Trial to begin in Thompson slayings

For sustaining public interest, few cases rival the slayings of motor sports pioneer Mickey Thompson and his wife, Trudy, who were shot to death 18 years ago outside their home in the gated community of Bradbury.

Six times, “America’s Most Wanted” has broadcast treatments of the long-running mystery. “Unsolved Murders” aired shows, and “48 Hours” has broadcast two one-hour specials, with a third underway as the trial of Thompson’s former business partner, Michael Goodwin, begins this week in Pasadena.

Elizabeth Devine, the criminalist who is scheduled to testify about the bloody crime scene, is now a producer of “CSI: Miami.” The series’ popularity has given rise to what some call the “CSI effect”: a tendency among jurors to expect prosecutors to provide the clean certainty of TV-style scientific evidence.

The Thompson slayings are the other kind of case: messy, based largely on Goodwin’s own words, with no crime scene evidence pointing to the accused. The two hit men who escaped on bicycles from Thompson’s San Gabriel Valley community after the shootings have never been identified, much less arrested.

“The recipe for a high profile case was there from the get-go,” said Capt. Al Michelena, former head of the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division.

Goodwin was immediately a suspect, though it would take 18 years for the case to come to trial. Thompson, the first person to reach 400 mph in a piston-driven vehicle, already had successfully promoted off-road races when he met Goodwin, who created supercross -- motorcycle racing on dirt tracks laid out in NFL stadiums. They joined forces to promote motor sports in 1984.

“They were both aggressive, volatile kind of guys,” said John Bradley, who worked for both men and now runs an Internet site dedicated to espousing Goodwin’s innocence. “They were both promoters. They both exaggerated a lot of things. It blew up.”

What followed was a court battle that several lawyers involved said hit new 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 all have told police that Goodwin threatened to kill Thompson. Seven witnesses testified in 2004 to hearing direct threats. But Los Angeles County prosecutors, citing a lack of evidence, originally declined to file charges.

Thirteen years after the crime, Orange County prosecutors charged Goodwin, saying he planned the crime 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 -- to promote their cause. One website has grown from a focus on Goodwin to a general crusade for all those who say they are wrongly accused.

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

Campbell’s access to the media and her political clout in the law enforcement community have sparked complaints from defense attorney Elena Saris and others that she has exercised undue influence in the case.

“I’ve tried to honor my family the best I could,” said Campbell. “Its 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.”

“Anybody with her access to law enforcement would have done the same thing,” said Jeffrey Benice, Campbell’s nemesis and the lawyer who won Goodwin’s release in Orange County.

The continuing churn of publicity produced new witnesses who helped revive the case and bring on the current trial.

Among them are Ronald and Tonya Stevens, who lived a mile from the Thompsons. In 2001, Stevens told police for the first time -- after he had seen one of the ubiquitous Thompson television programs -- that he and his wife spotted a man with binoculars in a car several days before the killings. He identified Goodwin in photos, then in a lineup.

He was told not to watch television coverage of Goodwin’s arrest. Not so his wife, who testified at Goodwin’s pretrial hearing that she recognized him being taken into custody on TV.

“I had forgotten that I remembered what he looked like,” Tonya Stevens said. When she saw Goodwin on TV, she testified, “I yelled to my husband; I said, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re going to identify him because I remember him now, so for sure you will.’ ”

The key to the new prosecution, however, is Gail Hunter, Goodwin’s former girlfriend. The couple were living together in Colorado in 1992 when Goodwin came into her room one day, quite excited, and showed her a videotape of one of the “Unsolved Mysteries” shows on the Thompson killings, she said.

“ ‘Look what I’ve done and what I got away with,’ ” she said Goodwin told her.

Hunter’s current hatred for Goodwin will be an issue raised by Saris at the trial. She also plans to attack witnesses’ credibility. Saris will be opposed by Patrick Dixon, considered by many the top trial prosecutor in Los Angeles, and Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Jackson.

In an investigation that went 13 years before an arrest, there are other opportunities for the defense.

Perhaps chief among them is the man with long blond hair who was seen hitchhiking not far from the scene within an hour of the slayings. Joey Hunter was identified by several eyewitnesses and flunked three polygraph tests about the killings. But investigators never made a case against him.

Looming in the background is the effect of the sustained media coverage on the case.

“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.”

Saris, a deputy L.A. County public defender, said she may focus the defense on Campbell.

“Her involvement in this case led police to have blinders on” and focus only on Goodwin, Saris said.

Campbell makes no apologies for pushing the investigation.

“That’s what any sister would do,” Campbell said.

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john.spano@latimes.com