Woman Gets 17 Years In Prison For Helping Dentist Boyfriend Murder His Wife On Safari

 A woman who provided aid to her boyfriend after he killed his wife on an African safari has been sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Lori Milliron, 65, was convicted last year on three counts of perjury, being an accessory to murder after the fact, and obstructing a grand jury, the Associated Press reported. On Friday, she received the sentence after relatives of Bianca Rudolph – the dentist’s wife – spoke about their pain.

“Lori, you have taken my parents,” said Ana Rudolph, Bianca’s daughter. “[But] despite everything you have done you will never take my soul. This might be difficult to understand … because you don’t have one.”

Milliron was charged along with Larry Rudolph, who was convicted last year of fatally shooting Bianca while the two were on a 2016 hunting trip in Zambia. Rudolph was set to be sentenced last week, but it has been postponed, the AP reported.

John Dill, Milliron’s attorney, called the sentence “excessive” and told the outlet he planned to appeal, adding that such a sentence is longer than what is usually received for the charges of which his client was convicted.

Milliron told the court that she was innocent but sympathized with the Rudolph Family. Judge William J. Martinez, however, argued that Milliron deserved the 17-year sentence because evidence suggested she was “encouraging” Rudolph to commit the crime. The judge also said she appeared “unrepentant” because she didn’t respond with any empathy when shown graphic images or heard heart-wrenching testimony during her trial.

Larry Rudolph, who lived in Denver, Colorado, but controlled a multimillion-dollar chain of dental offices in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was an avid big-game hunter. So was his wife, Bianca, with Rudolph claiming that the couple mutually agreed to transition to an “open marriage.”

Bianca died of gunshot wounds during the Zambia trip, and Rudolph claimed that she accidentally shot herself with her hunting rifle while she was loading it into a case, CBS News reported. He claimed to have found her lying on the floor on her back with a gunshot wound to her heart.

 

But Spencer Kakoma, a game scout also on the safari, said he saw Bianca removing live ammunition from the gun the night before she died. He also noted that Rudolph initially claimed Bianca had committed suicide and that she had shot herself in the bathroom. He later changed his story, Kakoma said.

A friend of Bianca’s also questioned why she was cremated since Bianca was a strict Catholic. This friend also told the FBI that Rudolph had been having an affair with one of his employees and “had been verbally abusive in the past and that the two had fights about money,” the FBI complaint, reviewed by CBS, said.

Ultimately, Rudolph was charged and convicted of his wife’s murder.