Barbara Richardson

The Wonderland Gang was a group of drug dealers involved in the Los Angeles cocaine trade during the late 1970s and early 1980s; their home base was located on Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.

Launius and Susan Murphy, were married in Carson City, Nevada, on April 16, 1971.

William Raymond DeVerell was Launius' right-hand man and a voice of reason.

David Lind characterized him as an otherwise decent individual who had been lured into the drug world because of the easy money and indicated that DeVerell experienced periods of self-loathing for his actions, during which he expressed a desire to stop dealing and using illegal drugs.

DeVerell was an overhead crane operator – and heroin user – who had been arrested 13 times in relation to his addiction, which is part of the reason why he stayed in the gang.

The autopsy performed after his murder identified numerous injection scars on his forearms, in addition to hyperplasia of the lymph nodes – a common sign of narcotics abuse.

David Clay Lind was a biker, heroin addict, and member of the Aryan Brotherhood who befriended Launius when the two men served time in prison together.

In May 1974, he was arrested for and charged with the 1973 murder of a reputed police drug informant who had been killed over a botched drug deal.

After a key witness for the prosecution died in an unrelated police shootout, the murder charges against Launius were dropped.

That year, however, Launius was convicted of smuggling heroin and cocaine across the US/Mexico border and eventually served three years of an eight-year sentence in a federal prison.

A California police officer described the blond, bearded Launius as "one of the coldest people I ever met".

Another officer commented, upon hearing of Launius' death, "I suppose they won't need many pall bearers".

When asked to elaborate, the policeman explained: "A trash can only has two handles".

Launius was known for remaining composed under pressure.

His associate, David Lind, once said of him: "You could put a gun to his head and his pulse would never break 70".

Launius' brazen and fearless nature led both to his dominance in the drug trade as well as his demise, stemming from the events leading up to his death in the Wonderland Murders.

Tracy Raymond McCourt was the driver of the stolen 1975 Ford Granada that carried the Wonderland Gang to Eddie Nash's home on the night of the robbery.

Originally, McCourt was designated to take part in the home invasion itself, but a day or so before the event, conspirator David Lind (who derisively referred to McCourt as "Titmouse Tracy") took away McCourt's handgun, and McCourt was relegated to driving duty.

In the years following the Wonderland murders, McCourt was reported to have moved to Colorado.

He spent considerable time in the Colorado prison system, but when he was free he operated a successful mobile phone franchise.

On July 1, 1981, three members and one associate of the gang died in the Wonderland murders (also known as the "Four on the Floor murders" or the "Laurel Canyon murders").

The Wonderland Gang mainly trafficked in the burgeoning cocaine trade of the era, but despite its role as the most influential and feared cocaine distributorship of its time in Los Angeles, some of its members were heroin addicts.

Drugs were regularly dealt from the residence at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles.

The two bedroom split-level house was leased in Joy Miller's name.

Miller and her live-in boyfriend, Billy DeVerell, were the usual residents; Ron Launius and his wife, Susan, were house guests.

David Lind, ordinarily a resident of the Sacramento area, came to Los Angeles in the summer of 1981 at Launius' behest, to aid in their growing drug-distribution business.

Lind and Launius had become friends while in prison and promised to deal drugs together upon their release.

Lind and his girlfriend, Barbara Richardson, rode down to the Wonderland house on Lind's motorcycle and slept on the living room sofa.

Adult-entertainment legend John Holmes, famous at the time for his portrayal of the detective character Johnny Wadd in a series of pornographic films, was a frequent visitor who would purchase or scrounge cocaine from the gang.

Although the Wonderland Gang was mainly known for its drug sales, which concentrated on cocaine and the occasional heroin deal, the gang also gained revenues through burglaries and armed robberies of rival drug dealers.

It was this last line of "business", particularly the armed robbery of Eddie Nash, that ultimately led to the group's sudden and violent end.

Members of the gang included:

Their associates included:

Ronald Lee Launius was a United States Air Force veteran of the Vietnam era, who had been dishonorably discharged and convicted of smuggling heroin from Vietnam back to the United States in the coffins of American service members.

Reportedly, at the time of his death, police investigators in California, largely in the Sacramento area, had 27 open homicide cases they believed were perpetrated by Launius.

In 1981, at Launius' behest, Lind traveled to Los Angeles to join the Wonderland gang and assist them in running drugs.

By the time of the Wonderland murders, Lind had been incarcerated several times for armed burglary, forgery, assault, and assault with the intent to commit rape.

Specifically at the time of the murder, Lind testified in court that he was at a motel in the San Fernando Valley, consuming drugs with a male prostitute.

Lind's position in the drug underworld was and remains murky due to allegations by rival drug dealers that he worked as a police informant.

In 2001, he reportedly had been wanted by the Colorado Springs Police Department for "assault with a deadly weapon and failure to comply on the original charge of distribution of a Schedule II controlled substance".