Racer’s Former Partner to Stand Trial in Slayings

The former business partner of racing legend Mickey Thompson was ordered Wednesday to stand trial in Los Angeles County in the 1988 slayings of Thompson and his wife.

The order came six months after a state appellate court ruled that Orange County did not have jurisdiction to prosecute the case.

Los Angeles and Orange County prosecutors believe that Michael Goodwin planned the execution-style slayings from his Laguna Beach home, ordering two masked men on bicycles to kill Thompson, 59, and his wife, Trudy, 41, as they were leaving their home in Bradbury.

At one time a racing promoter, Goodwin bitterly parted ways with Thompson after a 1985 legal dispute left Goodwin bankrupt.

Los Angeles County prosecutors have charged Goodwin, 59, with two counts of murder and a special circumstance of lying in wait.

During the preliminary hearing, which started Oct. 4 in Pasadena, 20 witnesses testified for the prosecution.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz said Wednesday that looking at the evidence presented, “there’s simply no one else the court can say committed this crime.”

She added: “The court has no problem in finding enough evidence to connect the defendant to these crimes.”

Thompson’s sister, San Juan Capistrano resident Collene Campbell, called the testimony compelling.

“These were people who had nothing to gain except trying to do the right thing,” she said. Goodwin has long maintained his innocence in the killings and plans to plead not guilty at his Oct. 28 arraignment, said chief spokesman and longtime friend John Bradley.

“He has always hoped to go to trial,” Bradley said. “An acquittal is much better than a dismissal as far as he’s concerned.”

Goodwin has been in custody since his December 2001 arrest at his Dana Point trailer: for more than two years in jail in Orange County, and since June in Los Angeles County Jail. The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana ruled in April that Orange County prosecutors could not handle the case.

Los Angeles County, which previously had declined to prosecute the case, said two months later that enough new evidence had come out to warrant taking it.

Although being bound over for trial wasn’t unexpected, Bradley said, he thought the prosecution’s witnesses had been coached to finger Goodwin as the killer.