Wonderland Murders - Robbery and Murders

Robbery and Murders

The Wonderland Gang was centered around the occupants of a rented townhouse at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles: Joy Audrey Gold Miller, William R. DeVerell (Miller and DeVerell were a couple), David Lind, and leader Ronald Launius. All four were involved in drug use and drug dealing.

On June 28, 1981, the group met with friends Tracy McCourt and John Holmes, a porn star and known drug addict. They had decided to rob the home of Eddie Nash, née Adel Gharib Nasrallah, another drug dealer and wealthy owner of several Los Angeles-area night clubs. Holmes, whom Nash had befriended, visited the house, ostensibly to buy drugs. While at Nash's home, Holmes unlocked a back door; he then left Nash's home and reported back to the Wonderland gang.

The next morning, June 29, DeVerell, Launius, Lind, and McCourt went to Nash's house. While McCourt stayed with the car, a stolen Ford Granada, the other three entered through the unlocked door. Invading the home, the trio handcuffed Nash and his live-in bodyguard, Gregory Diles. During the course of the subsequent robbery, the group took money, drugs, jewelry, and threatened to kill Nash and Diles. They then went back to the Wonderland Avenue townhouse to split up the money.

Nash suspected Holmes had been involved and ordered Diles to bring Holmes to his house. Diles found Holmes on a street in Hollywood wearing one of the rings that had been stolen from Nash and brought him back to Nash. Nash directed Diles to beat Holmes until he identified the people behind the robbery; the beating was witnessed by Scott Thorson, former boyfriend of Liberace, who was making a drug buy at Nash's home.

In the early morning of July 1, 1981, two days after the robbery, an unknown number of assailants entered the Wonderland Avenue house. DeVerell and Launius were present, along with Launius' wife Susan and Lind's girlfriend, Barbara Richardson. Each occupant present was bludgeoned repeatedly with what was later determined by the medical examiner and detectives to be a striated steel pipe. Susan Launius was the only one in the home who survived, albeit with serious injuries. A left palm print belonging to John Holmes found on the bed railing above the head of Ron Launius gave homicide detectives reason to believe John Holmes was present at the site of the murder. Holmes denied participation in the killings or being there when the murders happened.

According to court testimony, David Lind survived because he was not at the house at the time of the murders, having spent the night at a San Fernando Valley motel with a prostitute and consuming drugs there. Shortly after the news media reported the murders, Lind contacted the police and informed on Nash and Holmes, thus giving them a start to their investigation.