How a Detective and “Dateline” NBC Producer Uncovered the Truth about the Wife Killer Known as The Black Widower (Exclusive)
How a Detective and “Dateline” NBC Producer Uncovered the Truth about the Wife Killer Known as The Black Widower (Exclusive)
KC BakerMon, September 28, 2026 at 2:00 PM UTC
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Thomas Randolph in court in 2017Credit: Patrick Connolly/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP -
In 2008, veteran Dateline NBC producer Dan Slepian got one of the best tips of his career when he was invited to accompany a Las Vegas homicide detective while he investigated the shooting deaths of Sharon Causse and Mike Miller
Slepian had no idea that he would be following the bizarre case of Thomas Randolph, who became known as The Black Widower, for the next 18 years
Slepian tells the twisted story in the new Netflix documentary, The Widower: ‘Til Death Do Us Part, premiering Wed., Sept. 30
The man on the 911 call sounded panicked. “My wife’s been shot,” Thomas Randolph told a Las Vegas Metro Police Department dispatcher on May 8, 2008. “There’s a guy in my house and I shot him.”
About ten minutes earlier, Randolph, then 53, and his wife, Sharon Causse, 57, had returned home from a dinner out to celebrate Mother’s Day. Randolph lingered in his car for a few minutes listening to the radio while Causse let herself into the couple’s modest, ranch-style house.
The couple’s romantic night out quickly turned deadly when Causse came face-to-face with a masked intruder who fired his gun at her, killing her instantly.
Randolph entered the house shortly after and told police he found his wife of two years lying on the floor, unresponsive and bleeding. Seeing a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, he said he grabbed a gun from a nearby room and shot the intruder. When the man was “right up on me,” Randolph later recalled in a filmed reenactment, he said he fired at the man. “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.”
Causse’s shocking death left her friends and family, especially her daughter, Colleen Beyer, devastated and in disbelief, wondering who could have killed her sweet, loving mother. While investigators searched for clues, one sharp detective honed in on Randolph right away. “Right out of the gate, there were a few things that weren’t adding up,” says Las Vegas Metro Police Detective Dean O’Kelley.
Enter veteran Dateline NBC producer Dan Slepian. The day after the bewildering murders, one of O’Kelley’s colleagues called Slepian with what he calls one of the most provocative tips of his career. “The detective said, ‘We had a really strange one last night. You might want to pay attention to this,’” Slepian tells PEOPLE.
Slepian teamed up with O’Kelley and embarked on what would become a nearly 20-year odyssey to uncover the truth about Randolph, the charming, jokey, conniving former paralegalknown as the Black Widower, who faced the death penalty not once, but twice.
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With Slepian accompanying O’Kelley on door knocks and interviews, filming everything himself with ahand-held camera, the pair learned that Randolph had been married six times and that four of his wives had died under mysterious circumstances.
They also learned that in two of the deaths, Randolph received large life insurance payouts. In Slepian’s 30 years as a journalist, he tells PEOPLE, “Randolph is the most unusual murder defendant I’ve ever covered by far.
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The bizarre story is the focus of the new Netflix documentary, The Widower: ‘Til Death Do Us Part, premiering Sept. 30. Directed by Chris Smith, executive producer of the hit 2020 Netflix true-crime docuseries Tiger King, The Widower chronicles the pair’s quest to uncover the truth about Randolph’s complicated past and bring him to justice.
Netflix’s documentary, The Widower: ‘Til Death Do Us Part, premieres Sept. 30, 2026Credit: Netflix
Arrested in January 2009 for killing Causse, his sixth wife, and Mike Miller, the handyman he hired to stage a robbery and kill her, in 2017, Randolph was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of murder with the use of a deadly weapon and sentenced to death.
Confident in his innocence, Randolph appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court overturned his conviction and ordered a second trial. In 2023, however, he was found guilty of the same charges and in April 2024, he was sentenced to 60 years to life in prison.
In The Widower, Smith tells the story from Slepian’s point of view, starting from May 2008 when the case was just unfolding. “The documentary takes the audience behind the camera to show what was happening,” he tells PEOPLE.
The documentary features the surreal footage Slepian captured on his camera when O’Kelley asked Randolph to recreate discovering Causse dead on the floor and then shot the so-called intruder.
NBC News senior investigative producer Dan Slepian in “The Widower”Credit: Courtesy of Netflix
It also reveals unusual one-on-one moments between Slepian and Randolph, the relationship they developed over the years, and how Randoph reveled in being the center of attention.
During one on-camera interview with Slepian, Randolph asked, “Am I beautiful?” Slepian says.
“Am I beautiful? Like, ‘What?’ Slepian recalls. “Dude, you’re getting the death penalty. There was rarely a conversation with him that I had where there wasn’t something outrageous said.”
Thomas RandolphCredit: Courtesy of Netflix
The Widower: ‘Til Death Do Us Part, premieres Wed., Sept. 30 on Netflix.
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