Bianca Rudolph: Leopard hunter who ended up on the wrong side of the gun

 

Bianca and her alleged killer, husband Lawrence Rudolph.

Bianca Rudolph: Death in paradise

·      Leopard hunter who ended up on the wrong side of the gun

 

Today in a court in Colorado, USA, a murder trial begins that will shift focus of the jury to Zambia, and whose outcome might be an indictment on the Zambia Police Service, which first handled the case, JACK ZIMBA reports.

 

ONE corner of the great Kafue National Park is as serene as heaven – a real paradise of unanswered beauty, with eagles gliding effortlessly above, crocodiles basking in the sun and air filled with the laughter of hippos.

The beautiful forest, teeming with game, is only broken by the beautiful Kafue River flowing eastwards in gentle rapids. It is a postcard painted by God Himself.

And this is the paradise that Bianca and her husband, Lawrence Rudolph, a well-respected and wealthy dentist in his home town, Pittsburgh in the USA, came to back in October 2016.

A big game hunter, Bianca had one thing on her mind – to hunt and kill a leopard to add to her trophy wall. But the hunter might have become the hunted.

When the couple arrived in the country that summer, they headed to Kafue National Park for their hunting expedition that was to last 10 days.

The hunting party included Mark Swanepoel, a professional hunter, and a game scout named Spencer Kakoma.

According to Spencer, Bianca killed a hippo on the first day whose meat was used as bait to lure the elusive leopard, but only female leopards are said to have come to the party, and they are never on the trophy list.

To make matters worse, October is part of the calving period when many antelopes drop their young, and so there is plenty of food for the cats.

According to Spencer, Bianca also killed a zebra, puku and a hartebeest. Dr Rudolph, himself, never killed any animal on the trip, according to Spencer.

It was all going well for the hunting party despite their failure to hunt a leopard.

To Spencer, who I met recently, nothing seemed odd or out of place between the white couple during their hunting expedition and stay at a camp on the edge of the Kafue River.

What Spencer saw was a loving couple on adventure.

“They were very friendly to each other. Each time before going on a hunt, they would hug and kiss each other. Even when we finished our hunting, they would hug and kiss each other,” Spenser told me.

It is warmth the 56-year-old Bianca extended to everyone in the hunting party.

“To me, Bianca Rudolph was like my mother because of the way we were relating,” said Spencer.

“She was very kind and would always share food with everyone in the hunting party,” he said.

On the morning of October 11, it was time for the couple to leave. After 10 days, Bianca’s target had proved too elusive to hunt.

She was obviously feeling disappointed that she did not kill a leopard, but would she not be more disappointed to learn that she accidentally shot herself dead that morning, or would she be angry to discover that the gun did not explode by accident, but was aimed and fired at her by her husband of 34 years, Lawrence Rudolph?

Yes, that morning the couple was preparing to leave the paradise, when suddenly a blast from a gun rang out from the cabin on the edge of the river.

Spencer was in the dining – an open shelter just about 15 metres from the cabin where the American couple was lodging.

“I heard someone scream after the gunshot. It was a woman’s voice,” said Spencer.

When he ran and burst into the cabin, he found Bianca lying face up on the floor, warm blood oozing from her listless body. A bullet had ripped through her left chest, stopping her heart almost instantly.

“I touched her; she was not breathing,” recalled Spencer.

According to the scout, at that point, Dr Rudolph was kneeling by his wife’s body crying and threatening to kill himself using the same Browning 12-gauge shotgun that was lying on the floor of the cabin. The gun was still in its green casing, which was half-zipped and had a hole in front where the bullet had torn through.

Dr Rudolph immediately provided Spencer with an alibi.

“He told me he was bathing when he heard the gunshot,” said Spencer.

Although the game scout did notice something odd – Dr Lawrence was dressed up, and even had his shoes on.

According to Spencer, Dr Rudolph appeared distraught.

“I picked the gun and gave it to one of the workers,” he said.

He said Dr Rudolph then went outside and attempted to throw himself into the river, but he was restrained by the workers at the camp.

According to Spencer, Dr Rudolph explained that his wife was trying to force the gun into the gun case when it fired accidentally.

Looking back almost six years, Spencer thinks the explanation did not make a lot of sense.

“Why was she trying to force the gun into its case if it was the right case?” wondered Spencer. “If a pair of trousers is yours, you don’t force it on, you just wear it.”

“I had a lot of questions. How could she kill herself?” said Spencer.

In fact, Spencer argues that the shotgun was emptied after the previous night’s hunting, as is normally the practice.

Masuwa Musese is Kafue National Park investigator who is now a key witness in the trial and travelled to the US yesterday to give his testimony.

Mr Musese said he observed the wound on Bianca’s chest moments after her death, the gun nearby, and wondered how she could have accidently shot herself in the heart while handling the long-barrelled weapon.

He immediately suspected foul play and raised his concerns to the police, who promised to carry out thorough investigations.

But he said that is not what he saw. He thinks the police did not do any investigations.

The theory of accidental shooting would later be disproved by an American ballistic expert who examined Bianca’s wound through photographs taken of her body after the shooting.

He determined that she was not shot at close range, but a few metres away.

Moments after the shooting incident, four police officers from Mumbwa visited the scene and examined the body.

The following day, police issued a statement about an accidental shooting in the Kafue National Park involving an American woman.

In an interview hours after the incident on October 12, then Central Province commissioner of police Lombe Kamukoshi told reporters the shooting was accidental.
“Officers rushed to the scene after a report of unnatural death was made that an American woman accidentally shot herself,” Ms Kamukoshi said.

Part of the police statement read: “Dr Lawrence Rudolph rushed to the bedroom, only to find his wife lying on the floor bleeding… The findings further suggested that the firearm was loaded from the previous hunting activities… causing the firearm to accidentally fire.” 

When the Zambia Daily Mail posted the story on its Facebook page the following day, readers expressed disapproval of the police conclusion.

Michael Sulamoyo Sakala wrote: “FBI will do their own investigations. They just don’t reach conclusions without forensic investigations.”

When I contacted Ms Kamukoshi recently about the shooting, she said she needed clearance from the inspector general of police to speak. She is now retired and no longer in service.

But the question is: Why did the Zambia Police lose interest so quickly, jumping to the conclusion that it was an accident and closing the case?

Police only relied on statements given by witnesses at the police station, and Dr Rudolph’s statement.

A red flag was only raised by a US embassy official with military background after Dr Rudolph appeared to be in a hurry to have his wife’s body cremated. He took photographs of the body before it could be cremated and alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).

Spencer, himself, never heard again from the local police until 2019 when he was contacted by the FBI.

Meanwhile, a friend of Bianca’s told FBI that the couple clashed over money. She also said Lawrence was having an affair and had been verbally hostile to Bianca.

Dr Rudolph is said to have claimed nearly US$5 million in insurance and moved in with his long-time mistress, Lori Milliron, just weeks after Bianca’s death.

But in January 2022, after making several trips to the Kafue National Park to gather evidence, the FBI arrested Dr Rudolph and charged him with one count of assassinating a US citizen in a foreign nation and one count of mail fraud.

He pleaded not guilty. His lawyers argued that local police and insurance companies already agreed it was an accident.

If convicted on the murder charge, Dr Rudolph faces a maximum penalty of life in prison or the death penalty.

When I visited the camp recently, I found workers busy adding a new cottage at the camp, preparing for another hunting season. Bianca Rudolph will never return to this wild paradise. She will never have another chance to fulfil her great wish – to kill an African leopard.

Ends