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The Six Wives of the Black Widower · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You know, usually when we talk about a criminal profile,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: there's this expectation of, well, a kind of dark predictability,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: like reading a blueprint, I guess.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: You look at the trajectory of a violent offender and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the warning signs are these like stark neon arrows pointing
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: directly to the tragic conclusion. We really like to think
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: that monsters look like monsters, you know, right from the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: very start.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: It's a comforting illusion, honestly. I mean, we desperately want
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: the villain to be easily identifiable. So we can categorize
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: them and theoretically keep ourselves and our loved ones safe.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Makes the world feel manageable.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: It's clean. You see the red flags, you cross the street.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: But then, you know, you step into the world of
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: coercive control and systemic manipulation and serial predation. And suddenly
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: that entire blueprint is completely obscured.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. You're looking at a landscape that is just,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: it's entirely murky. The red flags are disguised as grand
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: romantic gestures. The Violence is cloaked in plausible deniability, and
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: the systems designed to protect us are suddenly being wielded
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: against us.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Right. It becomes the absolute definition of diagnostic muddy waters.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: The system itself becomes a tool for the predator rather than,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: you know, a shield for the victim. And that requires
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: a completely different level of analysis to entangle. And that
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: is exactly where we are taking you today. Welcome to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the deep dive. Imagine this, if you will. Just imagine
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: a man marrying six different times over the course of
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: four decades. Now, marriages end. That's life. But of those
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: six spouses, three of them end up dead under highly,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: highly suspicious circumstances.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: It's just wild.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: We are talking about a statistical anomaly so bizarre, so
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: terrifying that it almost defies the actuarial tables. It completely
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: defies belief.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: It truly is a staggering premise. I mean, when you
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: look at the sheer mathematics of it, the probability of
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: three spouses dying unnatural, violent deaths without the common denominator
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: being involved is practically zero.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Today, we are looking at the life and the incredibly
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: dark crimes of a man named Thomas Randolph, who is
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: often referred to in the media as the Black Widower.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, a very fitting title, unfortunately.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: We are pulling our insights from a truly comprehensive brand
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: new People magazine article, That breaks down the entire harrowing
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: marital history of this man. And the timing here is
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: crucial for you, our listener, because we are also diving
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: into the findings from the new Netflix documentary, The Widower
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Till Death Do Us Part.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Which is fantastic, by the way.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So good. And it literally just dropped yesterday, September 30th, 2026.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: We've also got some incredible supplementary details from the 2024
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Investigation Discovery docuseries, The Black Widower. So we have this
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: massive stack of investigative journalism, forensic analysis, and most importantly,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: firsthand accounts from the women who actually survived him.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: And our mission today isn't just to walk you through
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: a true crime timeline, event by event, like you're reading
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: a calendar. We want to deconstruct the actual anatomy of
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: a serial manipulator.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: We are going to look at how a predator doesn't
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: just break the law, but how he actively weaponizes the
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: very institutions of our society.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Like using the rules against us.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We're looking at how he uses the institution of marriage,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: the life insurance industry, the medical establishment, and the legal
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: system itself as like blunt instruments of control and profit
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: over the course of 40 years.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this because to really understand how someone
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: gets away with this level of destruction for so long,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: we have to go all the way back to the beginning.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: We have to look at the blueprint.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Right back to the start.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So let's travel back to 1975. This is his very
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: first marriage to a woman named Catherine Thomas, who goes
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: by Kathy. At the time they get married, Thomas Randolph
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: is just 20 years old. Kathy is barely an adult herself.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, she's only 18.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly young.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: It's incredibly young.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: They are both essentially still forming their adult identities. And
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: when you look at the accounts from that time, Kathy's
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: initial impression of Thomas is actually really striking.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: She doesn't see a monster.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. She describes him to interviewers as intelligent, charming,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: and a very witty person.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Right. He's the guy who can hold court at a
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: dinner party. He's funny.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And what's fascinating here is how this charm functions mechanically.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: In the psychology of serial manipulators, charm is not just
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: a benign personality trait. It is a highly calculated grooming technique.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: It's an active tool.
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  Speaker 2: It's a form of camouflage. By presenting himself as witty
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: and intelligent, He completely disarms his victim. But more insidiously,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: he disarms the community around them.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Which is so important.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Right. Because when a person is outwardly charming, society gives
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: them the benefit of the doubt. It makes the victim's
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: later claims of abuse seem unbelievable to outsiders. People think, Thomas? No,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: he's such a great guy. He bought his drinks last week. Yeah.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: It's the absolute groundwork of isolation.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: That is so chilling. But it makes perfect sense. It's
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: like a Trojan horse. You let it into your life
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: because it looks like a gift. But the mask doesn't
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: stay on forever. Eventually, that charm slips. And with Kathy,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: we see this terrifying escalation into sheer psychological terror.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: The shift is very drastic.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: There is this one incident detailed in the sources that
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I think we really need to linger on because it
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: perfectly encapsulates this shift. It's the oatmeal incident.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, the oatmeal. It seems so mundane on the surface,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: which is exactly why it's so important to analyze the
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: underlying psychology of it.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Right. So put yourself in Kathy's shoes for a second.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: You are an 18-year-old newlywed. You make your husband a
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: bowl of oatmeal. It's a completely normal domestic morning routine.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: You know, you hand it to him and he takes
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: a bite and he decides that there isn't enough sugar
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: in the oatmeal.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: A very standard complaint.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Right. And a normal person says, hey, can you pass
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the sugar? Or they just get up and get it themselves.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: What does Thomas Randolph do? He takes the bowl of
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: scalding hot oatmeal and violently fastballs it against the wall.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: It shatters over sugar.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: It's a complete explosive overreaction to an entirely trivial perceived slight.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: And if you are listening to this and thinking, well,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: maybe you just had a bad temper, you have to
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: look deeper at the tactical application of that rage.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: To me, it's like he planted a tripwire in the kitchen.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: You never know where these tripwires are hidden. You are
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: just walking around your own house making breakfast and suddenly, boom,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: an explosion.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: And the whole point of a tripwire like that isn't
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: really about the sugar, is it? It's to train the
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: victim to constantly walk on eggshells. It's to instill this
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: persistent low-grade terror so that the victim is always hypervigilant,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: always trying to anticipate his moods just to survive the day.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: You've hit the nail on the head. In domestic abuse dynamics,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: we call this establishing a regime of unpredictable volatility. It
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: relies on intermittent reinforcement.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Intermittent reinforcement.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: If his anger was predictable, say he only got mad
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: when she spent too much money or stayed out late,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: she could manage that. She could avoid the triggers. But
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: by making the trigger as minor as the sugar content
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: of oatmeal, he ensures she can never, ever relax.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: She's just always on edge.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Her nervous system is locked in a state of hyperarousal.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: She is perpetually off balance. And that profound emotional exhaustion
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: makes her far easier to control.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: And we really see the foundation of his whole playbook
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: being established right here in this first marriage. You know,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: looking at the People article and the documentary notes, there
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: are three distinct pillars of his strategy that emerge with Kathy,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: and these become the recurring themes for the next 40 years.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: He never really changes his strategy.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: No, he just refines it.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Let's break those three pillars down, because they're crucial for
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: understanding everything that follows.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, so pillar number one, isolation. Isolation. Kathy notes that
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: he strictly prohibited her from seeing or even speaking to
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: her friends. He acts as the gatekeeper to her social world.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: So he cuts off her support network.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: That's step one.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Pillar number two, financial and legal leverage. He immediately takes
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: out a life insurance policy on her. So now there
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: is a literal, monetized value placed on her death. And
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: pillar number three, intimidation. He owns multiple guns. He is
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: using drugs, and he actually admits in the ID docuseries
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: that he was selling drugs.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: So he's introducing lethal weapons and unpredictable criminal elements into
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: her daily environment.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, you can
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: see how these three pillars interlock to build a psychological cage.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Isolation removes the exit routes. Intimidation ensures she's too terrified
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: to look for an exit anyway.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Because what if he finds out, right? Exactly.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the life insurance provides the ultimate chilling motive
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: for what happens if he decides she's no longer useful
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: or if she becomes a liability. But there is a
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: fourth element introduced during his marriage to Kathy that is
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: perhaps the most disturbing of all. And it becomes a
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: defining motif of his life.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: The hitman.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Yes. The introduction of the proxy killer. During this first
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: marriage in the 1970s, Thomas approaches a man named Steve.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: And according to the documentary, Thomas actually asks Steve to
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: murder Kathy in exchange for a financial payout.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: He is just casually soliciting a murder like he's asking
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: someone to mow his lawn. Like, hey, man, you busy
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: this weekend?
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: It shows an astonishing level of psychological detachment. He doesn't
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: just want her gone. He wants to orchestrate her death
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: like a business transaction while keeping his own hands physically clean.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: It's about risk mitigation and maintenance. control from a distance.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: But the twist here is just, I mean, it's the
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: kind of thing you couldn't write in a Hollywood fiction
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: script because the studio executives would tell you it's too unbelievable.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Truth is definitely stranger than fiction here.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Kathy realizes the extreme danger she is in. She is terrified.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: But she manages to scrape together the courage to escape.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: She divorces Thomas in 1983. And who does she end
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: up marrying after she gets away? Steve. The very man
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Thomas tried to hire to kill her.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: It's an incredible testament to Kathy's resilience, really. She not
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: only escapes the black widower, but she builds a life
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: with the person who refused to be the instrument of
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: her death. It's a profound reclaiming of her own narrative.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: She got out. She survived. But, unfortunately, escaping doesn't stop
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: a predator like Thomas Randolph. It just means there's a
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: vacancy in his life. And that vacancy gets filled immediately.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: This brings us to his second wife, Becky Galt, and
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the first real tragedy where we see him manipulate the
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: legal system to slip right through the cracks.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: The transition from Kathy to Becky is seamless. Almost literally.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Seamless is the word.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, Thomas was actively having an affair with Becky
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: while he was still married to Kathy.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: And He married Becky on the exact same day his
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: divorce from Kathy was finalized.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Not a day later.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: There is zero breathing room. The ink wasn't even dry
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: on the divorce papers.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: That lack of space between relationships is a massive red flag.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Serial manipulators abhor a vacuum. They require a constant, uninterrupted
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: supply of control, validation, and resources.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: They can't just be alone for a minute. No.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: We often refer to this as a narcissistic supply overlap.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: When one source is actively leaving, they have already entirely
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: secured the next one, so they never have to sit
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: alone with themselves.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: And the contrast in Becky, if you look at the
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: accounts of her before and after she married Thomas, is
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: just heartbreaking. Her loved ones describe her early on as
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: vibrant and happy. She was full of life.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: She had a lot going for her.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: But under Thomas's three pillars, the isolation, the life insurance,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the intimidation, she descends into severe drug addiction. He completely
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: dismantled her personality.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: He used her addiction as a mechanism of control. When
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: you isolate someone from their family and foster a severe dependency,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: whether it's financial dependency or a chemical one, you strip
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: away their autonomy entirely.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Because now they need you just to function.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Becky became trapped in a reality completely authored and
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: controlled by Thomas. If he controls the drugs, he controls
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: her baseline functioning.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: But Becky does try to fight back. Like Kathy, she
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: realizes she has to get out. The survival instinct kicks in.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: She actually leaves him. She goes to stay with her cousins.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: She puts distance between them. She is physically safe.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: She did the hardest part.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: But then, in November of 1986, she makes what turns
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: out to be a fatal mistake. She goes back to
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Thomas' house one morning just to retrieve some of her belongings.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Which is statistically the absolute most dangerous time for a
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: victim of domestic abuse. Really? Oh, absolutely.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Just going back for stuff.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. The moment they leave or when they attempt
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: to return to the shared environment to reclaim their things,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: that is the danger zone. It's the moment the abuser
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: realizes they have lost control. And the reaction is often
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: sudden and lethal.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: And later that exact same day, Becky is found dead.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: She's on a bed at Thomas's house holding a gun
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: with a suicide note nearby. Now, on the surface, if
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: you just glance at the room, the scene reads as
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: a tragedy. You know, a woman struggling with severe addiction,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: going through a breakup, takes her own life.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: That's the narrative he wanted everyone to see.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: But the forensics? The forensics tell a completely different, highly
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: sinister story.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: This is where we have to look closely at the
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: work of Detective Dick Martin, who arrived at the scene.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Detective Martin was an experienced investigator, and he immediately suspected
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: foul play.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: He didn't just buy the setup.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: He didn't just accept the narrative laid out in front
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: of him. He looked at the physical evidence, specifically the
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: position of the firearm in her hand and the blood
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: spatter patterns in the room.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Now, I've watched enough procedurals to know that staging a
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: scene is incredibly difficult to pull off. But let's really
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: break this down for the listener. Why would those two
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: specific things, the gun and the blood, stand out so
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: glaringly to a seasoned detective?
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Let's start with the gun. Let's talk about the biological
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: mechanics of death. When a person suffers a fatal, self-inflicted
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: gunshot wound, especially to the head, the sudden catastrophic loss
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: of brain function and muscle tone causes the entire body
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: to go flaccid instantly.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Right, you just go limp.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The weapon usually drops or falls away in a
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: predictable manner governed by gravity. If a gun is found
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: neatly placed in the hand or gripped in a way
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: that defies post-mortem muscle relaxation, it suggests it was placed
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: there after the fact.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: So if the fingers are perfectly wrapped around the grip,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: it's like someone was trying to pose a mannequin. It
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: just resists natural physics.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It's called cadaveric spasm, but it is rare and
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: doesn't look like a neat cinematic grip. The placement felt
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: entirely theatrical.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Okay. And what about the blood?
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: And then regarding the blood spatter, blood behaves strictly according
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: to the laws of physics. The velocity of the bullet,
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: the angle of the trajectory, the resulting back spatter, these
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: elements all paint a rigid, geometric picture of where the
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: shooter was standing and the exact position of the victim
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: when the bullet struck.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: So the blood droplets literally map out the room.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: They do. And Detective Martin saw that the spatter on
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: the walls and the bed simply did not align with
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: the physics of a self-inflicted wound.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: It just didn't add up.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: The angle was wrong. The back spatter wasn't consistent with
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: her holding the weapon to her own head. The physics
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: contradicted the visual narrative.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you have a veteran detective looking at a scene,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: seeing physics openly defying the suicide note and saying, this
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: is a staged murder. If you're listening to this and
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: wondering why on earth the police didn't immediately lock down
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Becky's house as a major crime scene, you aren't alone.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Because the sources say they just, they didn't.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly frustrating.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: They didn't lock it down. They didn't do the deep
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: forensic sweep you see on TV. How does a massive
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: failure like that happen?
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: It's a tragic systemic failure of investigative protocol, largely driven
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: by the era. In the 1980s, if a scene looked
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: superficially like a suicide and a note was present, there
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: was often a profound rush by overworked departments to close
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: the book.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Just wrap it up quickly.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: But we also have to acknowledge the implicit bias regarding
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: her drug addiction.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: They wrote her off.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: They did. The system looked at a troubled woman with
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: a history of substance abuse and readily accepted the easiest,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: most convenient narrative. They completely ignored the anomalous physical evidence
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Detective Martin tried to point out, because acknowledging it meant
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: opening a complex homicide investigation.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Which means Thomas Randolph just gets to walk away. He
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: orchestrated the scene and the police basically handed him a pass.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: But the story of Becky's death doesn't end there, because
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Thomas' own ego and inability to keep his mouth shut
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: trips him up.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: He couldn't help himself.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Two years later, a former friend of his, a guy
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: named Eric Tarantino, goes to the police and confesses something terrifying.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: He says Thomas asked him to kill Becky.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: The return of the proxy killer. And what was the
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: stated motive?
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Half of her life insurance policy. Sound familiar? It's the
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: exact same pitch he made to Steve back in the
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: 70s during the first marriage. But it gets so much worse.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Eric tells police that he and Thomas actually rehearsed the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: murder for nearly a year.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Think about the psychology behind that. A year of rehearsal.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: That speaks to a level of premeditation, obsession, and cold-blooded
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: calculation that is profoundly chilling.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: It's not a crime of passion.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: This isn't someone snapping in the heat of an argument.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: It's a theatrical production he is trying to direct. He's
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: casting roles, rehearsing blocking, and setting the stage.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: So based on Eric's confession, the police finally arrest Thomas.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: He's charged with murder. But while he's sitting in jail
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: awaiting trial, he proves that he just cannot stop plotting.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: His brain is always running in these dark algorithms. He
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: turns to a cellmate and asks the cellmate to kill
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Eric Tarantino, the star witness, against him.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Which is incredibly brazen. But it aligns perfectly with his
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: established pattern. If there's an obstacle, a wife, a witness,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: you hire someone to eliminate it. But unfortunately for Thomas...
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: He picked the wrong cellmate.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The cellmate is an undercover police officer.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: It's amazing.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: It's almost comical how arrogant he is. He is essentially
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: handing the prosecution a gift-wrapped conviction for witness tampering and
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: consciousness of guilt. But this is where the justice system
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: completely historically drops the ball.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: What's truly fascinating here is the legal mechanics of how
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: this trial completely fell apart. Despite the confession of the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: hitman he hired to kill his wife, And despite the
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: undercover officer catching him actively trying to arrange a hit
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: on a witness from inside a jail cell, Thomas Randolph
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: is acquitted of Becky's murder.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: OK, I am going to need you to break this
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: down for me because it sounds completely insane. How does
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: a jury let him go with all of that evidence?
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Make this make sense.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: It comes down to the immense power of an official
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: medical ruling. Remember how the police rushed the scene in 1986? Yeah,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: and they didn't.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Lock it down.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Well, the coroner had officially ruled Becky's death a suicide
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: on her death certificate. In a court of law, overcoming
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: a medical examiner's official ruling is an incredibly high, almost
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: insurmountable hurdle for the prosecution.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Because the defense just points at the piece of paper.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The defense simply has to introduce reasonable doubt. They
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: don't have to prove Thomas is innocent. They just have
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: to prove there's a chance he didn't do it. And
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: the coroner's own report provided that reasonable doubt on a
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: silver platter.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: The defense argued, how can you convict my client of
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: murder when the state's own medical establishment says she killed herself?
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: The jury couldn't bridge that gap.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: So the murder charge vanishes into thin air. And what
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: happens with the charge for trying to hire the undercover
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: cop to kill a witness? Surely they nailed him for that.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: He pleads guilty to witness tampering. And for that, for
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: actively trying to orchestrate an assassination of a state witness
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: from inside a maximum security facility, he receives a shockingly
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: lenient sentence of just 18 months.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: 18 months. You or I could get more time for
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: tax fraud. And to add the absolute ultimate insult to injury,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: he still gets to pocket the payout from Becky's life
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: insurance policy.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: He literally profits from her death, serves barely a year
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and a half, and is released right back into society
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: with a newly funded bank account.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: And this is the critical psychological turning point for Thomas Randolph.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: The lesson he learned here was not that crime doesn't pay.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Far from it.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: The lesson he learned was that if you manipulate the
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: physical scene just enough to confuse the initial responders, the
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: legal system will do the rest of the heavy lifting
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: for you. He realized... The system is full of blind
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: spots and bureaucratic loopholes, and he learned exactly how to
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: slip through them.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Which is a terrifying education for a predator. He basically
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: got a master's degree in systemic manipulation. So coming off
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: a near miss with the law, with money in his pocket,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: how does a guy like this adapt? He doesn't lay low.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: He doesn't seek redemption. He just finds new targets. And
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: this brings us to wives number three and four, Leona
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Stapleton and Gayna Allman.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Let's look at Leona Stapleton first. This is a very
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: interesting case study because of how incredibly brief the marriage was.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: They marry in 1994. They move from Utah to Indiana.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: And by 1995, they are already divorced. Right.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And in the I.D. docuseries, Thomas actually compliments Leona. He
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: calls her fun and says she was the smarter one
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: because she just accepted that he was having sex with
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: other women. She didn't fight him on his infidelity. She
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: just let him do whatever he wanted.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Which raises an important psychological question.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Well, why such a short marriage if she was so
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: compliant and easy to manage?
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: In the psychology of a serial exploiter, we often see
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: the implementation of a placeholder relationship.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: A placeholder, like literally keeping the seat warm.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Precisely. A manipulator like Thomas requires an anchor. They need
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: someone to manage the mundane aspects of daily life, to
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: provide a baseline of control, and most importantly, to help
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: maintain the facade of a normal, stable, married man.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Ah, the camouflage again.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Right. He uses that facade of normalcy while he actively
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: scans the horizon for a more lucrative target. Leono survived,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: sadly passing away from cancer years later in 2006, likely
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: because she didn't offer a significant financial payout, and she
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: didn't aggressively challenge his ego.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: She just wasn't worth the trouble to him.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: She was a convenient, temporary placeholder until he found his
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: next major mark.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: And that next major mark arrives almost instantly. In October 1995,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: he marries wife number four, Gayna Allman. And how do
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: they meet? A personals ad in the newspaper.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: The analog version of a dating app. It's a highly
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: efficient way for a predator to hunt because it allows
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: him to cast a wide net and select vulnerable targets
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: who are actively seeking connection.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Gayna says she wasn't even looking for anything serious, but
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Thomas completely overwhelms her. He deploys that charm we talked about, flowers,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: expensive jewelry, sweeping her off her feet. It's a textbook
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: whirlwind romance. They have a courthouse wedding, and literally immediately
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: after they say, I do, what does he do?
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Let me guess. He takes out a life insurance policy.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Of course he does. Pillar number two, the financial leverage
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: is locked in. And very quickly, things start to get
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: weird and highly dangerous in the house. Gayna notes that
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Thomas starts huffing household products to get high. His behavior
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: becomes wildly erratic.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: The introduction of inhalants and severe substance abuse is a
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: critical factor here. It acts as a severe accelerant to
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: his underlying volatility. It makes his impulses sharper, his paranoia deeper,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: and his restraint practically non-existent.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And the breaking point for Gayna comes in a terrifying
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: one-two punch. First, she gets a phone call out of
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the blue from the police back in Indiana, warning her
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: about the murder allegations regarding his second wife, Becky.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: So now Gayna knows what he's capable of. The blinders
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: are ripped off. She knows she is living with a
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: suspected killer.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: That phone call shattered the illusion entirely. The camouflage of
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: the witty, charming romantic was gone.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: But before she can quietly plan an exit strategy, things
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: escalate to physical terror. She says one day, Thomas is
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: sitting at their dining room table, acting kind of different.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: He's cleaning his guns, pillar number three, intimidation, and he
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: accidentally fires a bullet that strikes the wall about a
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: foot away from her head.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: An accidental discharge that just happens to miss her by
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: 12 inches. Right after she learns he was accused of
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: staging a suicide.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: You cannot convince me that was an accident. That was
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: a calculated warning shot. That was him demonstrating his power.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: He was saying, I have the power of life and
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: death over you in this room, and I can claim
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: it was just a cleaning accident.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: But Gayna's reaction, I mean, if you are listening, you
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: have to appreciate the sheer grit of this woman. I
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: am absolutely in awe of her. She doesn't just cower
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: and wait for the end. She executes what I can
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: only describe as a brilliant cinematic heist to escape.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Her survival instincts kicked in brilliantly. She recognized the imminent
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: threat and acted with incredible clarity.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: She realizes she has to go into deep hiding. She
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: quits her job. She vanishes. But before she leaves the
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: house for the last time, she does something so iconic.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Thomas had given her all this expensive diamond jewelry during
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the courtship phase to win her over. Gayna takes the jewelry,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: pops the real diamonds out of the settings, and replaces
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: them with cheap cubic zirconias.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: That is amazing.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: She gives the fake jewelry back to Thomas so he
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: doesn't notice anything is wrong, and she pawns the real
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: diamonds for a couple thousand dollars to fund her escape.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: She literally says in the documentary, I thought that was
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: fair play.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: It's poetic justice, certainly. But from a psychological standpoint, it's
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: also a masterclass in reappropriating power. Thomas used the jewelry
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: as a tool of financial grooming and control. Gayna turned
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: his own manipulative tool against him to finance her survival.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: She beat him at his own game.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: And thank God she did. Because we learn later that
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the hitman motif had already returned while they were married.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Enter a man named Glenn Morrison. Glenn comes forward and
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: claims Thomas offered him half of Gayna's life insurance payout
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: to kill her.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: And get this, the plan was for Glenn to break
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: into the house, kill Gayna, and then shoot Thomas in
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the leg to stage a home invasion.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Look at the evolution of his tactics here. He's no
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: longer just trying to make it look like a suicide
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: in an empty room. He wants to manufacture a complex
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: scenario that where he is visibly wounded.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: To make himself look like a victim.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Right. He's willing to take a bullet to the leg
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: to solidify his status as a surviving victim, thereby deflecting
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: all suspicion away from himself.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: It's insane.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: But Glenn refuses. Not because of some strong moral compass, necessarily,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: but because he looks at Thomas and figures, if I
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: do this, he'll just shoot me in the head to
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: tie up loose ends.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: A very... Astute and likely accurate observation by Glenn.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Thomas would have almost certainly eliminated the only witness to
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: his crime.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: So Gayna escapes with her life and her cubic zirconia revenge.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: But Thomas is still out there learning, adapting. And this
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: leads us to what happens when the manipulator actually claims
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: to have found the love of his life. The danger
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: doesn't disappear. It just takes a new, highly opportunistic form.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: We are talking about wife number five, Frances Randolph.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: This relationship begins in 1997, and the setting is critically important.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: They meet while they are both working at a nursing home.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Frances is actually married to someone else at the time.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: But Thomas systematically and relentlessly convinces her to leave her
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: husband for him.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: And the way he talks about her to everyone around
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: them is entirely different from the others. He calls her
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: the love of his life. He affectionately refers to her
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: as his China doll, Dolly Parton. He claims that when
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: he met Frances, he totally changed. He straightened up his act.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: The reformed bad boy narrative.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And even his own mother goes on record saying
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Frances was the best thing that ever happened to him.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: This is a highly complex dynamic to unravel. It's entirely
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: possible he felt a genuine, deeply rooted attachment to Frances.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: But we have to remember that with individuals who possess
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: high traits of psychopathy or narcissism, love is often synonymous
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: with ownership.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Like a prized possession.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: She was a possession he valued highly. But even highly
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: valued possessions are ultimately expendable if the circumstances demand it
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: or if an opportunity presents itself.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: And the circumstances with Frances were incredibly fragile. She had
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: a lifelong severe heart defect. Over the years, she suffered
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: several mini strokes. She was medically vulnerable. In April 2004,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: she has to undergo heart surgery. According to her family,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the surgery actually goes well. She is in recovery. She
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: is stable.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: And this is where the timeline of events becomes critical.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Extremely critical.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Francis's daughter, Rachel, who was a minor at the time,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: is in the hospital room visiting her mother. Thomas comes
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: into the room and explicitly asks Rachel to leave. He
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: tells her he wants to be alone with his wife.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Rachel leaves the room. Thirty minutes later, Francis is dead.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: It's a chilling, devastating detail. 30 minutes alone with him
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and a stable, recovering patient suddenly flatlines.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: 30 minutes alone with him and a stable, recovering patient
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: suddenly flatlines.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: If you're listening and connecting this to the bigger picture
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: of what we know about Thomas Randolph's history, how do
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: we analyze this? The police never investigated it as a crime.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: They assumed it was a surgical complication. But Rachel is
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: convinced to this day that he killed her mother in
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: that room. What do you see here?
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture and look
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: at this objectively, stripping away the emotion, we are faced
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: with two possibilities, both of which highlight his predatory nature.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, what's the first?
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: The first possibility is active murder. He seized a perfect,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: sterile opportunity where she was medically vulnerable. Perhaps he interfered
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: with her oxygen supply or her IV line, knowing full
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: well that her fragile heart would take the blame and
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: no one would question her a post-operative cardiac arrest.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: It's the ultimate cover story. He doesn't even have to
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: stage the scene. The hospital setting does it for him.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The second possibility is a dark, passive opportunism. Perhaps
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: she did suffer a sudden, natural cardiac event while he
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: was in the room. And instead of hitting the panic
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: button or calling for nurses, he simply watched the clock.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: He stood there and let her die.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Just let it happen.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: In either scenario, he leveraged her extreme medical vulnerability to
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: his ultimate advantage.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: And the advantage was massive. Because remember how he always
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: wants to be the aggrieved victim? He uses her tragic
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: death to orchestrate an incredible financial windfall. He doesn't just
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: quietly collect the $ 18, 000 life insurance policy. He goes on
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: the offensive.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: He turns it into a business opportunity.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: He aggressively turns around and sues the hospital for medical malpractice.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: He claims they are responsible for the love of his
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: life dying.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: He is using the civil justice system to retroactively validate
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: his narrative and line his pockets.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: And he wins. He secures a wrongful death settlement of
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: nearly $ 400, 000. Wait, I just have to pause here because
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: this makes my blood boil. Let's really look at this.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: How does he pull that off?
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Well, in a civil suit, the burden of proof is
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: much lower than in criminal court. It's not beyond a
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: reasonable doubt. It's preponderance of the evidence. He just has
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: to show the hospital was more likely than not negligent.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: By weaponizing her medical charts and playing the role of
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: the grieving widower, he forced the hospital's insurance company to
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: settle rather than face a public trial.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: So he potentially caused her death in that room, and
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: then he used the legal system to make the hospital
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: pay him $ 400, 000 for it. The sheer audacity, it's sickening.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: It's hard to stomach.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: And what happens to Rachel? Francis's minor child who lost
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: her mother. Thomas had life insurance policies on both Francis
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: and Rachel. But when the dust settles, Rachel says she
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: got some small amount of settlement money, but absolutely nothing
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: from the life insurance. He took it all.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: He isolated the assets, just as he historically isolates his victims.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: He weaponized a tragic death to achieve maximum financial extraction,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: completely ignoring the well-being of his stepdaughter.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: And that $ 400, 000 settlement gives him the significant resources to
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: enter the digital age. Which brings us to his final marriage.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: This is where Thomas' methods remain exactly the same, but
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: his massive arrogance leads to his most brazen and ultimately
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: fatal mistake. We are talking about his sixth wife, Sharon Koss.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: The year is 2006. The hunting ground has shifted with
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: the times. He's no longer using newspaper personals. He meets
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Sharon on Match.com.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Sharon is a divorced hairstylist. She has an adult daughter
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: named Colleen. And she has built a genuinely good, stable
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: life for herself in Las Vegas. She owns property. She
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: has a house. She has retirement accounts. And the romance
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: moves frighteningly fast. We are talking warp speed. Within just
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: a few months of their very first date, they are
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: getting married on a cruise ship.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Is this textbook love-bombing?
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: It's the ultimate manufactured acceleration of intimacy.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Just overwhelming her. He overwhelms her critical thinking with grand gestures,
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: exotic trips, and constant attention, rushing the commitment before she
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: or her family has the time to properly vet his background.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: And her daughter Colleen is watching this happen, feeling like
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: she's strapped to a runaway train. She knows something is wrong,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: but she can't stop it. Because right after the wedding,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the financial restructuring begins immediately. Sharon completely changes her will.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: She leaves everything, her property, her vehicles, her bank accounts,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: her retirement entirely to Thomas.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: And the life insurance.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: And of course, Thomas takes out life insurance. But not
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: just one policy this time. He takes out three separate
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: policies on Sharon, totaling roughly $ 350, 000.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: We've seen this exact blueprint before. The financial motive is
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: now locked firmly in place. He stands to gain nearly
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: three quarters of a million dollars. between her assets and
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: the insurance payouts. Now, he just needs to control the
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: environment to execute his plan.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Which he does, suffocatingly.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Sharon's friend, Deirdre Marley, who worked with her at the
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: hair salon, reveals in the ID series that Thomas was
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: calling the salon 15 to 20 times a day.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: 15 to 20 times a day is not affection. That
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: is surveillance.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: It's stalking. He is strictly monitoring her location, monopolizing her time,
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: and ensuring she is constantly aware of his looming presence,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: even when they are physically apart. It's a digital leash.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: And the physical intimidation returns. Deirdre says Sharon came into
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: work and showed her bruises that she got after a
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: boat ride with Thomas. She was starting to get genuinely scared.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: She told Deirdre about the three life insurance policies. She
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: was finally waking up to the reality of the black widower.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: But as we saw tragically with Becky, the moment the
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: victim starts to wake up, the The moment they realize
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: they need to escape is the moment the danger reaches
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: its absolute peak.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to Mother's Day, May 2008. Thomas takes
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Sharon out for a nice dinner to celebrate. They drive home.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: They pull into the garage. Sharon gets out of the
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: car and enters the dark house first. Thomas intentionally lags
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: behind in the garage. As soon as Sharon steps inside
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: the hallway, she is shot in the head and killed instantly.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: It's an ambush. in her own sanctuary.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: But the shooter isn't Thomas. The shooter is a man
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: named Michael Miller. But before Michael can flee the scene,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Thomas steps into the house, pulls his own gun, and
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: shoots Michael Miller to death.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: The ultimate horrific staging. The double homicide disguised as a
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: heroic act of self-defense.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Thomas calls 911. He tells the dispatcher he just walked
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: in on a home invasion. His wife was shot by
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: an intruder. And he had to kill the man to
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: save himself. On paper, it sounds like an open and
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: shut case of a tragic burglary gone horribly wrong.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: But Thomas Randolph is a man who always believes he
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: is the smartest person in any room. He tries to
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: orchestrate a narrative that is entirely too complex for reality.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: And the forensic evidence simply refuses to cooperate with his script.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Exactly. If you're fascinated by forensics, this is where the
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: deep dive really turns. Let's break down exactly how the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: police looked at this supposedly heroic crime scene and realized
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: they were looking at a meticulously staged execution.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: It began with a timeline. Investigators carefully analyzed the delay
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: between the actual shooting and when Thomas finally called 911.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Right, because why wait?
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When your spouse is shot in front of you,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: the physiological panic response dictates an immediate, frantic call for help.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Thomas's delay suggested he was taking time to arrange the
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: physical scene compose his thoughts, and to literally set the
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: stage before inviting the authorities in.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: He was checking his angles, making sure the props were
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: in place.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Then we look at the ballistics in the blood spatter.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: The physical evidence of where Michael Miller was standing, the
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: downward trajectory of the bullets Thomas fired into him, and
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: the resulting blood evidence completely contradicted Thomas's frantic narrative of
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: a dynamic face-to-face shootout in a dark hallway.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: The story didn't match the geometry.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: The physical evidence suggested Michael was shot from a different
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: angle than Thomas claimed.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: But the most damning detail, the thing that just completely
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: blows his elaborate story out of the water, is the mask.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Michael Miller, the supposed home invader, had a black ski
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: mask lying near his body. But investigators noticed something physically impossible.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: There was absolutely no blood on the mask.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Which utterly defies the physical reality of the scene. If
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Michael Miller was wearing that mask on his head during
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: a violent close-quarter shootout where he sustained fatal, extremely bloody
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: wounds to his upper body and head, the mask would
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: be heavily compromised with biological material.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: It would be covered.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: The fact that it was spotless indicated it was dropped
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: near his body post-mortem. It was a prop, placed there
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: to sell the burglar narrative.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: It's exactly like a bad movie script. It's like a
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: script written by an amateur who thinks they are a
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: criminal genius. He took the plot he tried to pull
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: off back in the 90s with Glenn Morrison, hire a
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: guy for half the insurance, stage a break-in, but he
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: added a horrific, greedy twist.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: He evolved it.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: He decided, why pay the hitman half the money? I'll
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: just kill the hitman. keep 100% of the insurance, inherit
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: all of Sharon's property, and silence the only witness all
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: in one night.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: It's the absolute zenith of his hubris. He truly believed
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: he could murder two people in cold blood, hand the
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: police a prepackaged theatrical narrative, and they would simply thank
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: him for his cooperation, just like they did with Becky's
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: suicide in the 80s.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: He thought he was untouchable.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: But the modern forensics betrayed him. And when detectives dug
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: into Michael Miller's background, they quickly found the connection. Thomas
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: had paid Michael, who was just a local handyman, to
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: do this.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: He finally got caught in the web of his own staging.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: But getting caught is one thing. Actually putting this man
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: behind bars, keeping him there, is a completely different, agonizing journey.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Because even with ironclad forensic evidence, a clean mask, bad ballistics,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Thomas Randolph still knows exactly how to manipulate the legal system.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: He utilizes the judicial process not as a means to
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: find truth. but is a weaponized mechanism for delay. He
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: is arrested in 2008, but he doesn't actually go to
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: trial until 2017. Wait, nine years?
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I know the wheels of justice turn slowly, but nine
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: years between an arrest and a trial? If you are
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: a family member of the victim, how do you even
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: survive that wait? How is that even legally permissible?
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: It's an incredibly cynical exploitation of a fundamental constitutional right.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to effective counsel. Thomas
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: exploited this by constantly claiming dissatisfaction with his lawyers. Oh,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: I see. He would wait until the eve of trial,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: fire his defense team, and force the court to appoint
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: new ones. Those new lawyers then required months, sometimes years,
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: to get up to speed on the massive evidentiary file.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: So he just resets the clock over and over.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a deliberate tactic of attrition. It is designed
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: to exhaust the prosecution's resources, wear down the emotional resolve
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: of the witnesses— and exploit the sheer passage of time,
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: hoping evidence degrades or people's memories fade.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: It is infuriating. But finally, despite all his games, in 2017,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: the trial happens. And the jury sees right through him.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: They look at the clean mask, they hear the timeline,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: and they convict him of the murders of Sharon Koss
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: and Michael Miller. He is sentenced to death. You think, okay,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: it's finally over. The black widower is finally facing the
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: ultimate consequence.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: But the legal system is built on highly specific, rigid
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: procedural rules. And this is where we have to do
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: a deep dive into appellate law. Because that 2017 conviction
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: does not stand. The Nevada Supreme Court overturns the verdict
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: entirely and takes him off death row.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: And this is the part of the documentary that makes
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: people absolutely scream at their televisions. The conviction is overturned
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: because the jury, during the 2017 trial, heard testimony from
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Eric Tarantino.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: The guy from the 80s. Right.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Eric, if you remember, is the guy from the 1980s
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: who confessed that Thomas hired him to rehearse the murder
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: of his second wife, Becky. The Nevada Supreme Court said
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: the jury shouldn't have been allowed to hear that. Why?
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Why would evidence of a past, nearly identical crime be
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: thrown out? Doesn't that prove a clear, undeniable pattern? Isn't
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: that the very definition of relevant?
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: It is incredibly frustrating for the public to understand. And
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: it feels like a miscarriage of justice. But it goes
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: to the absolute core of how our justice system attempts
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: to ensure fairness. It's the delicate, often precarious balance between
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: probative value and prejudicial evidence.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: OK, so when the court talks about prejudicial evidence, it's
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: basically like putting blinders on a horse, right? The judge
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: is forcing the jury to only look at the exact
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: crime in front of them so they don't just convict
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: him because he's a terrible guy with a dark history overall.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Is that the logic?
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy. Probative value means the evidence
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: logically helps to prove a specific material fact in the
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: current case. Prejudicial evidence means the information might cause the
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: jury to convict the defendant emotionally.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Because they just hate him.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Simply because they think he is a bad person
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: who likely did it, rather than convicting him based solely
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: on the forensic facts of the specific crime he is
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: currently on trial for.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: So the court is saying if the jury hears he
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: tried to hire a hitman in 1986, they'll just automatically
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: assume he hired Michael Miller in 2008 without actually doing
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: the hard work of evaluating the 2008 evidence?
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The law generally prohibits using prior bad acts to
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: prove that a person has a propensity to commit crimes.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: The Nevada Supreme Court ruled that Eric Tarantino's testimony about
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Becky was so inflammatory, so incredibly damaging to his character,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: that it unfairly prejudiced the jury.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: So they threw it out.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: The danger was that the jury convicted him for being
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: a career monster rather than specifically evaluating the blood spatter
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: and the mask in Sharon's death.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Look, I understand the academic logic. I understand that the
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: system has to protect defendants from being railroaded based on
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: their history. But when you are looking at a man
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: who has actively weaponized those exact legal protections for 40
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: years to keep killing women, It feels less like justice
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: and more like a catastrophic, systemic blind spot.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate paradox of a free society. The
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: very rules designed to protect the innocent from state overreach
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: are the exact same rules that highly intelligent, well-resourced predators
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: exploit to evade accountability.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: It's maddening.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: The system functioned exactly as it was designed to. But
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: in this specific case... The design felt deeply inadequate to
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: the horrific reality of the threat.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: But the prosecution didn't give up. They couldn't use the
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: death penalty anymore, and they couldn't mention Becky, but they
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: went back to trial in 2023. They put the blinders on.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: They focused entirely on the spotless mask, the delayed 911 call,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: the blood spatter, and the massive financial motive.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: And it worked.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: And they did it. In 2023, 15 full years after
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Sharon was murdered, Thomas Randolph was convicted again of two
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: And this time, he is sentenced to 60 years to
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: life in prison. He is currently incarcerated at the Lovelock
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Correctional Center in Nevada. He is an old man now,
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: and barring a miracle, he will never breathe free air again.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? When we step back
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: and look at the sheer trail of destruction left over
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: 40 years... Kathy, Becky, Leona, Gayna, Francis, Sharon, three dead,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: countless lives like Rachel's and Colleen's completely shattered.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: It reveals a terrifying amalgamation.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Thomas Randolph wasn't just a murderer. He was a chameleon.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: He combined coercive control, extreme financial exploitation. and an uncanny,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: almost savant-like ability to identify and exploit the blind spots
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: of the legal and medical systems.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: He played the game so well. He realized early on
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: that if you hide your violence behind the normalized paperwork
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: of marriage certificates, life insurance policies, and surgical procedures, society
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: is very hesitant to look closely.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: He hid in plain sight by using the most normal
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: institutions we have.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He weaponized normalcy.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for coming on this intensive
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: exploration with us today. Navigating the findings of this People
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: article and the Netflix documentary has been harrowing, but it's
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: so vital to understand how these predators operate so we
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: can better recognize the signs, the isolation, the sudden financial shifts,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: the unpredictability in our own communities.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Knowledge and critical thinking are our best defenses against manipulation.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: But before we sign off, there is one final lingering
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: element of this story that really haunts me. and it's
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: something we haven't fully grappled with.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, what's that?
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: Think about the periphery characters in this story. Think about
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Steve in the 70s, Eric Tarantino in the 80s, Glenn
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Morrison in the 90s, Michael Miller in 2008. The hit men.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Over four decades, Thomas Randolph approached at least four entirely
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: different men and casually solicited murder. What does it say
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: about human nature or the dark corners of our society,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: that a man can walk up to four different people
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: and say, I will pay you to kill my wife.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: And rather than immediately running to the police, so many
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: of these ordinary men either seriously considered it, rehearsed it
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: for a year, or actually went through with it.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: That is terrifying. Thomas Randolph is a monster, yes, but
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: he found an awful lot of willing accomplices in the shadows,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: just waiting for a paycheck.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: It forces us to ask how thin the veneer of
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: morality really is when money and manipulation are introduced into
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: the equation.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: It really does. At the top of the show, we
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: talked about how we want monsters to be predictable. We
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: want the x-ray to show a clean break so we
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: can point at the problem. But Thomas Randolph proves that
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: the most dangerous predators don't live in the dark. They
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: live right next to us, smiling, charming, and waiting to
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: see if we'll look the other way. Stay curious, everyone.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Keep thinking critically about the information you consume and keep
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: looking out for each other. We'll catch you on the
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: next Deep Dive.