Nancy J. Kraft, nee Launius, 69, of Smithton, Illinois, born Friday, August 4, 1939, in East Saint Louis, IL, died Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at Memorial Hospital in Belleville, IL. Holmes told his wife that he was held against a wall, at gunpoint, while the three men beat to death Launius, 37; William DeVerell, 42; Joy Audrey Miller, 46; and Barbara Richardson, 22. National Park Service: 'Never push a slower friend down' in a bear encounter, March 2 (UPI) -- The National Park Service offered some sage advice for park visitors who encounter bears: "Never push a slower friend down. Holmes hired the sisters to do gardening around the complex. Considering employee opinions. Hed been with three governors, two of their wives and one senator, who was really a freak., Holmes said he owned ten different businesses, that he was a gourmet cook, that he had written twenty-nine books, including a how-to manual combining cooking and sex. In the late Seventies, Los Angeles police averaged twenty-five drug busts a month at the Starwood. After a while, the weather report came on. John Holmes died on March 13th, 1988. Hed underestimated Nash once, but hed never do it again. A stairway, leading from the garage to the front door, was caged in iron. No drugs. He was very possessive. At an alarming rate.. Nash shut the bedroom door. You know, says Detective Lange, theres no mystery here. Six months later, on September 8th, 1988, Diles and Nash were charged with the murders on Wonderland Avenue. They lived in London, Paris, Michigan, Florida. Sellers had no particular plan; Glendale sounded just fine. Lulu Press offers a very affordable set-up with generous royalties. A California cop called him one of the coldest people I ever met.. We sat for a long time, and he was very, very quiet. (Wikipedia article on Wonderland Murders). Edward, a carpenter, was an alcoholic. No strings attached.. Caring about employees. Then he sold shoes, furniture, Fuller brushes door-to-door. I won't do an extensive write-up of the Wonderland Murders, as they've been written about on here before: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/430cdk/four_bloody_unsolved_wonderland_murders/. Holmes was crumpled on the floor. The case against Holmes was built largely on two pieces of evidence: An admission that Holmes allegedly made to Los Angeles Police Detective Frank Tomlinson after his arrest in Miami in December, 1981, and a bloody palm print left by Holmes on the rail of a bed on which one of the victims, drug dealer Ronald Launius, died. He cooked coke all night long. Marriage & Divorce. As night stretched into morning, Holmes had an attack of conscience, a glimmer of an understanding that knocking over Eddie Nash might lead to a lot of trouble. Holmes said hed had sex in airplanes, helicopters, trains, elevators, kitchens, bathrooms, on rooftops, in caves, storm cellars, bomb shelters in Europe, under a table in a restaurant filled with people, fifty feet underwater while wearing scuba gear. Web Design & Digital Marketing At Holmes murder trial, Tomlinson testified that Holmes told him that after the robbery had occurred at Ed Nashs house, that Nash had made (Holmes) tell him who the people were that robbed him. There was shouting, laughing, rock & roll twenty-four hours a day.. During the day, she worked in a nursing home. The man in the suit was Los Angeles Police Department detective Tom Lange. Susan A. Murphy Launius, then 30, while not an official member of the gang, was married to gang member Ron Launius and had a drug habit. A house on Wonderland Avenue. They used cans of spray paint. She was thin, blond, foulmouthed, a heroin addict with seven arrests. Now it was midnight in the parking lot at the Safeway in Glendale. The fifty-two-year-old former jurist had been arrested after he allegedly punched his eighty-two-year-old mother and threatened to kill someone if she didnt give him keys to a car. Shed gotten a job at a nursing home and was paying her mom rent, trying to rebuild her life. I was there., It was my fault, John said, his eyes welling with tears. Youre probably going to be saving him.. And like the leading men of yesteryear, what was known of him was mostly myth. The couple ended up in Miami, at a small run-down hotel on Collins Avenue. It was Sunday evening and the drugs were gone, the money was gone, the situation was desperate. Will Dominion-Fox News lawsuit be different? The Holy Roller was up in the balcony, waving a Christian flag, praying and hollering, singing We Shall Overcome. She said John had cut some coke with an old tarot card and she believed it was a sign from the devil. Listen, he said, grabbing her elbow. In the end, both Diles and Nash went to jail. (But) we have a certain set of rules to follow that the people who go out and perpetrate crimes dont.. Ron Launius was born in 1944 in Shawneetown, IL. Bob Gregory, 62, went missing the same day as Sands. Aftermath Lind and McCourt were both away from the scene at the time of the murders, so they were able to survive unharmed. Sharon stood with arms crossed. Jewelry, wads of money. He wanted witness protection, a new name, money, a home. He and Sharon settled into a strange hybrid of domesticity. Hed say, Count this. Were talking $56,000 in two boots.. Its like being a carpenter. Two days later, Coen alleged that Holmes, acting on Nashs orders, led the killers to the Wonderland Avenue address and then helped murder the occupants. They came from across the countryalthough the Washington, D.C. area was noticeably over-representedas well as from Canada and England, and, in at least one case, all the way from Nazi Germany. His body was recovered near Mount Islip. John continued making films for a while. At home, Nash walked around in a maroon silk robe, or sometimes in bikini briefs, his body covered with a thin sheen of sweat. When Holmes was eight, his mother married Harold, a manic-depressive who worked for the telephone company. I said No and I meant it., Over the next year, Nasrallah brought her grape leaves, hummus, pots of Turkish coffee. A bloody mess. He told me that he had set up the robbery. She cleared her throat John?, You had this dream. One summer day in 1968, Sharon came home a little early from work. He weighed ninety pounds, his fingernails were two inches long. Memorial has already been merged. With all the publicity from the murders, John Holmes had achieved almost mainstream celebrity. The final victim was Barbara Richardson, 22, Sacramento, Calif. Court records revealed that a codefendant in Miss Miller's narcotics case was John 'Ricco' Vlick, 53, who lives in a wood-shingled house only two blocks from the scene of the killings. His surgery wouldnt heal up, either. Alex MurdaughCalled 'Family Annihilator' by Prosecution in Murder Trial. She hadnt heard from him in, what, six months? His voice had a smooth Arabic lilt. Then one day Harold threw John down the stairs and came after him. Mrs. Launius, whose husband, Ronald, was killed in the attack, told the court doctors removed a large portion of her skull during surgery following the beating. He was frozen. Finally, he replied: The murders . Now it was December 4th, 1981. I never get tired of what I do because Im a sex fiend. One night Holmes told Jeana to meet him at the van. Following his arrest in Miami, Holmes was tried for the murder of the Wonderland Gang. Hed have Jimmie, the cook, prepare these elaborate spreads. And the AIDS thing was just starting to come out. After mustering out of the army, at age nineteen, Holmes went to work as an ambulance driver, and soon thereafter he met Sharon Gebenini. April Valentine died at Centinela Hospital. Theyd sold a pound of baking soda for a quarter of a million dollars. He was freebasing one hit of coke every ten or fifteen minutes, swallowing forty to fifty Valium a day to cut the edge. Im going to quit. Then, when Eddie Nash got out of jail, John was very, very worried. Amerson, meanwhile, accused his friend of embezzling $200,000 from the company. The Sixties, the pill, free love, communes, wife swapping, the perverse creativity of mixed-media artists who were pushing the limit, trying to shock all of these things created an atmosphere in which porn could blossom. Nash and Diles were well known on Sunset Strip. I believe I was watching TV and it seems like a bunch of people were coming in and out,' Mrs. Launius said. Jeana Sellers (not her real name) arrived in Holmess life in 1976. Ill teach them a lesson! I stood there against the wall. Everybody was just shocked.. Ronald S. Coen, now a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, argued that the fatal beatings were intended to avenge the humiliating armed robbery of Los Angeles nightclub owner Adel Nasrallah, also known as Eddie Nash. Jeana stood up, moved closer to the tube. 'We'll probably find a real motive,' he said. The color drained from his face. At the house, Holmes told his wife, Nash pored over Holmes address book, and stopped when he came to the pages that listed addresses in Ohio, where Holmes was born and where his mother and other relatives still lived. I told where the robbers lived and how to get there. Detectives said they had talked to Susan Murphy Launius, 29, at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, where she is in critical condition with gashes in her head and neck. Soon after, the courtship of Jeana began. He said he was told he would be killed and people in the book would be killed if (Holmes) didnt do what (Nash) wanted. Mr. One of the actresses in the cast was Laurie Rose. A porn documentary of his life, made in 1981, was called Exhausted. Id usually fall asleep on the couch.. ', In time, John and Laurie moved in together at Amersons. Jeana sat in the front seat, Thor in her arms. 'When you're talking about the star witness in a case like this I think you can safely assume that we've got her pretty well guarded,' a pllice spokesman said. Nash would kill him and his family if he talked, he was certain of it. This story has not been verified. One search of the premises yielded a cardboard box containing 4,000 counterfeit Quaaludes. Isamarie Perez, San Antonio Stacey vs. Brooke Alexander, McLeod; Wyndi Williams, Baird vs. Cassie Petty, White Deer; Kyla Coleman, Whiteface . Nash liked having him around. Remember me?. Like aliens or something. At the hospital, as he came out of anesthesia, he said to Mary, Ill never have to work again. He didnt. Lind and his girlfriend had come down three weeks earlier from Sacramento to stay at Wonderland. Hed been in jail eleven months in all, 110 days on the contempt charge. He seems like he was a crazy fucker. John was doing a lot of drawing. Then, in the summer of 1985, John tested positive for AIDS. or learn more. All his lawyers I think he had maybe six or seven working on different things all his managers, employees, customers, everyone, would come to him. Room service. They did hits off Eddies pipe, eyed the door. One regular trick had him barge into her bedroom while she was watching TV, then tie her up and rape her. Her husband, Ron, 37, of the Topanga Canyon area of Los Angeles, was one of the victims. He was marketing Holmess old films on video. He took over the kitchen. Everybody at the hotel got to know us, Jeana says. Susan Launius's income source is mostly from being a successful .

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