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| Beckie Gault Randolph: Her Death, Tom Randolph and the Trial Explained. |
Beckie Gault’s death was initially treated as a suicide, but the case took a dramatic turn two years later when a former friend of her husband, Tom Randolph, approached police with an explosive account of an alleged murder plot. The circumstances surrounding Beckie’s death in 1986 became one of the cases examined in Netflix’s The Widower: ’Til Death Do Us Part, which looks beyond the 2008 killing of Sharon Randolph to the earlier deaths connected to Thomas William Randolph.
Beckie Rae Gault was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on December 28, 1956, to Martha Gault DeGraw. She grew up with her brothers Steven and Tony Gault and her sister Denice DeGraw. Her family remembered her as warm, lively and compassionate, someone who could bring energy into a room without making much effort.
Beckie eventually met Thomas “Tom” Randolph, who was married to Kathryn Randolph at the time. After his divorce was finalised, Beckie and Tom married in Clearfield, Utah, in April 1983. Their marriage lasted a little more than three years before Beckie was found dead at their home.
The circumstances were immediately troubling. In November 1986, Tom had been arrested for driving erratically. After leaving custody the following morning, he returned to the couple’s home at 2265 South First West in Clearfield and called 911. He told authorities that he had discovered Beckie dead in their bedroom.
Police found the 29-year-old with a gun in her hand and a suicide note at the scene. On the surface, the evidence appeared to point towards an apparent suicide, and that was how Beckie’s death was initially treated. But investigators did not simply close the file and move on.
Questions began to surround the marriage, including reported financial problems and allegations of emotional abuse. Another detail drew particular attention: Tom received a $250,000 life insurance payout following Beckie’s death. Money alone did not establish that he had killed his wife, but it became part of the wider circumstances examined by investigators.
For almost two years, the case remained without a clear breakthrough. Then, in 1988, former friend Eric Tarantino contacted detectives. His account dramatically changed the direction of the investigation.
Tarantino alleged that Tom had asked him to kill Beckie and make the death appear accidental. He further claimed that the pair had spent roughly a year discussing and practising different ways Beckie could be killed. According to Tarantino, he eventually told Beckie about the alleged plan before disappearing.
Those allegations led to Tom Randolph’s arrest on December 8, 1988. He was charged with first-degree murder in Beckie’s death as well as a second-degree felony related to a false insurance claim.
The story became even more complicated while Tom was awaiting trial. Authorities alleged that he attempted to arrange Eric Tarantino’s killing so the key witness could not testify. The supposed hitman, however, was an undercover police officer. What might sound like an unlikely crime thriller twist was, in fact, another criminal case attached to the already extraordinary investigation.
At Tom’s 1989 murder trial, prosecutors argued that he had deliberately placed himself in a situation that could provide an alibi after Beckie’s death. They also relied heavily on Tarantino’s account of the alleged plot.
But the jury did not convict him. Tom Randolph was acquitted of Beckie Gault’s murder, meaning the prosecution did not prove his guilt beyond the required legal standard. The acquittal did not establish that Beckie had died by suicide; it meant that Tom could not be legally convicted of killing her on the evidence presented at that trial.
Tom was then arrested over the alleged attempt to silence Tarantino. He ultimately pleaded guilty to felony witness tampering and served around 18 months in prison.
There is something particularly unsettling about the Beckie Gault case because the story never delivers the neat resolution true-crime viewers might expect. The initial suicide ruling was followed by allegations of a carefully planned killing, a prosecution, an attempted witness attack and, finally, an acquittal. Yet an acquittal and an explanation for what happened are not necessarily the same thing.
My view is that Beckie’s story is most compelling when it stays focused on that uncomfortable gap between what investigators suspected, what witnesses alleged and what a jury was prepared to accept as proven. The insurance money certainly looks significant in hindsight, while Tarantino’s account was serious enough to send the case into court. But allegations are not convictions, and the legal outcome matters.
At the same time, the fact that Tom was acquitted does not magically turn every unanswered question into an answered one. That is what makes this section of The Widower so frustrating: there are plenty of twists, but no tidy final bow. Beckie’s family was left with a death that began as an apparent suicide and evolved into a murder investigation, while the central accusation never resulted in a murder conviction. True crime rarely needs extra drama when the facts are already this strange.
So, did Tom Randolph kill Beckie Gault? He was accused of doing so, prosecuted for her murder and ultimately acquitted. The available account therefore cannot present his guilt as an established fact. Beckie’s death remains one of the unresolved pieces surrounding Randolph’s story, and her case raises difficult questions about what happened inside their marriage and what investigators were able to prove. After watching The Widower, what do you make of the evidence surrounding Beckie’s death? Share your thoughts on whether the documentary changes how you view the case.