We all know that behind the glitz and glamour, Hollywood is an underbelly of tragedy, disaster, and illicit activity. However, when a young Hollywood starlet is brutally murdered, it wasn’t Hollywood that came under fire. It was those meant to bring her murderer to justice.
Dominique Dunne was born on November 23rd, 1959, in Santa Monica, California. She was undoubtedly born in a star studded universe. Her mother was Ellen Beatriz “Lenny” Griffin Dunne, heiress to a ranching fortune, and her father was Dominick Dunne, a writer, producer and an actor. Her brother Griffin followed in his father’s footsteps, and became an actor. Her other brother, Alex, didn’t quite follow suit, but was very interested in the film making process.
Dominique attended very prestigious schools, and went on to spend a year in Florence, Italy following her high school graduation. There, she studied acting at the Milton Katselas Workshop, while learning Italian. Dominique’s acting career began with stage productions of West Side Story, The Mousetrap, and My Three Angels.
Upon her return to the United States, Dominique’s film career took of. She appeared in the 1979 film Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker, as well as being cast in supporting roles in episodes of popular television series, like Lou Grant, Family, Hart to Hart, and Fame.
Dominique was cast in her breakout role in 1981. She was cast as Dana Freeling, a teenager who lived in a haunted house with her family. On June 4th, 1982, Poltergeist opened at the box offices, netting Dominique as a feature film scream queen.
Following her breakout role, Dominique was cast in more television series and films. She’d also started rehearsals for her role as Robin Maxwell in a miniseries titled V.
In an almost eerie twist of fate, her last televised role was in an episode of the series Hill Street Blues titled “Requiem For a Hairbag”, an episode which aired on November 18th, 1982. The episode was dedicated to her in the credits. But no one could shake off the eerie feeling that art was imitating Dominique’s life.
In 1981, Dominique met John Thomas Sweeney. Sweeney was a sous-chef at a very high-end restaurant named Ma Maison. Sweeney came from a rural Pennsylvania family. His father was an alcoholic, and was very abusive towards his mother, something that he and his siblings were often witness to.
Dominique, 21 years old at the time, was charmed by the older man. They both loved to travel, and had a love of languages and animals. A few weeks after the couple began dating, they moved in together in a one-bedrom house in West Hollywood on Rangely Avenue. Dominique was in love. Dominique wanted to introduce him to her family.
Most of her family lived in New York, while her mother remained in California, her parents having divorced in 1967. Dominique was close to both of her parents, and was excited to introduce her new boyfriend to her dad and her brothers.
When the Dunnes met Sweeney, they didn’t think anything of him. They found him arrogant, controlling, cocky, and overbearing. He was a man who was desperate to belong to Dominique’s Hollywood world.
Only Dominique’s brother, Alex, verbally stated his dislike of the man. Though the rest of the family shared the sentiment, they kept it to themselves. Dominique was happy; she was an adult. She could make her own decisions.
Upon their return from New York, the relationship began to take a turn. Sweeney was excessively possessive and jealous. He would demand to know who Dominique was seeing, where, and when. He began berating her for rehearsing scenes with costars who’s roles were as her love interests. He would also demand that she tell him, word for word, the things she was telling her therapist.
It didn’t take long before the possessive behaviour turned to physical violence. He would threaten her in public, grab at her, and throw her around.
On August 27th, 1982, a fight broke out that resulted in Sweeney yanking Dominique by the hair, tearing handfuls out by the root. Dominique fled the house, and drove off to her mother’s house. It wasn’t long before Sweeney showed up, banging on the doors and windows. He sped away when Lenny, Dominique’s mother, threatened to call the police. Dominique returned to the house a few days later.
About a month after Sweeney assaulted Dominique, he attacked her again on September 26th, 1982. Sweeney grabbed Dominique around the throat during an argument, and threw her to the floor. A friend who’d been staying the night heard the altercation. When they ran into the room, they saw Dominique being choked, gagging on the floor.
When the friend stormed into the room, Sweeney let go of Dominique. She claimed that he had tried to kill her. He laughed it off, and attempted to drag her back to bed. She pretended to go with him, stopping off at the bathroom first. Then, she snuck out the bathroom window.
Sweeney heard Dominique start her car. Enraged, he stormed out of the house and jumped on the hood of the car before she could achieve a decent enough speed to drive off. Dominique stopped the car long enough for Sweeney to get off the hood. Then, she drove away, and went to her mother’s house.
A few days later, she called Sweeney on the phone, and demanded that the relationship end, and that he move out of the house. He complied. Dominique immediately had all of the locks changed, and moved back into her home.
On October 30th, 1982, Dominique was at her home, rehearsing for V with her costart David Packer. During a break, Dominique called her friend to talk on the phone. While on the phone, Sweeney broke into the conversation with the assistance of the operator. Dominique hung up the phone, telling her friend: “Oh god, it’s Sweeney. Let me get him off the phone.” Less than ten minutes later, Sweeney showed up at the house.
Dominique barred Sweeney from entering the house, but agreed to speak with him out on the porch. David was worried about his friend, so he stayed near the door. Through the door, he heard Dominique and Sweeney arguing. Then he heard what he described as ‘smacking sounds, two screams, and a thud’. When David called the police, he was told that this was outside of their jurisdiction. Terrified, David then called a friend and said that if he was ever found dead, John Sweeney was his killer.
Though scared, David knew he couldn’t leave his friend out there. Leaving the house through the back entrance, David walked towards the driveway, and found it empty. Instead, he found Sweeney kneeling over Dominique in some nearby bushes. Sweeney told David to call the police.
When police arrived, Sweeney was there, hands in the hair, and said: “I killed my girlfriend and I tried to kill myself”. Sweeney said he couldn’t remember what had happened. He only remembered coming to with his hands around Dominique’s neck.
Dominique was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Lost Angeles, and was immediately placed on life support.
On November 4th, 1982, following a prognosis stating that Dominique did not have any brain activity due to oxygen deprivation, her parents made the heartbreaking decision to remove Dominique from life support. Her heart and kidneys were donated to transplant recipients.
John Sweeney was charged with the first-degree murder of Dominique Dunne following her death. He pleaded not guilty.
Later, at a preliminary trial hearing, Sweeney admitted to having a ‘physical altercation’ with Dominique on September 26th, 1982. For that, he was charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm.
The following day, she filmed her episode of Hill Street Blues. Her character was a teenage mother in an abusive relationship. The makeup department did not need to add makeup to her appearance, as her bruises from Sweeney were prominent.
And yet, as far as I can tell, no one on set said or did a goddamn thing to help her. But that’s an entirely different rant.
In August of 1983, John Sweeney’s trial for the murder of Dominique Dunne began. The trial was presided over by Judge Burton S. Katz, who would turn out to be just as much of a villain in Dominique’s story as her actual murderer.
Sweeney took the stand in his own defence. He claimed that the couple had decided to reconcile. When he went to her house to commence reconciliation, she had ‘changed her mind’. He felt deceived; duped. Then, he “just exploded and lunged toward her”. At that point, Sweeney claimed to have blacked out, only coming to with his hands around her throat.
Then, Sweeney claimed that he attempted to perform CPR to revive her when he found that she wasn’t breathing. Apparently, this caused her to vomit, which made him vomit in turn. Then, he ran into the house, and swallowed two bottles’ worth of pills in a suicide attempt.
After swallowing the pills, Sweeney laid down next to Dominique in the driveway. Sweeney’s attorney, Michael Adelson, argued that this was all done in the ‘heat of passion’, and that it was not premeditated, nor done with malice.
Both men were lying liars who lie.
Dominique’s friends and family denied that Dominique wanted any form of reconciliation, and the officers who responded to the scene made statements in direct contradiction to Sweeney’s testimony.
The first officer on the scene, Deputy Frank DeMilio, testified that, upon his arrival, Sweeney told him: “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 just lost my temper and blew it again.”
In order to establish that John Sweeney has a history of violence against women, the prosecution called Lillian Pierce to testify.
Lillian Pierce was Sweeney’s ex-girlfriend, and had been in a relationship with him from 1977 to 1980. Michael Adelson demanded that Judge Katz not allow her testimony to be heard by the jury. Judge Katz allowed it.
Judge Katz allowed Adelson just about anything he wanted.
This did not deter the prosecution. Lillian testified that Sweeney had assaulted her on no fewer than ten occasions. She also testified that on two occasions, she was hospitalized.
During her testimony, Sweeney flew into a rage. He jumped from his seat, and ran towards the judge’s chambers doors. Four armed guards and two bailiffs had to subdue him. Handcuffed to his chair, Sweeney began to cry as he apologized to the judge. Judge Katz accepted the apology. Seeming sympathetic to Sweeney.
Adelson attacked her. In an effort to besmirch not only her character, but Dominique’s, he accused Lillian of being an addict. In essense, he stated that she was ‘asking for it’.
Following Lillian’s testimony, Adelson made a request. He wanted Judge Katz to rule her testimony inadmissible. Judge Katz was not one to deny his BFF Adelson a request. The jury never heard Lillian’s testimony.
He also granted Adelson’s requests to deny any of Dominique’s friends or family from testifying. Both attorney and judge spent the entirety of the trial mispronouncing Dominique’s name. And, of course, Judge Katz granted Adelson’s request.
On August 29th, 1983, just to add insult to injury to Dominique, her friends, and her family, Judge Katz granted a request from Adelson to rule that the evidence against Sweeney was insufficient to try him for first-degree murder.
Instead, the jurors were instructed to consider only charges of manslaughter or second-degree murder.
Adelson and Katz seemed pretty damn determined to sabotage the prosecution at every turn.
On September 21st, 1983, after eight days of deliberation, the jury found John Sweeney guilty of only voluntary manslaughter, and misdemeanour assault.
Understandably, the Dunne family, and Dominique’s friends, were outraged.
Once the news brok, a victims’ rights group, Victims for Victims, established by actress Theresa Saldana, protested the verdict by marching outside of the courthouse. Media and news outlets were highly critical of Judge Katz’s behaviour throughout the trial, but especially so after the verdict. A television station polled viewers, and found Judge Katz to be the fourth worst judge in Los Angeles County.
In an effort to save face, Judge Katz criticized the jury at Sweeney’s November 7th sentencing. He stated that the murder of Dominique Dunne was: “A case, pure and simple, of murder. Murder with malice.” John Sweeney was sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter, and an additional six months for the assault charge. The maximum at the time.
Paul Speigel saw through Katz’s statement. He called it a “cheap shot”, as it was a blatant attempt to save his own skin after weeks upon weeks of criticism by the media, and the public. It was a blow to his already overblown ego that he simply couldn’t stand.
Paul further stated that had the jury been able to hear Lillian’s testimony, they would have undoubtedly have convicted Sweeney of second-degree murder.
Dominique’s father, Dominick, kept a journal throughout the trial. His writings were later turned into a critically acclaimed featured article in the March 1984 issue of Vanity Fair named “Justice: A Father’s Account of the Trial of his Daughter’s Killer”.
John Sweeney was paroled in September 1986. Three months later, he was hired as head chef at an upscale Santa Monica restaurant named The Chronicle.
Griffin Dunne, and his mother Lenny, began standing outside of the restaurant, handing out flyers. The flyers read: “The food you will eat tonight was cooked by the hands that killed Dominique Dunne”. Due to protests from the community, Sweeney quit his job and moved away from Los Angeles.
Dominick Dunne tried to keep tabs on John Sweeney over the years, enraged at the injustice over his daughter’s murder. Dominick hired a private investigator, and kept him informed of Sweeney’s whereabouts and movements.
Feeling harassed, Sweeney moved to the Pacific Northwest, and changed his name. He continued working as a chef.
After a time, Dominick needed to live his own life. He let Sweeney go. But he never forgot the effect this man had on his entire family.
John Sweeney died in 2009, in parts unknown.
UPDATE:
At the time I wrote this, I believed my sources to be accurate and factual. As of an All That’s Interesting article, titled “Inside the Murder of Horror Actress Dominique Dunne At the Hands of Her Abusive Ex”, written by Bernadette Giacomazzo and checked by Erik Hawkins, published and updated in December of 2021, there seems to be an update.
John Sweeney did not, in fact, die in 2009 as I had originally though. A Reddit thread, linked in the article, found that, as of 2014, John Sweeney had changed his name to John Patrick Maura, and was living and working in Northern California.
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Sources:
Murder of a horror queen: The tragic tale of Dominique Dunne – Brynley Louise – Film Daily
Justice: A father’s account of the trial of his daughter’s killer – Dominick Dunne – Vanity Fair
Injustice for Dominique Dunne – Lori Johnston – Medium
Death and Hollywood podcast – Dominique Dunne
Dominique Dunne Wikipedia page
Inside the Murder of Horror Actress Dominique Dunne at the Hands of her Abusive Ex – Bernadette Giacomazzo & Erik Hawkins – All That’s Interesting