Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder. Reader discretion is advised.
ID’s new documentary, The Black Widower: The Six Wives of Thomas Randolph, revisits the infamous case. The three-part series aired on the network on Monday, July 15, 2024. According to IMDb, the synopsis reads, “Thomas Randolph has been married six times, and four of his wives are dead. Several died under mysterious circumstances, leading some to call the Nevada man a ‘Black Widower.’”
Thomas Randolph had six wives—Kathryn Thomas, Becky Gault, Gayna Allmon, Francis Randolph, Leona Stapleton, and Sharon Causse. However, four of his wives died under suspicious circumstances, and the murder of his sixth wife, Causse, eventually resulted in a conviction in 2023.
Randolph had initially claimed that an intruder fatally shot Causse during a home invasion in 2008. He also claimed to have then shot the killer, a handyman named Michael Miller. An investigation revealed Randolph had hired Miller to commit the crime so he could collect insurance claims. Additionally, he had been accused of his second wife’s murder in 1986, but a trial ended with his acquittal three years later.
The latest ID documentary series delves into the mysterious deaths of Thomas Randolph’s four wives. The three-parter reexamines evidence in his three trials, the first of which happened in 1989. It also takes a look at his ultimate conviction in 2023 for the murders of Sharon Causse and Michael Miller.
Who were the wives of Black Widower Thomas Randolph?
Law & Crime reported that the six wives of Thomas Randolph were Kathryn Thomas, Becky Gault, Gayna Allmon, Francis Randolph, Leona Stapleton, and Sharon Causse. Randolph first became a murder suspect in 1986 after the death of his second wife, Gaul, but did not face conviction. Then, in 2017, he stood trial again for murdering his sixth wife, Causse, and her killer Michael Miller. The case concluded with a guilty verdict, which the Nevada Supreme Court later overturned. Nonetheless, a retrial in 2023 sent him to prison for 60 years.
The Black Widower Thomas Randolph’s first wife was Kathryn Thomas, who wed him in 1975. Thomas was only 18 years old at the time but testified during his first trial, calling him “controlling, manipulative, and psychologically abusive.” Their marriage ended in 1983, after which Randolph married Becky Gault that same year. Gault died three years later.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, Randolph claimed Becky Gault died by suicide in their Utah home in 1986. He claimed to have found her dead of a gunshot wound a day after she threatened to kill herself. Randolph alleged that he had refused to buy cocaine with her, following which she made the threat. Per Randolph’s narrative, he told her to go ahead with it and left the house only to return the next afternoon and find her dead. His first trial took place in 1989 and resulted in an acquittal.
Thomas Randolph’s third wife, Gayna Allmon, who survived the killer, claimed he attempted to murder her. Allmon testified during his first trial that he shot in her direction while cleaning the firearm one day and later claimed it was an accident. Next came Francis Randolph, who was another one of the Black Widower’s wives to have died mysteriously in April 2004. Francis died in the hospital after undergoing heart surgery and her cremation occurred within 24 hours of her death. His fifth wife, Leona Stapleton, reportedly died of cancer.
Later, in 2008, Randolph’s sixth wife, Sharon Causse, died during an apparent home invasion. He claimed the two had returned home from a date when an intruder fatally shot her and that he managed to shoot the killer. Investigators later learned that Randolph had hired Causse’s killer, Michael Miller, a handyman, reported People Magazine. They believed he wanted to collect more than $300,000 in life insurance claims.
Thomas Randolph stood trial on charges stemming from the murders of Causse and Miller in 2017. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, after which he received a death sentence. Since the prosecution had heavily relied on information from Randolph’s first trial, the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the conviction. The Court claimed jurors should not have heard about the 1986 trial, calling the comparisons between both cases highly prejudicial.
Nonetheless, a retrial in 2023 ended with a guilty verdict on the same charges. Randolph received a 60-year sentence and is serving time in Nevada’s Lovelock Correctional Center.
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