In 2000, fearsome Outlaws Motorcycle Club “enforcer” Randall “Madman” Miller was being sentenced to life in prison in a racketeering case that targeted numerous members of the biker gang and covered an array of horrific crimes. And U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller lamented that it was only too bad he couldn’t give him the death penalty.
Miller sat in court then, silent, shaking his head. Now, 24 years later, Miller is admitting he committed the three murders detailed in the racketeering case — including the grisly, high-profile killings of Morris and Ruth Gauger near far northwest suburban Richmond in 1993.
“I have tried to write this letter 1,000 times because it has been such a heavy burden on my heart for a very long time,” Miller wrote to the judge in his latest bid to be released from prison, largely because he’s in bad shape physically, with an array of ailments. “I have to admit that I was wrong and accept responsibility for the fact that my choices have caused pain to people and should have never happened.
“I owe my most sincere apologies to Ginger Blossom and Gary Gauger for their suffering and pain due to the loss of their parents” — Morris and Ruth Gauger — “because of the senseless act that took their lives.
Morris and Ruth Gauger in the 1940s. Randall “Madman” Miller “slit Mr. Gauger’s throat and left him to bleed to death on the floor of his shop,” according to prosecutors. They said Ruth Gauger was killed by an accomplice, “left to die on the floor of the small rug and trinket shop she operated” on the McHenry County couple’s farm.
“Every single day it eats away at me because I was not raised to be the man who made such a cold hearted decision to act and commit this very serious transgression,” Miller, now 65, wrote. “I used to blame the drugs and the ‘life’ but in the end, I have to admit that it was me who made the choice and for that, I apologize to the families even though I know that it will never be enough.”
Miller, from Pell Lake, Wis., and Outlaw James “Preacher” Schneider, who lived in Lake Geneva, killed the Gaugers, who ran a motorcycle parts business on their McHenry County farm. It’s been described both as a robbery gone bad and a cold-blooded execution.
“Miller personally slit Mr. Gauger’s throat and left him to bleed to death on the floor of his shop,” prosecutors say in a court filing. “Mrs. Gauger was killed by Miller’s companion and also left to die on the floor of the small rug and trinket shop she operated on the farm.
“Miller showed no compassion for either of these elderly people who were intentionally killed over what amounted to a small amount of pocket change” — about $15. “Nor did he show any compassion for the Gaugers’ adult son” — Gary Gauger — “who, following their murders, was wrongfully arrested for his parents’ deaths, and based on a coerced false confession, was convicted and sentenced to death.
“The son’s case was only dismissed after the true facts of the crime were revealed by Miller’s accomplice who pled guilty and testified against Miller,” prosecutors wrote.
The McHenry County sheriff’s office and state’s attorney’s office faced withering criticism, though few consequences, for initially putting away Gary Gauger for a crime he didn’t commit. He filed a lawsuit against the police but lost.
At his trial, Miller also was “found to have caused the homicide death of Donald Wagner, who was lured to a remote location by Miller and Outlaw associates, and then executed by Miller, who shot him in the head with a .22-caliber pistol,” prosecutors say. “The murder occurred over a load of marijuana.”
In his new letter to the Milwaukee-based judge overseeing the case, Miller also addressed that killing, writing: “One occasion that is plastered in my memory and I will never forget is the day that Donald Wagner’s daughter screamed in the courtroom, ‘He killed my father.’
“There has not been a day that goes by that I do not hear those piercing words because I took her father from her and it was for something senseless and never should have happened. I feel that it is important to apologize” to Wagner’s daughter “for denying her the opportunity to have a meaningful relationship with her father who was supposed to be there for her first date, driving lessons, graduation, wedding and the opportunity to have met his grandchildren if she had any children.
“I truly realize that these are just words and that only my actions going forward to the end of my life are what will define how truly repentant I am. I began my journey to change who I am in 2003 when I accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior and decided to live my life by his standards.”
Miller, who now uses a wheelchair and is confined to a prison medical center in Rochester, Minn., said in his letter that he accepts responsibility and wants that known to “those who were affected in the community and also my family whom I let down and disappointed.
“I hope that this will allow the people who I have hurt to have some closure and to cleanse my heart by begging for forgiveness at this late stage in my life and pray that the families and the Almighty grant me their grace.”
Founded in McCook in 1935, the Outlaws now has chapters across the United States and internationally. Its members portray themselves as free spirits who defy the norms and rules of society.
Federal authorities, though, have said they are a gang on wheels, with Harley-Davidson motorcycles their bike of choice.
The real-life inspiration for the new movie “The Bikeriders,” the club faced several major prosecutions over the past three decades in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin for crimes that included extreme violence and drug dealing.
Some of the blood flowed from a turf war with the Hells Angels, which began moving into the Chicago area in the 1990s.
Some of that violence also was in conjunction with the Chicago mob, which has long used the Outlaws for muscle.
Miller was charged in a 1997 racketeering case involving 17 Outlaws from Chicago, the suburbs, southeast Wisconsin and northwest Indiana.
Miller, “was proved to be among the most violent of the charged defendants,” prosecutors have said.
Schneider is believed to be out of prison. His cooperation with authorities makes him a potential target of his old club, which has a slogan: “Snitches are a dying breed.”
Citing declining health that led to a leg amputation and his fears of dying from COVID-19, Miller has previously sought a compassionate release that Stadtmueller denied in 2022, saying: “Our criminal justice system has the capacity for — indeed the goal to promote — remorse and compassion. But healing requires time and adequately served punishment.
“Perhaps this case will one day be ripe for compassionate release,” the judge said then. But he added that Miller’s time in prison then was “not yet sufficient time for the community’s hurt from defendant’s actions to be healed by his punishment and outweighed by his failing health. Defendant is receiving adequate care in prison for his health needs.”
In the new court filing, Miller says his current “health issues” include seropositive rheumatoid arthritis, coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation, hyperlipidemia and congestive heart failure.
Miller says he “accepted responsibility for his crimes” not “to impress the Court” but “in the pursuit of forgiveness from the victims, their families, his family and God,” and that he “only seeks mercy and compassion.”
Miller also cites what he says is a “sentence disparity” between his sentence and the punishment handed to other Outlaws members, including Randy Yager, “who fled and lived in Mexico for 18 years before being apprehended.” Miller said Yager “displayed no respect for the law during his years before the indictment or after” but “still received a 15-year sentence.”
Once an Outlaws boss, Yager has been released to home confinement, prosecutors said in an April court filing.
The judge recently denied a compassionate release attempt by Outlaws co-defendant Kevin O’Neill, who’s being held at a prison downstate.
It’s unclear when the judge might rule on Miller’s request.
If he’s freed, Miller says he’d live with a brother in Houston.
Gary Gauger says Miller should remain behind bars.
“He’s created his world, he’s living in it, and his thoughts and his mind, that’s what he’s got,” Gary Gauger says. “No, he shouldn’t be released. He says what’s expedient because he wants out.”
Another son of the murdered Gauger couple, Gregg Gauger, opposed Miller’s last attempts at a release from prison. But now, after reading Miller’s new letter, Gregg Gauger says he plans to take a “neutral” stance.
“I was surprised that he took the blame finally,” Gregg Gauger says. “I didn’t think he ever would. I’m going to take a neutral position this time, I’m not going to oppose it. So it’s up to Stadtmueller.”
READ MORE
Click here to read the Sun-Times’ February 2017 report on the Outlaws Motorcycle Club’s longtime Chicago headquarters on Division Street being sold.