The.Wonderland.Massacre.and.The.Sct.History.of.Hollywood.S01E01
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00:00Los Angeles, a city infamous for its music and movies, is also defined by its murders.
00:21It seems to set the city of angels apart, capturing the world's attention.
00:26The randomness of murder plays out beneath the bright lights of Hollywood, the boulevard
00:31of broken dreams, and seeps into the veins of the American zeitgeist.
00:38I'm Michael Connolly, and I came here nearly 40 years ago, drawn by the movies, the music,
00:43and yes, the murders.
00:46This dark pantheon includes the Black Dahlia, the Hillside Strangler, the Manson case, the
00:52O.J. Simpson case, the slaying of Biggie Smalls, just to name a few.
00:57But perhaps no other case symbolizes an era in Los Angeles more than the Wonderland Massacre.
01:03Okay, camera's rolling.
01:05Four murder victims were found today in a posh Hollywood Hills home.
01:08Police said all four had been beaten to death in a struggle that splattered the interior
01:12of the house with blood.
01:13A Manson-like mass murder.
01:15The tentacles of the case would ensnare a porn star, a corrupt judge, and drug kingpin
01:20Pablo Escobar.
01:22Multiple celebrities would be swept into the story by Liberace's boy toy, Enigma Scott
01:27Thorson.
01:32To this day, no one has been held directly accountable.
01:36For many, including me, it has been a decades-long obsession.
01:50I used to walk by this house when I lived in Laurel Canyon.
02:17And so it's always kind of a place of fascination.
02:22This story ostensibly is about a massacre in a house in 1981, but it's one of those
02:29rings that keeps going out into society.
02:33By day, my job was working as a crime reporter in L.A., and I was writing about murders all
02:38the time.
02:39And then I moved into this world where I'm writing novels, and there's aspects of this
02:44story that I don't think would work in fiction, because you actually have to be more believable
02:50in fiction.
02:51When you're a newspaper reporter, you can build sources.
02:56You build sources through trust.
02:57You build trust through accuracy in your stories.
03:01I did that for a long time as a journalist, but then when I was out of it, you know, writing
03:05fiction and trying to make my fiction as real as possible, doors opened for me.
03:10And one of the people who opened one of those doors was Rick Jackson.
03:15Detective Rick Jackson, marker.
03:19You've worked a lot of cases.
03:20Was there any case that had this kind of longevity in your life?
03:25There are cases like that that continue to rear their heads because of bizarre reasons.
03:32But this has kind of set the bar, really, as far as things in my career.
03:38To me, it feels like a story that could only be told through the lens of Los Angeles.
03:45Yeah, it's a Hollywood story.
03:49It's glitzy, yet it's really dark, too.
03:53Laurel Canyon, that was my old patrol area, Laurel Canyon and the hills on both the east
03:59and the west side of Hollywood, so I was up there a lot.
04:02It's a beautiful, natural setting, rustic.
04:06The aftermath of the hippie era goes on up there.
04:11It's always been connected to creativity, obviously music.
04:16The music that really was important to me growing up seemed to all come out of Laurel
04:21Canyon.
04:22I think there's a real connection between music and writing.
04:24Yeah, it was a great setting for all that.
04:28And then along comes this brutal, brutal, brutal murder.
04:32There's quite a lot of blood spatter upon the records.
04:39This was the end of a generation of inspiration and innocence.
04:44Current narcotics paraphernalia is evident on the coffee table.
04:47And it was all kind of fueled by these drugs that were designed to addict.
04:53People still know about this case 40 years later.
04:56How much does it bother you that people got away with murder?
05:00You're retired from the LAPD, but you're a volunteer still closing cases.
05:04Do you think it's worth opening it again?
05:08It's not too old to look at it again.
05:12Almost like Harry Bosch in the show, where you spread everything out.
05:17We do this kind of stuff all the time, 40, 50 years later.
05:22It's the heat of a cold case.
05:24You get that rush.
05:26Right away, you're into it.
05:27And you treat it just like a case that happened the day before.
05:37So what happened about 4 o'clock when you came to work on July 1, 1981?
05:44It was right close to the 4th of July weekend.
05:48There were no detectives around at all.
05:50But it was word in the station that a multiple murder
05:53had taken place up in Laurel Canyon.
05:55So I thought, well, I'm now officially working detectives,
05:59so I should go up there and protect the crime scene,
06:02not letting captains or other people that shouldn't go in there
06:07just to be a looky-loo.
06:09The first officer at the scene made entry through a door in the back.
06:14They could hear moaning.
06:17They weren't sure it was an animal inside or something that was wounded.
06:20It was kind of a haunting description he provided of,
06:25you know, making entry into that place.
06:28But I never went inside because I knew this case was going
06:31to go to downtown, robbery, homicide.
06:33So once the other detectives got there, I left.
06:39Detectives Tom Lang and Bob Souza, marker.
06:44We were on call out that weekend.
06:46It was going to be the 4th of July.
06:49The murders don't occur between 9 and 5, Monday through Friday.
06:54Tom got there about a half hour before I did, I think.
06:57I was still fighting holiday traffic.
07:00I usually agree to Tom with a joke.
07:02And so when I finally pulled up and I saw Tom on the sidewalk,
07:06sleeves rolled up, clipboard out, his game face on.
07:09I said, Tom, this isn't going to fuck up my holiday weekend, is it?
07:12And he didn't even smile.
07:16OK, camera is rolling.
07:18I remember the first thing Tom said to me,
07:21you got your galoshes ready?
07:22I'm going to give you a walkthrough.
07:24We are at 8763 Wonderland Drive.
07:30Tom had this great idea to videotape it.
07:36We are now in the residence, the first level living room area,
07:43where victim number one was found.
07:48There is evidence of ransacking in this room.
07:51The first thing that struck me when I went in
07:54is that this place is a mess.
07:56It's been turned.
07:57Her narcotics paraphernalia is evident on the coffee table.
08:02It just smacked of a drug ripoff.
08:04Directly above victim one.
08:08Barbara Richardson was in the front.
08:10She was lying on her side below a sofa.
08:13There was blood pooling where she probably was first struck.
08:17Struck so hard that she was knocked to the floor.
08:20You could see blood on the wall that
08:22tailed up the wall, which indicates that the blood was
08:27probably flung from a murder weapon.
08:29The throat hole on the south end of the couch
08:33has a large blood stain, not a spatter, definitely a soaking.
08:38There was more blood in that scene
08:40than I'd ever seen at a crime scene.
08:42In front of you, we have a west wall, blood splattered.
08:47This was the location that victim number two
08:50was removed by a rescue unit.
08:53Suzy Launius, she had been removed already
08:55and taken to Cedars-Sinai.
08:57So she was at the hospital, but I was told
08:59she was not expected to live.
09:01As we move to the south, in a southerly direction,
09:05we have a victim number three.
09:07Von Launius is lying in bed.
09:09He'd been attacked, probably sleeping.
09:11Apparent wounds to the head.
09:13His skull was just in pieces.
09:15Two hypodermic needles are observed on the nightstand,
09:19one in the drawer, one on the nightstand.
09:23On the east wall, there's an apparent pellet
09:26gun hanging barrel up.
09:30Blood splatterings are evident on the south wall
09:35above the victim's head and the curtains
09:38to the west and northwest of the victim.
09:45Now entering the room where we find victims four and five.
09:50Joy Miller was the person who was renting the house.
09:53Victim number four.
09:54She was lying in the bed, half out of the bed
09:57and half in the bed.
09:59Somebody took some kind of a striking object to her head
10:04to the point where it was just flattened from the eye's back.
10:09There is extensive trauma to the head of victim number four.
10:14Once again, extensive evidence of land sacking.
10:19Panning towards the south, we have a victim number five
10:23located in a partial sitting position.
10:26Billy Deverell was on the ground,
10:29leaning up against a TV tray where the TV was on.
10:33He had defensive wounds on his hands.
10:35It was clear that he got out of bed and probably fought back.
10:38Again, extensive head wounds are apparent.
10:43A hammer is noted on the corner of the bed.
10:49Drawers have been emptied.
10:55The floors are extremely bloodstained around the bodies.
10:59We've got five bodies in three different places.
11:03So the whole house is a crime scene.
11:04You can have evidence throughout the entire house.
11:08These victims had been struck with some kind of a bat
11:11or a pipe, which means they probably
11:14knew the people that did this.
11:16This is personal.
11:17Did you have a sense that this wasn't one maniac?
11:20We never thought that it was one person.
11:22Three, four, maybe even as many as five
11:24to be able to control that whole house like that.
11:27We agreed right away that it was a get-back murder,
11:30just because of the violence.
11:36Four murder victims were found today
11:38in a posh Hollywood Hills home.
11:39And Los Angeles police say the murder scene was so bloody
11:42and that the bodies had been in there for 12 to 15 hours.
11:47Found by neighbors in the house located just blocks
11:49from Governor Brown's home.
11:51A fifth person survived the attack.
11:53She is now in jail.
11:55A fifth person survived the attack.
11:56She is now in critical condition from severe cuts and bruises
11:59on her head and neck.
12:00Identities of the victims have not been released,
12:02but police say they were not celebrities.
12:05We had probably 100 people in the press.
12:07I mean, trucks and cameras.
12:09And just about 2 and 1 half miles
12:12as a crow flies to the west was the Manson
12:15killings and Sharon Tate right over the hill, which
12:19was, of course, in 69, 12 years earlier.
12:25Murder marches on in Los Angeles.
12:28But how soon did you arrive at who these people were?
12:32First thing you want to do is run their records locally,
12:35federally, to see what they are, what
12:37they've been arrested for.
12:39Turned out one of our officers knew
12:41Ron Lanius as the murder suspect in a well-known case,
12:45the Dick Weiss case.
12:47Weiss was a sports promoter who was murdered,
12:49found in Universal City parking lot in the trunk of his car.
12:53And Ron Lanius was one of the suspects.
12:57At the time of his death, Ron Lanius
12:59was associated with several open murder cases.
13:02He had already served prison time for trafficking
13:05heroin and cocaine.
13:07So right out of the gate, did law enforcement
13:09think this was drug related?
13:11It was a cocaine salad days, let's face it.
13:13We had Hollywood on one side, San Fernando Valley
13:16on the other.
13:19The male victims were part of what became
13:20known as the Wonderland Gang.
13:24It was a loose affiliation of thieves and drug dealers.
13:27They sold drugs, but they also stole drugs from other dealers.
13:31It was a common practice, given that no one involved
13:34would actually call the police.
13:36To infiltrate these gangs, police officers
13:38would go undercover.
13:42Narcotics Detective Bobby Egger, A&C, mark.
13:46So about 18 years of working narcotics
13:50during a pretty amazing evolution of drugs,
13:53what was that like?
13:54We saw a lot.
13:55We went from pills were the big issue to marijuana
13:59into a lot of cocaine.
14:03Back in the day, cocaine was very powerful.
14:07Everybody that had money had cocaine.
14:11And it was your way of showing people that you were powerful
14:14and you had money.
14:15Tell us a little bit about your undercover work.
14:17What was your assignment, and how did you carry it out?
14:20When I first went to narcotics, we
14:22tried to see if we could infiltrate
14:24the entertainment industry.
14:27I mean, just playing a role kind of enticed me.
14:31Can I convince you that I'm a drug dealer?
14:35What was your undercover name?
14:37Angela.
14:37And so is that when you were doing the kind of personal buys
14:40in the clubs and stuff?
14:41Yes.
14:43We were going to bars, restaurants, places
14:47that we knew a lot of drug trafficking was going on,
14:50kind of out in the open so we can become friendly with them
14:54and eventually make a buy from them.
14:58It was pretty cutthroat.
15:00There was no loyalty except to the drug.
15:03If the people involved in those crimes, which Wonderland was,
15:06they were all users, their only loyalty was to that drug
15:11because they needed it.
15:13They'd do anything to get that drug.
15:18We're here on the 8,700 block in Wonderland
15:20just off of Laurel Canyon.
15:21What we have, four dead and one injured.
15:25A neighbor heard what he thought were screams
15:28very early this morning.
15:30My girlfriend woke me up and said, hey,
15:31there's something going on.
15:33And I was half asleep and just kind of said,
15:35oh, well, we've had it before, you know.
15:37Screams?
15:38Yeah, really torture screams.
15:43So the murders occurred probably just after 4 o'clock
15:46and probably just after 4 a.m.
15:48It was almost 4 p.m. before anybody did anything about it.
15:52But in the meantime, they had all these visitors
15:55who just helped themselves to whatever was left.
16:00In one instance, the guy told us he went in there
16:03and he stepped right over Susie Lanius
16:05and he heard her moan.
16:07And somebody said, hey, I think she's still alive.
16:09And he said, oh, she's gonna be dead anyway.
16:11Let's just get out of here.
16:16I never worked narcotics, but in murder investigations,
16:20quite a number, percentage-wise, involved drugs somehow.
16:26So a couple days later, we're sitting around the station
16:29and we got a call from a guy named Fat Howard.
16:32Tom took the call.
16:34He says, well, I got a guy with me
16:35and he says he knows some of the victims up here
16:38and he's worried about his girlfriend.
16:41Maybe she was hurt and in the hospital.
16:44I think maybe you ought to talk to him.
16:45I said, okay, Howard, fine.
16:47Where are you calling from?
16:48He says, well, I'm at the house.
16:49I said, okay, what are you talking about, your house?
16:51No, I'm at the Woodlands.
16:53I said, you're at the murder house where this just happened?
16:56Well, where's your friend?
16:57He said, well, he's inside.
16:58I said, oh, shit.
17:01So I grabbed Bob and we beat it back up to the house.
17:08The tape has been ripped down, the door's wide open.
17:11So we went in the front with weapons out
17:14because we don't know what we're dealing with in here.
17:17Not everybody cracks into a crime scene
17:19where four people had been murdered
17:21and just walks right in.
17:23It takes a set of nuts to do something like that.
17:27It smelled like death.
17:29I saw a lot of blood.
17:31I saw where everybody was murdered.
17:34I saw a place where my girlfriend was.
17:36There was this huge blood spot there.
17:38That didn't make me feel too good.
17:40It just, you know, it just, it was bad.
17:45So we walked in and we hear some movement in the back
17:48and there's some guy back there in all fours
17:50picking up pills and stuff them in his pocket.
17:52We had to yell at him two or three times.
17:54He was so engrossed what he was doing.
17:57Finally, I yelled, place officers, freeze.
17:59Come to find out, it's David Lind.
18:02David Clay Lind was a biker, heroin addict
18:05and a member of the Aryan Nation
18:07who had befriended the leader of the Wonderland Gang,
18:10Ron Launius, and his wife,
18:13Ron Launius, when they were in prison together.
18:16One of the victims was bailed out of jail
18:18on car stealing charges by this man, Howard Harry Cook,
18:23a local underworld figure.
18:24This man, David Lind, a bounty hunter from Sacramento,
18:28was away at the time when the murders occurred,
18:30but his 22-year-old companion was killed.
18:33Lind's girlfriend was one of the victims, Barbara Richardson.
18:37For some reason, he felt that she was still alive
18:40because the media had been reported
18:41that one of the women was still alive at Cedars-Sinai.
18:45So he assumed it was her, and it wasn't.
18:49But this is the first break we had in this whole case.
18:54So we ended up taking him down to the station.
18:57He knows the people, he's been there before.
19:00So we're gonna be straight with him.
19:01We're not gonna lie to him.
19:02We're not gonna play games with him.
19:03We're gonna be very honest.
19:04They said, Dave, Barbara's dead.
19:07He went berserk.
19:09He's yelling and screaming.
19:11He throws a chair.
19:13He starts taking all these pills out of his pocket.
19:16He's slapping them on the table in front of us.
19:18This is a rainbow when he puts it in his mouth.
19:21Finally gets calmed down,
19:23and he said, do you wanna tell us who did it?
19:26Who did this, David?
19:27You know, tell us.
19:30He starts talking right away.
19:32This gotta be the robbery.
19:33He tells us that he and Lanius and Deverell
19:36went up and robbed this dope dealer,
19:38Eddie Nash, two days earlier,
19:40and he's continually taking pills.
19:43This is a dragonfly.
19:44This is a Christmas tree.
19:46This is a raindrop.
19:48He's getting higher in hell,
19:49and he starts talking about John Holmes,
19:51porn actor.
19:53We knew the name.
19:56He says Holmes kind of set this robbery up.
20:00He left the back door open for us to get in.
20:03We entered a bedroom, a guest bedroom,
20:05by a sliding glass door that had been left open
20:07by John Holmes the previous evening
20:11for the purpose of the robbery.
20:15I looked through the door of the bedroom down the hallway,
20:18and I could see Dials, who was Nash's bodyguard.
20:23They got in some kind of a struggle.
20:25Lynn had an accidental discharge on his weapon
20:27that grazed Greg Dials,
20:29who was a big bodyguard that Nash had.
20:32I asked Nash for the combination and or keys.
20:38He was rather reluctant to give me that information.
20:42So therefore, I took the pistol I had in my hand,
20:47stuck it into his groin,
20:49and then removed it and stuck it in his mouth,
20:52and cocked it.
20:53Talked about putting his gun in Nash's mouth.
20:56Yeah, one of them, they had this son of a bitch down,
20:58and they put my gun in his mouth,
20:59and he was crying and screaming,
21:01and we got into his safe.
21:02And I told him I wanted the information,
21:04or I was gonna blow his head off.
21:08They removed dope from the safe.
21:11They said they got about 100,000 bucks,
21:13and they took all that loot back to Wonderland,
21:16where Holmes was waiting for them.
21:18So that's the link up.
21:19That's where Holmes became kind of a link between Nash.
21:23But Lynn's telling you about this?
21:25So, like, Lynn appears to be a goldmine.
21:28Oh, yeah.
21:28But it's all stuff you have to follow up on.
21:31But he laid out who robbed Nash.
21:33Yeah.
21:34And who wasn't.
21:35He told us what happened.
21:36His name was Lonnie S. Devereaux.
21:37Lynn.
21:38And Tracy McCormick was the driver, the getaway driver,
21:42was in a car, stolen car, out in front of Nash's house,
21:46waiting for the three to come out.
21:48And Nash wanted these people that did this,
21:51who robbed him, he wanted them killed.
21:53Every one of them, he wanted dead.
21:55He wanted revenge.
21:56He wanted to get back at these people.
21:59You had not heard the name Nash?
22:01No.
22:02First time we heard any of this, John Holmes, Saint.
22:04We hadn't heard any of this.
22:06This was a Scooby-Doo moment, believe me.
22:08A Scooby-Doo moment, oh yeah.
22:10This is how we got the first break.
22:11We found out how this was probably motivated.
22:14Now we know that he's connected to Ed Nash.
22:18I knew of Nash from Hollywood.
22:20He started at a hot dog stand.
22:23And that grew into, he became quite a nightclub owner.
22:28And it wasn't just entertainment he was into,
22:29he got into drugs as well.
22:32Eddie Nash's real name was Adele Nasrallah.
22:35Born in Palestine, Nash came to Los Angeles
22:38in the early 50s with dreams of becoming an actor.
22:43Here's my boy.
22:44Nash, meet Mr. Butler.
22:46Go!
22:50Other than a single episode of The Cisco Kid,
22:53Nash's acting career went nowhere.
22:56Eddie Nash wanted to be an actor.
22:59People come to L.A. with that big dream.
23:02So he's just another story
23:04on the boulevard of broken dreams?
23:06He was, just another story.
23:10Can you talk about when Eddie Nash got on your radar?
23:14When I was working that original undercover assignment
23:17back in 75, 76,
23:20it was the first time I had ever met Eddie Nash.
23:24He had many clubs in the Hollywood area.
23:29It was all about, look at me, I own this place.
23:32You know, you want to be somebody,
23:34you need to align yourself with me.
23:37He was claiming mafia ties.
23:39He was claiming Israeli mafia ties.
23:43Drugs were everywhere.
23:45Eddie Nash was always around in the clubs selling drugs.
23:51He was arrogant.
23:53I thought he was dirty.
23:54He had a bad smell.
23:56I didn't like being around him.
23:57Did he ever get suspicious of you?
24:00Yeah.
24:00I was asked once to do a smaller buy
24:04and he had his bodyguard, Greg Dials,
24:07put his hand on my back
24:09like he was checking for a wire or something.
24:12You know, you got power people.
24:14You got celebrities.
24:15The Barrachi was invested.
24:17And John Holmes, the porno king,
24:20was there quite often.
24:22We would see him out and about in Hollywood.
24:25Marker.
24:26Keeping track of the films and averaging out
24:28how many girls you go to bed with in each film helped a lot.
24:30It's slightly over 14,000.
24:34He was doing longer feature films at that time.
24:38This is when he was being paid his most.
24:42And it's at the same time he started into drugs.
24:47Deputy DA Robert Shurn.
24:50I know John Holmes.
24:53I knew John Holmes because we had something
24:55in the office called the Pornography Task Force.
25:00We'd meet every couple of months
25:01and discuss the current trends of the types of movies
25:04they were making,
25:06whether the movies were in fact pornographic
25:08and should be prosecuted.
25:17These meetings were some of the best attended meetings
25:20because we'd show clips from some of the new
25:23pornographic movies as part of our presentation.
25:29Oh yeah, Johnny Wad.
25:32His movies weren't the type
25:33that we would want to prosecute.
25:36But he was still probably the biggest star at that time
25:40in the porno movie industry.
25:43He has a weapon.
25:46So Tom Lang came to me and said,
25:49came to me and said,
25:50we have a witness that we think
25:53can really help solve our case.
25:55They told me that Holmes was right
25:58at the middle of everything,
25:59that he could connect the Eddie Nash group
26:02with a Wonderland group.
26:04So from the moment Eddie Nash,
26:06his name comes up, what's the next move?
26:10We wanted to talk to Nash right from the beginning.
26:13So we approached our lieutenant
26:16who went in and talked to our captain.
26:20Our lieutenant came right back out and said,
26:21no, we don't want you to talk to Eddie Nash.
26:23So you're told don't approach Eddie Nash yet or ever.
26:27No, it was don't talk to him.
26:30How did you get around that?
26:31Well, the sheriff's narcotics had contacted us
26:34and they had an undercover officer
26:35that had bought dope at Nash's house.
26:38And once they had that information,
26:39they got a search warrant for the house.
26:41And once they had the warrant,
26:42they contacted Tom and I and invited us along
26:45because they knew we were handling
26:46that Laurel Canyon murder.
26:48We had information that Eddie Nash
26:51was in possession of a quantity of cocaine.
26:54And as a result of that information,
26:57we obtained a search warrant.
26:59I helped write the search warrant
27:01and there was not mentioned at all
27:03that there was a murder being investigated
27:05in the background.
27:11So I was sitting in a car
27:13while the sheriff's bureau was conducting a tactical entry.
27:18They wanted to secure the premises.
27:21Their tactic was to surround the house,
27:23knock out all the windows, flashbang the front door.
27:26This is so-called no knock warrant.
27:28It's about as no knock as you can get, I guess.
27:32Suddenly we heard some gunshots coming from the residence.
27:36Dials opened up on the team,
27:38fired at them with a nine millimeter.
27:40So they returned fire with a shotgun.
27:43Finally, they realized it was the police and surrendered.
27:47We found a quantity of cocaine in the safe
27:51along with a number of quaaludes
27:56in addition to approximately $6,000 in cash.
28:01So they called us in
28:03and we found a bunch of affidavits and warrants
28:07and other intelligence reports beneath his bed.
28:11So it was pretty obvious to us
28:12then that he had somebody inside.
28:14When does he know you guys are onto what happened?
28:17Right then.
28:18No, he knew then.
28:19At that point.
28:20He says, what the fuck are you guys doing here?
28:21What are homicide guys doing here?
28:22Yeah, he knew that.
28:26When I was finally allowed to go to the location,
28:29the one suspect that I'd sought was Greg Dials,
28:32who was the 350 pound bodyguard of Eddie Nash.
28:37He was laying on a pool table without any clothes on
28:41and handcuffed behind his back.
28:44Hi, Greg.
28:52The case was assigned to a deputy in my unit
28:55named Ron Cohen,
28:56and he did file charges against both Nash and Dials
29:00as a result of the affidavits recovered.
29:02Deputy District Attorney Ron Cohen, marker.
29:07So this massacre happens on Wonderland Avenue.
29:12At what point did that become your case?
29:14It became my case right after the first raid
29:17on Eddie Nash's house.
29:20Bob Shearn, my boss, came in and gave me the case
29:24the next day.
29:26Eddie Nash was arrested for dope.
29:28Dials, not only for the drugs,
29:30but he fired at a deputy sheriff.
29:34So it was assault on a peace officer.
29:36And later, I basically had all cases
29:40that dealt with Eddie Nash
29:41and anybody that was connected to Eddie Nash.
29:44So you became the Eddie Nash guy.
29:46How big was Eddie Nash that he would get
29:49a prosecutor assigned to all things?
29:51Well, he was suspected of being a major crime figure.
29:55And I was aware that he's a suspect in the murders,
29:57along with Greg Dials and others.
30:00And the issue was to try and eventually get to that.
30:04Okay, so where does John Holmes come into this?
30:09John Holmes was suspected from the very beginning
30:12of being involved.
30:15And the first I hear about John Holmes
30:21was from Tom Lang and Bob Sousa.
30:24Holmes was a linchpin, number one on our list.
30:28And so we put out a warrant on him, did we?
30:31Yeah, and he was hanging out at these little dingy motels
30:34all along Ventura Boulevard.
30:35Yeah, he was running around with his girlfriend.
30:38He was on the run, basically.
30:39He was on the run, basically,
30:40because he knew what happened
30:41and he knew sooner or later we'd be looking for him.
30:44John Holmes' mistress, Dawn Schiller,
30:46learned of the massacre at Wonderland
30:49while hiding with John in a motel.
30:51We have just received tape from Los Angeles
30:53on today's developments in those gruesome murders
30:55in the Hollywood-
30:56I knew the house and my heart just went into my gut
30:59because I just knew there was something wrong.
31:02He got back and I didn't say anything.
31:05He just looked exhausted.
31:06He took a couple of valiums and laid down and went to sleep.
31:10He tossed and turned and he screamed,
31:12"'Blood, blood, there's so much blood.'"
31:15That's when the door was kicked in
31:17and we were arrested by the police.
31:20On July 11th, 1981, one day after the raid on Nash's home
31:25and 10 days after the murders,
31:27Lang and Sousa were told that John Holmes
31:29was being held in protective custody
31:32at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA.
31:35Protective Matt McClain, marker.
31:38Let's start at the beginning.
31:39John Holmes is taken into protective custody.
31:43Just kind of talk me through what happened.
31:45I had heard about the murders on the news,
31:47but that was about the extent of it.
31:49And the next thing I know, they called me and they goes,
31:52"'You're gonna be in charge of the Night Watch
31:54guarding John Holmes.'"
31:56They said, "'We're concerned that Ed Nash
31:59and his people might try to kill him,
32:02so we want to protect him.'"
32:05I had heard of him even before the murders,
32:08you know, being this big porno star,
32:10and he did this detective series called Johnny Wyde.
32:15But then I had heard from some of the other policemen
32:17that, you know, he was hooked on drugs
32:19and he went downhill from being a famous porn star
32:23to just a drug addict.
32:25I guess at that point,
32:27they weren't looking at him as a suspect.
32:29They were looking at him as a witness if he'd opened up.
32:31At that time, yeah.
32:34When I first reached him at the Biltmore,
32:37and they said that he's up there with his girlfriend
32:41and his wife, which I thought was unusual.
32:43Yeah, I mean, did you say, like, what?
32:45Yeah, that's exactly what I said, what.
32:48John was trying to work out a deal with the police,
32:52and, you know, he called and said,
32:55"'Will you come? Because I'll need you.'"
32:57My private understanding of our relationship
33:00was that I was his mistress and we all lived together,
33:03and that was that.
33:05And I accepted that that was good
33:07because I loved Sharon at that point.
33:09I wouldn't want to be without her.
33:11And they're ordering lobster and steak,
33:14and I go, what?
33:15I goes, and you letting them do that?
33:17He goes, yeah, and I goes, well, that stops on my watch.
33:20He's not going to be getting any steak and lobster.
33:23For some reason, I didn't trust him.
33:25While Mack McLean stood guard at the Biltmore Hotel,
33:28seven detectives, including Tom Lang, Bob Souza,
33:32and prosecutor Bob Shearn, questioned John Holmes.
33:35What Holmes told us in the interview at the Biltmore
33:38clearly establishes who was involved in the robbery.
33:42It was useful in the interview to at least identify
33:46David Lynn, Ron, and Billy,
33:48the persons who had gone through Nash's residence,
33:51robbed him, and then in retaliation,
33:54they got killed themselves.
33:55So he started off strong, gave you stuff you needed.
33:58He must have been pretty hopeful.
34:00Well, he started off very well.
34:03You know, John told us he was buying dope
34:06from both the Wonderland people and from Eddie Nash.
34:10And he bought more than he could afford,
34:12and that's what started the bad blood.
34:15But then he gave a story that was just so unbelievable
34:18that it was kidnapped by two people
34:21that coerced him into going into the house
34:23and leaving the door unlocked.
34:25But he never looked at their face,
34:27could not identify anyone.
34:29You could sort of tell that he was just afraid to name names.
34:33The one detective who immediately
34:36started asking questions was Tom Lang.
34:39He sort of challenged Holmes
34:41through some of the answers he had given,
34:43but Holmes kept saying,
34:44no, no, I'm being square with you guys.
34:46I'm telling the truth.
34:48And so the officers asked if Holmes would take a lie detector.
34:52And Holmes, with the advice of his attorney,
34:55said, I will not take a polygraph.
34:56So Holmes, did he cooperate?
34:58It seemed like there was a long dance
35:00where he was just taking advantage
35:02of getting a stay at the Biltmore or something.
35:04You just said it. He's taking advantage.
35:06He's got this suite at the Biltmore,
35:08the vice president of the suite.
35:09He's ordering this expensive scotch.
35:12The way you treat a dope addict under these conditions
35:15is you don't put him up in the vice president of the suite
35:18and feed him steak and scotch
35:21with his girlfriend and his wife.
35:25After the interview was over,
35:27you know, we all got together
35:29and one of the detectives sort of said, what bullshit?
35:32So he ultimately refused to cooperate
35:36and he was cut loose?
35:37He was allowed to leave?
35:38Yes, and when he was cut loose from the Biltmore,
35:40where do you suppose the first place he went?
35:43We found him one hour later at Ed Nash's house.
35:48After he just told Helvin he was terrified of it?
35:50Yeah, he's just like, this guy is terrible.
35:52He's a terrible guy and I don't want anything to do with him.
35:55After the raid, Eddie Nash's house
35:57was under constant police surveillance.
36:00In addition to John Holmes,
36:01there was another frequent visitor, Scott Thorson.
36:05At the time, little was known about Scott Thorson
36:08other than that he was Liberace's young lover
36:11and a frequent visitor to Nash's clubs and home.
36:15We'd heard of Scott Thorson.
36:17We knew that he was at Nash's place early on.
36:20He was somebody that we wanted to talk to,
36:22but we never got that shot, never got that chance.
36:25We didn't hear from him for like eight years,
36:27nine years later.
36:29It would be nearly a decade before anyone discovered
36:32what Scott Thorson knew about the murders.
36:34Back in 1981, all law enforcement could do
36:37was keep the pressure on John Holmes and Eddie Nash.
36:40So someone overdosed on the house and died.
36:45When someone overdoses with drugs,
36:47there's a good chance, a great likelihood
36:49that there's still drugs in the house.
36:51That's probable cause, let's make another raid.
36:54We did another search at the house,
36:56same routine, this time with our own SWAT.
36:59No shots fired this time.
37:01They went in and got more dope, got more money.
37:05So we had three of these things now.
37:07But you weren't allowed to talk to him?
37:08You were just allowed to search him?
37:10Yes. Search his property?
37:11Don't talk to Eddie Nash.
37:14I know we could have gotten some information out of him,
37:16but we didn't know what was really going on
37:19behind the scenes at that point.
37:21But it was pretty heavy as we found out.
37:24So, I mean, I'm the amateur sitting outside this.
37:26Did it occur to you that he's got his hands
37:31on somebody in the hierarchy
37:34that doesn't want that to come out,
37:36so you cannot talk to him?
37:38Probably, you know, we haven't proven that.
37:39We don't know for sure.
37:40It fits with some of your assumptions, right?
37:43Certainly sounds pretty damn good to me.
37:45The three raids on Nash's house
37:48resulted in Eddie Nash and Greg Dials
37:50being charged with possession of controlled substances
37:53with intent to sell.
37:55The defendant will be committed to the custody of sheriff
37:57of Los Angeles County pending the posting of bail
38:01in the sum of $10 million in this matter.
38:05During the bail hearing, Detectives Bob Sousa
38:07and Tom Lang were in the courtroom.
38:09Lang testified as to why he thought
38:11Eddie Nash was a flight risk.
38:13Approximately one hour after Mr. Dials was booked,
38:18Mr. Nash was observed to leave his residence
38:23with two flight bags in a run.
38:28Mr. Nasrallah is not going to flee.
38:32In one of the many surprising moves in this case,
38:34Judge Ricks cut the bail by half.
38:38All right, I'll reduce it to $5 million, then.
38:40That pissed us off.
38:41That was total bullshit.
38:43It seemed that somebody else had an agenda.
38:45I said, well, how are we going to get to the bottom of this?
38:48We need to know what's going on.
38:49So this is the type of crap that we were up with and I used to.
38:53Pending drug charges brought by Ron Cohen,
38:56both Greg Dials and Eddie Nash were released on bail.
39:00Prohibited from questioning Eddie Nash,
39:03Lang and Sousa decided to question
39:04Susan Lanius, who had regained consciousness
39:07and was being guarded by police at the hospital.
39:10A female victim found bleeding to death
39:12for 12 hours in a bedroom, was taken to Cedars-Sinai
39:15Medical Center.
39:16The 25-year-old woman underwent four hours of surgery
39:19to repair damage to her head, neck, and one finger.
39:23After the bulk mower, I was responsible for guarding
39:27the victim, Susan Lanius.
39:30We had a list of people that were allowed to come in there
39:33and we would check an ID.
39:35She was our only link, initially,
39:38to what was going on.
39:39She was there, that makes her a witness, not just a victim,
39:42but a witness.
39:43She may have seen something.
39:44She may have heard something.
39:46We don't know.
39:47I found this tape recently going through a box in my garage.
39:51I didn't even realize I had it.
39:53It's a three-minute cassette and it's the first attempt
39:56to interview Susie Lanius.
39:58It's a couple weeks later.
39:59The doctor didn't want us around here for a while
40:02because she wasn't expected to make it and she did.
40:05So this is the first attempt just to try to get
40:08some direction as to a suspect,
40:11to see if she might have known who did this,
40:13if she could give us anything at all.
40:18Testing, testing, one, two, three, four, five.
40:24Susie, what happened?
40:26We want to know what happened.
40:30Who did this?
40:33Who hit you?
40:37What did he look like and what did they look like?
40:41Where were you when this happened?
40:47What's your name?
40:52Okay, what's the last thing you remember?
41:05You what?
41:06You're hurt all over?
41:11Who was in the house with you?
41:14I don't know.
41:18She's getting stressed here in this area.
41:22We sound a little stern, you know,
41:23we're trying to get some information from her.
41:26We wanted her to realize that this is all business
41:29and not so you feel bad,
41:30but can you remember anything at all type of thing.
41:33The last comment you heard, she's really getting stressed
41:37and we knew we weren't gonna get anything after that.
41:40With no new breakthroughs from Susan Lanius,
41:43Lang and Sousa reached out
41:44to one of their last remaining leads,
41:47John Holmes' wife, Sharon.
41:50So we went to talk to Sharon Holmes
41:52because nobody had sat down with a formal interview
41:54other than this thing at the hotel
41:56where she wasn't talking about anything to anybody.
41:59We went to see Sharon at her place.
42:01We said, okay, when did you first see John
42:03after this happened?
42:05She says, well, I think it was in July 2nd
42:07that he came to the house.
42:09I said, are you sure it was the 2nd?
42:11And she wasn't sure.
42:13I think she was incorrect.
42:14I think she meant he came to the house on the 1st
42:16because he was all bloody.
42:17And he said, if I could grow him a hot bath,
42:19he'd take a bath.
42:21So he took all his bloody clothing off
42:23and he took a bath and everything else.
42:24This is really good stuff.
42:26But she said she would never testify.
42:28She would never give us anything on John, period.
42:33Despite hitting roadblocks with witnesses,
42:35Lang and Sousa continued to comb through the evidence,
42:38building their case with prosecutor Ron Cohen.
42:41So what was your relationship like with Lang and Sousa?
42:45They were, they are the best investigators
42:49I've ever worked with.
42:52And they knew the case backwards and forwards.
42:56And so as these guys are investigating
42:57the quadruple murder, updating you on what they got,
43:02you kind of focused on John Holmes.
43:06From the start, was it, how do we get John Holmes to flip?
43:09Or was it, John Holmes might be a murderer?
43:12At that first interview in the hotel room,
43:16when he had room service, he was just playing the game.
43:20But he was a witness.
43:22And as the investigation went on,
43:25it looked like, well, maybe he's a suspect.
43:26So did something happen that changed the view
43:30of letting Holmes be running around out there loose?
43:36Once the palm print became evident, the case changed.
43:41With the palm print of John Holmes on that bed railing,
43:45and the position that it was,
43:47above the shattered skull of Ron Launius,
43:49who he hated and feared, there was a big question.
43:53What the hell is he doing there?
43:54That was the game changer, right?
43:56That was the game changer right there.
43:57No longer was he a witness.
44:00He was a suspect.
44:01He was more than a suspect.
44:03He was a defendant now.
44:05As soon as that came out, I had enough to charge.
44:10He's a killer.
44:11So I filed the case.
44:14As soon as it happens, Holmes takes off.
44:19So Holmes' girlfriend, Dawn, takes off with him.
44:23We don't know where she is.
44:24Within 24 hours of our release from the Biltmore,
44:28John and I took off.
44:29We got to his sister's house in Montana,
44:31and she let us stay for a couple of days.
44:33We got a phone call from his mother in Ohio,
44:36telling us the FBI was just there,
44:38and they were looking for him.
44:40So where are we gonna go?
44:41And I said, well, I was raised in Florida.
44:43Let's go to Florida.
44:45Dawn's brother is concerned
44:47that Holmes has been beating up his sister.
44:52He doesn't like Holmes.
44:53He knows he's on drugs all the time.
44:55And we convinced him that her life was in danger.
44:58So we kind of won him over as a friend,
45:00which paid off later.
45:01So we're in the office one day, and he calls.
45:04He says, I heard from his sister, Dawn.
45:08They're in Florida.
45:14We made it down to Florida,
45:16and we stopped at one of the cheapest hotels there,
45:19the Fountainhead Hotel,
45:20and it was a run-down kind of transition hotel.
45:25So it's decided that we would go down there
45:29and see if we could find John.
45:34So we find the hotel.
45:36We set up around the hotel,
45:38but we think that it's gonna be a long night.
45:41Well, it was only about five minutes, and there he is.
45:44There's a party going on next door.
45:46We go in there, and oh, now he's going into his young man.
45:49He's got a gun.
45:50He's got a gun.
45:51He's got a gun.
45:52He's got a gun.
45:53Now he's going into his Johnny Wad routine.
45:55Speaking of business, I'd like to get this over with
45:57as soon as we can.
45:58I have to get back to the hotel and get some rest.
46:00He's cocky and all this other stuff.
46:03We cuff him up, take him out.
46:05The next day, we get on a plane.
46:12On the plane, he's now gotten very quiet.
46:17He's beginning to realize what's going on.
46:21He says, I gotta tell you,
46:22it had nothing to do with any of this.
46:23It was Nash.
46:24Nash did it all.
46:26But we get admission, very important admission.
46:29Yes, I let him in.
46:33Silly lad.
46:34Bob books him for the murders.
46:37Los Angeles police said today
46:38they have arrested porno movie star John Holmes,
46:41a suspect in a quadruple murder
46:43in the Los Angeles area this summer.
46:45He was arrested in Florida this weekend
46:47by two Los Angeles homicide detectives.
46:49Holmes now faces murder charges
46:51for the four bludgeoning deaths
46:52that took place in the Hollywood Hills last July.
46:55Authorities say Holmes was in the house
46:57the night the four people were killed,
46:58but they would not say whether Holmes
47:00took part in the murders.
47:02We are taking our facts and our evidence
47:05to the district attorney tomorrow
47:08and hopeful that the district attorney
47:10will see fit to file a complaint of murder
47:14on John Holmes on that quadruple murder.
47:19So Daryl Gates has a press conference
47:22announcing the arrest and that's pretty good.
47:25I mean, that's less than six months
47:26from this very complicated murder.
47:29You've made a case, so you're feeling pretty good.
47:32Oh, I'm feeling great.
47:33Information came out through Holmes' statement
47:37that shortly after the robbery,
47:41Eddie Nash forced Holmes
47:44to name the perpetrators of the robbery.
47:47Had Holmes let it gunpoint to the house
47:50with the unnamed killers?
47:51Did you all ever say, like,
47:53this is never gonna go to trial?
47:54This is an exercise in squeezing Holmes
47:56so he cooperates and then we take Nash to trial?
48:00Yeah.
48:01We call it the domino theory.
48:02We're gonna get Holmes, we're gonna convict him,
48:05and he's gonna make a deal.
48:07We got the robbery laid out.
48:09They had a good case.
48:10But the Wonderland case, shrouded in secrets,
48:14was never going to be an easy win.
48:18This is the secret history of Hollywood,
48:20that all these people move on this underground level
48:24and know each other and connect,
48:26and to me, it's always astounding
48:28because this is such a big place.
48:30The interconnection, keep jumping out at you
48:33much more than you'd ever think they would.
48:35It's like a coincidence after a coincidence.
48:38There are people that just keep showing up.
48:41I think we were talking about this one day
48:42and then you mentioned the name Scott Thorson.
48:46You said something along the lines of,
48:48you gotta talk to this guy.
48:51And now here we are.
48:53Yeah.
48:55Just listening to him,
48:57it's just gonna, you're gonna shake your head.
48:59I mean, you can't help but shake your head
49:01when you hear his story.
49:02I mean, he's a great guy.
49:03He's a great guy.
49:05He's a great guy.
49:06You can't help but shake your head when you hear his story.
49:09Though never implicated in the murders,
49:11Scott Thorson, a.k.a. Jess Marlowe,
49:14held the key to unlocking the pieces of the puzzle.
49:19Scott Thorson, a.k.a. Jess Marlowe.
49:21Marker.
49:24So, you're at the center.
49:26You're at the center of a wheel of this story
49:29that's gone 40 years.
49:31And I know it's 40 years ago,
49:32but can you tell me what Eddie said to Dials
49:36when he said, take John, go up to, go back and wonder?
49:39And kill these people.
49:40He wanted them dead.
49:42Eddie Nash was evil if he didn't have a heart.
49:45You know, he wanted that revenge.
49:47And he enjoyed everything that happened up there.
49:49That's when I really got scared, you know,
49:52because I felt that I knew too much.
49:54So, you lived under this threat or this fear?
49:57Absolutely, I did.
49:58I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
50:01And so it scared the hell out of me.
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