REMEMBERING DOMINIQUA
Dominiqua Blackmon was only 28 months old when she was murdered on May 29, 1999. She had not even reached her third birthday. Court testimony gives us one small but important glimpse of Dominiqua on the final evening of her life. Earlier that night, Patricia Blackmon’s father in law saw Dominiqua. She was playing. She was acting normally. Nothing about that moment suggested that within only a few hours, the little girl he had just watched playing would be gone. Dominiqua had been placed in Patricia’s physical custody through the Houston County Department of Human Resources and juvenile court. Patricia later adopted her, approximately nine months before Dominiqua’s death. The system had entrusted Patricia with this little girl. Dominiqua should have found safety there. Instead, the woman entrusted to become her mother became the person who took her life.
DOMINIQUA’S STORY
On the evening of May 29, 1999, Dominiqua was with Patricia Blackmon in Dothan, Alabama.
At approximately 8:00 p.m., Patricia and Dominiqua left the home of Patricia’s father in law. He testified that Dominiqua had been playing and behaving normally when he saw her. Patricia was then alone with Dominiqua. At approximately 9:30 p.m., Patricia called 911 and reported that her child was not breathing. When paramedics entered the mobile home, they found Dominiqua lying on the floor of the master bedroom. She was wearing only a diaper and blood soaked socks. She was covered in vomit. She was not breathing. There was a large injury to her forehead and blood on her chest. Paramedics attempted to revive her and rushed her to Flowers Hospital. Doctors established an airway and continued trying to save her, but at 10:22 p.m., Dominiqua was pronounced dead. The injuries found on her body told the story Patricia did not. Dominiqua had suffered approximately 30 separate injuries. There were bruises and contusions across her body, including injuries to her head, face, chest, abdomen, groin, back, buttocks, legs and feet. Some injuries were new. Others were older and already healing. She had suffered broken bones. On Dominiqua’s chest was the unmistakable imprint of the sole of a shoe. A forensic expert later compared that imprint with the sandals Patricia had been wearing that day and concluded that the pattern was consistent with Patricia’s shoe. The medical examiner determined that Dominiqua died from multiple blunt force injuries to her head, chest, abdomen and extremities. Her recent injuries were also consistent with being inflicted with a pool cue. When investigators searched Patricia’s mobile home, they found blood on a broken pool cue. They also found blood on a child’s T shirt, a bed sheet, a quilt and napkins. Testing showed that the blood belonged to Dominiqua. The evidence established that only approximately two hours separated the little girl seen playing normally and the child paramedics found dying on a bedroom floor. During that period, Patricia Blackmon had been Dominiqua’s sole caretaker.
WARNING SIGNS
Dominiqua’s autopsy revealed something particularly troubling. Not every injury on her body had been inflicted on the night she died. Doctors observed marks from previous injuries, and the medical examiner found injuries in different stages of healing. Dominiqua had suffered two broken bones as well as numerous bruises and other injuries. Those findings showed that violence had touched Dominiqua’s life before the final beating. There was also prior involvement from the very system that had placed Dominiqua in Patricia’s care. A Houston County Department of Human Resources employee testified that she had contact with Patricia and Dominiqua approximately once a month for five months before August 1998. During those contacts, the worker believed Patricia and Dominiqua appeared to have a good relationship. That history makes what was later discovered on Dominiqua’s body especially difficult.mThe child welfare system had known Dominiqua. It had placed her with Patricia. A juvenile court had vested Patricia with custody. Patricia adopted her. And approximately nine months after that adoption, Dominiqua was dead with old and new injuries covering her tiny body.
JUSTICE FOR DOMINIQUA
Patricia Blackmon was arrested on June 1, 1999, three days after Dominiqua’s murder. In August 1999, she was indicted for capital murder because Dominiqua was younger than fourteen. Patricia maintained her innocence and took the case to trial. In April 2002, a jury heard the evidence surrounding Dominiqua’s final hours, the injuries covering her body, the blood throughout the mobile home, the broken pool cue and the shoeprint left on her chest. The jury found Patricia Blackmon guilty of capital murder. During the penalty phase, prosecutors argued that Dominiqua’s murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. By a vote of 10 to 2, the jury recommended a death sentence. The judge agreed. Patricia was sentenced to death. Her conviction and death sentence were subsequently affirmed on appeal.
Patricia Blackmon
Relationship to Dominiqua: Adoptive mother
Conviction: Capital murder
Outcome: Guilty at trial
Sentence: Death
FOREVER REMEMBERED
For much of the legal record, Dominiqua exists through descriptions of what was done to her. Thirty injuries. Broken bones. Bruises. A pool cue. A shoeprint. Those facts matter because the brutality inflicted upon Dominiqua should never be hidden. But they are not all that she was. There is another description of Dominiqua in the court record. Playing. Acting normally. That was Dominiqua, too. A little girl who had not yet reached her third birthday. A child who should have had years of playing ahead of her. She should have grown old enough to remember childhood rather than becoming a child remembered by others. The adults and institutions responsible for placing Dominiqua in a permanent home intended to give her security and family. She deserved exactly that. What she received instead was violence from the woman who had been entrusted to become her mother. Twenty eight months was nowhere near enough. Dominiqua deserved an entire lifetime. Abuse Angels remembers Dominiqua Blackmon. Remembered. Honored. Never Forgotten.
