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The trial of a Pennsylvania dentist accused of murdering his wife during a hunting trip in Africa is getting underway in Colorado.
Jury selection in the case of Dr. Lawrence Rudolph, 67, began on Monday in U.S. District Court in Denver.
Dr. Rudolph was charged in December 2021 with murdering his wife Bianca in Zambia in 2016, then fraudulently claiming $4.8million in life insurance payouts.
An FBI criminal complaint against him claims that he was desperate to get out of his marriage so that he could be with his long-term mistress.
Federal prosecutors allege Rudolph, a big game hunter and former head of an international safari club, killed his wife at the end of a 2016 hunting trip in Zambia.
Dr. Lawrence Rudolph, 67, was charged in December with murdering his wife Bianca in Zambia in 2016, then fraudulently claiming $4.8million in life insurance payouts
Dr. Rudolph, 67, was charged in Colorado on charges of murder and wire fraud, for allegedly shooting dead his wife Bianca during a trip to Zambia. They are shown, during a 2011 hunting trip with a guide. Bianca died in Africa in 2016
Upon returning to the U.S. he cashed in nine life insurance policies with seven different companies after his wife’s death.
Rudolph is charged with murder and mail fraud in what prosecutors describe as a premeditated crime.
He has maintained his innocence since his arrest. Rudolph told Zambian police his wife of 34 years, Bianca, died while he was in the bathroom, suggesting she shot herself while trying to pack a shotgun the couple took on the trip with them.
Prosecutors counter that evidence shows that was impossible because her wounds came from a shot fired from 2-3.5 feet away and she would not have been able to reach the trigger while zipping up the gun case, court documents allege.
As part of its investigation, the FBI carried out a ‘reach test’ to determine whether or not it would have been physically possible for Bianca to accidentally shoot herself with the gun – a Browning Shotgun.
Lawrence is shown during another hunting trip. He told game keepers in Africa that his wife accidentally shot herself with a 12 gauge shotgun and the Zambian police believed him
Dr. Lawrence Rudolph is shown with one of the couple’s children, his daughter Ana. She worked with him in his dental practice in Pittsburgh
They found it was impossible, as did a Colorado Medical Examiner who was shown photos of Bianca’s body.
Prosecutors also accuse Rudolphs alleged mistress and a former manager of his Pittsburgh-area business, Lori Milliron, of lying to a federal grand jury about the case and the true nature of her relationship with Rudolph.
Milliron has been charged with perjury and being an accessory after the fact.
Three years after Bianca’s death, a former employee of the dental practice run by Larry told the FBI that a manager at the practice confided in them that she was his girlfriend of 15-20 years, and that she had given him an ultimatum to leave Bianca in the months before her death.
The wide-ranging case – involving the 2016 death of a U.S. citizen, the purchase of a residence in Arizona, and Rudolph’s surprise arrest in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico – is being tried in Colorado because several insurers tied to the payout were based there.
According to an FBI agent in a criminal complaint, Bianca – a keen hunter – had wanted to kill a leopard on the Zambia trip. Her friends also told the FBI that Lawrence was always unfaithful but that she wouldn’t divorce him because she was a strict Catholic
In 2017, Rudolph received life and accidental death insurance payments totaling nearly $4.9 million from several insurers.
Documents suggest the insurers conducted their own investigations before issuing the payment.
Rudolph’s attorneys insist their client had no ulterior motive for collecting, given the millions his dental franchise was worth.
Rudolph and Milliron’s attorneys, David Markus and Margot Moss have countered that the U.S. case is little more than a fragile web of circumstantial evidence compiled by overzealous FBI agents long after Zambian authorities determined that Bianca’s death was accidental.
She died of a shotgun wound to the heart inside the small wooden cabin the couple shared during the safari.
In the year after her death, Lawrence cashed out $4.8million in life insurance payouts
‘No physical evidence supports the government’s murder theory,’ Rudolph´s lawyers declared in a court document.
Rudolph had built a small fortune as a dentist and founder of a dentistry franchise in the Pittsburgh area, and he was a familiar fixture on local TV, advertising his services.
He met Bianca at the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied dentistry, and they married in 1982.
The couple took frequent trips abroad; both were big-game hunting enthusiasts, and in 2016 Bianca wanted to hunt a leopard.
They traveled to southern Zambia’s Kafue National Park in pursuit of that dream.
According to court documents, Bianca´s wishes went unfulfilled, and the Rudolphs were up early in their cabin about 5am on October 16, 2016, packing for the trip home when Larry told Zambian police that he was in the bathroom when he heard the blast of a rifle and his wife screaming.
He said he found her bleeding on the floor, a fatal wound to her heart, with a 12-gauge shotgun lying nearby. It was one of two guns that couple took on the trip, according to court documents.
Lawrence claimed his wife shot herself with a 12 gauge Browning shotgun – which medical examiners say would have been impossible
Local authorities determined her death was accidental and that the gun may have fired as Bianca was packing it into a bag.
Her distraught husband arranged for her cremation in Zambia before returning to the U.S.
According to an arrest affidavit, a friend of Bianca’s called an FBI legal attache in South Africa several weeks later, suspicious about the death and informing them of the affair Larry had been having.
They were unhappy but would not get a divorce, the friend said, telling the agent: ‘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.’
The couple had two children together, including a daughter who worked at the dental firm Larry founded.
The friend also shared doubts about the cremation, insisting Bianca was a Catholic and would have opposed to the practice.
That call ultimately triggered a lengthy FBI investigation.
According to one document, a U.S. consular officer in Zambia raised eyebrows at what he perceived to be Larry’s insistence that his wife be quickly cremated before he returned home.
As part of their five-year investigation, FBI agents interviewed the wife of one of the hunting guides on the Zambia trip who said Larry bribed officials to rush cremating Bianca, even though she was a devout Catholic.
The wife also thought it was strange, she said, that he refused to answer calls from the pair’s children.
The defense contends the couple had an agreement calling for cremation in the event of either of their deaths.
Rudolph’s attorneys state that he was aware of and cooperated with the FBI investigation long before he was arrested in Cabo San Lucas, where he owned a home, and was extradited to the U.S.
The federal murder charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison or death. Mail fraud carries a maximum 20 years. Fines and other conditions could be imposed as well.
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