(UnitedVoice.com) – Safari trips are popular vacations for American tourists visiting the African continent. That’s what Lawrence Rudolph and his 57-year-old wife, Bianca, did when they went to Zambia in October 2016. At the end of the trip, only one returned home, and now, the other is headed to prison.
On August 21, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado announced 68-year-old Lawrence Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife. He was also convicted of defrauding insurance companies and sentenced to serve 20 years in prison concurrently. In addition to the jail time, he will have to pay a $200 special assessment fee, a fine of $2 million, and restitution of $4,877,744.93.
A jury found Rudolph guilty of the crimes last year. According to prosecutors, he traveled to Zambia with his wife. While in the country, the couple went on a hunting trip. On October 16, the dentist shot his wife in the heart, killing her. Rudolph used a 12-gauge shotgun and waited until the last day of the hunt to murder her. He wanted the shooting to look like an accident.
Rudolph claimed his wife of 34 years shot herself in the heart while she was packing. However, police later determined that could not have happened because her wounds were consistent with someone who was shot from a few feet away. After his conviction, Michael Schneider, the special agent in charge at the Denver Field Office, said the case was difficult to prosecute because the murder happened overseas, “but it was the right thing to do to seek justice for this victim, her family, and her friends.”
The dentist wasn’t the only person convicted for the plot to kill Bianca. Rudolph’s longtime mistress, 65-year-old Lori Milliron, helped him carry out the murder. She was sentenced to 17 years for being an accessory to the killing.
The couple’s daughter, Ana Rudolph, spoke at Milliron’s sentencing and said, “Lori, you have taken my parents,” but said she would never take her “soul.”
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