The Bayou Strangler

by Fred Rosen

  Dammit, it was Dominique again!

  He’d slipped his tail. Twice he had killed while he was the prime suspect, and he knew it. Thornton and Bergeron took it personally. Neither said a word between them because each knew what the other was thinking: this would be the last time Dominique killed.

  Thornton and Bergeron attended the autopsy, where the coroner said that Sutterfield’s manner of death was “asphyxiation by strangulation after the victim’s clothes were removed.” The coroner noted redness and swelling of the rectum. Sutterfield had been raped.

  Hoping Dominique might have once again ejaculated inside his victim, the coroner took swabs from Sutterfield’s rectum. The evidence was rushed to the police laboratory. Meanwhile, Bergeron was scheduled to go on vacation with her daughter to Walt Disney World.

  “What do you think, Dennis? Should I go?” Bergeron asked doubtfully.

  They had all been going nonstop on the case. Thornton knew that Bergeron needed a break as much as he did. And he also knew she needed the time with her daughter. They all needed time with their families.

  “Go on,” he said. “I’ll let you know if we get anything.”

  But Bergeron couldn’t completely leave her job behind. Despite the fun-loving image she put on for her daughter, the entire time they were at Disney World, she couldn’t get the killer and his victims out of her mind.

  Bergeron was in her hotel room in Florida when the phone rang. It was Thornton. He had gotten the DNA results back on Sutterfield.

  “There was no match on Sutterfield,” Thornton said with obvious disappointment in his voice.

  Bergeron said nothing. She, too, had hoped for a match. But this didn’t mean it wasn’t Dominique, just that in Sutterfield’s case, he had left nothing behind to positively identify himself. They were still convinced that Dominique had already killed twice while the police were actively investigating and observing him.

  “Really, what choice do we have? We gotta pick him up.”

  Bergeron agreed. Even if the charges didn’t stick, right now was the time to take him into custody. Dennis Thornton approached a judge in Jefferson Parish and asked for two first-degree-murder warrants on Ronald J. Dominique. The first was for the murder of Oliver LeBanks in October 1998. The second was for the murder of Manuel Reed in May 1999. LeBanks was their best bet because of the DNA match.

  Dominique, meanwhile, was running into problems with his family. His sister had grown tired of the constant surveillance and didn’t want problems with the police. At loose ends, Dominique settled in a flophouse used by local oil-rig workers. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen next.

  Meanwhile, Thornton and Bergeron thought they were rolling the dice by arresting Dominique without an airtight case.

  “It was December 2, 2006,” Thornton remembers. “All we had was the mitochondrial-DNA match. There had been lots of pressure to arrest him. We knew that once we got in the interview room, it was anybody’s guess what he might say. To make matters worse, there had been a media leakage.”

  No one knew how, but local reporters had found out about the impending arrest of the serial killer in their midst. When Bergeron and Thornton got out of their car at the flophouse—Dominique’s sister had kindly directed them to her brother’s present location—reporters crowded around them with cameras, microphones, lights, and pads, shouting questions which, of course, they ignored.

  The last thing they needed was a defense lawyer to say they were polluting the jury pool with pejorative statements about their client.

  Inside the flophouse, they found Dominique sitting pensively in his room. They approached him, both detectives feeling for the weapons at their waists in case they needed them. By prearranged plan, Thornton was to take the lead. After so many years of tracking the serial killer without knowing who he was, Thornton would now have the honor of the collar.

  “Ronald J. Dominique?” Thornton asked.

  His voice was strong and confident.

  Dominique nodded.

  “We have two warrants for your arrest on first-degree-­murder charges. Please stand up.”

  Bergeron guided him to the wall, patted him down, and handcuffed him. With Bergeron holding his right elbow and Thornton his left, they marched Dominique outside, into the glare of the TV lights. Pushing through the crowd, the detectives placed him in the back of their car. Bergeron got in the back with him and Thornton drove.

  “You know us from the last time we spoke, don’t you, Mr. Dominique?” said Thornton.

  Dominique looked at the two cops.

  “Yes, I recognize you,” Dominique said quietly.

  When they got to the police station, they hustled him up the concrete steps into a large outside corridor that was filled with cops and reporters. Inside the station, they took their suspect past the county assessor’s office. Dominique was led into a drab blue room where the interview would take place. He saw the three chairs and an institutional desk with a glass wall behind it.

  Unlike on television, most police interview rooms do not have two-way glass, but this one did. Any cops who were interested in the proceedings were permitted to observe. Strangely, many of the detectives on the task force did not want the responsibility of interviewing Dominique. The gruesomeness of his crimes made even seasoned pros cringe. Bergeron and Thornton were different.

  Getting him had become their mission. However, they were not going to let their personal feelings interfere with Dominique being questioned fairly. Although they were convinced of his guilt, they still had to prove it, ideally through a detailed confession.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Black Pepper

  The detectives had already decided in advance that Thornton would take the lead, being the more experienced of the two.

  Seated in the interrogation room next to Bergeron, he looked across at Dominique. Thornton had done his research and knew that, if approached informally, serial killers sometimes open up in surprising ways. So he began to chat with Dominique, to gain his confidence.

  After a few minutes, Dominique began talking to them about the two men whose murders he was being charged with. Perhaps he was bragging, perhaps he was happy the chase was over, or perhaps it was just that he enjoyed finally talking to people who wanted to listen to him. Whatever the reason, the detectives quickly read him his Miranda rights.

  Once again, they got him to sign off on the waiver of his constitutional rights, allowing them to speak with him without a lawyer being present. If at any time he requested one, they would have to stop. On the table was a tape recorder. Thornton pushed the “on” switch.

  “The following is a tape-recorded voluntary statement given by Ronald J. Dominique. The date of the statement is December 1, 2005. It’s now 6:32 p.m. Present for the statement is Lieutenant Dawn Bergeron with the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office and Lieutenant Dennis Thornton with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.”

  Thornton looked over at Dominique.

  “For the record, could you state your full name please?”

  “Ronald Joseph Dominique,” he said in a soft voice.

  “Okay, Ronald,” Thornton continued, “at this time, you’re willing to give us information on what you know about what happened between yourself and these two men, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  The idea was to get him to confess to the two murders in the warrants. If they could do that, then they had him in jail for life. If Dominique then confessed to all twenty-three, Bergeron and Thornton would succeed in not only helping to give closure to the families involved, but also bringing to ground one of the worst serial killers in American criminal history.

  With his “kill total” up to twenty-three, only five serial killers in the United States were worse: Juan Corona, who killed twenty-five ranch laborers; Wayne Williams, whose victim count reached twenty-four; John Wayne Gacy
, who murdered thirty-three boys and men; Ted Bundy, known to have murdered thirty-five women; and Gary Ridgeway, who was convicted of forty-nine murders but confessed to many more.

  “Let’s start with the first man, Ronald. You indicated to us earlier, before we activated this tape, that you had met this man. Tell us about it.”

  “I met him in New Orleans and he wanted to fool around.”

  “Can you remember how long ago it was, Ronald?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Where were you living at the time?” Bergeron asked.

  “I was living in Boutte,” Dominique answered.

  “How long did you live there?”

  “Sometime after I got out of jail, maybe six months or a little longer.”

  Thornton got to the heart of the case.

  “Now, where were you when you met the first man?”

  “In the quarters. I had just started going to get out of the house. I had went maybe two or three times.”

  “How did you meet this guy, Ronald, in the French Quarter?”

  “You just walk up and down the streets in a bar and people approach you.”

  “Okay and he approached you?” Thornton continued.

  “Yes,” said Dominique.

  “What was said?”

  “He wanted to know if I wanted to have a good time. I said, ‘Sure.’”

  “You mean sex?” Thornton asked, seemingly innocent.

  “Yes.”

  “He approached you and asked if you wanted to fool around and have sex?” Thornton summed it up.

  “Yes,” Dominique answered, adding a little defensively, “That goes on all over New Orleans.”

  “Were you looking to have a good time?”

  “I was just walking around, just enjoying the music and talking to people.”

  One heck of a good time, guy, Bergeron thought, remaining silent while her partner continued to work the suspect.

  “I was drinking. Beer, draft beer. I had more than a couple of drinks.”

  “Okay, now you meet him and he starts talking first and he starts talking about having a good time, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alright, what happens next?”

  Both detectives were nervous because this was the crucial point. They needed him to confess to the killing.

  “We went to my vehicle, ’cause I had really not much money,” Dominique continued. “I ain’t had no money for no motel or nothing and he didn’t have none, so we went to my vehicle. It was parked near the lakefront, riverfront, whatever. Near the Jax Brewery.”

  “Now what happens when you get to the car?”

  “We got in,” said Dominique, as casually as he was describing the weather, “and we started pulling our clothes down to our knees, past our knees, and then we started sucking on each other and doing things. In the back seat.”

  This guy has a good memory, Thornton thought. We can use that to our advantage.

  “Is any part of your clothing off?” Bergeron wondered out loud.

  “I have my drawers and my pants pulled down.”

  Drawers? He was using an antiquated, almost genteel expression for underwear.

  “I pulled my shirt over my head where it was on my shoulder.”

  “And what about him?” Thornton asked.

  “I think he took his off.”

  “All the way?” Thornton shot back.

  “No,” Dominique muttered.

  “Then what happened?”

  “And then he laid on his stomach and then I put my thing in him and we fooled around, and then after, he wanted to lay on me and he laid on me, and then he pulled a knife.”

  A knife, both of the detectives thought. That’s a new one. There had been no indication at any point that a knife was involved in any of the murders. None had been recovered.

  “He pulled a knife out and told me that he was gonna fuck me and he wanted my money and if I didn’t give it to him he was gonna kill me,” Dominique insisted.

  According to the law, the murder would not be premeditated if Dominique really felt his life was in danger. If a jury bought that, it was possible he’d go free.

  “Okay,” said Thornton carefully.

  Wanting clarification, Bergeron asked, “You got on top of him and you fooled around with him. What does that mean, Ronald?”

  “I put my thing in him,” he answered succinctly.

  That contradicted what he had just said about the victim—that he fucked him at knife point.

  “And you had sex with him?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Dominique was nothing if not polite.

  “Did you ejaculate?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “When you finished, what happened after that?”

  “Then he got on top of me and he was just supposed to rub his thing on me ’cause I told him that I was hurt before. I was split.”

  Thornton glanced at Bergeron. He could see she was wondering the same thing.

  “Let’s talk a little bit about that, Ronald. What do you mean by you were hurt before and you were split?”

  “I had a cut inside my rectum when I worked offshore. They had to cut all the infection out when I came in and stitch it.”

  “And how did you get that infection?” Bergeron asked.

  “It was from when I messed around with this guy before I went offshore. Or it could have been the black pepper that built up when I was offshore. I started bleeding, getting pale, and my gums were raw. I had to come in for surgery.”

  Both detectives knew there was no known case on medical record in which a man’s rectum was split open by ingesting too much black pepper. It sounded bizarre, but then again, the whole case was bizarre. Thornton forged on.

  “So, it’s possible,” Thornton asked, “that what happened to you when you were thinking about what was going on at this time, with this guy, you were reminded of what happened in the past, about the fact you couldn’t have somebody anally penetrate you?”

  “Yeah,” Dominique answered.

  “Another man could not put his penis in your rectum? Is that fair to say?”

  “Yes, ’cause when I had the surgery, it was like seven and a half weeks to recuperate ’cause I was hurt so bad.”

  It didn’t make sense. Thornton needed him to get more specific.

  “When you had this emergency, you were already working offshore and it’s from, you said, a black pepper build-up or …”

  “A guy I had sex with,” Dominique said, finishing the sentence.

  “This was when he anally penetrated you?”

  “Uh-huh. That was the first time I ever did it.”

  That would mean the first time he had anal sex with a man. Dominique was in his early thirties.

  “What did the doctors tell you when you healed? Did they say you shouldn’t have sex anymore?” Bergeron asked.

  “They told me I would be tighter and that I have to take stool softeners for the stool to come out, so I don’t tear inside. If I have any problems, I was supposed to take stool softeners so it won’t rip me open.”

  “All right, so you’ve had anal sex?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “You were through and you ejaculated inside of him?” she continued.

  “Yes. He was gonna fuck and kill me if I didn’t give him no more money ’cause he had a knife by my throat.”

  Dominique was calm as he spoke, not even breaking a sweat.

  “Now he lays you down on the seat and what did he say to you?” Thornton asked again.

  “He told me he was gonna fuck me and he wanted all my money or he was gonna kill me.”

  Once again, Dominique was raising the specter of self-defense.

  “But to get you to lay on
the seat, you did that voluntarily or did he do something else?”

  Thornton had caught him in the lie. All Dominique could do was answer defensively.

  “I didn’t think he was gonna stick it in. He said he’s just gonna rub it. Then he put the knife to my throat and I gave him all the money I had, twenty dollars. He kept telling me I was lying, that I had more.”

  Neither cop believed him. There just wasn’t the ring of truth to what he said. Maybe Dominique really was trying to set up a self-defense scenario.

  “What did you do then?” Thornton asked.

  “I panicked and I grabbed a tire thing and I swung it back and he fell on top of me.”

  “Where’d you hit him?”

  “I don’t know. I just jumped on top of him and I don’t remember when I was choking him and he wasn’t breathing.”

  Now, Thornton and Bergeron knew how he had immobilized LeBanks: by hitting him with a tire iron. But the choking—had he used anything to do that, or just his hands?

  “What were you choking him with, Ronald?” Thornton casually asked.

  “The seat belt.”

  “How’d you get it around his neck?” said Bergeron.

  “I just pulled it around and next thing I know, he wasn’t breathing.”

  Dominique had pulled it tight, preventing Reed from doing anything but grasping at his neck, trying to stop the belt from biting into his flesh and cutting off his air supply. Thornton had him on a roll and pushed forward.

  “How did you keep him down, what did you do?”

  This was a key point. Most of the victims were in good shape. Why hadn’t they fought back?

  “I was on top of him, his head facing the seat.”

  So his body weight was on top of the victim, Thornton thought.

  “Is he saying anything at this point?” Bergeron asked.

  “I couldn’t hear nothing. I was scared.”

  “Could you feel him squirming?” Thornton asked.

  “Yes. I held the seat belt around his neck until I noticed he wasn’t breathing. Then I let it go.”

  Both cops had taken confessions from suspects before, but never like this, never.