During Holmes murder trial in 1982, then Deputy Dist. Then he left.. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time . What really cracks me up is people believe he was a dope dealer. His drug of choice was freebase; sometimes he mixed the crack with heroin. 22nd Emmys Golf Classic. How could you do this thing! Eddie Nash screamed. He invited them in for coffee. She hadnt heard from him in, what, six months? There are other suspects that we feel are involved. A girl from the dorm recommended him. They lived in London, Paris, Michigan, Florida. Jeana packed her bag, gathered up Thor, put Johns gun in her pocketbook. April Valentine died at Centinela Hospital. When I got out, he said, Lets go, and we drove toward home. Wed have dinner with other people at the hotel, go to movies. Charles Manson was deranged and messianic but John Holmes only cared about himself and didn't care who got hurt - or killed - in his never-ending quest to feed drugs and self-esteem into his wasted system. Remember me?. Its like being married to a hooker., And so began the loops and the stags, and then Johnny Wadd was born. Six months ago shed had a double mastectomy. He tried to think. Laurie was nineteen; she came from a small town outside Vegas. I believe I was watching TV and it seems like a bunch of people were coming in and out,' Mrs. Launius said. DeVerell, Launius and McCourt, all heroin addicts, were out cold. Usually, they smoked freebase and had sex. He spent his early life in Tennessee and Georgia, and graduated from Spalding High School in Griffin, Ga. He treated me very special. John was thirty-one, she was fifteen. They made a run to McDonalds for hamburgers. Why would I confront her? She wasnt happy. Focusing on employee strengths. Another officer commented, upon hearing of Launius' death, "I suppose they won't need many pall bearers". This stuff makes me feel funny too. Jeana was doing freebase too, almost every night. When asked to elaborate, the policeman explained: "A trash can only has two handles". He sent flowers, presents, photos of them with the dog. master splinter death. The drugs affected his penis; he couldnt get it up, he couldnt work in porn. Susan Launius, who lay wounded with severe head injuries for hours before being discovered in the house by neighbors last July 1, testified during Holmes' preliminary hearing that she could. Holmes said hed had sex in airplanes, helicopters, trains, elevators, kitchens, bathrooms, on rooftops, in caves, storm cellars, bomb shelters in Europe, under a table in a restaurant filled with people, fifty feet underwater while wearing scuba gear. Thats bullshit. It was owned by the pediatrician she worked for; she and Holmes lived rent-free in an adjacent house. He was known as Eddie Nash. How students with Asperger's cope at university. He thought, Well, if Im going to take a chance, thats enough. . There were backhands, lectures, drunken rages. I know who did it.. Finally he said, Ive got to tell you Ive been doing something else, and I think I want to make it my lifes work.. The three went back to Sharons house. Nils Grevillius, who's been working on a book on the Wonderland murders, talks in one interview about a robbery committed by the Wonderland Gang (the same robbery, in fact, that Launius got the antique guns that he tried to fence via John Holmes, which ultimately led to the murders). Everybody was down there. He seems like he was a crazy fucker. Launius, Deverell, and Miller, along with the girlfriend of an accomplice, Barbara Richardson, died from extensive blunt-force trauma injuries. Your tax-deductible financial support keeps our stories free to read, instead of hidden behind paywalls. She came to the farm to find out if a certain man was with me. Big mystery. [5] Barbara Richardson Rush hour was on. He quit the ambulance service and got work stirring vats of chocolate at a Coffee Nips factory in Glendale. In your opinion, what's the best alternate route to the 405? He wouldnt even let me meet the people he worked with.. Ron Launius was born in 1944 in Shawneetown, IL. He stroked us, jacked us around. One day, Jeana was visiting a neighbor when Holmes came by to deliver a bag of pot. Jeana was afraid to look at John. He thinks Im famous.. His penis, he said, was bigger than a pay phone, smaller than a Cadillac., Holmess voice was sly and ingratiating. She was scheduled to appear in court this month on drug charges. Get the fuck out of here! he screamed. I won't do an extensive write-up of the Wonderland Murders, as they've been written about on here before: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/430cdk/four_bloody_unsolved_wonderland_murders/. I said, Please, just let me get my clothes and my dog and well leave.'. Ricks cited Nashs need for delicate surgery to remove a sinus tumor. In 1981, Ron Launius and his gang of thieves and drug dealers, with assistance from porn star John Holmes, robbed the home of businessman and gangster Eddie Nash. That first time, we didnt get to work together, says Laurie, but we were attracted. By the time it was released, in 1987, Holmess health had already begun to slide. In a recent interview with The Times, Sharon Holmes, who divorced the late actor in 1984, described for the first time the story her husband told her less than three weeks after the July 1 killings. Diles leveled a gun at his head. So you go in, Launius was saying to Holmes, reviewing the plan. John was gone now more and more, making films in Europe, San Francisco and Hawaii, doing private tricks, traveling to film openings across the country. Theyll never steal from anyone again!, Thorson was excused, and Nash closed the door. Tom Mix and Harry Houdini once lived there among the quail and scrub pine and coyotes. Coughing into the microphone, Ricks called Nash a danger to the public and maxed him out. Jeana packed her suitcase, gathered up her Chihuahua. 'We'll probably find a real motive,' he said. He stared straight ahead, unblinking. Memorial ID. Theyd sold a pound of baking soda for a quarter of a million dollars. Sprinklers were ticking water across lawns. Once, he rammed his own hand into a harvesting machine. He played it for all it was worth, then he said he wouldnt testify. The Top 5 newsletter catches you up with LAs top 5 stories in just 3 minutes. Overdue book returned to Massachusetts library after 56 years. His business empire totally atrophied as a result of the coke. A gate was unlocked, and Holmes walked up the stairs to the entrance with the gunmen concealed behind him. Susan Launius's income source is mostly from being a successful . After that I was his.. You want me to call the press?. Everybody was just shocked.. Under Review. Now it was December 4th, and she hadnt seen Holmes in two weeks. (John) was so much of a liar . All his lawyers I think he had maybe six or seven working on different things all his managers, employees, customers, everyone, would come to him. John leaned up against the back bumper, smoking a cigarette. The buckle depicted a mother whale swimming in the ocean, her baby nursing beneath. No one but Holmes has ever been charged in the murder case. There were contracts out on their lives. Nash was separately convicted of cocaine possession and served about two years in state prison. Lulu Press offers a very affordable set-up with generous royalties. Apparently, Holmes had made good his promise and stopped doing drugs. Susan Lanius (unlucky) wife of Ron Lanius played by Christina Applegate in the movie Wonderland. The day after the robbery, someone who knew Nash apparently spotted Holmes in Hollywood, wearing a piece of jewelry that had been stolen from Nashs home, he told his wife. Youre probably going to be saving him.. At midnight, the Wonderland people scraped together $400, and Holmes, whose pretense for entrance would be buying drugs, drove off to Nashs house. For extra money, Jeana solicited tricks on the beach. The word in the industry was that he had colon cancer. Captain Conan 10y. Another victim, William DeVerell, 44, who lived at the house, had an arrest record in the 1950s, mostly for narcotics but had not been arrested in the recent case. I believe I was watching TV and it seems like a bunch of people were coming in and out,' Mrs. Launius said. Wednesday afternoon, July 1st, two days after the robbery. Related Stories Sports promoter Vic Weiss was found murdered in the trunk of his Rolls Royce in a Hollywood hotel parking lot in 1979. John said he felt like he was chosen to get AIDS because of who he was, how he lived. I played in the water. Anyway, Launius, Billy Deverell, and David Lind were robbing a ritzy house in L.A. Hed have me make these peanut-butter chocolate-chip brown-sugar butter cookies. Detectives said they had talked to Susan Murphy Launius, 29, at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, where she is in critical condition with gashes in her head and neck. By this time, Sharon had befriended Jeana. Holmes nodded his head, put out his cigarette, closed his eyes. Up to this time, Holmes had been doing mostly photo layouts, stag films and 8-mm bookstore loops. Sellers picked up a hitchhiker who was going to Glendale to see his girlfriend. Susan Launius. Christ, she thought, John. Holmes thought Nash was the most evil man hed ever met, but he couldnt quite figure him out, so he respected him. Eddie Nash was fifty-two years old, six feet tall, gray haired, strong and wiry. Lt. Ron Lewis discounted speculation that the slayings could be 'random killings' such as the Tate-LaBianca murders committed by the Manson Family in 1969. In court testimony years later, he would say, in answer to this and many other questions, I dont recall. John Holmes died on March 13th, 1988. His first porn film was made while he was working his way through college. Theres a floor safe in the closet, right over here.. Minnesota officer removes jar from raccoon's head. Holmes was an inveterate collector of junk. I had to let her know there was another world out there, that John was not God Almighty. And the AIDS thing was just starting to come out. The aunt sent him to fencing school, dancing school, a school of etiquette. Wearing jewel-bedecked livery, he would chauffeur Liberace onto the stage in a glittering mini-Rolls-Royce open the door, take his masters fur coat. . . Thats probably why he always came back. Nash was extremely hospitable. Hed sent two of his minions out to score more drugs, but they hadnt yet returned. All Rights reserved. A few months later, Jeana moved into the guest room of the house. Eddie Nash assumed he deserved a certain amount of respect, says one denizen. John Holmes, who was tried for and acquitted of the crimes, never told his wife the names of the assailants, she said. John tried to make a deal with the cops. He made films nonstop, and he took eighty to ninety telephone calls a day. Then Holmes hit on a more direct way to make money. This would lead, in the mid-Seventies, to Holmess most successful role, as Johnny Wadd, the hard-boiled detective, porns parody of Sam Spade. The actors wife paused. He began spilling to Blake in 1973, after he was arrested on a movie set. He served in the signal corps, spending three years in Nuremberg, Germany. Run me a bath, will you? he said. I believe that cocaine paranoia created within him the desire to stay within that closed environment that he had control over. . Why did you choose to publish the book on Lulu.com. He wanted to make a million dollars so we could just leave and be done with it.. This was it. LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio, a member-supported public media network. His bodyguard, Gregory De Witt Diles, was a karate expert and convicted felon who weighed a blubbery 300 pounds. After leaving California, Jeana and John had gone to Vegas, then Montana, then headed south, visiting the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert. Venice Beach boardwalk to the Santa Monica Pier. Now things were not so friendly. She was the sole survivor of the attack - suffering severe head injuries, amnesia, and a severed finger. Sherrill confessed to the murder some years later. They came from across the countryalthough the Washington, D.C. area was noticeably over-representedas well as from Canada and England, and, in at least one case, all the way from Nazi Germany. Is this your brother? He graduated from UCLA with majors, variously, in physical therapy, pediatric physical therapy, medicine and political sciences. Sharon cooked dinner. He has just published his latest project about one of Los Angeles's most well known murder cases in the 80s. Holmes rolled down his window, McCourt rolled down his. We sat for a long time, and he was very, very quiet. Aftermath Lind and McCourt were both away from the scene at the time of the murders, so they were able to survive unharmed. Just recently, he had begun training to be a uniformed security guard. Then, when Eddie Nash got out of jail, John was very, very worried. As the 1980s began, and Holmes became more heavily involved in cocaine, his absences grew longer. And (that they) made him watch.. In the face of a drier future, that iconic piece of Americana is on its way out in Southern California. Allan MacDonell October 2, 2003. His legs and feet would swell up, his ears would bleed, he had infections in his lungs. She had two daughters, had once been married to a Beverly Hills attorney. Like aliens or something. According to one eyewitness, Diles once chased a man out of the Kit Kat and emptied his .38 revolver into the mans car. Then he sat up. We have estimated Susan Launius's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets. He had made a name for himself during the Vietnam War when he was dishonorably discharged from the army for smuggling drugs back to the United States in the bodies of dead servicemen. He received a bachelor's degree in chemistry and mathematics from Emory . The house at 8763 had passed from a raucous group of women neighbors recall naked women being tossed from the first-floor balcony to the members of the Wonderland Gang. He showed Chinn his portfolio of stills, then stripped. After Holmes negotiations for an immunity deal with police and prosecutors fell apart, the actor made plans to leave town with Sellers. Some were quite attractive. We're in a period of seismic drought in L.A. Where do you want to be when the Big One hits? In 1973, in Yuba City, CA, Ron Launius and associate Carroll Evan Sherrill had taken some "bad dope" and Ron confronted another associate, Gary James Moore, whom he accused of being a "snitch" or informant. The murders are believed to be retaliation for the Wonderland Gang's robbing of Eddie Nash's home two days earlier. The top story was something about a mass murder. He always called Holmes my brother. Theyd known each other for three years. Here's Why It's Especially Dangerous To Hike SoCal Mountains Right Now, How 4 Words Upended A University's Journalism Program, And Stirred A Reckoning Over Race, What A Popular Yoga Teacher's Descent Into Conspiracy Theories Says About The 'Wellness To QAnon Pipeline', Ancient Lung Disease Strikes Countertop Cutters In LA, The Groundbreaking Suicide Squad That Tested Early Rockets And Flirted With The Occult. He has just published his latest project about one of Los Angeles's most well known murder cases in the 80s. He quickly racked up a rap sheet, including gun and drug charges. Then I leave. Edmund Brown Jr. owns a house about a mile from the scene of the murders. By the time they pulled into the apartment complex managed by Sharon Holmes, it had been decided. Will Dominion-Fox News lawsuit be different? . Why? To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click March 2 (UPI) -- A Minnesota police officer came to the rescue of a raccoon he spotted running around with a jar stuck over its head. The armed intruders robbed Nash and his 300-pound body guard, Gregory Diles, of $10,000, two plastic sacks of cocaine and other property. Susan Goldberg, MBA Expand search. That house, she thought. LOS ANGELES -- The lone survivor of the massacre of four people in the swank Laurel Canyon home of an attractive blonde woman suspected of dealing in drugs was under a 24-hour hospital guard Friday as the star witness in the case. At the end, there were six working at once on his penis. He had set it up with the other people, the people that lived at Wonderland. John kept his porn money and spent it on himself. He had twenty-seven fan clubs; people wrote for locks of his pubic hair. Neighbors in the canyon, where a conversation at night can be overheard blocks away, said they were used to rowdy, all-night parties in the house. How do you handle this conflict? Everything from Volkswagens to a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. He had sex onscreen with two generations of leading ladies, from Seka and Marilyn Chambers to Traci Lords, Ginger Lynn and Italian member of Parliament Ciccolina. In the still unpublished official version of his life, Holmes is quoted as saying that he was held at gunpoint at another house while the killers, whose names he did not know, went to the home on Wonderland Avenue. The murder weapon was a steel pipe with threading at the ends. Two years later, Ricks was ordered held against his will for psychiatric observation. Just blood. There was a telephone at the entrance, an electronic deadbolt on the gate, two pit bulls sleeping on the steps. By 1978, Holmes was freebasing cocaine all the time. Police, however, believe that Holmes actually took part in the fatal beatings. Holmess parents separated when he was three, and Mary moved the family into a housing project in Columbus. Holmess character, said Al Goldstein in Screw magazine, was a thin, bony, trench-coated shamus, outrageously horny, bedding down with client and quarry alike. In Goldsteins opinion, it was a goofy, crudely made series, but it was wildly successful. But Holmes kept calling. During the dispute, Sherrill shot and killed Moore and Launius helped Sherrill dispose of the body and conceal evidence. We were really broke. In essence, what they wanted him to do was . Dole said there's no question that Trump lost his reelection race - narrowly but fair and square. John and Jeana painted the Malibu gray with a red top. Now, as McCourt turned right, off Laurel Canyon Boulevard onto Dona Pegita, he saw Holmes driving back toward them. In the weeks before the killings, Coen told the jurors, Holmes ferried property stolen by the Wonderland Avenue gang to Nashs heavily secured home in Studio City, where he exchanged it for drugs. This means absolutely nothing to me. . They mix poorly, and yet they're inexorably linked. In the business she was billed as Misty Dawn, the anal queen of porn. His clothes were ripped, he was bloody from head to toe. Prioritizing employee development. There is a substantial audience out there hungry for information on the Wonderland murders. Jeana was scared to death. Schuyler said that Ed loved her son exceedingly and that he offered to fix it up for you to take him to a top brain surgeon. It is debatable about $3,000. Theyd been married sixteen years. But Deputy District Attorney Ronald Coen said the prosecution would not attempt to prove Holmes actually killed the victims but was an accessory to the crime. Susan Launius, 25, Ron Launiuss wife. Isnt that where John gets his drugs?. Two weeks later, it was reported that hed lost only seven pounds. Suspected burglar inside New Brunswick home was a panicked deer. here. Hed been with three governors, two of their wives and one senator, who was really a freak., Holmes said he owned ten different businesses, that he was a gourmet cook, that he had written twenty-nine books, including a how-to manual combining cooking and sex. Sharon was a nurse at USC County General, working on a team that was pioneering open-heart surgery. Or perhaps he had flown from Las Vegas. Launius was Wonderland's king, and he was as cold as ice. Holmes let his hair grow, started wearing three-piece suits. When theyd finish work, hed make sandwiches. She didnt know what to do. James M. Eisenman, a Century City attorney who represents Holmes estate and his second wife, said he doubts Sharon Holmes story. Blond and bearded, Launius had served federal time for drug smuggling. Salary in 2020. Blood! He had a slight build, a pockmarked face, a record of thirteen arrests. He was held in the county jail for contempt. Thats what its all about. I said, John, how could you? I was there., It was my fault, John said, his eyes welling with tears. ', In time, John and Laurie moved in together at Amersons. Thread marks found on walls, skulls, skin. They were stupid. Now, home early from her office, Sharon left her purse in the foyer, squeaked down the hall on white rubber soles to the bathroom of their one-bedroom apartment in Glendale. Then came the late-night news. He told us certain things. Im going to quit. Its another thing to testify to it in court.. Nash was acquitted. It was really nice. Susan Hayward. All three of them are sleeping in the same bed. In the end, Deep Throat was massively consumed by an enthusiastic public. Then he designed a massive gold and diamond ring in the shape of a dragonfly, and a gold belt buckle, measuring eight by five inches. I suspect that Launius may have been involved in other violent crimes. With all the publicity from the murders, John Holmes had achieved almost mainstream celebrity. Hed been turned on to the drug on a movie set in Las Vegas and had been smoking ever since. Dismiss. The time was right, he told Lind. There was shouting, laughing, rock & roll twenty-four hours a day.. We went on twenty-four-hour watch. Nobody knew wherewe lived. Then, says Laurie, the third time I went up there, he came up to me with the mirror and said, You want a hit? and I turned to him and said no. He could not be reached for comment on the killings. In the summer of 1981, Sharon Holmes said, she and John Holmes were living together as the managers of a small Glendale apartment complex. This button displays the currently selected search type. Jeana was somewhere downtown. Four inches around!, Thats great, said Sharon, turning a page of her magazine. Net Worth in 2021. He wanted new names for Sharon and Jeana, too. The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time Jeana Sellers (not her real name) arrived in Holmess life in 1976. John bought himself an El Camino pickup and a large diamond solitaire that became his trademark in films. Facilitating a sense of purpose. She was later unable to identify her attackers. House tossed by assailants. Its business.. After a preliminary hearing in January 1989, at which Thorson, among others, testified, Nash and Diles were bound over for trial this summer; they are currently being held without bail in the Los Angeles County Jail. He called some people, and they said, Well help you out. But wed never get the money they promised., On January 24th, 1988, John and Laurie were married in the Little Chapel of the Flowers, in Las Vegas. Then you guys take him down.. This story has not been verified. Where are you calling from? He offered the police secrets. There was one hitch. She even had to have part of her skull surgically removed as a result of her injuries. She was twenty, an army brat. A mother and daughter offered to help. Nash was on the job day and night, wearing a tall white chefs hat, waiting tables himself. An hour before, Holmes had run into Diles. SIMON: For more than 40 years, people have been reading and performing Susan Cooper's poem "The Shortest Day" to celebrate the winter solstice. March 2 (UPI) -- A Maryland woman scored a $100,000 prize from a scratch-off lottery ticket less than 12 hours after she scored an $11,000 jackpot at a casino. There wasnt any trouble. They came even though, at the time, there was no music industry in Los Angeles. At Christmas, they decorated it with colored lights. He looked very scared. Holmes, meanwhile, had gone back to making films. By 1973, John and Sharon were sharing the same house, even the same bed, but they were no longer having sex. He also renovated the house, outdoing himself in the master bathroom, recreating a backwoods outhouse, complete with a quarter-moon cutout, a shingled roof over the bathtub and a rough-hewn box around the commode. Shed never seen him look scared before. We cut him loose.. Youre going to get hurt. If anything, one of the themes in Eddies life has always been control. The judge in the case was Everett E. Ricks Jr. The couple ended up in Miami, at a small run-down hotel on Collins Avenue. DeVerell, 42, was also a heroin addict. He always had large quantities of coke, heroin, Quaaludes and other drugs at the house. . Holmes slept fitfully for a few hours, Sharon Holmes said, and moaned about blood and pain. His penis, when erect, according to legend, measured between eleven and fifteen inches in length. Im very lusty.. I'm comfortable speaking to 2,000 people about my work, but drop me into a cocktail party with 50 people, and I'm lost. This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). A day or two later, Holmes gave a compressed, but similar account of what happened to Sellers, she told The Times. He told us everything initially, right after it happened. We have never heard the whole truth (about the killings) and we never will hear the whole truth, said attorney Earl L. Hanson, who, along with partner Mitchell W. Egers, successfully defended Holmes against the murder charges. When Holmes was eight, his mother married Harold, a manic-depressive who worked for the telephone company. The letters "IC" pronounced properly can say "icy" meaning very cold. At the same time, Holmes was acting as an informant on matters of porn and prostitution for Sergeant Tom Blake, an L.A. vice detective. Jeana leaned out the window, and they hugged. The house at 8763 Wonderland rented for $750 a month. Coroner Thomas Noguchi said early autopsy results on the bodies found Wednesday -- 12 hours after the neighbors ignored the screams for mercy -- indicated the victims had been beaten to death. Launius estranged wife, Susan, who was visiting, survived the assault but suffered severe head injuries. -, Press J to jump to the feed. They threw brown bags of dope off the balcony. When Holmes returned to his car hours later, two armed men ordered him to drive to Nashs home, he said. Youd walk into the house, there were various girls walking around in various states of undress. Hed been in jail eleven months in all, 110 days on the contempt charge. We went to a motel, had a nice reunion. He went fucking crazy, says Amerson. He beat the shit out of me, then walked back up to the room. What's your favorite movie(s) or TV show(s) that are based in LA? He was consuming it. I wouldn't doubt it. Things started to click. . Launius punched Holmes in the stomach. The Wonderland Gang. Each time, Nash made bail. Nashs and Diless attorneys maintain their clients innocence and question the credibility of witnesses for the prosecution. Since the late Sixties, Holmes had traded on his natural endowment. Nash told a friend that he missed the moonlight and the olive trees of his homeland, that hed spent time in a refugee camp, that his brother-in-law was shot by Israeli soldiers. Six months later, on September 8th, 1988, Diles and Nash were charged with the murders on Wonderland Avenue. While awaiting that trial, he was ordered by a judge to tell the grand jury what he knew about the Wonderland murders. . Let him scream? Shed often take her son there for lunch. On their first date, hed brought a bottle of Mateus and a handful of flowers. This article is based on information obtained from interviews with more than seventy people including law-enforcement officials, porn-industry insiders, attorneys, court officials, family members and eyewitnesses connected with the Wonderland case. The murders were so brutal that police were comparing the case to the Tate-LaBianca murders by the Manson Family. If somebody fucked with him. Then Liberace would make a joke about having the only fur coat in the world that had its own limo. John had a van by then, and soon he began organizing camping trips with Jeana, Terry and Terrys boyfriend, Jose. For the first few months, while she was in Oregon with her mother, Jeana had refused to take Holmess calls. GitHub export from English Wikipedia. Remember Eddie? Sydney Pollack's adaptation of Horace McCoy's "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" Ron Launius had an extensive criminal history before coming to a bloody end.