According to the FBI, Pennsylvania Dentist Lawrence Rudolph allegedly killed his wife Bianca Rudolph on an African safari before raking in more than $4.8 million in life insurance policies. The report says that Lawrence shot Bianca during an Africa hunting trip so he could cash out nearly $5 million in life insurance and start a new life with his mistress.
Lawrence Rudolph, 67, was charged last month with mail fraud in connection to the alleged slaying of wife Bianca Rudolph on Oct. 11, 2016 during their safari in Zambia, according to a federal criminal complaint. Bianca Rudolph died from a single shotgun blast to her heart while the couple was staying on hunting grounds at the Kafue National Park, authorities said.
“Lawrence Rudolph murdered his wife,” FBI Special Agent Donald Peterson wrote in an affidavit, “as part of a scheme to defraud life insurance companies and to obtain money and property from them through the false and fraudulent pretense, representation and promise that the death was an accident.”
A friend of the wife called the FBI on Oct. 27, 2016, and told agents the death was suspicious because Lawrence had allegedly been in a long-time extramarital affair with the manager of his practice, Three Rivers Dental in Pittsburgh, the complaint said. The suspect and girlfriend had gone on vacations to Cabo San Lucas in 2010, twice in 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 and July 2016 and “Bianca did not travel on any of those trips,” according to business and travel records obtained by the FBI.
“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 friend told agents, according to the complaint. Both Lawrence and Bianca Rudolph were expert hunters and “Bianca Rudolph’s goal during this trip was to kill a leopard,” Peterson wrote of that final 2016 safari. And while she didn’t kill a leopard, she “did kill numerous other animals during this trip,” the federal agent added.
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