Desperate, John told him: "Eddie Nash. I've known him for three years. He trusts me, calls me his brother. I know the house, where the drugs are, and the cash. I'll draw you a floor plan. I'll visit him and leave the door unlocked. You cut me in for whatever you think is right." (Playboy 3-98)
On June 29, 1981, John partied at the Nash villa for several hours and bought drugs. On the way out, he unlocked the door as promised. In the early hours of June 30, Launius, De Verell, and two friends, Tracy McCourt and David Lind, slipped through the unlocked door and surprised Nash and his bodyguard.
Waving a stolen police badge and a .357 Magnum, Lind told them to freeze.
As the Wonderland Gang struggled to handcuff the obese Diles, Launius fell against Lind's gun hand and the .357 went off, grazing Diles' back.
Crying, Nash begged for his life. Launius shut him up by sticking his gun into Nash's mouth and demanding the combination to his floor safe. Holmes had said that was the Palestinian's repository for drugs.
Lind, Launius and company stole over $100,000 cash, $150,000 of jewelry, a kilo of heroin, more than eight pounds of cocaine and 5000 quaaludes. The gang returned home to find Holmes waiting for his share. John smoked some of their new coke. After he received $3000, coke and jewelry, Holmes complained he deserved more. Launius punched him in the stomach and threw him out.
Around 4:30 PM, July 1, 1981, Detective Tom Lang and his partner Bob Souza, received a call to investigate four murders. In 1994, Lang and his next partner, Philip Vannater became famous as the lead investigators in the O.J. Simpson double murder.
"Tom and I thought we'd seen it all," Bob Souza told Playboy regarding the carnage they witnessed in 1981. "But I'd never seen so much blood. Four people bludgeoned to death and a fifth victim who survived. It was gruesome."
For the first time, the LAPD used videotape to record the multiple-murder scene on Wonderland Avenue. The tape reveals blood everywhere - on the walls, ceilings, furniture and floors. Lind's girlfriend Barbara Richardson lies in a pool of blood and brains. Joy Miller and Ron Launius lie in a bloody bed. Billy DeVerell slumps beneath a television. Susan Launius, Ron's wife, was beaten around the head. Playboy says the blows crushed her skull in a way that limited bleeding, thus enabling her to survive. Neighbors heard her moaning a few hours after the attack.
Attack by whom?
Now private detectives who are writing a book with Nils Grevillius about the crime, Four on the Floor: The Laurel Canyon Murders, Lange and Souza say the following happened:
While wearing a ring that belonged to Nash and was stolen in the robbery, John got caught in the San Fernando Valley by Nash's 300-pound karate-expert bodyguard Gregory DeWitt Diles, a convicted felon. Diles took Holmes' address book and dragged John to the furious Nash. Looking through the book, the drug lord found names of John's friends and family. Nash threatened Holmes that he'd murder them if he didn't lead them to the Wonderland gang.
Holmes took them into the house on Wonderland Avenue where the gang stayed. With a pistol held at his temple, John watched Nash's flunkies beat with an iron bar five members of the gang into a bloody pulp.
Four men died and one woman barely lived, suffering permanent brain damage.
Other accounts claim that the gang members were already thrashed by the time John, Diles and Nash arrived. The gang had its share of enemies wanting to do them in.
Lange and Souza say that from the position of the bodies, they know that at least three, and as many as five, assailants participated in the slaughter. (Playboy 3-98)
Early that Thursday morning, July 2nd, John, covered with blood, knocked at Sharon's door. He told her he'd seen murder.
"Why didn't you do something?" Sharon asked.
"I couldn't," said John. "It was either me and my family, including you, or them. They made Nash beg for his life. They deserved to die." (RS)
John then went to Schiller and fell asleep. She heard him cry out in his sleep, "Blood, blood, blood, so much blood." On the late TV news she saw a report on the murders of the four Wonderland gangsters. She put everything together and waited until morning. After John awoke, he told Schiller a made-up story. (RS)
That same day, police met with David Lind, who was not home when the murderers arrived. "He sat there popping pills - rainbows, cartwheels, everything," says Lange, "and told us the whole story of the Nash robbery and Holmes' involvement. In fact, he was the one who figured out that Holmes had played both ends against the middle and had set up the Wonderland gang the same way he had set up Nash."
Lange says that John may have helped kill Launius. "He hated him, was terrified of him. We found Holmes' palm print on a bed rail above Launius' body, an incriminating place for it to be." (Playboy 3-98)
"He was there…but he didn't do it, and neither did Nash," Amerson told Playboy. He says people were lined up to kill the Wonderland gang. "The morning of the murders I got a call from a good friend, Dee Samuels, who was a hit man. He'd been staking out the Wonderland house because he had a contract to kill the guys and was waiting for his moment. He told me, 'I just saw your friend John Holmes coming out of there alone, covered in blood. I went it to see what was going on, and they were all dead.' John showed up at my [Amerson's] house a half hour later, all wild and bloody, saying he'd gone over there to let the Nash bunch in and found everybody, except Susan Launius, dead already. She was moaning, so he rolled her back onto the bed, then went through the house looking for coke and whatever else he could find. He was carrying something in a pillowcase when he showed up at my place. He was crazed, said he needed money and a car. So I gave him $20 and a fully restored 1960 Ford Fairlane convertible, and he took off. A while later Dee told me that along with his contract and Nash's contract, there was a third hit out on these people and that two methamphetamine dealers who'd been burned by the group got there first."
Lange and Souza interviewed the two speed dealers. The detectives say the men arrived after the murders, searched the scene before leaving Susan Launius moaning on the floor for help.
The detectives say their investigation was frustrated by superiors. It appears that Nash and Holmes had police and political connections that kept them from getting interrogated by the detectives. (Playboy)
John's friend Detective Frank Tomlinson took over the investigation. He took John, Dawn and Sharon into custody at the luxury Biltmore hotel in downtown LA. John enjoyed the attention and told a lot of stories. But he refused to testify because he feared that Eddie Nash would murder his family.
After a few days of expensive meals and drink, the police released the three. Dawn and Sharon dyed John's hair black. Schiller and Holmes spray painted Sharon's Chevy Malibu and the two of them took off across the country. John broke into cars along the way to support them.
When they arrived in Miami, John got Schiller turning tricks at the beach. When she tired of it, he publicly beat her and she ran away.
Dawn worked as a stripper. A couple of weeks later, on December 4, 1981, she led the police to Holmes. It was the last time that John and Dawn saw each other.
John went on trial in Los Angeles, beginning May 20, 1982, for murdering the Wonderland gang. Because of his fear of Eddie Nash, John refused to testify. His lawyer claimed he was the "sixth victim" of the Wonderland murders, and that Eddie Nash was "evil incarnate."
"Ladies and gentleman," said John's lawyer at the beginning of the trial, "unlike some mysteries, this is not going to be a question of 'Who done it?' This is going to be a question of 'Why aren't the perpetrators here?'"
Holmes unique defense, that he was "the man in the middle," was later incorporated into law books.
The prosecution said John had double-crossed his friends and then beaten at least Ron Laurnius to death.
To keep his mind off his troubles, John worked on his autobiography while he living in jail. On June 26, 1982 the jury found him not guilty.
Holmes was held in jail on an outstanding burglary charge. Facing a judicial order to tell what he knew about the Laurel Canyon murders, John refused to testify. He spent 111 days in Los Angeles County Jail, surviving a murder attempt that he believed was a contract hit.
The Four-on-the-Floor murders eventually resulted in four trials over nine years, two mistrials and one retrial.
In the Spring of 1982, police arrested Nash, his bodyguard Diles and others on charges of drug possession and drug selling.
On November 22nd, 1982, Nash got the maximum sentence of eight years in jail. Diles received seven years for shooting at a policeman at the time of his arrest. Upon hearing the news of the sentences, John Holmes testified that same day before a Grand Jury (giving innocuous and useless information) and was released.
John phoned Sharon who, during his incarceration, had divorced him. Sharon told him to "get the fuck out of my life."
"The day he got out of jail he showed up at my house driving a VW van he'd borrowed from his attorney," Amerson told the 3-98 Playboy. Bill hadn't seen John since his arrest.
"He moved in and started a gigolo thing with a 65-year old woman who gave him money and leased him a car. But he wasn't happy with it. He wanted to make movies, but nobody would hire him because he was so unreliable."
John first performed in California Valley Girls, where he does one scene. He sits on a couch while six girls work on his penis. The movie was directed by Bill Margold, who introduced Laurie to John during the 12/82 making of the video Marathon in San Francisco.
"I can't wait to get that man up my ass," said Laurie. She did off-camera before they even did a scene.
"I was stuck in a hospital bed in the second half of the movie," remembers Margold. "Laurie and John have sex on top of me and Drea.
"John had just gotten out of jail. He showed me his legs which were full of pencil marks. He said that he'd been stabbed a lot with pencils while in jail.
"Laurie was part of the hole-in-the-wall gang which lived on the second floor of 6912 Hollywood Boulevard. Photographer Sam Menning, who moved in in 1973, ran the [adult entertainment] studio with a whole bunch of faceless nameless men and Laurie.
"Ed Nash owned the building. On the first floor he operated the Polynesian style nightclub THE SEVEN SEAS.
"They were known as the hole in the wall gang because they had taken one office on the second floor, then, as they expanded, they simply knocked down walls. They began by knocking holes in the walls, then kept going through. They kept all these animals. There was an earthquake. Place fell into a state of disrepair by 1985.
"Laurie lived in one of the rooms around 1981. She was everybody's adopted sister."
Laurie Rose was 19 years of age. An anal queen, she used the adult entertainment name Misty Dawn. She came from a small town outside Vegas. She looked like Dawn Schiller.
Sporting a vivid Caesarian scar, Misty appeared in such flicks as Aerobisex Girls, Desire and Nasty Nurses.
John and Laurie began dating - smoking freebase cocaine and having sex. They watched videos. They went to swap meets and yard sales on weekends.
Holmes insisted Laurie quit adult entertainment. They worried about contracting AIDS.
"If I'm going to take a chance," said John, "that's enough."
At the January 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Al Goldstein ran into John signing autographs for Reuben Sturman's Caballero.
"You're gaining
weight, Goldstein," said Holmes. "You should be on the same diet I'm on, the cocaine diet."
Al stared at the emaciated adult entertainment star, remembering Gloria Leonard's remark that he seemed "all cock." He asked John where was the signature diamond ring he wore in most of his films.
"Gone," said John, "with the rest of it. Up my nose in a couple of toots."
"So this whole thing was coke, John?"
Holmes looked away hurt as Goldstein remembered a quote from Bruce Jay Friedman, "Don't let that little frankfurter run your life."
By March of 1983, Laurie had moved in with John at Amerson's house. Now a counselor to drug addicts who include prominent adult entertainment queens, Bill still wears a diamond ring on his pinkie finger.
Later in 1983, John made a homosexual porno, The Private Pleasures of John C. Holmes, where he performed anal sex on gay star Joey Yale, who died soon afterwards of AIDS.
After serving a couple of years in jail, crime kingpin Eddie Nash was released early for good behavior. John worried but Eddie did nothing to him. His fortune destroyed by drugs and legal expenses, Nash started anew. At night, he took business classes at a local college.
In 1985, Amerson left VCX to start his own adult entertainment production company, Penguin Productions. He gave John a junior partnership in the company. Penguin made 15 videos in six months, most starring John.
In 1985, Laurie, John, Bill Amerson and his wife tested HIV negative. "Bill and I tried to organize an AIDS testing program within the business," writes John in his autobiography. "Our goal was to form an organization that would require current AIDS test results on every actor, male or female, we hired for a film. …When the time came to take action, the other performers surprisingly refused. No, they said to testing, believing that to make it mandatory was in violation of their civil rights."
John and Bill tested again in 1986. "The doctor told us he had good news and bad news," says Amerson. "Then he looked at me and said, 'You're all right.' John turned white. The doctor told him that just because he was HIV-positive didn't mean he would get AIDS, and that if he'd stop smoking and drinking and drugging up, he could live another 20 years.
"John had a death wish. He went up to six packs of cigarettes a day and two quarts of scotch instead of one, and began using more drugs than ever."
Laurie Rose suspects that the US government gave John AIDS. "John and Bill went to Washington DC right around the time John would have contracted AIDS," she writes in adult entertainment King. "It was also during the time that Edward Meese and his "Meese Commission" were on a crusade to shut down the adult entertainment industry. I remember hearing that Meese showed President Reagan some adult entertainment movies at the White House, one of which I was in. Then along came John and Bill and a few others to fight… John even met one of Reagen's Secret Service men. Could it be that John Holmes was injected or somehow given a strain of the AIDS virus? Maybe it was the United States Government, not God, making an example of John to underscore the "horror" of pornography."
Though HIV positive, Holmes kept doing adult entertainment, including The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empress starring Ilona "Ciccolina" Staller, a future member of the Italian parliament.
"He just figured that if they don't get it from me, or if they don't already have it, they're going to end up with it anyway," says Laurie. "He just figured that everybody in the business was going to die of AIDS anyway." (WADD)
Amerson later accused John of stealing $200,000. John lost his health insurance.
Pain dominated John's last two years. Bill Amerson and Laurie set up the John Holmes Relief Fund. Donors included Gloria Leonard, Annie Sprinkle, Suze Randall, Ron Vogel and Caballero Productions.
John married Laurie Rose at the Little Chapel of the Flower in Las Vegas in 1987. He called Bill. "I think I'm married. I'm all fucked up. I'm not sure, but I've got a ring, Laurie's with me and I think we're married."
John beat Laurie regularly.
As his health declined, he checked into the VA hospital. Lange visited him for the last time. Laurie was in the room. "It was one of the greatest performances of his life," she says. "John would lean over slowly to stub out his cigarette, then start to answer the question, then become incoherent. He didn't tell them anything." (Playboy 3/98)
"It was a performance for sure," said Lange, "as if the cameras were rolling. It was typical John, full of shit." (Ibid)
Sean Amerson says that Laurie prevented any of the Amersons from visiting John in the hospital.
On March 13, 1988, John Holmes died in peace with Laurie beside him. "His eyes were open," says Laurie, "and it looked like he had looked up to Death and said, 'Here I am.' It was the most peaceful look I ever saw in my life. I tried to shut his eyes like in the movies, but they wouldn't stay shut.
"He wanted me to view his body and make sure that the parts were there. He didn't want his dick to end up in a jar. I viewed his body naked, and then I watched them put the lid on the box and put it in the oven. We scattered his ashes over the ocean." (RS)
"In the morning [after John's death] there was a phone call on my machine from Laurie," says Denise Amerson, Bill's daughter. 'Your godfather died last night and you did not even care enough to go see him.' Then she hung up. That's how I found out that he died.
"John had wanted to be buried and he wasn't. He was cremated. I guess she [Laurie] took it upon herself to make that choice. And that's what she did, before we had a chance to say goodbye to him." (WADD)
A week later Amerson paid for a memorial service at Forest Lawn Cemetary in Los Angeles. Out of the 52 friends invited (Laurie not among them), 50 showed.
John had become increasingly reclusive through the 1980s. "It doesn't pay to have friends," he'd say. "Friends will get you killed." (Playboy 3/98)
Six months later, on September 8, 1988, Diles and Nash were charged with the murders on Wonderland Avenue but acquitted.
"No one dies of AIDS per se," notes Pat Riley on RAME. "AIDS is not a disease, it's a syndrome: Auto Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Officially a person is classified as having AIDS when they meet certain criteria established by the Center for Disease Control.
"Even though the actual cause of death may be cancer, the death certificate will state (nowadays, reporting was lax in the early stages to spare the family) that the person died of ......(insert name of specific disease) while suffering from...AIDS. From a non-medical viewpoint it's correct to say "Holmes died of AIDS".
"Before his death, Holmes complicated matters by saying he suffered from intestinal cancer presumably to be able to work and in particular to do the Italian movies with Cicciolina.
"Where Holmes picked up HIV is subject to conjecture. It's unlikiely he got it on the set of a heterosexual movie because (1) transmission from female to male is very unlikely and (2) none of the females he screwed have died or are reportedly ill. His last wife, Misty Dawn, is alive despite having had anal sex with him on film. His homosexual appearances on video have always had him as the top so these are also unlikely however they do indicate a frame of mind where in his private life he may have bottomed. Drug use is a likely factor too."
How did John catch HIV? "I had a feeling that he was probably shooting [up]," says Kitten Natividad.
Well, there ya have it.
