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Four of Thomas Randolph’s six wives died while married to him, earning the 66-year-old the nickname of the “Black Widower.” Randolph, who is currently in jail facing murder charges in the death of his wife and another man in 2008, is the subject of a three-part Dateline special.
The information about all of Randolph’s wives came to light during his murder trial in 2017 when prosecutors said he “either attempted to kill, hired someone to kill or killed five of those women,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Two of his six wives are still alive today and testified against him.
While Randolph was found guilty of the 2008 murder of his sixth wife following his trial in 2017, the Nevada Supreme Court recently overturned the verdict and called for a new trial. It ruled that the jury should not have been allowed to hear that Randolph was charged and acquitted of the murder of his second wife.
Randolph’s 1st & 3rd Wives Are Still Alive & He Was Acquitted of the Murder of His 2nd Wife
Kathryn Thomas is Randolph’s first wife, who is still alive and testified against him in his murder trial. She said they married when she was 18 and authorities later told her he’d taken out a life insurance policy on her, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. She remarried Stephen Thomas and the couple moved to a different state to get further away from Randolph, who she testified threatened to kill her new husband.
Randolph’s second wife was Becky Gault Randolph and the two married in 1983, the day his divorce from Kathryn Thomas was confirmed. In November 1986, Randolph said he found Gault dead of a single gunshot wound to the head in their bed at home, Deseret reported. Gault’s death was initially ruled a suicide but after a two-year investigation, authorities charged Randolph with murder and accused him of killing her to collect her life insurance policy.
During the trial, the court heard from a man, Eric Tarantino, who said Randolph plotted with him about the best ways to kill his wife. Randolph was also accused of hiring an undercover police officer to kill Tarantino before his testimony, court documents indicate. In 1989, a jury found Randolph not guilty of Gault’s murder.
After Gault’s death, Randolph married Gayna Allmon, who met him through a newspaper ad. Allmon is also still alive and testified that his gun discharged in front of her one day when he was cleaning it and she believed he was trying to kill her, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Randolph’s 4th, 5th & 6th Wives All Died & He Was Charged With the Murder of His 6th Wife Sharon Causse
There is less information publicly available about Randolph’s fourth and fifth wives. Randolph’s fourth wife was Francis Randolph, whose daughter Rachel Gaskins testified during his murder trial. Gaskins said her mother died in the hospital in 2004 following heart surgery but Randolph did not allow her to visit in the recovery room and he was the last to see her alive, the Review-Journal wrote.
She said Randolph did not allow her to attend the funeral either and that her mother was cremated within 24 hours of her death with no autopsy performed. According to the outlet, she testified that Randolph collected a significant amount of money from both her life insurance and from a settlement with the hospital.
Randolph’s fifth wife was Leona Stapleton and even less is known about her, only that Randolph told his friends and family that she died of cancer.
Randolph’s sixth wife was Sharon Causse, who died in May 2008 at their home in Las Vegas. Prosecutors argued that Randolph “[conspired] with a hitman to have his sixth wife murdered during a staged burglary and then [murdered] the hitman,” court documents show. Randolph’s defense stated that he shot and killed an intruder who’d murdered his wife. Randolph is currently awaiting a new trial for the shooting death of his wife and Michael Miller.
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