The Bayou Strangler
Page 17
It was better to make the deal.
In court, Dominique sat at the defense table. Shackled at the feet and waist, he was hunched over, exposing his close-cropped and sparse gray hair. Bergeron and Thornton, who were in the courtroom for the sentencing, noticed that Dominique had been dressed for the occasion by the county in an ill-fitting white jumpsuit.
District Judge Randy Bethancourt began by asking Dominique a series of questions to ascertain if he was aware that his plea of guilty for the murders of eight men meant that he was going to jail for life. Then the judge read the eight names.
“Kenneth Randolph, Michael Barnett, Leon Lirette, August Watkins, Kurt Cunningham, Alonzo Hogan, Chris DeVille, Wayne Smith, Nicholas Pellegrin.”
Not once did Dominique look up, keeping his head down in an intense examination of the courtroom’s floor. Then it was Assistant District Attorney Mark Rhodes’s turn. He brought his A game to the sentencing.
“The lives of eight young men were taken from these families by the actions of the defendant,” Rhodes told the court. “He knew nothing about them or their families and he callously killed the victims and left a lifetime of pain as their legacy.”
Thirty relatives of the victims were in the courtroom, wrapping arms around one another in grief. Before pronouncing the sentence it was time for the victims’ impact statements. Some came forward.
“I hope he burns in hell, pretty much. I hope the man burns in hell. I’m sure he will,” Chris Cunningham told the judge of his brother Kurt’s killer. Then he addressed Dominique directly, who refused to look at him. “I’ll miss him to the day I die,” he continued, sobbing. “I hope hell finds you fast!”
Then it was Cynthia Barabin’s turn. She is the sister of Chris DeVille.
“The nature of what he did, and how he left my brother’s body in a cane field for rodents to eat at him,” she told the court. “When we found him, he was nothing. He was nothing but bones. Nothing. We had to bury bones.”
Wayne Smith’s mother wrote a letter to the court that was read aloud.
“It’s been three years and I haven’t seen my baby yet,” Angela Smith wrote. “I put something in the ground, and I really don’t know if my child is dead or not, because I did not get a chance to see my baby.”
Judge Bethancourt offered Dominique a chance to make a statement before sentencing. He declined. Bethancourt then sentenced him to eight life sentences, to be served consecutively. That meant he would never see another day on the outside. Dominique did not respond. After the judge pronounced the sentence, Dominique, shackled and cuffed, was taken out of the courtroom to begin serving his time.
He did, indeed, make a very good deal.
Dominique’s sister refused comment.
Dennis Thornton and Dawn Bergeron were both given promotions to detective captains, though neither ever expects to see something like Ronald J. Dominique again. But to remember what they did in saving lives and getting him, Bergeron, who now goes by her married name of Foret, kept a photo of her and Thornton and the other members of the task force in a frame on her desk.
In Houma, there are many people in town who have still never even heard of Ronald J. Dominique. They couldn’t care less about him, or his victims. On the national stage, the story of Dominique’s confession and conviction barely rated headlines outside the South. Though in Europe, they ate it up.
And Dominique? Now fifty-two years old, he resides in the general prison population of the Louisiana State Prison in Angola, where he will be for the rest of his life.
image gallery
Ronald J. Dominique’s trailers parked in the police impound lot.
One victim was found in this ditch at the end of a dead end road.
The Shriner’s Hall, near which Dominique dumped a body.
A cheap hotel in Terrebonne Parrish, where Dominique went trolling for victims.
A poster prepared by the sheriff’s office featuring all of Dominique’s victims. (Courtesy of Terrebonne Parrish Sheriff’s Office)
Mug shot of Ronald J. Dominique. (Courtesy of Terrebonne Parrish Sheriff’s Office)
Ronald J. Dominique during questioning. (Courtesy of Terrebonne Parrish Sheriff’s Office)
Spec book cover painting by Raymond Gray.
The members of the serial killer task force that tracked Dominique down. (Courtesy of Dawn Bergeron)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book, and a full accounting of Dominique’s crimes, would not have been possible without Dawn Bergeron. When I flew out to Terrebonne Parish to meet her, she took me to all the dump sites. I got to see firsthand how Dominique operated. Not only did she give me access to all the official records of the case, she took me to the impound yard that held the trailers Dominique lived and killed in. I even got to go inside them.
We went to lunch one day at a local restaurant where, by coincidence, there were other cops from the parish. They ordered French-fried alligator and had me taste it, probably figuring I’d gag.
“Tastes like chicken,” I said with a straight face, and we all laughed.
Dennis Thornton sat for one very long interview at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, which took the entertainer’s name in 2001. Captain Thornton gave freely of his time with incredible details of the case and his involvement in it.
Philip Rappaport did a bang-up editing job! Nicole Passage, Lauren Chomiuk, and Connor McDonald continued the process of getting the manuscript ready for publication. Jaime Wolf gave his legal advice and perspective.
Dan Zupansky and Maria Sblendorio Ibrahim encouraged me greatly. Barbara Scott Tompkins befriended me when I needed it.
And then there’s Scott Forbes. He was a handsome, struggling British actor in Hollywood when, in the late 1950s, he was cast by Desilu in The Adventures of Jim Bowie. He gave a very young Jewish boy from Brooklyn a Louisiana hero for life.
Throughout the writing of this book and for all those I have authored for the past twelve years, my best friend, Sammy, a loving Brittany, was by my side. One day after his birthday, as I was finishing the final copyedit, he died from canine cognitive dysfunction. God bless my Sammy Doodle!
If there is one thing about this case that I will never forget, it is the support I got from my daughter, Sara, who was in eighth grade when this book began.
“Good luck, Daddy,” she said as she boarded the school bus while I took off for the airport and Louisiana.
While I was in Houma, Sara received an academic award from her school. It was the first time I had ever missed a school function. Right then and there, I understood the personal sacrifices Bergeron and Thornton had to endure to bring Dominique to justice.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fred Rosen has written and published twenty-five books. His twenty-fifth, Murdering the President: Alexander Graham Bell and the Race to Save James Garfield (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), changes American history. Through his original research and detective work, Rosen proves Charles Guiteau didn’t assassinate President Garfield, and uncovers who his real murderer was. Hank Garfield, the president’s great-great-grandson, wrote the foreword.
Rosen is a brand name in true crime. He is the author of Lobster Boy, described by the Guardian newspaper as a “true crime masterpiece.” His other true-crime books published by Open Road include Body Dump, Needle Work, Gang Mom, The Mad Chopper, Deacon of Death, Blood Crimes, Gold!, and Did They Really Do It?.
Rosen appears regularly as a commentator on Investigation Discovery programming, including Evil Kin and Evil Twins. He has also been on Dateline NBC. A former columnist for the New York Times, he was an assistant professor of journalism at Hofstra University. Professor Rosen has a master of fine arts in cinema from the lege
ndary film school at the University of Southern California.
He can be contacted through his Facebook email and welcomes correspondence with his readers.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 2017 by Fred Rosen
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
978-1-5040-3949-9
Published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
FRED ROSEN
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