Killers for Hire

by Tori Richards

  Killers for Hire

  Tori Richards

  Racer Mickey Thompson

  photo by John Crosthwaite

  Copyright

  Killers for Hire

  Copyright © 2011 by Tori Richards

  Foreword copyright © 2011 by Marilyn Bardsley

  Cover art to the electronic edition copyright © 2012 by RosettaBooks, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  See the full line of true crime ebook originals at www.crimescapebooks.com

  Electronic edition published 2012 by RosettaBooks LLC, New York.

  ISBN e-Pub edition: 9780795324420

  Contents

  Foreword by Marilyn Bardsley

  Chapter 1: The Bicycle Killers

  Chapter 2: On the Trail of the Killers

  Chapter 3: Thompson and Goodwin

  Chapter 4: A Case Goes Cold

  Chapter 5: A Worthy Adversary

  Chapter 6: Unrelenting Pursuit

  Chapter 7: Setting a Trap

  Chapter 8: A Witness is Silenced

  Chapter 9: The Road to Los Angeles

  Chapter 10: Two More Murders

  Chapter 11: Mickey’s Final Race

  Chapter 12: Goodwin’s Story

  Chapter 13: The Finish Line

  Chapter 14: Aftermath

  Photo Index

  Racer Mickey Thompson

  Thompson Home

  Thompson Driveway

  Escape route of killers

  Trudy and Mickey Thompson

  Escape route bordering home

  Wall where suspect spotted

  Sketches of suspects

  Mickey Thompson

  Michael Goodwin

  Mark Lillienfeld

  Collene Campbell

  Mike Jacobs

  Alan Jackson & Patrick Dixon

  Alan Jackson & Mark Lillienfeld

  Michael Goodwin in court

  Alan Jackson in court

  Alan Jackson & Patrick Dixon

  Michael Goodwin in court

  Collene Campbell

  Foreword by Marilyn Bardsley

  When Mickey Thompson and his wife were murdered in 1988, it shocked the sporting world and Los Angeles. Not only because of the crime’s brutality, but also because of the brazenness of two gunmen who did this in broad daylight and escaped on bicycles, of all things. It couldn’t have been a better movie script in a town that is used to high drama.

  But then years dragged by and it faded from public scrutiny, seemingly destined, like so many other cases, to never reach a solution. However, behind the scenes a detective was hard at work playing a chess game with the mastermind behind the slayings, one that would continue for 12 years.

  Much has been written about the victims, killers, and ensuing trial but never has the investigation been told in such intricate, thrilling detail. Detective Mark Lillienfeld is truly the modern-day incarnation of the old “Columbo” from television. In fact, they are so similar that even the suspect calls him as much in a wiretap.

  Tori Richards is the only writer who could have done this justice. A journalist who has lived and breathed the crime beat in Southern California during the past 20 years, she had access to the players in this drama who gave her exclusive details. This book even includes startling information on suspect Michael Goodwin gleaned from interviews with two jail inmates who knew him.

  Not only did Richards work at the Orange County District Attorney’s Office when this case was investigated there, she followed it through the ensuing years and covered the trial for CourtTV.com.

  Richards spent the first 12 years of her career at newspapers such as Los Angeles Daily News and San Gabriel Valley Tribune, where she was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for an investigation into prisoners who mysteriously died in jail. She also won numerous journalism awards, including the coveted Associated Press Best of the West and two from the California Newspapers Publishers Association.

  After her stint at the DA’s Office, Richards was in demand by several of the biggest news agencies in the world and started working as a correspondent for the New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, Agence France Presse, New York Post, New York Daily News, AOL News and TruTV’s Crime Library. She also worked as a producer for CBS News in Los Angeles.

  Not content with just sitting behind her desk at a computer, Richards is an old-school reporter who likes to dig for information at crime scenes, track down witnesses and attend criminal trials. During her career, she has covered more than 100 trials at various stages including those of OJ Simpson, Michael Jackson, Anna Nicole Smith and the Night Stalker.

  She often says that in another life she would have become a homicide detective.

  Chapter 1: The Bicycle Killers

  Bradbury, California, population 1,048, sits at base of the San Gabriel Mountains as a wealthy refuge from the trappings of Los Angeles 25 miles below.

  Locked gates seal off most of the city’s two square miles, where 325 single-family homes bask in their tranquility. Oak and pine trees, horse trails and meandering roads are found here but no businesses, not even a local market. The only intruders are occasional bears getting into trash cans.

  At 5:30 AM on March 16, 1988, a curious noise broke through the stillness, awaking Anthony and Phyllis Triarsi.

  Click, Click, Click. It was the sound of gears shifting on 10-speed bicycles coming up a side street and turning left along Woodlyn Lane, 90 feet below their home. The Triarsis drifted back to sleep as the sound subsided. Then, 30 minutes later, the unmistakable sound of gunfire and a high-pitched scream pierced the silence. It emanated from the house across the street where famous race car pioneer and promoter Mickey Thompson and his wife, Trudy, lived.

  Thompson Home

  photo by Gene Blevins

  The Triarsis jumped out of bed. Anthony ran onto his driveway to see what was happening, while his wife and daughter Allison, 14, huddled on the floor.

  Two hooded gunmen wearing dark jogging outfits stood on the steep driveway as Trudy ran toward the street in a vain effort to escape. She fell to her knees near the gutter and raised her hands in an effort to ward off the gunman attacking her. “Please don’t kill me!” she shrieked.

  Mickey was at the top of the driveway about 50 feet away, making repeated motions toward his wife. He was blocked by the other gunman.

  “Don’t kill my wife!” he begged repeatedly.

  The gunman standing near Mickey unflinchingly shot the racing legend in the stomach, but he continued to push past his attacker to help Trudy. The gunmen had other plans.

  As Mickey looked on, the first man pointed his weapon at Trudy’s head and pulled the trigger. Her lifeless body collapsed in a heap. Mickey only had a split second to comprehend the horror before his life would end as well with several more shots, including a bullet to his brain. In all, the slaughter took less than a minute.

  Lance Johnson, who once served in the military, lived next to the Thompsons. He recognized the sounds as 9 mm semi-automatics pistols.

  As his wife, Sandra, called 911, Johnson grabbed a .357 Magnum from the side of his bed and ran to the front window of his house. He saw two men on European racing bikes heading down the back of the Thompsons’ horseshoe-shaped driveway. One man had a pear-shaped bag with a drawstring slung over his right shoulder.

  Thompson Driveway

  photo by Gene Blevins

  “Stop!” Lance yelled. But the men stared straight ahead and merely pedaled faster. Lance fired one wayward shot.

&nbs
p; “Who is shooting?” the 911 operator asked Sandra.

  “My husband just shot at the two men who went by.”

  “Tell your husband not to go anywhere. We do not know who he is, and we don’t want someone with a gun out there.”

  Meanwhile, the Triarsis had called the police several times, pleading for assistance that would be a long time in coming.

  “Hurry up, they’re really shooting the shit out over there,” Anthony Triarsi said.

  “Okay.”

  “Been threatened—”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve been trying to report a shooting for the last 20 minutes!”

  “Okay, we’ve had quite a few calls on it, most of the lines are tied up, tell me what’s going on.”

  “Well, two people have been shot; they’re lying down in their driveway. How long does it take a unit to respond, for Christ’s sake?” Anthony shouted.

  “It depends on how far away they are; we’ve got units rolling right now, stay on the line.”

  “Man.”

  “Okay, did you see the shooting?”

  “Yeah, you’re goddamn right I did…I saw the guy point the gun at Trudy and pull the goddamn trigger!”

  “The first thing you saw, what did you see, them running out of the house or were they running out—”

  “I heard Trudy screaming for help, so they’ve obviously ran out of the house—”

  “Was she in the house or out of the house?”

  “—and ran down the driveway, and he caught up with her and he shot her for Christ’s sakes.”

  “Okay, what about the other guy that was shot?”

  “Mickey was standing up top, now there might have been—there might have been two guys, because one was with Trudy, and maybe one was up there with Mickey, holding him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “— and then he put—out a couple of shots into him.”

  “Would you know this guy again if you saw him?”

  “I don’t know if I could identify him, but I’d sure try like hell.”

  At that same time, Lance was growing impatient. “Where are the police? These guys are going to get away,” he told his wife. “I am leaving.”

  He jumped in his truck and sped three-quarters of a mile down the street to the security gate, hoping to find the shooters unable to get out. Instead, he saw Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy John Rodriguez on the other side of the gate, trying to get in.

  Lance told him about the shootings and asked him to look for the suspects outside the gate. “I can’t, I have to go up to the crime scene,” the deputy replied. It was 6:11 AM.

  Rodriguez was the first deputy on the scene and first noticed Mickey’s body by the garage door, blood pouring out of his head and torso. Trudy’s body, bleeding from the head, lay near the street.

  Outside the security gate, Woodlyn Lane intersects at Royal Oaks Avenue, a two-lane road that runs parallel for about a mile to the busy four-lane arterial of Royal Oaks Drive. The streets are separated by a bike path, equestrian trail and a wooden fence—in all, about 20 feet wide.

  Escape route of killers

  photo by Gene Blevins

  Wilma Johnson and her bloodhound, Barney, were on their way to a dog training class at 6 AM. She was driving her van eastbound along Royal Oaks Avenue when two men with bicycles suddenly appeared on the road in front of her. As she slammed on her brakes to avoid hitting them, one of the men looked her squarely in the face and glared. The other stared straight ahead.

  “They shot out of what appeared to be a driveway, jumped off their bikes and ran them across the street in front of me,” she explained. “I was not expecting them, and they just appeared.” The dog started growling deep from within his chest and jumped on her lap to look out the window. The bicyclists scrambled through a hole in the fence and down a short hill to the bike path bordering Royal Oaks Drive.

  Johnson gazed at the fence, reflecting that she hadn’t ever noticed that it was broken. It also seemed odd to see two black men dressed in dark jogging suits with hoods in a predominantly white community.

  Seconds later, Claudette Friedinger was driving northbound toward Bradbury and was about to turn left onto Royal Oaks Drive. She saw the bicyclists dart off the bike path and pedal furiously just feet in front of her. They passed her car and headed south, likely to where a getaway car and an onramp to the 210 Freeway waited.

  Anyone who has lived in Los Angeles knows that the quickest way to disappear is to get on its vast grid of freeways. Within minutes, you could have your pick of dozens of cities and communities, getting lost in a population of millions.

  *

  Los Angeles is second only to New York in the volume of daily news coverage, and a big news story can attract dozens of reporters. The glamorous entertainment business, wealth and sprawling metropolis provide the perfect breeding ground for sensational news. Three years had passed since the sensational “Night Stalker” case, when Richard Ramirez terrorized Southern California with his satanic slayings, randomly picking his victims by climbing through the open windows of houses near freeway off-ramps. So when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department released information about the killings to the press that morning, it became the biggest murder case since Ramirez’s.

  Before 8 AM, a swarm of print, television and radio reporters along with photographers descended on Bradbury, beating the lead detective, Michael Griggs, to the scene. They milled around, peering over the Thompsons’ six-foot cement wall that borders a public street marking the boundary of Bradbury. Television news helicopters buzzed above, taking footage of the estate and two bodies covered with white plastic.

  A detective for 10 years, Griggs was a loner who went through a string of dissatisfied partners who objected to his abrupt, cutting manner. Tall, thin, balding and intense, he was an imposing figure.

  “He was unpleasant to everyone, he was an unpleasant guy,” said homicide Sgt. Rey Verdugo, one of the detectives assigned to the case. “He wasn’t a happy person. I didn’t want to work with him—I wouldn’t work with him.”

  Despite his rough, abrupt manner, Griggs was viewed as a solid detective, coworkers say. He was usually level-headed but sometimes allowed his emotions to get the better of him, especially in high-pressure situations. Verdugo was the exact opposite—gregarious, upbeat and with a stocky build.

  “He was not that great under pressure,” Verdugo reflected.

  Eight others from the homicide bureau were also called in to assist: a captain, lieutenant, three sergeants including Verdugo and three detectives. It might have seemed like overkill, but then again, this was Mickey Thompson.

  “I assure you, if Johnny Carson, for instance, had committed suicide, there’d be more than one detective out there,” Verdugo said. “God created us all equal, but some more equal than others.”

  Griggs’ partner was Sgt. Doug Oberholzer, who was relatively new to homicide. The two had been paired up for only a few months, and it hadn’t been pleasant—Griggs lost no time in letting his partner know who the better detective was.

  “The only reason I got stuck with Mike Griggs is because I had an even temper and wasn’t scared of him. I could roll with the punches,” Oberholzer declared. “He had been in homicide longer and would throw his weight around.”

  So Oberholzer tried to make the best of a tense situation—a double homicide, a high-profile case, scrutiny that was sure to come from the press and the sheriff himself—all the while contending with Griggs, who was intent on calling all the shots.

  Detectives soon discovered that gates to both the Thompsons’ driveway and the Bradbury community itself were not secure because of broken locks. The Thompsons’ gate was held shut with a bungee cord, and the main gate could be opened by pushing on it with a car bumper or pulling it from inside. Even though a guard shack stood 10 feet outside the gate, it might as well have been invisible. Investigators telephoned the guard who had the earlier shift and he said he didn’t see anything strang
e.

  “We pulled up and could see Trudy lying near the street and the sloping driveway. As you approached her, you could see the blood,” Verdugo recalled.

  Detectives found her in a fetal position with her face to the ground, a thin stream of her blood flowing into the gutter from the pool that had formed under her head. She was wearing a pale green wool skirt and sweater and cowboy boots.

  Mickey lay on his stomach at the top of the driveway. His head was turned to the side, mouth open in a final shout of defiance, eyes staring blankly toward Trudy. His right hand grasped the ground in front of him, displaying a huge yellow gemstone ring on his ring finger. Mickey was wearing black dress pants, a black-and-white spotted long-sleeved shirt and black shoes.

  Blood had spattered in a 5-foot semi-circle around the body, showing that he was standing and struggling with his attackers when shot. Blood also poured from his body, flowing downhill like a river.

  But the oddest thing about the crime scene was what the killers left behind. Besides the obvious value of Mickey’s ring, Trudy had on a diamond and gold necklace, a large diamond ring and diamond stud earrings.

  “When I noticed the jewelry, I thought: ‘Jesus. That’s a little weird,’” Verdugo said. “At first I thought it was a home invasion robbery—a couple of punks trying to get lucky.”

  “When we first got the information as to what had occurred, it looked like a robbery gone bad. But when we saw all the cash on her, it led us to believe we had a different kind of a motive here,” said the lieutenant, Ken Chausse.

  But motive is rarely discussed this early in an investigation. Detectives don’t want to cloud their judgment—first they collect the evidence and then see what they have.

  They noticed that the rear end of a brown Toyota van had crashed into the block wall on the east. The van was in reverse gear with the engine running and four-way flashers on. A small bullet hole was in the top of the windshield on the driver’s side and had struck the doorpost behind the driver’s seat. A second bullet apparently shattered the glass of the driver’s side window, traveling through the passenger section of the car and embedding itself in the passenger door frame. Two expended rounds were found inside, but no blood. Trudy’s purse was also in the car and contained more expensive jewelry and an envelope with $3,700 in cash.