SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- The former boyfriend of actress Dominique Dunne was sentenced to a maximum 6 years in prison for strangling her, but the judge denounced the jury's manslaughter verdict and said the case was 'pure and simple' murder.
Superior Court Judge Burton Katz said Thursday that based on evidence presented during the seven-week trial he would have found John Sweeney guilty of second-degree murder, which would have brought a 15-years-to-life sentence.
'I am convinced this was murder,' Katz said. 'I am convinced that John Sweeney did not kill Dominique Dunne in the heat of passion, but rather that he killed her because his ego could not stand rejection.'
The slaying of the 22-year-old actress was 'a case, pure and simple, of murder, murder with malice,' he said.
'He (Sweeney) had to have known that as (Miss Dunne) was flailing and trying to get oxygen, the process of death was replacing the process of life,' Katz said. 'If that isn't malice, then I don't know what malice is.'
Sweeney, 27, strangled Miss Dunne, best known for her role as the older daughter in the movie 'Poltergeist,' outside the West Hollywood apartment they once shared after she refused to reconcile their relationship.
The actress, niece of writers John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion, died five days after the Oct. 30, 1982, attack.
Sweeney, a former chef at the posh Ma Maison restaurant, never denied killing Miss Dunne.
The voluntary manslaughter verdict returned Sept. 21 was bitterly denounced by Miss Dunne's parents as an injustice. With credit for time served and good behavior in prison, Sweeney could be released in three years.
He also was sentenced to an additional six months in the county jail for an assault on Miss Dunne a month before she was killed.
Sweeney, carrying a Bible, cupped his hands over his face throughout the sentencing hearing as his mother and two of his sisters tearfully testified that he grew up in a home where his alcoholic father regularly beat his wife.
However, an apparently unmoved Katz criticized the fact that Sweeney's previous assaults on women, which resulted in hospitalization of another girlfriend on two occasions, were not brought to the attention of authorities who might have prevented the murder of Miss Dunne.
More than a dozen members of Victims for Victims -- a group founded by actress Theresa Saldana, who was nearly killed in a knife attack last year -- marched outside the court house to protest the verdict.
