by Legs McNeil
I guess he noticed that there were girls on the beach working as hookers, and I was oblivious to that. Don’t ask me why—there was just a coping blindness that I had. Then he started telling me I needed to go out there.
I said, “No, please, I don’t want to!”
John got really pushy, and I started to get scared. He would withhold his affection and act hurt, you know? He would manipulate me in that way—I’m not doing it, so I’m hurting him.
He’d say, “I’ll keep an eye on you at all times—it will be real easy.”
There was a couple of X-rated motels across the street. I was just freaked out because I didn’t want anybody at the hotel to know that I did that. I was totally embarrassed, you know?
So here I am carrying tons of shame and humiliation—and John dresses me up in a bikini top and some shorts and tells me to go out.
I just did it, you know, because we were at that eggshell stage again—where I didn’t want to do anything to make him hit me. Of course, he was going to hit me whether I did it or not.
SHARON HOLMES: After the fight with Harold, John escaped out the back door—with his mom running after him—and spent two days roaming the woods. Harold always went to his mother’s on Sundays, while Mary and the kids all went to church. So John waited until Harold had left, and then he went to his mother and said, “I’m going into the army. I need you to sign me in. I’m not going to stay in this house, or I will kill him.”
Mary felt that was the lesser of two evils and signed him into the army. Two weeks later John was in boot camp, and from there he was sent right to Germany. He was in the Signal Corps. Most of the time he was in Nuremberg—almost the full three years.
DAWN SCHILLER: I would just walk on the beach and get approached by men—it was no problem. I think it was fifty bucks for sex, and anything below that was, like, twenty bucks. The clients were nice—they weren’t scary—they weren’t going to kill me. I could handle them, and sometimes it was just more pleasant to be with them than it was to be with John.
SHARON HOLMES: When John came back from the service he spent about ten days in Ohio, and that was enough. Harold was civil to him because when John came back, he was bigger, and it was like, “We can’t harass this young man now because maybe he will kill us.”
That was all John needed, to see his mom and say, “I’m going to California.” And he did. He’d been in California for probably a year when we met.
DAWN SCHILLER: My turning tricks probably lasted a good two weeks. When I would come back, that’s when the bad times would start—because John was extremely possessive and jealous. He’d say, “Was that all the money? Why did you take extra long? I was watching you—I saw you with two men!” Which was total bullshit, but I would freeze up in panic, knowing where this line of questioning was going—to me getting hit.
He would drag me into the bathroom and fill up the tub with hot water and scrub me down, all the while telling me I was a filthy whore. I was the whore. I was the slut. I was the dirty whore that just wanted it and asked for it. While I’m being scrubbed in the bathtub, you know?
He had a deep, deep, deep illness. Very twisted. A very twisted man.
SHARON HOLMES: John had the drive for fame. But he also had an extremely low sense of self-esteem. That never changed. He loved the adulation because it didn’t matter what he was famous for—it built up his ego, what little there was of it. He really felt he had nothing else to give besides his unique attribute, which is kind of a sad reflection.
DAWN SCHILLER: When I finally refused to go out on the beach—and John didn’t have enough patience to manipulate me in any other way—he hit me.
That was the first time he hit me since we’d left Los Angeles. The door of our room was ajar, and I grabbed the opportunity and ran. I ran down the stairs into the back by the pool, in front of the snack bar, “Joe’s,” which was run by an Italian guy who always had the best sausages and spaghetti sauces. We ate breakfast with the people from the snack bar every day.
But John caught ahold of me by my hair and yanked me down in front of the snack bar, jumped on me, and pummeled the hell out of me.
He just exploded. Everybody just watched, and they couldn’t believe that this was the same mild-mannered, really nice, courteous person they knew.
Then John just yanked me back up and dragged me back to the room, where he gave me another couple of blows. Then he flung me onto the bed and told me to shut up.
SHARON HOLMES: I don’t think John ever felt comfortable with who he was and what his background was. I think fame gave him a false sense of security, like, “Well, I must be good if all these people think I am.”
And yet he knew it wasn’t really what he wanted to do—it was what he felt he had to do. He felt there was nothing else he could do. It would involve too much time to educate himself or really get into something else. Pornography was fast fame and fortune, as far as John was concerned.
DAWN SCHILLER: John went to work the next morning, as usual, and there was a knock at the door right after he left. It was Big Rosie and a couple of other people who lived there. They said, “Pack your bags. Grab your dog; you’re out of here.”
I said, “Where am I going to go?”
This one chick, Louise, was a stripper, and she’d just got her house from a divorce settlement. She also had a little girl, Heather, about five years old. Big Rosie says, “You’re going to go with Louise and Heather, and you’re going to watch Heather while Louise is at work.”
SHARON HOLMES: I was John’s safe house—and the only person he could be himself with, could show his vulnerability and his low self-esteem. I don’t think anyone else was aware of it because John had developed a different persona. He was like, “This is JOHN HOLMES, who I have created.” That is the side people saw, but they didn’t know about his capabilities, you know, as far as what he could do artistically—other than what was artistically pornographic.
TOM LANGE: Frank Tomlinson, who’s another outstanding investigator, had a thought. Dawn is from the Portland, Oregon, area, and she’d disappeared with John. So Frank gets in touch with Dawn’s brother in Oregon to see if he’s heard anything—and uses the tactic that Dawn’s life is in jeopardy—she’s with John Holmes, and the cops are gonna kill him, or Nash is gonna kill him, or a hired killer is gonna kill him—so help your sister, that type of a thing. The brother ends up telling Frank that she’s down in Florida, and Frank and I go down there and hook up with Florida Metro-Dade cops.
DAWN SCHILLER: I stayed at Louise’s maybe a week. When I got there, I called my mother, and I said, “I’m finally away.” I told her I had the gun, and I gave her the number where I was at. It was such a relief finally being able to contact my family again; it was something I needed to do.
She said, “Are you okay? Don’t go back to him. Don’t go back to him no more!”
I said, “No, I won’t, and I love you, too. I’m just going to work here for a while. I don’t think John knows where I’m at.”
TOM LANGE: Dawn’s brother told us that her roommate, Louise, was dancing at an all-night strip club. I don’t drink anymore, but I used to. Frank never did; he’s a born-again Christian.
So we were staked out on a bar on Eighth Street and Le June where Louise worked as a stripper. The plan was to identify her, go outside where Metro-Dade was waiting, and follow her home—so we could find out where Dawn was staying. It sounded great.
We go in the bar—and we look like cops to begin with—so I told Frank, “You gotta order a beer or something or they’re gonna look at you funny.” So he does, and he just sat there and glared at it. Frank never took a sip. I ended up getting a 7-Up or something.
DAWN SCHILLER: A few days after that, I got a call, and it was John. I don’t know how he got that number, but he did. He was crying, and he said he was so sorry—you know, the same thing. He’s so sorry, he knows what he did was wrong, and he doesn’t blame me if I never forgive him.
He was giving me th
is ploy, which he had really never done before. He understands if I don’t want to be with him, but could he just see my face one more time?
I was crying, too. I said, “But you promised you would never hit me again. You broke your promise!”
He said, “Please, please just let me see your face one more time. That’s all I ask of you. I won’t ask you anything ever again.”
I just said, “No.” A really strong, very powerful “No.” I had never said no to him before—and I meant it, you know? I wasn’t going to give him that. I wasn’t going to give him any more parts of me. I think he said something like, “Well, please think about it. I’ll call you later.”
I said, “No, John. I won’t.”
TOM LANGE: We identify Louise, the stripper, but it’s now 2:05 A.M. I realize, “This is an after-hours place—wait until the cops find out about this.” Then we find out bars in Miami don’t close; they’re open all night long. Finally, around 5:00 in the morning, Louise leaves, and we follow her, pat her down, one thing leads to another—and she gives us Dawn.
The brother met us down there.
DAWN SCHILLER: About a week after I talk to John, Louise let me know my brother was on the phone.
I got on the phone, and he goes, “Hey, what’s up?”
I said, “Hey, not much.” I was really happy to hear his voice. I go, “Where are you? Did Mom tell you that I left John, that I’m in Florida?”
He says, “Yeah. I’m in Florida, too.” We grew up in Florida, so this was not unusual. My brother was always running away. So he says, “Yeah, I’ve got a rental car.”
I said, “How did you get a rental car?”
He goes, “Oh, one of my friends had a credit card. Let’s have a beer, you know, and like, talk. I haven’t seen you in a couple of years. What’s been going on with John and stuff? I’m just around the corner from you. Tell me your address.”
I said, “Well, I’m not with John anymore, and I hope everybody leaves me alone. I took his gun, and I’m not with him, so there’s no reason for anybody to want to be after me anymore.”
I gave him the address, and he says, “I’ll be there to pick you up in a few minutes.”
So very quickly—he pulls up in this white rental car. He says, “Oh, I’ve got a six-pack. Come on, let’s go talk. I know this park over here.” Which is not suspicious to me because it used to be his stomping ground. So we go to pull into this park, and just as we’re pulling in, he says, “I’ve got something to tell you.”
I said, “What?”
He says, “Well, the cops are waiting for you here.”
I just about blew. I started screaming and crying and going, “WHAT THE FUCK! I’M NOT TALKING TO NO FUCKING COPS!” Because here I was still under the impression that they took away our protection, that they did us a dirty deed. I said, “But John gave them all the information, and they stabbed us in the back!”
TOM LANGE: The brother approaches Dawn on our behalf and says, “Listen, Tomlinson and Lange are here, and they need to talk to you.”
DAWN SCHILLER: My brother said, “No, no, no, you don’t understand, they just want to know where John is.”
I said, “Well, you know, that’s the last thing that I want to do—I’m not going to rat on him. Let it be whatever—but I don’t want no hand in it. I won’t fucking do it. Do you know I have a gun in my purse?”
He said, “What the fuck?”
I said, “I don’t want to go to jail. I didn’t do anything. I’ve got this for my protection.”
While all this is being said, the car is stopped, and Detectives Tom Lange and Frank Tomlinson are standing there. There was even a local cop with them.
TOM LANGE: So we meet Dawn in the park and tell her she’s in jeopardy.
DAWN SCHILLER: We got out, and I was still crying, and I’m like, “I can’t believe you did this to me! I can’t believe you did this to me!”
My brother told them, “Just a minute,” and he came over, and he put his arm around me and walked me down to the water. He said, “Look, there’s a lot of bad people out there who still want you.”
I said, “But I’m not with John anymore!”
He said, “Yeah, but they’re real close to getting him, and the best thing you can do is turn him in because that will get the heat off.”
He said, “These people are here to protect you. They don’t want you; they just want to know where John is, and he’ll be safer in jail.”
And so I conceded to that because it made sense, you know?
TOM LANGE: Dawn was even younger than I thought.
DAWN SCHILLER: I said, “Yeah, I’ll tell them where he is. I’ve got the address in my purse.” I had the card for the Fountainhead Hotel in my purse, so I flopped down on the parking lot floor, and I was crying and stuff. The gun is, like, right on top of this hippie purse, and I go, “Oh yeah, by the way, I’ve got his gun.”
I just plopped it out and put it on the pavement, and they kind of took steps back, and reached their hands over their weapons—they didn’t know what the fuck.
But I’m oblivious to that shit. I was just unloading my purse. That was, like, one of my happiest memories: “Scared you—ha-ha!”
TOM LANGE: Dawn gives John up, and he’s at a flophouse—right over on the Ocean and Collins Avenue, in the North Beach area.
DAWN SCHILLER: I found the card, and I said, “He’s here. He’s not armed; I have his gun. He’s working at this place, and these are his hours. He’s pretty calm right now, from when I talked to him last. You know, he’ll probably offer you a cup of coffee. But you’ve got to promise me one thing….”
They asked, “What?”
I said, “After you have him, call me, and let me know if he’s all right, if you got him all right.” Because they were telling me that there were people that were really close to getting him, and I was nervous that he was going to be killed any second. So they promised me they would do that.
TOM LANGE: We went in there, and I grabbed Holmes and laid him out and cuffed him. He had dyed his hair and tried to alter his appearance. He didn’t fight us. He was cooperative; he kinda knew we were coming and said something to the effect of, “I’m glad it’s you—this is finally over.”
FRANK TOMLINSON (LAPD DETECTIVE): Detective Lange and myself were present when Mr. Holmes was arrested. He was transported to a facility to await booking at the county jail in Miami, so at that facility we caught up with him and had a brief conversation.
After that, Mr. Holmes made the statement that he knew what had happened at the house on Wonderland Avenue. He then stated that he would have to think about what he wanted to do and that he would let us know whether or not he was going to tell us what happened.
TOM LANGE: We brought him back to Los Angeles to be prosecuted.
Don’t Embarrass the Bureau
LOUISVILLE/MIAMI
1982
VICKIE LIVINGSTON: Pat had told me he didn’t want his parents to know he’d been arrested. He thought it would all be resolved, and they would never have to know.
He couldn’t even believe it himself. Pat was in shock. He was just out of it.
MIAMI HERALD, FEBRUARY 20, 1982: FBI AGENT’S ARREST MAY HURT PORN CASES: “In a move that may jeopardize its case against several accused pornographers, the U.S. Justice Department has acknowledged that one of the FBI undercover agents who ran Operation MIPORN has been arrested for shoplifting.”
PAT LIVINGSTON: I’d spent the night at my girlfriend’s house. I was in North Miami, coming down the I-95, when I first heard it on the news. Did they mention my name? Damn right they did. So I got off at 103rd and picked up a newspaper at a 7-Eleven. I was hoping my dad wouldn’t read it.
MIAMI HERALD, FEBRUARY 20, 1982: FBI AGENT’S ARREST MAY HURT PORN CASES: “The arrest of Agent Pat Livingston, after the investigation concluded, but before all the cases were tried, was disclosed in a letter sent to U.S. District Judge Eugene Spellman by Fred Schwartz, an attorney with the Justice Dep
artment’s Organized Crime Task Force.”
NANCY LIVINGSTON (PAT’S SISTER): My father read it in the paper. He was just crushed. He said, “Nancy, sit down. I have something to tell you. It’s about your brother.”
I said, “I already know.”
MIAMI HERALD, FEBRUARY 20, 1982: FBI AGENT’S ARREST MAY HURT PORN CASES: “According to the letter, Livingston was arrested on a felony shoplifting charge in November after he allegedly tried to remove more than a hundred dollars’ worth of clothing from a department store.”
NANCY LIVINGSTON: I told my father that Vickie had told me, but I also told him, “Pat was gonna kill Vickie if she told you.” I said, “Pat wanted to tell you himself, but he kept putting it off. It wasn’t that he wanted you to find out this way. He wanted to tell you himself—in person—but he couldn’t.”
VICKIE LIVINGSTON: Pat’s parents had no idea he was in Miami, and he didn’t want them to know.
PAT LIVINGSTON: After I read the newspaper, I went to Bill Kelly’s house. Kelly and Dick Phinney were there. There was a hearing going on. I didn’t know where I was going. God, I was scared. Scared and anxious, wondering should I call my father now, before he reads the article? Or should I take a chance that he hasn’t read the article?
NANCY LIVINGSTON: That night my father went to the hospital. He was perfectly awake and coherent; he was in pain, but he was talking as we were driving. But when they did their EKGs, we discovered that he had had a mild heart attack.