Police let ‘suspicious’ woman go. Hours later, she killed woman in chase, cops say
Hours before a woman led police on a high-speed chase on Florida’s Turnpike that ended in an innocent motorist’s death, she was sitting in a Fort Lauderdale police cruiser not far from a black pickup truck that had been reported stolen.
The slight, troubled, “suspicious white female” had been seen exiting the truck on the third floor of a parking garage, and then walking around asking people for help, police records say. Someone called the cops.
But Laiken Lynn Randolph, 35, wasn’t arrested that morning. She’d later be charged with stealing the pickup truck. But the pieces of the mystery didn’t come together soon enough, and Fort Lauderdale police officers gave her a “courtesy ride” to her Extended Stay Hotel.
Randolph, a mother of three from Pennsylvania who has voiced her drug addiction struggles on YouTube, went on to steal a second Ford work truck that day, police say. This time, Randolph’s alleged theft ended in tragedy, killing a 74-year-old Davie woman who loved her cat and slots.
Randolph is sitting in the Broward County jail, charged with second-degree murder and 43 other alleged crimes for her role in the fatal police pursuit that occurred that day, Feb. 26. She pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
During the chase, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, Bernard Major, 33, bumped the Ford F-250 pickup truck Randolph was driving, using a PIT, or Precision Immobilization Technique, a controversial maneuver that law enforcement uses to stop a fleeing driver. The truck spun out of control and smashed into Bonnie Bouffard’s Nissan Altima, parked on the shoulder of Florida’s Turnpike. Bouffard had seen the lights and heard the sirens and pulled over, in accordance with Florida law.
About 30 seconds prior, a Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy, Gerald Wengert, had attempted a PIT but decided against it, “due to oncoming traffic safety concerns,” records show. It was shortly before 5 p.m. and the Turnpike was thick with rush-hour traffic. The crash, near the Sunrise Boulevard exit, shut the southbound Turnpike down for hours.
Bouffard, who was declared dead at the scene 19 minutes later, was on her way home from work and about four miles from her exit.
READ MORE: Innocent victim of police chase had pulled over to get out of the way, records show
FHP has refused to release documents describing Major’s role in the crash to the Miami Herald, citing open criminal and internal investigations. It’s unknown whether the agency completed a review of the trooper’s actions; a spokeswoman said Tuesday she believes it is still under way.
Where Randolph was going, no one knows. She was under the influence, court records say, and a swarm of officers from three agencies — Broward Sheriff’s Office, FHP and Coconut Creek — joined in the chase. The truck had a GPS tracking device, and officers kept tabs on the location, records in the case say, raising questions about why the high-speed pursuit was necessary. A Broward Sheriff’s Office helicopter also was tracking Randolph overhead.
Randolph’s next court date is in August. Her attorney, Maria Della Guardia with the state Office of Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel, declined comment for this story.
The woman she is accused of killing, Bouffard, was the second person in a 16-day span to die in police chases in Broward.
On Feb. 10, Ronald Wilson, 73, was killed when BSO deputy Brian Quintal crashed into his car in an intersection while pursuing a suspect and attempting a PIT maneuver. That pursuit, too, was sparked by the theft of a vehicle.
Controversial and deadly maneuver
The PIT maneuver is avoided or severely restricted by many law-enforcement agencies, given how it can lead to deadly crashes. In recent years, the Department of Justice commissioned the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit that recommends guidelines to law-enforcement agencies, to examine when police pursuits should take place.
The police think tank, in its 2023 report, found only two scenarios that call for a pursuit: “(1) A violent crime has been committed and (2) the suspect poses an imminent threat to commit another violent crime.
“If these two conditions are not met, agencies need to look for alternatives to accomplish this same objective. You can get a suspect another day, but you can’t get a life back,” wrote Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum.
Despite this admonition, FHP loosened its chase policy two and a half years ago, freeing troopers to use PIT maneuvers to stop fleeing suspects. Broward Sheriff’s Office also permits them.
In the maneuver, a law enforcement officer uses the front of the patrol car to bump the rear corner of a fleeing suspect’s vehicle, forcing it into a spin and stall.
Randolph was considered dangerous because in trying to get away from officers, she hit two police vehicles, similar to other chases reviewed by the Miami Herald. The way Florida law and police policy works, that’s tantamount to shooting at an officer.
The chase was on.
“They could have just followed her or they could have waited till she parked,” her grandmother, Barbara Randolph, told the Herald in an interview. “I mean, it’s not like they had to do that.”
Police pursuit wasn’t warranted: Expert
Geoffrey Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina who was involved in writing the think tank’s guidance on police chases, said there are crimes that warrant chasing. But the Laiken Randolph scenario, he said, didn’t sound like one.
“The immediacy isn’t there. Just wait till the person pulls over,” he said. “She’s only driving crazy because she’s being chased, more than likely.”
The two factors that are most important in weighing the safety of a PIT maneuver are vehicle speed and vehicle type, he said. Alpert, who has studied police chases since the 1980s when he taught at the University of Miami, said trucks have high centers of gravity and can become unstable when struck.
“Why risk lives and do a PIT at high speed on a pickup truck when you don’t have to?” he questioned.
Alpert said high-speed chases remain prevalent because “it’s an adrenaline high, catching the bad guys, exciting.”
Broward Sheriff’s Office spokesman Carey Codd said the reason deputies gave chase is laid out in Randolph’s arrest report: “As the driver of the stolen vehicle intentionally struck two occupied police vehicles and accelerated towards uniformed officers on foot in the path of travel, the driver committed multiple forcible felonies.”
Coconut Creek police spokesman Scotty Leamon, likewise, said, “The reason that we joined the pursuit is ... she hit one of our cop cars.” Seated in the police vehicle’s passenger seat, Coconut Creek police Sgt. Brian Mullin was injured and went to the hospital.
Troubled childhood
Records, social media posts and interviews paint an unflattering picture of Randolph’s life. Her grandmother said she’s been on and off drugs for years, starting when she was a teen living with her father. Court records show a criminal history nine pages long.
Just weeks before she was in South Florida, she allegedly cashed a bad check — and was charged with that crime in March, while in jail in Broward.
All three of her children are being raised by other people. Her grandmother hopes to adopt the youngest, a 1-year-old girl.
She said Randolph had a tumultuous childhood, a “very mean” mother who has since died, and more recently, was physically abused by an ex-boyfriend. But she wasn’t violent, her grandmother said.
“She doesn’t hurt people,” Randolph said. “She’s very compassionate; she helps people.”
Drug addiction battles
Social media posts over the years capture glimmers of sobriety, and hope, in Randolph’s life. And then, the reality of her drug addiction.
She had a dog grooming business. She proposed to the father of two of her children on Leap Day six years ago, at a bar, and everyone cheered. She is articulate, and likes public speaking.
But more recently, she appeared in two YouTube videos by a documentarian in Philadelphia’s Kensington section, a haven for homeless drug addicts.
In May 2025, she was the focus of an episode entitled “Certified pet groomer to fetty crack tranq addict.” She said she goes by the nickname “L.A.”
Asked what brought her to Philadelphia, she responded bluntly, “Drugs. The drugs.”
“It’s a war,” she said of her drug addiction. “... You want to get out of here so bad, and when you do, it’s just calling you back.”
Three months later, the same videographer found her again. She talked about prostituting for money to pay for her drug habit.
When asked what advice she’d give younger people in her situation, she offered this: “To get out, to think about your dreams and aspirations and chase them, instead of chasing the streets, because there is no love out there, no love that’s going to carry you anywhere but jail, rehab or death.”
