The Bigger It Is The Harder You Fall
by Tammy Cole

About four A.M., July 1, 1981 in the Hollywood Hills at 8763 Wonderland Avenue, somebody used a blunt instrument to smash in the heads of four people: Joy Audrey Miller, Ronald Launius, William Ray Deveral, and Barbara Lee Richardson. The police don't get too excited about murders like these. I've heard tell they don't get excited at all about the death of those that are known to be users, abusers or dealers in drugs, which, at first glance, it seems all of the above were involved in. One individual that we'll talk more about later just got the shit beat out of her.

Joy Audrey Miller had rented the house for $750 a month, and police reports had her dealing drugs out the front door of the place. The neighbors thought she lived off her father who owned a liquor store where she sometimes clerked.

William Ray Deveral was Miller's lover. The police had attempted to arrest him several times, but Miller said the drugs were hers and not Billy Ray's, although he had a record of seven arrests for dealing.

Ronald Launius was a Sacramento gentleman who passed himself off as a desperado and had a series of arrests including one for murder. A Sacramento cop described Ronald as "one of the coldest people I have ever met." Ronald allegedly had a string of teenagers ferrying drugs across the Mexican border for him.

Barbara Lee Richardson was killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was David Lind's girlfriend (Ronald Launius' partner), and she was just crashing at Miller's pad. Lind was thought to be one of those who were to be murdered, but he had left before the killer(s) arrived.

Susan Launius had come up from Sacramento in an attempt to patch things up with her estranged husband, Ron. Susan's face and head were bludgeoned, her neck ripped and bruised, and her hands displayed what we have come to know as "defensive wounds." Susan would have been the star witness, but after she recovered, she said she only saw "shadowy figures." "Shadowy figures" don't do murder, the cops figured.

There were always "strange goings on" at 8763, the neighbors felt. People coming and going at all hours, late night parties, loud stereos playing, and screams every now and then. The house was once rented to Paul Revere and the Raiders. They were model tenants compared to Ms. Miller and company. Laurel Canyon isn't really the type of place you'd expect things like this to be going on. Every news account mentioned that the house was only two blocks from Jerry Brown's. The media characterized the 8763 Wonderland Avenue murders as "Manson-style hacking deaths." The neighbors said that the house looked like someone had taken buckets of blood and flung it all over the walls. Everybody hoped and felt that this was just another drug deal gone sour, and not something like Manson again. But things like this seem to take on a life of their own.

One of the more prominent citizens of that class of people who come under police scrutiny was Adel Nasrallah, who had Americanized his name to Eddie Nash. Nash owned a string of nightclubs, rock showcase bars and a string of gay bars. The cops had busted him three times for possession of drugs, and he was one of four individuals previously charged with being a part of an arson ring, but Nash was acquitted of the charge. The others were not and went away on a state supported vacation.

Another savory/unsavory character was the three hundred pound personal protection specialist (we call 'em bodyguards) Dewitt Diles, who was arrested for the murders but was later released.

Based upon a palm print (no, not a glove) found at the scene by the police, one John Curtis Holmes, who gave his occupation as an "actor and screenwriter," was arrested six months later and charged with the murders. The press had a field day. This was none other than Johnny (14" but who's counting) Wadd, and the news went through the porn community like a dose of castor oil, the "spring tonic" my Grandma used to give us kids.

John Holmes was the greatest leading man in porn history, along with his 14" cock. A star was born between John Holmes' legs. That was in 1972. As the sexual revolution blossomed, the porn business prospered, thanks to those 14" of dangling death. John said he made at least 2500 loops, shorts and feature length films, if not more. Who knows?

Some of his best where those where he played the sullen, macho gun wielding dick, Johnny Wadd, porn's parody of the hard boiled private eye. He was well endowed for the part, we know fer certain, but how in the hell did he wind up being charged with a mass murder that some called "The Four on the Floor" murders? He just wasn't that type of guy. His fans followed his career with the avidity that bordered on neurosis. Some folks joked that he didn't bludgeon anybody, he was naked and just turned around suddenly without warning anyone.

The consensus of opinion was that this was the "Domino Effect" of the porn sub culture—of group sex, snorting coke and fuck films. Seems that Mr. Holmes was not all that happy with his position in life. He felt he had been ripped off by the bald-headed businessmen whose wives tell their friends that hubby is in "export/import," when they were really dealing in "erotica," as it was known back then.

For five months after the murders, Holmes was nowhere to be seen, "unavailable for comment," and no wonder; he had been immediately picked up by the LA police on "unrelated charges" and shuttled around various LA hotels under heavy police protection, being grilled about the Laurel Canyon murders. When the police released him on his own recognizance he disappeared.

There was a distressing story from Gloria Leonard that had him coming to her house, freebasing three grams of coke in two hours, and then, when she had to leave for an appointment, burglarizing $25,000 worth of electronic equipment, jewelry and guns. Gloria was quoted as saying that John had a serious cocaine problem, but that she didn't realize how bad until he came to her house that day. "I heard he had lost a lot of his possessions. His cars, his house, his jewelry, everything else... [and] had not worked for about a year or more, because he was so immersed in the drug culture."

Suzanne Atamian, aka Julia St. Vincent, a 22 year old former girlfriend of Holmes produced and engineered a publicity campaign to coincide with the notoriety provided with the murders, and released Exhausted, a "documentary" of on the street interviews, clips, and testimonials on John Holmes, the man. When the cops got wind of it, they raided the premiere, thinking John might be there.

To cut to the chase, John was the subject of a thousand and one tales told over and over by a "thousand and one" wives, friends, lovers, haters, and those obsessed over a guy with a 14" cock. John was caught between a cock and a hard place. First thing out of the gate: he flees, thereby convicting himself in the court of public opinion.

If you think O.J. had his detractors and supporters, you and I should have been around back then. There were "unidentified" men seen lurking around 8763 Wonderland the night of the murder. Eddie Nash was supposed to have supplied coke for Joy Miller to peddle. One "witness" testified that Deveral, Launius and a guy by the name of "Tracy McCourt" had broken into Eddie Nash's house with the help of Holmes, who gave them a diagram of the house and the combination of the safe where several kilos of coke were stored. Nash was supposed to be a porno groupie who took his close friend, John Holmes, to parties. The murders at 8763 Wonderland were "pay back," and John Holmes was supposed to know all about it.

During the preliminary hearing John was going to be a fink, a stool pigeon, a rat (the menagerie of the informer) if he testified, and would either be killed, or have his mother killed. If he didn't testify, he would be tried for mass murder committed during a robbery, which carried the death penalty. Testify and die or lie and fry! Some choice.

And who would be the detective investigating this case? Perhaps you've heard of Homicide detective Tom Lange before. If not go check the back issues of the LA Times during the O.J. Simpson trial.

The jury deliberated for four days. In after the trial interviews with jurors, the press was told that ballets were coming out 9 to 3 to acquit one day, and 8 to 4 the next. Then juror Kathy Wood read aloud one of the instructions of the judge: "No person may be convicted unless there is some proof of each element of the crime independent of any confession or admission by him outside of his trial." That clinched it. John had never said nothing, nada, zilch.