Kourtney Lewis was preparing to head to work earlier this month when her phone rang. It was a detective letting her know police had arrested a suspect in the killing of her mother almost 34 years ago.
The suspect was Lewis’ father.
“My heart sunk. My hands were shaking,” she told CNN. “Nothing could have truly prepared me. I had two thoughts simultaneously: ‘We did it,’ and ‘Oh my gosh, what did we do?’”
For Lewis and her half-sister Katie Wakin, who was also on the call, the news marked a turning point in a case that has shaped most of their lives.
In November 1992, Janice Randle was found dead in her bedroom in Graham, Washington. Lewis, who was 18 months old, was crying in a crib beside her mother with a full diaper after 14 hours alone, she said.
Investigators initially treated the death as a possible overdose after Randle’s estranged husband told them his wife abused painkillers, according to court documents. She was 40.
Janice Randle’s body had multiple bruises, according to an autopsy described in court documents, which later found no drugs in her system. Despite an investigator at the time saying the death was “obviously a homicide,” the medical examiner ultimately did not find a cause of death, according to the documents.
The case went cold for more than three decades. Eventually it gained new life because of two sisters, a stack of documents and nagging questions that wouldn’t go away.
On April 1, police arrested James Robert Randle at a nursing home in Everett, Washington. An arrest video from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office shows him seemingly caught off-guard and asking, “what’s this about?” as officers handcuffed him.
Randle, 68, has pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge, and is being held on a $1 million bond with a tentative trial date of May 20. His attorney did not respond to CNN’s repeated requests for comment.
Court documents released after his arrest this month describe a turbulent marriage, a bitter custody battle, and an investigation three decades ago that left key questions unresolved.
Watching her toddler helped her understand her own loss
Growing up, Lewis knew her mother mostly through what her father told her.
Years later, after she became a mother herself, she noticed the fear in her child’s eyes every time she stepped away. Watching her daughter navigate the world helped her understand her own loss as a baby, even though she’d been too young to fully understand what was happening.
Her grief resurfaced. So did new questions about what really happened in their house that November night.
“My whole life, I thought, ‘I was just a baby. I didn’t remember. It wasn’t that big of a deal,’” Lewis said. “And it wasn’t until I became a mom myself, I realized that I was a victim as well. And this is part of my story, and I need to figure it out.”
For decades, the two sisters had avoided discussing their mother’s case. Wakin, who was 14 when Janice Randle died, said she had long suspected Lewis’s father – her stepfather at the time – had something to do with it. But she’d stayed silent to avoid hurting her sister.
“I made the conscious decision a long time ago that I loved her more than I needed answers,” Wakin said.
Then one day in February 2025, everything changed. The sisters were on a walk in a park when Wakin brought up the subject.
“I took a deep breath and I’m like, ‘So I’m just going to rip the Band-Aid off,’” Wakin said.
Lewis’ response surprised her. She said she’d been quietly reviewing court records and case files about their mother’s death. She’d discovered details about her parents’ tumultuous marriage and other information that made her question her father’s account, she said.
The sisters, who live near each other in the Seattle area with their husbands and children, teamed up to dig deeper. They requested records from the police and medical examiner’s office, along with other court documents, They made a spreadsheet to log inconsistencies and overlooked details.
“Getting every document we could became our obsession the rest of the spring and summer,” Wakin said.
Weeks later, they shared the information with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office and asked investigators to look into their mother’s case, Wakin said. A detective stayed in touch and urged them to be patient.
Last June, the lead detective told them the case was under review. Eight months later, she notified them of the arrest during a three-way phone call.
Even though the sisters had asked investigators to take a closer look into their mom’s death, her father’s arrest felt like losing a parent all over again, Lewis said.
“I still struggle with putting my dad in jail. I’m always questioning, ‘Do I go put money on his books? Can I write him a letter?’ I still want that connection,” she said.
“But I know that is the little girl inside of me. And I have to separate myself from that.”
They grew up in separate homes but stayed in each other’s lives
Lewis and Wakin call themselves “soul sisters.”
Wakin works in a family law office while Lewis runs her own health and wellness practice.
At first glance, they seem like opposites. Lewis’ sandy hair falls over her shoulders; Wakin’s dark bob is cropped short. Lewis is more measured while Wakin speaks in quick bursts.
But when the topic turns to their mother, they finish each other’s sentences. At times, Lewis’ eyes fill with tears when Wakin describes the mother she barely knew. Their goal, they said, is to speak up for their mother and help restore her voice.
After their mother died, Lewis went to live with her father and his brother while Wakin moved in with her father and stepmother. On some weekends and holidays, Lewis spent time at Wakin’s home.
“They mirrored what a family unit looks like and gave me that normalcy, that structure, the rules,” Lewis said.
Over the years, the sisters remained close. In high school, Lewis briefly lived with Wakin as she navigated a rough patch as a teenager. Every time Wakin moved, she made sure it wasn’t far from her younger sibling.
Wakin started reviewing their mother’s case files in her 20s, but she struggled with whether to share her suspicions with her sister.
“We had this very harmonious, special, close relationship as adults. And I thought, ‘I can’t ruin that.’” Wakin said.
Wakin declined to elaborate on what led her to question how her mother died, citing the ongoing investigation. In a probable cause document obtained by CNN, a prosecutor states that James Randle confessed to two family members that he killed his wife.
Around the time Janice Randle died, a neighbor reported seeing a man on a bicycle near her house, according to court records. A family member later said James Randle told them he’d gone to her home on a bike, according to documents.
“I just didn’t have the concrete evidence or proof, and so I had to table it. And every once in a while, I would pick up the files, and I’d look into it a little bit,” Wakin said. “But at some point, I had children, and I had to pick being present for my family instead of chasing these ghosts.”
Her daughters never stopped asking questions
Janice Randle was a free spirit.
She loved music and old movies. Growing up, Wakin watched “Singing in the Rain” so many times with her mom that she can recite it from memory. She said it was not unusual to see her mom dancing to Janis Joplin in the kitchen as she prepared her signature spaghetti sauce. The singer’s bluesy, raspy voice, especially “Piece of My Heart,” played on constant repeat in their home, Wakin recalls.
“She’d be cooking and would do the twist,” she said.
Janice Randle also was a social butterfly who brought people together. At her funeral, a friend described her as their group’s Rolodex, Wakin said.
“She was social media before social media,” Wakin said. “She gave a piece of her heart to everyone she knew.”
The Randles were married for five years but were not living together at the time of her death. They had separated weeks earlier, after an October 1, 1992, domestic violence incident for which James Randle was later convicted, according to court documents.
The couple was locked in a custody battle over young Kourtney, according to court documents. Janice Randle had sought full custody of the toddler, with supervised visits for her ex-husband. Four days before she was found dead, her husband filed a countersuit seeking full custody, with limited visits for his ex-wife.
Court documents described signs of a struggle near her bruised body in the bedroom, including a broken table and a smashed lamp.
Her case was classified as a death investigation –- not a homicide – and was later purged for unknown reasons.
“Only breadcrumbs of information could be pieced together, with nothing substantial to establish probable cause for an arrest,” the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release this month.
The sheriff’s office said it’s not clear why investigators in the 1990s did not pursue a homicide investigation or why it took so long to review the case.
“The pivotal moment that led our cold case detective to take a deeper look at the case was essentially the family members coming forward with more details and information about recent confessions from James,” said Carly Cappetto, a Pierce County sheriff’s spokesperson.
“The family has been on board and collaboratively working with our office on this case. They were ready to have closure.”
She cut ties with her father once she started looking into her mom’s death
For Lewis, uncovering details about her mother’s death came at a cost. As she dug deeper into the case last year, she cut ties with her father.
“At that point, I knew too much,” she said. “It felt fake to have a relationship with him, knowing what I was doing. But prior to that, we had been very, very close.”
The choice did not come easily for Lewis. It took a lot of therapy before she reached out to investigators, knowing it likely meant the loss of another parent.
“I needed to make a decision,” she said. “I couldn’t sweep this under the rug. I chose to do something about it – even though I loved him very much.”
Lewis and Wakin said they have not spoken to Randle since. Now, as potential witnesses at a possible criminal trial, they are not allowed to have contact with him.
In an ironic twist, when Lewis began her search for answers last year, she was 34, the same age her father was when her mother died. She also had a toddler of her own who was about the same age as she was back then.
She often thinks about those parallels.
And as she’s learned more about her mother, her mindset has shifted in subtle ways.
For years, Lewis said, she understood her family history through the lens of her father. But in searching for answers, she’s connected more with her mother.
“I know all these stories about my dad,” she said. “But now I get to be her daughter. I get to learn about her. I get to connect with her. I went from being a daddy’s girl to becoming Jan’s daughter,” she said. “And this is the first time in my life I’ve gotten to experience that.”