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Tim Wilcox, John Duncan, Eric Cross, Chuck Hughes & Friends
& Their Multi-Victim Multi-Perpetrator Nudist Sex Ring
As you are reading ask yourself where these men are today, what nudist camps they are attending, and remember that this was during a period that the ASA (now American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) was telling nudists how safe nudism was. Then ask yourself how many pedophiles it takes to ruin a child's day a nudist camp.
Part I
by Nikki Craft
When Eric Cross left John Duncan's house he went to pornographer Ron Raffaelli's. It was this visit that led to the arrest of Raffaelli and Cross.
Tracking Tim Wilcox back to the mid-1970s revealed that, even before his felony conviction for child molestation in 1978, he was an active nudist attending and photographing nudist and "free beach" activities.
Behind the scenes he was running contact ads in publications such as Lolita, and The Star, published by Paul and Shirley Eberle (see the ICONoclast, Vol. 1, #2) that would put him in touch with other pedophiles.
Wilcox's personal ads also appeared in Person to Person. Person was advertised in over-the-counter men's magazines and distributed internationally to over 5,000 men by Bobby Wayne Seida. Seida was convicted in 1978 for distribution of child pornography.
An advertisement placed by Wilcox in the May 9, 1977, issue of Person to Person read: "Pedophile would like to find a lady to settle down with. I live in the northern California mountains. Tim Wilcox, P.O. Box xxxx, Auburn, Ca 95603." Then, as now, Wilcox networked diligently to find other like-minded people.
Through these classified ads Tim Wilcox connected with John Robert Duncan (a.k.a. Lance Carlson and Rod Redfern), a pedophile with at least one prior conviction in Long Beach, California for child molestation. From June 1975 through 1976, Duncan and Wilcox traded photographs of children and wrote letters about photography, child pornography, and molestation.
The letters written between the two of them establish that from the beginning Duncan's sexual interest in children was well known to Wilcox, as Wilcox's sexual interest in children was likewise known to Duncan.
Bill Dworin, investigating officer in the Sexually Exploited Child Unit in Los Angeles, said that when Wilcox went to Los Angeles to visit John Duncan, he molested several children. Wilcox was convicted for his involvement with one girl, Yvonne, who was six years old at the time. According to Dworin, "she was very messed up over the whole thing," but still testified in court and identified Wilcox as the man who molested her.
Yvonne's father, Charles James (Chuck) Hughes, another active nudist who was frequently photographed at nudist clubs with many different children, was also convicted with Wilcox of conspiracy. According to court documents, the object of the conspiracy was to commit the crimes of "lewd acts upon a child under 14 years of age," "sale of a person for immoral purposes," "sending a minor to an immoral place," and "contributing to the delinquency of minors."
Thank you for turning me on to the Young World of Duncan. I feel a little stupid. I said, before meeting Yvonne that I didn't want to meet her. I wanted Lisa because she sounded more forward. I feel stupid because I now want Yvonne. I find myself dreaming about Yvonne all the time. I want to play with her clit with my tongue. I want to play with her all night and all day. I would like to deliver the pictures to Chuck myself. --Letter from Tim Wilcox to John Duncan Sept 18, 1975
Duncan corresponded with men from all over the world, many of them nudists. In letters to Henry Johnson, Duncan bragged about his sexual involvement with children. Johnson resided in San Diego and later joined Duncan's group in L.A. He was convicted in related charges with Wilcox.
Duncan, Hughes, and Johnson had access to about eight different children aged 18 months to 16 years. According to Dworin, Duncan's friendship was important to Wilcox because Wilcox wanted access to the children that Duncan had under his control.
Dworin said there were 16 children identified in sexually explicit photographs confiscated by police, but police could locate only eight victims. The photos that were taken of these children by the men indicted have turned up in Lolita, which is an explicit child-sex magazine that used photographs of nudist children from all over the world. Lolita is also where Wilcox and others in the group had run ads to find available children and other pedophiles.
John, Thanks for sending the model release forms to me. The plan of you looking at the prints and then sealing them for Chuck worked out. Did Chuck like the print of Vicki? Chuck would like one print of every frame? There will be 69 different pictures and that would take me about 9 hours to print. I would normally charge a person $1.50 each print 8 by 10 of course. But for you I will only charge $1.00 ... Sounds like you had a good time at the nudist camp. --Letter to John Duncan from Tim Wilcox, Oct 9, 1975
The children who were molested, girls and a few boys, were taken to Black's Beach on several occasions where they played and had their bodies painted in brightly colored paint. These visits to the beach, according to L.A. police, were to "acclimate them to nudity. Then after going to the beach the children would be taken to motel rooms and sold to men who traveled in from across the country." All ten of the other men indicted, excluding Wilcox and Hughes, pled guilty to charges involving exploitation and abuse of children.
Duncan lost interest in the children in one family once they entered puberty, because he preferred children aged six to ten, so he consigned them to Frederick Cornelius (a.k.a Tony) Hoston. Hoston assumed a surrogate father role and began molesting all of them. He was arrested and indicted along with Wilcox and his co-conspirators.
According to a news article (reprinted above) from the Gary Indiana Post Tribune, Hoston eluded arrest by returning to Indiana, where he intended to start another child prostitution ring. After he was discovered by police, he escaped and fled to San Francisco, where he changed his appearance. He was later killed by police during a robbery attempt.
Duncan invited many other men he corresponded with to come to L.A. for visits, among them Joseph Francis Henry from New York. Henry was also convicted after traveling to L.A. and paying Duncan $500 to molest the same children Wilcox was convicted of molesting.
Henry, a man who has since admitted to molested 22 girls, aged 9 to 11, when he testified before the Permanent Subcommittee on Governmental Affairs before the United States Senate, Ninety- Ninth Congress. In 1971 Henry was caught molesting nudist girls at the New Jersey nudist camp he managed, but charges were not filed against him by the club or by the girls' parents.
Peter Windsor (a.k.a. John Blount), a nudist from England, arrived around the same time, met Duncan, and molested several children during his visit. Windsor then traveled to the Netherlands, where he met a nudist mother. He was photographed with her and her child on a nude beach. When Windsor was later arrested on charges relating to Wilcox's case, he possessed large quantities of commercial and non-commercial pornography as well as nudist photos of children alone and with him on nude beaches all over the world.
Eric Cross was also involved with Donald Woodward, a nudist who served eight years in prison for sexually molesting several children from Camping Bares, a naturist group in San Diego. Cross met Woodward thru correspondence and convinced him to get involved in Cross's prison project where he produced child pornography.
Well, according to nudists, just innocent pictures of naked children.
Another nudist who visited Duncan was Eric Cross. Cross, a well-educated English con artist and world traveler, left Canada in the early 1970s for Florida where he befriended two families with children. During visits to Disney World, the children were photographed in sexually explicit poses in a motel room. Cross, who was the photographer who took most of the photos that appeared in another child pornography magazine called "Lolitots" took the undeveloped film with him to the Netherlands, intending to turn the photos over to Jan Winderhold, who was then the publisher of Lolita. However, when Cross attempted to develop the photographs, he was reported to police by the photo lab.
Dutch officials, known for their extremely liberal tolerance for pornography, including child pornography, threw Cross out of Holland. He returned to England, where he was taken into custody after being identified via a warrant issued for his arrest for the Florida incident. Cross fought extradition for a year and a half but was finally returned to Florida where he was sentenced to a Florida state psychiatric hospital for distribution of child pornography and for child molestation.
From the Florida hospital, Cross distributed so-called child "erotica," and one publication called Tuesday's Child, a magazine that first used nudist children posed in Playboy-styled positions and then became increasingly more explicit.
It was through his involvement in child pornography that Cross began a correspondence with Tim Wilcox's mentor, John Rober Duncan. When Cross escaped from the psychiatric hospital in 1978 -- with the help of two women who supplied a stolen rental car -- he went to Robert 's house in L.A.
According to Dworin, Duncan immediately disliked Cross because "he was pushy and wanted control over the kids," so the group expelled him. When Cross left he stole several of Duncan's letters in which Duncan had bragged about having sex with children.
Next Cross went to see pornographer Ron Raffaelli. Unbeknownst to Cross, Raffaellis' house was under surveillance by the L.A. police because of Raffaellis' involvement in the production of child pornography. According to Dworin, Los Angeles police had arrested a fourteen year child who had runaway from home in 1977 and who admitted to being photographed by Raffaelli. But since the girl refused to testify, charges were never filed.
When Cross arrived at Raffaellis' home, Dworin observed Cross meet with Raffaelli and ran a check and found that the rental car had been stolen. They began to watch Cross at his exclusive hotel in Belair.
Several days later a nudist woman from Oakdale Nudist Camp named Maryanne Hendershaw and her two children, Karri and Jamie -- who had been raised as nudist children -- arrived at the hotel accompanied by Raffaelli. Josephy Henry the New Jersey Nudist Camp Manager was also present at the hotel room when the photos were to have been taken. The photo shoot was abruptly interrupted by police and all were immediately taken into custody at that time.
When Eric Cross was apprehended, he was "looking at hard time" and, according to police, he couldn't be shut up. Dworin said he was "ready to turn states evidence on everyone involved." He furnished Duncan's stolen letters to police and informed them that Duncan was, along with others, molesting a large group of children.
Los Angeles police quickly returned Cross to Florida where he was incarcerated, this time in prison instead of a hospital. Once again he prepared to distribute child pornography from prison, but federal investigators intervened and he was convicted again for distribution. He is now serving a 95 year sentence in a federal penitentiary in Florida.
Eric Cross was, according to police, active in European naturism. When he got to the US he quickly acquainted himself with the nudist/pedophile network that supplied children. He claimed to police that he could "spot a pedophile within five minutes" and informed them that for years he had located available children and other pedophiles at nudist camps and nude beaches throughout the world. While he was being questioned by police, Cross also told them that after leaving Duncan's house he paid a visit to Edmond Leja too.
According to police, Cross, Raffaelli, and Hendershaw were meeting for a nude photo shoot of the children. They were, however all taken into custody before it could take place. But, the children had already been the subject of exploitation by other photographers including nudist child pornographer Edmond Leja (a.k.a Ed Lea), Ron Raffaelli and their colleague, world renowned naturist/nudist photographer, Leif Heilberg.
Ron Raffaelli, a talented, ex-establishment photographer who did ads for Honda, Pepsi and American Airlines, and whose works have hung in the Smithsonian Institute, dropped acid one day on Laguna beach and had a vision. He would use his photography to "praise love and vanquish shame and guilt." Removing himself from the world of corporate advertising was his first valiant beginning and to become a prolific pornographer was his next move.
In an introduction to one of his books he wrote: "So...be free...go naked...join the sexual revolution. Remember, "It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave... And keep on thinking free."
Raffaelli has gone on to make 70 "erotic films" and publish countless photo books. An ad or one of his books read: "Water nymphs: Rain fires sizzling young passions;" another reads: "Cosmic re-entry: Beautiful girl violated by phallic light."
What concerns this author about Raffaelli's work, though it applies to a small number of his titles, is his allusions to violence and violation in titles selling his porn films and books, and also his photography of minors and adult women made to appear as children.
Karri and Jamie and their mother had been first introduced to Raphaelli by Ed Leja. When Maryanne Hendershaw was first befriended by Leja she had been a long time visitor to Oakdale Nudist Camp in Devore, California (now Treehouse) known at the time to be the largest swingers club in southern California. Leja was publishing a nudist child porn magazine called Nudist Moppets when they met.
One issue of Nudist Moppets was filled with more than 30 photographs taken of the two children. Leif Heilberg and his wife, Sally, were listed as photo editors for that particular issue, and several other issues, of Nudist Moppets.
As Playboy does to women, Nudist Moppets catalogs children repetitively as sexually available commodities for men's acquisition and use. That many nudists can see nothing wrong with this treatment of children is part of the problem with pedophiles in the nudist/naturist lifestyle; that these children were put through this, even if just to promote nudism, is exploitation.
Naturism cannot be actual liberation if it must promise sexual satisfaction and conquest to its male members by exploiting women's bodies and selling images of innocence and youth to the outside public from exploited children's bodies; that these nudist magazines directly result in the molestation of other children besides those photographed is a tragedy in which the nudist/naturist movement remains complicit.--Nikki Craft, 1989
In the photos taken by both Leif Heilberg and Edmond Leja the children were pictured alone and together in Playboy-styled poses.
After Karri and Jamie appeared in Nudist Moppets, according to police, the mother wanted more money than Leja could supply, so Leja introduced her to Ron Raffaelli.
Raffaelli then photographed Karri and Jamie, and their photos showed up in Little Angels, a child porn magazine out of West Germany. According to Bill Dworin, Raffaelli was again arrested, but the judge disqualified the search warrant on a legal technicality, so he was never charged.
Despite numerous arrests, several convictions and dubious involvements involving exploitation of nudist children, neither Ed Leja, Don Woodward, nor Eric Cross have been added to the American Sunbathing Associations caution list. L.A. porn magnate Milton Luros remains a part owner of Swallows nudist camp which is an ASA affiliated camp.
(I don't know what Luros is up to now. Is he still the half owner at Swallows Nudist Camp? Anyone know?)
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