Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Killed His Wife on Safari // The Larry Rudolph Murder Story

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Larry Rudolph, a wealthy and prominent Pennsylvania dentist, was convicted of murdering his wife of 34 years, Bianca Rudolph, during a 2016 big-game hunting safari in Zambia.

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And Larry is a dentist, and he is exceptionally wealthy. He has built himself a small fortune through his dental business, and he's worth about $15 million. And Larry's whole thing is he likes to go on these hunting safari trips with his wife to Zambia, and shoot and kill exotic animals, like antelope and zebras and stuff like that. You know, rich people shit. Not only that, but Larry is the president of Safari Club International. So he's basically the king of the whole trophy hunting world. Anyway, one day in 2002, he's working in his Pittsburgh office,

and this woman gets hired there. We'll just call her side chick. And so side chick starts working there as a dental hygienist, and it doesn't take long for Larry to notice her and start thinking she's fine, and soon enough they start hooking up, and even though he's married, they have a whole secret relationship on the side. And 14 years go by, and it's now 2016. And Larry's in his 60s at this point.

And this secret love affair with side chick is still going on. And he isn't just sleeping with this woman. He's giving her money. He's financing her lifestyle. He pays for her house, her luxury cars. He takes her on expensive vacations. He pays for her kids' educations. He even pays for her various plastic surgeries.

Now, Larry's wife is this woman, Bianca. And Bianca has no idea he's been cheating. But then, one day, boom, she discovers it. Explicit emails between Larry and his side chick. And of course, she's devastated and upset. I mean, they've been married 34 years. They have two kids together, and he's cheating on her? But see, she feels like she can't divorce him

because she's Catholic and divorce is frowned upon in her denomination. So she feels like she's stuck in this marriage. And the worst part is that Larry knows this. He knows she won't divorce him, so he's not worried about her leaving him at all. However, ultimately, she does go and confront him and she gives him an ultimatum. End the affair and fire side chick,

or she's going to break with her religion and divorce him. and take half his wealth with her. Now, around this same time, Side Chick knows that they've been busted, and she also gives Larry an ultimatum. He has one year to sell his dental business and get rid of his wife Bianca, or she will leave him.

So Larry does the only thing he can think of to get out of this. He decides he's going to murder his wife and be with Side Chick. And from here, Side Chick allegedly helps him plot all of this out. So he gets to work on this plan, and he decides to try and drug his wife and cause her to overdose. So he gets some propofol from work, the drug they used to knock people out before they operate on them. Also the drug that killed Michael Jackson. So he gets this propofal, but for some reason, he chickens out. He doesn't give it to his wife. So now he has to come up with another way to commit this murder. Here's the other thing. Over the years, he had stacked up in

enormous amount of life insurance on Bianca. Nine separate policies from seven different insurance companies worth almost $5 million. So when she dies, he's going to get paid. Not that he needs the money, but he wants the money. Anyway, so his first plan didn't work. So he comes up with another way to get rid of his wife. He's going to take her on one of their safaris to Africa and shoot her. So he goes to Bianca and he tells her that they should go on one of their hunting trips. Two weeks in Zambia, it'll be great, because this time she can hunt a leopard, and she's always wanted to hunt a leopard. Plus, this will give them time together, and, you know, maybe from here they can rekindle their marriage. And Bianca really wants this relationship to work. I mean, she loves Larry, so she agrees to go.

And so they get to Zambia, and they hunt for a couple of weeks, and Bianca doesn't actually get to shoot a leopard. But on the last day that they're there, Larry and Bianca, they're in a row of them. remote cabin where they're staying at Kthui National Park and they're there packing up their things. And that is when Larry grabs his hunting shotgun and he points it at her and blam, he shoots her right there in the cabin. And this unfortunately kills her. So then some guides who work at the park, they hear the shot and they rush into the cabin and they're shocked. And Larry, he's standing there and he tries to explain what happened and he blames it all on her. saying that Bianca unalived herself.

But he also has trouble keeping his story straight. He tells one guide that he was in the shower when he suddenly heard the shot. Then he tells a different guide that he was in the bathroom with diarrhea when he heard the shot. And if you're going to make up an excuse like that, like why add the diarrhea part? Anyway, eventually local police come and they investigate and they question Larry. And his story changes again. Now he says the shooting was an accident. And Bianca didn't unalive herself, she must have accidentally fired that gun while she was packing it away.

And I guess, Zambian police believe him. Because two days after the shooting, they rule it an accident. And while he's still in Zambia, Larry pushes to have Bianca cremated as soon as possible. You know, to get rid of any evidence. This guy has her cremated before he even tells his kids that she's deceased. That is messed up. Anyway, once she's cremated, he just flies back home to Pennsylvania, like he didn't just kill his wife. Then, Larry collects almost $5 million in life insurance money.

And on top of that, now he no longer has to hide his relationship with side chick. So within two weeks of him getting home, he has her move in with him so that they can be together for real. Meanwhile, a close friend of Bianca's thinks something is very off about her death. And she gets suspicious. So she calls the FBI, and she tells them everything she knows, about Larry's affair with side chick, about how Larry had rushed to have his wife cremated. And so the FBI starts investigating this sudden death in Zambia, and they find a lot of evidence that this was foul play.

But one of the biggest red flags they find is that forensics has determined that Bianca was shot from about three feet away. and it would be impossible for someone to shoot themselves from three feet away, like no one's arms are that long. So they know Larry's lying. And from here, they look into his finances and they discover that he had way too much life insurance taken out on Bianca. Then, they go and they start questioning people in his social circle about his relationship with Side Chick, and a former employee of the dentist's office tells them the rumor that Side Chick had given Larry a year to get rid of, Bianca or she would leave him. And this investigation, it goes on for a while, but the FBI still

haven't arrested Larry. Until. At some point, Larry finds out that the FBI has been investigating him, and it starts to stress him out, and he knows he's screwed. And one night, he's in Phoenix, Arizona, at a local steakhouse, and he's with side check. And for some reason, they get into an argument and this argument escalates to yelling. And pretty quickly, Larry gets so mad and so fed up that he yells, I killed my fucking wife for you. And the bartender overhears. And he eventually gives this information to the feds. And so, bam, Larry is arrested. Here's a picture of him. Also, Bam, side chick is arrested too. Here's a picture of her. And ultimately, Larry goes to trial and he's found guilty and he gets sentenced to life in prison,

while side chick is also found guilty of accessory after the fact, obstruction and perjury, and she gets sentenced to 17 years in prison.