US Army Veteran Richard Randolph EXECUTED | Crime, Last Meal + Final Words | Death Row US

After spending more than 36 years on death row, Richard Barry Randolph was executed by lethal injection in Florida. In this video, we’ll uncover what happened, his last meal, and his last words. It was just after sunrise on August 15th, 1988. A quiet Monday morning in Palatka, when the first customers pulled into the Handyway store parking lot.

 The clock had barely struck 7, but something felt off. They expected to see Mini Ruth McCollum, the manager, behind the counter, like always, greeting them with her usual nod. But instead, they saw something that didn’t make sense. The doors were still locked, even though the lights inside were on.

 Then, a familiar face appeared. Richard Randolph. He was wearing a handyway smok and casually stepped out of the store and started locking the doors from the inside. Dorothy and Deborah Patilla, both regulars at the store, called out to him. “Where’s Minnie?” they asked. Richard smiled, calm as ever, and told them her car had broken down, that she had borrowed his to get it fixed, and he was just heading out to pick her up.

Then he slid into Minnie’s own car and drove away. The women waited a moment, but then they started to feel uneasy. His story didn’t make sense at all. So, they tried to open the locked door, pulled on the handle, then pressed their faces to the glass, and what they saw made their stomachs turn.

 The ceiling camera wasn’t where it should be, only the wire where it once was. And in the trash can, the rest of the wire stuck out. The counter looked like it had been ransacked, and the door leading to the back room, normally wide open, was almost shut now. That was enough. Something had clearly gone wrong, and they called the sheriff.

When deputies got there, they had to force the door open, and what they found inside was worse than anyone expected. Behind that half-cloed door lay flat on her back, barely clinging to life. Blood soaked through the floor beneath her. A knife lay near her head. She was still breathing, but just barely, and she couldn’t speak. Her body looked broken.

Paramedics worked quickly, trying to keep her alive long enough to reach the hospital. And while they fought to save her, Richard was already miles away. After leaving the Handyway, he had taken Minnie’s car and driven straight to his girlfriend’s house, a modest place where Norma Janine Betts lived with their young daughter.

 Richard walked in and told her he had robbed the store. Then, like he was just venting about a rough shift, he added that he had hurt many, barely flinching as the words left his mouth. And instead of making it right, he said he was off to Jacksonville to cash in some lottery tickets he had taken. He promised he would come back soon, and when he did, they would leave everything behind and start fresh in North Carolina.

 Richard didn’t know it yet, but the police were already closing in. Because by then, investigators had connected the dots. Richard had once worked at that same Handyway store. He knew the layout, the morning routines, the location of the safe, and which customers usually  stopped by. His familiarity with the store gave him an edge, but it also gave detectives a starting point.

The very next day, the police tracked him down to Jacksonville. They found him sitting outside a Savalot waiting for money that would never come. When the officers approached him, he didn’t run. And once they read him his rights, he started talking. Richard said the plan he had was simple.

 He had brought a toy gun, slipped into the store, and hoped to get in and out without anyone noticing. But it didn’t go that way. Minnie caught him in the act, and Richard panicked. “She was tougher than I thought,” he admitted. He said he struck her over and over until she stopped moving. Then he turned his focus to the safe.

 He tried to open it but couldn’t. And when he saw Minnie move just slightly, he used the drawstring from his sweatshirt to strangle her. Afterward, he found a scrap of paper with what looked like the safe combination, but even then it wouldn’t open. So he grabbed what he could, a bundle of lottery tickets and her car keys, and headed for the door.

 Richard thought it was over, but then he heard her again. Minnie gasping, panicking, trying to move, and something in him snapped all over again.  He came back and beat her until she went still, but her body kept fighting. So he pulled out a small knife and slashed at her over and over until the floor was soaked with blood.

 And when that still didn’t stop her movements, he tightened the drawstring, desperate to finish what he started. At this point, he realized he needed a cover story, something wild enough to throw off the police. So, he tore at her clothes, her then changed into a handyway uniform to hide what he had really been wearing. He yanked the store’s security camera out of the ceiling, and tossed it into the trash, as if this would erase what he had done.

Then, he locked the door behind him, climbed into Minnie’s car, and drove away. On the road to Jacksonville, Richard stopped at several convenience stores to cash stolen lottery tickets while throwing away the losers as he went. At a McDonald’s, he dumped his bloodstained shoes and clothes into a trash bin.

 Then just kept driving like none of it mattered. But when detectives tracked him down and brought him back to Putnham County, they retraced every step, recovering the tickets, the clothes, and all the evidence they needed. Richard’s trial started in April 1989. Prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder, armed robbery, sexual battery, and grand theft of a motor vehicle.

 And prosecutors didn’t need to exaggerate. The evidence was impossible to ignore. They had Richard’s own confession, the stolen car, the clothes he ditched, and the blood that linked it all together. But the real weight came during the sentencing phase because that’s when the state turned to the jury and walked them through everything Minnie had endured.

They reminded the jury that Richard didn’t just attack her, he left her clinging to life. She spent 6 days in a hospital bed before her body finally gave out. The medical examiner described her injuries in detail. Her skull and face had been crushed, her neck cut, and her jaw shattered.

 A trauma surgeon said it looked like she had been struck repeatedly. And a neurologist testified that in 20 years, he had never seen swelling that severe, only in high-speed car crashes. Still, the defense tried to shift the focus. A psychologist took the stand and tried to explain where Richard came from.

 He had been adopted as a baby, struggled to fit in at school, and was sent to therapy before he was even 10 years old. His adoptive mother dealt with severe mental illness, and his father used beatings as punishment, tying him up and striking him with whatever he could find. By the time Richard reached adulthood, those early wounds had turned him into something much more dangerous.

 But even with his fractured upbringing and emotional instability, Richard still held things together, at least on the surface. He graduated high school, joined the army, and even earned an honorable discharge. But the discipline of military life didn’t fix what was unraveling inside. While enlisted, he began experimenting with drugs.

 First with marijuana, then came cocaine. By 1984, he was deep into crack, a habit that would hollow out the person he used to be. The psychologist who evaluated him later said, “Crack doesn’t always show its damage on the outside. It creeps in quietly, changing behavior, twisting judgment, and chipping away at self-control.

” In Richard’s case, he believed the addiction had reshaped his thinking entirely. According to the psychologist, that morning at the Handyway, it wasn’t hate that pulled the trigger, it was desperation. The experts said Richard showed real shame and regret afterward, that he wasn’t a man full of hate, but one who lost control.

 Richard had gone there to steal, not to kill. But when the situation spun out of control, his panic and addiction took over. His now ex-girlfriend, Norma, told the court she remembered a different version of Richard. The man she met back in North Carolina worked steady jobs and made her laugh. But that changed after they moved to Palatka.

 Richard started hanging out with the wrong people and the drugs, especially crack, took over. The man she loved seemed to disappear. When he came home that morning and told her what he had done, she didn’t believe him. He didn’t even look high, she said. But she didn’t know what he might have used the night before. Still, the jury couldn’t look past the violence.

 Whatever he used to be, whatever excuses were given, none of it outweighed the bloodshed of that morning. All 12 jurors found him guilty on all counts. And when it came time for sentencing, eight chose death, while four voted to spare him, but eventually the judge sided with the majority. On April 5th, 1989, Richard Barry Randolph was sentenced to die.

 Years after his conviction, Richard came across something that made him see his entire life in a new light. A change in New York law gave him the right to access his original birth certificate, something he had never laid eyes on. Until then, he had believed the story told to him as a child, that his birthother had been a college student who wasn’t ready to raise a child.

 But that wasn’t true. She had actually been a 17-year-old high school girl. and both his biological parents hadn’t just moved on. They had graduated from college, built careers, and led quiet, stable, and healthy lives. There was no sign of mental illness, no history of addiction, and no trace of the chaos that had haunted Richard from the start.

His lawyers argued that this new information wasn’t just a personal revelation. It proved that Richard’s violent behavior hadn’t been inherited, but shaped by the cruelty of his upbringing. The years of beatings, neglect, and instability under his adoptive parents had twisted him long before the drugs ever did.

 They claimed this discovery, backed by an expert testimony on adoption trauma, could have convinced a jury to spare his life. But the truth came too late, long after the verdict was sealed and the sentence signed. The circuit court didn’t buy it. Without even granting a hearing, the judge dismissed Richard’s motion.

 In the ruling, the court said that even if the new information about his biological parents was true, it didn’t meet the legal threshold. The evidence wasn’t relevant. It didn’t explain his actions and it didn’t change how the crime unfolded. So, Richard stayed on death row. And after 36 years, a date was finally set. November 20th, 2025.

That morning, Richard woke up at 6:30 a.m. Later that day, he was given his final meal, which included a cheeseburger, fries, and ice cream. Richard had one visitor, but did not meet with a spiritual adviser. Just before 6:00 p.m., he was strapped to the gurnie. Three of the victim’s family members sat in the witness room, silent and waiting for something that had been hanging over their heads for the past 36 years.

 A prison guard leaned in and asked if he had any last words, but Richard simply said, “No.” No apology, no explanation, nothing at all. Moments later, the drugs began to flow. The process moved forward without complications. After a few minutes, the prison staff performed the usual checks,  and at 6:12 p.m., Richard was officially pronounced dead.

 Richard Barry Randolph was 63 years old. What do you think? Has justice been served?