The four-episode docuseries premiered on September 8, 2024 on MGM+. All 4 episodes are available to stream now.
In this MGM+ Original series, best-selling crime novelist, Michael Connelly takes us on a wild journey into the twisted story of the massacre at Wonderland Avenue on July 1, 1981 – one of Hollywood’s most famous murder cases that has fascinated people for more than 40 years.
This case symbolized an era in Los Angeles – involving sex, drugs, rock n’ roll… and murder. It is the real-life story that inspired Boogie Nights.
In noir-style, verité interviews, Connelly seeks key details about this gruesome quadruple murder with the original detectives, prosecutors, and undercover cops he’d come to know as a young crime beat reporter for The Los Angeles Times.
As the investigation unfolds, weaving in rare archival footage and photos, a colorful cast of characters emerges – famous porn star John Holmes, drug dealers and kingpins, mafiosos, televangelists and multiple celebrities, including Liberace and his boyfriend, enigma Scott Thorson.
In a game of cat-and-mouse, Connelly tries to pin down the facts of Thorson’s many larger-than-life and stranger-than-fiction stories. After four decades, Thorson’s interview may be the last to help distinguish between the crime and the truth.
But do we believe him?
The four-episode docuseries debuted on MGM+ on September 8, 2024. It is based on Connelly’s hit Audible podcast series and directed by Alison Ellwood (San Francisco Sounds, Laurel Canyon).
Episode 1: The Heat of a Cold Case – September 8, 2024
Crime novelist Michael Connelly revisits one of the most famous murder cases in the history of Los Angeles – the 1981 massacre at Wonderland Avenue – which involved a colorful cast of characters, including a legendary porn star and a drug kingpin.
Episode 2: The Man Who Knew Too Much – September 15, 2024
A key witness in the case, Scott Thorson, shares what he overheard the night of the murders, as well as the details of his extraordinary life with Liberace, Hollywood elite, and the drug underworld of 1980’s Los Angeles.
Episode 3: Up in Smoke – September 22, 2024
Scott Thorson tells of building a drug empire in Hollywood in the 1980s, while the crack epidemic in Los Angeles explodes – all before being discovered as the missing puzzle piece to the Wonderland case almost a decade after the murders.
Episode 4: The Last Man Standing – September 29, 2024
In 1990, Scott Thorson testifies against the alleged mastermind behind the massacre at Wonderland. The trial doesn’t go as planned, and Thorson enters witness protection. What ensues is a stranger-than-fiction series of events… if we believe him.
