Morbid - Episode 217: The Tragic Murder of Dominique Dunne
Episode Date: March 15, 2021Dominique Dunne was an upcoming actress with roles in different shows like Chips, Hart to Hart, one of her last roles was actually in the- potentially cursed- movie Poltergeist. In 1982 Domin...ique was killed at the hands of her boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney. Their relationship, trial and aftermath are absolutely devastating and what we’ll go over in detail during this episode. Sources used: Dominik Dunne's Vanity Fair Piece, A father’s account of the trial of his daughter’s killer. https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/true-crime/dominique-dunne/ https://medium.com/the-true-crime-edition/injustice-for-dominique-dunne-66f5bac3998b As always, thank you to our sponsors: HelloFresh: Use code morbid12 at HelloFresh.com/morbid12. Embark: Go to Embarkvet.com now to get free shipping and save $40 off your Embark Breed and Health Kit with Promo code Morbid Gabi: See how much Gabi can save you, go to Gabi.com/MORBID AMC Shudder: To try Shudder free for 30 days, go to shudder.com and use promo code morbid BetterHelp: This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and Morbid listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/Morbid See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Hey, Weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Alena.
And this is morbid on a Sunday.
morbid on a Sunday afternoon.
Wow.
Is that what he says like, does he say on a Sunday afternoon or sunny?
I don't really know what you're talking about, so I'm not gonna be a help. It's like an A-B song. It's like...
Oh no wait, it's hungry like the wolf. I'm an idiot. I'm leaving.
I'm like literally having a hard time talking. I can see that.
I...
Maybe I want you to know.
You know what?
Hold on.
Before you say anything.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
I think I'm thinking of another song too, and I think I morphed them together.
I'm offended. I'm thinking of another song too, and I think I morphed them together. I'm offended.
I'm not easily offended, but I'm offended.
Because this is like one of those moments
that we usually have them or not recording,
and I'm like, don't ever tell anybody like I said that.
Do not say that on the part.
Literally.
All they know will always be like,
I can't wait to tell everyone you said guys
Where are my fellow Durand or in head?
Where are my fellow Simon LeBon lovers to be fair? Are you all just as offended that were you speechless along with me?
However, you were on the contrary in in conclusion. We're in this together
I
Think that I like negated the lyrics of that song for my head because Diane Downs did kill her children to that song or
attempt to. Yes, but one, the words aren't that even a little bit. I know.
I know. And then two, like the tune didn't even make, like so I don't even know.
I still think. Can you turn my headphones up a little more? I still think that I
morphed two songs together.
That's perfect, thank you.
Yeah, I, I, that, wow.
This is the beginning of the episode, guys.
So it's a Sunday afternoon.
Yeah.
Sing that to the tune of a Greek old.
Maybe that's, I think maybe that's just what I did.
I don't know.
I didn't get, I didn't get coffee coffee today.
I had coffee from home and it's never the same.
It's true.
It's true, it's not.
I'm just really going to be so serious.
I also just am who I am.
You are, I was going to say,
we don't need to make a lot of excuses here.
We can just say, you know how it is.
You know, it's really funny before this.
We were like, do we have any business to talk about?
Do we need to make any announcements? this we were like do we have any business to talk about like do we need to like make any announcements?
And we're like no no, and then this that just became a PSA
Yeah, like this is a rashes
Like the whole beginning of the episode is just us talking about what the hell song you were trying to say yeah
Well after you know now that we've primed you yeah that we've gotten y'all
All you know, I don't you might be angry you might be offended You might be a mound of tweets that I'm gonna yeah that we've gotten y'all all you know I don't you might be angry you might
defend it you might be a mound of things that I'm gonna get I hope I might I might need
to take a shit and he'll break you deserve it I do I do I do this is this is worse than
then it's that's it's right up there with it's worse. It's worse than in and system of a down and
guys go listen to those listeners in our tails if you didn't hear ash say oh system of a dawn and then
Everybody heard that I am still I got tagged in something like last night about that. That's honestly one of my favorite
Oh, and I like I'm like I'm not like offended at all. Please continue to harass my sister
I'm not like offended at all. Please continue to do that.
Horace my sister.
Horace her.
I just couldn't, I couldn't let you,
let you blaspheme the way you used to.
blaspheme in the house of Durran.
You're dumb.
All right.
Oh guys, it's Sunday.
It's the end of the week,
at the beginning of the week,
however you look at it, it's totally okay.
What do you look at it like?
I look at it as the end of the week actually.
I do too. And I think maybe I look at it as the end of the week actually and I think maybe I look at it as the end of the week because I work at the morgan
Sundays so yeah I think it's like it doesn't feel like you know the end I don't know for you it would
feel like the beginning because you're going to well because I've worked all week and then yeah
I end up working on Saturdays for the podcast and then I work on Sundays for the hospital.
So it's like, then it's like the end.
I start my week on Monday again
and it's like the same thing over again.
Sunday is like usually my day off because-
You guys rest.
Yes, it's my day of leisure.
L'escha.
In fact, I just started watching before I came here
with Drew, the new Woody Allen documentary.
That's on each video.
Oh, yeah, I've heard a lot about that.
I only got to see the first 10 minutes
because then you were like, hey, wanna come over early?
And I was like, I do actually.
I do.
Now I can have my Sunday night.
There you go.
But yeah, this was a long intro about nothing
and I'm sorry.
Yeah, we're bringing it back to the old days.
I'm like, it's earlier today.
Let me tell you about my salon.
No, and it's funny because the last time I was saying that we're like going to redo a couple
of older cases because we just feel like we can do a better job with them and like fix
the audio and like some of it.
And we mentioned that there was a couple that I was like, whoa, that was a long tangent.
But see, here's the thing, I feel like the tangents used to just have nothing to do with anything.
Yeah, they didn't.
These tangents still kind of have nothing to do with anything. Yeah, they didn't. These tangents still kind of have nothing to do with anything,
but they feel different.
And also, you know, it's in the beginning,
we don't really, we don't do long ones in the beginning anymore.
So this is like a fun little throwback.
Yeah.
And I think it used to be more like in the middle of the episode,
I'd be like, oh my god, do you know what?
I just remember.
And everyone would be like, Ash, like,
where did that come from?
I love it though. It is fun to like, because I've been listening to all of them like oh god to go back and figure out
Which ones we want to remaster and all that I mentioned it on an an episode a couple episodes ago
But I've been listening to them and like it just listening to like how how green we were yeah, it's fun
I mean I still feel green at times,
but I feel like we've gotten the hang of like,
where you should end that random tangent.
Much better.
Much better.
I think it's right here.
I think it's at six minutes and 26 seconds.
That's where we should end it.
Well, this week is gonna be a bummer as usual
because we cover some pretty shitty sad stuff.
But we like to bring you up and bring it back down.
Exactly.
So this is actually a case that I looked like slightly into when we were doing our Halloween
shows.
And during our Halloween shows, I covered the case of the curse of the Poltergeist films.
And it was like a case within a case that I was like, oh, I definitely want to get into
that part of it.
And for a regular
morbid episode. And here we are. Because Dominique Dunn was in the Poltergeist films, and some say
that she was felvictum to the curse. That whole case of the curse is not horrifying. Yeah, it is
truly, truly terrifying. It's scary. and it's real. It's definitely real.
I think that Dominique Dunn,
because of the situation that she was in,
I maybe some of it was the curse.
Yeah, maybe it didn't help.
But I also think that the human being
that murdered her was just a curse in and of himself.
I was gonna say, I think there was a curse in her life.
Yes, yes.
So with that, let's get into it.
Dominique Dunn was the daughter of Van Dede,
fair writer, producer, and investigative journalist
Dominic Dunn, and Ellen Beatrice Griffin Dunn,
who went by Lenny.
So her mom was Lenny, and her dad was Dominic.
And obviously she was named after him.
What a cool couple name.
I know I love them.
Lenny and Dominic.
I know I want to hang out with them.
They ended up getting divorced,
but they were like remained friends forever and ever.
Cool.
They had a really cute relationship.
Dominique was born in Santa Monica.
She was the baby of the family.
She had two older brothers, Alex and Griffin.
PS, I love the name Griffin.
That is a really cute name.
It is. For like a little boy just running around like,
Hi, I'm Griffin.
Yeah.
Shut up.
But Lenny had actually given birth to two other daughters
before Dominic, who sadly passed away like very shortly
after they were born from high-line membrane disease
and it's a lung disease that used to be really common
in C-section babies.
Oh, yeah.
Wow, I didn't know anything about that.
Yeah, it's very sad, but I think it basically
is just like a complication.
Yeah.
So Dominic said that Dominic to her parents
was like three daughters and one
because they had lost the two before her
and then they had her.
So she was all of them wrapped up into one human being.
She was their rainbow baby.
And he said that she was triply loved.
Oh my goodness.
Their relationship, oh my goodness,
Dominic and her father and just their whole family.
The family relationship is, there's such a closeit family and like very clearly just loved each other.
Yeah. Dominique herself was very loving, very kind. She loved animals and was especially known
to collect strays. Yes. I'm going to link it, the Vanity Fair article that Dominic wrote about
his daughter and the whole entire ordeal, he said that she had a cat
that had a lobotomy and I think it was like
a dog with like stunted legs.
Those were like two of her favorites.
That was a lobotomy.
He was like, wow, I love that.
And loving and kind seemed like the two best words
to describe Dominique, but she could also be described
as extremely determined because once she decided that she was gonna become an actress,
she started getting roles almost immediately,
and she was super good at it.
She was in a lot of different shows.
She was in Lou Grant, Chips, Fame, Heart to Heart,
and obviously, like I said, the movie Poltergeist,
which, like I said, a lot of people think is cursed
because there's so many deaths surrounding
not only the people who were actors and actresses
in the film, but also people that just worked on set.
Yeah.
Anywhere around that set it seemed.
Yeah, it's nuts.
You weren't getting away from it.
No way.
[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪
Hey there, fellow podcast listener, it's Elena.
And Ash!
And we're taking you back to the days before streaming services.
Whoa!
You know when you would come home from high school and it was only a few hours until that TV show
everyone was watching was about to come on.
Well, in 1999, that show was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
In our podcast with Wondery, the re-watcher Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
we take it back to 1999.
So get out your knee-high boots and paste that poster of Angel on the wall.
It's time to enter the Buffyverse.
Some of you avid morbid listeners already know what we've gotten store.
Join us.
Join us as we sway our way through Buffy's drama, action, and romance.
Episode by episode.
Slacy.
Follow the rewatcher, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen early and add free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, darn, John Thomas Sweeney, at a party in 1981.
He was working as a sous chef alongside Wolfgang Pup.
Pup?
Wolfgang Pup?
Wolfgang Puck?
As Wolfgang Pups dog, that actually cooks.
Yeah, it's the wolf guddy-ist thing.
No, he was a sous chef to Wolfgang Puck.
That's badass.
And it was at this super exclusive, like Hoidie Toidie restaurant,
Mom Mason, I believe is how you say it.
Love it.
They were like so exclusive
that they didn't have their number listed.
Like they had an unlisted number.
That's like those places that don't have doors
and you have to find a way in just to speak easy.
Like yeah, there's a speak easy in Hudson
that me and Drew went to one time
and it was the coolest place
I've ever been to. Speakers are speakeas a little bit. Are we okay? It's Sunday.
Speakeas are so much fun. They are so much fun. Yeah, and the bartenders are usually just like like very like zany. Oh yeah
They're like salt of the earth people. Yeah, but that has nothing to do with anything. I don't hear we I
It's a throwback episode guys. It's because it's Sunday. It's a throw people. Yeah, but that has nothing to do with anything. I don't hear it. I can do it. It's a throwback episode guys.
It's because it's Sunday. It's a throwback. Yeah.
Now, the honeymoon period for this couple did not last long at all.
John Smeanie, who was seven years older than Dominique actually,
started showing a very different side of himself very early on.
He was super jealous, super controlling, and not only mentally, but physically abusive toward
Dominique. And he had been raised in a house like this when he was younger. He came from Pennsylvania,
and he grew up with his alcoholic father, just regularly beating his mother. So terrible cycle of
violence. It is. And it's really sad. Now, like we always say feel bad for the kid version.
Exactly. I feel bad for the kid version. Of course.
Of course. But I do not feel bad for the adult version.
And no. Anyway, shape or form. And it seems like he was somebody that just kind of wanted to,
he was desperate to fit into this Hollywood lifestyle. Yeah. And it was like a meal ticket.
Like Dominique was his meal ticket. Yeah. like he could get into the, you know,
he could get the money, he could get the exposure,
yeah, and get the lifestyle.
Excuse me.
She's like this up and coming actress.
It's like, he's hitching to say it.
I hate to say it.
It's perfect, for him.
Exactly.
You know?
And Dominique was on to his whole thing too.
Like she wondered and even came right out in letters
that were later found.
She was like, John Sweeney doesn't love me. He's obsessed with me. And like she said that to people in her life.
Like he does not love me. He loves the idea of me. Yeah. What I can give him. Exactly. That's so sad
and terrifying. Yeah, it is both. Exactly. Now there were multiple occasions where John showed his
true face not only to Dominique, but to the people involved in her life
and their life as a couple.
There was an occasion where they were out with her brothers
and a fan came up to Dominique,
and I think he yelled one of the lines from Poltergeist at her
and was like, oh my God!
Oh my God!
And he was just really excited and like,
I just wanted to say hello.
And John happened to be in the bathroom when this was happening.
And when he came out of the bathroom and saw this guy talking to Dominique,
he stormed over to him, lifted him up, and just shook him violently.
Without having any kind of read on the situation at all.
Like, this could be her fucking cousin for all you know.
Like, if you, wow.
Yeah, he was just completely overtaken with rage.
It's nuts.
There was another time where they were joining
Dominique's father for lunch and they showed up super late and Dominique was like it was very clear that Dominique had been crying. Oh,
That makes me so sad. Yeah, it's awful. Father. Do you know how badly he probably wanted to just like
One he remembered he the Vanity Fair article I cried reading it. It's like super long, but it's one of the best things,
not one of the best things I've ever run, but it's just so well written.
Yeah.
And he said he knew that it was going to be hard for her to get out of this relationship,
and it was something that he thought about and was worried about.
Because the only thing you want to do is protect your child.
Yeah. And it's like when you can't, and he was probably racking his brain,
trying to think of ways he could get her out of here. Right. But at this point, she's like 21, 22. Yeah. What can
you do? Like, there's nothing you can do. No, you're she's an adult. It's awful. And I can't imagine
that feeling as a parent just like, you're in charge of your child for so long. You're like a
charge of the people in your life in their life. You take care of them and keep the bad people out
of their life. But now they're an adult, and if this is who they want
to be with, there's literally nothing you can do.
The scariest thought you can have as a parent
is that they're going to go out into the world,
and terrible people can come into their lives
and you have no control over it.
Like you have to just let them out into the world
and hope that they are able to not be around those kind of people.
And it's like, I don't want to think about it.
No, it's horrible.
So yeah, that was another occasion where her job was just like,
I don't know what to do.
There was another occasion where friends were over
the couple's home and they started arguing.
And these friends witness John pole Dominique's hair
straight out of her head, like from the root of her scalp,
like literally yanked her hair out of her scalp.
No, like what?
There were a lot of times that Dominique tried to get away from him. There was one time she escaped
through a bathroom window after her friends, like saw John Swiney literally trying to kill her
with his hands around her neck. And she ran to the bathroom, escaped out the window,
and jumped into her car.
The fear she must have been living in.
Oh my, I can't murder.
I can't imagine.
Yeah, it's awful.
And so he had asked her on this occasion
when she ended up escaping through the bathroom.
He was like, oh, come back to bed.
And she was like, okay, like sure.
And that's when she crawled out and gotten to her car
and was like leaving to go to her mom's house.
But John threw himself onto the hood of her car
trying to halt her from getting away
and then knew that she was going to her mom's house.
So showed up at the mom's house
and was banging on the doors in the windows
trying to get her to come outside
or let him inside.
That's a nightmare.
An actual nightmare.
And then as her mother, like, what?
Because all these people are in a position that,
like, when you actually think about it,
like, how do you get out of that?
Right.
Like, there's very few options.
And she tried to so many times.
And so on this occasion, he finally gave up
and went back to the apartment
and he thought Dominique would come back.
But that was the final straw for her she had had enough.
And she was surrounded by so many people who loved her they knew what was going on.
They wanted to help her, you know, there was actually one time where she had a guest
appearance on a show called Hill Street Blues where she was supposed to be acting as
like an abused girl whose mother was the one who was abusing her.
But because Dominique was suffering at the hands of John Sweeney,
they didn't even have to use makeup to fake her bruises.
Her face hitting me and that could already been bruised so badly that you can
see the picture of her acting in this show and all the bruises are real.
There's a lot of layers to that that are that's disturbing.
Like one, the fact that she was so bruised, they didn't need makeup and two, the fact that are, that's disturbing, like one,
the fact that she was so bruised,
they didn't need makeup and two,
the fact that they were like,
well, role cameras, like let's go.
No one's like, hey, do you need a second?
Should we postpone this?
Can we help you?
Can we call the fucking police?
Like can we do something to help?
Like this is bad?
And I don't know, maybe they did.
And maybe she was just like,
why are you rolling cameras on that?
Like that's really fucked up to have,
like, for posterity later, like that's,
absolutely, I mean, Hollywood is full.
That's something I feel very confident in.
I know that.
Yeah.
But it's like, but like I said, it just proves the point
that people knew what was going on, you know?
Yeah.
And that it was like right out in front of everybody,
but it's just right there on the table.
Like you say, the only thing you could do is call the police,
but if they're not going to, you know, press charges
or anything, you can't really, that's all you can do.
And I think the thing is like, she was an up and coming actress.
She loved acting, so it was probably an escape for her.
Yeah. And at this point, she called John
and like was like, no, we're not together anymore.
So at this point, I think she probably was like, this is where it ends. And I'm going to
move on with my life.
Yeah. And again, it's easy to say when you're outside of a situation, like, I would do this
or I would do that. But it's like, you don't know.
No, no idea.
And we also don't know every single thing that was going on around her, around her life,
you know, or what she was thinking.
No. But after the last wrangling incident, like I said, she had enough, she called him, she's
like, you need to get your stuff out, and I'm done living this way.
And surprisingly, he did.
He moved his stuff out of her house and whatever, like went away for a little bit.
Now Dominique was determined that she was not going to go back to her place until he was
completely moved out and she didn't.
And then once all of his things were gone and he was settled somewhere else, she moved
back in and she changed all the laws.
I was literally just going to say I hope she changed all those laws.
She's a very smart girl.
She knew what she was doing.
She was like, let me handle this.
I got it.
And she was just like I said, ready to put everything behind her.
But it wasn't going to be easy with a classic abuser and a guy like John Sweeney. And it wasn't long until
he started calling again, showing up randomly. Please talk to me. I can change. It'll be
different. Classic. Classic abuser stuff. So on the night of October 30, Dominique got
one of those calls while she was home and rehearsing with actor David Packer for a mini-series called V. Now, Sweeney called her from work and asked
her if he could come over just to talk.
It's so manipulative, too.
I just want to talk.
It's so manipulative.
It is.
It is.
That's it.
Because so many people know what that feels like to know that you shouldn't talk to them,
but they just...
Right. But like I said in the beginning, the two main words to describe her loving and kind.
She's not going to turn her back on somebody that, I mean, I don't think at this, she
probably did love him in some capacity.
And at some point, she had strong feelings for him.
I mean, they were living together, you know?
Absolutely.
It's hard to love or like caring about someone in that romantic way.
It's not, we all know, it's not easily quantifiable
or understandable.
It doesn't lay down to every rule of,
well, he's a dick so you can just stop caring about him.
Like, your emotions don't work that way.
You're not logic, I'm not genuptionately, I wish they were.
You're thinking with your heart, not your heart.
Exactly, and it sucks.
It does. Also, if you guys hear like some crazy wind,
it's straight up tornadoing outside. It's straight up monsooning. Not really. Well, monsoon mixed with
snow, snow, snow. Yeah. Outside. And it. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery's podcast
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Oh wow. Yeah.
Uh, there's, there's a lot going on outside.
It's like the frickin' dust bowl.
Yeah, we just happen to look out the window and we're like,
well, okay, and it happened out of nowhere.
So if you hear some like crazy howling wind,
you know, it'll just add to the video.
Or if it's just like, un-stopsobruptly, because I feel like like the power like we go out. Yeah, well, yeah, we get with it. So
He's like, I just want to come talk to you like please let me so she's like, okay
So he shows up. He's knocking on her door like let me in
And apparently he had down two martinis at his job before he walked over to the house.
Oh boy.
Yeah.
So Dominique finally agrees to go out and she starts talking to him on the porch.
But just a few minutes into talking, remember her friend David is there rehearsing with
him.
David, here's a fight start between the two of them.
He heard the sound of smacking.
He heard screams and he heard a loud thud.
I would not know what to do. Well, so he did. He called
the police and the police told them that it was out of their jurisdiction. So it's like,
okay, like, what do you, can you contact the other police department for me? I'd handle
this. Like, they're just like, yeah, sorry. Sorry. We can't get out there. Can you connect
me to the other people or just like call them for me and send someone out here? So I'm
not sure exactly what happened. I don't know if they did connect him or whatever,
but I mean, eventually place got there.
But because he was so terrified,
he actually called a friend and left a voicemail,
saying that if he died that night,
it would be at the hands of John Sweeney.
Holy shit.
He was like, should anything happen to me?
Here's who did it.
Because you're listening to a man,
like beat a woman on the front porch.
Like, he's unhinge
He's like I don't know what this if this guy has a gun
I don't know if he has any kind of weapon and obviously he's an unhinged mother fucker
And he's beating a woman in the middle of the fucking street
Right and he's been friends with Dominique. He knows what's gone on. Yeah, everybody all of her friends knew what was going on unfortunately
unfortunately. So David then went outside because he's like, I have to help my friend, you know.
And he finds John Sweeney standing over Dominique who was laying on the ground by some bushes.
John looked at him and said, call the police.
When the police arrived.
That just gave me like chills.
Yeah.
So the police arrived.
John Sweeney's still there, and he puts his hands in the air upon their arrival and says,
and I quote to the first responding officer, quote, man, I blew it.
I killed her.
I didn't think I choked her that hard, but I don't know.
I just kept on choking her.
I lost my temper, and I blew it again.
I blew it again.
Mm-hmm. Who else have you done this to? It's so, I was hoping you would say that, or like I was hoping and I blew it again. I blew it again.
Who else have you done this to?
It's so I was hoping you would say that
or like I was hoping we could get into that
because Dominic in that vanity fair article
later on this comes out at the trial
that that was like the officer who he set that to
ended up testifying and was like,
this is what he said to me.
And Dominic was like, so does that mean
that he had killed somebody before or like does he have what he said to me. And Dominic was like, so does that mean that he had killed somebody before,
or does he have, he has clearly has girlfriends
that he's done this in the past,
like we'll learn later.
What does it again mean?
I blew it again.
Again?
To me means I killed someone accidentally again
because of my rage.
I mean, maybe that, I mean, yeah.
To me, that's what, it sounds like to me,
obviously I have no physical
or any kind of evidence to back that up. No. But, but something to To me, that's what it sounds like to me. Obviously, I have no physical or any kind of evidence
to back that up.
No.
But something to point out was.
That's a weird statement to make.
And Dominic, her father felt the same thing.
And it's interesting to point out
that he didn't have a driver's license.
And like, it seemed really strange for somebody
that like, and Dominic literally said he was like,
this person relied on wheels.
Like, you know, to get around with a set of wheels, but couldn't, didn't have a driver's license. And like, thereomaniac literally said he was like, this person relied on wheels, like, you know, to get around with a set of wheels,
but couldn't, didn't have a driver's license.
And like, there was apparently a woman,
like, back in the day, that there was like rumors,
that something like this had happened.
Oh.
Yeah.
It's definitely, it's a strange thing to say.
I blew it again.
I blew it again.
And at first I was like, does he mean like,
I strangled her again?
Right, because he had strangled her in the past.
Like, I don't know if, but he's not saying like,
oh, she's unconscious.
He's saying I killed her.
He's saying I killed her and I did it again.
Like, that's strange.
Pretty like, that's a weird thing to say.
It's something that you could analyze probably for hours.
Definitely hang your hat on that for something.
Yeah, so Dominique was rushed to the hospital
and she was not dead yet.
She was put on life support for five days.
They unfortunately had to shave her hair
and put a bolt into her skull
to relieve the massive pressure that was on her brain.
And her father remembered seeing her like that
with bruises on her neck.
There were huge marks made by the hands of John Sweeney.
That's your child.
And again, in the vanity fair,
piece, he said that it was nearly impossible
to look at her, but also impossible to look away.
Yeah.
It's so sad.
Because I mean, she's gone through this,
she's suffered.
You don't want to like negate her suffering
by being like, I can't suffer.
By liking you, you know, you almost feel responsible.
And they were really worried about her mother,
Lenny going to see her because Lenny had multiple sclerosis.
And that is a disease where it is greatly affected
by stress, like if somebody is suffering multiple sclerosis
is going through a stressful time in their life,
they'll get more flare ups and they'll get more sick.
Yeah, absolutely.
So they were like, we don't, like, we don't want to, yeah.
And also, I know it's a telly.
I said you almost feel responsible.
I didn't mean that.
You almost feel a responsibility to look at.
Oh, yeah, I didn't mean responsible, like,
I knew you meant it.
I just wanted to clarify that.
Yeah.
But they were really worried about it.
But Lenny was like, no, she was like, I'm going.
Yeah, that's my child.
I was going to say she's a mom.
Yeah.
So unfortunately,
Dominique had to be taken off life support on November 4th. And it was, I believe, 19 days
before her next birthday. She was 22 years old when she died. Her kidneys were donated
to two different people in need of them at that specific hospital. And her heart was donated
and sent out to a different hospital in San Francisco. That at least is always like a silver lining.
When you hear like, obviously,
this is no good thing about this.
But like when something good can come out of it,
like three different people were probably saved.
Absolutely.
Because of her, like that's something.
I hope that like brings parents.
I know that like it's probably,
I can imagine a feeling.
But I hope it brings some kind of, you know,
to know her heart is beating somewhere.
Yeah, and I think it did make her family feel better
because Lenny was the one that said
this is what Dominique would have wanted.
He come in organ donor, guys.
Yeah, it's important.
Now, John Sweeney at this point is facing
more than attempted murder because now this is a murder.
He's killed her.
He could be
facing charges of hopefully first degree at the very least second degree murder.
So unfortunately he is one of those people we all know people like this like terrible
awful people that just walk through their freaking lives like a cat with nine lives.
Of course. That is who he is. There's so many people like that. That Hoi D20 restaurant that he
worked at seemed to be totally on his side Hoi D20 restaurant that he worked at
seemed to be totally on his side.
The owner said actually that he would get John Swini,
the best legal representation that he could.
That's fun.
Like nice, that's awesome.
Awesome man.
He called him a dependable young man.
It's like this isn't one of those cases where it's like,
yeah, like we're not sure what happened here in Bobo.
Like there was one in eyewitness
and he literally told him to be self-t her.
When she arrived over her dead body, I killed her.
Right, like let's stop with this, he's a dependable young man.
I don't give a fuck if he saves busfuls of orphans
on a regular basis.
Right, he just murdered a person in cold blood
in their front yard.
And also he's a dependable young man.
Okay, so he shows up on time at work.
Yeah, that's great.
That's awesome.
That's a great quality to have.
Slap a gold star on him.
You know what, like kind of overshadows that is being a murderer.
Murder.
Usually, like kind of overshadows being timely.
Yeah, just like my personal opinion.
Tardiness and murder, not on the same level.
No, halted the same level. No, how did very difference.
One's inconvenient and one is murder.
Yeah, like, just straight up murder.
Let's just take that.
So, Sweeney ended up actually getting a court appointed defense attorney named
Michael Adelson and then Joseph Shapiro who worked with the restaurant
La Mason regarding legal business hopped on the team too.
So he had a good team, unfortunately.
Michael Addison had a reputation for being a pretty,
like, notes to the grindstone type of guy,
like he would get shit done.
And Joseph Shapiro was the same kind of guy.
So as a team, they were not only intimidating,
but they were ready to go to, like, great lengths
to get him off of this.
Yeah.
Which is just absolutely fucked.
Great.
Yeah, it's wonderful.
Now Judge Burton Katz was going to be the judge on the trial.
And at the end of this, we're going to really just have a deep, deep dislike for this man.
Right, bro.
Because that turned out to be pretty awful for the Dunn family, essentially another tragedy
in their lives.
Now, the trial started in August of 1983,
and it quickly became clear that Judge Katz
had more of a relationship with the murderers defense team.
Like, literally, he was cracking jokes with the two lawyers
and like trying to make a murder trial
some lighthearted experience for the jury.
Yeah, which it should be.
Yeah, it should be like a walk in the park for sure.
It should be a fun time. Like, okay, like maybe let's take our job a little seriously. Yeah, talking
about someone's child who was like Ruth the sleeper, like, oh, you're going to wait.
From them, we should definitely make this a light-hearted experience.
The entire research process for this had me read in the face, like pissed off. It's like,
this is a courtroom. It wasn't. It was a media circus. And this is a judge.
He was voted like fourth worst judge at one point.
Cool.
And he is somebody that just wanted to be involved.
He loved being involved in high profile.
I was gonna say he just liked it
because it was a Hollywood starlet.
Good coverage.
Like, his parents came to the trial one day
to like see him in action.
Oh, come on.
Yeah, like it's just messed up.
He also consistently called Dominique Dominic,
which is her father's name, which he's named after.
You should probably know how to pronounce
the name of the murder victim in the trial
that we're going over here.
Yeah, you are the judge.
Yeah, and he never wearing the robe.
He never made an effort to correct himself.
That's absurd.
And actually, this is just like a weird thing
to point out strangely enough, he worked on the Charles Manson case
as the deputy district attorney.
Wow.
Yeah, like nuts.
It's a weird connection.
It's a very strange connection.
Now, one of the biggest things that the prosecution had
was that they had tracked down a woman who dated John Sweeney
right before he and Dominique got together. They had dated a little over two
years from 1977 to 1980. And she testified, her name is mentioned in like a lot of news outlets,
but personally I just like didn't want to mention her name. So I'm just going to say she
she testified that there were ten occasions where John Swini put his hands on her
and there were two separate times where she had to be hospitalized for the injuries that she suffered at his hands.
One hospital stay was four days long and the next day was six days.
Or excuse me, the next time was six days.
Those are both long hospital stays.
Mm-hmm.
She suffered many injuries, a collapsed lung.
What?
A perforated eardrum? A perforated eardrum?
A perforated eardrum?
You're sorry I meant to correct myself.
A perforated eardrum and a broken nose.
Oh my God.
Like a perforated eardrum, like what happened there?
What did he do?
I have no idea.
Oh, that's horrific.
Now, when she tried to escape from him,
he would literally throw rocks at her,
yup, or smash furniture around and throw pictures
and anything around the house that he could.
And she said, well, he would do this
while he was quite literally foaming at the mouth.
Holy shit.
We are talking about a man that is an actual animal.
Like, actually unhinged.
Like, terrifying.
Like, I literally picture the guy in split.
Just like, going off. Like, he is fully guy in split. Just like going off.
Like he is fully untethered.
It's not okay.
Now the entire time she gave her testimony,
John Swini wouldn't even look at her,
like would not look up at her.
The defense tried to paint her,
and this is just so messed up.
They tried to invalidate not only this woman,
but also Dominique,
and just tried to paint them as like women
who drank a lot and did drugs and just
invalidate their entire life. Of course, you got to take away their credibility.
So they tried to say that during these fights she was drunk or she was high this woman who was
testifying and they were just basically saying that she got herself into this. So like this is her fault.
I don't know to tell you. Oh yeah. But the prosecution was ready to show exactly
who John Sweeney was.
Like I said, he came from nothing.
He desperately wanted to be rich and famous.
So, when these women rejected him,
that's when he lost his mind.
Of course.
And the prosecution knew that,
because he can't get it himself.
He needs them.
He actually reminds me a lot of Andrew Cunanan,
who killed Versace and the other man that he killed. It's somebody who needs to be notorious and use people along the way to climb up the
ladder. So when they start losing their sources of that, then they start getting more and
more desperate. And then it becomes their options for how they become notorious or infamous
or famous or anything, become less and less and
less and less and finally they're like, well, I'll do it this way.
Because Andrew Cunan had like sugar daddies and stuff like that and he would like lie about
who he, where he came from and everything and he had these socialite friends.
But one by one, they started learning who he actually was and they started falling away
and that's when everything happened.
And the veil falls, that's when they get desperate.
Like what was happening here, he met Dominique,
and I'm sure it was great in the beginning,
but then he couldn't handle.
Yeah, having a relationship, I guess.
Because he's an animal.
Yeah, so when it was time for the prosecution to talk to the woman,
they said to her, quote,
do you come from a well to do family?
That was the question.
At that moment, John Swini basically ejected himself
out of his seat like a fucking rocket.
What?
Through the Bible that he carried into the courtroom
every day across the room,
and storm toward the doors that led to the holding cell.
Like, he was like leaving.
Like, he didn't want to sit there.
Oh, like, this is a real housewives reunion
and you could just get up and leave.
Yes.
Honey, no. Like, no, you're on trial for murder, mother.
You can't just leave because it's getting uncomfortable
because shit's gonna get a lot more uncomfortable
from here on out there.
Are you kidding me?
He stormed out of the room.
Two bay lifts and four armed guards
had to tackle him down and bring him back to his chair,
which he was then handcuffed to.
Yeah, as he should be.
And when he apologized, judge Katz looked right at him and he said, we know what a strain
you're under, Mr. Swini.
Oh my God.
We know that you're the one here who's really under a great strain.
You're under strain.
I'm sorry.
Why don't we talk about what a strain that this woman sitting next to you on the stand
was under, or what strain Dominique was under when John Swiney's hands literally stopped air from coming into her lungs.
Wow.
And killed her.
Like, are we kidding here?
How is that?
I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry for the strain that you're under.
Yeah, I'm so sorry for him.
This will just take a little while longer and then you can get past it.
Yeah, let's cuddle the murderer.
Yeah.
So obviously, Annie Jury, that saw the ex-girlfriend's testimony and saw him explode like that. Would have probably called it a day at that point and been like, yeah, we've seen what we need to see. Yeah, clearly this man with an explosive temper that was set off by something as small as a pointed question.
That wasn't even about him. Literally, like he knew where it was going. Of course it was like indirect, but it's like he's just asking her a question.
And that's the thing because what really he was pissed about was that the prosecution saw him exactly for who he was.
It was proving a very valid point.
But unfortunately, the jury would never hear
a word of this woman's testimony,
or see the monster at work,
because Swini's defense attorney Adelson
had asked that while this woman give her testimony,
the jury be out of the room so that they could decide
whether or not it was credible enough
or important enough for the jury to hear.
So when this all went down, the jury was not in the room.
What a fucking shark.
So what a shark?
They had no idea this woman even existed,
and they never saw that.
They never knew that happened.
I will give it to these defense attorneys.
They are doing their job.
It's like, how do you even, I don't even understand
how that happens?
That's absurd.
And they came to the decision that her testimony
was not worth showing the jury.
What?
So they never knew that he had been a known abuser
before he even met Dominique,
and they never got to see it with their own eyes.
Which most of the time, it's like, come on, guys.
Like, they know he's probably done this before yeah nine times out of ten
You don't just suddenly out of nowhere start
Struddling abusing women the person you're with like usually you've had a pattern of this behavior for a little while
And he did and if you did it enough that you killed a woman you've definitely done it before and how is
Establishing a pattern not allowed in a trial like usually that's one of the main things that they do.
Dude was found standing over her body.
There was an eyewitness there that saw the entire thing.
And it's like, he admitted it to, I don't understand this.
Neither do I.
The judge also wouldn't let Lenny testify about all the times
that Dominique fled to her home trying
to escape John Sweeney.
Yeah, because that's not important.
Nope.
And he wouldn't let Dominique's friends testify
about all the times that they had literally first
hand seen him like over her on a bed strangling her
or ripping her hair out of her head.
They said they said the reason they wouldn't let her mother
testify or her friends who had experienced this entire
ordeal, their statements were here say,
oh my god.
How?
How are you going to say that a mother's words
about her daughter are hearsay?
Like this is just, I feel like this should be
just like witness testimony.
I don't understand why.
No, like I mean again, these defense attorneys
are really doing the job.
It's bananas.
And that's, this is not even the worst thing
that was gonna happen to the family during the trial.
Because so like I said, Dominique's mother had multiple sclerosis and she was in a wheelchair.
So you can only imagine what she was going through.
Like I said, the stress that somebody endures when they have a disease like that, it makes
it worse.
Yeah, I know.
So she's already in a bad place to say the least because her daughter has been murdered.
Now she's sitting on a trial.
She's not allowed to even speak her experience.
No.
And like what?
Now that's not the end of it.
Adelson didn't really care what the mother
of this murder victim was going through.
He was just worried about her presence in the courtroom
because he thought that it would lead the jury
to feel bad, like have some kind of extra sympathy
toward her and that it would sway the verdict.
He did not want.
Oh, honestly, he fucking demon. He did not want, honestly. He fucking demon.
He did not want her allowed in the courtroom.
That's some demon shit.
How do you lay your head on a pillow at night?
Yeah, that's the kind of,
I understand defense attorneys have a job to do.
I understand that some people are innocent,
need a defense attorney to do their job
and like overdo it, but that kind of shit, that's fucked.
You know this man is guilty.
You know he's guilty.
Everybody just, and it's like, you're just trying to lessen the charge at this point.
That's exactly what they were doing.
So that was their main point.
What the fuck are you doing telling this woman in a wheelchair
who can't be in the court right?
What to see her daughter be like, get justice?
Like, come on.
Her only daughter, the baby of her family. No, I can't understand
I don't know how you let your head on the pillow after that shit because it's like it
This isn't to get him off. This is to get him a lesser
Charsens like you don't need to go that hard no calm down. No, that's I mean
I mean, I mean we're allowed to like the Golden State killer all the sudden was in a wheelchair at his fucking
Yeah, that lying sack of shit was pretending
that he was, like, ailing the entire time.
It's an, we allowed that.
We're allowing that.
But somebody who actually is, like, in a wheelchair
because of a disease that they're suffering.
No, for some reason, we give these, like, assholes a pass.
I don't understand.
Like, it's like, nobody would,
what they should have done is prop that dumb ass up.
And then, like, stand on your two feet.
You were fine, like, what, a few weeks ago,
when we got you outside of your house,
you were literally riding your fucking motorcycle.
You were riding a motorcycle.
Like, fuck the whole of the sake of life.
Oh, fuck everything.
Fuck every, like murderer.
Fuck you, murderers.
Yeah.
So like I said, he didn't want her allowed in,
but he had no way of kicking her out.
Like, how the fuck are you gonna,
no, I mean, judge cats, I'm surprised, didn't go for it,
but he like thought about it
Adelson also moved to the judge that quote any emotional outburst by the done family including crying
Eye rolling and or making any type of exclamation would result in there being ejected from the courtroom
So yeah her family members couldn't cry during her murder trial or they would be ejected from the courtroom.
I've never heard of something like this.
This is like in my life.
In my life.
I've just never heard of this being a thing.
The judge is like fully shitting upon a murder victim's fan.
I've never heard of this.
Or the defense attorney.
I've never heard of this being like a thing.
And the judge granted the motion.
Well, that's what I, it's like,
and the judge is going along with it.
Yeah.
You can't tell a murder victim's family,
you can't cry.
You can't cry.
Like, what?
I'm sorry, what?
Like, I understand the like no bursts of a moat.
Like, you can't stand up and scream.
Or like, charge people or any, I understand that.
You can't tell people they can't cry.
Right.
No, come on.
What? So one day, no matter what their child is dead,
nothing changes that fact. The jury isn't going to be like, huh,
I wonder if Dominique really is dead because they're not crying.
Like, it's no. It doesn't make any sense.
So one day, one of Dominique's brothers had tears in his eyes.
And Adelson tried to have him thrown out.
And there was another time when Griffin and Alex, Dominique's
brothers, moved seats so that they, because at this point, John Sweeney was on the stand
testifying. So they moved seats to be in his eyesight. Like they were like, you can look
right the fuck at me. For sure. And Adelson tried to have them thrown out. They weren't thrown
out, but then Alex told Dominic that he was like, I can't do this anymore. I can't go
and be in the same room with John Sweeney and be treated the way we're being treated.
Like I can't.
I would lose it.
I would lose it on this guy.
So the blows to the family kept coming from all angles.
The judge, the defense, the hopes that something huge would be admitted as evidence, and then
last minute was taken off the table.
Labelled here say, or just like unnecessary.
Now another blow came on August 29th,
when Kat's granted emotion,
saying that there was insufficient evidence
of a charge for first degree murder,
and that the jury would only be able to deliberate
on charges of manslaughter or second degree murder.
I had a feeling that was gonna be the end result.
Like what?
And then there was when John Swini took the stand himself
and tried to make excuses and paint himself like the real victim here. It was him. He was the victim here. He was, yeah. So this is his
version of events. He said just everybody hold on to your butts. He said that he had gone over to
Dominique's place that night because they had actually been talking about getting back together,
even getting married and having kids, like everything was great again.
And she told him that she changed her mind
and she didn't want him back
and that she was sorry for leading him on.
And so when she said that, he lost it,
and he blacked out.
Okay.
And remember anything.
Even if that was the truth,
you can't kill someone.
You can't kill someone.
Yeah.
People can change their goddamn minds,
especially when you're an asshole
who has beaten the shit out of her your entire relationship
She can suddenly go you know what? No, well, he thought I thought it was her fault. Oh, yeah, it's her fault
Yeah, and so crazy it blocked out. Yeah, they all do and when he came to he realized that Dominique was unconscious
So he tried to do CPR because he's a hero
But when he did that it made her throw up and then because he's such a soft emotional teddy bear he threw up too
And then when he saw that Dominique wasn't coming back he ran into the house
But it's so weird because David didn't see that happen. I was gonna say and he downed two bottles of pills
Which is so weird because those were not found in his system. Okay. Wow magic
Super nuts and also they were literally not found anywhere.
Wow, very lucky.
And then he took Dominique's tongue
from the back of her throat
so that she wouldn't choke on it if she came too.
Yes, of course.
Because he knew that was the right thing to do
because he had always helped his epileptic father.
He's just very smart.
He's just such a fucking hero.
He's a quick thinker.
Yup.
John Sweeney.
He's just everything.
And goodness, he was there. He actually had a cape on atey. Yup, he's just everything. And goodness, he was there.
He actually had a cape on at this very moment.
Yeah, it's, thank goodness he was there to save her
from the murder that he just committed.
Yeah, I'm very glad he was there for that.
Trying to, yeah, totally for sure.
Yup.
Yeah.
And then when all that taking care was done,
he lied next to her just like Romeo and Juliet.
Of course he did. Super cute story. None of that fucking happened.
That is a steaming pile of horseshit.
Survey says, that's a lie, motherfucker.
God, I hate this guy.
Like I said, there was absolutely no evidence that he had taken two bottles of worth of pills.
And the officer, like I said, that arrived on scene first said that as soon as he got
there, he looked, sweetie, and there he looked to the guy in the eyes and I'm going to say
it again.
And he said, quote, man, I blew it.
I killed her.
I didn't think I choked her that hard, but I don't know.
I just kept on choking her.
I lost my temper.
Blue it again.
I don't know how any of this is confusing to any.
What are you telling me?
That you down two bottles of pills
and you had the wherewithal to say that
to the first responding officer.
Yeah, and it's like, I thought you were lying next to her.
Right, in state.
Yes, but no, that's not what the police officers say.
I don't think he was confused.
He was not.
No, and he knew exactly what he had done.
And to further prove that, the medical examiner
said that there was evidence to show that this is horrific.
Dominique had been strangled between four and six minutes.
So the amount of rage and just lack of soul,
you have to have to hold on to someone's neck
with the pressure it takes to actually choke them
up for that work.
For that work to six minutes.
Well, they, and that's like full face-fronting,
looking in the eyes.
Absolutely.
And you are watching someone in complete panic.
You are saying exactly what I wrote down in my minutes.
Am I really like that word for word?
Four to six minutes.
Four to six minutes.
To look in someone's eyes, know that you're killing them.
Obviously she would have been struggling to get away.
This was not an oopsie.
Oh, yeah. I mean, you think of anybody,
if you choke on something, or for a second, you can't breathe.
It's the panic you'll see in someone's face.
Imagine that's four minutes of that panic.
Well, you're blacked out.
That you're supposedly love.
You're blacked out.
You're blacked out.
You don't black out and hold somebody's neck for that long
with that.
It takes a lot of pressure.
It takes a lot of pressure.
The hyoid bone.
Yes.
And that's not what happened.
Like, no, you're a liar.
None of that happened other than the fact that,
yeah, you put your hands around the woman
that you supposedly loved throughout
for four to six minutes.
No, it's...
It's a private...
Indeprived to revoke the jam.
So now it was time for the jury to decide.
When they were finished hearing the closing statements
in which Adelson took the time to speak as Dominique,
like literally spoke as her and called herself a liar.
Like, he was like,
I Dominique lied to you, John Swini.
Like, what?
Yeah. They were... are you kidding me?
No, no.
This gets worse and worse.
It somehow gets worse and worse.
So they went to deliberate.
When they came back, they handed two envelopes to the judge
and the verdict was read by the clerk.
Guilty on voluntary manslaughter.
Volunteer manslaughter.
Volunteer manslaughter, not second degree murder, and also guilty on a misdemeanor assault man's slaughter. Voluntary man's slaughter. Voluntary man's slaughter. Not second to green murder.
And also guilty on a misdemeanor assault because there was a previous time that was mentioned
during the trial that he had choked her.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So all in all, the man who continuously beat Dominique through their relationship grasped
her neck for four to six minutes, ultimately killing her would serve only a maximum sentence
of six and a half years of six and a half years.
Six and a half years.
Now that's not what he would serve because he also had the potential to get out without
even going in front of a parole board after serving half of his sentence, which would include
time served.
I cannot with this, I can. Yeah, so then an
it's great. And also quick little like side note. I know I
said like we were saying like the high old bone bone has to
break for strangulation. That only happens in like one third of
strangulations just wanted to point that out. Oh, it doesn't
always happen. It doesn't always break. I just want to point
that out. Now, so in a strange twist of events, judge cats
just condemned the jury and told them that quote,
this was a case of pure, excuse me.
He said, this case was a case pure and simple of murder,
murder with malice.
So he's like yelling at them that they didn't come
to the right conclusion.
You got it wrong.
Now, he still thanked them for their time
and thanked them on behalf of the family.
And when he did that, Dominic Dunn said back to him, not for my family judge cats.
What about us?
So they exchanged words and then Dominic turned around and led himself and learning
out of the courtroom before he turned around in front of everyone there and said, you
have withheld important evidence from this jury about this man's history of violence against women.
Good for him.
And then he turned around and walked out.
Wow.
Judge Katz was like,
I'm gonna have to throw you out if you continue.
And he was like, no, you won't.
I'll get up and get out myself.
But let me make sure that they know what just happened.
So Dominic.
Yeah.
Hell yeah.
So later, the jury foreman named Paul Spiegel said that
if the jury had heard all the evidence,
like John Swini's ex-girlfriend's testimony,
Lenny or Dominique's friends testimony,
or seen John Swini lose absolute control,
they 100% would have convicted him of murder.
100%.
So it's like,
these are the things that like the justice system
is just so fucked, because it's like that,
doesn't make sense.
No, and he also said. That this is allowed to just be. Oh, get this. justice system is just so fucked. Because it's like that doesn't make sense. No.
And he also said-
That this is allowed to just be.
Oh, get this.
He also said that there were four,
one, two, three, four separate occasions
where the jury was like confused about certain things
and they tried to ask the judge
and he wouldn't answer their questions.
And every time they came to him,
he was like, all your directions are in the paper
I gave you.
Read the instructions.
Wow.
Yeah.
This is so mishandled.
Yeah.
This trial was an absolute shit show.
Now, Teresa Seldonum actually staged a march outside of the courthouse with the victim advocacy
group that she put together called victims for victims.
And she protested against the verdict, but like nothing came of it. What was done was done. John
Swini was sentenced to six years and he would be out in three and a half
because he had already served some of his time between his arrest and his
sentencing. Three and a half years for looking in the eyes of the woman you
supposedly love and strangling her from anywhere between four and six minutes.
For like brutally abusing a woman for your entire relationship, when she finally gets
away from you showing up on her door and strangling her in front of her whole entire eyes, in front
of her home while her friends sits inside, and then admitting it when the police come and
saying that you did it before.
And you get three and a half years. And saying that you did it before. Mm-hmm.
And you get three and a half years.
Yeah.
That's just a ton.
Yeah, super justice.
Yeah, so when he got out of prison,
he was hired actually again at like a super upscale restaurant.
Good.
So Dominique's family was like, fuck that.
We're not gonna let that happen.
So they stood outside the restaurant
and they handed out flyers that red.
Fuck yeah.
The food you will eat tonight was cooked by the hands that killed Dominic done.
Good.
Like, can I get a hell yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You don't, murderers like can be canceled.
Absolutely.
Let's do that.
100%.
So John Spiney left that job pretty quickly.
And then Dominic's family learned that he was engaged to a woman.
Now, I've seen two variations on what actually happened.
Some sources say that when he found this out,
Dominic done called the woman's father
to let him know what had happened to Dominic.
It was like, just so you know, like the woman.
I'm a father, you're a father.
The man that your daughter is engaged to
like killed my daughters and is known
to have a history of violence against women.
But I also saw that the woman's father called Dominic to find out if it was Swini who
had killed Dominic.
But either way, they talked.
But they talked.
He found out.
Now, it's unclear if the engagement went through or not, because John Swini ended up
changing his name.
And you, it's like, you can find his name, but there's nothing really you can find out
anymore about him.
Yeah, of course. It's like a Carla homoka thing nothing really you can find out anymore. But of course.
It's like a Carla Hamoka thing.
You can only find out so much.
Yeah.
So I wanted to end this in Dominique's voice
because she was the only one who wasn't there
to defend herself throughout the trial.
And Dominique included this letter
in the Vanity Fair piece that I've talked about.
Now it's a letter that one of Dominique's friends
found at her place when they were clearing out
the house after her funeral.
And it was a letter that was clearly meant for Sweeney. So she wrote to him, quote,
Selfish-selfishness works both ways. You are just as selfish as I am. We have to be the two
individuals to work together as a couple. I'm not permitted to do enough things on my own.
Why must you be part of everything I do? Why do you want to come to my writing lessons and my
acting lessons? Why are you jealous of every scene partner I have?
Why must I recount word-for-word everything I spoke to Dr. Black about?
Why must I talk about every situation?
Oh, excuse me. Why must I talk about every audition when you know that it's bad luck for me?
Why do we have discussions at 3 a.m. all the time instead of during the day?
Why must you know the name of every person I come into contact with?
You go crazy over my rehearsals.
You insist on going to work with me when I have told you it makes me nervous.
Your paranoia is overboard.
You do not love me.
You're obsessed with me.
The person you think you love is not me at all.
It is someone you've made up in your head.
I'm the person who makes you angry, who you fight with sometimes.
I think we only fight when images of me fade away, and then you're faced with the real
me. That's my arguments erupt out of nowhere. The whole thing is mainly realized 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're good, we are great. But when we are bad, we are
horrendous.
The bad outweighs the good. Wow. So that entire letter, it tells you everything you need to know.
That he was not letting our go to work without him. Three AM discussions, that's waking
our up in the middle of the night to probably be a lot of fun. That's a lot. It's horrible. That's a lot.
Now that letter was actually read during the trial by the prosecution and I somehow didn't
sway the outcome. And actually, I guess the jury was like deadlocked for a little while.
And the reason why, excuse me, the reason why they broke was because some jurors were like
getting too hot and just wanted to leave. Oh yeah, you're too hot. My understanding.
Yeah, we don't want you to be uncomfortable.
Yeah, so sorry about that.
For sure.
So that is the absolutely tragic, tragic case
of Dominique Dunn and the tragic case
really of her trial.
Yeah, that trial is one of the worst I've heard.
It's absolutely one of the worst.
Wow, I had no idea it was that bad.
I've never, like you said, I've never
in my research found a trial as bad as that.
That's so bad.
And we've gone over some pretty bad ones,
but this went not allowing the family to cry.
Yeah, that's wonderful.
Wanting the mother out of the courtroom
because she has a disease.
Because she's in a wheelchair,
in a wheelchair.
And a wheelchair.
And a wheelchair.
People feel bad?
Yeah.
Her lost her daughter.
At the hands of the guy who's sitting right there
walking in every day with a fucking Bible that you didn't get to see him throw across the room. should feel bad. Yeah. Her lost her daughter. Geez. At the hands of the guy who's sitting right there
walking in every day with a fucking Bible
that you didn't get to see him throw across the room.
Oh my God, that's a, woof.
Woof.
Wow.
So yeah.
Happy Sunday.
Thank you for that.
Welcome.
Man, RIP.
Done.
I'm gonna link that vanity fair article
as well as I used two other articles
for the research on this.
But please, if you read any of them, read the article that her dad wrote yeah it is I
read it when I did my research for the Halloween show or the cursed
poltergeist and I was crying by the end of oh yeah and I read it again for this
and I was like choked up I'm glad he had like the ability to like write down
in words that kind I hope it was like a thardic to him.
I feel like it probably was because he was a writer.
Exactly.
I feel like that's how he probably would process that.
But to be able to do that and put all that into the world
is really impressive.
And there's some stuff that obviously I left out
because I'm not gonna say everything that he said.
So definitely, definitely go read that.
Yes, absolutely.
And we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you're
a judge on a trial and you just suck ass. Yeah, be a good judge. Be a good person. We're
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