Wealthy dentist denies killing wife on African safari trip

DENVER (AP) — A wealthy dentist accused of shooting and killing his wife in their cabin at the end of an African safari trip testified Wednesday that an unfamiliar shotgun they brought with them to hunt a leopard accidentally went off, wounding her as she hurried to pack early in the morning.

“I did not kill my wife. I could not murder my wife. I would not murder my wife,” Lawrence “Larry” Rudolph told jurors Wednesday.

His voice cracked at times as he testified for over two hours about his open marriage to Bianca Rudolph and her death in October 2016 in Zambia. He said he was in the bathroom when he heard the shot and came out and found his wife on the floor, bleeding.

Rudolph, 67, is charged with murder and mail fraud in what prosecutors describe as a premeditated crime. He faces a maximum term of life in prison or the death penalty if convicted of murder in the trial, which is being held in federal court in Denver because the insurance companies that paid him nearly $5 million for his wife's death were based in Colorado.

Prosecutors allege Rudolph killed his wife of 34 years to be with his girlfriend, Lori Milliron, who is charged with lying to a grand jury and being an accessory after the fact. She is being tried alongside Rudolph. In opening statements, the prosecution told jurors that Rudolph was overheard blurting out “I killed my f---g wife for you!" during an argument with Milliron at a Phoenix steakhouse in 2020 after he learned that the FBI was investigating his wife's death.

Rudolph denied confessing to his wife's killing. He said he and Milliron were having an argument about their finances and how the COVID-19 pandemic, then at its start, would affect the Pennsylvania dental franchise that had made him a small fortune. But he was irritated because he...