The Bayou Strangler: Ronald Dominique & Another water cryptid

0:29 Everyone is here. The country. My name is Brittany. Ransom, my name is Brian Joiner and this is when Killers get caught a podcast about a deep dives into the lives of killers. We love to learn about each week. Brian. And I will discuss two true crime stories that resonated with us and I'll lead you down the dark path of learning about who a killer was, how they grew up, how they killed in most importantly, how they got caught, then Brian slows things down and gives us a walkthrough. The creepier side of life of a discussion of the Paranormal or Cryptids. And just letting you know, there are three weeks left and our Our newest t-shirt launch. The thick did the a Squatch will be disappearing at the end of the month. So if you would like a shirt that has I love Leah, a Squatch, dropping it low. This is the time to get it because it won't be coming back after this.

1:19 I like to say he drops It Like It's Hot. There's no pun there, Brian. I know it just dropped on a Squatch. He drops it like it's hot. Just that's what does okay. Well, this weekend True Crime, we have discovered the identity of a serial killer this week whoo-hoo, it's been 30 years since three women were robbed sexually assaulted and murdered in motels, in Kentucky and Indiana. And the police have finally identified. The Killer They did a press conference this past Tuesday with Indiana State Police, and they said that the killer's name is Harry Edward Greenwell.

2:01 He is currently deceased, but that he was responsible for the deaths of Vicki. Heath Margaret Peggy Hill and Gian Gilbert. He died in 2013 at the age of 68, but that he was also responsible for the sexual assault of a fourth woman who needed on actually manage to kill and they found him through. What do you think, right. 23andMe pretty much they're now calling investigative genealogy. As I initially, they were able to connect DNA of the killer to someone in a DNA, a genealogy database and that's how they were to find it really there. What they're doing now at this point is he has a pretty extensive criminal record between 1963 and 1998 and so Indiana.

2:52 State police are looking to see if he did anything else. Honestly, if they can connect him to any other missing persons were there any other motels that he might have stopped by and people went missing. So, this isn't over. They just know the name, they called him, the I-65 killer, and the thing is, I 65 runs from Gary Indiana, all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. So we're talking of a hundreds of miles on the East Coast where he could have stopped and killed people as well. So there's No guarantee that. It just stops at these three murders in one assault. God yeah. You come here? Hoping they're hoping they can close them, some cases and give people some closure and finding out what happened to their loved ones. They also called him the days in Keller because apparently he was he like to stop at that Motel sometime. God.

3:44 No. Not that easy. Yeah. Are there any other state police weren't actually able to get permission to use that database? The investigative genealogy until 2019? So this is still really, really new. That's they never had a suspect or anyone before this, they just had rant. Like they just had DNA that they could link to anybody. Hmm. So I think we're just going to keep happening. So yeah, it works you That's going to say like this is like the they're if they're at a dead end when they and they have the the elected DNA evidence and stuff like that, and nothing that connected to this is like the thing they go to.

4:34 Now, like, we learned And with the one case I think it was not just I'll call you with the Grim sleeper you in order to get access to do that. You have to have used every other form of policing, right before they will allow you access to, what is millions of people's DNA. And a lot of people feel, a lot of ways about it. It's one of the reasons why I've never actually done a DNA test. I would like to know what percentage is what percentage. But also on the other hand, I'm like, do I want to know? If somebody I'm related to is a killer, Nah.

5:17 Nah, that's okay. Now I got to rethink that relationship. Can you imagine what it was like when Dennis readers daughter found out that her dad was the BTK killer? I can't imagine. I'll want that on my heart. That's okay. But what's your true crime case this week Brian? Okay, so apparently the story has been going around and I'm pretty sure if you guys have been paying attention to True Crime News, you've heard this as well. So there was an incident. I guess we can only fans model where she allegedly stabbed her boyfriend to death, in their apartment, Julie, Brian, I've seen the photos on TMZ.

6:10 Homegirl is covered head to toe in blood. It is horrific. One of my friends is in Miami and was literally like I've been in Miami for two weeks because she's she's down there, looking at like she has a business Then I guess she's trying to expand and its potential. She might be able to run her business down there. I'll miss her. If she actually, they're one of our sponsors. Oh, really the bakery? Yeah, she's going to Miami right now. That your service meet Cafe. Yep. I think I don't know if they're going to be stimmy temporary or something. But they've been down there for a while, but she definitely was like she posted on Facebook. She's like, I watch a lot of CSI. Miami before I came down here and now I think there's definitely a murder that just happened. I'm like, Bro. So I'm like dang but yeah, like it. Yeah, I saw the picture soon as like it's not alleged like you did, it says a legend in this news article. So it's somebody's blood.

7:08 Is it somebody's blood? Who knows? So influence. Our her name is Courtney cleaning. She's plenty, plenty in another name when she was Doing her only. Yeah, it's a Courtney Taylor was her other, her suited, for whatever, her stage name and interesting. Question. Why would you make your stage name? So close to your real name? I don't know. Like, I definitely change it. Well, thank first and last name. Yep, absolutely. I don't know, my name. My brain just said Isabella demise. That's so not a good name but it's what? Popped into my head. Go only fans looking up. She's probably there already.

7:51 Right. Yeah, it's probably like I saw that somewhere on Twitter. Oh my God. But yeah. She's yeah. She's 25 years old and her her boyfriend. His name was Christian. I don't know. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. I know he's African. So he yeah, French last name. Yeah he does and he's 27 but yeah the cops they responded to a 911 call around, you know, 5:00 on Sunday at you know, at their apartment. And this is like pretty said, it mean Miami Florida. And they say, they found her boyfriend. He was stabbed once in the shoulder. That's it.

8:32 That's what it says. It's. Where is that blood? The way that it was like, posted all over social media over the last couple days. It's like she stabbed him to death. Like there were multiple stabbings. You know what I mean? Yeah, like 11 stabbed was Otto, dang. Yeah. It must have been like a really deep wound or somewhere like that. Lets you do the artery right? Yeah. Arm, exactly. That's one thing for there to be that kind of a spray that it's all over her face. Chase chest and legs. That's a no that's an arterial spray.

9:13 Yeah. Yeah that's that's why all that blood. Yep. That's rather but come from that's the only way if it was only One time. Wow. See the way the media was portraying. It was that she like went full like Jason Voorhees. But yeah, he died at the hospital. Actually, he didn't even die. There. He was still alive. Yeah, he he died at the hospital. Like I said, the first thing that I saw was the TMZ pictures. The somebody took from like their apartment building across from her. The other apartment building. Yeah, we can see, right clearly. She's like sitting on the ground cuffed and there's blood on her face, her little too. be top her sweat pants are soaked, like So, I assumed homeboy was dead dead before the police even got there. Yeah.

10:11 Wow. Yeah yeah it's wild how the media portrays things they got me. Yeah, that's all I saw. I didn't look at any other articles that's like oh look at that. White girl killed a black man. That's that's what drew me into it. I was like God kid, here we go again but yeah, they said there's the cops. Was that there was obviously like a physical altercation before she's she he was stabbed. So, So, like people people like her, who her friends AP said that they've seen him hit her and stuff like that. Like yeah, you know, if you girl getting just be, oh wait, no, no, no, my bad.

11:05 I read the wrong. It says, we seen her hit him in that I've never seen. Yeah, I've never seen him hit her, so obvious. Asleep must have been something that she was doing. Yeah. See this popped up on my Facebook timeline because people pulled a lot of his really like rude posts and Tweets. We're like like, you know, rest in peace, he did die in. That is sad, but apparently, he was one of those people who thought that, if he could net himself a beautiful white woman that made him a better person than everybody else.

11:48 You know, and it's kind of crappy to treat your partner to put them on a pedestal like that it's not fair to the person who's being idolized but it's also real crappy. When every opportunity you get you trash talk every other group of women, right? Yeah. So like he couldn't just be like, wow, I really love my girlfriend. It would be like I can't stand black girls, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. And I'm like, dude, nobody asked you like the such a, it's such a weird thing. And a lot of people Like a lot of do do this online and I'm just like love who you love. You ain't got a tear everybody else down, right? Like and I gotta I gotta be watching you. I was like that too. And so one of my friends was like, you know, when you say things like real women have curves, it kind of makes me feel sad.

12:34 And I was like, oh dang, I thought this was just you know, like the fat girl, you know, acceptance Rockall not thinking that like you know, all women are real women, doesn't matter what you look like, you know, This is true, my best friends. And so I adjusted the way that I speak about certain things, like I like, what I like, and I will say that I, like the things that I like, but I'll need to talk about things. I don't like, but regardless. So, that's how he popped up on my timeline. And then when I looked him up, I saw the TMZ article but like so, where is home girl? Right now, I'm guessing some police station, or at least she got booked and bail or something. Okay, so here's the story. Birdie so miss Courtney, you know, she was the team Are police station, you know, after, you know, she was after the stabbing and, you know, they found her and stuff like that after a while.

13:26 You know, she started saying that, you know, she's sort of saying, you know, IMA kill myself. I'm gonna I'm gonna live myself stuff like that. Well, it's okay, we're not on Tick-Tock, you can actually hear. It's just on other platforms, we have to come up with creative ways to say killed yourself, right? Right. Anti bullying. And Apparently in Florida, there is an act that protects people. I don't, I don't say, you forget me. It protects people obviously like okay and it's called The Baker Act. Okay? Well and it allows law enforcement as well as doctors mental health professionals and judges to commit a person to a mental health treatment center for up to 72 hours. If it's hurting violent or Suicidal Tendencies. These are displayed.

14:19 Okay so she's on a she's on what you call it I guess. Suicide watch mandatory hold. Yeah, there you go. Okay and this happened a couple okay but this was last Friday. So it's been a week. 72 hours is less than a week where she now Brian. It's I think she's still at the end. She's still at the mental institution. Oh, come on. He's still there. She's dead. Okay. She was just, she probably does need mental health care. She just stabbed a man but like Um, okay so she's not he hasn't been arraigned. No. So she was detained on April 3rd. It did.

15:03 Oh wait. Okay. So this actually was it last week? This was today's the day. Yeah. Okay. So it's been five days since this happened. Yeah. But so she's you know it's still holding on to her. Yeah, it's funny because it says that her content was still upload it on the fourth after she was a team. I mean, you can schedule post to be update. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, it's a thing that can happen. Like so at the moment she's a Not face any charges for her boyfriend's. Death at all or his murder. Okay. I mean, okay and like is that's the thing that when I saw his I was like, what the fuck you talking about it? She like obviously killed him.

15:48 Why is Sheena might get charges once she gets out of the suicide watch. Yeah, it just it just like when I saw it, I was like Here we go again. That's wild and listen like I know that the majority of our listeners are women and I'm sure a lot of you are white women. So obviously, I'm not talking about you. But historically relationships with white women and black men have not always been the best know.

16:30 I remember this is a personal story for me. Because I remember like when I was younger or I don't know, start starting to date and you know, and you know, tell him I like him. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

17:16 Took it. Yeah. Oh no. How would you define that time of your life? I was it was it was like my first girlfriend, my first actual girlfriend, and I was just like, I'm not in love Bubble, blah, own protector of those know, you guys don't know what you're talking about. She was like, cheating on you and stuff. Yeah, I just personally like It's like one of those things I was watching a Lovecraft country last year and it occurred to me, just this pop into my head. While I was watching the show, the people who make our laws right now and grew up during Jim Crow. And makes me feel very uncomfortable and make that their formative years were when it was okay to Lynch somebody. So I think I won't feel like it feels weird to be like, maybe I'll feel better when the boomers are gone. People like, I don't know, but like like, we're still connected to all these times.

18:20 Historically, were terrible things happen to black people and so I still feel that caution and obviously some people don't Well, like we still live in a world where, you know, if you're cute and blond you can get away with murder so far. I hope she does it. I hope that after they release her she does face the consequences of her actions because him choosing to be in a abusive relationship. Should not have been the end of his life, right? Absolutely. He should have had the opportunity to get out and get help and heard you the same. And, you know, ultimately, when these things happen, everybody involved, the one person's Dead. The other person goes to jail and nothing gets better. And it's sad because he was just like, I guess a week away from turning 28.

19:09 So it's just life, cut short. Yeah. And the other thing is that this does highlight like you know I make some some silly jokes but this does highlight another situation where her friends said she hits him so he was in a position. He's in a situation where There was no good ending other than him, just walking away. Because if he hits her back he's going to prison as a black man who had a white woman. He does nothing, he ends up dying like the only the only solution here was for him to do the hardest thing to do when you're being abused which is a wave. The person you love.

19:51 Yeah. You know, I can't be too judgmental there because I went through it myself. So did you But today's case is one, that despite the death toll there, just wasn't a whole lot of information about it. This guy began killing in 1997 and he wasn't called, until you were a senior in high school Brian. Oh my God. Yeah, that this happened very much a during our life. Wait, when you were 2006 right? Yeah, that's when I graduated.

20:34 Yep. He was an outcast, a misfit. But he also went under the radar for about nine years. If I say the name, Ronald Dominique. Does that mean anything to you? Really, that's okay. His other name was the Bay, you the Bayou Strangler. It's been a little over a year since I discuss any killers from Louisiana and I got to be really honest. I need a break from the very confusing criss-crossing, killers of California. The last three cases inadvertently. Like there were just crisscross over and cases on happening. Concurrently just Count, covering California, Killers is stressful.

21:18 So today we're going to talk about a guy that no one really expected much from. Well Louisiana obviously got a little bit more than they bargained. For Ronald Joseph, Dominique was born, January 9th 1964, had a very small town in Louisiana called Thibodeau. He was one of six children Thibodeau is a really small town than and even now it only has 15,000 people who live there today. Ronald grew. Like he was born right on the cusp of change in the entire country. But he was a poor white kid from a poor, white family, in a trailer park and a poverty stricken town. So, hmm.

21:59 Change change, what's happened in other places? Now, his immediate childhood wasn't traumatic, there's absolutely nothing that pops up in any of the history books. But sometime during Elementary School to rumors, began to circulate and both of them were pretty terrible. The first one was that there was incest going on in the Dominique household and that Ronald had walked in on his mother and one of his brothers. The other was that Ronald told his parents that a priest, molested him and his parents didn't believe him. And of course we all learned decades later, but across the country, the Catholic church had conspired. You're too high pedophilia when it was in its ranks, right? So it's plausible that this did happen to him when he was small. And if you're wondering why I haven't mentioned a lots of his brothers or sisters or even his mother and father by name, I have no less than 10 resources for this week, and they don't mention his family's names really, which lets me know that these people don't want to be known, huh? Occasionally, a name of a sister or a brother pops up later on in the story.

22:59 But like, apparently people did not want to be known as being connected to this man. Now, the incest rumors and the molestation are huge part of his childhood in pre-adolescence, and they definitely have Bay are probably the first time he was introduced to the concepts of sex and sexual deviancy, which didn't help him grow up better. And he walked his way into adolescence feeling inadequate and I can adequate and struggling with his appearance and the beginning feelings of homosexuality, He was a weird kid and there was an air of absurdity about him. Like when you talk to Ronald, he was always putting on a little show for anyone watching.

23:47 This was him trying to like Trying to find a way to kind of mitigate the bullying make people laugh. Using the Glee Club he sang in choir. And that behavior was enough for his peers to label him as gay. What really, uh-huh. What I was supposed to be the Glee Club when I was nice. Okay, okay. He never did anyone openly and he was actively hiding any homosexuality from his peers but it did not matter. he did the painful process of masking hilly, really was to appear in normal and the other Factor was that even without people calling him gay, he was also overweight and he didn't exactly, Look good. He had meddling grades and he graduated from Thibodaux High School in 1983.

24:58 Now, he kind of played with the concept of college for a bit and running and rolls and nickel State University and Thibodeau. For computer science. Ronald did not focus on school at all. He was enchanted by the openly gay population of students and all the different organizations he could join. It was okay to be out at school. Well, not quite the gay community in Louisiana wasn't its egg form, very small and a very specific type of person that they was allowed to be out and proud. And I'll just be blunt. There's a word that I want to use here that I know gay folks have reclaimed, but I'll know if it's a my word to reclaim since I'm not a queer man.

25:47 So I'm going to just say that these are very hot young studs who are skinny And people who are gay, will know the word that I mean, okay. And other people just know that these the kind of guys who talk about their thin, they're like fit their law on the shorter side and definitely hot since the people who were allowed who know who were it were more out, we're definitely not the chubby awkward singers. So Ronald did not find his tribe. And in fact, he was very off-putting to many of the folks in the community who met him. Like during his first year at school, they had like a Pride Celebration and he like did a Patti LaBelle impression and everybody was like this is weird. He was he was doing like cross-dressing try to do drag at the local gay clubs and nobody who promised it at all. He actually stopped hanging out with the gay kids and stopped hanging out with anybody.

26:55 You got it assessed with like making crank calls from his house. And on June 12th 1985 he was charged with telephone harassment. It was a seventy five dollar, fine, and he was warned to stop calling people and being creepy and sexual on the phone. Who know? That's not a prank call. The he know. That's why I said it was telephone harassment. He was calling people and being nasty. Oh my God. Now, back in the trailer park, though, he was beloved by his neighbor's, he crafted this public Persona of being the super nice guy, he volunteered with the elderly help, anybody, who asks he never really found his footing, though.

27:36 He worked odd jobs. Obviously lives in a double-wide with his mom and sister until he could afford his own and pretty much all of his adult life was like this. Now Ronald did do drugs and he also sold drugs to make extra money that's actually the first time. So the first time, he was reported to the police in regards to sexual crimes was in 1993. A local Drifter went to the police and said that Ronald raped him at gunpoint. He said he met Ronald about two days before the attacks, they discussed a we buy. He went around Taos and he said that run was real antsy and kept saying, he want to show him where his stash was. So he was like, just waiting this room and then I'll tell you, I'm ready. And so he was like, I'm ready and then like he walked into the guy.

28:21 So the guy walks in Reynolds bathroom. And there was a gun in his face, he said that Ronald cuffed him removed, his clothes and raped him. Then he took off the handcuffs and told the guy to get out of his house. This would have seemed like an open-and-shut case, right? But in 1993, the police and Thibodeaux had never had a case of a rare, a man raping another man, and this is went in his 70s still, right? Well, no. Now we're in 1993, all 93. Okay, so, I mean, even still like the police. They're just little bigger in 93, but everything's not San Francisco. Yeah. So, unless a cops in the 90s or whenever there's Just like a little. Yeah, if you don't touching gay scenes, a crime scene, they didn't do anything.

29:14 Ronald fell back. Things were really low-key. He just did, he went, he did odd jobs and then He went home, he drank a lot of alcohol. The next time he gets in trouble is May of 1984, he gets a DWI again, only a fine. Now the next big moment and Ronald will consider this to be one of the most poignant of his life. But August 25th. 1996, a half-naked young guy jumps out of the window of the trailer and runs to the neighbors and says that Ronald tried to rape and kill him.

29:56 He said he'd been tied up held at knifepoint and raped. The police may not have been well versed in dealing with male rape cases, but they sure knew what to do with an attempted murder and he was arrested in his bail, was set at 100 thousand dollars, there you go. I guess that that works that works. Now while awaiting trial, Ronald is left in gen pop and brutally raped on a near constant basis in prison frequently having to go to the infirmary from beatings, having his rectum stitched from how bad the assaults were. Ronald said after he was caught later on, that prison was when he decided that he was never going back to jail and that he was going to kill the next person. He raped to make sure he didn't go back. Wow.

30:48 So that happened in May of 96 rate. So, by November of 96 he's just getting raped like every day in prison and the prosecution is trying to put together a case. And finally the judge is just like you can't keep this man in prison indefinitely and the prosecutor is just like we can't find the victim. The kid was gone. They couldn't even prove his identity based on the information that he had told to the police, the day that he told them. That Ronald had raped him. Well no victim. There's no trialed. Ronald is released. He left prison a better man with severe resentment toward the justice system.

31:31 He said he'd been wrongly accused and they had allowed him to be abused and prison based on lies. And he began killing people, nine months after his release. David Mitchell was 19 years old on July 13th. 1997, when he went missing, he was this really vibrant. Happy guy. Who was last seen at a family birthday party when he didn't make it to work the following Monday. People were alarmed, David worked at the st. Charles Parish Hospital, and he loved his job, and he was never late didn't matter if he had a hard party and weekend before and he was hungover.

32:13 He was always on time. David's boss called his mom and his mom called his sister. And the two were actually like roommates, they were living together. And so the sister went to her brother's room and she was just like his uniform and his hospital. His Hospital ID are still in the house. So now here's the worst thing that happened. Okay. The family is it's like what the following Monday the family is freaking out there calling people to trying to figure. They're contacting his friends before the police could contact the family. A news report pops on TV, detailing the death of a young black man found on Interstate 310. His pants were pulled down and he'd been strangled.

32:55 The news actually showed the body. Oh my God. And David's sister saw his corpse live on television. That is wild. Excuse me. That's wild. He had been severely, beaten, and strangled and The family was traumatized, obviously. Yeah, I said that based on the image on scream, it looked like he'd been screaming when he died. Damn, the Mitchell Family wouldn't learn what actually happened to him until 2006, Ronald would tell the police that he met David at a gay bar, but that this wasn't consensual by any means.

33:41 He said that Ronald could convey. Ronald said, he convince David to leave the bar under false A pretense probably to smoke and then when they were away from people, Ronald raped, him strangled, him dumped him on the side of the road. After the first kill Ronald laid low, it was all over the news and despite the fact that he wasn't a suspect, he was still a little worried. He waited as long as he could before, he could strike. Again, that was five months. His next victim was Gary Pierre, right before Christmas. Same Mo meet the guy in the bar convince him to leave somehow go somewhere. Quiet overpower. The thinner smaller black man, rape and strangle him. So Gary was discovered, December 14th 1977 and st. Charles Parish even less is known about Larry Ranson which is very close to my last day in letter. He was 38 and he died.

34:42 July 31st, 1998's s77. I meant 97. I wrote it wrong in my notes. So that so Gary was 97 he wait, another six months. Now we have or seven. Wait six yeah to kill Larry. The issue with that was with the police Learned was that like before Larry the killers were all like early twenties teens. So with Larry now they realized okay well this person doesn't have any age range. The only thing that's consistent is that they're all skinny short black eyes. The police were still not taking the case of seriously though because the victims Were Gay and the media didn't really latch onto it either.

35:33 Now, throughout the next almost decade two, detectives are going to take a personal stake in this case. Then it's Thornton and Dawn Burger on they were both detectives with Advanced degrees a solid understanding of the streets. Louisiana, and most importantly, they didn't have any Prejudice towards gay men. The two of them were going to begin to follow these cases from 1988 until the end and they're kind of the heroes of the story, but before we can get to how it was solved, unfortunately. There's a lot more victims. The big, the first big victim of this case was Oliver. Ah, Lila Banks. He was the first that was widely publicized and attached to the name of the beige Strangler. The now the media said that he was a Drifter and transient, but he really wasn't, like, he had a stable relationship with a girlfriend.

36:23 He worked at the new dog trick Cafe. He had children who he took care of, he visited them gave them money for their care. He was close friends with his boss, Mar Paulson and I said that Ali was a really valued member of the team but unfortunately had a pretty serious drug problem and that she had to fire him right before he went missing getting fired really just made Ali depressed and there was sort of a downward spiral that eventually led him to Ronald. Now at this point, it's late 1998 and so Ronald moves from his smaller town area to the French Quarter in New Orleans. So, Where Ronald lives is like a suburb. Of New Orleans with New Orleans being, this massive Hub with lots of people that travel and move through their right. By October of 1998, Ronald is also actively hunting, like he is going to work on the daytime and then leaving and heading to French Quarter at night.

37:38 Ali needed money for his drug habit but also to survive. Sometimes Ali would pick pocket Taurus because millions of people come through Nola every year, right? He would sell some drugs, he would hustle, and occasionally. There was some some gay for pay. Actually, on the night that he went missing October 3rd 1988, he was out with his friends, a couple of gay friends, having a good time, his brother was there, too. And his brother was just like, why are you with these people and doing this and all, he's just like, listen, sometimes you meet some older gay guys who are willing to pay for the younger gay guys.

38:20 She's like, it's not that serious. It's just how I make a little money here. And there, his brothers like, all right, but But I'm, I'm gonna go home since y'all are heading to the gay club for the rest of the night. Hey, it's still Club. You can go there and party who's gonna try to pick you up? His brother, was trying to pick up somebody to get some cash so because the older brother want anything to do with that. Got you got you got you Ali was about 27. Ali more than likely saw. The sad rattled as a potential Mark at the bar. The Rawhide and Ronald saw him as a thin young black man, he could kill.

39:07 When the two went like one likely Ali approached him and Ronald made him know, he had cash, the two left the club together. Ronald said they could hook up in his car and that it was close. But in reality he had parked pretty far away. Now according to Ronald, he told Ali just to rub his thing on him. Despite the fact that Ronald Dominique was like a very grown man, the way that he talked in the police interviews and stuff is very childlike. And some ways like about sex, it was very weird, very good. And he said, yeah, he said that, Ali tried to penetrate him and that it made him mad, and he took a tire iron and be all I to death before he actually killed him.

39:51 Then he strangled Ali, who was already unconscious, He told the police that he let out a lot of the pent-up rage from when he was in prison and then he dragged Ali's body into his station wagon and dumped him and overpass under the three time. The police found Ali October 5th 1998. No, shoot, no shirt shoes. And his pants were around his ankles. This will become very consistent with every victim. Ali was ID because he had a prior history of petty. Theft, his older brother. Michael was pretty sad because he been the last to see his brother alive. I knew exactly what his brother was going to do, which was dangerous. Hmm, he related this to the police and Dennis Thornton ended up getting the case. He went to the bar and talk to everybody, he could but no one remembered who Ali left the bar.

40:39 With now, Dennis Thornton was the one to make the connection between olly Mitchell Gary and Larry, all of these victims have been dumped me in the 310 Highway. They also discovered another weird similarity. No fibers on On the bodies. No fingerprints no hair and no DNA. As at this point that they contacted the FBI and ask for a profile. Unfortunately this was there is limited information and the FBI was just like he's going to be poor white with virtually no education. And while this did describe Ronald, it also described a million other men in Louisiana.

41:21 So as the police are trying to learn about the by Strangler, Ronald goes to his job at st. Charles Parish maintenance as if nothing happened. The one thing that they do find our Ali's body are a few. Like when I say a few like, under 10 hairs and they're able to determine that, these are definitely the hairs of a Caucasian person. This is the first time out of all four murders that they got any kind of DNA evidence. Dinosaur. Denise based on the dump sites that the Killer's safe space is near the airport and Ronald did live.

42:03 Thirteen point five miles from the New Orleans International Airport. Two weeks later, the detectives are called to see the remains of 16 year old Joseph Brown, just like Ali he's found shoeless shirtless and with his pants pulled down, this was more than alarming for Thornton because he could barely get a handle on it and like he's collected evidence on this case and then Bruce Williams is has found November 27th 1998 less than a month after Joseph. Same Parish where they're looking for information on Ali and Joseph. Now he was able to get more information about Bruce who was 18 years old and very well known in the French Quarter. No, well-known enough at the locals were worried when he just disappeared.

42:46 He also had been raped and even though Thornton was open-minded about gay people, he had never experienced so much like male on male rape in a case he was just like this doesn't happen. So because these crimes happened to the last to happen, closer to the French Quarter that put them in a different County. And so New Orleans PD, reach out to FBI for a profile, that's Jefferson Parish Jefferson. Parish gets a response to this has a little bit more information. White, male, mid-30s, probable, High School, Dropout, difficulty, with social skills, which unfortunately, is the norm for like most serial killers. However, the feds confirm what Thornton believe, which is that the Kill Zone shows that he lives near the airport and that this is his safe Zone.

43:39 He like some killer specifically kill outside of where they live, but that's not Ronald. Ronald is picking places. Very close to where he lives. Now, one thing that the cops and the FEDS are confused about as at this crimes intra-racial. Most crime happens within pretty segregated racial communities. That's why most black people get mad. When you hear black on black crime, most crime is white on white black on black. Like because we even though integration happened in America, we still live in pretty segregated Community. Great, we check we stay. And so we've had like racist serial killers that were trying to further the Aryan Nation agenda and their own way, but that's not what this That's because people who are killing to, you know, cleanse the human population are not having sex with those victims, sex crimes, usually happen with those closely segregated groups, there are very few power and control sex killers that kill interracially.

44:45 Honestly, I can only think of the other one is Jeffrey Dahmer. Yes, that's that's all I thought of brought it up. Yep. Jeffrey Dahmer. Also had a thing for black men. I've personally, I will he also loved a man of color. He also kills couple Asian men, too. But personally, it's something I've wondered because I wonder if the Look specifically with the Dahmer case, I wondered if he was sexually fetishizing his victims. So it wasn't that it was a fetish. See, I just thought like when I heard it it was just like he was hunting in his area, that was his area. And that's where he lived in.

45:30 These were two men that were readily available to him. I think in the case with Ronald, though, he may have been raped by black men in prison and he was taking out his frustration on black man that he could dominate member because he's up, he's not like a tall guy but he's a big guy like and rotund. He's going after new skinny small, black m somebody that in any situation he can get a handle on them and like knock them down. So Ronald takes a break. Rather odd considering it seems like he was about to ramp up.

46:12 I mean he we were getting two weeks apart one month apart, right. The next next murder doesn't happen until May 30th. 1999 that was Manuel read. He was 21 years old, like all the other victims men and well was slim black, but something changed this time. His body was put inside of a dumpster. Ronald, with testify later that he met Manuel at a local bar, proposition him for sex, and then took me awhile to a station wagon. Ronald said that they Fooled Around and that fooling around was defined as Mutual fellatio. And then Ronald said that Manuel pushed him down and entered him. And of course, he grabbed his tire iron and beat Manuel and strangle him afterward. This Probably sounds familiar, doesn't it? Exactly like what he said about the other guy? Yeah.

47:01 Yeah. Which made the people that were executing this think that he was in a fantasy. When this happened, this fantasy of him, taking back, you know, his his pride, from what happened to him and present because Manuel was also raped. But in this, the story that Ronald told he didn't see that happened. So part of these unfortunately we only get like a partial bit of closure with him being honest about some of these murders because he's a little bit delusional. One month later June thirtieth nineteen ninety two, twenty one-year-old Angel mayhaw was found laying in front of a dumpster. Angel was another black man struggling and doing what he could to make ends meet and had a bad run of luck meeting Ronald as one of his clients.

47:56 Angela's victim. Number 8. Now, interestingly enough. One thing happens here. Angel dies and the media suddenly becomes very interested in this case. The copper of the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper in blazing with bold. Black letters, shoeless body could be work of serial killer. For some reason, the media fixates on the fact that all of these victims are met, or a lot of the victims are missing shoes, and then they start writing in the newspapers that all of the victims are missing shoes. Why did it take you so long to mention that? Well, one, it wasn't true but to I just think it's really interesting because I would have assumed that the papers would have been like, can we talk about this whole gay murder thing happening? I guess, I guess that.

48:46 Nope, no article after article about victims, missing shoes. And if this was the killer signature, But it wasn't true. Well, no not all of them are missing shoes. I think that the shoes just fell off as he was dragging, their bodies around his once he was done with them, he didn't particularly care. So it's not like a trophy thingy, take their shoes and then like put him in his closet or something like that. No, the murders didn't happen at the dump site today more than likely got lost in the process. Right? Okay. Now the wait for the next kill is two months. This is Mitchell Johnson. He's 34 a bit older than the others but Ronald Tell the police later that Mitchell was just his type Mitchell was well-built lean muscle and he was dumped just a few feet away from where Ali was dumped in the middle of the August, heat in New Orleans.

49:42 This was a move Rife with arrogance. The police weren't sure if he was stupid or if he was taunting them. For not being able to find him. Ronald would later tell the police he made the body dumps so public because he wanted the recognition Using Ali's dump site was, so they knew it was him and he'd be able to watch them cover the case. Oh, Now the autopsy comes back like all the others raped and strangled, but there were Witnesses this time who had seen Mitchell in the city of Jenner, and they remembered seeing a weird. Chubby white guy with a receding hairline and puffy cheeks who was cruising the area. Now, for people who don't know, cruising kind of came up during like the early days of gay stuff, which is when it was illegal for gay clubs and lounges to exist. So, when gay guys wanted to find somebody to hook up with they went And so they would go to a place, that was only known among gay people to look for other gay men, as gay clubs expanded and cruising spots declined, it exists in more of a modern term as looking for prostitutes.

50:57 And so essentially, if he's cruising, he's looking for folks who are willing to pay to play, Sketch though. We get the first sketch November of 1989 the hairline the round face and the cheeks. Make for a very distinctive sketch. It was on every newspaper. Coincidentally Ronald abruptly, quit his job, packed up his mobile home and moved to the town of Hama, which is about 58 miles away, and very south in Louisiana right into the Gulf of Mexico. He requested to park his mobile home on his sister. Laney and her husband's property that she didn't mind. She had seen her brother in a while. While since she's moved out of the area, he told her he was just looking for a change but how much was just as poor as the town of boot?

51:47 And so he hadn't really changed in terms of where he was living. Just another small, poor town. So, Ronald gets a job working at Cairo produce and he's a stellar employee. No, write-ups, to attendance issues. He perfected, the personality of being the nice guy, who helps everyone that everybody forgets about. He took every shift from his co-workers needed, he did what he did. Fast outside of murder and that was become invisible. Most people aren't checking for the portly guy who silently bags, your groceries and nods his head. One of the most interesting things though was that if Ronald had stopped killing right now, it is very likely that the beige Strangler murders would have never been solved. But obviously, he did not stop because serial killers are addicts?

52:36 23 year-old Mitchell. Vincent went missing New Year's Eve 1999. Now Mitchell was an Old Pro in terms of being in criminal. He went by a, he had an alias, which was Chris Vincent. He was known to look the forced Parish PD as someone, who often got caught trading sex for cash. He was 57 lean dark skin with a mustache and it Goatee. He ever only really gotten into trouble for aggravated battery. Otherwise, his record was just misdemeanors and the police usually didn't care enough to try and put somebody away for something as simple as, you know, two guys trying to bang each other. On Jane. On January first though. Mitchell was dumped on a barbed wire fence on Highway 7 because of the holiday we also have she couldn't be done until January 3rd and there was no forensic evidence left behind, but there were a couple key.

53:30 Differences, Mitchell have been tied up before he was raped. There were also abrasions on his upper, right chest to cuts on the lower right side and a small abrasion to his scrotum the cuts were confusing until they discovered that he did have crack cocaine in his pockets. They wonder if maybe the cuts were like a site. To inject incur. The abrasions were from him being dragged on the ground so they were like, we need to build a task force, this killer is on the move, so don Burger on lived in Hama and that's how she and Dennis would meet through this task force.

54:20 The problem was, as quickly as the task force is put together, it's canceled, because absolutely nothing happens. Next Nothing no more murders. Donald just stops for two years. For. So they're like listen we can't put money towards a case where nothing's happening. Yeah so you all go back to your cities and go back to your jobs and I guess if he murders again, we'll get back on this. Dennis. However could not let that go. He started looking at some other cases. Now there was a guy in Kansas who had killed 10 people and just stopped he called himself. The BTK killer that guy wasn't this guy because well then is Raider killed women.

55:08 But the questions Still up in the air, did the bay, you stranglers give steeds Dennis started checking every piece of information. He could get his hands on to see if there were any other thin young, adult black men who were raped and strangled anywhere else in the United States and mind you. This is all on his own time, he's the regular like the police were like, there's nothing you can look at. So he's doing his regular police work and then on the side, doing his serial killer research. Now, Ronald stayed out of the police Limelight until February 10th 2002. He was at a Mardi, Gras celebration and he slapped a woman because he said that she'd hit a baby stroller in the parking lot with a car.

55:52 The two argued it got hot and then he hit her. Believe it or not, this is really uncommon. Usually serial killers who have a criminal past, right? But they tend to stay out of the legal system while they are, actively killing the police made a deal with Ronald, obviously, not realizing that they had the by Strangler and their hands and said of a trial. He went to something called The Parish offenders program. This was alternative sentencing and it was really popular in the early 2000s. The idea, Was to keep low level offenders out of prison and save space for the rapists and murderers and Drug traffickers. Also it saves a lot of money. Ronald put on his nice guy, smile and he became the number one offender.

56:38 In the program, he meant all conditions and was released in October of 2002. Now during his break, Ronald continue his work at the produce store but he took a second job at Domino's Which means there are people who are alive, who got their pizza delivered, by the bay you Strangler. Oh my God, having two jobs did take up most of his time and it did keep him from crime in on the weekends. He volunteered the Lions Club, he called Bingo numbers for the senior citizens, he had turned himself into a model citizen. The problem was, of course that by. Now, Ronald love the sex but he loved killing more.

57:20 He had a taste for the blood and that the cops weren't sticking around him. He decided that he wanted the opportunity to be with his kills, a little longer. He had discovered all kinds of places in how Mama as a pizza delivery driver. So he settled on an empty. Open area with the unknowing help of his brother-in-law. Sam Trimble Sam worked at a shipyard and Ronald was like that is the perfect place. Ace. So with all that extra money that he was bringing in, he bought a second smaller trailer and drove it to a field near the shipyard. And that was when he started hunting again. This time though, he was like, I didn't care if they were gay or straight, I'd offer them drugs or sex just to get them into my car.

58:10 Oh wow, his next victim with Kenneth Fitzgerald. Randolph jr. He was 20 years old, born and raised in beyou blue. Interestingly enough, despite all the cruising that Ronald was doing looking for victims, he ended up picking up somebody who lived only a couple of blocks away from him, but this wasn't suspicious because Kenneth had a real bad criminal past. The other things that were different with this one was that Kenneth was about 510 150 pounds, so taller and a little bit bigger than the guys who run up normally when, after so death, but it's tight. Not the norm. Also, very young, if he said that man, in his 30s were more his type, but Kenneth had first gotten in trouble for having sex with a minor and he was arrested for carnal knowledge of a child, then he got criminal damage of property and then he got arrested again for sex with a child and spent a year in prison where he got released and walked right into the waiting arms of Ronald Dominique.

59:15 So Kenneth the pedophile met up with Ronald the serial killer They found Candace body in the sugar, cane fields of Lafourche Parish October 6, 2002. He was completely nude and even though it hadn't been there for very long, decomp is very fast and the Louisiana climate. The killer had posed this body. So that his butt was lifted up in the air and he was face down. Just like all the others though. He had been strangled and raped and just like Mitchell Vincent. He had been tied up while he was alive and choked Twice first with a rope. And then by hand, they wrote this down the choking, obviously meant something important to the killer.

1:00:00 What I think is that he probably needed the Rope. to do it because Kenneth was a bigger guy, a rope, the Rope, probably, he probably did it from behind and he choked him until he passed out and then because he needed the to get him off, he did it by hand, so that he could get the thrill of the killing from that, but that he wasn't able to hold Kenneth down, Being that this was a bigger guy than right retail. Even though we have all these murders, FEI Yue Strangler doesn't make the prep because the u.s. is currently embroiled in the war in the Middle East. So the u.s.

1:00:47 Press is obsessed with conversations about that Kansas has the country's ear as far as serial. Killers go. Nobody seemed to really care about Terrebonne Parish except for a couple loan cops, who were bothered by this? Dude's Brazen Behavior. He's like he is really ballsy. Here. Oh my God. Six days later rods on the hunt. Again, Anoka Jones is the next victor victim now Anoka was 26 and he had a pretty hard life of being poor and doing crime to get by. He had been arrested multiple times throughout his life for Deft and drugs and Battery. But he had a girlfriend now and he wanted to do right by her.

1:01:27 He wanted to be a good man for Shelly Weston. They lived in an apartment on Fremont Street and Anoka had gone out to get some smoke. Oaks he was right on his bike around 8 p.m. to the local Corner Store. When Ronald saw him, Now what Witnesses say they saw was that Noca as he liked to call himself stopped, talk to the guy through the Wyndham and then drove back home. Z, he went home. He told Shelly, he loved her and then he told her, he was going to smoke outside again. This time, however, Shelly understood, the subtext. She knew that when he said at this time and meant that he was going to be gone for a bit doing something that he didn't want her to know about know, somebody should we doing got it, two hours later, Ronald was driving around.

1:02:14 How mama with no cos dead body in his backseat. He drove all the way back home to booth. And dropped. No. Cos body on the side of the road of the 310 Highway. His remains were found on October 13 by a passing police officer. The Cavalry of course arrived taking fingerprints from everything and anything they could find taking all the pictures. They had his name and address by the afternoon. October 14th. They arrived at Shelley Weston's house with a mug shot and she just started crying. Because she knew that that meant he was probably dead. That's been gone all night. If like if there's one thing that bothers me, the most, when you tell me stories about serial killers is it's it's that like one of their victims ends up being someone who's trying to get their life together.

1:03:11 You know, they're on the road in order to get their life together, you're doing this because stuff and then they end up fucking dead. Yeah. I mean it's weird because naoko on one hand, he wanted to get better for this. This new woman in his life, but on the other hand, The thing that got him killed, was him trying to do a drug deal with Ronald Dominique. So he still couldn't leave it behind and unfortunately that was the thing that got him in the end. Yeah. That should just breaks my heart. The police of Lafourche Parish first looked into the idea that this was a drug murder because of milk, has known history was selling, but eventually they ended up connecting it to Dennis Thornton.

1:03:51 It's kind of hilarious. They kind of ambushed him one day at his police. Precinct with their case and they were like this is like yours. He's just in his office and cops from three different parishes arrived and they all sit down and compare notes and they come to the same conclusion. It's the same guy. Now, back in Terrebonne, Parish Ronald decides, it's time to go. He hooked a little trailer out in the shipyard to his car, a Sonoma and then he headed out of town. It was time to find a new place to live and to hunt so between the last murder. And the one that's coming up a significant amount of time ends. The next one wouldn't be until May 24th 2003 and pretty much what happens here is that Ronald moves back in with his mom and his sister before.

1:04:52 He had like his own trailer and I don't know what he did with it. I'm like, did he sell it didn't have too much evidence in it but regardless, pretty much for the next three years he's going to be living with his mom, okay? The next murder is, May 24th 2003, a big gap between October. But the victim was to Truro, Woods, 19 years old. He had recently been released from prison and he hadn't really learned too much in prison. Hmm. He told some of his cousins and he was going to move in with his girlfriend, but the real issue as to why he needed to move is that he had broken into somebody's house and the homeowner instead of calling the police contacted your Trail and told him, if I don't get my rings back.

1:05:45 I'm going to show up to your mom's house and I'm going to kill everyone inside. Oh damn, the the person apparently he had been robbing the same guy. Over and over this man lives on the corner of Elder Street, and he was just sick and tired of it. What? And like. So he told his mom, he's like, hey, you know, I need to go do some things. I'm gonna go move in with my girlfriend, and his mom was like, no, I know, you're up to no good. She's like, please don't leave. She said you had an appointment on May 27th with the Social Security office. He was like, fuck the Social Security office. He got her some water.

1:06:25 And he left the house. He was like, I need to go make some money to pay this man because he's going to kill me for stealing from him. He of course, never made it back to his mom's house or to that appointment. He actually never made it to go get the money that he needed to pay the guy back. He was found a few days later by two cousins who were at three Wheeling off of Highway 56. They told the press that the body looked puffy. And they did. I mean this was 2003 so cell phones weren't super common at this point, but some people had them. Some people didn't these two were younger and didn't have them. I think in 2003 it was a little uncommon for a young people to have phones. It was more of a like grown-ups.

1:07:11 I think I got my mom's leftover, Nokia brick, probably around 2004. And it was mainly because I was take like the Dork that I am. I was taking an extra class at school, good writing class during the summer and it was so funny, like, you're in summer school. And I'm like, no, no, no, this is extra work because that's the kind of child that I was. And my mom gave me the phone so that I could call and let her know when I got out, when I got on the bus etcetera, Etc, because she was worried. So like I was 16 then though, so it was It was kind of uncommon it like young. Like 10, 12 year, olds had cell phones back then. So those two drove, their little bikes to a nearby casino and told like the first person they saw the casino, we found a dead body and the casino called the police. And they took the police back over to Charles body. His bike was with him.

1:08:15 See the night before he had gone to, his plan was to stop by his friends house. Pick up his bike. Then head over sell some drugs and then I'm guessing give that drug money to the guy who he stole the Rings and sold them. So somewhere between getting the bike from his friends house, he went missing and because he had this bike at him when he died, interestingly enough, there was no dirt on the bike Treads. There were no, he didn't have issues but there was no dirt on his socks. It May and it had been very dry for the past few days about 85 degrees so they couldn't figure out why there was a strange liquid around the body.

1:09:01 Like he had been submerged at some point, but it where he was found was bone dry. He had been stripped of any and all of his identification actually kind of sadly one of the detectives that was called like turned him over because he was face down and realized that he neutral and his mother and so that detective technically was able to identify him, but he still had to go to the mom's house to get a positive ID from a family room, a relative So, the police focused on the man, he robbed his efforts because, like, you know, he stole from you repeatedly. And you did say you were going to kill him, but that man had a solid Alibi.

1:09:46 They talked to his friend, Gary, the one who he had given him a ride to go pick up his bike. Gary was like, he left on his bike, that was all. They had their eventually, they linked him to the other killings and realized that this is work of a serial killer and not somebody who knew Detroit even though he was in a lot of like, Just trouble all the time. Right? Right now, January of 2004 comes and Ronald gets laid off from the produce store. He had got he gets a job working at Gulf Coast maintenance and how am I? But he only stayed for about six months then he gets his next job as a meter reader and that was perfect for Ronald. He didn't kill during this time at all, but he definitely did. why's that, if he Killed stopped picked a new town. This was the method to keep the police kind of confused. At least for now.

1:10:47 Now while he's at work as a meter reader, he realizes that he's finding all these really good locations and he can like Prospect, but he knew he couldn't write it down because if he wrote it down that, proved that it was first-degree murder. And he was planning it, but he just kind of made a mental note. Note as he drove around different places in Terrebonne Parish, he's like, oh, that'd be a good dump site. and of course, since he had stopped, killing from May of 2003 on And it's now January. The police aren't kind of stumped by this time. January 2004.

1:11:31 There have been 13. Murders across five different parishes but they didn't know the details just yet. Unfortunately, none of them like knew that if they just checked the boot database, they would have found that he was charged with attempted rape years ago. At this point, Dennis Thornton detective starts reaching out. He's like, listen, I know you were going to do a task force before and that didn't really work out but this time we have a lot more evidence and there's a lot more bad. So he starts kind of hammer in the state. He's like listen, I want us to do a real task force this time. Well, that's going on Ronald strikes again, but it's October of 2004, everybody's trying to prep for tropical storm Matthew which is Kickin south Louisiana in the but there's like 80 mile an hour winds and here's Ronald driving around looking for somebody to murder.

1:12:38 So they find Larry Matthews body near a pond and day. Almonds, the man who found it was Jeff Mauro. And he was a banker, and he also didn't have a cell phone, so he drove home. And he knocked on his neighbor's door. His neighbor was Don Jerome, who was a criminologist for the sheriff's office in st. Charles Parish. Oh my God. So don calls the police and he's like, I'm going there right away. He makes it in about 20 minutes, he determines, if the remains are fresh due to a lack of rigor mortis, he checks the pockets, there's nothing there. The body was wet. And so, of course, he goes, he probably dumped him during the storm and attempt to, you know, have the rain beat any sort of evidence off of him.

1:13:26 He liked this boy, they said the the storm that like the rain was sometimes going like sideways. Oh damn, I love that sideways rain. So He ends up using his little digital camera that he has to take as many pictures as he can of everything, while he waits for the detectives to show up. The autopsy is the next day. They learned that he had been killed with the tremendous amount of force and the overkill was significant, he had bruises on his shoulders, his back, his behind his head, the corner. However, then did a drug test and was like, ah, this must have been an overdose and actually listed on his death certificate was not death certificate but to go that's the term that I know. But I've been told by people in the field you don't call it a death certificate but it's a it looks like the things that happen to your body and how you likely died. He writes it was an accidental overdose and I'm like, buddy. You just said that He was beat like, to crap before he died. What do you mean he OD'd?

1:14:33 Are you thinking like a Coroner's report, something like that? Darn it. No, don't look it up. I'm just asking just a lot of morticians and people like that and Interesting. I was just thinking it was like nothing. I heard people say, Yeah. No dash is the morticians. This is okay. Okay. I think you're right. It's a Coroner's report. But yeah, so they he puts in his report though.

1:15:14 This is accident accident overdose, which I feel kind of contradicts all these abrasions and bruises all over Larry body painter. Also doesn't write on the report if the victim was raped or not. And then in a strange case that his prints come back and they find out that he's from Thibodaux. so, he's from the same town, where Ronald grew up He's and he's also 46 years old, which is the oldest victim that they have had so far. So they contact, Larry's brother, who tells them that he hadn't seen his brother for three or four days. Then I got it.

1:16:00 There's all that could explain to you is that this was a wild goose chase. They followed every lead possible and they did determine that. Like at one point. There is a friend's house with a bunch of random white people and that he had walked out of his friends house. After drinking and playing cards and just never come back. They closed the case and determined that at some point he must have gone and gotten drugs and done too many drugs and what? So that really October, I'm just thinking like, damn, okay, so you did all the drugs. You probably just fell down the stairs or something like that. That's probably what happened. That's where all the bruises came from.

1:16:40 I mean, later on, we learned that Ronald. Absolutely did get people. Hi. So it's very possible that what actually killed him was the overdose but that all the other stuff still happen he was still strangled and still you didn't mean it just happened postmortem. Yeah. It's very plausible like he was doing. Ronald is doing everything to get the people in his cars. You want to, you know, hang out. You want to party, you pay, you know, I could pay you. If you're we do some stuff like it didn't matter. He was trying to find any angle to get somebody. In his car. But we're not of October yet. October 24th 2004 the severely decomposed remains of Michael Barnett are found that a gator storage by the owner Dirk Guidry and his wife Wendy now gator stores didn't have much security No Electronic gate you kind of paid your money, stored your stuff and nobody bothered anybody else. They didn't think they needed any fancy security system but the day in question, when D is on site and she gets a report from one of her staff that there's a unit that smells bad and You know, that's not uncommon in the world of storage facilities.

1:17:49 Like sometimes people do plug in like a frigerator. And some people are living at a storage units, right? Regardless, she walks up to the one that smells foul and it doesn't have a lock. It was secured with a twist tie, so she just pulled it off and let herself in. Wendy described the Decay on the body. So bad. She said he look like this. This person look, he was easily in his 50s. Now, so don Burger on and Simon, Fryman are put on the case. They couldn't determine how he died because he'd been there for so long and someone came and reported Michael Barnett missing. They didn't think too much of it because Michael was only 21 and this body they had looked way way older but what they decide to do is take photos of the tattoos that were on hand and they took those two local artists and one of the artist was like yeah I know that guy his name is Michael Barnett and they were like wow.

1:18:57 Wow. Well apparently he'd been sit in that storage locker for a whole month. Oh my God. And even though fall in New Orleans is pretty nice, sitting inside of a metal storage locker, even it only 75 degrees speeds the decomposition process. Just like everybody else. They go through every lead and and Dawn wonders. Could this be the victim of a Strangler? But there's no proof. Ronald goes into hibernation again. Dennis Thornton is going crazy, trying to piece together. This puzzle. Still, the media is not making a connection either, and to put this into perspective, for people who are listening, as of 2005, Ronald Dominique had killed as many people as Jeffrey Dahmer. But there was none of the media outrage or even interest. The local police department was less worried about the stats as a serial killer, and was just like, well, let's focus on the fact that he's killing and Bay, you blue, Terrebonne, Parish and has been since 2003, he must live here. So they brought in everybody with a sex crime, like a conviction in Terrebonne, Parish to talk to them. The problem is wrong.

1:20:17 Donald didn't get caught in Terrebonne Parish and he didn't get convicted. So he wouldn't be on the conviction list. He wouldn't even be on the attempted list. Because it's the wrong Parish. So like what they're doing the right thing, but it's not being expanded. And now, right? You just searching that One Singular area, you're not fixated on the area where the murders are happening. Right now, Dennis Thornton is concerned with the fact that like this serial killer is killing at almost bizarre intervals. Like normally it's very consistent. Or there's like a clump of them that happened around the same time, but like he would, you know, kill two in one month, take six months off.

1:21:07 Like normally, they can't control themselves that. Well, Hey, in later interviews Ronald would say that even though the police weren't on to him, he decides to operate as if they were and he wanted to be extra careful. So 2005 comes and February 20th. 2005 Leon loretty was discovered in halma, near the shrine Center which was this abandoned building built in about 1870, everybody called it the Shriners building He was found by Man, Steve Tim and his son who were out dirt biking in the region because there was this big wooded area between the Shriners building and a small airport that was great for just kind of you know goofing off you know pop it on the dirt piles. Right at first Steve Just saw the clothes and he was, he like stops the kids from getting closer. And at first, he thought he would like that. The person in the grass was drunk passed out because he had a bottle of beer on him and they didn't touch him because they were like, listen, sometimes when drunks get woken up, they just start swinging.

1:22:19 Yeah, yeah. So Steve called the police on his cell phone, detective, Simon Fryman got the call at his house and Simon actually cognized Leon because Leann had been interviewed during the Nokia Jones murder a couple of years before another one of Ronald's victims. now, during the time that Leon is being autopsy, Simon gets Leon's. Mom to consent to a search of her house and then she lived there and as they were looking around they found like a blood-stained behind a chair and they got a warrant and the warrant allowed the forensic team to come in and take samples. And that went to a lab Well, that's going on. Simon goes and starts talking to Lance friends and realize that he kind of went missing.

1:23:15 Sometime around February 13th. He got into a fight with his friends, over some tools and they said he stole them and he said he didn't. And so, the current friends kind of we're having a little bit of a well, we're not going to talk to you a moment and so no one had seen him after that. Now the autopsy did show that Leon was very drunk when he died and he'd also been Strangled, with some kind of a chord. They figured that, his blood alcohol level would have been so high that he wouldn't have been able to really defend himself. Now, Simon is the same environment is at the police precinct doing like the work you the paperwork because that's the stuff they never talked about, right?

1:23:59 And a woman comes in, for a different case, around the Sugar Bowl, motel and on a whim Simon, kind of shows her Leon's picture, and she's like, oh yeah, he's here a lot, the Sugar Bowl was a known spot to pick up professionals and for professionals to find John So she was able to cut their time from nine days to 36 hours. Whoo damn nice. Yeah she had seen him as frequently as a day and a half before he died. The other important detail that she was able to tell them was that she had seen Leon with a white guy, who had a limp On March 3rd.

1:24:43 They got a call from a witness saying there had been a man a maroon car that had been near the airport just standing there and that was kind of weird because this is like a small private airport and he's just around and that puts this random, weird Shifty, white guy near the remains hours before the body had been dumped. Aunt. Very good information but they didn't have enough to identify him. Right. Early April, they find them. Another man fully clothed in a wooded area, near the Lafourche Work Release Center, and Lafourche Paris detectors were used to it now and they just showed up trying to collect any evidence they could and of course there's no i.d. No evidence.

1:25:35 So LSPD puts out a bolo for people who don't know, bolo stands out stands for be on the lookout. It's a type of bulletin and instead of saying like, hey, look for this suspect. It was. Hey, is there anyone that can get us in contact with someone who recognizes this person? Yeah, and this brought in other police who saw Saw the similarities of the victims in their Parish. The autopsy showed he'd been strangled. And after his prints went through the apis database, his name came back as August Tyrell Watkins, five foot six hundred thirty pounds, 32 years old also if people don't know if is stands for the automated fingerprint identification system which is what we use in the u.s. It doesn't actually pinpoint the fingerprints like on the TV shows.

1:26:34 But what it will do is it will give the print examiner a collection to look through. Instead of like 5,000 people, it might return 24 and then they print those out and they look and they compare the prints. They have to a much smaller number so it makes the job significantly Sims year. Yeah, that's all this is. It's great information. I do like to Rouse Family actually didn't know he was missing because he'd been evicted from his home and he was struggling with housing. So everybody knew Ooh, that like Tara was living with different people and was bouncing around to different peoples houses so nobody really had an idea when he went missing, because they just assumed like, oh, he's with his aunt. Oh, he's staying at his cousin's house. Oh, he's staring at his girlfriend's house, but through talking with the neighbors and all of his friends and family, they ended up going to the woods near jack's grocery to look for a bag of his things that he carried with him. His items were found near that abandoned lot near the grocery store and they theorize that Tyrell might have met his killer while asking for food or a place to stay the last person. He lived with was a young woman who he'd been dating but she had kicked him out and was dating somebody else and that at the time that he died, he was

1:28:05 sleeping in a local tunnel. Yeah. Sorry friends told the police that they'd seen Tyrell hanging out with a white guy who drove a white truck and they found the white guy and his wife based on running the place this couple neutral because they brought it, they bought drugs from him and they were kind of, like, nervous when they talk to the police and the police were like, what you called him at multiple locations and they're like, fine, we got drugs from him. That's why we called him different places. He lived, you got us. The first like they were like do you ever let this guy drive your truck?

1:28:49 And the lady was like I would never and they were like we definitely have people who say that you he was seen driving it and you were sitting with it and the thing was apparently the couple were broken up and got back together so there might have been a little hanky-panky going on way and she didn't want to let her husband know, had happened, right right, right. I mean they followed no less than 10 leads. They learned about everything if he was going through while struggling with housing but the case stalled after everybody checked out, Now, remember how I said that Denis Norden was trying to get the police to do a task force today. Finally get one or oh buddy, we get it.

1:29:29 We get task force. All right. Oh nice, nice, nice. Now, Dennis is parish is Terrebonne and so, don, don Bergeron has her own Parish that she's dealing with ones and so ultimately the two of them kind of piece things together and they're like, all right, at this point. Now we have potentially 15 murders. We know the guys Is mobile. We know he picks up his victims on the street. It's a must be consistent motive. Across victims, that turns out to be not true. His MO is different depending on the victim. Now what originally started as a sex crimes had devolved into like just murder because they couldn't not all the bodies. They couldn't determine whether they've been assaulted or not.

1:30:12 They were very disheartened by the fact that the major media news wouldn't cover this and thing that was really interesting is because around the same time Member how I said I was looking for there not to be a crisscross of murders. There was a crisscross of murder as I forgot about Derrick Todd Lee. The Baton Rouge serial killer, who was killing in Northern Louisiana. While Ronald was killing in Southern Louisiana. Oh my God, the process was all over. Derrick, Todd Lee's case because that was a black man killing white women that sells papers Ronald, of course, was choosing black men down on their luck. Offering them, hope a place to say, or just some drugs to pass the night.

1:30:56 And therefore those cases weren't really, you know, making the yeah, no headline news right there. But finally, it's April 2005 and Dennis gets that real task force after 15 murders. So the state and vice Dennis to this massive meeting. Because he'd been the longest on the cases. He'd been following them for eight years now. And they also included Tom Lambert from ham from the how much Sheriff's Office and FBI agent from New Orleans Jack or sign Simon Fryman from Hama PD Dawn Burger on from Terrebonne Parish and her boss.

1:31:36 Major four major Vernon Booyah Booyah, there's so many friends James I had to look up. So good right now. Also they invited 14 other cops representing all six of the parishes where there were murdered Dennis was hype. He was like, we have the money now to really fun. This it's getting on the news and so, they did decide to focus on Terrebonne Parish since five of the most recent murders happen there. Both, he and Don become lead, detectives on Me on the task force, and they were chosen because of their years of looking into the case. But also the fact that the two always kind of showed initiative in a willingness to kind of think, outside the box, Don was exceptionally talented at speaking to Witnesses and potential suspects, and getting quick confessions, or statements as a police, like to call them. She said, I had a very incredible ability to soften people up and get them to just spill their guts. This was very valuable trait for this investigation because even people who weren't suspects had information to give and we didn't have the time for you to be standoffish. Give me the information.

1:32:44 Even I need so we can move on and go somewhere else. Right, that's how I always am with. People. Look, look, I got Time. Come on, come on, come on, but she did it in a way that you know, didn't make people feel standoffish. It was it was it's a talent. Unfortunately, as soon as they got themselves together, another murder happened. This time and Lafourche Parish, it was the end of April and Kirk Cunningham's. Body was found floating in a ditch. Kurt was 23 years old. And from Thibodeau, he was the first White victim. Hey, last been seen and how On April 8 but he wasn't discovered until 20 days later off of Highway 307, the apps autopsy ruled inconclusive because he's been sitting in water for days actually. Okay.

1:33:36 So because it was like a dish, it was probably not all water. So like half of his body is water. Decomposed in the other half is it's not yeah. Decomp from this point forward. They decided we need to streamline this process. We have a lot of people on this. There's no need for redundancies. So, we're going to use one crime lab for all future evidence. This will all of the evidence will only be handled by the same people. So there is no confusion as to who has it like this detective is the person who's going to carry this stuff in his car to this lab and will be that person from now on. Okay, this standardization gave everybody. The thing that they were to handle, kind of expertly at every crime scene, so there's no wasted energy. Dennis came up with the idea for them to fingerprint. All of Kurt Cunningham's body.

1:34:41 But to use different temperatures to maybe make certain things appear. He said that he got this from CSI. Oh my God, like worth a shot. To see if depending on the temperature things, you know the skin might change and you might get a usable print. Now Dennis and Dawn are digging into the current investigation and another murder happens. This time Alonzo Hogan, 23 years old st. Charles Parish July 2nd Alonzo was 28 and he was black, he was found fully dressed.

1:35:22 Ronald had gone back to an old dump site the cane field off of Highway 306. They went back to the old files, to try and find a connection between the new cases, and the old ones. How am I resident Wayne Smith? Is found in a ditch fully clothed on August 16th. So why month later off of Grand Caillou Road. This is another one that gets marked as undetermined by the coroner due to Advanced decomposition. Wayne is one of the youngest victims at only 17 years old. They use the same protocols collect as much evidence has and, you know, follow their, their plan.

1:36:06 Donald that is also root out the shoe connection. It wasn't a signature, it was just the side effect of having to move the bodies CIA. But an interesting thing was that three of the victims have been seen at the Sugar Bowl Motel just before their death. And they noticed that every victim had at least one prior criminal offense. That was an interesting pattern, too. Now it's August 28, 2005. Do you remember what happened Ryan? You said, August 28th, 2005. I don't. Well, disaster struck Louisiana Hurricane Katrina one of the five deadliest hurricanes in US.

1:36:53 History, I'm sorry, that's okay. It was a category 3. When it made landfall on the Gulf Coast on August 29th, for people who are Americans, who are listening, Louisiana, specifically New Orleans is below sea level. And the region is protected by a series of flood walls and levees that pretty much block water from going where it shouldn't. Some of these flood levees can be natural, but many of them were man-made. And on Monday, August 29th, there were over 50 failures in the walls and 80% of New Orleans and all of st. Bernard Parish flooded, you're talking tens of billions of gallons of water from the Atlantic Ocean, flooding over 100,000 homes and businesses.

1:37:35 It is considered to be one of the costliest, natural disasters in US history, costing over 100 billion dollars God. And the thing is, if you're from the south, I give her somebody who's listening from the south like Like, at one point, one of my family members lived in Port, not with a. What's the bottommost town in Florida? I forget what it's called acute was. It's one of the keys. Yeah, income like it's they're so used to hurricanes that. They just like stack up there sandbags and then they drive away and they tow back to the mainland. Like they're just used to them happening, like every 6 to 12 months and it's always like this is gonna be the First one and they're just like yeah, whatever whatever it is. It was kind of like that in New Orleans because they were used to these but the because the levy the Levee failures happened People didn't evacuate like people didn't evacuate and eight, 1836 people were killed.

1:38:39 There are a host of horrible atrocities against people that happen in the city. During this time, I mean, I remember watching there were police forcing people with kids back into flooded water while they were trying to cross a bridge because the bridge was dangerous, but like the people were like we're gonna drown that was caught on camera. There was also an entire prison that was left full of inmates and the inmates were left or drown as the guards kind of worried about their own safety. That's something that they don't like to talk about and there's a lot of history around that a lot of government in action and mismanagement happened. I could go on, but we don't have the time.

1:39:20 It took two years just to rid the city of biohazards and begin rebuilding. And when I say that, New Orleans is frequently called the city of the dead. It's notoriously haunted, and it has a host of above-ground mausoleums and beautiful cemeteries and well, those are below sea level. When the flood happened. The bodies in the ground also came out. So they were finding remains and having to try and figure out where they came from. Where these people, who drowned in the actual water are these remains from cemeteries, it took years, it's been 17 years since. And from what I understand things are mostly back to normal down there but That's good.

1:40:11 That's good to hear. Well, once the water subsided, there was another murder to deal with. Krista Ville, 40 years old and this time it was a new dump site. Assumption Parish he wasn't a typical victim. Chris was not transient. He didn't have a history of drugs or Home of my keys were homelessness, but you know, housing issues or even crime in his background, right? His family was together. His brother was a cop. He was also fully clothed and left off of Highway 1. It was almost like maybe this one was done in a Moment of desperation.

1:41:01 Interesting. And what I see as the stunning display of sort of fuckery that isn't Dawn's bosses. Begin, freaking out on the task force and saying you're taking too long. We want results. Even though it had taken them, eight years to provide, Dennis with the money to, even really pursue the cases, they were being expected to solve them immediately. Okay, thank you for the money now, we'll create some magic for you. Okay, snack. Well, luckily, the task force gets a break and that break comes in the name of a man named John. Banning John was the typical Mark for Ronald?

1:41:43 What Ronald didn't know was that John's parole officer was officer Lambert? One of the men in the task force. John was walking on the highway when he was approached by Ronald and offered sex with a girl based off of a photo. Anton was like he doesn't look very dangerous and that picture is very sexy. What's the harm in going to his house and see if she's real? So as they're Drivin, he said that Ronald talked about some weird stuff, he talked about how he was going to have to tie John up because the girls really like bashful about new guys, it was real weird. Also, he randomly talked about how there was a stigma around being gay.

1:42:30 And for some reason, when Ronald pulled into his sister's driveway, John still State, they went to the trailer. Ronald begins his routine. He tells John get undressed, Rest, and he's like, and then I'll tie you up. And John kind of took stock of the room. And was just like, there are jugs of urine in this room, which is weird, and also Stacks, and stacks of gay porn. John takes that moment and just walks out of the door. And Ronald doesn't stop him. He actually said he ran back to the highway. Wow. Okay, so Donna, Dennis are, you know, back at headquarters discussing their try to figure out like the guy that Witnesses reported Didn't seem like a big guy like yeah, he was Heavy SAT but he wasn't very tall. And like he didn't seem very strong according to Witnesses. So they're trying to figure out how is he getting these people to get in his car.

1:43:34 They had already been through every sex offender in every Parish where there was a murder. But they didn't think to talk to the Parolees and so that came up during this conversation and they they like, hey, they like they go to their squadmate Lambert and they're just like, hey, we want to go through all the Parolees and you're here. So you have the list on you, like I mean, you still working at a, his side to work their regular stuff too. And so he's just like we want to talk to all the people who are on parole in this town. Which is how John Banning ended up in the interrogation room talking to Dennis and Dawn. I guess, first he talked to Lambert and then to Dennis and on John tells them how this fat white guy pulled up on him and a black Sonoma truck, offered him, alcohol. And a crack at banging hot chick. He told them exactly where Ronald had taken them to make them to.

1:44:28 And this is so weird. But like, they all met near Ronald house and I think it's really up because you have like a regular police officer with John Banning and then you have two detectives in like suits, But they don't walk up to the door. In fact, what Dawn does is she goes up to Or Don does is she goes up to the mailbox and she begins kind of flooding through the mail and there's only one male named in the house. Ronald J Dominique.

1:45:10 They decide. They go back and they decide they want to make sure this is airtight, so they decide to just go talk to him. Like, knock on the door, they're like, hey Ronald, um, There's this guy who made kind of a charge against you, and we just want to talk to you about it. His name's John Banning and he like, filed a report, he's like, can you talk to us at the station and so they go in and Ronald tells them that he know, he's just in a kinky sex and he was having fun with the whole tied up thing. Dennis asks, run up to take a lie detector test and for the first time in their interview Ronald gets pissed and he's like what's all this about? And then it's just tries to play it off. Cool, listen.

1:45:53 To Dominique. We're just trying to clear these cases. We're working on, if you can help us, that would be wonderful. So he agrees to the polygraph then Dawn, it's just like, you know, it would help us a lot if you sign this consent form. And give us your DNA. Oh God, he agrees and they take a hair and saliva sample and they thanked him over and over again and send him on his way. And if you listen to the podcast a lot, you're like wait, what? Well, okay, so it's weird that he was so agreeable. But also the other weird thing is that they had to ask permission to get his DNA because we've had other cases, like the Grim sleeper, where they followed him to a birthday party.

1:46:40 And Told the plates and cakes that he ate off of, right. Yeah, that's because the DNA at that time. They did it wasn't as advanced as it is. Today even 10 years later. And so now we can get DNA on vert off of virtually anything. But back then we couldn't. So they went for the thing that you could get the best match on which was hair spit semen. They were like, can we can we get these? I think you can't ask him for a semen sample. He wouldn't do that, but like you never know, you never know. He see that kind of guy who probably give it up to Who knows?

1:47:20 They paint John Bannon back in and John's like no, no, no. I did not willingly go to his house. I'm not even gay. He's like I just thought the girl looked hot and I wanted to see which if she was there and so they asked John they're like, okay. So what if he had tried to stop you and Johnson, it would have been like the Civil War He click yes. No, no. So this is where he says Pearl Harbor. He said it would have been Pearl Harbor in that piece, sir. Indicating that he would have fought him. Okay? What a weird thing to say? Definitely, you know, I would have been, like, Pearl Harbor. They decide to go into a database of crimes. Just pulling people who were charged, but never convicted. And this is where they find Ronald's charges and it sounds very similar to what John Banning told them. They also found there were two other cases of sodomy against Ronald that had been dropped due to a lack of corroborating evidence.

1:48:29 The police are now. The police, from those two cases, who, talked around were brought in and they definitely remembered him. It was even though it was like the 80s, they've definitely remembered him and they said that he had a serious persecution complex about being gay. So with all this information, Dennis add-on, requested 24-hour our surveillance team, and they get denied. They're like, that's too much and you don't have enough to make that worthwhile. So they put a roadblock up near the Sugar Bowl hotel since multiple victims were found there and they regularly stop and search cars at random. Now, this does cut off one of his hunting sites, but Ronald had more and the stress of being watched by the police, was stressing him out.

1:49:22 November 5th, 2005, Nick Pelican 21 years old is working on his home when the meter reader arrives. That meter reader is Ronald Ronald straight up propositions him. And next like I do need the money and so he agrees but later and Ronald picks him up after round. Gets off of work takes him back to his trailer. Ronald would later tell the police that because his mom and sister were down the hall, he had to make sure that Nick wouldn't scream and November 9th, they discover his remains in the woods and Lafourche Parish, he had been tied. Up and to add insult to injury.

1:50:14 He had gambled and gone through the roadblock with the dead body in the back of his car. Kidding me. Ballsy is all get out. Nick's autopsy came in the word laceration, peaked Dennis's interest. He was just like, I feel like I've been reading that word a lot and so he goes through the cases and realizes that a lot of the men had lacerations Options to their back of their head. Meaning, that that was one of the ways that Ronald was subduing, them by just straight, hitting them in the back of the head with something hard. Tying them up.

1:50:55 They focus on DNA. The problem is DNA takes months but they do get a positive match. Remember all Ela Banks and how they said that there were Caucasian hairs? Yes, yes him. Yeah, they do a match but the problem was it was mitochondrial DNA, really ideally? You want what's called nuclear DNA, which is, it definitely belongs to this one person mitochondrial DNA matches. It means that this could be from anyone in Ronald's. Only, it's not the slam dunk. You want because DNA was still very new in court, and that was the kind of thing that could have could get thrown out.

1:51:39 Okay, okay, well, hold on, hold on a second. You said it could have been anybody in this family? Do you mean like his family or like his genus family? I mean, like his actual brother and Uncle a father. Okay. Well look, it you are you have this guy Who's very suspicious? Don't you think that you would like? All right okay this is close enough to being like him, why you don't? We just like just fucking take. Well what this did allow for was that 24/7 security detail. They had asked for months ago, even get approved for a helicopter.

1:52:21 Oh my God. Take 25. Yes to follow him around and take pictures from They didn't even hide that they were following him. So as they're watching him, the task force creates a timeline for all the victims. And they're trying to see, you know, based on like the yearly taxes, where Ronald is working in relationship to where the victims are picked up and where they're dropped off and it's looking really good, honestly, he's, he's always in range of these people. And the task force kind of kept watching it, like is he going to run away? Is he going to stay, you know, summer of 2006. They get their second DNA hat.

1:53:09 Angel Mejia that was based on semen. Another mitochondrial match. They're just at this point, they're watching. They're looking to see if he does anything ridiculous. Well, in October of 2006, he slips his police detail and kills Christopher center field. He was 27 years old and just like Nick also white. It was almost like he was changing his Mo to be like, look, see? That guy was killing black, guys. This new guys killing white, guys. Different God. Yeah, no idea. Are you think Ryan 23andMe, pretty much they're now calling it investigative genealogy.

1:53:54 Essentially, they were able to connect DNA of the killer to someone in a DNA, a genealogy database and that's how they were to find it really there. What they're doing now at this point is he has a pretty extensive criminal record between 1963 and 1998. Eight and so Indiana state. Police are looking to see if he did anything else. Honestly, if they can connect him to any other missing persons were there any other motels that he might have stopped by, and people went missing. So, this isn't over. They just know the name, they called him, the I-65 killer, and the thing is, I 65 runs from Gary Indiana, all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. So we're talking of a hundreds of miles on the East Coast where he could have stopped and killed people as well. Also there's no guarantee that it just stops at these three murders in one assault.

1:54:52 God can you come here? Hoping, they're hoping they can close them, some cases and give people some closure and finding out what happened to their loved ones. They also called him the days in killer because apparently he was, he like to stop at that Motel sometime. God. No. Not that easy. Yeah. Are there any other state police weren't actually able to get permission to use that database? The investigative genealogy until 2019? So this is still really, really new. That's they never had a suspect or anyone before this, they just had rant.

1:55:40 Like they just had DNA that they could link to anybody. Hmm. So I think we're just going to keep happening. So yeah, it works you This one's slightly. This is like the they're if they're at a dead end when they have elected DNA evidence and stuff like that and nothing that connected to this is like the thing they go to. Now, like we learned And with the one case I think it was not just I'll call you with the Grim sleeper you in order to get access to do that. You have to have used every other form of policing, right before they will allow you access to, what is millions of people's DNA. And a lot of people feel, a lot of ways about it. It's one of the reasons why I've never actually done a DNA test. I would like to know what percentage is what percentage. But also on the other hand, I'm like, do I want to know? If somebody I'm related to is a killer, Nah. Nah, that's okay.

1:56:47 Now I got to rethink that relationship. Can you imagine what it was like when Dennis readers daughter found out that her dad was the BTK killer? I can't imagine. I'll want that on my heart. That's okay. But what's your true crime case this week Brian? Okay, so apparently the story has been going around and I'm pretty sure if you guys have been paying attention to True Crime News, you've heard this as well. So there was an incident. I guess we can only fans model where she allegedly stabbed her boyfriend to death, in their apartment, Julie, Brian, I've seen the photos on TMZ. Homegirl is covered head to toe in blood. It is horrific.

1:57:42 One of my friends is in Miami and was literally like I've been in Miami for two weeks because she's she's down there, looking at like she has a business It's and I guess she's trying to expand and its potential. She might be able to run her business down there. I'll miss her. If she actually, they're one of our sponsors. Oh, really? The bakery? Yeah. She's in Miami right now at your service meet Cafe. Yep. I think I don't know if they're going to be stimmy temporary or something. But they've been down there for a while, but she definitely was like she posted on Facebook. She's like, I watch a lot of CSI. Miami before I came down here and now I think there's definitely a murder that just happened. I'm like, Bro. So I'm like dang but yeah, like it. Yeah, I saw the picture soon as like it's not legit like you did.

1:58:30 It says a legend in this news article so it's somebody's blood. Is it somebody's blood, who knows? Yeah. So influence our her name is Courtney claiming she's plenty plenty in another name when she was Is doing her only thing. Yeah, it's a Courtney Taylor was her other her suit for whatever her stage name and interesting question, why would you make your stage name? So close to your real name? I don't know. Like, I definitely change it all thing first and last name. Yep, absolutely. I don't know my name. My brain just said Isabella demise. That's so not a good name but it's what popped into my head. Gold Leaf is looking up.

1:59:17 She's probably there already. Right. Yeah, it's probably like I saw that somewhere on Twitter. Oh my God. But yeah. She's yeah. She's 25 years old and her her boyfriend. His name was Christian. I don't know. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. I know he's African. So he yeah, French last name. Yeah he does and he's 27 but yeah the cops they responded to a 911 call around, you know, 5:00 on Sunday at you know, at their apartment. And this is like pretty said in Miami Florida and they say they found her boyfriend. He was stabbed once in the shoulder. That's it is.

2:00:00 That's what it says. It's. Where is that blood? The way that it was like, posted all over social media over the last couple days. It's like she stabbed him to death. Like there were multiple stabbings. You know what I mean? Yeah, like 11 stabbed was Otto, dang. Yeah. It must have been like a really deep wound or somewhere like that. Lets you the artery right. Ye are exactly. That's one thing for there to be that kind of a spray that it's all over her face. Chase chest and legs. That's a no. That's an arterial spray. Yeah.

2:00:41 Yeah yeah. That's that's why all of them blood. Yep. That's rather but come from that's the only way if it was only One time. Wow. See the way the media was returning. It was that she like went full like Jason Voorhees. But yeah, he died at the hospital. Actually, he didn't even die. There. He was still alive. Yeah, he he died at the hospital. Like I said, the first thing that I saw was the TMZ pictures. The somebody took from like their apartment building across from her. The other apartment building. Yeah, we can see, right clearly. She's like sitting on the ground cuffed and there's blood on her face, her little tube. be top her sweat pants are soaked, like So, I assumed homeboy was dead dead before the police even got there. Yeah.

2:01:39 Wow. Yeah, yeah, it's wild how the media portrays things they got me. Yeah, that's all I saw. I didn't look any other articles I was like, oh, look at that. White girl killed a black man. That's that's what drew me into it. I was like, God kid. Here we go again, I'm so sorry. But yeah, they said there's the cops. That there was obviously like a physical altercation before she's she he was stabbed. So, So, like people, people like that, who are her friends, AP, said that they've seen him hit her and stuff like that. Like yeah, you know, if you girl getting just be oh wait, no, no, no, my bad.

2:02:32 I read the wrong. It says we seen her hit him and that I've never yeah. I've never seen him hit her. Gotcha, so obvious. Asleep must have been something that she was doing. Yeah. See this popped up on my Facebook timeline because people pulled a lot of his really like rude posts and Tweets. We're like like, you know, rest in peace, he did die in. That is sad, but apparently, he was one of those people who thought that, if he could net himself a beautiful white woman that made him a better person than everybody else.

2:03:16 You know, and it's kind of crappy to treat your partner to put them on a pedestal like that it's not fair to the person who's being idolized but it's also real crappy. When every opportunity you get you trash talk every other group of women, right? Yeah. So like he couldn't just be like, wow, I really love my girlfriend. It would be like I can't stand black girls, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. And I'm like, dude, nobody asked you like the such a, it's such a weird thing. And a lot of people Like a lot of do do this online and I'm just like love who you love. You ain't got a tear everybody else down, right? Like and I gotta I gotta be wrong with you. I was like that too. And so one of my friends was like, you know, when you say things like real women have curves, it kind of makes me feel sad.

2:04:01 And I was like, oh dang, I thought this was just, you know, like the fat girl, you know, acceptance rock. All right. Not thinking that like you know, all women are real, women, doesn't matter what you look like, you know, This is true, my best friends. And so I adjusted the way that I speak about certain things, like I like, what I like, and I will say that I, like the things that I like, but I'll need to talk about things. I don't like, but regardless. So, that's how he popped up on my timeline. And then when I looked him up, I saw the TMZ article but like so, where is home girl? Right now, I'm guessing some police station, or at least she got booked and bail or something. Okay, so here's a story birdie so miss Courtney, you know, she was the team Are police station, you know, after, you know, she was after the stabbing and, you know, they found her and stuff like that after a while. You know, she started saying that, you know, she's sort of saying, you know, I'm a kill myself. I'm gonna live myself stuff like that. Well, it's okay, we're not on Tick-Tock, you can actually hear.

2:05:06 It's just on other platforms, we have to come up with creative ways to say killed yourself, right? Right. Anti bullying. And Apparently in Florida, there is an act that protects people. I don't say don't say, you forget me. It protects people, obviously like okay, and it's called The Baker Act, okay? Well, and it allows law enforcement as well as doctors mental health professionals and judges to commit a person to a mental health treatment center for up to 72 hours. If a certain violent or Suicidal Tendencies, These are displayed. Okay so she's on a she's on what you call it I guess. Suicide watch mandatory hold.

2:05:52 Yeah, there you go. Okay and this happened a couple of okay but this was last Friday. So it's been a week. 72 hours is less than a week where she now Brian. It's I think she's still at the cheese. Still at the mental institution. Oh, come on. He's still there. She's dead. Okay. She was just, she probably does need mental health care. She just stabbed a man, but like Um, okay so she's not he hasn't been arraigned. No. So she was detained on April 3rd. It did. Oh wait. Okay. So this actually was it last week? This was today's the day.

2:06:36 Yeah. Okay. So it's been five days since this happened. Yeah. But so she's you know it still hold onto her. Yeah, it's funny because it says that her her content was still uploaded on the fourth after she was a team. I mean, you can schedule post to be update. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, it's a thing that can happen. Like so at the moment she's a Not face any charges for her boyfriend's. Death at all or his murder. Okay. I mean, okay and like is that's the thing that when I saw his I was like, what the fuck you talking about it? She like obviously killed him. Why is Sheena might get charges once she gets out of the suicide watch.

2:07:22 Yeah, it just it just like when I saw it, I was like Here we go again. That's wild and listen like I know that the majority of our listeners are women and I'm sure a lot of you are white women. So obviously, I'm not talking about you. But historically relationships with white women and black men have not always been the best know. I remember this is a personal story for me. Because I remember like, when I was younger or like, I don't know, start starting to date and, you know, and, you know, tell him I like him.

2:08:22 Okay. Okay. Took it. Yeah. Oh no. How would you define that time of your life? I was it was it was like my first girlfriend, my first actual girlfriend and I was just like, I'm done in love Bubble, blah, own protector of those know, you guys don't know what you're talking about.

2:09:05 She was like cheating on you and stuff. Yeah just personally like It's like one of those things I was watching a Lovecraft country last year and it occurred to me, just this pop into my head. While I was watching the show, the people who make our laws right now and grew up during Jim Crow. That makes me feel very uncomfortable and make that their formative years were when it was okay to Lynch somebody. So I think I won't feel like it feels weird to be like, maybe I'll feel better when the boomers are gone. People like, I don't know, but like like, we're still connected to all these times.

2:09:47 Historically, were terrible things happen to black people and so I still feel that caution and obviously some people don't Well, like we still live in a world where, you know, if you're cute and blond you can get away with murder so far. I hope she does it. I hope that after they release her she does face the consequences of her actions because him choosing to be in a abusive relationship. Should not have been the end of his life, right? Absolutely. He should have had the opportunity to get out and get help and heard you the same. And, you know, ultimately, when these things happen, everybody involved, the one person's Dead. The other person goes to jail and nothing gets better. And it's sad because he was just like, I guess a week away from turning 28.

2:10:36 So it's just life, cut short. Yeah. And the other thing is that this does highlight like you know I make some some silly jokes but this does highlight another situation where her friends said she hits him so he was in a position. He's in a situation where There was no good ending other than him, just walking away. Because if he hits her back he's going to prison as a black man who had a white woman. He does nothing, he ends up dying like the only the only solution here was for him to do the hardest thing to do when you're being abused which is a wave. The person you love.

2:11:18 Yeah. and you know, I can't be too judgmental there because I went through it myself so did you But today's case is one, that despite the death toll there, just wasn't a whole lot of information about it. This guy began killing in 1997. He wasn't called until you were a senior in high school Brian. Oh my God. Yeah, that this happened very much a during our life. Wait, when you were 2006 right? Yeah, that's when I graduated.

2:12:01 Yep. He was an outcast, a misfit. But he also went under the radar for about nine years. If I say the name, Ronald Dominique. Does that mean anything to you? No, really, that's okay. His other name was the Bay. You the BIOS trenkler. It's been a little over a year since I discuss any killers from Louisiana and I got to be really honest. I needed a break from the very confusing criss-crossing, killers of California. The last three cases inadvertently. Like there were just crisscross over and cases on happening. Concurrently just Cal, covering California, Killers is stressful.

2:12:46 So today we're going to talk about a guy that no one really expected much from. Well, Louisiana obviously got a little bit more than they bargained. For Ronald Joseph, Dominique was born, January 9th 1964, had a very small town in Louisiana called Thibodeau. He was one of six children Thibodeau is a really small town than and even now it only has 15,000 people who live there today. Ronald grew. Like he was born right on the cusp of change in the entire country. But he was a poor white kid from a poor, white family, in a trailer park, and a poverty stricken town. So, change change.

2:13:27 What's happened in other places? Now, his immediate childhood wasn't traumatic, there's absolutely nothing that pops up in any of the history books. But sometime during Elementary School to rumors, began to circulate and both of them were pretty terrible. The first one was that there was incest going on in the Dominique household and that Ronald had walked in on his mother and one of his brothers. The other was that Ronald told his parents that a priest, molested him and his parents didn't believe him. And of course we all learned decades later, but across the country, the Catholic church had conspired. You're too high pedophilia when it was in its ranks, right? So it's plausible that this did happen to him when he was small. And if you're wondering why I haven't mentioned a lots of his brothers or sisters or even his mother and father by name, I have no less than 10 resources for this week, and they don't mention his family's names really, which lets me know that these people don't want to be known, huh?

2:14:22 Occasionally, a name of a sister or a brother pops up later on in the story. But like, apparently people did not want to be known as being connected to this man. Now, the incest rumors and the molestation are huge part of his childhood in pre-adolescence, and they definitely have Bay are probably the first time he was introduced to the concepts of sex and sexual deviancy, which didn't help him grow up better. And he walked his way into adolescence feeling inadequate and I can adequate and struggling with his appearance and the beginning feelings of homosexuality, He was a weird kid and there was an air of absurdity about him.

2:15:09 Like when you talk to Ronald, he was always putting on a little show for anyone watching. This was him trying to like Trying to find a way to kind of mitigate the bullying make people laugh. Using the Glee Club he sang in choir. And that behavior was enough for his peers to label him as gay. What really, uh-huh. What I was supposed to be the Glee Club when I was nice. Okay, okay. He never did anyone openly and he was actively hiding any homosexuality from his peers but it did not matter. he did the painful process of masking hilly, really was to appear in normal and the other Factor was that even without people calling him gay, he was also overweight and he didn't exactly, Look good.

2:16:20 He had meddling grades and he graduated from Thibodaux High School in 1983. Now, he kind of played with the concept of college for a bit and running and rolls and nickel State University and Thibodeau. For computer science. Ronald did not focus on school at all. He was enchanted by the openly gay population of students and all the different organizations he could join. It was okay to be out at school. Well, not quite the gay community in Louisiana wasn't its egg form, very small and a very specific type of person that they was allowed to be out and proud. And I'll just be blunt.

2:17:06 There's a word that I want to use here that I know gay folks have reclaimed, but I'll know if it's a my word to reclaim since I'm not a queer man. So I'm going to just say that these are very hot young studs who are skinny And people who are gay, will know the word that I mean, okay. And other people just know that these the kind of guys who talk about their thin, they're like fit their law on the shorter side and definitely hot since the people who were allowed who know who were it were more out, we're definitely not the chubby awkward singers. So Ronald did not find his tribe. And in fact, he was very off-putting to many of the folks in the community who met him.

2:17:56 Like during his first year at school, they had like a Pride Celebration and he like did a Patti LaBelle impression and everybody was like this is weird. He was he was doing like cross-dressing try to do drag at the local gay clubs and nobody who promised it at all. He actually stopped hanging out with the gay kids and stopped hanging out with anybody. You got it assessed with like making crank calls from his house. And on June 12th 1985 he was charged with telephone harassment. It was a seventy five dollar fine and he was warned to stop calling people and being creepy and sexual on the phone, who know?

2:18:42 That's not a prank calling he know. That's why I said it was telephone harassment. He was calling people and being nasty. Oh my God. Now, back in the trailer park, though, he was beloved by his neighbor's, he crafted this public Persona of being the super nice guy, he volunteered with the elderly help, anybody, who asks, he never really found his footing, though. He worked odd jobs. Obviously lives in a double-wide with his mom and sister until he could afford his own and pretty much all of his adult life was like this. Now Ronald did do drugs and he also sold drugs to make extra money that's actually the first time. So the first time, he was reported to the police in regards to sexual crimes was in 1993. A local Drifter went to the police and said that Ronald raped him at gunpoint.

2:19:32 He said he met Ronald about two days before the attacks, they discussed a we buy. He went around Taos and he said that run was real antsy and kept saying, he want to show him where his stash was. So he was like, just waiting this room and then I'll tell you, I'm ready. And so he was like, I'm ready and then like he walked into the guy. So the guy walks in Reynolds bathroom. And there was a gun in his face, he said that Ronald cuffed him removed, his clothes and raped him. Then he took off the handcuffs and told the guy to get out of his house. This would have seemed like an open-and-shut case, right? But in 1993, the police and Thibodeaux had never had a case of a rare, a man raping another man, and this is went in his 70s still, right? Well, no.

2:20:17 Now we're in 1993, all 93. Okay, so, I mean, even still like the police. They're just little bigger in 93, but everything's not San Francisco. Yeah. So, unless a cops in the 90s or whenever there's Just like a little. Yeah, if you don't touching gay scenes, a crime scene, they didn't do anything. Ronald fell back. Things were really low-key. He just did, he went, he did odd jobs and then He went home, he drank a lot of alcohol. The next time he gets in trouble is May of 1984, he gets a DWI again, only a fine. Now the next big moment and Ronald will consider this to be one of the most poignant of his life. But August 25th. 1996, a half-naked young guy jumps out of the window of the trailer and runs to the neighbors and says that Ronald tried to rape and kill him. He said he'd been tied up held at knifepoint and raped. The police may not have been well versed in dealing with male rape cases, but they sure knew what to do with an attempted murder and he was arrested in his bail, was set at 100 thousand dollars, there you go.

2:21:37 I guess that that works that works. Now while awaiting trial, Ronald is left in gen pop and brutally raped on a near constant basis in prison frequently having to go to the infirmary from beatings, having his rectum stitched from how bad the assaults were. Ronald said after he was caught later on, that prison was when he decided that he was never going back to jail and that he was going to kill the next person. He raped to make sure he didn't go back. Wow. So that happened in May of 96 rate. So, by November of 96 he's just getting raped like every day in prison and the prosecution is trying to put together a case. And finally the judge is just like you can't keep this man in prison indefinitely and the prosecutor is just like we can't find the victim.

2:22:35 The kid was gone. They couldn't even prove his identity based on the information that he had told to the police, the day that he told them. That Ronald had raped him. Well no victim. There's no trialed. Ronald is released. He left prison a better man with severe resentment toward the justice system. He said he'd been wrongly accused and they had allowed him to be abused and prison based on lies. And he began killing people, nine months after his release. David Mitchell was 19 years old on July 13th. 1997, when he went missing, he was this really vibrant. Happy guy.

2:23:19 Who was last seen at a family birthday party when he didn't make it to work the following Monday. People were alarmed, David worked at the st. Charles Parish Hospital, and he loved his job, and he was never late didn't matter if he had a hard party and weekend before and he was hungover. He was always on time. David's boss called his mom and his mom called his sister. And the two were actually like roommates, they were living together. And so the sister went to her brother's room and she was just like his uniform and his hospital. His Hospital ID are still in the house. So now here's the worst thing that happened. Okay.

2:24:02 The family is it's like what the following Monday the family is freaking out there calling people to trying to figure. They're contacting his friends before the police could contact the family. A news report pops on TV, detailing the death of a young black man found on Interstate 310. His pants were pulled down and he'd been strangled. The news actually showed the body. Oh my God. And David's sister saw his corpse live on television. That is wild. Excuse me. That's wild. He had been severely, beaten, and strangled and The family was traumatized, obviously.

2:24:46 Yeah, I said that based on the image on scream, it looked like he'd been screaming when he died. Damn, the Mitchell Family wouldn't learn what actually happened to him until 2006, Ronald would tell the police that he met David at a gay bar, but that this wasn't consensual by any means. He said that Ronald could convey. Ronald said, he convince David to leave the bar under false A pretense probably to smoke and then when they were away from people, Ronald raped, him strangled, him dumped him on the side of the road. After the first kill Ronald laid low, it was all over the news and despite the fact that he wasn't a suspect, he was still a little worried. He waited as long as he could before, he could strike. Again, that was five months.

2:25:36 His next victim was Gary Pierre, right before Christmas. Same Mo meet the guy in the bar convince him to leave somehow go somewhere. Quiet overpower. The thinner smaller black man, rape and strangle him. So Gary was discovered, December 14th 1977 and st. Charles Parish even less is known about Larry Ranson which is very close to my last day in letter. He was 38 and he died. July 31st, 1998's s77. I meant 97. I wrote it wrong in my notes.

2:26:21 So that so Gary was Is 97 he wait another six months. Now we have or seven. Wait six yeah to kill Larry the issue with that was with the police Learned was that like before Larry the killers were all like early twenties teens. So with Larry now they realize okay well this person doesn't have any age range. The only thing that's consistent is that they're all skinny short black eyes. The police were still not taking the case of seriously though because the victims Were Gay and the media didn't really latch onto it either. Now, throughout the next almost decade two, detectives are going to take a personal stake in this case. Then it's Thornton and Dawn Burger on they were both detectives with Advanced degrees a solid understanding of the streets.

2:27:13 Louisiana, and most importantly, they didn't have any Prejudice towards gay men. The two of them were going to begin to follow these cases from 1988 until the end and they're kind of the heroes of the story, but before we can get to how it was solved, unfortunately. There's a lot more victims. The big, the first big victim of this case was Oliver. Ah, Lila Banks. He was the first that was widely publicized and attached to the name of the beige Strangler. The now the media said that he was a Drifter and transient, but he really wasn't, like, he had a stable relationship with a girlfriend. He worked at the new dog trick Cafe. He had children who he took care of, he visited them gave them money for their care.

2:27:58 He was close friends with his boss, Mar Paulson and I said that Ali was a really valued member of the team but unfortunately had a pretty serious drug problem and that she had to fire him right before he went missing getting fired really just made Ali depressed and there was sort of a downward spiral that eventually led him to Ronald. Now at this point, it's late 1998 and so Ronald moves from his smaller town area to the French Quarter in New Orleans. So, Where Ronald lives is like a suburb.

2:28:38 Of New Orleans with New Orleans being, this massive Hub with lots of people that travel and move through their right. By October of 1998, Ronald is also actively hunting, like he is going to work on the daytime and then leaving and heading to French Quarter at night. Ali needed money for his drug habit but also to survive. Sometimes Ali would pick pocket Taurus because millions of people come through Nola every year, right? He would sell some drugs, he would hustle, and occasionally. There was some some gay for pay.

2:29:25 Actually, on the night that he went missing October 3rd 1988, he was out with his friends, a couple of gay friends, having a good time, his brother was there, too. And his brother was just like, why are you with these people and doing this and all, he's just like, listen, sometimes you meet some older gay guys who are willing to pay for the younger gay guys. She's like, it's not that serious. It's just how I make a little money here. And there, his brothers like, all right, but But I'm, I'm gonna go home since y'all are heading to the gay club for the rest of the night. Hey, it's still Club. You can go there and party who's gonna try to pick you up? His brother, was trying to pick up somebody to get some cash so because the older brother want anything to do with that. Got you got you got you Ali was about 27. Ali more than likely saw.

2:30:21 The sad rattled as a potential Mark at the bar. The Rawhide and Ronald saw him as a thin young black man, he could kill. When the two went like one likely Ali approached him and Ronald made him know, he had cash, the two left the club together. Ronald said they could hook up in his car and that it was close. But in reality he had parked pretty far away. Now according to Ronald, he told Ali just to rub his thing on him. Despite the fact that Ronald Dominique was like a very grown man, the way that he talked in the police interviews and stuff is very childlike. And some ways like about sex, it was very weird, very good. And he said, yeah, he said that, Ali tried to penetrate him and that it made him mad, and he took a tire iron and be all I to death before he actually killed him. Then he strangled Ali, who was already unconscious, He told the police that he let out a lot of the pent-up rage from when he was in prison and then he dragged Ali's body into his station wagon and dumped him and overpass under the three time. The police found Ali October 5th 1998. No, shoot, no shirt shoes.

2:31:37 And his pants were around his ankles. This will become very consistent with every victim. Ali was ID because he had a prior history of petty. Theft, his older brother. Michael was pretty sad because he been the last to see his brother alive. I knew exactly what his brother was going to do, which was dangerous. Hmm, he related this to the police and Dennis Thornton ended up getting the case. He went to the bar and talk to everybody, he could but no one remembered who Ali left the bar. With now, Dennis Thornton was the one to make the connection between olly Mitchell Gary and Larry, all of these victims have been dumped me in the 310 Highway. They also discovered another weird similarity. No fibers on On the bodies.

2:32:22 No fingerprints no hair and no DNA. As at this point that they contacted the FBI and ask for a profile. Unfortunately this was there is limited information and the FBI was just like he's going to be poor white with virtually no education. And while this did describe Ronald, it also described a million other men in Louisiana. So as the police are trying to learn about the by Strangler, Ronald goes to his job at st. Charles Parish maintenance as if nothing happened. The one thing that they do find our Ali's body are a few.

2:33:03 Like when I say a few like, under 10 hairs and they're able to determine that, these are definitely the hairs of a Caucasian person. This is the first time out of all four murders that they got any kind of DNA evidence. Dinosaur. Denise based on the dump sites that the Killer's safe space is near the airport and Ronald did live. Thirteen point five miles from the New Orleans International Airport. Two weeks later, the detectives are called to see the remains of 16 year old Joseph Brown, just like Ali he's found shoeless shirtless and with his pants pulled down, this was more than alarming for Thornton because he could barely get a handle on it and like he's collected evidence on this case and then Bruce Williams is has found November 27th 1998 less than a month after Joseph. Same Parish where they're looking for information on Ali and Joseph.

2:34:02 Now he was able to get more information about Bruce who was 18 years old and very well known in the French Quarter. No, well-known enough at the locals were worried when he just disappeared. He also had been raped and even though Thornton was open-minded about gay people, he had never experienced so much like male on male rape in a case he was just like this doesn't happen. So because these crimes happened to the last to happen, closer to the French Quarter that put them in a different County. And so New Orleans PD, reach out to FBI for a profile, that's Jefferson Parish Jefferson. Parish gets a response to this has a little bit more information. White, male, mid-30s, probable, High School, Dropout, difficulty, with social skills, which unfortunately, is the norm for like most serial killers.

2:34:57 However, the feds confirm what Thornton believe, which is that the Kill Zone shows that he lives near the airport and that this is his safe Zone. He like some killer specifically kill outside of where they live, but that's not Ronald. Ronald is picking places. Very close to where he lives. Now, one thing that the cops and the FEDS are confused about as at this crimes intra-racial. Most crime happens within pretty segregated racial communities. That's why most black people get mad. When you hear black on black crime, most crime is white on white black on black. Like because we even though integration happened in America, we still live in pretty segregated Community.

2:35:44 Great, we check we stay. And so we've had like racist serial killers that were trying to further the Aryan Nation agenda and their own way, but that's not what this That's because people who are killing to, you know, cleanse the human population are not having sex with those victims, sex crimes, usually happen with those closely segregated groups, there are very few power and control sex killers that kill interracially. Honestly, I can only think of the other one is Jeffrey Dahmer. Yes, that's that's all I thought of brought it up. Yep. Jeffrey Dahmer. Also had a thing for black men.

2:36:25 I've personally, I will he also loved a man of color. He also kills couple Asian men, too. But personally, it's something I've wondered because I wonder if the Look specifically with the Dahmer case, I wondered if he was sexually fetishizing his victims. So it wasn't that it was a fetish. See, I just thought like when I heard it it was just like he was hunting in his area, that was his area. And that's where he lived in. These were two men that were readily available to him. I think in the case with Ronald, though, he may have been raped by black men in prison and he was taking out his frustration on black man that he could dominate member because he's up, he's not like a tall guy but he's a big guy like and rotund. He's going after new skinny small, black em, somebody. That in any situation, he can get a handle on them and like knock them down.

2:37:31 So Ronald takes a break. Rather odd considering it seems like he was about to ramp up. I mean he we were getting two weeks apart one month apart, right. The next next murder doesn't happen until May 30th. 1999 that was Manuel read. He was 21 years old, like all the other victims men and well was slim black, but something changed this time. His body was put inside of a dumpster. Ronald, with testify later that he met Manuel at a local bar, proposition him for sex, and then took me awhile to a station wagon. Ronald said that they Fooled Around and that fooling around was defined as Mutual fellatio. And then Ronald said that Manuel pushed him down and entered him. And of course, he grabbed his tire iron and beat Manuel and strangle him afterward.

2:38:23 This Probably sounds familiar, doesn't it? Exactly like what he said about the other guy? Yeah. Yeah. Which made the people that were executing this think that he was in a fantasy. When this happened, this fantasy of him, taking back, you know, his his pride, from what happened to him and present because Manuel was also raped. But in this, the story that Ronald told he didn't see that happened. So part of these unfortunately we only get like a partial bit of closure with him being honest about some of these murders because he's a little bit delusional. One month later June thirtieth nineteen ninety two, twenty one-year-old Angel mayhaw was found laying in front of a dumpster.

2:39:15 Angel was another black man struggling and doing what he could to make ends meet and had a bad run of luck meeting Ronald as one of his clients. Angela's victim. Number 8. Now, interestingly enough. One thing happens here. Angel dies and the media suddenly becomes very interested in this case. The copper of the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper in blazing with bold. Black letters, shoeless body could be work of serial killer. For some reason, the media fixates on the fact that all of these victims are met, or a lot of the victims are missing shoes, and then they start writing in the newspapers that all of the victims are missing shoes. Why did it take you so long to mention that? Well, one, it wasn't true but to I just think it's really interesting because I would have assumed that the papers would have been like, can we talk about this whole gay murder thing happening?

2:40:11 I guess, I guess that. Nope, no article after article about victims, missing shoes. And if this was the killer signature, But it wasn't true. Well, no not all of them are missing shoes. I think that the shoes just fell off as he was dragging, their bodies around his once he was done with them, he didn't particularly care. So it's not like a trophy thingy, take their shoes and then like put him in his closet or something like that. No, the murders didn't happen at the dump site today more than likely got lost in the process. Right? Okay. Now the wait for the next kill is two months. This is Mitchell Johnson. He's 34 a bit older than the others but Ronald Tell the police later that Mitchell was just his type Mitchell was well-built lean muscle and he was dumped just a few feet away from where Ali was dumped in the middle of the August, heat in New Orleans. This was a move Rife with arrogance. The police weren't sure if he was stupid or if he was taunting them.

2:41:17 For not being able to find him. Ronald would later tell the police he made the body dumps so public because he wanted the recognition Using Ali's dump site was, so they knew it was him and he'd be able to watch them cover the case. Oh, Now the autopsy comes back like all the others raped and strangled, but there were Witnesses this time who had seen Mitchell in the city of Jenner, and they remembered seeing a weird. Chubby white guy with a receding hairline and puffy cheeks who was cruising the area. Now, for people who don't know, cruising kind of came up during like the early days of gay stuff, which is when it was illegal for gay clubs and lounges to exist.

2:42:02 So, when gay guys wanted to find somebody to hook up with they went And so they would go to a place, that was only known among gay people to look for other gay men, as gay clubs expanded and cruising spots declined, it exists in more of a modern term as looking for prostitutes. And so essentially, if he's cruising, he's looking for folks who are willing to pay to play, Sketch though. We get the first sketch November of 1989 the hairline the round face and the cheeks. Make for a very distinctive sketch.

2:42:43 It was on every newspaper. Coincidentally Ronald abruptly, quit his job, packed up his mobile home and moved to the town of Hama, which is about 58 miles away, and very south in Louisiana right into the Gulf of Mexico. He requested to park his mobile home on his sister. Laney and her husband's property that she didn't mind. She had seen her brother in a while. While since she's moved out of the area, he told her he was just looking for a change but how much was just as poor as the town of boot? And so he hadn't really changed in terms of where he was living. Just another small, poor town. So, Ronald gets a job working at Cairo produce and he's a stellar employee. No, write-ups, to attendance issues. He perfected, the personality of being the nice guy, who helps everyone that everybody forgets about. He took every shift from his co-workers needed, he did what he did.

2:43:35 Fast outside of murder and that was become invisible. Most people aren't checking for the portly guy who silently bags, your groceries and nods his head. One of the most interesting things though was that if Ronald had stopped killing right now, it is very likely that the beige Strangler murders would have never been solved. But obviously, he did not stop because serial killers are addicts? 23 year-old Mitchell. Vincent went missing New Year's Eve 1999. Now Mitchell was an Old Pro in terms of being in criminal. He went by a, he had an alias, which was Chris Vincent.

2:44:16 He was known to look the forced Parish PD as someone, who often got caught trading sex for cash. He was 57 lean dark skin with a mustache and it Goatee. He ever only really gotten into trouble for aggravated battery. Otherwise, his record was just misdemeanors and the police usually didn't care enough to try and put somebody away for something as simple as, you know, two guys trying to bang each other. On Jane. On January first though. Mitchell was dumped on a barbed wire fence on Highway 7 because of the holiday we also have she couldn't be done until January 3rd and there was no forensic evidence left behind, but there were a couple key. Differences, Mitchell have been tied up before he was raped. There were also abrasions on his upper, right chest to cuts on the lower right side and a small abrasion to his scrotum the cuts were confusing until they discovered that he did have crack cocaine in his pockets.

2:45:18 They wonder if maybe the cuts were like a site. To inject incur. The abrasions were from him being dragged on the ground so they were like, we need to build a task force, this killer is on the move, so don Burger on lived in Hama and that's how she and Dennis would meet through this task force. The problem was, as quickly as the task force is put together, it's canceled, because absolutely nothing happens. Next Nothing no more murders.

2:46:02 Donald just stops for two years. For. So they're like listen we can't put money towards a case where nothing's happening. Yeah so you all go back to your cities and go back to your jobs and I guess if he murders again, we'll get back on this. Dennis. However could not let that go. He started looking at some other cases. Now there was a guy in Kansas who had killed 10 people and just stopped he called himself. The BTK killer that guy wasn't this guy because well then is Raider killed women. But the questions Still up in the air, did the bay, you stranglers give steeds Dennis started checking every piece of information.

2:46:42 He could get his hands on to see if there were any other thin young, adult black men who were raped and strangled anywhere else in the United States and mind you. This is all on his own time, he's the regular like the police were like, there's nothing you can look at. So he's doing his regular police work and then on the side, doing his serial killer research. Now, Ronald stayed out of the police Limelight until February 10th 2002. He was at a Mardi, Gras celebration and he slapped a woman because he said that she'd hit a baby stroller in the parking lot with a car. The two argued it got hot and then he hit her. Believe it or not, this is really uncommon. Usually serial killers who have a criminal past, right? But they tend to stay out of the legal system while they are, actively killing the police made a deal with Ronald, obviously, not realizing that they had the by Strangler and their hands and said of a trial.

2:47:43 He went to something called The Parish offenders program. This was alternative sentencing and it was really popular in the early 2000s. The idea, Was to keep low level offenders out of prison and save space for the rapists and murderers and Drug traffickers. Also it saves a lot of money. Ronald put on his nice guy, smile and he became the number one offender. In the program, he meant all conditions and was released in October of 2002. Now during his break, Ronald continue his work at the produce store but he took a second job at Domino's Which means there are people who are alive, who got their pizza delivered, by the bay you Strangler. Oh my God, having two jobs did take up most of his time and it did keep him from crime in on the weekends. He volunteered the Lions Club, he called Bingo numbers for the senior citizens, he had turned himself into a model citizen. The problem was, of course that by. Now, Ronald love the sex but he loved killing more. He had a taste for the blood and that the cops weren't sticking around him.

2:48:52 He decided that he wanted the opportunity to be with his kills, a little longer. He had discovered all kinds of places in how Mama as a pizza delivery driver. So he settled on an empty. Open area with the unknowing help of his brother-in-law. Sam Trimble Sam worked at a shipyard and Ronald was like that is the perfect place. Ace. So with all that extra money that he was bringing in, he bought a second smaller trailer and drove it to a field near the shipyard. And that was when he started hunting again. This time though, he was like, I didn't care if they were gay or straight, I'd offer them drugs or sex just to get them into my car. Oh wow, his next victim with Kenneth Fitzgerald. Randolph jr.

2:49:42 He was 20 years old, born and raised in beyou blue. Interestingly enough, despite all the cruising that Ronald was doing looking for victims, he ended up picking up somebody who lived only a couple of blocks away from him, but this wasn't suspicious because Kenneth had a real bad criminal past. The other things that were different with this one was that Kenneth was about 510 150 pounds, so taller and a little bit bigger than the guys who run up normally when, after so death, but it's tight. Not the norm. Also, very young, if he said that man, in his 30s were more his type, but Kenneth had first gotten in trouble for having sex with a minor and he was arrested for carnal knowledge of a child, then he got criminal damage of property and then he got arrested again for sex with a child and spent a year in prison where he got released and walked right into the waiting arms of Ronald Dominique. So Kenneth the pedophile met up with Ronald the serial killer They found Candace body in the sugar, cane fields of Lafourche Parish October 6, 2002.

2:50:54 He was completely nude and even though it hadn't been there for very long, decomp is very fast and the Louisiana climate. The killer had posed this body. So that his butt was lifted up in the air and he was face down. Just like all the others though. He had been strangled and raped and just like Mitchell Vincent. He had been tied up while he was alive and choked Twice first with a rope. And then by hand, they wrote this down the choking, obviously meant something important to the killer. What I think is that he probably needed the Rope. to do it because Kenneth was a bigger guy, a rope, the Rope, probably, he probably did it from behind and he choked him until he passed out and then because he needed the to get him off, he did it by hand, so that he could get the thrill of the killing from that, but that he wasn't able to hold Kenneth down, Being that this was a bigger guy than right retail. Even though we have all these murders, FEI Yue Strangler doesn't make the prep because the u.s. is currently embroiled in the war in the Middle East.

2:52:13 So the u.s. Press is obsessed with conversations about that Kansas has the country's ear as far as serial. Killers go. Nobody seemed to really care about Terrebonne Parish except for a couple loan cops, who were bothered by this? Dude's Brazen Behavior. He's like he is really ballsy. Here. Oh my God. Six days later rods on the hunt. Again, Anoka Jones is the next victor victim now Anoka was 26 and he had a pretty hard life of being poor and doing crime to get by. He had been arrested multiple times throughout his life for Deft and drugs and Battery. But he had a girlfriend now and he wanted to do right by her. He wanted to be a good man for Shelly Weston. They lived in an apartment on Fremont Street and Anoka had gone out to get some smoke.

2:53:01 Oaks he was right on his bike around 8 p.m. to the local Corner Store. When Ronald saw him, Now what Witnesses say they saw was that Noca as he liked to call himself stopped, talk to the guy through the Wyndham and then drove back home. Z, he went home. He told Shelly, he loved her and then he told her, he was going to smoke outside again. This time, however, Shelly understood, the subtext. She knew that when he said at this time and meant that he was going to be gone for a bit doing something that he didn't want her to know about know, somebody should we doing got it, two hours later, Ronald was driving around. How mama with no cos dead body in his backseat. He drove all the way back home to booth. And dropped.

2:53:49 No. Cos body on the side of the road of the 310 Highway. His remains were found on October 13 by a passing police officer. The Cavalry of course arrived taking fingerprints from everything and anything they could find taking all the pictures. They had his name and address by the afternoon. October 14th. They arrived at Shelley Weston's house with a mug shot and she just started crying. Because she knew that that meant he was probably dead. That's been gone all night. If like if there's one thing that bothers me, the most, when you tell me stories about serial killers is it's it's that like one of their victims ends up being someone who's trying to get their life together. You know, they're on the road in order to get their life together, you're doing this because stuff and then they end up fucking dead.

2:54:46 Yeah. I mean it's weird because naoko on one hand, he wanted to get better for this. This new woman in his life, but on the other hand, The thing that got him killed, was him trying to do a drug deal with Ronald Dominique. So he still couldn't leave it behind and unfortunately that was the thing that got him in the end. Yeah. That should just breaks my heart. The police of Lafourche Parish first looked into the idea that this was a drug murder because of milk, has known history was selling, but eventually they ended up connecting it to Dennis Thornton. It's kind of hilarious. They kind of ambushed him one day at his police. Precinct with their case and they were like this is like yours. He's just in his office and cops from three different parishes arrived and they all sit down and compare notes and they come to the same conclusion.

2:55:39 It's the same guy. Now, back in Terrebonne, Parish Ronald decides, it's time to go. He hooked a little trailer out in the shipyard to his car, a Sonoma and then he headed out of town. It was time to find a new place to live and to hunt so between the last murder. And the one that's coming up a significant amount of time ends. The next one wouldn't be until May 24th 2003 and pretty much what happens here is that Ronald moves back in with his mom and his sister before. He had like his own trailer and I don't know what he did with it.

2:56:24 I'm like, did he sell it didn't have too much evidence in it but regardless, pretty much for the next three years he's going to be living with his mom, okay? The next murder is, May 24th 2003, a big gap between October. But the victim was to Truro, Woods, 19 years old. He had recently been released from prison and he hadn't really learned too much in prison. Hmm. He told some of his cousins and he was going to move in with his girlfriend, but the real issue as to why he needed to move is that he had broken into somebody's house and the homeowner instead of calling the police contacted your Trail and told him, if I don't get my rings back. I'm going to show up to your mom's house and I'm going to kill everyone inside.

2:57:15 Oh damn, the the person apparently he had been robbing the same guy. Over and over this man lives on the corner of Elder Street, and he was just sick and tired of it. What? And like. So he told his mom, he's like, hey, you know, I need to go do some things. I'm gonna go move in with my girlfriend, and his mom was like, no, I know, you're up to no good. She's like, please don't leave. She said you had an appointment on May 27th with the Social Security office. He was like, fuck the Social Security office. He got her some water. And he left the house. He was like, I need to go make some money to pay this man because he's going to kill me for stealing from him.

2:58:00 He of course, never made it back to his mom's house or to that appointment. He actually never made it to go get the money that he needed to pay the guy back. He was found a few days later by two cousins who were at three Wheeling off of Highway 56. They told the press that the body looked puffy. And they did. I mean this was 2003 so cell phones weren't super common at this point, but some people had them. Some people didn't these two were younger and didn't have them. I think in 2003 it was a little uncommon for a young people to have phones. It was more of a like grown-ups. I think I got my mom's leftover, Nokia brick, probably around 2004.

2:58:49 And it was mainly because I was take like the Dork that I am. I was taking an extra class at school, good writing class during the summer and it was so funny, like, you're in summer school. And I'm like, no, no, no, this is extra work because that's the kind of child that I was. And my mom gave me the phone so that I could call and let her know when I got out, when I got on the bus etcetera, Etc, because she was worried. So like I was 16 then though, so it was It was kind of uncommon it like young. Like 10, 12 year, olds had cell phones back then. So those two drove, their little bikes to a nearby casino and told like the first person they saw the casino, we found a dead body and the casino called the police.

2:59:36 And they took the police back over to Charles body. His bike was with him. See the night before he had gone to, his plan was to stop by his friends house. Pick up his bike. Then head over sell some drugs and then I'm guessing give that drug money to the guy who he stole the Rings and sold them. So somewhere between getting the bike from his friends house, he went missing and because he had this bike at him when he died, interestingly enough, there was no dirt on the bike Treads. There were no, he didn't have issues but there was no dirt on his socks.

3:00:18 It May and it had been very dry for the past few days about 85 degrees so they couldn't figure out why there was a strange liquid around the body. Like he had been submerged at some point, but it where he was found was bone dry. He had been stripped of any and all of his identification actually kind of sadly one of the detectives that was called like turned him over because he was face down and realized that he neutral and his mother and so that detective technically was able to identify him, but he still had to go to the mom's house to get a positive ID from a family room, a relative So, the police focused on the man, he robbed his efforts because, like, you know, he stole from you repeatedly.

3:01:08 And you did say you were going to kill him, but that man had a solid Alibi. They talked to his friend, Gary, the one who he had given him a ride to go pick up his bike. Gary was like, he left on his bike, that was all. They had their eventually, they linked him to the other killings and realized that this is work of a serial killer and not somebody who knew Detroit even though he was in a lot of like, Just trouble all the time. Right? Right now, January of 2004 comes and Ronald gets laid off from the produce store. He had got he gets a job working at Gulf Coast maintenance and how am I?

3:01:52 But he only stayed for about six months then he gets his next job as a meter reader and that was perfect for Ronald. He didn't kill during this time at all, but he definitely did. why's that, if he Killed stopped picked a new town. This was the method to keep the police kind of confused. At least for now. Now while he's at work as a meter reader, he realizes that he's finding all these really good locations and he can like Prospect, but he knew he couldn't write it down because if he wrote it down that, proved that it was first-degree murder. And he was planning it, but he just kind of made a mental note. Note as he drove around different places in Terrebonne Parish, he's like, oh, that'd be a good dump site. and of course, since he had stopped, killing from May of 2003 on And it's now January.

3:02:54 The police aren't kind of stumped by this time. January 2004. There have been 13. Murders across five different parishes but they didn't know the details just yet. Unfortunately, none of them like knew that if they just checked the boot database, they would have found that he was charged with attempted rape years ago. At this point, Dennis Thornton detective starts reaching out. He's like, listen, I know you were going to do a task force before and that didn't really work out but this time we have a lot more evidence and there's a lot more bad.

3:03:36 So he starts kind of hammer in the state. He's like listen, I want us to do a real task force this time. Well, that's going on Ronald strikes again, but it's October of 2004, everybody's trying to prep for tropical storm Matthew which is Kickin south Louisiana in the but there's like 80 mile an hour winds and here's Ronald driving around looking for somebody to murder. So they find Larry Matthews body near a pond and day. Almonds, the man who found it was Jeff Mauro. And he was a banker, and he also didn't have a cell phone, so he drove home.

3:04:19 And he knocked on his neighbor's door. His neighbor was Don Jerome, who was a criminologist for the sheriff's office in st. Charles Parish. Oh my God. So don calls the police and he's like, I'm going there right away. He makes it in about 20 minutes, he determines, if the remains are fresh due to a lack of rigor mortis, he checks the pockets, there's nothing there. The body was wet. And so, of course, he goes, he probably dumped him during the storm and attempt to, you know, have the rain beat any sort of evidence off of him. He liked this boy, they said the the storm that like the rain was sometimes going like sideways. Oh damn, I love that sideways rain.

3:05:03 So He ends up using his little digital camera that he has to take as many pictures as he can of everything, while he waits for the detectives to show up. The autopsy is the next day. They learned that he had been killed with the tremendous amount of force and the overkill was significant, he had bruises on his shoulders, his back, his behind his head, the corner. However, then did a drug test and was like, ah, this must have been an overdose and actually listed on his death certificate was not death certificate but to go that's the term that I know. But I've been told by people in the field you don't call it a death certificate but it's a it looks like the things that happen to your body and how you likely died.

3:05:51 He writes it was an accidental overdose and I'm like, buddy. You just said that He was beat like, to crap before he died. What do you mean he OD'd? Are you thinking like a Coroner's report, something like that? Darn it. No, don't look it up. I'm just asking just a lot of morticians and people like that and Interesting. I was just thinking it was like nothing. I heard people say, Yeah. No dash is the morticians. This is okay.

3:06:35 Okay. I think you're right. It's a Coroner's report. But yeah, so they he puts in his report though. This is accident accident overdose, which I feel kind of contradicts all these abrasions and bruises all over Larry body painter. Also doesn't write on the report if the victim was raped or not. And then in a strange case that his prints come back and they find out that he's from Thibodaux. so, he's from the same town, where Ronald grew up He's and he's also 46 years old, which is the oldest victim that they have had so far.

3:07:17 So they contact, Larry's brother, who tells them that he hadn't seen his brother for three or four days. Then I got it. There's all that could explain to you is that this was a wild goose chase. They followed every lead possible and they did determine that. Like at one point. There is a friend's house with a bunch of random white people and that he had walked out of his friends house. After drinking and playing cards and just never come back. They closed the case and determined that at some point he must have gone and gotten drugs and done too many drugs and what? So that really October, I'm just thinking like, damn, okay, so you did all the drugs.

3:08:01 You probably just fell down the stairs or something like that. That's probably what happened. That's where all the bruises came from. I mean, later on, we learned that Ronald. Absolutely did get people. Hi. So it's very possible that what actually killed him was the overdose but that all the other stuff still happen he was still strangled and still you didn't mean it just happened postmortem. Yeah. It's very plausible like he was doing. Ronald is doing everything to get the people in his cars. You want to, you know, hang out. You want to party, you pay, you know, I could pay you. If you're we do some stuff like it didn't matter. He was trying to find any angle to get somebody. In his car. But we're not of October yet.

3:08:45 October 24th 2004 the severely decomposed remains of Michael Barnett are found that a gator storage by the owner Dirk Guidry and his wife Wendy now gator stores didn't have much security No Electronic gate you kind of paid your money, stored your stuff and nobody bothered anybody else. They didn't think they needed any fancy security system but the day in question, when D is on site and she gets a report from one of her staff that there's a unit that smells bad and You know, that's not uncommon in the world of storage facilities. Like sometimes people do plug in like a frigerator. And some people are living at a storage units, right? Regardless, she walks up to the one that smells foul and it doesn't have a lock.

3:09:31 It was secured with a twist tie, so she just pulled it off and let herself in. Wendy described the Decay on the body. So bad. She said he look like this. This person look, he was easily in his 50s. Now, so don Burger on and Simon, Fryman are put on the case. They couldn't determine how he died because he'd been there for so long and someone came and reported Michael Barnett missing. They didn't think too much of it because Michael was only 21 and this body they had looked way way older but what they decide to do is take photos of the tattoos that were on hand and they took those two local artists and one of the artist was like yeah I know that guy his name is Michael Barnett and they were like wow. Wow.

3:10:26 Well apparently he'd been sit in that storage locker for a whole month. Oh my God. And even though fall in New Orleans is pretty nice, sitting inside of a metal storage locker, even it only 75 degrees speeds the decomposition process. Just like everybody else. They go through every lead and and Dawn wonders. Could this be the victim of a Strangler? But there's no proof. Ronald goes into hibernation again. Dennis Thornton is going crazy, trying to piece together. This puzzle. Still, the media is not making a connection either, and to put this into perspective, for people who are listening, as of 2005, Ronald Dominique had killed as many people as Jeffrey Dahmer.

3:11:14 But there was none of the media outrage or even interest. The local police department was less worried about the stats as a serial killer, and was just like, well, let's focus on the fact that he's killing and Bay, you blue, Terrebonne, Parish and has been since 2003, he must live here. So they brought in everybody with a sex crime, like a conviction in Terrebonne, Parish to talk to them. The problem is wrong. Donald didn't get caught in Terrebonne Parish and he didn't get convicted. So he wouldn't be on the conviction list. He wouldn't even be on the attempted list. Because it's the wrong Parish. So like what they're doing the right thing, but it's not being expanded.

3:12:03 And now, right? You just searching that One Singular area, you're not fixated on the area where the murders are happening. Right now, Dennis Thornton is concerned with the fact that like this serial killer is killing at almost bizarre intervals. Like normally it's very consistent. Or there's like a clump of them that happened around the same time, but like he would, you know, kill two in one month, take six months off. Like normally, they can't control themselves that. Well, Hey, in later interviews Ronald would say that even though the police weren't on to him, he decides to operate as if they were and he wanted to be extra careful. So 2005 comes and February 20th.

3:12:55 2005 Leon loretty was discovered in halma, near the shrine Center which was this abandoned building built in about 1870, everybody called it the Shriners building He was found by Man, Steve Tim and his son who were out dirt biking in the region because there was this big wooded area between the Shriners building and a small airport that was great for just kind of you know goofing off you know pop it on the dirt piles. Right at first Steve Just saw the clothes and he was, he like stops the kids from getting closer. And at first, he thought he would like that. The person in the grass was drunk passed out because he had a bottle of beer on him and they didn't touch him because they were like, listen, sometimes when drunks get woken up, they just start swinging. Yeah, yeah.

3:13:48 So Steve called the police on his cell phone, detective, Simon Fryman got the call at his house and Simon actually cognized Leon because Leann had been interviewed during the Nokia Jones murder a couple of years before another one of Ronald's victims. now, during the time that Leon is being autopsy, Simon gets Leon's. Mom to consent to a search of her house and then she lived there and as they were looking around they found like a blood-stained behind a chair and they got a warrant and the warrant allowed the forensic team to come in and take samples.

3:14:29 And that went to a lab Well, that's going on. Simon goes and starts talking to Lance friends and realize that he kind of went missing. Sometime around February 13th. He got into a fight with his friends, over some tools and they said he stole them and he said he didn't. And so, the current friends kind of we're having a little bit of a well, we're not going to talk to you a moment and so no one had seen him after that. Now the autopsy did show that Leon was very drunk when he died and he'd also been Strangled, with some kind of a chord. They figured that, his blood alcohol level would have been so high that he wouldn't have been able to really defend himself. Now, Simon is the same environment is at the police precinct doing like the work you the paperwork because that's the stuff they never talked about, right? And a woman comes in, for a different case, around the Sugar Bowl, motel and on a whim Simon, kind of shows her Leon's picture, and she's like, oh yeah, he's here a lot, the Sugar Bowl was a known spot to pick up professionals and for professionals to find John So she was able to cut their time from nine days to 36 hours.

3:15:52 Whoo damn nice. Yeah she had seen him as frequently as a day and a half before he died. The other important detail that she was able to tell them was that she had seen Leon with a white guy, who had a limp On March 3rd. They got a call from a witness saying there had been a man a maroon car that had been near the airport just standing there and that was kind of weird because this is like a small private airport and he's just around and that puts this random, weird Shifty, white guy near the remains hours before the body had been dumped.

3:16:37 Aunt. Very good information but they didn't have enough to identify him. Right. Early April, they find them. Another man fully clothed in a wooded area, near the Lafourche Work Release Center, and Lafourche Paris detectors were used to it now and they just showed up trying to collect any evidence they could and of course there's no i.d. No evidence. So LSPD puts out a bolo for people who don't know, bolo stands out stands for be on the lookout. It's a type of bulletin and instead of saying like, hey, look for this suspect. It was. Hey, is there anyone that can get us in contact with someone who recognizes this person?

3:17:26 Yeah, and this brought in other police who saw Saw the similarities of the victims in their Parish. The autopsy showed he'd been strangled. And after his prints went through the apis database, his name came back as August Tyrell Watkins, five foot six hundred thirty pounds, 32 years old also if people don't know if is stands for the automated fingerprint identification system which is what we use in the u.s. It doesn't actually pinpoint the fingerprints like on the TV shows. But what it will do is it will give the print examiner a collection to look through.

3:18:08 Instead of like 5,000 people, it might return 24 and then they print those out and they look and they compare the prints. They have to a much smaller number so it makes the job significantly Sims year. Yeah, that's all this is. It's great information. I do like to Rouse Family actually didn't know he was missing because he'd been evicted from his home and he was struggling with housing. So everybody knew Ooh, that like Tara was living with different people and was bouncing around to different peoples houses so nobody really had an idea when he went missing, because they just assumed like, oh, he's with his aunt.

3:18:50 Oh, he's staying at his cousin's house. Oh, he's staring at his girlfriend's house, but through talking with the neighbors and all of his friends and family, they ended up going to the woods near jack's grocery to look for a bag of his things that he carried with him. His items were found near that abandoned lot near the grocery store and they theorize that Tyrell might have met his killer while asking for food or a place to stay the last person. He lived with was a young woman who he'd been dating but she had kicked him out and was dating somebody else and that at the time that he died, he was sleeping in a local tunnel.

3:19:40 Yeah. Sorry friends told the police that they'd seen Tyrell hanging out with a white guy who drove a white truck and they found the white guy and his wife based on running the place this couple neutral because they brought it, they bought drugs from him and they were kind of, like, nervous when they talk to the police and the police were like, what you called him at multiple locations and they're like, fine, we got drugs from him. That's why we called him different places. He lived, you got us. The first like they were like do you ever let this guy drive your truck? And the lady was like I would never and they were like we definitely have people who say that you he was seen driving it and you were sitting with it and the thing was apparently the couple were broken up and got back together so there might have been a little hanky-panky going on way and she didn't want to let her husband know, had happened, right right, right. I mean they followed no less than 10 leads. They learned about everything if he was going through while struggling with housing but the case stalled after everybody checked out, Now, remember how I said that Denis Norden was trying to get the police to do a task force today. Finally get one or oh buddy, we get it. We get task force.

3:20:58 All right. Oh nice, nice, nice. Now, Dennis is parish is Terrebonne and so, don, don Bergeron has her own Parish that she's dealing with ones and so ultimately the two of them kind of piece things together and they're like, all right, at this point. Now we have potentially 15 murders. We know the guys Is mobile. We know he picks up his victims on the street. It's a must be consistent motive. Across victims, that turns out to be not true. His MO is different depending on the victim. Now what originally started as a sex crimes had devolved into like just murder because they couldn't not all the bodies. They couldn't determine whether they've been assaulted or not. They were very disheartened by the fact that the major media news wouldn't cover this and thing that was really interesting is because around the same time Member how I said I was looking for there not to be a crisscross of murders. There was a crisscross of murder as I forgot about Derrick Todd Lee.

3:21:55 The Baton Rouge serial killer, who was killing in Northern Louisiana. While Ronald was killing in Southern Louisiana. Oh my God, the process was all over. Derrick, Todd Lee's case because that was a black man killing white women that sells papers Ronald, of course, was choosing black men down on their luck. Offering them, hope a place to say, or just some drugs to pass the night. And therefore those cases weren't really, you know, making the yeah, no headline news right there. But finally, it's April 2005 and Dennis gets that real task force after 15 murders.

3:22:41 So the state and vice Dennis to this massive meeting. Because he'd been the longest on the cases. He'd been following them for eight years now. And they also included Tom Lambert from ham from the how much Sheriff's Office and FBI agent from New Orleans Jack or sign Simon Fryman from Hama PD Dawn Burger on from Terrebonne Parish and her boss. Major four major Vernon Booyah Booyah, there's so many friends James I had to look up. So good right now. Also they invited 14 other cops representing all six of the parishes where there were murdered Dennis was hype. He was like, we have the money now to really fun. This it's getting on the news and so, they did decide to focus on Terrebonne Parish since five of the most recent murders happen there.

3:23:30 Both, he and Don become lead, detectives on Me on the task force, and they were chosen because of their years of looking into the case. But also the fact that the to always kind of showed initiative in a willingness to kind of think, outside the box, Don was exceptionally talented at speaking to Witnesses and potential suspects, and getting quick confessions, or statements as a police, like to call them. She said, I had a very incredible ability to soften people up and get them to just spill their guts. This was very valuable trait for this investigation because even people who weren't suspects had information to give and we didn't have the time for you to be standoffish.

3:24:10 Give me the information. Even I need so we can move on and go somewhere else. Right, that's how I always am with. People. Look, look, I got Time. Come on, come on, come on, but she did it in a way that you know, didn't make people feel standoffish. It was it was it's a talent. Unfortunately, as soon as they got themselves together, another murder happened. This time and Lafourche Parish, it was the end of April and Kirk Cunningham's. Body was found floating in a ditch. Kurt was 23 years old. And from Thibodeau, he was the first White victim. Hey, last been seen and how On April 8 but he wasn't discovered until 20 days later off of Highway 307, the apps autopsy ruled inconclusive because he's been sitting in water for days actually.

3:25:02 Okay. So because it was like a dish, it was probably not all water. So like half of his body is water. Decomposed in the other half is it's not yeah. Decomp from this point forward. They decided we need to streamline this process. We have a lot of people on this. There's no need for redundancies. So, we're going to use one crime lab for all future evidence. This will all of the evidence will only be handled by the same people. So there is no confusion as to who has it like this detective is the person who's going to carry this stuff in his car to this lab and will be that person from now on.

3:25:51 Okay, this standardization gave everybody. The thing that they were to handle, kind of expertly at every crime scene, so there's no wasted energy. Dennis came up with the idea for them to fingerprint. All of Kurt Cunningham's body. But to use different temperatures to maybe make certain things appear. He said that he got this from CSI. Oh my God, like worth a shot. To see if depending on the temperature things, you know the skin might change and you might get a usable print. Now Dennis and Dawn are digging into the current investigation and another murder happens.

3:26:39 This time Alonzo Hogan, 23 years old st. Charles Parish July 2nd Alonzo was 28 and he was black, he was found fully dressed. Ronald had gone back to an old dump site the cane field off of Highway 306. They went back to the old files, to try and find a connection between the new cases, and the old ones. How am I resident Wayne Smith? Is found in a ditch fully clothed on August 16th. So why month later off of Grand Caillou Road. This is another one that gets marked as undetermined by the coroner due to Advanced decomposition. Wayne is one of the youngest victims at only 17 years old. They use the same protocols collect as much evidence has and, you know, follow their, their plan. Donald that is also root out the shoe connection. It wasn't a signature, it was just the side effect of having to move the bodies CIA.

3:27:42 But an interesting thing was that three of the victims have been seen at the Sugar Bowl Motel just before their death. And they noticed that every victim had at least one prior criminal offense. That was an interesting pattern, too. Now it's August 28, 2005. Do you remember what happened Ryan? You said, August 28th, 2005. I don't. Well, disaster struck Louisiana Hurricane Katrina one of the five deadliest hurricanes in US. History, I'm sorry, that's okay.

3:28:23 It was a category 3. When it made landfall on the Gulf Coast on August 29th, for people who are Americans, who are listening, Louisiana, specifically New Orleans is below sea level. And the region is protected by a series of flood walls and levees that pretty much block water from going where it shouldn't. Some of these flood levees can be natural, but many of them were man-made. And on Monday, August 29th, there were over 50 failures in the walls and 80% of New Orleans and all of st. Bernard Parish flooded, you're talking tens of billions of gallons of water from the Atlantic Ocean, flooding over 100,000 homes and businesses. It is considered to be one of the costliest, natural disasters in US history, costing over 100 billion dollars God. And the thing is, if you're from the south, I give her somebody who's listening from the south like Like, at one point, one of my family members lived in Port, not with a. What's the bottommost town in Florida? I forget what it's called acute was. It's one of the keys.

3:29:27 Yeah, income like it's they're so used to hurricanes that. They just like stack up there sandbags and then they drive away and they tow back to the mainland. Like they're just used to them happening, like every 6 to 12 months and it's always like this is gonna be the First one and they're just like yeah, whatever whatever it is. It was kind of like that in New Orleans because they were used to these but the because the levy the Levee failures happened People didn't evacuate like people didn't evacuate and eight, 1836 people were killed. There are a host of horrible atrocities against people that happen in the city.

3:30:10 During this time, I mean, I remember watching there were police forcing people with kids back into flooded water while they were trying to cross a bridge because the bridge was dangerous, but like the people were like we're gonna drown that was caught on camera. There was also an entire prison that was left full of inmates and the inmates were left or drown as the guards kind of worried about their own safety. That's something that they don't like to talk about and there's a lot of history around that a lot of government in action and mismanagement happened. I could go on, but we don't have the time. It took two years just to rid the city of biohazards and begin rebuilding.

3:30:53 And when I say that, New Orleans is frequently called the city of the dead. It's notoriously haunted, and it has a host of above-ground mausoleums and beautiful cemeteries and well, those are below sea level. When the flood happened. The bodies in the ground also came out. So they were finding remains and having to try and figure out where they came from. Where these people, who drowned in the actual water are these remains from cemeteries, it took years, it's been 17 years since. And from what I understand things are mostly back to normal down there but That's good. That's good to hear.

3:31:40 Well, once the water subsided, there was another murder to deal with. Krista Ville, 40 years old and this time it was a new dump site. Assumption Parish he wasn't a typical victim. Chris was not transient. He didn't have a history of drugs or Home of my keys were homelessness, but you know, housing issues or even crime in his background, right? His family was together. His brother was a cop. He was also fully clothed and left off of Highway 1. It was almost like maybe this one was done in a Moment of desperation. Interesting.

3:32:30 And what I see as the stunning display of sort of fuckery that isn't Dawn's bosses. Begin, freaking out on the task force and saying you're taking too long. We want results. Even though it had taken them, eight years to provide, Dennis with the money to, even really pursue the cases, they were being expected to solve them immediately. Okay, thank you for the money now, we'll create some magic for you. Okay, snack. Well, luckily, the task force gets a break and that break comes in the name of a man named John. Banning John was the typical Mark for Ronald? What Ronald didn't know was that John's parole officer was officer Lambert?

3:33:17 One of the men in the task force. John was walking on the highway when he was approached by Ronald and offered sex with a girl based off of a photo. Anton was like he doesn't look very dangerous and that picture is very sexy. What's the harm in going to his house and see if she's real? So as they're Drivin, he said that Ronald talked about some weird stuff, he talked about how he was going to have to tie John up because the girls really like bashful about new guys, it was real weird. Also, he randomly talked about how there was a stigma around being gay. And for some reason, when Ronald pulled into his sister's driveway, John still State, they went to the trailer. Ronald begins his routine.

3:34:08 He tells John get undressed, Rest, and he's like, and then I'll tie you up. And John kind of took stock of the room. And was just like, there are jugs of urine in this room, which is weird, and also Stacks, and stacks of gay porn. John takes that moment and just walks out of the door. And Ronald doesn't stop him. He actually said he ran back to the highway. Wow. Okay, so Donna, Dennis are, you know, back at headquarters discussing their try to figure out like the guy that Witnesses reported Didn't seem like a big guy like yeah, he was Heavy SAT but he wasn't very tall.

3:34:55 And like he didn't seem very strong according to Witnesses. So they're trying to figure out how is he getting these people to get in his car. They had already been through every sex offender in every Parish where there was a murder. But they didn't think to talk to the Parolees and so that came up during this conversation and they they like, hey, they like they go to their squadmate Lambert and they're just like, hey, we want to go through all the Parolees and you're here. So you have the list on you, like I mean, you still working at a, his side to work their regular stuff too. And so he's just like we want to talk to all the people who are on parole in this town. Which is how John Banning ended up in the interrogation room talking to Dennis and Dawn.

3:35:40 I guess, first he talked to Lambert and then to Dennis and on John tells them how this fat white guy pulled up on him and a black Sonoma truck, offered him, alcohol. And a crack at banging hot chick. He told them exactly where Ronald had taken them to make them to. And this is so weird. But like, they all met near Ronald house and I think it's really up because you have like a regular police officer with John Banning and then you have two detectives in like suits, But they don't walk up to the door. In fact, what Dawn does is she goes up to Or Don does is she goes up to the mailbox and she begins kind of flooding through the mail and there's only one male named in the house.

3:36:34 Ronald J Dominique. They decide. They go back and they decide they want to make sure this is airtight, so they decide to just go talk to him. Like, knock on the door, they're like, hey Ronald, um, There's this guy who made kind of a charge against you, and we just want to talk to you about it. His name's John Banning and he like, filed a report, he's like, can you talk to us at the station and so they go in and Ronald tells them that he know, he's just in a kinky sex and he was having fun with the whole tied up thing. Dennis asks, run up to take a lie detector test and for the first time in their interview Ronald gets pissed and he's like what's all this about?

3:37:18 And then it's just tries to play it off. Cool, listen. To Dominique. We're just trying to clear these cases. We're working on, if you can help us, that would be wonderful. So he agrees to the polygraph then Dawn, it's just like, you know, it would help us a lot if you sign this consent form. And give us your DNA. Oh God, he agrees and they take a hair and saliva sample and they thanked him over and over again and send him on his way. And if you listen to the podcast a lot, you're like wait, what? Well, okay, so it's weird that he was so agreeable. But also the other weird thing is that they had to ask permission to get his DNA because we've had other cases, like the Grim sleeper, where they followed him to a birthday party. And Told the plates and cakes that he ate off of, right. Yeah, that's because the DNA at that time. They did it wasn't as advanced as it is. Today even 10 years later.

3:38:22 And so now we can get DNA on vert off of virtually anything. But back then we couldn't. So they went for the thing that you could get the best match on which was hair spit semen. They were like, can we can we get these? I think you can't ask him for a semen sample. He wouldn't do that, but like you never know, you never know. He see that kind of guy who probably give it up to Who knows? They paint John Bannon back in and John's like no, no, no. I did not willingly go to his house. I'm not even gay. He's like I just thought the girl looked hot and I wanted to see which if she was there and so they asked John they're like, okay. So what if he had tried to stop you and Johnson, it would have been like the Civil War He click yes. No, no.

3:39:11 So this is where he says Pearl Harbor. He said it would have been Pearl Harbor in that piece, sir. Indicating that he would have fought him. Okay? What a weird thing to say? Definitely, you know, I would have been, like, Pearl Harbor. They decide to go into a database of crimes. Just pulling people who were charged, but never convicted. And this is where they find Ronald's charges and it sounds very similar to what John Banning told them. They also found there were two other cases of sodomy against Ronald that had been dropped due to a lack of corroborating evidence. The police are now.

3:39:57 The police, from those two cases, who, talked around were brought in and they definitely remembered him. It was even though it was like the 80s, they've definitely remembered him and they said that he had a serious persecution complex about being gay. So with all this information, Dennis add-on, requested 24-hour our surveillance team, and they get denied. They're like, that's too much and you don't have enough to make that worthwhile. So they put a roadblock up near the Sugar Bowl hotel since multiple victims were found there and they regularly stop and search cars at random.

3:40:38 Now, this does cut off one of his hunting sites, but Ronald had more and the stress of being watched by the police, was stressing him out. November 5th, 2005, Nick Pelican 21 years old is working on his home when the meter reader arrives. That meter reader is Ronald Ronald straight up propositions him. And next like I do need the money and so he agrees but later and Ronald picks him up after round. Gets off of work takes him back to his trailer.

3:41:19 Ronald would later tell the police that because his mom and sister were down the hall, he had to make sure that Nick wouldn't scream and November 9th, they discover his remains in the woods and Lafourche Parish, he had been tied. Up and to add insult to injury. He had gambled and gone through the roadblock with the dead body in the back of his car. Kidding me. Ballsy is all get out. Nick's autopsy came in the word laceration, peaked Dennis's interest. He was just like, I feel like I've been reading that word a lot and so he goes through the cases and realizes that a lot of the men had lacerations Options to their back of their head. Meaning, that that was one of the ways that Ronald was subduing, them by just straight, hitting them in the back of the head with something hard.

3:42:17 Tying them up. They focus on DNA. The problem is DNA takes months but they do get a positive match. Remember all Ela Banks and how they said that there were Caucasian hairs? Yes, yes him. Yeah, they do a match but the problem was it was mitochondrial DNA, really ideally? You want what's called nuclear DNA, which is, it definitely belongs to this one person mitochondrial DNA matches. It means that this could be from anyone in Ronald's. They regularly stopped and searched cars at random.

3:42:59 Now, this does cut off one of his hunting sites, but Ronald had more and the stress of being watched by the police, was stressing him out. November 5th, 2005. Nick pallagen 21 years old is working on his home when the meter reader arrives. That meter reader is Ronald Ronald straight up propositions him. And next like I do need the money and so he agrees but later and Ronald picks him up after Ron gets off of work takes him back to his trailer. Ronald would later tell the police that because his mom and sister were down the hall, he had to make sure that Nick wouldn't screamed and November 9th. They discover his remains in the woods and Lafourche Parish. He had been tied.

3:43:59 It up and to add insult to injury. He had gambled and gone through the roadblock with the dead body in the back of his car. Kidding me. Ballsy is all get out. Next autopsy came in the word laceration. Peaked Dennis's interest. He was just like, I feel like, I've been reading that word a lot and so he goes to the cases and realizes that a lot of the men had lacerations to their back of their head. Meaning, that that was one of the ways that Rana was subduing them by just straight hitting him in the back of the head with something hard. Tying them up.

3:44:43 They focus on DNA. The problem is DNA takes months but they do get a positive match. Remember all Ela Banks and how they said that there were Caucasian hairs? Yes, yes him. Yeah, they do a match but the problem was it was mitochondrial DNA, really ideally? You want what's called nuclear DNA, which is, it definitely belongs to this one person mitochondrial DNA matches. It means that this could be from anyone in Ronald's. Are you think Ryan? 23andMe, pretty much they're not calling it investigative genealogy. As I initially, they were able to connect DNA of the killer to someone in a DNA, a genealogy database and that's how they were to find it really there.

3:45:37 What they're doing now at this point is he has a pretty extensive criminal record between 1963 and 1998. Eight and so Indiana state. Police are looking to see if he did anything else. Honestly, if they can connect him to any other missing persons were there any other motels that he might have stopped by, and people went missing. So, this isn't over. They just know the name, they called him, the I-65 killer, and the thing is, I 65 runs from Gary Indiana, all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. So we're talking of a hundreds of miles on the East Coast where he could have stopped and killed people as well. Also, there's no guarantee that it just stops at these three murders in one assault. God, can you compare hoping they're hoping they can close, some, some cases and give people some closure and finding out what happened to their loved ones. They also called him, the Days Inn killer. Because, apparently he was, he like to stop at that Motel sometime.

3:46:38 God. No. Let the easy. Yeah. Are there any other state police weren't actually able to get permission to use that database? The investigative genealogy until 2019? So this is still really, really new. That's they never had a suspect or anyone before this, they just had rant. Like they just had DNA that they could link to anybody. Hmm. So I think we're just going to keep happening. So yeah, it works you This one's slightly, this is like the there if they're at a dead end when they have elected DNA evidence and stuff like that and nothing that connected to this is like the thing they go to.

3:47:28 Now, like we learned And with the one case I think it was not just I'll call you with the Grim sleeper you in order to get access to do that. You have to have used every other form of policing, right before they will allow you access to, what is millions of people's DNA. And a lot of people feel, a lot of ways about it. It's one of the reasons why I've never actually done a DNA test. I would like to know what percentage is what percentage. But also on the other hand, I'm like, do I want to know? If somebody I'm related to is a killer, Nah.

3:48:11 Nah, that's okay. Now I got to rethink that relationship. Can you imagine what it was like when Dennis readers daughter found out that her dad was the BTK killer? I can't imagine. I'll want that on my heart. That's okay. But what's your true crime case this week Brian? Okay, so apparently the story has been going around and I'm pretty sure if you guys have been paying attention to True Crime News, you've heard this as well. So there was an incident. I guess we can only fans model where she allegedly stabbed her boyfriend to death, in their apartment, Julie, Brian, I've seen the photos on TMZ.

3:49:04 Homegirl is covered head to toe in blood. It is horrific. One of my friends is in Miami and was literally like I've been in Miami for two weeks because she's she's down there, looking at like she has a business It's and I guess she's trying to expand and its potential. She might be able to run her business down there. I'll miss her. If she actually, they're one of our sponsors. Oh, really? The bakery? Yeah. She's in Miami right now at your service meet Cafe. Yep. I think I don't know if they're going to be stimmy temporary or something. But they've been down there for a while, but she definitely was like she posted on Facebook. She's like, I watch a lot of CSI. Miami before I came down here and now I think there's definitely a murder that just happened. I'm like, Bro.

3:49:48 So I'm like dang but yeah, like it. Yeah, I saw the picture soon as like it's not legit like you did. It says a legend in this news article so it's somebody's blood. Is it somebody's blood, who knows? Yeah. So influence our her name is Courtney claiming she's plenty plenty in another name when she was Is doing her only thing. Yeah, it's a Courtney Taylor was her other her suit for whatever her stage name and interesting question, why would you make your stage name? So close to your real name? I don't know. Like, I definitely change it all thing first and last name.

3:50:32 Yep, absolutely. I don't know my name. My brain just said Isabella demise. That's so not a good name but it's what popped into my head. Gold Leaf is looking up. She's probably there already. Right. Yeah, it's probably like I saw that somewhere on Twitter. Oh my God. But yeah. She's yeah. She's 25 years old and her her boyfriend. His name was Christian. I don't know. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. I know he's African. So he yeah, French last name. Yeah he does and he's 27 but yeah the cops they responded to a 911 call around, you know, 5:00 on Sunday at you know, at their apartment. And this is like pretty said in Miami Florida and they say they found her boyfriend.

3:51:21 He was stabbed once in the shoulder. That's it is. That's what it says. It's. Where is that blood? The way that it was like, posted all over social media over the last couple days. It's like she stabbed him to death. Like there were multiple stabbings. You know what I mean? Yeah, like 11 stabbed was Otto, dang. Yeah. It must have been like a really deep wound or somewhere like that. Lets you the artery right. Ye are exactly. That's one thing for there to be that kind of a spray that it's all over her face. Chase chest and legs.

3:52:05 That's a no. That's an arterial spray. Yeah. Yeah yeah. That's that's why all of them blood. Yep. That's rather but come from that's the only way if it was only One time. Wow. See the way the media was returning. It was that she like went full like Jason Voorhees. But yeah, he died at the hospital. Actually, he didn't even die. There. He was still alive. Yeah, he he died at the hospital. Like I said, the first thing that I saw was the TMZ pictures. The somebody took from like their apartment building across from her. The other apartment building. Yeah, we can see, right clearly. She's like sitting on the ground cuffed and there's blood on her face, her little tube. be top her sweat pants are soaked, like So, I assumed homeboy was dead dead before the police even got there.

3:53:05 Yeah. Wow. Yeah, yeah, it's wild how the media portrays things they got me. Yeah, that's all I saw. I didn't look any other articles I was like, oh, look at that. White girl killed a black man. That's that's what drew me into it. I was like, God kid. Here we go again, I'm so sorry. But yeah, they said there's the cops. That there was obviously like a physical altercation before she's she he was stabbed. So, So, like people, people like that, who are her friends, AP, said that they've seen him hit her and stuff like that.

3:53:52 Like yeah, you know, if you girl getting just be oh wait, no, no, no, my bad. I read the wrong. It says we seen her hit him and that I've never yeah. I've never seen him hit her. Gotcha, so obvious. Asleep must have been something that she was doing. Yeah. See this popped up on my Facebook timeline because people pulled a lot of his really like rude posts and Tweets. We're like like, you know, rest in peace, he did die in. That is sad, but apparently, he was one of those people who thought that, if he could net himself a beautiful white woman that made him a better person than everybody else. You know, and it's kind of crappy to treat your partner to put them on a pedestal like that it's not fair to the person who's being idolized but it's also real crappy. When every opportunity you get you trash talk every other group of women, right?

3:54:58 Yeah. So like he couldn't just be like, wow, I really love my girlfriend. It would be like I can't stand black girls, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. And I'm like, dude, nobody asked you like the such a, it's such a weird thing. And a lot of people Like a lot of do do this online and I'm just like love who you love. You ain't got a tear everybody else down, right? Like and I gotta I gotta be wrong with you. I was like that too. And so one of my friends was like, you know, when you say things like real women have curves, it kind of makes me feel sad. And I was like, oh dang, I thought this was just, you know, like the fat girl, you know, acceptance rock. All right. Not thinking that like you know, all women are real, women, doesn't matter what you look like, you know, This is true, my best friends. And so I adjusted the way that I speak about certain things, like I like, what I like, and I will say that I, like the things that I like, but I'll need to talk about things. I don't like, but regardless.

3:55:51 So, that's how he popped up on my timeline. And then when I looked him up, I saw the TMZ article but like so, where is home girl? Right now, I'm guessing some police station, or at least she got booked and bail or something. Okay, so here's a story birdie so miss Courtney, you know, she was the team Are police station, you know, after, you know, she was after the stabbing and, you know, they found her and stuff like that after a while. You know, she started saying that, you know, she's sort of saying, you know, I'm a kill myself. I'm gonna live myself stuff like that. Well, it's okay, we're not on Tick-Tock, you can actually hear. It's just on other platforms, we have to come up with creative ways to say killed yourself, right? Right.

3:56:40 Anti bullying. And Apparently in Florida, there is an act that protects people. I don't say don't say, you forget me. It protects people, obviously like okay, and it's called The Baker Act, okay? Well, and it allows law enforcement as well as doctors mental health professionals and judges to commit a person to a mental health treatment center for up to 72 hours. If a certain violent or Suicidal Tendencies, These are displayed. Okay so she's on a she's on what you call it I guess. Suicide watch mandatory hold. Yeah, there you go.

3:57:21 Okay and this happened a couple of okay but this was last Friday. So it's been a week. 72 hours is less than a week where she now Brian. It's I think she's still at the cheese. Still at the mental institution. Oh, come on. He's still there. She's dead. Okay. She was just, she probably does need mental health care. She just stabbed a man, but like Um, okay so she's not he hasn't been arraigned. No. So she was detained on April 3rd. It did. Oh wait. Okay. So this actually was it last week? This was today's the day. Yeah.

3:58:04 Okay. So it's been five days since this happened. Yeah. But so she's you know it still hold onto her. Yeah, it's funny because it says that her her content was still uploaded on the fourth after she was a team. I mean, you can schedule post to be update. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, it's a thing that can happen. Like so at the moment she's a Not face any charges for her boyfriend's. Death at all or his murder. Okay. I mean, okay and like is that's the thing that when I saw his I was like, what the fuck you talking about it? She like obviously killed him. Why is Sheena might get charges once she gets out of the suicide watch. Yeah, it just it just like when I saw it, I was like Here we go again.

3:59:02 That's wild and listen like I know that the majority of our listeners are women and I'm sure a lot of you are white women. So obviously, I'm not talking about you. But historically relationships with white women and black men have not always been the best know. I remember this is a personal story for me. Because I remember like, when I was younger or like, I don't know, start starting to date and, you know, and, you know, tell him I like him. Okay.

3:59:56 Okay. Took it. Yeah. Oh no. How would you define that time of your life? I was it was it was like my first girlfriend, my first actual girlfriend and I was just like, I'm done in love Bubble, blah, own protector of those know, you guys don't know what you're talking about. She was like cheating on you and stuff. Yeah just personally like It's like one of those things I was watching a Lovecraft country last year and it occurred to me, just this pop into my head.

4:00:49 While I was watching the show, the people who make our laws right now and grew up during Jim Crow. That makes me feel very uncomfortable and make that their formative years were when it was okay to Lynch somebody. So I think I won't feel like it feels weird to be like, maybe I'll feel better when the boomers are gone. People like, I don't know, but like like, we're still connected to all these times. Historically, were terrible things happen to black people and so I still feel that caution and obviously some people don't Well, like we still live in a world where, you know, if you're cute and blond you can get away with murder so far. I hope she does it.

4:01:32 I hope that after they release her she does face the consequences of her actions because him choosing to be in a abusive relationship. Should not have been the end of his life, right? Absolutely. He should have had the opportunity to get out and get help and heard you the same. And, you know, ultimately, when these things happen, everybody involved, the one person's Dead. The other person goes to jail and nothing gets better. And it's sad because he was just like, I guess a week away from turning 28. So it's just life, cut short. Yeah. And the other thing is that this does highlight like you know I make some some silly jokes but this does highlight another situation where her friends said she hits him so he was in a position.

4:02:19 He's in a situation where There was no good ending other than him, just walking away. Because if he hits her back he's going to prison as a black man who had a white woman. He does nothing, he ends up dying like the only the only solution here was for him to do the hardest thing to do when you're being abused which is a wave. The person you love. Yeah. and you know, I can't be too judgmental there because I went through it myself so did you But today's case is one, that despite the death toll there, just wasn't a whole lot of information about it. This guy began killing in 1997.

4:03:15 He wasn't called until you were a senior in high school Brian. Oh my God. Yeah, that this happened very much a during our life. Wait, when you were 2006 right? Yeah, that's when I graduated. Yep. He was an outcast, a misfit. But he also went under the radar for about nine years. If I say the name, Ronald Dominique. Does that mean anything to you? No, really, that's okay. His other name was the Bay. You the BIOS trenkler. It's been a little over a year since I discuss any killers from Louisiana and I got to be really honest. I needed a break from the very confusing criss-crossing, killers of California.

4:04:00 The last three cases inadvertently. Like there were just crisscross over and cases on happening. Concurrently just Cal, covering California, Killers is stressful. So today we're going to talk about a guy that no one really expected much from. Well, Louisiana obviously got a little bit more than they bargained. For Ronald Joseph, Dominique was born, January 9th 1964, had a very small town in Louisiana called Thibodeau. He was one of six children Thibodeau is a really small town than and even now it only has 15,000 people who live there today. Ronald grew. Like he was born right on the cusp of change in the entire country.

4:04:45 But he was a poor white kid from a poor, white family, in a trailer park, and a poverty stricken town. So, change change. What's happened in other places? Now, his immediate childhood wasn't traumatic, there's absolutely nothing that pops up in any of the history books. But sometime during Elementary School to rumors, began to circulate and both of them were pretty terrible. The first one was that there was incest going on in the Dominique household and that Ronald had walked in on his mother and one of his brothers. The other was that Ronald told his parents that a priest, molested him and his parents didn't believe him. And of course we all learned decades later, but across the country, the Catholic church had conspired. You're too high pedophilia when it was in its ranks, right? So it's plausible that this did happen to him when he was small. And if you're wondering why I haven't mentioned a lots of his brothers or sisters or even his mother and father by name, I have no less than 10 resources for this week, and they don't mention his family's names really, which lets me know that these people don't want to be known, huh? Occasionally, a name of a sister or a brother pops up later on in the story.

4:05:54 But like, apparently people did not want to be known as being connected to this man. Now, the incest rumors and the molestation are huge part of his childhood in pre-adolescence, and they definitely have Bay are probably the first time he was introduced to the concepts of sex and sexual deviancy, which didn't help him grow up better. And he walked his way into adolescence feeling inadequate and I can adequate and struggling with his appearance and the beginning feelings of homosexuality, He was a weird kid and there was an air of absurdity about him. Like when you talk to Ronald, he was always putting on a little show for anyone watching.

4:06:42 This was him trying to like Trying to find a way to kind of mitigate the bullying make people laugh. Using the Glee Club he sang in choir. And that behavior was enough for his peers to label him as gay. What really, uh-huh. What I was supposed to be the Glee Club when I was nice. Okay, okay. He never did anyone openly and he was actively hiding any homosexuality from his peers but it did not matter. he did the painful process of masking hilly, really was to appear in normal and the other Factor was that even without people calling him gay, he was also overweight and he didn't exactly, Look good. He had meddling grades and he graduated from Thibodaux High School in 1983.

4:07:53 Now, he kind of played with the concept of college for a bit and running and rolls and nickel State University and Thibodeau. For computer science. Ronald did not focus on school at all. He was enchanted by the openly gay population of students and all the different organizations he could join. It was okay to be out at school. Well, not quite the gay community in Louisiana wasn't its egg form, very small and a very specific type of person that they was allowed to be out and proud. And I'll just be blunt. There's a word that I want to use here that I know gay folks have reclaimed, but I'll know if it's a my word to reclaim since I'm not a queer man.

4:08:41 So I'm going to just say that these are very hot young studs who are skinny And people who are gay, will know the word that I mean, okay. And other people just know that these the kind of guys who talk about their thin, they're like fit their law on the shorter side and definitely hot since the people who were allowed who know who were it were more out, we're definitely not the chubby awkward singers. So Ronald did not find his tribe. And in fact, he was very off-putting to many of the folks in the community who met him. Like during his first year at school, they had like a Pride Celebration and he like did a Patti LaBelle impression and everybody was like this is weird. He was he was doing like cross-dressing try to do drag at the local gay clubs and nobody who promised it at all. He actually stopped hanging out with the gay kids and stopped hanging out with anybody.

4:09:50 You got it assessed with like making crank calls from his house. And on June 12th 1985 he was charged with telephone harassment. It was a seventy five dollar fine and he was warned to stop calling people and being creepy and sexual on the phone, who know? That's not a prank calling he know. That's why I said it was telephone harassment. He was calling people and being nasty. Oh my God. Now, back in the trailer park, though, he was beloved by his neighbor's, he crafted this public Persona of being the super nice guy, he volunteered with the elderly help, anybody, who asks, he never really found his footing, though.

4:10:30 He worked odd jobs. Obviously lives in a double-wide with his mom and sister until he could afford his own and pretty much all of his adult life was like this. Now Ronald did do drugs and he also sold drugs to make extra money that's actually the first time. So the first time, he was reported to the police in regards to sexual crimes was in 1993. A local Drifter went to the police and said that Ronald raped him at gunpoint. He said he met Ronald about two days before the attacks, they discussed a we buy. He went around Taos and he said that run was real antsy and kept saying, he want to show him where his stash was. So he was like, just waiting this room and then I'll tell you, I'm ready. And so he was like, I'm ready and then like he walked into the guy.

4:11:15 So the guy walks in Reynolds bathroom. And there was a gun in his face, he said that Ronald cuffed him removed, his clothes and raped him. Then he took off the handcuffs and told the guy to get out of his house. This would have seemed like an open-and-shut case, right? But in 1993, the police and Thibodeaux had never had a case of a rare, a man raping another man, and this is went in his 70s still, right? Well, no. Now we're in 1993, all 93. Okay, so, I mean, even still like the police. They're just little bigger in 93, but everything's not San Francisco. Yeah. So, unless a cops in the 90s or whenever there's Just like a little. Yeah, if you don't touching gay scenes, a crime scene, they didn't do anything.

4:12:09 Ronald fell back. Things were really low-key. He just did, he went, he did odd jobs and then He went home, he drank a lot of alcohol. The next time he gets in trouble is May of 1984, he gets a DWI again, only a fine. Now the next big moment and Ronald will consider this to be one of the most poignant of his life. But August 25th. 1996, a half-naked young guy jumps out of the window of the trailer and runs to the neighbors and says that Ronald tried to rape and kill him.

4:12:50 He said he'd been tied up held at knifepoint and raped. The police may not have been well versed in dealing with male rape cases, but they sure knew what to do with an attempted murder and he was arrested in his bail, was set at 100 thousand dollars, there you go. I guess that that works that works. Now while awaiting trial, Ronald is left in gen pop and brutally raped on a near constant basis in prison frequently having to go to the infirmary from beatings, having his rectum stitched from how bad the assaults were. Ronald said after he was caught later on, that prison was when he decided that he was never going back to jail and that he was going to kill the next person. He raped to make sure he didn't go back. Wow.

4:13:42 So that happened in May of 96 rate. So, by November of 96 he's just getting raped like every day in prison and the prosecution is trying to put together a case. And finally the judge is just like you can't keep this man in prison indefinitely and the prosecutor is just like we can't find the victim. The kid was gone. They couldn't even prove his identity based on the information that he had told to the police, the day that he told them. That Ronald had raped him. Well no victim. There's no trialed. Ronald is released. He left prison a better man with severe resentment toward the justice system.

4:14:26 He said he'd been wrongly accused and they had allowed him to be abused and prison based on lies. And he began killing people, nine months after his release. David Mitchell was 19 years old on July 13th. 1997, when he went missing, he was this really vibrant. Happy guy. Who was last seen at a family birthday party when he didn't make it to work the following Monday. People were alarmed, David worked at the st. Charles Parish Hospital, and he loved his job, and he was never late didn't matter if he had a hard party and weekend before and he was hungover.

4:15:07 He was always on time. David's boss called his mom and his mom called his sister. And the two were actually like roommates, they were living together. And so the sister went to her brother's room and she was just like his uniform and his hospital. His Hospital ID are still in the house. So now here's the worst thing that happened. Okay. The family is it's like what the following Monday the family is freaking out there calling people to trying to figure. They're contacting his friends before the police could contact the family. A news report pops on TV, detailing the death of a young black man found on Interstate 310. His pants were pulled down and he'd been strangled.

4:15:50 The news actually showed the body. Oh my God. And David's sister saw his corpse live on television. That is wild. Excuse me. That's wild. He had been severely, beaten, and strangled and The family was traumatized, obviously. Yeah, I said that based on the image on scream, it looked like he'd been screaming when he died. Damn, the Mitchell Family wouldn't learn what actually happened to him until 2006, Ronald would tell the police that he met David at a gay bar, but that this wasn't consensual by any means.

4:16:35 He said that Ronald could convey. Ronald said, he convince David to leave the bar under false A pretense probably to smoke and then when they were away from people, Ronald raped, him strangled, him dumped him on the side of the road. After the first kill Ronald laid low, it was all over the news and despite the fact that he wasn't a suspect, he was still a little worried. He waited as long as he could before, he could strike. Again, that was five months. His next victim was Gary Pierre, right before Christmas. Same Mo meet the guy in the bar convince him to leave somehow go somewhere. Quiet overpower. The thinner smaller black man, rape and strangle him. So Gary was discovered, December 14th 1977 and st. Charles Parish even less is known about Larry Ranson which is very close to my last day in letter. He was 38 and he died.

4:17:37 July 31st, 1998's s77. I meant 97. I wrote it wrong in my notes. So that so Gary was Is 97 he wait another six months. Now we have or seven. Wait six yeah to kill Larry the issue with that was with the police Learned was that like before Larry the killers were all like early twenties teens. So with Larry now they realize okay well this person doesn't have any age range. The only thing that's consistent is that they're all skinny short black eyes. The police were still not taking the case of seriously though because the victims Were Gay and the media didn't really latch onto it either.

4:18:28 Now, throughout the next almost decade two, detectives are going to take a personal stake in this case. Then it's Thornton and Dawn Burger on they were both detectives with Advanced degrees a solid understanding of the streets. Louisiana, and most importantly, they didn't have any Prejudice towards gay men. The two of them were going to begin to follow these cases from 1988 until the end and they're kind of the heroes of the story, but before we can get to how it was solved, unfortunately. There's a lot more victims. The big, the first big victim of this case was Oliver. Ah, Lila Banks. He was the first that was widely publicized and attached to the name of the beige Strangler. The now the media said that he was a Drifter and transient, but he really wasn't, like, he had a stable relationship with a girlfriend.

4:19:17 He worked at the new dog trick Cafe. He had children who he took care of, he visited them gave them money for their care. He was close friends with his boss, Mar Paulson and I said that Ali was a really valued member of the team but unfortunately had a pretty serious drug problem and that she had to fire him right before he went missing getting fired really just made Ali depressed and there was sort of a downward spiral that eventually led him to Ronald. Now at this point, it's late 1998 and so Ronald moves from his smaller town area to the French Quarter in New Orleans. So, Where Ronald lives is like a suburb. Of New Orleans with New Orleans being, this massive Hub with lots of people that travel and move through their right. By October of 1998, Ronald is also actively hunting, like he is going to work on the daytime and then leaving and heading to French Quarter at night.

4:20:33 Ali needed money for his drug habit but also to survive. Sometimes Ali would pick pocket Taurus because millions of people come through Nola every year, right? He would sell some drugs, he would hustle, and occasionally. There was some some gay for pay. Actually, on the night that he went missing October 3rd 1988, he was out with his friends, a couple of gay friends, having a good time, his brother was there, too. And his brother was just like, why are you with these people and doing this and all, he's just like, listen, sometimes you meet some older gay guys who are willing to pay for the younger gay guys.

4:21:14 She's like, it's not that serious. It's just how I make a little money here. And there, his brothers like, all right, but But I'm, I'm gonna go home since y'all are heading to the gay club for the rest of the night. Hey, it's still Club. You can go there and party who's gonna try to pick you up? His brother, was trying to pick up somebody to get some cash so because the older brother want anything to do with that. Got you got you got you Ali was about 27. Ali more than likely saw. The sad rattled as a potential Mark at the bar. The Rawhide and Ronald saw him as a thin young black man, he could kill.

4:22:01 When the two went like one likely Ali approached him and Ronald made him know, he had cash, the two left the club together. Ronald said they could hook up in his car and that it was close. But in reality he had parked pretty far away. Now according to Ronald, he told Ali just to rub his thing on him. Despite the fact that Ronald Dominique was like a very grown man, the way that he talked in the police interviews and stuff is very childlike. And some ways like about sex, it was very weird, very good. And he said, yeah, he said that, Ali tried to penetrate him and that it made him mad, and he took a tire iron and be all I to death before he actually killed him.

4:22:45 Then he strangled Ali, who was already unconscious, He told the police that he let out a lot of the pent-up rage from when he was in prison and then he dragged Ali's body into his station wagon and dumped him and overpass under the three time. The police found Ali October 5th 1998. No, shoot, no shirt shoes. And his pants were around his ankles. This will become very consistent with every victim. Ali was ID because he had a prior history of petty. Theft, his older brother. Michael was pretty sad because he been the last to see his brother alive. I knew exactly what his brother was going to do, which was dangerous. Hmm, he related this to the police and Dennis Thornton ended up getting the case. He went to the bar and talk to everybody, he could but no one remembered who Ali left the bar.

4:23:34 With now, Dennis Thornton was the one to make the connection between olly Mitchell Gary and Larry, all of these victims have been dumped me in the 310 Highway. They also discovered another weird similarity. No fibers on On the bodies. No fingerprints no hair and no DNA. As at this point that they contacted the FBI and ask for a profile. Unfortunately this was there is limited information and the FBI was just like he's going to be poor white with virtually no education. And while this did describe Ronald, it also described a million other men in Louisiana.

4:24:16 So as the police are trying to learn about the by Strangler, Ronald goes to his job at st. Charles Parish maintenance as if nothing happened. The one thing that they do find our Ali's body are a few. Like when I say a few like, under 10 hairs and they're able to determine that, these are definitely the hairs of a Caucasian person. This is the first time out of all four murders that they got any kind of DNA evidence. Dinosaur. Denise based on the dump sites that the Killer's safe space is near the airport and Ronald did live.

4:24:57 Thirteen point five miles from the New Orleans International Airport. Two weeks later, the detectives are called to see the remains of 16 year old Joseph Brown, just like Ali he's found shoeless shirtless and with his pants pulled down, this was more than alarming for Thornton because he could barely get a handle on it and like he's collected evidence on this case and then Bruce Williams is has found November 27th 1998 less than a month after Joseph. Same Parish where they're looking for information on Ali and Joseph. Now he was able to get more information about Bruce who was 18 years old and very well known in the French Quarter. No, well-known enough at the locals were worried when he just disappeared.

4:25:40 He also had been raped and even though Thornton was open-minded about gay people, he had never experienced so much like male on male rape in a case he was just like this doesn't happen. So because these crimes happened to the last to happen, closer to the French Quarter that put them in a different County. And so New Orleans PD, reach out to FBI for a profile, that's Jefferson Parish Jefferson. Parish gets a response to this has a little bit more information. White, male, mid-30s, probable, High School, Dropout, difficulty, with social skills, which unfortunately, is the norm for like most serial killers. However, the feds confirm what Thornton believe, which is that the Kill Zone shows that he lives near the airport and that this is his safe Zone.

4:26:34 He like some killer specifically kill outside of where they live, but that's not Ronald. Ronald is picking places. Very close to where he lives. Now, one thing that the cops and the FEDS are confused about as at this crimes intra-racial. Most crime happens within pretty segregated racial communities. That's why most black people get mad. When you hear black on black crime, most crime is white on white black on black. Like because we even though integration happened in America, we still live in pretty segregated Community. Great, we check we stay. And so we've had like racist serial killers that were trying to further the Aryan Nation agenda and their own way, but that's not what this That's because people who are killing to, you know, cleanse the human population are not having sex with those victims, sex crimes, usually happen with those closely segregated groups, there are very few power and control sex killers that kill interracially.

4:27:40 Honestly, I can only think of the other one is Jeffrey Dahmer. Yes, that's that's all I thought of brought it up. Yep. Jeffrey Dahmer. Also had a thing for black men. I've personally, I will he also loved a man of color. He also kills couple Asian men, too. But personally, it's something I've wondered because I wonder if the Look specifically with the Dahmer case, I wondered if he was sexually fetishizing his victims. So it wasn't that it was a fetish. See, I just thought like when I heard it it was just like he was hunting in his area, that was his area. And that's where he lived in.

4:28:24 These were two men that were readily available to him. I think in the case with Ronald, though, he may have been raped by black men in prison and he was taking out his frustration on black man that he could dominate member because he's up, he's not like a tall guy but he's a big guy like and rotund. He's going after new skinny small, black m somebody that in any situation he can get a handle on them and like knock them down. So Ronald takes a break. Rather odd considering it seems like he was about to ramp up.

4:29:07 I mean he we were getting two weeks apart one month apart, right. The next next murder doesn't happen until May 30th. 1999 that was Manuel read. He was 21 years old, like all the other victims men and well was slim black, but something changed this time. His body was put inside of a dumpster. Ronald, with testify later that he met Manuel at a local bar, proposition him for sex, and then took me awhile to a station wagon. Ronald said that they Fooled Around and that fooling around was defined as Mutual fellatio. And then Ronald said that Manuel pushed him down and entered him. And of course, he grabbed his tire iron and beat Manuel and strangle him afterward. This Probably sounds familiar, doesn't it? Exactly like what he said about the other guy? Yeah.

4:29:56 Yeah. Which made the people that were executing this think that he was in a fantasy. When this happened, this fantasy of him, taking back, you know, his his pride, from what happened to him and present because Manuel was also raped. But in this, the story that Ronald told he didn't see that happened. So part of these unfortunately we only get like a partial bit of closure with him being honest about some of these murders because he's a little bit delusional. One month later June thirtieth nineteen ninety two, twenty one-year-old Angel mayhaw was found laying in front of a dumpster. Angel was another black man struggling and doing what he could to make ends meet and had a bad run of luck meeting Ronald as one of his clients.

4:30:51 Angela's victim. Number 8. Now, interestingly enough. One thing happens here. Angel dies and the media suddenly becomes very interested in this case. The copper of the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper in blazing with bold. Black letters, shoeless body could be work of serial killer. For some reason, the media fixates on the fact that all of these victims are met, or a lot of the victims are missing shoes, and then they start writing in the newspapers that all of the victims are missing shoes. Why did it take you so long to mention that? Well, one, it wasn't true but to I just think it's really interesting because I would have assumed that the papers would have been like, can we talk about this whole gay murder thing happening? I guess, I guess that.

4:31:41 Nope, no article after article about victims, missing shoes. And if this was the killer signature, But it wasn't true. Well, no not all of them are missing shoes. I think that the shoes just fell off as he was dragging, their bodies around his once he was done with them, he didn't particularly care. So it's not like a trophy thingy, take their shoes and then like put him in his closet or something like that. No, the murders didn't happen at the dump site today more than likely got lost in the process. Right? Okay. Now the wait for the next kill is two months. This is Mitchell Johnson. He's 34 a bit older than the others but Ronald Tell the police later that Mitchell was just his type Mitchell was well-built lean muscle and he was dumped just a few feet away from where Ali was dumped in the middle of the August, heat in New Orleans.

4:32:36 This was a move Rife with arrogance. The police weren't sure if he was stupid or if he was taunting them. For not being able to find him. Ronald would later tell the police he made the body dumps so public because he wanted the recognition Using Ali's dump site was, so they knew it was him and he'd be able to watch them cover the case. Oh, Now the autopsy comes back like all the others raped and strangled, but there were Witnesses this time who had seen Mitchell in the city of Jenner, and they remembered seeing a weird. Chubby white guy with a receding hairline and puffy cheeks who was cruising the area. Now, for people who don't know, cruising kind of came up during like the early days of gay stuff, which is when it was illegal for gay clubs and lounges to exist. So, when gay guys wanted to find somebody to hook up with they went And so they would go to a place, that was only known among gay people to look for other gay men, as gay clubs expanded and cruising spots declined, it exists in more of a modern term as looking for prostitutes.

4:33:51 And so essentially, if he's cruising, he's looking for folks who are willing to pay to play, Sketch though. We get the first sketch November of 1989 the hairline the round face and the cheeks. Make for a very distinctive sketch. It was on every newspaper. Coincidentally Ronald abruptly, quit his job, packed up his mobile home and moved to the town of Hama, which is about 58 miles away, and very south in Louisiana right into the Gulf of Mexico. He requested to park his mobile home on his sister. Laney and her husband's property that she didn't mind. She had seen her brother in a while. While since she's moved out of the area, he told her he was just looking for a change but how much was just as poor as the town of boot?

4:34:42 And so he hadn't really changed in terms of where he was living. Just another small, poor town. So, Ronald gets a job working at Cairo produce and he's a stellar employee. No, write-ups, to attendance issues. He perfected, the personality of being the nice guy, who helps everyone that everybody forgets about. He took every shift from his co-workers needed, he did what he did. Fast outside of murder and that was become invisible. Most people aren't checking for the portly guy who silently bags, your groceries and nods his head. One of the most interesting things though was that if Ronald had stopped killing right now, it is very likely that the beige Strangler murders would have never been solved. But obviously, he did not stop because serial killers are addicts?

4:35:30 23 year-old Mitchell. Vincent went missing New Year's Eve 1999. Now Mitchell was an Old Pro in terms of being in criminal. He went by a, he had an alias, which was Chris Vincent. He was known to look the forced Parish PD as someone, who often got caught trading sex for cash. He was 57 lean dark skin with a mustache and it Goatee. He ever only really gotten into trouble for aggravated battery. Otherwise, his record was just misdemeanors and the police usually didn't care enough to try and put somebody away for something as simple as, you know, two guys trying to bang each other. On Jane. On January first though. Mitchell was dumped on a barbed wire fence on Highway 7 because of the holiday we also have she couldn't be done until January 3rd and there was no forensic evidence left behind, but there were a couple key.

4:36:25 Differences, Mitchell have been tied up before he was raped. There were also abrasions on his upper, right chest to cuts on the lower right side and a small abrasion to his scrotum the cuts were confusing until they discovered that he did have crack cocaine in his pockets. They wonder if maybe the cuts were like a site. To inject incur. The abrasions were from him being dragged on the ground so they were like, we need to build a task force, this killer is on the move, so don Burger on lived in Hama and that's how she and Dennis would meet through this task force.

4:37:15 The problem was, as quickly as the task force is put together, it's canceled, because absolutely nothing happens. Next Nothing no more murders. Donald just stops for two years. For. So they're like listen we can't put money towards a case where nothing's happening. Yeah so you all go back to your cities and go back to your jobs and I guess if he murders again, we'll get back on this. Dennis. However could not let that go. He started looking at some other cases. Now there was a guy in Kansas who had killed 10 people and just stopped he called himself. The BTK killer that guy wasn't this guy because well then is Raider killed women.

4:38:03 But the questions Still up in the air, did the bay, you stranglers give steeds Dennis started checking every piece of information. He could get his hands on to see if there were any other thin young, adult black men who were raped and strangled anywhere else in the United States and mind you. This is all on his own time, he's the regular like the police were like, there's nothing you can look at. So he's doing his regular police work and then on the side, doing his serial killer research. Now, Ronald stayed out of the police Limelight until February 10th 2002. He was at a Mardi, Gras celebration and he slapped a woman because he said that she'd hit a baby stroller in the parking lot with a car.

4:38:47 The two argued it got hot and then he hit her. Believe it or not, this is really uncommon. Usually serial killers who have a criminal past, right? But they tend to stay out of the legal system while they are, actively killing the police made a deal with Ronald, obviously, not realizing that they had the by Strangler and their hands and said of a trial. He went to something called The Parish offenders program. This was alternative sentencing and it was really popular in the early 2000s. The idea, Was to keep low level offenders out of prison and save space for the rapists and murderers and Drug traffickers. Also it saves a lot of money. Ronald put on his nice guy, smile and he became the number one offender.

4:39:33 In the program, he meant all conditions and was released in October of 2002. Now during his break, Ronald continue his work at the produce store but he took a second job at Domino's Which means there are people who are alive, who got their pizza delivered, by the bay you Strangler. Oh my God, having two jobs did take up most of his time and it did keep him from crime in on the weekends. He volunteered the Lions Club, he called Bingo numbers for the senior citizens, he had turned himself into a model citizen. The problem was, of course that by. Now, Ronald love the sex but he loved killing more.

4:40:14 He had a taste for the blood and that the cops weren't sticking around him. He decided that he wanted the opportunity to be with his kills, a little longer. He had discovered all kinds of places in how Mama as a pizza delivery driver. So he settled on an empty. Open area with the unknowing help of his brother-in-law. Sam Trimble Sam worked at a shipyard and Ronald was like that is the perfect place. Ace. So with all that extra money that he was bringing in, he bought a second smaller trailer and drove it to a field near the shipyard. And that was when he started hunting again. This time though, he was like, I didn't care if they were gay or straight, I'd offer them drugs or sex just to get them into my car.

4:41:05 Oh wow, his next victim with Kenneth Fitzgerald. Randolph jr. He was 20 years old, born and raised in beyou blue. Interestingly enough, despite all the cruising that Ronald was doing looking for victims, he ended up picking up somebody who lived only a couple of blocks away from him, but this wasn't suspicious because Kenneth had a real bad criminal past. The other things that were different with this one was that Kenneth was about 510 150 pounds, so taller and a little bit bigger than the guys who run up normally when, after so death, but it's tight. Not the norm. Also, very young, if he said that man, in his 30s were more his type, but Kenneth had first gotten in trouble for having sex with a minor and he was arrested for carnal knowledge of a child, then he got criminal damage of property and then he got arrested again for sex with a child and spent a year in prison where he got released and walked right into the waiting arms of Ronald Dominique.

4:42:10 So Kenneth the pedophile met up with Ronald the serial killer They found Candace body in the sugar, cane fields of Lafourche Parish October 6, 2002. He was completely nude and even though it hadn't been there for very long, decomp is very fast and the Louisiana climate. The killer had posed this body. So that his butt was lifted up in the air and he was face down. Just like all the others though. He had been strangled and raped and just like Mitchell Vincent. He had been tied up while he was alive and choked Twice first with a rope. And then by hand, they wrote this down the choking, obviously meant something important to the killer.

4:42:54 What I think is that he probably needed the Rope. to do it because Kenneth was a bigger guy, a rope, the Rope, probably, he probably did it from behind and he choked him until he passed out and then because he needed the to get him off, he did it by hand, so that he could get the thrill of the killing from that, but that he wasn't able to hold Kenneth down, Being that this was a bigger guy than right retail. Even though we have all these murders, FEI Yue Strangler doesn't make the prep because the u.s. is currently embroiled in the war in the Middle East. So the u.s.

4:43:41 Press is obsessed with conversations about that Kansas has the country's ear as far as serial. Killers go. Nobody seemed to really care about Terrebonne Parish except for a couple loan cops, who were bothered by this? Dude's Brazen Behavior. He's like he is really ballsy. Here. Oh my God. Six days later rods on the hunt. Again, Anoka Jones is the next victor victim now Anoka was 26 and he had a pretty hard life of being poor and doing crime to get by. He had been arrested multiple times throughout his life for Deft and drugs and Battery. But he had a girlfriend now and he wanted to do right by her.

4:44:21 He wanted to be a good man for Shelly Weston. They lived in an apartment on Fremont Street and Anoka had gone out to get some smoke. Oaks he was right on his bike around 8 p.m. to the local Corner Store. When Ronald saw him, Now what Witnesses say they saw was that Noca as he liked to call himself stopped, talk to the guy through the Wyndham and then drove back home. Z, he went home. He told Shelly, he loved her and then he told her, he was going to smoke outside again. This time, however, Shelly understood, the subtext. She knew that when he said at this time and meant that he was going to be gone for a bit doing something that he didn't want her to know about know, somebody should we doing got it, two hours later, Ronald was driving around.

4:45:09 How mama with no cos dead body in his backseat. He drove all the way back home to booth. And dropped. No. Cos body on the side of the road of the 310 Highway. His remains were found on October 13 by a passing police officer. The Cavalry of course arrived taking fingerprints from everything and anything they could find taking all the pictures. They had his name and address by the afternoon. October 14th. They arrived at Shelley Weston's house with a mug shot and she just started crying. Because she knew that that meant he was probably dead. That's been gone all night. If like if there's one thing that bothers me, the most, when you tell me stories about serial killers is it's it's that like one of their victims ends up being someone who's trying to get their life together.

4:46:05 You know, they're on the road in order to get their life together, you're doing this because stuff and then they end up fucking dead. Yeah. I mean it's weird because naoko on one hand, he wanted to get better for this. This new woman in his life, but on the other hand, The thing that got him killed, was him trying to do a drug deal with Ronald Dominique. So he still couldn't leave it behind and unfortunately that was the thing that got him in the end. Yeah. That should just breaks my heart. The police of Lafourche Parish first looked into the idea that this was a drug murder because of milk, has known history was selling, but eventually they ended up connecting it to Dennis Thornton.

4:46:46 It's kind of hilarious. They kind of ambushed him one day at his police. Precinct with their case and they were like this is like yours. He's just in his office and cops from three different parishes arrived and they all sit down and compare notes and they come to the same conclusion. It's the same guy. Now, back in Terrebonne, Parish Ronald decides, it's time to go. He hooked a little trailer out in the shipyard to his car, a Sonoma and then he headed out of town. It was time to find a new place to live and to hunt so between the last murder. And the one that's coming up a significant amount of time ends. The next one wouldn't be until May 24th 2003 and pretty much what happens here is that Ronald moves back in with his mom and his sister before.

4:47:47 He had like his own trailer and I don't know what he did with it. I'm like, did he sell it didn't have too much evidence in it but regardless, pretty much for the next three years he's going to be living with his mom, okay? The next murder is, May 24th 2003, a big gap between October. But the victim was to Truro, Woods, 19 years old. He had recently been released from prison and he hadn't really learned too much in prison. Hmm. He told some of his cousins and he was going to move in with his girlfriend, but the real issue as to why he needed to move is that he had broken into somebody's house and the homeowner instead of calling the police contacted your Trail and told him, if I don't get my rings back.

4:48:39 I'm going to show up to your mom's house and I'm going to kill everyone inside. Oh damn, the the person apparently he had been robbing the same guy. Over and over this man lives on the corner of Elder Street, and he was just sick and tired of it. What? And like. So he told his mom, he's like, hey, you know, I need to go do some things. I'm gonna go move in with my girlfriend, and his mom was like, no, I know, you're up to no good. She's like, please don't leave. She said you had an appointment on May 27th with the Social Security office. He was like, fuck the Social Security office. He got her some water.

4:49:19 And he left the house. He was like, I need to go make some money to pay this man because he's going to kill me for stealing from him. He of course, never made it back to his mom's house or to that appointment. He actually never made it to go get the money that he needed to pay the guy back. He was found a few days later by two cousins who were at three Wheeling off of Highway 56. They told the press that the body looked puffy. And they did. I mean this was 2003 so cell phones weren't super common at this point, but some people had them. Some people didn't these two were younger and didn't have them. I think in 2003 it was a little uncommon for a young people to have phones. It was more of a like grown-ups.

4:50:06 I think I got my mom's leftover, Nokia brick, probably around 2004. And it was mainly because I was take like the Dork that I am. I was taking an extra class at school, good writing class during the summer and it was so funny, like, you're in summer school. And I'm like, no, no, no, this is extra work because that's the kind of child that I was. And my mom gave me the phone so that I could call and let her know when I got out, when I got on the bus etcetera, Etc, because she was worried. So like I was 16 then though, so it was It was kind of uncommon it like young. Like 10, 12 year, olds had cell phones back then. So those two drove, their little bikes to a nearby casino and told like the first person they saw the casino, we found a dead body and the casino called the police. And they took the police back over to Charles body. His bike was with him.

4:51:10 See the night before he had gone to, his plan was to stop by his friends house. Pick up his bike. Then head over sell some drugs and then I'm guessing give that drug money to the guy who he stole the Rings and sold them. So somewhere between getting the bike from his friends house, he went missing and because he had this bike at him when he died, interestingly enough, there was no dirt on the bike Treads. There were no, he didn't have issues but there was no dirt on his socks. It May and it had been very dry for the past few days about 85 degrees so they couldn't figure out why there was a strange liquid around the body.

4:51:56 Like he had been submerged at some point, but it where he was found was bone dry. He had been stripped of any and all of his identification actually kind of sadly one of the detectives that was called like turned him over because he was face down and realized that he neutral and his mother and so that detective technically was able to identify him, but he still had to go to the mom's house to get a positive ID from a family room, a relative So, the police focused on the man, he robbed his efforts because, like, you know, he stole from you repeatedly. And you did say you were going to kill him, but that man had a solid Alibi.

4:52:41 They talked to his friend, Gary, the one who he had given him a ride to go pick up his bike. Gary was like, he left on his bike, that was all. They had their eventually, they linked him to the other killings and realized that this is work of a serial killer and not somebody who knew Detroit even though he was in a lot of like, Just trouble all the time. Right? Right now, January of 2004 comes and Ronald gets laid off from the produce store. He had got he gets a job working at Gulf Coast maintenance and how am I? But he only stayed for about six months then he gets his next job as a meter reader and that was perfect for Ronald. He didn't kill during this time at all, but he definitely did. why's that, if he Killed stopped picked a new town. This was the method to keep the police kind of confused. At least for now.

4:53:41 Now while he's at work as a meter reader, he realizes that he's finding all these really good locations and he can like Prospect, but he knew he couldn't write it down because if he wrote it down that, proved that it was first-degree murder. And he was planning it, but he just kind of made a mental note. Note as he drove around different places in Terrebonne Parish, he's like, oh, that'd be a good dump site. and of course, since he had stopped, killing from May of 2003 on And it's now January. The police aren't kind of stumped by this time. January 2004.

4:54:26 There have been 13. Murders across five different parishes but they didn't know the details just yet. Unfortunately, none of them like knew that if they just checked the boot database, they would have found that he was charged with attempted rape years ago. At this point, Dennis Thornton detective starts reaching out. He's like, listen, I know you were going to do a task force before and that didn't really work out but this time we have a lot more evidence and there's a lot more bad. So he starts kind of hammer in the state. He's like listen, I want us to do a real task force this time. Well, that's going on Ronald strikes again, but it's October of 2004, everybody's trying to prep for tropical storm Matthew which is Kickin south Louisiana in the but there's like 80 mile an hour winds and here's Ronald driving around looking for somebody to murder.

4:55:33 So they find Larry Matthews body near a pond and day. Almonds, the man who found it was Jeff Mauro. And he was a banker, and he also didn't have a cell phone, so he drove home. And he knocked on his neighbor's door. His neighbor was Don Jerome, who was a criminologist for the sheriff's office in st. Charles Parish. Oh my God. So don calls the police and he's like, I'm going there right away. He makes it in about 20 minutes, he determines, if the remains are fresh due to a lack of rigor mortis, he checks the pockets, there's nothing there. The body was wet. And so, of course, he goes, he probably dumped him during the storm and attempt to, you know, have the rain beat any sort of evidence off of him.

4:56:21 He liked this boy, they said the the storm that like the rain was sometimes going like sideways. Oh damn, I love that sideways rain. So He ends up using his little digital camera that he has to take as many pictures as he can of everything, while he waits for the detectives to show up. The autopsy is the next day. They learned that he had been killed with the tremendous amount of force and the overkill was significant, he had bruises on his shoulders, his back, his behind his head, the corner. However, then did a drug test and was like, ah, this must have been an overdose and actually listed on his death certificate was not death certificate but to go that's the term that I know. But I've been told by people in the field you don't call it a death certificate but it's a it looks like the things that happen to your body and how you likely died. He writes it was an accidental overdose and I'm like, buddy. You just said that He was beat like, to crap before he died. What do you mean he OD'd?

4:57:28 Are you thinking like a Coroner's report, something like that? Darn it. No, don't look it up. I'm just asking just a lot of morticians and people like that and Interesting. I was just thinking it was like nothing. I heard people say, Yeah. No dash is the morticians. This is okay. Okay. I think you're right. It's a Coroner's report. But yeah, so they he puts in his report though.

4:58:09 This is accident accident overdose, which I feel kind of contradicts all these abrasions and bruises all over Larry body painter. Also doesn't write on the report if the victim was raped or not. And then in a strange case that his prints come back and they find out that he's from Thibodaux. so, he's from the same town, where Ronald grew up He's and he's also 46 years old, which is the oldest victim that they have had so far. So they contact, Larry's brother, who tells them that he hadn't seen his brother for three or four days. Then I got it.

4:58:54 There's all that could explain to you is that this was a wild goose chase. They followed every lead possible and they did determine that. Like at one point. There is a friend's house with a bunch of random white people and that he had walked out of his friends house. After drinking and playing cards and just never come back. They closed the case and determined that at some point he must have gone and gotten drugs and done too many drugs and what? So that really October, I'm just thinking like, damn, okay, so you did all the drugs. You probably just fell down the stairs or something like that. That's probably what happened. That's where all the bruises came from.

4:59:35 I mean, later on, we learned that Ronald. Absolutely did get people. Hi. So it's very possible that what actually killed him was the overdose but that all the other stuff still happen he was still strangled and still you didn't mean it just happened postmortem. Yeah. It's very plausible like he was doing. Ronald is doing everything to get the people in his cars. You want to, you know, hang out. You want to party, you pay, you know, I could pay you. If you're we do some stuff like it didn't matter. He was trying to find any angle to get somebody. In his car. But we're not of October yet. October 24th 2004 the severely decomposed remains of Michael Barnett are found that a gator storage by the owner Dirk Guidry and his wife Wendy now gator stores didn't have much security No Electronic gate you kind of paid your money, stored your stuff and nobody bothered anybody else. They didn't think they needed any fancy security system but the day in question, when D is on site and she gets a report from one of her staff that there's a unit that smells bad and You know, that's not uncommon in the world of storage facilities.

5:00:44 Like sometimes people do plug in like a frigerator. And some people are living at a storage units, right? Regardless, she walks up to the one that smells foul and it doesn't have a lock. It was secured with a twist tie, so she just pulled it off and let herself in. Wendy described the Decay on the body. So bad. She said he look like this. This person look, he was easily in his 50s. Now, so don Burger on and Simon, Fryman are put on the case. They couldn't determine how he died because he'd been there for so long and someone came and reported Michael Barnett missing. They didn't think too much of it because Michael was only 21 and this body they had looked way way older but what they decide to do is take photos of the tattoos that were on hand and they took those two local artists and one of the artist was like yeah I know that guy his name is Michael Barnett and they were like wow.

5:01:52 Wow. Well apparently he'd been sit in that storage locker for a whole month. Oh my God. And even though fall in New Orleans is pretty nice, sitting inside of a metal storage locker, even it only 75 degrees speeds the decomposition process. Just like everybody else. They go through every lead and and Dawn wonders. Could this be the victim of a Strangler? But there's no proof. Ronald goes into hibernation again. Dennis Thornton is going crazy, trying to piece together. This puzzle. Still, the media is not making a connection either, and to put this into perspective, for people who are listening, as of 2005, Ronald Dominique had killed as many people as Jeffrey Dahmer. But there was none of the media outrage or even interest. The local police department was less worried about the stats as a serial killer, and was just like, well, let's focus on the fact that he's killing and Bay, you blue, Terrebonne, Parish and has been since 2003, he must live here. So they brought in everybody with a sex crime, like a conviction in Terrebonne, Parish to talk to them. The problem is wrong.

5:03:11 Donald didn't get caught in Terrebonne Parish and he didn't get convicted. So he wouldn't be on the conviction list. He wouldn't even be on the attempted list. Because it's the wrong Parish. So like what they're doing the right thing, but it's not being expanded. And now, right? You just searching that One Singular area, you're not fixated on the area where the murders are happening. Right now, Dennis Thornton is concerned with the fact that like this serial killer is killing at almost bizarre intervals. Like normally it's very consistent. Or there's like a clump of them that happened around the same time, but like he would, you know, kill two in one month, take six months off.

5:04:01 Like normally, they can't control themselves that. Well, Hey, in later interviews Ronald would say that even though the police weren't on to him, he decides to operate as if they were and he wanted to be extra careful. So 2005 comes and February 20th. 2005 Leon loretty was discovered in halma, near the shrine Center which was this abandoned building built in about 1870, everybody called it the Shriners building He was found by Man, Steve Tim and his son who were out dirt biking in the region because there was this big wooded area between the Shriners building and a small airport that was great for just kind of you know goofing off you know pop it on the dirt piles. Right at first Steve Just saw the clothes and he was, he like stops the kids from getting closer. And at first, he thought he would like that. The person in the grass was drunk passed out because he had a bottle of beer on him and they didn't touch him because they were like, listen, sometimes when drunks get woken up, they just start swinging.

5:05:14 Yeah, yeah. So Steve called the police on his cell phone, detective, Simon Fryman got the call at his house and Simon actually cognized Leon because Leann had been interviewed during the Nokia Jones murder a couple of years before another one of Ronald's victims. now, during the time that Leon is being autopsy, Simon gets Leon's. Mom to consent to a search of her house and then she lived there and as they were looking around they found like a blood-stained behind a chair and they got a warrant and the warrant allowed the forensic team to come in and take samples. And that went to a lab Well, that's going on. Simon goes and starts talking to Lance friends and realize that he kind of went missing.

5:06:09 Sometime around February 13th. He got into a fight with his friends, over some tools and they said he stole them and he said he didn't. And so, the current friends kind of we're having a little bit of a well, we're not going to talk to you a moment and so no one had seen him after that. Now the autopsy did show that Leon was very drunk when he died and he'd also been Strangled, with some kind of a chord. They figured that, his blood alcohol level would have been so high that he wouldn't have been able to really defend himself. Now, Simon is the same environment is at the police precinct doing like the work you the paperwork because that's the stuff they never talked about, right?

5:06:54 And a woman comes in, for a different case, around the Sugar Bowl, motel and on a whim Simon, kind of shows her Leon's picture, and she's like, oh yeah, he's here a lot, the Sugar Bowl was a known spot to pick up professionals and for professionals to find John So she was able to cut their time from nine days to 36 hours. Whoo damn nice. Yeah she had seen him as frequently as a day and a half before he died. The other important detail that she was able to tell them was that she had seen Leon with a white guy, who had a limp On March 3rd.

5:07:37 They got a call from a witness saying there had been a man a maroon car that had been near the airport just standing there and that was kind of weird because this is like a small private airport and he's just around and that puts this random, weird Shifty, white guy near the remains hours before the body had been dumped. Aunt. Very good information but they didn't have enough to identify him. Right. Early April, they find them. Another man fully clothed in a wooded area, near the Lafourche Work Release Center, and Lafourche Paris detectors were used to it now and they just showed up trying to collect any evidence they could and of course there's no i.d. No evidence.

5:08:30 So LSPD puts out a bolo for people who don't know, bolo stands out stands for be on the lookout. It's a type of bulletin and instead of saying like, hey, look for this suspect. It was. Hey, is there anyone that can get us in contact with someone who recognizes this person? Yeah, and this brought in other police who saw Saw the similarities of the victims in their Parish. The autopsy showed he'd been strangled. And after his prints went through the apis database, his name came back as August Tyrell Watkins, five foot six hundred thirty pounds, 32 years old also if people don't know if is stands for the automated fingerprint identification system which is what we use in the u.s. It doesn't actually pinpoint the fingerprints like on the TV shows.

5:09:28 But what it will do is it will give the print examiner a collection to look through. Instead of like 5,000 people, it might return 24 and then they print those out and they look and they compare the prints. They have to a much smaller number so it makes the job significantly Sims year. Yeah, that's all this is. It's great information. I do like to Rouse Family actually didn't know he was missing because he'd been evicted from his home and he was struggling with housing. So everybody knew Ooh, that like Tara was living with different people and was bouncing around to different peoples houses so nobody really had an idea when he went missing, because they just assumed like, oh, he's with his aunt. Oh, he's staying at his cousin's house. Oh, he's staring at his girlfriend's house, but through talking with the neighbors and all of his friends and family, they ended up going to the woods near jack's grocery to look for a bag of his things that he carried with him. His items were found near that abandoned lot near the grocery store and they theorize that Tyrell might have met his killer while asking for food or a place to stay the last person. He lived with was a young woman who he'd been dating but she had kicked him out and was dating somebody else and that at the time that he died, he was

5:11:00 sleeping in a local tunnel. Yeah. Sorry friends told the police that they'd seen Tyrell hanging out with a white guy who drove a white truck and they found the white guy and his wife based on running the place this couple neutral because they brought it, they bought drugs from him and they were kind of, like, nervous when they talk to the police and the police were like, what you called him at multiple locations and they're like, fine, we got drugs from him. That's why we called him different places. He lived, you got us. The first like they were like do you ever let this guy drive your truck?

5:11:43 And the lady was like I would never and they were like we definitely have people who say that you he was seen driving it and you were sitting with it and the thing was apparently the couple were broken up and got back together so there might have been a little hanky-panky going on way and she didn't want to let her husband know, had happened, right right, right. I mean they followed no less than 10 leads. They learned about everything if he was going through while struggling with housing but the case stalled after everybody checked out, Now, remember how I said that Denis Norden was trying to get the police to do a task force today. Finally get one or oh buddy, we get it.

5:12:24 We get task force. All right. Oh nice, nice, nice. Now, Dennis is parish is Terrebonne and so, don, don Bergeron has her own Parish that she's dealing with ones and so ultimately the two of them kind of piece things together and they're like, all right, at this point. Now we have potentially 15 murders. We know the guys Is mobile. We know he picks up his victims on the street. It's a must be consistent motive. Across victims, that turns out to be not true. His MO is different depending on the victim. Now what originally started as a sex crimes had devolved into like just murder because they couldn't not all the bodies. They couldn't determine whether they've been assaulted or not.

5:13:07 They were very disheartened by the fact that the major media news wouldn't cover this and thing that was really interesting is because around the same time Member how I said I was looking for there not to be a crisscross of murders. There was a crisscross of murder as I forgot about Derrick Todd Lee. The Baton Rouge serial killer, who was killing in Northern Louisiana. While Ronald was killing in Southern Louisiana. Oh my God, the process was all over. Derrick, Todd Lee's case because that was a black man killing white women that sells papers Ronald, of course, was choosing black men down on their luck. Offering them, hope a place to say, or just some drugs to pass the night.

5:13:51 And therefore those cases weren't really, you know, making the yeah, no headline news right there. But finally, it's April 2005 and Dennis gets that real task force after 15 murders. So the state and vice Dennis to this massive meeting. Because he'd been the longest on the cases. He'd been following them for eight years now. And they also included Tom Lambert from ham from the how much Sheriff's Office and FBI agent from New Orleans Jack or sign Simon Fryman from Hama PD Dawn Burger on from Terrebonne Parish and her boss.

5:14:31 Major four major Vernon Booyah Booyah, there's so many friends James I had to look up. So good right now. Also they invited 14 other cops representing all six of the parishes where there were murdered Dennis was hype. He was like, we have the money now to really fun. This it's getting on the news and so, they did decide to focus on Terrebonne Parish since five of the most recent murders happen there. Both, he and Don become lead, detectives on Me on the task force, and they were chosen because of their years of looking into the case. But also the fact that the two always kind of showed initiative in a willingness to kind of think, outside the box, Don was exceptionally talented at speaking to Witnesses and potential suspects, and getting quick confessions, or statements as a police, like to call them. She said, I had a very incredible ability to soften people up and get them to just spill their guts. This was very valuable trait for this investigation because even people who weren't suspects had information to give and we didn't have the time for you to be standoffish. Give me the information.

5:15:38 Even I need so we can move on and go somewhere else. Right, that's how I always am with. People. Look, look, I got Time. Come on, come on, come on, but she did it in a way that you know, didn't make people feel standoffish. It was it was it's a talent. Unfortunately, as soon as they got themselves together, another murder happened. This time and Lafourche Parish, it was the end of April and Kirk Cunningham's. Body was found floating in a ditch. Kurt was 23 years old. And from Thibodeau, he was the first White victim. Hey, last been seen and how On April 8 but he wasn't discovered until 20 days later off of Highway 307, the apps autopsy ruled inconclusive because he's been sitting in water for days actually. Okay.

5:16:30 So because it was like a dish, it was probably not all water. So like half of his body is water. Decomposed in the other half is it's not yeah. Decomp from this point forward. They decided we need to streamline this process. We have a lot of people on this. There's no need for redundancies. So, we're going to use one crime lab for all future evidence. This will all of the evidence will only be handled by the same people. So there is no confusion as to who has it like this detective is the person who's going to carry this stuff in his car to this lab and will be that person from now on. Okay, this standardization gave everybody. The thing that they were to handle, kind of expertly at every crime scene, so there's no wasted energy. Dennis came up with the idea for them to fingerprint. All of Kurt Cunningham's body.

5:17:35 But to use different temperatures to maybe make certain things appear. He said that he got this from CSI. Oh my God, like worth a shot. To see if depending on the temperature things, you know the skin might change and you might get a usable print. Now Dennis and Dawn are digging into the current investigation and another murder happens. This time Alonzo Hogan, 23 years old st. Charles Parish July 2nd Alonzo was 28 and he was black, he was found fully dressed.

5:18:17 Ronald had gone back to an old dump site the cane field off of Highway 306. They went back to the old files, to try and find a connection between the new cases, and the old ones. How am I resident Wayne Smith? Is found in a ditch fully clothed on August 16th. So why month later off of Grand Caillou Road. This is another one that gets marked as undetermined by the coroner due to Advanced decomposition. Wayne is one of the youngest victims at only 17 years old. They use the same protocols collect as much evidence has and, you know, follow their, their plan.

5:19:01 Donald that is also root out the shoe connection. It wasn't a signature, it was just the side effect of having to move the bodies CIA. But an interesting thing was that three of the victims have been seen at the Sugar Bowl Motel just before their death. And they noticed that every victim had at least one prior criminal offense. That was an interesting pattern, too. Now it's August 28, 2005. Do you remember what happened Ryan? You said, August 28th, 2005. I don't. Well, disaster struck Louisiana Hurricane Katrina one of the five deadliest hurricanes in US.

5:19:47 History, I'm sorry, that's okay. It was a category 3. When it made landfall on the Gulf Coast on August 29th, for people who are Americans, who are listening, Louisiana, specifically New Orleans is below sea level. And the region is protected by a series of flood walls and levees that pretty much block water from going where it shouldn't. Some of these flood levees can be natural, but many of them were man-made. And on Monday, August 29th, there were over 50 failures in the walls and 80% of New Orleans and all of st. Bernard Parish flooded, you're talking tens of billions of gallons of water from the Atlantic Ocean, flooding over 100,000 homes and businesses.

5:20:30 It is considered to be one of the costliest, natural disasters in US history, costing over 100 billion dollars God. And the thing is, if you're from the south, I give her somebody who's listening from the south like Like, at one point, one of my family members lived in Port, not with a. What's the bottommost town in Florida? I forget what it's called acute was. It's one of the keys. Yeah, income like it's they're so used to hurricanes that. They just like stack up there sandbags and then they drive away and they tow back to the mainland. Like they're just used to them happening, like every 6 to 12 months and it's always like this is gonna be the First one and they're just like yeah, whatever whatever it is. It was kind of like that in New Orleans because they were used to these but the because the levy the Levee failures happened People didn't evacuate like people didn't evacuate and eight, 1836 people were killed.

5:21:34 There are a host of horrible atrocities against people that happen in the city. During this time, I mean, I remember watching there were police forcing people with kids back into flooded water while they were trying to cross a bridge because the bridge was dangerous, but like the people were like we're gonna drown that was caught on camera. There was also an entire prison that was left full of inmates and the inmates were left or drown as the guards kind of worried about their own safety. That's something that they don't like to talk about and there's a lot of history around that a lot of government in action and mismanagement happened. I could go on, but we don't have the time.

5:22:14 It took two years just to rid the city of biohazards and begin rebuilding. And when I say that, New Orleans is frequently called the city of the dead. It's notoriously haunted, and it has a host of above-ground mausoleums and beautiful cemeteries and well, those are below sea level. When the flood happened. The bodies in the ground also came out. So they were finding remains and having to try and figure out where they came from. Where these people, who drowned in the actual water are these remains from cemeteries, it took years, it's been 17 years since. And from what I understand things are mostly back to normal down there but That's good.

5:23:06 That's good to hear. Well, once the water subsided, there was another murder to deal with. Krista Ville, 40 years old and this time it was a new dump site. Assumption Parish he wasn't a typical victim. Chris was not transient. He didn't have a history of drugs or Home of my keys were homelessness, but you know, housing issues or even crime in his background, right? His family was together. His brother was a cop. He was also fully clothed and left off of Highway 1. It was almost like maybe this one was done in a Moment of desperation.

5:23:56 Interesting. And what I see as the stunning display of sort of fuckery that isn't Dawn's bosses. Begin, freaking out on the task force and saying you're taking too long. We want results. Even though it had taken them, eight years to provide, Dennis with the money to, even really pursue the cases, they were being expected to solve them immediately. Okay, thank you for the money now, we'll create some magic for you. Okay, snack. Well, luckily, the task force gets a break and that break comes in the name of a man named John. Banning John was the typical Mark for Ronald?

5:24:38 What Ronald didn't know was that John's parole officer was officer Lambert? One of the men in the task force. John was walking on the highway when he was approached by Ronald and offered sex with a girl based off of a photo. Anton was like he doesn't look very dangerous and that picture is very sexy. What's the harm in going to his house and see if she's real? So as they're Drivin, he said that Ronald talked about some weird stuff, he talked about how he was going to have to tie John up because the girls really like bashful about new guys, it was real weird. Also, he randomly talked about how there was a stigma around being gay.

5:25:25 And for some reason, when Ronald pulled into his sister's driveway, John still State, they went to the trailer. Ronald begins his routine. He tells John get undressed, Rest, and he's like, and then I'll tie you up. And John kind of took stock of the room. And was just like, there are jugs of urine in this room, which is weird, and also Stacks, and stacks of gay porn. John takes that moment and just walks out of the door. And Ronald doesn't stop him. He actually said he ran back to the highway. Wow. Okay, so Donna, Dennis are, you know, back at headquarters discussing their try to figure out like the guy that Witnesses reported Didn't seem like a big guy like yeah, he was Heavy SAT but he wasn't very tall. And like he didn't seem very strong according to Witnesses. So they're trying to figure out how is he getting these people to get in his car.

5:26:29 They had already been through every sex offender in every Parish where there was a murder. But they didn't think to talk to the Parolees and so that came up during this conversation and they they like, hey, they like they go to their squadmate Lambert and they're just like, hey, we want to go through all the Parolees and you're here. So you have the list on you, like I mean, you still working at a, his side to work their regular stuff too. And so he's just like we want to talk to all the people who are on parole in this town. Which is how John Banning ended up in the interrogation room talking to Dennis and Dawn. I guess, first he talked to Lambert and then to Dennis and on John tells them how this fat white guy pulled up on him and a black Sonoma truck, offered him, alcohol. And a crack at banging hot chick. He told them exactly where Ronald had taken them to make them to.

5:27:23 And this is so weird. But like, they all met near Ronald house and I think it's really up because you have like a regular police officer with John Banning and then you have two detectives in like suits, But they don't walk up to the door. In fact, what Dawn does is she goes up to Or Don does is she goes up to the mailbox and she begins kind of flooding through the mail and there's only one male named in the house. Ronald J Dominique.

5:28:04 They decide. They go back and they decide they want to make sure this is airtight, so they decide to just go talk to him. Like, knock on the door, they're like, hey Ronald, um, There's this guy who made kind of a charge against you, and we just want to talk to you about it. His name's John Banning and he like, filed a report, he's like, can you talk to us at the station and so they go in and Ronald tells them that he know, he's just in a kinky sex and he was having fun with the whole tied up thing. Dennis asks, run up to take a lie detector test and for the first time in their interview Ronald gets pissed and he's like what's all this about? And then it's just tries to play it off. Cool, listen.

5:28:48 To Dominique. We're just trying to clear these cases. We're working on, if you can help us, that would be wonderful. So he agrees to the polygraph then Dawn, it's just like, you know, it would help us a lot if you sign this consent form. And give us your DNA. Oh God, he agrees and they take a hair and saliva sample and they thanked him over and over again and send him on his way. And if you listen to the podcast a lot, you're like wait, what? Well, okay, so it's weird that he was so agreeable. But also the other weird thing is that they had to ask permission to get his DNA because we've had other cases, like the Grim sleeper, where they followed him to a birthday party.

5:29:34 And Told the plates and cakes that he ate off of, right. Yeah, that's because the DNA at that time. They did it wasn't as advanced as it is. Today even 10 years later. And so now we can get DNA on vert off of virtually anything. But back then we couldn't. So they went for the thing that you could get the best match on which was hair spit semen. They were like, can we can we get these? I think you can't ask him for a semen sample. He wouldn't do that, but like you never know, you never know. He see that kind of guy who probably give it up to Who knows?

5:30:15 They paint John Bannon back in and John's like no, no, no. I did not willingly go to his house. I'm not even gay. He's like I just thought the girl looked hot and I wanted to see which if she was there and so they asked John they're like, okay. So what if he had tried to stop you and Johnson, it would have been like the Civil War He click yes. No, no. So this is where he says Pearl Harbor. He said it would have been Pearl Harbor in that piece, sir. Indicating that he would have fought him. Okay? What a weird thing to say? Definitely, you know, I would have been, like, Pearl Harbor. They decide to go into a database of crimes. Just pulling people who were charged, but never convicted. And this is where they find Ronald's charges and it sounds very similar to what John Banning told them. They also found there were two other cases of sodomy against Ronald that had been dropped due to a lack of corroborating evidence.

5:31:23 The police are now. The police, from those two cases, who, talked around were brought in and they definitely remembered him. It was even though it was like the 80s, they've definitely remembered him and they said that he had a serious persecution complex about being gay. So with all this information, Dennis add-on, requested 24-hour our surveillance team, and they get denied. They're like, that's too much and you don't have enough to make that worthwhile. So they put a roadblock up near the Sugar Bowl hotel since multiple victims were found there and they regularly stop and search cars at random. Now, this does cut off one of his hunting sites, but Ronald had more and the stress of being watched by the police, was stressing him out.

5:32:16 November 5th, 2005, Nick Pelican 21 years old is working on his home when the meter reader arrives. That meter reader is Ronald Ronald straight up propositions him. And next like I do need the money and so he agrees but later and Ronald picks him up after round. Gets off of work takes him back to his trailer. Ronald would later tell the police that because his mom and sister were down the hall, he had to make sure that Nick wouldn't scream and November 9th, they discover his remains in the woods and Lafourche Parish, he had been tied. Up and to add insult to injury.

5:33:08 He had gambled and gone through the roadblock with the dead body in the back of his car. Kidding me. Ballsy is all get out. Nick's autopsy came in the word laceration, peaked Dennis's interest. He was just like, I feel like I've been reading that word a lot and so he goes through the cases and realizes that a lot of the men had lacerations Options to their back of their head. Meaning, that that was one of the ways that Ronald was subduing, them by just straight, hitting them in the back of the head with something hard. Tying them up.

5:33:49 They focus on DNA. The problem is DNA takes months but they do get a positive match. Remember all Ela Banks and how they said that there were Caucasian hairs? Yes, yes him. Yeah, they do a match but the problem was it was mitochondrial DNA, really ideally? You want what's called nuclear DNA, which is, it definitely belongs to this one person mitochondrial DNA matches. It means that this could be from anyone in Ronald's. Only, it's not the slam dunk. You want because DNA was still very new in court, and that was the kind of thing that could have could get thrown out.

5:34:34 Okay, okay, well, hold on, hold on a second. You said it could have been anybody in this family? Do you mean like his family or like his genus family? I mean, like his actual brother and Uncle a father. Okay. Well look, it you are you have this guy Who's very suspicious? Don't you think that you would like? All right okay this is close enough to being like him, why you don't? We just like just fucking take. Well what this did allow for was that 24/7 security detail. They had asked for months ago, even get approved for a helicopter.

5:35:16 Oh my God. Take 25. Yes to follow him around and take pictures from They didn't even hide that they were following him. So as they're watching him, the task force creates a timeline for all the victims. And they're trying to see, you know, based on like the yearly taxes, where Ronald is working in relationship to where the victims are picked up and where they're dropped off and it's looking really good, honestly, he's, he's always in range of these people. And the task force kind of kept watching it, like is he going to run away? Is he going to stay, you know, summer of 2006. They get their second DNA hat.

5:36:04 Angel Mejia that was based on semen. Another mitochondrial match. They're just at this point, they're watching. They're looking to see if he does anything ridiculous. Well, in October of 2006, he slips his police detail and kills Christopher center field. He was 27 years old and just like Nick also white. It was almost like he was changing his Mo to be like, look, see? That guy was killing black, guys. This new guys killing white, guys. Different God. Yeah, no idea. Guy killer is.

5:36:44 Yeah, that's totally different. That's not me. What are you talking about? Well, Christopher went missing October 15th and he was found within hours of his death. He was dumped in Iberville Parish off of Highway 69. He was fully clothed, he'd been tied up and strangled, but they were aware that he had been raped and redressed the Hope was that because Ronald had to do this quickly, He had been he hadn't been as Careful Cleaning off the body and made a mistake. So they rushed all the evidence to the lamp. Don was actually in Disneyland with her daughter. When the DNA results came back from Christopher center field and it was not a match. She says it was a hard trip for her and she did her best to have fun with her daughter but the case weighed heavily on her when she got back from Disney Dawn and Dennis sat down and they really thought hard like Should we just bring him in? Even though the da doesn't think we have like perfect evidence. If we bring him in, we gotta get him to just confess because You know if we charge him and it gets you know, and he beats it. We can't charge him again because Double Jeopardy laws. Yeah, they weren't sure.

5:38:10 Is he going to clam up in the interrogation room? Is he going to lawyer up? They're like this is a risk. We're going to bring them in, okay, all right. On December 1st is when they went to Ronald's house. Now, interestingly enough, there was also a media leak and as they arrived to pick him up, there's loads of people outside of this trailer. Ronald sister just lets the police into the house points to his room. There's Ronald sitting calmly, and they're like, we'd like to inform you that you are being arrested for 2 first-degree.

5:38:54 Three murder charges. I Lila Banks and Angel Mania, he goes with them with no issue. Back at the station, a decide to let Dennis leave because he was the more experienced detective out of the two of them. He decided the way to do this was to Present himself informally to get, Ronald just to chat with him about, you know, random stuff. It's a couple minutes, but browser talking the agreed to speak without a lawyer present and they got him to sign the papers for his Miranda rights and then they turned on the tapes, one of the weirdest Parts like they're not all available but one of the weirdest parts of will see.

5:39:43 This is that Ronald smoke and like this really small voice almost deferential to Dennis He admitted to fooling around with Ali that he met him in the French Quarter. He said Ali Approached him for a good time no discussion of money. He gave them the entire rundown of sex with Ali complete with saying he talked like in such a weird way. Like you know, some of they were like oh well what happened then? He's like well I had my drawers down for what God looks like. It's bringing me. It's really bizarre for somebody who's doing the things that he's doing like some of his the way like the way that he speaks is almost childlike, right? He gives the lie that I talked to you about before which is that you know, he had told Ali that he had a surgery after working offshore and then he got an infection in his rectum. It was the lies were hard for him to keep together almost like and it didn't even make sense like at one point. He said that like he got an infection from a prior partner and that was the first time he had ever done anal. And then he said that, like, the infection had been because of a A buildup of pepper and don't ask me what that means because it doesn't mean anything build up, its it is but okay exactly I kind of know what it's you know

5:41:17 that people put pepper in a pepper is a but that seems like a weird thing to put in your body may be effective decided to focus on the things they knew were lies. When pressed Ronald and flips the script and says that Ali held him at knifepoint and demanded money. And he says he was going to fuck me and kill me. If I didn't give him no more money because he had the knife by my throat. Ronald told him, he gave him $20 and he had have any other money and that when Ali said didn't believe him, he hit him with a tire iron and then that he used the seat belt to strangle him. Also a lie, he did that by hand.

5:42:00 He admitted to sitting on top of him to keep him from moving. He recounted this entire story with virtually. No vocal intonation. It was like he wasn't there at all. But he was talking about himself, then he told the then he told Dawn and Dennis that he drove and drove and drove and then finally went home and sat in the bathtub and cried. And I think this is really interesting because they started to remember. They told him that he was being arrested because of Angel, Mejia and Ali. But they started slipping in some of the other victims from Terrebonne Parish.

5:42:47 So like what happened with Manuel read. And he starts talking about Manuel Reed. At 1:53, they had to stop and put the tape. He kept telling them. I don't remember their names. I don't remember their names, he said the same thing that happened with Ali happen with Manuel that he knew about the surgery and that he couldn't have anybody enter him, but that Manuel had raped him and that he had grabbed the tire iron, head him and tied him up. So he couldn't hurt me anymore and then he choked him. That story ended at 7:16 p.m. Now unlike I guess real interrogation rooms that hold double-sided glass thing, not the norm.

5:43:30 So all the other members of the task force are just kind of standing around the door waiting as Dennis and Dawn leave the interrogation room. Dennis is like, I think we should keep going. We shouldn't stop for the night, they own. So while they go outside, they talked to the crime analysts who say that Ronald had kept no souvenirs and how has this house? That was interesting detail because a lot of serial killers like to remember their kills, right, right. So with this information, they come back in, that's a little different, they're going to talk to him about all the murders and see if he knows things about it. This time he tells them he had been raped, Raped in prison and that he just wasn't the same after that. Ronald was particularly upset that he had ruined his relationship with his sister who he lived with. He said he hurt her and his goddaughter. And that she was the only one who treated him. Well, because he was gay.

5:44:34 When they asked him about the different cases at first, there was like a lot of self-pity just put them on my name. So they decide to stop the interview. They were like, we're going to stop but they didn't stop the like we're gonna let you go to sleep and he's like well I have a lot of trouble sleeping since I had a heart attack. He told them, he got stung by a wasp and that caused his heart attack. Which made about as much sense as the black pepper. Build up / gay sex, that caused the bacterial infection in his rectum. All right, They're like, we're going to leave. But first, can you talk about? Like what happened, all the stuff for the guys, you came to your apartment and he's just like, listen, I would just throw it away, like, I just throw it away. He inadvertently.

5:45:17 Lets it slip that he does dump a body at the storage center, and then he clammed up and was like, it's all the same, it's the same with all the rest of them. There were a lot of, I don't remember, I don't remember. And I'm partially. I do believe him because Rodney wasn't like Alcala who needed his photos. Or Ridgeway who almost coveted, the remains of his victims. I think that he might not have remembered all the names, but he damn sure remembered all the places and you're going to find out why the following day. But there's a thing was he didn't care about their names or who there were or how he got them to their house, the moment of sexual satisfaction for him came from the murder.

5:45:59 And then once the person was dead, it was like all the excitement's over. I just have to get rid of them. Disposer sure he tried to be careful but he didn't intend to go back or anything. That first things here, gatien lasted until 1129. That first night. They finally let him go to bed and then Dawn and Dennis did not go to bed. They went to the Terrebonne. Parish da with the tapes from the hours before and they're like, he's confessed to Aid already. We got him on these tapes, confessing to 8 with information that he would only know if he had been the one who dumped the body. And so the DA's like I mean that's incredible. Do you like what do you want me to do? And Don and Dennis said, we want all of them. M.

5:46:51 And we're worried that if you come in and let him know you're seeking the death penalty, he's going to stop talking, he's going to lawyer up, can you? Wait just a couple more days, so we can get everything we can out of him? The three of them talk really long into the morning. But by the end, the decision was the da. How about we? Give them a deal. He takes you to all 23, dump sites and I won't pursue the death penalty. While killing him and putting him on death row, with feel Justified for the things he's done. If we get him to admit to everybody, then at least the families of the victims have achieved, some kind of resolution, right, right.

5:47:36 December 2nd. They pull him out of his cell in the morning and present him with the option. He agrees immediately And then takes Dennis and Dawn in the car on a very bizarre road trip, across Southern Louisiana and it's not just the three of them there in one car. There's an entire Caravan of other, like, police in regular cars. Just in case he tries to like Escape in the middle of the woods. Right. Right. Yeah. Maybe we're not letting anything go by even the night before they had him on a full suicide watch. Ouch because he kept saying things like I just want to go to sleep and never wake up, it was very dramatic.

5:48:22 Okay. The the way that Don describes it is that he might have played innocent in the the interrogation room. But he knew every dumpsite and he remembered like what the person look like? He was able to tell them and show them the specific spots. And she said one thing was the same the entire time he was emotionless. He knew exactly how he dumped them or posed them for the police. When they got back to Terrebonne Parish Sheriff office, there was still a lot of work to do. Dawn and Dennis took Ronald back to interrogation to clear up some inconsistencies from the night before and they were pretty much like, you know, what Ronald, what do you want to talk about today?

5:49:08 And that kind of let loose The Floodgate. Mmm. He's like, I'm not a bad person and he's like, I got molested as a child, two different times and harassed and bullied by everybody, I knew I was falsely accused of rape when I hadn't done it which is true, not for lack of trying but he didn't actually rape that guy. He just threatened. Into. Well, he was abused in prison and released. And maybe I killed a few guys that I took my anger out on them and it sounds like it. He's like, maybe I should have gotten help. I'm really sorry. And they asked why he was so angry and Ronald said that he was angry, because at everyone who had ever called him, the F slur or queer, even his family. Eventually he admitted the truth that his victims hadn't tried to hurt him or extort him or rape him. He said that he knew that he had picked up at least seven straight men with the ruse of saying that he could have sex with the girl in the photo.

5:50:10 He admitted on tape that he raped all of them and that they were alive when he did it and then he strangled them. So that confirmed. Even the ones they didn't have forensic evidence on because the bodies were so decomposed. Right. He said that the last couple ones he had taken a towel from the bathroom and shoved it in their mouth so they wouldn't scream. He said there were actually a lot more people like John Banning. Who just got there and decided they weren't interested in left. He said he was sorry and he wanted everyone to forgive him. That interview ended at 2:53 a.m. December 3rd.

5:50:56 Okay. The rest of the story is pretty simple. The plea bargain was accepted by the court on September 24th. 2008 about a year and a half later, 30 relatives of Ronald's victims, were there in the courtroom, some of them spoke at the sentencing Kurt's, brother, Chris Cunningham, On stance that I hope he burns in Hell pretty much. I hope the man burns in hell. I'm sure he will and Ronald refused to look at him. He actually refused to look at any of them. The pictures from that day, he's in like a white type of almost like a straitjacket and he's like his head is like down the entire time and Chris said I'll miss him till the day I die.

5:51:36 And then he started crying on the stand and he said, I hope he'll find you fast. Chris De Ville sister, Cynthia Berra been remind the court that Ronald left her brother and a cane field to be eaten by rodents. Her direct quote was when we found him, he was nothing, he was nothing but bones, nothing we had to bury bones, Angela Smith, Wayne Smith's mother, the youngest victim wrote a letter to the court. Just discussing the fact that had been years since she hadn't seen her child. And that Her direct words where I put something in the ground but I don't really know if it's my child or not because I never got to a chance to see my baby. That's because Decomposition and things of that nature, right? Right.

5:52:25 God, the judge actually gave Ron the chance to speak to the court. He declined, of course, of course, of course and then judge Randy bath. The court sentenced him to eat consecutive life sentences for folks who don't understand a natural life sentence in the u.s. you become eligible for parole after about 30 years. And so that's the reason why we do things like consecutive life sentences when We sentence people like around Dominique me, even if he got parole on every single case, he's minimum amount of time you have to do in prison. It's 240 years. And that is just for the eight murders in Terrebonne. Parish the others didn't receive a trial because it would have been redundant.

5:53:11 But Ronald Dominique is listed as the murderer for all 23 of his victims who are David Mitchell Garry pierre-pierre. Larry Ranson, Oliver Ali, Le Banks Joseph Brown, Bruce Williams Manuel read Angel Mejia. Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Vincent, Kenneth Randolph, Randolph, jr. Anoka Jones, de trial, Woods Mary Matthews. we'll burn that we all know ready August Watkins, Kurt hunting ham Alonzo, Hogan Wayne Smith Krista Ville, Nicholas, pelegrin and Christopher Satterfield And as for the rest of the people, in our story Reynolds family wants nothing to do with him. His sister spoke at no point to any media outlets at any time, which is why I think it's very difficult to get a full family like history for him.

5:54:03 Right? You think you said like in the beginning that like you can find like a lot of his family members. They probably did not want to be found or they just did not. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I could have done like a census and looked up who lived at the house on baby blue Road in 2004. But ultimately these people didn't want to be known. And honestly a lot of times after these cases, people change their names. And so, why would I go that far to find and name? The people who have gone out of their way to try and have some semblance of normalcy?

5:54:44 After their family member did, horrible things? Right. Yeah, yeah. As for Dennis Thornton and Don Burger on now for a after her marriage, they were both promoted to detective captains and their respective cities. Don kept a photo of herself Dennis and the rest of the task force framed on her desk for years, The main cities affected by this case like boat, and how Mama those people went back to living our lives. This conviction, got very little press even though there is. I mean, it is exceptional that Don and Dennis talk to a man, who'd been killing 49 years into confessing absolutely everything in under 48 hours, right? Is Kris, as for Ronald, he's currently 58 years old and he is in the general population.

5:55:35 At Louisiana State president Angola where he will be for the rest of his life, okay. And it's very interesting. This case reminds me of that like really famous quote from t.s. Eliot. You probably know. It's from Holloman, it says like this is the way the world ends not with a bang but a whimper. Hey, yes, that's how I feel. This case ended. Not with like a big dramatic moment but it was just like a whimper. Yeah, not really tracks for serial killers. It just went out like if it petered out like yeah, they're all cowards. Yep. And that's what I got for you today. Oh god. Well, great storytelling. That's all.

5:56:19 That's what you say about your stories. Okay there's no funny. Things I can't like I mean obviously it's funny moments but you know, great as always not super funny. No, no clay. So he's just what it is. Yeah, is just God, you know, the one thing that like that they got to me is like they just searched in at one single area that they thought he was going to be in like serial killers. They don't stay in one area. Well, the thing is, um, sometimes he did, you know, He this is somebody who I think was probably well, versed in serial killer stuff. Hmm.

5:57:06 He was, he was making certain moves, he was going certain places. He was even once he moved to a new town, he still killed within the set and within his town. Like personally, that's what I think is the worst part? Is that wrong of me? Staying here Town. Yeah, I feel like don't kill anybody anywhere near. Where were you living your home? Yeah, I mean but you would think that'll make it easier for people to find out who it was two then. But sometimes it is, unfortunately, policing is always changing always evolving.

5:57:48 I mean we've talked about cases dating back to the what? Almost 1,800 my God. Yes. Madame lalaurie was able to escape. Pretty easily. She hopped on a boat. Never came back to America. It's true. It's true, you know, so I mean now people get extradited from other countries and they do horrible things. So you know, things have changed things are better. Unfortunately, there's like hundreds of thousands of homicides that has never been solved in America. It's a lot. So at least, you know, we celebrate When they get it right.

5:58:28 There you go. Yes, yes, we do. Okay, well, we had another water Cryptids today for everybody who likes to order Cryptids. Yay, I actually do like the water Cryptids, the best kind of mermaids, count, don't they? Yeah, they do. Yes. Yes, he do. Not summer mr. Day. No, this is one that's been known to be the bane of many, see bearing folks in Vikings of like one. That's sick and countless ships and taken many lives. Yeah, you've heard his name being Cried by a certain God. That it needs to be released.

5:59:16 That's right. We're talking about releasing the Kraken today. Also, just a side note, the Kraken is from Norse mythology, not Greek mythology, if anybody who's seen a clash Clash of the Titans, and it got confused and saw a giant ice cracking and they keep saying release the Kraken it. Okay. So it's not a, it's not a Greek thing, it's a North's thing. I don't know why. The people who made the damn movie, they suck. Okay. They did a lot of stuff that wasn't like me. How you make a movie called Clash of the Titans. You don't have Titans in it. You just have one.

5:59:57 Okay? To tighten, I guess they said, what's the Titan was the cracker? But the cracking doesn't belong in there is not a damn Titan. Anyway. Before I go off, About stupid, Greek mythology, in Norse mythology, which is a stupid. But you know, whatever, we're going. We're going to talk about the krakken. Okay, we'll talk about the Kraken before I go burst a blood vessel in my eyeball because this pisses me off. So our first description of the Kraken is from I think it's early. Early 13th century, maybe 1100s.

6:00:42 It's from an Icelandic. Legendary tale. And I looked up pronunciations, I cannot pronounce this word, but I found translations for, what does word means and it's basically, it's arrows, odd, or arrows point. And it's basically about some, you know, it's if you ever Like the Odyssey or Iliad. Yes. Like it's like a, you know, a legendary tell like that. Like, you know, how old is he is was on his way home from being stranded from the Trojan War and shit like that.

6:01:25 So, I tried to look it up. Okay, guys, don't yell at me. I'm sorry it. When I looked it up and it gave me two pronunciation, it gave me two different versions of it which is really weird anyway, like I said it's a hero saga and in this, in this book or The Saga, they it's not called the Kraken, but is called a A half golfer. which by its description doesn't sound very cracking like, but if you if you look it up, basically, it's supposed to be like a monster bigger than a whale or a will size monster that Took down ships, it destroyed ships. I mean there's history of whales causing Carnage. Oh gosh.

6:02:31 You were those guys there's this one group of. I don't even call them Pirates but they they hunted whales. Hmm. And they also nearly killed all of the turtles own on there, they'll look up Galapagos Global. So, like, we don't really care about these people. No. So if they absolutely back then these whales, I guess realize they were being hunted and they Straight up started just like ramming the ship. So they are a fairly intelligent species of creature and nice if you attack us. I mean see that that least to me thinking like if Wills did you just attack this one ship that was attacking them or do they attack like a lot of ships at that time.

6:03:20 The in the story that I remember Well, never mind. So a pot of orchids attacked a boat in April of 2021. No damn worker suck. Never mind. They make because are technically dolphins. And dolphins are the humans of the ocean, okay? See these talk about dirty. Attacked a yacht. What were y'all doing to the? That's not true. The orcas are dolphins and dolphins are a menace to the ocean. They really, okay. I'm not going to say because whales aren't I think? In that situation the wheels were just fighting back. Okay, that makes sense. The old one like Way Way Back.

6:04:00 Yeah. The most recent I got to look into that case with all the 30 orcas attacking my God taking a yacht. Okay here we go. I think because I think it was the The ship was called the Essex and that inspired Moby Dick. That one is that that that ship was attacked by just a whale by multiple Wheels multiple Hills, but they were hunting them. Okay. Well, see the Essex was an American wheeler from Nantucket Massachusetts, lost in 1799 and 1820. While at Sea in the South Pacific ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard, she Attacked and sunk by a sperm whale.

6:04:52 Yep, I remember this story because there's a really funny animation on YouTube about it. I'm just like, so it's fairly plausible that I mean a book was based off of that attack. So there could be other lure based off of stuff like that. Yeah. Like because I remember like a couple only a couple people survived and then they also ate people. It was a crazy story. Yeah. But there's definitely like real history to support the concept of what my question is. Why would you think a whale? Because the Kraken has tentacles? Okay. Yes, but this thing I apparently behalf gopher It was a guess who's either the size of the wheel, or either way, it had like, multi arms as well multiple arms.

6:05:46 So that's probably why it's referred like it's thought of as being like an early depiction of a crack into just because of her know that the most people did use. Did you hear that? Some of the reports okay to what that's a mean. And a meme says that when whales mate oh no, OK. Yes. I've seen them. Okay. And that the thing that people were reporting was a monster.

6:06:29 A dork. The whales. Penis. Yeah, the Dork. Yes, the shadow of it looks a lot like Nessie. That's all I'm saying. Okay. Well first of all what would a will be doing in Loch Ness? Okay, there have been other reports of creatures that look a lot like nasty and I'm saying that whales could be the culprit I guess. Yeah, I saw that the other day I was like, oh my God, stop guys, stop. I mean, but it's totally plausible. I mean, do we ever know what the real thing was for Sirens? Like what was really Lauren those people to the death? I heard that is because old-timey Sailors, tried to have sex with dolphins, but I don't know if that's real or not Dolphins manatees, you know, manatees the sweetest baby.

6:07:19 So the ocean, they look like mermaids, right? If people confuse me issues are mermaids. They look like Walruses without the test, maybe I'm so offended. They're like, one of my favorite animals and all I want to do is go down to the manatee. Preserve in Florida and feed them. They look like kill sleep potatoes. Yeah. Could you try and have sex with them people? I mean, look man. Things with penises. They like to stick it into whatever they can. I don't know. Whatever. Oh, that's right. Anyway, let's continue. Yes. Poor baby manatees.

6:08:05 So, anyone unaware of what this B's looks like, the Kraken is described as a multi-armed sea monster larger did a whale. Now, what does, what the multi-armed description when would think? Oh, so it's just like an octopus or squid and you know, that's what I thought it was. Like, the from the old stories, like a giant squid cause like some of those squids that are mad old are Like 20, 30 40 feet, they're huge and super scary. You have to promise, they mostly hang out in the bottom of the ocean. Not like up top where the people are, right? It's like scary you guys would be correct because that's exactly what the crack. It looks like.

6:08:49 It looks like a giant freaking squid. Put up top. Yeah so I think I've seen like people call a leviathan as well as leviathans over like a snake like I think. Yeah I was gonna say that name has a lot of history to it. Yeah. So this back, biblical references, and all sorts it is a sea serpent from the Bible? Yes, breathe fire which makes it cooler than a snake. Okay, so he looks like a giant squid my question like okay, so do we have any more?

6:09:33 Recent absolutely formation about a crack in. Oh yeah versus great. It's okay Norse. Thank you very much or Icelandic. It's okay mythology. Is that methodology? Of course, of course, of course we do. Okay. So that okay, um, you know, cracking was also, if anybody has seen like an old-timey, like Sailors map, you'd seen like a map of the world, you see in the ocean that they had were monsters in the ocean and they either like water dragons or giant snakes or even giant squids, and the Kraken was On, you know, put on the maps either to like as a warning of an unknown area, like no one's like really been there. So we don't know what the hell you're going to see there, so maybe there's something big monstrous there or or, I mean, the ocean is terrifying.

6:10:43 Yeah, ocean is really, it's really, really, really big. And we haven't even searched all of it yet so who knows? And also seeing like a kraken or like a sea monster, or your map. Probably just means like maybe they saw something in that area and you're just worrying. You hate. There's something strange out here. So don't go as this, like, it was, it was the ways of the old days. Yes, yes, we were over here, Mark, and cop on the highway and there going, oh, maybe it's the Kraken. I don't know. You might want to avoid it what he's coordination.

6:11:26 Oh my God. Absolutely like listen, we're just letting you know. Okay, so back in once a back in but it's back in. 1735 the scientist named Carl Linnaeus. First catalog, a no one's animal species in his book is called a system of natural. Not sure. A so Naturals system were system, natural, whatever. Okay, The cracking stories. They were so popular that he entered the crack it into this book for like you know you know all these actual living organisms and stuff like that as a separate pot. Okay.

6:12:25 But you know many people were just like okay well you you could do this and put this in your book but we're we still think this thing is fake. Just so you know just like you know, no, you can add this to their but, you know, No, no. He's like this is a real cephalopod. And these people went, what is wrong with you? Science, we are doing science. Yes, it was in our face. We're over here, doing science. And you are adding a cephalopod that no one's ever seen. They let him do it.

6:13:06 So a yeah yeah. So and 1853 their this is this is like I think the most recent thing you will hear about a kraken unless somebody else comes up with some other cracking news, a giant cephalopod was found stranded on a Danish Beach. Norwegian journalist jump. I cannot pronounce names. I'm sorry guys. Japan has steam, strop, he recovered animals beak, and used it to scientifically described a giant squid, and I think I had actually have a picture of it. I'ma send that into the chat, you could look at it. It's just what the thing look like. I mean it doesn't look that big.

6:14:02 I'll post it in a Discord for people who want to see it. Yeah, yeah. I'll just send it to you first and then you check it out. But it looks like it doesn't look like it would be a giant squid. It just looks like it would be like, I don't know, a bigger size squid if that makes any sense to you, So you think it was a regular squid? Let's hang it. Yeah, it looks like it's a regular test win. Is there a difference? And you might not know this, but is there a difference between a regular squid and a giant squid in terms of There, you know, genus species or whatever because is it the difference between the two of them just time. Like just like lobsters, if you just lobsters never stop growing.

6:14:54 If you allow them to live and don't eat them, they just become bigger. Brittany till they become old old men lobsters. Maybe, um, also just a side note. I'm sorry, guys, I gotta go up and change it again. Did you know that basically, like everything evolves into grabs eventually? Okay. Okay. Okay, it's true. It's, I saw YouTube video about it, it just makes so much sense, okay, but save that for, yes.

6:15:34 I know exactly what you're talking about because I'm pretty sure I watched it to that eventually. We all become crap. Everything becomes crabs after a while he will crab people. Everyone can't wait until I get Pinchers. I'm like, oh yeah. We'll post a picture of it. Yeah. What's up, its courts? Everybody can see it. But we can talk about Carson ization on the on patreon. Oh my God, I'll have to do that. Do W. Next thing W next one after this one.

6:16:18 The next one. All right. Well um but yeah. Is this people people were like once they found this giant squid? They're like, is this the crack in every way is talking about. It's just a freaking squid. That's just big. I'm just looking at it. I'm just like this. Can't be it just can't be alone because it the Kraken it's supposed to be like a bigger than a whale, okay? And this thing it's not fair to well at all um and like crackers supposed to fight Wells and fellow rapper. Around the tentacles. You know how you seen pictures you know you know I mean this is exactly how Giant squids and actual Wheels fight in the real OSHA.

6:17:08 But apparently there have been, I guess, 60 feet long giant squids found and I'm just like, well, I'm down there. Yeah, I'm just like, okay well there you go. That's that can't be. That could be your giant squid. You're talking of you're thinking of saying they're like terrifyingly large. Yeah there are also it's funny because they're also like little other smaller organisms in the see that look like they may be a crack at. Yeah I got I got idea for you. Are you ready?

6:17:51 Okay. What if the Krakens And in the crabs. Oh my God. And that's why we don't see them anymore. I mean, would he be trying Crimson dude have to be right? I don't understand. Listen, I don't understand Evolution. It has its Art School scuttling around on the bottom of the sea and giant crabs. Massive friggin crab just absolutely huge. I can see that I can God, but no. No, no, no, they'll stay a giant still stay a giant squid because Krakens are the Pinnacle and oh, crabs are like the Pinnacle Evolution like Krakens. I swear to you the here.

6:18:42 What's going to take over? Everybody is going to be a giant squid or a giant crap. When the time comes, it may not either way. I just want to be left alone. Yeah I feel that we can be alone. I feel that very much. Um see anything else I got for a kraken know, and it's weird because there's some that just grow up to 40 45 feet in and when he's found the 60-foot Wonder like, oh shit, this is there a crack in it? This is our cracking we're looking for. Um, That's about it. I think I found some cute pictures of Krakens and like some of them are like Is the size of an island. And like it's like an iceberg, okay? You got the island on top, but underneath it's actually the shell of a kraken.

6:19:40 So it's kind of like a mollusk type of cephalopod or, yeah, you know, it's interesting and that about wraps up today's episode. Yes, thank you so much for listening. If you see it all the way to the end, you're one of the true blue, total hardcore listeners and we thank You so much for it, we appreciate you, remembering that there are only a few weeks left to get yourself a thick. Or it'll be gone every back off into the woods for another hundred years. That's that's what happens with the Bigfoot that's www.shopjimmy.com. Always find me on Tick, Tock making random videos. And yeah, that's the probably the best chance if you want to talk to Brian as the disc Court.

6:20:37 Yep. The discourse that is linked on everything that we have at a social media. Join us. Join the conversation and thank you so much for listening. Bye, guys. Have a good weekend.