What Happened to Dominique Dunne? How Her 1982 Death Is Connected to the Menendez Brothers Trial

Actress Dominique Dunne was 22 years old when she was killed by her ex-boyfriend John Sweeney

In 1982, 22-year-old Dominique Dunne was killed on the driveway of her West Hollywood home. Over 40 years later, her family is still recovering from her death.

The young actress gained fame after starring in 1982's Poltergeist. However, her career was cut short after her ex-boyfriend, John Sweeney, killed her on Oct. 30, 1982. The two were previously in a relationship for a year and lived together, though Sweeney often allegedly physically abused her.

After a physical fight a month before she died, Dunne broke things off for good with Sweeney. However, on Oct. 30, he came back to her home, allegedly attempting to convince her to reconcile. A fight ensued and escalated until Sweeney was strangling Dunne, leading her to lose consciousness. When police arrived, Sweeney confessed to killing her and attempting to kill himself.

A year later, in September 1983, Sweeney was acquitted of second-degree murder but was found guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter and additionally a misdemeanor assault for the September altercation with Dunne. He was sentenced to six years in prison with an additional six months for the assault charge.

Sweeney was released on parole after serving two and a half years of his six-and-a-half-month sentence. Dunne's family, including her parents, Dominick and Ellen "Lenny" Dunne, and brothers, Griffin and Alex Dunne, continued to keep her memory alive after her death.

Now, Dunne’s case has been thrust back into the spotlight thanks to Nathan Lane’s portrayal of her father, Dominick in Netflix's Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Dominick was a crime journalist and covered the Menendez brothers' trial, which occurred over a decade after his daughter’s death.

So what happened to Dominique Dunne? Here's everything to know about the death of the young actress and where her killer is now.

Who was Dominique Dunne?

Dunne was an actress who got her start in 1979's Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker. She was born in Santa Monica, Calif., on Nov. 23, 1959, to Ellen, a ranching heiress, and Dominick, a writer, actor and producer in Hollywood. Dunne was also the younger sister of two brothers, Alex and Griffin.

After getting her start in 1979, Dunne went on to star in other popular 1980s shows like Lou Grant, Family, Hart to Hart and Fame. Her rise to fame came in 1982's Poltergeist, and she was set to star in the sequel as well before her death. At the time of her death, she was in the midst of filming the miniseries V, which was released the following year in her memory.

What happened to Dominique Dunne?

Dunne met Sweeney, who was a sous chef at a restaurant, at a party in 1981. They had a whirlwind romance and within a few weeks rented a house together.

However, the relationship quickly turned sour when Sweeney became aggressive and physically abusive. In an Aug. 27, 1982, incident, Sweeney allegedly grabbed Dunne by her hair and yanked her so hard that handfuls of locks came out from the root. Scared, Dunne left to her mother's house, where Sweeney followed her and banged on the doors and windows to be let in.

Ellen told him to leave, or she'd call the police, and he did so. Within the next few days, Dunne returned to their shared home. A month later, another domestic dispute allegedly occurred when Sweeney strangled Dunne, and a neighbor heard the gagging sounds and attempted to intervene.

Under the pretense of going to the bathroom, Dunne escaped out the window and took off in her car, which Sweeney jumped the hood of. Following that incident, Dunne called off the relationship.

However, a month later, on Oct. 30, Sweeney showed up at Dunne's house while she was running lines with an actor, David Packer. Sweeney insisted on speaking to her, so Dunne met him outside the house while Packer stayed indoors. Their conversation eventually turned violent, leading Packer to call the police after Sweeney had strangled Dunne to the point of unconsciousness. Sweeney confessed he killed Dunne to the police when they arrived, telling them, "I killed my girlfriend, and I tried to kill myself.”

“I f----- up…I can’t believe I did something that will put me behind bars forever…Man, I blew it. I killed her," he told a cop on the way to the police station. "I didn’t think I choked her that hard. I just kept on choking her.”

By the time Dunne arrived at the hospital, her heart had stopped beating. Though machines revived her, she was declared brain dead, and five days later, her parents consented to remove her from life support.

Where is John Sweeney now?

Sweeney was charged with first-degree murder, to which he pleaded not guilty. In court, Sweeney's lawyers argued that the chef had not planned to hurt Dunne and acted in the "heat of passion" after a frustrating conversation between the two in which she allegedly told him she had no plans of a future with him despite previously discussing one, Sweeney said.

The presiding judge granted Sweeney's attorney's request to change the charge to second-degree murder or manslaughter as the court lacked sufficient evidence to try him for first-degree murder since predetermination was not established.

The jury ultimately acquitted Sweeney on charges of second-degree murder, finding him guilty of voluntary manslaughter and assault for the September incident. Sweeney was sentenced to six and a half years in prison, of which he served two and a half.

Following his stint in jail, Sweeney was hired as a head chef at a highly-rated restaurant in Santa Monica, Calif. Dunne's family stood outside the restaurant in protest after hearing the news, handing out flyers that read, "The food you will eat tonight was cooked by the hands that killed Dominique Dunne," according to a 1987 interview with Griffin for The Courier.

Sweeney eventually quit, following the protests, and left Los Angeles. In the mid-1990s, a Florida man reached out to Dominick about an article he wrote regarding his daughter's death and asked if the John Sweeney engaged to his daughter was the very same who served time for Dunne's death, Dominick told The Telegraph in 2008.

Griffin quickly contacted the woman and informed her of Sweeney's past. Sweeney then changed his name.

Dominick opened up in 2007 to Slate about hiring a private investigator to track down Sweeney, who moved to the Pacific Northwest and changed his name to John Maura. However, eventually, Dominick said, he let it go.

“I don’t know where he is,” he told the outlet. “I don’t want to know where he is. … It’s much healthier."

Where is Dominique Dunne's family now, including her dad Dominick?

Following his daughter's death, Dominick became committed to his career as a crime writer after being a successful Hollywood producer. During Sweeney's trial, Dominick wrote down everything he was feeling and his thoughts on the process per the advice of one of his coworkers, and published his work in an in-depth article for Vanity Fair.

“He wrote this devastating piece about what a family goes through, who had no experience in the court judicial system; what we went through,” Griffin told PEOPLE of his father in June 2024. “It's a document that's like a handbook for what families should prepare for.”

In the following decades, Dominick covered cases like the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995 and the Menendez brothers' trial in 1993. The author and producer died on Aug. 26, 2009, at 83 years old.

Dunne's mother, Ellen, turned to advocacy work after her daughter's death, starting the Justice for Homicide Victims foundation. In 1989, she was recognized by former President George H. W. Bush for her contribution. She died in 1997 at 64 years old.

Griffin, Dunne's older brother, continues to work in Hollywood and is also an author. In June 2024, he published his memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir, which reflected on his family's history as much as his own.

“I loved going back to my memories of her as a little girl that Alex and I adored,” he told PEOPLE of reflecting on his younger sister. “She seemed to know who she was from the age of four or five and had such confidence, far more than her brothers. She would boss us around and we would do everything we could to please her.”

How does Dominique Dunne's case relate to the Menendez brothers?

Dunne's case returned to the national spotlight when Lane portrayed Dominick in Ryan Murphy's Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, which was released on Netflix in September 2024.

Dominick's coverage of the trial — in which Lyle and Erik were being tried for the murder of their parents — was key to making it become the massive media sensation it was. Dominick was passionate about the stories he covered, often immersing himself in them — but he wasn't necessarily “a terribly unbiased one," as Griffin told PEOPLE.

“If he wrote about Phil Spector, he talked about Lana Clarkson and not as a third-rate actress, as the media continue to describe her,” he said, referring to other trials his dad covered. “Or during O.J., he sat with the Browns and Nicole's family … he always looked at it from the rights of the victim.”

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