When LAPD detectives searched Eddie Nash's home a few days after the killings, they found more than $1 million worth of cocaine along with items stolen from a townhouse on Wonderland Avenue. The nightclub owner had been robbed two days earlier by a gang of drug dealers who knew exactly where to look. Someone had told them. Someone had left a sliding door unlocked. And someone would pay the price at 3:00 in the morning on July 1, 1981, when unknown men entered 8763 Wonderland Avenue armed with hammers and metal pipes.
The Wonderland Gang operated from a rented townhouse at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in Laurel Canyon, the bohemian hillside neighborhood that had sheltered rock musicians and counterculture figures through the 1960s and 1970s. By 1981, the residents of this particular address had darker purposes. Leader Ron Launius, second-in-command Billy Deverell, Deverell's girlfriend Joy Miller (who held the lease), Tracy McCourt, and David Lind were all involved in drug dealing. The hillside location provided privacy and made surprise approaches difficult. But the gang's ambitions outpaced their caution. On June 29, 1981, Launius, Deverell, Lind, and McCourt committed a brutal home invasion at the residence of Eddie Nash, a nightclub owner and organized crime figure, shooting and injuring his bodyguard Gregory Diles. They knew the layout because someone had scouted it for them.
Porn actor John Holmes had been at Nash's house three times on the morning of the robbery, leaving the sliding door unlocked each time. When Nash's men spotted Holmes walking around Hollywood wearing one of Nash's stolen rings, they brought him back for questioning. According to witness Scott Thorson, a former boyfriend of Liberace who was in the house to buy drugs, Holmes was tied to a chair and beaten until he revealed the identities of the people who had robbed Nash. Holmes's left palm print would later be found on the headboard in the death scene at Wonderland Avenue. His first wife, Sharon Gebenini Holmes, would tell the Los Angeles Times in 1988 that Holmes had arrived at her house on the morning of the murders with blood splattered on his clothes, describing how he led three men to the drug house, escorted them in, and stood by as they bludgeoned five people.
Shortly before 3:00 a.m. on July 1, 1981, an unknown number of men entered the Wonderland Avenue townhouse. Barbara Richardson, girlfriend of gang member David Lind who was visiting that night, was found on the living room floor beside the couch where she had been sleeping. Joy Miller was found on her bed, with Billy Deverell at the foot of the bed leaning against the TV stand. A claw-hammer, one of the murder weapons, lay on the bed. Ron Launius was beaten to death on his bed. His wife Susan was found beside him on the floor, gravely injured but alive. Despite severe brain damage, she survived, though she was left with permanent amnesia about that night, had part of her skull surgically removed, and lost part of one finger. Neither Lind nor McCourt were present. Lind was at a motel with a prostitute. McCourt was home.
John Holmes was arrested in March 1982 after his palm print was found at the crime scene. After a three-week trial, he was acquitted on June 26, 1982, his defense lawyers successfully presenting him as a victim forced by the real killers to provide entry. He spent 110 days in jail for contempt of court, refusing to testify. Holmes died of AIDS complications on March 13, 1988. One month before his death, LAPD detectives visited him at the VA hospital, but he was barely coherent. A second trial in 1991 ended in acquittal for both Nash and his bodyguard Diles. In 2000, Nash was indicted under RICO for drug trafficking, conspiracy in the Wonderland murders, and bribing the sole holdout juror in his first trial with $50,000. He pled guilty in 2001 and received a sentence of approximately four and a half years plus a $250,000 fine. He denied planning the murders. Nash died in 2014. The four killings remain officially unsolved.
The Wonderland murders became part of Los Angeles crime lore, inspiring multiple films and television programs. Boogie Nights (1997), loosely based on John Holmes's life, includes a sequence inspired by the Nash robbery. Wonderland (2003) starred Val Kilmer as Holmes alongside Kate Bosworth, Dylan McDermott, Carrie Fisher, Josh Lucas, Christina Applegate, Lisa Kudrow, and Eric Bogosian as Nash. Numerous documentary series have covered the case, from E! True Hollywood Story to a 2024 MGM+ documentary. The townhouse at 8763 Wonderland Avenue still stands in Laurel Canyon, a quiet address on a winding road in the hills above Hollywood where four people died for the contents of a nightclub owner's safe.
Located at 34.112N, 118.386W in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. The hillside residential area sits in the Santa Monica Mountains between Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. Approach from the south over Hollywood reveals the winding canyon roads characteristic of this neighborhood. Van Nuys Airport (KVNY) is approximately 5 miles north. The area is best viewed from 2,500-3,500 feet AGL, though the specific townhouse is difficult to distinguish among similar hillside residences.