1 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:07,320 - I can't explain to you why a person 2 00:00:07,440 --> 00:00:08,880 would do something like this. 3 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:10,720 [suspenseful music] 4 00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:14,560 Some glitch, some wire 5 00:00:14,680 --> 00:00:16,360 that didn't hook up to the right spot. 6 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:21,680 - It seemed like every time we turned around, 7 00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:23,440 there was another body. 8 00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:26,400 - So in a 12 square mile, you had nine victims. 9 00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:34,760 - The person was trying to rub our face into it, 10 00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:37,240 knowing that he's gonna get away with it. 11 00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:40,480 - We were looking into one of the most prolific 12 00:00:40,600 --> 00:00:42,560 serial killers in Louisiana history. 13 00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:45,120 - This is a serial killer you've never heard of. 14 00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:48,600 ♪ 15 00:00:50,480 --> 00:00:52,160 [dramatic music] 16 00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:54,840 - And she kept repeating, he's going to kill me. 17 00:00:54,960 --> 00:00:56,120 - And he shoots my daughter. 18 00:00:58,800 --> 00:01:00,520 - That's about the only time in my career 19 00:01:00,640 --> 00:01:02,120 that I just wanted to shoot him. 20 00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:12,040 - You can run. 21 00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:13,360 You can't hide. 22 00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:20,480 ♪ 23 00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:29,160 [suspenseful music] 24 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:32,000 - The thing about Louisiana is that when you travel 25 00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:34,640 from parish to parish and town to town, 26 00:01:34,760 --> 00:01:37,400 you get different culture. 27 00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:40,400 And that is what's so great about the state. 28 00:01:40,520 --> 00:01:43,840 Kenner is its own little tiny metropolis 29 00:01:43,960 --> 00:01:46,160 on the outskirts of New Orleans. 30 00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:48,800 Kenner has its own culture as well. 31 00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:52,000 And I think that's fed by a lot of the different 32 00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:54,000 immigrants that call Kenner home. 33 00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:56,560 It's the area that's right before you hit what's called 34 00:01:56,680 --> 00:01:58,320 the Bonne Carre Spillway, which is 35 00:01:58,440 --> 00:02:01,480 this long stretch of roadway that heads toward 36 00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:04,840 Baton Rouge and areas west. 37 00:02:04,960 --> 00:02:07,960 - Crime in Kenner has actually been down 38 00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:10,520 since the early and mid-'90s. 39 00:02:10,640 --> 00:02:13,720 You know, we average maybe four a--four a year of homicides. 40 00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:19,160 ♪ 41 00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:22,720 My participation in these investigations 42 00:02:22,840 --> 00:02:26,080 stemmed from three homicides we had here 43 00:02:26,200 --> 00:02:27,720 in the city of Kenner. 44 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:33,000 Back in the late '90s, young males were 45 00:02:33,120 --> 00:02:37,960 dumped in various parts of the city of Kenner on the roadside. 46 00:02:41,680 --> 00:02:45,080 - A man named Manuel Reed was found strangled. 47 00:02:45,200 --> 00:02:49,120 He was thrown in a business trash bin in Kenner, 48 00:02:49,240 --> 00:02:51,800 but he had been strangled and raped. 49 00:02:54,160 --> 00:02:57,080 - These three were unique because the bodies 50 00:02:57,200 --> 00:02:59,840 were disposed of where they were gonna 51 00:02:59,960 --> 00:03:01,400 be found the next morning. 52 00:03:01,520 --> 00:03:03,440 So they were positioned to be found. 53 00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:07,000 It wasn't like somebody was trying to hide these bodies. 54 00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:09,560 You know, we had no idea that we were dealing with, 55 00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:11,280 you know, some-- something larger. 56 00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:14,480 We worked it as trying to find--identify the victim. 57 00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:15,720 Where did he come from? 58 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:17,440 You know, what-- try to find out 59 00:03:17,560 --> 00:03:19,640 how the perpetrator got here in the city of Kenner 60 00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:22,080 to discard a body. 61 00:03:22,200 --> 00:03:26,040 The victims were similar in age. 62 00:03:26,160 --> 00:03:28,520 And then we started asking around. 63 00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:31,000 So with the local parish sheriff's office, 64 00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:34,080 had something similar in St. Charles Parish. 65 00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:37,080 So we started to compare notes and talk. 66 00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:40,120 By this time, I think it was our three, 67 00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:44,880 and the sheriff's office had an additional three 68 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:47,320 all within, you know, with a two-year frame 69 00:03:47,440 --> 00:03:49,240 where bodies were just discarded, 70 00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:50,880 where someone would find them, 71 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:54,600 either near a dumpster or near a roadway. 72 00:03:54,720 --> 00:03:58,280 So that's kind of when we started thinking that 73 00:03:58,400 --> 00:04:00,120 it may be the same person. 74 00:04:00,240 --> 00:04:03,200 We were trying to see if it was a, 75 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:06,440 like a certain type of individual that was preying 76 00:04:06,560 --> 00:04:09,440 on these--these people. 77 00:04:09,560 --> 00:04:11,120 - The Christmas decorations are up 78 00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:13,160 in this St. Charles Parish home, 79 00:04:13,280 --> 00:04:14,800 but all over the living room are pictures 80 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:17,360 of 19-year-old David Mitchell, who was murdered. 81 00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:20,880 - It's been hell every single day. 82 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:22,360 Every night, I can't sleep. 83 00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:24,640 I toss and turn because I can't--you know, 84 00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:26,800 I don't have any closure. 85 00:04:26,920 --> 00:04:28,320 I don't know what happened, 86 00:04:28,440 --> 00:04:31,040 how it happened, why it happened or anything. 87 00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:33,280 It's been--it's been living hell. 88 00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:35,960 David was a happy-go-lucky person. 89 00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:37,920 He was always jolly. 90 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:40,800 He could never hurt a flea or anything. 91 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:42,120 - He had to be center stage, you know? 92 00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:44,280 He had to be the clown and his dancing. 93 00:04:44,400 --> 00:04:47,120 And he always made people laugh and everything, you know? 94 00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:53,760 Everything I did, you know, I did for him. 95 00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:55,160 I took him everywhere I went. 96 00:04:55,280 --> 00:04:56,720 I bought him clothes. 97 00:04:56,840 --> 00:05:00,560 I just did everything I could because I-- 98 00:05:03,400 --> 00:05:05,080 Like, that was a part of me. 99 00:05:07,520 --> 00:05:11,640 - Some of these cases started as missing person cases. 100 00:05:11,760 --> 00:05:14,840 So Oliver LeBanks was 27 years old. 101 00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:17,800 He was doing the job that a lot of people 102 00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:19,280 do in New Orleans, which is work 103 00:05:19,400 --> 00:05:20,880 in the hospitality industry. 104 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:22,720 He worked at a French Quarter restaurant. 105 00:05:22,840 --> 00:05:24,480 He was a dishwasher there. 106 00:05:24,600 --> 00:05:25,600 He was a family guy. 107 00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:28,280 He had five daughters. 108 00:05:28,400 --> 00:05:32,520 His body was found in Metairie, and he had been strangled. 109 00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:37,360 - What is similar about all these crimes? 110 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:40,160 Early on, we were able to determine that some of them 111 00:05:40,280 --> 00:05:42,000 were coming out of the city of New Orleans, 112 00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:45,480 last seen in the city, mostly African Americans, you know, 113 00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:48,080 really come from poor areas of the city. 114 00:05:48,200 --> 00:05:50,040 Some of the ones here in Kenner, 115 00:05:50,160 --> 00:05:53,480 they were just last seen in, you know, neighboring parishes, 116 00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:56,520 walking the streets with no detail of, you know, 117 00:05:56,640 --> 00:05:58,800 the exact time, the exact, you know, date 118 00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:01,320 that someone was last seen. 119 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:05,040 ♪ 120 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:06,800 The characteristics of every victim 121 00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:09,320 were they would walk the streets. 122 00:06:09,440 --> 00:06:12,880 I mean, they were young, same physical build, 123 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:14,560 no gunshot wounds. 124 00:06:14,680 --> 00:06:18,440 They were all, you know, strangled, some form. 125 00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:21,400 - A lot of them didn't have broken bones or bruising 126 00:06:21,520 --> 00:06:24,480 that you would see whenever there's a struggle, 127 00:06:24,600 --> 00:06:26,640 which was interesting for investigators. 128 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:28,080 A lot of them didn't have a lot of money. 129 00:06:28,200 --> 00:06:29,480 Many of them were vulnerable. 130 00:06:29,600 --> 00:06:30,920 They were all men. 131 00:06:31,040 --> 00:06:33,040 And I think that was one of the tells 132 00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:34,960 that made them say, hey, wait a second. 133 00:06:35,080 --> 00:06:37,200 We need to connect these cases. 134 00:06:37,320 --> 00:06:39,440 We need to get a task force together and figure out 135 00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:41,120 what happened to these men. 136 00:06:43,680 --> 00:06:46,360 - The three victims that are found in the city of Kenner, 137 00:06:46,480 --> 00:06:49,600 the three victims found in St. Charles Parish, 138 00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:54,720 and three victims in Jefferson Parish were relatively close. 139 00:06:54,840 --> 00:06:58,680 So within a 12 square mile, you had nine victims, 140 00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:01,880 two of them being dumped within several feet of each other, 141 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:04,840 months apart. 142 00:07:04,960 --> 00:07:06,440 - Serial killers are rare. 143 00:07:06,560 --> 00:07:09,320 Well, I thought they were rare until this period of time, 144 00:07:09,440 --> 00:07:11,480 where apparently there were enough 145 00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:15,240 going around South Louisiana to make everyone take note. 146 00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:17,480 - We really didn't get a good grasp 147 00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:20,840 on the kind of person that was--that was doing this. 148 00:07:20,960 --> 00:07:24,600 But the geographical layout was, 149 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:28,280 it was someone that was gonna be from within this area. 150 00:07:28,400 --> 00:07:32,120 Was it someone that was comfortable in his environment 151 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:34,240 that, you know, didn't care to be caught? 152 00:07:34,360 --> 00:07:37,520 Or was he just good enough to get away with it? 153 00:07:37,640 --> 00:07:41,280 ♪ 154 00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:48,440 - All of a sudden, Metro New Orleans 155 00:07:48,560 --> 00:07:50,880 doesn't get any more of these dumped bodies of-- 156 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:53,680 of the same, you know, type victim. 157 00:07:53,800 --> 00:07:56,520 They all started coming down several miles 158 00:07:56,640 --> 00:08:00,840 in lower Louisiana in and around the city of Houma. 159 00:08:00,960 --> 00:08:03,320 - Terrebonne Parish is one of the most beautiful parts 160 00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:06,200 of Southeast Louisiana, small highways that are 161 00:08:06,320 --> 00:08:08,280 lined by sugarcane fields. 162 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:12,120 It's just calming when you're driving down there. 163 00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:13,400 It's peaceful. 164 00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:15,280 It's quiet. 165 00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:19,960 - I grew up in Houma, and it's a very close-knit community. 166 00:08:20,080 --> 00:08:23,720 The people there have very big hearts. 167 00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:26,200 But at the time, it seemed like every time we turned around, 168 00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:28,760 there was another body. 169 00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:32,360 Some of these guys had decomposed 170 00:08:32,480 --> 00:08:36,080 to the point they couldn't have these open casket funerals. 171 00:08:36,200 --> 00:08:38,240 They really never got to say goodbye to these people 172 00:08:38,360 --> 00:08:40,080 in a proper way. 173 00:08:40,200 --> 00:08:43,600 The rapes themselves, that horrified the families, 174 00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:47,040 it really just tore them to their core. 175 00:08:47,160 --> 00:08:51,400 - Some of them didn't have extensive families 176 00:08:51,520 --> 00:08:53,840 to sound the alarm about the cases and anything 177 00:08:53,960 --> 00:08:55,480 falling through the cracks. 178 00:08:55,600 --> 00:08:56,920 - My impression was, there were a lot 179 00:08:57,040 --> 00:08:58,920 of crickets in the community. 180 00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:01,760 People just didn't seem to make much of an impact at all. 181 00:09:01,880 --> 00:09:05,720 I mean, I'm still shocked, and I'm still surprised by that. 182 00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:09,280 - So, you know, it was really kind of an eye-opener for me. 183 00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:11,480 And the fact that, you know, a lot of people 184 00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:16,040 weren't jumping on TV talking about how horrified they were 185 00:09:16,160 --> 00:09:18,960 that this had happened, I think that was 186 00:09:19,080 --> 00:09:21,120 shocking to me as well, 187 00:09:21,240 --> 00:09:24,600 just because of the nature of the crimes. 188 00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:27,880 - The victims were not all but mostly homosexual. 189 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:30,880 It didn't have the grip that killing 190 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:32,520 young, beautiful women does. 191 00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:35,120 There were two other serial killers 192 00:09:35,240 --> 00:09:37,040 loose in South Louisiana... 193 00:09:38,680 --> 00:09:40,640 Who are getting most of the publicity. 194 00:09:40,760 --> 00:09:43,760 They were Derrick Todd Lee and Sean Gillis. 195 00:09:43,880 --> 00:09:47,400 Both of them were attacking, kidnapping, raping, and killing 196 00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:48,920 young, attractive women. 197 00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:51,920 [suspenseful music] 198 00:09:52,040 --> 00:09:57,720 ♪ 199 00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:02,360 - I remember Datrell Woods just because I was there. 200 00:10:02,480 --> 00:10:05,480 I remember he was young. 201 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:08,680 The killer dumped him with his bicycle in a sugarcane field 202 00:10:08,800 --> 00:10:10,320 out behind a church. 203 00:10:10,440 --> 00:10:13,400 And it was summer, and it was hot. 204 00:10:13,520 --> 00:10:15,000 And he'd been there. 205 00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:17,000 And it wasn't a pleasant scene. 206 00:10:17,120 --> 00:10:19,760 So I remember going to the-- 207 00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:24,040 to his house and talking to his parents after he was found. 208 00:10:24,160 --> 00:10:26,920 And his--there were a lot of-- 209 00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:29,600 there was a lot of family there and a lot of heartache. 210 00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:36,320 It was very sparse, and it was very spread out 211 00:10:36,440 --> 00:10:38,320 over so many parishes. 212 00:10:38,440 --> 00:10:41,560 It wasn't until the end there that it seemed to escalate 213 00:10:41,680 --> 00:10:43,880 and the bodies seemed to start piling up. 214 00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:48,720 - Some were found with-- missing a shoe. 215 00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:51,000 Some had no shoes. 216 00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:52,960 And they were trying to say that that was the trophy 217 00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:55,600 that this killer was-- was keeping, was a shoe. 218 00:10:55,720 --> 00:10:57,560 So we were working every angle, trying to find out 219 00:10:57,680 --> 00:11:00,840 if, in fact, you know, we can prove that that was, 220 00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:03,000 like, a trophy item the person's taking. 221 00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:08,840 ♪ 222 00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:10,920 - The task force was put together 223 00:11:11,040 --> 00:11:15,120 when they realized that we have these dead people 224 00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:18,600 that all have a common denominator in that 225 00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:20,040 they have been tied up. 226 00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:29,320 - So from 1998 to 2005, we had the nine here 227 00:11:29,440 --> 00:11:32,200 in Metro New Orleans and then the ones coming up 228 00:11:32,320 --> 00:11:34,200 in the Lafourche and Terrebonne. 229 00:11:34,320 --> 00:11:38,600 So we probably had somewhere around 19. 230 00:11:40,720 --> 00:11:43,480 And it was full, you know, 8 1/2x11 printouts 231 00:11:43,600 --> 00:11:45,880 of a mug shot of a person's head. 232 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:48,920 And every time we would-- would find one, 233 00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:52,520 another victim would go on. 234 00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:55,960 That was the frustrating part that was kind of early on. 235 00:11:56,080 --> 00:12:00,240 Just the number of victims is the hardest thing. 236 00:12:00,360 --> 00:12:03,520 One of his dumping sites in Lafourche Parish 237 00:12:03,640 --> 00:12:06,440 was on the bank of a drainage ditch 238 00:12:06,560 --> 00:12:10,200 right next to the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office. 239 00:12:10,320 --> 00:12:13,600 Guess the psychology of it is, 240 00:12:13,720 --> 00:12:16,720 the person was either trying to rub our face into it 241 00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:20,040 where he can actually kill someone, discard them in a-- 242 00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:23,960 a place to be found, knowing that 243 00:12:24,080 --> 00:12:25,960 he's gonna get away with it. 244 00:12:26,080 --> 00:12:28,200 Or was the person comfortable enough 245 00:12:28,320 --> 00:12:30,080 that he might be a law enforcement officer, 246 00:12:30,200 --> 00:12:32,560 that that would cause no red flags, 247 00:12:32,680 --> 00:12:35,520 him being in and around some kind of police complex? 248 00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:38,080 You know, we working, you know, day and night 249 00:12:38,200 --> 00:12:41,720 trying to develop a suspect, only, you know, 250 00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:47,040 to wake up the next morning to, we have another victim. 251 00:12:47,160 --> 00:12:48,680 - It might be a sugarcane field. 252 00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:50,680 It might be under an overpass. 253 00:12:50,800 --> 00:12:53,400 It might be in a ditch. 254 00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:56,080 - No defensive wounds or no-- no evidence of a big struggle. 255 00:12:56,200 --> 00:12:57,640 Because some of these people were 256 00:12:57,760 --> 00:12:59,360 decent sized, you know, men. 257 00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:02,480 Even though they were-- they were young at age, 258 00:13:02,600 --> 00:13:04,520 they were, you know, pretty much tall and big in stature, 259 00:13:04,640 --> 00:13:06,200 some of them. 260 00:13:06,320 --> 00:13:07,720 - They weren't always found right away because it 261 00:13:07,840 --> 00:13:09,760 was really remote places. 262 00:13:09,880 --> 00:13:14,080 In South Louisiana in the summertime, 263 00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:17,440 in the heat and the daily rains, 264 00:13:17,560 --> 00:13:19,360 it would degrade a body. 265 00:13:19,480 --> 00:13:22,240 It would degrade a dump site pretty quickly. 266 00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:25,400 So there wasn't always DNA to find. 267 00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:28,040 - We had the attorney general's office, 268 00:13:28,160 --> 00:13:30,080 the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab, 269 00:13:30,200 --> 00:13:31,920 probation and parole working it. 270 00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:34,160 You know, it was overwhelming at the time. 271 00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:36,840 You know, we would get working, you know, leads 272 00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:39,640 and people call in, giving us some kind of tip. 273 00:13:39,760 --> 00:13:42,440 Somebody gave a tip of, you know, white guys, 274 00:13:42,560 --> 00:13:44,880 you know, Black guys of different ages. 275 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:51,720 ♪ 276 00:13:53,080 --> 00:13:55,160 - Investigators were making some progress 277 00:13:55,280 --> 00:13:57,000 in trying to figure out what happened to these people. 278 00:13:57,120 --> 00:14:00,240 But at that point, Hurricane Katrina hit. 279 00:14:03,640 --> 00:14:06,760 - And everything just kind of went crazy. 280 00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:09,800 - With Katrina's worst on its way, the last wave of people 281 00:14:09,920 --> 00:14:11,880 fled New Orleans overnight, thousands of them 282 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:14,680 looking for any place safe. 283 00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:18,160 - There was still a lot of chaos, I guess, going around. 284 00:14:18,280 --> 00:14:23,480 A lot of those people from New Orleans evacuated to Houma. 285 00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:28,640 We had, in just a few days, what officials compared 286 00:14:28,760 --> 00:14:30,400 to ten years' worth of growth in Houma. 287 00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:32,960 Our infrastructure wasn't up to it. 288 00:14:33,080 --> 00:14:36,480 We just had this inundation of people coming from all over. 289 00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:38,600 - They're hoping, of course, not to watch their homes 290 00:14:38,720 --> 00:14:40,560 or their neighborhoods blow away. 291 00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:42,960 - We are on the outer edge of this storm, 292 00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:45,880 and you can see what we're dealing with here. 293 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:48,840 - We kind of had to slow down a little bit 294 00:14:48,960 --> 00:14:52,480 because duties, you know, was spread all over the place 295 00:14:52,600 --> 00:14:54,560 at that time. 296 00:14:54,680 --> 00:14:57,160 - We weren't really impacted 297 00:14:57,280 --> 00:14:59,680 in the way of storms by Katrina. 298 00:14:59,800 --> 00:15:02,160 But just a few weeks later, Rita come through. 299 00:15:02,280 --> 00:15:05,200 And it did--it did have a lot of damage locally. 300 00:15:05,320 --> 00:15:08,760 And so the communities were trying to recover from that. 301 00:15:08,880 --> 00:15:12,480 - How many bodies went unreported, went undiscovered? 302 00:15:12,600 --> 00:15:15,160 How many more are buried somewhere, 303 00:15:15,280 --> 00:15:18,920 discarded, perhaps, in a more organized way in the bayou? 304 00:15:19,040 --> 00:15:21,600 We know that Katrina was so destructive 305 00:15:21,720 --> 00:15:25,120 that there were bodies lying around the bayou. 306 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:28,920 It wouldn't have been uncommon to come across a body 307 00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:30,800 that was exposed to the elements. 308 00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:33,160 - In the task force meetings, 309 00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:35,640 we knew the perp wasn't 100% successful 310 00:15:35,760 --> 00:15:37,960 in one contact, one kill. 311 00:15:38,080 --> 00:15:40,600 Whoever's doing this is not 100% successful. 312 00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:44,600 Every contact with a person is gonna end up with a victim. 313 00:15:44,720 --> 00:15:47,240 That's where the probation and parole aspect came in. 314 00:15:47,360 --> 00:15:49,320 So we had the probation and parole agents, 315 00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:51,640 when they met with people they were supervising, 316 00:15:51,760 --> 00:15:55,360 they would ask, is anything out of the ordinary happening 317 00:15:55,480 --> 00:15:57,680 in and around this area? 318 00:15:57,800 --> 00:15:59,320 - I think one of the turning points 319 00:15:59,440 --> 00:16:03,080 was when one of the victims got away. 320 00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:05,480 Ricky Wallace was one of those victims. 321 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:13,074 Watch Online Movies and Series for FREE www.osdb.link/lm 322 00:16:26,800 --> 00:16:28,680 - He told a story about a white guy 323 00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:30,800 in a pickup truck that approached him 324 00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:32,640 while he was walking down the street. 325 00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:37,480 Said he had a family member that was a victim of abuse. 326 00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:40,760 Showed a picture of, you know, some--we later learned that 327 00:16:40,880 --> 00:16:42,600 it was a family member of the perpetrator 328 00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:46,600 he was using and lured him in where she'll pay you for sex. 329 00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:49,720 She's a domestic violence victim. 330 00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:52,360 She's afraid of men. 331 00:16:52,480 --> 00:16:56,160 Actually got into the pickup truck with the perpetrator, 332 00:16:56,280 --> 00:16:58,040 actually let him bring him to a trailer. 333 00:17:00,400 --> 00:17:02,400 And once he got into the trailer, 334 00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:05,080 he said, well, before the girl comes in, 335 00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:08,200 being that she's afraid of men, I have to tie you up. 336 00:17:10,320 --> 00:17:14,200 - And he said, there's no way I'm gonna do that. 337 00:17:14,320 --> 00:17:16,120 - At that point, Ricky was like, 338 00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:18,760 I'm out of here, no, and ran. 339 00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:20,000 And he got away. 340 00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:23,640 - Well, he was on parole. 341 00:17:23,760 --> 00:17:26,640 So the next time he saw his parole officer, he says, 342 00:17:26,760 --> 00:17:29,600 look, the weirdest thing just happened to me. 343 00:17:29,720 --> 00:17:32,400 - So we drove by, got a bunch of license plate numbers 344 00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:34,880 and ran some records, everything from that address, 345 00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:38,360 and came up with all the residents there. 346 00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:41,400 - That led police eventually to Ronald Dominique. 347 00:17:41,520 --> 00:17:44,360 ♪ 348 00:17:48,360 --> 00:17:50,320 [suspenseful music] 349 00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:52,880 - Ronald Dominique lived on his sister's property 350 00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:56,320 in a trailer in the front yard. 351 00:17:56,440 --> 00:17:58,960 We started some surveillance on him, 352 00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:02,160 and it didn't amount to-- to anything. 353 00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:07,000 He worked at a oilfield supply company 354 00:18:07,120 --> 00:18:09,200 doing some kind of just manual labor, 355 00:18:09,320 --> 00:18:11,360 and other than that, didn't really have a life. 356 00:18:11,480 --> 00:18:15,200 He didn't leave the house, didn't go to no bars, 357 00:18:15,320 --> 00:18:16,440 didn't frequent anywhere. 358 00:18:16,560 --> 00:18:18,360 He would just sit at home. 359 00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:20,400 So we still didn't have anything 360 00:18:20,520 --> 00:18:24,520 to tie him in to these bodies. 361 00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:26,560 - Found out basically that he was a loner. 362 00:18:26,680 --> 00:18:29,720 And going back, we found out that, you know, in high school, 363 00:18:29,840 --> 00:18:31,760 didn't really have any friends. 364 00:18:31,880 --> 00:18:33,760 He had a couple of jobs. 365 00:18:33,880 --> 00:18:35,920 One was as a meter reader. 366 00:18:36,040 --> 00:18:37,560 What did he do positive in the community? 367 00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:39,720 Well, he called bingo, might have 368 00:18:39,840 --> 00:18:44,160 helped some neighbors with groceries and mow their lawn. 369 00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:46,640 - We knew he was arrested previously, 370 00:18:46,760 --> 00:18:48,160 accused of raping a male. 371 00:18:48,280 --> 00:18:50,120 So he was high on our radar with just that 372 00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:53,160 but didn't have anything to connect him, 373 00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:55,440 you know, with the crimes in itself. 374 00:18:55,560 --> 00:19:02,000 ♪ 375 00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:07,280 And then we realized that the sister previously 376 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:08,640 lived right here in St. Charles Parish, 377 00:19:08,760 --> 00:19:10,960 within a few hundred feet 378 00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:13,720 of the St. Charles Parish homicides. 379 00:19:13,840 --> 00:19:15,360 You know, the three bodies, you know, 380 00:19:15,480 --> 00:19:17,280 where they were dumped in St. Charles Parish. 381 00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:19,960 So all the homicides moved at the same time 382 00:19:20,080 --> 00:19:22,880 this family moved, and Dominique followed them 383 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:24,280 to live on his sister's property 384 00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:27,520 outside of the city of Houma. 385 00:19:27,640 --> 00:19:29,880 - When he realized that the police were following him 386 00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:31,880 and that his arrest was probably imminent, 387 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:35,680 he left his sister's property, 388 00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:37,320 and he moved into the Bunkhouse, 389 00:19:37,440 --> 00:19:41,040 which is a homeless shelter there in downtown Houma. 390 00:19:41,160 --> 00:19:42,960 - We had the FBI there. 391 00:19:43,080 --> 00:19:44,800 Their surveillance team actually 392 00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:46,320 was--was assigned to it. 393 00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:49,040 So 24 hours a day, we had someone, 394 00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:51,240 you know, watching him in his residence. 395 00:19:51,360 --> 00:19:53,200 And it is-- yes, it's binoculars. 396 00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:55,600 It's--you know, it may be cars on the ground, 397 00:19:55,720 --> 00:19:59,240 people walking, even aircraft in the air if he was mobile. 398 00:19:59,360 --> 00:20:01,800 At that point, when we identified the killer, 399 00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:03,800 there was not gonna be any other victims. 400 00:20:07,560 --> 00:20:10,880 So we just sent two people to--to make contact with him. 401 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:12,960 You know, one female investigator 402 00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:15,840 from Lafourche Parish and one from-- 403 00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:18,200 a male from Jefferson Parish. 404 00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:21,600 And they interviewed him. 405 00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:23,400 - It was very civil. 406 00:20:23,520 --> 00:20:25,600 It was almost like he expected it 407 00:20:25,720 --> 00:20:27,400 and he was waiting for them. 408 00:20:27,520 --> 00:20:28,800 - And he answered questions. 409 00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:31,640 Wouldn't admit to anything 410 00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:33,840 but did consent to a buccal swab, 411 00:20:33,960 --> 00:20:36,320 which is a swab of his saliva. 412 00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:38,240 - They took that DNA sample from him 413 00:20:38,360 --> 00:20:40,920 and found that it matched DNA that was found 414 00:20:41,040 --> 00:20:43,520 on Oliver LeBanks and Manuel Reed. 415 00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:47,320 That's when they had enough 416 00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:49,120 to charge him with those two murders. 417 00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:53,520 Good evening, everyone. 418 00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:56,680 I'm Katie Moore, and welcome to the WWL Louisiana news at 5:00. 419 00:20:56,800 --> 00:20:58,320 It was a Friday, and I remember 420 00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:00,000 going into the newsroom and them saying, 421 00:21:00,120 --> 00:21:01,240 okay, this arrest has been made. 422 00:21:01,360 --> 00:21:02,760 So we went down to the homeless shelter 423 00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:04,160 to try and talk to people, 424 00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:06,040 and they said that they were stunned 425 00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:10,520 because he was very quiet, very nice. 426 00:21:10,640 --> 00:21:13,920 They said, you know, he could have lived there for 20 years 427 00:21:14,040 --> 00:21:17,200 and nobody would have thought he did anything wrong. 428 00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:20,520 He was that unassuming. 429 00:21:20,640 --> 00:21:24,280 At the Bunkhouse in Houma, a handful of homeless men 430 00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:27,120 spent three days with 42-year-old Ronald Dominique. 431 00:21:27,240 --> 00:21:29,880 Until Wednesday, Dominique lived in these trailers 432 00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:31,320 that crime scene investigators 433 00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:33,200 combed through looking for evidence. 434 00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:34,880 They were parked behind his sister's 435 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:36,720 house on Bayou Blue Road. 436 00:21:36,840 --> 00:21:38,160 Law enforcement agencies, 437 00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:40,080 including the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff, 438 00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:41,600 aren't releasing many details about the case, 439 00:21:41,720 --> 00:21:43,760 but we do expect to learn more next week, 440 00:21:43,880 --> 00:21:46,560 including how they linked Dominique to the murders. 441 00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:49,200 Everyone kind of knows everybody down there. 442 00:21:49,320 --> 00:21:52,720 And so I think when this case popped up, 443 00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:55,760 everyone was shocked because a lot of people knew him 444 00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:57,360 and a lot of people knew his family. 445 00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:01,320 And I don't think anyone ever would have expected 446 00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:04,720 that he could be responsible for something so heinous. 447 00:22:04,840 --> 00:22:07,160 - A multi-agency task force announced the arrest 448 00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:09,520 of 42-year-old Ronald Dominique last night 449 00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:12,400 in connection with two murders in the late '90s in Kenner. 450 00:22:12,520 --> 00:22:15,400 Investigators also believe he is the suspect 451 00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:19,280 in almost 20 other murders over the past 11 years. 452 00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:21,880 Two of the victims lived in Jefferson Parish. 453 00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:24,040 Two more are from Lafourche Parish. 454 00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:26,440 Four resided in St. Charles Parish. 455 00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:29,280 And 11 of the victims lived in Terrebonne Parish. 456 00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:30,880 - The law enforcement task force 457 00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:32,880 would only say that forensic evidence 458 00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:34,240 links Dominique to the two murders 459 00:22:34,360 --> 00:22:35,520 that he's currently charged with. 460 00:22:35,640 --> 00:22:37,400 Both of the Kenner victims 461 00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:39,360 and about half of the others were found strangled, 462 00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:42,240 partially dressed, and missing shoes. 463 00:22:42,360 --> 00:22:46,040 - The local people down in Terrebonne Parish 464 00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:48,840 put out a word to the public defender board 465 00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:50,880 that they needed a lawyer to come down 466 00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:52,520 and represent him because he was 467 00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:54,320 charged with a capital case. 468 00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:55,880 And that's what we did. 469 00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:56,880 Of course, one of the first things we did 470 00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:58,880 was go and talk to Dominique. 471 00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:01,120 At that time, I had handled dozens 472 00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:05,520 and dozens of capital cases but never a serial killer. 473 00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:09,560 I went in there to see him, and out of all my clients, 474 00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:13,080 he was probably the least intrusive. 475 00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:19,040 I mean, he was--he was short and fat or obese. 476 00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:22,560 He was quiet. 477 00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:26,920 He walked with a limp and with cane and really reserved. 478 00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:30,080 His demeanor was rather a passive demeanor. 479 00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:31,600 You know, there wasn't 480 00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:33,400 anything threatening about him. 481 00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:35,080 - If you look at a lot of serial killers 482 00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:36,760 through the years, they don't stand out. 483 00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:38,200 They fit in well. 484 00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:39,880 This guy fit in well at what he did. 485 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:41,600 I mean, he didn't do anything. 486 00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:43,960 He didn't do anything to call attention to himself. 487 00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:46,160 He never got in many arguments, 488 00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:47,720 you know, with the sister, 489 00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:49,440 with anybody else in the community. 490 00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:53,040 He kind of just stayed alone. 491 00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:55,480 - Let's put it this way, he wasn't scary, 492 00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:58,800 wouldn't scare anyone, and kind of taken aback 493 00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:02,120 by how someone that looked like he did 494 00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,240 would be capable of committing all these offenses 495 00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:07,080 that he was accused of. 496 00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:09,600 He had a bad heart, fat and flabby. 497 00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:11,800 There was nothing physically about him 498 00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:13,600 that would make you think that this person was 499 00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:20,040 capable of killing anyone at all, with his hands. 500 00:24:22,120 --> 00:24:24,360 - He looked like just some little guy that really 501 00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:26,360 had nothing going for him. 502 00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,280 - And then as we started to hear more and more details 503 00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:31,320 out of that serial killer task force, 504 00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:32,800 we started to realize that this was 505 00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:35,280 much bigger than just two men. 506 00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:41,080 ♪ 507 00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:43,120 - When they had Ronald Dominique in interrogation, 508 00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,000 then it was like the floodgates opened. 509 00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:09,800 - He told police that he had killed Oliver LeBanks. 510 00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:14,000 - They went to a remote area, had sex, 511 00:25:14,120 --> 00:25:17,600 but the victim was apparently pretty rough on Ronald, 512 00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:21,120 and Ronald struck him in the head with a tire iron. 513 00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:23,040 - Once he knocked him out, 514 00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:25,520 realized that he doesn't have to deal with this pressure 515 00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:27,200 or problem anymore. 516 00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:30,520 - And then he strangled him. 517 00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:34,080 - And then we learned that apparently, Ronald Dominique 518 00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:36,440 had confessed when he went in to police 519 00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:39,400 and just frankly told them 520 00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:41,360 that, you know, he had killed 521 00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:43,280 up to 23 people. 522 00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:45,120 And I just--my mind was blown. 523 00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:51,680 Most people who had come in contact with Ronald Dominique 524 00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:56,240 were shocked to find out that he was accused 525 00:25:56,360 --> 00:25:59,240 of killing more than 20 people. 526 00:25:59,360 --> 00:26:01,280 I mean, they were stunned. 527 00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,640 This man that people now were hearing 528 00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:06,040 may have been one of Louisiana's 529 00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:08,880 most prolific serial killers. 530 00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:13,080 So police say that Ronald Dominique gave them details 531 00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,200 about how he committed them. 532 00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:17,960 And what Dominique told police was that he went out 533 00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:20,760 late at night, prowling in search of men 534 00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:24,320 who appeared to be in need of money. 535 00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:26,480 - He would pick people up on Bourbon Street 536 00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:28,480 near the gay bar. 537 00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:32,200 He would see them riding their bicycle down the road. 538 00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:37,520 He seemed to like Black men, slight Black men-- 539 00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:42,040 not big, brawny guys, but lean, thin. 540 00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:47,920 Of his 23 victims, 18 of them were Black. 541 00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:52,240 - He would cruise, go to areas where street people, 542 00:26:52,360 --> 00:26:56,760 hustlers would frequent, stop, talk to them, 543 00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:58,840 make a determination. 544 00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:01,840 If they said yes, he'd say, come on, get in. 545 00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:04,360 He would drive them to his trailer, 546 00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,800 and he would say, well, look, I don't want you to hurt me. 547 00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:12,280 So in order to not be hurt, I want to tie you up 548 00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:13,720 before we have sex. 549 00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:15,520 - If he thought they were gay, 550 00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,280 he would proposition them for sex with himself. 551 00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:21,880 - If he thought they were heterosexual, 552 00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,000 he had a picture of an attractive woman, 553 00:27:24,120 --> 00:27:26,600 who he'd say was his girlfriend or his wife, 554 00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:27,880 and he'd offered them money to come back 555 00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:29,440 and have sex with this woman. 556 00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:56,000 - And he would use his niece's picture 557 00:27:56,120 --> 00:27:57,920 because she was an attractive young lady 558 00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,560 to entice men to come to his place. 559 00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:04,160 That was the photograph he used to say, look, my wife 560 00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:05,720 wants to have sex with you. 561 00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:06,960 Here's what she looks like. 562 00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:30,520 - If they agreed to be tied up, 563 00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:32,480 he'd rape them and strangle them. 564 00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:34,320 - You have to have a certain personality 565 00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:37,800 to be able to strike up a conversation with someone, 566 00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:40,760 make them feel comfortable enough to where 567 00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:43,360 they're willing to go to another location with you 568 00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:44,760 and spend time with you. 569 00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:46,520 And in this case, a lot of times 570 00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,400 he was convincing them to go to an offsite location for sex. 571 00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:53,600 ♪ 572 00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:57,640 - The early victims, he would meet in an automobile. 573 00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:00,160 The crime was committed in an automobile. 574 00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:02,280 He would strangle him with the seat belt. 575 00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:41,640 - In Southern Louisiana, a shocking confession 576 00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:43,880 from an alleged serial killer. 577 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,000 Ronald Dominique was charged with 11 counts of murder. 578 00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:48,640 Police say he admitted to killing 579 00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,200 23 men over eight years. 580 00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,600 The victims, which ranged in age from 16 to 46, 581 00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:57,280 had all been strangled or suffocated. 582 00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:02,480 ♪ 583 00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:04,600 When we go investigate people, we do. 584 00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,320 We go back and try to find out people that knew him 585 00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:11,120 when he was growing up, teachers, people he worked for, 586 00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,480 whoever he may have come in contact with. 587 00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:17,000 - He grew up in Lafourche Parish. 588 00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,480 He went to Thibodaux High School. 589 00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,520 He was not a popular guy. 590 00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:26,720 My understanding is that he didn't-- 591 00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:28,760 he didn't come to terms with his homosexuality 592 00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,120 until late in his teens. 593 00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:35,280 I'm told that he was bullied. 594 00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:38,680 So high school was rough for him. 595 00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:40,680 - And we found with Dominique, really didn't have 596 00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:43,000 any long-lasting friends, 597 00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:45,400 teachers that really took to him. 598 00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:49,440 - Lower income, lived in a trailer in Bayou Blue. 599 00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:53,160 Just regular, everyday, working folk. 600 00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:56,480 - I don't think Ronald Dominique is a high IQ person. 601 00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:58,280 I really don't. 602 00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:00,640 I think he's a simple person that had a simple plan. 603 00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:03,880 How he came up with the actual killing of someone, 604 00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:06,960 I don't think it was the killing was the motive. 605 00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:09,240 I think it was a sex act that was his motive. 606 00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:14,080 - He always lived with either his mom or his older sister. 607 00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:18,440 - Just didn't fit my preconceived idea 608 00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,560 of what a serial killer would be like. 609 00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:25,840 I mean, he was the most unthreatening individual, 610 00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:27,480 like, I could think of. 611 00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:11,840 - There's two forms of pleasure 612 00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,080 involved in these homicides, 613 00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:16,440 perverse pleasures. 614 00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:18,840 One is, of course, the sexual part. 615 00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:22,720 The other part was the-- the homicide part. 616 00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:25,480 - He felt the only way he could become intimate 617 00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:28,000 with someone else was by tying them up 618 00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:30,960 and then forcing himself on them, right? 619 00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:34,120 Again, power. Again, control. 620 00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:36,680 But such low self-esteem 621 00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,880 to think that the only way he could be close to someone 622 00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,600 was through this mechanism. 623 00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:45,400 - He just kept talking and talking and talking. 624 00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:47,360 And he admitted, and he provided 625 00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:49,120 details of all these murders. 626 00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:51,440 I thought it was really weird, though, 627 00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:54,560 because our reporters had put together 628 00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:57,000 from different sources, and they had gotten, 629 00:32:57,120 --> 00:32:59,920 like, a list of men that had gone missing 630 00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,440 and then turned up dead, and we'd put together, 631 00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:05,640 before he was arrested, the list of possible 632 00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:07,200 serial killer victims. 633 00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:09,240 And we didn't have all 23, of course, 634 00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:11,800 because we didn't take into account the ones, 635 00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:13,600 like, in the Kenner area. 636 00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,240 We were more looking at our jurisdiction. 637 00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:18,920 And he admitted to every one on our list, 638 00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:21,560 but he didn't admit to any that weren't on our list. 639 00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:23,920 And I just find it highly suspect 640 00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:26,160 that we got them all right. 641 00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:29,440 I always wondered if maybe there were more 642 00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:31,960 or if he just decided to confess to everything. 643 00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:33,600 I don't know. 644 00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:35,400 I've always wondered if there were others. 645 00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:50,440 - One of the things that surprised me was the fact 646 00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:54,360 that he was able to not only strangle these people, 647 00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:57,040 with the strength that took, but also to pick up 648 00:33:57,160 --> 00:33:59,400 the bodies, put them in his vehicle, 649 00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:01,640 and then take them someplace and dispose of them. 650 00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:03,720 I was trying to figure out how he could do that because 651 00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:06,360 he didn't strike me as being that strong of an individual, 652 00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:08,360 even though the victims weren't that big, 653 00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:12,120 they probably weighed 145 pounds, somewhere around there. 654 00:34:12,240 --> 00:34:14,040 - He didn't look like someone that you would consider 655 00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:16,680 a serial killer or someone capable of killing 656 00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:19,080 23, you know, grown men. 657 00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:22,160 In everyday life, Ronald Dominique was powerless. 658 00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:26,160 But when he was hunting and killing, he was very powerful. 659 00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:29,960 ♪ 660 00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:38,600 - It dawned upon me that he probably had 661 00:34:38,720 --> 00:34:42,200 a big adrenaline rush when he was doing this. 662 00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:46,200 And that may have had some play in why he did it 663 00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:48,600 and why he was able to-- to move bodies around 664 00:34:48,720 --> 00:34:51,040 and that sort of thing. 665 00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:02,120 [suspenseful music] 666 00:35:02,240 --> 00:35:05,280 - Six weeks before he was arrested, 667 00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:09,520 he killed Sutterfield, according to the police. 668 00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:14,960 He was able to subdue, tie up, and rape a full-grown man, 669 00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:17,840 and then drag his body to where he dumped it. 670 00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:34,080 - Then when he was arrested, 671 00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:36,680 he has a cane and he can't even walk upright. 672 00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:41,000 He's having to be helped into the car by two officers. 673 00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:43,480 I just always felt like that was a show. 674 00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:45,760 I just couldn't see how physically, 675 00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:47,400 how he could have declined so much. 676 00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:49,040 They said he had a heart attack, 677 00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:51,480 but I still felt like a lot of that was for show. 678 00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:56,400 - He didn't amount to much of anything other than 679 00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,800 he worked in, you know, some kind of labor intensive, 680 00:35:59,920 --> 00:36:04,000 menial job working in a supply business. 681 00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:06,080 He felt that he was inferior. 682 00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:08,320 Couldn't get a girlfriend or boyfriend. 683 00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:12,200 He was kind of, you know, little overweight. 684 00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:17,440 - Just really aimless life, no friends, no one 685 00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:19,280 to be in love with or to love him. 686 00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,400 - Even when he came out of the closet 687 00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:25,960 and was part of the gay scene, 688 00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:28,160 he really wasn't accepted there, either. 689 00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:36,720 - Favorite thing was being a female impersonator. 690 00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,480 - He liked to dress up like Patti LaBelle and imitate her, 691 00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:42,440 but he wasn't very good at it. 692 00:36:45,240 --> 00:36:48,040 - This female impersonation, this act, 693 00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:50,160 where he was inviting others to laugh at him, 694 00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:52,000 he's in control of that. 695 00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:58,360 Now, whether this predated his--his sensibilities 696 00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:00,440 when later on went on to kill, we don't know, 697 00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:02,640 but this is a marker. 698 00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:04,000 Control is a marker. 699 00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:06,480 And we know that with the serial rapes, 700 00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:08,840 rape has nothing to do with love or affection 701 00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:10,240 or intimacy or sex. 702 00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:12,160 It's a control issue. 703 00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:15,720 And yeah, the trappings of it were there in the act. 704 00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:22,880 ♪ 705 00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:25,400 - So in the early to mid-'90s, Ronald Dominique had actually 706 00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:28,400 been arrested for rapes. 707 00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:32,120 - The story goes that it was at his sister's house 708 00:37:32,240 --> 00:37:36,440 and that the victim jumped out the window 709 00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:41,520 and ran away yelling but that they never followed through 710 00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:42,840 with the case because they could 711 00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:44,480 never locate the victim again. 712 00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:46,720 So nothing ever came of that. 713 00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,440 - The second time he was arrested for a rape, 714 00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:53,440 which was in 1996, he was convicted 715 00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:55,000 and ended up serving time in prison. 716 00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:59,320 - And while he was in jail, he was brutalized. 717 00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:02,160 - Police believe that that may have been Ronald Dominique's 718 00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:06,320 trigger, that once he had to do the time in jail, 719 00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,280 he decided he wasn't gonna spend time in jail anymore. 720 00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:11,880 So he would kill his victims so that they couldn't 721 00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:14,120 tell police what he had done. 722 00:38:14,240 --> 00:38:16,920 - Something happened to him that, 723 00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,400 whether or not it was a sexual fantasy 724 00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:21,840 or it was something else that got him to come up 725 00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:25,880 with this plan and scheme that if he wanted to have sex 726 00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:28,680 with a male, I guess he was intimidated 727 00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:30,240 and couldn't do it on his own. 728 00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:31,920 He had to kill him first. 729 00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,160 - It escalated to where he really enjoyed 730 00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:06,480 the entire process, from the rape to the murder. 731 00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:10,440 It just got to where the interval in between murders 732 00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:15,120 became smaller and smaller, like he needed it more often. 733 00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:37,320 - I don't think that we knew until the following week 734 00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:41,880 that the number of victims would climb that high. 735 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:43,600 You know, when we went to the news conference 736 00:39:43,720 --> 00:39:46,440 that was law enforcement agencies 737 00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:51,200 talking about how deep and wide their investigation went, 738 00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:53,520 I think all of us were stunned. 739 00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:56,800 And then to hear that law enforcement 740 00:39:56,920 --> 00:40:01,520 hadn't even connected all 23 of those killings. 741 00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:03,920 Ronald Dominique did. 742 00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:29,880 - When you hear that it's over 20 people 743 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,960 that this man is accused of killing over that many years, 744 00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:35,760 it's stunning that they weren't able 745 00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:37,920 to catch up with him sooner, 746 00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:40,880 especially given the similarities in the cases. 747 00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:43,000 - But nobody knows about Ronald Dominique 748 00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:45,600 because he killed people who were marginalized. 749 00:40:45,720 --> 00:40:50,400 He killed people who lived a high-risk lifestyle 750 00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,400 and didn't necessarily garner a lot of sympathy 751 00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,560 from people outside their family. 752 00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:59,400 - Each of them had a family that loved them 753 00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:00,920 and cared about them. 754 00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:03,080 These were people that were hurting. 755 00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:04,640 I mean, their loved ones, in spite of the fact 756 00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:06,040 that their loved ones might have been 757 00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:08,320 homeless and street hustlers or whatever, 758 00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:09,880 they still loved them. 759 00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:13,240 And they were angry at what happened. 760 00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:15,000 - They had 22 unsolved murders. 761 00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:17,760 You know, I mean, I don't know how-- 762 00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:20,800 how the guy did that for so long to get away with that. 763 00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:22,040 - I would want him dead. 764 00:41:23,720 --> 00:41:25,160 I would want him dead. 765 00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:27,160 I mean, serving time in penitentiary, that-- 766 00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:28,840 that don't help. 767 00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:32,360 I mean, he took a-- he took my child's life. 768 00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:35,400 - We discussed the ins and outs of the case 769 00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:38,320 and came to the realization 770 00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:42,000 that trying eight capital cases 771 00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:44,840 in that parish alone would be burdensome, 772 00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,320 not only on the parish's finances, 773 00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:50,920 but also on the families of the victims. 774 00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:54,440 - It would be decades before this would be over. 775 00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:56,320 The families would have to go through the trial 776 00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:58,320 over and over. 777 00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:00,480 They would have to hear all these horrendous details 778 00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:03,520 of what happened to their loved ones. 779 00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:06,800 And they were not about hearing those gory details. 780 00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:10,640 ♪ 781 00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:12,080 - In the end, Ronald Dominique was 782 00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:13,840 offered a plea deal by prosecutors, 783 00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:16,880 and he ended up taking it. 784 00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:19,320 - He pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty. 785 00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:25,320 The prosecutor said at the time that he felt like, 786 00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,800 and some of the families felt like, that it would be more 787 00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:31,560 of a punishment for Dominique to be jailed 788 00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:34,280 for the rest of his life than it would be for him 789 00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:39,280 to get the death penalty because he hated jail so much 790 00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:41,480 that they saw this as a bigger punishment for him 791 00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:43,200 than taking his life. 792 00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:45,760 - I mean, eight consecutive life sentences, that's-- 793 00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:49,160 yeah, that's one after the other. 794 00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:52,240 That's what you give a cat. 795 00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:54,120 - There's no need to waste the resources, 796 00:42:54,240 --> 00:42:56,160 you know, to prosecute him anywhere else. 797 00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:57,600 You know, we just have open warrants for him 798 00:42:57,720 --> 00:43:00,760 if he ever does, you know, try to get out. 799 00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:03,480 - Each one of these victims had a life to live. 800 00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:06,440 And that got cut short because of Ronald Dominique. 801 00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:11,520 They had the unlucky fortune or misfortune of, you know, 802 00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:13,240 coming into his crosshairs. 803 00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:15,280 I think the most important thing that needs 804 00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:17,200 to come out of it is, how did this person 805 00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:19,200 fall through the cracks? 806 00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:22,040 What did we miss in order to stop this person 807 00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:23,960 from taking so many lives? 808 00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:26,560 In this case, it's just horribly sad. 809 00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:28,120 I mean, he was preying on people 810 00:43:28,240 --> 00:43:32,360 that were some of our society's most vulnerable. 811 00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:35,160 Even though Ronald Dominique is one of the most prolific 812 00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:38,240 serial killers in Louisiana history, 813 00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:41,840 many people have never even heard of him. 814 00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:44,520 - This is the serial killer you've never heard of. 815 00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:45,920 He was prolific. 816 00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:47,600 He got away with it for ten years. 817 00:43:47,720 --> 00:43:50,400 Nobody knows who he is. 818 00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:54,240 These were somebody's children. 819 00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:57,800 And they were raped and dumped in mini storages 820 00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:00,840 and sugarcane fields and under overpasses. 821 00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:02,640 They deserved better. 822 00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:04,760 ♪ 823 00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,760 [dramatic music] 824 00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:19,880 ♪ 824 00:44:20,305 --> 00:45:20,576