April 29 will mark 10 years since the death of Allentown rapper Michael Randolph, a.k.a. O Head, who was 23 when a security guard shot him in the back as he was retreating from an altercation at a night club. Mr. Randolph was unarmed.
Randolph’s killer was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and was serving a mandatory minimum sentence of five years’ incarceration, until 2015, when a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision regarding mandatory sentences enabled a sympathetic judge to resentence the convicted man, freeing him after he served 31 months for the killing.
The first episode of this two-part podcast revisits the night of Mr. Randolph’s death and the arrest of his killer, which occurred five weeks later following an investigation and demonstrations from the victim’s supporters.
The second episode will be published Friday, April 29.
This podcast was written and produced by Chris Devlin. chris.devlin@nullstudent.northampton.edu