(cont'd)

Dawn Schiller: John referred to Eddie Nash as "brother." Eddie was portrayed to me as an extremely dangerous person who we didn't talk about. We barely were to breathe around him because it could be taken wrong. I didn't really understand the social structure, other than that it was based on fear. So, yeah, I got to meet Eddie Nash.

It was after sitting outside [Nash's] house more days than he knows, because John started taking me with him when he went on drug runs. I never went into anybody's home. He'd always make me wait in cars, hidden. With nothing but a Coke can to pee in and a free-base pipe. And John would come by every 12 hours or so and drop me a free-base rock.

But John did bring me into Eddie's house a couple of times. He basically sold me for dope. He needed to get high and he'd give me, the teenager, in trade.

One time it was my birthday, and I was drilled with this story that I was supposed to be John's niece from Oregon, in town looking into nursing schools. John warned me about how Nash would treat me the moment I came in. He told me that Nash would leave me sitting in the living room with the drugs, money, and jewelry in front of me. For hours.

And if I touched a thing, my body would disappear in the desert somewhere, because I was being watched with a two-way mirror. So I came in and I was left in the living room for hours with all these things in front of me. Nash did it to see if I was on dope. And at that time I was so addicted to coke, you know? So I just broke into cold sweats, waiting to be called into the bedroom.

Finally I got traded off.

Nash paid me in coke. When John picked me up I turned all the coke over to him, and then I told him word for word everything that happened, and he backhanded me so hard my tooth went through my cheek. I guess because there wasn't as much cocaine as they originally bargained on. I think it had to do with the fact that Eddie Nash could tell I wasn't John's innocent niece from Oregon. I mean, he could tell that I'd smoked free base before.

Cass Paley (documentary filmmaker): At the same time John Holmes was hanging out with Eddie Nash, he [Holmes] was living with the Wonderland Avenue Gang: Joy Miller, Ronnie and Susan Launius, Billy Deverell, David Lind, and Tracy McCourt. They were heroin addicts who lived in an armed camp. John was running drugs for them, but I think he always ended up doing more than he dealt. So they were always pissed off at him, because John was always owing them money, so then they came up with the "bright idea" to have John set up Eddie Nash to be robbed.

Bob Souza (L.A.P.D. homicide detective): Holmes was afraid of Ron Launius, the leader of the Wonderland Avenue Gang. Launius called Holmes "donkey dick," which would be a compliment to most guys, but it was the way Launius said it, as an insult. Launius used to say to Holmes, "Hey, show 'em your dick. Pull it out."

You know, Launius just treated Holmes like a butt boy. And Launius was a tough son of a bitch.

So Holmes was shootin' off his mouth at the Wonderland house about Eddie Nash, and Ron Launius heard him talking. And Launius started asking a lot of questions about Nash: "Has he got any dope? Has he got guns? You know, what's he got? Got any jewelry in there?" Ron Launius was a fuckin' thief from way back, so he's thinking, Hey, this looks like a pretty good score.

The Wonderland Avenue Gang was doing residential robberies at that time; that was their big thing. They were going out and ripping off other drug dealers. So you know you got some tough bastards when they're robbing other dope dealers. 'Cause you know you're gonna face some guns.

Dawn Schiller: One night John came in and asked me to draw his bath and to get him a cup of coffee. Up until this time, he hadn't taken his eyes off me. I was watched because he knew that I wanted to get out. He knew I'd run any second. But when he asked me to go get him a cup of coffee -- while he was in the bathtub -- it was my chance to make my break.

I went out and I mixed the coffee, and there was a sliding-glass door behind me -- and I ran.

And so I made it -- I got away.

I went up to Oregon and stayed at my mother's for a couple of months, and John called every day. He begged me to come back, telling me how much he loved me. That he was sorry and that he'd never hit me again. Saying it was the drugs. Telling me if we just got away from the drugs, everything would be all right. And I cringed.

But he wheedled his way back in. And I started to believe him.

So John talked me into going back. I flew down from Oregon, and he met me at the Burbank airport. And, immediately, the first thing he did was pick up someone else's baggage off the conveyor belt and walk off with it.

I pretended I didn't see it.

Then John left me in a motel, said that he'd be right back, but the rent expired. Here I was, just back from Oregon, with all these promises, standing on an extremely busy street, not knowing what to do. And not knowing where John was.

David Lind (Wonderland Avenue Gang): On Monday, June 29, 1981, Ron Launius provided John Holmes with money to purchase narcotics from Eddie Nash and leave a door open for us to enter.

Tracy McCourt (Wonderland Avenue Gang): So we left the house on Wonderland Avenue, and we passed John on our way to Nash's. He was driving down the hill and we were going up the hill. We stopped and he told us, "Get him!" He went like, "Get him!"

So we went to the house and got him.

David Lind: At Nash's there was a chain-link gate that we just pushed open; we went to the sliding-glass doors that were left open by Holmes -- and entered the guest bedroom. There was a doorway leading into the hallway, and I saw Gregory Diles, the bodyguard, a 300-pound black man, coming out of the kitchen with a serving tray in his hands.

I shouted, "Freeze! Police! You are under arrest!"

And then Ronnie and Billy also threw down on Eddie Nash.

I had a leather case containing a San Francisco police officer's badge, and we all identified ourselves as police officers, and we were all armed. So we handcuffed Gregory Diles and lay him on his stomach. But while I was cuffing Diles, Ronnie bumped my arm and the gun went off.

Tracy McCourt: I was sitting in the car waiting for them when I heard a real loud noise and knew it had to be a gunshot. It sounded like a Magnum, but I calmed down by telling myself that any of the neighbors would have thought it was a load of lumber falling off a truck.

David Lind: When the shot went off, Eddie Nash immediately fell to his knees. Diles wasn't shot or anything, he just suffered some powder burns and bled a little.

So I finished handcuffing him and laid him on the floor and put a throw rug over his head so he couldn't see what we were doing. Eddie Nash was on his knees with his hands behind his head. Then Ron and Billy took Nash into his bedroom and I followed.

Eddie was asked to lie facedown on the carpet of his bedroom. Ron went to a wardrobe closet where there was a floor safe, and asked Nash for the combination. Then Ronnie opened the safe and withdrew a half-pound zip-lock storage bag, which was approximately three-quarters full of cocaine.

John had told us earlier that there was also a laboratory vial -- approximately eight to ten inches in length, half an inch in diameter, full of heroin, which he called China white -- and that it was in the area of Eddie Nash's dresser. We picked that up, and also an attaché case full of money and jewelry. We found everything.

Inside the attaché case was a considerable sum of money in twenties, fifties, and hundred-dollar bills, and a considerable amount of jewelry -- gold jewelry and diamonds.

Then I taped up Gregory Diles and removed the handcuffs, because the handcuffs could have been identified by what was engraved on them, and went to the bedroom and taped up Eddie Nash and threw a sheet over him.

After that, as we were getting ready to leave, Ronnie started to question Diles about the whereabouts of the rest of the stuff, then pulled out a knife and started to cut him, but I told Ronnie, "We've got everything we need here. Let's go."

So I opened the front door and signaled to Tracy McCourt. He started to back the car up. Then we all split.

John was waiting inside the door when we arrived back at Wonderland Avenue. The first thing he wanted to know was exactly what had happened. He was very excited about it, but I told Ron not to tell him anything.

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