Washington Daughters Crack Mom's 1992 Cold Case, Husband Finally Arrested

The baby in the crib grew up to help put her mother's killer behind bars.

Janice Randle was found dead in her bed in November 1992, with her toddler daughter Katie in a crib nearby. Her estranged husband, James Robert Randle, told police that Janice had likely overdosed since she had a past history of using painkillers, but the story never held up. An autopsy found no drugs in her system. Investigators noted visible bruising and signs of a struggle. Her death was ruled undetermined, and the case went cold.

The investigation was revived in recent years after family members came forward with new information. The break in the case was driven in part by Randle's daughters, one of whom was just 18 months old and in a crib next to her mother the night she died, who helped bring renewed attention to the investigation decades later. Janice's oldest daughter, Katie Wakin, credited both her family and investigators for finally bringing the case back to light. Wakin was 14 years old when her mother was killed. Her sister Kourtney Lewis, the infant discovered beside Janice's body, also spoke out publicly after the arrest.

Detectives later interviewed relatives who said James admitted killing Janice and staging the scene. One daughter told investigators he said, "I put a pillow over her head. It was me." Court records show the couple had been in a contentious divorce and custody battle at the time, and the suspect had a prior domestic violence conviction and made threats in the weeks leading up to her death.

Prosecutors filed the first-degree murder charge on March 26. Pierce County deputies arrested James at a retirement facility in Everett, Washington. Body camera video shows police arresting Randle, now 68, at the facility, and he can be heard asking, "What's this about?" before being handcuffed and led to a waiting vehicle. Jail records show James Robert Randle was booked into the Pierce County Jail on April 1 on a first-degree murder charge, with bail set at $1 million. He was arraigned Thursday and pleaded not guilty.

Katie Wakin told KING 5 she "never thought I would see this in our lifetime." She had spent the better part of her adult life accepting that justice might never come, telling reporters she had made peace with that reality until roughly a year ago. The Randle daughters' persistence, combined with investigators willing to revisit what had once seemed like a forensic dead end, ultimately unraveled a staged scene that had gone unquestioned for 33 years.

The Pierce County Sheriff's Office said it now believes Janice "died as a result of a violent struggle" with Randle, and that evidence gathered in the new investigation "contradicted the original account given in 1992.