Wonderland murders

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The Wonderland murders, also called the Four on the Floor murders and the Laurel Canyon murders, were a quadruple homicide which that occurred on the night of July 1, 1981, in the Laurel Canyon district of Los Angeles, California. The attack appears to have been targeting the five members of the Wonderland Gang, three of whom - Ron Launius, Billy DeVerell and Joy Miller - were present. All three were beaten to death, alongside their accomplice's girlfriend Barbara Richardson. A fifth victim, Launius's wife Susan, was also severely beaten but survived with life-changing injuries. Mobster Eddie Nash, his bodyguard Gregory Diles and porn star John Holmes were at various times tried for the murders, but all were acquitted. The murders remain unsolved.

History

Background

The Wonderland Gang was a drug gang based at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, consisting of Ron Launius, Billy DeVerell, Joy Miller, David Lind and Tracy McCourt. On June 29, 1981, the five of them entered the home of nightclub owner and mobster Eddie Nash disguised as police officers and forced Nash at gunpoint to open his safe and retrieve $1.2 million in drugs, cash, jewellery and weapons. While Nash was being forced to open the safe, Lind accidentally shot and wounded his bodyguard Gregory Diles. The gang then handcuffed Nash and Diles and made their escape.

Nash suspected that John Holmes, a porn star with links to several drug gangs, had been involved in the robbery, as earlier that day he had visited the house several times and had left open the door through which the robbers entered. Diles was sent to retrieve Holmes for questioning, finding him wearing a ring taken from the safe. Scott Thorson, a drug addict at Nash's house to buy drugs, claimed that he had seen Holmes being tied to a chair and beaten by Diles until he confessed that the Wonderland Gang were the robbers.

Murders

At 3:00 am on July 1, an unknown number of masked assailants entered 8763 Wonderland Avenue armed with hammers and metal pipes. At the time three members of the gang - Launius, DeVerell and Miller - were home with Launius's wife Susan and Lind's girlfriend Barbara Richardson. Although neighbours heard loud screaming coming from the house, nobody called the police because the occupants were known to host loud drug-fuelled parties well into the night so this was not out of the ordinary.

Police were not called until twelve hours later at 4:00 pm, when furniture movers working at the house next door heard a woman moaning in pain and went in to investigate. They, and the police, came across a bloody scene inside the house. Barbara Richardson was lying in a pool of blood next to the couch on which she had been sleeping. Joy Miller's body was on her bed next to a bloody hammer, with the battered corpse of Billy DeVerell at the foot of the bed leaning against the TV stand. In the neighbouring room lay the body of Ron Launius on his bed, beaten almost beyond recognition. On the floor next to the bed was Susan Launius, who had a shattered skull but was still alive. She survived after undergoing surgery but had amnesia and was unable to remember the events of July 1. Both rooms had been extensively ransacked, leading police to believe the motive was robbery.

A bloody handprint was recovered from the headboard of Ron Launius's bed. This was determined to belong to John Holmes, who was arrested and charged with four counts of murder. The prosecution argued that he had felt slighted after Ron Launius refused to give him enough of a share from the Nash robbery. Holmes' defence argued that he had been forced into participating by Nash and Diles, using the testimony of Scott Thorson to prove this. The jury believed this version and Holmes was found not guilty, although he received 110 days in prison for contempt of court. His wife Sharon Gebenini later claimed that Holmes had confessed to her how he let three masked assailants into the gang's hideout after returning home that night with bloody clothes.

In 1990, Eddie Nash and Gregory Diles were charged with the murders. Nash was accused of having ordered an attack on the gang in revenge for the robbery, whereas Diles was accused of having participated in the murders. A mistrial was declared after the jury deadlocked 11-1 in favour of conviction and Nash and Diles were acquitted at a second trial. Nash was later charged in 2000 with drug trafficking, money laundering, conspiring to carry out the murders and bribing the sole holdout juror at his first trial. In a plea deal, he pled guilty to drug trafficking and money laundering and admitted that he had bribed the juror; he also admitted that in the early morning of July 1 he had sent associates to the Wonderland house to retrieve stolen property and that they were likely the killers, but denied ordering them to kill anyone. He was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison.