Friday, February 12, 2010

Richmond, VA: Richmond man gets life in murder of fiancée

By REED WILLIAMS
Published: February 12, 2010

Nathan Randolph murdered the person who loved him most -- and then taunted everyone by refusing to say why he did it, prosecutors said yesterday at his sentencing hearing.
The victim's adult daughter stared at Randolph from the witness stand in Richmond Circuit Court and said she wanted to know why he killed Alnita Coleman Randolph, his ex-wife and fiancée. He sat with his eyes lowered.
And when Circuit Judge Margaret P. Spencer asked Randolph whether he wished to speak before she sentenced him, he shook his head no. Spencer asked him to stand, and he did so slowly, saying, "I don't want to say anything."
Spencer ordered Randolph, 55, to serve the rest of his life in prison, imposing the jury's recommended sentence. The jury had found Randolph guilty of first-degree murder in December.
Alnita Randolph's body was found April 22 in a bed in Randolph's bedroom in the 1600 block of Monteiro Avenue in North Richmond. Prosecutors have said Randolph tried to smother her, choked her by hand and might have strangled her with a necktie.
After that, he took a red marker and scrawled "I loved her [too] much" on his bedroom wall, prosecutors said.
Authorities said that Randolph, after killing her, tried to commit "suicide by cop" when he ran toward an officer with a foot-long knife during a traffic stop in Richmond. Police shot him multiple times, but he survived. He later quipped that the officers' marksmanship had been poor.
Randolph confessed to investigators that he killed Alnita Randolph but refused to tell them why. He also declined to answer that question when interviewed by a probation and parole officer.
"Actually, they don't know what happened, they're just guessing," he told the probation and parole officer, according to a pre-sentence report. "I'm the only one who knows."
Richmond prosecutor Julie McConnell yesterday emphasized Randolph's violent past, recounting details of a crime rampage he committed on three days in 1978.
McConnell said Randolph robbed two people; shot a man in a separate attempted robbery, leaving him paralyzed; and stabbed to death another man. Randolph was sentenced to 57 years in 1978 and released from prison on April 23, 2008.
He and Alnita married while he was in prison in 1998 and divorced in 2001, while he was still incarcerated. They were planning to remarry when she was killed.
"He killed this person who gave him a chance," McConnell said.
Alnita Randolph's daughter, Tertia Coleman, 27, said her mother had 13 grandchildren. "My mom was a wonderful woman, and she took very good care of all her grandchildren," she said.
Apart from Randolph's attorneys, no one came to support him at his trial. And yesterday, no one was there for him, either.

Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com .

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