Clearfield man arrested in Las Vegas slayings

Thomas William Randolph, 53, was booked into the Davis County Jail on a warrant after he was indicted by a grand jury in Las Vegas on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, murder with a deadly weapon and burglary.

Randolph was arrested at his parents' home. Clearfield police officers and detectives from the Las Vegas Metro Police Department knocked on the door to serve a warrant.

"He answered the door. There was a little bit of a struggle," Assistant Clearfield Police Chief Greg Krusi said Thursday. "He didn't comply with the arrest and he was Tasered as a result of that."

The Las Vegas indictment accuses Randolph of hiring Michael James Miller to kill his wife, 57-year-old Sharon Causse Randolph. On May 8, the indictment said, Randolph waited outside his home as his wife went in and encountered Miller.

"The defendant's accomplice, Michael James Miller, acting in the role of a burglar, shot Sharon Causse Randolph in the head pursuant to the agreement and plan of the defendant and his accomplice Michael James Miller," the indictment said.

Miller was then shot and killed, police said, and Randolph staged it to appear like he shot and killed the intruder during a scuffle over the gun after his wife was killed. Las Vegas metro police said it was part of a scheme to collect on Sharon Randolph's $400,000 life insurance policy. Her obituary in the Las Vegas Review-Journal said she married him in 2006 in Mexico, sealing their vows again in Las Vegas in 2007.

The crime is similar to one that Thomas Randolph was acquitted of in 1989. He was accused of shooting his wife, Rebecca Randolph, in 1986 in a plot to collect on a $250,000 insurance policy.

Deseret News stories from the time said that Rebecca Randolph was found dead in her Clearfield home, shot once in the head. Randolph was accused of killing her, but defense attorneys successfully argued that it was a suicide.

Randolph pleaded guilty to a count of third-degree felony witness tampering for offering an undercover police officer $10,000 to kill the chief witness against him. Krusi said he could not discuss the 1986 case because of a judicial expungement order.

Randolph is expected to appear in Farmington's 2nd District Court on Friday where the issue of extradition may be brought up. Until then, he is being held in the Davis County Jail without bail.

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com

Recent comments

Add your comment