Thomas Randolph Is Basically Joe Exotic Meets King Henry VIII

The new true crime three-part series The Widower is putting Thomas Randolph front and center for the whole world to see. He is known as the "Black Widower" because four of his six ex-wives all died of mysterious causes. While Thomas Randolph is now serving time for the murder of his sixth wife, his conviction was recently overturned.

How could a man with four out of six wives not be a murderer? That’s the question asked in his trial for the 2008 double homicide of Thomas Randolph’s most recent wife, Sharon Causse, and her supposed killer, Michael James Miller. Now, however, Thomas Randolph is awaiting a new trial because that very question was asked.

Thomas Randolph’s story is pretty wild. According to the New York Post, the supervising producer of The Widower, Dan Slepian, now calls him “the Joe Exotic of true crime,” because of his “eccentric, calculating, disturbing, odd” nature. However, Randolph's history of six ex-wives with four mysteriously dead also draws some parallels to King Henry VIII, who was notorious for divorcing and beheading his wives.

In this case, however, Thomas Randolph now has more dead ex-wives than Henry VIII, all of whom resulted in major monetary payouts from life insurance. Not only that, but his surviving two ex-wives have testified in court against Randolph, saying they were afraid for their lives when they were with him, and that Randolph was “manipulative and abusive.” 

Randolph was finally locked up when he stood trial in 2008 for the double homicide of his most recent wife, Sharon Crauss. He allegedly framed the scene to look like a break-in murder, but the intruder, Michael Miller, who Randolph shot dead, was connected to Randolph. Randolph had supposedly hired hitmen to kill his past wives, with one even testifying against him at the trial of his second wife’s death in 1986, so it made sense for Randolph to kill Michael too to cover up his tracks.

The now 66-year-old Thomas Randolph has been sitting on death row at the High Desert State Prison in California since the 2008 trial that resulted in his death sentence. However, Randolph has maintained that he is innocent, and in December, the state of Nevada overturned his conviction, citing that using evidence of previous wrongdoings to convict him was irrelevant to the case at hand. This means that Thomas Randolph will now have a new trial with the chance to get out of prison.

In an exclusive interview with Melissa McCarty on her podcast, Killer Genes, Randolph shared, “I’m just happy as can be because, as I told everybody, I didn’t do this. I didn’t kill Becky. I didn’t kill Sharon. And I think I’m more happy not with the fact that I’m getting a new trial, I’m more happy that the system didn’t let me down like it’s let down so many other people. Like it had let me down for going on 13 years.”

However, Sharon’s daughter, Colleen Beyer, feels differently. Colleen has said that, “Everybody needs to know he’s guilty. He’s 100% guilty. It’s painful, but I’m mad now. This is just not right, this is not justice for me and my family. He can’t get out, he’s a killer he will do it again.” 

On the other hand, Randolph's daughter, Krista Randolph, is now overjoyed at the news of her father’s conviction being overturned:

“I’m speechless, that’s awesome. Wow wow.  I’m in total shock. This never happens. OMG this made my day, my life.” 

It’s unclear how Thomas Randolph’s retrial will turn out, but what is clear is that he is now hundreds of thousands of dollars richer because of the deaths of his wives.

Thomas Randolph’s new court date is not currently set as of now, but The Widower will premiere on NBC on Thursday, Feb. 18 at 10/9c, with part two on Friday, Feb. 19 at 10/9c and part three on Sunday, Feb. 21 at 9/8c.