Hed been with three governors, two of their wives and one senator, who was really a freak., Holmes said he owned ten different businesses, that he was a gourmet cook, that he had written twenty-nine books, including a how-to manual combining cooking and sex. Youd be left in a room for hours, and then youd be called in. Sharing the house with Miller and DeVerell was Ronald Launius, 37. Everybody at the hotel got to know us, Jeana says. He wanted me to view his body and make sure that all the parts were there, says Laurie. On October 25, 1994, Susan Smith told . The motive is not suspected to be robbery as his diamond ring and watch were found on the body. Then she ran into a woman preaching fire and brimstone on a corner. These are my tools, I use them to make a living. You could walk up, whisper something in his ear, and hed make it available. Pin on Wonderland Murders - Pinterest The couple ended up in Miami, at a small run-down hotel on Collins Avenue. . Can religion save us from Artificial Intelligence? Here's Where To Maximize The View (And Snap A Great Picture), A Los Angeles Family Seeks Answers And Accountability After Black Mom Dies In Childbirth, A Brief History Of Why It Does Occasionally Snow In LA. Jewelry stores, convenience stores, private homes they would try anything, as long as it meant money or drugs. Remarks by neighbors in the trendy, secluded area above the Sunset Strip and court records revealed the occupants of the stucco house on Wonderland Avenue lived in Southern California's 'fast lane' -- a lifestyle surrounded by drugs, flashy cars and trouble with police. Hed say, Count this. Were talking $56,000 in two boots.. Susan Launius - Remote Medical Transcriptionist - LinkedIn 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. He could not be reached for comment on the killings. 'We have interviewed her but we're not going to say anything about it.'. Holmes, meanwhile, had gone back to making films. Edward Sutter Obituary (1919 - 2012) - Millstadt, IL - Belleville News Where are you calling from? Get the fuck out of here! he screamed. Laurie worked as a secretary. ''Wonderland,'' directed by James Cox, is part of a curious, somewhat unsavory subgenre of movies that involve washed-up, sort-of-famous people and death by bludgeoning. Now he never went anywhere without his brown Samsonite briefcase. Survivor under guard as star witness Death in the Fast Lane At night, she baby-sat for David and Karen. Two customers waited. She reached up and took Johns chin in her hand, turned his head side to side. The complex had ten free-standing cabana apartments, built around a courtyard. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click He said that (Nash) told him if he ever talked to the police that (Nash) would kill someone in his family. The detective added that Holmes said he was there when the murders happened, but that he himself did not hurt anyone.. His surgery wouldnt heal up, either. but who will buy LA's Los Feliz Murder House? - The Independent But I had no reason to confront her. Finally he came out and said, You know what? British bus driver stops to give loose sheep a lift. At the house, Holmes told his wife, Nash pored over Holmes address book, and stopped when he came to the pages that listed addresses in Ohio, where Holmes was born and where his mother and other relatives still lived. He cooked coke all night long. There were seven of them meeting in the house on Wonderland Avenue, a jaundiced stucco box on a steep, winding road in the hills above Hollywood. I wouldnt want to be operated on in San Quentin Prison, Ricks said sympathetically. Youre going to get hurt. I suspect that Launius may have been involved in other violent crimes. Even Near The Hollywood Sign, Authorities ID Man Arrested In Killing Of LA Auxiliary Bishop David O'Connell As Husband Of Housekeeper, Another Missing Hiker Has Been Found Dead In San Gabriels As Search For Actor Julian Sands Continues. We moved around a lot because the rent kept going up. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/430cdk/four_bloody_unsolved_wonderland_murders/. Ive waited outside that house. There was a security system at the house. Ill have them on their knees! Nash ranted to Thorson. During one special engagement, Thorson danced with the Rockettes. Now, home early from her office, Sharon left her purse in the foyer, squeaked down the hall on white rubber soles to the bathroom of their one-bedroom apartment in Glendale. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people living and working in L.A. who have never given thought to writing a screenplay. ", Woman wins $100,000 lottery prize 11 hours after $11,000 casino jackpot. He had a slight build, a pockmarked face, a record of thirteen arrests. Shed gotten a job at a nursing home and was paying her mom rent, trying to rebuild her life. We had a big fight. Holmes was wearing a ring that had been stolen from the boss. For the first few months, while she was in Oregon with her mother, Jeana had refused to take Holmess calls. Copyright 2023 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Will Dominion-Fox News lawsuit be different? The car was on the other side of Santa Monica Boulevard, across six lanes of traffic. When we came back, the door was locked, says Jeana. A girl from the dorm recommended him. If somebody fucked with him. Nash would kill him and his family if he talked, he was certain of it. He invested in movies, leased office space to several porn-related operations. Detectives said they had talked to Susan Murphy Launius, 29, at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, where she is in critical condition with gashes in her head and neck. It was a strange and violent time and men wore double-breasted suits and snap-brim Fedoras. John and Jeana painted the Malibu gray with a red top. Recently, however, Holmess biggest commodity had been trouble. 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. On the day of the robbery Holmes still hadnt come back. Diles leveled a gun at his head. 5 Questions Every Manager Needs to Ask Their Direct Reports See that car over there? There wasnt any trouble. Edward SutterEdward Robert Sutter, 93, of Millstadt, Ill., born March 26, 1919, in Millstadt, Ill., passed away Tuesday, June 26, 2012, at the Columbia Rehab . It's a yellow - sometimes green - vehicle with four tires and a Middle Eastern man behind the wheel. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. Two years later, Ricks was ordered held against his will for psychiatric observation. 'I was laying down on the bed. Jeana was scared to death. When the cops got to his hotel, Holmes was there. Susan Boyle: my relief at discovering that I have Asperger's Hed never met them, but he had, through Holmes, given them a $1,000 loan. He wasnt specific, but it really didnt matter anyway. They opened the security gate, and the four of us went up the stairs, and when the door opened, they forced their way inside. . The Story Of The Gruesome And Unsolved Wonderland Murders - All That's He lost his virginity at age twelve to a thirty-six-year-old woman who was a friend of his mothers. He was frozen. In truth, Holmes was operated on for hemorrhoids. And like the leading men of yesteryear, what was known of him was mostly myth. 1947 was a pivotal year in L.A.'s history. His old friend was happy to pick them up. Take care of him, Sharon said. Drawings of the dog, of me. Every time you read something, they say its a big mystery. When VCX cut off Holmess salary, Amerson put up money to start Penguin Productions. The lone survivor of a bloody attack at a - UPI Archives I won't do an extensive write-up of the Wonderland Murders, as they've been written about on here before: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/430cdk/four_bloody_unsolved_wonderland_murders/. The Starwood, on Santa Monica Boulevard, featured cutting-edge rock & roll. That first time, we didnt get to work together, says Laurie, but we were attracted. Prioritizing employee development. DeVerell, Launius and McCourt, all heroin addicts, were out cold. Eruption, a porn remake of Double Indemnity. The master, the giver of hospitality. He panicked, walked in circles around the doctors office, threw his briefcase down. Sellers had no particular plan; Glendale sounded just fine. He and Sharon settled into a strange hybrid of domesticity. In the face of a drier future, that iconic piece of Americana is on its way out in Southern California. Based on the material given to us by John Holmes (for the book), that version of the facts is not an accurate one, Eisenman said. . On Christmas Day 1980, hed even presented Jeana. In the end, both Diles and Nash went to jail. John said he felt like he was chosen to get AIDS because of who he was, how he lived. Learn more about merges. He was also a drug dealer and a heavy user. Soon after, the courtship of Jeana began. We will review the memorials and decide if they should be merged. 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. His gay clubs were the first in L.A. to allow same-sex dancing. Earthquakes are sudden and arrive without warning, unless you monitor the USGS earthquake maps on the web every day - which I do. Another woman who had a lengthy intimate relationship with Holmes told The Times recently of a separate, parallel admission made by the actor shortly after the killings, an account she gave to police in 1981. That version of the story, Sharon Holmes said, is fiction. Ive been expecting you, he said. Holmes refused to testify. An Interview with Bren Brown - Quiet Now her husband fixed her with a long stare. That house, she thought. We want to talk to you about Eddie Nash, said McClain. The three went back to Sharons house. Then he sold shoes, furniture, Fuller brushes door-to-door. Holmes thought Nash was the most evil man hed ever met, but he couldnt quite figure him out, so he respected him. Just blood. In 1973, in Yuba City, CA, Ron Launius and associate Carroll Evan Sherrill had taken some "bad dope" and Ron confronted another associate, Gary James Moore, whom he accused of being a "snitch" or informant. I used to be a Web Developer in the Newsroom, now I spend my time in coffee shops researching murder. Its business.. She hadnt heard from him in, what, six months? Here's Why It's Especially Dangerous To Hike SoCal Mountains Right Now, How 4 Words Upended A University's Journalism Program, And Stirred A Reckoning Over Race, What A Popular Yoga Teacher's Descent Into Conspiracy Theories Says About The 'Wellness To QAnon Pipeline', Ancient Lung Disease Strikes Countertop Cutters In LA, The Groundbreaking Suicide Squad That Tested Early Rockets And Flirted With The Occult. Now it was midnight in the parking lot at the Safeway in Glendale. Holmes wouldnt tell. Los Angeles is often stereotyped as a hard place to find personal connections and make friends. At midnight, the Wonderland people scraped together $400, and Holmes, whose pretense for entrance would be buying drugs, drove off to Nashs house. Holmes' Confession in Bathtub: Told Wife of Role in 4 Murders Along the way, in Colorado, Mr. Holmes let his hair grow, started wearing three-piece suits. Someone held a gun to my head. His black club was like a Hollywood Harlem, jazz and pinkie rings and wide-brimmed straw hats. Then, says Laurie, the third time I went up there, he came up to me with the mirror and said, You want a hit? and I turned to him and said no. When I got out, he said, Lets go, and we drove toward home. In a way Eddie would assess you on what you took or didnt take., In early 1981, Nashs second wife the mother of his two sons, aged eight and five filed for a protection order against Nash. The poor girl was emaciated, Sharon says. He looked shocked. No one but Holmes has ever been charged in the murder case. Behind him was his partner, Mac McClain. Firefighters hoist horse stranded in backyard swimming pool. Launius is also known to have been an associate of Horace McKenna, a former CHP officer and strip club/nightclub owner with connections to prostitution, drug-smuggling, and gambling in the L.A. area. Aftermath Lind and McCourt were both away from the scene at the time of the murders, so they were able to survive unharmed. 'When you're talking about the star witness in a case like this I think you can safely assume that we've got her pretty well guarded,' a pllice spokesman said. Please enter a valid Memorial ID. I think L.A. should be broken up into a series of counties so we have better choices. He made films nonstop, and he took eighty to ninety telephone calls a day. I called up and said I had some things for the people inside and to let me up. Susan Goldberg, MBA Expand search. I said, John, how could you? John was into Save the Whales. You cant do this to me, he said. Ron Launius had an extensive criminal history before coming to a bloody end. Jeana was doing freebase too, almost every night. Launius' years of operation: 1972-1973 (after he returned from Asia and before prison), 1978-1981. How do other people see you? At the moment that Diles barged through the door with Holmes in tow, Thorson was with Eddie in his bedroom, doing hits. She was twenty, an army brat. He wanted to be the Arab man in his tent. He was involved in one murder and a suspect in at least one more. She was the sole survivor of the attack - suffering severe head injuries, amnesia, and a severed finger. Then he left.. I will kill your whole family! He thought one porn person in the family was enough, she says. And (that they) made him watch.. With Holmes, it was like he was center stage and the lights and the camera were on, says a detective who was present. [5] Barbara Richardson [ edit] Dismiss. He sounded a lot like Eddie Haskell on Leave It to Beaver and bore some resemblance to the actor who played him. You talk to Nash, whatever, you tell him you got to take a piss. Nash told a friend that he missed the moonlight and the olive trees of his homeland, that hed spent time in a refugee camp, that his brother-in-law was shot by Israeli soldiers. I trusted you! He never went home again. He stroked us, jacked us around. 22nd Emmys Golf Classic. His legs and feet would swell up, his ears would bleed, he had infections in his lungs. Everyone there was on some kind of slide. 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. April Valentine died at Centinela Hospital. Jeana leaned out the window, and they hugged. Sherrill confessed to the murder some years later. He thinks Im famous.. Holmes started in the business around 1968, a time when porn was just beginning to surface from the underground of peep shows and frat houses into mainstream acceptance. Why did you choose to publish the book on Lulu.com. He received a bachelor's degree in chemistry and mathematics from Emory . Remember me?. Jeana packed her bag, gathered up Thor, put Johns gun in her pocketbook. All of them! After a while, the news. It was a big ordeal for him, says Laurie. You sure about this, donkey dick? asked Tracy McCourt, the gangs wheelman. (Taken from Wikipedia on Wonderland Murders). Hey, its cool, said John Holmes, 36, the man with the plan. Ricks cited Nashs need for delicate surgery to remove a sinus tumor. She actually saw it. On his sixteenth birthday, Holmes joined the army. Anywhere on Los Feliz Boulevard adjacent to Griffith Park. Now, as McCourt turned right, off Laurel Canyon Boulevard onto Dona Pegita, he saw Holmes driving back toward them. Your tax-deductible financial support keeps our stories free to read, instead of hidden behind paywalls. I played in the water. I was involved. I tried to shut his eyes like in the movies, but they wouldnt stay shut., Holmes didnt want a funeral, but he did have a last wish. His lawyer lent him a Volkswagen Beetle and $100, and Holmes showed up at his friend Amersons house. Most people find it hard to believe, but I'm an introvert. This anecdote right there tells me that Launius has a body count. Rodger Jacobs is an author, journalist, documentary producer, blogger and familiar gadfly in the LA blogosphere. Launius' estranged wife, Susan, who was visiting, survived the assault but suffered severe head injuries. Then, in the summer of 1985, John tested positive for AIDS. We were really broke. She had two daughters, had once been married to a Beverly Hills attorney. Each time, Nash made bail. Holmes was one of the greats in the business. She came to the farm to find out if a certain man was with me. wikipedia.en/Wonderland_murders.md at main chinapedia/wikipedia.en Then one day Harold threw John down the stairs and came after him. This was it. 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. Hed come home from one of his movie premires, take off his boots, peel down his socks and take out a wad of large bills. Holmes was stealing luggage off conveyers at L.A. International, buying appliances with his wifes credit cards, fencing them for cash. By May, Jeana began taking his calls. Tell the cops what they want to know, cause otherwise Johns going to be dead in a few days. Nash was a drug dealer and a heavy user. Susan Launius was severely beaten in her bed, but she narrowly survived, albeit with amnesia, head injuries, and the loss of a finger. 10 Dec 2013. For like three weeks, one of us had to be awake at all times. Everything from Volkswagens to a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. His bodyguard, Gregory De Witt Diles, was a karate expert and convicted felon who weighed a blubbery 300 pounds. Are you awake? Holmess eyelids fluttered. He seems like he was a crazy fucker. The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time One day in 1970, Holmes met Hawaiian producer Bob Chinn. Nobody had gotten it yet, but it was still in the back of our minds. An ex-convict whod served time for burglary, forgery and assault to commit rape, Lind had been invited to town, he would later tell a court, to practice his profession, committing crimes. The final victim was Barbara Richardson, 22, Sacramento, Calif. Court records revealed that a codefendant in Miss Miller's narcotics case was John 'Ricco' Vlick, 53, who lives in a wood-shingled house only two blocks from the scene of the killings. Not only did the Black Dahlia murder occur in '47 but the town was full of soldiers returning from the war with scarred psyches. susan launius interview american airlines core competencies June 21, 2022. the most poisonous snake in the world . In court testimony years later, he would say, in answer to this and many other questions, I dont recall. Sharon looked at him. She tells them (in a near comatose state) that she does not remember anything. There was a telephone at the entrance, an electronic deadbolt on the gate, two pit bulls sleeping on the steps. Dead were Joy Miller, Billy DeVerell, Ron Launius, Barbara Richardson. According to one eyewitness, Diles once chased a man out of the Kit Kat and emptied his .38 revolver into the mans car. When Amerson raised their rent to $400, they got their own place in Encino. Nash and Holmes had met three years earlier at the Seven Seas. He called some people, and they said, Well help you out. But wed never get the money they promised., On January 24th, 1988, John and Laurie were married in the Little Chapel of the Flowers, in Las Vegas. Later, in the Sixties, the canyon attracted writers and artists, rock stars and gurus. Edward, a carpenter, was an alcoholic. Now, in the breakfast nook, a tall, gaunt man with curly hair and a sparse beard pointed to the floor plan he had sketched. The day after the robbery, someone who knew Nash apparently spotted Holmes in Hollywood, wearing a piece of jewelry that had been stolen from Nashs home, he told his wife. Go!. It was dark, and there wasnt any traffic. He was freebasing one hit of coke every ten or fifteen minutes, swallowing forty to fifty Valium a day to cut the edge. 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. Launius' wife, Susan Launius, survived the attack, which is shocking given the crime scene photos and video. Jewelry, wads of money. Once, he rammed his own hand into a harvesting machine. Susan Launius, who lay wounded with severe head injuries for hours before being discovered in the house by neighbors last July 1, testified during Holmes' preliminary hearing that she could. Holmes talked a while, looked Jeana up and down. March 2 (UPI) -- A Maryland woman scored a $100,000 prize from a scratch-off lottery ticket less than 12 hours after she scored an $11,000 jackpot at a casino. I come back to Wonderland. It was really nice. A subreddit dedicated to the unresolved mysteries of the world. After seven years, the district attorney was reopening the Wonderland case, based, in part, on testimony from Scott Thorson, Liberaces ex-lover. Now they had another idea. He knew he was dying. Ron Launius was born in 1944 in Shawneetown, IL. During the day, she worked in a nursing home. But the new accounts cast doubt on the story Holmes told a biographer before his death March 13. She didnt have any money. Jeana dropped out of Glendale High School. . 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. Liberace called him Booper, treated him like a son, a lover, a pet. Too bad youre so young, he said finally, then left. Then came the late-night news. Done. By June, she was thinking, Well, Im not doing anything here. On June 27th, two days before the robbery at Nashs, she flew to Los Angeles. Sharons first act was to move Jeana out of Karen and Davids and into a garage apartment in the complex. It is such a quintessential L.A. story of the 80s: drugs, sex, excess, night clubs, gangsters, and porn stars. His drug of choice was freebase, home-cooked crack cocaine, and he was smoking it at the rate of two to three ounces a day. His attorney told reporters that hed changed his mind because of certain arrangements that had been made and certain circumstances that had arisen. In your opinion, what's the best alternate route to the 405? Caring about employees. Her lover was Billy DeVerell. Major General William E. Overacker is chief of staff, Headquarters Military Airlift Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill. General Overacker was born in Cleveland. Then hed swallow a few Quaaludes and return. Names of mobsters, drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps. Memorial has already been merged. to tell them who it was, Sharon Holmes said. John Holmes, who was tried for and acquitted of the crimes, never told his wife the names of the assailants, she said. Hours passed, John woke. 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. He dunked his head, put a steaming washcloth over his face. John was carrying two suitcases when he met her. Her husband watched from the closet. A pimp tried to pick her up. Holmes drove to Nashs again to make sure the sliding door was still open. In 1960 he opened a hot-dog stand on Hollywood Boulevard. He told us everything initially, right after it happened. Your mother? How long have you lived in Los Angeles, and which neighborhood do you live in? Anyway, Launius, Billy Deverell, and David Lind were robbing a ritzy house in L.A. COOPER: (Reading) And when the new year's sunshine . You know, when you were sleeping? By Steve Helling. I had to take them there., I took them there. He took over the kitchen. Nash knew the Wonderland people. She even had to have part of her skull surgically removed as a result of her injuries. Susan Flores, the mother of Paul Flores, the sheriff's prime suspect in the investigation into the disappearance of Kristin Smart, spoke to KSBY News on Tuesday for her first-ever media interview.
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