Dear Editor, How did we ever survive the ‘good old days’?
January 16, 2007
AliceMae Bergeron
January 18, 2007
SHELL ARMSTRONG
With family members of his victims watching, Ronald J. Dominique, of Bayou Blue, pleaded not guilty to nine counts of first-degree murder in a Houma courtroom Tuesday morning.
Dressed in a red prison jumpsuit and looking disheveled, Dominique, 42, was rolled into state District Judge Randy Bethancourt’s courtroom in a wheelchair to face charges of raping and murdering nine men in Terrebonne Parish. The killings occurred between 2002 and 2005, according to authorities.
As a clerk read each of the charges, Dominique sat in a wheelchair, shoulders slumped forward, and quietly mumbled “not guilty” to each of the charges.
Shortly after his arrest at the Bunk House Inn in Houma Dec. 1, Dominique confessed to a multi-agency task force that he killed 23 men between 1997 and 2005, authorities said. After murdering his victims, Dominique dumped the bodies in remote areas across the Bayou Region and in Jefferson and Orleans parishes n in sugar cane fields, ditches, a dumpster and other remote areas, according to investigators.
However, in court Tuesday, with public defender Anthony Champagne at his side, Dominique pleaded not guilty to all nine counts.
According to police, the former Bayou Blue bachelor lured his victims with offers of money in exchange for sex or a sexual encounter with his “wife” after showing them a photograph of a woman.
For many of the family members and friend of victims in court Tuesday, it was the first opportunity they had to see the man accused of murdering their loved ones.
Angela Smith, the mother of victim Wayne Smith, was shocked at Dominique’s appearance.
“I wanted to get out of that chair and get him,” she said, “but I knew that I couldn’t.”
A former security guard at Terrebonne General Medical Center, Smith said she recalled seeing Dominique in the past. “He didn’t look anything like he did today,” she said, noting the suspected serial killer’s haggard and sickly appearance.
Although Terrebonne Parish District Attorney Joe Waitz said he intends to pursue the death penalty, relatives of Wayne Smith said they didn’t want to see Dominique die if convicted of the charges.
“I want to see him in jail to suffer,” Angela Smith said. “But before they lock him up I want to ask him why. Why did he kill my son and what were my son’s last words before he died.”
An emotional Smith said because of the condition of her son’s body when law enforcement officials found it, she was unable to see Wayne Smith before his burial.
“I didn’t even get to see the body before Wayne’s burial because of the what this man did to the body,” she said. “I buried a box.”
Wayne Smith, a 12th grader at Ellender Memorial High School, was killed in August 2005, according to authorities.
His mother said in the months prior to his death, the teen was learning a trade and striving to avoid trouble.
“He was taking welding and had total changed his life over,” she said.
In addition to Wayne Smith, Dominique will face trial in the murders of Kenneth Randolph, Michael Barnett, Leon Lirette, August Watkins, Kurt Cunningham, Alonzo Hogan, Chris DeVille and Nicholas Pelligrin.
Dominique is scheduled to return to court April 9 for a status conference with Bethancourt.
Dominique was initially charged in December with the murders of two men whose bodies were found in nearby Jefferson Parish. Prosecutors in Jefferson Parish dropped those charges in late December after they learned the men had, in fact, been killed in New Orleans and their bodies disposed of in Jefferson Parish.
Authorities have said Orleans Parish authorities could press charges against Dominique for those two murders. Charges are also being considered in Lafourche and St. Charles parishes, where bodies were recovered.
Weitz said he intends to meet with district attorneys in those jurisdictions to discuss Dominique’s prosecution.
“We just want to get everybody on the same page,” he said. “We will probably work together in a multi-jurisdictional approach just as we did in the arrest.”
