Cynthia Roth was murdered by her husband Randy in the episodes of Lifetime’s “A Rose for Her Grave” and Investigation Discovery’s “Diabolical: Murder is No Accident
The young mother’s death raised many suspicions, and Randy’s subsequent actions prompted the authorities to investigate him further.
In order to secure a conviction, the prosecutors ultimately outlined Randy’s motivation for the murder and highlighted the parallels between the killing of one of his ex-wives. Thus, if you’re curious in what occurred in this situation, we can fill you in.
In November 1956, Cynthia Loucks Baumgartner was born in North Dakota. Being raised in a devout household, Cynthia married her first husband, Tom, and the two went on to have two kids, Tyson and Rylie. Cancer took Tom’s life in 1984.
In Everett, Washington, she eventually ran into Randolph “Randy” Roth at a baseball club her sons played in. There was a concession booth run by Cynthia. They dated for a few months before being married in August 1990—this was Randy’s fourth union.
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Cynthia Roth: How Did She Die?
The household quickly settled into a house in Woodinville, Washington. Cynthia, Randy, and the kids visited Lake Sammamish in Washington on July 23, 1991.
The parents rowed their raft into deeper water as the kids played on the shore. Randy eventually arrived rowing back to the coast with Cynthia not responding. She was unsuccessfully revived by the lifeguards’ efforts. At a nearby hospital, the 34-year-old was later declared dead.
Randy admitted to the authorities that the two had been swimming in the lake with the raft close to them when he was questioned. The raft was subsequently tossed onto Cynthia, who was experiencing a leg cramp, by the wake of a passing boat, causing her to drown.
The witness accounts of Randy’s behavior, however, really caught the investigators’ attention. They claim that Randy never signaled for assistance as he slowly rowed Cynthia, who was not responding, to the shore. The lifeguards claimed that Randy deflated and rolled up the raft while they worked to revive Cynthia.
A $300,000 life insurance policy in Cynthia’s name with Randy as the beneficiary was also made known to the authorities. That appeared to be a murderous reason.
When they dug into Randy’s past, they discovered that his second wife had passed away unexpectedly, which led to him receiving life insurance coverage of more than $100,000.
In November 1981, Randy said that Janis Miranda slipped and fell to her death while hiking in Skamania County, Washington.
Cynthia Roth: Who Killed Her?
Now that a pattern was becoming apparent, the police thought Randy was involved in the killing of Cynthia. In October 1991, he was taken into custody as a result of more circumstantial evidence supporting his guilt.
At his trial in 1992, Stacey Reese, a single parent who was his colleague at a car dealership, testified that Randy talked about becoming free from Cynthia days before she died. She continued by claiming that he had also invited her to travel to Reno using the tickets Cynthia had given them for their anniversary.
The guardian of Cynthia’s two sons and best friend, Linda Baker, said that Cynthia kept her will in a bank’s safe deposit box. Linda eventually gained access to it and discovered that the box was empty.
According to bank records, Randy visited shortly after Cynthia’s passing. Randy asserted during a police interview that Cynthia failed to inform him of the existence of any will. At the family residence, the police also discovered a scrawled message in a dresser drawer. It allegedly belonged to Cynthia and claimed that Randy detested several aspects of her.
Cynthia Roth: Where Is Randy Roth Now?
The prosecution portrayed Randy as a heartless, emotionless man who only wanted to profit from the insurance payout. Janis’ daughter provided more testimony, claiming that her mother had shown her an envelope containing money and urged her to take it if something were to happen to her.
The daughter then claimed that Randy had taken the envelope. The defense argued that the evidence was circumstantial and that Randy and Cynthia’s murder were not directly connected.
Yet, the jury found him guilty of murder in April 1992 after deliberating for 812 hours. Before later entering a guilty plea to additional charges of second-degree theft, he was also found guilty on one count of first-degree theft and one count of second-degree theft.
Randy, who was 37 at the time, was later given a one-year prison term for stealing and a 50-year term for first-degree murder. So far as we can ascertain, he is still detained at the Aberdeen, Washington, mixed-level Stafford Creek Correctional Facility.
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Cindy Roth: Who Was She?
- Roth didn’t find love until he ran with Cynthia Loucks Baumgartner in 1990 while attending one of his son’s Little Baseball games.
- She was born in 1957 to an older couple who had a teenage son and had been trying in vain for years to conceive another child. She married Tom Baumgartner when she was 21 years old. Their boys Tyson and Rylie were born in 1979 and 1981, respectively.
- Tom put a lot of effort into supporting his family while working as a parcel carrier for the USPS, but in 1985 he suddenly developed Hodgkin’s Disease and passed away at the age of 29.
- Cynthia didn’t need to work because she was well-off thanks to numerous survivors’ benefits, the help of her family, and her close friend Lori Baker. Randy Roth didn’t reveal anything about his previous marriages to her, other than the fact that Janis Miranda had died tragically from a fall, because she wouldn’t be married to a divorced man because of her religious convictions.
- Cynthia’s family was astonished when the couple quickly left for Las Vegas to get married that August. Randy Roth promptly placed his house up for sale and moved his growing family to a large new house in Woodinville.
- Over time, Cynthia began to understand that Roth felt the need to micromanage every part of her life and did not want her to take any initiative.
- Friends observed Cynthia giving less and less attention to her looks and housekeeping, which had previously been above reproach, and that she appeared to regret her marriage to Roth. Roth also mistreated all three boys physically and psychologically.
- The couple took Cynthia’s two sons on a day vacation to Lake Sammamish on July 23, 1991, just a few weeks before their first wedding anniversary.
- Ted Bundy had kidnapped two young ladies from this lake years before. The Roths arrived to a hot and busy beach, just like the day of the Bundy kidnappings.
Cynthia Roth: What Happened To Her?
Randy and Cynthia paddled their 11-foot (3.4 m) inflatable raft into deeper water while leaving the lads to play in the permitted swimming area. A few hours later Randy Roth came back carrying Cynthia, who had drowned or was almost drowned.
She received care on the spot before being taken to the hospital, where she was later declared dead. Roth asserted that Cynthia drowned as a result of the raft flipping due to the wake from a motorboat when she was swimming adjacent to it.
Investigators quickly thought of Roth as a suspect due to his apparent lack of emotion and conflicting accounts of what had happened, but there was no concrete proof that she had been forcibly drowned.
Once more, Roth neglected to notify his loved ones of his passing; instead, he started the process of trying to collect on a sizable life insurance policy that he had taken out on his wife, which was worth almost $400,000.
Notwithstanding Cynthia’s parents’ adamant protests, he once more made arrangements for a cremation as soon as the body was made available. A few months after the drowning, Roth reportedly thought he would not be accused once more; as a result, he was taken aback when he was detained on murder charges on October 8, 1991.
Cynthia Roth: Murder Investigation
The case’s assigned detectives and prosecutors were aware from the start that it would be challenging to obtain a conviction. Roth’s forced drowning of his wife was not supported by any physical evidence, and no one actually saw it happen.
They went about their business systematically, interviewing former friends, neighbors, and the families of his prior marriages. They started to find proof that Roth’s motivation was purely financial and that he had stolen from his employers and almost every job he had ever held in addition to making several attempts to scam insurance companies.
The Goodwins, who had kept this information to themselves out of fear of Roth, later revealed to investigators that Roth had seduced their daughter and had staged a burglary on his own home in 1988 to obtain insurance money. Years earlier, Roth had been having an affair with the nanny who looked after his son, but for the same reason, her husband took no action.
The garage had a poem that Cynthia Roth had written. It started off by saying, “Randy does not ‘love’ Cindy, Randy hates Cindy,” and then went on to list 44 grievances and comments Roth had leveled at her criticizing her looks, appetite, and sense of fashion.
Authorities also learned that Roth had called a buddy immediately following his arrest, and the person had already taken additional evidence at Roth’s request.
Cynthia Roth: Case Trial
After failing to have the entire case dismissed from court, Roth’s defense team tried to have the testimony and evidence related to the staged burglaries suppressed. This strategy likewise fell short. The trial started in March 1992 after the jury selection process had begun.
The victim’s friends and family, as well as the media, crowded the courtroom from the start. Roth appeared aloof and emotionless throughout the proceedings and was noticeably thinner and meeker appearing than before. He hardly ever made eye contact with the jurors or the loved ones and former acquaintances who gave false testimony against him.
Due to the unfortunate deaths of his first and second marriages, his defense team portrayed him as a victim of ill luck who was being victimized. He was depicted by the prosecution as being soulless and avaricious, caring more about vehicles and money than his wife and kids.
Roth’s mother and three sisters were among the trial’s attendees, dispelling all of his overblown claims regarding the former. They stopped going after three days, stating that the proceedings were “a circus,” and that their son and brother weren’t getting a fair trial.
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