Pennsylvania dentist found guilty after shooting wife on an African safari

Lawrence Rudolph, a multimillionaire dentist and big game hunter from Pennsylvania, was found guilty of murder and mail fraud on Monday for shooting his wife on an African safari on October 11, 2016. Lawrence, 67, had been on a safari with his wife Bianca Rudolph, who was 34 years old when she died. 

Rudolph now faces the death penalty or a life sentence. 

During the three-week-long trial in a Denver federal courthouse, the prosecutors argued that while on a hunting expedition in Zambia, Rudolph shot his wife. Rudolph killed his wife in cold blood to claim the life insurance payouts to start a new life with his lover, prosecutors argued. Years later, during a dispute with his lover, Lori Milliron, in a restaurant, he was overheard yelling, “I killed my f**king wife for you!”

After receiving $4.8 million in life insurance payouts after his wife’s death—which he claimed was accidental and self-inflicted—he was also found guilty of mail fraud. Throughout the trial, the millionaire dentist pleaded innocent and said that Bianca Rudolph accidentally shot herself in the chest while putting a shotgun away while he was in the bathroom.

Also Read: Dentist found guilty in wife’s death on 2016 African safari

However, the prosecution argued that Rudolph intended to kill his wife because she insisted that he should leave Milliron and sought more control over the couple’s money. They made a case that she couldn’t have self-inflicted her gunshot wound and provided evidence that the bullet that struck her had been fired from a distance of two to three feet.

Rudolph’s lawyers said that the couple had been in an open relationship since 2000 and so he had no reason to kill his wife for Milliron. They also claimed that since he had more than $15 million at the time, he had no need for the life insurance benefits that were placed in a trust for the couple’s children. The insurance companies’ investigators also came to the conclusion that the gunshot was unintentional, and they paid the family as a result.