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hey weirdos I am AF and I'm Elena and this is [Music] morbid she's got chocolate in her mouth
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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
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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
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my narration so I figured I could just sit here and eat some [ __ ] Kersey kisses she's like I can do whatever the
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[ __ ] 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
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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
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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
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yesterday sorry if you can hear the deck they're making in our [ __ ] yeah I apologize [ __ ] neighbors my neighbors
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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
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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
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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
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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
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um with something from the 2000s oh [ __ ] I didn't realize that we were like chatting earlier look at me this is
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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
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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
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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
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up before yours or after I don't know anything I don't know when anything comes out cuz either way this is a
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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
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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
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didn't the police like everybody investigating this and the Press did not put enough emphasis on finding this guy
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fast enough because the people that he chose his victims he knew that the investigators were going to look at and
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say Well they're risk in what they're doing or you know it's probably their own fault because they did this people
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consider less dead exactly they get blamed for their own just being in the wrong place at the wrong time luckily
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don't worry he does eventually get caught but a lot of people lost their lives along the way and a lot of them
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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
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it's not discussed it wasn't discussed in the Press respectfully at all that's really
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frustrating um so in the spring of 2005 law enforcement officials in Southern Louisiana had a growing growing number
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of murder victims and they had been they had started to suspect that they were connected they were thinking okay I
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think we do have either a serial killer or serial killers [ __ ] because the victims were all men mostly in their 20
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they were all men and boys I should say cuz some were younger um mostly in their
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20s and 30s but there was a couple that were lower than that not children per se
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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
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around that age and they were all vulnerable targets that the killer or killers were clearly actively praying on
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and they were thought to be on the fringes of society a lot of them uh some of them were known to be actively
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struggling with substance abuse or have a history of substance abuse struggles uh they were known a lot of them were
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known to police as uh doing sex work either for their job or doing it sometimes just as a desperation thing y
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um and they had all been strangled and dumped in secondary locations oh wow and they were all locations like Marsh's
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Bayou like a sugar cane Fields oh wow a few of them were B and they would they were all those locations were used
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multiple times okay okay um So eventually Ronald Dominique would have would be connected to the murders and he
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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
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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
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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
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where we begin is um two in the spring of 2005 that's when they really started connecting everything I can't believe I
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don't know about this yeah I know it's crazy now over the course of a decade Ronald Dominique developed into one of
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the worst and most prolific serial killers in American history but like I just said his story and those of his
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victims remain largely unknown and kind of ignored by mainstream media that's so
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messed up and it's really wild so let's talk about Ronald Dominique like where the [ __ ] did he come from because what
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so little is known about Ronald Dominique's life before his first run in with the law we know he was born January
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9th 1964 he's the youngest of six children to workingclass parents in Tibido Louisiana and a capricorn yeah I know I
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don't love it no um and Tibido is a small City about halfway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge his family
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appears to have been pretty active and committed to their local church and at a young age we can we can at least point
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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
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sexually abused by a priest at the church oh no um they reacted horrifically and didn't believe him I
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never understand that how do you not believe how do you believe somebody outside of your family you believe this
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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
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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
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like that's [ __ ] up my God so that's a big trauma and Ronald entered Tibido high
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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
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outside of that there's really nothing of note you know that alone but that alone is like whoo that alone and then
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compounded by the fact that his parents didn't believe him exactly if his parents didn't believe him how much
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longer did that go on because they didn't exactly and um when you read a lot of sources about this like books and
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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
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struggled with his own sexual identity for most of his life okay and growing up in a religious home obviously he was
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trying to hide that yeah and his parents were uh they people believed that they were probably catching on okay to that
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and they took him saying that about the priest as just an extension of that because they probably believed probably
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believed that he was like mentally ill for and they believed you know being gay you know they believe you're you're gay
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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
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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
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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
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you're a [ __ ] monster like it's just like holy [ __ ] right uh but he you know
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in high school he was involved in clubs he slang he sang in the Glee Club he was
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in the chorus he enjoyed being a part of that but he was bullied and harassed pretty relentlessly at school by his
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peers according to an old school kind of like acquaintance just a some who knew him fellow student they said they heard
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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
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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
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you care exactly never once have I been like I need to know this person's you know sexual preference well it's like
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you don't know their sexual preference better than they do maybe maybe he wasn't it's also not my [ __ ] buiness
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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
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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
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reason that these people wanted to know is probably so that they could bully bully him that's the thing just have
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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
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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
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thank you oh we're good okay no it was so you could relentlessly torture him more and it's like what the [ __ ] right
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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
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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
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does that have on your life what bearing were you forced to actively admit that you were straight no were you forced to
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actively admit anything like that like no nobody cares like it's just like what the [ __ ] it's such a weird mindset for
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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
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was he struggled with his weight a lot he was very overweight when he was younger and into adulthood okay which of
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course as a teen puts a Target on your back oh yeah uh and the harassment from schoolmates definitely led to some like
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depression poor self-esteem he definitely had underdeveloped social skills by that point um and it kind of
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stuck with him for like decades at that point like not that not necessarily like
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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
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but social skills he did not have right now after graduating in 1983 he enrolled
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in Nicholls State University and he decided a major in computer science but W he dropped out after only a year or
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two with it also wow um now his criminal history began in the late spring of 1985
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when he was arrested for making sexually harassing phone calls to his neighbors e
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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
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like and now we look at it with all the knowledge we all have what did that mean
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we know that this sexually deviant behavior is similar to many sexual predators who eventually escalate to
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sexual violence yeah it is very much a precursor to that there is study after study after a Peeping Tom is not just a
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Peeping Tom no that is the first foray into if it is is not stopped becoming violent right that is just how it goes
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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
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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
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a lot of friends not like a social group um and according to her former roommate
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with whom he shared an apartment in 1985 Ronald quote didn't have many friends and he didn't keep friends okay so it
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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
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there is an FBI profile that comes out later that is always typical on an FBI profile of a serial killer where it's
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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
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lot of the time it check not all the time we've seen social behavior yeah um but he also never fully felt comfortable
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like we mentioned with with his own sexuality and often felt that he was kind of an outsider in all communities
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so he was just kind of like he was convinced himself that he didn't belong anywhere it wasn't when he became an
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adult it wasn't necessarily people treating him poorly like obviously went through high school and he dealt with
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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
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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
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convinced himself that the world was against him and it's like wasn't people actively doing it he was just creating
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that for himself um and back in those days no one really recalled Ronald's like you know dating anyone having any
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romantic relationships his former roommate didn't even remember him bringing anyone to the apartment no
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guests nothing like no friends nothing um basically whether it was his poor social skills or what we now know what
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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
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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
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bars around there and he wasn't there like drinking and dancing and like meeting people he was just kind of
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playing pool and kind of for lack of a better term like lurking on the frenches of everything and he kind of found
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himself like wanting to step into Louisiana's gay scene the time like kind of get involved meet some people but he
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didn't have pure intentions with it it wasn't like he was looking to involve himself to find friends like get into
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relationships like you know form connections right after his arrest we find out that his presence in these in
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like which at the time it was a very small openly gay community in Southern Louisiana in the 80s yeah um there it
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was a much more menacing implication that he had where he was trying to get involved in it
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um that makes sense that's where he was basically creeping among the most vulnerable and at risk in the community
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to find his first victims that's what he was doing and like building some kind of
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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
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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
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like you just think of him like just creeping around in those bars like trying to make connections but like for
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the most horrific of purposes like it reminds me of Jeffrey dmer the way he would like just lurk at bars exactly in
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1994 Dominique popped up on police radar again because he was arrested for drunk
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driving um but it was two years later that we finally got a little look into the violent part of him at this time
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police were called to his apartment after neighbors saw a man climbing down from Dominique's apartment Window and
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this reminds me of Jeffrey dmer too yeah this man was screaming he's trying to kill me oh my god when sheriff's
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deputies arrived the quote partially clad young man told the officers that Ronald had raped him and would have
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killed him if he had not escaped out the window oh my God now this man is partially closed climbing out a window
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screaming he's trying to kill me said he was raped and he would have been killed
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if he didn't Escape Ronald was arrested for sexual assault and held on a $100,000 bond which he definitely
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couldn't pay M so he sat in the county ja jail luckily for 3 months pending a trial now a conviction for sexual
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assault and attempted murder would have put Ronald in a federal prison for a long time we would said goodbye see you
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later fortunately for him and unfortunately for the rest of society when the trial date finally arrived the
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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
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period think about the time period and just what had happened in general horrific like a lot of people wouldn't
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show up to face somebody that had done that to them that's horrifying in every way that can be horrifying right and
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they couldn't find him which also you're like what happened like where did he go
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I know in November of 1996 the judge in the case continued the case indefinitely
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and the district attorney dropped the charges that is awful he had those charges just dropped wow he raped and
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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
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broken and you would think if this if this person if the victim had been treated with a lot of respect and
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compassion and felt like they had a a like had a support system right then maybe they could they would have shown
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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
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probably didn't because they didn't have like the victim ad advocacy programs they now CU like the early 990s at this
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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
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advocacy so after that close call Ronald did manage to avoid police for several years actually wow um it was in 2000
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that he got arrested again for disturbing the peace and that makes you wonder in between the like during those
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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
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clearly would have killed that man had he not escaped which makes me question one had he done that before and two was
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he doing it in the meantime and somehow was just able to get away with it that's
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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
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stopped for a long time old [ __ ] flower there like you you look at him he stopped for a long time years and years
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and years just went on with his life before it is strange but either way he paid the f for disturbing the peace and
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managed to avoid going before a judge but he was arrested again 2 years later after slapping a woman at a marra parade
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the [ __ ] uh in Li of jail time or a fine he was offered the opportunity to participate in an alternative sentencing
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program okay this required people to meet and maintain certain expectations basically for the program he had to
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maintain a job display good behavior and it was all in order to avoid the harsher
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penalties that honestly should have come yeah get a job and don't slap women anymore
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and we'll we'll excuse the one time you did totally fun [ __ ] and so he managed
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to meet the requirements of the program and six months later the offense was completely discharged from his record
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broken justice system we see this like so many times it's bad now following following this whole thing and
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successfully getting that taken off of his record uh Ronald Dominique appeared to be somewhat getting his life together
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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
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job wasn't enough to really make ends meet so he found a second job as an evening delivery driver for Domino's
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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
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member of society so he became a full member of the local Lions Club which also reminds me this reminds me a little
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bit of John Wayne gasey with like I need to be involved in the community pretend
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that everything fine when you see what how he does it he lures people to into his clutches only to kind of surprise
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them by binding them and killing them wow it's very John Wing those very um and also Jeffrey dmer and also Dennis
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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
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figure at regular Bingo nights much like gayy yeah exactly obviously not Bingo nights but but he seemed deter to be
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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
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facade imagine knowing you played bingo with that man that's [ __ ] oh my goodness and what police and community
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members didn't know at this time because again like I said he was putting on the
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facade but clearly it wasn't real an active and positive Community number but police in the community would soon find
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out that by 2002 the man who was now that popular Bingo caller and pizza delivery driver around town had already
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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
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oh my God 11 men and boys he had already raped and murdered and the that you can
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just do that at whatever point in your life pull numbers for Bingo exactly and and deliver somebody's Pizza yeah like
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what the [ __ ] yeah so we're going to start talking about this case we're going to back up
00:22:02
now 1997 1998 okay that's when the murders at St Charles Parish happened so on July 12th 1997 19-year-old David
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Mitchell Jr attended a birthday party with his mother Latrice MIT Mitchell and his Aunt Rita Aubrey at some point there
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was an argument that broke out between David and another guest so his aunt dropped him off at his grandmother's
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house in hanville Louisiana where he was going to wait for his uncle to come pick
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him up and drive him the five miles back to his house in lulling okay uh his aunt
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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
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family hadn't heard from Mitchell the following day they assumed he'd maybe stopped off at a friend's house stayed
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the night like there was no real cause for alarm at first yeah and probably trying and trying to cool off after
00:22:51
whatever fight this was and the following day David Mitchell didn't report for work and when his mother
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checked his bed bedroom his ID badge and wee clothes were still on the bed untouched and that was not like him he
00:23:02
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
00:23:08
stay out all night they were they were trying to think in their heads like okay maybe we missed him mentioning that he
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was going to a friend's house or something they were already a little on edge because he wasn't one to just do
00:23:20
that right um so Latrice Mitchell did call the police his mother to report her son missing while waiting for an update
00:23:28
she Latrice Mitchell his mother got got her update unexpectedly because her son's photo flashed across the
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television screen in a local news segment about a drowned body of a young black man found in an industrial area of
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Louisiana Highway 3160 so they had already found him most likely at the at the time that she reported him missing
00:23:49
that I they had already they didn't know it was him that's the thing they had only found an unidentified young black
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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
00:24:02
out that's horrible horrific so now it begins this whole Authority shrugging these families
00:24:11
off now the authorities were just they were like police immediately classified David Mitchell as leading a high-risk
00:24:19
lifestyle and despite being found with his pants around his ankles having no drugs or alcohol in his system and being
00:24:27
known as a good swimmer his death was labeled an accident and the case was closed and what are they talking about
00:24:34
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
00:24:41
actual term that can be used like for things like you grew up in an abusive household something that's totally
00:24:48
beyond your own you know control of your own circumstances just something that is
00:24:52
happening to you like innocuous [ __ ] exactly but here it was totally weaponized by so many people involved in
00:25:00
this case to make it seem like these people were doing things that led to their own murder like they did something
00:25:09
that they deserved this almost they weren't saying that but they were saying it by by implying that yeah they were
00:25:15
saying the quiet part out loud exactly they were implying that somehow this was their own fault that's [ __ ] he still
00:25:21
got killed right why are we pretending they's still a person yeah they're still a killer people who give a
00:25:28
[ __ ] about them like that's such a weird callous way to look at like when the investigators look at it this way it's
00:25:34
like it doesn't matter what that like this is a person right this is someone's person and you need to investigate what
00:25:40
the [ __ ] happened it's your whole job now tragic as it was the death of David Mitchell didn't strike law enforcement
00:25:45
as anything more than an unfortunate accident wow pants around his ankles and it was an accident no but within a year
00:25:53
his death would get a second look because it was in the wake of two more deaths of a similar nature neither of
00:25:59
which were accidental and really couldn't be termed as accidental um in mid December of 1997 20-year-old Gary
00:26:08
Pierre's body was discovered in a wooded area of mons which is an unincorporated
00:26:13
area of St Charles Parish um unlike Mitchell Pierre had been sexually assaulted confirmed his body showed
00:26:20
signs of having been bound at some point prior to his death and he died by asphixiation due to neck compression oh
00:26:26
wow now according to the investigators Pierre of course they had to say Pierre was quote heavily involved with drugs
00:26:34
like so despite having been tied up raped and strangled his death at first was initially classified not as murder
00:26:46
but as unclassified how is that unclassified what word do you need to classify that as a murder you think
00:26:53
about that this really happened and this really happens that a person can be raped T
00:27:01
tied up raped and strangled confirmed and you sit there and say it's unclassified investigators can say we
00:27:08
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
00:27:16
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
00:27:22
a [ __ ] what what was going on in his life like I want to know what happened here happened here right like what the
00:27:29
[ __ ] so like David Mitchell Gary Pierre's death had been largely forgotten about until the end of July
00:27:35
1998 when St Paris Charles Parish investigators discovered another body oh my God that of 38-year-old Larry Ranson
00:27:43
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
00:27:52
looked up every pronunciation for everything and I just didn't look up that um but it was not far from where
00:27:58
David Mitchell's body was discovered almost exactly one year earlier and ranson's body was fully clothed and
00:28:05
aside from having been quote kicked in the groin the only trauma was the asphixiation that had caused his death
00:28:13
um as in the case of Gary Pierre Larry renson was believed to have struggled with drugs um which police believed was
00:28:22
somehow linked to his death they could not you guys got to stop just sitting on that so they labeled it unclassified oh
00:28:29
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
00:28:34
you're concentrating on that part of it that's a link between them between looking at something going on here yeah
00:28:42
that's exactly now unfortunately there is a limited num um amount of information about Dominique's first
00:28:49
three victims that we just mentioned but their demographic profiles are significant and they'll become more
00:28:54
significant as these murders continue all three are black men of lower socioeconomic backgrounds two of them
00:29:02
Pierre and Ranson are known to be either gay or bisexual and at least two Pierre
00:29:07
and Ranson have some history allegedly of substance abuse or addiction okay again these pieces of personal
00:29:15
information are only important in the sense of showing that there is a pattern and a victim profile that will continue
00:29:22
right um it also shows that the investigation was heavily biased against them because of pred prejudices of some
00:29:29
kind or another at multiple times during the investigation it sounds like multiple Prejudice yeah because
00:29:34
initially St Charles Parish investigators assumed the quote unquote high-risk lifestyles of these men were
00:29:40
at least partially related to their deaths and really little effort was put into solving these deaths yeah that's
00:29:47
what it sounds like but in February 1999 the pier and ransing cases were finally
00:29:51
reclassified as murders and investigated as such unfortunately by that time Ronald Dominique had already killed
00:29:58
three more times wow now we're going to move into the murders that happened in the New Orleans suburbs from 1998 to
00:30:07
1999 the afternoon of October 3rd 1998 was unseasonably hot even for Louisiana so Ronald Dominique drove the half hour
00:30:16
or so from hanville to the French Quarter he was hoping that like you know the excitement the activity of the
00:30:22
French Quarter that whole neighborhood would be enough to blow off some of his steam he was basically looking to pay
00:30:28
for sex that night okay um in New Orleans new or New Orleans uh in New Orleans French Quarter at especially at
00:30:36
this time um sex or anything else for that matter was relatively easy to find down there it was like a big party
00:30:42
atmosphere going on um that afternoon Ronald made his way to rawh hide which was a well-known bar in the quarter and
00:30:50
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
00:30:56
couple of friends friends but he didn't really like Rawhide and he wasn't really
00:31:00
into this whole thing so while they were dancing and mingling and doing whatever
00:31:04
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
00:31:09
was apparent what Dominique was looking for so they worked out the specifics of a transactional transactional sexual
00:31:17
experience between the two of them and the two men left the bar in the direction of Ronald's car okay now it
00:31:23
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
00:31:28
empty parking lot because it was closed at that point in the backseat of Dominique's Chevy Malibu Le Banks you
00:31:34
know they began the transaction but suddenly without warning Ronald flipped him over and despite him protesting and
00:31:43
fighting to defend himself he began raping Oliver Le Banks oh no now when he finished Dominique grabbed the tire iron
00:31:51
from the floor and bashed Oliver Le Banks twice in the head with it causing a concussion IMM immediately then he
00:31:58
wrapped his hands around his throat and began strangling him oh my God at some point the force required to manually
00:32:05
strangle someone became unsustainable and so he wrapped a belt around Oliver Le bank's neck and pulled it so tightly
00:32:13
that the clasps cut into his neck Jesus and he choked him for several minutes until he was sure he was dead that is
00:32:21
terrifying because when you see a picture of this man he's a big guy very intimidating like and I'm not saying
00:32:28
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
00:32:33
overpower someone that's the thing that's so scary and and just what what he's capable of
00:32:40
anyways just ruthless I mean that is brutal oh what he did and it it just sounds like everything happened so fast
00:32:48
that's the thing it sounds like it was just within an instant everything turned like they these people had no chance to
00:32:53
even defend themselves now Dominique drove all Oliver Le Banks's body to a remote stretch of road near Zephyr
00:33:00
fields which was home to the AAA minor league New Orleans zeph my God and dumped his body under a dark overpass
00:33:07
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
00:33:14
it to police now to show again that this pattern is that that Ronald Dominique was establishing for his chosen victims
00:33:23
Oliver Le Banks was black like obviously he's choosing a very specific Vic had a history of substance abuse
00:33:29
struggles in the past and was known to engage in sex work from time to time just to get money for things he needed
00:33:35
or wanted now these facts again I would just want to make sure everybody knows these facts do not Define all of ver
00:33:41
Banks as a person but they give insight into Donald Ronald Dominique's [ __ ] up
00:33:47
worldview and the way he is choosing his victims his victim profile he had a victim type now definitely we're we're
00:33:53
at that point right but even with all these patterns and similarities between victims and methods of murder the Press
00:34:00
picked up on the fact that there was substance abuse history and the fact that he engaged in sex work sometimes
00:34:06
and so the reporting on Oliver's murder F Focus largely on his being and I quote
00:34:12
a gay prostitute that's what they just called him Jes Christ and quote an uneducated and unvalued transient
00:34:20
kitchen employee in some mindless job God that was an actual quote used to Des the victim oh that just made my heart
00:34:31
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
00:34:40
Banks's friends and family have attempted to correct this narrative which it's gross that they even have to
00:34:46
do that that should be their [ __ ] job that should be the job of these of journalists that are writing these
00:34:51
things they should be how do you write something that callous according to a friend um and former employer Mar
00:34:57
Paulson he said he was not a badass in any way Olli had five children he had responsibilities and a good future in
00:35:06
front of him but he had one weakness while he'd been clean for some time a long time OE was a recovering drug
00:35:13
addict which like good for him for recover got clean like he was getting he had a job right he was working towards a
00:35:20
better future father it's so sad that these people even have to come out to try to defend the person that was like
00:35:28
violently ripped away from them right what was that headline it was they literally said let me go back to find it
00:35:35
an uneducated and unvalued transient kitchen employee in some mindless job unvalued he has five children he clearly
00:35:44
has friends he has a mom he has family and these family and friends have to come forward and be like hey [ __ ] of
00:35:51
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
00:35:57
so shitty oh that makes my heart hurt for him and for to die like that horrifically and then just to be chocked
00:36:04
up to nothing yeah in the paper like whoever wrote that can go [ __ ] themselves it's like the thing is too I
00:36:10
don't see anyone coming I didn't find anything about anybody that wrote kind of like [ __ ] like this or said [ __ ] like
00:36:16
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
00:36:21
have real hiding behind their sh it's like why why do you let that float out there how do write something like that
00:36:27
hand it into your boss and then go home with your family for the night with your
00:36:31
family and it's like what the [ __ ] wow and yeah it's and hearing someone who cared about him referred to him as olly
00:36:37
yeah like that kills I don't even know what the word is just like it humanizes the situation so much that one thing
00:36:44
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
00:36:52
to think that he had five children that's awful it's sad they lost their dad like that so for detectives there
00:36:58
was there was very little evidence at the scene um according to the autopsy Oliver had been bound at the wrists and
00:37:05
raped before being murdered wow um but the killer left no fingerprints and had worn a condom so they didn't have
00:37:11
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
00:37:20
man left on the body but until they had a suspect to match it to it just kind of
00:37:25
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
00:37:30
90s at this point so DNA hadn't even really come that far this is just kind of sitting here until we have a
00:37:35
comparison essentially but detectives on the Oliver Le Banks case wouldn't have to wait long for their killer to strike
00:37:41
again unfortunately it would be in another jurisdiction and a long time would pass before the connection between
00:37:48
the victims was made that was the other thing that Ronald Dominique did was he went to different jurisdictions and
00:37:54
parishes knowingly knowing that that there was going to take a while for them to connect these because they even
00:38:00
connecting different cases like that in different counties and parishes and jurisdictions can get Reckless because
00:38:06
it can really derail a case it's like you really have to have solid evidence to make sure you know that these are
00:38:11
connected right and he knew that so just two weeks after Oliver Le Banks's body was discovered under the overpass The
00:38:19
partially closed body of 16-year-olds Joseph Brown was discovered on October 19th 19 98 he was found on
00:38:28
the western end of Veterans Memorial Boulevard in Kenner which is a suburban community about 10 or 15 minutes outside
00:38:35
New Orleans uh to investigators at the scene it looked like Brown's Body had been quote pretty much dumped out of a
00:38:41
car by the side of the road wow like trash yeah he'd suffered and this is really sad like this one
00:38:48
really got me he'd suffered several severe lacerations and wounds to his head and a bloody plastic bag was
00:38:55
discovered near his his body which investigators suspect that the bag had been placed over his head as he was
00:39:01
beaten to death my God yes this guy's a [ __ ] monster there's no words like Beyond Joseph Brown had grown up in and
00:39:12
I looked up the pronunciation of this place in Louisiana and it is pronounced bouti Louisiana um about 15 minutes from
00:39:20
Kenner of course the Press labeled him a troubled teenager not just um a child who was brutally murdered right on the
00:39:29
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
00:39:36
or what he was doing there the coroner ruled Brown's death a homicide by Strang strangulation um he had also been beaten
00:39:43
over the head but I think he actually died by um which obviously a teenage boy Dying by strangulation is like pretty
00:39:53
unusual like yeah one might say but otherwise there weren't really Clues to who or how like other like where he was
00:40:02
killed but again they were just kind of like well he was a troubled kid and it's
00:40:06
like well troubl kids don't always get strangled so I think we should look into that like what the [ __ ] it's just this
00:40:12
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
00:40:18
that's all you should be focused on right now he's a dead 16 I mean that's that's Young that
00:40:26
is's young and plenty of people are troubled kids that grow into like amazing adults and doesn't mean they
00:40:31
deserve to get beaten and strangled to death exactly so Jefferson Paris detectives who were working the Oliver
00:40:37
Le Banks case got called in November when the body of 18-year-old Bruce Williams was discovered in an industrial
00:40:44
park in Jefferson Parish just outside New Orleans uh like Oliver Le Banks Williams was known to police as a
00:40:51
sometimes sex worker who primarily worked New Orleans proper on the evening of November 26 7th Williams was seen by
00:40:57
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
00:41:04
here now this is an unusual number of young male rape SL murder victims being discovered in the greater New Orleans
00:41:14
area um at one point one of the detectives was like this is more murders than we have for an entire year this is
00:41:21
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
00:41:28
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
00:41:35
sometimes have in a year and it happened within like this small time um so detectives on the Le Banks and Williams
00:41:42
cases called actually the FBI's Behavioral Science unit which I'm glad they finally took about that's great
00:41:48
because they wanted to create a profile of what was clearly a serial killer in the area unfortunately the profile
00:41:54
created by the FBI people were um it was pretty generic and it was a little useless it wasn't completely useless but
00:42:00
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
00:42:06
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
00:42:11
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
00:42:17
it's really hard um they said their killer was a white male mid-30s difficulty with social skills
00:42:23
probably didn't have a lot of friends so almost like every seral ker that we have
00:42:26
ever covered and a number of other vague characteristics that were just just not
00:42:30
unique enough to really help but there was one aspect of the profile that would help investigators narrow down their
00:42:36
search according to FBI profile filer Tom Colby lanks and Williams killer he believed lived near the airport so he's
00:42:45
like bring your bring your net in closer to the airport I wonder what made him think that especially because it was all
00:42:51
spread out well they thought this because the locations of the string of body dumping sites they were all near
00:42:58
the airport like they were in in a certain area that made sense um and while detectives in and around New
00:43:05
Orleans worked with federal agents to develop a profile of what they were now believing was a serial killer Ronald
00:43:11
Dominique was back out on the hunt for a new victim he just goes and goes and goes on May 30th 1999 The partially
00:43:18
clothed body of 21 yearold Manuel Reed was discovered in the dumpster behind a business in Kenner Reed had grown up in
00:43:26
New Orleans and like the other victims he did have a history of struggling with substance abuse and was known to police
00:43:32
as a sometimes sex worker um but also like the other victims Reed had been raped and
00:43:38
strangled now the scene repeated itself exactly one month later when the body of
00:43:43
21-year-old Angel Mahia was discovered by a dumpster in an industrial area of area of kenor detectives at the scene
00:43:51
immediately noticed that Maha F fit what was by now now seen as their serial Killer's preferred victim profile right
00:43:59
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
00:44:07
time of his death he didn't have any like set address that's awful um which put him at greater risk of in
00:44:13
exploitation by men or Monsters like Ronald Dominique he had also been raped and strangled but this time Dominique
00:44:21
had broken his pattern a little because he left him in a relatively well lit area in front of a very regularly used
00:44:29
business dumpster do you think he was just getting Bolder because he wasn't getting caught they thought he was just
00:44:35
getting sloppy sloppy got it they really thought he was just getting sloppy um although they didn't know it at the time
00:44:41
the FBI's profile like we said generic as it was was pretty accurate because Ronald Dominique was a white man in his
00:44:48
30s at this time with very lower poor social skills and what they found out was that he was actually living about 10
00:44:56
miles from the New Orleans International Airport wow so they were actually dead on that's wild isn't it good profiling
00:45:02
is really wild Gideon out here right like many serial killers he'd hunted for his victims in and around the place he
00:45:09
was most familiar with and where he felt most comfortable but again with the murder of Angel Mahia Dominique had
00:45:15
apparently been going out of his way to either they were it looked initially they were like is he going out of his
00:45:22
way to to have his victim be discovered that quick or is he sloppy they couldn't figure
00:45:28
that one because initially like you said they thought he was just being like B but then later they're like I think he
00:45:35
was just being sloppy which he probably got sloppy because he still he wasn't getting caught it was probably the same
00:45:41
it's kind of the same way thought process yeah so since the discovery of Oliver banks in October 1998 detectives
00:45:47
in and around New Orleans had worked very quietly on the case that would eventually be linked back to Dominique
00:45:53
for one thing the murders had been committed in like I said before different jurisdictions so connecting
00:45:58
them they needed more evidence for it uh it was also important to investigators that while the cases were open and
00:46:04
ongoing the pertinent information be kept close to the chest they wanted it kept from the press the public they
00:46:12
didn't want to create Panic or create situation where misinformation was running rampant that could harm or
00:46:17
hinder the investigation because now they're finally doing it mhm unfortunately these attempts at keeping
00:46:22
it quiet and working behind the scenes became much harder in late June 1999 when operating on misunderstood leaked
00:46:30
information the Press began speculating on a Poss serial killer operating in New
00:46:35
Orleans o now it's unclear where journalists in the New Orleans area got this information but by the end of June
00:46:43
reports started circulating about a potential serial killer who already claimed three young men whose shoeless
00:46:50
bodies were dumped in isolated areas around New Orleans International Airport the article linked the murders of Angel
00:46:57
Mahia Joseph Brown Emanuel Reed who is unidentified in the article they don't even use their name wow um they link him
00:47:05
them to a single killer and they claimed that all three of these victims were all
00:47:08
Quote darkskinned men and they claimed falsely that they all had cocaine in their systems at the time of their death
00:47:17
and the article also makes a lot about them being shoeless when they were found despite the fact that it is neither
00:47:23
relevant nor true good before long television news stations had picked up the stories
00:47:30
internet detectives were like a booming thing at the time they would all just started they were all focusing very
00:47:37
heavily on this removal of the shoes as the Killer's signature right it wasn't true they weren't all missing their
00:47:43
shoes so this was [ __ ] so now the entire internet is [ __ ] their pants over this false thing and the entire
00:47:49
press is [ __ ] their pants over this false thing and everybody's wondering what it means it doesn't mean anything
00:47:54
because it's not true and you're not focused on the not focused on the fact that they are young black men in
00:48:00
marginalized like a high-risk you know areas highrisk Lifestyles like dealing with um like basically the most
00:48:07
vulnerable essentially and it's like you're not focusing on and many of them were
00:48:12
part of the gay community like you're not telling people the information to keep
00:48:18
them safe like you're just being like well they're all shoeless what could this mean and it's like no right you
00:48:24
need a big community of people to be looking behind their back now you need these people to be thinking you know
00:48:31
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
00:48:37
that it's like they weren't focusing on what's important keeping actual people safe MH now the decision to release or
00:48:43
withhold information about Public Safety like we've talked about before I mean it's based on a lot of factors that
00:48:50
aren't always obvious or understandable to those outside of the investigation it's just a fact of life and we've
00:48:58
learned that time after time in many different cases oh yeah and it's generally true I will say that an
00:49:03
informed public will be better you know equipped to protect themselves in the event of an emergency I fully believe
00:49:10
that yeah but when attention isn't paid to the kind of information that the public is being given mistakes can be
00:49:17
made that can jeopardize the case and actually put more people at risk and that's what happened here I was worried
00:49:23
that you were just going to say that they're not it's just not you're not telling the
00:49:28
right people what they need to hear and you're you're missing out on entire communities of people that need to know
00:49:33
that they are the ones that are being targeted and like you said like watch each other's backs yeah and the emphasis
00:49:38
on the victims as black male drug dealers or users wasn't telling a complete story or an entirely accurate
00:49:46
one right in fact it misrepresented who was at risk specifically like I said marginalized men and boys of color who
00:49:55
either either were out as gay or were sex workers for their job at times like they those were the like the people that
00:50:03
you were like really think about what you're doing at night so you can be prepared to protect yourself yeah
00:50:09
overlooking or misrepresenting the reality of Dominique's preferred victims by among other things playing up these
00:50:16
unfounded facts of the case meant that those that were most at risk were being given bad information right and this
00:50:23
became apparent in August of that year when police discovered the body of 34-year-old Mitchell Johnson under the
00:50:29
very same overpass where all of Vera Banks had been discovered a year earlier oh wow at the time of his death Mitchell
00:50:36
Johnson was living on the streets in Kenner where he was last seen by friends on the night of his murder Johnson's
00:50:42
friends told police that they'd seen quote a suspicious Guy cruising around the neighborhood around the time Johnson
00:50:49
went missing uh they described the man as a white male mid-30s receding hairline and puffy cheek
00:50:55
that's exactly what Ronald D like spot on it wasn't much much else of Distinction to separate the suspect from
00:51:02
hundreds of other puffy white dudes in their 30s living around New Orleans at the time meanwhile the coroner confirmed
00:51:08
what police already more or less knew that Mitchell Johnson had been raped and strangled before being dumped just feet
00:51:15
from where all of ear Le Banks had been dumped wow now the murder of Mitchell Johnson seemed to support the belief
00:51:21
among the press that there was indeed a serial killer operating in the suburbs of new Orleans and hoping to use the
00:51:27
press to their advantage finally police released a sketch of the man seen in the
00:51:32
area that night that Johnson disappeared and in their statement to the press the
00:51:36
suspect was described as quote a serial killer targeting men in the area rather than a serial killer targeting black and
00:51:45
gay men which investigators feared would negatively influence the Public's desire
00:51:51
to help that's so [ __ ] that they even had to consider that we got to do better
00:51:57
everyone yeah to say the least regardless of how they phrased it the picture and the Articles didn't produce
00:52:03
any new leads but they had to worry that if they mentioned black men and boys and
00:52:09
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
00:52:16
like in that sense this whole thing they were trying to do the right thing by like making sure the public would give a
00:52:24
[ __ ] by not mentioning the details but still it's but when you think of the actual ramifications of that whole thing
00:52:32
right it just makes you sick sure does it really does now it's unknown whether Ronald Dominique even saw the article or
00:52:40
the police sketch but just after it ran in early November he quit his job with the county and moved his trailer um
00:52:47
further into H which is that small City on the Bayou about 60 mi from New Orleans okay he parked his trailer on
00:52:55
some some property next to his sister's house on Bayou Blue Road and was happy to learn that the police sketch in
00:53:01
various articles about a serial killer hadn't yet made their way Southwest of New Orleans so they didn't know about it
00:53:07
uh within a few weeks Ronald found work as a laborer at Caro produce company the
00:53:13
fact that this man was just handling people's produce too like yeah so something so disturbing about that now
00:53:19
on January 1st 2000 a driver called police in lefou Parish to report that they'd seen a man lying motionless by a
00:53:28
barbed wire fence on the side of Highway 7 when police arrived at the site they discovered the body of 23-year-old
00:53:35
Michael Vincent Michael Vincent had a record that included some drug charges just to put him in that pattern and he
00:53:42
also had an unsettled way of living that again made him fit perfectly into Ronald's vulnerable victim profile the
00:53:48
autopsy showed that he'd been bound at the risks and suffered several abrasions but the cause of death was most
00:53:54
certainly quote homicidal asphixiation um the murder was not connected to the other murders of gay
00:54:02
men and sex workers in the uh other parishes which is kind of wild um I think it's because he was found further
00:54:10
out from new orans okay maybe I guess but the investigation into Vincent's death would be further Complicated by
00:54:17
the fact that while Ronald Dominique may have ended the 20th century with yet another murder 2 years would pass before
00:54:24
he killed anyone again interesting you took some time between them yeah and that's where we're going
00:54:31
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
00:54:39
keeps getting bad and bad and bad I just but I think we can all rest there for a
00:54:44
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
00:54:52
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
00:54:59
to talk about each of the victims okay um and we're going to talk about his arrest and the court case that
00:55:05
followed and eventually him going bye-bye into prison forever good I'm excited for that part you have that to
00:55:12
look forward to but I think we'll leave off there so we can all think about what
00:55:17
the [ __ ] we just listened to holy [ __ ] and when we pick up it's two years later
00:55:22
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
00:55:29
any of this because oh my God [Music] yeah