“My Wife’s Been Shot”
Dateline NBC- 2,613 views
- 23 Feb 2021
The murder of a Las Vegas wife and mother pits detectives against her wily husband who has many secrets and four dead wives.
What is it about you and women? I love women, I love all women. That's why it's weird to think of this.
This would come about nine one one emergency. My wife Patricia and her dog in my house, I shot and I shot and shot and shot. Shot. Thomas Randolph is the only person that could tell us what happened because the other two people that were there or dead. It looked like it might have been a home invasion robbery, but in fact, there were some things that were not right about it. Thomas Randolph had a lot of secrets and wasn't easy digging all of them up.
We've been married six times and four of his wives are dead. These women come up dead. He comes up with mine. I had nothing to do with any of his evil. I'm not no saint. We have to stop him. His gig is up.
I'm the victim in this. He's really a six year itch.
And now it's become his show live from Las Vegas right in my.
Your hands on your head right now. Put your hands up. What did you do? Eight, nine, one one emergency.
My wife's been shot and there's a guy in my house I shot. Happy New Year to too. I hope she is my wife, your mother, your name. But you know what it was, say, probably about 10 o'clock on May 8th of 2008.
I was at home. I was I was with my family and I got the call from from my sergeant.
I grabbed my notebook real quick and I came back to the VA, said, shoot your wife in the house. She was right in the halls. In the bedroom. She's been shot. That's where she shot out, you know, I think in the post.
The very first thing that I was told from my sergeant was that we had a woman down in the house and that there was an intruder that had also been shot by metro officers, responded to a nine one one call from a man who said an intruder was inside his home.
There was a robbery in a home invasion in progress at his residence here on Rancho Santa Fe.
There are two dead bodies inside the house, one being the wife of the homeowner. And her name was Sharon Randolph, and the other was the intruder. Mike Miller, who was dead inside the garage, were initially briefed by the patrolman who got there and encountered the homeowner who we determined his name to be, Thomas Randall. Police tell us that 57 year old Sharon Randolph was shot and killed by the burglar. Metro says her husband struggled to get the gun away from the suspect.
He succeeded, then shot and killed the burglar in the garage. There was a ski mask laying on the floor not far from Mike Miller's body in the garage next to him. There was an open bag where you could see there was a substantial amount of jewelry. As we walked into the hallway, you could see Sharon Randolph laying on her back. There was a bag of takeout food from the restaurant that they had been to. Her purse was laying next to that.
There was a gun laying on the floor. We looked into the master bedroom. There were several drawers that were open. There was every indication that somebody had come into the house and had gone through their property in order to take it.
I was at home, got a phone call from a good friend of my mom's and she was watching the news and said she saw a shooting happened on the street. She says your mom's dream. Yeah, yeah, it's my mom's street and I knew. They had to come from my mom's house. So I drove over to my mom's and I saw the cop cars and light. I knew. Maggie, I talked to my mom here about six. Two and a half hours later.
She was killed. But along the way, this is my partner, Ken Harvey, exposure to other detectives from homicide around my squad. Mr. Randolph, back to the homicide section to conduct an interview with him.
He told us that you had employed a person by the name of your wife. Is that correct? Yes.
Tom Randolph told detectives Marg and Hardy that he knew Michael Miller. He had him do some handiwork around his house. And how long have you known Mike? For five months. You didn't know you guys were going to dinner tonight? Yeah. Yeah.
He told us that he had taken Sharon to have a dinner at a local casino right down the street. So you go home and when you arrive at the house, tell me everything that happens. I pull up into the driveway, you get out of the driveway or in front of the house, and you enter the house and you see Sharon laying on the floor. What was the first thing you thought when you saw Sharon laying down? I thought she'd fallen.
When we initially looked at the evidence that we had, it looked like it might have been a home invasion robbery. It was a hero.
But in fact, there were some things that were not right about it. I didn't see the red flags. Should have. Is it Sharon? Sharon? I just remember her showing up to my front door with him and I was like, who is this guy? She says, Tommy and I got married. I said, Oh, my God, you didn't. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a police officer. It's the Lord's work.
You know, there's not a lot of people that are that are willing to do it, but I feel honored to be part of bringing some justice to the victims families. It's a difficult thing for them not only to lose their loved one, but to go through the whole process, they're almost, in a sense, victimized again. But you have to think about, you know, what's Colleen thinking? I was about five and a half months pregnant with Katy and just found out a few weeks before was having a girl, which was super exciting, especially for my mom.
They say you should put them on a helmet to helmet to helmet to helmet to helmet. It's cute, she was looking forward to it big time. I mean, she's always wanted a girl grandchild, so she was really, really happy. I mean, she was already out shopping for a little pink dresses. It sucks. I've only got a couple of friends and I don't have any brothers or sisters. So my mom was my buddy. I grew up in New Jersey, just me and my mom, she took good care of me.
It was hard in Jersey. It was hard just me and my mom and not a lot of help. So I moved to Vegas. So my mom had a better job opportunity.
She would beauty school, got her license and did hair. And she was the only one that ever cut my hair ever.
Tommy was from Utah. I think she's said Match.com to me, she really didn't say much about him, a little bit of what he did, you know, like a special ed teacher, but he wasn't working when I got to. I just remember her showing up to my front door with him. And he just. He looked crazy with the long, scraggly blond hair, I mean, it was really long. And I was like, who is this guy?
To my mom was very happy. They were doing a lot of things together, going places, traveling, and he had a boat back then. So they were they were doing a lot of things together, my a lot of fronts, she confided more and her closer friends. Like Alice. I met her at the hair shop, we were hairdressers there. She would say the funniest things, and she was just so down to earth, I just loved that about her.
Chances are I've got a picture of this guy. I want to meet and she pulls it up on her computer, he's on a motorcycle and he's got this long, curly hair. And I'm looking at him. And I said this, Sharon, is he a woman? I mean, he looks like a woman. And she goes, oh, no, no. She says he's really. All man. They just had a lot of conversations. Then he comes to Vegas and she and he go to a concert or a rock concert and well, that.
That was great. I mean, she just fell in love with him. Now, Sharon had told me that in his past he was a truck driver, he was a master carpenter, he was like a jack of all trades of things, you know? He wants to take her on a cruise to Baja, California, so she goes on this cruise, which was like three days, and they come back and she says, just Tommy and I got married.
I said, oh, my God, you didn't.
Meantime, police tell us that Sharon was shot and killed by the burglar. Her body was found lying in a hallway. We learned that there were neighbors close by that heard the gunshots at one in particular across the street, several houses away.
I heard a gunshot right without trucks pulling up. I heard a gunshot coming from that area. I knew I had to be like one of these houses right here across the street because it was like boom, boom. We all heard it, told my friend is on the line. And I said, I is hear it has a gunshot.
Mark Bartlett didn't see the shooting. He just heard the gunshots. Based on the scene, Thomas Randolph was the only person that could tell us what happened inside the house because the other two people that were there are dead. He kind of rushed up on me a little bit, and that's when I just pushed it and boom, boom, just kept right on going. We came up with an idea to do what's called a video walk. We do this to get a clearer understanding of where the armed confrontation took place.
He agreed to do that when things turn around. And it's my understanding we're doing a walk through of the house. We came back to the house at eight thirty at night. Exactly a week later, he gave us a blow by blow everything that happened. I stopped the car there. We start opening the door. He explained to us how Sharon had gotten out of the vehicle, went inside the house. Sharon gets out and we had and walk through.
He ended up coming into the door to get right here. And Sharon's laying in the floor, face down. Her head's just barely I mean, barely in the bedroom.
With that said, Sharon, Sharon. I thought it just seemed like a shadow or. Something over this way right there this night isn't cool. I reached right up here, he ducked into the office, retrieved a nine millimeter semi-automatic. He said that he came back to the door. He was confronted by a masked intruder and described him. He had a ski mask on. I'm coming out about the same time, too, and about right here. He kind of rushed up on me a little bit, and that's when I just pushed it.
And boom, boom. And he started going out toward the shed. I don't know how many times they shot him, but I just just kept right on going, boom, boom, boom.
And he's just laying there and then started coming back down this way. He wasn't moving. He made some noise.
Thomas Randolph came back into the hallway.
Sharon, Sharon, you come up to an open doorway and then just kind of jump his head in to see if there was something in there. What are you doing when you're doing this?
I'm just kind of trying to see if anything else is going on, you know, like there's anybody around that.
After that, he said he went over and got the cordless phone and I called nine one one friends.
His wife was shot in the head. He said, sure, yeah, I stay awake, you know. Okay, let's focus on your wife. Put her flat on her back.
So I tried to roll her over several times and I couldn't get her over. Okay. Put her flat on her back. I was like, oh, he was very dramatic.
He's making these loud grunts and noises that we did hear on the 911 call.
He was duplicating them and about the third time jerks enough that she got up kind of straight up. And I could just kind of push her over there and like, listen, OK, OK, I'll tell your units to go in any way they can.
When it got to the end of what he was telling us then, I had a big list of questions turned around and he was coming down. I think the thing that I wanted to focus on the most was that relationship between Randolph and Miller when the shooting started.
So when you first fire, he's right in this area? Yes, probably.
Maybe maybe a little more that way. Maybe a little more this way when you're back here and he squared off on, you still had his mask on. Yeah. If he'd had his mask off, you know, that was my right. Oh yeah. And I was still shopping. I was still shot him.
It wouldn't matter a bit. It seems like I shot him again. Maybe like about right here. And then he started turning like this toward the door. And I just I shot. I shot and shot and shot and shot. I may have to use a gun.
I don't know. We didn't have forensic evidence, we didn't have physical evidence that the shooting occurred inside that hallway. There was one case in the hallway, maybe a single round was fired as they were leaving the house and entering the garage, but most of the shooting happened inside the garage. One of the other problems is on the night of the shooting in the interrogation room, Thomas Randolph told the detectives that he didn't hear the shots that killed Sharon Randolph.
Did you ever hear any shots? I didn't hear anything. But I'm really deaf. When we listen to the nine on one call.
Is he alone? Yes. Well, as far as I know, I didn't I just heard shots. He contradicted himself.
He told dispatch one thing that he'd heard the shot and then he told detectives that he hadn't heard it. The other big problem that we had was the timeline, Thomas Randolph told us that he had taken Sharone to have a dinner at a local casino right down the street. We checked that. We checked the Santa Fe video surveillance. They did have dinner at the restaurant. They gamble. They left the casino. He told us that they went to a gas station to fill up.
We checked the video surveillance at that particular gas station, confirmed that they did fuel up the car. The video surveillance shows them leaving the parking lot of the gas station at eight. Twenty six and some change. We're looking at eight thirty. When they arrived home, Sharon got out of the car and walked into the house. By the time he finished parking the car and walked in the house, she was already laying on the ground.
So all told, how long do you think it took from the time you opened the door? You being on nine, one to three minutes, maybe two or three minutes to. We have Mark Bar across the street saying that he thought he heard the five gunshots at eight 30. I told my friend he's on the line and I said out of here, that is a gunshot. We were able to check his phone records. That was eight thirty three.
Well, the 911 call didn't come in until eight forty five and some change. So we're talking about 12 minutes. It didn't match up. None of it matched up. Your best friend is Tom Randolph said a lot of things, it's just for shock value. I give you I don't like it. I don't realize how much. Very lovely Thomas Granoff came into our office in early June. If you had to sum up sharing in one word, what would you say?
She's wonderful. Best thing that ever happened to me. Nicest lady.
Tom was quite different in that second interview. He was definitely much more expressive. I was just one yourself up.
He always happened.
But I'm also really nice. I'm generous. I'm smart. I should have been on the dream team. I always going to be a lawyer. Really? Yeah. I work for the lawyers for a long time, just as an investigator, as paralegal and a lot of their law offices. We confirmed that later on that he worked with criminal defense attorneys.
Having that conversation with Tom Randolph was was important for us to learn more about his relationship with Mike Miller.
Anything I can't say at all that happened that day that made him believe that he needed to get into your house that night? I, I did. I took I took 20 grand out of the bank. I had 20 grand to stuff with you. Then you've had large amounts of cash balance, large amounts of cash. I don't think he shot you.
He was trying to shoot me. I've told you this over and over. He was trying to shoot me.
Tom Randolph said a lot of things. It's just for shock value to see how we would respond to I like you.
You I don't like my life. I don't know why. I just don't like you. And I said, that's OK. I don't take it personally.
It was interesting. There was a relationship that Thomas Randolph had developed with with Detective Meyer.
I've talked to him. I talked to a Las Vegas and some other than Sharon Toplane and the grandkids. Yeah. So you're like my best friend, you know, and you shouldn't have secrets. Shouldn't have secrets. Right. What do you mean? Everybody's got secrets. Something else to ask is, you know, why you come and just tell me I'm under arrest or you just really need to talk to me to clear something else up. I'm probably not coming back out here for at least 30, 40 days.
I think we should tell you you're under arrest. No, because if you are, you know, this was an easy one for you. This one's an easy one for you because the forensics is there. It has it has its issues at the end of the interview or getting ready to walk out.
It's not that I don't trust, but I think I'll take that with you. Just an extra day. Is your wife good looking? What are you going to kill for? I think that's a Freudian slip. I think that was just a little peek at his hand. He just showed us a little peek at his head. Make your once the. After my mom died, we called Randolph, I said we should do to my mother and he said I didn't do anything to your mother.
Michael shot and killed your mother. And he hung up on me. Called. I just acted like everything was normal, that we were family still. Tommy called the house. He left me a couple of messages in the car. I am gonna try my luck. And Clandon, I'm trying to save money in the house for sale. That's on the market and get on and off message.
I acted like I thought he was a hero. I said that we were still family, that he was still grandpa to my kids. That was really hard. It was really hard. I mean, all right, that makes me feel better when I hear your voice globulus later and and then keep.
Popped up with this will. He fought with his will, that he was in control, everything, everything was his, but a couple of days after my mom died, her best friend Alice gave me another well. She writes it out, I'm watching her do it, and we go to the notary and have it notarized. And she gives it to me and she says, if anything happens to me and she says, please give this to Colleen, she had left the house to call in.
Suspected something. That she would go behind his back and change everything and leave it to me. So my will was valid. His was no longer valid. Which really upset him. Then I started getting really nasty phone messages, so it's really than one night, not about how much you're on your life. You don't want to line you out of flat. I mean, as far as I know, he's still in Utah. He might be on his way to Vegas now.
I stopped talking to him the very last message, maybe two or three days ago.
I apologize for getting so upset with you, but that's what happens when people look me in the eyes and lie to me. Now, the lawyers are going to get all the money because I still get have the house because I'm married to your mom and I forgive you. I'm sorry I called you bad names, but he didn't realize I had a will.
Yeah, he thought he was in control and in charge of everything. And he doesn't like it when a woman takes control away. We were convinced that Miller was the one who fired the shot that killed Sharon Randolph. Why did he do that? He sat in the middle of the mike, said he got that for he got that from the white guy. So back to Miller, after the second interrogation, we got just a limited amount from Tom Randolph about the relationship that he had with Mike Miller.
We were convinced that Miller was the one who fired the shot that killed Sharon Randolph. The question was, why did he do that? Even though Mike Miller was a victim in the fact that he was killed, he was also a suspect. We learned that his family was in was in North Carolina and we made arrangements to go out there and conduct interviews in person.
And Jim. All right, now we're in Charlotte, North Carolina. I'm here to talk to. Rufus Miller and Michael Miller's brother.
Hi, Rufus, how are you doing? I'm sorry, Dean Kelly blog with me.
You. All right. Thank you.
Do you see a little bit where my brother bought all his life? We're sorry for your loss and tell me a little bit about your conversations with with Mike and what went on with him and this and this man. Do you know his name, the person he was hanging out with or associating with? And Tom was a Tom. Tom. Yeah. OK, how do you how do you meet Tom? Do you know he was on the street corner and he caught up to it.
Did he want to do some work? Was he supposed to be doing regular work work for Tom? And to me, was he was he getting paid then for what he was doing? They were getting six hundred dollars a week for doing work with with the time around Tom's place. And he say how often he had contact with this man, Tom. It was all the time. Did you ever know your brother to have a gun? No, I don't know how we out for you if it was one yellow.
You know what I'm saying? My brother wouldn't care about that. It's like saying me, you know what I'm saying?
Rufus didn't believe his brother is capable of that. And and yet we knew based on the evidence that he had actually killed Sheriff Randolph. He shot her in the head.
We were leaving the interview and Rufus told us that the mike had another brother.
You get a brother and another brother, Rico, little Rico. He's at home.
So we made arrangements to go over and talk to Rico. Rico.
You were in communication with Mike between why he was out there and stuff like that led to the way before this happened. Yes, it happened at first. Right. What happened?
What? Tell me about the conversation he had with him.
Oh, well, he was doing good. Put their work.
What are Michael telling you about him?
My dad might say no to, you know, take your time, find the RICO is overcome with emotion like he told us to.
He told us something interesting at some point that Tom Randolph gave Mike Miller a nine millimeter. He give him a handgun.
You might tell me he's got a nine millimeter. I don't know what kind of I mean, maybe they were. Mike said he got that from who he got from a white guy. Why did he give it to him? I don't know of a bunch of laptops of followed by one of the most interesting people that we ended up talking to on the trip was Garchik approaching destination. On the right, a friend of Michael Miller. She had known him for about 15 years.
Again, Judy, I know this interview is being conducted at Judy Arties residence nine twenty six hours, Judy, understand this interview is being recorded. Is that OK with you? Yes. If you were friends with Michael Miller, is that correct? About how long ago did you meet him? About 15, 16 years. Seem pretty good friends with him. And at some point he moved out to Las Vegas, moving out for a better life. And what do you tell you?
Did he give you a call after you got settled in? What was he talking to you about? He always felt about the man he met at the store. And I kept saying, if I said something like that, Gatica, he said he told me. I said what? He said, I don't know. He told me he wanted me to say that it is out of me now, kill me now. And I did not understand it, you know, and I was I might go to the police.
Did he ever tell you anything that he was supposed to get out of that? I mean, no. What would he what would it benefit, Mike, to kill this man's wife?
I don't know. What are you going to get my life OK? He never told you about. To go to the Carolinas and have Judy to tell us that there was conversations that she had with Mike about Tom Randolph wanting him to kill his wife. It was a validation for me. We had gotten the information that we wanted at that point about Mike Miller. There was more that we needed to know about Tom Randolph and his past. It was clear there was a tip of the iceberg.
We had a theory and that's this. Thomas Randolph created and groomed a person that would be willing. When we started looking into Tom Randolph's past, the more that we learned about him and learned about his history, the whole investigation changed. That was going to need my partner.
This detective also from Las Vegas, and I'm a two man partner with Rob Wilson. You know, at the time this happened, we were the longest running partnership in Homicide for a long time. We could be more important than my partner. I can't imagine it's almost like a marriage, really. You start to think alike. You start to finish each other's sentences. Sometimes it's really cool when you get it working. Right where I was on vacation when we got this case.
So he wasn't at the scene. He wasn't involved in the interview. He didn't do any of that.
He called me and he said, I tell you in my heart, I know that he's guilty.
I needed him up and running and up to speed and in the case. And and he was immediately I had a lot of confidence, you know, especially in his investigative skills. In reading your report, it's pretty comprehensive report. But I think it left some we left some things hanging in the in the investigation.
The two of us hit the ground running just like putting together a puzzle. We had a theory that we believe was well established by the evidence, and that's this.
Thomas Randolph had intentionally married Sharon with the sole purpose of cashing in on life insurance policies. When she died. We ended up ultimately fighting for life insurance policies that Tom Randolph had taken out loans totaling about three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. We believe that Tom Randolph met Mike Miller at a convenience store, struck up a conversation with him, and that being the manipulator, that Tom Randolph is immediately recognized that he had somebody in front of him. He created and groomed a person that would be willing to kill for him.
And that's what he found in Mr. Miller. So we believe that Randolph took Sharon out to dinner for Mother's Day as part of the ruse to allow Miller to go into the house and prepare. That's one of the eerie aspects of this case. As they're walking together out of the casino, holding hands, he knows within a very short period of time she'd be dead on the Florida house. Now, Mike's house, he's probably in the backyard, we knew he had a key.
This clock hinges down right here and apparently, from what we're told from Tom, is that the gun was kept inside the clock here. So apparently Mike knew where that was. He was laying in wait in the hallway bathroom until Sharon came into the house by herself as prearranged by Thomas Randolph. And soon as she walked into this to this area here where her head was positioned right here, right in this area, that Miller fired that shot.
Michael Miller had a ski mask with him, Dallas now, now that he knows that Sharon's down and that a friendly his his confederate is coming in through that door, that he takes his mask off, he relaxes. As Miller started to walk through the garage door to leave with Thomas Randolph behind him, Tom Randolph fired the first shot. And the first time we found the ski mask right here on the ground away from the body. There were no bullet holes in the ski mask.
There wasn't any blood on the ski mask. It's huge that there's no blood or bullet holes in the ski mask because Tom Randolph said he still had it on his head. How is the ski mask it where it was with no blood, no bullet holes? We both were very confident that Thomas Randolph was guilty. But being able to prove it in a court of law is something different. There was a lot more to Thomas Randolph than we knew. I never in a thousand years thought that this would develop into what it developed into what it.
Put a gun in my head. We went to Washington state, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Utah, and what really became important was his past history was. Police arrested Thomas Landal on charges of murder. He asked me if I would kill somebody for money if I knew I could get away with. These women come up and he comes up with my buddy Tom. The most significant thing that we found out about Tom and Sharon was actually his sixth wife, he's really a six.
Out of those six wives, four of them are dead. Put your hands on your head right now, put your hands on your head.