Asheville Man Gets 30 Years for Killing Elderly Compass Point Resident

Garland William Kuykendall, Jr. will spend at least the next 30 years in state prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the 2024 killing of 72-year-old Robert Earl Griggs at the Compass Point Village apartments on Deaverview Road.

Buncombe County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Grant ordered Kuykendall, 57, to serve between 360 and 444 months in the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. He was remanded into state custody immediately following the Wednesday afternoon proceedings.

The case traces back to March 7, 2024, when Asheville Police Department officers responded to Compass Point Village after receiving reports of gunfire. Officers discovered Griggs deceased inside Kuykendall's room. Patrol officers apprehended Kuykendall a short distance from the scene; during the arrest, an officer noted what appeared to be dried blood on Kuykendall's hands and the knee of his pants.

Kuykendall was initially charged with first-degree murder. Under the terms of the guilty plea to the reduced charge of second-degree murder, he waived his right to a jury trial, according to the Buncombe County District Attorney's Office. The Asheville Police Department had reported at the time that Griggs was beaten to death, though several outlets also described officers responding to reports of gunfire; the official cause of death has not been publicly confirmed by the Buncombe County Medical Examiner in the materials released so far.

The sentencing, which came roughly two years after Griggs was found dead, closes a case that the DA's office described as a multi-year criminal investigation into the elderly resident's death. Kuykendall's earliest possible release, under the 444-month maximum, would come no sooner than 37 years into his term.