By Chuck Hustmyre

(Continued)

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PREYING ON THE DESPERATE

According to police, nearly all of the 23 victims whose slayings are under investigation had lived hard lives. All were men. The youngest was 17; the oldest was 46. Most were in their 20s. Many had drug problems and had been involved in previous scrapes with the law. Some had been homeless. Of those whose manner of death could be determined, the causes were strangulation, suffocation, or some other type of asphyxiation. A few showed signs of having been beaten up. Some were found nude.

In the summer of 2005, several law enforcement agencies banded together to form a task force under the overall direction of the Louisiana Attorney General's Office. Then came hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the task force got sidetracked. After the storms, three more bodies turned up.

A few weeks ago, a state probation and parole agent passed along a tip to the task force. One of the people the agent supervises said a man he had let tie him up for sex had threatened to kill him. The victim escaped and identified Ronald Joseph Dominique as his assailant. When investigators checked into Dominique's history, they found a similar incident.

Four or five years ago, a man wearing only a pair of jeans and with an electric cord tied around one arm dove out of the window of Dominique's camper trailer and then ran around the trailer park screaming for help and shouting that Dominique was trying to rape and murder him.

Most residents knew Dominique was gay and chalked the disturbance up to some type of kinky sex thing.

But to investigators, they were something more. The two incidents, with their indications of sexual bondage, reportedly gave investigators a better understanding how so many relatively young men could have been asphyxiated yet whose bodies showed little or no signs of having been involved in a struggle.

"It opened our eyes," Les Bonano, director of investigations for the Attorney General's Office told The Advocate newspaper.

Following his arrest, Dominique spent several hours talking with detectives Friday and Saturday and has confessed to at least 11 killings, according to published reports.

Dominique is currently being held in the Terrebonne Parish jail awaiting a bond hearing. Officials with the serial killer task force have scheduled a 2:00 p.m. press conference Monday at which they have promised to release more details about the case.

Crime Library will have a team of reporters in Houma beginning Monday and will feature breaking news stories about this case.

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Contact Chuck Hustmyre at chuck3174@yahoo.com

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