Holmes was one of the greats in the business. Miss Miller's shiny white 1969 Mercedes 280 SL was used to deliver narcotics to her customers, detectives said. One search of the premises yielded a cardboard box containing 4,000 counterfeit Quaaludes. He was sweet. The word in the industry was that he had colon cancer. Alex MurdaughCalled 'Family Annihilator' by Prosecution in Murder Trial. Holmes hired the sisters to do gardening around the complex. His body was recovered near Mount Islip. I called up and said I had some things for the people inside and to let me up. . Early in 1983, Holmes was shooting Fleshpond at a studio in San Francisco. 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. At 98, Bob Dole reckons with legacy of Trump, ponders future of GOP A bloody mess. only "shadows". 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 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. 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. A stairway, leading from the garage to the front door, was caged in iron. The lone survivor of a bloody attack at a - UPI Archives At 98 and facing cancer, Bob Dole reckons with legacy of Trump and ponders future of GOP. Though the movie, when it began to appear at theaters around the country, was branded as obscene and closed down almost everywhere it played, its producers contested the charges in the courts and eventually won. Nash was missing part of his sinus cavity, one of his lungs had been removed, and he had a steel plate in his head. They wanted to see Holmes. Sherrill confessed to the murder some years later. Theyd sold a pound of baking soda for a quarter of a million dollars. John Holmes didnt go to his grave with anything but a very bad case of AIDS. Can I come in?, They went to the bathroom. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. There was a lot of traffic, all day, all night, says a neighbor. Id usually fall asleep on the couch.. In your opinion, what's the best alternate route to the 405? Show your appreciation with the gift of Flickr Pro. She came to the farm to find out if a certain man was with me. In the summer of 1981, Sharon Holmes said, she and John Holmes were living together as the managers of a small Glendale apartment complex. Four bodies. Theres somebody out there who wants to kill me, Holmes told Sharon, his wife of 16 years. The Malibu was idling. What really cracks me up is people believe he was a dope dealer. master splinter death. By this time, Sharon had befriended Jeana. He stayed in there like three hours, and Im just sitting there, you know, twiddling my thumbs. Names of mobsters, drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps. Get my property! Wonderland murders | Historica Wiki | Fandom Another officer commented, upon hearing of Launius' death, "I suppose they won't need many pall bearers". 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. He tried to think. Dead were Joy Miller, Billy DeVerell, Ron Launius, Barbara Richardson. Holmes nodded his head, put out his cigarette, closed his eyes. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click The armed intruders robbed Nash and his 300-pound body guard, Gregory Diles, of $10,000, two plastic sacks of cocaine and other property. Holmes buzzed an outside intercom box and asked someone inside to let him in. 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. Mr. Now the police wanted Holmess testimony. Hed sent two of his minions out to score more drugs, but they hadnt yet returned. Hed never met them, but he had, through Holmes, given them a $1,000 loan. Wednesday afternoon, July 1st, two days after the robbery. When he did coke, says Jeana, hed do it until it was all gone, and then hed scrape the pipe and smoke all the resin he could find, and then hed take a bunch of Valium. . The house at 8763 had passed from a raucous group of women neighbors recall naked women being tossed from the first-floor balcony to the members of the Wonderland Gang. John tried to make a deal with the cops. As night stretched into morning, Holmes had an attack of conscience, a glimmer of an understanding that knocking over Eddie Nash might lead to a lot of trouble. . (But) we have a certain set of rules to follow that the people who go out and perpetrate crimes dont.. Nashs three coconspirators in the insurance scam were found guilty. Their attorneys question the credibility of prosecution witnesses and maintain their clients innocence. It helps that Susan Boyle has made her Asperger's public. When Detectives Bob Souza and Tom Lange entered the home, nestled in the hip L.A. enclave of Laurel Canyon, they found pills and pipes scattered all over the flooralong with four dead bodies whose. John Curtis Holmes was born to Mary and Edward Holmes on August 8th, 1944, in Pickaway County, Ohio, the youngest of three boys and a girl. Where are you calling from? John continued making films for a while. He had a slight build, a pockmarked face, a record of thirteen arrests. John would just stay home. Hard Candy, a 3-D thriller. Ron Launius was a known associate of Weiss and also a suspect in his murder. Another victim, William DeVerell, 44, who lived at the house, had an arrest record in the 1950s, mostly for narcotics but had not been arrested in the recent case. During the day, she worked in a nursing home. 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. She didnt have any money. John bought himself an El Camino pickup and a large diamond solitaire that became his trademark in films. We went on twenty-four-hour watch. Though, she didn't survive unscathed. Why did you choose to publish the book on Lulu.com. 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. Lulu Press offers a very affordable set-up with generous royalties. After a while, the news. Laurie was standing at the door when Lange and McClain appeared down the corridor. Sellers had no particular plan; Glendale sounded just fine. 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. I believe I was watching TV and it seems like a bunch of people were coming in and out,' Mrs. Launius said. Recently, Holmes had been drifting from job to job, trying to find a niche. It was Sunday evening and the drugs were gone, the money was gone, the situation was desperate. Tell you its all clear. Called the Wonderland Killings, the brutal murder of 4 people in a Laurel Canyon home. The video boom was just beginning, and Holmes became a kind of Marlon Brando of porn. It began, according to Thorsons book, Behind the Candelabra, when Liberace ordered him to have cosmetic surgery. I said yes. MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM E. OVERACKER > Air Force > Biography Display - AF Holmes went on to say that he wanted to be best in the world at something, and that he thought pornography was it. Holmes went on to make more than 2,000 movies. Someone held a gun to my head. By 1973, John and Sharon were sharing the same house, even the same bed, but they were no longer having sex. Dont worry.. 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. The finish was drippy and streaked, but it didnt matter. The Week in Photos: California exits pandemic emergency amid a winter landscape, Hidden, illegal casinos are booming in L.A., with organized crime reaping big profits, Look up: The 32 most spectacular ceilings in Los Angeles, 19 cafes that make L.A. a world-class coffee destination, David Lindley, guitarist best known for work with Jackson Browne, dies at 78, Best coffee city in the world? John was carrying two suitcases when he met her. One summer day in 1968, Sharon came home a little early from work. He could not be reached for comment on the killings. Then Liberace would make a joke about having the only fur coat in the world that had its own limo. Five men and two women were meeting in the breakfast nook, sitting in swivel chairs, leaning against walls. In a way, Holmes was everymans gigolo, a polyester smoothy with a sparse mustache, a flying collar and lots of buttons undone. Then he sat up. She cut her eyes slowly, caught his profile. Now she shook her head slowly, walked around the car to the passenger side. They made him beg for his life. The Sellers would stay there. We were really broke. Shed driven out from Miami with her father and younger sister. He showed up at the house in the early evening. Net Worth in 2019. Blood! Bring me their eyeballs in a bag, and I will forget what you have done to me! The floor plan before them showed a three-bedroom, high-end tract house on a cul-de-sac in the San Fernando Valley. But Sharon Holmes and Jeanna Sellers insist that it is true. 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. 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. 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. Thorson, who was waiting to be sentenced on a drug-related armed robbery, had sought a deal with police. Holmes let his hair grow, started wearing three-piece suits. I was just taken off my feet. John looked down at Sharon. Along the way, in Colorado, Mr. His last film was The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empress, starring Ilona Ciccolina Staller, a member of the Italian Parliament. 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. He invited them in for coffee. He came in, sat on a couch. Kentucky man stops for breakfast, wins $50,000 lottery prize. He did not testify at his trial, and his later secret testimony before the Los Angeles County Grand Jury remains sealed. Nine days later, Holmes was picked up in a Sherman Oaks motel in the company of Jeanna Sellers, a 20-year-old neighbor. The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time In time, the surgery was completed, and Thorson was made into a young vision of Liberace. He went fucking crazy, says Amerson. Earthquakes are sudden and arrive without warning, unless you monitor the USGS earthquake maps on the web every day - which I do. What now? she thought. With all the publicity from the murders, John Holmes had achieved almost mainstream celebrity. He moved to a modest condo in Tarzana and set about rebuilding, taking college business courses at night. Some were quite attractive. 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. Ronnie Launius - Ancestry.com Jeana dropped out of Glendale High School. James M. Eisenman, a Century City attorney who represents Holmes estate and his second wife, said he doubts Sharon Holmes story. If you're enjoying this article, you'll love my daily morning newsletter, How To LA. Holmes had nothing to do and nowhere to go. Harold drank a lot. Ill teach them a lesson! signs you are both hiding your feelings. Sellers agreed to talk to The Times on the condition that the paper not reveal her true name. He spent his early life in Tennessee and Georgia, and graduated from Spalding High School in Griffin, Ga. He looked shocked. I come back to Wonderland. Or perhaps he had flown from Las Vegas. They threw brown bags of dope off the balcony. Kurrus Funeral Home - 2008 Obituaries You could walk up, whisper something in his ear, and hed make it available. Holmes went to work for a construction company, painting a hotel down the strip. We scattered his ashes over the ocean.. Frequently he brought him girls. It was 1.6 miles from Wonderland Avenue to Dona Lola Place, which was fortuitous, because the stolen Ford Granada driven by the Wonderland Gang was running on empty. Salary in 2020. 'We'll probably find a real motive,' he said. He lost his thumb and three fingers. Nashs house was raided three times. His clothes were ripped, he was bloody from head to toe. 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. One on One Interview with Manson Follower Susan Atkins - YouTube 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. Sharon always knew when he was lying. Dismiss. Oh, shit, she thought, but she didnt say anything. It was a simple ceremony. He thought one porn person in the family was enough, she says. Sydney Pollack's adaptation of Horace McCoy's "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" Then he left.. He had made a name for himself during the Vietnam War when he was dishonorably discharged from the army for smuggling drugs back to the United States in the bodies of dead servicemen. He and Sharon settled into a strange hybrid of domesticity. Copyright 2023 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Join now Sign in . He knew that Nash had a lot more than that lying around the house. Her brother Chris, 16, lived in Oregon. McCourt drove up the hill on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, across Mulholland Drive, over the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains, down into the Valley. Finally he said, Ive got to tell you Ive been doing something else, and I think I want to make it my lifes work.. The daughter had a kid and a job. Police said Holmes was involved in an unreported robbery of cash and drugs at the Studio City home of nightclub owner Adel Nasrallah, also known as Eddie Nash, three days before the bludgeon slayings at a Laurel Canyon home. He said, Why not? and I said, Because it makes me feel funny and I cant talk. So he went in the bathroom, and he locked himself in. Nash was leafing through a little black book that Diles had taken from Holmess pocket. Writer and documentary producer. Holmes thought Nash was the most evil man hed ever met, but he couldnt quite figure him out, so he respected him. Nils Grevillius, who's been working on a book on the Wonderland murders, talks in one interview about a robbery committed by the Wonderland Gang (the same robbery, in fact, that Launius got the antique guns that he tried to fence via John Holmes, which ultimately led to the murders). He went white. It was dark, and there wasnt any traffic. here. Launius, Deverell, and Miller, along with the girlfriend of an accomplice, Barbara Richardson, died from extensive blunt-force trauma injuries. susan launius interviewduskull evolution arceus. He felt like he was an example.. 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. Gregory DeWitt Diles, six feet four, 300 pounds, barged through the front door of the house on Dona Lola, dragging John Holmes by the scruff of his neck. Laurie worked as a secretary. Im going to quit. Focusing on employee strengths. Hours passed, John woke. Although he was often away from home, I was his safe place, Sharon Holmes said. '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. I think they call it a taxi cab. We moved around a lot because the rent kept going up. In Too Deep - LA Weekly Jeana packed her suitcase, gathered up her Chihuahua. Fine. After she left, my husband called on the telephone at the farm and said to come home immediately. Neighbors in the canyon, where a conversation at night can be overheard blocks away, said they were used to rowdy, all-night parties in the house. One woman who had sex with Nash remembers a lot of temptation. Things started to click. Atty. A doctor of dubious practice prescribed a salad of different drugs to aid the weight loss. He showed Chinn his portfolio of stills, then stripped. susan launius interview Edward Sutter Obituary (1919 - 2012) - Millstadt, IL - Belleville News She was later unable to identify her attackers. (Wikipedia article on Wonderland Murders). 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. In the car were De Verell, Launius, McCourt and a man named David Lind, a friend of Launiuss. Editors picks But Holmes kept calling. So much blood! Holmes was having a nightmare. . The car was on the other side of Santa Monica Boulevard, across six lanes of traffic. She had two daughters, had once been married to a Beverly Hills attorney. . . Jeana hung up the phone. We went to a motel, had a nice reunion. His surgery wouldnt heal up, either. How could he rent a car? Whenever he returned from days or weeks away, Holmes would bring gifts: stuffed animals, roses, a ring. Ill pick you up.. 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. . He was also in Liberaces Las Vegas act. The couple ended up in Miami, at a small run-down hotel on Collins Avenue. Nash knew the Wonderland people. Can religion save us from Artificial Intelligence? He had a full erection. A look at the notorious convicted murderer's life in prison after she drowned her two sons in 1994. John? Launius served 4 years and was released in 1978. Are you awake? Holmess eyelids fluttered. Sellers picked up a hitchhiker who was going to Glendale to see his girlfriend. Susan Launius Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth, Family By the time they pulled into the apartment complex managed by Sharon Holmes, it had been decided. What he was famous for was his penis. Nash was acquitted. It sounds silly, but you know how you can meet someone for the first time and its like you know them already?, After the film, John and Laurie, who looked like Jeana, began dating. Just recently, he had begun training to be a uniformed security guard. Whos Mary? He panicked, walked in circles around the doctors office, threw his briefcase down. Going up there right now isn't safe, but here are some places where you can enjoy the view and snap a pic. Anyway, Launius, Billy Deverell, and David Lind were robbing a ritzy house in L.A. Eddie Nash assumed he deserved a certain amount of respect, says one denizen. Police sources said Vlick, who is charged with plssessing drugs and stolen property, is a 'fringe guy' in organized crime circles. 22nd Emmys Golf Classic. His voice had a smooth Arabic lilt. But the new accounts cast doubt on the story Holmes told a biographer before his death March 13. Mary went to work on an assembly line at a Western Electric plant. For his part, Holmes did anything he could for Nash. They were stupid. No drugs. He would have to take them to the house.. There was a telephone at the entrance, an electronic deadbolt on the gate, two pit bulls sleeping on the steps. With the preliminary hearing transcript, the Wonderland groupies for lack of a better term can get a glimpse into what really went down on the night of July 1, 1981, in the words of those who were there: Susan Launius, the sole survivor of the attack; David Lind, a slick, smooth-talking hood who was one of the trigger men in the robbery of reputed mobster Eddie Nash that preceded and instigated the murders; and Tracy McCourt, the petulant wheelman in the Nash heist. Help me. A fifth victim was carried out alive. I stood there and watched them kill those people., I was involved in a robbery, John began, and he told the story. At Christmas, they decorated it with colored lights. 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. Youve got to be joking. For extra money, Jeana solicited tricks on the beach. Then another. Susan Launius | Susan Lanius (unlucky) wife of Ron Lanius pl | Flickr Hed made all these people millions and millions of dollars. 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 is from . Almost everything publicly known about porn king John Curtis Holmes is apocryphal, anecdotal, secondhand or informed by conjecture. Caring about employees. Susan Launius was severely beaten in her bed, but she narrowly survived, albeit with amnesia, head injuries, and the loss of a finger. Nash loves me. In time, Holmes became known as the Errol Flynn of porn. John was tired of the whole industry, she says. 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. Remember Eddie? You want me to call the press?. John C. Holmes, the worlds premier pornographic film star, sobbed as he sat in a steaming bathtub early one morning in July, 1981. Susan Lanius (unlucky) wife of Ron Lanius played by Christina Applegate in the movie Wonderland. . Eddie Nash was fifty-two years old, six feet tall, gray haired, strong and wiry. Hed been in jail eleven months in all, 110 days on the contempt charge. And, as Holmess supply of coke dwindled, his conscience was overruled by his jones. His business empire totally atrophied as a result of the coke. For the first few months, while she was in Oregon with her mother, Jeana had refused to take Holmess calls. Every time you read something, they say its a big mystery. The guest bedroom. They did hits off Eddies pipe, eyed the door. He said, Im gonna die! and drove off., When he came back, says Laurie, he was laughing about it. Um, I lifted the trunk of the car, and I gave myself a nosebleed yesterday. Now Holmes owed the Wonderland Gang, too. Nash was separately convicted of cocaine possession and served about two years in state prison. Shed often take her son there for lunch. April Valentine died at Centinela Hospital. I was working as a computer programmer. Edmund Brown Jr. owns a house about a mile from the scene of the murders. Finally he came out and said, You know what? It was like being in a movie or something., By late 1984, John was working as an executive at Amersons VCX films. After Holmes negotiations for an immunity deal with police and prosecutors fell apart, the actor made plans to leave town with Sellers. COOPER: (Reading) And when the new year's sunshine . Thorson had driven from Lake Tahoe to score from Nash. Now it was December 4th, 1981. He meant nothing to me in that way.. He always had large quantities of coke, heroin, Quaaludes and other drugs at the house. February 1988, seven years after the murders. Their association ended in one of the most brutal mass murders in the history of Los Angeles. german apple cake recipe milk street. Also while in college, he said, he danced nude modern jazz ballet and drove an ambulance. But here we are. One of the actresses in the cast was Laurie Rose. Bob Gregory, 62, went missing the same day as Sands. Hanson said Holmes never told his attorneys what happened the night of the killings. At Holmes murder trial, Tomlinson testified that Holmes told him that after the robbery had occurred at Ed Nashs house, that Nash had made (Holmes) tell him who the people were that robbed him. She even had to have part of her skull surgically removed as a result of her injuries. So Holmes summoned his wife into the bathroom, drew steaming water into the tub, slipped in, and began to talk. He sounded a lot like Eddie Haskell on Leave It to Beaver and bore some resemblance to the actor who played him.

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