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January 11, 2007THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
There’s too little evidence in Jefferson Parish to hold a man who claims he killed 23 men during trysts in southeastern Louisiana, including two New Orleans men whose bodies were found in Metairie and Kenner, a prosecutor says.
Although Sheriff Harry Lee has said DNA evidence linked Ronald Dominique to both bodies, Dominique has said he killed them in New Orleans and dumped the bodies in Jefferson Parish, according to Capt. James Gallagher, a Kenner Police Department spokesman.
On Monday, Assistant District Attorney Paul Schneider told State District Judge Martha Sassone there was no probable cause to hold Dominique in those killings, but charges in Jefferson Parish are possible in other cases, which he did not identify.
Confined to a wheelchair, Dominique, 42, of the Houma area, was in the courtroom for the hearing about the deaths of Manuel Reed, 20, whose body was found in a garbage bin in Kenner in 1999, and Oliver “Boe” LeBanks, 27, whose corpse was found in 1998 in Metairie.
Dominique was arrested at a police-run homeless shelter in Houma on Dec. 1 on warrants from Jefferson Parish, but still faces nine counts of first-degree murder in Terrebonne Parish.
New Orleans police learned of the development last week and have not yet interviewed Dominique, spokeswoman Bambi Hall said Monday.
Defense attorneys had contended in court papers filed last month that authorities had no evidence to hold Dominique on murder charges.
After Dominique’s arrest last month for Reed’s and LeBanks’ deaths, police said he confessed to strangling or otherwise asphyxiating 23 men between 1997 and 2005. The victims were described as homeless men between the ages of 16 and 46 who were bound during sexual encounters.
Bodies believed connected to Dominique were found in Jefferson, St. Charles, Terrebonne, Lafourche, Iberville and Assumption parishes. He was booked in Kenner with first-degree murder and aggravated rape in Reed’s death and with second-degree murder in LeBanks’ killing.
