Local man sentenced to life in prison for 2021 murder

On October 1, 2024, Randall Lee Rose, sixty–one (61) years of age, pled guilty to the First–Degree Murder of Mary Linda Kelly and was sentenced to Life in Prison without the Possibility of Parole in the Tennessee Department of Correction (“TDOC“) before Judge Kyle Atkins. 

On September 25, 2021, Jackson Police Department (“JPD“) officers responded to a report of a female being assaulted at a residence on Hollywood Drive. Officers Jason Keen and Paul Hugueley arrived on the scene, and witnesses directed them to the back of the residence where they found Mary Kelly lying on the floor with severe lacerations to her body and head. Ms. Kelly was unresponsive and having difficulty breathing. As they cleared the residence, Rose fled through a window and ran into a wooded area behind the residence. 

An eyewitness told officers that Rose had argued with Mary Kelly before assaulting her with a pair of pruning loppers. The witness ran out of the room and called 9-1-1. Officers located a pair of bloody pruning loppers in the residence. EMS responded to the scene and transported Ms. Kelly to the Jackson-Madison County General Hospital where she later succumbed to her injuries. Ms. Kelly suffered a skull fracture as well as multiple lacerations to her legs and feet, a deep laceration to her upper right thigh, bruising to both arms and upper chest, and lacerations to her forehead and to the back of her head. 

Rose’s criminal history includes a 1984 Rape conviction from Carroll County, Georgia; a 2014 Rape conviction in Knox County, Tennessee; a 2012 conviction for Kidnapping in Dalton, Georgia; and 1994 convictions for Aggravated Assault and Illegal Possession of a Weapon in Whitfield County, Georgia. As a result of the Knox County conviction, Rose had been placed on the Sex Offender Registry through the State of Tennessee and was required to wear an ankle monitor. Law enforcement officers searched the area where Rose fled and discovered his discarded ankle monitor, which he had removed. 

Approximately three weeks after the murder, on October 20, 2021, JPD Officer Ron Dewald located Rose on the property of the former Armstrong Flooring Plant and took him into custody The next day Investigators Ron Pugh and Dan Long interviewed Rose, and he admitted to repeatedly striking Mary Kelly with the pair of loppers. 

District Attorney General Jody Pickens stated, “Our community no longer has anything to fear from Randall Rose because he has been removed from society for the days he has left. The result of this prosecution is in large measure due to the hard work of the Jackson Police Department and for that, my office is thankful. It is my hope that the family of Ms. Kelly will find some peace knowing that the man who took their loved one’s life will never breathe air as a free man again.” 

District Attorney General Jody Pickens led the prosecution with assistance from Assistant District Attorneys General Ben Mayo and Michelle Pugh, and Criminal Investigator Rob Barham. 

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