Original subtitles

♪♪

[Connelly] Los Angeles,

a city infamous for its music and movies...

[director] Action!

...is also defined by its murders.

[gunshot fires, man screams]

It seems to set the City of Angels apart,

capturing the world's attention.

The randomness of murder plays out beneath

the bright lights of Hollywood,

the boulevard of broken dreams,

and seeps into the veins of the American zeitgeist.

I'm Michael Connelly, and I came here nearly 40 years ago,

drawn by the movies, the music, and, yes, the murders.

This dark pantheon includes the Black Dahlia,

the Hillside Strangler, the Manson case,

the OJ Simpson case, the slaying of Biggie Smalls,

just to name a few.

But perhaps no other case

symbolizes an era in Los Angeles

more than the Wonderland massacre.

Okay, cameras rolling.

[reporter] Four murder victims were found today

in a posh Hollywood Hills home.

Police said all four had been beaten to death in a struggle

that splattered the interior of the house with blood--

a Manson-like mass murder.

[Connelly] The tentacles of the case

would ensnare a porn star, a corrupt judge,

and drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.

Multiple celebrities would be swept into the story

by Liberace's boy toy, enigma Scott Thorson.

♪♪

To this day, no one has been held directly accountable.

For many, including me,

it has been a decades-long obsession.

♪♪

♪♪

[Thorson] I was sitting in this building,

surrounded with federal agents and FBI agents and U.S. marshals

and district attorneys and judges,

and they were trying to figure out

where they could put me to keep me alive,

because there had been a contract placed on my life.

♪♪

Here they put this bright orange jumpsuit.

[inmates chattering indistinctly]

They seized all of my wealth and all of my riches.

And as those doors were slamming shut,

I thought my life was passing me by.

[Connelly] After nearly a decade,

Scott Thorson was now

at the center of the Wonderland case,

and his testimony would be key to linking Eddie Nash

and his bodyguard, Greg Diles, to the four gruesome murders.

I was in fear of my life.

I was scared to death that Eddie Nash is gonna kill me.

So, that's when you were put into witness protection?

Yeah, I was put into witness protection

before the trial started.

[Thorson] I was a witness for the state of California

and the United States federal government

on seven counts of first degree murder,

two counts of attempted murder.

[McClain] We put him in the protection program

right up front.

We were concerned that Ed Nash and his people

might try to kill him

because he's going to be testifying against them.

You actually delivered him to federal marshals.

-Right. Mm-hmm. -And how did that go?

It was like something out of--out of a movie.

♪♪

We had to actually go under like a tunnel

under the federal courthouse.

So, I bring Scott down.

You had to knock on the door. You had to punch in a code.

And I told them who I was

and who I was delivering to 'em,

and they goes, "You are not to have any contact with him

ever again unless you go through us."

I said bye to Scott. We shook hands.

But I do remember they emphasized,

"Do not try to make contact with him."

♪♪

[Thorson] In prison,

they told me what to do and what not to do.

It was hard. I couldn't see any friends.

And I was scared.

♪♪

[Connelly] With Scott Thorson hidden away

in an undisclosed prison,

D.A. Carol Najera was preparing her case

to hold Nash and Diles responsible

for the murders on Wonderland Avenue.

Did you do your own vetting of Scott Thorson?

I did a lot of talking to the witnesses,

and Scott Thorson, of course, was one of them.

He was someone that I think was credible

and could shed light on what really happened there.

The murders took place at the time

that he was clearly a part of that world.

And he had so many details,

and it all just added up and made sense.

♪♪

[Najera] They robbed the defendant, Eddie Nash,

in the presence of his bodyguard,

of a lot of money and a lot of drugs.

Eddie Nash had a string of nightclubs

where he used to distribute drugs

throughout Southern California.

Southern California is not really known

for organized crime.

The closest thing we ever got to that was Eddie Nash.

He was pretty much

organized crime in Southern California.

He sent his thugs over there like a terrorist raid,

and they went into that house,

and, ladies and gentlemen, they proceeded to bludgeon

and bash in the brains of every individual

who was in that house.

[Lange on video] A hammer is noted on the corner of the bed.

The floors are extremely bloodstained around the body.

I was used to a level of brutality,

but when you look at the crime scenes at Wonderland...

♪♪

...I'd say this was the worst I had ever seen

and I probably ever will see.

♪♪

There was so much violence involved

that this was clearly driven by passions, not by reason.

The mindset of Eddie Nash at the time appeared to be,

"I will kill you and everyone you've ever loved."

[Connelly] But the defense argued

that the male victims of Wonderland

were violent criminals themselves,

with copious enemies.

They'd rob other robbers. They'd rob dope dealers.

They'd rob people that possess narcotics.

Ed Nash was a businessman in Los Angeles.

He owned nightclubs. He was a good target.

In the 1990 trial,

the prosecution relied on their new star witness,

Scott Thorson.

[Connelly] Scott Thorson.

Did you have any expectations

that you might have a really good witness here?

Our problem was that, much like John Holmes,

he does, in fact, talk out of both sides of his mouth.

What side are you gonna be talking out of

when you're on the stand?

[Connelly] What is it like

when your star witness goes on the stand?

As much as you believed his story,

you knew he was vulnerable to challenge, right?

Yes.

But you want them to get up there and tell the truth.

When you lie on the stand, I think that it comes through.

It's better to just tell the world, "Look, this is who I am."

Cocaine was not that easy to find,

and--and especially in some of these cities

where I didn't have any connections.

So, a lot of times I would sneak away, and I'd lease a Learjet.

Scott Thorson was a drug addict

and he was, by his own admission,

dealing drugs and totally immersed in that world.

[man] When you arrived at Mr. Nash's house that time,

the day that Holmes was brought in,

did you learn there was some problem

with the drug deal you'd set up?

I-I learnt that Mr. Nash had been robbed,

and he was extremely angry.

I heard Mr. Nash threatening Mr. Holmes,

telling Mr. Holmes

that he would have every member in his family killed.

And, uh, John was, um, begging for his life.

I heard furniture being,

uh, like a body being knocked around on walls.

Did you hear Mr. Nash order Mr. Diles

to do something else at that time?

Yes, he ordered Mr. Diles to take Mr. Holmes up the street

to Wonderland Avenue to get back his drugs and money.

I had to stop 'em.

I stuck to my guns.

Just like when Liberace, what he did to me.

Wasn't fair.

And I fought back.

Your client murdered those people,

had those people murdered.

I heard it, I saw it.

I saw Mr. Diles and Mr. Holmes.

And there isn't anything you can do

and say that I'm lying now.

That man is a murderer.

When he said that, I just thought...

almost a righteous moment of, "Yes.

I think justice is being done in this court."

And that's a very powerful feeling.

That man is a murderer right there.

I looked him right in the eye and I says,

"You know you're a killer."

I says, "You killed those people.

You gave the order." I looked right at him.

And how did he react?

He looked at me, and he put his head down.

[Connelly] You have a strong case.

You must be thinking, "Eight, nine years into this case,

we finally have Nash."

When it gets to the jury, you must be feeling pretty good.

Feeling very good when it gets to the jury.

[Lange] The jury was back in fairly short order.

Couple days.

And they said, "We're 11 to 1. We have a holdout."

We were both just beside ourselves.

I said, "This is total bullshit.

What the hell is going on?"

[Connelly] How surprising was it to see that one holdout?

[Najera] It was a shock. It was a complete shock.

I was completely befuddled. I thought we had that jury.

And honestly I think Tom Lange,

right out the door, thought something was suspicious.

At the time it happened, did you and Tom

try to look into what could have happened?

I think that Tom and I tried to look into it.

We couldn't find anything.

[Jackson] That jury heard Scott Thorson as a witness

and pretty much unanimously decided

he was telling the truth.

11 jurors felt he had credibility enough to

be ready to convict Eddie Nash.

[Connelly] So, the judge gave you 30 days

to decide whether to retry,

and you announce the next day, "We're retrying."

There was no discussion.

Everyone agreed it was gonna happen.

♪♪

[Connelly] The retrial of Eddie Nash and Greg Diles

was scheduled to begin in November 1990.

[Lange] We had Thorson under lock and key, basically.

We had people staying with him in a hotel in Little Tokyo,

just a couple blocks from the courthouse.

I got a call in the middle of the night from the security.

He'd split. Nobody knew where he was.

On the eve of your testifying again,

you kind of bailed out.

I know.

They were asleep in the other room.

Had adjoined rooms.

And that's when I took off. 'Cause I was scared to death.

What were you scared of?

I thought, we're not gonna win.

So, I got scared, and I took off.

[jazz beat playing]

[McClain] He was supposed to have been testifying

either that day or the next day.

So, we got people out looking for him.

♪♪

[Lange] He was an important witness

in the middle of this case.

Did somebody nail him? You know?

Which is highly possible. We didn't know.

But we knew that just a few blocks south is a skid row area

where he could have scored at any time.

♪♪

Then he shows up.

Wait--Wait a minute. Where did he show up?

He ends up coming back to the hotel about 6:00,

I believe it was, in the morning,

uh, none the worse for wear.

Why'd you come back?

I wanted Eddie to go down for these murders.

So, I came back and I did the right thing.

That's why I came back.

[dramatic music playing]

Came back home.

But the damage was done.

The prosecutors--

the last thing they would want the defense to know

is what happened that night,

because you now have an unreliable witness.

Why was it best not to use the guy

who was so powerful in the first trial?

Because we weren't sure what was going on with him,

and we just felt that it opened us up

to tainting our case,

which we didn't wanna do.

And we just felt that, ethically speaking,

it wouldn't be appropriate.

The evil that men do lives after them.

In the second trial, the evidence

was not resonating with the jury.

It just came through, and you could feel it

in the courtroom.

[Connelly] I talked to Carol Najera.

And she said,

in the time between the trials,

Nash was held in jail.

She felt that the jury was looking at a guy,

and they didn't believe he could have been this puppeteer.

Did you get a sense of that at all?

[Lange] Somewhat, but there was another reason.

Nash had some pretty sharp lawyers.

I'm gonna give you the name

of the man who went into that house and did this.

[Lange] The defense had a suspect, Paul Kelly.

They brought Paul Kelly in in chains. He was in prison.

"This is the real killer," is what they said.

There was evidence to tie him to the Wonderland group

because he'd dealt with them before.

But the police already knew about Kelly,

and there's no evidence to tie Paul Kelly to the murders,

not even anything circumstantial.

♪♪

[Jackson] 12 jurors said "not guilty,"

a complete reversal of 12

"not guilty" verdicts coming back from the jurors.

That's almost unheard of.

[Connelly] And that's a pretty steep slide

to go from 11 to 1 to zero and 12, right?

-Right. -What was that like?

It was disheartening, but I still thought that

the evidence was the evidence,

and it showed that-- that beyond a reasonable doubt

that Eddie Nash and Greg Diles had committed the crime.

♪♪

I think if we had had Scott Thorson there

for that second jury,

I really think it would have made a difference.

Because you got to keep in mind

we only opened it up because of him.

[roaring]

[Connelly] Having met his obligation to testify,

Scott Thorson was released into witness protection

with a new identity-- Jess Marlow.

My name was Jess Marlow.

It was my United States government name

that the U.S. government gave me.

[Connelly] Where did the name Jess Marlow come from?

I heard of the name, and I liked it.

I liked Jess Marlow.

[McClain] I get a call from Tom.

He goes, "His name is now Jess Marlow."

I go, "What? The news reporter?"

[announcer] This is the KNBC News Service with Jess Marlow.

[theme music playing]

Good evening.

I was aware that he changed his name,

when he went into federal witness protection,

to Jess Marlow,

which was a bad choice of name

for a guy named Jess Marlow

who was a news anchor here

in Southern California for years.

♪♪

And he, from what I was told, was pissed.

Here's this guy that testifies against Eddie Nash.

His life's on the line. People wanna kill him.

You know, it just opens up all kinds of potentials in his mind

for him to get whacked.

♪♪

[Connelly] Jess Marlow proved to be a handful

to the U.S. marshals assigned to protect him.

What was your life like?

I needed to make money.

And, uh, I was used to living good.

So, I started selling drugs again.

♪♪

And I started using again.

I was clean. I started using again.

So, that's always been your Achilles' heel.

-The using. -Because you know why?

Escape from reality. I forget things.

You know, it takes me away from the world.

And I would smuggle the drugs

through the U.S. marshals' trunk of their car,

in my luggage.

Why? Because I didn't have to go through security.

And I wasn't checked.

[chuckles] So, I was smuggling the drugs through that.

♪♪

[coin clatters]

[McClain] So, we get a call from Scott.

He's down in Alabama, and he gets

picked up by the police. -[line rings]

And he tells them he's in the witness protection program,

and they don't believe him.

[clanking]

But we need to come and get him out of jail.

And so when we get there, Tom and I contact the marshals.

The marshal goes, "You know,

if he does something one more time, that's it.

We're not gonna keep dealing with it."

They were gonna kick him out of the program.

Mac McClain said that?

He said, like, you went to Alabama once

because you had been arrested.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

'Cause I carried the gun without a license.

It was just a gun.

And so the marshals came in, and they dismissed it.

["Spirit in the Sky" playing]

♪♪

Next thing I know, I get a call from Tom.

He goes, "Scott Thorson is at it again."

♪ Going up to the spirit In the sky ♪

♪ Spirit in the sky ♪

♪ It's where I'm gonna go When I die ♪

Well, welcome to The 700 Club, from Tallahassee, Florida,

Jess Marlow.

Jess, we're glad to have you with us.

-[applause] -Come in and have a seat.

It's a pleasure to be here.

You actually went into a witness protection program

with a change of name.

That's right. Um...

I was placed under witness protection plan, Pat,

but I had a tremendous cocaine habit still.

Mm-hmm.

They didn't know how to handle me,

so they were gonna terminate me.

And they heard of a rescue mission in Tallahassee.

Wait, wait. Terminate means they kill you.

-Is that what you... -[laughing] No.

[laughter]

-They didn't mean that. -No, no, no.

They were terminate me from their program.

Oh, from their program.

[laughter]

So--So, you were going out of the program,

and what happened?

My inspector that was in charge of me

was a born-again Christian. -Yes.

And he told me about the rescue mission in Tallahassee.

[ethereal music playing]

And that week, I was saved.

And by the grace of God, I'm here today.

-Yes. -I'm living proof that, um,

when God does exist in your life,

He can produce wonderful miracles.

♪♪

[Connelly] Did you ever happen to be watching TV,

and there he is as a televangelist?

Oh, yeah. We would watch every TV show that he was on

to see what stupid thing he may say.

In the rescue mission, you must have seen many people

who came in as hopeless as you were.

Oh, yeah. Look at me. I'm a living miracle.

I recall four years ago, Sheila, where I was.

The only God I knew was cocaine.

No man or no doctor

could take the desire of drugs away from me

until the Lord Christ came in

and took and set me free from it.

John 8:36 says,

"If the Son therefore shall make you free,

ye shall be free indeed."

And that's exactly what Christ did for me.

He set me free.

Were you a true believer when you were an evangelist?

I was very excited. I really believed in it.

And I was very serious with it.

I-I helped a lot of kids.

So, there was something altruistic.

Oh, yeah, I was very sincere. I was very sincere.

I wanted to help kids and tell my story,

expose the evil of Hollywood. [chuckles]

♪♪

[Thorson] I see so many wonderful results.

I'm so proud of the boys at the mission.

Just bring tears to your eyes,

and, uh, I want to say hi to 'em all, and I love them.

[Walsh] Hi, boys.

-Hi, guys. -[laughs]

I hope they're watching.

[Connelly] But you were telling your story,

and you're supposed to be in witness protection.

You got another name and everything.

[chuckles] Oh, yeah. They were very angry.

-But-- -Who was angry?

Oh, the marshals. I was a handful for 'em.

[laughs]

I went against the marshals' orders.

I was on national TV with the evangelists.

People recognized me. What do you want me to do?

Then they kicked you out of witness protection?

Yes.

So, you traded the protection of the U.S. marshals

for the protection of Christ. -Right.

You know, and I found out

it was nothing but a moneymaker.

It discouraged me, so I walked away from it.

I stopped.

[mysterious music playing]

That's when I got shot.

[gunshots]

I was shot five times.

I was shot through the chest,

through the hand, head.

And the bullet went through my hand and probably saved my life.

Took three bullets through the abdomen.

And I know that it was Nash.

So, what makes you think-- or know--

that it was that guy was sent by Nash?

Because I got a phone call.

Nash was on the line. They were asking me questions.

They said, "We know where you are."

Shortly after that, I was shot.

These men are cold-blooded killers.

My involvement was that I knew about the murders,

and I was a witness.

[Connelly] He tells some grand stories

that can't be disproved.

When he got shot in Jacksonville,

did you hear about that?

I did hear about it, and I've talked

to the detectives since then that handled that case.

They have no doubt it was just a random person that did it.

It was drug-related.

That was evidence of drug use in the motel

that he was staying in when he was shot.

In Jacksonville, after you got shot,

they actually arrested the guy.

But, at least the police said, publicly,

that it was a drug rip-off, not a hit man.

Well, of course they did, uh,

because the marshals didn't want any publicity on this.

They knew what was involved. They still do.

It makes them look bad.

Just stop and think about it, Michael.

♪♪

[Connelly] While Scott recovered from his wounds,

he received a strange visitor from Maine.

[Thorson] This, uh, lady snuck in,

and she prayed for me.

So, she visited you in the hospital

in Jacksonville after you were shot?

Yes.

The stranger comes from a state

thousand miles away and--

She saw me on the Pat Robertson show, The 700 Club,

and she says, "I wanna nurse you back to health,"

'cause I had a long road ahead of me.

She really believed that God had His hands on me.

[Connelly] In an interview with The New York Times,

the woman stated...

[Thorson] So, I went to Maine, and that's where I lived.

I lived with her for a long time.

14 years I stayed with her.

We were gonna get married and all that.

And then I decided, uh, I didn't want to get married.

According to the woman, the couple had sex once.

"'That was enough,' she said with a giggle."

It was horrible.

She tried to control everything.

She didn't like me listening to music.

It had to be Christian-only music.

[choir] ♪ In the cross of Christ I glory ♪

I would wake up, and there would be

a cross on my forehead. [chuckles]

-That she put on there? -Yeah.

♪♪

I got post-traumatic stress disorder over the shootings.

I became bipolar.

I was put in mental hospitals quite a bit.

I would break down.

♪♪

[Connelly] During his years in Maine,

Scott Thorson had become a ghost to law enforcement.

But Rick Jackson,

while working on a murder case unrelated to Wonderland,

once again stumbled upon the name Scott Thorson.

[Jackson] I became aware that he was living in Maine.

Might have been through Tom Lange that I found that out.

I was still looking at maybe

trying to put a case together

that Scott had some information on.

So, we drove up to Maine

and just knocked on the door unannounced.

This woman comes to the door,

and I tell her I need to talk to Scott.

I identify who I am.

And Scott kind of wanders over.

You can tell right away he's messed up

on meds or drugs of some kind.

And, uh, he looks at me, like, with a blank stare.

There's no doubt he knew who I was.

And he was, "Oh, ah, it's so good to see you."

And he's slurring his words, and he's a mess.

♪♪

[Connelly] When you were in Maine,

how were you scoring drugs?

-I stopped for 14 years. -You were never on drugs there?

-No. -What about the time that

Jackson visited you there, and you couldn't recognize him

or weren't coherent?

Well, I was drinking a lot.

But I didn't do drugs.

But at least you were safe there until what?

You got a phone call that you think came from Nash?

Got a phone call through the attorneys,

and he found me.

So, I'll say this much.

The reason why I'm alive today

is because of the crime family that I was involved in.

[tape rewinding sound]

[upbeat jazz music playing]

Las Vegas was controlled by the mob.

Liberace was the golden-haired boy.

He brought in the high rollers.

And, uh, they loved him.

♪♪

So, I was surrounded with the Mob.

So, this is Jerry Angiulo?

Yeah.

I don't think we should mention his name on camera.

I think we already did in the podcast.

Oh, we did? [laughs] Great.

I don't think he's around anymore, but...

Oh, if I disappear, you'll know why.

But that relationship, you told me the story about

you being kind to an associate of his' daughter.

-Yeah. -At a Liberace show.

Well, one of his soldiers, uh,

he had a daughter that had cerebral palsy.

And Jerry Angiulo just loved her,

like his own daughter.

And she just loved Liberace because of all the costumes.

♪♪

You know something? It's no fun to dance alone.

I'm gonna find me somebody to dance with.

Yes, I am.

I took her down to the stage,

and Liberace took her on stage and danced with her.

♪♪

Jerry just loved it and thought it was

the greatest thing that ever happened to her.

So, we became very close.

And he's the one that went to Eddie Nash

and had a conversation with him.

And he told Eddie Nash,

"If one hair is harmed on his head," he says,

"you'll be through."

And that's the reason why I'm alive today.

♪♪

[Connelly] Jerry Angiulo was an underboss

in the Patriarca crime family of New England.

At the time Scott says he reached out to him,

Angiulo was serving a 45-year prison sentence

for racketeering.

Scott tells a story where he contacts a friend of his

that is a Mob boss in Boston named Jerry, um...

-Angiulo. -Angiulo.

-Okay, so you know that name. -Yeah.

And then he intervenes with Nash, saying,

"Lay off of my buddy Scott Thorson."

It almost sounds preposterous,

but it's also something you can't check, you know?

The fact that some Mob guy ended up meeting Scott Thorson

because of his love for Liberace,

it doesn't surprise me at all.

Scott's stories sometimes seem over-the-top and bizarre,

but a lot of them, I've learned, have been true.

Is it another Scott Thorson tale not to be trusted or...

[Lange] I don't know.

There's a little truth in every lie.

That's what's so attractive about a lot of these stories.

"I'm gonna tell you some truths,

but I'm gonna make up the rest."

I question anything he says.

I question anything anybody else says,

unless it can be disproven or proven one way or the other.

What was the old Reagan... Reagan--it's "trust but verify."

That's true of any-- any--any witness.

[Connelly] While Scott was allegedly being protected

by a Boston mobster,

on the opposite coast,

another bizarre twist developed in the Wonderland case.

[crew] Federal task force investigators Chris Robbins

and Jeff Redman. Marker.

You guys almost unintentionally became

the last best hope of the, uh, Wonderland case.

When I started this, I started out

working traditional organized crime,

and then we started a Armenian organized crime unit.

Jeff Redman and Chris Robbins

were part of a special task force

investigating a gasoline tax-fraud scheme

orchestrated by the Armenian Mafia.

Talk about when suddenly the Wonderland case came

into this completely differently focused investigation.

Well, I guess that would be

when Joe Mikaelian came on board.

And who is that?

Joe Mikaelian is a self-described

king of the Armenian Mafia

in Glendale, Burbank, North Hollywood.

He is the godfather

of the Armenian organized crime group.

So, was he a target of this investigation?

He became a target.

Did this involve wiretaps where you had undercover people?

So, we have an undercover FBI agent.

He set up a storefront so that whenever anybody came in,

we had it monitored.

And from there, we were able to pick up, uh, wiretaps.

♪♪

[Connelly] What Joe Mikaelian was caught saying on the wiretap

confirmed Tom Lange's long-held suspicion

about the juror in the first Eddie Nash murder trial.

When he went and met with our undercover,

he goes, "Do you remember the, uh, Wonderland murders?"

And our undercover, playing dumb, goes,

"No, I have no idea." He goes, "I'm the one

who bribed the juror in the Eddie Nash case

that got him off."

And Chris and I were monitoring the wires,

and we go, "Okay, that's-- that's a twist

we did not see coming."

So, Chris goes, "We got to find that juror."

Okay, so what do you do?

Okay, so Chris put this box together

with "indictment" on the side, her name on the side,

walked up, and knocked on the door.

She comes to the door.

And you had this box under your arm?

-[Robbins] Mm-hmm. -Set it right down.

-We put it on the table. -And this was a prop?

-Yes. -[laughs]

I think it might have even had a Chinese menu in it.

I'm not positive, but, uh...

And she kept looking at it.

Then she says, "Is that all about me?"

And I think all of us in unison said, "Yes, it is."

♪♪

She opened up at that point.

And so what exactly did she tell you happened?

She told us that she was paid.

Supposed to get 50,000.

And her brother collected the money initially

but was killed because he held back some money for himself.

Was he in a gang or something?

Yes, and was killed by someone else

that was a member of that group

who had orchestrated the actual bribery.

And what became of her?

She must have been pretty scared.

She--She was very scared.

In fact, it became commonplace on my cellphone

to stay in contact, because every time a car would drive by,

"Jeff, you got to get over here. Get somebody over here."

[Connelly] Talk about when you found out

what happened with that juror.

I mean, that was almost ten years later.

I felt vindicated.

If you take away that element, the bribery,

I believe it would have been a conviction.

♪♪

[Connelly] As a fiction writer,

I might be inclined to come up with a storyline

that includes a bribed juror,

but in reality this is virtually unheard of.

You ever heard of another case where a juror was bought off?

Not before, not since.

[Connelly] So, what were you thinking

when Jeff Redman comes in and says,

he knew what happened on that case way back

ten years earlier?

The first thing I said to him,

"Yeah, we knew that. We just couldn't prove it."

♪♪

[Connelly] Were you excited, like, "Wow, maybe,

just maybe, we can end up getting something on this"?

It would be July of 1999 I get a call from Jeff Redman.

He says, "I got to talk to you about the Nash case."

I said, "Well, he's been acquitted. You can't retry him."

He said, "No, we're not going after him for murder."

[Connelly] Now you have what looks like a chargeable offense

against Eddie Nash,

the guy who slipped through the fingers of law enforcement

for almost 20 years.

What do you do?

The strategy was to develop a RICO indictment against him

with the murders being included as one of the charges.

RICO is Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization.

♪♪

[Connelly] To charge a RICO case,

prosecutors need at least two acts of racketeering.

The acts can include arson, bribery,

distribution of a controlled substance,

witness tampering, and homicide.

It looked like you had him on bribing a juror.

-Right. -Eddie Nash.

What other parts of the case were you trying to build?

So, we had the bribe.

But with RICO, you need more for a prosecution.

And this case took, I would say,

well over a hundred interviews.

Traveled all over the United States.

What we found the most difficult

when interviewing witnesses--

they were scared to death of Eddie.

They knew what he had done.

They knew what he was capable of.

"This guy will kill me if he finds me."

♪♪

[Connelly] Redman and Robbins wanted to prove

that Eddie Nash was engaged

in the distribution of a controlled substance.

They unearthed photos of the cocaine packages seized

in one of those early 1980s raids of Nash's house.

The writing on the package

indicated the origin of the cocaine.

Did you guys connect the markings on...

-We did, yeah. -What was that story?

Uh, from one of the arrests,

they had the packaging still in custody.

And so I think we went and got that and looked at it,

and it had markings of Colombia, which is cartel.

See, that's like a little thing about Scott Thorson --

as I call him, the unreliable narrator.

Like, he was saying,

he was getting it from Colombian cartels.

Then that adds up. Did you talk to Scott?

-We did. -We did.

And how did you find him?

He was in a rehab facility in Palm Springs.

He didn't use his true name, though.

Right.

He used a famous L.A. newscaster name.

So, you were looking for Jess Marlow...

-Jess Marlow. -...not--not Scott Thorson.

Right.

And how'd it go?

Well, comes out shuffling,

and he's got his slippers on and a bathrobe

and proceeds to start to open up.

He had so many different things to bring up and talk about.

We were trying to narrow him down as much as we could.

Through the years of drug abuse,

sometimes you believe what you're saying,

but in reality you're fabricating a lot of that.

And we both came to the same conclusion.

We'd get laughed out if we put him in front of a grand jury.

What is the next move?

We knew that Gregory Diles' shirt

had been recovered as evidence.

[Redman] We're looking for Greg,

and Chris was able to locate him at a residence on Crenshaw.

And we go and knock on the door.

Great big guy comes to the door.

I go, "Greg. Jeff Redman, Chris Robbins.

Uh, we're here to interview you."

He looks at me, and he goes,

"You guys aren't very good detectives."

He goes, "Let me introduce you to Greg."

Walk inside.

There's an urn up on the fireplace.

He goes, "That's Greg. Died two years ago."

Not one of our finer moments in the investigation.

But, uh, hey, you hit roadblocks all the time.

[Connelly] The lead to Diles was literally a dead end.

But Redman and Robbins' investigation

led to another mystery in the case being solved.

[tape rewinding sound]

Now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury...

[Lange] At Nash's trial for possession of drugs,

Judge Ricks sentenced Nash to eight years in prison.

He didn't serve but two years, and Ricks let him out.

What the hell is all this about? Well, we found out.

Are you the ones who figured out the judge was bribed?

Yeah, we did.

And how did you get that?

We interviewed the girlfriend of the judge,

and she told us that he had developed a cocaine problem.

[Lange] Find out later

that Judge Ricks had a cocaine problem,

and he was paid off, I believe...

$100,000, I think.

-Ah, I think it was $75,000. -Was it?

So, they got to a judge, just like they got to cops,

just like they got to lawyers,

just like they get to politicians, business owners.

And that's part of this big scheme,

and they throw up all these little blocks.

And in the end, what is it all for?

It's to try to cover Nash, who's been paying them all off.

He was insulated by all of them.

It was just unbelievable.

[Connelly] The bribery indictment,

combined with distribution of a controlled substance,

gave Redman and Robbins enough to bring the RICO case.

After four years of investigating,

they finally got the call they were waiting for.

[Redman] We were out in the field still knocking on doors,

and we get a call from the U.S. attorney going,

"Indictment's handed down. Go get him."

[reporter] The quiet of this residential neighborhood

in Tarzana was shattered today when authorities descended

on the condominium complex where Eddie Nash lives.

♪♪

[Redman] We drop everything,

go straight to Eddie's Tarzana condo, scoop him up,

put the handcuffs on him.

He's very friendly.

He's, you know, making small talk.

And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he goes,

"What kind of car do you like?" I go, "I like Porsches.

I've always wanted a Porsche," I said, "but never had one."

He goes, "What color would you like?"

I said, "Eddie, you're in enough trouble right now.

Let's stop it right there." I'd like to think I'm worth

more than a Porsche, but I don't know.

[laughs]

♪♪

[Lange] Comes down to September 10th of 2001.

Nash is due in federal court

to answer charges on this 16-count RICO indictment.

And he goes in and he pleads guilty.

[reporter] Defense lawyers say that Nash's poor health

was the reason for the plea bargain.

Also today Eddie Nash admitted to bribing a juror

in his 1990 murder trial.

Now, this juror was a lone holdout in a jury

that was prepared to send Eddie Nash

to the electric chair.

He's given 36 months for all of these federal charges,

including conspiracy to commit the murders

of these four victims of ours.

He should have been doing life...

[chuckles] in my opinion.

[Robbins] The time frame, 37 months.

You look at that and you go, God, this guy should be

spending the rest of his life in prison.

But we've been in law enforcement long enough

to realize that, you know, it's not a perfect world.

Sometimes you have to take what you can get.

[Souza] It might be a rationalization, but, uh,

I think it destroyed his life.

It would have been nice to see him

be prosecuted for murder.

But on the other hand, he was a broken man.

That gives me some satisfaction.

I was shocked at the sentence.

He pled guilty for conspiracy to commit murder.

Four counts and one attempted.

Money laundering.

That was enough to put him away for life.

They gave him three years. Made me sick to my stomach.

He got away with it again.

♪♪

[Connelly] The day after he pleads guilty,

what happened?

[Redman] I walk in central facilities

and everyone's gathered around these TVs,

and it's dead silent.

And it was 9/11.

[reporter] Oh, my God, another plane

has just hit another building.

Flew right into the middle of it.

[Connelly] And was it a twist of the knife

that next day is 9/11,

and he's gone from the-- the media zeitgeist like that?

Done.

And from that point on, both Jeff and I got switched over

to working terrorism, basically.

-Yeah. -I know we really didn't have

a chance to enjoy the work that we had done on that case.

Right. The best statement was made

by an old detective.

"'Fair' is in Pomona, kid. That's not in police work."

-Right. -So...

♪♪

[Connelly] This case, even though it was

an unbelievably brutal murder of multiple people,

it actually transcends crime

to be symptomatic of that time.

It was all about drugs, rock and roll, and sex.

That's all it was.

-And murder. -And murder.

♪♪

What made you guys decide to write a book

about this-- Malice in Wonderland?

[Souza] We wanted to set the record straight

because there had been so many TV shows.

They did a real bad movie, Wonderland.

-[telephone rings] -Cruz. Robbery-Homicide.

-[lighter clicks] -Right.

It was like a glamorized John Holmes story

is what it was.

I think it was for that reason,

we wanna tell the real story.

We're the guys that worked the case.

Let's tell everybody what really happened.

♪♪

[Connelly] At the end of the day,

is there a way to make a case now,

or did people get away with murder?

[Lange] It's been a lot of years.

You're talking, uh, what, 42, 43 years?

District attorney is not going to file a case

they're not about 90% sure that they're gonna win.

They're not gonna win it with circumstantial evidence.

They're gonna need direct evidence.

It appears from the evidence that there were definitely

more than two people went in there to bludgeon everybody,

and there were other names named,

but I don't want to name them because they weren't charged.

I think there's suspects out there

that were never arrested or even brought to trial.

Might be one or two.

There is probably at least one that is still out there.

And still alive?

Um...

-We think so. -We think so.

-Yeah. -Yeah.

They know there's other killers.

I know there's other killers.

♪♪

[Connelly] Do you think it's worth opening it again?

You got advances in forensics and technology,

and Lange and Souza say there are many lifts

made in the crime scene. -[Jackson] Yeah.

And they didn't have a national big-time database in 1981?

No. Uh, no. No.

The national database first started

in the late '80s, early '90s,

where millions of people's prints

from all over the country all integrated into one system.

LAPD had an internal database,

but it was mostly local prints,

stay in the latent print section with LAPD.

They're there.

I have pretty much no doubt they're there.

[Roberts] I know there's a lot of prints

that were recovered in the house and stuff,

but this is a house that had a lot of people going in and out.

And how do you connect those prints

to an actual suspect?

Prints are one thing,

but as technology gets better for us,

I would be excited to find an unknown suspect's DNA

on some of the evidence.

I mean, what are the chances that, like...

-Yeah. -...a hit man's DNA

is in the Department of Justice databank?

[exhales deeply] We screened so many cases,

thousands of cases in the cold case unit,

and we're sitting on DNA profiles of suspects

that aren't in the database.

Those cases are the ones that now we're looking at

to see if we can use this brand-new technology

that detectives are solving cases with.

And why do you think it is that the Wonderland case

is still active in the public imagination?

I think a lot of it is just Hollywood keeps it alive.

Who knows if it would be such a big story

if it happened in Pascagoula, Mississippi?

Maybe not.

Now, Jack, I wanna talk to you

about doing some surgery on Scott here.

-What? -Fine.

What would you like me to do with Scott?

I want you to make Scott look like this.

[Connelly] In 2013,

more than three decades after the murders,

director Steven Soderbergh adapted Thorson's biography,

Behind the Candelabra, into a feature film for HBO.

The film focused on the relationship

between Liberace and Scott Thorson.

Steven Soderbergh and Jerry Weintraub

asked me questions, you know?

I told them, "Please keep it real to the book

and go by the truth of the book."

-And did they? -And they did.

Oh, I think they did a wonderful job.

What about, uh, Matt Damon's performance?

I thought Matt Damon did a hell of a job.

It was nominated for 15 Emmys, won 11,

won the Golden Globe Award.

[classical piano music playing]

The New York Times, when that movie came out,

called you the "Zelig of Awful."

-Did you read that? -Yeah.

How did you feel about that?

Critic. You know, I look at it as a critic.

So, you get good reviews, some you get bad, you know?

Liberace said there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Take it with a grain of salt. Big deal. Who cares?

I've been called worse.

And now you're writing a sequel.

I'm writing the sequel, Beyond the Candelabra:

How I Survived the Wonderland Murders.

And I would love for you to do the screenplay.

Okay, we can talk about that.

Yeah. [laughs]

♪♪

In more recent years,

you were in and out of incarceration

all because of drugs.

I went to prison.

I spent six years and seven months.

I'll never forget what the D.A. called me.

He says, "He's not a celebrity.

He's just a faggot boyfriend of Liberace."

They hated the fact because of all the publicity.

-The movie just came out. -What was the charge?

The original charge was credit card.

Credit card fraud?

Yeah, something very minor. Very minor.

[Jackson] He was in custody in Reno

for an array of fraudulent checks

and forgeries and identity theft.

When things would go sideways for Scott,

I would get a call from his defense attorney.

Little did I know that that would be

a side point in my life--

Scott Thorson being a side point in my life

for the next, you know, 30 years.

You kind of became the Thorson whisperer?

[chuckles] Yeah.

Rick Jackson, to this day, 30 years later--

I never thought I'd be a friend of Rick Jackson. [laughs]

The one that arrested me.

But Rick was very concerned.

He says, "Your problem were the drugs."

All his problems arise from addiction to drugs.

All of 'em.

But he's out of prison now. What's motivating him now?

Do you think he feels any remorse for anything he's done?

Is he looking for redemption?

Being involved in the drug trade,

you might not see firsthand

that you're ruining people's lives,

but there are gonna be people that overdose.

There are gonna be people

that are separated from their families

because of drug issues.

And so, Scott, who can be pretty reflective at times,

probably knows that there are people out there

whose lives he's ruined.

At this point in your life,

are you looking for some kind of redemption?

I understand your motivations and how you were victimized,

but do you ever have any remorse for people that

you were involved in victimizing through drugs?

Absolutely I have regret. I have regret.

I've done some things that I'm not proud of, but I did it.

I had to do it to stay alive.

And I apologize to the people of Los Angeles

that I was involved with such horrible people.

♪♪

[Connelly] With virtually everyone involved

in the Wonderland case now dead,

if the case were to be reopened,

Scott Thorson could once again emerge as a key witness.

The last man standing.

[Roberts] I could listen to Scott Thorson all day,

but I still don't know if I believe everything

that comes out of his...

I have listened to him all day for a lot of years.

Yeah. I mean, he-- Rick told me stories about him

before I even knew who he was.

-So, um, I don't know that... -Yeah.

...you could base a case off of what he's saying.

Not anymore.

He was so powerful in that first case, obviously.

You know, for not the one juror...

-Yeah. -...that got bought off,

Nash and Diles would have been convicted.

-Without a doubt. -Yeah. I agree.

If you're admitting that you bribed the juror

to find you not guilty,

in a way, in a roundabout way,

I think that's confessing to murder.

As a longtime homicide detective,

does that get you, like, "I got to look at this"?

Yeah, in this case,

I remember speaking to you after the podcast,

and you mentioned

that there may still be some outstanding suspects.

So, I decided to pull the case at that point

and kind of look through it

to see what could be done with it.

This is, uh, portions of the actual murder book.

There's a lineup, a large lineup.

A lot of history just in those two binders.

This is all the players--

David Lind, Tracy McCourt. Launius.

And there's Holmes.

Search warrants.

This is the guy the, uh, the defense used

as the straw man-- Paul Kelly.

There are so many more probative cases

that have a better chance of success.

Even though we want to get all of them,

you have to go for the ones that look the most solvable.

It seems to happen in these big cases

that were ingrained in-- in L.A. history,

Hollywood history, that when they go unsolved,

they just become this mystery that just lives on,

and people wanna solve it.

But I feel like,

for the most part, this case is solved.

We know what happened there.

We might not know all the players,

but we know why it happened. We know who ordered it.

You know, at LAPD, we never close --

we never close cases.

Short of somebody walking in and saying,

you know, "I know something."

-Yeah. -Or the new Scott Thorson.

You never know.

Media, like, you know, a documentary --

-Maybe after this, yeah. -You know, people come forward.

So, when you starting?

Right now. We're working on it.

[laughter]

♪♪

[Connelly] It's been over four decades

since the massacre on Wonderland Avenue,

yet the story, with its many unexpected twists and turns,

still fascinates.

In many ways, it's a case of justice unrequited.

♪♪

And at the center of it all

is a man who has lived many lives and told many stories.

[Connelly] What's the future look like

for Jess Marlow- Scott Thorson?

Sobriety is my number one priority right now.

I've calmed down. I live a good life now.

I had a good life with Liberace.

♪♪

I've dined with kings, queens, presidents, inmates.

You know, I'm getting old now.

[chuckles] I'm going to be turning 65.

My legal name is Jess Marlow,

and I'm gonna be changed back to Scott Thorson.

I'm gonna take my birth name and get rid of Jess Marlow.

That life's over.

Leave Jess Marlow in the dust?

Leave him in the dust. [laughs]

♪♪

Thanks.

Thank you, Mike.

Buddy.

[whispers] It's a wrap.

♪♪

♪♪