Eddie Nash, born Adel Nasrallah in Palestine, arrived in Los Angeles in the 1950s and quickly went from selling hot dogs on Hollywood Boulevard to owning multiple businesses, including restaurants, strip bars, and clubs, per Rolling Stone. The police alleged he was also a major drug dealer, among other nefarious activities like pimping, arson, and fencing stolen goods. An LAPD report from 1974 labeled him “Hood of the Month,” according to LA Weekly.
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Prosecutors believed Nash had ordered the murders of the residents of the Wonderland Avenue home in retribution for having robbed him at gunpoint of more than $1,000,000 in cash, drugs, and jewelry a few days earlier at his mansion, per the Northern Nevada Business Weekly. John Holmes — in hock to one of the apartment’s residents, a drug dealer named Ronald Launius — had helped plan the armed robbery of Nash, Holmes’ friend and drug supplier, although he didn’t participate in the actual crime, according to Crime Library.
