Lawrence Rudolph and his wife Bianca traveled to Africa multiple times to hunt big game.
In September 2016, the couple traveled to Zambia so Bianca could kill a leopard. She was unsuccessful, but she did kill other animals on their three-week hunting trip.
The couple was getting ready to leave their hunting camp in Kafue National Park on the morning of Oct. 11 when Bianca died from a fatal shotgun blast to the chest.
Rudolph, a former dentist from the Pittsburgh area, told the Zambian police that he heard the gunshot while he was taking a shower and that he found his wife on the bedroom floor bleeding from the chest.
Larry Rudolph.Facebook
Although Zambia law enforcement ruled her death as an accidental discharge, federal authorities in the U.S. were not convinced, ultimately accusing him of killing his wife so he could collect millions of dollars in life insurance benefits. Rudolph was charged with foreign murder and mail fraud.
He goes on trial this week in U.S. District Court in Denver.
Larry and Bianca Rudolph.Facebook
Jury selection began Monday, and opening statements are expected Tuesday.
Also on trial with Rudolph is his alleged girlfriend and former manager of his Pittsburgh dental business, Lori Milliron. She is accused of perjury and being an accessory after the fact.
Rudolph has maintained his innocence.
Federal authorities got involved in the case after a friend of Bianca’s told authorities on Oct. 27, 2016, that she wanted the FBI to investigate her friend’s death because she suspected foul play, claiming that Rudolph had cheated on his wife and had been having an affair at the time of her death.
“[Friend] said Lawrence had been verbally abusive in the past and that the two had had fights about money,” the complaint states. “Friend also said she believed the cremation to have been against Bianca’s wishes because Bianca was a strict Catholic who had once expressed disapproval that friend’s husband was cremated. Similarly, friend stated, ‘Larry is never going to divorce her because he doesn’t want to lose his money, and she’s never going to divorce him because of her Catholicism.'”
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According to the complaint, the consular chief at the U.S. Embassy in Zambia told the FBI he had talked to Rudolph about cremating his wife’s body.
The consular chief told the FBI he had “a bad feeling about the situation, which he thought was moving too quickly. As a result, he traveled to [the funeral home] with two others from the embassy to take photographs of the body and preserve any potential evidence,” the complaint alleged.
The consular chief told the FBI that Rudolph was “livid” when Rudolph discovered he had gone to see Bianca’s body and taken photographs.
“The agents’ belief that Dr. Rudolph cremated his wife’s remains to destroy evidence was proven false as her will expressly directed cremation,” the filing states. “Additionally, the government’s contention that Dr. Rudolph plotted to ‘escape rigorous scrutiny and maintain control of evidence,’ is flatly false. The Zambian investigators, who ruled the death accidental, maintained that Dr. Rudolph did nothing to improperly influence the investigation or to obstruct justice.”
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An arrest warrant was issued for Rudolph on Dec. 22, 2021. He was indicted in early January, 2022 in Colorado, where one of the insurance companies involved is based.
source: people.com
