One of the most prolific serial killers in United States history by victim count, Ronald Dominique, confessed to raping, binding and strangling 23 young men between 1997 and 2006.
Ronald Joseph Dominique, born Jan. 9, 1964, in Thibodeaux, Louisiana, lived a quiet, seemingly unremarkable life. He was the youngest of six children, and his parents were poor laborers who lived in a trailer park located on the outskirts of the city.
During his school years, Dominique was known for his melancholic temperament, lack of communication skills and weight problems. These, coupled with his low self-esteem and poor health, made Dominique the target of bullying.
Shortly before graduating high school in 1983, Dominique discovered he was gay and began visiting local gay bars. However, some of Dominique’s classmates had seen him there, marking him as an even bigger target. Dominique vehemently denied accusations of being homosexual.
After leaving high school, he entered Nicholls State University, where he studied computer science. However, he quickly lost interest and dropped out in the mid-1980s.
With a lack of education, Dominique was limited to low-skilled labor. His inability to hold a steady job due to disciplinary problems forced him to rely on the financial support and hospitality of his relatives, especially his mother and older sister.
Dominique remained unmarried and without children, preferring to spend his free time in gay bars, much as he had years earlier. He often frequented these bars dressed as his idol, jazz singer Patti LaBelle. Despite being a regular in the local gay scene, he was unable to form serious relationships and was often regarded as an outcast.
Frustrated, Dominique began targeting others, which resulted in charges for minor offenses and sexual assault. In July of 1997, his violent tendencies escalated to murder.
Dominique often met his victims while driving his pickup truck or in gay bars, luring them with offers of alcohol, drugs, housing, or group sex with his “girlfriend.” At times, he posed as a talent scout or claimed he wanted to film a porno.
His victims were often young Black and Hispanic men between the ages of 16 and 46, drug addicts or sex workers. And more often than not, they accepted the offer.
Upon arriving at his trailer, the victims were overpowered and raped. Investigators confirmed that Dominique would strangle his victims to death afterward. He then disposed of the bodies by loading them into his truck and dumping them in isolated areas like fields or ditches.
The first confirmed victim subjected to this torture was 19-year-old African American man David Mitchell, whose body was found in a ditch along a Hahnville, Louisiana highway on July 14, 1997.
Dominique’s next two murders occurred in St. Charles Parish. The first was 20-year-old Gary Pierre, strangled in December 1997. The second was 38-year-old Larry Ranson, killed on July 31, 1998. Ranson was the first victim subjected to bondage.
In early October 1998, Dominique met 27-year-old Oliver LeBanks in Metairie. LeBanks’s body, found on the outskirts of town on October 4, yielded a critical piece of evidence during autopsy: traces of Dominique’s semen.
That same month, Dominique met 16-year-old Joseph Brown in Kenner, luring him into his truck. There, he beat the teenager with a blunt object and strangled him with a plastic bag. A month later, 18-year-old Bruce Williams fell victim under similar circumstances.
In May 1999, Dominique encountered 21-year-old Manuel Reed in Kenner, luring him into his truck to be raped and strangled. Again, forensic evidence linked Dominique to the crime through semen found on Reed’s body.
The following month, Dominique killed 21-year-old Angel Mejia. The coroner’s examination concluded Mejia had been tied with a rope before his death. While investigating this murder, law enforcement established a connection: Mejia, Brown, and Pierre had all lived in close proximity to one another.
In late August 1999, Dominique met 34-year-old Mitchell Johnson. He took Johnson to a forest outside Metairie, where he tied, raped and strangled him; Johnson’s nude body was discovered on September 1.
He claimed another victim, 23-year-old Michael Vincent, in Lafourche Parish in January 2000. In early October of that year, Dominique murdered 20-year-old Kenneth Randolph Jr., a neighbor from his trailer park, after luring him into his trailer.
On the evening of October 12, 2002, Dominique met 26-year-old Anoka Jones in Houma. He attacked Jones, subjecting him to the same ritual he had used on Johnson, then dumped the body under a highway overpass, where it was discovered hours later.
In late 2002, Dominique and his sister moved to the rural community of Bayou Blue. There, he found work as an electrical level specialist at a power supply company, a job that afforded him occasional travel. Around this time, he killed 19-year-old Datrell Woods, dumping both the victim and his bicycle in a reed field.
In October 2004, Dominique lured 46-year-old Larry Matthews to his home. When Matthews lost consciousness, Dominique raped him, later dumping the body twenty miles away. His next victim was his first white victim, 21-year-old Michael Barnett, whose body was found on October 24, 2004.
In February 2005, Dominique murdered 22-year-old Leon Lirett, who had previously lived with two other victims, Barnett and Anoka Jones. Two months later, in April, he met and lured 31-year-old August Watkins into his truck.
When Watkins’ corpse was discovered, police finally connected the murders in Kenner and Houma through their strikingly similar MOs. For the first time, they considered that a serial killer was active, and the case was handed over to the FBI.
A few days after killing Watkins, Dominique murdered 23-year-old Kurt Cunningham. Later that summer, he killed 28-year-old Alonzo Hogan in St. Charles Parish and 17-year-old Wayne Smith in Terrebonne Parish.
In September 2005, Dominique murdered 40-year-old Chris Deville, who was hitchhiking out of Napoleonville following Hurricane Katrina. Deville’s skeletal remains were discovered the following month and identified via personal belongings left beside the body.
In late November, he killed 21-year-old Nicholas Pellegrin in Lafourche Parish. Dominique’s last confirmed victim was 27-year-old Christopher Sutterfield, whom he had met and begun dating in the summer of 2006.
On October 14, while on a date in Iberville Parish, Dominique struck Sutterfield on the head with a heavy object, rendering him unconscious. After finding the body, police interviewed Sutterfield’s relatives and friends, who confirmed they had last seen him with a man in a black SUV, though they could not describe the companion.
In November 2006, Dominique came under police suspicion after Ricky Wallace, a Bayou Blue resident, reported that Dominique had lured him to his trailer months earlier with an offer of drugs and sex with a woman.
After luring Wallace into his trailer, Dominique offered to tie Wallace up, saying his “girlfriend” enjoyed bondage. Wallace refused and was allowed to leave. Although Wallace’s testimony was initially questioned, Dominique was brought in for questioning by the police. While in custody, he agreed to provide a blood sample.
Over the next week, DnA testing matched his profile to the semen found on victims Oliver LeBanks and Manuel Reed, resulting in an arrest warrant. Dominique was arrested at a homeless shelter on Dec. 1, 2006.
At the station, he readily confessed to 23 murders, providing graphic details known only to the killer and investigators. Dominique stated he killed to eliminate witnesses, unwilling to face another prison sentence. He claimed his 1996 rape arrest had a severe psychological impact, leaving him in a perpetual negative state and triggering symptoms of a mental disorder.
In 2008, Dominique pleaded guilty as part of a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to eight life terms without parole and remains incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.
Despite the scale of his crimes, the case received little national attention, likely because his victims were predominantly from marginalized communities. This collective indifference allowed the killings to go undetected for years, ultimately spurring calls for better inter-agency police cooperation and more equitable media coverage of victims, regardless of their background.
