On the night of May 8, 2008, Thomas Randolph called Las Vegas police with a disconcerting alert. But once they returned home, Randolph stayed in the car to listen to the radio, letting Sharon go inside by herself. Minutes later, an intruder wearing a ski mask and carrying a bag of jewelry fired a couple of fatal shots at Causse.
Upon hearing the gun discharge, Randolph later said, he entered the house, relaying to police in a walkthrough that he’d found Sharon lying on the floor bleeding out. At that moment, after seeing a moving shadow, he grabbed a gun from a nearby room and reactively shot the intruder multiple times, killing him with a bullet to the head, before clearing the rest of the house and calling authorities. The initial layout of the case was shocking, but it also seemed cut and dry.
At least until detective Dean O’Kelley began examining the chain of events a little more closely. Why was the intruder’s ski mask on the garage floor without any blood on it? How were multiple rounds shot in the hallway but no bullet casings were left there?
Why did a neighbor hear gunshots at 8:33 p.m., but Randolph’s 9-11 call didn’t occur until 8:45 p.m.? The next day, veteran Dateline NBC producer Dan Slepian heard about the murders from O’Kelley’s colleague, who offered an intriguing message: “You might want to pay attention to this one.” Slepian had previously worked alongside the LVPD homicide unit, filming real-time investigations, so he was accustomed to documenting cases as they unfolded. This seemed like another prime opportunity to do just that.
Except when Slepian and O’Kelley teamed up, neither realized they were embarking on a 15-year journey—one that would eventually expose the truth about Randolph, a former paralegal who received life-insurance payouts after three of his previous wives all died under suspicious circumstances. Over the years, Randolph, known as the Black Widower, would escape two death penalty convictions, repeatedly finding ways around the legal system for as long as he could. That lengthy investigation, along with Randolph’s sinister history, is the subject of a new Netflix documentary, The Widower: ‘Til Death Do Us Part.
Directed by Chris Smith, the executive producer of Tiger King, the documentary leans on Slepian to tell the complete story, featuring his real-time footage of interviews with Randolph, witnesses across the country, and family members of his victims, as authorities worked to eventually convict him of murder, put him behind bars, and keep him there. Every answer widened the frame. Another marriage, another state, another death, another witness.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
