DOMINICK Dunne is one of America’s most famous journalists and writers, who covered some of the biggest trials in American history for Vanity Fair.
He documented the Menendez brothers’ infamous trial, which saw them accused and eventually convicted, in 1996, for killing their parents Kitty and Jose.
Friends and colleagues in high places
Dominick was born on October 29, 1925, in Connecticut and grew up in a wealthy Irish Catholic family.
His younger brother John Gregory Dunne shared his passion for writing and the pair began to write a column for The Saturday Evening Post.
They would later collaborate on the film The Panic in Needle Park, with Dominick as a producer and John as a co-writer alongside his wife Joan Didion.
Joan is widely considered to be one of the most important writers and journalists in American history.
When Dominick moved to New York City in 1949, he began to socialize with Hollywood’s elite and was friends with Elizabeth Taylor and Elizabeth Montgomery.
He married Ellen Beatriz Griffin in 1954 and they went on to have three children together, including Griffin Dunne and Dominique Dunne who both became actors.
Dominick divorced Ellen in 1965 and described himself decades later as a “closeted bisexual celibate”.
Death in the family
In November 1982, his daughter Dominique was murdered at the age of 22 by her ex-boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney.
John strangled her on the driveway of her home in Hollywood, which caused her to slip into a five-day coma.
Sadly, she couldn’t be revived by doctors and she passed away.
Dominique had rocketed to fame that same year when she starred in the horror film Poltergeist.
Her father kept a journal throughout the trial, which was later published in a 1984 Vanity Fair article named “Justice: A Father’s Account of the Trial of his Daughter’s Killer”.
The article was a huge success and he began to write regularly for the magazine, covering the trials of O.J. Simpson, Claus von Bulow, Michael Skakel, William Kennedy Smith, and the Menendez brothers.
Nightmare on Elm Drive
Dominick’s account of the Menendez Trial in Vanity Fair was named Nightmare on Elm Drive.
The account was so comprehensive that it was entered into the Library of America’s two-century retrospective of American true crime writing.
During the trial, the Menendez brothers alleged that they had murdered their parents as a result of sexual abuse perpetrated by their father, José.
Eventually, they were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Dominick spoke to as many people involved in the case as he could and regularly sat in court to take notes.
He talked at length with the Menendez brothers’ defense lawyer Leslie Abramson, who he said waved a middle finger at a reporter.
Dominick described the attorney as “fierce”, “fearless” and “funny”, but added that her hair reminded him of “Orphan Annie”.
His younger brother John based a character named Leah Kaye in his 1987 novel The Red White and Blue on Leslie.
Dominick reported Leslie as describing the brothers as the “very best clients I’ve ever had” and as “two foundlings”, adding “You want to take them home with you”.
His account is the most intimate and revealing record of the case, outside of the Court TV recording.
In the article, Dominick never decides whether the brothers are guilty or innocent.
Instead, he finishes by reflecting on how much the brother’s therapist knew, how much he told his mistress and what was in the recordings that were not used in court.
He wrote: “She said that last December, almost two months after the October 31 confession to Oziel, which was not taped, the boys, feeling that the police were beginning to suspect them, voluntarily made a tape in which they confessed to the crime.
“In it, they spoke of their remorse.
“In it, apparently, they told of psychological abuse.
“But sexual abuse?
“Judalon Smyth did not hear this tape, and by that time Dr. Oziel was no longer confiding in her.”
