Dentist sentenced to life for wife’s murder in $4.8m life insurance fraud scheme

Desk report: A Pennsylvania dentist has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murdering his wife during a 2016 African hunting trip in a scheme to collect millions of dollars in life insurance payouts.

Lawrence ‘Larry’ Rudolph, the owner of a dental franchise near Pittsburgh, was convicted by a federal jury in Denver in August 2022 of foreign murder of a US national and mail fraud. Prosecutors said Rudolph fatally shot his wife, Bianca Rudolph, with a shotgun on October 11, 2016, at a hunting cabin in Zambia’s Kafue National Park.

The couple had been on a two-week safari and was preparing to return home when the shooting occurred. Rudolph told authorities that his wife accidentally discharged the shotgun while packing it into its case. Zambian authorities initially ruled the death an accident after a brief investigation.

However, US prosecutors later alleged the shooting was deliberate and part of a plan to obtain life insurance proceeds. Evidence presented in court showed Rudolph had taken out several life insurance policies on his wife totaling approximately $5 million. After her death, he collected approximately $4.8 million from several insurance companies by claiming the incident was accidental.

Investigators said Rudolph had maintained a long-term affair with his dental hygienist, Lori Milliron and sought to avoid the financial consequences of a divorce. Prosecutors argued the murder allowed him to collect insurance proceeds and pursue a new relationship.

The FBI reopened the case years after Bianca Rudolph’s death, leading to Rudolph’s arrest in December 2021. Following his conviction, a federal judge in August 2023 imposed a mandatory life sentence for murder, along with a concurrent 20-year sentence for mail fraud. He was also ordered to pay more than $15 million in restitution and penalties, including repayment to insurers.

Milliron was convicted as an accessory after the fact and received a 17-year federal prison sentence.

Rudolph has maintained his innocence and appealed the convictions, but federal appellate courts have upheld the verdicts. He is currently serving his sentence in federal prison.