transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:01] Kafue National Park in Zambia is one of Africa's oldest and largest national parks. At more than twice the size of Yellowstone, it is home to over 500 species of birds that fly the skies, thousands of elephants and hippos who wade through waterways, carefully avoiding Nile crocodiles that lurk beneath the surface. Hyenas, cheetahs, and leopards prowl through thickets, hunting 22 species of antelope, while roaming prides of lions lounge in the shade of miambo trees. It is the image that comes to mind when you think of African wildlife, at least as it's shown on Animal Planet. But not everyone who visits comes to shoot documentaries. Surrounding the park on all sides are game management areas, places where the government and local outfitters can charge a premium to trophy hunters. Guides accompany wealthy hunters on multi-day journeys to remote camps. They place bait, hide behind a blind, and wait for their prey to appear. Each year, thousands of trophies from Zambia are exported around the world, and hunting lobbyists argue that this funding goes directly back to conservation efforts. But this is not a story about trophy hunting. Not really. This is the story of how on October 11, 2016, at a trophy hunting camp at Kafue National Park, a shotgun went off and the victim was not an animal. Welcome to National Park After Dark.
Speaker 2:
[01:44] Hello, everybody, welcome back to National Park After Dark. I'm Cassie.
Speaker 1:
[01:48] And I'm Danielle. Happy Earth Week.
Speaker 2:
[01:50] Happy Earth Week. You already brought up Nile crocodiles, which is exciting.
Speaker 1:
[01:54] That's, oh my, that's not the first time they're gonna come up. I know.
Speaker 2:
[01:58] Wow.
Speaker 1:
[01:59] Yep.
Speaker 2:
[01:59] What a gift.
Speaker 1:
[02:00] What truly, happy Earth Day. Earth Week, I should say.
Speaker 2:
[02:04] Yeah. It's the 22nd this year, so big week for everybody to get out there and to love the planet, go pick up some trash or whatever you do. There's lots of park festivities going on for Earth Day if you have the time or if you don't have the time and you're just see something.
Speaker 1:
[02:21] My little street area, like the street that I'm on is kind of on a main road, so it's always completely littered with trash. It's so upsetting because it feels like Maine. Let's clean it up. Let's get it together a little bit. We're supposed to be green and lovely and nice. And every once in a while, I'll go and clean this stretch of road by my driveway. But because it is on such a main road, I get scared because there's not much way in places for me to stand off the side of the road.
Speaker 2:
[02:56] It gets a little bit dangerous, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[02:58] Yeah, it's a little sketchy, but yeah, it's a shame.
Speaker 2:
[03:02] That's a good point though that you're talking about cleaning up your own little corner of the world. I think a lot of times when we think of Earth Day or cleanup, we immediately go to conserved parks, which is obviously needed, but also cleaning up your own little neck of the woods.
Speaker 1:
[03:20] Yeah, I think it got instilled in me. I did it growing up. My mom and my stepdad, I remember doing it on our little street, but then when I worked at the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center, we had the Adopt-A-Road program. You'll see those plaques and it's like, this road or stretch of road is sponsored by whatever, and it'll be like a business or an organization. We sponsored the road leading up to the Wolf Center. Every couple of weeks, we would go out and make sure that there was no trash on the side of the road leading up to the center. Anyway, yeah, go pick up some trash.
Speaker 2:
[03:54] Yeah. If you guys are in the mood for some type of conservation episode that kind of links to Earth Day, I did one a while ago about Rachel Carlson, Rachel Carlson, Rachel Carson in Maine. Her store, she has a park there, but I titled it DDT So Safe You Could Eat It, and we talk a little about conservation and what happens when you pollute the planet. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[04:20] Last year, this time last year, I would have thought. Well, this episode today has nothing to do about conservation. It's a true crime episode if my intro did not allude to that clearly already. I didn't plan this well, but it's a very interesting story and one that you can watch play out on Hulu if you want. There's a docuseries about it. It's three parts, super entertaining. There are some really interesting characters that are interviewed for this docuseries that make it really not funny because it's not funny at all. But yeah, so if you want to watch that, I'll link it in the show notes, but it is called Trophy Wife is the title.
Speaker 2:
[05:03] I've never heard of it.
Speaker 1:
[05:04] That does not shock me.
Speaker 2:
[05:07] Shocker, I have not heard of something, but maybe I want to.
Speaker 1:
[05:11] I do have to say before we move on though, I owe you a little bit of an apology.
Speaker 2:
[05:16] Thank you. I agree. And it's because the Diet Love Pass, other people don't know it. And I was right. I'm not the only person.
Speaker 1:
[05:25] How did you know I was going to say that?
Speaker 2:
[05:26] I'm sorry, I apologize. I interrupted your apology.
Speaker 1:
[05:30] I could have been apologizing about anything else. But you're right. That's what it is about.
Speaker 2:
[05:35] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[05:36] Yeah, so I don't even have to say I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:
[05:37] You knew I wasn't the only one who didn't know about that.
Speaker 1:
[05:39] I was shocked. Like all over Patreon, in our comments, everything, people are like, you're not alone, Cassie.
Speaker 2:
[05:44] Yeah. Thank you, everyone. I appreciate you. Yeah, if you're not on our Patreon or subscriber channel, Danielle covered the Diet Love Pass, which has been highly requested for a long time. And Danielle had been holding off because she knows it so well, because she's heard it a lot on different podcasts, because it is very widely covered. But I had never heard it. And in the episode, we kind of talk about that a little bit. And I'm not alone.
Speaker 1:
[06:10] Yeah, I didn't shame you, but I was hard on you. And I apologize. Anyway, onto another story that you have never heard of.
Speaker 2:
[06:22] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[06:23] Okay.
Speaker 2:
[06:23] My favorite kind.
Speaker 1:
[06:25] The tension in the courtroom was so thick, you could cut it like a knife. It was summer in Denver, stifling on its own. But as Julian Rudolph and his sister, Anna Bianca, sat in their seats, eyes glued to their father, Larry, sitting just in front of them, their discomfort grew. The man they knew their entire lives to be kind and good-natured was being accused of something horrific, a crime they couldn't possibly fathom. Julian and his sister grew up with loving parents in a traditional East Coast suburban home. They had a peaceful life, were comforted by both their mother's warm encouragement and their father's enthusiastic support no matter what. Their mother worked hard, running a household and supporting her husband's practice. Julian and Anna Bianca witnessed a lot of love growing up, a complete departure from what they were now confronted with. Just weeks prior, they had submitted sworn affidavits to the court, expressing their full support for their father, writing, We know him better than anyone else, and we know that he is innocent. However, as the trial went on, the evidence and testimony were becoming too difficult to ignore. And they had to reckon with the painful reality that maybe, just maybe, their dad killed their mom after all.
Speaker 2:
[07:42] Okay, this is already a heavy episode.
Speaker 1:
[07:46] So, let's rewind a little bit and get to know the main characters of this story. Mainly, Lawrence Rudolph, who we will refer to for the entirety of this episode is Larry. That was his nickname and how he is referred to in the docu-series. He first laid eyes on Bianca Finanzio in the college cafeteria at the University of Pittsburgh. Her shock of red hair and piercing green eyes were probably the first things about her to grab his attention. But her warm smile, big heart, and open book personality made him want to stay. When Bianca met Larry, she was charmed by the smooth-talking, tall, dark-eyed kid in dental school, and they hit it off pretty much right away. In September of 1982, they got married and soon after had two kids, a son named Julian in 1990, followed shortly thereafter by a daughter named Anna Bianca. Friends of the Rudolphs repeatedly stated how Larry had a gift to win people over. His ability to make a person feel seen, heard and valued was instrumental in his personal and his professional life. Shortly after graduation, Larry soon became co-owner of a very successful dental practice in Pittsburgh, and as a result, the Rudolphs were doing very well. They had a pretty nice home and lived very comfortably. Dentists have the ability to make big money, and compared to other medical professions, they're in charge of their own schedule, which meant that the Rudolphs had the time and means to pursue Larry's biggest passion, which was big game hunting. In between their life in a middle-class suburb, the Rudolphs would fly to Africa fairly often, hunting, among other things, zebra, goats, impala, and lion. Larry had been hunting since he was a little kid. His animal trophy collection at home numbered over 400 individual species. And I am talking, like, think of an animal, any animal. And he has probably killed it. The documentary is really well done, but the entire thing in each episode of the three episodes has a lot of pictures of him and his family hunting big game and just like those iconic pictures of like a huge animal dead. And then them like standing proudly next to it with a rifle. And I'm talking like bears, lions, leopards, rams.
Speaker 2:
[10:16] I just don't get the point of that. And I'm not against hunting. I think that there's something that is special about having a relationship with your food. If you're doing it in a sustainable way and you're not contributing to the big farming issues that we have, especially in the United States, but trophy hunting is a whole different. You're literally traveling across the world, spending thousands of dollars to kill something that is just trying to live their life far away from you. And then you're shipping it home to stick on your wall, a lion. It's just...
Speaker 1:
[10:54] I agree. I agree with you. I agree with you. Trophy hunting is something that is one of the biggest red flags for me personally. I don't understand it. I can't get behind it.
Speaker 2:
[11:08] Have you ever met someone who does trophy hunting?
Speaker 1:
[11:12] Especially when I lived in Colorado. And especially when I worked at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife, we would give permits to people who would... Out of state permits, they would give out a certain number every year, especially for, what were they? Mountain goats or something that were like, they only gave out a cup, a handful every year. And it's like this highly coveted tag. And people would spend like thousands of dollars and enter. I mean, you could submit for a permit your whole life and never get one. So to earn one was a big win for a lot of people. And I know that's kind of the case with other species in other parts of our country. But yeah, it's a different conversation when we're talking about African wildlife, especially when it's like a lion, it's like, okay, you're not going to eat that.
Speaker 2:
[12:06] And well, and we don't even live there. I know.
Speaker 1:
[12:10] And I love. OK, I'm going to just ask you with kindness to hold this conversation, because I am doing an episode dedicated to this very soon about Cecil the lion.
Speaker 2:
[12:23] OK, but just know that I will be rolling my eyes a lot.
Speaker 1:
[12:28] OK, and that's your journey.
Speaker 2:
[12:30] I don't like him already.
Speaker 1:
[12:32] You're going to...
Speaker 2:
[12:33] He did it. He's guilty. You're going to hate this guy.
Speaker 1:
[12:37] But yeah, OK, so yes, I do want to have this conversation at length in a different episode that I am currently working on. That will come out later. Well, that being said, Larry wasn't the only one who was a trophy hunter in the family because Bianca likely at first as an effort to kind of like spend time with her husband and bond or spend quality time with him, started to go along for the ride, eventually becoming a very capable and skilled hunter in her own right throughout these family bonding trips.
Speaker 2:
[13:11] And that's great if you're hunting to feed your family, but you're hunting species that are on the brink of extinction. So Bianca, why it's different when it's a fellow woman doing it?
Speaker 1:
[13:24] Well, I just had to say that she also partook. And of course, like I said, these were also at times family trips. A lot of them they did just as a couple, but they did bring their kids along from time to time, especially when they were young. And Julian in particular has really fond memories of those trips, spending time in quiet, peaceful, and remote places around the world. Their friends back home admired the life that Larry and Bianca had built, developing a reputation as successful professionals. They had a loving family, and they were these big prominent, big game hunters that were world travelers.
Speaker 2:
[14:01] Imagine going to their Christmas party and you don't know, and you're just like a new employee. They're like, yeah, come to our Christmas party, and you go in and they feel totally normal, like a normal family this whole time. They're at the dentist office, you meet their kids, they do sports, all this stuff, and you're like, yeah, I'm gonna go to their Christmas party, and you walk in their house, and there's just dead animals everywhere.
Speaker 1:
[14:22] And he did display them prominently throughout their home.
Speaker 2:
[14:27] That's something out of a nightmare. I would walk into that Christmas party and be scared.
Speaker 1:
[14:31] It's the Ace Ventura scene, the classic Ace Ventura scene, when he walks into the trophy room, and he's just aghast.
Speaker 2:
[14:41] I thought there would be cookies on the table, and everyone would be having a nice time singing Christmas carols, but we're looking at dead animals everywhere. Sorry, I'm just envisioning.
Speaker 1:
[14:51] I know, I'm trying to like steer you away from this, even though it is upsetting. But in 2006, on one of these hunting trips, Larry had an accident. As he later told friends, he was fishing alone on the Kafue River in Zambia when he felt a tug on his line. Reeling in his catch and bending down to grab the fish, suddenly a crocodile struck. It shot out of the water, bit down on his hand, that was reaching for the fish, and launched into a death roll. The croc severed the tip of his thumb before he managed to fight his way free. Seems pretty-
Speaker 2:
[15:26] This feels like the scene out of Happy Gilmore, the golfer who's missing his hand, and he has the wooden hand in Happy Gilmore.
Speaker 1:
[15:34] I don't particularly remember. I'm not a big Happy Gilmore.
Speaker 2:
[15:37] A movie reference you don't get. And they just had a new one too. Yeah, he gets, I think it's by an alligator, not a crocodile, but he gets his hand bit off on the golf course from an alligator, and then he walks around and he has a wooden hand.
Speaker 1:
[15:53] I don't, I'm scared to say this because as, I like Adam Sandler as a person, especially as a fellow New Hampshireite. Didn't he grow up in Manchester?
Speaker 2:
[16:05] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[16:06] So the town over. I just don't think, his sense of humor is not my sense of humor, which is not, which is your sense of humor, which I know isn't my sense of humor. It's okay. Don't get up and leave.
Speaker 2:
[16:24] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[16:24] Okay.
Speaker 2:
[16:25] You don't say that.
Speaker 1:
[16:28] I'll accept no Adam Sandler slander around here. It's okay. I like him. I just don't think he's that funny. I just don't think you do. I just don't think he's that funny. Okay. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:
[16:39] It's getting worse.
Speaker 1:
[16:42] I have to speak my truth. But okay, so back to this crocodile and this incident. It seems like a pretty amazing story. You know, like not many people are death rolled by a crocodile and live to tell the tale, especially one that lives to tell the tale and only has minor injuries. Turns out his encounter with a gnarly injury to the tip of the tum of his non-dominant hand was the only thing that happened to him.
Speaker 2:
[17:13] He death rolled his thumb.
Speaker 1:
[17:15] He was... How am I supposed to get through this episode? I am fighting for my life right now.
Speaker 2:
[17:22] Sorry.
Speaker 1:
[17:23] With you.
Speaker 2:
[17:25] I'm in a mood tonight.
Speaker 1:
[17:27] I know, I can tell. It's because this is... We usually don't record late at night. It's 7 p.m. But yeah, it's like you're like a gremlin. You turn at night. I do. Well, I'm going to send you this picture because you need to have a visual of this entry.
Speaker 2:
[17:45] Oh, no. Okay.
Speaker 1:
[17:46] He was fast to tell anyone and everyone about this amazing encounter he had, how lucky he was to have escaped with his life. His colleagues were happy that he had nearly missed a tragic end but were surprised when he claimed permanent disability for the injury, getting $30,000 tax-free each month for, quote, nerve damage and numbness in his hand.
Speaker 2:
[18:11] He got paid $30,000 a month for a thumb injury?
Speaker 1:
[18:15] Yeah, because as a dentist, he's saying, like, I have nerve damage, I can't use my hand.
Speaker 2:
[18:20] That's true. I guess, like, if he can't use, their hands are... One of my best friends is a dentist and she always says that her hands are worth a lot of money.
Speaker 1:
[18:30] Well, okay. It's his non-dominant hand. You've seen... It's this part of his thumb, everyone.
Speaker 2:
[18:37] I will say that that injury of his thumb is... The injury is what I would picture if my thumb was death rolled by an alligator or a crocodile.
Speaker 1:
[18:48] Did you get it?
Speaker 2:
[18:49] Yeah. It looks like he accidentally cut himself.
Speaker 1:
[18:54] Can you imagine a Nile crocodile? They're like 20 feet long and it launches out of the water, death rolls him and he's like, I survived.
Speaker 2:
[19:05] Ow.
Speaker 1:
[19:08] Ouch.
Speaker 3:
[19:09] Okay, sorry.
Speaker 1:
[19:12] I was like, this is a serious episode and this is the stupidest we've been in a long time.
Speaker 2:
[19:17] I would give up my thumb for $30,000 a month like that.
Speaker 1:
[19:20] Okay, stop defending him.
Speaker 2:
[19:23] I'm not defending him. I know you're painting him in a good way.
Speaker 1:
[19:29] I'm just getting started. I'm not even one page through my notes.
Speaker 2:
[19:33] Well, continue then, Jesus.
Speaker 1:
[19:36] Okay. Sorry, I lost my place. Shit. All right. He claims disability for his nerve damage and numbness in his hand. He's raking in $30,000 a month for that. His colleagues were surprised by this, because remember, he co-owns this practice, so he has other people he's in on this business with. So his coworkers were also surprised to learn that he had taken out multiple private insurance policies on himself, which paid a very pretty penny on top of the disability money. Their growing skepticism about Larry would soon prove to be well-founded.
Speaker 2:
[20:15] He's just trying to retire early.
Speaker 1:
[20:17] I need you to just pipe down for a second.
Speaker 2:
[20:23] Just saying, he's strategic.
Speaker 1:
[20:25] It turns out that following filing for disability, Larry had been sneaking into the dentist office after hours, secretly seeing patients for cash. Not only was this violating the terms of his disability payments, but he was embezzling his partners, stealing money that should have been going to the entire practice. When his partners found out, they gave Larry a pretty clear choice. Basically, we are going to take you to criminal court over this before you walk away from our practice altogether. We never want to see you again. So Larry decided to walk away. However, the audacity, within a month, he opened his own competing practice directly across the parking lot.
Speaker 2:
[21:05] Wow. That's very petty. It was a ballsy move.
Speaker 1:
[21:10] Yes. Thank you. Ballsy move. Seemingly aimed at pissing off his old colleagues more than anything else, yet it seemed to pay off. Larry started running ads on local TV for his practice, which specialized in sedation dentistry. The idea behind this was that he, and he said this in the documentary too, right after he got out of school, he was noticing that the big hang up with people going to the dentist and wanting to go get dental care was they were afraid. Like they were afraid of pain and discomfort and it was just, they'd rather avoid it all together than have to endure that. So he essentially created this practice that would knock you out. He would put his patients under general anesthesia and do all of their dental work in one full swoop. So a cleaning, filling, root canal, whatever it was and then when you wake up, it would be over.
Speaker 2:
[22:07] He would do it for cleanings?
Speaker 1:
[22:09] Yeah, he would literally sedate people.
Speaker 2:
[22:11] For the smallest things.
Speaker 1:
[22:12] That was his shtick. Yes, that was his whole shtick. That's what he advertised.
Speaker 2:
[22:16] What year is this?
Speaker 1:
[22:17] This is in the 90s.
Speaker 2:
[22:19] Okay, this feels like a 90s thing.
Speaker 1:
[22:22] Yeah, so and that's what he advertised. And it was actually a pretty big success.
Speaker 2:
[22:28] I bet.
Speaker 1:
[22:29] Customers started pouring in as did staff. His new clinic was a raging success. Business was booming, but as time went on, his staff saw a very different Larry than the one on TV. According to some employees, no matter what problem a client came in with, Larry would order them to perform a root canal, the most expensive procedure they could charge for and the patient wouldn't be awake to protest it. In order to get insurance to cover it-
Speaker 2:
[22:54] So he wouldn't tell them beforehand they were getting a root canal?
Speaker 1:
[22:57] Yes. In order to get insurance to cover it, they would grind down the edges of the teeth before taking an x-ray. One employee even called the office a root canal factory. Something about me is, I thank my parents for this. When I was a kid, they got my teeth sealed. I've never had a cavity. I've never had any sort of dental problems my whole life. I had to look up what a root canal was. I legit just didn't know. So to imagine that they're intentionally causing problems that don't even exist for money is nuts.
Speaker 2:
[23:38] And root canals, I've never had one, but I hear that they're very painful.
Speaker 1:
[23:42] Yeah, they seem to be. So not only was that shady and clearly not aboveboard, when something didn't go Larry's way, he would absolutely lose it. Once he threw a small mirror so hard, it struck the wall. And another time he threw a syringe directly at an employee. He would show up to work drinking coffee, spike with Jameson, and cuss employees out over minor perceived slights.
Speaker 2:
[24:10] For example... He's drinking on the job?
Speaker 1:
[24:12] He's coming to work already drinking. Yeah. And in the documentary, there was somebody talking about this and her experience with his temper and outbursts. And she was saying that in one of their staff meetings, one time he thought he saw one of the girls roll his eyes, roll her eyes at something he said. And he blew up at her and was basically like, get the fuck out of here, you're fired in front of everyone. So he's like flying off the handle at times. It was also an open secret in the office that he was quite the womanizer, having multiple affairs with staff members. The documentary really, really leans into this, but I'm going to give you just one example here that really stuck out to me for a couple of reasons. There was a co-worker, I believe a dental assistant maybe, that reported that Larry would go to her apartment for sex. It seemed pretty clear it wasn't a full-blown relationship. It was more of just like a hookup type of thing. But this woman, likely sensing something was amiss with Larry, pulled what I think is kind of a smart move. She was hooking up with him, but she probably felt that something was off. So one day, she performed oral sex on Larry and directly after went into her kitchen and spit the contents of her mouth into a plastic bag and put it into the freezer, seemingly to use as evidence against him just in case something happened.
Speaker 2:
[25:50] Whoa, you have to have a really bad feeling about someone to do that.
Speaker 1:
[25:54] Isn't that like the second I heard that? And it was kind of just like a passing thing in the documentary. They're like, oh, yeah, somebody did that. I'm like, what? That's kind of a big deal.
Speaker 2:
[26:04] That's a huge deal. I've never once even considered anyone that I've been with that I should try and stash their DNA somewhere in case they're caught up in some horrible crime.
Speaker 1:
[26:16] Right. So anyway, like I just thought that was something that was a little glossed over. No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2:
[26:25] But she just has this in her freezer for like years. I don't know.
Speaker 1:
[26:28] I don't know what she did with it. But it just kind of goes to show that people were already clocking him, even the people that he was intimate with.
Speaker 2:
[26:38] Bad vibes.
Speaker 1:
[26:39] To some degree.
Speaker 2:
[26:43] This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. I feel like financial stress is one of those things we don't talk about enough, but it's always sitting there in the background and we've all experienced it. It's not just about money, it's the mental load that comes with it. The constant thinking, the what ifs, the pressure to feel like you should have everything figured out when realistically, most of us don't, and I do think social media has made that so much harder. You're constantly seeing what other people have, where they're traveling, what they're buying, what their lives look like on the surface, and it can make you feel like you're behind even when you're doing your best. I know for me, there have definitely been times where money stress has felt all-consuming, like it sneaks into everything, your mood, your sleep, even your relationships, and it can come with a lot of shame too, which just makes it harder to talk about. That's where therapy can really help. Not because it's going to tell you what to do with your finances, but because it helps you deal with the stress, the anxiety, and all the emotions tied into it. BetterHelp has over 30,000 licensed therapists and has helped more than six million people worldwide. You fill out a short questionnaire and they match you with someone based on your needs, and if it's not the right fit, you can switch at any time, and people are really seeing results, with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5, based on over 1.7 million reviews. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/npad. That's Better, help.com/npad.
Speaker 4:
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Speaker 1:
[29:29] While that and others like it seemed to be more casual, they weren't all that way. The most serious of his affairs was with an office manager named Laurie Milliron. Laurie was a single mom recently divorced when she started working as a hygienist in Larry's old office. When he left to start his own practice, she followed. Her kids say that she was a kind person and a tenent parent, and her colleagues pointed out that physically, Laurie was the complete opposite of Larry's wife. Bianca was 5'4 with auburn hair, but Laurie was tall and blonde. Whatever the reason, Larry pursued Laurie for a year before they started a years-long affair. And not the kind of affair where you go to extreme lengths to avoid being seen together. More like the, let's go to a Coldplay concert type of thing. Larry and Laurie traveled the world together, New Zealand, Paris, and of course, Africa. By one account, they spent 60 days traveling together each year between 2003 and 2008. Every single person in the office knew what was going on because Larry was practically flaunting it. Bianca, by contrast, was extremely dedicated to their marriage. News coverage about this story is very quick to point out that Bianca was a Catholic, citing faith-based reasons why Bianca didn't believe in divorce. But when she first caught wind of Larry's infidelity, a pattern that began in the 1990s, she did confront him and said that she was thinking about divorce. She had heard the rumors and most likely detected changes in his behavior. Larry set out to woo her back, taking her out more, losing weight, spursing himself up, and admitting to friends that he had fucked up. Which sounds really great, until he kept going. As he described to friends what he feared might happen, he said he had to win Bianca back because nobody is taking half of my money. Whatever her reasons, Bianca stayed with Larry then, and denied the not-so-secret rumors about his affair with Laurie. Larry, meanwhile, never stopped sleeping around. Friends said cheating was like hunting to him, something he started doing for sport that morphed into a power trip. In the years Larry was jet-setting around the world with Laurie, he was also pursuing a weather bee award. This supposed Nobel Prize for trophy hunting required you to collect no less than 250 different species on six different continents. Larry, with his mistress at his side, collected 400. After winning the weather bee award, he campaigned for president of a pro-hunting lobbying group called Safari Club International. He and Bianca had been involved with the SCI for 20 years, supporting local organizing efforts, hosting lunches, attending fundraisers. And at all these events, Larry would regale people with the story of fighting off the crocodile that stole his thumb, which is like also asterisks. It's half his thumb. It's not even his whole thumb. It's the tip of his thumb.
Speaker 2:
[32:31] It's not even the full tip. You can see his nail and stuff. It's like the middle between. He's like missing a chunk.
Speaker 1:
[32:37] It's like where the joint is.
Speaker 2:
[32:39] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[32:41] Anyway. And I have to just say, again, the audacity and balls of him to do that. You are, this is something different than bragging to friends and family and coworkers about this incident with the crocodile. But now you're going to fellow Safari Club International members who are very well-versed in wildlife in the outdoors and wildlife behaviors. And you're going to try and sell that story to people who know what crocodiles are capable of. Like in the documentary...
Speaker 2:
[33:15] People are going to clock you for your lives.
Speaker 1:
[33:18] What are you saying? Like that just is that when I heard and read that he was doing that, I immediately was like, there's something wrong with this guy.
Speaker 2:
[33:29] He's got a big ego.
Speaker 1:
[33:31] Yeah. So through him regaling everyone with these stories and others of his exploits around the world, because remember, he had to go to six different continents to kill over 250 species of animals to get this award. He's telling all these stories and it's boosting his reputation. People start to really know who he is and it earns him this degree of status and reputation within this organization. All of which he parlayed into becoming the president of the club in 2009. His approach to leading SCI looked a lot like his playbook at the dentist office. He started filming ads. In the videos which he often recorded in Africa, he'd discuss his lion hunting adventures and other tales that built himself up. He put a premium on celebrity appearances and landed Sarah Palin for a speaking event. Some described this as a reflection of Larry's own political ambitions. At one point, he told people that he hoped to become a Fox News contributor. Each choice he made positioned himself as the face of the organization, which as you might assume, began to backfire on SCI when his patterns of infidelity and violent outbursts emerged. During one fundraiser in Alaska, Larry brought Lori instead of Bianca, signing her in as his medical aid. He was accused of texting another woman for sex at a separate event and kissing her in a parking lot after the two had dinner. And in another incident, people heard Larry threaten to kill a club official and his family during an argument. Eventually, enough was enough for SCI leadership. When the face of your organization is openly cheating on his wife and verbally assaulting others, he's gotta go.
Speaker 2:
[35:14] It's a bad look.
Speaker 1:
[35:15] In 2012, three years into his tenure, SCI opened an investigation into Larry's adultery and his expenses, forcing him to testify and defend himself. So SCI isn't just like, hey, Scram, get out of here. They're like, hold on a minute. We're looking into your entire life and see what's going on.
Speaker 2:
[35:34] So they're looking into his infidelity?
Speaker 1:
[35:36] Yeah, they're like, the SCI is a huge organization. Earning the title of president is a big, big deal. It's not just like a little club. So I think that because he was such in like a prominent position, they really wanted to investigate his character and see what was going on.
Speaker 2:
[35:56] But at this point, his wife is not involved in that. It's just this company.
Speaker 1:
[36:01] What do you mean? His wife isn't involved.
Speaker 2:
[36:02] Like his wife isn't involved in wanting the investigation?
Speaker 1:
[36:06] No, if anything. So she comes to his defense, actually, in this investigation. So faced with each accusation, he firmly denied any wrongdoing. He said with a straight face that Laurie, reminder, the dental hygienist, Laurie, traveled with him as his medical aid to help his heart condition. Like that, he's like, yeah, she has to be here for my heart. Like, oh, your mistress, that you're, anyway.
Speaker 2:
[36:32] That has no training in cardiovascular health outside of preliminary stuff you need as a dental assistant, okay.
Speaker 1:
[36:39] Bianca also took the stand to defend her husband. All this time, she had been helping plan and run events for him and SEI. And during the deposition, she fervently denied that he was having an affair. She accused the Safari Club of trying to oust her husband based on a kiss in a parking lot. And she rebuked her portrayal in rumors around the group as Larry's tortured wife, saying, quote, I was not a long-suffering wife. I have never been a long-suffering wife. My husband and I have been married for 30 some years, happily married. Friends said that Bianca was hurt when she heard the whispers about Larry's affair with Lori. She found it devastating to have to defend her relationship to the Safari Club and to her friends. But ultimately, she chose once again to stand by her husband. Despite her defense, the damage was done. Larry resigned as president of SCI, and in a unprecedented move, the club erased his name from the record books and revoked his Weatherby Award.
Speaker 2:
[37:40] Well, they meant business.
Speaker 1:
[37:41] They did. With his political ambitions extinguished, Larry returned to his dental practice. His daughter, Anna Bianca, was following in his footsteps and joined the practice after earning her own dental license in 2015. He and Bianca built a second home in Arizona, and now that their kids had grown up, they spent most of their time there. But around this time, Laurie Milliron was growing restless. Larry was giving money to Laurie to pay her rent and tuition for her daughter, but she was all alone back in Pennsylvania. She wanted what Bianca had, and she was tired of hiding. A coworker at the dental clinic recalled Laurie coming over to help put some furniture together one night and that Laurie confided in her about the affair. She said the plan had been for Larry to take all of his money and run, leaving Bianca behind, but never did. Finally, when Laurie had had enough of waiting, she gave Larry an ultimatum, you have one year to get rid of her. Bianca, who had forgiven Larry's transgressions countless times by this point, was also near her breaking point. She found a hair clip in her bed that was not hers and confronted Larry. He denied everything, but after Bianca presented him with emails between him and Laurie, he promised to break off the affair once and for all.
Speaker 2:
[39:03] In their own bed.
Speaker 1:
[39:05] I know, and again, it's like he's denying it, and I can just imagine this type of conversation of like, no, that must be yours.
Speaker 2:
[39:16] Yeah, just the gaslighting that was happening to make her feel like she was overreacting or crazy or whatever it is. To know that that's happening in your own bed.
Speaker 1:
[39:28] I know, it's so beyond hurtful. I mean, especially after this is now decades worth of time that has passed with- It's your home.
Speaker 2:
[39:37] That's your place that you sleep with your husband in your house with your children.
Speaker 1:
[39:44] Bianca told friends that marriage was hard work and firmly believed that forgiveness and understanding were key to anything lasting long term. They just needed to get back on track. Julian remembered that his parents were always happiest when they were on a hunting trip. So that fall, in 2016, the couple flew to Kafue National Park. To Bianca, visiting Zambia again was a chance to reconcile and hopefully fix their marriage. Located in the center of Western Zambia, Kafue is the oldest and largest of Zambia's national parks, coming in at 8,650 square miles, which I said before was about twice the size of Yellowstone National Park, but of course I have the Titanic conversion here, do you want to guess? How many Titanics like lined up on the ground, how many Titanics would fit in this area?
Speaker 2:
[40:36] 200.
Speaker 1:
[40:37] Cassie, may I remind you, it's twice the size of Yellowstone National Park.
Speaker 2:
[40:42] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[40:43] Just a gentle hint.
Speaker 2:
[40:45] 1000.
Speaker 1:
[40:46] Okay, you're going to have to really bump those numbers. You know the Leo thing. The Titanic was so big. You're going to have to bump those numbers up.
Speaker 2:
[40:53] The Titanic was the biggest ship. 10,000.
Speaker 1:
[40:58] Okay, we're in the middle. 290 million. Okay.
Speaker 2:
[41:06] What?
Speaker 1:
[41:06] I know you're a bad test taker, but how big is this park again? 8,650 square miles.
Speaker 2:
[41:15] I don't know.
Speaker 1:
[41:16] You think that's suspicious? I think a thousand is crazy to say.
Speaker 2:
[41:22] I want to double check your math.
Speaker 1:
[41:25] It's not my math. It's my...
Speaker 2:
[41:26] How many Titanic's fit into... How many?
Speaker 1:
[41:35] 8,650 square miles.
Speaker 2:
[41:37] What did you say?
Speaker 1:
[41:39] Approximately 290 million Titanic ships.
Speaker 2:
[41:43] Mine says 739 million.
Speaker 1:
[41:46] What?
Speaker 2:
[41:49] Okay. Not the direction I thought this was going to be. I'm checking your math. I know this is supposed to give us a reference of how big this park is, but that didn't help me at all.
Speaker 1:
[42:02] I'm more lost than ever. Well founded in the 1920s and formally established as a national park in the 1950s, Kafue is one of the largest reserves in all of Africa. Despite its size, it actually remains lesser known and largely unexplored with vast tracks of its virgin bush still untouched. However, since 2022, the park has experienced an 85 percent increase in visitor numbers. It's starting to get super popular in recent years. I think that has to do a lot with, like I mentioned before, and of course, the whole reason why Larry and Bianca are there is that surrounding the park are game reserves where hunting is very popular and there's a ton of lodges that are being built around the park for that reason and for tourism reasons. But either way, a lot more visitors are coming to this part of Africa. Gotcha. By all accounts, their trip had a very good start. They had a hunting guide for the trip, a local man named Spencer, and he described Larry and Bianca as a happily married couple. They were laughing, kissing, and hugging one another and dancing along to Tina Turner. Spencer honestly admired their relationship and never picked up on any tension between them. The Zambian government had lifted a ban on leopard hunting that year, and Bianca had always wanted to hunt one. Although as the 10-day trip came to a close, she had only bagged a zebra. When Larry proposed extending the trip, she declined because their nephew's wedding was happening the following weekend, and she wanted to make sure to be home for that. So on the morning of October 11, 2016, the Rudolphs were packing up camp to head to the airport, when all of the sudden a gunshot rang out, and Bianca let out a scream. Spencer, the guide, was working nearby and immediately rushed into the hunting cabin to find Bianca dead on the ground, with a shotgun wound to the heart. Larry was on the ground next to her, sobbing. Between tears, he claimed to Spencer that Bianca had died by suicide, that she had shot herself, and that he was going to drown himself in the river to join her. But as Spencer calmed him down, his story started to change. It must have been a tragic accident, he said. The gun must have fired when she was packing her weapon away. Larry said that he had been in the shower when he heard the shot, and he had rushed out as soon as he heard it. But as Spencer recalled, it took him less than 15 seconds to rush into the cabin, and when he arrived, Larry was sitting on the floor with all of his clothes and shoes on. He was completely dry. He told another guide that he had been stuck on the toilet with the shits, essentially. He's like, I was tied up. I was having stomach problems when that happened. Local authorities seemed a little skeptical of Larry, noticing that his tears dried fast, but ultimately accepted his version of events. The Zambian investigation ruled that Bianca's death was the result of an accidental firearm discharge. They didn't take fingerprints of the weapon or treat it like a crime scene at all, which let Larry move very quickly to have Bianca cremated. Eleven hours after her death, he called the US. Embassy. Apparently, Larry pressured authorities to speed through the procedure, which made the diplomat on the phone very uncomfortable. He was a former Marine and smelled something fishy, so he traveled to the funeral home to take photos of Bianca's wounds on a hunch— images that would become very relevant when the FBI opened an investigation years later. But on October 14th, Bianca was cremated. Julian and Ana Bianca wouldn't learn about their mother's death until almost a week had passed. And some friends only learned that she had died when they received a funeral invitation in the mail.
Speaker 2:
[46:02] That's crazy to find out that someone died that way.
Speaker 1:
[46:08] Especially a close friend.
Speaker 2:
[46:10] Yeah. And your children not finding out for a full week.
Speaker 1:
[46:14] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[46:15] That's not right.
Speaker 1:
[46:16] Bianca was deeply missed and mourned by her friends. Her kids were inconsolable, in disbelief at what had happened. The loving, supportive and remarkable person, their mother and best friend, was suddenly gone. The day after the funeral, Larry bought Lori a plane ticket to Arizona.
Speaker 2:
[46:35] Wow.
Speaker 1:
[46:36] Within weeks, Lori moved into the Rudolph family mansion in Arizona, and the two started to live openly together. In the following years, they would build their own mansion in Arizona. Once again, fucking strangely, coincidentally, just like the dental practice thing, right down the block from the one that Larry built with Bianca.
Speaker 2:
[46:58] How old are his kids at this point?
Speaker 1:
[47:01] His kids are our age, essentially, right now.
Speaker 2:
[47:04] They're not living in the home with them?
Speaker 1:
[47:06] No, they are not. They're adults. They're living out on their own because this is in 2016. How old were we in 2016?
Speaker 2:
[47:14] They're our age now? Yes.
Speaker 1:
[47:17] Julian was born in 95.
Speaker 2:
[47:20] 25, 26.
Speaker 1:
[47:22] Yes. They're not kid kids anymore. It's so heartbreaking because in the documentary, which I'll talk about a little bit more about Julian at the end of this, but he has gone on record. He's done a bunch of different interviews about this, but Anna Bianca has not. The only thing that is in the documentary about her directly coming from her, and I don't know exactly where it was sourced, but it's audio of her and she's absolutely devastated. You can hear it in her voice between these agonal cries, like, what am I going to do? I'm never going to be the same. How could this have happened? I can't believe that. She's just absolutely shattered about this. And then like immediately after, you know, within weeks.
Speaker 2:
[48:16] He's moved on. He's with his mistress. He lives together the day after his wife's funeral. He goes on a trip with his mistress.
Speaker 1:
[48:25] Well, no, he flies his mistress to Arizona, to his home.
Speaker 2:
[48:29] Yeah, to move in and...
Speaker 1:
[48:32] And then start building the other home. Yeah. They lied to acquaintances and said that they had just met and were starting a new relationship. And while they waited for their new house to be built, they spent time in a vacation home in Cabo. And we all... Here's my little thing I always include in every single... Every single episode that has to do with this. We all grieve differently. Let's just hold space for that for a second. But I'm just saying, it certainly did not seem like Larry was too sad that Bianca had just passed away. And not only that, but in such a tragic way. And that was far from the only red flag in the eyes of his coworkers and Bianca's friends. Bianca was a devout Catholic, like I mentioned, who close friends said she would have never wished to be cremated in the first place, not without a big service beforehand. Larry's life insurance agent also recalled that he was extremely anxious to finalize some additional life insurance policies on Bianca a short time before she died. For a lot of people, something about this whole situation just was not sitting right, and they reported the case to the FBI. As the FBI decided whether or not to pursue the case, they learned everything that we have talked about so far. Larry's affair with Laurie Milliron and her ultimatum, Larry's scandal-ridden past, and how he had told friends he wasn't letting anyone take half of his money, and they followed up on the red flags that people called in, like the life insurance policy. Turns out, Larry had taken out nine different life insurance policies on Bianca from seven different insurance companies for a total of $4.8 million. So with that in mind...
Speaker 2:
[50:16] I don't understand how people are allowed to take insurance policies out on somebody else. Shouldn't that be under your...
Speaker 1:
[50:26] Well, we're going to get into it also a little bit, and Bianca was present and signed paperwork for at least some of these policies. And in the documentary, they do interview one of the guys who was... I forget their title, but he was Larry's life insurance guy. Like he organized the paperwork and did all that and stuff. But he goes on record and he's like, yeah, I did that. Bianca was there. You know, she was present and willing and able and of sound mind to do this and sign these policies and stuff. But I was also very unaware that he had multiple life insurance policies. Like he thought that this was just one. It was just a singular thing. He was very unaware that there were multiple others. So needless to say, with this, at least this preliminary information, the FBI opened a case into the murder of Bianca Rudolph. They dove into Larry's history with insurance fraud. And before he cheated his disability insurance claim, he seems to have lied about the crocodile incident altogether. Here we go.
Speaker 2:
[51:32] Did they find out what really happened? So, tell us what happened. What is that thumb picture about?
Speaker 1:
[51:40] So the picture of his dingy thumb had telltale signs of gunpowder on his finger. Like he had blown the tip of his thumb off to cash in on the life insurance that he had taken out. And it very clearly does look like a self-inflicted wound. Like you said, it looked like almost like he cut himself or it got caught up in something. There was no way in hell. An animal, a crocodile.
Speaker 2:
[52:03] A Nile crocodile. Also, those things are massive. And if you guys remember the episode I did about, it was Henry Coatsie who was unfortunately a victim of a crocodile attack. That thing took him and his whole boat underwater.
Speaker 1:
[52:22] In a split second.
Speaker 2:
[52:23] In a split second. Not a thumb.
Speaker 1:
[52:26] Never to be seen again.
Speaker 2:
[52:28] Yeah. Also, nothing of his was ever to be seen again. I mean, his kayak stayed, but he was gone and there was nothing left. And that is what Nile crocodiles are capable of. So to be in a death roll with your thumb with a Nile is just a wild tale to tell.
Speaker 1:
[52:46] It's like, it's so dumb. I just like, of all the lies to tell, get a better lie, be better at lying. Like that is this-
Speaker 2:
[52:57] I joke about things like that where I'm like, if you get an injury and there's not a cool story, make one up, make it cool. And I've joked about that, but he really took that to the next level.
Speaker 1:
[53:11] Yeah, he literally just shot his own thumb off and to do this whole insurance fraud thing.
Speaker 2:
[53:17] To make $30,000 a month. I get it.
Speaker 5:
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Speaker 6:
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Speaker 1:
[54:29] Okay. Well, agents traveled to Zambia and learned about Larry, the whole like getting out of the shower, fully clothed to the scene of the crime type of situation. Because remember, there's all this conflicting reports on that. So they talked with a US diplomat who Larry pressured to speed up Bianca's cremation and examine the photos he took of Bianca's wounds. Sure enough, all of this did not match any part of Larry's story. First was the version where Bianca did it on purpose. So as a reminder, she is 5'4, you can imagine. I mean, similar to us and our wingspan and how long our arms are. These shotguns, these rifles that they're using for hunting are massive. So he is claiming that she took this shotgun, turned it on herself and reached and pulled the trigger and shot herself in the heart. But the investigators are like, this does not add up. In fact, they tested out this theory by having over 50 people, 50 women of similar height and body composition recreate the scene. Only one person was able to do it and they are surmising or guessing that she was able to because she was a lifetime gymnast and had really flexible shoulders and was able to reach around and grab it. As for it being an accident, because remember at first he's like, she killed herself. And then he was like, oh, it must have been an accident when she was packing away the weapon. So they're thinking about that theory. And they, again, test that out. And they could not get the gun to fire when dropped or while zipping it into a carrying case. Like essentially they were trying to get it to go accidentally discharge. And they couldn't recreate that.
Speaker 2:
[56:16] And I know that accidents happen, of course, with guns. But she, as you mentioned at the beginning of this episode, is a very experienced person with weapons and hunting at this point. So the fact that it would accidentally go off in such a manner, like that feels really unrealistic.
Speaker 1:
[56:34] Well, there's also the point where Spencer comes back into the picture, the guide who had spent the 10 days with them, who ran in 15 seconds later. Yep. So it was protocol. Every night after they were done hunting for the day, they would unload and clean the guns. So that gun was not loaded.
Speaker 2:
[56:55] When he last saw it.
Speaker 1:
[56:56] When he last saw it. And when she was, because they hadn't used it between the night before and when they were packing it up. So it would have been unloaded because he witnessed her unloading it and cleaning it the night prior. Also, most damning of all, whether Bianca did it on purpose or by accident, regardless of that, the gun would have had to have been close to her. Meaning the shotgun pellets would have had no time to spread out. Instead of a small wound though, the hole in her chest was spread out. In the eyes of ballistics experts, the shotgun must have been at least two to three feet away from her to create the type of wound to the chest that Bianca sustained. So, essentially, it would have been super small if it was pinned up right against her chest, if she had leaned over while it went off or something, or she put it directly to her chest and pulled the trigger herself, it would have created a very, very small wound. But it was large, meaning that the weapon was at least three feet away from her when it was shot.
Speaker 2:
[58:03] No wonder why he wanted her cremated.
Speaker 1:
[58:05] Yeah. As their investigation is moving forward as for his affair, they found out that Laurie was assisting Larry in fraud at his dental practice, accepting large cash payments from clients and depositing that money into their own accounts without reporting it to the IRS. These large cash deposits helped fund their lavish lifestyle. Larry was building a two-story trophy room for his trophy collection atop his new house with Laurie, and things were apparently going well enough that his political ambitions were back on the table. At a political fundraiser, he announced his interest in running for Congress. However, as the FBI…
Speaker 2:
[58:46] What? Yeah. What is wrong with this person?
Speaker 1:
[58:50] However, as the FBI investigation stretched from months to years, the pair became aware that the FBI was looking into them. That made Laurie nervous and Larry irritable. And one night, over dinner at a steakhouse, a restaurant at which they were regulars at had a normal spot at the bar. People knew them. It was kind of their spot to go. The two got into a very heated argument. And the bartender working that night said that there was a song on the loudspeaker, playing throughout the restaurant. And you know those awkward moments of when you're in a restaurant and you're talking really loud over the sound of everyone else and then also the music and then the music stops and you're like literally yelling. You're like, Oh God, you know. So it was in one of those moments, there was like a lull between the songs that Larry shouted while angrily pointing a finger in Laurie's face, I killed my fucking wife for you. After five years of gathering evidence, the FBI arrested Larry for the murder of Bianca Rudolph and for committing mail fraud to claim nearly $5 million in life insurance. The following year, Laurie would also be arrested for lying on the witness stand charged as an accessory to murder for hiding Larry's actions. When Larry's case went to trial, his lawyers were prepared to rebuke every accusation. They argued that the Zambian officials who were the only investigators at the scene of the crime ruled the death an accident, and everything since has been pure conjecture. To the accusation of insurance fraud, they pointed out that Bianca personally signed each and every policy and went through countless health screenings because she wanted to provide for her kids. They said the money from the policies went into a survivor's trust, not into Larry's pockets, and each of the seven insurance agencies reviewed the accidental death claims and chose to pay them. The story of Lori giving Larry an ultimatum to get rid of Bianca that the coworker reported as being like, hey, this is a big red flag, they claimed that that was hearsay. In the testimony from the employee who Lori confessed to, admittedly, her story did change over time. Lori's ultimatum didn't appear at all in the first interview she did with law enforcement, and in later ones, the FBI appeared to steer her towards that conclusion. So, they're kind of like, this, we can't take this into account. Many people argued that Bianca was a devout Catholic who would have never wished to be cremated, but the lawyers presented her signed will, which stated she did, which was true. That was her wish. Finally, the FBI brought in the bartender who overheard Larry shout, I killed my fucking wife for you. The lawyers argued the bartender didn't hear the full sentence. Allegedly, Larry said...
Speaker 2:
[61:42] What else could you put at the beginning or end of that sentence?
Speaker 1:
[61:45] There's only three words in the beginning that he was like, oh, you didn't hear this critical part. And so they claim that Larry said, the FBI says, I killed my fucking wife for you.
Speaker 2:
[61:58] Right.
Speaker 1:
[61:59] Because allegedly, they were discussing the ongoing investigation, not confessing to murder in a crowded steakhouse restaurant. They're like, why would he ever do that? Why would he shout that? It's like, I don't know, maybe he's volatile and has a history of throwing temper tantrums and being irrational. I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[62:20] Why would you kill your wife?
Speaker 1:
[62:24] For a while, in the eyes of the jury, Larry's lawyers were doing their job well and casting doubts over the FBI's arguments. They needed to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that Larry was guilty and Larry's lawyers had successfully challenged each of their arguments. They drilled into the jury that none of Larry's faults can be seen as evidence that he's a murderer. Essentially, they're like, yeah, he's shitty, but he's not a murderer.
Speaker 2:
[62:49] No.
Speaker 1:
[62:50] But then, but then Larry himself in the flesh took the stand because they always do.
Speaker 2:
[63:00] Because he thinks he can rule the world and no one can touch him, but then you're going to let your personality out.
Speaker 1:
[63:07] And people are going to see right through that shit. And that's exactly what happened. In front of the courtroom, he argued that he and Bianca had an open marriage, that Bianca had cheated on him in their relationship, and that they had come to this agreement. That like, hey, you're cheating, I'm cheating, let's just have an open relationship. An attempt to humanize himself to the jury, but most spotted it as an obvious lie. Then he started to sob. He would break down, but jurors noticed it took a lot of effort to do so. One even wrote in their notes that he was crying, but there were no tears. And suddenly he would just stop out of nowhere and be completely fine.
Speaker 2:
[63:49] Like you're faking it.
Speaker 1:
[63:51] Yeah. It was not the behavior of someone mourning their spouse, but of someone trying to manipulate the jury. Whatever goodwill his defense had earned was completely gone. After a three week trial, Larry was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife and a concurrent 20 year sentence for mail fraud. Laurie Milliron was sentenced to 17 years for helping him cover it up.
Speaker 2:
[64:15] Good.
Speaker 1:
[64:16] And in the, again, in the documentary, I mean, it's crazy. There's, I think there was two of the jurors that were interviewed for this. And they say they're like, we were really close to being, just letting them up because the defense was doing a really good job of casting out in their eyes and be like, hey, we weren't 100% convinced, like we could see a world in which he didn't do it, you know, like maybe. And then they're like, as soon as he got on the stand, we saw, we're like, oh, nevermind.
Speaker 2:
[64:48] He did it.
Speaker 1:
[64:48] He did it. Like he completely ruined his entire case by...
Speaker 2:
[64:53] I wonder if his lawyers told him not to go on the stand.
Speaker 1:
[64:56] No, I think his lawyers encouraged it because his lawyers interviewed as well in the documentary.
Speaker 2:
[65:01] Oh, and they encouraged it. Interesting. I feel like it's usually the opposite where they're like, let us do our job, just stay silent.
Speaker 1:
[65:07] They're like, please, oh, God, shut up, just sit there and shut up and don't let us do our jobs. Yeah, it wasn't like that, which I also thought was interesting. In September of 2025, Larry's appeal for his case was denied and he is in prison to this day. Although according to the FBI, this is the last thing they say in this documentary, which is crazy, he still receives $30,000 a month in disability benefits from the crocodile attack.
Speaker 2:
[65:34] What?
Speaker 1:
[65:36] How? When it's all said and done, this story made international news and was recently the subject, like I said, of the docu-series called Trophy Wife Murder on the Safari. It's on Hulu if you want to watch it. Maybe it sticks out because Larry was a dentist. Medical professionals are supposed to help people, which makes it all the more shocking when they cause harm. It's also tangled up in the topic of trophy hunting, a fraught topic with fierce opponents and defenders alike. In Africa, trophy hunting is undeniably a big player in the world of land management. More land is set aside for trophy hunting on the continent than there is for national parks. Proponents argue that management protects wildlife from poachers and protects habitats from developers, habitat for all native species, often far from accessible photo safari destinations. Detractors argue that it's a cruel practice that raises less money than photo safaris do for conservation while perpetuating a view that African people are reliant on rich Westerners. They also point to Walter Palmer, another infamous dentist, who killed Cecil the Lion in 2015. He sparked international outrage after luring the iconic lion out of a national park to kill it. Like I said, I will not be accepting comments on that right now because I promise I am covering that in its own episode. It is very, very similar vibes to the episode I covered in Yellowstone about Wolf06 because she too was lured out of the park boundaries and killed. She was an iconic, beloved wolf or animal that people traveled far and wide to come to see, same thing with Cecil. So anyway, that's coming. But I will say one other thing just because it does tie into this about Palmer and Larry. So Palmer also happened to be a member of the Safari Club International, that group that Larry Rudolph was the president of briefly. But surprise, surprise, they revoked his membership too.
Speaker 2:
[67:44] They're like, did they know each other?
Speaker 1:
[67:47] I don't think they knew each other. Larry and Palmer, I don't think they knew each other.
Speaker 2:
[67:51] That would be interesting.
Speaker 1:
[67:53] They might have crossed paths earlier on. Yeah, because Larry killed Bianca in 2016, and Palmer killed Cecil the Lion in 2015. So they might have known each other. I don't know. Maybe I'll let you know. Maybe I'll look into it when I research the story more. But ultimately, this was a story about a woman killed by her husband. Bianca would have been 67 years old this year, an age that she was robbed of, a mother who will never get to meet future grandkids, and a husband who took every opportunity to lie and cheat to build himself up, a man who believed himself invincible, but in the end got caught. More recently, Julian and Anna Bianca are seeking their inheritance, claiming they are lawfully entitled to life insurance proceeds. After Larry murdered Bianca, he kept the entire $14 million fortune that they had built together over 34 years, even though half of that fortune should have been the property of Bianca's estate and passed on to Julian and his sister. When Larry was convicted, the Justice Department seized the bulk of his known remaining assets, two multimillion-dollar homes, luxury cars, and the $4.8 million still in bank accounts. But prosecutors have said in court filings that the children lack legal standing, instead saying that the insurance companies should be repaid. While Ana Bianca has chosen to stay away from the public eye and has declined giving statements, Julian has spoken out. In December of 2023, he appeared on Good Morning America to speak about the ensuing legal battle. He has gone on record to state after witnessing the trial, he believes the jury got it right. He believes that his father is guilty after seeing the quote horrifying photos from the scene and hearing soul-crushing testimony. As for the submitted sworn affidavits that he and his sister submitted to the court expressing their full support for their father prior to the trial, Julian has since recanted his, stating quote, Every day going into that courtroom, I saw something new that broke my heart. I can't stand by that original statement because that was before we saw the evidence in the trial. During the interview, he says, It's a matter of right and wrong. I think we've been through enough. My mother put us as the beneficiaries on those insurance policies. She wanted us to receive those proceeds if something was to ever happen to her. While the Justice Department sees it differently, several insurance companies were the ones defrauded out of millions of dollars, in their eyes. For Larry's part, for whatever it is worth, he has said he wants the money seized to go to his children. The legal battle has gone back and forth. It's stretched on for years and is still ongoing. Julian has stated how much he would like to move on with his life, but is fighting through these last steps. As of 2023, he was engaged and hoping to elope with his fiance, foregoing a traditional wedding in part because of what would be missing in the celebration. In his ABC interview, he closed by saying, nothing will ever bring my mother back. Nothing will ever bring my father back. And that is the story of Larry Rudolph and Bianca Rudolph.
Speaker 2:
[71:13] The last part you said is so heartbreaking because it's so true. Like their kids lost their mom and they also lost their dad and who they thought he was. And it sounds really complicated when it comes to the financial aspects of it because I do see the portion where like, well, we can't give you money. That was fraudulent. But at the same time, he had these huge estates with a ton of money that Bianca would have had rights to. So it feels like that they should have been paid a long time ago. And it's just figuring out maybe how much that truly is. But especially because their dad's wealth also came from fraud, I'm sure that that kind of makes things a little bit murky as well.
Speaker 1:
[71:58] It's very complicated. And I tried to filter through because there's a lot of different court documents available online. And there's a lot of reporting about this as well, especially back in 2023 when this was kind of all over the news again. And there's a lot of back and forth. And I didn't want to get too into the weeds with it because it is complicated. But essentially, it's something that they're still fighting for and hoping to receive. But we'll see. And yeah, it's a, I mean, the guy is obviously, you know, deeply disturbed and guilty of killing his wife. And yeah, I mean, I feel, like I said, the audio of Anna Bianca is just, it hit something in me when I heard it. It's just like, just hearing someone have the most devastating reaction to the most earth shattering news you can receive. And then just being like, I, not only that, but then the whole, I kind of really just like left Lori out of this for the most part, like, but she's a big part in the documentary. She's interviewed in jail.
Speaker 2:
[73:13] Oh, really? She speaks about it?
Speaker 1:
[73:15] Yeah, she's in the entire thing. And her daughter is interviewed and her daughter is like, my mom was a victim of Larry's too. Like she wasn't in on it. Her daughter stands up for her for Lori and basically is like, she got the shit out of the stick. She shouldn't be in jail. Like she had no idea that Larry killed Bianca and would have never encouraged him to do that. You know, because I think for a little while, they also were painting her of like, you got to get rid of her, like kill her. But I think if anything, she was like, you need to make it, you need to divorce her. And like, I've been your mistress for almost a decade now. Like, shit or get off the pot type of thing. I don't think she was like, hey, you need to kill her. I don't think it was like a conspiracy thing.
Speaker 2:
[74:01] I didn't get that vibe from the way you were telling the story that she wanted him to kill her. But I did get the vibe that after it had happened, that she probably knew about it.
Speaker 1:
[74:13] I 100% believe she knew. 100%.
Speaker 2:
[74:17] At least eventually, you know? Or unless he gaslit her too and like truly, truly said that it was an accident. But the fact that it was overheard in a bar where he said, I killed my wife for you.
Speaker 1:
[74:34] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[74:34] That makes me, and they were fighting about it. That just makes me feel different. And how fast it moved, right? I don't know.
Speaker 1:
[74:43] I don't know either. And I was a little hesitant to cover this one just because it is really fresh. These people are very much alive. And Julian and Anna Bianca are trying to go on with their lives. And I'm sure this is clearly still very raw and rough. And this is people's real lives. And they're real family members and things that they're dealing with. And so I was hesitant to do it. But because of the docuseries and all that, it's all in the news and stuff. I was like, okay, maybe.
Speaker 2:
[75:20] But I hope this kind of... It sounds like it's relatively new that all of this attention is being brought back to this case. And I hope that this attention helps her kids in getting what they're looking for and settling this case. And I hope it forces whoever is involved with that to not... It feels like they've probably been dragging their feet on it for a while. And I hope that this attention that's bringing towards it can help them close it sooner. Because I'm sure going into all these courtrooms and proceedings to try and figure out this whole money situation, they just have to relive this over and over again. And I'm sure that that in its entirety is horrible as well.
Speaker 1:
[76:06] Yeah. Well, do you have a palate cleanser?
Speaker 2:
[76:09] No, I didn't know I would need one.
Speaker 1:
[76:12] What?
Speaker 2:
[76:14] Here's my palate cleanser. Right before we got on this recording, I watched the moon, the launch for the mission to circumnavigate the moon or go around it and come back. And I think they're up there for like seven days. And it was crazy to watch if other people were watching it. I was so nervous. There were sounds coming from that thing. It was up in the air. There's fire shooting out the back of it. There's clouds of smoke. There's a narrator that was on there. He's like, they've reached 8,000 miles per hour. And I'm like, what the f- What do you mean 8,000 miles per hour? And then they go into the stratosphere and they're gone. And couldn't be me. Couldn't be me.
Speaker 1:
[77:01] I was-
Speaker 2:
[77:01] My hands were sweating just watching them. I hope they're okay. And I wish them all of the success, but-
Speaker 1:
[77:08] Okay. I don't know if that counts as a palate cleanser because now I'm- Anxious. Yeah, anxious. I didn't watch it. I knew it was on because you told me, but I'm not, yeah, not really into that. Hmm, do I have a palate cleanser? I'm not sure. I'm not quite sure. We're just going to have to leave it at that, I think.
Speaker 2:
[77:30] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[77:31] Okay. Well, thanks everyone for- oh yeah, happy Earth week.
Speaker 2:
[77:35] Palate cleanser.
Speaker 1:
[77:36] Go pick up some trash.
Speaker 2:
[77:38] Earth.
Speaker 3:
[77:39] Earth, we love it.
Speaker 1:
[77:41] Earth, it's great. Yeah, protect it, do what you can, pick up some trash on your little corner of the world, make it a better place, and we'll see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view.
Speaker 2:
[77:54] But watch your back.
Speaker 1:
[77:55] Bye.
Speaker 2:
[77:56] Bye. Thanks for joining us for another episode. We hope you learned something new and have another location to put on your list. If you want more NPAD content, make sure to follow along with our adventures on all socials at National Park After Dark.
Speaker 1:
[78:10] For more stories just like this one with the added bonus of exclusive content, you can join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. If you prefer to watch our episodes, head over to our YouTube channel. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe on your favorite listening platform.
Speaker 3:
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Speaker 7:
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