Leander J. Troxler
September 23, 2008Garnet G. White
September 25, 2008
Accused serial killer Ronald Dominique will plead guilty to eight murders committed in Terrebonne Parish, District Attorney Joseph Waitz stated in a release.
The guilty pleas will end Dominique’s prosecution in Terrebonne Parish, Waitz said. Other parishes where crimes occurred still have to decide whether to prosecute Dominique.
Waitz stated in another release that the victims’ families did not want the death penalty. Victims’ relatives were generally opposed to capital punishment and desired closure, Assistant District Attorney Mark Rhodes stated in the release.
District Judge Randall Bethancourt is expected to sentence Dominique, 44, to consecutive life sentences.
Dominique, who is from Bayou Blue, was arrested in December 2006 at a homeless shelter in Houma on warrants accusing him of killing nine people in Terrebonne Parish. It was later determined the ninth person was killed outside of Terrebonne.
Authorities say he may have murdered more than 20 men between 1997 and 2005.
He allegedly confessed to having sex with the victims, then suffocating them. The victims’ bodies were discovered by authorities across south Louisiana, some in sugarcane fields and near bayous.
Many of the victims were substance abusers, prosecutors allege.
