Bloody Breakup
Man convicted of slaughtering girlfriend and her mother
BRONX, NEW YORK, MARCH 18- It was one of the more gruesome crime scenes police and the District Attorney’s office has ever dealt with – evidencing a rage borne out of a broken relationship that would leave a mother and daughter dead at the hands of the daughter’s ex-boyfriend.
Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson announces that, following a month-long trial and less than two hours of deliberation, a jury has found 24-year-old Andrew Scott guilty of the following charges in the October 1, 2013 deaths of 65-year-old Ida Randolph and her daughter, 23-year-old Jana Randolph: murder in the second degree (4 counts, Class A Felony) (2 counts Intentional Murder, 2 counts Felony Murder) robbery in the 1st Degree (2 counts, Class B Felony).
Scott bludgeoned the older woman so hard with her own baseball bat, that he crushed her skull nearly a half-dozen times, broke her arm clear through, and inflicted other injuries too horrific to describe. And, he took a sizable kitchen knife to his ex-girlfriend, stabbing her more than a dozen times, some of the cuts three-inches deep. He then bludgeoned her, the final act that caused her death.
Scott had been dating Jana Randolph for seven years and had moved into the women’s apartment at 2794 Valentine Avenue in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx a year before the killings. But he had behaved badly – in the weeks before the incident, he trashed the apartment and stole Jana’s bank card – leading the clerical worker at Montefiore to break up with him. Jana’s mother, a retired social services worker, kicked him out of the apartment.
Scott did not take it well.
On the night of October 1st, he got together two others and hatched a plot to rob the mother and daughter, get their bank cards and PIN numbers, and steal their money, all revenge for having been tossed aside. Along for the plan was 23-year-old
Brittney Austin, who was coming off a heroin addiction, and, allegedly, another friend.
The plan was for Austin and Scott to rob the women. The Randolph women fought back, but in the end they were subdued by Scott, who tied up Ida Randolph with duct tape; Austin bound Jana. A quarter-of-an-hour later, Austin left the apartment with the cards and cash. It is alleged that 26-year-old Joshua Lopez then took the cards and tried, but failed, to extract money from several ATM machines.
Scott remained in the apartment for an hour-and-a-half, during which time he not only committed the atrocities but tried to clean up the battle scene. Blood splatter was so great from the attacks it hit the ceiling. During the savage murders he also somehow injured himself, cutting his hand with the very knife he used to kill.
When he is sentenced on April 9, 2015 before Justice Margaret Clancy, Scott faces 25 years-to-life on each of the murder and another 25 years on the robbery, all to run consecutive to one another.
Austin pled guilty to murder in the 2nd degree and robbery in the 1st degree in January of this year and will be sentenced at a future date.
Joshua Lopez, pled not guilty to four counts of murder in the 2nd degree and two counts of robbery in the 1st degree. His next court appearance has been adjourned until March 24th in front of Justice Clancy, Part 79, Bronx Supreme Court. Should Lopez be convicted, he also faces 50 years to life.
The cases against Scott and Austin were prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Rachel Kalman and Jennifer Cruz of Trial Bureau 30/40.
#NYPD #BronxDA #Murder
