Man Arrested in ’88 Death of Racing Great

Thirteen years after auto racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife were shot to death in front of their San Gabriel Valley mansion, the man long considered a prime suspect in the murders was arrested Sunday night, authorities said.

Michael F. Goodwin, a former business partner of Thompson, was taken into custody at 7:25 p.m. while he was eating dinner with his father and brother at his home in Dana Point, according to his attorney.

“One of the deputies said that he was being taken for the murder of Mickey Thompson,” said his attorney, Jeffrey Benice. The warrant “for the murder of Mike and Trudy Thompson” was issued by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, according to a homicide sergeant. Authorities said Goodwin, 56, was booked at the Inmate Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles.

Earlier this year, Goodwin was subpoenaed by an Orange County grand jury and his home was searched.

Goodwin, who has long claimed his innocence in one of the region’s most enduring whodunits, accused deputies of taking documents protected by attorney-client privilege.

At a hastily arranged press conference in Santa Ana, Benice said the arrest was a ruse to get Goodwin into a police lineup, something he has successfully fought in court to this point. Goodwin had filed an appeal to stop the grand jury probe altogether, and a hearing was scheduled for later this month.

“They don’t have a right to terrorize him and take him off the street while he’s eating dinner,” Benice said. “In a rogue fashion, they are ignoring the court of appeals.”

Benice said deputies did not read his client his rights Sunday night. The homicide lieutenant overseeing the case did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Thompson and his wife were killed in March 1988 in front of their 13-car garage in the tony hillside community of Bradbury as he was leaving for work. The murder shocked the racing world, where Thompson was famous for being the first American to break the 400-mph land speed mark at the Bonneville Salt Flats and, later, becoming a leading promoter in off-road racing.

In his 59 years, Thompson had raced speedboats and top-fuel dragsters. In 1960, he broke his back and was temporarily paralyzed in a high-speed accident. He later helped pioneer off-road racing in the desert of Baja California. He came up with the idea of off-road racing in stadiums, a sport that soon boomed at such places as the Coliseum, Rose Bowl and Anaheim Stadium.

Investigators believe the murders were carried out by two contract killers, who fled on 10-speed bicycles, ignoring $70,000 in jewelry in the house and $4,000 in cash on the victims.

Early on, they named Goodwin a suspect. He and Thompson had a bitter falling out three years before the slayings over business dealings gone awry. Goodwin lost a $531,000 legal battle after a judge ruled he had misappropriated Thompson’s business investments.

Two weeks after the killings, Goodwin left his home in Laguna Beach to live on a yacht in the Caribbean.

Over more than a decade, investigators in Los Angeles and Orange counties chased more than 1,000 clues and leads, but apparently did not obtain enough evidence to arrest Goodwin.

Thompson’s sister, Collene Campbell, a former mayor of San Juan Capistrano, put up a $1 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the killers.

Sunday night, she reacted with a “sigh of relief” to the arrest.

“We’ve been waiting more than 13 years for this,” she said. “From the very beginning, I had no doubt Goodwin was who they should be investigating. Mickey called me just two days before his death and said ‘Sis, I’m afraid Goodwin is going to do something to hurt Trudy’ ”

Campbell’s son Scott was murdered in 1982, and she has been a leading advocate for crime victims’ rights statewide.

“I want to have hope that this is really it. But I keep remembering the police saying that Goodwin had said that the only way they’d get him into a lineup was to arrest him. I hope that’s not all this is.”

Campbell said she and her husband Gary know that going through a trial with Goodwin will be agony.

“I’m not sure our family can stand the justice system one more time, but you can bet we’ll be there to see it through.”

Contributing to this story was Times staff writer Jerry Hicks.