- In the 1980s,
the decade of excess...
a mass murder shocked Hollywood.
- Looks like somebody walked through
with buckets of blood
and just through the blood everywhere.
- The Wonderland Murders are notorious
in Los Angeles history
as one of the most grizzly...
multiple victim murders outside of the Manson murders.
- A bizarre case with a teenage girl
caught between two dangerous men--
the night club king who ruled a drug empire,
and the outlaw actor who defied him.
- It was a dangerous game John was playing.
How did their battle of wills
end in a massacre that became part of
Hollywood's dark history,
and remains officially unsolved to this day?
- I'm Soledad O'Brien.
This is "Mysteries and Scandals:
Wonderland Murderland."
Some refer to the massacre as the Laurel Canyon Murders.
Others call it the Four on the Floor Killings.
But for most people, one of the most gruesome
mass murders in Los Angeles history will forever be known
as the Wonderland Murders.
A mystery that has never been solved.
The police investigation focused on two men--
the world's most famous star of adult films,
and the secret Godfather of Hollywood nightlife.
Did their twisted relationship steeped in power, fame, and sex
lead to the bloody nightmare that still haunts Los Angeles?
As the 1970s ended,
America closed the door
on Vietnam and Watergate.
It was party time.
- There was a sense of, "We're going crazy.
"We're having fun after everything was no fun.
And now all bets are off. We're going wild."
There was an air of freedom,
of sex, of drugs, and rock and roll.
Sex was wild. It's pre-AIDS.
No consequences.
Make money, come to Hollywood.
- Hollywood movie stars always defined style and glamour.
But now there was a new film industry
riding the wave of the sexual revolution
and redefining pop culture.
Adult movies were exciting, salacious,
a little bit dangerous.
There wasn't really a home video industry yet,
but the business raked in millions of dollars
as audiences flocked to X-rated theaters.
- In the adult film industry,
when Los Angeles was going crazy,
there were beautiful people,
fashion, and film stars.
People think of that time as very glamorous.
- Some porn stars became more famous
than traditional Hollywood actors.
And at the top of the pyramid was John Holmes.
He was an Army vet who came to LA
and worked odd jobs before he realized
he could achieve fame and fortune in adult films.
According to one story, Holmes was discovered
by a photographer at a urinal.
- John Holmes had a very large penis.
Holmes rose to fame as sexy detective Johnny Wadd.
- Holmes was very famous at the time.
- I think he did something like 2,900 adult films.
- I've heard a great deal about you, Mr. Wadd.
- Holmes loved the spotlight and made good money.
But when he wasn't filming,
he hung out and did handyman work
at a suburban apartment complex
managed by his then-wife, Sharon.
That's where Dawn Schiller says she met Holmes
when she was 15.
Dawn and her family had recently moved from Florida.
She was lonely and lost, until Holmes began to take
an interest in her and turned on the charm.
Dawn had no idea who Holmes was,
or of the nightmare he was about to draw her into.
- I think he chose Dawn Schiller because
she was so young,
and he seemed to be the only one
paying any attention to her.
- He decided to be our tour guide of LA.
I remember seeing Jacaranda trees for the first time.
And I'd never seen purple trees.
And that was, like, a little miracle.
He brought presents, he brought me jewelry,
and he cracked jokes, and he acted around my age.
I didn't see him as older.
And I felt maybe I liked this guy.
- In Holmes' movies, seduction was scripted,
quick, and easy.
In real life, Holmes knew how to be patient
to make Dawn fall for him.
Holmes dazzled Dawn and her younger sister
with the glitz of Hollywood.
It was an exciting new world for her.
- He took us to Grauman's Chinese Theatre
and showed us John Wayne's footprints
and all the things that we had heard about,
you know, through TV about LA.
Then, Holmes took the girls
to one of his movies.
They were amazed at how audience members reacted
when the star walked in.
- People were asking him for his autograph.
Like, "Oh, my gosh, people are recognizing him."
And that was a little bit of a star struck
type of feeling.
- Holmes did have a lot of charisma.
Holmes was a charming man.
- There was the good days.
There was the days that he laughed
or he brought a present.
And I made those small gestures mean everything.
I thought that I really loved John.
And he was saying that he loved me.
- Dawn Schiller was a very young,
inexperienced woman.
She was probably very influenced by Holmes
and whatever he said and whatever he did.
- When her family moved to Oregon,
Dawn stayed with Holmes.
- So, at 16, my father handed me $20
and gave me a hug, and said,
"Good-bye, and good luck."
At that point, I had restrictions
almost right away.
I wasn't allowed to talk to anybody.
- Almost overnight, Holmes became controlling.
Abusive.
Dawn didn't have money,
friends, a driver's license.
She had nowhere to go.
For a while, she didn't even think
she wanted to leave.
- I thought that he didn't want me to
stay out with friends because he cared too much about me.
That must mean he really loves me.
You can't unhook yourself
from somebody that you think
that you love.
- Holmes controlled Dawn,
but he couldn't control his own growing addiction.
- Around '78, he started to
bring home cocaine.
- In the late 1970s,
cocaine was the drug of choice--
a drug that made everything sexier and more charged
with energy... for a while.
Holmes could earn as much as $3,000 a day,
but spent more than that on cocaine.
It made his behavior erratic,
and soon, filmmakers stopped hiring him.
His career ground to a halt.
To Holmes, being a movie star
no longer mattered.
All that mattered was his next score.
- And he wasn't getting paid.
So he had to do what many addicts do--
turn to theft.
Even at one point, stealing luggage
off the conveyer belts out at LAX.
- If Holmes did get enough cash together,
he would often drive to a drug connection
in the hilly neighborhood of Laurel Canyon.
- At the time,
Laurel Canyon was the place to be.
I remember rock stars
that lived in Laurel Canyon.
It was eclectic.
- Those streets become familiar.
He's turned left here.
There's the Canyon Country Store.
Okay, we're going to Wonderland.
- 8763 Wonderland Avenue was leased by a heroin addict
named Joy Miller.
- Joy associated with a fellow
by the name of Billy DeVerell,
an ex-con, who's also dealing drugs.
And they became a couple, and Billy moved in with Joy.
They were joined by a fellow by the name of Ron Launius,
who had an extensive criminal record.
He was a very violent young fellow.
Sometime later, David Lind moves down
into the home.
He's a biker type.
And, frankly, another badass.
- They called themselves the Wonderland Gang.
- I often waited outside
at the Wonderland house.
He was in there getting high.
If I had to go to the bathroom,
I mean, I had a Coke can.
He told me multiple times
that the reason I couldn't go in was
these were really, really bad people.
I think he said, "scum of the Earth."
- The Wonderland Gang, to be frank,
treated John Holmes like a punk.
Ron Launius especially hated him.
He would physically slap him around
just being in his presence.
- The gang had drugs, so Holmes took the abuse.
But just ten minutes away was a man who idolized him.
The power player who ruled the Los Angeles night.
Eddie Nash.
- He had all different kinds of night clubs
around Los Angeles, including the Starwood,
which was known for musicians
like Van Halen and The Ramones.
- Whatever lifestyle you were involved in,
he had a night club for you.
- Eddie Nash was really Adel Nasrallah,
a Palestinian who left the Middle East for America
when he was in his 20s.
- He came here without hardly any money
and built up a restaurant night club empire.
- He is the American dream.
And also a criminal.
- He's a big dope dealer.
- Nash sold narcotics out of his clubs
and from his home where there were
wild parties almost every night.
- He would use the drugs for friends.
He was the center of attention.
- Eddie Nash was sex-crazed.
He told somebody he had eight college girls
living with him.
Sort of fashioned after Hugh Hefner.
- I heard reports that he would walk around
in a purple bath robe with women
all around the house.
I do know that on some of the raids that I'd been,
items were found.
A blow-up doll on the pool table,
a cat of nine tails.
- Ed Nash, in my mind, is a sociopath.
No conscience.
Exceptionally narcissistic.
- I think he also had
a terrible temper
and was homicidal.
- Oh, there's no doubt in my mind that Eddie Nash
was a killer.
He may have ordered them.
I can't tell you he did it personally.
But it's not beyond him.
- Nash loved porn as much as drugs,
and was a big fan of the Johnny Wadd movies.
When he found out that Holmes bought drugs
at one of his clubs,
Nash enthusiastically
brought his favorite star
into his inner circle.
- There absolutely was star struckness
on the part of Eddie Nash for John.
I think Eddie Nash was very taken
with John Holmes's celebrity.
- When the king of clubs
met the king of adult entertainment,
Nash called Holmes "my brother."
- Eddie Nash wanted to be around that kind of
sexual prowess that John Holmes became famous for.
- With his star on the wing,
Holmes decided to leverage his fame
into a new career with the crime lord
who called him "brother."
Holmes used Nash's contacts
to supply the Wonderland Gang with heroin.
That earned him credibility with the gang,
and showed Nash that Holmes could be useful
as a drug courier.
- He was trying to do things
to prove himself to Eddie Nash.
"I can do this. I can be your drug man."
But I don't feel like he had his own power.
He was always trying to appease those above him.
- It was pretty complicated with Eddie.
They had this type of relationship
that was probably very much like two brothers
that were in competition with each other.
He disliked Eddie,
but he was more afraid of him
than anything else.
- But the time would come when Holmes would cross Nash,
and the result would be more horrific
than he ever dreamed.
- He kept tossing and turning
and screaming about blood.
There was so much blood.
- Late November, 1980.
John Holmes, once the king of adult films,
aligned himself with a drug lord
named Eddie Nash--
a man whose underworld connections made him
one of the most feared men in Los Angeles.
But Holmes kept a secret from Nash:
Dawn Schiller, the young woman he controlled.
Holmes built a house of cards,
and it was all about to come crashing down.
Holmes scored drugs from Eddie Nash,
but it was never enough to satisfy his habit.
He needed money.
So Holmes forced Dawn to work as a prostitute.
If she tried to refuse, Holmes beat her.
One night in a hotel room,
he made too much noise.
- Security came to the door,
and he got arrested.
- Holmes couldn't afford bail.
He was down to one option.
- He was handcuffed, and he asked if
he could hug me one more time.
"Can I say good-bye to her?"
And as he hugged me, he leaned in and he told me,
"Call Eddie. Tell him his brother's in jail."
- It was a terrifying moment.
Dawn had to reveal herself
to the man Holmes warned her about.
- I was told by John that Eddie was one
of the scariest people there ever was.
He had more power than the police.
And so he was the one that you never crossed,
no matter what.
It was a dangerous game John was playing
because John did not have as much power as Eddie.
John ended up owing Eddie.
- Nash got Holmes out of jail,
but Eddie insisted on meeting the mysterious girl
who called him.
- Eddie Nash had the same thing going
that John Holmes did.
He liked them younger.
- I was a peace offering
of some kind for Eddie.
- Dawn felt she had no choice.
She was controlled by Holmes.
And so, on Christmas 1980,
Holmes delivered Dawn to Nash.
Nash conducted a bizarre test
to see whether she could be trusted.
He sent Dawn into a secret room
that Holmes warned her about.
- On the coffee table was, like, a gold watch,
a money clip, a bag of weed,
scattered there as if it was left there by somebody
who maybe emptied their pockets.
And there was a mirror there,
and I remember John telling me it was a two-way mirror.
And I tried to not look at it.
- I heard that he would put drugs or jewelry,
then stand on one side and see if women
would take any of these items.
- I was told that if I touched anything,
I would disappear into the desert,
body parts scattered all over.
I thought that I could die up at Eddie's any second.
It seemed like maybe over an hour
before Eddie finally came in
and called me into the bedroom.
- The next day, Holmes picked her up.
- As we drove down the hill,
he asked me what happened.
And I began to tell the story,
and he punched me in the face.
- Maybe he was hitting her
because of his anger about Nash
and his decision to give her to Nash.
- As it turned out, Nash wanted to see Dawn again
four days later, the night she turned 20.
- I was thinking to myself, "This is my birthday.
This is my birthday. This is my birthday."
I remember looking in the mirror
and I didn't know who I was looking at.
Um...
I was...
I looked like a ghost.
- She was young when all this happened.
I don't think she realized what she was getting into.
- Shortly after that, Dawn ran away
to her parents in Oregon.
But she wasn't psychologically free of Holmes.
When he pursued her over the phone,
using every ounce of the charisma
that made him a star,
he was able to lure her back.
June 27th, 1981.
Dawn Schiller returned to California.
Holmes said he had a plan for their future.
- "I just have one deal, and then we're out of here.
Just one last deal. I promise you."
- Holmes disappeared
for a night and a day
before returning with a windfall.
- He has the largest pile of cocaine
I think I've ever seen.
- They smoked some of it, and planned to sell the rest.
- This is the money that we're going to get
to leave town,
and he will be a good and kind person after that.
And... that's, of course, what I hoped for.
And then he left, and again I waited
for him to come back.
But he didn't come back when he said he would.
So the morning came.
I heard the car,
and I looked out of the curtain.
And he got out of the car, and really,
his shoulders were slumped.
He was moving slow and deliberate.
His eyes were really red.
I thought it was odd,
but what I thought more about was
what had drained the color from his face,
and why his eyes were bloodshot.
He had some valium,
and he popped about three or four of them,
and then just laid down and went to bed.
He kept tossing and turning pretty violently,
and screaming about blood.
"There's so much blood."
- While Holmes slept,
Dawn stayed in the room all day watching TV
until something grabbed her attention.
- Police found the bodies of a woman in the living room
above the garage, a man in a downstairs bedroom,
and a couple dead in a top floor bedroom.
A young woman, still alive, bloody, beaten,
gashed in the forehead, was taken to the hospital.
- I knew instantly there was a connection.
That was the Wonderland house I had waited out in front of,
and John had been screaming about blood.
He woke up while the TV was on
and he just stared.
It was a look I'll never forget.
It was of somebody paralyzed.
Just somebody who just didn't have the next move.
And I was not used
to seeing John not having the next move ready.
And my gut just said, "This is really, really bad."
- At the moment, it was just a bad feeling
and some frightening images on TV.
But as police worked the crime scene,
they began to gather clues that would lead them
right to John Holmes.
- He says, "It's Holmes.
"That MF Holmes.
He's involved in this."
- It was July 1, 1981.
Adult film star John Holmes was holed up in a motel
in Hollywood with Dawn Schiller,
watching news reports about a massacre
at 8763 Wonderland Avenue--
the same house Holmes often visited to score drugs.
The so-called Wonderland Gang who lived there
weren't just addicts and dealers.
They robbed neighborhood houses, they lived violent lives,
and risked violent deaths.
But even hardened police detectives
were stunned by what they found inside.
- When I first got there,
I was stopped by a Hollywood detective
who was handing off the case to us.
And he says, "Lange, it's like somebody walked through
with buckets of blood and just threw the blood everywhere."
- The Wonderland Murders are notorious
in Los Angeles history
as one of the most grizzly multiple victim murders
outside of the Manson murders.
- Everybody in Los Angeles--
probably everybody in the country--
heard about it as soon as the bodies were discovered.
- John and I stayed in that motel room,
and he didn't talk much about it,
and we both just kinda silently kept watching
the news reports.
He was very catatonic in a lot of ways,
and stayed pretty valiumed up.
- We're at 8763 Wonderland.
Now moving up the stairs to the front entrance
on the residence.
We spent over 24 hours
at that crime scene handling it
because we were so extensive.
We got print people
who were starting to make lifts,
we're filming blood patterns cast-off,
we got evidence everywhere.
- Four people were dead,
savagely beaten with steel pipes.
It took a while before police were able
to identify the victims.
There was Joy Miller, who leased the house.
- She's attacked brutally in the head.
I can't even recognize her.
- Joy's boyfriend, Billy DeVerell,
was another one of the gang members.
- Head wounds, broken ribs,
broken fingers, indicating
he tried to fight back.
- And the dangerous leader
of the Wonderland Gang,
Ron Launius.
- His head is just completely obliterated.
- Wonderland Gang member David Lind wasn't there.
But Lind's girlfriend, Barbara Richardson,
was one of the victims.
- Barbara Richardson is a 22-year-old girl.
Comes from a very good family.
Who did not have a criminal record.
- The lone survivor of the massacre
was Ron Launius's wife, Susan.
- This was the location that victim number five
was removed by a rescue unit.
- According to police reports, the two had been estranged,
but Launius invited 25-year-old Susan
to come to Wonderland two nights earlier
to try to patch things up.
- I've seen the videos that Tom Lange
and the forensic people took of the crime scene.
I believe that the detectives and LAPD did an amazing job
and were able to document
exactly what happened that night.
- As far as the murders going down themselves,
the night before the murders, the night of June 30,
the Wonderland group was shootin' up and gettin' down.
But around 4 a.m., they all crashed.
Billy might be watching TV.
Maybe Joy's listening to a little music.
- According to police,
several men entered the house...
Armed with metal pipes.
- These men start with Barbara Richardson,
just to the left as you walk in the door,
who's sound asleep on a sofa.
She is beaten repeatedly.
At least two of the killers, I believe,
moved to the lower level.
where Ron Launius and Susie Launius are in bed.
They're attacked with the pipes.
The killers then bound up the stairs.
- Joy Miller and Billy DeVerell were in bed.
- The TV is on.
There's also a little music
going on on the FM station.
They hear all the commotion.
Billy jumps out. Joy is halfway out of bed
when she's attacked.
Billy DeVerell, he tried to fight back.
Blood everywhere.
- The victims had been brutally murdered
in this otherwise quiet Laurel Canyon neighborhood.
- I heard it at 4:30 this morning.
- What did you hear?
- Screaming.
- My girlfriend woke me up and said,
"Hey, there's something going on."
And I was half asleep, and just kind of said,
"Oh, well, we've heard it before," you know, and...
- Screams? Uh...
- Yeah, really torture screams.
- While police collected evidence,
Dawn Schiller and John Holmes
didn't leave their motel room.
From his silence,
Dawn suspected Holmes was involved.
But how?
- In my mind, I remember thinking
he had been a victim somehow, too.
And maybe he had just escaped and he wasn't telling me yet.
- On July 3,
David Lind returned to Wonderland.
- At this point, he doesn't know that
his girlfriend's dead.
He thinks she is the one who lived.
I said, "Dave, Barbara's dead.
They killed her."
He sits down, and he starts crying.
He's very upset. He's shaking.
Right after that, he opens up.
He says, "It's Holmes, that MF Holmes.
He's involved in this."
- Lind told the police
that a few days before the murders,
John Holmes came to the Wonderland Gang
with a plan to make them all rich.
- John Holmes decided that it might be a good idea
to rip off Ed Nash.
- Because John Holmes was close with Eddie Nash,
partied with him all the time,
he knew that Eddie Nash had
a considerable amount of drugs, jewelry,
and cash in the house.
- Holmes tells them
there's a sliding glass door
at the rear of the residence.
He says, "I can leave that thing unlocked
the next time I'm over there, and there's a floor safe
in Nash's bedroom."
- According to police, on the night of
Monday, June 27, 1981,
John Holmes left Dawn to go work on one last deal.
- He goes over to Nash's.
He visits with Nash, scores a little bit.
Makes his way to the rear of the house,
and unlocks the rear sliding glass door.
He goes back and tells them it's all clear.
- Lind said that the next morning,
Tuesday, June 28,
he, Billy DeVerell, and Ron Launius
entered Nash's house through the door Holmes left open.
- Nash is thrown down. He's kicked around.
Lind pulls a gun out.
- So Nash thought he was gonna be killed.
He was forced to get down on his knees.
He prayed for his life.
He prayed for his children.
- According to Lind, the gang tied up Nash
and made off with close to $1 million in cash,
jewelry, and drugs.
- The big mistake of the Wonderland group
was knocking off Eddie Nash and letting him live.
- Did the Wonderland Gang really believe
Eddie Nash was just going to let it go?
This ruthless man who ruled a drug empire?
Nash was robbed on June 28.
The Wonderland Murders took place on July 1.
Police didn't think it was a coincidence.
John Holmes held the key, but first they had to find him.
- It's just you and me, and I'm gonna make you
suffer like hell.
- Los Angeles detectives thought they had a motive
for the murders on Wonderland Avenue--
revenge for a robbery at the home of night club czar
Eddie Nash.
Wonderland Gang member David Lind told police that
John Holmes-- the former adult star--
masterminded the robbery.
It didn't take long to track down Holmes.
- A few days later,
I had my back to the door, and I heard an explosion.
And a group of voices yell, "Freeze, put your hands up."
Law enforcement had knocked the door completely down
and took us both in.
- We got a hold of John Holmes.
We think he was a part of this whole thing.
But we're not gonna book him now.
We'll start with a so-called "interview."
See what he'll tell us.
And he's acting like he's cooperating.
Holmes talked out of both sides of his mouth
throughout the entire investigation.
- Nevertheless, Holmes confirmed that
he set up the robbery of Nash.
Police pieced together the rest.
While Dawn Schiller stayed in their motel room,
Holmes went to sell his stash of the cocaine
stolen from Nash.
But for reasons that remain mysterious,
he ended up at Eddie's,
and Nash had been putting two and two together.
- Nash wants to know who's robbed me.
He and his bodyguard are
beating up John Holmes.
John Holmes tells him, "The Wonderland Gang."
And then Eddie Nash tells John Holmes,
"You need to go and take care of them."
- Holmes was fearful of Nash and what Nash could do to him.
- Police believed Holmes let the men with the pipes
into Wonderland.
- To unlock the gate--
an electronic release in order to get in--
someone has to release that electronic lock.
"You, John Holmes. You're gonna let them in."
Without any doubt in my mind,
John Holmes said, "Sure, you got it."
And that's what happened.
- Then the carnage began.
- A gunshot to the head is very quick,
whereas you can mutilate somebody with a pipe.
That was a message.
- "This is you and me, and I'm gonna make you
suffer like hell."
You don't screw with Ed Nash.
- During the police interrogation,
Holmes said the killers forced him to watch
the bloodbath, and then let him go.
But he refused to name the men involved,
or testify against Nash under oath.
- Holmes told me to my own face,
"Yeah, it was Nash."
It's another thing to testify to that in trial.
- At the time,
the police had no hard evidence
tying Holmes to the murders.
So while they pursued their investigation,
trying to find a solid link to Nash,
they released Holmes.
He decided to run for his life.
Dawn Schiller and the most famous man
in adult entertainment disappeared
into the California desert.
- He was more relaxed incognito.
He was still controlling and possessive,
but he wasn't mean.
And that I could mold into
something that looked like hope.
And so...
we aimlessly drove
through the United States.
- They ended up in Florida and found work--
Holmes on a construction site,
Dawn cleaning rooms at a cheap motel.
For a moment, life seemed almost normal.
It was too good to last.
- John gets involved in drugs again.
And then everything started to tailspin.
"We're not making enough money."
And he wanted her to go work on the streets again.
And he started beating on her.
- And it was all back.
- But this time was different.
According to Dawn, the owners of the motel
saw Holmes hit her.
They convinced her to leave and hide out
with a friend of theirs.
Still, Holmes wasn't ready to give her up.
- He started doing his old thing.
He was so sorry.
He knew he did wrong.
He wouldn't do it again.
I remember feeling that-- that feeling of pity
start to come up in my throat.
And for the first time, I stopped myself.
And I clearly said, "No, John.
Good-bye."
His voice changed. He was no longer sorry.
He was now mad.
I hung up.
- In December, 1981,
more than five months after the murders,
Dawn had a visitor.
Detective Tom Lange tracked her down
through her family.
- I remember Tom Lange clearly saying,
"We're here for John."
And I said, "I know."
- Here's what had changed in the past few months.
The crime lab now had forensic evidence
suggesting Holmes did more than simply
let the killers into the Wonderland house.
- We find a partial left palm print
on the bed railing
above Ron Launius's crushed skull.
It belongs to John Holmes.
It's in such a position as to steady oneself on the railing
as you're beating down on the victim--
on Launius.
- Tom Lange needed Dawn
to tell him where Holmes was
so he could arrest Holmes for murder.
- I started crying because
it was really difficult.
It was one of the most difficult things in the world
for me to actually leave John again.
But now to turn him in?
And I recall Tom led me to believe
that being in custody
was actually the safest place for John
because he was messing with people who wanted him dead.
- And so Dawn told the police where to find Holmes.
He was taken into custody without incident,
and flown back to Los Angeles to await trial.
After almost five years of abuse, terror,
and emotional turmoil, Dawn Schiller was finally free.
But what about John Holmes?
Would he end up in prison, or face a far worse fate?
- All of a sudden,
in the very back row of the courtroom
was Ed Nash.
- The most famous man in adult films,
John Holmes, sat in a jail cell,
awaiting trial for his part in the Wonderland Murders--
a trial that promised to be as sensational as any
in Los Angeles history.
Holmes was charged with four counts of murder--
one for each of the dead victims on Wonderland Avenue--
and for the attempted murder of the only survivor,
Susan Launius.
He pled not guilty.
Prosecutors believed Holmes convinced
the Wonderland Gang to rob
Hollywood night club king Eddie Nash.
Nash wanted revenge, so he forced Holmes
to participate in the mass murder.
But Holmes refused to implicate
the powerful drug lord.
- The prosecution couldn't prove the case
without the testimony of Holmes.
He said from the beginning that he's not going to testify.
He was terrified of Nash.
- I think that everybody had seen
or knew what would happen if you went against Eddie Nash.
So it's really hard for law enforcement
to put stuff together unless you have someone
that will testify.
- The alternative would be to prosecute Holmes.
They thought they could get a conviction.
- John Holmes, one of the key figures in last summer's
Laurel Canyon murders, is under arrest
in Los Angeles tonight.
- The 1982 murder trial
of John Holmes was headline news.
- You got murder, you got robbery,
you got narcotics, you got some celebrity.
- This is the vision that the world had of Hollywood.
Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
- Eddie Nash was not subpoenaed to testify.
But Holmes' lawyer made sure the jury kept him in mind.
- I called him "Evil Incarnate,"
and I said the real perpetrators are not in this court room.
Holmes was forced to do whatever he did because of
the dangerous man, Nash, who's lurking someplace
in Los Angeles.
- Then one day, the man Holmes feared
made his presence felt.
- All of a sudden,
a couple of people are turning around,
and they turn around, and in the very back row
of the courtroom
is Ed Nash.
He had just walked in by himself and took a seat,
and was watching the proceedings.
- It was just a little intimidation tactic.
I mean, who knows.
But talk about a brass set of cojones.
- The prosecutors continued with their case.
They had the forensic evidence of Holmes' palm print
on the bed frame above the bludgeoned body
of Ron Launius.
- He would be holding onto the bed frame
and hitting the head and body of Launius.
- Since Holmes went there frequently,
the palm print could have been there recently,
a week ago, two weeks ago.
- The lone survivor of the massacre,
Susan Launius, took the stand.
- I don't remember seeing him.
- But the one person who could have identified
the Wonderland killers struggled to remember
any details from the vicious attack.
- She saw shadowy figures running around,
and that's all.
And then she hobbled off the stand.
- The trial lasted almost four weeks,
and then a stunning decision.
The jury acquitted John Holmes on all counts.
- The jury felt a victim was on trial,
and that the real murderers were not there
in the court room.
- I think the jury accepted
that he was acting under duress.
The only thing I can say is, the next morning,
the juror called me.
He said he made a mistake.
Thanks. A little too late.
- In a twisted development, John Holmes' connection
with the mass killing revitalized his film career.
He was a celebrity again.
To many, even a hero.
- I think Dawn didn't see justice in that
because of all the violence that she had at his hands.
- What I know now about him setting up the robbery
and getting caught by Eddie for it,
he had to throw a blow in order to really prove
that he was as loyal to Eddie as he said he was.
The idea that people even held him on a pedestal
is beyond me.
He very much was responsible
for those people being killed.
Barbara, who was asleep on that couch,
who had nothing to do with anything,
lost her life that night.
How do you idolize someone like that?
It doesn't make sense.
That's really why I chose
to share any of this.
He can't go down as a hero.
He can't. And he wasn't.
- Holmes' career revival was cut short.
- John Holmes ended up dying of AIDS.
- If John Holmes had been convicted of those murders,
as I believe he should have been,
he would have been in prison, probably never would have
contracted AIDS, and still be alive today.
And that's probably the irony of that case.
- On May 13, 1988, John Holmes died,
without ever revealing the whole truth
about the Wonderland Murders.
Law enforcement still believed Eddie Nash was behind
the massacre, and over the next two decades
they tried everything to take him down.
But with Holmes dead, would Nash have the last laugh?
- On his death bed, John Holmes was given
one last chance to implicate Hollywood drug lord
Eddie Nash in the murders on Wonderland.
Holmes refused.
But authorities never gave up
trying to pin the massacre on Eddie.
After Wonderland, Eddie Nash was in and out
of court on a variety of charges.
He even spent a few years in prison for drug trafficking.
But in 1990, prosecutors believe
they had enough to charge Nash with murder based on testimony
from a former customer.
- He tells us-- and he was at Nash's home
when they were trying to send Holmes
with whoever else back to Wonderland
to commit these murders.
- Nash was tried. Hung jury.
He was retried and found not guilty.
Then, federal authorities got involved.
- In 2000, it all came to an end
for him when Eddie Nash
faced federal racketeering charges,
including conspiring to commit the Wonderland murders.
- Even though he was acquitted on murder charges,
Nash could still be charged
with conspiracy to commit murder.
After some lengthy legal wrangling,
Eddie gave up the fight.
- Eddie Nash pled guilty to all the federal charges
against him.
- Nash spent a little more than two years
in federal prison.
After his release in 2004, Nash kept quiet.
So quiet that when the dark lord
of LA's nightlife died in 2014,
he went to his grave in obscurity.
His family kept his death out of the news.
- I thought Eddie Nash was still alive today,
and I'm informed minutes ago that he's no longer alive.
Um... I feel nothing.
- Dawn Schiller, the girl on the edge
of the tragedy, now fights for the rights
of other victims.
- This will never go away for me.
I'm lucky. I'm grateful.
And... I hope to do some good in this world.
- The story of this mass murder still haunts Hollywood.
Movies have been made, books have been written,
but the mystery has never been fully resolved.
Eddie Nash may have ordered the hit.
John Holmes may have participated.
But who were the men with the steel pipes?
What really happened in the house on Wonderland?
For more on "Mysteries and Scandals,"
go to oxygen.com.