The Disappearance of Jimmy Farenthold Part 2: The Death of Randy

Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

Vincent Strange

True Crime, Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On June 6, 1972, the Gulf of Mexico gave back one of its secrets. The body of Randolph “Randy” Farenthold, 32 years old, oil money in his veins, and gambling smoke in his lungs, washed ashore on Mustang Island. His hands were bound, his body chained, his skull fractured. The brutal murder of the South Texas “sportsman” triggered one of the most intensive investigations in Nueces County history, pulling in local lawmen, Texas Rangers, and even the FBI.

But this was no simple killing. Randy had been scheduled to testify in a federal fraud case against men tied to shady financial schemes, leaving investigators to question whether his death was a mob-style hit meant to silence him. His movements in the final hours were traced from Corpus Christi’s nightlife to the waters he loved, yet every lead pointed to a tangle of gambling debts, betrayals, and organized crime connections.

Though suspects were named and one man, Bruce Lusk Bass III, eventually indicted and convicted, Randy’s murder remains clouded by unanswered questions. His violent end became one more curse in a dynasty already fractured by addiction, politics, and loss.

Randy’s death was only the beginning. Seventeen years later, the family would face another devastating silence—the disappearance of his younger brother, James Robert “Jimmy” Farenthold.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Jimmy Farenthold, please contact the San Antonio Police Department at (210) 207-8939.

Sources: The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, The Port Aransas South Jetty, The Houston Chronicle, The San Antonio Express-News, Texas Monthly, Texas Observer, texashistory.unt.edu, The Los Angeles Times

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Gone Cold Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter. Listener discretion is advised.
0:08.6	The Gulf of Mexico keeps its secrets, but not forever. On the morning of June 6, 1972, a fisherman
0:17.5	wading the surf off Mustang Island spotted something drifting in the water.
0:23.4	At first it looked like a log, but as it came closer, the shape was unmistakable. A man, face down,
0:31.7	chained at the neck, his hands bound behind him. For nearly two days, the tide had carried him beneath the waves. Now the water
0:41.9	was giving him back. The man was Randolph Randy Farenthold, 32 years old, oil money in his veins,
0:50.7	and South Texas power in his name.
0:57.2	Known around Corpus Christi as a sportsman,
1:02.6	Randy split his time between gambling halls, nightclubs, and the open gulf.
1:09.1	But the life that carried him between those worlds ended with a blunt object to the head,
1:13.2	concrete blocks leashed to his body, and silence that stretched from the shoreline to the halls of power. It marked the beginning of a spiral that would
1:19.7	drag the Farinthold family deeper into violence, unanswered questions, and eventually a
1:26.6	disappearance that would leave no trace. Randy Ferenthaled was known around Corpus Christi as a high-stakes gambler, offshore fishermen, and a fixture on the city's nightlife.
2:03.8	Randy moved fluently between those familiar worlds.
2:07.8	Two days before his body was discovered, he was still present in those same circles.
2:14.0	But on the morning of June 4th, something changed.
2:20.7	He was attacked, his hands bound behind his back, and heavy concrete blocks tied to his neck with rope and chains. Then he was thrown into the
2:27.7	gulf. For nearly two days, the tide carried him beneath the waves, the water keeping the secret, albeit briefly.
2:37.3	He finally washed up some 100 feet offshore, about a mile south of Beach Access Road number one,
2:44.9	about two miles south of the South jetty at Port Aransas.
2:50.2	The fisherman who found Randy's body, Cecil Butchard,
2:53.8	called the Coast Guard, but it was a county matter and turned over to the sheriff. There was no
	...

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