Criminology - The Wonderland Murders

Episode Date: March 17, 2024

In the 1970s, John Holmes was a popular adult film star. He began a downward spiral after getting hooked on drugs and made a series of bad decisions that were also criminal. His connection to the Wonderland gang landed him in court, facing murder charges. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss John Holmes and the Wonderland murders. In the late 1980s, John pitched the gang an idea to rob a drug dealer. When several people were murdered in the house on Wonderland Avenue, it was thought that it was revenge and that John was involved. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true-crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodunit.

We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to moms and mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Everyone and welcome to episode 299 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. What's going on, Morve? Not too much. Relax and pumped up to do this episode. What's new with you?

Not a whole lot except for tornadoes. We have just had a rash of tornadoes up here in the Midwest. West. Scary stuff. Yeah, well, hopefully everybody stays safe and you can get through this season and things will be okay. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Let's go ahead and do our Patreon shoutouts. We had Madison White and Ashley Loftus.

So some great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much for that support. It helps the show a lot. And for anyone else that would like to support us, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology to get started. So I just mentioned episode 299. and more of it's really kind of hard to believe that we're there and that we're coming up on the big 300.

And I think it only makes sense that for episode 300, we cover a really big case. So why don't you go ahead and let listeners know what we have on tap for episode 300? Yeah, I'm excited. We'll be covering the John Bonnet Ramsey case. And this is one that we've sort of held off on for a long time, mostly in part, because it's such a massive case with so many pieces to it. but also because we sort of expected it to be solved, and that just hasn't happened yet. Yeah, it's a fascinating case. We've had a lot of people suggest to us that we should cover it

because they want to hear our take on it. But like you said, because it's so big, we really need to condense down as much as we can, make sure we're presenting all the facts and major theories, and we want to get all that stuff correct. Well, at the same time, not straying too far into the weeds or going down too many rabbit holes. And due to the size of the case, we're definitely going to have to make this at least a two-parter. It should be really fascinating in conversation. But before we get in that case, we've got to get through this week's case. And this week we have another high profile case that made headlines and had multiple movies

and TV shows made about it or at least inspired by it. We're talking about the Wonderland murders. At the center of the case was a popular adult film star named John Holmes, also professionally known as Johnny Watt. He was born as John Curtis Estes in Ohio on August 8, 1944. The youngest of four children born to marry June Holmes, he had a different father than his three siblings, but he wouldn't learn this until he was in his 40s. In 1936, the first time Mary and Edgar Holmes were married, he was. was 35 and she was just 17 years old. They divorced not long after this, but remarried each other in

1945. They divorced a second time and then remarried again in 1947. They divorced again. And Mary ended up marrying Harold Bowman in 1951. Things were okay after this and Harold was a pretty decent stepdad according to John until the birth of his own biological son. John's half brother, David. After this, Harold didn't really care about any of the other children. And I really thought some of this background information was fascinating. You know, you always hear about people marrying, you know, the marriage maybe goes south a little bit.

They end up divorcing, but they ultimately make the decision that they want to be together and they reconcile and sometimes even remarry. Here, Mary and Ed. did it like three times. So you have that and then you have Mary marrying again. And, you know, the the stepfather, stepmother situation can sometimes be very difficult. What I got from this situation was that, you know, Harold was a pretty good stepdad up until the point where he had his own biological child. And then at least according to John, I think, he started to change and his feelings about his stepkids changed.

When he turned 15, John left home and his mother gave him written permission for him to join the U.S. Army. He served for three years, mostly in West Germany, until 1963, when he was dishonorably discharged. After this, he moved to Los Angeles, California. On August 21st, 1965, John married Sharon Gabonini, a nurse. They lived together in Glendale for a few. few years. To pay the bills, John worked on and off as a forklift operator. Now, we should point out that a lot of what has been reported about John Holmes is false and was made up by John himself to add a bit of mystery to his persona. So you may want to take some of this with a grain of salt. But apparently John was using the urinal at a men's club in Gardena when another man, a photographer, happened to

walk in and after seeing John, gave him his business card and told him he could make a fortune in pornography. For those who are not familiar with John Holmes, there's really no other way to say it. He was well end up. He had a large penis. When asked how large he was, Holmes gave different responses. Sometimes he would claim his penis was 15 inches long. But other reports say he was 13 inches long. Either way, listeners will get the gist. If you are going into the adult film industry, it seems like this was something that would help him stand out. Now, I don't know personally if I buy the whole urinal story about this guy seeing him using the urinal. It's kind of an unwritten rule, right? More if in a men's bathroom that you're really not going out of your way to spy on another

guy using the bathroom because that would make someone very uncomfortable. Yeah, that's like men's room etiquette 101. And there's nothing that irks me more than, let's say, having three urinals in the restroom. I'm standing at one on the outside. And instead of a person taking the one two spots away, they stand right next to me. Come on. Follow the etiquette of the urinal. And for women listening, they probably don't have a good idea of these urinal layouts.

but some of the urinals are very close together. Some of them are spread out. It depends on the bathroom. Some of them have a little wall divider in between to give you a sense of privacy. But what's most annoying to me is some of them are really tall and some of them are laid positioned on the wall very low, maybe for kids. But, you know, the men's urinal etiquette is a real thing. And should be followed. But, you know, if we get back to homes, right?

Like I said, there's really no other way to say it. He was well end up. And if you're going into that industry, it's not something that's going to hurt you. At the time of this alleged Ural incident, John was unemployed, so he decided to pursue that route. He started out with some nude modeling and some short clips on 8mm film called loops. According to John's wife, Sharon, in an interview with L.A. Weekly, when Sharon came home early from work one afternoon, she walked in on John in the bathroom. He had an erection and he was measuring it.

Sharon said, he told me that this was going to be his life's work, that this was going to make him famous. I looked at him like, what planet do you come from? And I can't help but get a real boogie nights, Diggler type of vibe here. Yeah, we'll talk a little bit about that, but that's a movie and a character that was inspired by John Holmes.

At the time, creating pornographic material, was a felony in Los Angeles County. And not only that, but Sharon was fundamentally against it. She didn't want her husband to be involved in that lifestyle. Sharon and John remained married and together, but that day really affected their marriage. And according to the LA Weekly article, the couple was never intimate again. In 1971, John first starred in an adult film as Johnny Wad, a private investigator,

character written just for him. Unfortunately, he was soon arrested on the set of a pornographic movie and charged with something called pimping and pandering. Sharon told L.A. Weekly, he called me from Ventura, wanting to be bailed out. But she said, I didn't have that kind of money. It was likely this arrest that began Holmes' secret work as a criminal informant for the Los Angeles Police Department. when he was released after the pimping and pandering arrest,

he was driven home by Vice Squad Officer Tom Blake. Even Sharon would come to know Officer Blake in time. She told L.A. Weekly, John was giving him regular information, particularly on anybody that had done him dirty. Despite the arrest for the porn-related charges, John continued to make adult films. The first Johnny Wad movie was so popular that it became a series. By the late 1970s, Holmes was one of the most popular adult performers in the United States.

United States. He could earn up the $3,000 each day at the height of his popularity. That's pretty good money back then. I mean, I take it now. And when you extrapolate that out more, that is a boatload of money in the 1970s. Heck, that's a lot of money today. If you told someone that they could make $3,000 a day, who wouldn't jump at that? Yeah. And, you know, during the 70s, especially, that had to be a tremendous amount of money. But then again, on the flip side of the coin was he was breaking alone and facing jail time. When John wasn't making adult films, he was co-managing an apartment complex along with Sharon, despite their marriage struggling.

John ended up getting involved with 15-year-old Don Schiller, who Sharon came to see almost like a daughter. Don wound up at the apartment complex Sharon and John managed by chance. After her parents divorced, she and her younger sister headed west from Florida. with their father. While at the Grand Canyon, they met someone who said they knew a woman who would probably let them stay at her place in Glendale, California. So the family headed to Glendale and to the apartments where 32-year-old John Holmes lived. At first, John was just friendly toward Don. He gave her and her sister jobs around the complex, acting kind of as a mentor

to them. Don told L.A. Weekly Magazine, it related on a really childlike, level. Regarding his adult film career, as well as the size of his genitalia, Don recalled to the magazine, he was very shy about it. He gradually showed me who he was, that aspect of him. He was scared that I was going to be scared of it. Eventually, to try and show Don what he did, he took Don and your younger sister to the pussycat theater to see a movie starring him. They were embarrassed by everyone who asked for an autograph from the Johnny Wad. When the movie started, Don laughed so hard, they had to leave. It was around this time that the relationship changed. Don told L.A. Weekly, I was very much in love with this guy, swept off my feet at 15 years old. So no doubt. You know,

we have to talk about some of the stuff going on here between John and Don. At 15, she's a child. And he was a 32-year-old man to have a sexual relationship with her, even to take her and her younger sister to an adult movie. I mean, this is very inappropriate. I couldn't really tell what the law was back then in California. I'm sure there's a good chance it was even illegal. But in no doubt, you can clearly see that John Holmes had poor judgment. And that's going to play a role in what we're going to talk about a bit later.

The other thing, more if they really jumped out at me here, is there was a definite aspect of grooming to me. I feel as though John saw Dawn and it started out as like we said, kind of a mentor type situation. He gave her and her sister jobs around the complex. But in my mind, it seems as though he was starting to groom her for a relationship that would come. later. And it sounds like it didn't really take that long for it to start. Yeah, it when you see

an adult married man in this 30s hanging around with a teenage girl and the two become involved, that's pretty troubling. And we don't know what Sharon was thinking or how much she actually knew if you knew they were involved at this point, but definitely troubling. And I'll take it a step further, you know, nasty to me, just despicable. There is no reason that a 30-something-year-old man needs to be hanging out with a 15-year-old girl in that way. Ever. Absolutely never. When Don's father decided to move back to Florida, Don stayed behind and moved in with John and Sharon. Sharon knew this situation was odd, explaining it to L.A. weekly, I hate to see injured people or dogs, and I just adopted her.

I couldn't see her staying outside. She became a daughter to me. I needed to tell her she had a brain. She didn't need to accept what was going on. So you had a married couple who were basically roommates living together with John's teenage girlfriend. This was clearly not a good situation. And I think you asked the question more if you know how much did Sharon know,

it sounds to me like she didn't have an understanding. of fully what was going on between John and Don. I can't imagine she would have agreed to allow Dawn to stay had she known. But again, you know, these are people who are giving interviews. And it always comes down to the fact of, you know, how truthful is everybody being. But if you take sharing it a word, it sounds like she was just a good person. who didn't want to see someone end up out on the streets. And she was trying to prevent that.

Yeah, she mentioned she thought of her as a daughter, where John is in the midst of an inappropriate relationship with her. So definitely two different perspectives there. With the large amount of cash flow coming in and the connections that he made in the porn industry, Holmes was eventually introduced to drugs. He became addicted to smoking. cocaine. Right around Christmas 1979, Holmes began to bring Don cocaine, too.

He was very careful about how much he let her have. Don told L.A. Weekly, he wanted to be sure I didn't have too much, but enough for me to still be with him. Nobody else wanted to be with him after a while, she said. So once again, you have John interacting inappropriately with this teenage girl, Don. Now, he's he's supplying her with drug. Don remembered a time that John warned her about the dangers of smoking cocaine. She told L.A. Weekly, he brought Freebas in once and had this huge premonition of how horrible it could get. He ritualistically took me out to the street where he broke the pipe

and swore never to bring it in. But despite trying to keep it away from Don, that didn't mean John was shying away from it. And his cocaine use led to problems. One of those problems was that John began to have issues achieving or maintaining a erection while trying to film. And that impacted him financially and led to him getting less roles. Well, and not to be crass about it. But the fact is, if you're a performer in that industry, I'm assuming that one of the main criteria for a male performer is that you can achieve and maintain an erection. And no matter, you know, what assets you have or what else you have going on if you can't do that. It's going to be tough to continue in that line of work.

Yeah, and I don't know when drugs like Viagir became available, but I'm thinking that he didn't have that as an option to turn to to try and help with that problem. And while John's career was suffering, eventually he started getting more and more controlling over Don. He started getting very jealous. She told LA Weekly, if I didn't come home from school on time. Because I was hanging out with some friends, John would be really angry. His anger wasn't physical at first. He wouldn't say anything, but he'd snub you. You knew he was pissed. Eventually, however, John began to hit Don, terrifying her into submission. He forced her to begin sex work so that they would have money for drugs. Once she would return with the money, though,

he would force her into a scalding hot bathtub, where he would scrub her over and over again, telling her she was unclean. So by this point, it's pretty easy to see. John Holmes was really spiraling out of control. And to me more, if it's really such a despicable picture of this man, you have him taking advantage, and let's just say it, it's actually assaulting a 15 year old girl, because that's what it would be, supplying her with drugs. And then eventually later on in the relationship, physically abusing her and forcing her to perform sex work. I mean, this is the low of the low. Yeah, and you have to really feel for Don trapped in the situation and unable to escape. Yeah, I feel very bad for Don. You think about a 15,

year old who becomes, let's use the word enamored with this person. A 15 year old is not going to make the right decisions all the time. That's why there are laws regarding what minors can do. There's just no doubt in my mind that this man took advantage of a young girl who was impressionable. but I do think there's an aspect of it where she kind of fell for this guy and he prayed upon In the suburbs of D.C. A woman fails to show up for work

and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio

in 2020. Blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. On that. And maybe looking at it from her perspective when they began that relationship, here's a guy that's, you know,

successfully is managing the apartment complex. And then she finds out he's a famous, quote unquote, movie star. You know, some of that, and he's making good money. And some of that probably is impressed her as a young girl. So he definitely used those things to lure her in. And once he did, he didn't let go and she suffered for it. On Christmas of 1980, John sent Don, who was now 19 years old, to see Eddie Nash, a drug dealer, nightclub owner in the area.

Nash, born Adel Nasrallah, moved to the United States in the 1950s. Some reports claim he was Lebanese, but most sources list him as Palestinian. He was hardworking, starting with opening his own hot. dog stand on Hollywood Boulevard in 1960. It was very successful and expanded his businesses, ending up with at least 36 liquor licenses. He owned multiple venues in the area, including the Kit Kat Strip Club, the Seven Seas Bar, and various LGBT clubs, jazz clubs, and the Starwood where rock bands would play. When Don returned from Eddie Nash's home, she had less cocaine than John expected. He slapped her so hard, her teeth cut her

things got worse between John and Don. It was just four days before her 20th birthday. In January 1981, when John kidnapped Dawn, shoving her in the trunk of his car and transporting her to an illegal brothel run out of an apartment complex in the San Fernando Valley. She was trapped there for weeks and forced to do sex work. One day, her captors got sloppy. The woman who ran the brothel, Michelle, left the apartment to run an errand.

John, who was confident that he had broken Don's will to fight back, ordered her to make him a cup of coffee and start a bath for him in the kitchen as she poured the coffee. She realized the back door was unlocked and it was never unlocked. She immediately bolted even leaving behind her chihuahua named Thor. She knew this was her only chance to escape and she took it. Don ran until she made it to a Denny's diner, where a kind stranger gave her enough change for a payphone. She called her mom in Oregon, who immediately sent her a bus ticket.

Don just had to avoid John long enough to get on the bus, but it was tough because he was calling every bus station in the area looking for Don, claiming that she was a runaway minor. Don was able to make it to Oregon. She was safe, physically, but still a wreck emotionally. John called Don in Oregon day and night and made grand promises to change. for her part Don missed the John Holmes she met in 1976, the one who is friendly and safe. She explained to LA Weekly, he sounded like that original person to get on the phone. He was tapping into that strong connection that we shared originally. That was powerful enough to carry me into the bad times, hoping through those times that the good times would come back.

Eventually, Don would be persuaded by John to return to him. And morph, how often do we see this with people who are, able to manipulate others. And that's what John was doing here, right? He was manipulating Don into thinking that he had changed. He was the person that she first met, the person who she liked in the beginning. We just see it so often. You know, these master manipulators, they're so dangerous because they're able to get inside your head. They're able to make you believe things that probably deep down you know or not even true, but they're that persuasive.

And I think once they have the hooks into you with that control, even though you've escaped and you're in another state, essentially, it just shows they have the power to draw you back in. And I think that's what happened to dawn. John Holmes continued to spiral. His adult movie career was floundering. John, who had always done straight porn, eventually began doing gay porn to make extra money.

But the few and far between paychecks led John to start committing crimes. Mostly stealing from really anyone and anywhere he could. And this is how in the late 1980s, he found himself involved with the Wonderland gang. This gang got its name from the location of the home they lived in. the row house at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in Laurel Canyon was the headquarters of their cocaine selling operation. The house had been leased by Joy Audrey Gold Miller. Joy had once been married to an attorney in Beverly Hills, with whom she had two kids.

She lived on Wonderland Avenue with her boyfriend, Billy Deverell, a crane operator. The two were both addicted to heroin and had a long. history of arrests. Deverell's friend, Ron Lanias, also stayed in the home on occasion with his wife Susan. Lonnius was in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War, but he was dishonorably discharged after he was discovered using the coffins of deceased service members to smuggle heroin into the United States. Susan wasn't part of the gang or the actual drug operation, but she did struggle with addiction. Ron Lanius had a reputation, both on the streets and with law enforcement. He was not a nice guy and was considered to be wild and unpredictable. David Lind,

a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, met and befriended Ron while they were both in prison. In 1981, Ron invited David to Los Angeles to help conduct business on Wonderland Avenue. David brought along his girlfriend, Barbara Lee Richardson, who was also struggling with addiction. Tracy Raymond McCourt was also in the gang, but it seems that he was the least senior member. and not very well respected or trusted. In addition to robbing people, they were also scammers. In one scam, they sold someone a pound of baking soda for $250,000 telling the buyer it was cocaine. They would need to make some money or find a pound of some real cocaine and fast because they knew that when the cocaine buyer found out that he really had purchased baking soda, all hell was going to break loose.

John Holmes would buy cocaine from the gang and help sell it. He was using drugs at the house when they all came up with a plan to rob Eddie Nash. Nash reportedly had a severe addiction to cocaine, using up to three ounces every day. To protect even just his personal stash, let alone what he sold, he had a personal bodyguard, a guy named Gregory DeWitt, who weighed 300 pounds and practiced karate. In addition to a bodyguard, Nash also kept plenty of guns around. So the plan to rob Nash was not without risks for the Wonderland Gang. John had fallen out of good graces with the Wonderland Gang.

He felt that if he came up with a great plan, he would get back on good terms with him. John had been introduced to Eddie by Chris Cox, the owner of the Odyssey Nightclub. John told the gang that he knew about a floor safe in Eddie's bedroom that had large amounts of heroin, cocaine, and money in it. They also wanted to steal back antique guns that John had sold to Nash for drugs for the gang. While John himself wouldn't take part in the actual robbery, he had a very important role. It was his job to give the gang away to get inside Eddie's home. Before setting things into motion, John picked Don up from the Burbank Airport. He had promised to change and she agreed to come back to him. It was bleak, though. He arrived at the airport high and immediately

committed a crime. He stole someone else's luggage as they left the airport. John and Don spent a few days together doing drugs and having sex. John promised Don that everything would change after one last big job. She told LA Weekly, he kisses me and says, okay, baby, I'm off. This is it. I'm going to get the big one. And he doesn't come back. John visited Eddie Nash's home on the morning of June 29th, 1981. When he left, he realized that he forgot to do his one major task, and so he had to go back to the home a second time. He was able to leave the patio door unlocked before he left the second time, but once he got back to Wonderland Avenue, he realized it was no use. The men who were going to rob the Nash residents were too high on heroin to do much of anything, let alone pull off their

plan. Later that night, after the men had recovered enough, John went to Eddie's house for a third time to make it less suspicious. He bought some crack cocaine during this third visit. He was successful in leaving the patio door unlocked once again, and the plan could now go forward. Tracy McCourt was responsible for transportation. He used a stolen Ford Granada to drive David Lend, Willie DeVarell, and Ron Lannius through Studio City

to 3315 Dona Lola Place. As McCourt kept watch, Deverrell, Linn, and Lanias ambushed those inside the home, rushing in through the sliding glass patio door that Holmes left unlocked for them. They pretended to be police officers raiding the home and tried to handcuff Eddie Nash and his bodyguard Gregory Diles. They were held at gunpoint as the gang ransacked the home. Lanius accidentally bumped into Lynn, jostling him.

This caused him to accidentally shoot Gregory. he dials. The bullet grazing him, when Eddie Nash heard the gunshot, he knew how serious the situation was, and he begged for his life, and for them to let him pray for his family before they killed him. But the Wonderland gang wasn't there to shoot Eddie. They wanted to rob him. The gang forced him to open the floor safe in his bedroom. He opened it and gave the men everything in the safe. And the four members of the Wonderland gang got away unharmed with cash, guns, drugs, and jewelry. Eddie Nash was left unharmed other than his pride, but as anyone would be in that situation, he was extremely angry. On June 30th, Eddie Nash had John brought back to his house, suspecting that John played a role in

robbing him. Some reports claim that John was seen wearing some of Eddie's stolen jewelry, directly implicating him in the robbery. But it's also likely the Eddie suspected Holmes because he had come over three times immediately before the robbery, and the intruders knew about the safe, pointing to someone close to Eddie. Whatever the case, John Holmes ended up on Dona Lola Place at Eddie's house once again. And when he got there, Eddie was furious. This wasn't a position that John ever wanted to find himself in. Don told L.A. Weekly, John told me that people had a way of disappearing from Eddie's

and that you were lucky if you found their bones in the desert. that was John's way of telling me he was afraid of Eddie. So you said it more. If this wasn't a position that John wanted to be in, well, who would want to be in this position? I mean, you're dealing with an individual who you know has done some really bad stuff, has made people disappear. And if this person thinks that you were involved, how likely is he to hesitate to make you disappear? And I think this is what we,

see in so many cases that these bad guys have these plans and then all of a sudden the plans go awry and they've got to think on their feet and in john's situation that probably was not good since he was high all the time and and probably not able to think on his feet well and let's face it they they were probably all high when they were formulating the plan so how good was the plan how well thought out was it yeah the plan worked they accomplished what they wanted, but did they think ahead to the aftermath and the repercussions of what was going to happen afterwards? Well, maybe not if they were, you know, out of their minds on drugs. At around 4 p.m. on July 1st, 1981, loud moaning was heard coming from 8763 Wonderland Avenue.

Though neighbors were used to ignoring things that went on there, the two men moving furniture at a home nearby were not. They followed the source of the noise and went inside the home to check on things. Susan Launius was on the floor of one of the bedrooms lying in a pool of blood, moaning in pain. Ron Launius was in the bed next to her death. In another bedroom, Joy Miller was also dead in her bed.

Billy DeVorell was also in her room at the foot of the bed. He had also been killed. There was a hammer between, them on the bed. Barbara Richardson was dead on the floor next to the couch in the living room. Susan Lanius was rushed to the hospital. It was clear to police that the home had been robbed during the murders. The killers had brought their own weapons. The hammer left at the scene and investigators guessed metal pipes. They were ready to kill but didn't want to alert any of the neighbors to the attack. So they likely had guns too in order to control their victims and keep things

quiet. But those who lived near 8763 Wonderland did hear the attack. Around 3 a.m., they heard screaming coming from the home. Unfortunately, because the Wonderland gang and their associates were frequently throwing raucous parties that ran into the early morning hours, no one was alarmed by those screams. No one called for help for those being attacked inside. They figured they'd just be calling the cops on a party. And this is one of the problems with being the party house. Right? If you're always making noise and throwing big parties, I think neighbors tend to kind of tune you out so that if something really bad does happen and they hear something, you know, what's the likelihood that they're going to think it's something other than the norm?

Which is not going to happen in most neighborhoods where people are normally quiet. They hear a scream. well, that means something because it's not normal. And I don't know how many towns out there have one of these party houses, but I know when I was a teenager, there were a couple in the town where I lived at, and the people that went there were sort of shady, troublemakers, people you didn't mess around with people you don't want to

go on the wrong side of. So people would just keep their mouth shut and not get involved and not pay attention to what was going on. But these were the kind of homes where there was music, blasting people coming and going and once in a while you'd see police cars there. So that's probably exactly what these neighbors thought. Susan survived despite lying there for over 12 hours after the attack. She couldn't help investigators in their pursuit of charges in the case, though.

Her injuries were severe. And she had absolutely no recollection of the night of the murders. She also had part of one of her fingers amputated and had to have a piece of her skull removed due to the swelling in her brain. Other than that, her recovery was miraculous. With Susan not being able to help police, they were left to try and figure out what happened on their own. It became clear to authorities that this was likely payback from Eddie Nash and his crew. The word on the street was that Nash had been robbed and there were whispers that the Wonderland gang was responsible. Despite there being five victims, this was

wasn't everyone involved in the robbery of Eddie Nash. David Lynn wasn't in the home on Wonderland Avenue that morning. He was in a San Fernando Valley hotel room with a sex worker doing drugs. Tracy McCourt didn't live at the home with the gang, and he was sleeping in his own house when the others were attacked. Eddie Nash's residence was raided in connection with the murders. Along with over $1 million worth of cocaine, investigators found multiple items that had been stolen from 8763 Wonderland during the attack on July 1st. The involvement of John Holmes was discovered when a palm print lifted from Ron and Susan Lannius' headboard during the forensic investigation of 8763 Wonderland was found to be a

match to his. There was a blood-soaked bed, two victims bludgeoned, one to death, and a palm print from John Holmes. In March 1982, Holmes was arrested and charged with four counts of murder. It was the belief of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Ron Cohen that Holmes had been angry at the Wonderland Gang for not giving him a big enough cut of the goods. They stole from the safe. He told them about it Eddie Nash's. It was determined that Holmes had pressed the intercom button and announced his presence to the Wonderland gang, getting them to unlock the gate and the front door for him.

with their attackers hiding just behind him. To authorities, it was clear that Holmes was willingly involved in the murders, like he had been willingly involved in the robbery. Public defenders assigned to represent Holmes had a different theory of the crime. Earl Hanson and Mitchell Eggers believed and told the jury that Holmes had been beaten, threatened, and forced to give up the location of the Wonderland Home and was held at gunpoint during the attacks,

forced to watch his friends be killed, all because he thought it would be a good idea to get one over on Eddie Nash. The men who were actually responsible for the attack didn't leave any usable fingerprints due to the use of liquid band-aid or super glue on their fingertips to obscure the prints.

John Holmes' wife, Sharon, backed up his account of that night. Early in the morning on July 1, 1981. Holmes walked into their bedroom and woke her up. He was covered in blood and claimed that he had been in an accident. A longtime police informant, John Holmes tried to make a deal

with the prosecution for his cooperation, but it didn't work out. Less than three weeks after the murders. He showed up again at home very early in the morning. Sharon explained to the L.A. Times, I was his safe place. John went on to tell Sharon, there's somebody out there who wants to kill me.

She drew him a bath, something she knew, always calmed him. down, he broke down. Once he was in the bathtub and told Sharon, I had to stand there and watch what they did. Holmes also explained to Sharon that he was getting ready to leave town to escape the people who wanted him dead. After telling Sharon what happened, John fled with a neighbor, 20-year-old Gina Sellers. They ended up at a motel in Miami, Florida, where the manager, Rosie, let Gina clean rooms and answer the phone in exchange for a room. John worked for a construction company doing painting jobs, and Gina supplemented that income by finding sex work on the beach.

The arrangement didn't work out for long, though. Gina told Rolling Stone, after a while, I said I didn't want to go out on the beach anymore. We had a big fight. I ran to the door, down to the pool, and he ran after me, the fool. Everybody was down there. He beat the shit out of me, then walked back up to the room. Everybody was just shocked. The next morning, the people had seen John beat Gina.

waited until he left for work, and then quickly packed her up and told her to call her family. On December 4, 1981, John Holmes was arrested in Miami and ultimately extradited back to Los Angeles. At trial, Los Angeles police detective Frank Tomlinson testified about a confession John Holmes made to him. According to the L.A. Times, Tomlinson said, after the robbery had occurred at Ed Nash's house, that Nash had made Holmes tell him who the people were there. robbed him, he said that Nash told him if he ever talked to the police that Nash would kill someone in his family. After three weeks of testimony, jurors deliberated, and on June 26, 1982, just day shy of the anniversary of the crime, they found John Holmes not guilty of the murders of Ron Lannius,

Joy Miller, Billy DeVarell, and Barbara Richardson. However, he was found guilty of contempt of court. for refusing to cooperate or testify in front of a grand jury. Apparently, you only have the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if it's something you can be punished for. Since he had already been acquitted, he couldn't plead the fifth. He told Rolling Stone, if I opened my mouth, probably not the nicest things in the world would happen to people I know. John Holmes served 110 days in prison for that stubborn silence. So John served 110 days, which I think by comparison for, you know, what he could have gotten is a slap on the wrist. And he served that just because he didn't want to, you know, roll on other people.

I think when you look at this trial, he was charged with, you know, a number of murders. And this is where the theories, you know, start to come in. Did John actually commit the murders? Well, the jury didn't believe he did. Some people theorized that John was forced to to let the actual murderers into the home, you know, by Eddie Nash or people who worked for Eddie Nash. I mean, there's a number of theories involving this case. I think what you can definitely say that 110 days for whatever his role was is probably

about the best that he could have hoped for. forward. Yeah, one thing's clear is that he managed to not only avoid any serious prison time, but he avoided Eddie Nash's wrath too and somehow wasn't harmed or killed when he could have wound up being one of these victims too if Eddie was looking for payback, but somehow he survived and made it through this relatively unscathed. And just to circle back to the whether he had involvement, the jury said no, but there's still people to this day that think, he was involved in those murders and who knows maybe he was so high at the time he doesn't even know what really happened and to your point that eddie nash didn't take his revenge on john

i think leads many to believe that john played a role in these murders but maybe he didn't commit them he helped eddie and his crew gain entrance to the home i think that's what a lot of people believe. In 1983, John Holmes began dating 19-year-old Lori Rose, an adult performer who used the name Misty Dawn. John continued to perform sporadically in adult movies when he could get roles, but Lori stopped working altogether. John claimed it was due to the potential of contracting HIV, and that only one of them should be taking the risk by working in the sex industry. Somehow, Sharon Holmes had remained married to John through this entire saga, despite their marriage being damaged, a decade earlier when she found out John wanted to perform in adult movies.

But by this point, Sharon said enough was enough, and she left John. Sharon and John's divorce was finalized on October 19, 1984. In 1985, John Holmes tested positive for HIV. His friend and business partner Bill Amerson told Rolling Stone. He went crazy. He panicked, walked in circles around the doctor's office, threw his briefcase down. he said, I'm going to die. And then he drove off. And I think in 1985, this was a pretty valid response in the face of what was thought to be certain death from a rapid and stigmatized illness.

You know, really back then, HIV and AIDS was thought of as a death sentence. Despite the knowledge and despite the fear, John continued to make adult films when he could without disclosing the fact. that he had HIV. But during this time, John looked very sick and he lost a lot of weight. To explain his appearance and the surgeries he needed,

he claimed that he had colon cancer. John Holmes kept working and putting his co-stars at risk. In 1986, he filmed the return of Johnny Watt. So more of I don't know a ton about the adult film industry, but I'm sure today, they do a ton.

of testing. Back then, it sounds like they didn't. And we've said a lot of, you know, pretty bad things about John Holmes. Well, here's another one to add to the list. He knew that he had HIV, but he continued to act in these films having unprotected sex with multiple partners. It just seems to me that this guy made the worst possible decisions that he could every step of the way. And I don't remember exactly what year it was, but this was probably around the time that Rock Hudson was on Dynasty, the TV show, and he got a lot of flack for kissing a co-star when he had AIDS. But here, John Holmes is having unprotected sex with his co-stars and just kept that

under wraps and, you know, people just thought he had colon cancer. On January 24, 1988, John Holmes and Lori Rose got married. They had a small ceremony at the Little Chapel of the Flowers in Las Vegas, Nevada. She knew about his HIV positive status. She told Rolling Stone, John said he felt like he was chosen to get AIDS because of who he was and how he lived. He felt like he was an example. They lived a very quiet life together.

Lori said, nobody ever came over. Nobody knew where we lived. His words to me were, friends can use. you killed and he preferred to spend his time alone with her. On March 13th, 1988, John Holmes passed away due to complications of AIDS. In February of that year, detectives visited him at the VA hospital.

In Sepulveda, they were looking for his cooperation in a new trial, based on testimony from Scott Thorson. Thorson was the ex-lover of Liberacee. The famous pianist and singer, he was going to be a witness for the prosecution because he was looking for leniency related to his own pending charges stemming from an armed robbery over drugs. According to Thorson, he was at Eddie Nash's home, buying drugs when he witnessed him

order the hit on the Wonderland gang. Detectives tried to interview Holmes about the murders one last time, but he was too out of it to even answer their questions. After his death, Holmes was cremated. Lori scattered his ashes in the ocean. On September 8, 1988, Eddie Nash was charged with the murders of Lanius, Miller, Deverrell, and Richardson. Gregory Diles was charged as an accessory.

The jury couldn't come to a unanimous decision due to a loan holdout, and the trial ended with no verdict. In 1991, after second trial, both Eddie Nash and Gregory Diles were acquitted of the murders. In 1997, Diles died due to liver failure. Authorities never seemed to stop trying to go after Eddie Nash for the murders, despite the acquittal. A four-year investigation took place, and a RICO indictment was handed down for multiple charges of drug trafficking, money laundering, bribing the holdout juror at his 1990 trial and conspiracy to commit the four murders, rather than the charge of murder itself. So it sounds like to me they were really sure that Eddie Nash,

was responsible for these murders. Now, they, they couldn't go after him for murder again because he'd already been acquitted, but they were going after him for pretty much anything else they could. And let's face it, more if I don't think he was a good guy. I'm sure he was into all kinds of different shady stuff. But you think about being on trial for murder and having the money

and I guess the know how to bribe a juror to hold a, to hold out. If that really happened, I guess that's a really good way to help ensure that you don't go to jail. You don't go to prison. Yeah, it seemed like he was definitely connected and pretty powerful. We mentioned he had lots of money and dealing drugs and he had all kinds of liquor licenses, businesses, so definitely it was someone that could make things happen and get himself out of trouble. In September 2001, 72-year-old Eddie Nash took a plea deal. He was a was pretty ill in suffering from emphysema, among other things, and accepted the deal of a $250,000 fine and a four and a half year sentence that would include time served. Nash admitted that the

holdout juror had received a bribe of $50,000 for their refusal to agree with the rest of the jury. He denied any involvement in carrying out or planning the Wonderland murders, but he did confess. to ordering his gang to go to the home and get back what was stolen from him, which may have inadvertently led to the slings. He pleaded guilty to money laundering and drug trafficking. And to me, that's pretty much a sweetheart deal. You know, $250,000 is a lot of money to most of us. But, you know, if you're a big time drug dealer, he probably had millions.

and if your sentence includes time served. You know, how big of a deal is that for him? Yeah, we talked about John Holmes getting away with things and slipping through the cracks and not having any serious time. And we can say the same thing about Eddie Nash at the end of the day. And nobody was really held accountable for these murders of these people. John Holmes' first wife, Sharon, passed away on October 28, 2012. On August 9th, 2014, 85-year-old Eddie Nash passed away. Though no one has officially been found responsible for the Wonderland murders,

essentially this case is considered closed. Detective Tom Lang told the LA Times, there is no mystery because we know who is involved and we know why. And I think that quote right there by Detective Tom Lang kind of sums it all up. But it's also what makes this case so frustrating. A lot of cases have a top. ton of mystery. And there still is some mystery here in this one. But I think by and large, most people believe that they, they kind of know what happened. It's just that authorities

weren't able to bring those responsible to justice. And it's pretty hard when you have defendants bribing jurors. One of the things that, you know, I want to go back to is Eddie admitting that he sent his gang to the home, but it was only to get back what was stolen from him and him saying that, well, it could have inadvertently led to the slang. I thought that was a very interesting statement. You know, basically, I didn't send my guys there to kill them, but they could have killed them in the process of getting my stuff back. Is that really believable? We talked about the fact that, you know, they most likely had metal pipes. They took a hammer. It seems to me that they had a plan to go in there and kill everyone inside while making the least amount of noise possible.

Yeah, his argument is, well, if I sent them there to get my stuff back and stump them went haywire and these murders happen as a result, I don't have any knowledge of that. But then isn't it the case that if you participate in a crime that leads to somebody being murdered, that you are an accessory. So, you know, he sort of has it both ways. But then again, he's been sent to court for this murder. And he was acquitted of the charges. So he could technically come out and say, yeah, I ordered them to go there and I had them killed, but he still denied it at this point. Yeah, it just doesn't seem all that believable to me. And I don't think it does to a lot of people. I referenced Boogie Knights earlier, and that movie starring Mark Wahlberg and the main character,

Dirk Diggler, were heavily inspired by John Holmes. And in the movie Wonderland, loosely based on the murders, Val Kilmer played John Holmes. Both good movies. It's clear that John Holmes, despite his personal problems and his share of illegal activities, remains a legend in the world of adult entertainment and his life and experiences were interesting enough to make movies about. And I think that's one of the things you see in film. You don't have to be a good person to have a movie made about you.

You can actually be a really bad person. You just have to have the notoriety and an interesting set of circumstances surrounding a particular incident or really just your entire life. You know, you think about Al Capone. I mean, you can go on and on about movies who are made about really bad people that others find very fascinating. But as we wrap this one up, I do think John Holmes is an interesting character. You know, you have the adult film star aspect.

And then you have all of these really kind of, to my way of thinking, horrible things that this guy did from the grooming of a 15 year old girl and all of the kind of nightmarish things that I think he did to dawn, the drugs, the participation to whatever extent in the Wonderland murders. I think it's the reason why people are so fascinated by this story because John Holmes wasn't this unknown person. He was a pardon the pun larger than life figure. And I think that makes it even more interesting to people that this guy was well known. And it's kind of like a fall from grace story. And I think a lot of people that still think he was involved in these murders or think he was a dirt bag, slimeball, whatever you want to call him. A lot of them think that not just because he was an adult entertainer, an adult movie actor, I'm sure there are good people in the industry that would never do these bad things that

we're talking about, but it's because of what he did, the controlling sexual abuse of Don at a young age, for example, the control he took over her, were saying. her to do things she didn't want to do, holding her against her will, making her do sex work, and then building up to being involved in all these violent crimes. I think that's what ultimately, people that have a disdain for John Holmes have that disdain because of all these things, not because of his adult film career. Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, I'm obviously there are people who don't agree with those type of films, but I don't think, John Holmes was a bad guy because he went into that line of work. I personally don't care about that.

It's all the other stuff he did to me that makes him a bad guy. And let's not forget continuing to perform in roles after he knew he had contracted HIV. And we have no idea how many people he affected by doing that. And some would make. make the argument that sleeping with someone having sexual relations with them when you know their HIV positive and not disclosing that could be construed as attempted murder. I don't know the ins and outs of that law, but it seems like a very good case could be made for that. And if that's the case, then how many more people could he have potentially been charged with

trying to harm? Well, not only that, but how many people did he harm? did people die as a result of his actions. And I don't know if we fully know that, but it's quite possible. So at the end of the day, I just don't think he was a good guy. I really don't. We don't know the full extent of everything he did, but he obviously was not a good guy. And it makes me wonder what his life path might have been had he not had that supposed

a chance encounter with the guy in the urinal in the bathroom, what might he have done had he, would he have gone down a similar path anyway? And that just sort of elevated that, those choices. We just don't know. Well, and I think those are, you know, interesting exercises. You know, if he doesn't get into the adult film business, does he then not get into drugs the way he did? and therefore he doesn't make some of the bad decisions. You don't know that, but you can definitely debate it. But that's it for our episode on the Wonderland murders. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating.

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criminology podcast, discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.