Who Is Thomas Randolph? Inside the ‘Black Widower’ Murder Case

In May 2008, Thomas Randolph’s sixth wife, Sharon Causse, was found shot to death inside the couple’s Las Vegas home. Randolph told police that she had been killed by an intruder, whom he then shot and killed. Investigators, however, came to believe the apparent home invasion had been staged—and that Randolph had arranged his wife’s murder.

The investigation also brought new scrutiny to Randolph’s past. He had been married five times before Causse, and three of those wives had died. Years earlier, he had been tried and acquitted of murdering his second wife, Becky Gault, after a former friend claimed Randolph had wanted her killed for life insurance money.

The Causse case would eventually lead to two trials for the same crime and earn Randolph the nickname the “Black Widower.” His first conviction and death sentence were overturned in 2020, but a second jury convicted him in 2023. He is now serving 60 years to life in a Nevada prison.

Randolph was born in 1955 in Illinois and grew up in a military family; his father served in the Air Force, while his mother worked as a bookkeeper. As a young man, Randolph reportedly dreamed of becoming a rock 'n' roll musician and later settled in Utah.

Randolph appears to have had little in the way of a steady career. His first wife, Kathryn Thomas, later recalled that he had difficulty holding a job for long, and Randolph acknowledged heavy drug use during his years in Utah. A detective who investigated him there later said Randolph wanted to become a major drug dealer in the Ogden area and was so enamored of Scarface that he wanted associates to call him “Tony Montana.”

Over the next three decades, Randolph married six times. Two of his wives, Thomas and Gayna Allmon, survived their marriages to him. Four others died, although he was convicted of killing only Causse.

His second wife, Gault, died from a gunshot wound to the head in Utah in 1986. Her death was initially considered a suicide, but Randolph was later charged with murder after his friend and former co-worker, Eric Tarantino, said Randolph had discussed having Gault killed for life insurance money. Randolph was acquitted in 1989.

During that investigation, Randolph tried to arrange Tarantino’s murder before he could testify against him. He offered an undercover officer posing as a hitman money and a car title to kill Tarantino and later pleaded guilty to felony witness tampering.

Two other wives died without Randolph being charged in their deaths. Francis Randolph died in 2004 after heart surgery, while Leona Stapleton died of cancer. By 2006, Randolph had married Causse.

On May 8, 2008, the couple returned to their Las Vegas home after spending the evening out. Randolph told investigators that Causse entered the house while he parked their vehicle. When he came inside, he said, he found her lying face down in a hallway with a fatal gunshot wound to the head.

Randolph said he then encountered a masked intruder and shot him several times. The dead man was Michael Miller, a 38-year-old handyman Randolph knew.

According to Randolph, Miller had broken into the house and murdered Causse, leaving Randolph to kill him in self-defense. But detectives found inconsistencies between his account and the physical evidence. Among them, investigators found no blood in the hallway where Randolph said he first shot Miller, while the location and trajectory of Miller’s wounds raised questions about Randolph’s description of the shooting. A ski mask found near Miller’s body also had no bullet holes or blood on it.

Investigators discovered that Randolph and Miller had been in frequent contact before the murders. The two exchanged nearly 300 phone calls in the months leading up to the killings, most initiated by Randolph. Miller had also reportedly told relatives shortly before his death that he and Randolph were about to come into a large amount of money.

Detectives also learned that Randolph stood to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from life insurance policies on Causse. Prosecutors alleged that he recruited Miller to kill his wife and stage a home invasion so Randolph could collect the insurance money.

According to their theory, Randolph then killed Miller, eliminating the only other person who knew about the plot while allowing Randolph to portray himself as a husband who had killed his wife’s murderer in self-defense. Randolph denied arranging Causse’s murder, maintaining that Miller had acted on his own. He was arrested in Utah in January 2009 and returned to Nevada to face charges of conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of murder with use of a deadly weapon.

Randolph’s first trial began in 2017. In addition to evidence surrounding Causse and Miller’s deaths, prosecutors presented testimony about allegations involving his earlier relationships.

Thomas testified that Randolph had been controlling and psychologically abusive during their marriage. Allmon described an incident in which a gun discharged while Randolph was cleaning it and told jurors she believed he had been trying to kill her. He was never charged with attempting to murder either woman.

Jurors also heard evidence about Gault’s death and Randolph’s previous murder trial. Glen Morrison testified that Randolph had once approached him about killing his then-wife, Francis, during a staged burglary, with Randolph also being shot in the leg so he would appear to be a victim.

On June 28, 2017, the jury convicted Randolph of conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of first-degree murder. A week later, he was sentenced to death. But on December 10, 2020, the Nevada Supreme Court overturned his convictions and ordered a new trial, finding that prior-bad-act evidence related to Becky’s death had been improperly admitted.

Randolph went on trial again in August 2023, but this time prosecutors were largely restricted to evidence surrounding the deaths of Causse and Miller rather than allegations involving his previous wives. Prosecutors again argued that Randolph had recruited Miller to kill Causse for the insurance money and then killed Miller to conceal the plot. The defense maintained that there was no physical evidence proving Randolph had arranged Causse’s murder and argued that Miller had acted on his own.

On August 24, after more than four hours of deliberation, the jury found Randolph guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon.

Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty following Randolph’s second conviction. In April 2024, he was sentenced to 60 years to life in Nevada state prison. Randolph continued to maintain his innocence, telling the court, “I didn’t kill Sharon. I had nothing to do with this.”

Randolph appealed, raising seven challenges to his conviction. Among them, he argued that the lengthy proceedings violated his right to a speedy trial and that statements he made during a videotaped crime-scene walkthrough should have been excluded because he was taking pain medication and had been pressured into participating.

In August 2026, the Nevada Supreme Court rejected Randolph’s arguments, finding no speedy-trial violation and no basis for concluding that his statements during the crime-scene walkthrough were involuntary. The court rejected his remaining claims as well, leaving his convictions and sentence intact.

Randolph is currently incarcerated at Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada, where he is serving 60 years to life for the murders of Causse and Miller.

His story is now the subject of The Widower: ‘Til Death Do Us Part. Directed by Chris Smith, the new documentary revisits Randolph’s six marriages, the deaths of four of his wives and the murder case that earned him the nickname the “Black Widower.”