A wife shot on Mother's Day

On May eighth, two thousand eight, Thomas Randolph called Las Vegas police saying his wife Sharon Causse had been shot by an intruder in their home. Randolph said he shot the intruder multiple times, killing him with a bullet to the head.

“My wife's been shot. There's a guy in my house and I shot him.”

Detective spots inconsistencies

Detective Dean O'Kelley examined the crime scene and found troubling details. The intruder's ski mask had no blood on it. Multiple rounds were fired in the hallway but no bullet casings were found. A neighbor heard gunshots at eight thirty-three pm, but Randolph's nine-one-one call came at eight forty-five pm.

Producer joins the investigation

Dateline NBC producer Dan Slepian heard about the murders from O'Kelley's colleague and began documenting the case. Neither Slepian nor O'Kelley realized they were embarking on a fifteen-year journey that would expose Randolph's sinister history.

“You might want to pay attention to this one.”

A pattern emerges across decades

As Slepian and O'Kelley investigated, they discovered Randolph was a former paralegal who had received life-insurance payouts after three of his previous wives died under suspicious circumstances. Known as the Black Widower, he had escaped two death penalty convictions.

Netflix tells the full story

A new Netflix documentary, The Widower: Til Death Do Us Part, directed by Chris Smith, the executive producer of Tiger King, features Slepian's real-time footage of interviews with Randolph, witnesses, and family members of his victims as authorities worked to convict him.

Causse's suspicious will

Causse's daughter Colleen told investigators that Randolph had become the beneficiary of her mother's will three months into their marriage. He had also taken out a three hundred fifty thousand dollar life insurance policy on her, raising Colleen's suspicions.

The intruder's suspicious connection

Investigators traveled to North Carolina to interview family members of the intruder, Mike Miller, who had become Randolph's handyman. According to Miller's friend, Randolph had asked Miller if he would be interested in killing his wife. The prosecutor's office declined to issue an arrest warrant.

First wife reveals early warning signs

Randolph's first wife, Kathy, married him in nineteen seventy-five and said he had taken out a life insurance policy on her. After they divorced, her new husband Steve Thomas told investigators that Randolph had previously tried to groom him to kill Kathy, but he refused.

Second wife's death reclassified

In nineteen eighty-three, on the same day his divorce to Kathy was finalized, Randolph married his second wife, Becky Gault. Three years later, Gault died of a gunshot to the head inside her Utah home. Her death was initially ruled a suicide but was reclassified as murder.

Gault case: hired killer backs out

Randolph collected a five hundred thousand dollar life-insurance payout after Gault's death. His friend and handyman, Eric Tarantino, testified that Randolph had hired him to kill Gault and had been planning her murder for six months before Tarantino backed out of the plan.

Acquitted but convicted of tampering

A year after Tarantino's testimony, Randolph was acquitted after his lawyers convinced the jury that Gault had died by suicide. However, Randolph was convicted of witness tampering after he was found guilty of offering an undercover cop money to kill Tarantino. The conviction was later expunged.

More marriages, more deaths

Three more marriages followed. Gaynal Allmon divorced Randolph before anything happened, but Frances Randolph was not as fortunate. Throughout their marriage, Frances had a heart condition requiring surgery. Randolph selected the doctor himself. She died after surgery, and Randolph collected her life insurance and sued the hospital for wrongful death.

Arrested after fifteen-year hunt

The pile of evidence was finally enough to take Randolph into custody. He was arrested in January two thousand nine, hiding out at his mother's home in Utah. Police had to drag him through the snow to their vehicle, an incident Slepian recorded on camera.

Randolph plays games with justice

Over the next few years, Randolph became convinced he could sway public opinion. He repeatedly delayed his two thousand eight murder trial, fired lawyers at the last minute, and tried to keep Gault's case from the nineteen eighties out of court. Slepian says Randolph turned suspicion into entertainment.

“We're going to become infamous together.”

Guilty verdict, then reversal

In June two thousand seventeen, eight years after Causse's death, Randolph was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to death. But three years later, the Nevada Supreme Court reversed the conviction and death sentence, ruling that the trial should not have allowed evidence from Gault's case.

Retrial conviction holds firm

During his retrial in two thousand twenty-three, Randolph could not pull any more strings. Detective O'Kelley testified and laid out all the inconsistencies in Causse's case. His testimony, combined with Randolph's performative reenactment video the night of the murders, convinced the jury of his guilt.

“Had it not been for Dean O'Kelly, Thomas Randolph would likely be free today.”

Sixty years to life in prison

Randolph, now seventy-one, was sentenced to sixty years to life at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada. He has had multiple appeals denied, including one in early September. He continues to claim his innocence and has people on the outside handing out flyers around the courthouse about his case.