A Prison Interview With Scott Thorson, Wonderland Murders Witness and Liberace’s Pet
After 10 years in the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division, Detective Bob Souza thought he’d seen it all. But nothing could prepare him for the horrors he’d encounter at 8763 Wonderland Avenue.
“There was more blood in that scene than I’d ever seen,” he says, describing it as even gorier than the Tate-LaBianca murders. “It was such an overkill that we knew there was something a lot more to it than just a dope rip-off. They had pissed somebody off. This just smacked of revenge.”
When Detectives Bob Souza and Tom Lange entered the home, nestled in the hip L.A. enclave of Laurel Canyon, they found pills and pipes scattered all over the floor—along with four dead bodies whose heads were bashed in, presumably by hammers or metal pipes. There was a lone survivor: Susan Launius, the wife of one of the targets, who’d been beaten to within an inch of her life. Since all the victims were members or associates of the Wonderland Gang, a notorious group of drug dealers that included at least one prominent neo-Nazi, it came to be known as the Wonderland murders, and inspired the films Boogie Nights and Wonderland.
Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here