Too bad youre so young, he said finally, then left. Thats probably why he always came back. Holmes was to run it. Go!. In high school, Holmes said, he slept with all but three girls in his class. A California cop called him "one of the coldest people I ever met." The house at 8763 Wonderland rented for $750 a month.. Usually, they smoked freebase and had sex. In the late Seventies, Los Angeles police averaged twenty-five drug busts a month at the Starwood. Youd be left in a room for hours, and then youd be called in. Jailers said other inmates were giving him candy bars. In the car were De Verell, Launius, McCourt and a man named David Lind, a friend of Launiuss. It was Thursday, July 2nd, 1981. By the mid-Seventies, Ed Nasrallah had become Eddie Nash and had amassed a fortune. Another officer commented, upon hearing of Launius' death, "I suppose they won't need many pall bearers". Only Launius' wife Susan survived the attack, allegedly masterminded by organized crime figure and nightclub owner Eddie Nash. Launius' wife, Susan Murphy, also claimed that she and Launius were involved in a drug deal gone wrong in Mexico in 1972 or '73, during which she was taken hostage but saved by her husband when he killed her captors. There was a lot of screaming going on, Holmes told his wife. She was later unable to identify her attackers. Finally he said, Ive got to tell you Ive been doing something else, and I think I want to make it my lifes work.. Frequently he brought him girls. There was a lot of traffic, all day, all night, says a neighbor. Dismiss. Are you awake? Holmess eyelids fluttered. A pimp tried to pick her up. Read 'The Shortest Day' To Celebrate The Winter Solstice : NPR From then, wrote Schuyler, in a letter to a judge many years later, Ed Nasrallah began a courtship that was as old-fashioned as they come. Eruption, a porn remake of Double Indemnity. Susan Lanius (unlucky) wife of Ron Lanius played by Christina Applegate in the movie Wonderland. Hed underestimated Nash once, but hed never do it again. According to one eyewitness, Diles once chased a man out of the Kit Kat and emptied his .38 revolver into the mans car. Two years later, Ricks reduced Nashs sentence to time served, and Nash was released. After that I was his.. He also renovated the house, outdoing himself in the master bathroom, recreating a backwoods outhouse, complete with a quarter-moon cutout, a shingled roof over the bathtub and a rough-hewn box around the commode. He thought, Well, if Im going to take a chance, thats enough. . We want to talk to you about Eddie Nash, said McClain. We were like a normal couple. After his release, Nash told a friend that jail had saved his life. Nancy J. Kraft, nee Launius, 69, of Smithton, Illinois, born Friday, August 4, 1939, in East Saint Louis, IL, died Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at Memorial Hospital in Belleville, IL. Its time, Holmes said, and then he smiled and raised his fist. By the time Johns half brother was born, John was spending most of his time in the woods, hunting, trapping, fishing, staying away from Harold. When I got out, he said, Lets go, and we drove toward home. These are my tools, I use them to make a living. Not since she was home. The murderers were brought to justice. Dismiss. Soon after, Detectives Lange and McClain called the hospital. Jeana was doing freebase too, almost every night. Like all porn actors, John had been paid per day and had signed away the rights to his own films. With the release the same year of The Devil in Miss Jones and Behind the Green Door, porn became part of popular culture. He came in, sat on a couch. Police sources said Vlick, who is charged with plssessing drugs and stolen property, is a 'fringe guy' in organized crime circles. It was amazing, the haphazard way in which people would come and go. I'm comfortable speaking to 2,000 people about my work, but drop me into a cocktail party with 50 people, and I'm lost. His voice had a smooth Arabic lilt. I come back to Wonderland. He has just published his latest project about one of Los Angeles's most well known murder cases in the 80s. She came to the farm to find out if a certain man was with me. signs you are both hiding your feelings. 'I was laying down on the bed. Ten inches long! When he got out of jail, Holmes was jubilant. We sat on the rocks, the moon was just right. He invested in movies, leased office space to several porn-related operations. Los Angeles is often stereotyped as a hard place to find personal connections and make friends. John looked down at Sharon. John Holmes, who was tried for and acquitted of the crimes, never told his wife the names of the assailants, she said. Wed have dinner with other people at the hotel, go to movies. This is Susan Launius. The jury found him innocent. After a preliminary hearing in January 1989, at which Thorson, among others, testified, Nash and Diles were bound over for trial this summer; they are currently being held without bail in the Los Angeles County Jail. There was one hitch. There were two-way mirrors in the bedroom, anything you wanted would be made available. They were always looking for an opportunity. I believe I was watching TV and it seems like a bunch of people were coming in and out,' Mrs. Launius said. On his sixteenth birthday, Holmes joined the army. Edward, a carpenter, was an alcoholic. By the time it was released, in 1987, Holmess health had already begun to slide. Everybody was down there. Its the cops.. During recesses in the trial, Nash would go out to his car and smoke freebase. He could repair anything, liked sketching and working in clay. Wearing jewel-bedecked livery, he would chauffeur Liberace onto the stage in a glittering mini-Rolls-Royce open the door, take his masters fur coat. They came from across the countryalthough the Washington, D.C. area was noticeably over-representedas well as from Canada and England, and, in at least one case, all the way from Nazi Germany. Jeana Sellers (not her real name) arrived in Holmess life in 1976. The man who owned the house was named Adel Nasrallah. Sharon was a nurse at USC County General, working on a team that was pioneering open-heart surgery. Under Review. It was Sunday evening and the drugs were gone, the money was gone, the situation was desperate. Thorson, who was waiting to be sentenced on a drug-related armed robbery, had sought a deal with police. On their first date, hed brought a bottle of Mateus and a handful of flowers. One on One Interview with Manson Follower Susan Atkins - YouTube At Christmas, they decorated it with colored lights. We have lots of information about Suzanne: religious views are listed as Christian, ethnicity is Caucasian, and political affiliation is currently a registered Republican. This means absolutely nothing to me. His bodyguard, Gregory De Witt Diles, was a karate expert and convicted felon who weighed a blubbery 300 pounds. That we were on the right track, that this is indeed what had happened, that this was the motivation, that this was how it came down. It was really nice. . One of the customers was Scott Thorson. . Would Jeana want to be the live-in baby sitter? Early in 1983, Holmes was shooting Fleshpond at a studio in San Francisco. Thorson had driven from Lake Tahoe to score from Nash. He stayed in there like three hours, and Im just sitting there, you know, twiddling my thumbs. She was nowhere to be found. For the next three days, John, Jeana and Sharon were held in protective custody in a luxury hotel in downtown Los Angeles. She was moving to a house. What does the print-on demand delivery system offer over other, similar systems like iUniverse.com? Hed been in jail eleven months in all, 110 days on the contempt charge. 26th Hall of Fame. He said he was told he would be killed and people in the book would be killed if (Holmes) didnt do what (Nash) wanted. He wanted me to view his body and make sure that all the parts were there, says Laurie. This anecdote right there tells me that Launius has a body count. He had set it up with the other people, the people that lived at Wonderland. He was held in the county jail for contempt. Inside Susan Smith's Life in Prison After Drowning Kids - Peoplemag Minnesota officer removes jar from raccoon's head. german apple cake recipe milk street. LOS ANGELES -- The lone survivor of the massacre of four people in the swank Laurel Canyon home of an attractive blonde woman suspected of dealing in drugs was under a 24-hour hospital guard Friday as the star witness in the case. ', Nash is said to have had political, police and crime connections. On the morning of June 29, 1981, four men who lived at the Wonderland Avenue address entered Nashs house through a sliding glass door that had been left ajar by Holmes, according to trial testimony. Reportedly, at the time of his death,[3] police investigators throughout California, largely in the Sacramento area, had 27 open homicide cases they believed were perpetrated by Launius. 'I was laying down on the bed. arcane traps mousehunt; digital readout for sliding table saw Sherrill confessed to the murder some years later. You want me to call the press?. But Detective Tom Lange of the Los Angeles Police Department, the lead investigator on the case, said, There is no mystery, because we know who is involved and we know why. Coroner Thomas Noguchi said early autopsy results on the bodies found Wednesday -- 12 hours after the neighbors ignored the screams for mercy -- indicated the victims had been beaten to death. He excused himself, left the room and unlocked the sliding door. Id usually fall asleep on the couch.. Nash shut the bedroom door. According to legend largely of his own making Holmes was born in New York and lived with a rich aunt whod been married fifteen times. But Holmes kept calling. He had the biggest pile of coke Id ever seen in my entire life, says Jeana. His words to me were Friends can get you killed. We were very careful. He was prepared to testify that Eddie Nash had sent Holmes and Diles to Wonderland Avenue and that Nash felt responsible for the bloody mess that resulted. On weekends they went to swap meets and yard sales. Susan Boyle: my relief at discovering that I have Asperger's His old friend was happy to pick them up. Some were quite attractive. Jeana stood up, moved closer to the tube. Jeana was afraid to look at John. In a recent interview with The Times, Sharon Holmes, who divorced the late actor in 1984, described for the first time the story her husband told her less than three weeks after the July 1 killings. Jeana packed her bag, gathered up Thor, put Johns gun in her pocketbook. At home, Nash walked around in a maroon silk robe, or sometimes in bikini briefs, his body covered with a thin sheen of sweat. Holmes broke into cars along the way. Drawings of the dog, of me. Hed made all these people millions and millions of dollars. Here he is, he has two women with him. He was freebasing one hit of coke every ten or fifteen minutes, swallowing forty to fifty Valium a day to cut the edge. All his lawyers I think he had maybe six or seven working on different things all his managers, employees, customers, everyone, would come to him. 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More from Medium For years, a Boy Hung a Photo on his Bedroom. Gov. Go back to that house! The aunt sent him to fencing school, dancing school, a school of etiquette. The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time Lt. Ron Lewis discounted speculation that the slayings could be 'random killings' such as the Tate-LaBianca murders committed by the Manson Family in 1969. The case against Holmes was built largely on two pieces of evidence: An admission that Holmes allegedly made to Los Angeles Police Detective Frank Tomlinson after his arrest in Miami in December, 1981, and a bloody palm print left by Holmes on the rail of a bed on which one of the victims, drug dealer Ronald Launius, died. McKenna was murdered in 1989 when ambushed while returning home in his limousine; his killer sprayed bullets into the vehicle, killing McKenna. He beat the shit out of me, then walked back up to the room. The attack was allegedly masterminded by organized crime figure Juan Nel 8kfollowers More information Removing Bodies From Wonderland- This Day in History: Jul 1,1981: The Wonderland murders Murder Stories John Holmes Forensic Psychology Laurel Canyon Unsolved Serial Killers True Crime A look at the notorious convicted murderer's life in prison after she drowned her two sons in 1994. (Wikipedia article on Wonderland Murders). There wasnt any trouble. The Four on the Floor Wonderland Murders True Crime He invited them in for coffee. Blond and bearded, Launius had served federal time for drug smuggling. He introduced him to all his guests. I just didnt like what he was doing.. But Deputy District Attorney Ronald Coen said the prosecution would not attempt to prove Holmes actually killed the victims but was an accessory to the crime. Hey, its cool, said John Holmes, 36, the man with the plan. She was an associate of the Wonderland Gang, hanging around the Wonderland apartment, where she was savagely beaten by criminals with lead pipes on the night of 1 July 1981. DeVerell, Launius and McCourt, all heroin addicts, were out cold. He was dying. This would lead, in the mid-Seventies, to Holmess most successful role, as Johnny Wadd, the hard-boiled detective, porns parody of Sam Spade. His surgery wouldnt heal up, either. A sunny room in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sepulveda, California. Later, in the Sixties, the canyon attracted writers and artists, rock stars and gurus. He was supposed to be doing sales and preproduction, writing and editing, in addition to acting. Sharon always knew when he was lying. For like three weeks, one of us had to be awake at all times. Amerson says Holmes spent most of his time playing cards and shooting darts. He made films nonstop, and he took eighty to ninety telephone calls a day. John Holmes was famous, at least in some circles. She is the sole survivor of the brutal Wonderland attack the night of July 1, 1981; she suffered severe head injuries, amnesia, and a severed finger following the attack. Twenty minutes later, Holmes walked into the room. For the last several years, Nash had rarely left his white-stone ranch house in Studio City. They were living out of the trunk of his estranged wifes Chevy Malibu. Women asked him to deflower their daughters. A house on Wonderland Avenue. He lost his thumb and three fingers. 7 May 2013. The 100 Best Albums of 2022. Ill never forget that as long as I live, she said. Shed driven out from Miami with her father and younger sister. Launius' wife, Susan Murphy, also claimed that she and Launius were involved in a drug deal gone wrong in Mexico in 1972 or '73, during which she was taken hostage but saved by her husband when he killed her captors. LAist Interview: Rodger Jacobs | LAist He spent his early life in Tennessee and Georgia, and graduated from Spalding High School in Griffin, Ga. Dismiss. Holmes slept fitfully for a few hours, Sharon Holmes said, and moaned about blood and pain. The guest bedroom. Porn star John Holmes in 1981, shortly after four people were bludgeoned to death in what came to be known as the Wonderland Murders. Not long after, Launius, Sherrill, and another associate named Junior Ballard were arrested for smuggling heroin and pills across the Mexican border into the US. It was obvious from his comments that Ricks, a hard-liner, considered Eddie Nash a plague. So I told him everything, John said. Everything from Volkswagens to a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. Accident car um he stammered. Laurie was standing at the door when Lange and McClain appeared down the corridor. April Valentine died at Centinela Hospital. Laurie worked as a secretary. Hed say, Count this. Were talking $56,000 in two boots.. Let him scream? For a time, John Holmes was silent. Four inches around!, Thats great, said Sharon, turning a page of her magazine. Nash and Holmes had met three years earlier at the Seven Seas. . Youve got to be joking. When I refused, he said, Dont come back to California or I will have two men waiting at the airport to kill you, and I will have your parents killed. Her husband, Ron, 37, of the Topanga Canyon area of Los Angeles, was one of the victims. No one was injured. Her left leg is paralyzed because of the head injuries. He was involved in one murder and a suspect in at least one more. John eased into the tub. In time, the surgery was completed, and Thorson was made into a young vision of Liberace. Theyd sold a pound of baking soda for a quarter of a million dollars. At trial, his lawyer argued that the $1 million worth of coke was not for dealing, that it was strictly for personal use. Sports promoter Vic Weiss was found murdered in the trunk of his Rolls Royce in a Hollywood hotel parking lot in 1979. I wouldnt want to be operated on in San Quentin Prison, Ricks said sympathetically. His penis, when erect, according to legend, measured between eleven and fifteen inches in length. He felt like he was an example.. I believe that cocaine paranoia created within him the desire to stay within that closed environment that he had control over. When Holmes was eight, his mother married Harold, a manic-depressive who worked for the telephone company. The floor plan before them showed a three-bedroom, high-end tract house on a cul-de-sac in the San Fernando Valley. They made him beg for his life. He just stared. By 1978, Holmes was freebasing cocaine all the time. She hadnt heard from him in, what, six months? Will Dominion-Fox News lawsuit be different? His eyes were open, says Laurie, and it looked like he had looked up to Death and said, Here I am. It was the most peaceful look I ever saw in my life. YouTube: Susan Wojcicki, YouTube's chief executive and one of the most prominent women in Silicon Valley, is stepping down from her longtime role leading the internet's most popular video service. Launius' wife, Susan Launius, survived the attack. This is an archival story that predates current editorial management. SIMON: For more than 40 years, people have been reading and performing Susan Cooper's poem "The Shortest Day" to celebrate the winter solstice. House tossed by assailants. He looked very scared. She actually saw it. Editors picks It was owned by the pediatrician she worked for; she and Holmes lived rent-free in an adjacent house. He showed Chinn his portfolio of stills, then stripped. And like the leading men of yesteryear, what was known of him was mostly myth. The top story was something about a mass murder. I said yes. The setup, the robbery, Nashs threat to kill his whole family, Sharon included. myers park country club lawsuit; turkey hill frozen yogurt discontinued. The Wonderland Gang. Sharon had gone so far as to stop physical relations, but she couldnt bring herself to kick him out. Venice Beach boardwalk to the Santa Monica Pier. It had a pool and a sunken living room, a white stone faade. The three went back to Sharons house. So Holmes summoned his wife into the bathroom, drew steaming water into the tub, slipped in, and began to talk. Latinx Files: In praise of Jenna Ortega, Aubrey Plaza and moody, deadpan Latinas, Arizona governor wont proceed with execution set by court, Civilians flee embattled town of Bakhmut as Ukrainian pullout looms. When asked by Holmes' attorney what she remembered after that, she replied, 'nothing.'. He is from . A mother and daughter offered to help. Then came the late-night news. We have estimated Susan Launius's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets. In 1974, Sharon became the resident manager of a ten-unit apartment court in Glendale. Her new boss, a pediatrician, had shut down the office for the afternoon, and shed gone to the market, planned a special dinner for her husband. This is a man who pimped out his underage girlfriend to Eddie Nash in exchange for drugs and that's just the beginning of his sins. Jeana sat in the front seat, Thor in her arms. John was really sick by this point, says Laurie. She'd gone into the pregnancy with a plan, knowing Black mothers like herself were at higher risk. Shed gotten a job at a nursing home and was paying her mom rent, trying to rebuild her life. John continued making films for a while. They picked up a six-pack, went to a park, sat by a pond. Ill pick you up.. At the moment, on this evening of June 28th, 1981, Wonderland Avenue was quiet. Almost everything publicly known about porn king John Curtis Holmes is apocryphal, anecdotal, secondhand or informed by conjecture. When the cops got to his hotel, Holmes was there. The poor girl was emaciated, Sharon says. Room service. They threw brown bags of dope off the balcony. He was very possessive. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. This stuff makes me feel funny too. Sharon, a registered nurse, rummaged through a well-stocked medicine cabinet, brought out iodine and cotton swabs. Sellers had no particular plan; Glendale sounded just fine. After mustering out of the army, at age nineteen, Holmes went to work as an ambulance driver, and soon thereafter he met Sharon Gebenini. Also while in college, he said, he danced nude modern jazz ballet and drove an ambulance. I used to be a Web Developer in the Newsroom, now I spend my time in coffee shops researching murder. It's a yellow - sometimes green - vehicle with four tires and a Middle Eastern man behind the wheel. We cut him loose.. Sharon stood with arms crossed. In a career that would span twenty years, Holmes made 2274 hard-core pornographic films, had sex with 14,000 women. Holmes said hed had sex in airplanes, helicopters, trains, elevators, kitchens, bathrooms, on rooftops, in caves, storm cellars, bomb shelters in Europe, under a table in a restaurant filled with people, fifty feet underwater while wearing scuba gear. All Marriage & Divorce results for Ronnie Launius. Which movie about the entire John C. Holmes story accurately captures the Holmes milieu- "Wonderland" or "Boogie Nights" ? I loved the schmuck. When you met with Eddie, you met at his place, on his terms. He drove a forklift at a meatpacking plant in Cudahy until his lung collapsed from working in the freezer. He tried to think. It began, according to Thorsons book, Behind the Candelabra, when Liberace ordered him to have cosmetic surgery. Theyll never steal from anyone again!, Thorson was excused, and Nash closed the door. I knew the whole picture, says Sharon. . (John) was so much of a liar . What's your favorite movie(s) or TV show(s) that are based in LA? Blood! Nash was very upset. I had to take them there., I took them there. I said No and I meant it., Over the next year, Nasrallah brought her grape leaves, hummus, pots of Turkish coffee. He seems like he was a crazy fucker. Florida woman runs ultra-marathon distances for 23 consecutive days. The cops were calling it the Four on the Floor Murders. In your opinion, what's the best alternate route to the 405? DeVerell, 42, was also a heroin addict. All the sugar helped him come down. In the weeks before the killings, Coen told the jurors, Holmes ferried property stolen by the Wonderland Avenue gang to Nashs heavily secured home in Studio City, where he exchanged it for drugs. When VCX cut off Holmess salary, Amerson put up money to start Penguin Productions. When Amerson raised their rent to $400, they got their own place in Encino. Holmes was crumpled on the floor. . I've endured both earthquakes and hurricanes. A girl from the dorm recommended him. He greeted reporters, had dinner with his lawyer, then called Sharon. Jeana hung up the phone. Then she ran into a woman preaching fire and brimstone on a corner. Lets talk about your latest book, Long Time Money and Lots of Cocaine. Why did you package the transcript of John Holmes preliminary hearing in the Wonderland murders? They did hits off Eddies pipe, eyed the door. Holmes rolled down his window, McCourt rolled down his. We believe when reliable local reporting is widely available, the entire community benefits. Diles leveled a gun at his head. We went on twenty-four-hour watch. According to one Los Angeles law-enforcement official, Ed Nash was a very well-known figure in the Sixties around Hollywood with police, and it was never an antagonistic relationship.. This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR").

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