Jurors to resume deliberation in Thompson case

He was also an "egomaniac." A "braggart," too, she said.

But the question, which jurors return to this week, is not Goodwin's character but whether he killed his former partner, racing legend Mickey Thompson, and Thompson's wife, Trudy.

As jurors resume deliberations after a holiday break, they will do so without some of the most intriguing evidence the defense and prosecution tried to present about the slayings.

The judge excluded as irrelevant, confusing or prejudicial the sighting of a long-haired blond man near the scene of the killings and possible links to the earlier slaying of Thompson's nephew.

Prosecutors also dropped a witness who had testified that Goodwin bragged about getting away with murder.

In March 1988, Thompson and his wife were fatally shot in the driveway of their Bradbury home by two men who fled on bicycles and were neither caught nor identified. No physical evidence from the crime scene implicated Goodwin in the killings, and no direct evidence was presented that he hired the killers or planned the ambush.

A parade of witnesses testified that they had overheard Goodwin repeatedly threaten Thompson, a former business partner turned hated rival who had bankrupted Goodwin with a successful lawsuit.

Deputy Public Defender Elena Saris argued that the circumstantial nature of the case opened the door to other theories in the slaying. Early in the Thompson investigation, one of hundreds of tips Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department investigators received concerned Joey Hunter, who had distinctive long, blond hair, according to court records.

Several witnesses said they had seen Hunter hitchhiking with a bicycle not far from the crime scene, within an hour of the slayings, according to court records.

A relative said Hunter had confessed to her, the records said, and he flunked three polygraph tests. But Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz ruled that because investigators never made a case against him, Hunter's story was irrelevant.

Saris protested.

"You're taking a case that is purely circumstantial and telling the jurors they can only hear one circumstance," Saris said at a court hearing.

But her argument failed. Schwartz said the potential for wasted time, confusion and jury prejudice was too great.