Killers for Hire (6 page)

Dec. 6, 1997, rolled around and the detectives held their breath. “America’s Most Wanted” would be airing in prime time. A staff of receptionists in a call center would take down tips on clue sheets that would be forwarded to investigators.

Dozens of calls came in that night from people who said they recognized the men in the police composite. “(He) was into contract killings, has a sawed-off Derringer,” one caller said about an acquaintance. “Looks like a guy who was caught in Phoenix for a bank robbery,” said another caller. “He’s playing blackjack at the Crystal Bay Casino,” offered someone from Nevada.

One man said one of the men in the composite looked like a neighbor who had kidnapped him 25 years ago. Someone else claimed that the suspects were shot and killed a few years after the murders because “they killed Trudy and they weren’t supposed to, they messed up.” Still another said the killers were murdered while trying to collect their payoff two days after the Thompsons died. A psychic reported that the shooters escaped to a two-level restaurant with a name sounding something like Sheffield’s.

Other callers said Mickey was killed over a $250,000 gambling debt, that his business partner had him killed, that the suspect was named “Goodman.”

But none of the other leads panned out. Lillienfeld was disappointed; he felt that the shooters were still alive, and if they lived in South Central Los Angeles, someone would’ve called to report a sighting.

“It’s a contribution to Mr. Goodwin’s brilliance that they weren’t from Southern California,” Lillienfeld told colleagues. “They came from the East Coast or the Grand Turks and Caicos. It would make sense because Goodwin spent a lot of time there before and after the murders.”

July 22, 1998, was a big day for Goodwin. He had been in prison in Minnesota for two years on the loan fraud case and now he was a free man. At 1:50 PM, Lillienfeld was waiting for him at the baggage claim area of Los Angeles International Airport. The pair had never met, and Lillienfeld wanted a chance to chat with Goodwin undercover while he waited for his luggage.

Lillienfeld didn’t go to the airport with any grand notion that Goodwin would confess; what he wanted was to meet him, hear his voice and get an impression of his mannerisms and personality. The detective was curious how much Goodwin would be willing to reveal about his personal life to a perfect stranger; whether he would prove first-hand to Lillienfeld that he was a pathological liar.

It would be a nice long conversation—Lillienfeld had told Northwest Airlines to delay putting Goodwin’s luggage on the turnstile for 30 minutes.

“Long flight, huh?” Lillienfeld asked.

“You’ll never know,” Goodwin said, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, I would.”

“I’m glad to be back in L.A., Minnesota is really screwed up.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“Are you on the flight for business or pleasure?”

“Business. You?”

“Business. I’m a promoter and have investments.”

The duo continued to talk about nothing of any consequence.

“He puts on a good front of a fascinating, articulate guy as opposed to a sociopath,” Lillienfeld thought to himself. “He’s glib, a quick thinker, cunning, articulate.”

Goodwin finally retrieved his luggage and was met by Linda Terbush, a former employee turned girlfriend. She took him to the home of his father, Frank Goodwin, in Ventura, a beachside city about an hour north of Los Angeles. Goodwin was assigned a probation officer and reported a week later, complaining about back problems that were exacerbated in prison. Because of this, Goodwin said he couldn’t sit for longer than 10 minutes and wouldn’t be able to get a job.

The probation officer told Goodwin not to leave the seven-county Southern California area without permission.

Goodwin may have been out of prison, but that didn’t mean he’d be getting much privacy. Lillienfeld contacted a division of the sheriff’s department that specializes in surveillance and asked investigators to follow Goodwin as he went about his daily routine. Gone was the flamboyant lifestyle of fancy restaurants, parties, cars and vacations. Now, instead of eating dinner at the Ritz Carlton Hotel Goodwin frequented a Subway sandwich shop. No longer did he buy clothes in pricey boutiques and high-end department stores; his choice was now the Goodwill thrift shop. If he wasn’t eating or shopping, his day was spent networking, attending meetings and trying to set up new business ventures.

Meanwhile, a frustrated Collene Campbell continued to look for clues herself. She and her husband cashed out their retirement funds and sold their business, a small publishing company, in order to create a $1 million reward for the arrest and conviction of her brother’s killers. She held a press conference on July 30, 1998, at the National Hot Rod Museum in Pomona, California, to make the announcement.

Collene Campbell
photo by Gene Blevins

The media coverage resulted in several tips that were phoned in to the sheriff’s department, including one amazing depiction that likely involved the real shooters. David Cooper said he was working the graveyard shift at a business several miles east of the Thompsons’ home, along the 210 Freeway. He had been standing outside in the early morning when he saw two black men on new racing bicycles pedal rapidly toward an adjacent parking lot. One of the men was carrying a bag—a piece of information that had never been released to the media and wasn’t common knowledge.

A yellow Ryder van was waiting in the parking lot with the back door rolled up. The men threw their bikes and the bag into the back of the van, closed it, and then one man got into the driver’s side and the other into the passenger’s side. They drove out of the parking lot and out of sight.

“These bikes were new, I was surprised that they would treat them so harshly,” Cooper said, adding that he wouldn’t be able to identify the men because everything happened so fast.

Robinson called the Ryder truck rental company and was told that all records prior to 1990 had been destroyed. The following year Cooper died, taking with him the last known sighting of Mickey’s and Trudy’s killers.

Mickey’s employee Michael DeStefano continued to pass along any tidbits he could find to help detectives. In October of 1998 he called Robinson to report that he’d just run into Goodwin at a Radio Shack store in Orange County. Goodwin, dressed in a safari jacket and camouflage pants, stuck out his hand for a shake. DeStefano ignored it.

“I’m staying locally in a hotel and planning on moving back to Laguna Niguel,” Goodwin offered. He went on to talk about a big electronic business he was putting together and a book deal with television possibilities. And then there were people trying to get him back into Supercross, Goodwin said. They chatted for a few more minutes and went their separate ways.

The following month, Goodwin’s probation officer, Carla Laubacher-Funk, called Lillienfeld to say that Goodwin, his father and his brother, Marc, had planned to move to Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles County. Goodwin then changed his mind and said he wanted to live in Orange County. Lillienfeld didn’t like this.

“Because of the animosity between himself and Collene Campbell, it’s not in anybody’s best interest to have Goodwin living in Orange County,” Lillienfeld told the officer.

In the end, Laubacher-Funk decided to let Goodwin make the move because prohibiting it would just “fuel his anger toward the Campbells,” she said. So Lillienfeld would make the best of a bad situation. At least now Goodwin would be close enough for Lillienfeld to do things himself, like rifle through Goodwin’s trash and more closely monitor him. Some days, the detective even showed up at Goodwin’s job site, where he was a telemarketer, to see what was going on there.

The move to Orange County brought a new probation officer whom Goodwin didn’t like at all. Officer Tracy Briles didn’t waste any time in confronting him about several guns he still had registered in his name. As a convicted felon, Goodwin wasn’t allowed to possess any weapons. But as with everything else, the rules didn’t apply to Goodwin and he became irritated, telling Briles that his 9 mm semi-automatic pistol was given to his girlfriend and that the other weapons were missing. Briles fined Goodwin $25, which was added to the $300,000 he already owed for the loan fraud conviction.

“The fine, too, seemed to irritate Goodwin greatly,” Lillienfeld noted in a report.

Apparently this incident got Goodwin thinking, because later that day he drove to the Grant Boys gun store and met with owner Randy Garrell. The men spent about 30 minutes talking about how the registration process worked. After Goodwin left, Garrell promptly called Lillienfeld.

Goodwin wanted to know if Garrell had any computer records regarding his previous gun transactions. He appeared nervous and didn’t want to be standing near the gun display inside the store.

“Goodwin appeared very concerned about the possibility that a gun is still registered in his name (that) could be used in any type of a crime that he would be liable for,” Lillienfeld wrote in a report.

Goodwin didn’t keep his job for very long. He was disruptive and hard to get along with and was fired after less than a year. Employee Donna Jacques told Lillienfeld that Goodwin spent most of the workday on the phone with two or three different attorneys discussing his legal problems. When he wasn’t doing that, he called acupuncturists, chiropractors, doctors and pharmacists, obtaining numerous prescription drugs in the process. He used several aliases, explaining to Jacques that the federal conviction had damaged his credibility.

Goodwin’s next business venture was to start up a telemarketing company to rival his old boss’. Some of his business dealings took Goodwin on flights across the nation, and Lillienfeld would monitor each of these, alerting authorities at the destination cities and requesting surveillance. Passengers who sat next to Goodwin on the flights were later questioned to see whether he had admitted to anything pertinent.

Lillienfeld had been on this case four years. During that time, he continued to work his caseload of a couple hundred murders and brought a handful to trial. Sometimes the Goodwin case would be at the bottom of a list of priorities, but it was never pushed to a back shelf. Unlike many of the others, this one had a viable suspect and catching him was just a matter of time or luck or both.

“I’m a pessimistic guy. Some homicides take longer to solve than others,” Lillienfeld said. By 2001, he’d fielded enough calls from psychics, reward-seeking liars, amateur sleuths, “nut jobs” and well-meaning citizens to last a lifetime. Every clue had to be followed until it reached a dead end. The long hours wore down Lillienfeld’s immune system and he contacted a form of pulmonary disease that makes him highly susceptible to catching bronchitis.

Robinson had retired in January 1999 after working hard on angles that the blond man found with the bicycle at the scene was responsible or a racing enthusiast who went to prison for several contract killings. The latter angle had looked promising because it had several similarities: The murders happened a few months apart during the day, involved male/female victims with gunshot wounds to their heads and a black contract killer was responsible.

“It was a complicated clue that kept going in different directions and I just wouldn’t let go of it,” Robinson said. “It seemed like the guys, but I just couldn’t connect them to the Thompsons.”

Lillienfeld would continue to get new partners throughout the years but remained the main detective. Finally, he thought: “I’ve done all I can do, I don’t think this case is going to get any better.” No evidence surfaced linking Mickey to drugs, organized crime or any elicit activity.

“Thompson had no higher education, he was simple and could barely read and write,” Lillienfeld said. “He didn’t have it in him to be a shady, manipulative businessman who would outfox some corporate president.”

Through it all, Goodwin’s guilt shone like a beacon resonating from thousands of pages of reports, hundreds of interviews and dozens of interstate jaunts aimed at ferreting out clues.

“I know Goodwin better than he knows himself,” Lillienfeld would often say.

But it wasn’t good enough. He needed more. He needed a prosecutor attached to the case, wielding the power of wiretaps, subpoenas and the grand jury. “I had exhausted all clues as far as the undercover operation,” Lillienfeld said later. “I didn’t think I could do any more short of a wiretap.”

In December 1999, Lillienfeld walked into the Orange County District Attorney’s Office with the shreds of a prosecutable case against Michael Frank Goodwin.

Orange County is the most conservative county in California. Nestled along the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego, it’s a relatively wealthy retreat against the decay and crime offered by its neighbor to the north. Shootings, robberies and carjackings are not the norm.

Its jury system is extremely pro-law enforcement and the DA’s Office often has to self-police itself against asking for the death penalty because it will usually get it.