After 15 years, an overturned death sentence and a retrial, a Nevada jury found Thomas Randolph guilty of masterminding the murder of his sixth wife and shooting dead the hitman he hired to kill her.
A jury on Thursday convicted Randolph, 68, of conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of murder with a deadly weapon after five hours of deliberations, per court proceedings broadcast by Court TV.
Randolph, who uses a wheelchair and is assisted by headphones for the hearing impaired, stared straight ahead and emotionless as the verdict was read.
Colleen Beyer, daughter of Randolph’s sixth wife, Sharon Causse, gasped and cupped her hand over her mouth when Randolph was found guilty for the second time, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“I’m so relieved, it’s unbelievable,” Beyer told the outlet.
“It’s been 15 years, and it’s been a twisted nightmare.”
“I’m really happy and excited and relieved that she’s not on the street — that she can’t do this to another woman again,” she said with tears in her eyes outside the courtroom.
“Because he’s a predator, he’s a serious predator.”
On May 8, 2008, Randolph dialed 911 and told the operator that a masked home invader had shot Causse, according to court documents.
A jury on Thursday convicted Thomas Randolph of conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of murder with a deadly weapon after five hours of deliberations, per court proceedings broadcast by Court TV.AP
After an overturned death sentence and a retrial, a Nevada jury found Thomas Randolph, 68, guilty of masterminding the murder of his sixth wife and shooting dead the hitman he hired to kill her.
After shooting the man, Randolph told police, he recognized him as his friend and handyman, Michael Miller, 38.
But using phone records, prosecutors detailed Randolph’s extensive relationship with Miller in court last week and during the accused killer’s previous trial in 2017, citing hundreds of phone calls between the pair.
At both his most recent trial and the 2017 murder trial, prosecutors alleged that Randolph arranged for Miller to kill his wife so he could collect more than $300,000 in insurance money, pointing to an insurance policy he took out on her life in the two years before her death.
The murder will be the subject of Dateline’s 2021 miniseries “The Widower.”
But the Nevada Supreme Court overturned Randolph’s conviction and death sentence in 2020, arguing that the Clark County District Court should not have allowed jurors to hear “prior misconduct evidence” involving his 1986 arrest in Utah for the death of his second wife, Becky Gault, which he was released.
Randolph, who uses a wheelchair and is assisted by headphones for the hearing impaired, stared straight ahead and emotionless as the verdict was read.
Four of Randolph’s six wives have died – his fifth wife Leona Stapleton died of cancer, according to her family’s testimony in a previous trial, and his fourth wife Francis Randolph died during heart surgery in 2004.
Another man told jurors that Randolph had offered to pay him to kill Francis before his death on the operating table and that he had suggested the death be framed as a burglary.
Gayna Allmon’s ex-wife testified that she believed Randolph was trying to kill her when a bullet from his gun hit the kitchen wall behind her while she was cleaning her gun during their marriage; first wife Kathryn Thomas detailed his alleged psychologically abusive behavior.
But prosecutors were reduced to evidence that dealt strictly with the 2008 investigation into the murders of Causse and Miller.
The state pointed out inconsistencies in Randolph’s story to police, including a video walkthrough of the home he shared with Causse, led by Randolph and shared with jurors this month.
Colleen Beyer, daughter of Randolph’s sixth wife, Sharon Causse, gasped and cupped her hand over her mouth as Randolph was found guilty for the second time, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.AP
A small amount of inconsistent evidence was found in the alley where the alleged shooting took place, prosecutors said, and the trajectory of the bullet that killed Miller did not match Randolph’s retelling.
Randolph “offered to do nothing but help [Causse]” while a 911 dispatcher urged him to perform chest compressions on her body, prosecutors said.
But his lawyer, Josh Tomsheck, argued that this characterization was unfair.
“He wanted her to get medical help – she was the only one who did,” he said in his closing arguments last Wednesday.
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“There is silence after you hear the house cleaning, there is silence. … Tommy was outside, and he wondered … sighed [how long it is taking] law enforcement [to respond].”
“They didn’t come in to help him,” Tomsheck continued.
“The only person who gave his help was [Randolph] – he tried in vain. You can see there is nothing that can be done.”
Defense attorneys argued that police ignored evidence that Miller acted alone and unfairly focused attention on Randolph based on his previous arrest in Utah.
The crime scene was not properly preserved, they argued, and Randolph could not be expected to accurately recount every detail of the traumatic confrontation in repeated police interviews.
But Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Hamner told jurors that Randolph was “not the victim” in this case but instead “the villain.”
“It’s very difficult to plan the perfect murder – now you have the evidence, you can see it [Randolph] failed – because the story didn’t add up,” Hamner said.
“It doesn’t match what you physically see at the scene … when you look at the insurance policy … it doesn’t match the way he discussed his wife [or] … when you start thinking about her relationship with Michael Miller.”
Randolph’s version of events, Hamner said, was “not corroborated by other evidence” but instead “contradicted” and even “contradicted” by the evidence.
“I know we did everything we could,” Tomsheck told Court TV, adding that Randolph’s defense “did everything [they] could” even if they “expected a different result.”
His office did not respond to requests for comment at press time.
District Judge Tierra Jones is scheduled to sentence Randolph during an Oct. 12 hearing.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
