The Mammoth Book of Celebrity Murders (24 page)

In 1980, Dominique had a second television film role in
Valentine Magic on Love Island
, where she played a character called Cheryl. This was, as the title suggests, the story of love on a
fantasy island. Dominique enjoyed the experience that she was gaining, and her acting ability was improving with every take.

During 1981, Dominique pushed herself hard and took on two film roles, the first being the lead role in
The Haunting of Harrington House
. This was a stretch as the now 21-year-old actress
was to play the part of Polly Ames, a 14-year-old schoolgirl. Later that year she co-starred in
The Day the Loving Stopped
alongside Dennis Weaver (best known for his role in
Duel
),
Ally Sheedy, another good friend of Dominique’s (from
Breakfast Club
) and Valerie Harper (a household favourite after starring in
Rhoda
and
The Mary Tyler Moore
Show
).

Dominique’s big break came in 1982 when she successfully auditioned for the role of Dana Freeling in the blockbuster hit
Poltergeist
. The film was destined for success with a
brilliant cast, was produced by the infinitely talented Steven Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper, of
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
fame. The story is about the haunted Freeling family and
Dominique plays the eldest of three children, 16-year-old Dana; the youngest character Carol Anne was played by child star Heather O’Rorke. The film’s strong acting cast and fantastic
special effects made this the must-see film of the year, and catapulted the three youngest cast members to headline fame.

During her busy working regime Dominique still managed to have some private time, where she enjoyed socializing in with friends and colleagues. One evening while at a party she met a handsome,
successful chef from the highly regarded Los Angeles restaurant Ma Maison called John Sweeney. The two got on well and soon their friendship blossomed into a romance. They set up home together, but
Sweeney gradually began to reveal a side to his personality which until then he had managed to disguise – he started to become highly confrontational and jealous of any attention which
Dominique received when they were out.

On one occasion when they were out together having lunch, a fan of the movie
Poltergeist
recognized Dominique and asked for her autograph. Sweeney was enraged and confronted the
unsuspecting man, shaking him and demanding that he leave his girlfriend alone to enjoy her meal, his actions that were too extreme, making other restaurant goers rather embarrassed to have
witnessed it. If this was how he behaved in public, many were wondering what sort of life the young actress was subject to when the couple were alone together.

Further incidences, each escalating in violence, eventually and inevitably were directed at Dominique. She decided that she could put up with his behaviour no longer and demanded that he move
out of their shared home.

Dominique was wary of being alone in the house, but with each passing day she hoped that Sweeney would find another focus for his attention. Sadly, this was not to be the case and he constantly
checked up on her, making her fully aware of this. Regardless of Sweeney’s actions Dominique continued with her acting career; she had managed to get the role of Robin Maxwell in the hit
television series
V
, and had asked one of the actors back to her home so that they could run through the lines for the next episode.

After being convicted of voluntary manslaughter, Sweeney was released from prison less than four years later, and went back to work as a chef.

Dominick Dunne was so enraged at the appallingly short prison term that Sweeney got, his whole life changed on the day that the sentence was passed. He started a totally new career writing about
trials, adamant that the defendant’s rights far outweigh those of the victim, who in Dominique’s case had lost her life. He was appalled that the jury could believe the lies which were
told in court, thus allowing the defendant to get away with murder.

Dominique’s mother, similarly enraged, became an activist for victims’ rights and founded the organization “Justice for Homicide Victims Inc.”. After suffering from
multiple sclerosis for over 20 years she died at the age of 64 in early 1997.

The other young female star of
Poltergeist
, Heather O’Rorke, was to have an extremely short life, sadly dying at the age of 12 of an intestinal blockage. She was also buried at
Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, just a stone’s throw from Dominique’s own grave.

There have been a number of assassinations which have had a worldwide impact: John F. Kennedy in 1963, his brother Robert in 1968 and without doubt, Dr Martin Luther King, also
in 1968. Much has already been written about King and his goals in respect of black human rights in America, but even more has been written about his untimely death, on 4 April 1968, and about the
man who was imprisoned for it, James Earl Ray. King’s murder has, like the murder of the Kennedy brothers, been the subject of much speculation and has prompted an array of conspiracy
theories, some of which have a degree of merit; others would appear to be downright ridiculous.

The conspiracy theories persist for many reasons, but perhaps the most telling reason is that King’s own son no longer believes that Ray was the assassin. With the approval of King’s
widow and his siblings, Dextor King met Ray in prison in 1997. Shaking hands to open their meeting the two sat down together to talk. Ray began by stating his position, “I had nothing to do
with the shooting of your father,” a position he had maintained for over 30 years – only briefly on arrest did he admit to his part in the killing, changing his statement soon
afterward. Having talked for a while in calm low tones, King asked the question he wanted to have on record for his own piece of mind, “I want to ask for the record – did you kill my
father?”

Ray replied with a sincere and definitive response. Fixing King with a stare he said, “No, I didn’t, no, no.”

“I believe you, and my family believes you, and we will do everything in our power to see you prevail,” King responded, and with this the whole media machine resumed the debate as to
who really lay behind the murder of Martin Luther King.

Once again, decades after the event, the public were reading the details, looking at the facts and considering the alternatives. A whole new generation, familiar with King’s legacy, would
now be led through the maze of conspiracies and asked to consider if the person who had lived behind bars for all those years really was the man responsible for the death of an icon.

The man heralded as the saviour of black America, King spent much of his time fighting the ingrained racism that persisted across much of American society; wherever he saw injustice he fought to
have it corrected. One of the areas he was especially concerned with was the rights of black workers, to share the same pay and conditions as their white counterparts. It was this very subject
which had brought him to Memphis, Tennessee, on 3 April 1968. He had planned to march in support of Memphis sanitation workers, who were engaged in a labour strike. The strike followed previous
action the month before, during which sporadic outbreaks of violence had occurred, a situation King hoped to avoid; he had arrived intent on a peaceful display of unity.

King and several of his associates, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson, arrived in Memphis and checked in to the Lorraine Hotel, on Mulberry Street, a part of town mostly inhabited by African
Americans. King was allocated room 306 at the front of the hotel, overlooking Mulberry Street and the carpark directly in front of the hotel. His room had the benefit of French doors which lead out
onto a small balcony overlooking the street and adjacent to the rear of other buildings on the opposite side.

The buildings opposite sat on South Main Street which ran parallel to Mulberry Street; the rooms at the back of these faced the front of the Lorraine Hotel. They consisted of a variety of
buildings which housed amongst others, the fire brigade, Canipe’s, a record store, a fast food store called Jim’s Grill, above which were a number of cheap rooming houses. The back door
to Jim’s Grill faced the Lorraine Hotel, as did the rooming house directly above. The two rows of buildings were separated by car parks, rear yards and a whole range of overgrown bushes and
small trees.

Lloyd Jowers, the white owner of Jim’s Grill, specialized in after-work drinking, generally to a mixed group of customers, who would arrive after 4 p.m. and enjoy beer and cheap food until
late.

Sometime before 4 p.m. on 4 April, James Earl Ray parked his white Mustang on South Main Street and checked in to one of the second-floor rooms above Jim’s Grill, using a false name. His
room and the communal bathroom at the end of the corridor overlooked the Lorraine Hotel, particularly room 306, King’s own room.

After checking in to the hotel, Ray then went back onto the high street to do a bit of shopping. Peculiarly, the item he wanted was a pair of binoculars which he duly purchased from a nearby
shop, returning to his room with them straight away.

At around 6 p.m., King ventured out onto the balcony and engaged in a conversation with some of his colleagues who were in the carpark beneath the balcony. Just after 6 p.m., still engaged in
conversation, King was shot with a single bullet, fired by a sniper who was housed in the buildings opposite the Lorraine Hotel. The bullet, fired from a 30.06 calibre rifle struck King from
relatively close quarters, severing his spinal column. He died on the balcony, not long afterwards.

The sniper’s timing had been lucky – if King had been on schedule for his dinner date he would not have been at the hotel at that time. His colleagues in the carpark below were
preparing to leave for a dinner date with another local activist. Knowing that King always ran late, the dinner date was set for 5 o’clock, but true to form, King was only just preparing to
depart, one hour after his expected arrival. This late departure, coupled with King’s unexpected appearance on the balcony, gave the assassin the opportunity to strike. And he did –
with deadly results.

Shortly after 6 p.m. on 4 April 1968 King was dead. Born in January 1929, the grandson of the Reverend A.D. Williams, he was just 39 years of age. A supporter of African American human rights,
King attended Moorehouse College in Atlanta, before moving on to Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, and finally Boston University, where he deepened his knowledge and understanding of
theology. He married Coreta Scott in 1953 and the following year accepted the pastorate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, in Montgomery, Alabama. Just two years later in 1955 he received his
doctorate in systematic theology.

King’s first foray into black rights came with his support of the bus boycott, in response to Montgomery’s policy on segregation on the buses. The boycott continued throughout 1956,
bringing King to national prominence. In December that year the United States Supreme Court declared the policy on segregation to be unconstitutional and it was scrapped. Feelings were split in the
southern states; many white people did not support the African Americans in their plight, afraid of how the changes might affect them. However, there were many who found the treatment of fellow
Americans, under the policies of segregation, to be unpalatable, the split in thinking causing much public unrest, which would frequently erupt into public displays of violence.

In the spring of 1963 King led mass demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, where the local police were known to be violently opposed to the integration of the black and white communities. The
clashes between the protestors and the police made front-page headlines when the police attacked the group with dogs and fire hoses, to which many members of the protest responded with violence of
their own, the clashes prompting outrage from both sides of the debate. The headlines however reflected a passive group of peaceful protestors harangued by local officials for daring to march in
support of civil liberties. President Kennedy responded by submitting broad civil rights legislation to Congress, which subsequently became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Later, more than 250,000
protestors marched on Washington in support of jobs and freedom, at which King gave his now famous “I have a dream” speech.

King was now one of the most well-known, if not well-liked, men in American society. He was awarded
Time Magazine
’s Man of the Year award in 1963 and was the recipient of the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1964. Along with the accolades however came the ever-increasing scrutiny from central government officials, politicians and particularly J Edgar Hoover, the infamous FBI director.
Hoover in particular went to great lengths to undermine King’s power base and influence, especially when King spoke out so strongly against America’s involvement in the Vietnam War,
giving the Johnson administration yet more high-profile criticism.

The day before he was killed while in support of the striking sanitation workers, King gave his final speech, during which he spoke the now immortal words, “I’ve been to the mountain
top.” He was praised by many for his work in support of civil rights but condemned by others for his militant views, even though his non-violent message was often lost on those who fought in
the streets.

When news of King’s death broke there were riots in many cities across the United States. Many African Americans believed he had been silenced to stop black progress into mainstream
American society. As a man revered for his non-violent message, King was held in high regard by a substantial volume of people, both black and white, who supported his cause. When news of his death
hit the front pages, most Americans wanted to know who had committed the crime, and right from the off there were those who believed there was more to the crime than met the eye.

When the fatal shot rang out, King’s colleagues down in the carpark immediately summoned the police, who arrived within minutes. Spreading out to ensure they had sufficient coverage they
quickly found a suspicious “bundle” on the sidewalk outside Canipe’s record store. Closer inspection showed it contained a 30.06 rifle, holding a spent cartridge case, with
attached scope. The bag also contained items belonging to a petty criminal called James Earl Ray, whose fingerprints were all over the weapon. The hunt was now on.