Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - Tom Randolph the Black Widower - Part 1 - The Murder of Sharon Randolph

Starting point is 00:00:00 To listen ad-free, visit Zinspod.co slash subscribe. Starting at $2.99 a month, you'll also get access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you join through Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show! On May 8, 2008, Las Vegas Metro PD received a panicked 911 call from Thomas Randolph. He was distraught and stammering, and he told the dispatcher, My wife's been shot, and there's a guy in my house, and I shot him. At first glance, this case appeared to investigators to be a botched burglary.

Starting point is 00:00:33 Case of a couple walking in on a burglar, that burglar killing Sharon Randolph with a single gunshot, and the homeowner killing the burglar in self-defense, saving the day. Something seemed off to detectives Dean O'Kelly and Rob Wilson. They couldn't let it go, and it's a good thing they didn't. There was more to this story than anyone could ever have imagined. Over the next four episodes, we'll head down the rabbit hole and lay out all the unbelievable twists and turns in this case which lasted over 15 years. The case may have started in Las Vegas, but you won't believe where it ends up. Hi, and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast where we focus on

Starting point is 00:01:17 domestic violence, missing persons, and unsolved cases. I'm your host, Sean, and with me, as always, is the one and only John. I am the only John in the room. This case starts in Las Vegas with what seemed to be a botched burglary or home invasion, but as we said in the opening, it quickly becomes apparent that there's a lot more to the story. As we go through it all, you'll realize that's a huge understatement. For the first time on Sins and Survivors, we are bringing you a four-part series covering the case of Thomas Randolph, whose case reached its conclusion here in Las Vegas just recently in April of 2024. This case was covered extensively in the media, captivating true crime consumers with its many twists and turns. Thomas Randolph is a bizarre, outlandish, flamboyant, and twisted individual,

Starting point is 00:02:14 and in researching and developing this episode, it was challenging not to let him take center stage. As you've come to expect on Sins and Survivors, we will be bringing you research uncovered through many sources, and throughout this series, we will remain victim-centric and not let the stories of the victims and the survivors get lost amid what is a horrific and appalling story. We have to start somewhere. So do you want to start off telling us about Sharon Cause Randolph? Of course. Sharon Cause Randolph was born in New York on November 6, 1950, to her parents Gene and Robert Price. Her dad Robert died in 1974, and her mom Gene died in 2000. Sharon grew up in New Jersey, and according to court records, Sharon went to the original Woodstock Festival in 1969. She married William Metcalf in 1970, and later that year, in August, Sharon gave birth to her daughter, Colleen.

Starting point is 00:03:06 Colleen has said that it was just her mom raising her for much of her life, indicating that the marriage to William didn't last long, and he was not really a part of their lives. The two moved to Las Vegas in 1977 for a reason you've heard before, for more opportunities and a chance to start over. Colleen said that she didn't know a lot of people, and her mom was her best friend. They had a very close relationship, and there's a lot of home video footage of their family celebrating holidays together and Sharon fawning over her grandkids. In 1978, Sharon married Philip Koss, but unfortunately he died sometime between 1979 and 1986, according to records. It's not clear exactly when. Sharon wanted to provide for Colleen,

Starting point is 00:03:46 so she went to cosmetology school and ultimately became a successful hairstylist. She had a great relationship with her clients, and Colleen has recalled fondly how her mother would allow her to color her hair as a young teenager. Sharon loved rock and roll music. She loved cooking and baking from scratch. She was a kind, loving, and generous woman. Her friends described her as being down-to-earth and very funny. She loved being a grandmother, and she poured her heart into making sure holiday celebrations were over the top for her grandkids. She especially was very excited for the birth of her first granddaughter in 2008. Around 2000, Sharon started working at the hair salon inside of Las Ventanas,

Starting point is 00:04:28 an assisted living facility, where she became friends with Deirdre Marley Johnson and Alice Wolfe. In 2005, Sharon met Thomas Randolph online, specifically on Match.com. He lived in Utah, which is just a few hours drive from Las Vegas, and the two started dating long distance. Randolph would come down on weekends to visit and shower Sharon with gifts and attention, and the two would do fun things together, go to concerts and things like that. Her friends commented that she seemed happy for a while. Deirdre said that she had that new relationship glow for a while, and that's pretty common when someone is being loved-bombed, too. The relationship progressed quickly. Colleen and her friends agreed it was too quickly, actually.

Starting point is 00:05:15 Less than a year into their relationship, Tom, who Sharon called Tommy, was talking about marriage and told her that if she didn't marry him, he'd leave her. At least one of her friends, Deirdre, heard that and told her it was a red flag, and knowing the two were planning a cruise to Mexico, suggested that instead of getting married in the United States, that Sharon should do a mock marriage that would not be valid in the U.S. just to get him off her back about it. Unfortunately, Sharon did not end up taking that advice and she did marry Tom in Mexico in 2006, but of course she didn't tell Deirdre that. Soon after the cruise and the wedding, Deirdre noticed that Sharon was acting oddly, moving slowly and she had some bruising on her body. She asked what happened and Sharon told

Starting point is 00:06:01 him that she and Tom had been out on his boat and he was driving fast on Lake Mead and made a sharp turn, causing her to fall. Deirdre immediately told her that she was concerned, and she thought that Tom might be trying to kill her. Soon after, Deirdre got a call from Sharon, who told her a few troubling things. Sharon told her that she needed to get a divorce, that Tom had taken out a large life insurance policy on her, and that they had no money, somehow they'd run through it all. Deirdre offered to help in any way she could by connecting Sharon with legal help, but even offering to go to the free legal aid office to help her write up the divorce papers. Deirdre was talking about the Legal Aid

Starting point is 00:06:40 Center of Southern Nevada, which provides affordable and low-cost legal advice to people who can't afford expensive lawyers. They're a great resource if you ever need them, and we'll add that to the list of resources we include in every list of show notes. We should note that Deirdre was pretty confused about this news because she had advised against marrying him, but Sharon told her he'd talked her into it. Deirdre told Sharon that she was worried about her and asked her to come stay with her. She said the life insurance policy was another red flag to her and she wanted Sharon to be safe. Sharon's daughter Colleen was shocked by how quickly her relationship with Tom progressed and she never seemed to really trust Tom, although she did say

Starting point is 00:07:22 that they seemed happy initially. She was stunned when they got back from the cruise and were married. Her reaction to meeting Tom with his wild, long white hair tied back in a ponytail was, who is this guy? The people in Sharon's life started to realize something was wrong once they learned that Tom had taken out a sizable life insurance policy on her and talked her into putting her house in Tom's name, both of which happened very shortly after they were married. It seemed to everyone he had an agenda, which was to position himself to profit if anything ever happened to her. They did seem to be happy, though, initially, and even renewed their vows in 2007.

Starting point is 00:08:02 Toward the end, though, not so much. Their relationship was described as strained. Colleen said that Randolph had left her mother between five and ten times for an old girlfriend named Lizzie. According to Colleen, whenever he left, Sharon would be extremely upset, but Tom would always come back with apologies and they would patch things up. One story of the type of behavior Tom was exhibiting came from Sharon's co-worker at the hair salon, Deirdre. Deirdre explained when she was giving testimony that because the hair salon was inside of an assisted living facility, they didn't have a receptionist and that Tom would sometimes call 10 times a day. Deirdre would have to answer

Starting point is 00:08:42 Sharon's phone and tell him she couldn't talk because she was working. Colleen testified that Sharon was livid about Tom the day before she died and was talking about divorcing him. She said that her mom was smoking furiously and complaining that Tom spent too much money on medications and video poker and that they were having tax problems. Tom himself claimed that being married screwed him in taxes. On the night of Thursday, May 8, 2008, just three days before Mother's Day, Tom and Sharon went out for dinner at the Santa Fe Station Casino and took some of their seafood leftovers home. On the way home, they stopped at a gas station to buy gas because they were planning a trip the very

Starting point is 00:09:23 next day to Utah to visit Randolph's family there. Some of that comes from testimony, but there was surveillance footage of both places corroborating that they were there. When they arrived home around 8.30, Sharon entered the home first, carrying the leftovers. Randolph opened the garage door remotely for her and let Sharon out of the car because, as with many two-car garages, there wasn't a lot of room and the passenger side couldn't be opened once the car was parked. The description of what happened here comes from a combination of Tom's accounts of events and a reenactment that detectives had him do, so they could see everything in context inside the house as they investigated, and also observe his reactions to the reenactment itself. According to Tom's various accounts, he entered the house through the garage door and immediately

Starting point is 00:10:09 saw Sharon face down at the end of the hallway and claimed he thought she might have fallen. He called out to her, but then he thought he saw a shadow moving, so he ducked into the closet and grabbed his 9mm pistol, which he kept in there, loaded. When he came out, he said he was rushed by a man in a ski mask, who he says was reaching for the gun in his belt. He pushed the man back and fired at him, hitting him several times, and even saying that he thought he hit him twice in the head. He claims the man turned around down the hallway and staggered toward the garage, and he says he just kept firing, possibly emptying the gun. The man ended up falling in the garage. Tom also claims that the man fired back at him. He claimed that he then searched the house for more intruders and then called 911 after turning on the hall light and realizing Sharon had been shot in the head. He specifically said it was two to three minutes between him walking in and finding Sharon and making the 911 call,

Starting point is 00:11:10 which is recorded. While on the phone with the 911 emergency medical tech, he went back out to the garage because he was worried about the intruder and took his gun, which was under his body. He then came back and made a very loud show of trying to flip Sharon over so he could attempt CPR, complaining that his back hurt. And then the police arrived. The dispatcher can be heard asking him as many as 15 times to get him to render aid to Sharon. And one of the things police started to realize was the possibility that Tom was stalling, not rendering aid, and hoping she would die before help arrived. Tom failed even legitimately to try and save her life, and even really attempt CPR.

Starting point is 00:11:52 He was more interested in complaining about his arms hurting. The intruder was Mike Miller, who, as it turned out, is someone known to both Sharon and Tom. Mike was a 38-year-old Las Vegas man, originally from Charlotte, North Carolina. For the previous few months, he was their handyman, performing odd jobs around the house. Tom had met him at a gas station and hired him to do work for them around the house, and according to our research, Mike had no significant criminal history, aside from a charge of disorderly conduct that was ultimately dismissed. Tom and Mike developed a friendship after Mike moved to Las Vegas in December of 2007. Colleen testified that she had

Starting point is 00:12:30 seen Mike at her mom's house many times following Tom around the house, or the two of them would go to Home Depot together. She said she never saw him doing any actual home improvement work, though. She described him as a quiet person who did not appear to have very much money, and she said that Mike would often stay over for dinner at her mom's place. Mike lived with his aunt and uncle in Vegas, and according to his family, Tom called Mike frequently, multiple times a day. According to later court testimony from Mike's family, Tom and Mike were also illegally selling prescription pills, Xanax, Lortabs, and OxyContin, and the two of them enjoyed going out into the desert and shooting guns. They had shopped together for jet skis earlier the day of the murder. Initially, the first two detectives on the scene, Detectives

Starting point is 00:13:16 Mogg and Hardy, were the ones who brought Tom in for questioning, and to them, at first, it seemed like a pretty straightforward case of a botched burglary or home invasion, where a disgruntled employee was rooting through the house and interrupted mid- burglary by Sharon. He shot her and then was shot by Tom, who, in this scenario, was the hero of the story. There was even a neighbor named Mark Bartlett who had been outside his home across the street talking on the phone at the time of the shooting. He shared his call log with the police and said that when it happened, he heard three shots and said to the person he was talking to, hear that? That's gunshots. He heard the initial gunshot when Mike shot Sharon and the follow-up shots when Tom shot Mike. That makes sense because gunshots are loud and he lived just a couple of houses away. According to that call log and Mark's account, the first shots were

Starting point is 00:14:05 heard at 8.33 p.m. The detectives came up with the idea of doing a reenactment of the whole scene a week to the day after the murder at 8.30 p.m. The idea was that the detectives could understand how it all happened much clearer in context, seeing everything in the house, where the things were, where Sharon was found, where Mike confronted Tom, where he was shot, etc. Do you know Kelly was the detective that was assigned to the case, so he was there as Tom walked them through everything, asking questions to clarify. The video of parts of the walkthrough are available, and it matches with Tom's initial story. Strangely, though, it's apparent that he was high during the reenactment. In parts of the video, his speech is slurred. You can tell. The reenactment is pretty strange. Tom acted out some parts of his story,

Starting point is 00:14:56 doing things like emulating what Mike sounded like after he'd been shot multiple times, and even reenacting the exaggerated screams and grunts he made as he attempted to turn Sharon over to administer CPR. He reenacted slowly searching through the house for another potential intruder, checking everywhere, including explaining how he checked the shower. He also took a moment to complain about Sharon and how she would leave her shoes all over the house. O'Kelly pointed out that he was very cavalier about his wife's death just seven days earlier. It didn't make sense that he would stop to complain about her. Tom also appeared to be in no hurry to get 911 on the phone. He claimed that he picked up

Starting point is 00:15:35 the landline and found there was no dial tone, and he can be heard saying, what a time for Vonage to go out. For anyone not familiar, Vonage is an internet-based phone company. He then claims he tried to call 911 on Sharon's mobile phone, but claims it was busy. It was allegedly the third time that he called and got through. As we said a few minutes ago, and as you can start to see, things weren't adding up. There were some key items that Detective O'Kelly heard that seemed inconsistent, and in some cases, not even really make sense if it all happened, as Tom said. In the video, Tom points out all the evidence that would indicate a robbery, pointing out jewelry, cash,

Starting point is 00:16:16 and even pointing out the ski mask and saying, look, a ski mask, what more do you want? Things that the detectives pointed out as inconsistencies included the fact that Tom says he started shooting the intruder in the hallway and hit him several times. He was very clear about that, but there was only one bullet casing recovered in the hallway. There was none of Mike's blood and no bullet holes. All the bullet casings were found in the garage, two under Mike's body and another two under the car in the garage. Mike had been shot five times, twice in the garage, two under Mike's body, and another two under the car in the garage. Mike had been shot five times, twice in the head. At first, Tom claimed he didn't hear the gunshot before walking into the home. He was surprised when he turned on the hall light and saw Sharon lying

Starting point is 00:16:55 face down. Later, in other interviews, he did claim that he had heard the gunshot, but his behavior wasn't consistent with someone who had just heard a gunshot. Why wouldn't he call 911 right away? Also, the neighbor across the street heard a gunshot. Why wouldn't he call 911 right away? Also, the neighbor across the street heard the shot, so it doesn't make any sense at all that Tom wouldn't, especially since he was right outside the home. There were so many more things that didn't add up. In Tom's drug-fueled dramatic reenactment, he claimed that he had shot Mike in the head. That part at least was true. Mike had been shot in the head.

Starting point is 00:17:25 But the problem was there were no bullet holes in the ski mask and no blood on it. It was clear Mike wasn't wearing the ski mask at the time he was shot in the head. Detectives had recovered the ski mask near Mike's body in the garage, where they also found a plastic bag with a change of clothes that belonged to Mike, some of Sharon's jewelry, and keys to the house. The police developed a theory that Mike took the mask off when he saw Tom, which would make sense if they had planned the whole thing together. It would make sense for him to take it off when he saw Tom. All of the bullet casings and Mike's blood were in the garage, so it was

Starting point is 00:18:02 clear that Mike was shot on his way out several times. He also claimed in the reenactment that only two to three minutes elapsed between him walking in and finding Sharon and calling 911, but in fact, the 911 call was made at 8.44 p.m., which also reinforced the theory that Tom wasn't in a hurry to get Sharon any help. Another thing that doesn't make sense is that Tom told't in a hurry to get Sharon any help. Another thing that doesn't make sense is that Tom told police in his first interview that Mike knew that he and Sharon were taking a trip to Utah the next day. So why would he break in the night before when he knew they would come home? Why not just wait a day for when he knew they'd be in another state? We mentioned before that Tom had taken out life insurance

Starting point is 00:18:45 policies for $360,000 on Sharon, and at one point had Sharon put him onto her mortgage as a co-owner. After the murder, Sharon's daughter Colleen was extremely suspicious of Tom, but strangely Tom was acting kind of normal. He kept calling and acting as if he was still going to be in her lives and her kids' lives. Shortly after that, one of Sharon's co-workers, Alice Wolfe, showed up at Colleen's house with a big surprise. Alice had a revised will that Sharon had drawn up and notarized with Alice present, and in that revised will, Sharon had left everything to Colleen. Sharon had given the will to Alice and said, if anything happens to me, give this to Colleen. That's extremely chilling and shows that Sharon believed that Tom might harm her. This was an opinion several of her friends shared, specifically Deirdre based on the

Starting point is 00:19:35 boating incident, and Alice, of course, who was suspicious of Tom from the start. When Tom learned that Colleen was getting everything, except the life insurance policy, he grew extremely hostile towards her and started leaving her nasty voicemails and saying the most horrible things to her like, it's no wonder your mother didn't like you, and accusing her of stabbing him in the back, etc. It got so bad that Colleen started fearing for her own safety and the safety of her kids and husband. Colleen rightly headed right over to the house when she learned that it had been left to her and changed all the locks, which further enraged Randolph. While she was there overseeing the lock changes, she asked Detective O'Kelley to accompany her, and it was a good thing, because Tom Randolph showed up and tried to walk right in. There's audio of that encounter too. Detective O'Kelly prevented that saying, that's not how it's going to go today, but it understandably fueled Colleen's

Starting point is 00:20:31 fear of Tom. He told her there wasn't much that the police could do, so they just told her to be careful and called 911 if he showed up at her house. Not very comforting. The investigators wanted to learn about Tom's relationship with Mike. They wanted to understand how it came about and really the nature of the relationship. Tom had told them that he met Mike at a gas station and hired him as a handyman around the house. O'Kelley and Wilson decided to visit Mike's family in North Carolina. They spoke to two of his brothers and one of his sisters, and all of them were in shock about what Mike had done. All three of them had heard about Tom, the white guy that Mike was working for, and they learned some more interesting things from them, too.

Starting point is 00:21:14 Mike's brother Rufus told him that Tom Randolph, the white guy who hired Mike, had also given Mike a 9mm pistol, and it was unclear why. The bombshell of information, though, came from Mike's sister. She told them that Mike told her that Tom Randolph had been trying to get Mike to kill his wife, Sharon. With this new information, the police developed a theory that Tom had been grooming Mike to be his personal hitman to kill Sharon, possibly with the intent to stage the scene exactly as it played out, with him killing Mike in the end to tie up loose ends. According to the police, Miller was shot five times, twice in the head, and the wounds he suffered could only have come from above as he lay on the ground. The forensics indicated that the final shot to the

Starting point is 00:22:02 head was an execution-style kill shot from above with Randolph standing over Miller. It eventually came out that their relationship was much more involved than what Tom let on when he initially said, I knew the guy, he tried to rip me off. Phone records show that the two exchanged upwards of 300 phone calls, mostly initiated by Randolph, often between three and seven calls a day. They often had private conversations outside of Mike's place and in the back room at his home. Mike Miller told his aunt and uncle before he died that he was planning to move out of Nevada because he and Tom were coming into a lot of money. Sharon had commented that she thought the relationship was weird and had no idea what they were talking about. After learning all of this, the detectives realized they needed to go back through Tom's

Starting point is 00:22:50 entire life and history. When they started digging into his history, they found something almost impossible to believe. Sharon was actually Tom's sixth wife, and four of them were dead. In part two, we'll talk about four of Tom's five previous wives. That might sound strange, but you'll understand why soon. Thank you for listening, and make sure you follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, and make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any of the upcoming episodes. Although this hardly believable story started here in Las Vegas, we remind you that what happens here happens everywhere. Thanks for listening. Visit sinspod.co slash subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad-free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Threads

Starting point is 00:23:59 at Sins and Survivors. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can contact us at questions at sinsandsurvivors.com. If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence or needs support, please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic Violence Hotline. A list of resources is available on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is research written and produced by your hosts, Sean and John. The information shared in this podcast is accurate

Starting point is 00:24:30 at the time of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please email us. Links to source material for this episode can be found on our website, SinsandSurvivors.com. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty. This content does not constitute legal advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with legal professionals for guidance.

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Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - Tom Randolph the Black Widower - Part 1 - The Murder of Sharon Randolph

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