A deadly love— the mindless murder of Dominique Dunne
From a privileged background, a young actress got her breakout role in one of the most talked-about horror movies of the 1980s, but it would become her only notable role as only a few months after the movie’s release, she was dead at the hands of a man who claimed he loved her.
DOMINIQUE DUNNE
Dominique Ellen Dunne was born on November 23rd 1959 to Ellen “Lenny” Griffin and Dominick Dunne. Her mother was a ranching heiress and her father was an investigative journalist and producer. She had two older brothers, Griffin and Alexander “Alex” Dunne. She was also the niece of married writers, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion. Her parents divorced in 1967.
Dunne attended schools in Los Angeles, Connecticut and Colorado, and upon graduation, she moved to Florence for a year, where she learned to speak Italian. Dunne studied acting at Milton Katselas’s Workshop and appeared in various stage productions, including West Side Story, The Mousetrap and My Three Angels.
Dunne’s first role was in the 1979 TV movie, Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker. She then got supporting roles in episodes of popular 1980s television shows such as Lou Grant, Hart to Hart, Family, and Fame. She also appeared in several other TV movies and a recurring role in the comedy-drama series, Breaking Away.
A CULT-CLASSIC
In 1981, Dunne was cast in the supernatural horror movie Poltergeist. Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper, Dunne played Dana Freeling — the oldest daughter of the Freeling family whose suburban life is upturned when they are haunted by malevolent spirits. The role was Dunne’s feature film debut and after the movie was released in June 1982, it marked her first starring role and her only theatrical release. The movie became a critical and commercial success and became the eighth-highest-grossing film of 1982, being nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Visual Effects. In recent years, it has been classed as a horror classic and has achieved a cult following.
The success of the first Poltergeist movie resulted in two more films being pitched, and Dunne expected to reprise her role as Dana Freeling in both. She was also cast in the science-fiction miniseries, V. Dunne was on her way to becoming an established “scream queen” on the levels of Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh and Linda Blair.
JOHN SWEENEY
Dunne met John Thomas Sweeney, a sous-chef at the restaurant Ma Maison, at a party in 1981. After a week of dating, the couple moved into a one-bedroom house together on Rangely Avenue in West Hollywood. However, Sweeney was jealous and possessive, resulting in the relationship quickly deteriorating. The couple fought frequently and Sweeney began to physically abuse Dunne. One account reported on August 27th 1982, Sweeney yanked handfuls of Dunne’s hair from the root. Frightened, Dunne fled to her mother’s home where Sweeney soon showed up, banging on the windows and doors to be let in. Dunne’s mother told him to leave and threatened to call the police. A few days later, Dunne returned to the home she shared with Sweeney and the two resumed their relationship.
During another argument on September 26th 1982, Sweeney grabbed Dunne by the throat, threw her on the floor and began to strangle her. A friend who was staying with the couple could hear “loud, gagging sounds” and ran into the room where Dunne was being physically attacked. Dunne told the friend that Sweeney had tried to kill her but Sweeney denied the claim, telling Dunne to come back to bed. Dunne pretended to comply but then snuck out of the bathroom window. Sweeney heard her start her car engine and ran out of the house, jumping on the roof of her car. Dunne stopped the car long enough for Sweeney to jump down but then drove away. For the next few days, she stayed at the home of her mother and friends, before calling Sweeney and ending their relationship. After he moved out, she changed the locks of the Rangely Avenue home and moved back in.
“I KILLED MY GIRLFRIEND”
On October 30th 1982, a few weeks after Sweeney and Dunne broke up, Dunne was in her West Hollywood home rehearsing scenes for the miniseries, V, with actor David Packer. While she was speaking to a female friend on the phone, Sweeney had the operator break into the conversation, with Dunne telling her friend “Oh God, it’s Sweeney. Let me get him off the phone.” Ten minutes later, however, Sweeney showed up at Dunne’s home. After speaking to him through a locked door, Dunne agreed to speak with him out on the porch, while Packer remained inside.
Outside, two began to argue and Packer reported hearing smacking sounds, two screams and a thud. Concerned, he called the police but they said that Dunne’s home was outside their jurisdiction. Packer then called a friend and told them that if he was found dead, John Sweeney was the killer.
Packer left the home through the back entrance and approached the driveway where he saw Sweeney kneeling over Dunne in nearby bushes. Sweeney told Packer to call the police and when they arrived, Sweeney met them in the driveway, with his hands in the air stating, “I killed my girlfriend and I tried to kill myself.”
Dunne was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre Los Angeles, where she was placed on life support but never regained consciousness. Over the following days, doctors performed brain scans, which revealed due to oxygen deprivation, there was no brain activity. On November 4th 1982, the Dunne family made the decision to turn off her life support machines and her mother requested that her heart and kidneys be donated to transplant recipients.
“I JUST LOST MY TEMPER AND BLEW IT AGAIN”
Sweeney was immediately arrested and charged with attempted murder, but the charges were dropped after Dunne’s death. Sweeney was subsequently charged with first-degree murder, to which he pleaded not guilty. Sweeney was also later charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm when, during a preliminary trial hearing, he admitted that he and Dunne had a physical altercation on September 26th 1982, the day before she was due to appear on Hill Street Blues. Dunne played the victim of parental abuse and the bruises that appeared on her on camera were actually inflicted on her by Sweeney the day before. Sweeney denied assaulting Dunne, claiming the bruises were accidentally inflicted when he tried to prevent her from leaving the home.
Sweeney’s trial began in August 1983 and Sweeney took the stand in his own defence. He testified that he had not intended to harm Dunne the night he arrived at her home, claiming they had reconciled and were planning on moving back in together, and that the two had daily discussions about getting married and having children. On the night of October 30 1982, Sweeney claims that Dunne suddenly changed her mind about reconciliation, telling him she had been leading him on and lying to him about getting back together. At that point, Sweeney claims he “exploded and lunged toward her”, while also claiming he had no recollection of the actual attack until he discovered he was on top of her, with his hands around her neck. He then realised she was not breathing and attempted to revive her by making her walk around but she fell down. He then attempted to give her CPR, which caused Dunne to vomit. Sweeney also vomited, ran into Dunne’s house and confused two bottles of pills in hopes of dying alongside her. He then returned to the driveway and lay down beside her, waiting for the pills to take effect. Sweeney’s court-appointed lawyer, Michael Adelson, argued that his client’s actions were neither premeditated nor executed with malice, rather he maintained that Sweeney, provoked by Dunne’s alleged deception, acted in the “heat of passion.”
Dunne’s family deny the claims that Dunne was seeking reconciliation. They claim that Sweeney went to Dunne’s home that night in an effort to persuade her to reconcile after she communicated with him that their breakup was permanent. The prosecution and police investigators also dismissed Sweeney’s version of events, as there was no physical evidence that he had consumed pills to commit suicide at the time of his arrest. Police say they found Sweeney to be “calm and collected” and the first officer on the scene testified that 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 choking her. I just lost my temper and blew it again.” The medical examiner who performed Dunne’s autopsy determined she had been strangled for at least three minutes, which prompted the prosecution and police to dismiss Sweeney’s claims that he had acted unconsciously. They argue that in the three minutes that Sweeney attacked Dunne, he had ample time to regain control of his actions, which might have saved Dunne’s life.
To establish a history of Sweeney’s violent behaviour, the prosecution had his ex-girlfriend, Lillian Pierce, testify. Pierce (who, at the request of the defence attorney, did not testify in the jury’s presence), stated that she and Sweeney had dated on and off from 1977 to 1980. Pierce claimed that during the relationship, Sweeney had assaulted her on ten separate occasions and as a result, she was hospitalised twice for the injuries she sustained. During one such assault, Pierce sustained a perforated eardrum and a collapsed lung. She also suffered a broken nose.
Sweeney was so enraged by Pierce’s testimony, he jumped up from his seat and ran towards the door leading to the judge’s chambers. He was subdued by two bailiffs and four armed guards, before being handcuffed to his chair and crying. He apologised for the outburst, something the judge accepted. Sweeney’s defence attorney requested that the judge rule Pierce’s testimony ‘inadmissible’, as it was “prejudicial”. The judge granted the request and Pierce’s testimony was only learnt about by the jury after the trial. The judge also refused testimony from Dunne’s mother, Ellen Dunne, as well as Dunne’s friends, citing their statements about Sweeney’s abusive nature as “hearsay”.
On August 29th 1983, Sweeney’s defence attorney also requested that the judge rule the court lacked sufficient evidence to try Sweeney for the first-degree murder charge, as predetermination was not established. The request was granted and the jurors were instructed to consider the charges of manslaughter and second-degree murder.
“INJUSTICE!”
On September 21st 1983, after eight days of deliberation, the jury acquitted John Sweeney of second-degree murder but found him guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. He was also convicted of misdemeanour assault for an altercation against Dunne that occurred on September 26th 1982.
Dunne’s family were outraged by the verdict, calling it an “injustice.” After the judge excused the jury and commented on the judicial system being upheld, Dominick Dunne, Dunne’s father, yelled, “Not for our family, Judge Katz!” Before leaving Dominick Dunne accused Judge Katz of purposefully withholding Sweeney’s ex-girlfriend’s testimony from the jury, which would’ve helped to establish his history of violence against women.
Victims for Victims, a victims’ rights group established by actress Theresa Saldana (who survived a knife attack by a crazed fan in 1982), protested the verdict by staging a protest outside the courthouse. Several media outlets also debated the events of the trials, with some coming out in criticism of Judge Katz’s rulings, which many have argued were preferential towards the defence, rather than the prosecution.
On November 7th 1983, Sweeney was sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter, which was the maximum sentence he could receive, with an additional six months for the assault charge. At the sentencing, Judge Katz criticised the jury’s verdict of manslaughter, stating that he felt Dunne’s death was “A case, pure and simple, of murder. Murder with malice.” The jury foreman, Paul Spiegel called Katz’s words a “cheap shot” and stated that the criticism stemmed not from the verdict but from the harsh criticisms Katz received after the verdict was given. Spiegel also stated that if the jury had been able to hear all the evidence, they would’ve convicted Sweeney of murder.
THE AFTERMATH
On the advice of Tina Brown — future editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, Dominick Dunne began to keep journals throughout the trial, which were eventually published in an article titled “Justice: A Father’s Account of the Trial of his Daughter’s Killer,” which was featured in the March 1984 issue of Vanity Fair.
Shortly after the trial, Judge Katz transferred to the Juvenile Court in Sylmar, Los Angeles, admitting that some of his controversial rulings in Dunne’s case “pained” him, but he reiterated his thought that Sweeney should’ve been convicted of murder and given a lengthier sentence.
Ellen Dunne founded Justice For Homicide Victims, a victim’s rights advocacy group a year after her daughter’s death.
John Sweeney was incarcerated in a medium-security prison in Susanville, California and was released on parole in September 1986, after having served three years, seven months and 27 days of his six-year sentence.
After his release, Sweeney started working as a head chef at an upscale restaurant in Santa Monica, California. After learning where Sweeney was working, Dunne’s brother Griffin, and her mother, Ellen, began standing outside the restaurant handing out flyers to patrons that read, “The food you will eat tonight was cooked by the hands that killed Dominique Dunne.” Sweeney eventually quit his job, due to the protests, and moved out of Los Angeles.
In the mid-1990s, Dominick Dunne was contacted by a Florida physician that came across an article that he had written about his daughter’s murder. The doctor shared with Dunne that his daughter had recently gotten engaged to a chef by the name of John Sweeney and inquired if it was the same man responsible for Dominique’s death. The man was later identified as the same John Sweeney and in an effort to protect the young woman now engaged to him, Dunne’s brother Griffin contacted the woman and asked her to reconsider her decision.
Subsequently, Sweeney accused Dunnes of harassment, and in an effort to avoid further altercations, Sweeney changed his name. In later interviews, Dominick Dunne discussed his daughter’s murder and said, for a time, he had hired a private investigator, Anthony Pellicano, to follow and report on Sweeney’s actions and whereabouts. According to Dunne, Pellicano had found out that he had moved to the Pacific Northwest and had assumed the name ‘John Maura’ and that he continued working as a chef. Dunne’s father later stated that he decided that he no longer wished to squander his life following Sweeney, and therefore discontinued any attempts to maintain his knowledge of his whereabouts.
Dominique Ellen Dunne was buried on November 6th 1982 at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. Her mother, Ellen Griffin Dunne died in 1997 and her father, Dominick Dunne died in 2009.
References:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2004/03/dunne200403
https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1984/03/dunne198403
https://ihorror.com/remembering-the-tragic-death-of-poltergeist-star-dominique-dunne/
https://allthatsinteresting.com/dominique-dunne
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Dunne
https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/true-crime/dominique-dunne/
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-03-mn-453-story.html
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20086105,00.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3562275/Dominick-Dunne-lost-and-found.html
