Thomas Randolph (AP News)
Thomas Randolph — dubbed the “black widower” — is scheduled to head back into a Nevada courtroom this week for his murder retrial. He’s accused of murdering of his sixth wife, Sharon Causse, and the hitman he allegedly hired to kill her, Michael Miller, in 2008.
Randolph was sentenced for the brutal killings in 2017, but after his conviction was overturned in 2021 due to the court using “prior bad-act evidence,” he was granted a new trial.
The black widower is scheduled for a motion hearing Monday before the retrial starts. Jury selection is expected Tuesday and opening statements will likely begin Wednesday.
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Kathryn Thomas
Kathryn Thomas (Photo Credit: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Kathryn Thomas married Randolph when she was just 18 years old — he was 20. The two wed in 1975. She testified in Randolph’s first trial that he was controlling, manipulative, and psychologically abusive.
One time, she claimed, Randolph threw a bowl of oatmeal at a wall because it didn’t have sugar on it. They divorced in 1983.
Becky Gault
Becky Gault
Randolph married Becky Gault in 1983 — on the day his divorce with Thomas was finalized. She was found dead inside their home in 1986. Gault had been shot to death — a bullet had been lodged straight through her head. Police found her tucked into her water bed.
Gault’s death had originally been ruled a suicide and Randolph received at $500,000 life insurance payout.
Later, Randolph was charged with her murder after investigators discovered Randolph used to sing songs about killing Gault and hired a hitman to kill her. That hitman was a cop. Randolph pleaded guilty to witness tampering but ended up getting acquitted of the murder.
Gayna Allmon
Gayna Allmon (Photo Credit: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Gayna Allmon was Randolph’s third wife. She testified in Randolph’s first trial that she truly believes Randolph tried to kill her.
Allmon testified that one day, Randolph was cleaning his gun and shot it toward her. A bullet made a hole in their kitchen. Randolph claimed it was an accident. After that incident, Allmon believed her life was in danger.
Francis Randolph
Colleen Beyer, right, the daughter of victim Sharon Causse, is embraced after Thomas Randolph was sentenced in 2017 (Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP News)
Randolph later married Francis Randolph. She died in April 2004. Francis Randolph passed away in the hospital after she had heart surgery.
Thomas Randolph allegedly didn’t allow her daughter to visit Francis Randolph at the hospital. The daughter testified that Thomas Randolph had her mother cremated within 24 hours of her death.
A man named Glen Morrison testified in Thomas Randolph’s first trial that he had asked him to kill Francis Randolph and suggested he stage the crime scene as a burglary.
Leona Stapleton
Thomas Randolph’s fifth wife was Leona Stapleton. There is not a lot of public knowledge about her. In court during the first trial, family and friends testified that Stapleton had died of cancer.
Sharon Causse
Sharon Causse
Sharon Causse married Thomas Randolph in 2006 while vacationing in Mexico. Two years later, she was dead.
Thomas Randolph told investigators that there had been a home invasion at the home he shared with Causse. He said he killed the intruder after the intruder killed Causse.
Michael Miller
Once detectives started investigating, they learned Thomas Randolph allegedly hired the intruder, Michael Miller, to kill Causse.
Thomas Randolph went to trial for the murders of both Causse and Miller in 2017.
On May 8, 2008, Thomas Randolph called 911 saying his wife, Sharon Causse, had been murdered. He claimed a stranger in a mask barged into his home and shot her.
Thomas Randolph said he realized who the stranger was — Michael Miller — a handyman the couple had hired to do odd jobs around their home. Once he realized Miller had shot his wife, he claimed, Randolph used his own gun and killed Miller.
The black widower received nearly $400,000 in life insurance money for Causse’s death.
Once detectives from the Las Vegas Metro Police Department began investigation and learned about Thomas Randolph’s history, they turned their focus from a home invasion hero to a homicidal husband.
According to detectives — Thomas Randolph really conspired with Miller to kill Causse.
Thomas Randolph hangs his head after being sentenced to death by jurors (Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP News)
Thomas Randolph was charged with two counts of murder for the deaths of Causse and Miller.
The case against him didn’t go to trial until 2017 — nine years after the murders — and a Clark County jury convicted him on both murder charges.
The prosecutor painted a picture of the crime, pointing the finger at Thomas Randolph for the killings, claiming he was motivated by Causse’s life insurance money.
The state also made sure to mention the previous murder case against Randolph — where he was accused of killing his second wife in Utah. Investigators and attorneys from that case testified in the Nevada case.
Thomas Randolph’s living ex-wives, Kathryn Thomas and Gayna Allmon, also testified in the murder trial against him, explaining his odd and violent behavior they witnessed firsthand.
Thomas Randolph was sentenced to death.
In 2021, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the district court and prosecutors who tried the murder case against Thomas Randolph should not have let “prior bad-act evidence” be used in the trial. In simple terms, the Supreme Court didn’t agree with using the Utah murder case and its facts as evidence in the Nevada case.
As a result, Thomas Randolph was granted a new trial. The retrial is scheduled to begin this week. You can watch the trial on our website and on the Law&Crime Network YouTube page.
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