LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — The quiet courtroom resounded with a staccato of loud booms Tuesday, all from the mouth of the defendant in the so-called “Black Widower” retrial.
Thomas Randolph, whose conviction for the 2008 murder of his wife and purported handyman, starred in a re-enactment he did at the request of police a week after the shootings in his northwest Las Vegas home.
He mimicked the sound of gunfire as he gave police his version of the shootings.
“I’m cooperating with you,” Randolph told the detective in the video. He went on to say how and where he discovered his wife’s body, bleeding profusely from about the head.
Retired Las Vegas Metropolitan police detective Cliff Mogg took the witness stand for the second straight day.
He told prosecutors he arranged the walkthrough video that projected over the big screen.
Randolph told detectives he let his wife out of their vehicle before he parked inside their narrow garage and listened to music. Randolph, who claims he is severely hard of hearing, said he did not hear any gunshots, and when he entered the house he saw his wife on the floor, face down.
“I say, ‘Sharon, Sharon,’” Randolph explains in the video.
He also describes his interaction with the handyman, Michael Miller, who Randolph said was in the midst of robbing the Randolphs before the couple returned home.
“I see a shadow off this way,” Randolph said.
He says he reached into one of the rooms inside his home and grabbed one of his guns, intending to shoot the intruder who he soon realizes shot his wife. That person, Randolph later realized, was Miller.
“I just started shooting,” Randolph said. “I just started shooting.”
Randolph also discusses his efforts to call 911 because his wife needed medical aid. He said he tried using multiple phones but got busy signals and could not get through at first.
“He told you he called 911, and he did call 911?” Randolph’s attorney asked Mogg during his cross-examination of the detective. “Yes,” Mogg said.
Monday prosecutors introduced an engineer from a company that handles 911 technology who told the jury a busy signal is not likely.
Randolph was married six times and four of those wives – including Sharon Randolph – are dead. Prosecutors are trying Randolph a second time for these murders because after his conviction, the Nevada Supreme Court reversed the jury’s decision and Randolph’s death row sentence, saying the original jury never should have heard testimony that Randolph was a suspect in one of those wives’ murders.
The trial, taking place at Clark County’s Eighth Judicial Court, is expected to last three weeks, lawyers said.