Kriti Mehrotra
‘The Widower’ is a three-part miniseries that delves deep into the world of Thomas Randolph, also known as the “Black Widower,” and his cat and mouse game with not just the Las Vegas Metro Police Department but also with the media. For a while, after he was found guilty, Thomas came to be known as one of the most notorious killers in the country for the 2008 double homicide case of his sixth wife, Sharon Causse Randolph, and the man who prosecutors said he hired as a hitman, Michael James Miller. However, with his death row conviction recently being overturned, let’s find out where Thomas currently is, shall we?
Who is Thomas Randolph?
Thomas Randolph has been married a total of six times. But out of those six spouses, only two remain alive today; wife number 1, Kathryn Thomas, and wife number 3, Gayna Allmon. The four who passed away all did so under highly mysterious circumstances, which led to Thomas living under a cloud of suspicion. In fact, by the time Sharon was slain in May 2008, Thomas had already faced trial for the 1986 death of Becky Gault, his second wife. Yet, as her cause of death was officially ruled to be suicide by gunshot, he was not found guilty of murder by the jury.
The inconsistencies in Thomas’ story and his unusual actions following Sharon’s killing are what led the police to him. With his close connection with the supposed hitman, Michael Miller, and his previous record of dead wives, the authorities tracked him down to Utah (the place where he met and married his first three wives) and arrested him in January 2009. Thomas was subsequently extradited to Nevada and indicted on two counts of first-degree murder using a deadly weapon and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. His motive was said to be money.
Where is Thomas Randolph Now?
It took a long while, but Thomas Randolph eventually faced trial for the charges against him in 2017. During the lengthy court hearings, both of his surviving wives testified against him, revealing harrowing details about his apparent abuse and manipulation. Kathryn, Thomas’ first wife, even went as far as to say that Becky, his second, had reached out to her to talk about how she was afraid for her life by merely being surrounded by Thomas. Gayna, on the other hand, said she believed he was also trying to have her slain but that he couldn’t find a hitman brave enough to do it.
Even a psychiatrist spoke up about the man who lived off his dead wives’ proceeds, calling him a narcissist but not a sociopath. Speaking to the jurors, Dr. Norton Roitman said, “A person with narcissistic traits is at the center of the world…They can be disloyal because they seek adulation, and in marriages, sometimes, when he doesn’t get what he wants from that person, he goes and gets it from somebody else.” He further added that he “wouldn’t doubt” Thomas being unfaithful. With all this, the jury found Thomas guilty of the charges against him and sentenced him to death.
Thomas, who still maintains his innocence, subsequently appealed his conviction, which the Nevada Supreme Court overturned in December 2020. “Ultimately, the State lured the jury into finding Randolph guilty based on myriad other bad acts that were not even marginally relevant for a nonpropensity purpose, rather than constraining the testimony to evidence relevant to the charged offenses,” the court stated in its ruling. “We cannot look to the prior-bad-act evidence to conclude that the error in admitting that evidence was harmless.”
Thomas was thus granted a new trial but was denied release. Therefore, today, the 66-year-old is incarcerated at the High Desert State Prison in Clark County, Nevada, near Indian Springs. He will remain there until his second trial for the double homicide case comes to its conclusion, which might be a while as a date for it has not yet been set.
