Randall McCoy

"This is about Christian right and damnation wrong!"

- Randall McCoy

Randolph "Randall" McCoy was one of the two main protagonist villains of the television miniseries Hatfields & McCoys.

He was portrayed by the late Bill Paxton.

Along with his friend Devil Anse Hatfield, Randall went off to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War. One evening Devil Anse had enough of the bloodshed and tried to slip away before being confronted by McCoy. McCoy ultimately let Devil Anse leave to return home, but this had the effect of ending their friendship. A short time later Randall was captured in battle, and spent the remainder of the war as a POW.

Returning home, his hatred of Hatfield intensified upon discovering that Hatfield had prospered in the years while he was gone. He came home to find that his wife Sally was unable to have more children. Also his brother Asa was murdered by Jim Vance not long after he returned home.

Over the next several years the tension between Randall and Devil Anse maintained their feud against each other, with Randall regularly expressing that God would get Devil Anse for betraying him in the Civil War. Devil Anse finally had enough of it and after Randall said one time too many that God sided with him Devil Anse grabbed a shotgun and warned Randall the next time he wouldn't be riding home.

Matters were not helped any when his favorite daughter Roseanna became pregnant by Johnse Hatfield. Furious that his daughter had fallen in love with the Hatfield boy, he disowned his daughter and forcer her to leave the house.

Relations between the two families turned violent when Devil Anse's brother Ellison was killed by a group of McCoys. The recriminations on both sides grew, with several members of the family being killed by Hatfields. About that Perry Cline suggested hiring someone to either arrest or kill Hatfields, and hired Bad Frank Phillips to do the job. Phillps was able to arrest or kill a number of Hatfields, which only served to increase the violence further.

Feeling the only way to stop the violence was to kill Randall, Devil Anse authroized an attack on the McCoy home. In 1888 Randall's home was burned to the ground by a group of Hatfields led by Jim Vance and including Cotton Top Mounts. One of his daughters died in the attack and Sara was seriously injured.

Sally was permanently disabled in the attack, and Randall soon sent her away to a hospital. As she was being taken away, Sally told Randall that he wasn't sending her away to get better, but so that he could ride to hell with Perry Cline. Roseanna died a few days later, after confronting her father and asking him what all that fighting had gained him in the end.

The violence concluded with the Battle of the Grapevine - an engagement fought between the two families.

After so many years of hardship, Randall began drinking heavily, descending into alcoholism.

By then Devil Anse began to tire of the fighting, and forbade his family from rescuing the imprisoned Hatfields, or the soon to be hanged Cotton Top. Randall himself went to watch the Cotton Top hanging. There were no further violence incidents after the hanging was over.

Some years later an elderly Randall decided to burn a collection of papers and photographs in his fireplace, including one of the long dead Roseanna. Quite drunk at the time, Randall tossed some moonshine on to the fire, causing it to grow out of control. He then knocked over a kerosene lamp, which made the fire even worse. Feeling that Devil Anse was coming for him, Randall pulled out his revolver and began shooting before the flames took him and he burned to death.