Man arrested in separate slaying charged with May murder of homeless man in downtown Macon

Seven months after a sleeping homeless man was bludgeoned to death in downtown Macon, authorities have charged a suspect with his murder.

Adam Arthur Rosenthal, 39, was arrested in late November and charged with a different killing — the fatal stabbing of a man near the town of Pulaski in Giles County, Tennessee.

Giles County sheriff’s deputies contacted Bibb County investigators Monday to inform them that Rosenthal was a person of interest in the May 24 slaying of Albert Kenneth Knight Jr., 59. Bibb investigators interviewed Rosenthal and later charged him in connection with Knight’s murder. 

Knight, 59, was killed Friday evening, May 24, about 8 p.m., according to a report from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office. Emergency responders found Knight’s body just before noon Sunday, May 26.

Knight’s son, Albert Knight III, told Macon reporter Laura Corley back in June that his father had been homeless most of his life.

“He was trying to get himself together,” Knight III said of his dad. “He was apparently trying to find the Lord, from what I heard. … At least knowing he was still out there and still alive, it kind of gave me hope he would clean up.”

Two years ago, Rosenthal was a candidate in the Gainesville, Florida mayoral race.

In a videoed interview with the Greater Gainesville Chamber of Commerce before the election, Rosenthal said he moved to the city a decade earlier from Wisconsin and became homeless in 2018.

Rosenthal talked about the need for better public transportation in the city and reducing dependence on fossil fuels.