KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A violent sex offender serving prison time for killing a Jackson, Tenn., woman has now been indicted in the murder of a Knoxville woman who hasn't been seen since 2013.
Randall Lee Rose, 61, is set to be arraigned Tuesday morning in the Knox County case. He was booked last week into Knox County custody after being moved from Madison County, Tenn., records show.
Rose is accused of killing Sharon Leinart, 58, some time in early 2013. A family member reported her missing in March 2013, according to records.
Leinart's body never has been found. While it's unusual to go forward with a prosecution without a victim's body, it's not unprecedented. Circumstantial evidence and a defendant's own words can prompt prosecutors to seek an indictment.
In Rose's case, while Jackson investigators were talking to him about the 2021 killing of 70-year-old Mary Kelly, he gave them information about a Knoxville homicide, Knoxville Police Department spokesman Scott Erland told WBIR. KPD investigators took it from there, resulting in Rose's secret October indictment.
'Some place warm and nice'
Rose has a history of violent crime including two convictions for rape, one in Knox County. He lived on Knoxville streets in 2013, the same period of time during which Leinart disappeared.
Judy Conners, a sister who lived in Indiana, alerted Knoxville police in March 2013 that Leinart hadn't been heard from since January of that year. She frequented the streets, often lived in week-to-week or month-to-month motels and suffered from a mental illness, a missing persons report states.
Leinart often used the street name "Angela." She was a familiar site around KARM and the Salvation Army on Broadway, where she collected her mail.
An acquaintance, Sandra Davis, appears to have been one of the last people to hear from Leinart.
"Sandra Davis stated that Ms. Leinart contacted her by phone sometime in late January and told her that someone had picked her up and taken her some place warm and nice," the report states.
Davis couldn't remember if Leinart had mentioned going with a man or what location she was now staying at.
Conners checked the morgue and hospitals for any signs of Leinart, all without luck.
In April, a law officer caught Rose inside an abandoned home on Maynardville Pike.
In early June, Rose tried to rape a woman after meeting her in the Happy Holler part of Knoxville, records state. The intended victim fended him off with a small knife and fled, records show. An attempted rape charge was later dismissed.
Later on that same month, Rose choked and raped a prostitute in Knoxville, threatening to stab and shoot her in a North Broadway parking lot not far from the area's Mission District. He confessed to the rape, and in 2014 he pleaded guilty.
He'd previously raped a woman in 1983 in Carroll County, Ga., according to authorities. He's on Tennessee's sex offender list.
Rose attacks Jackson woman in her house
In October, Rose admitted in Madison County, Tenn., court that he'd murdered Mary Linda Kelly, 70, in her Jackson home. He got a life sentence with no chance at parole, according to a news release from District Attorney General Jody Pickens at the time.
Rose murdered Kelly in September 2021 and then fled the scene into woods, according to authorities. A witness told police he'd assaulted her with a pair of pruning loppers. She suffered a fractured skull among other injuries.
Rose had been wearing an ankle monitor, which he cut off as he ran, according to the US Marshals Service.
The following month, authorities got a tip that Rose was hiding out on the grounds of a former hardwood flooring company in Jackson. Rose had a gun that he'd apparently stolen during a burglary.
Rose previously has been convicted of kidnapping in Dalton, Ga., and aggravated assault and illegal possession of a weapon in Whitfield County, Ga., according to the DA's release.
