"The 33 Year Hunt For A Queer Killer" Transcript

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At 10:43 a.m. on the morning of October 29th, 1990, a group of plain-clothed police officers were eating breakfast at a local Hollywood diner, Barb's Quickie Grill, when they were approached by a homeless man knowing they were cops because of his history on the street. He informed them that he'd found a body in a dumpster behind the diner.

At first, the officers suspicions were low. Bodies, particularly body parts, were found in dumpsters, often usually a result of medical waste. But the man's insistence led to them following him outside, where Officer Mike Bertram climbed into the dumpster and opened the bag the homeless man had pointed out. Inside the black trash bag, Officer Bertram saw the face of a boy with what he later described as the bluest eyes he'd ever seen.

The eyes transfixed him until he realized that they belonged to a severed head. The head of William Billy Arnold Newton, better known by his adult film alias Billy London.

Billy Newton had grown up in Wisconsin before moving to California in 1984. In an issue of Man Shots magazine from June of 1991, Billy's friends described him as someone who saw himself more as an artist, only doing adult film work to keep the bills paid while he pursued his real passions in adult film. He worked both in front of and behind the camera, working as a producer, set designer and makeup artist when not performing.

But the industry wasn't giving him the professional satisfaction or stability he sought, and he was growing tired of it. In the summer and early fall of 1990, he began to make plans to move to Las Vegas, where his mother and sister lived. He wanted to be closer to family, and his skills as a licensed beautician could come in handy living near the Vegas Strip.

According to author Christopher Rice, in the days leading up to his death, Billy had been putting together the last pieces of the puzzle that would lead to his move, starting with bringing in as much money as possible. At the time, he was working on completing a few final productions. On October 25th, he worked late on the production, titled In the Grip of Passion, in which Billy performed both on screen and behind the camera as a makeup artist.

The day ran so late that he didn't return home to his apartment, which he shared with three roommates until well after midnight. The next day, Billy performed in a scene for another film and was booked to return to the studio the next week to perform in a solo scene. This solo scene would likely have been his final scene before heading to Las Vegas.

On Saturday, Billy returned to work on further scenes for In the Grip of Passion, which was being produced by his ex-boyfriend and business partner, David Ray. Finishing work for the day at around 9:30 p.m., Billy and David went to dinner at the Yukon Mining Company, a local restaurant known for its all day breakfast and being a place where sex workers would take a break during long nights.

Billy and David spent several hours there, mostly catching up with friends before Billy returned home at some point past midnight. This was the last time David Ray saw Billy Newton alive. The next morning, Sunday, October 28th, Billy placed a call to his sister in Las Vegas to get her advice on whether or not he should book a bus or plane ticket for the trip to Vegas the next week.

Settling on the bus as a more economical option, enjoying having the day off the first in a while. Billy spent the rest of the morning hanging out with his three roommates before leaving to go to a local video store. Billy made plans with his roommates to meet up later that afternoon for drinks. Later, when questioned by the police, the roommates would give the laughable alibi that they had spent the day at a church picnic.

That afternoon, Billy entered Rage, a well known gay nightclub in West Hollywood. It was slow at the time, and the staff were busy decorating for Halloween, practically a national holiday in the city of West Hollywood. According to the bartender at the time, who had actually been in a casual relationship with Billy Newton seemed depressed. Unfortunately, because he was busy decorating, he wasn't able to spend much time talking with Billy.

The bartender would later say that Billy sat at the bar alone, drinking several cocktails without ever interacting with anyone else at the bar, leaving Rage at around 4:30 p.m.. Another bartender later told police that he couldn't remember Billy coming into the bar at all that day. But these aren't the only accounts of what Billy was up to on the afternoon of October 28th.

Another account from the time came from a friend of Billy's who he called while either still at rage via payphone or immediately before going to rage. They discussed his move to Las Vegas, and Billy seemed to be in high spirits, a departure from the story told by the bartender. He reportedly spoke with. But according to Run Wheeler, an acquaintance of Billy, who was also at Rage around the same time Billy was there and wasn't quite so alone.

Ron, who was there with some friends, spoke to a man he hoped he would get more than just a conversation out of. The man was from out of town and was curious to know if rage was always so slow. But Ron assured him that it would get busier after the sun went down. Ron planned on keeping an eye on the man who he found incredibly attractive, but Ron later saw the man spend quite a long time flirting with Billy at the bar and then leave with him.

This was the last time that anyone reported seeing Billy alive. Sometime later, after moving away from Los Angeles, Ron Wheeler seemed to recognize the man with whom Billy left rage that afternoon while watching the evening news. He was shocked to see him again, especially under the circumstances. Wheeler would tell Christopher Rice that the man he saw on his TV that day, the man who he believed to be the one who left with Billy was Jeffrey Dahmer.

He reported this to the police at the time, but never heard back from them. Around the time of Dahmer's arrest, there were so many reports coming in about him that not all of them could even be processed, let alone investigated. But whether Billy really went home with Jeffrey Dahmer, that afternoon is up for debate. Dahmer, who lived in Milwaukee, was in a dry spell at the time, a five month period in 1990 in which he did not actively murder anyone.

He had recently reconciled with his mother, who lived in California. So the idea that he was in Los Angeles on October 28th is not unreasonable, but still highly unlikely. In any case, he was never taken seriously as a suspect by the police investigating the case at the time. The morning after Billy reportedly left Rage nightclub with Dahmer or a very close look alike, he was found dismembered, his head in one dumpster, his hands and feet in another, but the rest of his body was never found.

Surprising, it was eventually discovered that the cause of death was not the dismemberment, much to the relief of his family and friends, but blunt force trauma to the head, followed by strangulation. So at least Billy wasn't alive when the dismembering began. Once the police knew to start looking for leads within the gay community, they hit a roadblock almost immediately, as many in the community not exactly trusting of the police at the time were not willing to speak to them or give any kind of statement.

Others in the community avoided going into too much detail when it came to murders or disappearances, since the fear of the closet was still very real. A conversation about one murder victim, even a well-known adult film performer could quickly spiral to include other people in his orbit who may or may not be out of the closet. And the LAPD, not known for their subtlety, could have easily outed any number of people in the process of the investigation.

And so lips were kept sealed. Some of the people who were willing to speak to the police ended up misdirecting the investigation by stating that Billy was not just an adult film performer, but a sex worker on the streets as well. This led to the police believing he may have simply had a bad experience with a John. Though Billy's friends repeatedly told them that he only did adult film work and no other kind of sex work.

With mixed signals, few people willing to talk and no leads. The case soon went cold. It wasn't until 2005 that the investigation was reopened. Detective Wendy Baron, after being made head of the Hollywood division of the LAPD Homicide Unit, made a public announcement that, among other cases, she would begin reinvest locating Billy's murder, hoping that advancements in DNA and other crime solving technologies would lead to a break in the case, which she described as her white whale.

But a little over a year later, Billy's father, Richard Herriman, told aviation reporter Mikey Ski that the LAPD had once again put Billy's murder on the back burner. He created a public email address where he could be reached with tips or new information regarding the murder of his son in hopes of someone coming forward with new information. In the meantime, he would walk the streets.

Billy walked, never giving up on finding Billy's killer. However, Billy's father passed away in 2011, and the email address was not monitored by anyone afterward. For those keeping tabs on what was left of the investigation, mostly journalists working in the adult film industry, this seemed like the end of the road, with Billy's murder taking place at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Most of the people who knew him had long since passed away, so finding new information would be next to impossible until the murder became a topic of discussion for true crime podcasters and bestselling authors Christopher Rice and Eric Shaw. Quinn, who began covering the case on their podcast in August of 2020. What began as a segment of an episode looking at what cases they were obsessed with, inspired by I'll Be Gone in the Dark, an HBO docu series following Michelle McNamara as she investigated the case of the Golden State Killer.

It soon turned into a regular feature of their long running podcast, but with 12 episodes eventually being dedicated to the case. Rice, in particular, drove headlong into the mystery. Speaking with the original detectives involved, the few living people who knew Billy and people in the adult industry, he said.

30 years had passed at this point since Billy's gruesome murder, and the only suspect was a long dead serial killer whose involvement was a long shot. Even Billy's performing name, Billy London, had been taken by new performers since his death, making tracking down any information about him or even his filmography online almost impossible. Hoping for a miracle, Christopher and Erik set up an email address where they could be contacted by anyone with information about Billy.

This is how Ron Wheeler got in touch with them regarding the Dahmer connection. Within a few months of Christopher and Erik first covering the case, their podcast drew the attention of the LAPD Detective John Lamberti, the detective who had been assigned the cold case, got in touch with the two authors to discuss the case and the possibility of new leads.

This brought new resources from the LAPD into the investigation, which had been absent since when de Barron's investigation in the mid 2000. Serendipitously at the same time. Documentarian Rachel Mason, best known for her documentary Circus of Books, was also looking into the murder. Creating an odd collection of advocates and researchers determined to crack the case. But despite their best efforts in November of 2020 to Detective Lamberti said that unless some new piece of information magically appeared, there wasn't much left to look into when it came to Billy's murder.

And then, after putting Billy's case back into the archives, he received an email from Rachel Mason with a detailed workup done by her research colleague, Clark Williams. A document that changed everything. Clark Williams, a retired social worker, found himself at a crossroads in life as his daughter embarked on her college career, leaving him an empty nester. Williams pondered what the next chapter of his life would entail, seeking to reconnect with his roots as a young queer man growing up in Wisconsin.

He joined a Facebook group known as the History of Gay Wisconsin. It was within this online community that fate intervened. Williams stumbled upon a post by Rachel Mason seeking any information about Billie Newton and the potential link to Jeffrey Dahmer. This post sparked Williams's curiosity, leading him down an unexpectedly dark and winding rabbit hole. To his astonishment, Clark Williams found that he and Billie Newton had grown up in the same Wisconsin town born just one week apart.

This newfound connection ignited a fire within Williams, compelling him to uncover the secrets surrounding Billy's life and tragic death. Leveraging his background in social work, Williams embarked on an exhaustive investigation. He reached out to Billy's surviving friends and family, meticulously combed through correspondence between Billie and his loved ones, and even managed to track down elusive school records that could provide crucial insights records that the school board was not supposed to hand over to him.

As he delve deeper into Billy's life. Clark unearthed a harrowing narrative of instability and discrimination that mirrored Billy's younger years. Billy's mother's frequent relocations occurring roughly every six months, had forced Billy to change schools, often preventing him from experiencing any semblance of stability and keeping him from making any real friends. Tragic circumstances further marred Billy's life when he came out as gay during his sophomore year of high school.

His family's response was devastating. His father kicked him out of his house, saying that he had no son. This act would haunt his father until his death. With no close friends and nowhere to stay. This effectively ended Billy's education and with no other recourse. Billy left Wisconsin behind. William's relentless pursuit of the truth did not stop with Billy's personal history.

He expanded his investigation to scrutinize everyone who had ever been considered a suspect in the case. Many of these individuals had passed away over the years, but Williams was determined to leave no stone unturned. One crucial linchpin in this investigation was the adult film industry. Given the absence of digitized records from that era. Williams undertook an effort to order films directly from studio back catalogs and collectors.

His goal was to compile a comprehensive list of the people working on any films in which Billy was involved, both in front of and behind the camera. This arduous task required him to uncover their real identities. Check for criminal records and gather other essential details. Amid this research, Williams stumbled upon the name Ric Pesquet, whose involvement in Billy's case raised suspicions.

Ric Pesquet, who described himself as a private investigator, had purportedly devoted two decades of his life to unraveling the mystery of Billie Newton's murder. He had even collaborated closely with the LAPD in 2005 when Detective Wendy Barron reopened the case. However, as Williams look deeper into Pesquet, his background, a startling revelation emerged. Pesquet, it turned out, was not a bona fide private investigator, as previously believed.

Instead, he had a significant history in the adult film industry spanning over 20 years. His role as an editor at the studio, where Billy's films were produced, piqued Williams curiosity. Clark Williams began examining Rick Pesci's life, much like he had done with Billie Newton. This eventually led him to explore the films Pesci had worked on around the time of Billy's murder, focusing on the individuals who had been part of those productions.

One name Billy Houston, caught the attention of Williams contacts within the industry. Further investigation unveiled Houston's true identity, which led Williams to discover that Houston was not only currently incarcerated but serving time for torture and a double homicide Following a trial. Houston had been convicted and sentenced to multiple life sentences. With Houston emerging as a potential suspect. Clark Williams sought to confirm whether this new lead had even been in Los Angeles at the time of Billy's murder.

A visit to the Los Angeles County Records Office provided the crucial verification he needed. LAPD arrest records showed Houston's presence in Los Angeles from the fall of 1990 to 1999. Williams soon discovered that Billie Houston's most well-known film, The Devil and Daniel Webster was actually directed by Rick Pasch, and that it seemed at least they were quite close.

At the time of Billy's murder, Pesquet was even busy editing a film in a studio, the back door of which opened up directly into the alleyway in which Billy's body was found. Another pivotal moment in Williams investigation occurred when he stumbled upon a book titled American Honor Killings by David McConnell. The book delved into the disturbing phenomenon of queer men who targeted and killed other queer men.

Astonishingly, an entire chapter was dedicated to the person once known as Billy Houston. In correspondence with McConnell, this individual admitted to the murder, but also confessed to two other murders, one in Houston, Texas, and another in Los Angeles in 1990 while working in the gay porn industry. However, they were reticent to provide further details during the conversation as it was being recorded by prison CCTV cameras, and they feared the death penalty.

The shock didn't end there. Williams research revealed that the person behind the Billy Houston persona had ties to a white supremacist gang, adding an even more sinister layer to the investigation. Realizing the gravity of these new revelations, Clarke Williams decided it was time to pass on his findings to Detective Lamberti. Within 24 hours of Clarke Williams contacting him, Detective Lamberti reached out to him with an unexpected request.

Lamberti needed Williams assistance in preparing questions for the suspect, a person who had undergone gender confirmation procedures and now went by the name Darryl Lynn Madden. She had been sentenced to two life sentences for her involvement in a gruesome crime in Oklahoma City. Madden and a fellow skinhead had posed as sex workers and brutally murdered gay man. She had then gone on to murder her partner before being apprehended by law enforcement.

When Detective Lamberti and his partner, Tamara, arrived in Oklahoma to meet Madden in prison, they encountered someone entirely different from the person they had expected. Not only had she transitioned, but also converted to Orthodox Judaism. As Detective Lamberti recalled on an episode of the Christopher and Eric podcast.

Tamara therefore played a crucial role in establishing a rapport with Madden during their prison visit. She adopted a friendly and personable approach, ensuring to use Madden's preferred pronouns and making every effort to keep her open to conversation. This strategy proved effective as Madden began to open up, ultimately confessing to the murder of Billy Newton on that fateful October night in 1990.

During her confession, Madden revealed the horrifying details of the murder that night. She had been driving around West Hollywood with two accomplices, fellow gang members, looking for someone to rob and even kill as an initiation ritual. When they spotted Billy walking down the street, they confronted him, threatened to rob him and told him to get into their car.

Fearing for his life, Billy complied. They drove Billy to a secluded location where Madden proceeded to bludgeon him on the back of the head, knocking him out and then strangle him. However, she adamantly refused to admit to the subsequent dismemberment of his body, claiming that she had left the scene after the strangulation. Madden went on to insinuate that the unnamed accomplices must have been responsible for the further desecration of Billy's remains.

While Madden's confession shed light on the murder itself, her refusal to name her accomplices left a critical part of the puzzle unresolved. Many officials involved in the case strongly believe that Madden had played a more significant role in the gruesome acts and that she did, in fact, participate in Billy's dismemberment. Though others remain unsure if there were truly other people involved, she said they could understand why she would want to keep them secret.

Her silence may have been rooted in the need for self-preservation as being labeled a snitch in prison could endanger her life. Being a transgender woman in a harsh prison environment was challenging enough and revealing her accomplices could further imperil her safety. Derrylin is quoted as saying, I may be a murderer, but I'm not a snitch. Upon returning to Los Angeles, Detective Lamberti presented Madden's confession to the district attorney.

However, they declined to prosecute Madden further. Their reasoning was based on the fact that Madden was already serving multiple life sentences in Oklahoma and could potentially recant her confession at any time. This could lead to an expensive trial in California that at best would lead to Madden ending up exactly where she already was. In essence, the legal system had reached a point where justice could not be further served through additional prosecution.

Despite the absence of a trial, the LAPD officially closed the case on Billy Newton's tragic death. Billy's surviving family expressed gratitude for the decision not to pursue further legal action. Madden would already spend the rest of her life behind bars and going through the traumatic process of adding another life sentence would only force Billy's family to relive the agonizing pain of their loss.

Sitting in the courtroom as crime scene photographs forced them to view the hideous acts Billy had been put through. The one question does remain prominent that of the involvement of Rick Pesquet with his confirmed connection to Madden, and then years of working with the police to find Billy Newton's killer. Was Pesquet honestly trying to help find the people who dismembered Billy?

Or was he purposefully pointing the LAPD in the wrong direction to keep his friend Daryl in safe? It's a question that eats at members of the LAPD. Could this case have been solved years ago had it not been for Pesci's involvement? And what of Madden's two Suppose it accomplices? Did they really exist, or is Madden simply trying to come across as less of a monster?

And if they did help murder and dismember Billy Newton, are they still alive, still on the streets, still killing? These are questions that some involved in the case are not letting go of. But in the meantime, at least there has been some justice for Billy in the years after his murder. Billy's story was really only ever covered by gay porn industry publications and a few gay blogs.

That is until 2023, when his story made the front page of the L.A. Times, written by Kevin Rector. The piece detailed the investigation and how two authors, a documentarian and a retired dad with too much free time solved a crime that had spent three decades languishing as a cold case with the LAPD, a group of queer people finding some sort of justice for one of their own.

Taken too soon, the story of Billy Newton's murder is a testament to the unwavering dedication of those who refuse to let cold cases remain forgotten through the tireless efforts of individuals like Clark Williams, Christopher Rice, Eric Shaw, Quinn, Rachel Mason, and Detective John Lamberti. The truth can emerge from the shadows. Despite the complexities of the case and the many twists and turns along the way.

Justice was ultimately served even without a trial. It is a reminder that no matter how much time has passed, the pursuit of justice can still bring answers and healing. In the end, it is a story of determination, compassion and the power of collective effort, demonstrating that some mysteries can finally be brought to light. Even after decades of darkness.