Emily Chan
In 2016, Lawrence Rudolph, a successful dentist from Pittsburgh, and his wife Bianca traveled to Kafue National Park in Zambia for a hunting trip. However, Bianca never made it back home.
She ended up dying while on safari in Africa. Lawrence claimed that Bianca had accidentally shot herself when she was loading a rifle into a case. At the time, Zambian police had declared her death was an accident.
But on August 1, 2022, a jury in a Denver federal court found Lawrence guilty of murdering his wife of 30 years. He was convicted on one count of murder of a U.S. national in a foreign country and one count of mail fraud.
He defrauded multiple life insurance companies, cashing in over $4.8 million in life insurance claims. Lawrence was sentenced to life in prison. The same jury also found Lori Milliron guilty of being an accessory to the murder. Lori was Lawrence’s longtime lover. She was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
According to Zambian police, Lawrence claimed that Bianca was packing up a gun in their bedroom on the last day of their safari. He was in the bathroom when he heard a shotgun blast.
That was when he found his wife lying on the floor with a shotgun wound to the heart. A game scout on the safari, Spencer Kakoma, rushed to the Rudolphs’ cabin immediately upon hearing the gunshot.
He said that Lawrence told him that his wife had taken her own life. Later, Lawrence gave a different story, stating that Bianca had accidentally shot herself. When Kakoma arrived on the scene, Lawrence was fully clothed, but local police said that Lawrence told them he had been wearing nothing but a towel. Things just weren’t adding up.
A U.S. Embassy official and a former Marine with decades of experience in weapons decided to investigate the body, which was awaiting cremation in a funeral home.
After a friend of Bianca learned that Bianca would be cremated, she was suspicious because Bianca was a “strict Catholic,” so cremation would’ve been against her wishes.
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