Witness: Goodwin spied on racer before killings

By Tori Richards
Special to CourtTV

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PASADENA, California (Court TV) -- Days before racer Mickey Thompson was gunned down at home, the man charged with his murder was caught in front of a neighbor's house peering through a pair of binoculars from a car, a witness testified Wednesday.

Although 18 years have passed since the slayings of Thompson and his wife Trudy, witness Ronald Stevens emphatically identified the defendant, former racing promoter Michael Goodwin, as the man behind the binoculars.

"Do you recall to this day what the person looked like?" Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson asked Stevens.

"Yes, I do," Stevens replied.

"Can you look around the courtroom and see the person who was in the driver's seat?" Jackson asked.

Stevens pointed to Goodwin, 61.

The jury was transfixed upon hearing the trial's first evidence linking Goodwin to the bloody crime scene of the Thompson's driveway where the couple was ambushed on their way to work. The case remained unsolved for more than a decade.

Stevens testified that he contacted police after seeing the case profiled years later on television. He picked Goodwin out of a group of mug shots shown to him by detectives and then, in 2001, picked him out of a live lineup at the Los Angeles County Jail.

Jackson displayed on a projector a picture of Goodwin in a lineup, his ruddy complexion and rugged features still discernable despite the passage of nearly 20 years.

Goodwin is accused of killing the Thompsons as retaliation for a business partnership that went bad and Thompson's subsequent efforts to collect on a civil judgment even though Goodwin had filed for bankruptcy. Prosecutors have so far presented two weeks of witnesses who outlined financial problems between the two men and ranting death threats that Goodwin made toward Thompson.

One of the witnesses, Scott Hernandez, testified that he was a Goodwin employee in late 1987 when he was traumatized by an event at work.

Goodwin was livid while speaking to his attorney on a speakerphone about Thompson.

"I'll kill that motherf-----!" Goodwin hollered, before throwing books against the wall of his office, Hernandez testified.

Two other employees testified Wednesday that they witnessed the incident, which also included Goodwin smashing a lamp into a wall.

One of the employees, Kathy Weese, said Goodwin and Thompson talked frequently on the phone. On one occasion, Goodwin said twice, "I'm going to take you out."

"He said, 'All it will cost me is $500 and a motorcycle to have you taken out,'" Weese testified.

In fact, the Thompsons were gunned down by two hooded men who fled on bicycles and were never found. Prosecutors say Goodwin plotted the killings and scoped out the area with binoculars days before it happened.

Police found a stun gun at the crime scene. Weese testified that she was house-sitting for Goodwin when she found a stun gun in his garage.

If convicted, Goodwin faces a sentence of life in prison without parole.

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