Outlaws Motorcycle Club member ‘Madman’ to stay in prison for ’93 double homicide in Richmond

A notorious Outlaws Motorcycle Club member convicted for the brutal 1993 slayings of a Richmond couple was denied in another effort for compassionate release from prison, according to a federal court ruling.

Randall E. Miller, 62, is serving two life sentences plus two 240-month sentences for the murders of Morris Gauger, 74, and Ruth Gauger, 70, and a long list of other racketeering charges he was convicted of in 2000.

In his pleas for release, Miller cited multiple health issues and the threat of COVID-19, for which he was not vaccinated. He also was denied a request for compassionate release in 2020, according to last month’s federal court filing.

Miller, known as “Madman” when he was an active member in the Outlaws group, was convicted in the Gauger homicides with another Outlaws member, James W. Schneider, who is known as “Preacher.” Schneider pleaded guilty to the homicides and testified against 16 other Outlaws charged in the racketeering case.

However, it was the couple’s son, Gary Gauger, now 70, who initially was convicted for their murders and sentenced to death. After an informant told police Schneider and Miller killed the Gaugers, the ball began rolling toward Gary Gauger’s release and exoneration, but it was not immediate. Prosecutors stood by their case that Gary Gauger was involved in his parents’ deaths, according to reports at the time and Gauger.

In 1994, Gauger’s sentence was reduced to life in prison, and in 1996, he was released from Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, where he spent nine months on death row. Former Gov. George Ryan granted Gauger a pardon based on innocence in 2002.

In addition to convictions for the bludgeoning and slashing deaths of the Gauger couple – dairy farmers who ran a motorcycle parts business on their property – Miller was convicted of 34 racketeering acts. Those convictions were tied to additional murders, attempted murders and conspiracies to commit murder of rival biker gangs, specifically Hell’s Angels and Hell’s Henchmen.

He also was convicted of robbery and assault of rival bikers and associates, cocaine and hydrocodone trafficking, and dealing in counterfeit U.S. currency, according to the opinion.

During sentencing in October 2000, Chief U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller called Miller’s and the other Outlaws’ crimes “barbaric” and said the crimes they committed “cry out” for a sentence stricter than what was available, which was life in prison.

“How is it that each of you became so disconnected from the mainstream of society, including your families?” the judge said. “I don’t know how you could go home or participate in a family event knowing some of the things that you and your fellow Outlaw club members were doing on a repeated basis.”

Miller, who currently is housed at the Federal Medical Center Rochester in Minnesota, has multiple chronic, terminal ailments, including heart problems and lung disease, that require him to be on oxygen. He suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, for which he receives a steroid and a chemotherapy treatment. He had two amputations of his right leg, is confined to a wheelchair and cannot feed himself or care for his own hygiene.

Because of his ailments and the medications he is on, doctors recommended he not be vaccinated for COVID-19, making him vulnerable to contracting the disease, according to federal court filings.

“Physically, [Miller] is a shell of the person who committed these awful and violent crimes decades ago,” according to the filing.

Miller asserted that he is a changed man, is remorseful and has found God. He volunteers to help with hospice patients and no longer poses a threat to anyone, according to the filing. If released, he would live with a niece in New Jersey who would care for him.

In denying Miller’s motion, Stadtmueller, the same judge who sentenced him to prison for life, wrote that Miller “was among the most violent of the Outlaw members.” He also wrote that Miller was receiving “adequate care in prison.”

“[Miller’s] change of heart and mind is laudable, but it cannot erase the enormity of his crimes or the depth of the harm that he has caused to others,” Stadtmueller wrote.

“[H]ealing requires time and adequately served punishment. Perhaps this case will one day be ripe for compassionate release, but 24 years is not yet sufficient time for the community’s hurt from [Miller’s] actions to be healed.”

Others familiar with the story of the Outlaws and Miller agreed that he has not served enough time for his crimes.

Dave Daley, a former reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who covered the Outlaws case and Gauger murders, wrote a book titled “The Wrong Man,” which is circulating among publishers in New York.

“Randall ‘Madman’ Miller more than lived up to his nickname in 20 years of violent crime in the stateline area between northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin,” Daley said. “Miller slit the throat of an elderly McHenry County farmer and afterwards joked about the fact that the man’s son had been sent to death row for the murder. He commented to a fellow biker that they had committed the perfect murder. Harsh as it may sound, anyone familiar with the violent criminal history of ‘Madman’ is hard-pressed to find any sympathy for him today.”

Today, Gary Gauger lives quietly on a 10-acre parcel along Route 173 in Richmond near where he was raised and where his parents were killed, an 80-acre dairy farm that has been in the family since 1923.

He spends his days working his own organic vegetable farm.

In the years after he was pardoned, his story gained national attention from true crime TV shows, talk shows, network feature magazine shows and Hollywood. There were documentaries, movies and books. Gauger wrote a book and spoke out against the death penalty, which Illinois abolished in 2011.

Gauger said he was “blindsided” by the news that Miller was trying to get out of prison.

“He hasn’t been in long enough for what he was doing,” Gauger said, referring to Miller’s long list of crimes. “The stuff he was up to … and has he done a lot to try and rehabilitate himself? Has he changed?”

Despite being an innocent man who spent 20 months in the McHenry County Jail and almost two years in prison facing death because McHenry County police, detectives and prosecutors “made up their minds” that he killed his parents, lied and misled them during an 18-hour interrogation ending with him giving a false confession, Gauger said he still has hope in humanity.

“It is what it is. It was character building. I’m a slow learner,” he said with a laugh. “I did a lot of soul searching. I had to grow up. I still feel like I have to grow up. You never quit growing – at least I don’t. There is always something new you’ve got to learn.”

He said he is “optimistic” about the future, “about the woke.”

“The younger kids are getting together, talking about climate change, carbon footprint,” Gauger said. “Organic farming is a big thing now. There are a lot of people rallying now. There are a lot of positive things going on. If you look at the world negatively, the world will go to hell, but if you are looking at it in a positive light, I think a lot of positives will happen.”

His plans are to live out his life peacefully on the farm with his wife and near his twin sister, Ginger Blossom. Blossom lives on her parents’ property, where she trains dogs and up until last year ran a unique imported rug and gift shop.

“Unless he is grossly exaggerating his physical ailments to get a compassionate release, jail life has not been kind to him,” Blossom said. “I have to agree with the judge and his ruling that he is probably going to get better health care in the jail system than his tenuous network he has set up for his release.”

Other than that, Blossom has nothing else to say about Miller.

“I don’t waste time thinking about him,” she said. “I had this image, you know? They turn the key in the lock, and you toss the key and that’s it.”

Their parents’ deaths caused a lifelong riff between the Gauger siblings.

Blossom always believed her brother was innocent. But Gregg Gauger, the eldest sibling, told the Northwest Herald that he thought his brother had something to do with the killings. He also wrote a letter to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board in 2002 requesting that it not recommend his brother’s pardon request because he thought his brother played a role in the deaths, according Northwest Herald reports at the time.

The brothers have not spoken in more than 20 years, Gregg Gauger and Sue, Gary Gauger’s wife, each said.

Gregg Gauger, of Whitewater, Wisconsin, has kept close watch on the legal system and Miller’s attempts at freedom. He referred the Northwest Herald to a letter he wrote to Stadtmueller asking that Miller be denied compassionate release.

He cited statements made by another judge in response to Miller’s earlier attempt to be released because of fears of contracting COVID-19 that it is “not an extraordinary and compelling reason warranting a sentence reduction.”

“It shouldn’t matter if Mr. Miller were to contract the COVID virus while incarcerated,” Gregg Gauger wrote. “The essential meaning of Miller’s sentence is that he is intended to end his earthly days confined to federal prison; this circumstance might well mean the cessation of life due to contracting a fatal illness, be it COVID, pneumonia or something else.”