Ronald Dominique: The Bayou Strangler (Part 1) | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I am AF and I'm Elena and this is [Music] morbid she's got chocolate in her mouth
sorry we were doing room silence first and I thought I had enough time to eat the she kissed that was in my mouth but
I was letting it melt in my mouth and then I tried to talk and it was just a whole thing so really just nor it's not
my narration so I figured I could just sit here and eat some [ __ ] Kersey kisses she's like I can do whatever the
[ __ ] I want today it's Wy up in here today I don't know what they put in my Jersey Mike sub but I feel
Cy I've just been saying silly things she's been Wy my friends like w Wy Wy Reckless and straight up cuckoo all of
those things yeah and I don't know we don't really have a whole it's I mean it's the holiday break um
yesterday sorry if you can hear the deck they're making in our [ __ ] yeah I apologize [ __ ] neighbors my neighbors
they're you know they're working so they got you going off I don't know if it's them per you never know that's true I
don't know either way here we are hi and we're here to bring you some content daddy made do your favorite open wide
here comes the content they're like shut up and give it to me I know I'm sorry okay so no not you just us no I get I
get it man I totally get it but where this is a two-parter I'm coming at you straight off of an old timey case with a
um with something from the 2000s oh [ __ ] I didn't realize that we were like chatting earlier look at me this is
Elena I'm looking at you and I'm bringing you a case that is not in the 1800s or the early 1900s here's still
looking at you kid so yeah that's that's where I usually am in a place of he's looking at you kid but I know it's true
now no I'm in a Y2K place oh that's funny I'm in like the oldies for my case next actually I don't know if mine comes
up before yours or after I don't know anything I don't know when anything comes out cuz either way this is a
two-parter we're going to be talking about Ronald ique the byou Strangler I don't know this one and it's sad that
you don't because a lot of people don't oh and I think it's because of who he chose as victims oh no he the the police
didn't the police like everybody investigating this and the Press did not put enough emphasis on finding this guy
fast enough because the people that he chose his victims he knew that the investigators were going to look at and
say Well they're risk in what they're doing or you know it's probably their own fault because they did this people
consider less dead exactly they get blamed for their own just being in the wrong place at the wrong time luckily
don't worry he does eventually get caught but a lot of people lost their lives along the way and a lot of them
were not treated well in the Press so this case is not a lot of people don't know about it and it just it's not the
it's not discussed it wasn't discussed in the Press respectfully at all that's really
frustrating um so in the spring of 2005 law enforcement officials in Southern Louisiana had a growing growing number
of murder victims and they had been they had started to suspect that they were connected they were thinking okay I
think we do have either a serial killer or serial killers [ __ ] because the victims were all men mostly in their 20
they were all men and boys I should say cuz some were younger um mostly in their
20s and 30s but there was a couple that were lower than that not children per se
in like you know under 10 or anything like that but there was like some 16 19 boys um so they were all you know
around that age and they were all vulnerable targets that the killer or killers were clearly actively praying on
and they were thought to be on the fringes of society a lot of them uh some of them were known to be actively
struggling with substance abuse or have a history of substance abuse struggles uh they were known a lot of them were
known to police as uh doing sex work either for their job or doing it sometimes just as a desperation thing y
um and they had all been strangled and dumped in secondary locations oh wow and they were all locations like Marsh's
Bayou like a sugar cane Fields oh wow a few of them were B and they would they were all those locations were used
multiple times okay okay um So eventually Ronald Dominique would have would be connected to the murders and he
his count at the end would be the deaths of at least 23 men and boys wow that's what blows my mind that this is not more
well known because yeah that's nuts a large amount of victims and that's like at least 23 yeah that's what they know
about and it was in a pretty small span of time all things considered and what you this was in the 2000s uh this was so
where we begin is um two in the spring of 2005 that's when they really started connecting everything I can't believe I
don't know about this yeah I know it's crazy now over the course of a decade Ronald Dominique developed into one of
the worst and most prolific serial killers in American history but like I just said his story and those of his
victims remain largely unknown and kind of ignored by mainstream media that's so
messed up and it's really wild so let's talk about Ronald Dominique like where the [ __ ] did he come from because what
so little is known about Ronald Dominique's life before his first run in with the law we know he was born January
9th 1964 he's the youngest of six children to workingclass parents in Tibido Louisiana and a capricorn yeah I know I
don't love it no um and Tibido is a small City about halfway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge his family
appears to have been pretty active and committed to their local church and at a young age we can we can at least point
to something that was a very big trauma in his life um at a very young age Ronald told his parents that he had been
sexually abused by a priest at the church oh no um they reacted horrifically and didn't believe him I
never understand that how do you not believe how do you believe somebody outside of your family you believe this
random guy who is said to be doing this and instead of your own child I don't get that like no one's ever going to
explain that to me so don't even try I don't get it I don't get it I do not they just were like yeah must be lying
like that's [ __ ] up my God so that's a big trauma and Ronald entered Tibido high
school in the fall of 1979 uh he's saying in the in and in that span of time that's the big trauma that happened
outside of that there's really nothing of note you know that alone but that alone is like whoo that alone and then
compounded by the fact that his parents didn't believe him exactly if his parents didn't believe him how much
longer did that go on because they didn't exactly and um when you read a lot of sources about this like books and
such and we'll obviously link all the books like we always do but um a lot of them point to the fact that um he
struggled with his own sexual identity for most of his life okay and growing up in a religious home obviously he was
trying to hide that yeah and his parents were uh they people believed that they were probably catching on okay to that
and they took him saying that about the priest as just an extension of that because they probably believed probably
believed that he was like mentally ill for and they believed you know being gay you know they believe you're you're gay
so you know we're not going to believe you about this and who knows it's just and that's what really wraps all this
into such like an awful ball of trauma because it's like there's so many layers to it for him as a kid yeah you
definitely feel bad for the child and you feel bad for the child when you find out what an adult he is you're like wow
you're a [ __ ] monster like it's just like holy [ __ ] right uh but he you know
in high school he was involved in clubs he slang he sang in the Glee Club he was
in the chorus he enjoyed being a part of that but he was bullied and harassed pretty relentlessly at school by his
peers according to an old school kind of like acquaintance just a some who knew him fellow student they said they heard
he was gay and they wanted him to admit it and he didn't he was pretending that he wasn't and he would not openly admit
it which here's the thing I don't understand being like I just want you to say you're gay like why why the [ __ ] do
you care exactly never once have I been like I need to know this person's you know sexual preference well it's like
you don't know their sexual preference better than they do maybe maybe he wasn't it's also not my [ __ ] buiness
maybe he hadn't discovered it yet maybe he he doesn't want you to know that's also it's like as long as it's a
consenting adult I give a [ __ ] who you are attracted to like it's not my I don't why would I care and the only
reason that these people wanted to know is probably so that they could bully bully him that's the thing just have
like concrete [ __ ] to bully him on and that's what annoys me is it's like it comes out as like they just wanted to
him to admit it and everybody acts like oh want it's like oh okay so if he admitted it that was going to be like
thank you oh we're good okay no it was so you could relentlessly torture him more and it's like what the [ __ ] right
like what isong it's not just you know Ronald Dominique OB obviously it's like any kid that this happens to him like I
don't get that or like even adults when they're like this guy just needs to admit that he's gay why why what effect
does that have on your life what bearing were you forced to actively admit that you were straight no were you forced to
actively admit anything like that like no nobody cares like it's just like what the [ __ ] it's such a weird mindset for
me I don't get it wild it's just a strange very alien mindset to me but either way he was also considered um he
was he struggled with his weight a lot he was very overweight when he was younger and into adulthood okay which of
course as a teen puts a Target on your back oh yeah uh and the harassment from schoolmates definitely led to some like
depression poor self-esteem he definitely had underdeveloped social skills by that point um and it kind of
stuck with him for like decades at that point like not that not necessarily like
the poor self-esteem and all that I'm sure like you know he's a serial killer I'm sure he he got something out of that
but social skills he did not have right now after graduating in 1983 he enrolled
in Nicholls State University and he decided a major in computer science but W he dropped out after only a year or
two with it also wow um now his criminal history began in the late spring of 1985
when he was arrested for making sexually harassing phone calls to his neighbors e
now looking at this in hindsight like back then in the 80s I was like oh my God you weird silly crazy and it's just
like and now we look at it with all the knowledge we all have what did that mean
we know that this sexually deviant behavior is similar to many sexual predators who eventually escalate to
sexual violence yeah it is very much a precursor to that there is study after study after a Peeping Tom is not just a
Peeping Tom no that is the first foray into if it is is not stopped becoming violent right that is just how it goes
but at the time it was seen like a like that's silly a weird nuisance he paid a $75 fine wow and that was it that's wild
now by the time he reached his early 20s he was working odd jobs really didn't have a lot of connections to people not
a lot of friends not like a social group um and according to her former roommate
with whom he shared an apartment in 1985 Ronald quote didn't have many friends and he didn't keep friends okay so it
doesn't look like he was able to like maintain a relationship either which is like that's like a typical and we'll see
there is an FBI profile that comes out later that is always typical on an FBI profile of a serial killer where it's
like he's not going to have a lot of connections he's not going to be able to and it it checks I was going to say a
lot of the time it check not all the time we've seen social behavior yeah um but he also never fully felt comfortable
like we mentioned with with his own sexuality and often felt that he was kind of an outsider in all communities
so he was just kind of like he was convinced himself that he didn't belong anywhere it wasn't when he became an
adult it wasn't necessarily people treating him poorly like obviously went through high school and he dealt with
all that that's rough but a lot of people come out of that but a lot of many many many many many many people
come out of there and they find their own thing you know you find your group you find your people and it's like he
convinced himself that the world was against him and it's like wasn't people actively doing it he was just creating
that for himself um and back in those days no one really recalled Ronald's like you know dating anyone having any
romantic relationships his former roommate didn't even remember him bringing anyone to the apartment no
guests nothing like no friends nothing um basically whether it was his poor social skills or what we now know what
he was like very unkempt so like he was not put together at all e um Ronald's night at the he spent a lot of nights at
bars in and around H which we'll talk about H more cuz he moves there in Louisiana um he spent a lot of time in
bars around there and he wasn't there like drinking and dancing and like meeting people he was just kind of
playing pool and kind of for lack of a better term like lurking on the frenches of everything and he kind of found
himself like wanting to step into Louisiana's gay scene the time like kind of get involved meet some people but he
didn't have pure intentions with it it wasn't like he was looking to involve himself to find friends like get into
relationships like you know form connections right after his arrest we find out that his presence in these in
like which at the time it was a very small openly gay community in Southern Louisiana in the 80s yeah um there it
was a much more menacing implication that he had where he was trying to get involved in it
um that makes sense that's where he was basically creeping among the most vulnerable and at risk in the community
to find his first victims that's what he was doing and like building some kind of
Courage is not the right word but you know what I mean like building the gion to do it to actually do it yeah which is
really when you look back on it so creepy it it's got so many it's so spooky I don't like it yeah I don't it's
like you just think of him like just creeping around in those bars like trying to make connections but like for
the most horrific of purposes like it reminds me of Jeffrey dmer the way he would like just lurk at bars exactly in
1994 Dominique popped up on police radar again because he was arrested for drunk
driving um but it was two years later that we finally got a little look into the violent part of him at this time
police were called to his apartment after neighbors saw a man climbing down from Dominique's apartment Window and
this reminds me of Jeffrey dmer too yeah this man was screaming he's trying to kill me oh my god when sheriff's
deputies arrived the quote partially clad young man told the officers that Ronald had raped him and would have
killed him if he had not escaped out the window oh my God now this man is partially closed climbing out a window
screaming he's trying to kill me said he was raped and he would have been killed
if he didn't Escape Ronald was arrested for sexual assault and held on a $100,000 bond which he definitely
couldn't pay M so he sat in the county ja jail luckily for 3 months pending a trial now a conviction for sexual
assault and attempted murder would have put Ronald in a federal prison for a long time we would said goodbye see you
later fortunately for him and unfortunately for the rest of society when the trial date finally arrived the
accus the complaintant didn't show up oh no and they couldn't locate him and that's so sad cuz think about the time
period think about the time period and just what had happened in general horrific like a lot of people wouldn't
show up to face somebody that had done that to them that's horrifying in every way that can be horrifying right and
they couldn't find him which also you're like what happened like where did he go
I know in November of 1996 the judge in the case continued the case indefinitely
and the district attorney dropped the charges that is awful he had those charges just dropped wow he raped and
tried to kill a man who had to ese ese out of his window and he got away with it that's why the justice system is so
broken and you would think if this if this person if the victim had been treated with a lot of respect and
compassion and felt like they had a a like had a support system right then maybe they could they would have shown
up and it makes me sad that I don't think they we don't know for sure but I don't know if they felt that way they
probably didn't because they didn't have like the victim ad advocacy programs they now CU like the early 990s at this
point it's like in the early '90s in the in Louisiana it's like there was not a lot like you said in the way of advoc
advocacy so after that close call Ronald did manage to avoid police for several years actually wow um it was in 2000
that he got arrested again for disturbing the peace and that makes you wonder in between the like during those
years what happened what was going was he just being more subtle about it right It's like because that's he like he very
clearly would have killed that man had he not escaped which makes me question one had he done that before and two was
he doing it in the meantime and somehow was just able to get away with it that's
what I wonder but then you look at and will mention him at some point you know you you look at like Dennis Raider who
stopped for a long time old [ __ ] flower there like you you look at him he stopped for a long time years and years
and years just went on with his life before it is strange but either way he paid the f for disturbing the peace and
managed to avoid going before a judge but he was arrested again 2 years later after slapping a woman at a marra parade
the [ __ ] uh in Li of jail time or a fine he was offered the opportunity to participate in an alternative sentencing
program okay this required people to meet and maintain certain expectations basically for the program he had to
maintain a job display good behavior and it was all in order to avoid the harsher
penalties that honestly should have come yeah get a job and don't slap women anymore
and we'll we'll excuse the one time you did totally fun [ __ ] and so he managed
to meet the requirements of the program and six months later the offense was completely discharged from his record
broken justice system we see this like so many times it's bad now following following this whole thing and
successfully getting that taken off of his record uh Ronald Dominique appeared to be somewhat getting his life together
a little bit for a minute like or at least trying to during the day he got a job at a produce company in hom but the
job wasn't enough to really make ends meet so he found a second job as an evening delivery driver for Domino's
Pizza no yep and when he wasn't working he was like he told people that he knew that he really wanted to be a productive
member of society so he became a full member of the local Lions Club which also reminds me this reminds me a little
bit of John Wayne gasey with like I need to be involved in the community pretend
that everything fine when you see what how he does it he lures people to into his clutches only to kind of surprise
them by binding them and killing them wow it's very John Wing those very um and also Jeffrey dmer and also Dennis
Raider and also like there he's a he's a big combination of many yeah um but in the Lions Club he became a popular
figure at regular Bingo nights much like gayy yeah exactly obviously not Bingo nights but but he seemed deter to be
kind of like a a member a positive member of society at this point he was at least he at least was putting on the
facade imagine knowing you played bingo with that man that's [ __ ] oh my goodness and what police and community
members didn't know at this time because again like I said he was putting on the
facade but clearly it wasn't real an active and positive Community number but police in the community would soon find
out that by 2002 the man who was now that popular Bingo caller and pizza delivery driver around town had already
raped and murdered at least 11 men wow and he would go on to rape and murder 12 more by the time he was finally caught
oh my God 11 men and boys he had already raped and murdered and the that you can
just do that at whatever point in your life pull numbers for Bingo exactly and and deliver somebody's Pizza yeah like
what the [ __ ] yeah so we're going to start talking about this case we're going to back up
now 1997 1998 okay that's when the murders at St Charles Parish happened so on July 12th 1997 19-year-old David
Mitchell Jr attended a birthday party with his mother Latrice MIT Mitchell and his Aunt Rita Aubrey at some point there
was an argument that broke out between David and another guest so his aunt dropped him off at his grandmother's
house in hanville Louisiana where he was going to wait for his uncle to come pick
him up and drive him the five miles back to his house in lulling okay uh his aunt
later said quote my brother didn't show up so I guess he decided to try to hitchhike back to his mom's now when the
family hadn't heard from Mitchell the following day they assumed he'd maybe stopped off at a friend's house stayed
the night like there was no real cause for alarm at first yeah and probably trying and trying to cool off after
whatever fight this was and the following day David Mitchell didn't report for work and when his mother
checked his bed bedroom his ID badge and wee clothes were still on the bed untouched and that was not like him he
he would go to work and and it and it also wasn't like it wasn't like David to miss work and it wasn't like David to
stay out all night they were they were trying to think in their heads like okay maybe we missed him mentioning that he
was going to a friend's house or something they were already a little on edge because he wasn't one to just do
that right um so Latrice Mitchell did call the police his mother to report her son missing while waiting for an update
she Latrice Mitchell his mother got got her update unexpectedly because her son's photo flashed across the
television screen in a local news segment about a drowned body of a young black man found in an industrial area of
Louisiana Highway 3160 so they had already found him most likely at the at the time that she reported him missing
that I they had already they didn't know it was him that's the thing they had only found an unidentified young black
man and when she called called they didn't know that they had already found him oh my God but that's how she found
out that's horrible horrific so now it begins this whole Authority shrugging these families
off now the authorities were just they were like police immediately classified David Mitchell as leading a high-risk
lifestyle and despite being found with his pants around his ankles having no drugs or alcohol in his system and being
known as a good swimmer his death was labeled an accident and the case was closed and what are they talking about
high-risk lifestyle in his case like that's what kills me here is that high risk is like a legitimate term it's an
actual term that can be used like for things like you grew up in an abusive household something that's totally
beyond your own you know control of your own circumstances just something that is
happening to you like innocuous [ __ ] exactly but here it was totally weaponized by so many people involved in
this case to make it seem like these people were doing things that led to their own murder like they did something
that they deserved this almost they weren't saying that but they were saying it by by implying that yeah they were
saying the quiet part out loud exactly they were implying that somehow this was their own fault that's [ __ ] he still
got killed right why are we pretending they's still a person yeah they're still a killer people who give a
[ __ ] about them like that's such a weird callous way to look at like when the investigators look at it this way it's
like it doesn't matter what that like this is a person right this is someone's person and you need to investigate what
the [ __ ] happened it's your whole job now tragic as it was the death of David Mitchell didn't strike law enforcement
as anything more than an unfortunate accident wow pants around his ankles and it was an accident no but within a year
his death would get a second look because it was in the wake of two more deaths of a similar nature neither of
which were accidental and really couldn't be termed as accidental um in mid December of 1997 20-year-old Gary
Pierre's body was discovered in a wooded area of mons which is an unincorporated
area of St Charles Parish um unlike Mitchell Pierre had been sexually assaulted confirmed his body showed
signs of having been bound at some point prior to his death and he died by asphixiation due to neck compression oh
wow now according to the investigators Pierre of course they had to say Pierre was quote heavily involved with drugs
like so despite having been tied up raped and strangled his death at first was initially classified not as murder
but as unclassified how is that unclassified what word do you need to classify that as a murder you think
about that this really happened and this really happens that a person can be raped T
tied up raped and strangled confirmed and you sit there and say it's unclassified investigators can say we
don't know what happened here because he had a drug problem at one point what like that's wild that's unreal and just
what a slap in the face to his entire family and anyone that ever loved him cuz all you want is to like I don't give
a [ __ ] what what was going on in his life like I want to know what happened here happened here right like what the
[ __ ] so like David Mitchell Gary Pierre's death had been largely forgotten about until the end of July
1998 when St Paris Charles Parish investigators discovered another body oh my God that of 38-year-old Larry Ranson
in a remote area off Highway uh Louisiana Highway 3160 I don't know if it's 3160 or 3160 I'm just sorry um I
looked up every pronunciation for everything and I just didn't look up that um but it was not far from where
David Mitchell's body was discovered almost exactly one year earlier and ranson's body was fully clothed and
aside from having been quote kicked in the groin the only trauma was the asphixiation that had caused his death
um as in the case of Gary Pierre Larry renson was believed to have struggled with drugs um which police believed was
somehow linked to his death they could not you guys got to stop just sitting on that so they labeled it unclassified oh
my God come on it's like what are you investigating right now and it's also like okay so if you're going to if
you're concentrating on that part of it that's a link between them between looking at something going on here yeah
that's exactly now unfortunately there is a limited num um amount of information about Dominique's first
three victims that we just mentioned but their demographic profiles are significant and they'll become more
significant as these murders continue all three are black men of lower socioeconomic backgrounds two of them
Pierre and Ranson are known to be either gay or bisexual and at least two Pierre
and Ranson have some history allegedly of substance abuse or addiction okay again these pieces of personal
information are only important in the sense of showing that there is a pattern and a victim profile that will continue
right um it also shows that the investigation was heavily biased against them because of pred prejudices of some
kind or another at multiple times during the investigation it sounds like multiple Prejudice yeah because
initially St Charles Parish investigators assumed the quote unquote high-risk lifestyles of these men were
at least partially related to their deaths and really little effort was put into solving these deaths yeah that's
what it sounds like but in February 1999 the pier and ransing cases were finally
reclassified as murders and investigated as such unfortunately by that time Ronald Dominique had already killed
three more times wow now we're going to move into the murders that happened in the New Orleans suburbs from 1998 to
1999 the afternoon of October 3rd 1998 was unseasonably hot even for Louisiana so Ronald Dominique drove the half hour
or so from hanville to the French Quarter he was hoping that like you know the excitement the activity of the
French Quarter that whole neighborhood would be enough to blow off some of his steam he was basically looking to pay
for sex that night okay um in New Orleans new or New Orleans uh in New Orleans French Quarter at especially at
this time um sex or anything else for that matter was relatively easy to find down there it was like a big party
atmosphere going on um that afternoon Ronald made his way to rawh hide which was a well-known bar in the quarter and
he took a seat at the bar next to 27-year-old Oliver Le Banks Oliver had come to the bar with his brother and a
couple of friends friends but he didn't really like Rawhide and he wasn't really
into this whole thing so while they were dancing and mingling and doing whatever
he just took a seat at the bar and had a beer he was like I'm just hanging out yeah now after making some small talk it
was apparent what Dominique was looking for so they worked out the specifics of a transactional transactional sexual
experience between the two of them and the two men left the bar in the direction of Ronald's car okay now it
was dark by the time they reached the car and it was in the parking lot of the Jack's Brewery and it was mostly an
empty parking lot because it was closed at that point in the backseat of Dominique's Chevy Malibu Le Banks you
know they began the transaction but suddenly without warning Ronald flipped him over and despite him protesting and
fighting to defend himself he began raping Oliver Le Banks oh no now when he finished Dominique grabbed the tire iron
from the floor and bashed Oliver Le Banks twice in the head with it causing a concussion IMM immediately then he
wrapped his hands around his throat and began strangling him oh my God at some point the force required to manually
strangle someone became unsustainable and so he wrapped a belt around Oliver Le bank's neck and pulled it so tightly
that the clasps cut into his neck Jesus and he choked him for several minutes until he was sure he was dead that is
terrifying because when you see a picture of this man he's a big guy very intimidating like and I'm not saying
that in like the sense of weight I'm saying like just like he's a big build and it would be so easy for him to
overpower someone that's the thing that's so scary and and just what what he's capable of
anyways just ruthless I mean that is brutal oh what he did and it it just sounds like everything happened so fast
that's the thing it sounds like it was just within an instant everything turned like they these people had no chance to
even defend themselves now Dominique drove all Oliver Le Banks's body to a remote stretch of road near Zephyr
fields which was home to the AAA minor league New Orleans zeph my God and dumped his body under a dark overpass
and then he drove back to his trailer in h and Oliver's Body was discovered the next morning by a passer by who reported
it to police now to show again that this pattern is that that Ronald Dominique was establishing for his chosen victims
Oliver Le Banks was black like obviously he's choosing a very specific Vic had a history of substance abuse
struggles in the past and was known to engage in sex work from time to time just to get money for things he needed
or wanted now these facts again I would just want to make sure everybody knows these facts do not Define all of ver
Banks as a person but they give insight into Donald Ronald Dominique's [ __ ] up
worldview and the way he is choosing his victims his victim profile he had a victim type now definitely we're we're
at that point right but even with all these patterns and similarities between victims and methods of murder the Press
picked up on the fact that there was substance abuse history and the fact that he engaged in sex work sometimes
and so the reporting on Oliver's murder F Focus largely on his being and I quote
a gay prostitute that's what they just called him Jes Christ and quote an uneducated and unvalued transient
kitchen employee in some mindless job God that was an actual quote used to Des the victim oh that just made my heart
like oh my God it's so shameful it is wild it's like who wrote that and luckily in the years since his murder Le
Banks's friends and family have attempted to correct this narrative which it's gross that they even have to
do that that should be their [ __ ] job that should be the job of these of journalists that are writing these
things they should be how do you write something that callous according to a friend um and former employer Mar
Paulson he said he was not a badass in any way Olli had five children he had responsibilities and a good future in
front of him but he had one weakness while he'd been clean for some time a long time OE was a recovering drug
addict which like good for him for recover got clean like he was getting he had a job right he was working towards a
better future father it's so sad that these people even have to come out to try to defend the person that was like
violently ripped away from them right what was that headline it was they literally said let me go back to find it
an uneducated and unvalued transient kitchen employee in some mindless job unvalued he has five children he clearly
has friends he has a mom he has family and these family and friends have to come forward and be like hey [ __ ] of
the world he's more than his demons he's very valued like they have to actually be the ones to say it it's like that's
so shitty oh that makes my heart hurt for him and for to die like that horrifically and then just to be chocked
up to nothing yeah in the paper like whoever wrote that can go [ __ ] themselves it's like the thing is too I
don't see anyone coming I didn't find anything about anybody that wrote kind of like [ __ ] like this or said [ __ ] like
this about it coming out and being like wow I was wrong like that was that's a real person and I should have I should
have real hiding behind their sh it's like why why do you let that float out there how do write something like that
hand it into your boss and then go home with your family for the night with your
family and it's like what the [ __ ] wow and yeah it's and hearing someone who cared about him referred to him as olly
yeah like that kills I don't even know what the word is just like it humanizes the situation so much that one thing
like he wasn't Oliver Le Banks vitim of Ronald he was Olie like someone in five kids father and that's that's the thing
to think that he had five children that's awful it's sad they lost their dad like that so for detectives there
was there was very little evidence at the scene um according to the autopsy Oliver had been bound at the wrists and
raped before being murdered wow um but the killer left no fingerprints and had worn a condom so they didn't have
anything left um so detectives didn't have a lot to work with here what they did have was a single hair from a white
man left on the body but until they had a suspect to match it to it just kind of
sat there useless and they didn't know it was from a white man that's all they could tell and this is like mid to late
90s at this point so DNA hadn't even really come that far this is just kind of sitting here until we have a
comparison essentially but detectives on the Oliver Le Banks case wouldn't have to wait long for their killer to strike
again unfortunately it would be in another jurisdiction and a long time would pass before the connection between
the victims was made that was the other thing that Ronald Dominique did was he went to different jurisdictions and
parishes knowingly knowing that that there was going to take a while for them to connect these because they even
connecting different cases like that in different counties and parishes and jurisdictions can get Reckless because
it can really derail a case it's like you really have to have solid evidence to make sure you know that these are
connected right and he knew that so just two weeks after Oliver Le Banks's body was discovered under the overpass The
partially closed body of 16-year-olds Joseph Brown was discovered on October 19th 19 98 he was found on
the western end of Veterans Memorial Boulevard in Kenner which is a suburban community about 10 or 15 minutes outside
New Orleans uh to investigators at the scene it looked like Brown's Body had been quote pretty much dumped out of a
car by the side of the road wow like trash yeah he'd suffered and this is really sad like this one
really got me he'd suffered several severe lacerations and wounds to his head and a bloody plastic bag was
discovered near his his body which investigators suspect that the bag had been placed over his head as he was
beaten to death my God yes this guy's a [ __ ] monster there's no words like Beyond Joseph Brown had grown up in and
I looked up the pronunciation of this place in Louisiana and it is pronounced bouti Louisiana um about 15 minutes from
Kenner of course the Press labeled him a troubled teenager not just um a child who was brutally murdered right on the
night of his murder Joseph had been out with some friends in bouty and no one seemed to know how he'd gotten to Kenner
or what he was doing there the coroner ruled Brown's death a homicide by Strang strangulation um he had also been beaten
over the head but I think he actually died by um which obviously a teenage boy Dying by strangulation is like pretty
unusual like yeah one might say but otherwise there weren't really Clues to who or how like other like where he was
killed but again they were just kind of like well he was a troubled kid and it's
like well troubl kids don't always get strangled so I think we should look into that like what the [ __ ] it's just this
is a really really frustrating case in this sense when it's like take out troubled he's a kid he's a kid and
that's all you should be focused on right now he's a dead 16 I mean that's that's Young that
is's young and plenty of people are troubled kids that grow into like amazing adults and doesn't mean they
deserve to get beaten and strangled to death exactly so Jefferson Paris detectives who were working the Oliver
Le Banks case got called in November when the body of 18-year-old Bruce Williams was discovered in an industrial
park in Jefferson Parish just outside New Orleans uh like Oliver Le Banks Williams was known to police as a
sometimes sex worker who primarily worked New Orleans proper on the evening of November 26 7th Williams was seen by
friends in the French Quarter and also like Le Banks he had been raped and strangled so he's got a very much a ano
here now this is an unusual number of young male rape SL murder victims being discovered in the greater New Orleans
area um at one point one of the detectives was like this is more murders than we have for an entire year this is
a lot like that and there's a lot of murders in New Orleans like not that's it's not like unknown to them but these
were happening so quickly he was like at the end of like the whole thing he was like that stretch is more than we can
sometimes have in a year and it happened within like this small time um so detectives on the Le Banks and Williams
cases called actually the FBI's Behavioral Science unit which I'm glad they finally took about that's great
because they wanted to create a profile of what was clearly a serial killer in the area unfortunately the profile
created by the FBI people were um it was pretty generic and it was a little useless it wasn't completely useless but
it was like kind of like okay thank you was it in the early days of profiling I don't really know when that even started
to be honest yeah and it's like and this was just like I mean it wasn't useless in the end you look at it in the end and
you're like yeah that was actually exactly dead on but it it's just there's so many people that fit in this that
it's really hard um they said their killer was a white male mid-30s difficulty with social skills
probably didn't have a lot of friends so almost like every seral ker that we have
ever covered and a number of other vague characteristics that were just just not
unique enough to really help but there was one aspect of the profile that would help investigators narrow down their
search according to FBI profile filer Tom Colby lanks and Williams killer he believed lived near the airport so he's
like bring your bring your net in closer to the airport I wonder what made him think that especially because it was all
spread out well they thought this because the locations of the string of body dumping sites they were all near
the airport like they were in in a certain area that made sense um and while detectives in and around New
Orleans worked with federal agents to develop a profile of what they were now believing was a serial killer Ronald
Dominique was back out on the hunt for a new victim he just goes and goes and goes on May 30th 1999 The partially
clothed body of 21 yearold Manuel Reed was discovered in the dumpster behind a business in Kenner Reed had grown up in
New Orleans and like the other victims he did have a history of struggling with substance abuse and was known to police
as a sometimes sex worker um but also like the other victims Reed had been raped and
strangled now the scene repeated itself exactly one month later when the body of
21-year-old Angel Mahia was discovered by a dumpster in an industrial area of area of kenor detectives at the scene
immediately noticed that Maha F fit what was by now now seen as their serial Killer's preferred victim profile right
and so as a black man he was already a member of a marginalized Community but he was also living on the streets at the
time of his death he didn't have any like set address that's awful um which put him at greater risk of in
exploitation by men or Monsters like Ronald Dominique he had also been raped and strangled but this time Dominique
had broken his pattern a little because he left him in a relatively well lit area in front of a very regularly used
business dumpster do you think he was just getting Bolder because he wasn't getting caught they thought he was just
getting sloppy sloppy got it they really thought he was just getting sloppy um although they didn't know it at the time
the FBI's profile like we said generic as it was was pretty accurate because Ronald Dominique was a white man in his
30s at this time with very lower poor social skills and what they found out was that he was actually living about 10
miles from the New Orleans International Airport wow so they were actually dead on that's wild isn't it good profiling
is really wild Gideon out here right like many serial killers he'd hunted for his victims in and around the place he
was most familiar with and where he felt most comfortable but again with the murder of Angel Mahia Dominique had
apparently been going out of his way to either they were it looked initially they were like is he going out of his
way to to have his victim be discovered that quick or is he sloppy they couldn't figure
that one because initially like you said they thought he was just being like B but then later they're like I think he
was just being sloppy which he probably got sloppy because he still he wasn't getting caught it was probably the same
it's kind of the same way thought process yeah so since the discovery of Oliver banks in October 1998 detectives
in and around New Orleans had worked very quietly on the case that would eventually be linked back to Dominique
for one thing the murders had been committed in like I said before different jurisdictions so connecting
them they needed more evidence for it uh it was also important to investigators that while the cases were open and
ongoing the pertinent information be kept close to the chest they wanted it kept from the press the public they
didn't want to create Panic or create situation where misinformation was running rampant that could harm or
hinder the investigation because now they're finally doing it mhm unfortunately these attempts at keeping
it quiet and working behind the scenes became much harder in late June 1999 when operating on misunderstood leaked
information the Press began speculating on a Poss serial killer operating in New
Orleans o now it's unclear where journalists in the New Orleans area got this information but by the end of June
reports started circulating about a potential serial killer who already claimed three young men whose shoeless
bodies were dumped in isolated areas around New Orleans International Airport the article linked the murders of Angel
Mahia Joseph Brown Emanuel Reed who is unidentified in the article they don't even use their name wow um they link him
them to a single killer and they claimed that all three of these victims were all
Quote darkskinned men and they claimed falsely that they all had cocaine in their systems at the time of their death
and the article also makes a lot about them being shoeless when they were found despite the fact that it is neither
relevant nor true good before long television news stations had picked up the stories
internet detectives were like a booming thing at the time they would all just started they were all focusing very
heavily on this removal of the shoes as the Killer's signature right it wasn't true they weren't all missing their
shoes so this was [ __ ] so now the entire internet is [ __ ] their pants over this false thing and the entire
press is [ __ ] their pants over this false thing and everybody's wondering what it means it doesn't mean anything
because it's not true and you're not focused on the not focused on the fact that they are young black men in
marginalized like a high-risk you know areas highrisk Lifestyles like dealing with um like basically the most
vulnerable essentially and it's like you're not focusing on and many of them were
part of the gay community like you're not telling people the information to keep
them safe like you're just being like well they're all shoeless what could this mean and it's like no right you
need a big community of people to be looking behind their back now you need these people to be thinking you know
that they could be next but even then the Press really didn't give a [ __ ] no they and it it's like that shows you
that it's like they weren't focusing on what's important keeping actual people safe MH now the decision to release or
withhold information about Public Safety like we've talked about before I mean it's based on a lot of factors that
aren't always obvious or understandable to those outside of the investigation it's just a fact of life and we've
learned that time after time in many different cases oh yeah and it's generally true I will say that an
informed public will be better you know equipped to protect themselves in the event of an emergency I fully believe
that yeah but when attention isn't paid to the kind of information that the public is being given mistakes can be
made that can jeopardize the case and actually put more people at risk and that's what happened here I was worried
that you were just going to say that they're not it's just not you're not telling the
right people what they need to hear and you're you're missing out on entire communities of people that need to know
that they are the ones that are being targeted and like you said like watch each other's backs yeah and the emphasis
on the victims as black male drug dealers or users wasn't telling a complete story or an entirely accurate
one right in fact it misrepresented who was at risk specifically like I said marginalized men and boys of color who
either either were out as gay or were sex workers for their job at times like they those were the like the people that
you were like really think about what you're doing at night so you can be prepared to protect yourself yeah
overlooking or misrepresenting the reality of Dominique's preferred victims by among other things playing up these
unfounded facts of the case meant that those that were most at risk were being given bad information right and this
became apparent in August of that year when police discovered the body of 34-year-old Mitchell Johnson under the
very same overpass where all of Vera Banks had been discovered a year earlier oh wow at the time of his death Mitchell
Johnson was living on the streets in Kenner where he was last seen by friends on the night of his murder Johnson's
friends told police that they'd seen quote a suspicious Guy cruising around the neighborhood around the time Johnson
went missing uh they described the man as a white male mid-30s receding hairline and puffy cheek
that's exactly what Ronald D like spot on it wasn't much much else of Distinction to separate the suspect from
hundreds of other puffy white dudes in their 30s living around New Orleans at the time meanwhile the coroner confirmed
what police already more or less knew that Mitchell Johnson had been raped and strangled before being dumped just feet
from where all of ear Le Banks had been dumped wow now the murder of Mitchell Johnson seemed to support the belief
among the press that there was indeed a serial killer operating in the suburbs of new Orleans and hoping to use the
press to their advantage finally police released a sketch of the man seen in the
area that night that Johnson disappeared and in their statement to the press the
suspect was described as quote a serial killer targeting men in the area rather than a serial killer targeting black and
gay men which investigators feared would negatively influence the Public's desire
to help that's so [ __ ] that they even had to consider that we got to do better
everyone yeah to say the least regardless of how they phrased it the picture and the Articles didn't produce
any new leads but they had to worry that if they mentioned black men and boys and
gay men and boys and sex workers that the public would be like well I don't really care that's so messed up so it's
like in that sense this whole thing they were trying to do the right thing by like making sure the public would give a
[ __ ] by not mentioning the details but still it's but when you think of the actual ramifications of that whole thing
right it just makes you sick sure does it really does now it's unknown whether Ronald Dominique even saw the article or
the police sketch but just after it ran in early November he quit his job with the county and moved his trailer um
further into H which is that small City on the Bayou about 60 mi from New Orleans okay he parked his trailer on
some some property next to his sister's house on Bayou Blue Road and was happy to learn that the police sketch in
various articles about a serial killer hadn't yet made their way Southwest of New Orleans so they didn't know about it
uh within a few weeks Ronald found work as a laborer at Caro produce company the
fact that this man was just handling people's produce too like yeah so something so disturbing about that now
on January 1st 2000 a driver called police in lefou Parish to report that they'd seen a man lying motionless by a
barbed wire fence on the side of Highway 7 when police arrived at the site they discovered the body of 23-year-old
Michael Vincent Michael Vincent had a record that included some drug charges just to put him in that pattern and he
also had an unsettled way of living that again made him fit perfectly into Ronald's vulnerable victim profile the
autopsy showed that he'd been bound at the risks and suffered several abrasions but the cause of death was most
certainly quote homicidal asphixiation um the murder was not connected to the other murders of gay
men and sex workers in the uh other parishes which is kind of wild um I think it's because he was found further
out from new orans okay maybe I guess but the investigation into Vincent's death would be further Complicated by
the fact that while Ronald Dominique may have ended the 20th century with yet another murder 2 years would pass before
he killed anyone again interesting you took some time between them yeah and that's where we're going
to leave you here we're going to leave you with two years between killings and it's going to get even I mean it just
keeps getting bad and bad and bad I just but I think we can all rest there for a
moment yeah that was a lot of just tragedy in part two we are going to talk about the 2002 murders in the bayou um
we are eventually going to and and on in by you blue as well there's murders there between 2003 and 2005 we're going
to talk about each of the victims okay um and we're going to talk about his arrest and the court case that
followed and eventually him going bye-bye into prison forever good I'm excited for that part you have that to
look forward to but I think we'll leave off there so we can all think about what
the [ __ ] we just listened to holy [ __ ] and when we pick up it's two years later
all right well with that being said we hope you keep list listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that
any of this because oh my God [Music] yeah

In the spring of 2005, law enforcement officials in southern Louisiana had a growing number of murder victims they had begun to suspect were connected to an unidentified serial killer operating in the area. The victims were all men, mostly in their twenties and thirties, many had histories of drug and alcohol abuse or were known to police as sex-workers, and all had been strangled and dumped in secondary locations.

Over the course of a decade, Ronald Dominique developed into one of the worst and most prolific serial killers in American history; yet his story and those of his victims remains largely unknown and ignored by the mainstream media.

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe & 99 Cent Renal Podcasts for research!

References

Alford, Jeremy. 2005. New information coming soon in local murders. August 24. Accessed March 29, 2023. https://www.houmatoday.com/story/news/2005/08/24/new-information-coming-soon-in-local-murders/27020266007/.

Armstrong, Shell. 2007. Dominique pleads not guilty to 9 murders. January 17. Accessed March 29, 2023. https://www.houmatimes.com/news/dominique-pleads-not-guilty-to-9-murders/.

Associated Press. 2005. "Man found in Lafource Parish was from Houma area." Abberville Meridional, May 3: 2.

—. 2005. "Deaths od five south Lousiana men may be linked, police say." Shreveport Times, April 25: 12.

—. 1999. "La. deaths may be work of serial killer." Shreveport Times, June 23: 5B.

—. 2006. "Police look for links between serial suspect, priest's death." Shreveport Times, December 9: 22.

—. 2006. "Arrest made in serial-killer investigation." Town Talk, December 2: 17.

—. 2006. "Serial murder suspect was average Joe, says shelter residents." Town Talk, December 3: 8.

DeSantis, John. 2006. Accused lived on the fringe of two worlds. December 4. Accessed March 26, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20210128012212/https://www.houmatoday.com/article/DA/20061204/News/608089983/HC.

Hunter, Michelle. 2006. "Serial-killer suspect confesses; Trysts led to rapes, strangling, cops told." Times-Picatune, December 6.

L'observateur. 1999. Beaten teen’s body discovered in Kenner. October 26. Accessed March 27, 2023. https://www.lobservateur.com/1998/10/26/beaten-teens-body-discovered-in-kenner/.

—. 1999. Two deaths reclassified as murders in St. Charles Parish. Fdebruary 6. Accessed March 27, 2023. https://www.lobservateur.com/1999/02/06/two-deaths-reclassified-as-murders-in-st-charles-parish/.

Morris, Robert. 2006. Mother protests dead son’s link to serial killer. June 19. Accessed March 26, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20210131004921/https://www.houmatoday.com/article/DA/20060619/News/608089995/HC.

Ramage, James. 2005. "Serial killer theory floats around cases." Shreveport Times, May 15: 1.

Rosen, Fred. 2017. The Bayou Strangler. New York, NY: Open Road Media.

—. 2018. Uncovering the Truth Behind One of the Bayou Strangler’s Victims. April 10. Accessed March 27, 2023. https://the-line-up.com/uncovering-the-truth-behind-one-of-the-bayou-stranglers-victims.

St. Charles Heral-Guide. 2006. Mother’s tears for son killed by serial madman Dominique. 12 06. Accessed March 27, 2023. https://www.heraldguide.com/tragedy/mothers-tears-for-son-killed-by-serial-madman-dominique/.

The Daily Review. 2002. "Houma man's body found." Daily Review, October 17: 6.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

Ronald Dominique, the Bayou Strangler, murdered at least 23 marginalized men and boys in Louisiana, with systemic failures allowing his crimes to persist.

Key points

Elena's Silly State of Mind. Elena shares her light-hearted mood while discussing serious topics.
A Troubling Childhood Trauma. Discussion on Ronald's traumatic experience and its impact on his life.
The Broken Justice System. Elena highlights the failures of the justice system in Ronald's case.
The Facade of Normalcy. He became a popular figure in the community, hiding his dark secrets.
The Horrific Discovery. By 2002, he had already raped and murdered at least 11 men.
Victim Blaming. Authorities labeled victims as leading high-risk lifestyles, ignoring the truth of their murders.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

That's nuts, a large amount of victims!

Elena reacts to the number of Ronald Dominique's victims.

5:11WatchFeb 12, 2024

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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