Oklahoma Man Gets Life For Snatching Purses From Marietta Women

MARIETTA, GA -- An Oklahoma felon is going to spend the rest of his days behind bars in Georgia after being convicted of stealing purses from woman outside three Marietta stores, Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds announced Monday.

Rodney Kinchelle Howell, 40, was convicted by a Cobb jury Friday. “Rodney Howell preyed upon people he knew would not fight back,” Assistant District Attorney Matt Carlton, who prosecuted the case, told jurors.

Prosecutors said that Howell committed the robberies in April 2016, in broad daylight. In one instance, a stolen purse had a gun in it, which he used in another attack. (SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

Twenty-three-year-old Cheyenne Nicole Rogers of Oklahoma, pleaded guilty earlier in the case as a co-defendant, the DA said.

In the first incident, Howell and Rogers followed an 86-year-old woman and her 64-year-old daughter out of Walmart on Cobb Parkway near the Big Chicken. Once outside, Howell snatched the older woman's purse and fled into a 2007 Cadillac Escalade. Investigators ran the tags and found out that the the Escalade had been stolen in Oklahoma.

The next day the duo again entered a Walmart on Cobb Parkway, this time near Terrell Mill Road. They targeted a 60-year-old woman putting groceries into her car. Howell grabbed the woman’s purse and fled on foot behind the Walmart, where he was picked up by Rogers in the Escalade. Inside the purse? A .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, the DA said.

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Days later the pair spotted a woman at her vehicle's trunk at Harry’s Farmers Market on Powers Ferry Road. Howell came upon the woman and pulled out a revolver, pointing it at her and demanding her purse. "The woman screamed and kicked her wallet at him," the DA said in a news release.

As before, Howell fled and was picked up by Rogers in the Escalade. They went to a nearby QuikTrip, then another location where a security camera caught Howell trying to use the woman’s credit card to buy cigarettes and alcohol.

The next morning, Marietta police found the Escalade outside the Stratford Apartments on Delk Road. Howell and Rogers, who were sleeping inside, were arrested by authorities.

Howell was convicted of a litany of crimes, including armed robbery, aggravated assault, robbery, financial transaction card fraud, theft by bringing stolen property into the state, and three firearms-possession charges.

Howell, who had four previous convictions in Oklahoma, including rape and grand larceny, was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 30 years.

He was represented by Marietta attorney John Allen Hildebrand.

Image via Cobb Sheriffs Office