Join WhatsApp Channel
Join Telegram ChannelThe Menendez case is linked to the murder of Dominique Dunne, the young actress from Poltergeist.
While fans of true crime have their eyes set on the final season of Monsterscreated by Ryan Murphy, and will soon be able to disentangle fact from fiction in a documentary retracing the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez, and the murder of their parents, there is another equally macabre story to spot in the last episodes, and which has darkened the face of Hollywood in the 80s – that of the death of Dominique Dunne.
In 1982, the actress played Dana, the eldest of the Freeling family, in Poltergeist, by Tobe Hopper, the creator of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They have just moved into a seemingly perfect new house. But the truth is much darker. The house is infested with ghosts who kidnap the youngest…
If the film becomes cult, the actress will never see its sequel, because a few months after its release, she is murdered by her ex-boyfriend. She was only 22 years old.
The latter, Thomas Sweeney, showed up at Dominique Dunne's home on October 30 even though they had broken up a few weeks before. The young woman could no longer stand Sweeney's violent outbursts. He was abusive and had tried to strangle her several times before. That evening, the actress was rehearsing with David Packer (from the series V). She went out to find her ex-partner and a brutal confrontation broke out. The actor, hearing screams followed by a loud noise, called the police. When he came out, Sweeney was kneeling in front of the body of Dominique Dunne, unconscious. He told police he killed her and then attempted suicide. Deprived of oxygen following prolonged strangulation, the young woman died in hospital a few days later. The man was sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter – not murder.
From that day on, his father, Dominick Dunne, who until then worked in the cinema industry, began to write papers for Vanity Fair. In 1984, after the verdict in the Thomas Sweeney trial, he published “Justice: A Father's Report on His Daughter's Murder Trial.” Since that day, he has covered many crime stories.
The Monster actors take their turn responding to the Menendez brothers
So what does this have to do with the Menendez brothers? During his career, Dominique Dunne's father also covered the trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez. Episode 7, “The Curtain Rises” uses its focus to understand the media issue and the role of justice behind the case. Performed by Nathan Lane (Beau Is Afraid, Only Murders in the Bulding), the character returns to the murder of his daughter and discusses his point of view on the Menendez affair, convinced that justice will not do its job correctly, as it had been able to do a few years previously.
After the Menendez affair, Dominick Dunne covered the OJ Simpson trial, and his media role appears in American Crime Story – another crime series from Ryan Murphy – where he is played by Robert Morse (Mad Men). THE “Murphy-Verse” struck again.
American Crime Story: How close is the series to the real OJ Simpson case?