David Lind: Wonderland Gang Role, Nash Robbery, and Testimony

David Lind was a convicted drug dealer and freelance bounty hunter who took part in the June 29, 1981, armed robbery of nightclub owner Eddie Nash and, two days later, became the prosecution’s most direct witness in the David Lind Wonderland murders case. He was a member of the Wonderland Gang, the Laurel Canyon cocaine crew whose four housemates were bludgeoned in retaliation for that robbery. Lind survived only because he was not at 8763 Wonderland Avenue the night the killers came, and he walked into a Hollywood police station the next day to name them.¹

Who Lind Was and How He Fit Into the Wonderland Gang

The gang ran a cocaine distribution operation out of a rented house at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in Laurel Canyon. Ron Launius, a former U.S. Army soldier dishonorably discharged for smuggling drugs, led the group. Billy DeVerell was his second-in-command, and Joy Miller held the lease. Barbara “Butterfly” Richardson and Launius’s wife, Susan, also lived at the house. The crew supplemented its dealing income by robbing rival dealers, both to take their supply and to remove competition.²

Lind moved in that circle and took part in the gang’s crimes. He later described the group’s targets as people he understood to be dangerous, recalling in court that during one robbery “it was obvious from the time we got in the house that we were over our heads.”¹

His Role in the Nash Robbery

On June 29, 1981, Lind joined Launius, DeVerell, and getaway driver Tracy McCourt in an armed robbery of Eddie Nash’s Studio City home. Nash, whose legal name was Adel Nasrallah, ran nightclubs and a large narcotics operation on the side. Pornographic film actor John Holmes, a regular at Nash’s house, tipped the gang off and allegedly left a sliding glass door unlatched so they could get in.³

Lind took the most aggressive role. He posed as a police officer, flashed a stolen San Francisco police badge at Nash’s bodyguard Gregory Diles, and yelled “Freeze! Police! You’re under arrest!” His gun discharged during the confrontation and grazed Diles.⁴²

Lind later testified that he and two of the other robbers cheated both Holmes and McCourt out of their fair shares. Holmes grew angry about being shortchanged, a detail prosecutors used to explain why he was willing to help Nash identify the men who had hit the house.⁴

Why He Survived the July 1 Killings

In the early morning hours of July 1, 1981, assailants entered the Wonderland Avenue house and bludgeoned the occupants. Launius, DeVerell, Miller, and Richardson were killed. Susan Launius survived with severe head wounds and permanent brain damage.²

Lind was not at the house. He testified he had been staying at a motel in the San Fernando Valley that night, which is the reason he lived when the other robbery participants did not.¹

What He Told Investigators

The day after the murders, Lind walked into the Hollywood police station and told investigators he knew who the killers were. He admitted his own part in the Nash robbery and identified Nash and Diles as the men behind the retaliation. From the witness stand he put it plainly: “I never killed anybody. *They* did.”¹

He also told investigators how the robbery had been planned, including how Holmes had let the gang into Nash’s house and later helped Nash identify the robbers after he was caught wearing stolen jewelry.⁴

How the Defense Attacked His Credibility

Defense attorneys argued that Lind and other prosecution witnesses were “drug users with criminal records” who had gotten special treatment from authorities in return for their testimony.¹ Lind’s record as a convicted dealer gave that line of attack real force, and it was a problem that ran through the whole case. Nearly every witness with firsthand knowledge of what happened at Wonderland Avenue was tangled up in drugs and crime. LAPD detectives Tom Lange and Bob Souza later described the investigation as one filled with “snitches, thieves, drug addicts and porn stars,” a bribed juror, and allegations of a corrupt federal agent.⁵

How the Cases Ended

John Holmes was tried first, in 1982. A bloody palm print on the railing of the bed where Launius died placed him at the scene.³ He did not testify and never told his attorneys what happened that night. A jury acquitted him on all four murder counts, though he served 110 days for contempt after refusing to cooperate with the grand jury.²

Lind testified for the prosecution when Los Angeles County tried Nash in the early 1990s. The first trial ended in a hung jury, 11 to 1 for conviction. Nash later admitted in a federal plea agreement that he had paid a $50,000 bribe to the lone holdout.⁶ A second state trial ended in Nash’s acquittal. Diles, his co-defendant, died in 1995.⁷

In May 2000, a federal grand jury indicted Nash on 16 counts covering racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering, and the Wonderland murders. In September 2001 he pleaded to avoid a possible life sentence. He acknowledged that he had “conspired to commit murder,” admitted the juror bribe, and admitted he had ordered associates to “get together some people who could get the property back” from the Wonderland robbers, understanding that the thieves might have to be killed. His attorney told the court that Nash “is not admitting, and in fact denies, involvement in committing those murders.”⁶ In the plea, Nash named Lind, DeVerell, and Launius as the men who had robbed his home on June 29, 1981. On October 12, 2001, U.S. District Judge Carlos R. Moreno sentenced Nash to 37 months in federal prison, with credit for 14 months already served, and imposed a $250,000 fine.⁸

No one was ever convicted of carrying out the Wonderland murders. Lind occupied an unusual place in that outcome: an admitted robber, a survivor by accident of scheduling, and the closest thing the prosecution had to a direct link between Nash and the killings. His account gave investigators the story of what set the murders in motion. His record gave the defense the tools to keep juries from convicting on it.²

1
Los Angeles Times. David Lind Testimony in Nash Trial
2
All That’s Interesting. Wonderland Murders
3
Los Angeles Times. John Holmes Connection to Nash and Wonderland Gang
4
Crime Library. John Holmes and the Wonderland Murders
5
Michael Connelly. Wonderland Murders
6
Los Angeles Times. Nash Plea Agreement Details
7
The New York Times. New Charges in 19-Year-Old Drug Killings in Hollywood
8
Los Angeles Times. Eddie Nash Sentencing