01x10 - Ronald Dominique: The Bayou Strangler

[bunniefuu]

- I was like, blown away.

And he went from
being tender-hearted

to being a monster.

- Houma police have
identified the body

found off of
Woodland Ranch Road.

Suspicious deaths

in the Bayou region

may also share the same k*ller.

- All that I know,
my son is dead,

and can't nobody bring him back.

- I just felt his death was
more suspicious than that.

- Something just
didn't seem right.

- [Reporter] The victims, which
range in age from 16 to 46,

had all been strangled
or suffocated.

- They're accusing
someone in our community

of being a serial k*ller.

- The numbers of bodies
could increase to up to 20.

- [Sam] He was not going to
stop until he was caught.

- [Khadija] He was abnormal.

He wasn't like all
the other boys.

- It's just
building up,

something in
his mind just snaps.

- Let's not forget that some
people are just freakin' evil.

- I'm the daughter
of a police officer.

She was a police
officer for 32 years.

So, watching her move
through her career,

I wanted that same reward.

Bringing justice to people,

and kind of the fight
for the underdog.

The passerby had reported that
he had saw a body in a ditch

along highway 3160 in
St. Charles Parish.

It was a very remote location,
very dark and secluded.

When I made my way
up to the ditch,

I did observe the body
in the drainage canal.

The body was fully clothed
with a shirt and pants on,

but the pants were
down to the ankles.

And there was one shoe
on and one shoe off.

July in Louisiana can be brutal

as far as the heat temperatures.

So, he was in a state
of decomposition,

which was why it was
hard to be able to tell,

just from an arm and a leg,

his race or his
sex at that time.

And, there were no
signs of any foul play,

no obvious signs of any blunt
force trauma to the body,

but a suspicious death
because of the location

and his positioning
in the water.

My detective mode definitely
kicked in at that moment.

My initial assumption was that
was a secondary crime scene,

and not where the actual
m*rder took place.

He had an identification
card in his wallet,

so we were able to identify
him as David Mitchell.

- The cause of death was
found to be drowning,

'cause he had obvious
water in his lungs.

But I don't think the

detectives really said,

"No, this is just an accident,"

and moved on.

- The manner of death
was left undetermined,

because we could not figure
out why he ended up there.

That road is not a
commonly-traveled road.

- Something just
didn't seem right.

- David Mitchell's family
was obviously distraught,

as any family would be.

It was a very difficult
notification to make.

As a parent myself, I couldn't
imagine getting that knock

on my door.

Upon talking to the
family about him,

he was not known to
be in any trouble.

He was actually a pilot
student at one of our first

private Christian schools
in St. Charles Parish.

He excelled in school.

He had no known drug
history, no criminal history,

very supportive,
well-liked family.

He was not a person that
would have put himself

into a high-risk situation.

I lost many nights of sleep

because we just could not
get to the bottom of it.

- When we were growing up,

it was like four or
five stop lights.

All of it was cane
fields behind the houses.

Everybody knew everybody like,
if you did something wrong,

"If your mom don't
beat ya, I will,"

that kinda thing going on.

Louisiana, by
and large is very remote,

very rural, surrounded
by bayous and swamps.

The people that live
in this community,

they are fishermen,
they work the land.

It's a hard labor town, and
it's small and it's insular.

- I met Ronald Dominique
in middle school.

He was the youngest child of
several brothers and a sister.

He told me that his dad and mom

were struggling to
make them ends meet.

- His father was not the
nicest person in the world.

Was sort of a disciplinarian,

so Ronald never
got along with him.

His mother's relationship,
just seems kind of estranged.

- Growing up in extreme poverty,

and being one of eight children,

there was no time to
really nurture your child

and support your child.

It's really about
survival of the fittest.

Ronald's really not getting
the attention that he needs.

His personality was very meek.

- Dominique was a sweet guy.

Caring, tender, never
got into trouble,

but he was teased 'cause
he always hung around

with the girls.

- Especially in the
1960s in rural Louisiana,

the idea that a boy is
supposed to be playing sports

with his friends,

not having tea with the women
in the family like Ronald did.

He didn't really fit
the mold of masculinity

in rural Louisiana.

- [Ronald] I have anger
for everything that was,

just the way I've been treated.

My family, some of them.

- He was abnormal.

He wasn't like all
the other boys.

And so, that just made
him sort of retreat

into his own world.

- Once we exhausted
everything we can do

in the David Mitchell
case, we just suspended it.

The case remained a drowning,

because that's
physically how he died.

I just felt his death was
more suspicious than that.

And, in the end it was.

I remember receiving a call,

I guess around six
in the morning,

that there had been a black male

found on the side of a street.

- He was found in the East
Bank of St. Charles Parish,

remote area, rural area.

- Upon examining the
body at that time,

there were signs of trauma.

There were ligature
marks around his ankles,

and there was some superficial
bleeding on the forehead.

Just like the first
body of David Mitchell,

red flag for me was that he
had been k*lled elsewhere

and disposed of on
this remote street.

Gary Pierre came
from a poor family

living in one of our
housing developments.

His mother did not
display him to be

any type of troublemaker
or high risk taker.

In comparing the two cases,
there were some similarities,

the locations where their bodies
were found, race, and sex.

They were known to travel
by foot or by hitchhiking.

But there were differences.

David Mitchell had no
physical evidence on the body

of any injury.

With Gary Pierre, there
was signs of compression

to the left side of his neck.

- Strangulation is
kind of unusual.

It takes vulnerability of
the victims and closeness,

that is intimate.

- At this point with
these two cases,

we just didn't have enough
to find out what happened

to either one of 'em.

- And then, we
found another body.

Larry Ranson was found in the
same area as Mr. Mitchell.

His cause of death was
asphyxiation by strangulation.

- Having three dead bodies
in St. Charles Parish

was a shock to the
sheriff's office,

as well as the
parish as a whole.

So we still have a
k*ller on the streets.

We realized, when we
had body number three,

we knew in our guts that
something wasn't right.

We had lack of witnesses

because it was a
very remote location.

And, there was no
physical evidence

that could lead us
to the next step.

There's nothing worse than us

not being able to
tell these mamas,

"This is what
happened to your son."

And, being a mother myself,

I think that's what
I took the hardest

is that I couldn't
give these mothers

the answers that they needed.

We definitely had a
hunch at this point,

these three cases were
committed by same offender.

I anticipated another body.

- As far as St.
Charles is concerned,

we were not seeing
any more bodies.

- Where's he gonna strike next?

- We received a call of a body
laying on the side of a road

in an area by a
construction yard,

maybe 50 feet from
Lake Pontchartrain.

The victim is a young
male without a shirt.

Normally you look for
g*nsh*t wounds, stab wounds.

This one didn't have
any outward injuries.

Since it was by a construction
yard that had a camera,

the first thing goes
through your mind is,

"I hope it's recording."

So we met with the
construction yard staff.

They reviewed it and
said, "Yes, it's captured.

Yes, it's recorded."

"But you're not gonna
be able to tell anything

other than it had two
headlights and two taillights."

There was nothing
that we got out of it.

During the autopsy, we
learned he was strangled.

That was puzzling to me,

because we don't get
too many strangulations.

And we fingerprinted the victim,

and we were able to
put a name to the face.

Joseph Brown, who last
resided in St. Charles Parish.

Well, I'd learned
that he was last seen

walking in and around
the neighborhood,

headed to a convenience store.

And that's the last
anybody saw him.

Jefferson Parish had
a homicide victim.

And the cause of death was
asphyxiation by strangulation.

We sent it to the lab, and
when you get something back,

they're not gonna
give you a name.

So nothing comes up.

It's very tough because
there's little evidence,

there's no suspect,
so it's frustrating.

- So, I started Thibodaux
High in August of 1982.

One of the first and only
people that ever spoke to me

was Ronald Dominique.

He must have noticed me,

'cause he came up to
me and said, "Hi,"

asked me how I was doing.

We'd eat lunch together.

If I bought a bag of chips,
we'd share the bag of chips.

- He wasn't a typical
male from that area.

And so, I think his problems
start to emerge in high school.

- Hike, hike.

- [Craig] High schools,
for the most part,

very terrible places to be
for a kid who's different.

- He just had that
different walk about him.

His hips had more
swivel than mine do.

And I never saw that walk
from anybody else in school.

- [Ronald] People
call me a q*eer.

They call, tell me all kinds
of stuff that's not called for.

- The only time you ever
heard about h*m*

was in a very cold,
clinical sense,

like it was a mental problem,
or in a criminal way.

There was just not a
lot of understanding

of what it meant to be g*y.

- I went to homecoming with him,

but he just didn't
dance with me.

All night long he
danced with another guy.

I just sat there,

my eyes covered.

They teased him
immensely after that.

- He talks about a couple
of times in the bathroom

when people would confront him,

they'd grab him and pull him
down like they were gonna

make him suck their.

Then they'd laugh.

Any situation they had to
demean him, they would use it.

- With Ronald, not
having any close allies,

and he's not really able
to be his true self.

He really had to bottle
up these feelings,

and bottling up your feelings
can only last for so long

before they explode
in one way or another.

- With the hair on a
body, we had a profile

of a middle-aged Caucasian,
and that was about it.

That's when we found
out St. Charles Parish

had three victims
that they found

and determined to be dumped
on the side of a roadway.

- We were comparing notes,

networking about our cases.

That was when I
realized, personally,

that we have something here,

this is tied together.

- All black males,

approximately the same age,

social economic
status, hitchhiking.

So the victimology
was all the same.

- We said, "I
think we're dealing

with the same offender here."

- You have these

young, well-built people

that aren't fighting
for their lives.

- All these individuals,
they got street smarts,

one of them would've fought.

They're gonna have some
kind of injury to the hands,

the face, something.

But, there was never,
ever an indication

that that was the case.

- We thought

that they may have been drugged.

We do toxicology tests,

and they came back with nothing.

- So how is the perpetrator
able to get these victims

in the position to set
'em up for their death?

- We having young black males

dumped on the side of the
road, that are strangled.

We don't know why.

- With the nine bodies total,

we obviously had a serial
k*ller on our hands.

- But, because the
victims were low income,

that didn't grasp
the media attention.

If like, somebody's
k*lling our children,

yes, we would've had a lot
more interest and leads

that were called into us.

During the autopsy, we do
a r*pe kit on all victims,

and on Manuel Reed,

we identified foreign
semen on his body,

and were able to
establish a DNA profile.

But in the system, it
didn't get any matches.

- That definitely switched
the dynamic of the cases

when Manuel Reed's
evidence was discovered,

because now we have
a sexual as*ault.

We possibly have a r*pe.

One issue that
stood out with me,

is obviously the lack
of defensive wounds,

lack of a struggle.

- [Sam] We knew it
was all connected,

but we truly did not
know what the lure was.

- So we had to rely on
just hitting the streets

and doing that
old-fashioned police work.

- We increased patrols
in and around the area

where we knew bodies
were being dumped,

to see if something was unusual.

Interviewing people
in the neighborhood

of where these victims lived.

- We found an individual
who was walking

on Veterans Boulevard, at night,

was approached by a
gentleman in a truck,

and on three
different occasions,

stopped to ask him
if he wanted a ride,

and believe this individual was
very street savvy, and said,

"I'm not gettin' in
the vehicle with ya."

He did go to the police and
they developed a sketch.

- And soon as we
started doing that,

the killings just stopped all
together, there was nothing.

- We got into panic mode when
there was no more activity.

But it's like, when
are we gonna find him?

We're beating ourselves up,

because we should have
caught this person,

and we haven't at this point.

- Once Ronald comes out as g*y,

he really works at becoming
part of that community.

And one of the
things that he does,

is he starts to perform
at local drag shows.

So you can imagine from
Ronald's perspective,

that this is his
opportunity to really shine.

- He was dressing half as a
woman, half as a man to sing,

and that they booed him
off the stage many times

'cause he just couldn't get it.

- What happens is that once
he starts performing drag,

he ends up being bullied
by the g*y community.

So once again, he's rejected,

and this rejection hurts
because this is his tribe.

But the reality is, his
performance is lackluster

because he doesn't
know how to shine.

- I was in the bar one
night shootin' pool,

he walked up and
put quarters down.

He was just this quiet
guy, didn't say much.

- Remember, he doesn't
have a template

for how to have a relationship.

He hasn't had a
romantic relationship

or even a traditional
friendship up until this point.

- The way Ronald
presented himself,

he definitely wasn't going
to win a popularity contest,

because he was so closed off.

- And so this rejection
hurts even more

because this is a community

that he was really
seeking acceptance from.

- And it's just
building up, it's there,

and it's just building up,
your mind is building it up,

it's making it worse.

And things happen, something's
going to one day set it off.

- There's really no words

to describe it,

to have that many victims

and not be able to bring

anybody to justice.

There was a lull for
a couple of years,

and then yes, the k*ller did
come back with a vengeance.

And it was obvious that yes,

it was at the hands of
the same individual.

- Houma police have
identified the body

found off of
Woodland Ranch Road.

Datrell Woods was only 18
years old when he died.

- Been a very frequent series.

- [Reporter] The body of
21-year-old Michael Barnett

was found in an
empty storage shed.

Barnett last said he was
going to meet a girl,

and never returned.

- Now we got white
male victims also.

- [Reporter] Sunday evening,
the body of a 22-year-old man

was found partially
hidden in brush.

- The bodies were
ending up everywhere.

- [Reporter] Suspicious deaths

in other parts of the Bayou

region may also share

the same k*ller.

23-year-old Kurt Michael
Cunningham was found face down

in a drainage canal.

- He was definitely
out of control.

Now we had 20
victims,

and there's no
words to describe

the helplessness
at that point.

- I think they better get him.

- [Interviewer] Yeah,
they're k*lling,

all the victims are male.

- Well, whether it's male or
female, they need to get him.

- I really can't
say if it is tied

to all the other killings,
but that's all that I know,

my son is dead and can't
nobody bring him back.

- [Reporter] And
while investigators

from all over
the region

continue on the
serial killings,

Wayne Smith's family is
anxiously waiting for answers

that he too may have been

k*lled by the Bayou Strangler.

- We had a picture of
every victim on the wall,

and every day you walk
in it, you see it,

and it's like,
"Is there a break?

Are we gonna catch him today
before he kills somebody else?"

- We knew he was not going
to stop until he was caught.

- During this time,
Ronald Dominique

worked several low-wage jobs,

and he's able to
save up enough money

to get his own trailer.

And, this is when maybe he's
able to really start to pursue

relationships with men.

- But maybe for Ronald, it's
just, it becomes too dark.

- In 1996, Ronald
meets a gentleman

walking on a secluded road.

He gets the young gentleman
to come back to his trailer

to smoke some weed
and have some fun.

- He just picked
him up hitchhiking.

I mean, he just
talked him into it.

- They arrest Ronald
for sexual as*ault.

While he's jailed, he is r*ped.

And brutalized, that it
ends him in the hospital.

- He brought that up at
every meeting we had,

he brought that up.

- Ronald only spends
three months in jail

because the victim
could not be located,

and so the charges were dropped.

- I think the incident
in jail, when he's r*ped,

that's the event
he expressed most.

So that's a turning
point for Ronald.

It's the worst thing
ever happened to him.

He's physically debilitated,
and so something in his mind,

just snaps.

- All the victims in
these cases,

no matter their
background,

they were a person to me, and
they were somebody's child.

And then there was
a break in a case.

- His story was, a white male

approached him

in a small pickup truck,

showed him a photograph
of a young white female,

and asked him, would you
like to have sex with her?

She'll pay you.

So he gets in the truck
with this white male.

The white male tells him, "Well,
the female's afraid of men.

She's a abuse victim, I
have to tie you up first,

before she comes in the room."

The person immediately said,
"You're not tying me up,"

and walked out, and that
was the end of the story.

- Our biggest question had been,

how was he getting
these victims?

- He was able to manipulate them

through the lure of the sex.

- When he said, "I
have to tie you up,"

and it made total sense
of how these people

were unable to fight back.

Person that came forward

knew where the travel
trailer was at.

Find out who lives
in the trailer,

do a criminal history on him,

and find out he's
been arrested before

for aggravated r*pe
of a male victim.

- He was identified
as Ronald Dominique,

and he became the
serial k*ller suspect.

- Ronald Dominique, this is
the first time we had any name

possibly being involved
in these killings.

We had two task force
members go to his house

and ask him to come back
to the sheriff's office.

And I was surprised when I
saw him for the first time.

There's nothing
extraordinary about him.

He is a overweight,
balding male.

- He wouldn't appear to
physically be this person

that would be capable of
k*lling all of these people.

It was shocking.

- When we asked, "Do you
know anything about killings,

people being dumped in
and around the area?"

And he didn't know anything.

During the initial interview,

we're still trying to establish

a direct link between him
and one of these victims,

enough to get an arrest
warrant, to put him in jail.

And that's when we asked
him to swab his mouth,

to establish a DNA
profile for him.

- We're just waiting
for lab work to be done

on the forensics, and here
again, we have another body.

- It was disturbing
to say the least,

because we think
we have our guy,

and he still kills somebody.

- The one that really bothers
me the most is this one.

Don't know whether he
was taunting us or not.

That indicates affirmly of
how out of control he was.

- The pressure is now really
on for us as investigators

to get this done and over.

- The lab called and said,

"Ronald Dominique's profile
matches the foreign DNA

on these victims."

- And when we found out that
it was a positive match,

it was just the best
feeling in the world.

But then it was sad
that it took this long

to finally get to this point,

that all of these
people are gone,

and there's a sense of guilt

that this couldn't
have been done sooner.

- We had physical evidence
on only two homicides.

The only direct evidence
that we gonna have,

associating him with 21 of 'em,

is him telling us
he k*lled them.

We need the confession.

- We exhausted every question
to try to get him to admit,

wouldn't admit.

So then we confronted
him with the DNA match,

and we explained
what a DNA match is,

it's pretty much exact.

There's no way to
explain how your DNA

was removed out of this victim.

And, that's pretty much
the time he ultimately

started admitting
to these homicides.

- David Mitchell needed
a ride back into town.

He might often hitchhike or
get rides from other people.

- Oh, he's got a long
way to go, it's dark,

there's not many street lights.

It's not a great place to walk.

- Ronald sees a young man
alone, walking at night,

and this is the
perfect opportunity.

- And so here's this
little chubby white guy,

he said, "Hey man,
you want a ride?"

- [Ronald] I looked
over and I saw a guy

and he flagged me down.

- David Mitchell was offered
a ride by Ronald Dominique.

- [Ronald] He started asking me

if he could make a few dollars,

and he said anything would help.

These guys, all
they want is money,

so I brought him to the RV.

- Once David got
into Ronald's truck,

he lured him to his
trailer by offering money.

For a 19 year old, who
lives in poor Louisiana,

any opportunity to make
money is something that

you know, they're not
gonna pass by.

- [Ronald] After
we fooled around,

he started telling me, "I
need more money than that."

I told him, "I don't
have no more money."

And he said, "Either
you come up with it,

or I'm going to the police."

I was scared that they
wouldn't believe my story,

and they'd bring me to jail.

- He can't stand
going back to jail,

'cause he thinks of being r*ped.

- He was so traumatized by the
experience of being in jail,

that he was unwilling
to leave a victim alive.

- [Ronald] I got so scared,
I started choking him.

I choked him with
an extension cord.

- He's got that individual's
life literally in his hands.

So it really is about
power and control.

- [Ronald] The next thing I
know, he wasn't breathing.

- That's where it
becomes unbearable.

In the slightest provocation,
he just strangled him.

- [Ronald] I put his
clothes on, and I drove off,

and I just drove and drove.

And all I remember is
streets and lights.

I ran around the car,

and I pulled him out
of the passenger side.

I hurry up and I grabbed
him, pushed him in the ditch,

and then took off.

I just wanted to get out,
out of town and go home

and just forget
about everything.

- This is the
beginning of a pattern

that escalates from here.

Ronald Dominique is
developing a template to use,

where he can lure
men back to his house

and gain control of them.

- In Southern Louisiana,
a shocking confession

from an alleged serial k*ller.

Ronald Dominique was charged
with 11 counts of m*rder.

Police say he admitted to
k*lling 23 men over eight years.

The victims, which range
in age from 16 to 46,

had all been strangled
or suffocated.

- It was a relief, we didn't
have to see another face

on the wall,

that we didn't have to talk
to any more family members,

informing them that a
loved one was found dead.

- With Ronald Dominique,
his past life experiences

of being demeaned, of being
cast aside by society,

really played a heavy role

in how he made sure that he
was controlling his victims.

And for someone
who was powerless,

this is the one act that would
actually give them the power

that they so desperately
seeked in their life.

- Ronald Dominique is not unique

in that he had troubles
growing up g*y.

A lotta people have
experienced that,

and we don't turn out
to be serial K*llers.

If his victims had been
upper class white people,

I think the case would've
turned out differently.

Probably would've been
apprehended sooner.

- Looking back, these cases,

although they're closed and
have finally been put to rest,

will never leave

the investigator.

Even all these years later,

I think of everyone of 'em.