Randy Roth

Randy Roth
Born	26 December, 1954 Bismarck, North Dakota
Conviction(s)	1975: second degree burglary, 1992:Theft, insurance fraud, first degree murder
Penalty	1975: fourteen years in prison with thirteen years, eleven months, fourteen days suspended, 1992: fifty one years in prison
Status	incarcerated at Monroe Correctional Complex
Occupation	auto mechanic
Spouse	Cyntia Roth, Janis Roth
Parents	Gordon and Lizabeth Roth
Children	Gregory Roth

Randy Roth is a convicted murderer and thief from Washington. He was convicted of the 1991 murder of his fourth wife, Cynthia Baumgartner Roth. He was suspected but never tried for murdering his second wife, Janis Roth, in 1981. In both deaths he was the only witness, he claimed the activity that led to the death was the idea of his deceased wife, and the bodies were cremated as quickly as could be arranged. He was also convicted of stealing in the form of defrauding insurers and the Social Security Administration and was sentenced to one year for theft and fifty years for first degree murder in 1992.^[1] At least two true crime books are based on Roth's crimes, A Rose for Her Grave by Ann Rule and Fatal Charm by Carlton Smith.^[2]

Early life and family

Gordon and Lizabeth Roth moved with their children to the Seattle area from North Dakota in the late 1950s. Randy and his brother David, also a convicted murderer, later gave conflicting reports on the nature of their upbringing. David claimed their father was abusive and their mother supportive. Randy apparently bonded with his father more closely and remained in touch with him throughout his life while snubbing his mother, telling friends she was dead or mentally unstable. After his parents divorced in 1971 Randy Roth worked various jobs to help pay the bills. He was known to drive fast and be quick to fight, apparently attempting to emulate his hero Billy Jack. He attended Meadowdale High School and joined the Marines in 1973. Shortly before his deployment he robbed a service station where he had previously been employed, but he was not charged with the crime at that time. Roth was mustered out of the Marines after only eleven months and soon became engaged. His fiancé suspected him of cheating and broke off the engagement. A few months later the fiancé's family's home was robbed, and she told police she suspected Randy Roth of the crime, as well as the earlier robbery. Items stolen from the home were recovered at Roth's residence and he pled guilty to burglary. Charges related to the previous stick-up were dropped, and Roth served only two weeks in jail. Shortly after being released Roth married the girl he had been cheating on his fiancé with. He later abruptly divorced her with no explanation and got custody of their son Greg. ^[1]

Janis Roth

Beacon Rock, where Janis Roth fell to her death

Janis Miranda married Roth in March 1981. Both were divorced and raising a child. While they were courting Janis and Randy seemed to be a very happy couple that was very much in love. However, soon after their marriage things seemed to cool off between them. Janis' friends noticed she did not seem as happy as she had previously, despite having had a tough life in the past. Randy insisted on ample life insurance for his new wife as they were buying a house together and he told her he wanted to be able to pay the mortgage if the worst should come to pass.^[1]

On the day after Thanksgiving 1981, the worst did happen. Janis fell to her death from Beacon Rock. There were no witnesses to the fall besides Roth and the stories he told to others about the incident were contradictory. Police and rescue workers were unable to locate the body for several hours after the fall, and it was later determined that it would have been virtually impossible for her to have fallen from where Roth claimed the accident occurred. Although some suspicion was raised at the time that Roth had pushed his wife, there did not seem to be sufficient evidence to proceed with an arrest and trial.^[1][3]Roth arranged the same day to have his wife cremated and filed a claim on her life insurance policy early the next morning, while failing to contact her friends and family and inform them of her death.

Cynthia Roth

Roth had remarried and divorced again by the time he met Cynthia Baumgartner in 1990. Baumgartner was also a single parent, having lost her husband to Hodgkin's Disease in 1985. Roth only told her about his own deceased spouse as Baumgartner was deeply religious and did not believe in divorce. He never told her he had been divorced twice. Like all except his first marriage, the relationship cooled quickly after the marriage. Cynthia gradually became aware that Roth felt a need to control every aspect of her life, and did not want her doing anything on her own.^[1] Friends noticed her appearance and her housekeeping, which had always been beyond reproach in the past, were given less and less attention, and that Cynthia seemed to regret her marriage to Roth. Roth was also physically and mentally abusive to all three boys.^[4]

On July 23, 1991, just a few weeks short of their first wedding anniversary, the couple took Cynthia's two sons on a day trip to Lake Sammamish, the same lake where Ted Bundy had abducted two young women years earlier. As on the day of the Bundy abductions, it was hot when the Roths arrived and the beach was crowded. Randy and Cynthia left the boys to play in the designated swimming area while they paddled their 11 feet (3.4 m) inflatable raft into deeper waters. Several hours later Randy Roth returned with Cynthia dead or nearly dead from drowning. She was treated at the scene and transported to hospital where she was pronounced dead. Roth claimed that the wake from a speedboat had caused the raft to flip while Cynthia was swimming next to it and she had drowned as a result.^[1]

Roth's apparent lack of emotion and contradicting versions of how events had unfolded immediately led investigators to consider him a suspect, but there was no solid evidence that she had been forcibly drowned. Once again Roth failed to inform family and friends of the death, but immediately went about trying to collect on a large life insurance policy, nearly $400,000, that he had taken out on his wife. Again he arranged for a cremation as soon as the body was released despite strong objections from Cynthia's parents. Several months after the drowning Roth apparently believed he was once again not going to be charged, and was therefore quite surprised when he was arrested for murder on October 8, 1991.^[1]

Investigation

Investigators for both the prosecution and the defense repeatedly visited Lake Sammamish and recorded multiple attempts to recreate the conditions described by Roth's account of the drowning. Both sides used their own videotaped recreations during the trial.

Detectives and prosecutors assigned to the case knew from the beginning it would be difficult to secure a conviction. There was no physical evidence that Roth had forcibly drowned his wife and no eyewitnesses who actually saw him do so. They proceeded methodically, interviewing the families of his previous wives along with former friends and neighbors. They began to uncover evidence that Roth's motive was financial, and that he had repeatedly attempted to defraud insurance companies and had stolen from his employers and nearly every job he had ever held. Lori Baker, a long time friend of Cynthia's, discovered that her will and other possessions were missing from her safe deposit box, and that Randy Roth was the last person to have accessed the box, two days after Cynthia's death.^[3] A second copy of the will was discovered in the county recording office. Roth became extremely agitated when he discovered that Cynthia's will specified Baker and not Roth to be the guardian of her children if she were to die. This meant he would receive no survivor's benefits from Social Security on their behalf. When Baker came to collect the children's belongings Roth told her she had "ruined his scenario" and he would not have enough money to keep his house payments up.^[1]

Neighbors and an old friend of Roth told investigators that Roth had faked burglaries in the past in order to collect on homeowner's insurance. The daughter of a former close friend confided to police that Roth had engaged in a physical relationship with her when she was fifteen years old. Many of these individuals stated they had not come forward sooner because they were afraid of Roth.^[1]

Roth had claimed that he had served in the Marines in a special forces unit in the Vietnam War, and had been trained in various ways of killing with his bare hands without leaving a mark. In truth Roth had served in the Marine Corps, but as a file clerk in Okinawa. He had never set foot in Vietnam, and had been let out of the service early at the behest of his mother.^[1] In fact the Marine Corps did not have special forces units until 2006 when the United States Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command was activated.

Investigators also revisited the death of Janis Roth ten years earlier and met with the detectives on that case, who had basically found themselves in the same situation. Roth's story had not quite made sense, he had not seemed like he was particularly upset that his wife was dead, but there was no direct evidence of foul play ^[3]and the body had been speedily cremated.

Given the apparent pattern and the volume of witnesses to other criminal behaviors they were able to convince a judge to issue warrants for the arrest of Roth and a search of his home in Woodinville. While conducting the search King County detectives uncovered numerous pieces of evidence of several crimes and other dishonest acts. There were large amounts of equipment and materials belonging to the automotive dealership where Roth was employed. There were receipts proving that Roth's evidence of his alleged heroism in Vietnam had actually been purchased from military supply stores. A wetsuit was found in a closet, an odd item for someone claiming to be a weak swimmer to posses. A poem written by Cynthia Roth was found in the garage. It began with the words "Randy does not 'love' Cindy, Randy hates Cindy" and went on to detail forty-four complaints and criticisms Roth had directed at her regarding her appearance, appetite and sense of style.^[5] Investigators also discovered that Roth had telephoned a friend just after being arrested and the friend had already removed further evidence at his behest.

Several re-enactments undertaken at Lake Sammamish determined that it was virtually impossible to generate sufficient wake to flip the raft used by the Roths with type of powerboat used on the day of the drowning. They also found that the items Roth claimed to have recovered from the lake after the drowning but before heading to shore would have sunk rapidly if they had actually fallen from the boat.^[3] They discovered that Roth's brother David was already in prison for murdering a female hitchhiker who had refused to have sex with him, and they found out about Roth's previous conviction for robbery in 1973. They discovered that he had tried to claim survivors' benefits for Janis' daughter although she was not living with him and that he had tried to "double dip", to claim benefits for his own son after Cynthia's death, even though he was already receiving them on behalf of Janis. He had lied to the interviewer at the Social Security office about Cynthia, claiming she had divorced her first husband. All of these inconsistencies and dishonest acts would be of use to prosecutors at the trial.^[1][6]

Trial

Roth's defense team attempted to have the entire case thrown out of court^[7] and when that failed, they attempted to suppress evidence and testimony regarding the faked burglaries. This maneuver also failed. Jury selection began in February 1992 and the trial began the following month.

From the beginning, the court room was packed with family and friends of the victim, as well as the press. Roth was visibly thinner and meeker looking than before and he appeared detached and lacking in emotion throughout the proceedings. He almost never looked directly at the jury or at relatives and old friends who testified against him. His defense team presented him as a man being persecuted because of bad luck, having lost two wives in tragic accidents. The prosecution portrayed him as emotionless, a greedy individual, who cared more about cars and money than his wife and children.^[8]

Over one hundred witnesses testified. A scuba instructor testified that he had trained Roth and that he was a skilled swimmer, explaining the wetsuit found in the search and directly contradicting Roth's claim that he was simply too weak a swimmer to have been of any help to Cynthia. Eye witnesses from Lake Sammamish described Roth slowly paddling the raft back to the beach, not appearing panicked and not signaling for help until he had beached the raft, despite the fact that lifeguards were warning him not to bring the raft into the designated swimming area.^[3] There was also testimony that despite alleging Cynthia's death was entirely caused by the raft flipping over, Roth had still had several bags of possessions on board when he returned to the beach and he was still wearing his prescription sunglasses, despite claiming to have been in the water himself at the moment the raft flipped.^[1]Jalina Miranda, daughter of Janis Roth, described how her mother had shown her a hidden envelope with money in it only a few days before her fatal fall from Beacon Rock. She told her daughter that the money was for her and that she was to take it if anything happened to her. More than a week after the accident Roth finally told Jalina that her mother was dead she retrieved the envelope from its hiding place, but Roth saw her with it and took it from her, promising he would spend the money on toys and presents for the girl. They never spoke again after that day and Roth never delivered on his promises.^[9] Possibly the most damning piece of evidence was the "Randy doesn't love Cindy" poem that had been found during the initial search.^[3]

Roth eventually took the stand and gave more than twenty hours of testimony over the course of a week. When prosecutors challenged him on the inconsistencies in his account, he would claim others had misunderstood him or that he couldn't recall whatever incident was in question. He was forced to admit his various lies about having served in Vietnam, about being a martial arts instructor and owning a cattle ranch, however, he insisted that anyone claiming his story about the drowning was false or inconsistent was mis-remembering what had happened that day.^[1] His demeanor on the stand was described as clinical and detached, showing apparent lack of emotion.^[10]

After closing arguments, the jury deliberated for eight and a half hours before returning a verdict: guilty of one count of murder in the first degree, one count of theft in the first degree, and one count of theft in the second degree.

Aftermath

The financially strapped Skamania County, where Janis Roth had died, had stated they would not pursue a conviction for that death if Roth was sentenced to more than fifty years. He was sentenced to fifty years for the murder and one year for the theft charges and was therefore never charged with the death of Janis Roth. He will be eligible for parole in 2029.^[1] A 1994 appeal of the conviction failed.^[11] After the trial, Roth agreed to a plea bargain on additional theft charges stemming from the stolen materials and equipment discovered during the initial search of his home.^[12] Lori Baker, the friend named guardian of Cynthia Roth's sons, filed a lawsuit to bar Roth or his family from benefiting financially from either insurance payments or the sale of the couple's former home.^[13] Randy Roth is prisoner #245201 at the Monroe Correctional Complex. ^[14]

Books

A Rose for Her Grave by Seattle based true crime writer Ann Rule profiles several murders of women but devotes 341 pages solely to the Roth case. Rule attended the trial in the press section. The book makes an analogy between Roth and the story of Bluebeard, known for murdering his wives after initially showing them great affection. Much time is spent describing the character and personal history of the various women who married or dated Roth in chronological order. Fatal Charm by Carlton Smith starts off with the drowning of Cynthia Roth and the subsequent trial, and delved much deeper into Roth's early life and upbringing and the pre-trial motions that in retrospect were largely responsible for prosecutors obtaining a conviction.^[2]

External links

• Profile of Roth by Radford University Department of Psychology (PDF)

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n} Ann Rule, A Rose for Her Grave and Other True Cases. ISBN 0-671-79353-5
2. ^ ^{a b} Richard Seven, "Two New Books Profile Randy Roth" The Seattle Times (August 2, 1993)
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Richard Seven, "The Undoing Of Randy Roth – How Detectives Built Their Case Against Killer" The Seattle Times (April 25, 1992)
4. ^ Jolayne Houtz, "Cynthia Roth's Young Sons Adjusting, But Still Grieving" The Seattle Times (July 23, 1992)
5. ^ Richard Seven, "Cynthia Roth Spilled Marriage Frustration In Note – Entries Include 44 Things Husband `Hated' About Her" The Seattle Times (April 18, 1992)
6. ^ Richard Seven, "Roth's Credibility Under Attack – Cross-Examination Begins In Murder Trial" The Seattle Times (April 14, 1992)
7. ^ Stephen Clutter, "Appeal Of Pretrial Ruling Could Delay Start Of Randy Roth Murder Trial" The Seattle Times (February 13, 1992)
8. ^ Richard Seven, "Randy Roth: Killer Or Martyr?" The Seattle Times (April 22, 1992)
9. ^ Stephen Clutter, Stepdaughter: Roth Took Dead Wife's Hidden Cash The Seattle Times, 3-13-1992
10. ^ Richard Seven, "Roth On Witness Stand Is Detached, Clinical" The Seattle Times (April 10, 1992)
11. ^ "Randy Roth Loses Initial Appeal" The Seattle Times (September 27, 1994)]
12. ^ "Roth To Settle Plea On Latest Charge Of Theft" The Seattle Times (June 6, 1992)
13. ^ "Suit Seeks To Keep Randy Roth's Family From Insurance Claim" The Seattle Times (April 29, 1992)
14. ^ Find an Offender search Washington State Department of Corrections

Persondata
Name	Roth, Randy
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Date of birth
Place of birth	Bismarck, North Dakota
Date of death
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