By Chuck Hustmyre

December 5, 2006

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Houma, La. (Crime Library)  —  Law enforcement authorities announced at a press conference Monday that suspected serial killer Ronald Joseph Dominique has confessed to 23 murders in south Louisiana.

 

Dominique was arrested Friday at a homeless shelter in Houma and charged with the murders of 19-year-old Manuel Reed

and 27-year-old Oliver Lebanks. The bodies of both men were found dumped in neighboring Jefferson Parish in the late 1990s.

The deaths of Reed and Lebanks were among the first in a string of nearly two dozen unsolved homicides of mostly young men that occurred between 1997 and 2006 in and around Houma.

Jim Bernazzani, special agent in charge of the FBI in New Orleans, said, "This was the most significant serial killer case in the country in terms of the number of victims and the length of time he was at it."

Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said Monday that during the course of two days of interviewing, Dominique admitted to killing all 23 victims.

"Sex is the motive," Larpenter said. "Sex is behind all the killings."

Sheriff Larpenter said Dominique prowled the streets of Houma and nearby towns at night, usually between 10 p.m. and 2:00 a.m., looking for men who were down on their luck. Homeless men, drug addicts, alcoholics, men trying to make a quick buck—these were the kind of people Dominique sought. "He's offering them money," Larpenter said. "He's offering them money either to come have sex with him, or he's offering them money to come have sex with a female."

Once the victims accepted Dominique's offer of money for sex, he took them either to his home, a camper trailer parked on family property in the community of Bayou Blue just east of Houma, or to another location that Sheriff Larpenter refused to identify. Dominique then persuaded the victims to let him tie them up as a prelude to sex.

Not all of the victims were gay, Larpenter said. Some of them thought they were about to have sex with Dominique's wife. Although Dominique wasn't married, he told potential victims that he was, and as part of his ruse he may have shown a photograph of an attractive woman to his victims.

"Every one of them was voluntarily tied up," Larpenter said. Once Dominique had his victims trussed up and defenseless, he attacked—raping them, murdering them, and then dumping their bodies, often in roadside ditches.

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Contact Chuck Hustmyre at chuck3174@yahoo.com

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