It goes from five inches all the way to ten. The Top 5 newsletter catches you up with LAs top 5 stories in just 3 minutes. Then he left.. The aunt sent him to fencing school, dancing school, a school of etiquette. Unbeknownst to Sharon, Holmes had recently started in porn, following an encounter with a professional photographer named Joel in the bathroom of the poker parlor in Gardina. Every time you read something, they say its a big mystery. Theyd sold a pound of baking soda for a quarter of a million dollars. These five measures map closely with . I never get tired of what I do because Im a sex fiend. John and Jeana painted the Malibu gray with a red top. Venice Beach boardwalk to the Santa Monica Pier. He was very possessive. We played our favorite songs, walked, talked. Nash was very upset. To get better results, add more information such as Birth Info, Death Info and Location even a guess will help. Run me a bath, will you? he said. He began spilling to Blake in 1973, after he was arrested on a movie set. He looked very scared. In jail, Holmes went on a hunger strike. I stood there against the wall. It was a strange and violent time and men wore double-breasted suits and snap-brim Fedoras. Funny, she thought, no cuts, no abrasions. 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. On Christmas Day 1980, hed even presented Jeana. Nash was leafing through a little black book that Diles had taken from Holmess pocket. So Holmes summoned his wife into the bathroom, drew steaming water into the tub, slipped in, and began to talk. On his sixteenth birthday, Holmes joined the army. Laurie was nineteen; she came from a small town outside Vegas. Ten inches long! Launius' wife, Susan Launius, survived the attack. Nash was extremely hospitable. Memorial has already been merged. You just had to ask, and hed give., According to court testimony, Nash had a fancy for young girls, whips and a game with a revolver called Russian roulette. The murders, he said. Then Holmes hit on a more direct way to make money. I watched them beat them to death., It was them or me. 5 Questions Every Manager Needs to Ask Their Direct Reports Someone held a gun to my head. Shed often take her son there for lunch. Sharon looked at him. There was a telephone at the entrance, an electronic deadbolt on the gate, two pit bulls sleeping on the steps. But before they headed east, Holmes paid a final, early morning visit to his wife. Though elaborately secure, the house was paint-cracked and rust-stained, an eyesore in a trendy neighborhood. Edit your search. Done. Finally, on the afternoon of November 22nd, 1982, Holmes relented and testified. While awaiting that trial, he was ordered by a judge to tell the grand jury what he knew about the Wonderland murders. The Seven Seas was a bus-stop joint across Hollywood Boulevard from Manns Chinese Theaters. 22nd Emmys Golf Classic. They wanted to see Holmes. Drinking, driving. The consumption of alcohol and drugs was an ongoing, everyday affair, says an attorney who is a longtime acquaintance of Nashs. Dead were Joy Miller, Billy DeVerell, Ron Launius, Barbara Richardson. A sign on the box, written in blue Magic Marker, said, FOR DISTRIBUTION AT BOX OFFICE. Joy Audrey Miller, 46, who rented the house, had a record of six arrests -- three for peddling dope -- and had been under surveillance since Jan. 7, 1980, by narcotics officers who saw her selling drugs in front of the house at least eight times, affidavits said. He had the biggest pile of coke Id ever seen in my entire life, says Jeana. Susan Flores, the mother of Paul Flores, the sheriff's prime suspect in the investigation into the disappearance of Kristin Smart, spoke to KSBY News on Tuesday for her first-ever media interview. We scattered his ashes over the ocean.. That house, she thought. Dear reader, we're asking you to help us keep local news available for all. Armed guards in the lobby, in the hallway. John Curtis Holmes was born to Mary and Edward Holmes on August 8th, 1944, in Pickaway County, Ohio, the youngest of three boys and a girl. When you met with Eddie, you met at his place, on his terms. 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. She didnt know what to do. We want to hear it. She was the sole survivor of the attack - suffering severe head injuries, amnesia, and a severed finger. He was in so much pain, you couldnt touch him. Early in 1983, Holmes was shooting Fleshpond at a studio in San Francisco. automotive swap meets in missouri 2022. par | Juil 2, 2022 | mitchell wesley carlson charged | justin strauss net worth | Juil 2, 2022 | mitchell wesley carlson charged | justin strauss net worth Along the way, in Colorado, Mr. We cut him loose.. You know, says Detective Lange, theres no mystery here. Nobody had gotten it yet, but it was still in the back of our minds. Nine days later, Holmes was picked up in a Sherman Oaks motel in the company of Jeanna Sellers, a 20-year-old neighbor. Wed have dinner with other people at the hotel, go to movies. I believe I was watching TV and it seems like a bunch of people were coming in and out,' Mrs. Launius said. The guest bedroom. Her daughter was born by emergency C-section. Here, this back bedroom, thats Diless room, he said. to tell them who it was, Sharon Holmes said. Now they had another idea. Arriving back at Wonderland just after dawn, Holmes announced the coast was clear. 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. Jeana Sellers (not her real name) arrived in Holmess life in 1976. ", Woman wins $100,000 lottery prize 11 hours after $11,000 casino jackpot. Sharon had been a virgin when theyd met. Inside Susan Smith's Life in Prison After Drowning Kids - Peoplemag You had an accident in the Malibu?. Things at the house were always hopping, someone was always showing up with a scam. When Amerson raised their rent to $400, they got their own place in Encino. There were seven of them meeting in the house on Wonderland Avenue, a jaundiced stucco box on a steep, winding road in the hills above Hollywood. Harold drank a lot. Kurrus Funeral Home - 2008 Obituaries Do you find it challenging to make new friends here? It was dark, and there wasnt any traffic. He could repair anything, liked sketching and working in clay. By May, Jeana began taking his calls. After his release, Nash told a friend that jail had saved his life. Every weekday, you'll get fresh, community-driven stories that catch you up with our independent local news. Then one day Harold threw John down the stairs and came after him. John Holmes didnt go to his grave with anything but a very bad case of AIDS. Up to this time, Holmes had been doing mostly photo layouts, stag films and 8-mm bookstore loops. Yeah, well, uh, he said. The judge in the case was Everett E. Ricks Jr. I had to take them there., I took them there. WEARS WAR has moved to a new website! - WordPress.com After mustering out of the army, at age nineteen, Holmes went to work as an ambulance driver, and soon thereafter he met Sharon Gebenini. 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. Blond and bearded, Launius had served federal time for drug smuggling. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation Presents. She is the sole survivor of the brutal Wonderland attack the night of July 1, 1981; she suffered severe head injuries, amnesia, and a severed finger following the attack. Jewelry stores, convenience stores, private homes they would try anything, as long as it meant money or drugs. Here's Where To Maximize The View (And Snap A Great Picture), A Los Angeles Family Seeks Answers And Accountability After Black Mom Dies In Childbirth, A Brief History Of Why It Does Occasionally Snow In LA. Two customers waited. He lost his thumb and three fingers. Shed driven out from Miami with her father and younger sister. 'We have interviewed her but we're not going to say anything about it.'. He spent his early life in Tennessee and Georgia, and graduated from Spalding High School in Griffin, Ga. Sharon, a registered nurse, rummaged through a well-stocked medicine cabinet, brought out iodine and cotton swabs. 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. Its the cops.. At 98 and facing cancer, Bob Dole reckons with legacy of Trump and ponders future of GOP. When I got out, he said, Lets go, and we drove toward home. He looked shocked. The Holy Roller was up in the balcony, waving a Christian flag, praying and hollering, singing We Shall Overcome. She said John had cut some coke with an old tarot card and she believed it was a sign from the devil. (But) we have a certain set of rules to follow that the people who go out and perpetrate crimes dont.. He refused anyway. On the . That we were on the right track, that this is indeed what had happened, that this was the motivation, that this was how it came down. Porn star John Holmes in 1981, shortly after four people were bludgeoned to death in what came to be known as the Wonderland Murders. He was dying. Show your appreciation with the gift of Flickr Pro. ', Nash is said to have had political, police and crime connections. He said he was told he would be killed and people in the book would be killed if (Holmes) didnt do what (Nash) wanted. Too many. There were contracts out on their lives. During the day, she worked in a nursing home. . When Holmes returned to his car hours later, two armed men ordered him to drive to Nashs home, he said. The Hippie 'Flower-Child' Revolutionaries & Their Ties To The Military Thats bullshit. He showed Chinn his portfolio of stills, then stripped. He told me that he had set up the robbery. Holmess half brother and his wife lived there; this little community was the personal fiefdom of John Holmes. He has just published his latest project about one of Los Angeles's most well known murder cases in the 80s. I believe that cocaine paranoia created within him the desire to stay within that closed environment that he had control over. Then I leave. Each time, Nash made bail. Holmes was wearing a ring that had been stolen from the boss. Do you agree with that assessment? 1947 was a pivotal year in L.A.'s history. As night stretched into morning, Holmes had an attack of conscience, a glimmer of an understanding that knocking over Eddie Nash might lead to a lot of trouble. Diles leveled a gun at his head. He has a fascinating style and I liken him to Raymond Carver if Carver had decided to write about L.A.'s slumming angels. Everything from Volkswagens to a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. Holmes thought Nash was the most evil man hed ever met, but he couldnt quite figure him out, so he respected him. Now she shook her head slowly, walked around the car to the passenger side. Firefighters hoist horse stranded in backyard swimming pool. Copyright 2023 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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. german apple cake recipe milk street. But Holmes kept calling. Gregory DeWitt Diles, six feet four, 300 pounds, barged through the front door of the house on Dona Lola, dragging John Holmes by the scruff of his neck. No strings attached.. The time was right, he told Lind. We went on twenty-four-hour watch. Then, in the summer of 1985, John tested positive for AIDS. It helps that Susan Boyle has made her Asperger's public. Remember Eddie? Susan A. Murphy Launius, 30, while not an official member of the gang, was married to gang member Ron Launius and had a drug habit. . Please enter a valid Memorial ID. He quit the ambulance service and got work stirring vats of chocolate at a Coffee Nips factory in Glendale. Four inches around!, Thats great, said Sharon, turning a page of her magazine. Hed been ripped for eight pounds of cocaine, but the Wonderland Gang hadnt found his private stash, and now he was bubbling his glass pipe furiously. Not long after, Launius, Sherrill, and another associate named Junior Ballard were arrested for smuggling heroin and pills across the Mexican border into the US. John looked down at Sharon. Thanks for posting though. susan launius interview american airlines core competencies June 21, 2022. the most poisonous snake in the world . On April 29, 1986, fire tore through Los Angeles' Central Library more than one million books were damaged or destroyed. He weighed ninety pounds, his fingernails were two inches long. Drugs, inattention, back taxes and lawyers fees had depleted his fortune. Blood and brains splattered everywhere, even on the ceilings. Not only did the Black Dahlia murder occur in '47 but the town was full of soldiers returning from the war with scarred psyches. His drug of choice was freebase; sometimes he mixed the crack with heroin. In addition, more than 3,000 pages of court and police documents and newspaper reports were reviewed. Then another girl, another. One day, Jeana was visiting a neighbor when Holmes came by to deliver a bag of pot. Nash loves me. Join now Sign in . During recesses in the trial, Nash would go out to his car and smoke freebase. 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. One search of the premises yielded a cardboard box containing 4,000 counterfeit Quaaludes. here. True Crime Writer in Las Vegas. We sat for a long time, and he was very, very quiet. Whatever. This story has not been verified. After Holmes negotiations for an immunity deal with police and prosecutors fell apart, the actor made plans to leave town with Sellers. Susan Orlean tells the story of the suspected arson in The Library Book. Prioritizing employee development. He showed up at the house in the early evening. He hardly knew what Holmes was saying. Tell me where you are. Thorson, who was waiting to be sentenced on a drug-related armed robbery, had sought a deal with police. He worked for others for a time, then opened Beefs Chuck, a hotdog stand on Hollywood Boulevard. There was a garage on the first floor; the second and third floors had balconies facing the street. His bodyguard, Gregory De Witt Diles, was a karate expert and convicted felon who weighed a blubbery 300 pounds. He beat the shit out of me, then walked back up to the room. He stayed in there like three hours, and Im just sitting there, you know, twiddling my thumbs. Their association ended in one of the most brutal mass murders in the history of Los Angeles. But here we are. . Holmes started in the business around 1968, a time when porn was just beginning to surface from the underground of peep shows and frat houses into mainstream acceptance. The woman took her to her house, put her to work painting a wall. Wednesday afternoon, July 1st, two days after the robbery. Survivor under guard as star witness Death in the Fast Lane A girl from the dorm recommended him. They opened the security gate, and the four of us went up the stairs, and when the door opened, they forced their way inside. Nash was missing part of his sinus cavity, one of his lungs had been removed, and he had a steel plate in his head. Holmes went on to make more than 2,000 movies. Can I come in?, They went to the bathroom. It was 1.6 miles from Wonderland Avenue to Dona Lola Place, which was fortuitous, because the stolen Ford Granada driven by the Wonderland Gang was running on empty. Susan A. Murphy married Ron Launius in Carson City, Nevada on 16 April 1971, and the two of them were heavy drug users. Hey, its cool, said John Holmes, 36, the man with the plan. Mr. The murderers were brought to justice. Why would I confront her? Could Ron Launius (victim of the Wonderland Murders of 1981 - reddit He felt like he was an example.. He went out of his life denying, said Sharon Holmes, (saying) I had no involvement., Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Texas congressman who broke with GOP is censured, Hong Kong court convicts activists behind Tiananmen vigil, Election conspiracies fuel dispute over voter fraud system, Desperate mountain residents trapped by snow beg for help; We are coming, sheriff says, Newsom, IRS give Californians until October to file tax returns, Californias snowpack is approaching an all-time record, with more on the way. All the sugar helped him come down. His words to me were Friends can get you killed. We were very careful. What compels you to revisit the slayings and what does the story say about Los Angeles, in the 80s and now? She survives and is questioned by Nico and Cruz in her hospital bed. Except for the . In 1974, Sharon became the resident manager of a ten-unit apartment court in Glendale. Sharon sat on the wood-covered commode. He was also a drug dealer and a heavy user. Ron Launius had an extensive criminal history before coming to a bloody end. The sun was warm and diffuse. When Detectives Bob Souza and Tom Lange entered the home, nestled in the hip L.A. enclave of Laurel Canyon, they found pills and pipes scattered all over the flooralong with four dead bodies whose. The final victim was Barbara Richardson, 22, Sacramento, Calif. Court records revealed that a codefendant in Miss Miller's narcotics case was John 'Ricco' Vlick, 53, who lives in a wood-shingled house only two blocks from the scene of the killings. Holmes finally called on the afternoon of the 29th, after the Wonderland Gang kicked him out. McKenna was murdered in 1989 when ambushed while returning home in his limousine; his killer sprayed bullets into the vehicle, killing McKenna. Holmes drove to Nashs again to make sure the sliding door was still open. Edward, a carpenter, was an alcoholic. Whos this in Ohio? Nash screamed. The Malibu was idling. And so the plan was fixed. At home, Nash walked around in a maroon silk robe, or sometimes in bikini briefs, his body covered with a thin sheen of sweat. His lawyer lent him a Volkswagen Beetle and $100, and Holmes showed up at his friend Amersons house. There never was a sexual relationship between us. U.S., Newspapers.com Marriage Index, 1800s-current. We closed up the office and went to the beach. Now he was a drug delivery boy for the Wonderland Gang. He was marketing Holmess old films on video. John Holmes, who was tried for and acquitted of the crimes, never told his wife the names of the assailants, she said. According to one eyewitness, Diles once chased a man out of the Kit Kat and emptied his .38 revolver into the mans car. Five men and two women were meeting in the breakfast nook, sitting in swivel chairs, leaning against walls. He cut Holmes off, canceled his insurance. He could not be reached for comment on the killings. We did it in the van. Jeana packed her suitcase, gathered up her Chihuahua. 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. 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. Gov. . Wonderland Gang - Wikipedia Launius was a reckless thief and he went after wealthy targets, not just down-and-dirty drug dealers and bikers, so I'd look for possible victims with either have money or look like they have money, who turned up dead after a home invasion. He meant nothing to me in that way.. Get my property! Facilitating a sense of purpose. jaydubya2009 10y. Class 1A. It is such a quintessential L.A. story of the 80s: drugs, sex, excess, night clubs, gangsters, and porn stars. After a while, I said I didnt want to go out on the beach anymore. I come back to Wonderland. When asked by Holmes' attorney what she remembered after that, she replied, 'nothing.'. 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. After she left, my husband called on the telephone at the farm and said to come home immediately. Lets talk about your latest book, Long Time Money and Lots of Cocaine. Why did you package the transcript of John Holmes preliminary hearing in the Wonderland murders? I suspect that Launius may have been involved in other violent crimes. Finally, he replied: The murders . It was a big ordeal for him, says Laurie. He graduated from UCLA with majors, variously, in physical therapy, pediatric physical therapy, medicine and political sciences. He was held in the county jail for contempt. She was nowhere to be found. Considering employee opinions. Ive waited outside that house. Its time, Holmes said, and then he smiled and raised his fist. [5] Barbara Richardson [ edit] Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/430cdk/four_bloody_unsolved_wonderland_murders/.