Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder. Reader discretion is advised.
In 1997, authorities started discovering dead bodies of young men in the southern part of Louisiana. For more than eight years, police kept on finding bodies in remote sugarcane fields and other places. However, in 2006, the slayings stopped when a man named Ronald Dominique was arrested for the slayings. As per reports, Dominique, popularly known as The Bayou Strangler, killed 23 men over eight years.
According to The Seattle Times, Ronald Dominique committed his first crime in 1996. Authorities arrested him on the charge of forcible rape. The victim survived and went to the police. However, the case didn’t go to trial because investigators couldn’t find the survivor. That’s when he decided that he would kill his victims because he didn’t want to go to jail.
As per the investigators, all the victims were homeless men, ages between 16 and 46, per The Seattle Times. The publication also noted the killer murdered all its victims by strangling them. Additionally, the killer threw the bodies in remote places. According to Oxygen, Ronald Dominique confessed to killing 23 men and provided details about how he committed those murders.
Ronald Dominique’s murder case explored
As mentioned above, authorities apprehended Ronald Dominique in 2006 and interrogated him. Citing the investigators, NBC News reported that Dominique used to “charm” his victims before killing them. The publication also stated that the killer would “meet them on the street, walking or riding their bikes, and just start talking to them. He’d offer them a ride or talk them into sex and they’d go with him.” During the interrogation, investigators also believed that he raped his victims before strangling them.
The interrogation also helped authorities understand why Ronald Dominique killed his victims. As per NBC News, his incarceration in 1996 had instilled in him a strong resolve to avoid returning to jail. The investigators said, “He said he killed them because he didn’t want to get caught. But I would think he discovered somewhere on the way to killing 23 that it was not just because of that. I think he discovered he liked it.”
Additionally, Ronald Dominique told the police how he used a “seat belt” and “extension cord” to strangle victims, per Oxygen. However, during the interrogation, the accused kept on reiterating that his victims had “raped him.”
Finally, in 2007, the authorities presented Dominique in court for the gruesome murders. Shockingly, he pleaded “not guilty” to nine counts of murder, per NBC News. Eventually, he took a plea deal and pleaded guilty to eight murders. As a result, the court sentenced The Bayou Strangler to eight consecutive life terms in prison.
