Mickey Thompson

Biographies of Mickey Thompson say that his attraction to motor racing stemmed from watching Sir Donald Campbell attempt to break the land-speed record on Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1937. But Donald Campbell didn't drive at Bonneville before 1960. "Maybe it was Sir Malcolm Campbell, not Donald," Thompson said when questioned about the disparity. But Sir Malcolm made his last land-speed record attempt in 1935.

A judge Thursday sentenced Michael Goodwin to two consecutive life sentences without parole for the murders of racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife in what prosecutors said were revenge killings for a business partnership gone awry. Goodwin, who was dressed in a dark gray jacket and had brown-rimmed glasses perched low on his nose, showed no reaction as Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz sentenced him. A jury in the same Pasadena courthouse had convicted him Jan.

A Dana Point businessman pleaded not guilty in a Santa Ana courtroom Tuesday to charges that he arranged the contract killings of racing great Mickey Thompson and his wife, Trudy, 14 years ago. Michael Goodwin, 57, was ordered to appear May 10 for a trial-setting conference.

Lawyers for Michael F. Goodwin, convicted in January of the murders of auto racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife, Trudy, filed a motion for a new trial, to be heard March 1. The motion argues that the defense was not allowed to present evidence of other suspects, that jurors were given misleading instructions and that the rules for a jury viewing of the crime scene were improperly changed at the last minute. The Thompsons were shot in the driveway of their Bradbury home March 16, 1988.

Jurors began deliberations Tuesday in the trial of Michael Goodwin, the auto sports promoter accused in the shooting deaths of business rival Mickey Thompson and Thompson's wife, Trudy. Goodwin is charged with planning Thompson's 1988 killing after a business dispute. He did not testify in the case, which is based largely on circumstantial evidence. The two people who shot the Thompsons in their driveway in Bradbury have never been identified.

One month after beginning, prosecutors wrapped up their case Thursday against Michael Goodwin, the spurned race promoter on trial in the slayings of motor sports legend Mickey Thompson and his wife. For jurors in the Pasadena courtroom, things ended the way they began. The last witness, Thompson's nephew, testified that he heard Goodwin threaten the life of his aunt and uncle two months before they were killed.

In the latest development in a 4-year legal battle, a U.S. bankruptcy judge Thursday extended a court order freezing the assets of Diane Goodwin, wife of the former business partner of slain race promoter Mickey Thompson. Judge John E. Ryan said that the order will be in effect for 10 days and that it will be considered again at an Aug. 5 hearing. Lawyers representing the Thompson estate contend that the money belongs in the bankruptcy estate of Michael Goodwin.

Millionaire off-road racer-promoter Mickey Thompson and his wife were ambushed and shot to death in the driveway of their walled foothill estate about 6 a.m. today, gunned down by at least a half-dozen shots as they left for work, authorities said. "It was a double homicide, an assassination," said Sheriff's Deputy Richard Dinsmoor. Several acquaintances said Thompson had received death threats.

The fifth of eight races in the Off-Road Championship Gran Prix series will be run tonight starting at 6:30 at the Rose Bowl on the "Chunk of the Baja" that Mickey Thompson has created by hauling in 400 truckloads of earth, clay and decomposed granite. Drivers will be competing for championship points in Grand National Sport Trucks, Unlimited Super 1600 single seaters, the Ultra-Stocks, 4-Wheel ATVs and the Odysseys.

After spending 28 months behind bars, Michael Goodwin, the Orange County businessman accused of plotting the 1988 murders in Los Angeles of racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife, could soon be freed for lack of evidence. He isn't bitter about the time he has lost, Goodwin, 59, said Saturday, a day after a court of appeals ruled that Orange County prosecutors lack jurisdiction to pursue the case.

A day after a Pasadena jury convicted Michael Goodwin of murder in the deaths of racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife, jurors said they had no problem reaching guilty verdicts, despite a lack of physical evidence tying the defendant to the murder scene. "There was never anybody that said, 'No way, there's no way,' " said Mark Matthews, 52, the jury foreman. "We never had to convince anybody that he was guilty. We only had to make sure we were following the law correctly."

Collene Campbell arrived in court Thursday wearing the St. Christopher medal her brother, slain racing legend Mickey Thompson, wore during his races. It lay over a diamond necklace her mother gave her on her deathbed 11 years ago, asking Campbell not to take it off until her brother's killer was brought to justice. On Thursday, after nearly 19 years, 74-year-old Campbell was released from those mystic bonds.

Michael Goodwin, brash creator of the motor sport of super-cross and a relentless self-promoter, was certainly a "jerk," his lawyer conceded recently. 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.

Jurors deliberating in the case of the 1988 killings of racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife recessed Thursday for the holidays. On Jan. 2, they will resume consideration of two murder charges against Michael Goodwin. Goodwin, Thompson's former business partner, is accused of planning the slayings. Mickey and Trudy Thompson were gunned down on the driveway of their Bradbury home. The gunmen have never been identified.

Jurors began deliberations Tuesday in the trial of Michael Goodwin, the auto sports promoter accused in the shooting deaths of business rival Mickey Thompson and Thompson's wife, Trudy. Goodwin is charged with planning Thompson's 1988 killing after a business dispute. He did not testify in the case, which is based largely on circumstantial evidence. The two people who shot the Thompsons in their driveway in Bradbury have never been identified.

Racing legend Mickey Thompson was forced to watch his wife's murder before he, too, was shot in the head, a fact that clearly points to a vengeful killer, a prosecutor said in closing arguments Monday. The man on trial for the 1988 killings, Michael Goodwin, a motor sports rival whose business had been destroyed in a bitter dispute, listened intently in the Pasadena courtroom. Goodwin did not testify in the seven-week double-murder trial.

Maybe there is a reason why the closest families shoulder some of the worst tragedy, say Collene and Gary Campbell of San Juan Capistrano. Last Wednesday, Collene Campbell's only sibling, racing promoter Mickey Thompson, and his wife, Trudy, were killed by gunmen outside their home in the San Gabriel Valley community of Bradbury. Six years ago, the Campbells' 27-year-old son, Scott, was strangled and his body thrown from a small airplane at 2,000 feet, a mile past Santa Catalina Island.

Orange County prosecutors have filed murder charges against a businessman long suspected of masterminding the 1988 execution-style slaying of racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife, authorities said Thursday. With pistols drawn, sheriff's deputies broke down the door of the Dana Point trailer belonging to Thompson's former partner, Michael F. Goodwin, around 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

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.

The man accused in the murder of racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife unexpectedly did not testify Tuesday, on the advice of his lawyer. Michael Goodwin, bankrupted after a failed business partnership with Thompson, was allegedly motivated by revenge. The men who carried out the 1988 killings fled on bicycles and were never identified. Jurors are to visit the crime scene Thursday and could begin deliberations this week.