Cold Case Murder of Gay Porn Actor Billy London Has Been Solved

LAPD Det. John Lamberti, with the help of Circus of Books Documentarian Rachel Mason, and amatuer sleuth Clark Williams, have helped solve the cold case murder and identified the killer of William Arnold Newton, who went by the gay male porn names Billy London and Bill E. London. Dubbed the Black Dahlia of the gay community, Newton was last seen at The Rage Nightclub in West Hollywood. His head and feet were found in a dumpster in Hollywood off of Santa Monica Boulevard on October 29, 1990.

According to recent findings, his murderer was not Jeffrey Dahmer as some believed, but rather a person who went by the name of Darrell Lynn Madden, a former self-proclaimed white supremacist and skinhead who now identifies as an Orthodox Jewish woman named Daralyn Madden.

Investigators made the connection to Newton’s murder after Madden pleaded guilty to killing a gay man in Oklahoma named Steven Domer and another man named Bradley Qualls, who had been Madden’s accomplice in Domer’s murder and has since confessed to abducting, robbing, beating and strangling Newton to death.

Madden, who at one point shaved her eyebrows and tattooed the words “SKIN” and “HEAD” was a former gay porn actor named Billy Houston in the early 90s.

According to a report in the LA TIMES, Madden and Qualls committed the first murder as part of a gang initiation of Qualls into the Chaos Squad Skinheads, a white supremacist group. They had gone out with the intent to kidnap a gay man by pretending to be sex workers. They lured Domer to a secluded area, restrained him in his own vehicle, then drove around beating him before strangling him to death with a coat hanger. According to Madden’s accounts, they then dumped his body in a creek.

Madden later shot and killed Qualls, fled that scene and was shot by a police officer before being taken into custody.

In a recorded confession of the murder of William Newton,Madden says she abducted Newton from Santa Monica Boulevard. She told detectives that she and her skinhead friends had seen Newton walking along the street and “basically targeted him for robbery.”

LA Times reports that Madden said she approached Newton and put her arm calmly around his shoulder and told him that they were going to rob him and “probably beat the crap out of him,” and that he was going to go with them without making a scene. She said she couldn’t remember where they had taken Newton, but that she had ended up strangling him to death, which matched the coroner’s findings.

Madden said she believed Newton was high at the time, which also matched the coroner’s findings that Newton had methamphetamine in his system. The timing and location of the attack Madden described also matched other witness statements about Newton leaving Rage. Madden insists she didn’t dismember Newton’s body, she knows who did but she refuses to “snitch.”

However, L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s office has decided not to file charges against Madden, citing a lack of evidence beyond the confession, too many unanswered questions remain and prosecutors would have a difficult time proving Madden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt after 30 years.

LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division is officially closing its investigation in consultation with Newton’s family, believing they have enough on the person who did it.

Shortly before the 30th anniversary of his murder, Authors Christopher Rice and Eric Shaw Quinn sparked interest in the case. Inspired by the HBO documentary series, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, based on a book by Michelle McNamara about her investigation into the Golden State Killer, Rice and Quinn did an episode of their podcast, TDPS Presents Christopher and Eric devoted to mysteries that both writers are obsessed with, which included the unsolved murder of Billy London.

Then came Emmy-nominated Rachel Mason, who wrote and directed the widely popular Netflix documentary “Circus of Books”. She been searching for clues from within the LGBTQ community on the then unsolved murder of Billy London.

“Billy London reminds me of all the young men I got to know that worked at my parents’ store but I had never heard of anything so brutal happening in the community, which had already suffered so much death due to the AIDS crisis,” said Mason. “His murder just hit me very hard, and I wanted to commit to helping the effort to solve this case.”

The conclusion of William Arnold Newton’s grizzly murder will be the subject of a documentary. Mason told WEHO TIMES that the documentary will be a follow-up to Circus of Books Documentary. She says there will more revelations that were not possible without the help of a long list of people who made the conclusion possible. She says the upcoming documentary will be much “deeper dive into the world behind the videos.”