CenLAw
Kellye, the true crime enthusiast, and Kyler, her willing partner, delve into intriguing cases from Central & Northeastern Louisiana.
From small-town cases to nationally known crimes, they bring you stories that hit close to home, always with that Louisiana connection.
Tune in bi-weekly for your true crime fix and support their show for a shout-out in the next episode.
Stay safe out there!
CenLAw
Louisiana's "Black Eye of the Gay Community" -Serial Killer- Ronald Dominique
**EXTRA TRIGGER WARNING** - Listener discretion is advised for this episode containing references to sexual violence, assault and rape. Please take care of yourself first and if any of these topics may cause you distress or issues, skip this one. 💜
The mysterious and chilling bayous of Louisiana have been the backdrop for one of the most shocking stories we've explored on CenLAw. As your hosts Kellye and Kyler, we've delved deep into the life and crimes of Ronald Dominique, a serial killer whose reign of terror spanned a decade and left devastation in its wake. We carefully trace Dominique's journey from an outsider in the Thibodaux fishing community to a ruthless predator, preying on vulnerable men who society had overlooked.
With each harrowing case, we offer a glimpse into the mind of a killer and the lives of those he affected. From the unsettling incidents involving his early victims to the eventual breakthrough that led to his capture, we leave no stone unturned. We also tackle the tough questions about how the criminal justice system grapples with individuals like Dominique, forcing us to confront the complexities of human nature and our collective responsibility to remain vigilant.
As we conclude this deep dive into a real-life nightmare, the emotional weight of these stories is palpable. Our final thoughts touch on the psychological toll of evading capture and the meticulous detective work that ultimately brought Dominique to justice. Above all, we leave you with a crucial reminder: danger often hides behind a facade of normalcy. Stick with us as we continue to unravel true crime stories, and always remember, your safety comes first.
Sources:
Sentencing
Murderpedia Database Profile
Crime Library Profile
Extensive Background WickedWe
Ocala.com Article
ThoughtCo.com Article -2020
NOLA.com Article
- List of Victims
- David Lavon Mitchell, Jr - Article
- St. Charles Parish - Victims Article
This has been an elfaudio production.
Thanks for listening & Take care out there!
All🎶created by: Uncle Sawyer
This particular episode contains multiple and recurring themes of rape and sexual assault. Further listener. Discretion is advised.
Speaker 2:From 1997 to the mid-2000s, bodies of men aging from 16 to 46 begin appearing in ditches and near cane fields and bayous in the southern Louisiana state. They all had the same cause of death they were asphyxiated by strangulation. They all had similar backgrounds, but not much else in common. This story today is to bring further attention to the unassuming outcasts among us, because in this case, this killer got away with killing almost two dozen men in nearly a decade, being dubbed Louisiana's most gruesome serial killer and at one point, before his capture, became the FBI's most wanted serial killer at the time. Come on with us as we try to tread through the murkiest parts of the bayou on today's episode of Sin Law. Hello and welcome to episode 26 of Sin Law. I'm Kelly.
Speaker 1:And I'm Kyler.
Speaker 2:And we are continuing on our serial killer extravaganza Also known as the Serial Series Because she failed to capitalize.
Speaker 1:I was trying to think capitulate.
Speaker 2:Honestly, though, when I started I didn't think it was going to be this many. I really didn't like the laundry list and I keep finding more, and I keep finding more, and there's still some that I've got to cut. This we're gonna, we're gonna skip back and we're gonna come back to the serial killers, because I've had at least three different suggestions that I've already got episodes written for, because, miss Lenora, you know who you are and I love you. You're my true crime soulmate, but, thanks, boo, you're killing me. Smalls. And then the other email suggestion maker, who wishes to remain anonymous.
Speaker 1:Wow, that was a lot. The other and the other, unknown. The other ghostwriter no, no.
Speaker 2:I like that one Point being we're going to do one more serial killer after this one, because I already had that one written.
Speaker 1:Don't believe a bitch.
Speaker 2:And then after that we're going to go jump around because I've got.
Speaker 1:We still have to do our Hall of Fame series too. Probably be like a week.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you we've got upwards between 75, at least 75, up to 75 episodes right now that I could do. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, because we're on 26 now. I have at least 50 other kickass Shit. We do one a week. That's more than a year. It's been really just as fast as I can do them.
Speaker 1:Today we are actually going down to Houma Spell it, do you?
Speaker 2:know how to spell it. I'm going with H-O-M-A. Nope, it's got a U in there because they're dumb. But no, honestly no, that's not the reason.
Speaker 1:So yeah, but isn't it?
Speaker 2:No, it's not actually the native.
Speaker 1:At least it's not E-A-U-X.
Speaker 2:The native tribe that was indigenous to the Homa area tribe that was living there at the time. Homa was their word for red and their actual emblem for their tribe was crawfish. All right, I'm here for that. Homa is the parish seat.
Speaker 1:H-A-N-O-C.
Speaker 2:For Terrebonne Parish, which is French, for.
Speaker 1:Good Earth, good Land, good Earth, which is funny because good luck is bon chance here.
Speaker 2:Basically Terrebonne Parish was named because it had a lot of fertile soil, because it comes right off the delta of the Mississippi.
Speaker 1:So it's got all that plethora of good soil, so it's a bunch of good land for doing stuff with 2020 census. We got some real ingenuitive naming senses around here, I'm telling you. Red stick Good earth.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh, uh-huh. There was 109,000, almost 110,000 in the parish. Altogether, the Terrebonne Parish and this was technically, I think, as of 2024, is the fifth largest in size. Like it's 2,100 square miles, Terrebonne Parish, but 2,100 square miles and only 110,000 people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you're in bioland swampland, Uh-huh, mm-hmm exactly. You can only if they did a, if they did account for gators, though.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for sure, Population way up.
Speaker 1:It's about like Florida and cows. Per capita cows are higher than people.
Speaker 2:And, interestingly enough, terrebonne actually accounts for about 20% of the entire seafood production of Louisiana. That makes a lot of sense though Oysters, shrimps, crabs and fish. They wrote a lot of sense though Oysters, shrimps, crabs and fish and according to now, they wrote their own press release. But they have the finest oysters in the world and they actually do ship their oysters all over the country and all over the world.
Speaker 1:I mean oysters, just taste like salty snot. Anyways, gross Also gross.
Speaker 2:Yes, but up until the 1970s they were actually mostly for their oil. And then after the 1970s, kind of slipped back down.
Speaker 1:After we used all of it everywhere.
Speaker 2:More than 10% of people in the parish today actually over 10% still speak French in the home, like fluently they speak as that is their language.
Speaker 1:I am curious. French, french, creole, french, okay.
Speaker 2:But they're known as the Jambalaya capital of the world or, as we say in this house, the Jambayaya capital of the world.
Speaker 1:Some of us, some of us just eat it.
Speaker 2:Right. So listen to this. Houma is known for their thriving music and art scene, as is every other southern Louisiana anything. They're known for their friendly, warm, vibrant community like really helpful, really friendly.
Speaker 1:But they're also known for their swamp tours and they are the top, one of the top destinations for bird watching okay, I was trying to figure out why you would want to go on a swamp tour, and I mean, swamps are pretty, they can just where we're going today is going to be in the bayou blue area of palma in tarragon, parish, and this actually um the bayou blue area technically goes all the way across Iberville, laforge, jefferson, like all our dumping area actually stretches across six different parishes.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't like he did go and repeat kind of in the same spot within a couple hundred feet or so of each other, but he would vary it about like Derek Todd Lee did, where he would jump back and forth to different spots to put the body.
Speaker 1:It's our Bayou Body Belt, because we don't have a Bible Belt.
Speaker 2:I'm not doing that. Ronald Dominique was born in Thibodeau. He was born January 9th of 64.
Speaker 1:His favorite restaurant is Quibido.
Speaker 2:Probably not.
Speaker 1:And he said go tiger, no, no, no, no, you're welcome Weezy, None of that.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna leave it in just for her though. He was born into a low-income family. They were very poor. But again, when you talk about being poor, maybe don't have eight kids, I mean trade up the time of having like eight to fourteen kids and just having maybe half.
Speaker 1:Of them survive.
Speaker 2:Also down here because, especially if you're fishing or if you're using your kids' labor Right and I believe the closest one in relation to him was a sister, but he may have been the youngest. I'm not entirely sure. I can get a whole lot of further information other than he had a close sister, but she was older. Of the two. Of the last two, as I read it were his older sister and him probably not the youngest.
Speaker 1:I don't see the youngest really becoming a serial killer like him.
Speaker 2:Let me explain because I do know he had other sisters and brothers. Because of the way really becoming a serial killer like ever. Let me explain Because I do know he had other sisters and brothers. Because of the way I was watching, I believe that one was First Blood Again. Thank you, jester, I like how he actually referred me to that for the other case, and then I saw that it actually had an episode on Dominique as well.
Speaker 2:So I was like oh, cool, cool, cool, cool, externally awesome. I know he had older brothers and sisters, because it was noted in this episode that he was always a little bit different. He always preferred to go with the girls instead of going and working with the boys. He preferred to go do whatever the girls were doing instead of going and doing what the boys were doing. He kind of got made fun of for that and it turns out that he was very much gay, very much also follows a whole lot right.
Speaker 2:so already he's not, um, the most popular, okay. So he hangs out with his sisters a lot. He's kind of girly effeminate, as it were, and he's in Glee Club and Chorus and obviously he's going to be bullied, right. That's kind of setting the whole stage for all of this.
Speaker 1:While I'm aware that this is a time period piece and I just have a problem with obviously he's going to be bullied. Well, I mean because I was getting to the extra part where he was overweight.
Speaker 2:He was awkward. He didn't know how to interact well with his peers.
Speaker 1:I'm getting to the extra part where there should never be an. Obviously he was going to be bullied.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean because kids are assholes. But yes, I agree with you love 100% of the time.
Speaker 1:I got you and I know you do. I just Shitty, it's shitty. I don't like people.
Speaker 2:Which is fine, it works out well. You got one on your side, honey, woohoo, woohoo. So everybody that during those times he never actually admitted to being gay. He was bullied a lot for it, but he never came out. He never actually came out until much later in his adult life. Now, everybody who knew him then, though, said he was practically harmless, that they had all the doubts. They're just, you know, blown away when his arrest happened, because they never would have guessed at the time that he was going to be responsible for something such as this.
Speaker 2:Now, in his older life, he never really found a place that he could fit in. Well, he didn't fit in with, I want to say, the straight side of his life, and he would also, later on in his adult years, he would dress in drag and he would perform as Patti LaBelle at the local gay clubs, but he never really got along with people in that group either. So he was kind of a misfit in tugging in between, you know, finding out who he actually was, and he didn't sit well in either side. Now, that was all the way up until he found alliance club, which was full of older, elderly people. Um, he would go up there and he would call the bingo numbers for him, and he kind of felt like he belonged, like everybody up there liked him, they thought he was a nice guy, they got along with him, well, no issues.
Speaker 2:But then you have this whole other side, where he gets dressed up as Patti LaBelle and just horrible impersonations and sings at the local gay club, and again, the people that they interviewed, like on the episodes of things that I watched, because there are multitudinous episodes, whether it be podcasts, whether it be the ID series they've got First Blood, you've got, I believe they've got a forensic files on them, I mean the gamut. So there is no trouble finding these things that I'm talking about, but I'll also have that linked in the show notes. So my point, though, is that A veritable smorgasbord.
Speaker 2:Right, right. Yeah, there was no lack of wealth of information.
Speaker 1:An interesting way to put that. I like it.
Speaker 2:I'm not mad at it, it's new. Most of his adult life, though, like I said, it was marked with not really having a place in the world. He didn't fit in with the gay crowd, he didn't fit in with the straight people, he kind of fit in with the elderly people, but that's just because he went along to go along Like he. For the most part, you know, he lived with his mom or his family, his sister, like he was in and out of their homes or living off of their lands in a trailer or what have you. He had multiple different medical problems. According to him. He didn't really have any kind of goal in life like his, his he initially, as as a kid he did pretty well, like not exemplary in school or anything, but he didn't do terrible. Um, I believe he ended up trying to go and do some kind of military thing but didn't make it sure got a hell of a lot accomplished in his life for not having a particular goal oh yeah, well, we'll get there.
Speaker 2:And his actual criminal history wasn't all that like yeah, it wasn't lengthy in in terms of you know, with sexual violent crimes. The only one in his entire criminal history that even showed any kind of you know similarity obviously was the most heinous thing that he had in his criminal history, which was a forcible rape charge. However, that was just a charge. He was never convicted and he never pled. Pay attention to these dates. All right, you asked the question. Are you listening? Pay?
Speaker 1:attention to the dates. That's sort of it now.
Speaker 2:Okay, so up until 96. Okay, okay, he hadn't had anything greater than I think he paid fines for harassment, a couple of DWIs disturbing the peace All of those were just fine paid, or a couple nights in jail.
Speaker 1:Pardon me, I think it's still parking in the wrong spot while stalking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those ones, what? And never more than just like a slap on the wrist, because it wasn't really anything crazy. However, august 25th of 1996, he was arrested for forcible rape. Apparently for this charge specifically, he was arrested and there was a hundred a hundred thousand dollar bond set because the victim in this case happened to escape out of a window of his trailer that he was living in in tibeto at the time, screaming, half-dressed, running through the trailer park, screaming that dominique had tried to kill him. He had like one handcuff hanging off of one arm or one some kind of restraint off of one arm. That's how they found the victim, which immediately pointed back to the trailer, which is where Dominique was, and they arrested him. $100,000 bond. My point is he got out at the end of 96.
Speaker 1:And then he got in.
Speaker 2:Until his arrest almost a decade later. He didn't do his eye, apologies. Almost a decade later he never hits radar again. He never gets arrested for dwi. He never gets a disturbing the peace. Now the only one that I do know. Oh, I'm sorry, I apologize.
Speaker 2:He had one other, maybe two other interactions, but the one that actually stood out was the one where he went to a mardi Gras parade. Oh, I forget which parish that was, either way down there in the south, I mean, like the entire state, by the governor mandate we get Mardi Gras off as a state. It's a state holiday. Anyway, I couldn't begin to guess which parish he was in at this time, but one of the bigger parades is what I'd be guessing.
Speaker 2:I would guess Natchitoches, but I don't know to guess, couldn't begin to guess which pair she was in at this time Girl Louisiana. But one of the bigger parades is what I'd be guessing. I would guess Natchitoches, but I don't know for sure. So apparently at this parade he had allegedly slapped a lady because she had left a stroller her baby stroller in the parking lot that he thought a baby was in. Good for him. So he was yelling and getting belligerent with her and smack her a little bit, but that one he actually got the parish offender or offender deferred program and he was actually done with that by october and that was uh in february.
Speaker 1:We've been done with that by dinner right I thought there was a baby in that.
Speaker 2:I played right so, and that was in um february 2002. The only other one was a little bit two years before then he played Guilty to Disturbing the Peace and he paid a fine and it was a misdemeanor that blipped Barely a blip, that's my personal judgment on that, but it kind of worked with. The way that it worked with Dominique was when he got worked up and he got on his soapbox. He didn't get off of it, it just snowballed into him, continuing to progressively get more aggressive and worse. So, other than a couple of little touch-ups, we have a rabbit trailing.
Speaker 2:Because that one, I believe, was just. I think he that one technically wasn't domestic, so it probably was just a battery key um, I don't, that one technically wasn't domestic, so it probably was just a battery paid the fine for the disturbing the peace in the 2000 may 2000 and then he had the mardi gras thing. That was in 2002, but he was done with that off of the uh offender program, parish offender program in october and then he was not heard from by the police until 2006. So let's get into that, shall we? However, we gotta go back because his murder spree did not actually start in 2000. It didn't start in 2002. It didn't start in 1999 or 98. It actually started almost immediately after he was released from prison. And at this point he has made up his mind that he does not want to go back.
Speaker 1:He encountered some things.
Speaker 2:What do you think he does about that sir?
Speaker 1:Pass the buck.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I mean, obviously he still wants to have sex with these men. Because that was the motive for the first one, where the guy crawled out the window and said he was trying to kill me. He was in the act of trying to sexually assault him at the same time. The guy just got loose and crawled out the bathroom window. So the possibility of having a witness to be able to testify to send him back to jail. Because he realized now, no witness, no jail, because that's why they let him out, right, his witness didn't show up. It's a horrible realization to have.
Speaker 1:It's also a really good realization to have.
Speaker 2:Right? Well, in this case it's really bad.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean like it's always really bad, it's just a really smart one.
Speaker 2:So the victim to testify in his court case.
Speaker 1:He was released from prison and they did nothing. There was nothing that happened because that victim did not appear.
Speaker 2:So what does that tell him? Okay, well, just nobody, no voice, no crime. Pretty much. If that's your only evidence to say against him, saying I didn't do anything, then you have nothing. In july of 1997 you're welcome is when dominique's first confirmed victim was actually murdered. He was a 19-year-old African-American male named David LeVron Mitchell LeVron. Levron E-L-E-V-R-O-N. Levron.
Speaker 1:That wasn't how I was expecting that to be spelled in Louisiana, but I like that one.
Speaker 2:He was not similar to most of the victims of Dominique and we'll get to that here in a minute but he was hitchhiking, which was not outside of the norm. Still in the late 90s it was still a thing. But he was by himself and he was on his way back from his grandma's house after he went to a friend or a relative's birthday party. His body was found two days. That's super sad, it is.
Speaker 1:Relative's birthday party and you had to hitchhike your way home.
Speaker 2:No traces of physical trauma, no drugs, no alcohol, no other cause other than the lungs having the ditch water in them. So I don't think that's That'll do it. Initially, his death was ruled as an accidental drowning. But wait, his dad was like y'all got him fucked up because, like he was an excellent swimmer, there was no way he would have drowned in the ditch with the water level being that low. And if that's the case, why did he have his pants down by his ankles? His body was found in the ditch face down, with his trousers and underwear around his ankles.
Speaker 1:And the only thing I can think of other than being forcefully unalived is drunk drunk but there was no alcohol.
Speaker 2:The autopsy confirmed that. So somebody dropped a big ass ball and you know a lot of a lot of people want to say that um, because the majority and I say the majority, it was like of all of the victims, all but maybe three or four were actually African-Americans. Now everybody wanted to say it was racially motivated. That I don't think was the case.
Speaker 1:I kind of feel like it might be regionally motivated. That one absolutely, because that's a lot of black people.
Speaker 2:He was very much so an opportunistic. Call him as I see him, except pick him up where I can get him. That's all it came down to. I don't think it had anything to do with race at all.
Speaker 2:I sees it, I gets it, I goes on, because I think that comes into play as well when you talk about the ages, because generally, if somebody has a type or a preset idea of what they're trying to get to do, right, they have a type, they have a modus operandi. His type was available, yes, available alone if they were breathing, but in his case, not even he didn't care, but anyway he was looking for someone alone. He was looking for someone hitchhiking, desperate, either on drugs or wanted drugs or would take money to be able to go get drugs. There was a lot of things that he all of those were inside of his wheelhouse, yes, but what color you were, how old you were, he didn't care, because all of those were just a mix that made him more vulnerable and more available and more easily swayed to his purposes.
Speaker 2:Unsure if he got his actual lust sated at that point, because it was right after it was his first one.
Speaker 2:It was his first one, but generally there's a cooling off period that is longer. It was only six months later that he killed his next victim. They've done all of the research and everything that they've done and you can see in his he's kind of got a pattern of you know, he'll get one and then he'll take a break. He'll get one and he'll take a break and then it snowballs towards the end right before he gets arrested. But, as they usually do that, yes, absolutely, because it it does become harder to quench, it does become harder to quell that urge, it does become more. They need to do it more and more frequently because you, you keep feeding the beast and they get, they keep you know coming back, in this case apparently a bunny apparently so.
Speaker 2:The second murder, it was also in saint charles, parish. It was in december of 97. He strangled gary pierre, and not much of what I found about a lot of these victims actually, and that was a really sad part of this case the um sheer amount and and the high number of victims in this case leads to them being under sold as as actual human beings, and I will have links to every article that I could find specifically in regards to these people as people. I have those saved as part of my notes.
Speaker 2:It would be really difficult for me to have any kind of episode within any kind of time limit that would be feasible for you guys if I was to do that, but I do want to make sure that everyone is aware that I have those resources available. Please, if you have a minute, if you're sitting on a toilet not doing anything else, just go look and see. These people were actual humans. They had lives. They had people that loved them and miss them dearly. So don't just take it as a name and a drug user or somebody who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing whatever they could to get by, while that may be true that's not all of them.
Speaker 2:The best way to say that is that that's not the only thing that they were.
Speaker 1:They weren't just a victim and they weren't just a drug user or whatever To the police at the time because they were trying to find a pattern. But other than that, that should not even be a.
Speaker 2:They found Gary's body. He was fully clothed, he had no signs of physical trauma and there were no drugs found in his system. Now, it didn't Didn't say that he didn't have any alcohol, but it did say he had no drugs.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying this is how I lose it Anytime around Mardi Gras season, like alcohol, I kind of suspect it.
Speaker 2:I still think he was getting his feelers his wits about him. Don't call the feelers Thank you, because they do make a point in all of the research that I did. They say most of the victims were sexually assaulted and or raped, Because in a few, like Gary Pierre, because he was found fully clothed and because there were no physical signs of trauma and no DNA or no otherwise telltale signs of some kind of assault, they can't just assume that he was. That was the preliminary and the primary focus of all of this.
Speaker 1:And I hate to bring the drug thing back up just as soon as we got off it, but especially with those that had a tendency or a proclivity, I would say that it was probably more likely that there was consensual sex Likely, yeah, and still dead.
Speaker 2:Well see, this is where it gets interesting. So when we get towards the end of the story, you'll understand why I'm making faces over here at you, because like this one gets, this one gets. I don't understand. It makes less and less sense, so much less Okay so Okay.
Speaker 2:That one was at the end of 97, in December. The next one came in July, so he skipped six months and then he again came back six months later. Came in July, so he skipped six months and then he again came back six months later. This one was in July, at the very end of July, so right before August of 98. He murdered 38-year-old Larry Ranson.
Speaker 1:That's a bit different.
Speaker 2:And he was very much a vagrant. He was very much known for his drug addiction, drug affliction, and this was technically the first victim that was found and later proven to be a victim of Dominique that was subjected to bondage October of 98, so we went from end of July, july 31st, to beginning of october. Dominique met 27 year old oliver labanks in metairie. So now we're seeing, we're still jumping all over the place here, he's staying in the southern part but he's still he's going from different areas.
Speaker 2:Like I said, dominique met him uh, oliver, in october of 98 in metairie and after Dominique got arrested he claimed that Oliver had offered him sexual favors in exchange for money and he did end up having sex with him but again, for whatever reason, he assumed that he had to get rid of him. So he beat him and strangled him and then disposed of his body on the outskirts of metairie where it was found on october 4th. Well, the good part I said there's not any good part to this, but the the positive that came out of this situation, in this one specifically, was that when they found oliver's they did find traces of semen at autopsy. They didn't have a person to hook it up to at that point in 898.
Speaker 1:You're right, it does sound horrible.
Speaker 2:But woohoo, but they did have that. So they kept that, put it up in the fridge and said, hey, we're going to hang on to that, Laying the foundation.
Speaker 2:Relatives and family members and friends of Oliver LeBanc confirmed that he had only recently resorted to leading a vagrant lifestyle after he had been fired from his job for using drugs. So he was obviously in the strongest throes of addiction at this point and was willing to do things that he normally wouldn't have, and he was just in a really, really bad spot. The first sign of any kind of bondage was in july of 98. Oliver labanks, transient drug user, still loved and missed by family. Um, he turns up not to use as their descriptive.
Speaker 1:He turns up.
Speaker 2:He was found October 4th of 1998. He was 27 years old and he had DNA present. So Right, no, we're woohooing because we're just glad they have something. So eventually, when they do have the suspect, they can test the dna and, you know, go from there. So also in october of 98, dominique met the youngest victim that he would take, the life of 16 year old joseph brown. 16-year-old, joseph Brown met Ronald Dominique in Kenner, louisiana, and, according to Dominique in one of his many confessions, he lured him to the truck and said he would sell him some crack cocaine. He actually did have crack cocaine. They both used some in the vehicle together and then Dominique beat him several times over the head with a blunt object and strangled him with a plastic bag. Greg is wack y'all Again unsure about the sexual assault or rape aspect of that. The resources that I pulled up. They said that it was likely a post-mortem, which meant necro. So unsure.
Speaker 1:He didn't confess to that.
Speaker 2:And then, right at a month later, dominic again did the exact same ruse, you know, saw him on the side of the road. That was his stick, that was his thing. He would cruise around looking for men or younger men, whatever, just alone men, on the side of the road in areas that he knew were well trafficked by these specific types or groups of people, and would offer them the crack, cocaine or whatever drug, of toys, or offer them money for whatever he even had, this ruse get this if they turned down the gay side of a sexual encounter, he said he would show them a picture of his wife that was just shy and he would say hey
Speaker 2:come back to my house with my wife. She wants to have sex with a random guy. We'll pay you, um, but she's shy and she doesn't want to come and do this part of it. When they get back to the house, you know what he'd say she's real shy and she's worried about being overpowered, so you have to be restrained before she'll come out. That's actually pretty fucking smart. So once you get restrained, I'll let her know she'll come in, she'll do the dirty and then you'll get the money and you can go. Or you'll get the drugs and you can go.
Speaker 1:Once he had them in handcuffs, they were his yeah, I mean like that that takes a special kind of uh um, trusting and willing person, or just real, real desperate, but uh, but that's pretty damn smart, right.
Speaker 2:So that's where he picked up the 16-year-old in Kenner and then the 18-year-old Bruce Williams basically had the same thing happen to him offered drugs, got into the truck, beat him, strangled him, threw him out, and so, in 99, may, he was cruising around Kenner. Like I said, that's what he did. That became his entire way of luring, fishing, baiting however you want to put it.
Speaker 1:He was a Kenner boy now.
Speaker 2:So he came across 21-year-old Manuel Reed who offered to sell him drugs. So Dominique said sure, I'll buy some drugs off of you. And he let him jump into his truck where he proceeded to rape, then strangle him.
Speaker 1:That seems like a bad plan.
Speaker 2:He later tried to dump the body in a dumpster about a mile from where 18-year-old or, I'm sorry, 16-year-old Joseph Brown's body was found.
Speaker 1:That seems like a really bad plan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was in an industrial zone. I don't care, don't shit where you eat. However, again in this case, as well as oliver labanks, manual reed was found at autopsy to have traces of semen belong to an unknown male. Now, at this point they still hadn't tied the two unknown males together, but now there's two of them. But now they have dna from two separate crime scenes, two separate bodies, two separate victims.
Speaker 2:Now, about a month later so that would have been around june in 1999 real quick rebounds again dominique now yep, he killed 21 year old angel mejia, who they and this isn't, these are not my words, these are the words that I got from sources was a hobo with past convictions for drug possession. Now I kind of misspoke. I've known a couple of them and they're pretty good people usually Right right.
Speaker 2:I kind of misspoke on the last one, because I said he tried to dump his body, the body of Manuel Reed. He succeeded in dumping Manuel Reed's body in a dumpster In Mejia's case, a dumpster in the he is case. In angel's case he tried, but, after, you know, not really being able to succeed, um because body too big.
Speaker 2:Well, no, it just said that he tried to dump him in the dumpster but he discovered it was full, which it had to have been slam-packed full for him not to be able to even get it in there. His bodies are pretty big. He just left it on the street. Isn't that pretty awkward?
Speaker 1:So at that autopsy for.
Speaker 2:Angel Mejia. At autopsy they discovered that or the coroner concluded that the victim had been tied up with rope prior to his death but was not found with rope on his body. So obviously the killer is using tools and then taking them or keeping them with him. So he has a little bit of knowledge there of crime scene stuff while they were doing these investigations and you have to remember these are being um found in different places. So one was in st charles, parish, one was over in metairie, now this is in kenner, and these are all in like different areas, all in the southern louisiana's part. But if you're not from here, look those up it's metairie, kenner, and then the one is just saint charles place or parish, but they're all down from here.
Speaker 1:You're gonna need to spell metairie m-e-t-a-i-r-i-e, yeah I never would have gotten that okay, metairie that, yeah, maybe, but so but that sounds like the investigators that were.
Speaker 2:They were looking in these, these bodies that were keep popping up all over the southern stretch of louisiana here. They realize that and actually do establish a firm connection between mejia, mejia Brown, the 16-year-old, and Pierre. They all lived in close, like doors, apart from each other, so they thought there was a connection there and they actually had in mind one of the next victims.
Speaker 1:That just happened to be the street that he was driving through, exactly because, like I, said, he pinpointed the area of where these people were known to be centralized.
Speaker 2:And then again, in late August of 1999, dominique met 34-year-old drug addict Mitchell Johnson offering him drugs in exchange for sexual favors. He took Johnson Mitchell out to the forest outside of Metairie where he was bound, raped and strangled. Today his fully nude scenery, fully nude body was discovered on september 1st 1999. So I don't know. I I would say that they didn't say that he accidentally drowned in the ditch. I would guess that that's not what they put on his cause of death. I'm not sure, though it didn't give me a whole lot of details, but but I'm assuming at this point they realized that all of these guys that are being found having been or still were bound nude, partially nude or fully nude, sexually assaulted and then just kind of left, dumped somewhere off in the middle of nowhere, in the same general area.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying it's real close together, but close enough for it to be a thing. All of them, they all got the same cause of death for the most part, I woke up. I didn't have no plan, strangled, asphyxiated, beat over the head.
Speaker 1:Most of them sexually assaulted.
Speaker 2:At this point I guess they're finally getting their heads together. I'm not knocking law enforcement guys, don't come at me. My point is there were so many things that could have been done better. So in January of 2000, and remember this is one of the times and I say it wasn't in January, it was actually in May of 2000, was another blip on the radar for Dominique, but it was just a disturbing piece. So there's no telling what that actually was, but it had nothing to do with the 34-year-old that he murdered in September or the January 2000 victim, the 23-year-old Michael Vincent in La Force.
Speaker 1:What kind of thing, never did figure out what he wanted to do or how to do anything, no, and I think that had a lot to do with the fact that you know and I don't want to blame this on anybody who has more than one or two, three children.
Speaker 2:But you can put into a group of eight kids that are close enough in age. You get kind of pushed to the side, you get forgotten, you get grouped in or locked in with all the others. You don't really get to make your own or create your own identity unless you are that strong of a personality and he just wasn't. Yeah. I know you form a pack.
Speaker 1:You form a pack, but you get left out.
Speaker 2:Right and he found whatever comfort that he found in that and rolled with it and it was okay with just maintaining, I guess. So in January of 2000, he took the life of another victim, which would have been 23-year-old Michael Vincent in LaForche Parish. In early October he actually became really closely associated with a 20-year-old, Kenneth Randolph Jr.
Speaker 1:This guy Because I hate because I hate.
Speaker 2:I hate Kenneth Randolph throwing any kind of mud onto anybody who has been a victim of a homicide. However, sometimes karma comes around. I'm not saying that this was the case here. Anyway, I'm going to throw it here, and you know, anyway, I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw it here and I'm gonna say what I say. Uh, and in our sidebar, um golden rule real important 20 year old kenneth randolph jr was a thrice prosecuted and convicted child molester. Oh, who lived in the same.
Speaker 2:They get what they get, whatever comes to them, in whatever form they get it yeah, so dominique actually lured Randolph to his trailer by saying that there was a young girl there that wanted to meet him and have you know, interactions with him.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry to the family of him. He deserved to die.
Speaker 2:And when he got back to the trailer, he attacked and raped him and then strangled him and then took his body to a field outside the city where he was left partially nude and his remains were found on october 6th that feels like hella just desserts of 2000. That's why I said sometimes karma comes around, sometimes it bites you and sometimes it gets back to you.
Speaker 2:Um, it may not be as quickly as some people would have hoped, but um, I don't know, Like I said, I hate throwing any kind of mud on anybody, but when you are prosecuted three times as a child we don't fuck with cats, we don't fuck with old people, we don't fuck with kids it's just not okay.
Speaker 1:And for any victims or families of victims of that. If they didn't die and they went to jail, it's worse for them. I promise you Find some solace in that. Right For sure, I promise you, so Don't nobody like them.
Speaker 2:That was at the end of October, sorry Of October. That was at the end of 2000, straight up, right 2000?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I was trying to pay attention, but there was a lot we were doing month by month, by month, right?
Speaker 2:right January 2000. January 97. 97 is where we started, because he got out of jail in November of 96.
Speaker 1:We started the month by month.
Speaker 2:We haven't really gone month by month yet. The last four have been the next month Regardless. January 2000 is when he killed 23-year-old Michael Vincent, who was Found in the field. He was not the child molester. Kenneth Randolph Jr was a 30-time prosecuted child molester who lived in the trailer park near Dominique and was mentioned in close proximity, right.
Speaker 2:So his body was found on October 6th and this was in 2000, now From January. When they found that body in October they didn't have any other interactions body found, anything like that, until October 2002. Huh, so it was over a year, over two years, because it was actually in January that he killed Randolph Jr the molester. They didn't find his body until October, but he was killed in January, so he was over two years before he killed anybody else, so October 12th of 2002.
Speaker 1:They found him in the field outside of town. Yeah, okay, it wasn't in a public noticeable traffic spot.
Speaker 2:Everything he did was under shade of darkness and under cloak. He did, but he left the body in front of a dumpster.
Speaker 1:Everything he did was under shade of darkness and under cloak. He did, but he left the body in front of a dumpster. Because he meant to do so In an industrial area.
Speaker 2:Anyway, in October, on October 12th of 2002, in the late evening, dominique met 26-year-old Anoka Jones, a financially strained petty criminal, on the streets in Houma. Sorry, I was just getting.
Speaker 1:That's a really cool name.
Speaker 2:It is I like that Anoka and he attacked Jones on the street and tied him up, raped him, strangled him and then Like straight up on the street.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, he pulled him from the street to the vehicle. Yeah, no, I understand, not on the street, but like didn't go anywhere for that. Yeah, didn't go anywhere for that. Yeah, that's some balls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he later dumped Jones's body under a highway overpass, where it was discovered several hours later.
Speaker 1:So this is probably one of the freshest bodies that they've come across as of yet. Yeah, it went from, you know, january to October to a couple of hours. Right, that's a big difference. Yeah, so Good job, guys. You found one out in the open, woo-hoo.
Speaker 2:Within those same few months there, at the end of 2002, Dominique and his sister had actually moved to the rural, unincorporated community of Bayou Blue, which was that bayou area that I spoke about at the very beginning of the episode. There he was actually given a job as a specialist who checked electricity levels at the local power supply.
Speaker 1:So he Just for clarification unincorporated community how little does that have to be population size?
Speaker 2:Well, because it's about like saying, down there, by the camp where Leanne's at, they call that the camp. Yeah, that's basically what they're saying, in the same way that they're saying this is Bayou Blue area, that's the camp area.
Speaker 1:I figured this was a much larger area.
Speaker 2:Everybody in the town knew what it was, but it was not a.
Speaker 1:Okay, gotcha. Okay, I just know that Louisiana also has unincorporated communities which are a state-recognized thing as well. Yeah, I know, I thought that was not this time. Okay, so so we're gonna call this a sector or a district of the town, or like. It's a rural area, it's an area in town that y'all know what it is.
Speaker 2:It's off and about that's it, that's all you need to know I got you.
Speaker 1:So, you keep on calling it Bayou Blue, like it's some like state. Well, because Bayou Blue?
Speaker 2:Because Bayou Blue is a large area. This, what they're talking about right now, is the community that was sitting outside of the town, known as the Bayou Blue community. Gotcha, okay, alright.
Speaker 2:So Much more clear, thank you, the job that he got and was employed to do in the local power supplies in the different areas. It allowed him a lot of free time to travel and it was going in between these parishes which allowed access to all of these different areas where he was dumping all of these bodies. So around this same time, in late 2002, dominique killed 19-year-old Detrell Woods, dumping both him and a bicycle, in the reed fields near one of the power supplies If he was not an actual kid.
Speaker 1:it's just a little bit more sad when they dump a bike in a person.
Speaker 2:Now, his body wasn't found until May 24th of 2003. So he went over six and seven months Now. It was, you know, December months until spring, but I mean, like you can only imagine, they barely.
Speaker 1:There's a difference in an overpass and a by.
Speaker 2:Well, it was a partially naked body, but they found just pieces. They didn't find much of anything.
Speaker 1:Well, again, it's often the bye, Like that's to be expected, Right, right, so again he takes this big leap of time here.
Speaker 2:So that was in late 2002 that he killed 19-year-old Detrell Woods, dumped him. He wasn't found until May of 2003, but it wasn't until October what is it about October for him? October of 04, that he lured 46-year-old Larry. Matthews to his house with a promise of drugs. So, 46 years old, I think. This is the eldest victim he had. He was lured to his house with the promise of drugs, but Matthews lost consciousness due to an overdose. But Dominique raped him and strangled him anyway.
Speaker 1:Also shitty. At least the promise wasn't an empty promise.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I guess. And so after that was all done, since he was already unconscious, he, just like I said, took advantage, strangled and then dumped him about 20 miles away from his house.
Speaker 1:Oh, then he counts as taking advantage.
Speaker 2:Nobody even reported.
Speaker 1:What's the advantage?
Speaker 2:Nobody reported Larry Matthews missing or gone since he was homeless. Matthew's missing or gone since he was homeless. He was later identified and his identity had to be established via fingerprints and they had no one to make contact with to let them know that they had his body. So he was eventually put to a proper scrape. That fucking sucks, but this is all going to Dominique's angle.
Speaker 1:These are the people that he was looking and searching and hunting for it just hurts to have somebody die and not have a damn body that cared or that knew and cared that knew that they cared. So this is that knew and cared that they knew that they cared.
Speaker 2:So this is when it gets spicy. It just sucks Dominique's. This is when Mm-hmm. And Dominique's next victim would be 21-year-old Michael Barnett, whose body was found October 24th of 2004. So he bam-bammed these two I hate to say it like that, let's not say that again and it probably had to do with the fact that, because he was unconscious, it didn't give him the same kind of release, because it was no resistance that's a you can't control someone who is already PTFO'd.
Speaker 1:I mean that doesn't give you it's a very different, not MO, but that's not what he was looking for. That doesn't give you Well, yeah, no, it's a very different, not MO, but that's not what he was looking for.
Speaker 2:No, that's not the interaction he wanted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't do much for him. It didn't help.
Speaker 2:I don't think anything helped, but you sure you didn't give me any cheese, baby, what Cheese? No, I didn't. Okay, thank you, I love you. I kept looking, thinking you was going to hand me one.
Speaker 1:No, I gave you the one earlier, yeah, but it had hair all in it.
Speaker 2:Got it. It had been dropped, I guess. Which one do you want? I don't care about me. I think there's only Gouda left, but I'm good with both. That's why I got both.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, no, I think Kiss food is the only one I was in there looking at, anyways.
Speaker 2:So he back-to-backed those two. She's delicious Body was found of Michael Barnett the 21-year-old. He was the first Caucasian victim.
Speaker 1:Really, yes, kenneth Richmond Jr wasn't Yep. White as an angel Yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, not at all, so he was the very first one.
Speaker 1:If he had been the third instead of a junior, I would have said he was just wrong.
Speaker 2:Right, can you switch me on the third so?
Speaker 2:he was the first one that was white and, like I said, he backed back these two. So it was October of 2004 that he killed Larry and then he killed Michael within a couple months after that. Or within a couple days, I'm sorry, because it was October. That's a real quick Right. It was October early that. Or within a couple days, I'm sorry, because it was october, that's a real, real right. It was october early. And then it was october 24th when they found the body of michael barnett.
Speaker 2:So it could, it had to have been days if a week apart, damn. But then again it he doesn't do nothing. He doesn't do anything until february of 05 when he murdered 22 year old leon lorette, an alcoholic vagrant who had previously been living with two of the other victims which they had initially. Investigators at that point had initially assumed or they had put him on the suspect list or need to be talked to because he was the connecting point between Anoka Jones and Michael Barnett. They had all lived together at one point and they actually were looking for him in relation to the murders when they found his body.
Speaker 1:Well, they found him.
Speaker 2:And he was reportedly the last person to see both of them, or at least Jones, anoka Jones, because he had reportedly been the last person to see him before his disappearance. But we know that couldn't have been the case because then he was murdered by Domin, reportedly been the last person to see him before his disappearance, but we know that couldn't have been the case because then he was murdered by Dominique, the last person to see him before his disappearing event Because it was really good and I wanted to.
Speaker 2:Two months later, in April. So we went from February when he killed the 22-year-old Leon, who was a suspect in the other murders.
Speaker 1:He was just really good at shooting sorry.
Speaker 2:It's okay. Two months later, in April, dominique met 31-year-old August Watkins.
Speaker 1:Two months later, in April, he met August.
Speaker 2:It's a little bit funny, he was a homeless man who, again he was lured to the truck with promises of his wasn't even drugs, it was just a bed to sleep in.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's fucked. And once he got Watkins back, to the trailer Not that any of the other ones had any, you know. Not being horrible, but like that, that fucking sucks. Well, once somebody got him back. Not being horrible, but like that, that, that, just that fucking sucks yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, once somebody got him back, gave him alcohol, and this was one of the ones where he showed the picture and said she's just shy and the female acquaintance of his that wanted to have sex with him.
Speaker 1:That's a little bit funny.
Speaker 2:Wouldn't come out until he was restrained because she was scared for her safety, and at that point I almost want to blame the victim. Almost Watkins allows Dominique to tie him up Dumbass, at which point he proceeds to rape and then strangle him, and this is not me king-shaming.
Speaker 1:If you like being tied up, go for it, go nuts, but goddammit, at least see the person that's doing it.
Speaker 2:I Know what you're doing. Be safe. After they found the body of Watkins, they begin to realize at this point is when they begin to realize there's a serial killer active in Kidder and Homa.
Speaker 1:Just saying Y'all could do better on a couple of these.
Speaker 2:They are doing much better now Because of how close-minded and how secular they were back in earlier years and times of yawn. What, like two weeks ago, right? Well, they were very, you know, like I said, secluded. They were just cut off, especially in the rural areas like this in Kenner and Houma. They start to realize that, hey, all these bodies, they got the same shit happening. They are the same type of people, they are the same. Well hell, some of them have even lived together.
Speaker 2:some of them not together than nearby really close by like within a couple doors damn same neighborhoods.
Speaker 1:It must be somebody from one of them yeah.
Speaker 2:So they're thinking you know, we probably got a serial killer guys, which is not unsurprising because, especially at this point in time in Louisiana, you had at least two other friggin' active serial killers. So, yeah, that makes all the sense. Let's add one more.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's why they didn't think it was one in the first place. Like can't be an ischmium right now.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's very likely, because it just seems unreal is unreal. So after they find Watkins' body, they, because of the striking similarity, the strangulation, body dumping, I don't want my laugh in right here.
Speaker 1:I've just caught Watkins and I immediately went to Sherlock. Yeah, either way, though it's similar enough that it made me chuckle and I was not laughing at anything. That just happened.
Speaker 2:So after only a few days of the murder that he had committed against Watkins and then later that same summer he murdered 28-year-old Alonzo Hogan in St Charles, Parish, and then again in terrible parish, 17 year old wayne smith, luring them, both, alonzo and wayne, under the pretense of having sex with one of his female friends. So he used this get them to come back, allow themselves willingly to be restrained, and then he would proceed to assault, rape and strangle and murder and then dump their bodies. Now the major difference between all of these other victims, except for the very first one and Hogan and Smith these last two, the 28-year-old and 17-year-old in St Charles and Terrebonne. They had no criminal record, they had no prior criminal convictions and were not known to use drugs.
Speaker 1:This is not a very stable table. I mean like you've got an actual table right here.
Speaker 2:So Hogan, alonzo Hogan, the 28-year-old, had been raped pre-mortem and while there were no traces of semen found on his corpse, since his body had been disposed of in a canal and it was discovered a few days later. But because it was in a canal, there was water. There's no way.
Speaker 2:So, they could tell that he was raped. They did not get any dna back from his body. So in september they didn't get any usable dna, right, okay? Well, I mean like, if they found it, they they, like you said they couldn't use it, but I don't it says that they didn't.
Speaker 1:I find any 2005.
Speaker 2:that september, dominique murdered 40 year old chris deville, who was trying to hitchhike out of Napoleonville following Hurricane Katrina. Again, he was taking advantage of the fact that these guys were down on the lot trying to get where they needed to go, and he later dumped Chris DeVille's body in a reed field on the side of the road I was going to say, if he was active around the time of after Katrina, like there could be a lot of victims we have no idea about.
Speaker 2:Exactly Well, and we'll kind of get to that. Touch on that here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. I know you said there were extensive confessions and like so. That's. It could also just be the ones he thought mattered, or the ones that stood out in his mind.
Speaker 2:Right, well, no, I don't think that's the case. I think there's a lot of vagrants or down-on-their-luck people that are hitchhiking and moving and having a place to stay Well, and a couple of these were not identified until he identified them or where they were, so he later dumped his body in the reed field and unfortunately, his skeletal remains were discovered a month later and identified by relatives only because of an id card that happened to be left beside the body with his personal belongings, because he was so degraded they could not, they would not have been able to identify him any other way.
Speaker 2:That was after katrina, so that probably played a big role in what they had or why they hadn't found him within the month or so, because they had a lot going on at that point A whole lot of shit going on, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that was at the end of September, and then One of the couple times that no blame placed on anything timing-wise during this period of time. Right, they had a lot of fucking shit going on, exactly.
Speaker 2:So then again, in late November of that same year, post-Katrina Ronald Dominique, he again. He murdered 21-year-old Nicholas Pellegrin in La Forge Parish. And while they were investigating Pellegrin's death, the relatives told the police that shortly before his death he had borrowed $400 from a local drug dealer and had missed the payment date, after which he began to receive death threats. So before that's some real good timing Before Dominique's capture and confession, Pellegrin's death was thought to have been drug related, which you know, and that's what they attributed it to. That really follows, follows. So the last and final victim and I think this is probably the longest amount of time we've had to spend talking about how many victims over what span of time, because it's been a lot um, his last confirmed victim was 27 year old christopher sutterfield, and christopher sutterfield was different in many ways because, well, technically, he claimed bisexual. So that was one thing Ronald had actually Openly claimed. Ronald had actually met and began romantically dating him.
Speaker 1:Oh shit, right. And then they did the dirty, and then he killed him, and then again in.
Speaker 2:October. I have no idea why this guy's October is so fucked. I have no idea.
Speaker 1:I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 2:Huh, when's his birthday, january? I have no idea what happened to him in October, and the only thing I can figure is that October is triggering for him, because that's when he was in jail and that's when he was raped. Oh, that makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. But like it literally just dawned on me that that's when he was in jail.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize that I didn't either until literally my brain made the jump. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:So October 14th, while on a date in Ivoryville Parish, the blood moon came out, dominique, just out of nowhere, decided he was done and he hit Sutterfield on the head with a heavy object, causing him to lose consciousness. And was done, and he hit Sutterfield on the head with a heavy object, causing him to lose consciousness, and then raped and strangled him and then, like, just left his body. After police found the body, they interviewed the relatives and friends and acquaintances. All of them confirmed that they had seen him with Dominique that night driving a black SUV, but they weren't able to describe the appearance of Dominique well enough to be able to give them a positive or, you know, a significant lead. All they had was the black SUV and some white guy, chunky white guy.
Speaker 1:Not to say that it can't be done, but it's just a real, real odd to rape your romantic partner.
Speaker 2:But why would you feel the need to do so? Y'all were dating.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying. Like it's crazy, why would you feel the need to do so? Y'all were dating. That's what I'm saying. It's crazy, why would you?
Speaker 2:take the one good thing that you've had in ever, you have to assume it was good because they were dating. They weren't just, you know, f buddies. Even that would have been good for him.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Like, why why? Because that scared the shit out of him it scared the absolute ever loving shit out of him the serial killer in him needed to keep that normality that had been his life for almost 10 years.
Speaker 1:So I also didn't even process that 10 years is a long time to be doing something, to just stop, no matter what that something is. In this case it's not really a good something. But uh, it'd be real hard to cold turkey a damn thing. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:So that was October 14th 2005.
Speaker 1:One would hope killing people would be a little bit easier. But you know Apparently not.
Speaker 2:In November of 2006,. Over a year later, Dominique came under police suspicion after a resident of Bayou Blue, a gentleman by the name of Ricky Wallace, reported to his probation officer that he had had an interaction with this weird white guy off in a trailer park that reporting to your po actually did something useful.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. So he reported.
Speaker 2:Sounds better and more like what I was trying to say that dominique had lured him, that dominique had lured wallace ricky wallace to his trailer in mid 2006 so it was earlier that year with the offer of sharing drugs and to have sex with some girl. Now ricky got in there and he was wait, you tell me, one of them actually used their brain. Listen, according to what ricky told his po and what he later testified to, dominique had tried to convince him that his girlfriend enjoyed bondage and offered to tie wallace up. So he had switched his little game up a little bit. It wasn't so much about her safety or protection, it was more so because she was into it and I guess that worked for him in another case or in another time. So he decided that's what he was going to go with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I kind of feel like he just went with one thing until it stopped working and then tried something slightly different. Yeah, probably, very likely, and Rinty was like.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm not high enough for this, I'm not drunk enough for this, I don't believe any of the shit that you're spitting. So I'm going to be out and Dominic let him leave. He let him walk out. The trailer.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, Things didn't go the way. He was planning for them to go Right and he didn't. Probably both didn't know what to do and didn't want to attract attention. Didn't want a chance to do getting out, oh for sure. But if you think about it, Do you remember that one time, that one time, that somebody got out Right?
Speaker 2:And that happened again.
Speaker 1:That and that ain't gonna happen. He ain't going back.
Speaker 2:He was 33 when this started in 1997. At this point he's like what 40?
Speaker 1:43-ish. 43-ish, you said 10 years.
Speaker 2:Right, so I think it was technically nine. I'm good with rounding in this case. Either way, 10 is good enough, but my point is he's obviously overweight. Got heart problems, got issues, got all health issues. If he doesn't get them tied up he's not going to win that fight, so his best option is to be like oh you know what dude, that's cool, that's fine.
Speaker 1:We'll find somebody else, no biggie. And again it hurts a little bit to say pretty fucking smart, yeah, he picked his battles pretty well, right, so he let him lead, no problem.
Speaker 2:And then later, when Ricky told his PO about this, they said oh my god, that sounds similar to that would make sense if they got tied up before. Oh shit, that's how he was doing it, because he's a big guy. They didn't think he was going to be physically capable of doing this to these people, these young strapping bucks that are on drugs and high and everything else, whatever. They couldn't figure it out Now.
Speaker 1:That alone showed where your mind is at these young strapping bucks. Because they couldn't understand how the heat in the shape and condition that he was in, Okay, they got him.
Speaker 2:When he told his PO this it struck a chord. He goes and reports to the investigators. They eventually, at some point later they get him to testify. But his testimony was called into question because he was a known drug addict. He was obviously on parole or probation for a reason.
Speaker 1:And he had known to be a liar.
Speaker 2:Like he had repeatedly lied in the past. But this did start that ball turning, and this is what I was talking about earlier. We were talking about just telling somebody you trust to be able to tell someone that can get that ball rolling.
Speaker 1:Which, to be fair, isn't usually your po, but if that works for you good for you, all right.
Speaker 2:So this traction in just this little bit of information allowed them to bring dominique in as a suspect.
Speaker 2:It allowed him to start their questioning, which, while he was being held at the station, because again, this guy's not dumb they ask him for a for a blood sample, for for a dna sample and probably and this is my guess speculation station here. My guess is that he knew if he refused that it would look worse, so he went ahead and said okay, and I mean, we're still he probably had a at least a little bit of confidence that there wasn't much or any and they wouldn't be able to tie it together because I could see like he's got 10 years worth and right, a little bit of confidence.
Speaker 2:Two bodies there were only ever two bodies that had recovered dna. Yes, again.
Speaker 1:so I I don't like complimenting this guy, but like right, that's pretty damn good, that's a good track record for that Right.
Speaker 2:So Not good enough. He gave them the sample freely, voluntarily, like I said. I believe in my mind that makes the most sense, that he was just like well, if I tell them no, they're just gonna look harder. So this might buy me a little bit of time.
Speaker 1:So which in reality? Like, If you have, If it's going to show something, say no, yeah, they'll look harder, but they won't be able to get your DNA. Don't drop a damn thing that touches your lips in a public trash. Can.
Speaker 2:We're not giving, I'm cutting all that out.
Speaker 1:We're not doing that. Don't leave your house. Don't smoke a cigarette.
Speaker 2:Alright. So over the next week DNA testings eventually came back and obviously, as we're telling the story, you guys already know it came back the DNA from the two bodies that was recovered, from Oliver and Manuel. They matched.
Speaker 1:See, the woohoo comes back around the semen traces.
Speaker 2:And that in and of itself was enough for an arrest warrant. So on December 1st 2006, dominique was arrested at a homeless shelter. Now get this. This is why, in my head, his thought was okay, well, they're on to me, I'm going to give them my DNA, it's going to give me some time to tie up some loose ends. And the reason I say this is because less than a week before the arrest was made, he was still living with his sister on her property. So it gave him a little bit of time to get off that, and that shows a little bit of humanity in him. That shows you he did care for his family, at least his sister in some form, because he didn't want her dragged into it in that way. So he did move out, which doesn't make me feel any better.
Speaker 1:It doesn't. It doesn't.
Speaker 2:And you know, the craziest part was they actually did an interview with the guy that he was the homeless shelter that he was staying in, the guy who owned it. He was like I never would have thunk. I never would have thunk it and he showed he had no resistance to nothing like that. He actually had a cane. He hobbled out on a cane out of his little bedroom to be arrested and taken into custody.
Speaker 1:It's actually real good for bonking, but uh, back full circles to, I think, the first thing you said, a highlight on the unsuspecting, on the unassuming, very much so Anybody can be anybody. Don't trust them until you have a reason to.
Speaker 2:Yeah or not to, and I mean, like that's one of those things that, like I hope and pray at this point in our world as a civilization as a whole, that we understand intricately that anyone has the capacity to be evil, to be a murderer, to be a serial killer, to be one of those people that you didn't see it coming At this point I don't assume people know anything because, like I'm sorry people, I know y'all.
Speaker 1:People don't.
Speaker 2:No, I agree with you know anything because, like I'm sorry people, well see, that's what I'm saying. I hope I love y'all people. No, no, I agree with you. That's why we're here. We're educating, that's why we're here. So once at the police station, dominique agreed to cooperate. He readily well.
Speaker 2:I mean like obviously he put up a little bit of resistance at first game no not really, but he was kind of like well, what you got, trying to hold his cards, you know, actually left. And then when they told him that the two dna matches came back to the two different bodies that were found, he was like, all right, gigs up, we're done. All right, I'm gonna confess to uh, 23 murders in total, describing them and only details that would be known to the killer or to the officers at the scene. Because cops do this and this is a thing.
Speaker 2:Another one education point here guys, the officers, the cops, cops can lie. First and foremost. I need everybody to understand that. Let me say it louder for the ones in the back cops will lie. They can lie about anything and everything. If they tell you they've got DNA, tell them to show you the test. If they show you a test, you need to tell them to let you call the doctor yourself, because they can lie folks and damn it, they will repeatedly. If they say that your buddy has rolled on you trust your buddy.
Speaker 2:Trust your buddy and laugh laugh at them, because they're telling your buddy the same thing and you just gotta hope and pray that he's keeping his freaking mouth shut too. They can lie, they will lie, and they will do it repeatedly and to the best of their ability.
Speaker 1:they are trained to do so, so in that, manner, and it is only in cases such as these, where it happens often enough, that I appreciate the fact that they came. But damn it, I don't like it.
Speaker 2:the fact that they can't but damn it, I don't like it, right. So the only reason I say that is to also bring up the part where they can lie. But they can also withhold information. So they as investigators, in most cases will withhold a very specific detail from the press, from anybody outside of the immediate group, because that is something specific that only the person who was there at the time of the murder will know. And you know they try to have this type of information or this single significant piece to be able.
Speaker 1:She says single. They like to have a couple.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. They like to have something that they can cooperate, because you've got people that are crazy, absolutely, 100%, allulely.
Speaker 1:And you've also got people that are really luckily unlucky.
Speaker 2:That will make shit up and be right, sure for sure, and you want to be able to say that he knew something that no one else possibly could have known. There's no way he could have got that what's that term?
Speaker 1:beyond the shadow of a doubt or, uh, beyond a reasonable doubt, depending on if you're talking to normal people or if you're talking to legal people, right?
Speaker 2:right right, You're not normal people. So this is one of those things that every one of the 23 murders that he ended up confessing to, he had that special piece of information that only he could have known if he had been there and killed them himself.
Speaker 1:And that's a lot of corroborating factors.
Speaker 2:As a result all of the charges that were brought on him at that time he actually only got charged, I think the jurisdiction that he murder and he was held on eight million dollars, one million dollar bond per murder for those charges, right, um, it hurts a little bit, it does, it does, and this was in jefferson. I believe it was either in jefferson or terrible. No, it was in terrible, terrible parish that he was arrested. The dna match was actually from jefferson, parish, but with the confessions from the eight that were in Terrebonne, that's where they got him on the first-degree murders for that.
Speaker 1:Now Sorry. Sometimes my interjections are funny, Sometimes they're just sad.
Speaker 2:Um, the district attorney initially stated that he wanted to go for the death penalty.
Speaker 1:However, Nahhh, life sentence is way more of a death penalty for this one, however.
Speaker 2:Due to the amount of victims and due to the amount of information that was given and to the extras that the extra information that was given they weren't even aware that they didn't have, so, like the murder that I talked about earlier, that they thought was drug related.
Speaker 1:Sounds like they ended up coming to the conclusion of what are they going to do? Kill him twice.
Speaker 2:Right, well, not even that. To the conclusion of what are they going to do? Kill him twice, right? Well, not even that. It was more about getting closure for the families and getting them, because the one Mitchell family was really upset about the police saying that he had drowned in the ditch, that didn't freaking happen, and because Dominique did provide that. I don't want to say measure of solace, because I don't know which is worse. Honestly, by being validated that the police lifted up or knowing that you're, they were validated when they said it, right, so All of them knew.
Speaker 2:Regardless of all that, they did offer him a plea deal, good or what, technically, technically, they offered him a plea deal and the only part of the plea deal that actually mattered was the fact that if he pled guilty, if he took the plea deal, they would take the death penalty off the table and plead for him um, now, they spent a lot of time in court and because I still want to touch on this just a little bit because, like I said, they charged him with eight counts of first degree murder.
Speaker 2:He took the plea deal to eight counts of first degree murder. So he is sentenced to eight counts of first degree murder, life without parole on all eight sentences.
Speaker 1:Is that even concurrent?
Speaker 2:I don't even know. I think it may have been concurrent, but it's irrelevant at this point because he's never getting out of prison, because even if he does, he's still got to go and do the charges for the other prisoners as well.
Speaker 1:He's got eight there.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And they're holding oh, and that's another thing that cops, prosecutors, can and will do Well, because I didn't learn this until just like last year Just completely withhold charges.
Speaker 2:They have you on something. We don't feel like filing those yet and the statute of limitations are going to run out on murder, so we'll just hold on to that one.
Speaker 1:They'll just wait, just in case you do somehow someway manage to finagle your ass out of jail.
Speaker 2:you're going right back Yep.
Speaker 1:So if you're going to do some shit, don't get caught. If you have a possibility of getting caught, don't do some shit, Unless it's really worth it to you.
Speaker 2:So he was appointed a public defender when he first got his $8 million bill set, I really shouldn't be giving you advice.
Speaker 1:That's horrible advice.
Speaker 2:Right. So again, he took the plea he pled to eight counts of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life without parole, absolutely. But before any of that happened he was using a cane and he was actually wheelchaired a couple times in and out of court to go to his pretrial hearings and review status hearings, and all of these things, the wheelchair kind of makes me feel like it was a you know a PR stunt.
Speaker 2:He was reporting to the court and to anybody that would listen that he had a terrible heart. He had just recently had a heart attack or a stroke or something, within a week or two before he got arrested. All of these things Because he was trying to make the case. For you know, he's too febrile, like he was not able to carry these things out.
Speaker 1:I couldn't have dubbed those bodies you know Spent a whole life, a decade of hunting and fucking and killing and dumping that don't fuck up anybody's heart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so his Shit.
Speaker 1:just the nerves alone of trying to not get caught for a decade and fuck up somebody's heart.
Speaker 2:Right and the doctors. They did a full checkup, full all of the things, physicals, and come to find out he was severely exaggerating his heart conditions he did have like a little bit of a murmur or something, and he did have some congenital heart stuff.
Speaker 2:That was that was starting, but it was very, very exaggerated circumstances. They had no way of proving or disproving either, but they they didn't. They didn't have any records or showing of him having had a stroke or heart attack any time recently and you know his heart must not have been all that bad, because this motherfucker's still alive. He's in Angola right now, breathing the air that we breathe. He's not breathing the air that we breathe. Eh, it's probably a little worse, but he's at his forever home in Angola right Today.
Speaker 1:Right now, honestly, for one of the few instances that feels a hell of a lot better than the death sentence, especially for this one specifically.
Speaker 2:Technically he is on restricted or confinement.
Speaker 1:He only gets to go outside for one hour every 24 hours and he is in his own single, single cell by himself.
Speaker 2:He doesn't have any other inmate interaction. He's outside for an hour a day, allowed to shower, but he is closely guarded and closely watched and he is not allowed to interaction with anybody else in the prison at any point in time yeah, they told him he wasn't going to get the death penalty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't allow him around the general population, right, he might get the death penalty right, so that's like that that whole.
Speaker 2:It's just bonkers.
Speaker 1:I find everything because it's a lot of just the jail trying to save face now I want to say they told you they weren't gonna kill right, I want.
Speaker 2:I want to point out real quick though I didn't mention it when we were going through the story, because there's just so much that goes on. In this case it's. It's a lot because it's over a 10 year span, you can imagine. But when it all came down to it, they didn't actually set up a task force for this serial killer until 2005. He started killing these, these men in 97. By the time it hit 2005, he had already killed 18 people like again with the 19 people.
Speaker 2:I don't really like doing this, but like good shit 19 people he had got away with a couple of them. They didn't even realize or connect to him or to a single until he connected to them, and they didn't do this in 2005. Now in 2005, they did have a couple of gumshoe detective investigators that were very thorough and they did, even with this PO, this parolee making these statements that sounded kind of off the wall, kind of you know, everybody else was kind of writing them off.
Speaker 1:These two guys were very dedicated to finding it and they followed everything, which is the reason that our police structure still is capable of standing on its own two feet. There's always going to be a couple good ones.
Speaker 2:Those two investigators are the reason that that tip quote unquote tip was followed up on that. They did do the initial touch base interview and asked for the DNA from Dominique. And without that followed up on that, they did do the initial touch base interview and asked for the dna from dominique. And without that touch, without that contact, he probably never would have been caught. He would have continued killing until he was either caught in the act or he was caught dumping the body, something along those lines, or he fell out. Because, yeah, because these, these, these men didn't stop. And you know, these are the kind of detectives that we need so many of, because, regardless of where these guys came from, regardless of their stature or status in life, these detectives were bound and freaking, determined to get justice for every single one of them, regardless of who they were, where they came from, how much money their family had, what color they were. And that to me, is worth talking about.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you a secret we love y'all, y'all the best as an inside joke.
Speaker 2:So, um, I just wanted to throw that out there. I also wanted to kind of toss it out there too for the lgbtq I'm sorry, I don't know all of the extensions.
Speaker 2:Um, most that whole community, um, this left a a big mark on the louisiana community because they said it kind of felt like a black eye on the lgbt people because they they said that you know just, it's just a funny turn of phrase, right, but that's literally the quote was black eye for the lgbt community because they they didn't really him, but they didn't shun him either, so he was a part of their group and it made them look terrible because he had this gay guy running around killing other gay guys to keep from going to jail, after he raped and strangled them and then just dumped their body like they were nothing. Can we stop and talk?
Speaker 1:about just how fucked that is that we don't that every white, white straight serial killer is another black guy like our face would be so damn black. They got what like two.
Speaker 2:We got what like two thousand out of all of the serial killers so far we've had in the worst way Sean Vincent, gillis, dominique and Gainesville Ripper they were all white. Jared todd lee is the only black man so far, but we do have another black man next week. But statistics reportedly over the years that they've done all of this analysis into serial killers and the like, they found that typically they are white men. They are more likely to have a serial killer that is a Caucasian male than any other race or gender. Period, end of story. And you know as bad as everybody want to talk about. You know the profiling and things of that nature. Well, I mean mean, but that happens with any criminal, though at some point they get lazy, they get sloppy and they have an almost like an intrinsic need to be caught.
Speaker 1:So I'm talking about people in general.
Speaker 2:They get tired anyway, fun facts in the gay community. Ronald had a nickname. Ronald dominique had a nickname and he was known as quote miss moped unquote. Why? Let me tell you that's because when he was visiting these bars downtown, these, uh, the gay bars where he would go and do drag as patatti LaBelle, he had a moped. He would drive around on his freaking moped, a moped. He would take the moped to the bars, go sing Patti LaBelle.
Speaker 1:But this is the other thing too. I failed to see the humor in this. I drove a moped to a bar.
Speaker 2:Yes, but you were not a chubby white dude dressed as a white or a black female. No, no, I was not. Okay, so also, no, I was not he. But this is the other fun fact here too, he was not an alcoholic. He barely drank ever. He never did any kind of drugs, he was never known to do any kind of drugs and from what we can see in his past there was no overwhelming signs of either physical or from uh any kind of traumatic uh occurrence. But you heard me in just in this episode talk about the fact that what is about? What is it about? October? Well, ding, ding, ding. That was when he was in jail, the only time he was in jail, the only time that he was had to be put in the hospital, after he was raped repeatedly and horribly enough to be put in the hospital, after he was raped repeatedly and horribly enough to be put in the hospital.
Speaker 1:Which very well could have just been once, not even Right. It could have been yeah, and I don't want to mitigate, or no, absolutely not.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, um, I guess, because he thought that at that point in his life that you know, he had tried everything the way that he had so far and it had gotten him nowhere. So when he came out, excuse me, when he came out of jail, he still wanted to get get his dick wet. I suppose, and all of all of his, all of his, all of his murders stemmed from the sexually based motivation, right, but I mean because that's what he told them in his confessions as well was that all of it was because he wanted to have sex with these men but he didn't want to get in trouble for it. So that's why he killed him, because he wasn't going back to prison. But I think over time and I think it's said in one of these episodes that you know, he, they assume it was more to it than that it was the control, it was the ability to make his presence known in some way, and that that was the control that he got to exert over these men in one way or another. And that actually kind of rings true, especially if you look at the fact that the the ones that were, um, the crimes that were committed so close in proximity to the other in time, that the one, specifically, was when the guy overdosed and he wasn't able to resist. He wasn't able to put up a fight, he wasn't able to exert his control in the way that he normally had been um with his other victims, and that created less of a thrill, less of a release. Um, it didn't. It didn't check the boxes that he had set out to with the intent of committing these crimes. That was why he was doing it, and because he didn't get that, he had to turn around and commit another one real quick. So I mean, it's a terrible, terrible, freaking story and again, I had no freaking clue when I started this mess that louisiana had so many dang serial killers.
Speaker 2:But I can tell you for sure that we've got. I'm gonna do the one more. Um, that'll be, um, not this coming over the week after. We are about to go to north carolina, um, today, actually tomorrow, well, it's over past midnight, so we're driving up there to go to a wedding and then we'll be back, uh, next week and uh, we'll see if we're excited about that. But um, I'm gonna try to get that other episode recorded and give that up for y'all once we get back, so we shouldn't have any missteps there. And I don't know. I'm excited to be able to get through this next one, because I refuse to do any more serial killers after this next one, because I've got the other episodes that I've got to tell you guys about, because it's killing me to not to.
Speaker 2:I was talking to someone just the other day about the fact that I started this podcast specifically to be able to tell these stories that get under my skin, that that keep me up at night, that keep me scrolling, that keep me digging for something else, for more information. I need to know why, what happened, what were they thinking, why would they do that? I need to know why or what happened, what were they thinking, why would they do that? And a lot of times the answers are not fulfilling, but at least, in the very least, I get to share them and get them out of my brain and I don't have to try to, you know, force them on the people in my life that just roll their eyes at me because I'm telling them another story about stuff that they have no idea why I'm interested or why I care. So I appreciate you guys being here for me. I appreciate you guys coming back. I appreciate you sharing If you do. If you don't, that's fine too.
Speaker 2:Just keep coming back. That's fine, I'm good with that. We've got a couple cool things that have popped up here recently I just want to touch on real, real quick. Our host for our podcast RSS Feed actually has a new, really cool feature that if you at the very top of our show notes, it says something about screaming at me during the episode. Basically, that's just a link that will allow you to text us immediately. It's just a quick and it goes straight to my phone and you type in whatever message, however long, and you can sign it. You cannot sign it. It comes from a randomized number from the host site itself, but you can literally just immediately text me and we can text back and forth.
Speaker 2:If you had something interesting you wanted to say about the case, or if you have any kind of suggestion or anything, you can also submit it. That way we've got our website. We've got our tiktok. We've our YouTube, which I think may or may not be on a slight hiatus because I didn't renew my ID. I'm not sure what the hell that is, but I'll fix that. Make sure that gets put back up.
Speaker 2:We got our Patreon that I release. Um, all of these unedited, unfiltered versions, uh, that usually end up being about double the amount of time that I end up putting out in a normal episode. So if you want any piece of that, I release photos and things like that days early and generally I have the episodes available at least 24 hours early for our Patreon members out there too. So, oh, I did want to say real quick that we are now we have officially hit all major continents. Um, I don't believe Antarctica is a thing, but all of the major continents North South Asia, Europe, all of the all of the whole world, Australia, everybody. We have hit every continent and I just wanted to say thank you guys. I appreciate you, we love you and we will see you guys soon. If you have any questions or anything like that, check out the show notes down there.
Speaker 2:If you go to the website, the sinlawpodcastcom, I'll have an entire post on there that has the pictures showing you with him with his cane and looking all crazy, and then all of the pictures of the victims, which I always try to put at the very front foremost. First thing you see whenever you do, um, check out the website for the episode. So, you guys, have a wonderful weekend, have a wonderful week. Um, we're going to go and hopefully enjoy ourselves, and I uh, I plan to try not to think about too much more of anything. I actually want to have a book that I've really been dying to read, and I think that's what I'm going to try to get done in the couple days that we're not going to be driving. So I will respond if you send me emails, texts, whatever it is, but otherwise you guys have a wonderful rest of your month, which is this we're at the end of May.
Speaker 2:Now right yeah, dora month, which is this what we're at the end of May now, right yeah. So have a wonderful May. I will see you guys back again in June and hopefully in June we'll be able to cover some real-time cases, unless they decide to plea out before then. But I will keep you guys posted. It should be a very interesting summer for sure. Thank you guys so much. Love you. See you later. Peace out. Girl Scout Uncle Sire would say deuces, take care out there.
