A transgender convicted killer has confessed to the 1990 murder of gay porn star Billy London after a tip from an amateur internet sleuth — but Los Angeles County’s woke District Attorney George Gascón has refused to file charges in the case that has haunted Hollywood for three decades.
The death of 25-year-old London, whose real name was Bill Newton, rocked the close-knit gay community of West Hollywood when pieces of his dismembered body were found in a dumpster on October 29, 1990.
The murder case remained unsolved for more than 30 years until the LAPD confirmed on Monday that they secured a confession from Daralyn Madden, who is already serving a life sentence in Oklahoma in 2007 for the murder of two other men, the LA Times reports.
Madden, a former skinhead, now identifies as a Jewish woman, the publication noted.
LAPD Det. John Lamberti said the break in the case came following a tip from stay-at-home dad and amateur sleuth, Clark Williams.
Williams discovered that Madden had previously claimed to have killed a man in LA when she was a self-proclaimed white supremacist and skinhead who led a second-life as a male pornstar named Billy Houston.
“It was a coincidence that I just could not ignore,” Williams said about his discovery.
Williams told the Times he was drawn to the case because of the similarities he shared with Newton. Both are gay men who were born on the same week in 1965 and grew up in northern Wisconsin before moving to larger cities.
In December of 2021, Williams joined the Facebook group, “The History of Gay WIsconsin,” where he found a post about Newton’s murder and became fixated on the case.
“Something was propelling me, moving me to just get involved in whatever capacity that I could,” Williams told the Times. “What I really wanted to do was to help tell Billy’s story, because I think he reflected the lives of so many young gay men and teenagers who came up in that time.”
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While learning more from the Facebook group, Williams eventually tracked down Rick Paskay, who appeared to be the first local sleuth who dug into the case after police came up empty.
Paskay, who has since died, operated a skate shop in West Hollywood, but Williams uncovered that he was also a gay porn producer who worked under the alias Richard Lawrence at the same time Newton was in the industry.
In researching Paskay and Newton, Williams eventually found Houston’s name, and that led to the connection with Madden.
Madden, meanwhile, pleaded guilty in 2008 to the brutal kidnapping and murder of Steven Domer and her own accomplice in the crime, Bradley Qualls, in Oklahoma City.
Madden told police she and Qualls were looking to kill a gay man as part of an initiation into the Chaos Squad Skinheads gang, luring Domer to a secluded area before kidnapping him, beating him and strangling him with his own coat hanger.
Police said Madden later shot and killed Qualls, fleeing the scene before police arrested her.
After learning about Madden’s past and her involvement in the gay porn industry in Hollywood, Williams found excerpts from a crime book, “American Honor Killings,” that contained an interview with Madden.
She told author David McConnell that she not only killed Domer in Oklahoma City, but alluded to killing someone else in Los Angeles.
“I realized at that moment that I was in over my head,” Williams said, “and that I needed to get this information as soon as possible to Det. Lamberti.”
Lamberti said he had put Newton’s case back on the shelf just two weeks before Williams’ tips, with the new info reinvigorating his office after years of dead ends.
Lamberti and his partner, Det. Tamara Momayez, began digging into Madden and found the company she worked for was on Santa Monica Boulevard, with the building located by the alley where Newton’s body had been found.
The two detectives made a trip to Oklahoma on January 4 when they discovered the skinhead they were looking for now identifies as an Orthodox Jewish woman.
“We’re talking to a person who has swastikas tattooed and is also wearing a knitted pink yarmulke,” Lamberti said. “The person we’re talking to is a gay porn actor, transgender skinhead, Nazi orthodox Jew. You write that down in a sentence, and it’s like, ‘What?’”
When discussing Newton’s case, Madden said she and her skinhead friends targeted the young porn actor for a robbery and to “beat the crap out of him.”
Instead, Madden said the robbery ended with her strangling Newton to death, which matched the coroner’s findings.
Madden added that she believed Newton was high at the time, which also matches records that Newton had methamphetamine in his system after witnesses saw him leaving the Rage nightclub that day.
Lamberti said the circumstances and confession was enough for him to present the case to Gascón — but the DA’s office refused to file charges, citing a lack of evidence.
Gascón’s office did not immediately respond to the New York Post’s request for comment, and a representative for Madden could not immediately be reached for comment.
Despite the DA’s decision, Lamberti said his office is officially closing the investigation and consulting Newton’s family.
Michele Oliver, Newton’s younger half sister, said she was pleased with the work of the detectives and sleuths who investigated her brother’s death.
“Having some kind of closure helps,” she said, noting that Madden will die behind bars.
The grieving sister, however, still wanted answers as to why her brother was targeted and where the rest of his body is, which has never been recovered.
Lamberti told the Times that Madden refused to say what her group had done with Newton’s body, telling officers “I’m not a snitch.”