Mickey Thompson murder trial update

Since this is Kalifornia, the judge will probably sentence him to time served and let him loose. That would be real typical CA - jail him till he's convicted, then let him go.

Well at a minimum this ought to make for some interesting comments given all the things that weren't allowed to be presented to the jury.

Let the second guessing begin.......................

 

It appears that goodwin has been held without bail since 2001. The prosecutors didn't seek the death penelty. Hopefully he will spend the rest of his life in prison. There's gotta be some dudes in jail that know the score, maybe he'll get one of those jeffery dommer(?) shower parties

 

Goodwin guilty in Mickey Thompson murder

By John Spano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer john.spano@latimes.com

12:12 PM PST, January 4, 2007

Michael Goodwin today was convicted of two murder charges in ordering the killings of former business partner, racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife, a verdict that writes the final chapter in one of Los Angeles' most enduring murder mysteries.

Goodwin, who has been in jail for five years awaiting trial, looked down and shook his head as the guilty verdicts to two counts of murder were read on the sixth day of deliberations.

He is expected to be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

"I'm sure they're some people in heaven smiling," said Thompson's sister, Collene Campbell. "This verdict doesn't bring anybody back to us, but it was the proper American thing that was done."

Prosecutors said Thompson was shot repeatedly but kept alive and forced to watch the murder of his wife, Trudy, before he was shot in the head execution-style. Thousands of dollars in cash and valuable jewelry was untaken — leading investigators to believe the crimes were motivated by vengeance.

Goodwin was bankrupted in a bitter dispute with Thompson before the 1988 double murder in Bradbury.

From the beginning, Goodwin was the prime suspect, but legal difficulties meant it took investigators took 13 years to produce a case worth presenting to a jury.

Prosecutor Alan Jackson faced such obstacles as the lack of evidence at the crime scene implicating Goodwin. Many of the witnesses came forward years after the events and the gunmen — two black men who fled on bicycles — were never identified.

For defense attorney Elena Saris, the case against her client was always one of "naked suspicion."

The case has been an 18-year murder mystery that mesmerized the public.

"America's Most Wanted" broadcast segments six times. "Unsolved Murders" aired shows and "48 Hours" broadcast two one-hour specials, with another expected.

Cameras were a permanent fixture in the Pasadena courthouse and more than a dozen reporters crowded the courtroom of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz. The five-week trial was covered in publications from the tabloid Globe to People magazine.

Saris attacked the prosecution as promoting "the Hollywood version" of the crime, a charge angrily denied by prosecutors. She called the case "a drama in a performance worthy of television."

Television exposure regularly prompted more witnesses to appear, including more than a half dozen who testified during the trial. Witnesses appeared on the television shows, reporting police accounts of the crime, as well as their own memories.

"Jurors peddled their stories," said Jane Kirtley, law and media ethics professor at the University of Minnesota. "Judges didn't like it, but they couldn't stop it. Now we are seeing some witnesses do the same thing."

The most important witness to appear was Ronald Stevens, who lived three-quarters of a mile from the Thompsons. He testified he saw two men in a parked car holding binoculars just days before the double murder and identified Goodwin as the driver.

It was the sole connection between the defendant and the area around the crime scene and jurors pounced on the testimony. At their request, jurors were taken to see the spot where Stevens said he saw Goodwin.

Thirteen years after the killings, Stevens spoke with police and picked Goodwin out of a lineup. He first told police the driver was blond, but later said he had red hair. Stevens said the second man in the car was white, then changed his mind, identifying him as black.

The chance that a person could accurately identify a face seen briefly after that much time has passed was zero, according to a scientist and memory expert who testified for the defense — and drew an intense attack by prosecutors.

Stevens was a key element of the state's case, particularly because prosecutors did not call the star witness at a preliminary hearing two years ago, a former girlfriend of Goodwin.

That woman, Gail Hunter, said the couple was living in Colorado in 1992 when Goodwin came into her room, quite excited, and showed her a videotape of one of the "Unsolved Mysteries" shows on the Thompson killings. " 'Look what I've done and what I got away with,' " she said Goodwin told her.

Prosecutors declined to explain Hunter's absence. Saris said the reason was that the defense located Hunter's medical records and would have used them to discredit the woman's testimony.

As in most trials, there were disputes over what the jury would be allowed to hear. One story involved Joey Hunter, a man with long blond hair who was seen hitchhiking not far from the murder scene within an hour of the slayings. Hunter was identified by several eyewitnesses and failed three polygraph tests. He was never charged.

Saris repeatedly pushed to have the incidents involving Hunter admitted to the jury, but never persuaded Schwartz to allow it.

Thompson was the first person to drive 400 miles an hour in a piston-driven vehicle. He had successfully promoted off-road races when he met Goodwin, who created supercross -- motorcycle racing on dirt tracks laid out in football stadia. They joined forces to promote motor sports in 1984.

A colleague said Thompson and Goodwin were aggressive, volatile promoters prone to exaggeration. Their collaboration quickly evaporated.

What followed was a court battle that several lawyers said hit depths of meanness. Thompson eventually won a $514,388 judgment against Goodwin. The state Supreme Court confirmed the award in January 1988 -- two months before the slayings.

Employees, acquaintances and business associates told jurors they heard Goodwin threaten to kill Thompson. Prosecutors called more than a dozen witnesses who reported various threats to Thompson and to his lawyer.

"Michael Goodwin told anyone who would sit still for five minutes he wanted Mickey Thompson dead," Saris conceded.

Saris leveled a withering attack at the lengthy investigation, pointing out that no evidence from the crime scene implicated Goodwin. She said the only physical evidence was DNA evidence "that does not match Michael Goodwin."

The extreme cruelty of the murder of his wife while Thompson was forced to watch shows Goodwin was the killer, prosecutor Jackson maintained.

"Michael Goodwin signed his name to this crime. He planned it from the start and it was executed exactly the way Michael Goodwin wanted it," Jackson said. "Michael Goodwin made good on his promise."

Thirteen years after the crime, Orange County prosecutors charged Goodwin, saying he planned the killings from his Laguna Beach home. An appeals court threw out that case, but before Goodwin could be freed, he was charged in Los Angeles. He has been in custody almost five years.

Goodwin's defenders have been quick to use the media -- television, publishing and the Internet. One website has grown from a focus on Goodwin to a general crusade for all those who claim they have been wrongly accused.

On the other side, Thompson's sister Campbell, former mayor of San Juan Capistrano, has become a national crusader for victims' rights. She has said Goodwin made good on repeated threats to kill Thompson.

She testified that he also threatened her at one of the hearings on Goodwin's bankruptcy. The bankruptcy trustee told jurors he bought a gun and a bulletproof vest after he heard of the Thompson slayings.

Campbell, who has attended every day of the trial, used her access to the media and clout in the law enforcement community to promote the case.

"I've tried to honor my family the best I could," she said before the verdict. "It's very difficult when you're up against defense attorneys who want to turn the truth into fiction. It's difficult to have your family demeaned."

 

Goodwin Found Guilty in Murders of Racer Mickey Thompson, Wife

Pasadena, CA

Michael Goodwin, a once high-living motorsports promoter, was convicted of two counts of murder in the 1988 killings of Mickey Thompson and the racing legend's wife.

The jury also found that special circumstance allegations of lying in wait and multiple murder were true.

The prosecution has said it will not seek the death penalty.

Goodwin was a former business partner of Thompson, a racer who pursued land-speed records on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and drove everything from dragsters and funny cars to midgets, and was a major figure in popularizing off-road contests.

- Associated Press

 

He's been locked up all this time, maybe he'll stay locked up during the appeals. Surprised he didn't rat out the shooters and try for a plea bargain. Probably more afraid of them than of jail.

 

About time, this is a good day. When you all look at your cheater slicks, mud boggers, valve covers etc, etc you gotta remember what that M/T means and keep the legend and his wife's memory alive.

 

wow, im speechless. i just talked to my friend jess tyree who said "it couldn't of happened without coleen"

juctice moves slowly..but it moves!

 

Finally, there has been a judicial conclusion to this matter. Too bad that Mickey couldn't be here to give his sister a hug, she deserves it after her struggle to get justice for Mickey and his wife.
Now, the courts need to reaffirm the verdict on appeal so the REAL sentence can begin.

Frank

 

nads, i own one of M/T's challenger 1 engines and i think about him every day.

 

Man found guilty of murdering racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife

By Tori Richards, Court TV

Pasadena, Calif.

Flamboyant racing promoter Michael Goodwin was convicted Thursday in the execution-style slayings of racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife Trudy 18 years ago.

The standing-room-only crowd in Los Angeles Superior Court was silent as Judge Teri Schwartz read the verdict that came after six days of deliberations.

Jurors found the 61-year-old Goodwin guilty of multiple murder and lying in wait, which means he will be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Thompson's sister, Colleen Campbell, and son, Danny Thompson, sat stone-faced as the verdict was read. Goodwin's supporters began crying.

"I've always felt there would be a conviction. ... I believe Mickey and Trudy were helping with this case," Campbell said. "I knew someone that evil would not walk."

During the two-month-long trial, jurors heard a parade of witnesses testify about how Goodwin threatened to kill Thompson after a bitter business dispute.

Jurors said after the trial that the numerous death threats were a major reason for the conviction.

They also said the voluminous amount of evidence pointing toward motive on Goodwin's part helped seal his fate.

 

Reaction to guilty verdict in Mickey Thompson murders

The Associated Press

Reaction to the conviction of Michael Goodwin in the 1988 murders of racer Mickey Thompson and his wife, Trudy:

"This 18-year ordeal for the family members of Mickey and Trudy Thompson is now over." Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley.

"Right now I'm a big fan of the justice system." Danny Thompson, the racer's son.

"I wish I could look up and touch Mickey and Trudy and say, We won." Collene Campbell, 74, sister of Mickey Thompson.

"We believe passion controlled and there was a Hollywood version of events." Elena Saris, defense attorney.

"I really believe that everyone came in with a very open mind. I would have thought the opposite just from the outside. But everyone that came in there methodically went through the testimony." The jury foreman, who identified himself only by his first name, Mark.

"We have known for a long time that Goodwin was responsible for the murders while he was walking free, and I am grateful to the jury for finding the truth." Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, whose office filed charges before the case was transferred to Los Angeles County.

 

This was in a Reuters news story today:

"It was Goodwin the whole time," Thompson's son, Danny, said after the verdict. "I always thought that. I think that now. And obviously the jury thought that, and I thank them."

 

Still an empty feeling at day's end

Frank Mickadeit, Orange County Register

My phone rings yesterday at 9:44 a.m. Collene Campbell, who I'll find out later has spent a sleepless night and is still in her pajamas, is on the line. "The verdict's in," she says. Click.

Thus begins the race to get to the Pasadena courthouse first because they won't read the verdicts until she gets there. I have a head start because she's down in San Juan Capistrano, but with her husband, Gary, she can use the car pool lane. Because Erika's on vacation, I can't. So I need another body – any hominoid who can sit upright and won't be missed for hours. Seeing no editors in the newsroom at the moment, though, I head out the door solo, hoping I'll luck out with the traffic.

As I point the Saab up the 57, I'm thinking a verdict after less than six days of deliberation means guilty. I'd closely observed jurors' faces and body language during closing arguments. A couple were clearly signaling they were buying the prosecution's and had disdain for the defense's. There was no way these two were going to acquit, I believed, and in a case with so much evidence to sift, it would take a jury a lot longer than six days to hang. So, guilty, I figure. Of course, I'd been wrong about O.J.

Traffic wasn't bad and within an hour of Campbell's call, I'm pulling up to the courthouse, around which TV trucks are parked, antennae raised. Now it's a scramble to get one of the courtroom's 48 seats. I score one of the last available – front row, far right.

Fifty minutes later, at 11:35, the Campbells finally arrive and take the last two seats – a pair someone has saved in the front row, about 10 feet to my left. Collene's wearing a black outfit with two pins – gold angels waving checkered flags – above her heart. She hugs several people and sits. Five minutes later, Judge Teri Schwartz takes the bench, the room goes silent and Michael Goodwin is brought in. Although unshackled, he walks with a kind of shuffling limp while sucking on a cough drop or candy. He's wearing an olive-green suit and his crimson-framed reading glasses are pushed far down on his nose. He's 61 but still an imposing figure. Six bailiffs, including a sergeant, spread out around the courtroom. I suppose Goodwin could grab the clerk's letter opener and go berserk or something.

The jurors enter and pass within three feet of Goodwin. He looks right at them but they appear oblivious as they march to the jury box. Schwartz announces she, not the clerk, will read the verdicts. A moment later she begins. At the first "guilty" Goodwin bows his head and defense attorney Elena Saris brings her hand to her face. As Schwartz reads the second count and the two special circumstances (all guilty), the man to my immediate left, Bill Marcel, who met Mickey Thompson in 1961 and worked with him for years, drops his chin into his chest and starts to cry, his shoulders heaving. I look beyond him, to the Campbells. Gary takes Collene's right hand in his left and squeezes it. Goodwin just slowly shakes his head.

There's nothing quite like an L.A. media frenzy, and outside the courthouse I dive right into it, angling for position with the photographers and the blond, brassy cable-network reporter types.

There's an almost orderly procession to the microphones: Mickey's son, Danny; then five or six jurors (none of whom will disclose their full names, but give them credit for talking at all); then the prosecutors; then Collene; then the defense attorneys; then Collene again. She holds up a "Wanted" poster for the two trigger men, still at large.

What I really want is to get inside the jury's head. How key was what I considered the most important and controversial testimony, that of the two people who came forward a decade after the crime to say they'd seen Goodwin casing the neighborhood a few days before the crime. The jurors don't want to get that specific. Frustrated, I wait for them to finish at the mics, then get the foreman off to the side by himself. He's a very pleasant 52-year-old music composer named Mark.

My sense from our discussion: Some jurors believed those witnesses. How much weight jurors afforded their testimony varied among jurors. Others didn't necessarily believe them, but the totality of other evidence – mainly the multiple death threats, Goodwin's flight after the crime – didn't require they believe them in order to convict.

The robbery motive suggested by the defense? "A non-starter," Mark said. Jurors didn't buy it. What about the fact the original detectives had the case for years and didn't file charges? "That went into the 'stuff happens' files," Mark said.

Overall, he said, he wants the public to know the jurors did a careful, methodical job, that there was robust discussion but no major arguments. "The system works," he says.

I hang around, until I start hearing the same things over and over. The early afternoon traffic back to O.C. is light, my mind wanders and I decide I'm unsatisfied – Goodwin probably did it, but still so many unanswered questions. What really happened?

Contact the writer: Mickadeit writes Mondays through Fridays. Contact him at (714) 796-4994 or fmickadeit@ocregister.com

 

Dave,
Thank you for keeping this thread and this story in the forefront of the HAMB. We all love traditional hot rodding and Mickey Thompson was a true hot rodder. Those of us who have followed Bonneville racing and the dedicated hot rodders who race there; greatly appreciate your dedication to keep this story in front of us. Thanks again.

One comment on the story. They will probably never find the actual killers because Goodwin probably murdered them himself to keep them from talking. And that's why he couldn't rat them out to cop a plea deal.

 

I think we all owe Roadsters.com a big thank you for posting so much good info on this trial. It's good to see the bad guys go down. Surely there's ONE hot rodder in jail who can talk to California's newest felon.

 

I type too slow.

 

One comment on the story. They will probably never find the actual killers because Goodwin probably murdered them himself to keep them from talking. And that's why he couldn't rat them out to cop a plea deal.[/QUOTE]


interesting point. my family & friends have allways thought the killers were from haiti , where goodwin took off to after the murders.

 

Thanks for the thanks. All I did was a bit of searching with Google News and a bit of typing.

Mickey Thompson was in a class of his own. When I was a young kid, to me, he was someone who just plain transcended anyone else I knew of. I thought of him as being like a combination of Garlits, Breedlove, and Superman.

Here's something that I wrote on my site back in 1996. Quote:

I've been interested in racing on the Bonneville Salt Flats since the early Sixties, when Mickey Thompson amazed us all with a 406-mph run in his four-engined Challenger One at the Bonneville Salt Flats back in 1961. Every kid needs a hero, and when I heard what he'd done he became mine. Who could possibly control a race car at 400 miles an hour? Mickey did. I built a model of his car, and spent hours just looking at the thing, completely fascinated. To this day I've never lost my respect for him.

Dave Mann
http://www.roadsters.com/

 

Roadsters.com, Thank you for keeping this high on the HAMB list of threads. It seems that all too often that the "bad guys" never get their due. This time HE did. Now may Mickey and Trudy rest in peace.
God Speed Champ.

 

Wow. Thanks, Dave.

--Matt

 

Ditto.

Thanks for keeping us posted.

 

Maybe now this guy will man up (doubt it) and finger the trigger-men. If he even knows who they are. R.I.P.

 

Lack of physical proof didn't impede Thompson jury

A preponderance of evidence pointed to Goodwin's guilt in the murders of the racing legend and his wife, jurors say. The defendant's attorney vows to seek a new trial.

By Tami Abdollah, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer tami.abdollah@latimes.com

January 6, 2007

A day after a Pasadena jury convicted Michael Goodwin of murder in the deaths of racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife, jurors said they had no problem reaching guilty verdicts, despite a lack of physical evidence tying the defendant to the murder scene.

"There was never anybody that said, 'No way, there's no way,' " said Mark Matthews, 52, the jury foreman. "We never had to convince anybody that he was guilty. We only had to make sure we were following the law correctly."

The Thompsons were gunned down in the driveway of their home in the eastern Los Angeles County community of Bradbury on March 16, 1988, by two hooded gunmen who escaped on bicycles. The killers were never identified; Goodwin was charged with planning the murders.

With many mysteries still surrounding the case, observers had wondered if the jury would be able to reach unanimous verdicts so long after the crime.

"I could not have ever believed that 12 people would consider this proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and I continue to be stunned," Deputy Public Defender Elena M. Saris said.

But jurors said the judge's instructions clarified how they viewed evidence during six days of deliberation. For example, jurors said that before joining the trial many of them did not know that circumstantial and direct evidence could be weighed equally in making their decision.

"All our understanding of the legal system [was] based on television shows," Matthews said. "People think that every single fact has to be proven and DNA-ed and stamped, that it has to be an open-and-shut, gun-in-hand and blood-on-the-T-shirt kind of case, which this obviously wasn't."

Only one previous ballot was taken the day before Goodwin's conviction, and that resulted in a single not-guilty vote and two undecided votes. However, after rereading the jury instructions and discussing the evidence, jurors said, the three voted with the majority.

The murders of Mickey and Trudy Thompson fascinated the media and were the subject of "America's Most Wanted" and other television shows. Saris argued that the time between the crime and the trial, along with the "Hollywood treatment" of the case, had hopelessly tainted the memories of witnesses, some of whom did not come forward for years. "They have no killers, no plan, no meeting, no weapon, no phone calls, no payout, no nothing," she said.

The prosecution presented testimony from a dozen witnesses that Goodwin had threatened to kill his former racing-promoter partner, as well as evidence that Goodwin had nearly been bankrupted by a $514,000 court judgment in Thompson's favor.

Jurors said they methodically sifted through evidence and believed that there was a preponderance that pointed to Goodwin's guilt.

"There were so many reasons in everyone's mind that it would be a logical, reasonable deduction to say, 'Who else?' " Matthews said. "You know what I mean? Who else?"

Juror Bob Briggs, 69, said it was the "collective weight" of the evidence, not a single piece, that determined the case.

"We didn't have to connect Michael Goodwin to the murderers," Matthews said. "We just had to believe that he planned the murders, that he aided and abetted them. We didn't have to have the smoking gun."

Goodwin, 61, will be sentenced to life in prison without parole. The defendant, who has been in jail for the last five years without bail, hung his head Thursday when the verdicts were read and said "I didn't do it" twice, according to Saris.

Saris said she would ask Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz for a new trial and, if that fails, Goodwin would appeal to a higher court. Goodwin was "tremendously disappointed and incredibly frustrated" by the verdicts but has faith the truth will come out, Saris said.

Laurie Levenson, a professor of criminal law at Loyola Law School, said judgments based on circumstantial evidence are often the norm in murder cases. "The evidence is still not proof beyond all doubt, it's just proof beyond a reasonable doubt. You don't have to dot all the I's or cross all the Ts, or have 'CSI' evidence to win a murder conviction."

The trial and deliberations left the four-man, eight-woman jury emotionally frayed and mentally exhausted. Two jurors cried as the verdicts were read.

"It's the hardest decision I've made in my life, and hopefully the hardest decision I will have to make," said one of the jurors who cried. She identified herself as Trudy, 50, but declined to give her last name.

Briggs also said it was important to remember that jurors are not allowed to discuss the case or view media reports on it while it is pending.

"All we can go on is the testimony that comes out of that box by people who are under oath," he said. "So all this other stuff that people want to bring up, as to why you didn't think about this or that, we don't know about that and it's designed that way. So all I can say is, 'Excuse me, all I know is what I was told I could use and it's just that simple.' Hopefully you would have come to the same conclusion we did."

 

Goodwin Found Guilty of Thompson Murders

Retrial Hearing Set For March 1

By Dean Lee

January 11, 2007

Minutes before being found guilty of the 1988 double murder of racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife Trudy, Michael Goodwin smirked as jurors filed past him one by one.

Last Thursday, Goodwin, the former business partner of Thompson, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, along with the added special circumstance of “lying in wait.” Goodwin could be sentenced to life without parole. The sentencing date has not yet been set.

“I never had a doubt,” said Mickey and Trudy’s son, Danny Thompson. “I was listening to KFWB this morning while driving here and all that same feeling came rushing back from when I first heard there had been a killing almost 19 years ago. Ironically, I was listening to KFWB both times.”

Immediately following the verdict Goodwin’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Elena Saris asked for a retrial stating her client was not given a speedy trail. She also said some of the evidence was not fairly presented by the prosecution.

Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz set a retrial hearing for March 1. Danny Thompson said he was not worried about having to sit through another trail.

“They found him guilty,” he said. “That’s what matters.”

During the trial prosecutors said Mickey Thompson was forced to watch as Goodwin’s hired killers shot his wife before being killed himself minuets later.

Prosecutors said two masked men shot the Thompson’s execution style in the driveway of their Bradbury home and then sped off on bicycles.

Prosecutors said that Goodwin did not have to be at the crime screen to be guilty of the murders. Jurors said this was the key factor in coming up with a guilty verdict in lieu of a smoking gun.

“There was no one thing,” said the jury’s foreman, Mark Matthews. “What really changed our minds was when we found out circumstantial evidence held the same weight as physical evidence.”

Within hours of going into deliberations, the jury had asked testimony to be read back to them which Matthews said showed just how thorough they were.

“We still feel it’s all the Hollywood version,” Saris said at a press conference.

Saris focused Goodwin’s defense on a faulty crime scene investigation and suggestions that this could have been a botched robbery.

“We never even considered a robbery,” Matthews said.

Saris admitted Goodwin was unlikable during the trial, saying, “you can call him a jerk, or an egomaniac or a braggart, but prove what you’re alleging.”

After the verdict she said that Goodwin was in high spirits and knew justice would prevail.

 

Now convicted, Mike Goodwin is still toughing it out

After murder verdicts in the Mickey Thompson case, Goodwin says he professes no ill will.

Dana Parsons, Los Angeles Times
(714) 966-7821 dana.parsons@latimes.com

January 13, 2007

The one time I talked to Mike Goodwin face to face, he was loaded for bear. It was September 2001 and he was feeling the heat from the heat, knowing that he was still a prime target in the aging murder investigation of famed auto racer Mickey Thompson and wife Trudy.

Goodwin told me that if it took a trial to prove his innocence, so be it. He was no cupcake, and the stories of what a tough guy he'd been back in the day when he and Thompson had been business partners were easy to link to the man across the table from me in his lawyer's office.

Three months later, in December 2001, Goodwin would be arrested at his Dana Point home. He hasn't spent a full day out of jail since, and over the years we've had a number of phone conversations in which, for the most part, he repeated his eagerness to clear his name in a trial.

Nine days ago, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury convicted him of arranging the double murders in March 1988. Now 61, he's expected to be sentenced to life in prison.

Earlier this week, Goodwin phoned me from L.A. County Jail and, true to form, said he was ready to dive into the appeals process.

Two days later, I talked to the jury foreman, who said the deliberations never broke down into two camps. The only lingering questions after the first vote was taken involved technical issues on the threshold of proof.

In short, the jury didn't agonize over Goodwin's guilt. That surprised me when you consider that:

• The L.A. County district attorney's office passed on the case for years.

• The Orange County district attorney's office built a threadbare rationale for filing murder charges, only to have an appeals court toss it out on the grounds that Orange County didn't have jurisdiction for murders that occurred in L.A. County. Only then, in 2004, did L.A. finally file charges.

• The case was circumstantial and involved memories of events now nearly two decades old. The two killers have never been identified, much less found.

I asked the jury foreman, 52-year-old music composer Mark Matthews, about all that. He said the jury focused only on the evidence and that he was surprised later to hear through the grapevine that many observers thought the outcome would be a hung jury or an acquittal.

"The bottom line is that when we came to a verdict, it wasn't that complex," Matthews said. Still, he said, "There was no magic moment when everyone went, 'Oh my God, that's it, this is the one thing.' "

Rather, he said, it was a progression that began with the rancorous Thompson-Goodwin business relationship, and then to the alleged Goodwin threats and the subsequent murders, and then to behavior by Goodwin after the murders that Matthews thought showed "a lack of moral compass that you and I might have."

Jurors put no stock in the defense theory that the Thompsons were killed during a robbery attempt. Nor, however, did jurors necessarily accept the prosecution's contention that Goodwin's hatred was so deep that he ordered the shooters to make sure Mickey saw Trudy die.

By the jurors' count, 15 people testified about threats, Matthews said.

The four man-eight woman jury determined that nine were credible and believed that Goodwin genuinely hated Thompson.

"It might be more complex than just hatred, but it was the root cause for sure," Matthews said.

Since the trial, Matthews said, he's read news stories about potential other "enemies" of Mickey Thompson or other suspects no longer under consideration. I ask if it would have mattered.

"Whether that would have made a difference, who knows?" Matthews said. "I understand the question, I really do, it's a very interesting one. But it's more complex than saying, 'If we had known this, would it have been different?' Maybe yes, maybe no."

Matthews said he has no doubt the jury got the right man.

From a jail phone, Goodwin says he isn't giving up. "Everyone seems incredulous that I'm as up as I am. I'm not really up. I'm just saying, 'Why get down?' There's nothing I can really do about it."

He thinks there are appeal issues. He says he was surprised by the verdicts. He thinks his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Elena Saris, did a great job.

I ask about Mickey Thompson's sister, Collene Campbell, who, largely through her Orange County political connections, probably is most responsible for keeping the case alive through the years.

"This is real strange and I mean it from the bottom of my heart," Goodwin says. "I'm really glad she's happy for something. I don't believe she thinks I really did it, but she was able to put on a good show that I did it."

Does he hate her?

"I don't hate Collene, I pray for her every day. Nobody can believe that, but I do. I probably should hate her, but I don't. I'm certainly unhappy she ruined my life, so to speak." The irony, he says, is that, "it wasn't Mickey who ruined my life … it was Collene."

He then tells me of his born-again Christian conversion of 10 years ago. He has a friend send me a detailed version of how it happened and how it has affected his life.

I can't read another man's heart, but it does remind me that the chief investigator in the case once told me Goodwin is a master manipulator who thinks he can con everyone.

It doesn't matter if I believe him or not.

But with life in prison a likely outcome for him, his profession of faith makes me ponder two compelling sides of that coin:

If he arranged the murders, wouldn't a genuine conversion force him to confess his most egregious sins?

Or, if he has been wrongly convicted, can he dig deep enough into the recesses of that faith and find the peace of mind to live out a life behind bars?

 

Thank you for keeping us up to date on the trial. The last couple lines of this final article are very interesting... I've often wondered about that with convicted murderers, etc.

Thanks again,

Ben

 

Marathoner for justice crosses the finish line

By Colleen Cason
Ventura County Star
ccason@VenturaCountyStar.com

January 14, 2007

In life, there are sprinters, and then there are marathoners. Sprinters go full throttle while the stopwatch runs. Then they idle for a while, refuel and gun their engines for the next big event. Marathoners just keep going. They advance inch by grueling inch despite breakdowns, obstacles and fatigue.

Mickey Thompson felt the need to speed. The Baja racing legend became the first person to travel more than 400 mph in a piston-driven car. A master showman, he organized off-road-style events in stadiums, hauling in thousands of tons of dirt to re-create a rugged desert course for audiences enjoying comfortable seats and cold beer. Beyond that, he fought the racing establishment to enter a then-revolutionary rear-engine machine in the Indianapolis 500.

His high-octane life came to an end on March 16, 1988, when he and his wife, Trudy, were shot to death on the driveway of their San Gabriel Valley home.

That's when his sister Collene Thompson Campbell's marathon began. For 18 years, Campbell has battled to bring to justice the man she believed ordered the killings.

Earlier this month, Thompson's 74-year-old sibling waved a checkered flag outside a Pasadena courtroom to signal the end of her long race.

Mickey Thompson's former business partner, Mike Goodwin, was convicted of the double homicide. The jury believed the prosecution's circumstantial case that Goodwin had hired two hit men to ambush the Thompsons.

At the trial, a dozen witnesses testified they heard Goodwin threaten to kill Thompson over a business deal gone bad.

A few days after the verdict was read, Ross Olney wrote the last sentence of his book about the racer's family's long journey to justice. The well-known Ventura author had covered Thompson's exploits when he was a writer on the racing circuit. Two years ago, he agreed to collaborate with Collene Campbell on a book about her brother's vivid life and violent death. Olney remembers Thompson as a larger-than-life mixture of humility and audacity.

"Mickey," said Olney, "would feel terrible if he couldn't remember the name of a fan he had met once three years earlier."

But Thompson also was a driven guy.

"Once he set his sights on a goal nothing would stand in his way," said the 77-year-old Olney, who has written 188 books, most of them nonfiction.

With a more grounded personality, Trudy, said Olney, was her husband's sounding board and upon occasion his saving grace.

Neighbors who overhead the slayings told investigators that Mickey's last words were a plea to the killers to spare his wife. In the end, though, it is believed he had to watch as Trudy was shot at point blank range in the back of the head.

I caught up with Collene Campbell as she was trying to put the trial in her rear-view mirror. She is enjoying the first stretch in 25 years when she is not elbow-deep in court documents.

Before Mickey and Trudy were killed, she had lost another loved one to violent death. Her 27-year-old son, Scott Campbell, was thrown from a private airplane over the ocean in 1982. His body has never been found. After seven years of proceedings, two paroled felons were convicted of the crime. During that time, Campbell came down with ulcers and her husband, Gary, developed high blood pressure. Convinced the justice system tilts unfairly in favor of criminals, Campbell — a former mayor of San Juan Capistrano — became a crime-victims advocate. And two years ago, President Bush signed into law a bill named for five crime victims, including Campbell's son Scott. The bill spells out five rights — including the right to be in the courtroom — automatically granted to crime victims in the federal court system. Campbell and her husband were forced to sit in the hallway during trials of her son's killers.

Campbell and Olney have yet to find a publisher for the book. In fact, they have yet to agree on a title. Olney favors "Murder on Woodland Lane," where the Thompson murders took place. Campbell is more inclined toward "Endurance Race for Justice."

Although Campbell's endurance race is finished, she is not entirely ready to rest. Around her neck, she wears a necklace given to her by her mother as she was dying.

"Mama told me to put it on and please don't take it off until they get the person who killed Mickey," she said.

Campbell is still wearing it. And that's another way marathoners are different than sprinters. For marathoners, the race goes on so long it becomes part of their being.

Or as Campbell puts it: "Mickey and I have the same kind of drive. We just had a different kind of race."

 

Motion to be heard to retry Goodwin

By Molly R. Okeon, Staff Writer, Whittier Daily News
molly.okeon@sgvn.com (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4496

BRADBURY - After almost 19 years, the "whodunit" portion of the story of the slayings of auto racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife has reached its final chapter to those closest to the couple.

But the defense for Michael Frank Goodwin, 61, the man convicted of the killings by a Pasadena jury Jan. 4, is not ready to accept life in prison without the possibility of parole as its client's fate.

"I don't know when, but I do know eventually, somebody somewhere is going to retry this case," said Goodwin's attorney Elena Saris, a Los Angeles County deputy public defender.

Thompson, 59, and his wife, Trudy, 41, were gunned down in the driveway of their Bradbury home March 16, 1988. Goodwin has been held without bail since his 2001 arrest. Two assailants, said to be African-American men, rode away on bicycles the day of the crime and have not been found.

After the verdict was read, Saris asked Pasadena Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz to reconsider her motion for another trial based on what she considers to be Goodwin's inability to get a speedy trial. Her motion will be heard March1.

L.A. County Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson, one of the two prosecutors in the case, said Wednesday he found Saris' claim "curious" as she had waived time for her client "about 43 times" in the 22 years she has had the case.

Also March 1, Saris will present an extension motion with about eight other reasons for which she believes her client deserves a new trial, most prominently her inability to discuss other murder suspects during the trial.

Saris contended prior to and throughout the trial that the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department did not properly invesigate leads other than those that pointed to her client. She said Joey Hunter, a man seen by neighbors soon after the slayings, had no alibi for the morning of the crime and failed three polygraph tests.

Saris presented a motion at a mid-October hearing to present third-party culpability, which attempted to prove connections between Hunter and others that may have been responsible for the Thompson killings. But Schwartz decided against allowing Saris to discuss the probable guilt of other suspects during Goodwin's trial, saying it would confuse the jurors.

"The biggest problem in this case was we were absolutely shut down from presenting a defense," Saris said. "It's like going to a boxing match and having someone tie your hands behind your back."

Jackson would not comment on the "potentially pending" motion for a new trial, but instead referred to his 23-page argument filed Oct. 16 against Saris being able to use third-party culpability during the trial.

The paper quotes case history that requires the defense to present "direct or circumstantial evidence linking the third person to the actual perpetration of the crime," not just motive or opportunity to commit the crime.

Jackson said most of Saris' reasons for a new trial are arguments she made before or during the trial and lost.

Jackson said the prosecution will be asking for consecutive life sentences with no chance for parole at the March 1 hearing.

 

Not to worry, this is normal for a felony case, he'll die in jail!!He won't be "hangin around" like sadam!!lolololol
JimV

 

Goodwin seeks new trial in Thompson slayings

From L.A. Times staff and wire reports

February 17, 2007

Lawyers for Michael F. Goodwin, convicted in January of the murders of auto racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife, Trudy, filed a motion for a new trial, to be heard March 1. The motion argues that the defense was not allowed to present evidence of other suspects, that jurors were given misleading instructions and that the rules for a jury viewing of the crime scene were improperly changed at the last minute.

The Thompsons were shot in the driveway of their Bradbury home March 16, 1988. Prosecutors said Goodwin arranged for the killings.