Tom Randolph - the Black Widower - Discussion of Investigation Discovery Series (Bonus)

0:00 To listen ad free visit sinspod dot com slash subscribe starting at two ninety nine a month. You'll also get access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you joined through Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show. Hello everybody, We are doing a free Swing Shift episode here in honor of Investigation Discovery releasing their three part it was three parts, right, yeah, three part series on Tom Randolph, The Black Widow or the Six Wives of Tom Randolph.

0:56 Yes, we did a four part series on Tom Randolph because he was his case came to an end in April, just you know, three months ago here in Las Vegas, and we wanted to cover that whole story. And it's kind of cool that we weren't the only ones who had that idea. Investment Investigation Discovery also had that idea. Yeah, so we were, well, we were in investigating, researching, recording like they were as well. They were as well, they were getting ready for theirs. We didn't know about it though, when yes, when it came, when it was announced, we were like, whoa, and we have some things to say.

1:38 So we have watched it and we have opinions. We have you know, what we're doing. We're you know, what we're doing right now? What we're channeling? I think not. We kind of are we are kind of channeling. I think not. Ellen, Joey. Do you think they're listening? They might be. I like to think they're listening. I'd like to think they are. I'm gonna we should reach out to them and tell them to listen. Okay, all right, anyway, there will be way fewer show tunes, not as many show tunes as Ellen and Jones. Yeah, that's for everyone's protection. Yes, you don't want to hear that, trust me. So yeah. It was a three part, three parter, three episodes, and the what I did when we were watching it was I kind of broke it up into a few different like we were actually taking notes while we were watching it, so nerdy because I was like, well, you know, did they do a better job than us because they have a much bigger budget. Yeah. And by a bigger budget, I mean, you know, a budget, so we don't have one of those, but they have a big budget. Yeah. Like and you know, also obviously iron stomach because they sat down and interviewed Tom Randolph and you I mean, I don't know the I shouldn't say there's you couldn't pay me to. I don't know what the dollar amount is to get me to sit down and have a conversation with that man. It's unclear to me. I mean, I guess definitely some of it was new the and we'll get into how they structured it, but it's unclear to me how much of the Tom Randolph interview stuff

3:12 was new. But it's very possible it was new because we listened to a lot too much Tom Randolph interview and the stuff that he said in the investigation discovery was different. It was similar, similar enough, but it was like, story hasn't changed, yes, story, Yeah, obviously his story hasn't really changed, but there was some new stuff that he said. And he's obviously just full of it. He's just a liar, and he he loves to talk about like his sexual problem. That's all we're gonna say about that. Okay, Oh so gross. So the way they chose to structure it is it was it was almost I found it really weird. They it was almost like his daughter Christa was telling the story beginning to end for all three episodes, which I found really weird. Yeah, she was like the narrator.

4:17 So number one, it's just Christa. It's not Justice, his son from the first marriage. They are from his first marriage. But that was very interesting, was it was interesting to hear the perspective of his daughter, who was obviously in his corner because you know, that's her dad, and she has a very skewed view and couldn't conceive a world where he was a sociopathic serial killer basically killing multiple people. But her arc throughout the episodes was very clear too. Yeah, she learned a lot, she did. Her eyes were opened. Yeah, that's true. So what I did was I broke it up in a four different sections. So the sections were new, things were learning, like stuff they were able to research that we didn't know, stuff we think is wrong, stuff we got wrong. I don't think we wrote anything under stuff we got wrong. No, I maybe one thing, maybe one thing, and generally interesting things. Ah, yes, because there were many generally interesting things. Yeah. So so okay, so the first episode. So the other thing was when we told the story, we told it in such a way that we broke it up into like the first episode was about the most recent murder of Sharon Right, and the case was Sharon Mike, and so we we kind of told that pretty thoroughly, but

5:47 we left. We held some of it back. We Yeah, we got to the part where the detectives realized that Tom had a history. Yes, they started to realize he was sketchy and and they're like, and the prosecutors were like, we're never going to get a conviction on this guy. You have to do more. And they were like, Okay, we're gonna do research. Then a second episode was like every wife but Becky, Every wife but Becky, thank you? So his first his first wife, fourth and fifth lives. Yeah, And then the third episode was Becky was Becky's story, and it was I think it was important to tell his first wife story first to get the context to establish that he was kind of a sociopath and an abuser and a drug dealer and other bad words. And so I really like the way. And then the third fourth episode was about the Sharon, Sharon and Mike's trial, Sharon and Mike's trial and then the appeal and then the second trial. So I am biased, but I like that structure.

6:54 I don't know who came up with that structure, but I like that structure. Yeah. There, Yeah, I like that too. I think they just told they started they did the same thing. They started with Sharon, and then they went basically through his through his life's life wife through chronologically and then came back to the trial. So they kind of had the same idea as us with that arc. BU but I feel like they didn't hold anything back. No, it was very strange. It wasn't like they could have just made one movie because they didn't really do like a cliffhangary thing between the two episodes, or no episode really stood on its own. It just kind of bled into the next one. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I mean it was three hours. Yeah, and the other thing. Okay, so things that were generally interesting like oh well, actually let's go back to the uh new items were learning, Like they talked about Eric Tarantino in the first episode. Yeah, and they really leaned in, which was the like that's the guy that he hired to kill Becky his second wife, second wife?

8:05 Why are you telling that so early? Yeah, like you're giving away like that's I don't think that's a good It also gets like muddy because there were so many characters and that's like showing this guy, they're showing this wife they're talking, you know, it was I wouldn't say they were jumping around, but like they did carry I would say they were jumping around carry Tarantino through the whole story even I mean, I guess they played Ale in the Tarantino really were like the narrators, Yeah, or the narrators with Tom plenty of Tom. Yeah, too much Tom. And you know what investigating Investigation Discovery did that we would never do. I mean not with a case like this where the where the criminal has been convicted technically twice but you know, once and then appeal and then again. He we we made it clear that he was guilty, but Investigation Discovery seemed to kind of go with was this coincidence? Maybe they actually started with that bad luck? Was it? I mean, they are we exaggerating? Are we reading too much into this?

9:09 Like they kind of tried who wasn't in the first episode that they were talking to interviewing, and he was like they had they had already made up their minds that he was guilty before they even charged him. Oh yeah, I don't remember who said that. But also like Broye, you know what prosecutors do Prosecutors think you're guilty before the thing starts, Like that's their job. They have to believe you're guilty because they're prosecuting. You think it was one of his attorneys, but yeah, yeah, And we did get some insight into the attorneys from the second trial that we didn't have before in the third episode, and the defense attorneys, I guess we talk about them. They also claimed that Mike in the first episode was semi homeless, but that was not our understanding at all. I mean, he looked like I understood that he lived with his uncle. Yeah, I don't, which is not semi homeless. Yeah, and I don't think there was any again, there's no need to describe him as that, isn't it. Yeah, as a semi homeless man. No, Yeah, And there was a lot of talk about Mike and how he was down on his luck and yeah, and I did not like that. I didn't like it either. I mean Mike did kill Sharon, yes, absolutely, I mean Tom to set it up. Yeah, he was manipulated into him. Yeah, he basically hired him as a hit man with no intent of ever paying him to do it, learned him to be a hit man, and then and then killed him. And like tied a little He felt like he tied a little bow on that one.

10:41 He was just going to go on in his life. No, I'm sorry, Tom yep. And we also noticed that twenty percent into episode number one, they revealed that he had six wives and four of them were dead. Yeah, and what we thought that that was kind of like the the thing we kind of held back at the end of our first episode. We thought that was like the Yeah, we thought that made it more interesting. But I mean, I don't know, it's like, I don't know. I even have in my notes that they're jumping back and forth to begin to the beginning of the story and yeah, the story. Yeah, they really were. And they had like some of her friends also as interviews. Yeah, it was kind of all over the place. Yeah, not to say that it wasn't good and those interviews weren't compelling, but I mean, we studied this case. We worked hard on it. We wrote, we wrote episodes, and we recorded episodes on it, so we knew it really well.

11:35 And I did wonder how maybe how does it how did it go? How would it be for someone who wasn't as familiar with the case, I'd be curious. It was confusing as to who Deirdre is or who Yeah, you know these people are. But when people showed up, we were like, oh look, it's scared exactly. They also, I mean I already mentioned how gross Tom is gross being an understatement, but they I really felt Investigation Discovery worked too hard to try and make him seem cool. Yeah, they're like playing, you know, playing I have a note in here. It's like playing upbeat rock and roll music. Yeah. Yeah. Letting him brag about his past relationships, like how many girlfriends he had, He was like, so exploits so immature, Like I don't think men these days behave that way. But he had to brag about, you know, all that stuff, which is just it's offensive. It's disgusting. You know. He claimed that he was like a drummer, and he just all this bravado that Like I feel like he said sex, drugs, and rock and roll like a thousand times in that documentary. I'm just a rock and roll guy. Yeah, grow up. And then he he's not said about Sharon too. Oh she went to Woodstock? How cool is that? Man? Yeah? Like, god, why would I hurt her? She went to Woodstock? Yeah?

12:50 OK, because you're a sociopath. I don't know why you tell me you're the sociopath. I almost I felt sad for his first wife because she didn't want her face shown in the documentary. She participated, and she did, she did participate, but she didn't want her face shown. I hope she's not getting harassed because she definitely doesn't deserve it. Yeah, but they didn't include anything in the documentary like we had included about some of the abuse she endured that story. We told about how he threw the oatmeal. That was like a big part of the story. And they never mentioned the oatmeal.

13:31 And they never mentioned how she had to relocate to Washington State to get away from him. Yep, even though they shared the two kids. Yep. They never talked about how she was friends with Becky, his second wife, and how they were keeping in touch, and how she was very worried for Becky. It was I mean, it was almost like they told it in a kind of a pro Tom like they framed it in a pro tom ish way. Like when that second episode started and they had that legal analyst, Beth Karison, and she was just saying, like he was pre lawn, he was so smart, Beth. I mean like she was just talking about like they had the attorneys saying like how he was so smart and how and they were talking about how he had an alibi for when Becky was killed, but he really didn't. I know, I thought better. I mean, he had an alibi, but it was a terrible alibi that didn't hold up at all. Yeah, he thought about it for more than one second.

14:31 It was and it was an insane miscarriage of justice that he was able to fool the jury. Yeah, like to getting an acquittal. Yeah, I don't think we talked about that a little bit. I believe that he testified in his own defense, but he was somehow, you know, he was afraid that he wasn't going to get a fair trial in Utah because he was, you know, selling drugs and he had this like rock and roll lifestyle blah blah blah, was cheating on all his wives, blah blah blah, and so he thought he wasn't getting a fair But you know, the man takes the stand and he says, oh, yeah, I was having an argument with Becky. I told her that I was like that she should just go ahead and you know, kill herself and then I left and went to a bar and got drunk and then got pulled over for a DUI.

15:15 But I didn't kill her because obviously I was busy getting drunk and going to my mom's house and the mom vouched for him, and then he got pulled over. You could tell he was building an alibi because he was like, oh, I went to a bar and forty people saw me at that bar, so I definitely didn't kill her. Yeah, I mmm, okay, it's a tragedy that And she was like on a waterbed, so yeah, she was killed on a waterbed, and the waterbed heater was turned off, so the waterbed was very cold, right, So the it was difficult to determine exactly when she had died. Yeah, her time of death couldn't be determined within yeah, you know, plus her mind's twenty four hours. So his alibi didn't at all cover the full period where she could have been killed.

16:03 It's just nuts that they would have accepted his testimony as being true. Yeah, I will say an episode two, one really interesting thing we learned was from Gaina and how she had the diamonds removed from her engagement and wedding rings. She had them removed and had them replaced with cubic Zirconia's and then gave the rings back to him and then pawned the real diamonds. I was like, you go, Gaina, that was amazing. I was so happy. She was like, I thought that was fair. You know, when we told the story, we told about how Gaina said that he was cleaning the gun and the gun went off, and she knew that he was trying to kill her and make it look like an accident. But what we never heard before was Tom, this is how probably, like you said, these are new interviews, Tom claimed that he purposely was shooting into some two by sixes or something like. He was purposely fired. He wasn't cleaning the gun.

16:56 He was purposely firing it. Yeah, in the house near her. What is that? That is just the most reckless thing I've ever heard. You think that exonerates you because you were Oh no, I didn't an accident go off. I was purposely shooting it. Yeah. It's good that she got out, It's really good. Yeah, she was lucky. Oh, this was a part. I made a note about this because you pointed this out. There was a weird part where his mom so his Francis was his fourth wife. So after Gaana and they broke up, Francis was her fifth wife. Sorry, Francis was the woman who had the heart condition and then had surgery and then mysteriously passed away alone in the hotel in the hospital room after yea, even though she was doing well. Somehow something happened that his mom he was He's just saying, like, you know, how he was so in love with her and how she was so good for him, and blah blah blah. And then his mom said that he could either be a lawyer or be in love and get married to Francis, and he chose to marry Francis because he was so in love. On what planet are those the two choices? You can either be a lawyer or be married. Well, I mean, no lawyers are married, so that's really true. I guess that's why no lawyers are married, because they have to choose whether they want to go to law school or they want It's insane. God, yeah, and he it was also strange that they said that his I guess it was.

18:30 Defense attorneys claimed that the or the prosecution claimed that the wives didn't know about these insurance policies, the life insurance policies he had taken out on them, which I think is very strange. That is strange. I don't know why they would claim that. That seems a little weird. I don't know how true that is. For the fact that the defense attorneys were like, and so this seems like appropriate business. Yeah they were. They were like that, like, he's taking out life insurance policies on them, but not on himself for their benefit if he were to die. At least, we have not heard one shread of evidence that at least he took out policies on himself and them, And he would be like, that is what a husband and wife do. Yeah, you'd be like, or a married couple do.

19:11 That's a normal thing. And we also found out that he took out I don't know if he took it out or he tried to take it out on his girlfriend, the one that he was Lizzy. Lizzy. Yeah, who gets a life insurance policy on their girlfriend? I mean that's a bad sign. That's a red flag. Yeah. I feel like that's the rist flag I've ever seen. Like, that's going to be a am I the asshole read out on to whatever too hot takes or something. Somebody's going to write in that on Reddit about him. I the assholever taking out a life insurance policy my girlfriend I've been dating for two months. Yes you are, that's a red flag. They There was so much that we included about Tom's relationship with Eric Tarantino because that was so key in understanding how Tom was able to groom Mike to be a hit man. And they didn't talk about any of that sensational stuff. I almost felt bad that we included it, because it does feel sensational. But I mean Eric said that he like Tom beat him severely. Like Eric says so many times in the investigation discovery that he was afraid of Tom. He was afraid for his life. Well, we included it because it's important that you understand that it. Yeah, Eric Tarantino didn't just like go along with it. He was terrified, Yeah, that Tom was going to kill him. Yeah, but they didn't know he was only nineteen. I know that was something that I don't think really registered with

20:45 me when we did it, that he was that young. And yeah, but they didn't talk about Tom beating him. Of all the stuff they included, the did include that and They also didn't include the weird fact that he used to sing that song, that Rod Stewart song about murder her. Maybe they were like, this is too much. They did. Eric did talk about how he was afraid of Tom, but but in the documentary it's like you you don't know why, Yeah, why you're so afraid of him? Yeah, that's true, and that should have been explained. One of the reasons why I was looking forward to watching the Investigation Discovery documentary was because Tom's third wife, Leona or Lee as he called her, there's nothing out there about her, and I found some information, found very little, a couple more pictures of her and the type of cancer that she passed away from.

21:41 But he had nothing good to say about her. No, he has said some weird, bizarre things about her, But he says weird things about all his wives. Yeah, things that if I think, if your spouse said about you, you would be offended, even if even though the spouse is pretending to think that that's coop elementary, it's actually deeply offensive. Yeah, it's so. It's it's just it's a twisted mess to hear him talk about any of his wives. Yeah, it's also really there was so much direct quotes from his mom where his mom A lot of interviews with his mom too, Yeah, where she she really vouched for him. I mean we knew that she vouched hard for him, but like I was his alibi, there's no way he could have done this. Yeah, France has told me she wanted to have a lot of insurance and she wanted Tom to raise her daughter.

22:34 Like really, I mean maybe, but I don't Okay, whatever you say, I don't know. And all the research we did, she seemed quite like quite the enabler. Yeah, well, I mean like it did Francis really do that? I mean, come on, But it was cool that they put such a spotlight on Eric Tarantino as the hero, as he was like the star witness and the trial. I mean, I noticed that he's even been wearing like a Superman shirt in the interviews with me, He's wearing a Superman shirt, which is kind of cool. He also was drinking coffee out of a mug and the mug is tilted, but I know the mug says get shit done or something to that effect. Like it's like like they made they they tried too hard to make Tom look cool in my opinion, but Eric Tarantino also looked really cool. Yeah, and yeah, I'm just so glad Tom's in jail. I know. There were some really moving interviews with Mike Miller's brother and sister that we did not have obviously access to when we did ours, but I would have liked to have included, because you know, Mike had a family. I mean, Mike did kill Sharon, but Mike was murdered and his death did affect his brother and sister deeply, and they were, you know, on the like they were. They wanted justice as well. They wanted Tom to be convicted for the murder of their brother. So there were some, like I said, great interviews with

24:07 them, yep. And they had an interview with one of the jurors and that was really insightful interesting. Yeah, we never saw that that was something they got, yeah, which I thought was, well, it was so good, that really added so much to the story. Yep. So that's where their big budget came in. At least they got interviews with some of these people and Dino Kelly. They didn't really talk about Dino Kelly. He was like the star of our podcast, I know, and he was the star of the case. Really he was the one that stuck with it for ten years, him and his partner, Yeah, for for a decade, more than a decade, fifteen years, yep. And they chased down everything.

24:57 And the only time he had appeared was in the third episode as the final witness in the second trial, right yep, yep. Or I mean they showed him a little bit in the uh in the walk Strey video, which they didn't really show very much of. Yeah, but you can't. I mean, if you're if you're trying to build some sort of tension and you show that whole video, you can't. There's no tension there because you're it's incredibly obvious that he is entirely making stuff up. And you can also tell that he is high as a kite. Oh yeah, we did, yeah that, And I did wonder if he had done that on purpose, like to have some kind of plausible deniability in the end or whatever. Awesome, I don't because I don't know. I wish he just I mean, I guess, like it's fine, he made his own mistakes, but you know, it gave like a reason for people say, well, you know, of course he didn't get it all right, He was he was medicated.

25:53 Yeah, that was frustrating. I made a note of one of my one of the parts that I found the most compelling in the directing the cross examination of Dino Kelly by Tom's defense attorney. So the defense attorney, if you all remember that, you know Mike when Tom shot Mike, Mike wasn't wearing the ski mask. We know that because there were no holes in the ski mask, no blood on it. It was just in the corner of the garage, right, So the prosecution theory was Mike Mike's the plan was for Mike to kill Sharon, Tom to come home, Mike to leave, and Tom to call the cops. Right. I think that was the prosecution theory. So, of course, after Sharon was dead, the prosecution theory Mike takes off the mask so he can have a conversation with Tom. He doesn't have to hide his face anymore, you know. So the defense attorney's like, hey, well, you know, if the plan was for Mike to kill Sharon, why would he wear a mask at all? Like, there's no need to hide who he is, Like, Sharon's never gonna testify against him. And do you know Kelly said, well, if you're going to shoot someone that knows you, you wouldn't want them to see your face when you do it. And I was like, oh, yeah, that explains why why Mike was wearing a ski mask at all, because I do kind of agree with the defense. Well, you know, why would he be hiding his identity for what? For who? It doesn't it's in contrast

27:26 to your theory. But do you know Kelly saying like, actually he didn't want Sharon to know it was him because he was friends with her, He had had dinner at her house, he had done work around her house. It's actually really kind of scary and sad to think about. Yep, yeah, I don't know. Is there anything else here to not realize? That's what we thought of the Uh. It was definitely an enjoyable inside. It was enjoy it, I'm sorry, not enjoyable. It was interesting. Interesting.

28:07 Like we said, there was a lot of not a lot, but some good bits of testimony and statements from people that we knew were involved in the case that we had never heard before, Like Mike's uncle testified that he knew that the relationship with something was up with that relationship with Tom because oh he was you know, Mike saying he's doing work for Tom, but he wasn't actually getting any work. He wasn't making any money. He was just like hanging out with him. So his uncle knew there was something off there. Yeah, so that I mean, it's just like a lot of good little bits like that that really added to the story and made the people, you know, the motions of the people really come through their experience for some of them. But we do recommend you watch it after you listen to our podcast. I was gonna say, if you if you only listen to one multi part series about Tom Randolph this year, yes it should be our podcast, Yes, but if you if you want a little more, which I can't imagine you would want, you should not want that, but if you do, yeah, because check out the investigation Discovery you know it does you can see their faces, you can you know, there's so many pictures of his wives, and like I said, some really good information from Eric Tarantino and Mike's family that we weren't able to share when we did they recording.

29:32 But this show is hot. I saw a headline on the Huffington Post just today July twenty second, that it is the number one show on Max. I don't know if that's true number one. I did not look, but I think that's what the headline said. That is inside. I don't know if it's like number one True Crime or if it's just number one altogether, but it is. Yes, this startling docu series is a top is a top shows I want to get it right? Is a top show. It's by Caroline Bologna on what. I hope that people will see the show and want more, and they will google it and they will find our four parts here. Yes, that is my hope for us, because we tried to put the victims first and tried to take some of the focus off of Tom because like, screw Tom Man. Yeah, it's hard to because he is a narcissistic sociopath and he loves to talk about himself. He really does.

30:30 He'll talk to you all day about how great he is. Oh my god, it's so offensive, unbelievable. Well, thanks for hanging in with us as we did this kind of break down of the show and our feelings about it. If you watched it, please comment on our social media. You can always send us an email at podcast at Sins and Survivors dot com and maybe we'll share some of your thoughts in another bonus episode. Cool yeah, do I say the thing? Sure? Thanks as always for listening, and remember what happens here happens everywhere. Thanks for listening. Visit sinspod dot com, slash subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and threads 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 sinson Survivors dot com. If you are someone you know as affected by domestic violence or needs support, please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

31:56 A list of resources is available on our website, sins Survivors dot 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 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 Sinsensurvivors dot 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.