November 10, 2025 • 39 mins
When Hollywood actress Dominique Dunne landed her breakout role in Poltergeist, her future looked unstoppable ... until love turned deadly. At just 22, she was strangled outside her West Hollywood home by her ex-boyfriend, John Sweeney, a man whose obsession spiraled into violence.
But what followed was almost as shocking as the murder itself. How did a confessed killer serve less than four years for taking her life?
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Thanks for stopping by and remember that it’s All Love and No Murder Yall!
Intro music by:
Shalash by Alexander Nakarada
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But what followed was almost as shocking as the murder itself. How did a confessed killer serve less than four years for taking her life?
************************************************************************************************
Podcast Promo: Darkcast Network
*************************************************************************************************
Do you have thoughts about this case, or is there a specific true crime case you’d like to hear about? Let me know with an email or a voice message: https://murderandlove.com/contact
Find the sources used in this episode and learn more about how to support Love and Murder: Heartbreak to Homicide and gain access to even more cases, including bonus episodes, ad-free and intro-free cases, case files and more at: https://murderandlove.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please take some time to Rate, Share, Subscribe! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for stopping by and remember that it’s All Love and No Murder Yall!
Intro music by:
Shalash by Alexander Nakarada
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/4899-shalash
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/love-and-murder-heartbreak-to-homicide--4348896/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now part of the dark Cast Network. Welcome to indie
podcasts with a dark side. So in this episode, I
am telling you the case of Dominique Ellen dooone. She
was an actress who was actually murdered by her boyfriend.
Welcome Lambs. Welcome to Love and Murder. You're a weekly
(00:21):
true crime podcast hosted by me Kai and I tell
you cases of relationships and love that turn deadly. Today's
episode is a past bonus from the beginning of season four.
The lambfamin Patreon will be getting two new bonuses in
place of the full episode. So if you want to
be part of the lambfam and get two bonus episodes, plus,
(00:43):
you can still listen to this episode from the beginning
of season four, then join us at patreon dot com
Ford Slash Love and Murder. You can join at the
five dollar tire and above patreon dot com Ford Slash
Love and Murder. Now, grab your button, grab your delicious
glass of apple juice, and let's get back to this
(01:03):
case of love and murder. Dominique was the youngest of
three and was born on November third, nineteen fifty nine.
She was a talented American actress from Santa Monica, California.
Her parents had lost two daughters in their infancy before
Dominique was born, and they died from a lung disease
called high lane membrane disease. So by the time she
(01:25):
was born, she was the only daughter who survived and
so the parents spoiled her rotten. She did have two
older brothers, Alexander Dune and Griffin Dune. Her father was
also a famous writer producer named Dominique Dune. Griffin went
on to have a very successful acting career, becoming a
film producer and a film director. His first big role
(01:46):
was in playing Jack Goodman in a nineteen eighty one movie,
An American Werewolf in London. Her uncle, her father's brother,
John Gregory Dune, and his wife Joan Didion, were famous
writers at the time and the family she had very
well known friends of the family Maria Cooper Janis, who
was the daughter of actors Gary Cooper and Veronica Rocky
(02:09):
Cooper and producer Martin Manulis. So basically she grew up
in the actor life, in the Hollywood life, and she
knew the industry. Then. On the flip side, her mother,
Ellen Biatrice Griffin Dune, was a rich heiress, so she
literally grew up in money. However, in nineteen sixty seven,
(02:30):
when Dominique was just eight, her parents divorced. It was
a civil divorce. They stayed as friends and it wasn't
anything like crazy. Dominique was known to be incredibly kind
hearted and she took in a lot of stray animals.
She was always rescuing animals. She had a cat who
had a lobotomy, and she had a dog with stunted legs.
(02:51):
So with the background that she had, she basically pursued
acted and became another Hollywood professional within her family. She
went to Harvard Westlake School in Los Angeles, then to
Taft School in Ordertown, Connecticut, and finally she went to
Fountain Valley School in Fountain, Colorado. After she finished school,
she spent a year in Florence, Italy and learned Italian.
(03:13):
She even took two trips to Italy with her father.
While all of this was happening, her mother was battling
multiple sclerosis, which was getting orse and ors by the day.
She ended up having to move out of the family
home and into a facility to help with the multiple sclerosis.
When Dominique began acting. She started acting on stage productions,
(03:34):
so she appeared in West Side Story and The Mouse
Trap stuff like that. Then she made her TV debut
in a movie called Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker. And
then she went on to play recurring roles in shows
like Family where she played Erica, and this was in
nineteen eighty and then she played Paulina Bornstein in a
(03:57):
comedy Breaking Away from nineteen to nineteen eighty one. Then
she had various supporting roles in lou Grant, Heart to Heart,
and Fame. So basically, right now, at this moment, she
was getting more roles, whether it was supporting or leading
or whatever, she was getting more roles than any actresses
were getting in Hollywood at that time. Then she got
(04:19):
her big break in nineteen eighty two where she starred
as Dana Freeling in Poultrygeis. Then she appeared again in
the sequel Poultryguis to the Other Side. After that, she
played a leading role in the Western film The Shadow
Riders in nineteen eighty two, and then took on the
role of Amy Kent in Chips that same year. She
(04:41):
also became part of the popular eighty series V In
nineteen eighty three, and by this time she's only twenty
three years old now. To be honest, I never watched
any of those movies. I did watch V but I
watched what was it, the two thousand version of it.
I don't remember when that came out, but the most
most recent version of it, so I know she wasn't
(05:02):
in there. But I haven't watched any of these movies,
so I didn't know anything about her. In nineteen eighty one,
Dominique met a man named John Thomas Sweeney, who worked
as a Sioux chef at a restaurant Ma Maison. They
started dating, and after only a couple of weeks if
they decided to start living together in a one bedroom
(05:23):
house and on Rangley Wrangley on Wrangley Avenue in West Hollywood. Now,
because Dominique didn't take time to know about him, what
she didn't know is that he was the eldest son
in a very abusive family. He was raised in the
poor Pennsylvania cold town of Hazeltown, and he usually saw
his alcoholic father beating up on his mother. His earliest
(05:46):
memories of his parents include his father strangling his mother
and when he tried to save his mother, his father
beat him up, and the reason he became a chef
is because he was good at cooking. And he also
saw that being a chef was away out of all
of this stuff. But because Dominique had not done her
due diligence and taking her time and learned about him,
learned about his background, she didn't know any of this.
(06:09):
And you know, she's just riding the high of being
in love and infatuation and all of that, and she
went to go introduce him to her family. Out of
everybody in her family, only Alex didn't like John. After
meeting John, when her father, Dominic got back to the
hotel room, he called her mother and told her, quote,
he is much more in love with her than she
(06:31):
is with him, and they both agreed that John wasn't
good for their daughter. However, you know, I guess some
people wouldn't tell their daughter or that, or tell their
children that. They'll just be like, well, they'll find out
on their own. I'm not most people. I'm literally telling
my child that if I don't like this person, I'm
telling her why, and whatever happens happens. But I'm not
(06:52):
going to be like, well, she'll find out Nope, absolutely not,
And I'm not condemning people who do that. That's your
choice and my choices, I'm telling my child. So the
next morning Alex told his father this. A guy at
the bar recognized Dominique as the older sister from Poultrygeison
and shouted out one of the lines from her movie
What's Happened in Apparently that's a line in the movie,
(07:13):
but this scene was aired so frequently on TV, I
guess like a clip that people all over the country
knew it. So there was basically no flirting, no acting crazy,
just a fan saying what's happening? You know what I'm
saying this like saying your catchphrase or whatever. So when
John came back to the table which he had been
using the restaurant at that time, and he saw that,
(07:34):
he got so angry. He went over to the man
and just picked him up by his collar and started
shaking him. So to Alex, it was like, what, what
is your issue? There was nothing to be getting angry about.
So this is what Alex told Dominic the father. So
when Dominic went to meet Dominique and John for a
(07:55):
lunch date, he decided that he was going to speak
to John about this, so he got to the line
and waited and waited and waited. When they finally arrived,
he noticed that his daughter had been crying, even though
that you know, she tried to cover it up, and
even though John was trying to act like everything was okay,
(08:16):
talking with the chef at the restaurant and everything like that.
They had a conversation in French, YadA, YadA, YadA. John
seemed like uneasy and nervous, and he didn't really want
to talk. So Dominic just figured maybe they had an argument.
Maybe this wasn't a good time to bring up anything.
So he figured that he wouldn't talk to her right
(08:38):
now about this, and he figured she was an adult
and she could figure it out. Three days later, they
met again at the River Cafe under the Brooklyn Bridge.
They sat by the window to watch fireworks, and this
time went really well. They had a good time. John
told Dominic that he was actually thinking about quitting his
job at Mamaison, and he said he had French and
(08:59):
Jackanese investors who wanted to finance a restaurant for him.
So he said he picked the spot on in Melrose
Place in Los Angeles, which is a popular spot for
rich people. So you know, he figured that's a great
place to open up. He can do an rori really quickly,
and this is going to succeed. So dominic said, okay, cool,
sounds like a plan. And you know that's how that
(09:22):
meeting with her father for the first third time ended.
Later on in the relationship, Dominique's and John's relationship just
got really volatile. He was more jealous, more possessive. Instead
of just arguing, their fights turned physicals. Their fights turned physical,
and they would fight in front of friend's family. It
didn't matter, and Dominique would go and complain to her
(09:45):
mother about his temper, how he broke furniture, how he
smashed the dishes, but she always told her mother that
he would never hurt her. I'm pretty sure her mother
was saying, you kind of need to get out of there.
I'm kind of worried about you. But she was like,
he's not gonna hurt me. I know he's not going
to hurt me. But this is something that people who
are in abusive situations often tell themselves. But she has
(10:08):
to understand, he's already hurting you. It's physical. He's punching
you in everything, like he's already hurting you. But anyways,
on October twenty seventh, nineteen eighty two, John was having
another jealous fit of rage and he grabbed Dominique by
her hair and yanked out handfuls of her here by
the roots. Oh my god. So Dominique ran out of
(10:32):
the house and ran to her mom's house. John followed
her and just started banging on the door and screaming
obscenities and yelled at her to let him in, and
her mother wouldn't let him in, as I wouldn't either.
Actually I'd have called nine to one to one. Actually
I'd never mind. I'll just stop there. So she told
(10:52):
him that you need to calm down. I'm not letting
you in, and if you don't stop, I'm gonna call
the police on you. So, instead instead of leaving him
and never going back, a few days later, she went
back to her house with John and they made up
and they were a quote happy couple for some time.
So this is literally the cycle of abuse. However, not
(11:13):
even a month passed when on September twenty sixth, they
were back to fighting again. This time John held her
by her throat and then threw her down on the
floor and proceeded to strangle the life out of her. However,
at this time, Dominique had a friend staying over. The friend,
Brian Cook, had heard strange, loud, gagging noises and decided
(11:37):
to go out and see what was going on, and
that's when he saw John strangling the mess out of Dominique.
So Brian stopped this, like, what in the world is
wrong with you? Dude? Are you serious? I will end
you if you don't let her go, and John let
her go in He was like, look, it's just a misunderstanding.
I was just mad at Dominique. It's not a big deal.
(11:57):
Dominique come back to bed, and Dominique told Brian everything's
all right again cycle of abuse. She told Brian everything's
all right. I'm gonna be fine. It's all fine. I'm
gonna go back to bed. Now, you go back to bed,
don't worry about it. So everybody, well, I don't want
to say everybody went back, but Brian reluctantly went back
(12:19):
to his room where he had his girlfriend there too,
and Dominique said she's gonna come to bed. So John
went back to his room and then she went to
the bathroom and snuck out the bathroom window. When John
heard her car start, he ran out and jumped on
the hood and started banging on the car. But she
was able to drive off and he was still holding
(12:41):
onto the hood and when she got out of the driveway,
I guess he fell over. Then after this incident, she
stayed at her mom's house for a bit and then
went between friend's house for like the next several days.
Once she got stronger, she called him on the phone
and broke up with him for good. Then when he
moved out, she changed all of her locks and moved
(13:01):
back into her Rangle Avenue home. On October thirtieth, nineteen
eighty two, nearly five weeks since they broke up, Dominique
was at her West Hollywood home rehearsing lines with David
Packer for the upcoming V series. During the rehearsal, she
got a call and it was one of her friends.
So she's sitting there talking to her friends, and in
(13:22):
the middle of that conversation, the operator cut in. So
I guess back in the day, really the operator would
cut in to tell you that someone else was on
the line. Really, is that what happened? Anybody who Look,
I'm not judging, I'm I'm just surprised. I didn't know
that's how it worked. I thought you would just get
a busy signal if you were trying to call somebody
(13:43):
who was already on the phone, Like back in the day,
I thought you would just get a busy signal. That's
what I know. But this is saying an operator cut
in to tell her that someone else was trying to
call her. So if you're familiar with this from back then,
please let me know if that's how it worked, So
then why didn't they keep that up when I was
(14:04):
growing up. If you tried to call somebody who was
already on the phone, you got a busy signal. But
if you had the opportunity, maybe it was something extra
you had to pay for. Anyways, I was just thinking.
I was like, if you had the opportunity for an
operator to cut in to tell you somebody else is
trying to call you, isn't that a service they should
have kept up for a while until call waiting started. Anyways,
(14:27):
I'm just thinking out loud. So anyway, the friend heard
her say, oh my god, it's Sweeny. Let me get
him off the phone, so she clicked over or whatever
however that worked back then, and you told him she
didn't want to talk to him. And then she finished
her conversation with her friend and hung up. She went
back to rehearsing, and then ten minutes later, somebody rang
(14:49):
the doorbell. She went to the door and it was John. However,
Dominique didn't open the door because she was afraid of him,
and he convinced her to talk to him outside the porch,
so she went outside and her acting partner David, could
hear them yelling outside loudly, but he continued to mind
(15:09):
his business because he knew about their relationship. But then
he heard two loud smacks, two short screams, and a
loud thud as someone hit the ground. Now, because he
knew how violent John was, he didn't run to go check. Instead,
he just called nine to one one. However, I guess
in the eighties you had a nationwide nine to one
(15:30):
one system. So he was told that the system that
he got was the house where he's at now was
out of the jurisdiction. So then they gave him the
direct number to the officers in this jurisdiction. In this jurisdiction,
which I mean time is wasting. Are you kidding me
right now? So he called that number and didn't get
(15:52):
a hold of anyone. Are you serious. So, because he
was afraid for his life and the life of his coworker,
he called a friend and said if anything happened to him,
John Sweeney was behind it. He told his friend everything
that was going on, and he said, I'm telling you
this just in case anything happened to me. Then he
(16:12):
snuck out the back door and tiptoed to the driveway
and peeked around the corner, and that's when he saw
John kneeling over a very limp dominique near some bushes.
He didn't go out there and try and be brave
and do anything, which I'm not judging him, because you
don't know how crazy this person is. It's not like
you don't know if he has a gun. He could
have gone out there and been like, hey, leave her alone.
(16:34):
Then he's gone. So he was just witnessing. However, while
he was trying to leave, John saw him and didn't
go after him. Instead, he told him to just call
the police. When police arrived, which I guess David was
able to get him this time, get them this time.
When police arrived, John was very submissive. He had his
(16:55):
hands in the air and he told them, quote, I
killed my girlfriend and I tried to kill myself. Man,
I blew it. I killed her. I didn't think I
choked her that hard, but I don't know. I just
kept choking her. I just lost my temper and I
blew it again. At which point did you try and
kill yourself? I don't know. Maybe it was before David
came around a corner and watched you just sitting there
(17:16):
looking at her. Dominic was rushed to see this Sinai
Medical Center in Los Angeles and immediately put on life support,
but she went into a coma. According to what John
told the police, he had a heated argument with Dominique,
but then he lost control and blacked out. He said
he didn't remember anything. Just later, when it was too late,
he found himself on top of her with his hands
(17:38):
around her throats. Sir, I don't buy that. I'm so
angry that I just, you know, don't remember anything that happened. Bullshit.
If you know you have such a temper, which I'm
pretty sure by now you know this, you should have
gotten anger management classes, and instead of chasing after a
woman who didn't want you, you should have been working
on yourself. So I'm not buying that. At five am,
(18:00):
October thirty, first police called Dominique's parents. They told him
that Dominique had been found almost dead and she was
at the hospital. So both parents jumped on the first
plane they were able to get and went to Los Angeles.
They also got a hold of Griffin, and Griffin made
his way to Los Angeles too. However, nobody was able
(18:21):
to get Alex because he chose to live without a phone.
And don't forget right now. The mother is dealing with
multiple sclerosis, so she's actually in a wheelchair. The mother's love,
that's not stopping her anyway. So they all get to
Los Angeles and they meet with the doctors and everything,
and the doctors are telling them that there's possible irreversible
(18:43):
brain damage. By now, news reports, newsvan reporters, everybody was
outside the hospital waiting for a chance to get their
own scoop, because you know, news, instead of curing about
a human life, let's just flock this area waiting for
waiting to hear something. Let's just gossip about what happened.
So I know y'all are gonna say, well, isn't that
(19:05):
the pot calling the cattle? No, because I wouldn't be
right outside the hospital like, oh, can you tell me
what happened. I'm gonna give them their privacy and I'm
gonna wait, and then I'm going to report what happened.
And the report is only to help get people's story
out and also to help others going through this situation
(19:28):
understand what happens because of the situation and remind you
to get out. So no, it's really not the same
as me being a vulture trying to get every single
picture and quote from somebody who's literally on their deathbed
as I can, or from their parents who's going through
this hardship. I guess I wouldn't make it in a
(19:48):
newsworld because I would literally be waiting till everything dies
down and then call the family and offer my condolences
and say do you feel like talking, and give my
reason why I'm looking for this interview, not for money
and not for shock value or whatever other people do
it for, but to get her story out, because her
(20:10):
story needs to be told, and also maybe her story
could help somebody else that's in this situation, so it
could help another life. But either way, the vultures were
there coming up with headlines. Dominique ellen Dune strangled by
her ex boyfriend in Koma, all this other stuff. So
when her parents walked into her hospital room, they saw
(20:32):
that she was tangled in tubes and wires, she was
on an artificial respiratory. Her eyes were wide open and
it looked like they were bulging out of her head,
which I could understand because he strangled her, so that
pressure would look like that was to eyes and the
eyes were just wide open, staring at nothing. Her hair
(20:53):
was shaved off so that they could install a bolt
in her skull to reduce pressure on her brain, and
there were large per finger marks on her neck. And
although the nurse had told them that she wouldn't be
able to hear them or speak to them because she
was in a coma, her mom said quote, hello, my darling,
it's mom. We're all here. We're all here, Dominique, Dad, Griffin,
(21:14):
and Alex, we love you. During the next week, hospital
staff really tried to get a response from Dominique, really
tried to help her heal, but despite everything that they
were doing, brain scans revealed no brain activity because of
the longtime lack of oxygen. By November fourth, her family
(21:37):
decided to take her off of life support. They figured
there was nothing else that they could do, and they
decided to take her off of life support. They ended
up having her funeral on November sixth, and at the
location they had the funeral at, it actually clashed with
a wedding. When the family saw who the wedding was,
they were surprised because there was actually the wedding of
(21:58):
a friend of John's and they wouldn't move the wedding time.
So since they didn't move the wedding, the funeral had
to be moved up an hour. What I should I say?
A piece of shit? I mean, I guess that's not
his fault, right, so I can't really judge him for that.
I don't know me personally, I would just wait. I
would I would just wait. This is just me. I
(22:21):
don't know. In terms of the wedding, I would just
I would wait, Like, can't we wait an hour and
then take the next time slot or something like what's
an hour? I'm guessing there was a time slot because
they had to move the funeral up an hour, so
there was another time slot, just an hour, and you
couldn't wait just an hour an hour for your wedding. Now,
(22:41):
initially John was charged with attempted murder, but after they
pulled the plug on Dominique, he was now charged with
first degree murder, and of course he went out and
tried to plead not guilty. Dude, how are you trying
to plead not guilt when you literally told the cops
(23:02):
what happened and there was a witness we're in that
is not guilty? Or are you saying not guilty by
reason of insanity? Because yeah, that's no. He was also
charged with assault to cause bodily harm. So John got
this high pain heighty twity lawyer to defend him, and
his defense team was strong, like Strong Strong. The child
(23:25):
began in August nineteen eighty three, and prosecutor Barshop made
a strong impact by asking the court to wait four minutes. Now,
the four minutes he asked them to sit there and
wait was the time that it took John to strangle Dominique,
so for them to visualize how long his hands were
(23:46):
wrapped around her throat and she was without air. During
the trial, the prosecution brought up the altercation on September
twenty sixth, and there was evidence because her bruises were
on film on his John, on his part, tried to
deny causing serious harms. I mean, I know you see
the bruises and you can match them directly to my fingers,
(24:10):
but I mean it's just strangling. That's not bad, right.
He told the court that this was an accident and
he had just tried to stop her from leaving him,
and then he tried to say, well, look she came back,
so obviously I wasn't that bad right now. My first question,
as the prosecution would be, is there no other way
to stop a person from leaving than to wrap your
(24:32):
fingers around their throat? Because usually people maybe like grab
an arm, like stop, say stop, I don't know, stand
in front of them, stuff like that. I've literally never,
in all the years of my life, stop somebody from
leaving by grabbing their throat. I could be wrong, has
(24:54):
anybody else, but I've literally never tried to stop somebody
from leaving. Ever. I can't tell you of one time
by grabbing anybody by their throat or even coming close
to their throat area when trying to stop them from leaving.
What kind of a defense was that? So, according to John,
(25:14):
he said, his defense is, I don't know how she died.
She just died. I was just trying to stop her,
and then she just died. He said, stop in the
name of love, and because of his voice, she just
keeled over and died. Dude, you literally told the officer
that night what happened. And might I remind you there
(25:37):
was a witness. So he was telling them that. You know,
they were planning to get back together. They spoke every day.
They were planning on getting married, starting a family, and
everything like that. And that night when he came over
to our house for some reason, out of nowhere, she said, no,
I don't want to get back together with you. But
everything was going smoothly before then, and then she was
(25:58):
just like, now I changed my mind, he said. She
I mean, I just I love this line from abusers
and this is sarcasm. She admitted to making a mistake
by leading him on. So she led him on. How
many times from an abuser do you hear that she
led him on. I'm sorry for leading you on, and
(26:19):
she said she didn't mean it. When they talked about
getting back together, which nobody ever said. This is what happened.
So I don't know what kind of la la land
he's pulling this out of, but whatever. So, being that
he was led, he got angry and didn't realize what
he was doing until he came back to his senses
(26:40):
and saw that he was holding her throat. She wasn't breathing,
so he tried to get her up and make her walk,
and yeah, that's the way to save somebody who's not breathing.
Come on, get up, just walk it off. That sounds
rational to me. But she fell down again by the bushes,
so he tried CPR next, which only made her throw up,
(27:00):
which had made him throw up as well because he
realized what he had done. Next, he ran back into
her house and down two bottles of pills because he
didn't want to live anymore. Then he went back outside
to lay next to the body, hoping to die. His
lawyers came up and told the court, you see, you see,
do you see? He didn't plan any of this. This
(27:20):
wasn't premeditated. It just happened a crime of passion. And you,
fellow court goers, whatever I'm gonna call you, have to
understand that she led him on and in a blind
rage he did this, so not guilty by way of insanity.
Thank you arrest my case, your honor. Well, when police
(27:41):
investigators took the stand, they said bullshit, and the prosecution said,
we couldncur, your honor, bullshit. Can we say that in court?
Is that a rulin? Can? Can we get that as
a rulin? Bullshit? No? Oh, First of all, there was
a witness. Second of all, your honor, there was a witness.
(28:02):
And for my third piece of evidence, your honor, there
was a witness. This dude never came back in the house,
never downed anything, never did any of that. And also,
may I present the police officer who was there on
that night where John told him what happened and it
wasn't this story. Also, the medical examiner took to the
(28:24):
stand and showed that she had been strangled for at
least three minutes or longer. So you're telling me, in
all that time, you didn't calm down and change your mind.
You literally waited three minutes or longer and sat there
strangling her. You're saying you were in a blind rage
(28:45):
for that long. Then one of his ex girlfriends decided
that Hey, I want to testify, but she only testified
in front of the judge and not in front of
the jury because she didn't want to be in the
same way room as John. She stated that her and
John dated between nineteen seventy seven to nineteen eighty and
(29:08):
he had assaulted her on at least at least ten occasions,
with a couple of them resulted in her being hospitalized.
Once he broke her nose. Then at another time he
perforated her ear drum, and she also suffered from a
collapse to lung. What's his what's his excuse for this one?
(29:29):
She led him onto. Well, she said, we were going
to be happy, and we weren't happy all the time,
so I kind of lost it. So while she's in
the judges chambers talking to him, it was being televised
to the courtroom so they could still see what was happening. Happening.
So when John is seeing this, he jumped up from
his seat sprinted towards the door of the judge's chambers
(29:51):
trying to get to her. Yeah. Yet, let's let's let's
see that calm demeanor again, Like how none of this
is your fault? Yeah, show us, show us John. So anyway,
two baylists and four armed guards intervened and restrained him.
Then he was handcuffed to his chair and crying. He
(30:12):
apologized to the court for the outburst. Well, this judge
is better than me, because the judge acknowledge and accepted
his outburst. Me I would have been like, Okay, that's
all we needed to see. Everybody is ready to rule guilty.
I didn't even need I didn't need it. I didn't
need anything else. Guilty, just guilty, guilty, guilty. Raise your
head if you think he's guilty, Okay. His attorney chose
(30:36):
this moment to request a testimony not be admitted as
it was prejudiced against John. Are you freaking kidding me?
Are you? And for some reason, Judge Kats granted this request,
and apparently the jury wasn't watching this, so it was
just it was just John and the lawyers and everybody
(30:57):
else because the jury didn't even find out about this
testimony until the trial was over. The judge also deemed
that The judge also deemed that the mother's testimony and
Dominique's friends' testimonies were hearsay and held them as inadmissible.
Did he pay off this, judge or something. I don't
understand what's going on here. By August twenty ninth, Judge
(31:21):
Kats also instructed jurors to charge Sweeney with manslaughter or
second degree murder on the defense attorney's request. Wow, so
do you work for them or they work for you,
Judge Kats. I'm not sure. I really thought you were,
for lack of a better term, the boss, and they
(31:42):
were underneath you, so they had to ask you for
the ruling. But it looks like they told you the
rulin and you said, yes, sir, I'll do that. So
John's attorneys did this place this request based on the
fact that the court lacked evidence to charge Sweeney with
first degree murder. There was a witness. In addition to
(32:04):
the witness, he confessed to the police. What more evidence
do you need? I mean, I guess you could have
the smoking gun, so to say, and a tape with
a recording of him actually doing this and then her
waking up from her coma and pointing at him and
said he did this. I don't know what other evidence
(32:27):
you could possibly need. So right now it looks like
the prosecutor's defenses weakening. They did use the fact that
Dominique's friends and family had to pack up her thing
and close up her house, and that her best friend
Melinda Bitten found a letter that Dominique had written to John,
and the letter says, selfish works both ways. You are
(32:49):
just as selfish as I am. We have to be
two individuals to work together as a couple. I am
not permitted to do enough things on my own. Why
must you be a part of everything I do? Why
do you want to come with me to write in
lessons and my acting classes? Why are you jealous of
every scene partner I have? Why must I recount word
for word everything I spoke to doctor Black about blah
(33:10):
blah blah is just you know, her asking a bunch
of questions. I'll post a letter so y'all could read
it yourself. But this whole thing has made me realize
how scared I am of you. And I don't mean
just physically. I'm afraid of the next time you're going
to have another mood swing. When we are good, we
are great, but when we are bad, we are horrendous.
The bad outweighs the good to me. That doesn't sound
(33:31):
like she was trying to come back to you. Sir.
The jury deliberated for eight days, and on September twenty first,
nineteen eighty three, acquitted John Sweeney of second degree murder.
They found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter, which is a
lesser charge. Oh my god, banging my head against the table.
(33:54):
And then for the fight that happened on September twenty sixth,
he was convicted of misdemeanor assault. What in the world
does happen in here? Is it? Because it was the eighties,
so they didn't really look at what men did to
women as really bad. But I mean literally, he killed
her like I don't just because it's a man. I
(34:15):
don't know. So after that verdict, when the judge said
that the jury was right and that the judicial system
had been upheld as per laws, Dominic yelled at the
judge quote, not for our family, Judge Cats, and he
further accused the judge of withholding testimonies on purpose and
hiding John's violent history. Later on, Judge Cats was voted
(34:37):
the fourth worst judge in Los Angeles County and then
further talked about as his ruling and the events of
the trial became a heavily debated topic on TV on
November seventh, during the sentence in Judge CAATs criticized the
jury's verdict of manslaughter. Oh now he's criticizing them. All
it took was everybody to hate the bullshit out of him.
(34:58):
I guess he's suddenly saw Dominique's death as the result
of cold blooded murder. Quote a case pure and simple
of murder, murder with malice. It only took the entire
nation to hate you for you to see this. But
you already did your ruling. So what doesn't matter what
you think now you already said what he got. John
(35:20):
was sentenced to six years in prison. Six years that's
it for manslaughter, and an additional six months for the assault,
so six and a half years. The jury retorted to
Judge Katz's criticism as quote a cheap shop. And they
said if they had been given all the information about
John and given access to the evidence and the testimonies,
(35:42):
their verdict would have been different. So I can't blame
the jury, I blame the judge. I don't know where
the judge got this shit from. A year after Dominique died,
her mother Lenny founded Justice for Homicide Victims, which is
a victim's rights advocacy group. After the trial, John went
to a medium security prison in Susanville, California, and he
(36:05):
was released on parole in September nineteen eighty six after
only servants three years and seven months and twenty seven
days of his six and a half year sentence. Oh
my god. When he was released, he found work as
a head chef at an upscale restaurant called The Chronicle
(36:25):
in Santa Monica. After they found out where he was working,
Dominique's brother and her mother stood outside the restaurant, where
they handed out flyers to patrons saying, quote, the food
you will eat tonight was cooked by the hands that
killed Dominique Doune. Finally, after these protests, night after night
after night after night, John moved far away from Los Angeles. Then,
(36:48):
sometime in the nineties, a Florida physician contacted Dominick and
said he had read an article about Dominique's death and
claimed that his daughter had recently gotten engaged to a
chef named John Sweeney. Griffin called this woman, spoke to
the woman and told her, look, you really want to
reconsider doing this. He killed my sister. So John accused
(37:13):
the Dunes of harassment, which Dominic had hired a PI
to keep an eye on John, and Dominic was like, well, whatever,
I accuse you of murder, so you could accuse me
of harassment all you want. So he had the PI
keep an eye on John all the way until John
moved to the Pacific Northwest and changed his name and
(37:33):
his whole identity, calling himself John Mora after that. Not
that he couldn't still track him, but Dominic decided to
stop following him and try and get himself to heal.
That's why he stopped tracking him, not that he didn't
know where he was or what he was calling himself now.
Two weeks after her death, on November eighteenth, nineteen eighty two,
(37:55):
Dominique was shown in a Hill Street Blues episode where
she played a victim of abuse. At that time, she
actually had real bruises on her body from John's altercation
on September twenty sixth. This was aired only twelve days
after her funeral and it was dedicated to her memory.
As for her role in the series V, it was
(38:16):
actually given to someone else, but her footage was used
as a cameo during the series, and V was also
dedicated to her memory. In the Poulter Guy sequel, it
explained that her character had gone off to college. Now,
I can't believe how little jail time he got. I
don't know what this judge was thinking. I'm wondering if
(38:37):
he's one of those men's men, or was he getting
paid for this or I don't know what. I don't
even know. I can't even fathom what this judge was thinking.
Just remember, if you are a victim of domestic abuse,
please please go get help. Please. I also want to
(38:59):
hear what y'all think about this case. Is this was crazy.
This was completely insane. This dude literally had all the
evidence sitting there and the judge was like, well, there's
no evidence. I don't know. I don't even know what
to think about the outcome. But anyways, I want to
hear from y'all. Let me know what you think about
this episode, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.
Now part of the dark Cast Network. Welcome to indie
podcasts with a dark side. So in this episode, I
am telling you the case of Dominique Ellen dooone. She
was an actress who was actually murdered by her boyfriend.
Welcome Lambs. Welcome to Love and Murder. You're a weekly
(00:21):
true crime podcast hosted by me Kai and I tell
you cases of relationships and love that turn deadly. Today's
episode is a past bonus from the beginning of season four.
The lambfamin Patreon will be getting two new bonuses in
place of the full episode. So if you want to
be part of the lambfam and get two bonus episodes, plus,
(00:43):
you can still listen to this episode from the beginning
of season four, then join us at patreon dot com
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five dollar tire and above patreon dot com Ford Slash
Love and Murder. Now, grab your button, grab your delicious
glass of apple juice, and let's get back to this
(01:03):
case of love and murder. Dominique was the youngest of
three and was born on November third, nineteen fifty nine.
She was a talented American actress from Santa Monica, California.
Her parents had lost two daughters in their infancy before
Dominique was born, and they died from a lung disease
called high lane membrane disease. So by the time she
(01:25):
was born, she was the only daughter who survived and
so the parents spoiled her rotten. She did have two
older brothers, Alexander Dune and Griffin Dune. Her father was
also a famous writer producer named Dominique Dune. Griffin went
on to have a very successful acting career, becoming a
film producer and a film director. His first big role
(01:46):
was in playing Jack Goodman in a nineteen eighty one movie,
An American Werewolf in London. Her uncle, her father's brother,
John Gregory Dune, and his wife Joan Didion, were famous
writers at the time and the family she had very
well known friends of the family Maria Cooper Janis, who
was the daughter of actors Gary Cooper and Veronica Rocky
(02:09):
Cooper and producer Martin Manulis. So basically she grew up
in the actor life, in the Hollywood life, and she
knew the industry. Then. On the flip side, her mother,
Ellen Biatrice Griffin Dune, was a rich heiress, so she
literally grew up in money. However, in nineteen sixty seven,
(02:30):
when Dominique was just eight, her parents divorced. It was
a civil divorce. They stayed as friends and it wasn't
anything like crazy. Dominique was known to be incredibly kind
hearted and she took in a lot of stray animals.
She was always rescuing animals. She had a cat who
had a lobotomy, and she had a dog with stunted legs.
(02:51):
So with the background that she had, she basically pursued
acted and became another Hollywood professional within her family. She
went to Harvard Westlake School in Los Angeles, then to
Taft School in Ordertown, Connecticut, and finally she went to
Fountain Valley School in Fountain, Colorado. After she finished school,
she spent a year in Florence, Italy and learned Italian.
(03:13):
She even took two trips to Italy with her father.
While all of this was happening, her mother was battling
multiple sclerosis, which was getting orse and ors by the day.
She ended up having to move out of the family
home and into a facility to help with the multiple sclerosis.
When Dominique began acting. She started acting on stage productions,
(03:34):
so she appeared in West Side Story and The Mouse
Trap stuff like that. Then she made her TV debut
in a movie called Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker. And
then she went on to play recurring roles in shows
like Family where she played Erica, and this was in
nineteen eighty and then she played Paulina Bornstein in a
(03:57):
comedy Breaking Away from nineteen to nineteen eighty one. Then
she had various supporting roles in lou Grant, Heart to Heart,
and Fame. So basically, right now, at this moment, she
was getting more roles, whether it was supporting or leading
or whatever, she was getting more roles than any actresses
were getting in Hollywood at that time. Then she got
(04:19):
her big break in nineteen eighty two where she starred
as Dana Freeling in Poultrygeis. Then she appeared again in
the sequel Poultryguis to the Other Side. After that, she
played a leading role in the Western film The Shadow
Riders in nineteen eighty two, and then took on the
role of Amy Kent in Chips that same year. She
(04:41):
also became part of the popular eighty series V In
nineteen eighty three, and by this time she's only twenty
three years old now. To be honest, I never watched
any of those movies. I did watch V but I
watched what was it, the two thousand version of it.
I don't remember when that came out, but the most
most recent version of it, so I know she wasn't
(05:02):
in there. But I haven't watched any of these movies,
so I didn't know anything about her. In nineteen eighty one,
Dominique met a man named John Thomas Sweeney, who worked
as a Sioux chef at a restaurant Ma Maison. They
started dating, and after only a couple of weeks if
they decided to start living together in a one bedroom
(05:23):
house and on Rangley Wrangley on Wrangley Avenue in West Hollywood. Now,
because Dominique didn't take time to know about him, what
she didn't know is that he was the eldest son
in a very abusive family. He was raised in the
poor Pennsylvania cold town of Hazeltown, and he usually saw
his alcoholic father beating up on his mother. His earliest
(05:46):
memories of his parents include his father strangling his mother
and when he tried to save his mother, his father
beat him up, and the reason he became a chef
is because he was good at cooking. And he also
saw that being a chef was away out of all
of this stuff. But because Dominique had not done her
due diligence and taking her time and learned about him,
learned about his background, she didn't know any of this.
(06:09):
And you know, she's just riding the high of being
in love and infatuation and all of that, and she
went to go introduce him to her family. Out of
everybody in her family, only Alex didn't like John. After
meeting John, when her father, Dominic got back to the
hotel room, he called her mother and told her, quote,
he is much more in love with her than she
(06:31):
is with him, and they both agreed that John wasn't
good for their daughter. However, you know, I guess some
people wouldn't tell their daughter or that, or tell their
children that. They'll just be like, well, they'll find out
on their own. I'm not most people. I'm literally telling
my child that if I don't like this person, I'm
telling her why, and whatever happens happens. But I'm not
(06:52):
going to be like, well, she'll find out Nope, absolutely not,
And I'm not condemning people who do that. That's your
choice and my choices, I'm telling my child. So the
next morning Alex told his father this. A guy at
the bar recognized Dominique as the older sister from Poultrygeison
and shouted out one of the lines from her movie
What's Happened in Apparently that's a line in the movie,
(07:13):
but this scene was aired so frequently on TV, I
guess like a clip that people all over the country
knew it. So there was basically no flirting, no acting crazy,
just a fan saying what's happening? You know what I'm
saying this like saying your catchphrase or whatever. So when
John came back to the table which he had been
using the restaurant at that time, and he saw that,
(07:34):
he got so angry. He went over to the man
and just picked him up by his collar and started
shaking him. So to Alex, it was like, what, what
is your issue? There was nothing to be getting angry about.
So this is what Alex told Dominic the father. So
when Dominic went to meet Dominique and John for a
(07:55):
lunch date, he decided that he was going to speak
to John about this, so he got to the line
and waited and waited and waited. When they finally arrived,
he noticed that his daughter had been crying, even though
that you know, she tried to cover it up, and
even though John was trying to act like everything was okay,
(08:16):
talking with the chef at the restaurant and everything like that.
They had a conversation in French, YadA, YadA, YadA. John
seemed like uneasy and nervous, and he didn't really want
to talk. So Dominic just figured maybe they had an argument.
Maybe this wasn't a good time to bring up anything.
So he figured that he wouldn't talk to her right
(08:38):
now about this, and he figured she was an adult
and she could figure it out. Three days later, they
met again at the River Cafe under the Brooklyn Bridge.
They sat by the window to watch fireworks, and this
time went really well. They had a good time. John
told Dominic that he was actually thinking about quitting his
job at Mamaison, and he said he had French and
(08:59):
Jackanese investors who wanted to finance a restaurant for him.
So he said he picked the spot on in Melrose
Place in Los Angeles, which is a popular spot for
rich people. So you know, he figured that's a great
place to open up. He can do an rori really quickly,
and this is going to succeed. So dominic said, okay, cool,
sounds like a plan. And you know that's how that
(09:22):
meeting with her father for the first third time ended.
Later on in the relationship, Dominique's and John's relationship just
got really volatile. He was more jealous, more possessive. Instead
of just arguing, their fights turned physicals. Their fights turned physical,
and they would fight in front of friend's family. It
didn't matter, and Dominique would go and complain to her
(09:45):
mother about his temper, how he broke furniture, how he
smashed the dishes, but she always told her mother that
he would never hurt her. I'm pretty sure her mother
was saying, you kind of need to get out of there.
I'm kind of worried about you. But she was like,
he's not gonna hurt me. I know he's not going
to hurt me. But this is something that people who
are in abusive situations often tell themselves. But she has
(10:08):
to understand, he's already hurting you. It's physical. He's punching
you in everything, like he's already hurting you. But anyways,
on October twenty seventh, nineteen eighty two, John was having
another jealous fit of rage and he grabbed Dominique by
her hair and yanked out handfuls of her here by
the roots. Oh my god. So Dominique ran out of
(10:32):
the house and ran to her mom's house. John followed
her and just started banging on the door and screaming
obscenities and yelled at her to let him in, and
her mother wouldn't let him in, as I wouldn't either.
Actually I'd have called nine to one to one. Actually
I'd never mind. I'll just stop there. So she told
(10:52):
him that you need to calm down. I'm not letting
you in, and if you don't stop, I'm gonna call
the police on you. So, instead instead of leaving him
and never going back, a few days later, she went
back to her house with John and they made up
and they were a quote happy couple for some time.
So this is literally the cycle of abuse. However, not
(11:13):
even a month passed when on September twenty sixth, they
were back to fighting again. This time John held her
by her throat and then threw her down on the
floor and proceeded to strangle the life out of her. However,
at this time, Dominique had a friend staying over. The friend,
Brian Cook, had heard strange, loud, gagging noises and decided
(11:37):
to go out and see what was going on, and
that's when he saw John strangling the mess out of Dominique.
So Brian stopped this, like, what in the world is
wrong with you? Dude? Are you serious? I will end
you if you don't let her go, and John let
her go in He was like, look, it's just a misunderstanding.
I was just mad at Dominique. It's not a big deal.
(11:57):
Dominique come back to bed, and Dominique told Brian everything's
all right again cycle of abuse. She told Brian everything's
all right. I'm gonna be fine. It's all fine. I'm
gonna go back to bed. Now, you go back to bed,
don't worry about it. So everybody, well, I don't want
to say everybody went back, but Brian reluctantly went back
(12:19):
to his room where he had his girlfriend there too,
and Dominique said she's gonna come to bed. So John
went back to his room and then she went to
the bathroom and snuck out the bathroom window. When John
heard her car start, he ran out and jumped on
the hood and started banging on the car. But she
was able to drive off and he was still holding
(12:41):
onto the hood and when she got out of the driveway,
I guess he fell over. Then after this incident, she
stayed at her mom's house for a bit and then
went between friend's house for like the next several days.
Once she got stronger, she called him on the phone
and broke up with him for good. Then when he
moved out, she changed all of her locks and moved
(13:01):
back into her Rangle Avenue home. On October thirtieth, nineteen
eighty two, nearly five weeks since they broke up, Dominique
was at her West Hollywood home rehearsing lines with David
Packer for the upcoming V series. During the rehearsal, she
got a call and it was one of her friends.
So she's sitting there talking to her friends, and in
(13:22):
the middle of that conversation, the operator cut in. So
I guess back in the day, really the operator would
cut in to tell you that someone else was on
the line. Really, is that what happened? Anybody who Look,
I'm not judging, I'm I'm just surprised. I didn't know
that's how it worked. I thought you would just get
a busy signal if you were trying to call somebody
(13:43):
who was already on the phone, Like back in the day,
I thought you would just get a busy signal. That's
what I know. But this is saying an operator cut
in to tell her that someone else was trying to
call her. So if you're familiar with this from back then,
please let me know if that's how it worked, So
then why didn't they keep that up when I was
(14:04):
growing up. If you tried to call somebody who was
already on the phone, you got a busy signal. But
if you had the opportunity, maybe it was something extra
you had to pay for. Anyways, I was just thinking.
I was like, if you had the opportunity for an
operator to cut in to tell you somebody else is
trying to call you, isn't that a service they should
have kept up for a while until call waiting started. Anyways,
(14:27):
I'm just thinking out loud. So anyway, the friend heard
her say, oh my god, it's Sweeny. Let me get
him off the phone, so she clicked over or whatever
however that worked back then, and you told him she
didn't want to talk to him. And then she finished
her conversation with her friend and hung up. She went
back to rehearsing, and then ten minutes later, somebody rang
(14:49):
the doorbell. She went to the door and it was John. However,
Dominique didn't open the door because she was afraid of him,
and he convinced her to talk to him outside the porch,
so she went outside and her acting partner David, could
hear them yelling outside loudly, but he continued to mind
(15:09):
his business because he knew about their relationship. But then
he heard two loud smacks, two short screams, and a
loud thud as someone hit the ground. Now, because he
knew how violent John was, he didn't run to go check. Instead,
he just called nine to one one. However, I guess
in the eighties you had a nationwide nine to one
(15:30):
one system. So he was told that the system that
he got was the house where he's at now was
out of the jurisdiction. So then they gave him the
direct number to the officers in this jurisdiction. In this jurisdiction,
which I mean time is wasting. Are you kidding me
right now? So he called that number and didn't get
(15:52):
a hold of anyone. Are you serious. So, because he
was afraid for his life and the life of his coworker,
he called a friend and said if anything happened to him,
John Sweeney was behind it. He told his friend everything
that was going on, and he said, I'm telling you
this just in case anything happened to me. Then he
(16:12):
snuck out the back door and tiptoed to the driveway
and peeked around the corner, and that's when he saw
John kneeling over a very limp dominique near some bushes.
He didn't go out there and try and be brave
and do anything, which I'm not judging him, because you
don't know how crazy this person is. It's not like
you don't know if he has a gun. He could
have gone out there and been like, hey, leave her alone.
(16:34):
Then he's gone. So he was just witnessing. However, while
he was trying to leave, John saw him and didn't
go after him. Instead, he told him to just call
the police. When police arrived, which I guess David was
able to get him this time, get them this time.
When police arrived, John was very submissive. He had his
(16:55):
hands in the air and he told them, quote, I
killed my girlfriend and I tried to kill myself. Man,
I blew it. I killed her. I didn't think I
choked her that hard, but I don't know. I just
kept choking her. I just lost my temper and I
blew it again. At which point did you try and
kill yourself? I don't know. Maybe it was before David
came around a corner and watched you just sitting there
(17:16):
looking at her. Dominic was rushed to see this Sinai
Medical Center in Los Angeles and immediately put on life support,
but she went into a coma. According to what John
told the police, he had a heated argument with Dominique,
but then he lost control and blacked out. He said
he didn't remember anything. Just later, when it was too late,
he found himself on top of her with his hands
(17:38):
around her throats. Sir, I don't buy that. I'm so
angry that I just, you know, don't remember anything that happened. Bullshit.
If you know you have such a temper, which I'm
pretty sure by now you know this, you should have
gotten anger management classes, and instead of chasing after a
woman who didn't want you, you should have been working
on yourself. So I'm not buying that. At five am,
(18:00):
October thirty, first police called Dominique's parents. They told him
that Dominique had been found almost dead and she was
at the hospital. So both parents jumped on the first
plane they were able to get and went to Los Angeles.
They also got a hold of Griffin, and Griffin made
his way to Los Angeles too. However, nobody was able
(18:21):
to get Alex because he chose to live without a phone.
And don't forget right now. The mother is dealing with
multiple sclerosis, so she's actually in a wheelchair. The mother's love,
that's not stopping her anyway. So they all get to
Los Angeles and they meet with the doctors and everything,
and the doctors are telling them that there's possible irreversible
(18:43):
brain damage. By now, news reports, newsvan reporters, everybody was
outside the hospital waiting for a chance to get their
own scoop, because you know, news, instead of curing about
a human life, let's just flock this area waiting for
waiting to hear something. Let's just gossip about what happened.
So I know y'all are gonna say, well, isn't that
(19:05):
the pot calling the cattle? No, because I wouldn't be
right outside the hospital like, oh, can you tell me
what happened. I'm gonna give them their privacy and I'm
gonna wait, and then I'm going to report what happened.
And the report is only to help get people's story
out and also to help others going through this situation
(19:28):
understand what happens because of the situation and remind you
to get out. So no, it's really not the same
as me being a vulture trying to get every single
picture and quote from somebody who's literally on their deathbed
as I can, or from their parents who's going through
this hardship. I guess I wouldn't make it in a
(19:48):
newsworld because I would literally be waiting till everything dies
down and then call the family and offer my condolences
and say do you feel like talking, and give my
reason why I'm looking for this interview, not for money
and not for shock value or whatever other people do
it for, but to get her story out, because her
(20:10):
story needs to be told, and also maybe her story
could help somebody else that's in this situation, so it
could help another life. But either way, the vultures were
there coming up with headlines. Dominique ellen Dune strangled by
her ex boyfriend in Koma, all this other stuff. So
when her parents walked into her hospital room, they saw
(20:32):
that she was tangled in tubes and wires, she was
on an artificial respiratory. Her eyes were wide open and
it looked like they were bulging out of her head,
which I could understand because he strangled her, so that
pressure would look like that was to eyes and the
eyes were just wide open, staring at nothing. Her hair
(20:53):
was shaved off so that they could install a bolt
in her skull to reduce pressure on her brain, and
there were large per finger marks on her neck. And
although the nurse had told them that she wouldn't be
able to hear them or speak to them because she
was in a coma, her mom said quote, hello, my darling,
it's mom. We're all here. We're all here, Dominique, Dad, Griffin,
(21:14):
and Alex, we love you. During the next week, hospital
staff really tried to get a response from Dominique, really
tried to help her heal, but despite everything that they
were doing, brain scans revealed no brain activity because of
the longtime lack of oxygen. By November fourth, her family
(21:37):
decided to take her off of life support. They figured
there was nothing else that they could do, and they
decided to take her off of life support. They ended
up having her funeral on November sixth, and at the
location they had the funeral at, it actually clashed with
a wedding. When the family saw who the wedding was,
they were surprised because there was actually the wedding of
(21:58):
a friend of John's and they wouldn't move the wedding time.
So since they didn't move the wedding, the funeral had
to be moved up an hour. What I should I say?
A piece of shit? I mean, I guess that's not
his fault, right, so I can't really judge him for that.
I don't know me personally, I would just wait. I
would I would just wait. This is just me. I
(22:21):
don't know. In terms of the wedding, I would just
I would wait, Like, can't we wait an hour and
then take the next time slot or something like what's
an hour? I'm guessing there was a time slot because
they had to move the funeral up an hour, so
there was another time slot, just an hour, and you
couldn't wait just an hour an hour for your wedding. Now,
(22:41):
initially John was charged with attempted murder, but after they
pulled the plug on Dominique, he was now charged with
first degree murder, and of course he went out and
tried to plead not guilty. Dude, how are you trying
to plead not guilt when you literally told the cops
(23:02):
what happened and there was a witness we're in that
is not guilty? Or are you saying not guilty by
reason of insanity? Because yeah, that's no. He was also
charged with assault to cause bodily harm. So John got
this high pain heighty twity lawyer to defend him, and
his defense team was strong, like Strong Strong. The child
(23:25):
began in August nineteen eighty three, and prosecutor Barshop made
a strong impact by asking the court to wait four minutes. Now,
the four minutes he asked them to sit there and
wait was the time that it took John to strangle Dominique,
so for them to visualize how long his hands were
(23:46):
wrapped around her throat and she was without air. During
the trial, the prosecution brought up the altercation on September
twenty sixth, and there was evidence because her bruises were
on film on his John, on his part, tried to
deny causing serious harms. I mean, I know you see
the bruises and you can match them directly to my fingers,
(24:10):
but I mean it's just strangling. That's not bad, right.
He told the court that this was an accident and
he had just tried to stop her from leaving him,
and then he tried to say, well, look she came back,
so obviously I wasn't that bad right now. My first question,
as the prosecution would be, is there no other way
to stop a person from leaving than to wrap your
(24:32):
fingers around their throat? Because usually people maybe like grab
an arm, like stop, say stop, I don't know, stand
in front of them, stuff like that. I've literally never,
in all the years of my life, stop somebody from
leaving by grabbing their throat. I could be wrong, has
(24:54):
anybody else, but I've literally never tried to stop somebody
from leaving. Ever. I can't tell you of one time
by grabbing anybody by their throat or even coming close
to their throat area when trying to stop them from leaving.
What kind of a defense was that? So, according to John,
(25:14):
he said, his defense is, I don't know how she died.
She just died. I was just trying to stop her,
and then she just died. He said, stop in the
name of love, and because of his voice, she just
keeled over and died. Dude, you literally told the officer
that night what happened. And might I remind you there
(25:37):
was a witness. So he was telling them that. You know,
they were planning to get back together. They spoke every day.
They were planning on getting married, starting a family, and
everything like that. And that night when he came over
to our house for some reason, out of nowhere, she said, no,
I don't want to get back together with you. But
everything was going smoothly before then, and then she was
(25:58):
just like, now I changed my mind, he said. She
I mean, I just I love this line from abusers
and this is sarcasm. She admitted to making a mistake
by leading him on. So she led him on. How
many times from an abuser do you hear that she
led him on. I'm sorry for leading you on, and
(26:19):
she said she didn't mean it. When they talked about
getting back together, which nobody ever said. This is what happened.
So I don't know what kind of la la land
he's pulling this out of, but whatever. So, being that
he was led, he got angry and didn't realize what
he was doing until he came back to his senses
(26:40):
and saw that he was holding her throat. She wasn't breathing,
so he tried to get her up and make her walk,
and yeah, that's the way to save somebody who's not breathing.
Come on, get up, just walk it off. That sounds
rational to me. But she fell down again by the bushes,
so he tried CPR next, which only made her throw up,
(27:00):
which had made him throw up as well because he
realized what he had done. Next, he ran back into
her house and down two bottles of pills because he
didn't want to live anymore. Then he went back outside
to lay next to the body, hoping to die. His
lawyers came up and told the court, you see, you see,
do you see? He didn't plan any of this. This
(27:20):
wasn't premeditated. It just happened a crime of passion. And you,
fellow court goers, whatever I'm gonna call you, have to
understand that she led him on and in a blind
rage he did this, so not guilty by way of insanity.
Thank you arrest my case, your honor. Well, when police
(27:41):
investigators took the stand, they said bullshit, and the prosecution said,
we couldncur, your honor, bullshit. Can we say that in court?
Is that a rulin? Can? Can we get that as
a rulin? Bullshit? No? Oh, First of all, there was
a witness. Second of all, your honor, there was a witness.
(28:02):
And for my third piece of evidence, your honor, there
was a witness. This dude never came back in the house,
never downed anything, never did any of that. And also,
may I present the police officer who was there on
that night where John told him what happened and it
wasn't this story. Also, the medical examiner took to the
(28:24):
stand and showed that she had been strangled for at
least three minutes or longer. So you're telling me, in
all that time, you didn't calm down and change your mind.
You literally waited three minutes or longer and sat there
strangling her. You're saying you were in a blind rage
(28:45):
for that long. Then one of his ex girlfriends decided
that Hey, I want to testify, but she only testified
in front of the judge and not in front of
the jury because she didn't want to be in the
same way room as John. She stated that her and
John dated between nineteen seventy seven to nineteen eighty and
(29:08):
he had assaulted her on at least at least ten occasions,
with a couple of them resulted in her being hospitalized.
Once he broke her nose. Then at another time he
perforated her ear drum, and she also suffered from a
collapse to lung. What's his what's his excuse for this one?
(29:29):
She led him onto. Well, she said, we were going
to be happy, and we weren't happy all the time,
so I kind of lost it. So while she's in
the judges chambers talking to him, it was being televised
to the courtroom so they could still see what was happening. Happening.
So when John is seeing this, he jumped up from
his seat sprinted towards the door of the judge's chambers
(29:51):
trying to get to her. Yeah. Yet, let's let's let's
see that calm demeanor again, Like how none of this
is your fault? Yeah, show us, show us John. So anyway,
two baylists and four armed guards intervened and restrained him.
Then he was handcuffed to his chair and crying. He
(30:12):
apologized to the court for the outburst. Well, this judge
is better than me, because the judge acknowledge and accepted
his outburst. Me I would have been like, Okay, that's
all we needed to see. Everybody is ready to rule guilty.
I didn't even need I didn't need it. I didn't
need anything else. Guilty, just guilty, guilty, guilty. Raise your
head if you think he's guilty, Okay. His attorney chose
(30:36):
this moment to request a testimony not be admitted as
it was prejudiced against John. Are you freaking kidding me?
Are you? And for some reason, Judge Kats granted this request,
and apparently the jury wasn't watching this, so it was
just it was just John and the lawyers and everybody
(30:57):
else because the jury didn't even find out about this
testimony until the trial was over. The judge also deemed
that The judge also deemed that the mother's testimony and
Dominique's friends' testimonies were hearsay and held them as inadmissible.
Did he pay off this, judge or something. I don't
understand what's going on here. By August twenty ninth, Judge
(31:21):
Kats also instructed jurors to charge Sweeney with manslaughter or
second degree murder on the defense attorney's request. Wow, so
do you work for them or they work for you,
Judge Kats. I'm not sure. I really thought you were,
for lack of a better term, the boss, and they
(31:42):
were underneath you, so they had to ask you for
the ruling. But it looks like they told you the
rulin and you said, yes, sir, I'll do that. So
John's attorneys did this place this request based on the
fact that the court lacked evidence to charge Sweeney with
first degree murder. There was a witness. In addition to
(32:04):
the witness, he confessed to the police. What more evidence
do you need? I mean, I guess you could have
the smoking gun, so to say, and a tape with
a recording of him actually doing this and then her
waking up from her coma and pointing at him and
said he did this. I don't know what other evidence
(32:27):
you could possibly need. So right now it looks like
the prosecutor's defenses weakening. They did use the fact that
Dominique's friends and family had to pack up her thing
and close up her house, and that her best friend
Melinda Bitten found a letter that Dominique had written to John,
and the letter says, selfish works both ways. You are
(32:49):
just as selfish as I am. We have to be
two individuals to work together as a couple. I am
not permitted to do enough things on my own. Why
must you be a part of everything I do? Why
do you want to come with me to write in
lessons and my acting classes? Why are you jealous of
every scene partner I have? Why must I recount word
for word everything I spoke to doctor Black about blah
(33:10):
blah blah is just you know, her asking a bunch
of questions. I'll post a letter so y'all could read
it yourself. But this whole thing has made me realize
how scared I am of you. And I don't mean
just physically. I'm afraid of the next time you're going
to have another mood swing. When we are good, we
are great, but when we are bad, we are horrendous.
The bad outweighs the good to me. That doesn't sound
(33:31):
like she was trying to come back to you. Sir.
The jury deliberated for eight days, and on September twenty first,
nineteen eighty three, acquitted John Sweeney of second degree murder.
They found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter, which is a
lesser charge. Oh my god, banging my head against the table.
(33:54):
And then for the fight that happened on September twenty sixth,
he was convicted of misdemeanor assault. What in the world
does happen in here? Is it? Because it was the eighties,
so they didn't really look at what men did to
women as really bad. But I mean literally, he killed
her like I don't just because it's a man. I
(34:15):
don't know. So after that verdict, when the judge said
that the jury was right and that the judicial system
had been upheld as per laws, Dominic yelled at the
judge quote, not for our family, Judge Cats, and he
further accused the judge of withholding testimonies on purpose and
hiding John's violent history. Later on, Judge Cats was voted
(34:37):
the fourth worst judge in Los Angeles County and then
further talked about as his ruling and the events of
the trial became a heavily debated topic on TV on
November seventh, during the sentence in Judge CAATs criticized the
jury's verdict of manslaughter. Oh now he's criticizing them. All
it took was everybody to hate the bullshit out of him.
(34:58):
I guess he's suddenly saw Dominique's death as the result
of cold blooded murder. Quote a case pure and simple
of murder, murder with malice. It only took the entire
nation to hate you for you to see this. But
you already did your ruling. So what doesn't matter what
you think now you already said what he got. John
(35:20):
was sentenced to six years in prison. Six years that's
it for manslaughter, and an additional six months for the assault,
so six and a half years. The jury retorted to
Judge Katz's criticism as quote a cheap shop. And they
said if they had been given all the information about
John and given access to the evidence and the testimonies,
(35:42):
their verdict would have been different. So I can't blame
the jury, I blame the judge. I don't know where
the judge got this shit from. A year after Dominique died,
her mother Lenny founded Justice for Homicide Victims, which is
a victim's rights advocacy group. After the trial, John went
to a medium security prison in Susanville, California, and he
(36:05):
was released on parole in September nineteen eighty six after
only servants three years and seven months and twenty seven
days of his six and a half year sentence. Oh
my god. When he was released, he found work as
a head chef at an upscale restaurant called The Chronicle
(36:25):
in Santa Monica. After they found out where he was working,
Dominique's brother and her mother stood outside the restaurant, where
they handed out flyers to patrons saying, quote, the food
you will eat tonight was cooked by the hands that
killed Dominique Doune. Finally, after these protests, night after night
after night after night, John moved far away from Los Angeles. Then,
(36:48):
sometime in the nineties, a Florida physician contacted Dominick and
said he had read an article about Dominique's death and
claimed that his daughter had recently gotten engaged to a
chef named John Sweeney. Griffin called this woman, spoke to
the woman and told her, look, you really want to
reconsider doing this. He killed my sister. So John accused
(37:13):
the Dunes of harassment, which Dominic had hired a PI
to keep an eye on John, and Dominic was like, well, whatever,
I accuse you of murder, so you could accuse me
of harassment all you want. So he had the PI
keep an eye on John all the way until John
moved to the Pacific Northwest and changed his name and
(37:33):
his whole identity, calling himself John Mora after that. Not
that he couldn't still track him, but Dominic decided to
stop following him and try and get himself to heal.
That's why he stopped tracking him, not that he didn't
know where he was or what he was calling himself now.
Two weeks after her death, on November eighteenth, nineteen eighty two,
(37:55):
Dominique was shown in a Hill Street Blues episode where
she played a victim of abuse. At that time, she
actually had real bruises on her body from John's altercation
on September twenty sixth. This was aired only twelve days
after her funeral and it was dedicated to her memory.
As for her role in the series V, it was
(38:16):
actually given to someone else, but her footage was used
as a cameo during the series, and V was also
dedicated to her memory. In the Poulter Guy sequel, it
explained that her character had gone off to college. Now,
I can't believe how little jail time he got. I
don't know what this judge was thinking. I'm wondering if
(38:37):
he's one of those men's men, or was he getting
paid for this or I don't know what. I don't
even know. I can't even fathom what this judge was thinking.
Just remember, if you are a victim of domestic abuse,
please please go get help. Please. I also want to
(38:59):
hear what y'all think about this case. Is this was crazy.
This was completely insane. This dude literally had all the
evidence sitting there and the judge was like, well, there's
no evidence. I don't know. I don't even know what
to think about the outcome. But anyways, I want to
hear from y'all. Let me know what you think about
this episode, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.
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