Kriti Mehrotra
When William Newton, better known as Billy London or Billy Porter, was found dead in a dumpster in West Hollywood, California, on October 29, 1990, his entire community was left shaken. He was a gay pornographic actor, a hobbyist poet, and an illustrative artist trying his best to lead a fulfilling life, so his heinous murder was undeniably a dark mark. What’s worse is that it wasn’t until more than 32 years later that a suspect was finally identified, as explored in ID’s ‘Vanished on Halloween,’ leading to a confession.
Billy London Had a Bright Mind, a Creative Soul, and a Dynamic Personality
Although born on July 26, 1965, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, William “Billy” Arnold Newton grew up across the state as his mother moved around a lot when he was little. According to records, he ultimately ran away at the age of 16 to hopefully live with his father, Richard Harriman, but allegedly had the door shut on him owing to his sexuality. His younger half-sister, Michele Oliver, has since claimed that their father was such a “man’s man” that his expectations for his son were sky-high. So, Billy became a runaway.
Billy eventually found himself relocating to California in 1984, by which point he had already evolved into a makeup artist and a choreographer for a company producing music videos. It was while he was in Los Angeles that he also earned his GED from the LA Unified School District in 1989, all the while dabbling in his passion for the visual and written creative arts. According to his loved ones, he was an incredibly talented illustrator as well as a poignant poet, but he soon entered the adult industry to make ends meet. His dream was to establish a business offering artwork, interior design, and writings, which he hoped to call Isms because “everybody has -isms,” but he never could.
Billy London’s Dismembered Remains Were Found in a Dumpster
William was primarily known as Billy when he landed in Los Angeles, California, but he adopted the name Billy London and Billy Porter when he started actingin/produced gay pornographic films. By that point, he was in an on-and-off relationship with a man named Marc Rabins, whom he’d first encountered while working at a gay bathhouse called Hollywood Spa. Since Marc was already well-known in their adult space as a producer of gay films that represented the people/community as who they really are rather than as kinks, Billy soon found himself participating too. Marc still remembers that his boyfriend was not only bright and creative but also lighthearted, sweet, and vulnerable, all the while also being “devastatingly handsome.” However, by fall 1990, they were in one of their off phases and living apart.
According to records, Billy was struggling with his mental health and tired of being in Los Angeles by the time October rolled around, so he was contemplating moving. His plan was reportedly to relocate to Las Vegas, Nevada, to live with his younger half-sister for a while, help his mother settle into a new place there, and then figure out his next steps. Yet, the 25-year-old never made it. He shot what would be his last film, ‘The Grip of Passion,’ went to dinner, and then visited a friend’s place, after which the night took him to Rage Nightclub in West Hollywood.
It was the next day, on October 30, that Billy’s dismembered remains were located in a dumpster in an alley off Santa Monica Boulevard, not far from La Brea Avenue. A transient was digging in the trash when they came across the 25-year-old’s head in a plastic bag, after which some of his limbs were located in the same place. Even though officials were immediately contacted and a homicide investigation ensued, the artist and creator’s torso has never been found. It was later confirmed that he was abducted as he left the nightclub and strangled to death during a robbery gone wrong. He was subsequently dismembered in a different location and then disposed of in the dumpster.
An Amateur Sleuth Helped Crack Billy London’s Homicide After Over 3 Decades
While there were a lot of stereotypes about the LGBTQ+ community back in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Los Angeles Police Department left no stone unturned in their investigations of Billy’s murder. They looked into his inner circle, his workplace, his on-again, off-again boyfriend, and many other potential individuals who might have known something about the offense, but to no avail. They did hypothesize that maybe Marc was responsible since they had recently parted ways, yet there was no evidence to back the same in any capacity. Therefore, the case went cold and remained that way for close to 3 decades – there was a re-investigation in 2005, but even that yielded almost nothing.
As the 30th anniversary of Billy’s murder approached in 2020, authors Christopher Rice and Eric Shaw Quinn chose to cover the case on their ‘The Dinner Party Show’ podcast. It was around the same time that filmmaker Rachel Mason developed an interest in the same case after coming across it while researching her parents’ West Hollywood adult-bookstore business for her ‘Circus of Books’ documentary. They then learned of stay-at-home-dad turned empty-nester Clark Williams, who was independently investigating the case after realizing his and Billy’s backgrounds were eerily similar. What started as something for him to do to pass the time became his passion and his fight for justice, leading to them all almost collaborating with the LAPD to resolve the matter.
It was Clark who blew the case wide open after he decided to look into archival gay adult materials to see if anything from around the time of the murder seemed strange. He found one film titled ‘The Devil and Danny Webster,’ which particularly caught his eye not only because it had a brand-new actor named Billy Houston as the star but also because he used the name Billy. When Clark looked into Billy Houston, he learned the name they were born with was Darrell Lynn Madden, but they now go by DarraLynn Madden, as they are transgender. However, what shocked him was that this individual was a convicted felon in 2 homicides and had once allegedly indicated they had also killed someone in Los Angeles, leading him to make a connection no one had made before.
DarraLynn Madden is Currently Incarcerated in an Oklahoma Prison
DarraLynn (still Darrell at the time) and an accomplice named Bradley Qualls abducted and killed 62-year-old Steven Domer from Edmond, Oklahoma, on October 27, 2007. According to records, the duo had gone out with the intent to kidnap a gay man as part of Bradley’s initiation into a white supremacist group called Chaos Squad Skinheads. They did so before killing him and disposing of his remains in a creek in McClain County. It was around 10 days later that she turned on her accomplice and fatally shot him, either following a disagreement or to keep him from talking about their original crime. DarraLynn subsequently tried to flee but was apprehended, and in October 2008, she pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping in Steven’s death. She was also convicted of Bradley’s murder, resulting in her receiving two life sentences without the possibility of parole.
When Clark learned about all this, he knew he was in over his head and contacted the Los Angeles authorities, who heard him, followed up, and decided to send a detective to interview DarraLynn. In her prison interview, she confessed to abducting and killing Billy London on the fateful night. As per lead detective John Lamberti, she told him that she and her friends had seen Billy walking along Santa Monica Boulevard at dusk before deciding to target him for robbery. He added that she told him that after they approached him and put their arm around his shoulder, they simply told him they were going to rob him before proceeding to “beat the crap out of” him.
According to John’s statements, DarraLynn then told him she asked Billy to come along without making a scene and took him somewhere she doesn’t remember. In the end, she reportedly admitted to strangling him, which matched his original autopsy report, but maintained she was not responsible for dismembering or disposing of him. When asked by officials what happened after the strangulation, she allegedly claimed she left Billy’s remains with two of her friends and went home. As per Detective John, she subsequently asserted she knew the identities of her accomplices, but she refused to name them – she allegedly said, “I may be a murderer, but I’m not a snitch.” So, today, with multiple murder convictions, 56-year-old DarraLynn remains incarcerated at Lawton Correctional Center in Lawton, Oklahoma, where she is expected to remain for the rest of her natural life.
Read More: Where Are Bruce “Tim” Blake and Billy Woodward Now?
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