SCOTT THORSON : CRIME AUTHOR MICHAEL CONNELLY TAKES ON THE WONDERLAND MURDERS AND THORSON IS THE LAST MAN STANDING

I searching for more recent news of SCOTT THORSON, I found that he had done a number of interviews around the time of the film Behind the Candelabra. I watched numerous videos on YouTube, some that got clipped into Tik Tok as well. Most were ten or more years old and were repetitive of the information I already provided here at Mistress Manifesto. 

Liberace went out of his way to hide his homosexuality and therefore his relationship with Scott was also kept secret, which required lots of collaboration - from the media especially. So when Scott outed himself, he also outed Liberace. 

Where were we as a culture on the subject of the LGBTQ stars in the 80's? 90's. Ten years ago?  What about today when there are still many places where LGBTQ people do not dare be open?  I want to know if Scott Thorson was doubted because he was duped by a star? Or because he was and is not heterosexual? 

Best selling crime fiction author, Michael Connelly, has tackled the Wonderland Murders and his investigative take which includes Scott Thorson. Connelly's book is called The Wonderland Murders and The Secret History of Hollywood. In this YouTube video one investigator believed Thorson entirely and another thought Scott to be a liar.

Scott Thorson was put into a Witness Protection Program due to his testimony.

My libraries do not have a copy of this book but you can listen to clips of it on YouTube, as read by the author. There were three trials and no one was ever convicted of the murders which thus remain unsolved.

In this 2021 article that appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine, Scott Thorson says investigators should continue to work on the case.

ROLLING STONE - WONDERLAND MURDERS -THORSON

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July 2016

PORN ACTOR JOHN C. HOLMES and Wife SHARON GEBENINI and MISTRESS DAWN SCHILLER Love Triangle Relationships Played Out Through The Wonderland Murders

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JOHN C. HOLMES and DAWN SCHILLER BECOME DRUG ADDICTS and HE TURNS HER INTO A PROSTITUTE

THE ROAD THROUGH WONDERLAND - Surviving John Holmes
By DAWN SCHILLER, C  2010,  is published by Medallion Press

MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW and EXCERPTS

After we have come to understand the slow seduction that Dawn Schiller began to experience as an underage teen, and the way she, John C. Holmes, and Sharon, his wife, moved into living together, and we wonder how much Sharon did or didn't know, we next wonder how it is that the relationship between John and Dawn, which had it's romantic moments no doubt, turned very ugly.  The answer seems to be easy.  They smoked pot recreationally, but John started using cocaine and he knew that many a person had lost everything they had before he started using.  His drug addiction came rapidly upon him and with it he began to steal from his own household.  He sold the very rings that he had given Dawn as tokens of his love.  He stole from other people too.  He looked for cars that were unlocked and stole out of them. 
In her book Dawn says that Sharon doesn't know about the pot.  The problem I have reading that in the hear and now is that the pot was being smoked in the cottages in the court that the Holmes' managed, including, very much so, in the cottage that John's brother David and wife lived in down the way. Don't know about you, but medical marijuana is legal now where I live, and the smell of neighbors smoking it is very tell tale.

Within a few months, the weekend cocaine high turned into twice and then three times a week. Sharon may not have recognize the smell of pot wafting in the courts, but she did know that John was calling Dawn to meet him over at his brother's cottage a lot at this point.
(Page 239)

Soon John was dealing, mixing powdered baby laxative in with the cocaine powder and Dawn and his brother were helping him.  About the same time Sharon offers Dawn the job of managing the cottages full time so she can quit her nursing assistant job and be free to start taking classes.  (Pages 230 and 233)

The fun outings, camping and day trips end because they need to be home so they can use.  The other tenants notice the unusual behavior and are no longer trusting. They are watching their property and complaining to Sharon.  (Page 235)

John promises that he will quit the drug but can't. 

There's a difficult visit of John's mother at Christmas to deal with in which she senses something amiss and deliberately ignores Dawn and says that she feels she should have no place in the family.  John's mother even calls Dawn a "devil." Sharon tells her, "Dawn is in this family by choice - our decision."  (Page 244)

As John becomes holed up in the bathroom for hours doing the drug, he and Sharon stop communicating.  (Page 248) and then John accuses Dawn, whose been taking a typing class, of seeing a young stud at school. (Page 249)  Soon he is beating her, even cracking her jaw, jealous and threatening to kill her (nonexistent boyfriend.)  (Page 259)

He now takes her to sit in the car while he makes his deals on Wonderland at Eddie Nash's, and lets her know that he is engaging with very dangerous people.  (Page 265)  He becomes an angry man, tearing up a garden, scaring the other tenants, and, one day...

"Sharon sees me crumpled on the porch holding my gut and crying.  She steps back into the shadow of the house, emotionless."  (Page 266)

Sharon uses her nursing skills to patch Dawn up sometimes but when Dawn threatens suicide, Sharon writes her a letter and says that she has to change or will be kicked out.  (Page 277) 

This is when John and Dawn leave to live in seedy motels and in a van, basically homeless.  Before the day that Dawn makes her break from John, he will witness people being murdered at Nash's, be arrested, go on trial, be freed, and the couple will go on the run to Florida, where they feel safer and resume a more stable life - for a while. 

Missy here.  Cliffhanger!  I want to encourage you to get and read this devastating book.  (I hope you'll be inspired to read many of the books that I read first and use as research here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO.)

DAWN SCHILLER on HER EXPERIENCE OF BEING INVOLVED WITH A MARRIED COUPLE

"It's like living three different lives.  The one with John and me.  The one with Sharon and me.  And the one with John, Sharon, and me.  But I do questions every day whether or not Sharon knows about us.  Some days I have no doubt that she is well aware of our relationship and simply has no desire to discuss it.  But on other days I am completely baffled and afraid to think about it.  Even so, the three of us all seem content with what we have and unwilling to rock the boat."  (Page 215)


THE ROAD THROUGH WONDERLAND - Surviving John Holmes
By DAWN SCHILLER, C  2010,  is published by Medallion Press

The SLOW SEDUCTION of DAWN SCHILLER from her book THE ROAD THROUGH WONDERLAND - SURVIVING JOHN HOLMES

THE ROAD THROUGH WONDERLAND - Surviving John Holmes
By DAWN SCHILLER, C  2010,  is published by Medallion Press

MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW and EXCERPTS

Dawn's childhood and early teens were colored by absent parents and living in a violent slum environment in Florida. Her mother was a German immigrant who'd married an American GI, came to America, and found herself working three waitressing jobs to support her three children. She and her children were abandoned as her Viet Nam vet husband, who had handled Agent Orange and got disfiguring cancer, became a hippie and traveled. Dad's return to Florida was only to admit that he had another woman and child in Thailand and to ask for a divorce. Oddly the children were asked which parent they would prefer to live with. Dawn and her younger sister chose their Dad because their stressed out hot tempered mother was sometimes abusive and their pot smoking Dad seemed so mellow. They wanted out and he talked California. 

Maybe it was fate but as they drove across the country, they chose to pick up a hitchhiker because he looked safe and like he had some pot. They were right and this hitchhiker took them to the place where he had a woman awaiting him, a loving woman named Harriet, who was unaware he had another woman too. Soon the hitchhiker was gone, leaving Dad to carry on an affair with Harriet, leading her on and making promises he never intended to keep because she provided a roof over their heads.  (Harriet would eventually go after Dad legally for Breach of Promise, having had to move back home with her parents.)

But perhaps what is more remarkable is that it was the mid 1970's Glendale, California, Harriet lived as a renter on a property described as a "court" with small cottages, and in one of them lived John C. Holmes, porn star, and his wife Sharon, who was managing the property, and in another, John's brother David and his wife Karen, who were financially dependent on John. Several of the renters at this property quickly understood that the family new from Florida were near homeless, destitute and hungry. They cared enough to allow Harriet her guests long term, other residents sent over food, and Sharon and John both came up with odd jobs around the property so that Dawn could make some money.

So far, so good, you think.
Then you ask, at what point was it that all this caring and sharing covered over the fact that an adult male, married and a star in the world of pornography, was seducing an underage female?  (Many adults suspected or knew something was up, and John's own brother and Sister in Law knew more than Sharon because they were in on the drug use!)

We know that Mom was left in Florida. Dad is gone a lot. It turns out that after he enrolled Dawn and her sister in high school, applied for government benefits, and went to the local VA for further skin cancer treatment, he also got himself a job and an apartment in Riverside, about an hour's commute south, and imported his long waiting Thai lover to be there. He would suddenly yank Dawn out of Harriet's with the lie that they were all going back to Florida. Dawn's sister did go. By this time John C. Holmes was so involved with Dawn Schiller that he conspired to get her back to Glendale, and he and Sharon helped the high school drop out, get full time work as a nurses aid.

HERE THEN is a progression of seduction, from DAWN SCHILLER's own book.

John, while Sharon was working full time, took Dawn and her younger sister to Zuma Beach - Pirates Cove - which was a nude beach and where Dawn and John were body painted.  (Page 115-116)  (They got naked, no touching.)

"John sees my father's lack of concern for my whereabouts and takes the initiative to ask me to join him for errands alone more often."  (Page 122) (This soon includes going to the beach, mountain hikes, and an overnighter camping trip, that included her sister and sister's boyfriend the first time, at Leo Carrillo State Park near Zuma Beach.)

John sets up her sister, who is a young teenager herself, to have a "private" conversation with Dawn about their age difference and what her true feelings are for him.  "Stunned I am frozen to my spot on the water bed.  John's delighted laugher trails behind him across the courtyard all the way to his door."  (Page 130)  (He's listening in and her younger sister seems to be the more mature one, who says she thinks John is acting like a high school kid.)  (Page 131)

John has her wait in the car as he goes into the Pussycat Theatre where his film THE AUTHOBIOGRAPHY OF A FLEA, a Victorian era piece, is playing, to buy tickets.  She is underage but together they see one of his porn films.  (Page 133)

He takes her to Zuma to "Make love" with him in the van.  While his moves are seductive and even gentle to start, and Dawn's not a virgin, "I close my eyes and silently let the terrible searing pain of finality wash over me with the crash of the ocean tide."  (138)  On the silent ride home, "Everything hurts and I can't walk."  (Page 139)  Three days later, Harriet takes her to a clinic for antibiotics.  Harriet seems to guess that Dawn has had sex.

Then, John gifts her a teddy bear and a birthstone ring.  (Page 141)

He takes her for a weekend to PALM SPRINGS where they stay as "Mr. and Mrs. Holmes" at the Biltmore Hotel in a private bungalow.  (Page 146)  (More sex.)

After Dad announces they are leaving the day before they are to go, he gives John a "murderous stare" and John calls Dad "a son of a bitch"  Then Dawn's sister, who is going back to Florida with her boyfriend, says, "John knows, the whole courtyard knows - what Dad is doing to Harriet... and everybody knows about you and John too."  (page 155)

Back alone to Glendale and the cottages, leaving Dad and his Thai lover in Riverside, John's brother and sister in law, in whose cottage she is staying temporarily, start providing food, and Sharon shows up with a casserole.  John, soon back from France, gives dawn "a thick platinum band lined with three large diamonds." as well as poetry he wrote for her that she thinks is beautiful.  (pages 178-179)

Sharon helps her get work at a local nursing home by providing Dawn some of her own old uniforms, sometimes drives her to work, and they rent her a room somewhere on the property that needs a lot of fixing up.  John brings furniture - antiques that he strips and refinishes.  Sharon brings in towels, sheets, comforters, silverware, dishware.  (Pages 179-180.)

AT THIS POINT THE SHARON, JOHN, and DAWN LOVE TRIANGLE BEGINS.

John takes Dawn to Barstow in a van to pick out a Boston Bull puppy to give Sharon as a gift.  (Page 182)

Sharon starts inviting her over to their place for dinner and treats her like family.  Sharon and John surprise her with a brand new 10 speed bike to get to work.  (Page 185)

John takes Dawn to Vegas on a Harley.  Sharon knows and advises them to take some water with them.  Brother David and sister in law Karen will be there too to gamble and drive them and the Harley back to LA.  (Page 187)

Sharon and John lower her rent because she is now collecting rent, sharing in the apartment management job.  (Page 193)

Has Dawn now become legally an emancipated minor?  (It doesn't say but if so, maybe that throws a different understanding into this situation.)  Dawn says in her book that her Mom now knows that John is her boyfriend and that John and Sharon just live together.  Turns out that Mom, her sister and younger brother are moving from Florida to Oregon.  Mom sends her bath mats and towels for her new place.

CHAPTER NINE is called IT TAKES THREE TO TANGO  (It's 1978 and Dawn is now about 18.)


The three of them spend most of their evenings at home, playing scrabble and rummy and listening to classical music.  Dawn is invited to move into their spare bedroom and give up the room she's been renting, and is being mentored by Sharon to pass her certification as a nurses aid. Sharon knows that John and Dawn are still going on weekend trips - the beach - the mountains - Palm Springs - Vegas - and usually declines to go.   When Sharon does go to Vegas with them, she's the one covering for her need for an ID because she's underage and the three of them share one king sized bed, with John in the middle.(Page 214)