Thompson Deaths: Violence Hits Again at Family Fighting for Victims’ Rights

Maybe there is a reason why the closest families shoulder some of the worst tragedy, say Collene and Gary Campbell of San Juan Capistrano.

On Wednesday, Collene Campbell’s only sibling, racing promoter Mickey Thompson, and his wife, Trudy, were gunned down and killed outside their Bradbury home.

Six years ago, the Campbells’ son, Scott, 27, was strangled and his body thrown from a small airplane at 2,000 feet a mile off Santa Catalina Island. His two killers were finally convicted five years later. Because of that experience, Collene Campbell today is an outspoken advocate of victims’ rights.

“Maybe God is telling us we’re just not doing enough, not working hard enough,” Collene Campbell said. “I don’t know. If there’s a message in all this, I haven’t had time to sort it out.”

Her grief at yet another family loss through extreme violence has been camouflaged by a whirlwind of necessary activity.

Collene Campbell first heard the news about her brother and his wife before breakfast, when Thompson’s son, Danny, called and asked if the Campbells knew anything. A neighbor had told him there had been shots at the Bradbury house, and police cars were swarming there.

Collene Campbell called a friend in law enforcement for quick answers. He told her that the Thompsons’ names appeared in the police log with coroner’s numbers. The Campbells have been so immersed in police affairs in recent years that they knew the finality of that information.

She rushed quickly to phone her 88-year-old mother, Geneva, who listened to radio news every morning. She did not want her mother to hear it first on the radio.

While her mother was on one telephone line, the Campbells’ daughter, Shelly, called them on the other. Shelly was in a hospital for minor complications involving pregnancy with her third child. She had seen the bodies of her aunt and uncle on television and was hysterical.

The Campbells then rushed to the Thompson home, an hour’s drive, and found that the bodies were still on the ground. The next six hours were spent with police, answering questions and sorting out information about Thompson’s myriad business interests.

On Wednesday night, the Campbells drove to San Diego. Collene Campbell is state coordinator for the California Justice Committee, which is trying to put a victims’ rights initiative on the November ballot. The Campbells were helping to organize a San Diego chapter.

“We told each other in the car driving back from Mickey’s that it was more important than ever that we make that meeting,” Gary Campbell said.

Thursday, they spent five hours at the mortuary making funeral arrangements. Then it was six hours with lawyers about Thompson’s estate. Collene Campbell had been named administrator. Important matters could not be put off.

Visits to two hospitals were squeezed in. The mother of Mickey and Collene had suffered a heart attack after hearing the news, and was in intensive care. Daughter Shelly was devastated.

The Campbells finally returned home at 1 a.m. Friday. More than 100 messages waited on their answering machine--calls from reporters, police, business acquaintances and friends.

It was more of the same the next two days. The only bright news was that Shelly went home from the hospital and Geneva was out of intensive care.

Friday morning, the Campbells tried to relax at their spacious home on a hill overlooking the San Juan Valley. First one, then the other would have to dart to the telephone.

Gary Campbell spoke calmly, quietly, and held up well until he talked about Shelly’s two children, ages 5 and 7.

Difficult to Speak

“Today is the day . . .” and he cried. Later in the morning, he finally got the words out. “Today is the day they have chosen to tell the children about their Uncle Mickey and Aunt Trudy.”

Collene Campbell was off the telephone and back in the living room to hear him.

“Those children are our main concern,” she said. “How do we keep them from growing up paranoid about life?” It has, Gary Campbell finished the thought, “taken a long time just for them to understand their Uncle Scott’s murder.”

Before all the violence, the Campbells could only wonder about their good fortune.

“We were successful, we were happy, we had a great family. We just had the world by the tail,” Gary Campbell said. “We worked hard, but we played hard. And we just had so much love for each other it was unbelievable--Christmas took three days, we had so much love.”

The Campbells, both 55, were high school sweethearts from Alhambra. From the beginning of their marriage, they were close to Thompson. His early interest in racing got them involved. Weekends were spent at drag races, or water skiing or playing tennis. They were with Mickey when he met his future wife on a water ski trip 18 years ago.

Worked With Brother

For years, Collene Campbell worked with her brother, handling his promotions and working with his sponsors. Gary Campbell, whose career is in advertising and marketing, got involved, too.

Collene Campbell left her brother’s business a few years ago, but the two remained close.

“She and Mickey talked on the telephone every day--I mean every single day,” Gary Campbell said “And as close as she was to Mickey, she was even closer to Trudy.”

The first jolt came in 1975, when Scott Campbell was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of an acquaintance. The Campbells say it was self-defense, that the man tried to rob Scott at knifepoint. But Scott Campbell hid the body for two days. Although convicted, he served only a few days in jail and was placed on a work-furlough program.

Then in 1982, Scott Campbell, who lived in Anaheim, suddenly disappeared. The Campbells were used to talking to him by phone almost daily. When they didn’t hear from him for a week, they knew he was dead.

Unusual Odyssey

The Campbells then began one of the most unusual odysseys into private investigation Orange County has ever seen. Prosecutors say now that Scott Campbell’s two killers, Larry Cowell and Donald DiMascio, would never have been arrested had it not been for the Campbells.

It was they who gathered the evidence that first lead to Cowell, whose family was close friends with the Campbells.

But Anaheim police did not have enough evidence to arrest Cowell, and argued to the Campbells that they did not have the manpower to keep the case alive.

To the Campbells’ dismay, they learned that their son had planned a trip to North Dakota to sell cocaine the day he disappeared. They also learned that the buyer, unbeknown to Scott, was a federal drug agency informant.

It was Collene Campbell who talked by telephone with the informant, Greg Fox, in North Dakota, and convinced him to fly to Orange County and help police trap Cowell and DiMascio into confessing.

The Campbells paid for Fox’s trip.

Through an incredible plan worked out by the police, Fox told Cowell and DiMascio that he had to answer to other drug bosses about Campbell, and had to be sure he was dead. The two made detailed confessions, which the police secretly taped.

But the Campbells were troubled by what followed. The killers were granted separate trials. They were also granted numerous trial delays. It wasn’t until last summer that the second trial ended. DiMascio, the actual killer, was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Cowell was sentenced to 25 years to life.

Angry at System

The Campbells were so angry at the criminal justice system that they joined a victims’ rights group. They have also played a major role in efforts to place the victims’ rights initiative on the ballot that would help speed cases to trial, shorten the jury selection process and prevent defense lawyers from accepting major cases unless they could prove to the court that their calendar of other cases would not cause lengthy delays.

The group must produce 600,000 signatures statewide by the middle of May. The Campbells plan to spend the next two months working in that petition drive.

Now, as administrator for Mickey Thompson’s estate, Collene Campbell will have to somehow find the hours to do it all. Thompson had recently moved his off-road racing promotions business to an office in Anaheim Stadium, and was highly successful.

But Gary Campbell is convinced his wife can do it.

“She’s tough stock,” he said.

In early April, they will hold a meeting in the Bradbury area to push the victims’ rights petition. Mickey and Trudy Thompson had planned to host that meeting for them.

“Mickey very much believed in this cause,” Collene Campbell said.

But the one day they will take off from everything else is April 17--the anniversary of their son’s death.

As they do every year, they will climb into their 23-foot powerboat, not really suited for ocean travel, drive a mile past Catalina Island, and drop flowers in the water for Scott.

“We don’t have a grave to visit,” Gary Campbell said. “We just want Scott to know how much we care.”

On Friday, Collene Campbell was simply too busy with telephone calls for tears. But one of her many duties was to pick out a dress for Trudy Thompson for the funeral. Alone with a friend in the hallway where the dress hung, she grabbed hold of him and cried. “I love Trudy so much.”