Roommate’s estranged boyfriend confesses to beating, strangling NY woman to death, NOPD says

This story was published on NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on Jan. 15, 2013.

A 39-year-old man confessed on Tuesday to beating and strangling his ex-girlfriend’s roommate to death late Sunday, police said. Authorities found Henry Dolliole in Jefferson Parish and brought him to NOPD headquarters where he admitted to brutally killing 26-year-old Lauren Tanski, said officer Garry Flot, a spokesman for the New Orleans Police Department.

Dolliole was booked into the Orleans Parish jail around 9:50 p.m. on a charge of first-degree murder, records show. Dolliole’s rap sheet includes several drug arrests, and in July 1992, he was booked with attempted first-degree murder and armed robbery. Those charges were later dropped.

Henry Dolliole, 39, confessed on Tuesday to beating and strangling his ex-girlfriend’s roommate to death late Sunday night. Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office

Tanski was found beaten and strangled to death inside of her 7th Ward home in the 2000 block of Urquhart on Monday morning. The victim, who loved writing and photography, had moved from Albany, NY, to New Orleans in October.

According to co-workers of Tanski’s, Dolliole is the ex-boyfriend of Tanski’s roommate, Samantha Placek, 32. Both women worked as waitresses at the Corner Oyster House in the French Quarter. Employees there said Dolliole had made threats against Placek just hours before Tanski was killed.

“He was clearly crazy and always seemed like he was on something, but I just can’t believe something this horrible happened to her,” Tanski’s co-worker Andrew Santiago, 25, said.

Santiago said Tanski had moved into Placek’s apartment on Urquhart Street a couple of months ago, and that while Dolliole had never made threats against Tanski, she was unhappy in her living situation and had been planning to move out of the house on Monday.

According to Tanski’s close friend Raechelle Gonzalez, 21, a couple hours after Dolliole stormed the bar threatening Placek, around 8 p.m., Tanski finished up work and told her co-workers she was going home for the evening.

Gonzalez said she exchanged texts with her from around 8:30 p.m. until 10 p.m. After that, she never heard back from her friend. “I assumed she had just turned in for the night, or that maybe she wasn’t paying attention to her phone,” Gonzalez said.

Shortly before midnight, Tanski’s lifeless body was found by Placek and a third roommate, who had just returned home, according to Santiago. Tanski had been beaten and strangled, and was dead on the scene, authorities said.

“She was so was excited to be here and so excited to explore New Orleans,” Gonzalez later said of her lost friend. “We moved down here together to get a fresh start and enjoy the city. Now, she’ll never get the chance. She was the most wonderful person, just a really great friend.”

According to Tanski’s father, Leonard Tanski, his daughter was a creative free spirit who loved photography and writing. She attended college at SUNY Cobleskill in Albany but later transferred and finished up a liberal arts degree at a university in Virginia.

“She had just come home for Christmas, we just dropped her off at the airport a couple weeks ago,” said a shaken Leonard Tanski when reached by phone at his Albany home on Monday.

“You always see it on the news, but it’s always someone else’s kid, never yours. Now it’s happened to ours and we just can’t understand how this could happen. It’s too awful,” he said.