The Widower on Netflix: Inside the Chilling Case of Thomas Randolph
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
Out of Thomas Randolph's six marriages, four of his wives are dead, three of them under mysterious circumstances. A new Netflix documentary, The Widower: 'Til Death Do Us Part, from Library Films and NBC News Studios, digs deep into this unsettling case. It follows the investigation as it unfolded in real time through the eyes of veteran Dateline producer and investigative journalist Dan Slepian, who was embedded with detectives. The film reveals chilling details about Randolph's early marriages, stunning legal twists, and the relentless pursuit of justice by the families left in his wake.
Randolph also gets his say in the documentary through interviews with Slepian, who has tracked his story for 18 years.
“This guy was the most unusual murder defendant I've ever covered,” Slepian tells TODAY.com. “He's a self-described narcissist who makes menace sound like charm, and charm sound like a warning.”
The documentary began streaming on Sept. 30. For more on the case, tune into Allegedly, a weekly video podcast on Netflix hosted by NBC News' Ellison Barber, featuring a one-on-one conversation with Dan Slepian about his two-decade odyssey with Thomas Randolph.
Who Is Thomas Randolph?
Randolph, 71, earned the nickname “the widower” after four of his six wives died. Two of them died via gunshot wounds. The death of his wife Beckie in 1986 was ruled a suicide by authorities, while the death of his wife Sharon in 2008 was found to be a homicide by police. Another wife died from cancer years after divorcing him, and his fifth wife died from a medical procedure that her family says in the documentary was orchestrated to take her life. Randolph was not charged with any crimes in connection with her death.
His two living ex-wives and the families of three of his other former wives describe a man who owned multiple firearms and was always taking out life insurance policies on his brides. In the documentary, he repeatedly denies any wrongdoing in the deaths of any of his former wives or any involvement in murder-for-hire plots to collect life insurance money.
Randolph did get charged in the deaths of two of his wives and faced a potential sentence of the death penalty in both cases. He was acquitted by a jury on a first-degree murder charge of his third wife, Beckie Gault, in 1988, two years after her death. He was convicted in 2017 by a Las Vegas jury on two counts of murder with a deadly weapon and a count of conspiracy to commit murder in the deaths of his sixth wife, Sharon Causse, and handyman Mike Miller. His conviction was overturned by an appeals court in 2020, and then he was convicted a second time by a Las Vegas jury in a retrial in 2023.
The documentary offers a striking visual of how long the ordeal lasted. Colleen Beyer, the daughter of Randolph's sixth wife, was pregnant with her own daughter when Slepian began filming with her. By the time Randolph was convicted by a jury for the second time in 2023, Beyer's daughter, Katie, was 15 years old.
Randolph's first marriage was in 1975, and his most recent marriage came in 2007. He has lived in Utah, Nevada and Indiana during his various marriages, and they all had a common thread.
“One theme that is consistent is that he did not have a wife he did not get insurance money on,” Slepian said.
In addition, three different men claim in the documentary that Randolph approached them about murder-for-hire plots involving Randolph's first, second and fourth wives. They all say they turned him down. The family of a fourth man, whom a jury convicted Randolph of killing, also said he was asked the same thing by Randolph in relation to Randolph's sixth wife, Sharon Causse.
Randolph describes himself as “cocky” in two separate video interviews included in the documentary, including one with Las Vegas Metro Police detectives following the death of his wife Sharon in 2008. The aunt of one of his late wives describes him as “an arrogant smartass” in an interview in the documentary.
Retired Las Vegas Metro Police detective Dean O'Kelley says in the documentary that Randolph also had a thorough knowledge of the legal system.
“He knew how the system worked, there's no question about that,” Kelley says. “And like everything else he did, he knew how to manipulate things, too.”
“He continued using his charisma and legal knowledge that he developed over decades to play the system like his game,” Slepian tells TODAY.com. One of his former wives also describes his love of firearms, which he confirms during the taped 2008 interview with the Las Vegas detectives.
“I got so many f------- bullets it's scary,” Randolph says in the interview. “I could start a small war on a third country.”
He also liked to live extravagantly. Slepian says in the documentary that Randolph bought a Porsche and a hot tub with the money from life insurance policies he took out on his wife, Beckie, whose death in 1986 was ruled a suicide. Randolph enjoys appearing on camera, frequently agreeing to interviews with Slepian.
“This is a guy who was remarkably comfortable about being filmed,” Slepian tells TODAY.com. “Most suspects become guarded, but he saw it as oxygen. He seemed to become more of himself.”
What Happened to Thomas Randolph?
Randolph faced murder trials in 1988, 2017 and 2023 in connection to the deaths of two of his former wives. He first stood trial in the death of his second wife, Beckie Gault, which was ruled a suicide by the Clearfield Police Department in Utah in 1986. Investigators found her dead in her bed in their home with a gunshot to her head and a suicide note, Slepian says in the documentary.
Randolph was pulled over by police on the night of her death for driving erratically with a bottle of vodka in his car and spent the night in jail. He said he then came home to find Beckie dead from suicide. Two years later, Randolph was charged with murder after his former friend, Eric Tarantino, told police he had been groomed by Randolph to kill Beckie and had refused, O'Kelley says in the documentary, citing the prosecutors in the case. Prosecutors argued during the trial that Randolph intentionally got himself arrested after killing Beckie in order to have an alibi.
A Utah jury acquitted Randolph on the murder charge, but he was not initially set free. Randolph served about 18 months in prison for witness tampering, according to Slepian. Tarantino says in the documentary that Randolph tried to hire an inmate in jail to kill Tarantino, but it turned out to be an undercover agent, resulting in the tampering charge. After being released, Randolph then sued the prosecutors for charging him with murder, received a settlement and had his record expunged, Slepian says in the documentary.
In 2008, Randolph called 911 from his Las Vegas home to report that his sixth wife, Sharon, had been shot by an intruder during a robbery attempt. He said that he shot and killed the alleged intruder, a man named Mike Miller, whom Randolph had previously hired as a handyman. Sharon Randolph died from her injuries on the night she was shot. O'Kelley, who was the lead detective on the case, says in the documentary that he didn't believe the physical evidence corroborated Randolph's version of the events.
In a scene captured on camera by Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, Randolph invites detectives into his home and reenacts what he says happened that night and how he shot Miller. O'Kelley and a fellow detective present prosecutors with evidence they believe shows that Randolph hired Miller to kill his wife, then double-crossed him and killed Miller after Randolph shot Sharon.
However, prosecutors did not believe they had enough evidence to charge Randolph until eight months later in January 2009, when a warrant was issued for his arrest. The documentary shows police handcuffing and dragging a shirtless Randolph out of a home where he was living with his mother. He was charged with the murders of his wife and Miller.
It took 8½ years before Randolph stood trial. A jury initially convicted him in 2017 on two counts of murder with a deadly weapon and a count of conspiracy to commit murder, and he was sentenced to the death penalty. However, the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the guilty verdict in 2020. The court ruled that the jury should not have been allowed to hear “prior-bad-act evidence” about Randolph's previous trial in 1988 on the murder charge involving the death of his wife Beckie, according to NBC affiliate KSNV.
After winning his appeal, Randolph earned another trial in Clark County, Nevada, in 2023 and was convicted a second time by a jury. His most recent appeal was denied by the Nevada Supreme Court in September 2026.
Where Is Thomas Randolph Now?
Randolph was sentenced to 60 years to life in prison in April 2024 after being convicted by a jury for a second time for the murder of his wife, Sharon, and Mike Miller in 2008. He appealed his second conviction, but the Nevada State Supreme Court announced on Sep. 2 that it was denying him a third trial.
Slepian tells TODAY.com that even though Randolph is in prison for the remainder of his life, he still reaches out to him to talk.
“He just called me two days ago,” Slepian said. “He sees me potentially as an opportunity to continue to have a bullhorn of some sort. He's 71 years old, still talking my ear off.”
Why This Case Matters for Civic Discourse
Beyond the sensational details, the Randolph case raises important questions about the criminal justice system, the handling of evidence in high-profile cases, and the long road to justice for victims' families. It also highlights the critical role of investigative journalism in holding the legal system accountable and bringing hidden truths to light. As a society, we must continue to scrutinize how our institutions handle such complex cases, ensuring that the pursuit of justice remains fair, thorough, and transparent for all.