191. Remembering Dominique Dunne and A Father's Love

A deeply personal tragedy, and a horrific crime, accelerates Dominick’s transition into a warrior for justice. In a combination of previous episodes from our podcast investigation, we meet Dominique Dunne, the beloved California child of Nick and Lenny, whose murder at the hands of her ex-boyfriend in 1982 was chronicled for Vanity Fair in her grieving father’s own words.

We have certain underlying assumptions about how the criminal justice works, and how the courtroom will treat the grieving family of a murder victim. Nick sure did, until it was his family gathered in a Los Angeles courthouse, watching a grave miscarriage of justice play out as the man who murdered his daughter Dominique stood trial.

It was a wrenching crime followed by an appalling miscarriage of justice, chronicled by none other than the grieving father of the victim. Alicia takes us through the trial of the man who strangled Dominique Dunne to death, presided over by a self-serving judge with a soft spot for the defense team, with a verdict rendered by a jury which was not allowed to hear key evidence as it debated lesser charges than the prosecution wanted.

All sources can be found at doneanddunne.com.

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Sources

Dominick Dunne: After The Party (Documentary, Amazon link)

Justice: A Father’s Account of the Trial of His Daughter’s Killer, by Dominick Dunne (vanityfair.com)

Intimate Partner Violence Resources

If you are suffering with intimate partner abuse, here are resources for different countries. Please ask for help:

• US Crisis Text Line: 741741

• US National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233

• UK Domestic Abuse Hotline: 0808 2000 247

• Australia Rape & Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-737-732