New motive suggested in double slaying

A defense lawyer Wednesday suggested that racing legend Mickey Thompson had a small fortune in gold in the house where he and his wife were found shot to death 18 years ago.

Defense attorney Elena Saris closed her case after giving jurors a possible reason other than revenge, the motive prosecutors contend led Michael Goodwin to arrange for the killing of Thompson, his former partner in the business of promoting motor sports in Southern California, and Thompson’s wife in 1988.

No gold hoard was ever found. And authorities said pry marks found on a home safe were caused by investigators.

Jurors also heard Wednesday about a police investigator’s report the night before Thompson and his wife, Trudy, were shot dead. The report quoted a Thompson employee at his Anaheim office as hearing Thompson say he had “taken possession” of $250,000. However the investigator, Rene LaPorte, said he could recall little about the conversation, and the worker said he could not confirm details of the conversation.

Jurors are due to tour the crime scene in Bradbury today. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz scheduled final arguments for Monday.

The trial is in its fifth week, and the defense rested without Goodwin taking the stand.

No evidence from the crime scene tied Goodwin to the slayings. Prosecutors called seven witnesses who testified that Goodwin had threatened to kill Thompson. One, Ronald Stevens, had come forward 13 years after the killings and reported that he could identify Goodwin as the man he saw sitting in a parked car three quarters of a mile from the Thompson residence days before the double slaying.

Placing Goodwin anywhere near the scene of the killings, committed by two men who fled on bicycles and were never identified, was considered a key to the prosecution’s case.

But the chances of accurately recalling a human face 13 years after a brief encounter are “zero,” according to Kathy Pezdek, a Claremont Graduate University psychologist and associate dean who is an expert in human memory. Pezdek studied the case for the defense and wrote a report concluding that “it is my professional opinion that a misidentification is very likely under these circumstances.”

After testifying in court, Pezdek said she had never encountered a witness who accurately identified a person as much as 10 years after an encounter. She said the advent of DNA testing has led to the release of 120 people wrongfully convicted of serious crimes nationwide, more than 80% of whose convictions were based on supposedly positive eyewitness identifications.

Pezdek cited a study that found mistakes in identification increasing from 65% correct after one week to 50% after three months and dropping to 10% after 11 months.

“Thirteen years is off the scale, an extremely long time delay for identifying a person you saw one time, briefly,” Pezdek said.

Pezdek criticized investigative techniques under which Stevens was shown a display of six photos before he was asked to pick Goodwin out of a lineup.

When Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick Dixon heatedly asked Pezdek why she had not helped the prosecution in the Thompson case, she coolly pulled out a copy of an e-mail she had sent to his office stating that Saris had sent prosecutors a copy of her conclusions. Her report had been commissioned by Saris, she noted.

john.spano@latimes.com