right there. In 10 minutes he could be in Atlanta with 5 million other people. In an hour and a half he could be in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Rodney's funeral was an indicator. It was very emotional, that funeral, his funeral.

That was about the most saddest day of my life. God don't want to take the bad people's. They take the bad ones and the good ones. And they just took a good one from me. The church was packed. Friends, family, people he worked with. And it's just a testament of who Rodney was. 12 days after Rodney's murder, detectives don't have a single suspect.

The killer could be anywhere by now. So investigators changed tactics. Carlos Torres was brought to headquarters to try to do a composite sketch. After the sketch was completed, the parent company of the Wingate Inn, they had decided that they would include a reward of $10,000 on the case, leading to the arrest of the person who committed the armed robbery and the murder. So on December 19th, it hit the news.

It's in the media, it's on television. In the metro Atlanta area, we're trying to locate any witness information that we can locate. This was a complete whodunit. Anytime the phone rings and a caller tells you that they want to provide information, it's exciting. There's potential there with every time the phone rings.

Tips can come in for the myriad of reasons. We've seen them come in where people are truly convinced they saw something that they didn't. We got tips from men who were in custody in jails close to us. There were photographic lineups put together, but none of those lineups resulted in any identification by Carlos Torres. By the new year, Cobb County investigators are struggling for leads and put their last hope on the analysis of the print found at the scene.

We had eliminated fingerprints. It's not Carlos, it's not Rodney, it's not a hotel guest. So we had a good feeling that it was our guy. There were efforts made to identify that print through the ACEFAS system, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. At the time, the system had been loaded up with a lot of fingerprints of people who had been in custody throughout

the entire state of Georgia. We just didn't get a match at that time through AFIS. I was calling multiple times in a day, trying to get answers. But what the detectives would often say to me is that these things can take time. When you don't have the answers, it's very frustrating. I made Kelly a promise that Rodney's case would be solved.

I was living with this case every day, wondering what else could be done. I was mad after not even knowing who it was and didn't think that they would ever find out who did it. We had been through quite the investigation. We had searched out everything we could, and there just wasn't anything coming through. So by September of 2002, everything had just stopped. Just under two years after Rodney's murder, there are no suspects to question, no leads

to chase, and only a perfect print but no finger to match. Without any new information, Rodney's case goes cold. That's a sad day in the life of a homicide detective. My experience with armed robbery cases, they're just a very, very difficult case to solve. It was discouraging, but I resolved myself to knowing that it would happen when it's supposed to. It's not a day past that I don't think about him. When I close my eyes at night, I can see him. And it's not a sad thing that I see.

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Cold cases can't be solved by picking them up, laying them down, picking them up, laying them down. They can only be solved by picking them up and staying on top of them. Rodney's case was the first one I pulled out of the file. Why? Because of Kelly Casman. Still heard from her every now and then,

but she still didn't have any answers. And I still felt horrible about it. I reviewed Rodney's case. I looked at every lead. I went back through the evidence and the fingerprints, trying to come up with some new way to go at the case. I still knew in my heart and in my gut that it would one day be solved. It's now June 1st, 2012, 11 years and six months after Rodney's murder. I'm in the office and the intel analyst comes walking in the door and he says, I got a teletype out of Florida. There's a person with information about an arm robbery and

murder that occurred at a hotel that had Wynn in the name and it occurred north of Atlanta 12 years earlier. I jumped out of my chair because my first thought is I'm about to solve this case. I flew out of my desk to grab the teletype. I need to find out everything I can about this person who's providing this information. Detective Dawes gets in touch with the Florida deputy who sent the teletype that hinted at Rodney's murder. So I'm talking to this deputy sheriff with Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and he says, you know, I'm assigned to a federal task force about human trafficking.

I was involved in a federal arrest with this guy. He's pending federal human trafficking charges here in Florida. His attorney provided a proffer. And the proffer was exactly what the teletype says. There was a murder north of Atlanta 12 years ago that I can provide information about. Proffers come from individuals who are caught up in the criminal justice system.

They're done, so it will help them get a lesser sentence. In this particular case, this information that this person had offered to the state of Florida may be referring to the situation where Rodney had been robbed and shot in Cobb County, Georgia. The human trafficking case is still pending in the state of Florida, and based upon that, it limits Detective Doll's ability to go talk to him.

This guy who had the information, he's represented by an attorney, so I can't ask him any questions. It's his constitutional right and guarantee, and I can't interrupt that, so I got to sit and wait. Prohibited by law to speak to the man in Florida while his human trafficking case is pending, Detective Dawes does some digging into his background.

He had been literally all over the United States, running prostitutes and taking money. So I get in touch with my fingerprint guy, let's get this individual's prints and let's do a manual comparison to the print from the counter at the Wingate Inn. So that was done, no match. After confirming that the print does not belong to the man in Florida, Detective Dawes remembers

APHIS. The Automated Fingerprint Identification System has evolved since 2000 when the prints found at the crime scene were first submitted for comparison. In 2000, when you ran a print through APHIS, it was limited to looking at prints in your state. APHIS has now become a system where you can put a fingerprint in and see not only your state, you can see the entire United States. And I said to my fingerprint guy,

run the prints from the counter at the Wingate Inn. My fingerprint examiner came to me and he said, the left little finger, I got a match. And the guy's James Lorenzo Randolph. Detective Dawes is finally able to put a name to the print, but the investigation is far from over. Even though you may have matched the print, the truth is you frequently need a little bit more to make sure that case is prosecutable.

I could probably take a warrant at that time for James Lorenzo Randolph based on the print, but I wouldn't have felt comfortable saying, well, this guy's fingerprint is on the counter, so I think he did it, and that's all I got. I wanted to corroborate the evidence with a statement. I grabbed up Rodney's file, and I found the hotel registration log, and I looked for James Lorenzo Randolph. He's not on the guest log,

and he's not a previous or current employee of the Wingate Inn. I started my research on James Lorenzo Randolph. Within a week of Rodney Caslin's murder, James Lorenzo Randolph was identified in an armed robbery of a sandwich shop in South Carolina. He was arrested in late December of 2000. He had done about nine and a half years in prison in South Carolina. The lingering question for Detective Dawes is how James Lorenzo Randolph would be connected to the informant in Florida.

I see a report that in December of 2000, my person with information down in Florida and my fingerprint match, James Lorenzo Randolph, listed the exact same address as their home address in Columbia, South Carolina. Now we're rolling. Then Detective Dawes comes to a startling realization. At the time of the incident at the Wingate Inn, the two men who came in were both described as thin builds. This guy who knows about the case is not a thin build, but how does he know about it? One thing that always bothered me about the Wingate Inn

is we didn't know how the guys got there and we didn't know how they left. But they got out of the area quickly because somebody drove them there and somebody drove them away. The guy with information on Florida, he's got to be a driver. I am itching to go to talk. The guy with information in Florida, he's got to be a driver. I am itching to go to talk to this guy with information. I don't care where I have to go. I don't care how I get there. I want to know how he knows about Rodney's murder.

Knowing he has little chance of getting a statement from his main suspect, James Lorenzo Randolph, Detective Dawes stays focused on the man who may have driven the getaway car the night of Rodney's murder. This guy with information in Florida had been sentenced for human trafficking and he had been placed in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The fact that he had been sentenced meant that he was no longer represented by an attorney. So I went to the prison where he was sentenced to serve. Now legally able to speak to the suspected driver, Detective Dawes meets with him in federal prison but gets nothing out of the tight-lipped informant.

It was very hard. It would just be like, what is it that it would take? What is it that we could do? It wasn't anything that we could do, but depending on the detectives. As time continued to move, it was really important to me that my children grew up healthy and happy, especially with Kyle. I didn't want his memory to only be that someone killed his dad and for him to be angry. I wanted him to be happy. So

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This was kind of a passion project for Vic Reynolds. And so the men and women that he recruited, they were passionate about justice and they had a heart for the victims. In June of 2014 we opened up Rodney's case. We reviewed every police report. We had all these notes in this huge office and I said we have to do something. Determined not to give up on the informant who wouldn't speak to him, Detective Dawes gets an idea. He reaches out to the Florida attorney who had represented the informant

in his federal human trafficking case. And I said, can you tell me anything? And he said, well, clearly I can't tell you anything because I was his lawyer. But I bet if you offer him something, some benefit, he may talk to you. We believe that this individual was involved in Rodney's case, but his involvement was limited to driving the getaway car. Do we tell them in exchange for helping us get this shooter, we're going to make sure that you not be prosecuted

for the offense of felony murder? It's a tough call, but that's what had to be made in this case. Detective Dawes returns to the Terre Haute federal prison to speak with the informant again, who is still serving his sentence for human trafficking. I handed him a letter signed by Vic that said, we won't charge you with any crime associated with this incident in the state of Georgia.

But you have to give me your truthful statement. You have to get on the witness stand in a trial and you have to tell the truth in front of a jury of 12 individuals. That's what you have to do. Very reluctantly, he began. One of the first things he said is, I won't tell you about the other guy. But he talked about driving, talked about James Lorenzo Randolph being in the back seat.

The week before riding his murder, the SEC Championship football was at the Georgia Dome, and he was running prostitutes. They were getting ready to leave town, and James said, let me hit that place, that wing gate. So they pulled up that night. He was parked in the Cadillac and could see inside. He saw Randolph holding the pistol.

He saw him hit Carlos Torres with it. He saw him get the bag with money. He saw Rodney come out. He saw the gun being pointed. And then he saw the muzzle flash and knew that James Lorenzo Randolph had just shot Rodney Castlin. I said, OK, how did James Lorenzo Randolph

get behind the counter? He said, oh, he put his hand on it and jumped it. According to this man, the two guys were there to do the robbery, shooting Rodney Caslen. That was not at all intended to occur. He gave me a great statement. I knew it was truthful, and we had it.

We had it. There was no doubt in my mind that that palm print and fingerprints were the guy who demanded money, same guy who hit Carlos Torres in the back of the head with a pistol, and most importantly to pull the trigger on Rodney Caslin. From this point forward, when I talked to James Lorenzo Randolph, it's going to be with a war in hand. It's going to be with a warrant then. There is no way this could happen to someone of the character of Rodney.

And we not know at some point who did it. The US Marshals had located James Lorenzo Randolph. About 6.30 in the morning, they entered the house with a warrant. and the arrest was made. James was taken to the Richland County Jail by the Marshals Service. James Lorenzo Randolph is charged with felony murder, aggravated assault, and armed robbery. We went in to talk to James Lorenzo Randolph and he very quickly told us he didn't have

anything to say to James Lorenzo Randolph, and he very quickly told us he didn't have anything to say to us. He had zero reaction, none. I was in my office and the reception came in and she said, you have a call on the line from the Cobb County Police Department. My heart just dropped because I felt like this must be the call.

The sergeant from the Cobb County Police Department called Kelly. He said, Kelly, I want you to know that we just arrested the guy who shot Rodney Caston. And Kelly said, where's John Dawes? And he said, he's right here. And he handed me the phone. I just cried. And I just thanked God. And I believe I asked, are you sure?

John said, we're sure. We got him. That was the best call. All I could think about was that's, you can give me a commendation, you can throw me in the newspaper, you can give me a pay raise. I do this because I got to call Kelly. In March of 2016, the trial of James Lorenzo Randolph begins, 15 years and three months after Rodney's murder. We entered into a trial.

It lasted about a week after we had the jury seated. We had assigned the case to our very experienced prosecutor. We were obviously concerned about the informant, but in the end, the individual stood up, took an oath, and laid out the entire facts of the case, including identifying Randolph as, in fact, the shooter that shot Rodney. It was very painful to hear more details about the night. At the same time, I felt like we're finally in this moment that we are getting answers. With Rodney's family looking on, the jury finds James Lorenzo Randolph guilty on all counts. In his victim impact statement, Rodney's son Kyle describes the effect his father's murder

has had on him. Neither the informant nor Randolph ever tell police anything about that third suspect. He has yet to be identified. James Lorenzo Randolph is serving three life sentences plus 35 years at Washington State Prison. I miss the most hearing him tell me that he loves me. He's always been thought of, even though he's not here. He was absolutely a beautiful person, beautiful person.

I trust that I'm going to see him again. That's what I believe. Rodney, right now, would be 57 years old. The world missed out on just an abundance of love and compassion. You know, I said earlier he was an old soul and he would always say things like, just keep on living. We're going to have our good and bad days, but we don't have to be stuck in the bad days. It's important not to be stuck in the bad days. It's important not to be stuck in the bad days.

Cold Case Files is hosted by Marissa Pinson, produced by Jeff DeRay, and distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at anetv.com. Hi, I'm Stacey Schroeder. On my podcast, I share candid updates from my personal life, chat with some of my best friends about what's going on in our lives, give commentary on the latest pop culture headlines, and sometimes deep dive into random topics I'm obsessed with, like human design. It's a bit all over the place, but that's how I like it.

And you will too. Listen to my podcast Dossie wherever you get your podcasts.