Death on Safari - Encore
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(upbeat music) - This story begins with an American couple, Dr. Larry Rudolph and his wife Bianca. Larry Rudolph is a well-known dentist in the Pittsburgh area. Larry and Bianca got married after he graduated from dental school, and they were both avid hunters. They traveled several times a year internationally. - Lauren's and Bianca Rudolph traveled from the US here to Zambia in 2016 heading to a safari hunting trip. No one would have imagined Bianca would never make it home and that their journey would end years later with allegations of cover-ups, infidelity, fraud, and murder. - On the morning of October 11th, 2016, Lawrence Rudolph and his wife Bianca were preparing to return to the United States, and just after five o'clock in the morning, Lawrence was in the bathroom when he heard a shotgun and his wife scream came out to find her on the floor, as he says, with a shotgun blast. That killed her almost instantly. - Larry Rudolph told police that his wife Bianca was packing up and she was trying to put the shotgun into the soft shell case. That's when he said he heard that gunshot. The Zambian officials did rule that it was an accident. They said that it appeared that it was an accidental discharge from the weapon. - Once the hunting trip was ended, the weapon should have been rendered safe. It boggles the mind that two experienced hunters for this to have been an accident. - People trusted him. - I'm Dr. Larry Rudolph. - And they knew of him, they knew his face, they knew his commercials. - We'll help you overcome your fears. - Well, if he was in the office, they all felt like they were meeting his celebrity. You know, the man on TV, the dentist on TV. - No sights, no sounds, and no fears. - We had people come to the office and asked about Bianca and asked if she really did pass away, you know, what happened, and we had to say we didn't know. There was a friend of Bianca who called the FBI and said that she was suspicious that her friend's accidental death was not really accidental. - Lawrence Rudolph made sure Bianca's body was cremated within three days.
Transcription truncated.
An American woman dies by gunshot on a safari trip. Was it murder or an accident? "48 Hours" contributor Debora Patta reports.