Who was Eddie Nash, the criminal mastermind behind the Wonderland Murders?

In 1981, four people were bludgeoned to death near Wonderland Avenue in Los Angeles. In 2000, Eddie Nash — believed to have planned the killing — was arrested for racketeering, money laundering, and wire fraud. Here’s who Nash was, and why it took so long to take him into custody.

According to United Press International (UPI), the four people Nash was eventually arrested for killing were targeted by Nash for burglarizing Nash’s home. The prosecution said Nash enlisted the help of one of his bodyguards, as well as John C. Holmes, an adult film actor at the time, but that Nash did not directly commit the crime. Given the proximity to Wonderland Avenue, the four deaths became collectively known as the Wonderland Murders.

Before his 1981 arrest, Nash was tried and acquitted twice for commissioning the Wonderland Murders. In the second case, it was proven that the lone juror voting to acquit had been bribed, and charges — including racketeering, under which the Wonderland murder-for-hire plot was included — were brought again. Between 1981 and 2000, among other arrests, Nash was sentenced to eight year in prison on a narcotics conviction. He was released early, however, for health reasons, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Who was Eddie Nash?

Clearly, Eddie Nash was a hardened criminal, willing to go to great lengths to protect his Los Angeles-based money laundering and narcotics trafficking operation. In legitimate circles, he was a Palestinian-born night club owner and restauranteur, whose real name was Abdel Gharib Nasrallah. He made his fortune moving large quantities of narcotics into L.A. in the 1970s and `80s, which he sold largely through his popular nightlife establishments.

For some sense of the lengths to which Nash would go, one LAPD detective reportedly said they’d never seen so much blood than at the Wonderland Murders crimes scene, according to LA Weekly. Adult film star John Holmes later said that Nash was “the most evil man I’ve ever known,” according to All That’s Interesting.

Per LAPDOnline.org, once arrested in 2000 on charges related to the Wonderland Murders, Nash, then in his 70s, pleaded guilty in 2001, and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison, and made to pay a $250,000 fine.

In a plea deal, Nash admitted asking two men to get his stuff back, but not to kill those inside the house, and he only served one year. He died in 2014, at the age of 85. The Wonderland Murders, however, live on in L.A. history.