susan launius interview

1-20 of 285. Launius' wife, Susan Launius, survived the attack, which is shocking given the crime scene photos and video. How could you do this thing! Eddie Nash screamed. 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. It was 8:30 Monday morning. 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. It was Thursday, July 2nd, 1981. They called it Louise. Youve got to be joking. What he may have been referring to was the imprisonment, that very same morning, of Eddie Nash, on charges of dealing 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. I said, Please, just let me get my clothes and my dog and well leave.'. He wasnt threatening. He had twenty-seven fan clubs; people wrote for locks of his pubic hair. If anything, one of the themes in Eddies life has always been control. Police sources said Vlick, who is charged with plssessing drugs and stolen property, is a 'fringe guy' in organized crime circles. A girl entered stage right. Hurricanes and tornadoes are scary as all hell because you usually have a few moments to contemplate what's about to hit you. Chris caught up. As much as I like "Boogie Nights", it remains a fairly superficial movie. On April 29, 1986, fire tore through Los Angeles' Central Library more than one million books were damaged or destroyed. Barbara's cousin tells me this info. (Taken from Wikipedia on Wonderland Murders). It began, according to Thorsons book, Behind the Candelabra, when Liberace ordered him to have cosmetic surgery. She had two daughters, had once been married to a Beverly Hills attorney. Her daughter was born by emergency C-section. The three went back to Sharons house. By Steve Helling. 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. Nash shut the bedroom door. L.A. is too far flung to be any kind of social magnet outside of one's own neighborhood and community. He wanted me to view his body and make sure that all the parts were there, says Laurie. Ill teach them a lesson! He wore the buckle when he and Sharon sold bumper stickers door-to-door. Do you agree with that assessment? Or that show out of New York, you know, A Current Affair. Ventura County is a wussy answer. Sharon had gone so far as to stop physical relations, but she couldnt bring herself to kick him out. Theyd been married sixteen years. He always had large quantities of coke, heroin, Quaaludes and other drugs at the house. It was a strange and violent time and men wore double-breasted suits and snap-brim Fedoras. 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. Who talks about this person. These are my tools, I use them to make a living. Jeana sat in the front seat, Thor in her arms. Sharons first act was to move Jeana out of Karen and Davids and into a garage apartment in the complex. A sign on the box, written in blue Magic Marker, said, FOR DISTRIBUTION AT BOX OFFICE. The Wonderland case was still open. You knew these people.. (But) we have a certain set of rules to follow that the people who go out and perpetrate crimes dont.. Eruption, a porn remake of Double Indemnity. On the . Diles smacked Holmes, threw him across the room, shoved him against a wall. Unbeknownst to Sharon, Holmes had recently started in porn, following an encounter with a professional photographer named Joel in the bathroom of the poker parlor in Gardina. Tell the cops what they want to know, cause otherwise Johns going to be dead in a few days. This anecdote right there tells me that Launius has a body count. For his part, Holmes did anything he could for Nash. jackson falls santa paula. Pharmaceutical cocaine was one of the ingredients. Nash was a drug dealer and a heavy user. It's a yellow - sometimes green - vehicle with four tires and a Middle Eastern man behind the wheel. At Christmas, they decorated it with colored lights. Jeana packed her suitcase, gathered up her Chihuahua. Sellers had no particular plan; Glendale sounded just fine. We were real friendly. The murder weapon was a steel pipe with threading at the ends. The murders, he said. 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? When theyd finish work, hed make sandwiches. Holmes was stealing luggage off conveyers at L.A. International, buying appliances with his wifes credit cards, fencing them for cash. Big Rosie, the manager, let Jeana work the switchboard and clean rooms in exchange for rent. They sat around a glass table in the breakfast nook. One summer day in 1968, Sharon came home a little early from work. He wanted to be in charge. Done. Recently, Holmes had been drifting from job to job, trying to find a niche. . The floor plan before them showed a three-bedroom, high-end tract house on a cul-de-sac in the San Fernando Valley. He picked wire out of dumpsters and sold the copper. Her lover was Billy DeVerell. So Holmes summoned his wife into the bathroom, drew steaming water into the tub, slipped in, and began to talk. So you go in, Launius was saying to Holmes, reviewing the plan. March 3 (UPI) -- A 7-year-old Louisiana boy with a firm grasp of baseball rules is seeking a Guinness World Record as the world's youngest umpire. And, as Holmess supply of coke dwindled, his conscience was overruled by his jones. Come with us, Sharon., It can be the three of us, Sharon, like old times.. His family had owned several hotels before the creation of Israel in 1948. For extra money, Jeana solicited tricks on the beach. Holmes talked a while, looked Jeana up and down. Men asked him to autograph their wives breasts. I loved the schmuck. 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. That evening, Chinn wrote a three-page screenplay; a partnership was born. 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. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click Susan Goldberg, MBA Expand search. First his forehead, then his cheeks, then his neck. Soon after, Detectives Lange and McClain called the hospital. For the next three days, John, Jeana and Sharon were held in protective custody in a luxury hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Thorson had driven from Lake Tahoe to score from Nash. They went to the beach. Net Worth in 2021. Eddie Nash assumed he deserved a certain amount of respect, says one denizen. He said he was told he would be killed and people in the book would be killed if (Holmes) didnt do what (Nash) wanted. Everything from Volkswagens to a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. He has just published his latest project about one of Los Angeles's most well known murder cases in the 80s. John and Jeana painted the Malibu gray with a red top. Id usually fall asleep on the couch.. Firefighters hoist horse stranded in backyard swimming pool. Just recently, he had begun training to be a uniformed security guard. Now he was a drug delivery boy for the Wonderland Gang. Nash was on the job day and night, wearing a tall white chefs hat, waiting tables himself. It was like being in a movie or something., By late 1984, John was working as an executive at Amersons VCX films. Together, the womens descriptions of what Holmes told them largely corroborate the Los Angeles Police Departments theory of what happened on Wonderland Avenue. He and Sharon settled into a strange hybrid of domesticity. Why? We have lots of information about Suzanne: religious views are listed as Christian, ethnicity is Caucasian, and political affiliation is currently a registered Republican. Hed made all these people millions and millions of dollars. At the height of his popularity, he earned $3,000 a day on films and almost as much turning tricks, servicing wealthy men and women on both coasts and in Europe. We were like a normal couple. 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. Nash was leafing through a little black book that Diles had taken from Holmess pocket. The fifty-two-year-old former jurist had been arrested after he allegedly punched his eighty-two-year-old mother and threatened to kill someone if she didnt give him keys to a car. First, however, Thorson had to lose thirty pounds. I've endured both earthquakes and hurricanes. March 3 (UPI) -- A sheep spotted wandering loose on a British highway was given a lift back to its owner by a concerned bus driver on her first day on the job. Like aliens or something. The cost of the ISBN - to get your title into other markets like Amazon and bricks and mortar book stores - comes out of the author's own pocket but that's a small price to pay, literally, for everything else Lulu does for authors, such as providing a storefront free of charge. U.S., Newspapers.com Marriage Index, 1800s-current. Susan Launius is beaten but not killed. He wanted to make a million dollars so we could just leave and be done with it.. John Curtis Holmes had the longest, most prolific career in the history of pornography. Based on my research, "Wonderland"arrives closest to the truth but in both films an apologist's tone creeps in with reference to Holmes. Two years later, Ricks was ordered held against his will for psychiatric observation. At home, Harold picked on John. I gave you everything!. . On his sixteenth birthday, Holmes joined the army. Tell you its all clear. At trial, his lawyer argued that the $1 million worth of coke was not for dealing, that it was strictly for personal use. John? The bride wore white. Holmes muttered something to Nash about the gang. 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. How long have you lived in Los Angeles, and which neighborhood do you live in? These five measures map closely with . Salary in 2020. Sharon stood with arms crossed. . Then I leave. When Amerson raised their rent to $400, they got their own place in Encino. Then what?, I leave the sliding door unlocked this one, said Holmes, pointing to the floor plan, here, in the back. We have never heard the whole truth (about the killings) and we never will hear the whole truth, said attorney Earl L. Hanson, who, along with partner Mitchell W. Egers, successfully defended Holmes against the murder charges. They were going underground. He excused himself, left the room and unlocked the sliding door. We closed up the office and went to the beach. There were piles of cocaine in front of you. His business empire totally atrophied as a result of the coke. I was there., It was my fault, John said, his eyes welling with tears. All the sugar helped him come down. The man was a poster child for sociopathic behavior. He had sex onscreen with two generations of leading ladies, from Seka and Marilyn Chambers to Traci Lords, Ginger Lynn and Italian member of Parliament Ciccolina. 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. Chris didnt have a drivers license. I watched them beat them to death., It was them or me. A sunny room in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sepulveda, California. Nash was extremely hospitable. In the summer of 1981, Sharon Holmes said, she and John Holmes were living together as the managers of a small Glendale apartment complex. The pivotal event in porn history was the release of Deep Throat, starring Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems, in 1972. True Crime Writer in Las Vegas. He quickly racked up a rap sheet, including gun and drug charges. There never was a sexual relationship between us. Remember me?. Anywhere on Los Feliz Boulevard adjacent to Griffith Park. Thats bullshit. The consumption of alcohol and drugs was an ongoing, everyday affair, says an attorney who is a longtime acquaintance of Nashs. I didnt know what was going to happen, but I knew what might, she says. They took back his key to Wonderland, and Launius punched him out, then hit Holmes with his own blackthorn walking stick. The bodies were discovered by workmen next door; theyd heard faint cries from the back of the house: Help me. Hours passed, John woke. The guest bedroom. Sharing the house with Miller and DeVerell was Ronald Launius, 37. His lawyer lent him a Volkswagen Beetle and $100, and Holmes showed up at his friend Amersons house. And like the leading men of yesteryear, what was known of him was mostly myth. I believe I was watching TV and it seems like a bunch of people were coming in and out,' Mrs. Launius said. Facilitating a sense of purpose. It was obvious from his comments that Ricks, a hard-liner, considered Eddie Nash a plague. She was in intensive care with a severed finger and brain damage. Net Worth in 2019. Early in 1983, Holmes was shooting Fleshpond at a studio in San Francisco. 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. I suspect that Launius may have been involved in other violent crimes. During the day, she worked in a nursing home. Not since she was home. Holmes was into Nash for a small fortune. His clothes were ripped, he was bloody from head to toe. March 3 (UPI) -- A Massachusetts library said a book was recently returned with a note apologizing for the tome being 56 years overdue. It was like he was doing a movie. 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. John Holmes didnt go to his grave with anything but a very bad case of AIDS. We went on twenty-four-hour watch. They wanted to see Holmes. Haltingly, Holmes confessed to his wife that he had played a central role in four brutal murders earlier that month in a drug dealers hillside home in Laurel Canyon. The man who owned the house was named Adel Nasrallah. Can I come in?, They went to the bathroom. Names of mobsters, drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps. Submissions should outline a mystery and provide a link to a more detailed review of the case such as a Wiki article or news report. In Too Deep. He beat the shit out of me, then walked back up to the room. Here he is, he has two women with him. He drove a forklift at a meatpacking plant in Cudahy until his lung collapsed from working in the freezer. Dismiss. Anyway, Launius, Billy Deverell, and David Lind were robbing a ritzy house in L.A. The letters "IC" pronounced properly can say "icy" meaning very cold. Theres a floor safe in the closet, right over here.. He thought one porn person in the family was enough, she says. Management asked Jeana to leave. Now it was December 4th, and she hadnt seen Holmes in two weeks. 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. He sent flowers, presents, photos of them with the dog. By 1978, Holmes was freebasing cocaine all the time. His surgery wouldnt heal up, either. They were stupid. Your tax-deductible financial support keeps our stories free to read, instead of hidden behind paywalls. So I told him everything, John said. Launius served 4 years and was released in 1978. Didn't expect my day to start by downloading #microsoftedge or willingly going to #bing to see #openai's new #gpt4 model. His penis, he said, was bigger than a pay phone, smaller than a Cadillac., Holmess voice was sly and ingratiating. Usually, they smoked freebase and had sex. Lind and his girlfriend had come down three weeks earlier from Sacramento to stay at Wonderland. It was really nice. The video boom was just beginning, and Holmes became a kind of Marlon Brando of porn. The aunt sent him to fencing school, dancing school, a school of etiquette. All three of them are sleeping in the same bed. Class 1A. There was a security system at the house. The armed intruders robbed Nash and his 300-pound body guard, Gregory Diles, of $10,000, two plastic sacks of cocaine and other property. Theres no mystery. Go!. He was involved in one murder and a suspect in at least one more. Bring me their eyeballs in a bag, and I will forget what you have done to me! A doctor of dubious practice prescribed a salad of different drugs to aid the weight loss. 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. James M. Eisenman, a Century City attorney who represents Holmes estate and his second wife, said he doubts Sharon Holmes story. Police, however, believe that Holmes actually took part in the fatal beatings. We played our favorite songs, walked, talked. They picked up a six-pack, went to a park, sat by a pond. Bob Gregory, 62, went missing the same day as Sands. June M. Schuyler, an elementary-school teacher from Santa Barbara, remembers meeting the nice-looking, very-light-skinned foreign man at Beefs Chuck. 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. Joy Audrey Miller, 46, held the lease. Will Dominion-Fox News lawsuit be different? Now her husband fixed her with a long stare. If somebody fucked with him. By contrast and comparison, the Manson killings of 1969 were resolved. I said, John, how could you? While awaiting that trial, he was ordered by a judge to tell the grand jury what he knew about the Wonderland murders. What now? she thought. The time was 2:30 in the afternoon. He was supposed to be doing sales and preproduction, writing and editing, in addition to acting. Ive waited outside that house. The house at 8763 Wonderland rented for $750 a month. He was very upset about the business. Deep in Laurel Canyon, the Wonderland Gang was planning its last heist. Blood and brains splattered everywhere, even on the ceilings. She hadnt heard from him in, what, six months? A day or two later, Holmes gave a compressed, but similar account of what happened to Sellers, she told The Times. The first man to win the X Rated Critics Organization Best Actor Award, Holmes was an idol and an icon, the most visible male pom star of his time. The car was on the other side of Santa Monica Boulevard, across six lanes of traffic. Jeana dropped out of Glendale High School. Blond and bearded, Launius had served federal time for drug smuggling. He was great. 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 Called the Wonderland Killings, the brutal murder of 4 people in a Laurel Canyon home. You cant do this to me, he said. After seven years, the district attorney was reopening the Wonderland case, based, in part, on testimony from Scott Thorson, Liberaces ex-lover. She was twenty, an army brat. He had a slight build, a pockmarked face, a record of thirteen arrests. Your mother? We want to talk to you about Eddie Nash, said McClain. Called the Wonderland Killings, the brutal murder of 4 people in a Laurel Canyon home gained even more noteriety when authorities discovered that porn star John Holmes had played a mysterious role in the case.Age and Occupation: 46. According to one eyewitness, Diles once chased a man out of the Kit Kat and emptied his .38 revolver into the mans car. . susan launius interviewduskull evolution arceus. Then he sat up. One search of the premises yielded a cardboard box containing 4,000 counterfeit Quaaludes. We scattered his ashes over the ocean.. 3 children killed, 2 hospitalized in North Texas domestic incident, At least 5 dead following year's first severe spring weather outbreak, 'Saving Private Ryan,' 'True Romance' actor Tom Sizemore dead at 61, Dozens killed, injured as Jakarta fuel depot fire engulfs neighborhood, Governor of Philippine province, 5 others killed in gun attack. Now things were not so friendly. One of the actresses in the cast was Laurie Rose. Amerson, meanwhile, accused his friend of embezzling $200,000 from the company. Girls' Singles. . John Holmes, who was tried for and acquitted of the crimes, never told his wife the names of the assailants, she said. Twenty minutes later, Holmes walked into the room. A gate was unlocked, and Holmes walked up the stairs to the entrance with the gunmen concealed behind him. 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. He told us certain things. March 3 (UPI) -- A New Brunswick couple who initially thought a burglar had broken into their home discovered the invader was actually a panicked deer. Overdue book returned to Massachusetts library after 56 years. Memorial has already been merged. In the face of a drier future, that iconic piece of Americana is on its way out in Southern California. The maid was the only one home, and they tied her up. He was freebasing one hit of coke every ten or fifteen minutes, swallowing forty to fifty Valium a day to cut the edge. For the latest national news from NPR and our live radio broadcast, visit LAist.com/radio. Launius estranged wife, Susan, who was visiting, survived the assault but suffered severe head injuries. Nashs and Diless attorneys maintain their clients innocence and question the credibility of witnesses for the prosecution. The next day, while Holmes was at work, a delegation of residents came to see Jeana. Later, in the Sixties, the canyon attracted writers and artists, rock stars and gurus. Nash knew the Wonderland people. In court testimony years later, he would say, in answer to this and many other questions, I dont recall. Dismiss. She was living in Hollywood while her autistic son attended the Belle Dubnoff School for Brain-Damaged Children. In the late Seventies, Los Angeles police averaged twenty-five drug busts a month at the Starwood. He meant nothing to me in that way.. Will Orange County's Fledgling Clean Power Agency Survive? to tell them who it was, Sharon Holmes said. I wouldnt want to be operated on in San Quentin Prison, Ricks said sympathetically. In the still unpublished official version of his life, Holmes is quoted as saying that he was held at gunpoint at another house while the killers, whose names he did not know, went to the home on Wonderland Avenue. Are you afraid its withering and dying? she said, laughing. There are other suspects that we feel are involved. 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. On their first date, hed brought a bottle of Mateus and a handful of flowers. John eased into the tub. He didnt want part of him ending up in a jar somewhere. John Holmes was a porn star. I said yes. Shed driven out from Miami with her father and younger sister. 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. She hadnt seen him in three months. We cut him loose.. After Holmes negotiations for an immunity deal with police and prosecutors fell apart, the actor made plans to leave town with Sellers.

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