By Susan Payne
Billy London, a gay male porn actor also known as William Arnold Newton, was killed in October of 1990 and the case has gone cold, until recently.
Los Angeles Police Department Det. John Lamberti, with the help of Circus of Books Documentarian Rachel Mason and amateur sleuth Clark Williams, helped solve the case and identified the murder, according to the WeHo Times.
London was last seen at The Rage Nightclub in West Hollywood, his head and feet found in a Santa Monica Dumpster on Oct. 29, 1990.
Darrell Lynn Madden, a former self-proclaimed white supremacist and skinhead who now identifies as an Orthodox Jewish woman named Daralyn Madden, is the suspect, according to WeHo Times.
“Investigators made the connection to (London’s) murder after Madden pleaded guilty to killing a gay man in in Oklahoma named Steven Domer and another man named Bradley Qualls, who had been Madden’s accomplice in Domer’s murder and had since confessed to abducting, robbing, beating and strangling (London) to death,” WeHo reported.
In the early 90s, Madden was a former gay porn actor named Billy Houston, WeHo said.
Madden and Qualls committed the first murder as part of a gang initiation into the Chaos Squad Skinheads, according to a report from the LA Times. Later, Madden shot and killed Qualls.
In a recorded confession on the murder of Willian Newton, or Billy London, Madden said she abducted London from Santa Monica Boulevard, and that her and her skinhead friends had seen London walking along the street, targeting him for robbery.
Madden said she approached London and put her arm around his shoulder and threatened to “beat the crap out of him” and rob him, the LA Times reported. Madden ended up strangling London, matching the coroner’s findings. Madden claims she didn’t dismember London’s body, but she knows who did, but refuses to snitch, WeHo reported.
“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,” WeHo reported.
Then, Emmy-nominated Rachel Mason known for writing and directing the widely popular Netflix documentary, “Circus of Book,” started searching for clues within the LGBTQ community on the 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.”
Billy London, or William Arnold Newton’s murder, will be the subject of a Circus of Books follow-up documentary.
Mason said 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.”
