LARRY RANDOLPH: PITTSBURGH DENTIST AND MURDERER

In the fall of 2016, Lawrence Rudolph and his wife Bianca traveled to Zambia so Bianca could kill a leopard.

Larry and Bianca Rudolph were no strangers to guns and big-game hunting. During their 34-year marriage, the couple stalked animals all over the world. But at a remote safari camp in Kafue National Park in Zambia in 2016 — where Bianca was hoping to bag a leopard — her 12-gauge shotgun went off in the early morning hours of Oct. 11. The blast hit the 56-year-old mother of two in the chest, killing her.

Larry, 67, said he was in the bathroom when the gun went off and dashed to the bedroom, where he discovered Bianca lying on the floor. Larry told authorities that Bianca accidentally discharged the weapon as she was packing it into a travel case.

Zambian authorities quickly ruled her death as accidental, but the grieving spouse soon raised the suspicions of American officials. Within days of Bianca's death, he had her body cremated — even though, as a suspicious investigator noted, Larry was a big-game trophy collector with plenty of experience transporting bodies overseas. Soon after, the F.B.I. received tips from Bianca's friend saying Larry had cheated on her and the couple had argued over money.

Authorities discovered he collected nearly $5 million in life and accidental death insurance benefits when Bianca died. At Bianca's funeral, on October 22, family and friends were surprised that there was no Catholic mass or large gathering. When Larry was asked how his wife died, prosecutors would later say that "he used the same clinical phrase that he used with the life insurers: accidental discharge of a firearm."

After a five-year investigation, Larry was arrested in late 2021. During his dramatic trial, he testified in his own defense, saying, "I did not kill my wife, I could not murder my wife, I would not murder my wife."

But on Aug. 1, he was found guilty of murder and mail fraud by a federal jury in Denver. His girlfriend, Lori Milliron, an executive administrator of his dental offices with whom he began a relationship in 2004, was convicted of being an accessory after the fact to the murder, obstruction of justice and two counts of perjury before a grand jury.

During the trial, prosecutors argued that Larry masterminded the homicide so he could collect on his wife's life and accidental death insurance benefits and be with Milliron, 64.

Larry's lawyers countered that Bianca and Larry had an open relationship and that Larry had no financial motivation to commit murder. In the end, it may have been Larry's own words that sealed his fate. At a Phoenix steakhouse where Larry and Milliron were dining in 2020, bartender Brian Lovelace overheard and later testified about an explosive argument between the pair, who were regulars.

"Larry and Lori were having a drink," federal prosecutor Bishop Grewell said during opening statements. "The music in the background made it difficult for Brian Lovelace to hear the conversation going on around him, but at some point, all of a sudden, the music stopped. And in that brief interlude, that brief silence between the songs, Larry Rudolph growled, 'I killed my f-----g wife for you!'

"He and Lori were having an argument," continued Grewell. " …And he pulled out the ace up his sleeve. The trump card that he could use to win any argument with Lori. What more did she want from him? He killed his wife for her. For her. Nobody would have heard him if the music hadn't stopped just then and there; but there it was."

Larry, who took the stand in his own defense, countered that Lovelace misheard him, arguing that what he said was, "Now they're saying I killed my f-----g wife for you."

But jurors voted to convict. The Pittsburgh dentist appealed the conviction and lost in 2023...