Derrick Lee Todd mentioned in today's news article:
Updated:2006-12-02
Arrest Made in Louisiana Serial-Killer Probe
HOUMA, La. (Dec. 2) - A multi-agency task force investigating the strangling and asphyxiation deaths of as many as 22 men arrested a 42-year-old Terrebonne Parish man at a homeless shelter on Friday and booked him with two of the earliest ones.
"Scientific, forensic evidence" led to the arrest of Ronald J. Dominique, who was booked with killing Oliver Lebanks in October 1998 and Manuel Reed in May 1999, and with raping Reed, state Attorney General Charles Foti's office announced. He had been under 24-hour surveillance before the arrest, spokeswoman Jennifer Cluck said.
Both Reed, 20, of New Orleans, and Lebanks, 27, were killed in Jefferson Parish, a suburb of New Orleans about 45 miles east of Houma, according to a news release. Reed's body was found in Kenner and Lebanks' in Metairie. Cluck said they did not have information on Lebanks' hometown.
Dominique was arrested on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated rape in Reed's death, and with the second-degree murder of Lebanks, who died of asphyxiation, said Kris Wartelle, another spokeswoman for Foti.
"Due to the fact that the investigation is ongoing and there is a possibility of more charges, no further information is available at this time," the news release said.
There will be "more information to come in the very near future," Les Bonano, an investigator with the attorney general's office, said at the news conference.
Reed's body was found in a business garbage bin May 30, 1999. Kenner police said last year that they believed his death was linked to the killings of two men from the St. Charles Parish town of Boutte, about halfway between Houma and New Orleans. The body of Joseph Brown, 16, was found in October 1998 at the western end of Veterans Memorial Boulevard; that of Angel Mejia, 21, was found next to a garbage bin one month after Reed's.
Brown had been suffocated; Mejia and Reed were strangled, authorities said.
Kenner police had dubbed the three killings "the shoeless murders," and believed they could have been linked to other murders in the region.
Although the news release said Dominique was from Houma, the address it gave is actually about 5 miles out of town on the Terrebonne-Lafourche parish line.
The task force had been investigating the deaths of men, mostly between the ages of 18 and 40, for more than a year. The first killing was in 1997. The victims were found in Jefferson, St. Charles, Lafourche, Terrebonne, Assumption and Iberville parishes.
Many of the men were poor; some were willing to prostitute themselves for drugs. They had been strangled without the bruises or broken bones that would indicate a struggle.
Houma Police Chief Patrick Boudreaux was one of the first to investigate them as serial killings. The killings weren't like the usual drug killing, with a victim shot and left to die.
Three victims were found in the same sugar cane field. Some were missing their shoes.
Until Friday, many authorities - including Foti - shied away from saying southeastern Louisiana had its third serial killer investigation in a matter of years.
There had been no DNA evidence, like that which led to the conviction of Derrick Todd Lee and the arrest and reported confessions of Sean Vincent Gillis in the two earlier cases.
Nine of the unsolved cases were from the late 1990s. The others, since 2000, included many victims with ties to the Houma area.
Because most of the victims led what authorities termed "high-risk" lifestyles, the killings caused less public unrest than those of the college and professional women whom Lee was accused of killing between April 1998 and March 2003. He was sentenced to death for first-degree murder of a former Louisiana State University student in Baton Rouge, and sentenced to life for second-degree murder of a West Baton Rouge woman in 2002. Authorities said DNA had linked him to the deaths of five other women.
Prosecutors have said that Gillis confessed to killing eight women. He has been booked in seven of the cases, and charged with first-degree murder of one, Donna Bennett Johnston. Her body was found by a roadside on Feb. 27, 2004. Gillis was arrested about two months later. Authorities have said DNA and tire tracks linked him to the crime.
Ann
AI
