Killers for Hire (7 page)

Orange County’s successful felony prosecution rate is in the low 90 percent range, compared with the high 80s for Los Angeles. As a result, defense attorneys often look for ways to move cases out of Orange County on a change of venue motion.

In California, a murder case can be prosecuted either where the plot was hatched or where the killing occurred. Lillienfeld felt Goodwin planned the Thompsons’ deaths, bought the weapons and likely paid the killers all from Orange County and so that’s where he wanted to take the case.

“Of course I’m going to go to the county where I’ve got the best jury pool, I’d be stupid not to,” Lillienfeld later said. “It was never my intention to try this case in Los Angeles.”

Lillienfeld’s first meeting was with five DA officials including Assistant DA Mike Jacobs, who supervised the homicide unit.

Mike Jacobs
courtesy Mike Jacobs

“Here was this little guy who comes in like Sherlock Holmes, with his notes, his books and all his crap,” Jacobs recalled. “We hit it off really well. He has a funny sense of humor, a smart guy; hardworking with a lot of energy. From what I knew about the case, it was a difficult one, a lot of work and not a feather in the cap.”

Lillienfeld’s notebooks were full of leads that went nowhere. He had tried to boil the case down to six three-ring binders, of which only two were relevant, Jacobs said.

“I went through all the information and concluded, just like he did, that there wasn’t enough to file,” Jacobs said.

In the end, Jacobs agreed to take the case and see if he could help Lillienfeld obtain more evidence to justify charging Goodwin. A burly, brusque career prosecutor, Jacobs was the type of guy who would take on a seemingly impossible case without worrying about when or if he was going to file it.

As a crack homicide prosecutor who has handled more than 100 murders either as a prosecutor or supervisor, he had sent five people to death row. Only four still live there; one has already been executed.

Seeing Goodwin’s obsessive business habits as a possible road to conviction, Jacobs began subpoenaing every bank document and phone record he could think of. This led him all over North America and the Caribbean. It took months and months, and many of the banks were unyielding. The documents filled Jacobs’ office and consumed him.

“One of the major problems in the case was that we didn’t have the killers,” he said. “We wanted to find some connection that he hired someone. So we went through his bank records and ended up worse than we started.”

Unfortunately, he proved that Goodwin didn’t buy anything illegally. Bank fraud and swindling people were one thing. Paying a killer is another.

Jacobs decided to take a run at Diane Goodwin again and sent Lillienfeld back out to Virginia with an offer of immunity if she gave a detailed statement implicating Goodwin. Instead, Diane recanted her previous statement that Goodwin was responsible for the killings, saying either she had been misunderstood or Lillienfeld was mistaken.

Lillienfeld would later write in an affidavit: “It’s your affiant’s opinion that Diane Seidel Goodwin has knowledge about the planning, payment and implementation of the Thompson murders. It is your affiant’s opinion that Diane Seidel Goodwin very likely withdrew the money and/or wrote the checks that constituted payment to the killers of Mickey and Trudy Thompson. It is also your affiant’s opinion that Michael Goodwin has been in communication with Diane Seidel Goodwin since your affiant’s first interview with her in 1997 and before the attempt to re-interview her in 2000…Goodwin seemed to have an almost Svengali-like grip over Diane Seidel Goodwin.”

On February 17, 2001, “America’s Most Wanted” ran the Thompson segment again. This time, the results would be far superior to anything else Lillienfeld had obtained in the past and set in motion a chain of events that would impact the future of the case.

Ronald Stevens called the AMW hotline to report that he lived about a quarter mile downhill from the Thompsons and together with his wife had seen suspicious activity several days before the murders. After the case became household news, he called the sheriff’s department twice but never received a follow up call from Griggs. Now he was trying again.

The events were still clear in Stevens’ mind: He drove up to his house around 10 AM and found two men sitting in an older model station wagon parked in front on the wrong side of the street. The faded blue or green Chevrolet Malibu with Arizona plates was facing Mount Olive Drive, the street that borders the Thompsons’ home. As he approached the car, he noticed that both men were white and that the driver was looking through binoculars. Stevens was concerned because a grammar school was in the direction the men were facing and it seemed like they could be pedophiles. When Stevens got within 15 feet of the car, the driver put down the binoculars, looked in his direction and immediately drove off.

Mel Reeves called the AMW’s hotline to report that he was jogging around 5:30 the morning of the murders and saw a blue Chevrolet station wagon parked in the same spot in front of Stevens’ home. He also saw the car several days earlier but wasn’t close enough either time to identify the passengers. He, too, called in this clue after the murders but never got a return call from Griggs.

Lillienfeld went out to the area and gazed toward the Thompsons’ hilltop home, which could not be seen behind heavy tree growth. However, something else could: the traffic pattern. It struck Lillienfeld that this was the major arterial for hundreds of people who lived up that hill.

The Stevenses were shown a collection of six similar looking male mug shots that included a photo of Goodwin and they picked him out.

Then Lillienfeld and Jacobs were ready to take their best shot—wiretapping the phones of Goodwin friends and relatives and then serving them with grand jury subpoenas as a catalyst to get them to talk about the murders. Grand juries in California are utilized as prosecution investigative bodies as well as a tool for indictments. Subpoenaed witnesses cannot decline to answer questions or they face jail time. The only exception is a right against self-incrimination pertaining to a crime.

The subpoenas went out in early 2001, and as predicted, a flurry of calls ensued. Even though he didn’t have any direct knowledge of the wiretaps, Goodwin was suspicious and told people on the other end of the line that his phones were probably bugged.

More than 100 officers in Los Angeles and Orange counties, and Virginia, and with the federal government monitored the eight phone lines in Goodwin’s home on a full-time basis. He made or received about 300 calls a day.

“He would babble and bitch about Lillienfeld and how the cops were after him and it was all unfair,” Jacobs said. “He’d say things like, ‘They don’t have anything on me; it’s that asshole Lillienfeld again.’”

One of the most damning statements came not from Goodwin, but his friend Bill Redfield in a conversation with Diane.

“Is there a weak link; is there someone who may talk?” Redfield asked Diane.

“I don’t think we should talk about this on the phone, I think we should do emails,” Diane responded.

Two other calls showed the animosity between Goodwin and brother Marc.

“Marc has threatened me in the past that he knows information and could go to the authorities and talk,” Goodwin told sister Stephanie. “The investigators would love to get hold of that!”

On another call, Marc told an unidentified male: “He thinks I’m going to talk, but I’m not going to,” damning proof to Lillienfeld that Marc was involved with the murders.

To say Goodwin was obsessed with the Thompson case was an understatement. It seemed like he spent nearly every waking hour talking to friends, relatives, acquaintances, attorneys and anybody else who would listen about what bedeviled him: a crooked federal government, corrupt law enforcement, and the evils of Mickey. Sprinkled in these conversations were complaints about a bad back and other medical maladies. Among the calls logged March 3:

Caller: Debbie

Called: Goodwin

Talks about Lillienfeld being a Columbo cop and Marc (Goodwin) telling too much about the investigation, a Columbo cop who is likable but can’t be trusted. Talk about 30 subpoenas and DNA testing. He says there is no way anyone can DNA test him. She talks about the new DNA testing and getting DNA from a stamp, he says they can get DNA from the letters he sent to the Thompson attorneys in the past, as if getting set up
.

Caller: Goodwin

Called: unidentified male

Goodwin said…Diane his ex-wife got subpoena to testify in a grand jury. U/M said, “We got a problem now.” Goodwin said, “Yeah I know.” They talk about Diane having already given her statement several times. The U/M said that they need to get with her lawyer to determine what her statements are so she will not be berated. The U/M advises Goodwin not to call Diane
.

Other calls over the ensuing days show Goodwin working on the case against him as if it was already filed.

March 16

Caller: Goodwin

Called: Ken

Goodwin says that his attorney is convinced that the detective is in on the payoff…he says the more they know we have good evidence the more they will fabricate…maybe they’re just trying to scare him to see if he’ll run…may be tapping all his calls…maybe they think he’s really guilty and they’re just seeing if he’ll flip
.

March 20

Caller: Goodwin

Called: Bill Redfield

Mike said they have found one piece of evidence this week that they have been missing for years. This evidence will prove he did not kill Mickey Thompson. Mike states that this evidence is as close to a slam-dunk as you can get
.

March 22

Caller: Goodwin

Called: John Bradley

Mike identified himself as the “old suspect.” Tells him that they think he killed a gay guy and that he is a serial killer. Mike thinks that Lillienfeld may be on the take or just duped by Collene Campbell. Mike says that Lillienfeld is running the show. The L.A. district attorney refused to file this case but Collene Campbell helped get the OCDA elected and he did it
.

Proclaiming his innocence was turning into a full-time job for Goodwin. He employed several people who ran errands, did photocopying, searched for relevant newspaper articles and chased down leads. One of those people was Thurston Jones. He was paid $15 an hour.

On March 24, 2001, Jones met with Lillienfeld and agreed to spy on Goodwin then report back on a daily basis. Given that Jones was a felon working with Goodwin, another felon, this was a violation of his parole. He was only too happy to oblige Lillienfeld, who had threatened to send him back to prison. This avenue didn’t produce a smoking gun, but Lillienfeld learned that Goodwin was attempting to identify the Orange County grand jurors and was negotiating with CBS’ “48 Hours” to do a television segment.

Three days later, an interesting call was intercepted.

March 27

Caller: Goodwin

Called: Linda Terbush

Mike says “they now have linked him to the scene by his DNA.” Linda says that’s a bunch of crap. Mike agrees by accusing the investigators of planting DNA evidence
.

Mike is interrupted by Linda who asks if he has seen the paper today and says “that little problem” is mentioned. Being very evasive, Linda says that “one little thing”—item investigators were questioning her about—the “electric thing,” I think that may be what they found your DNA on
.

Jacobs convened the grand jury and his first witness was Diane. She had been granted total immunity against prosecution but was still a hostile witness. Most of her answers were the simple phrase, “I don’t recall” and it was apparent she was trying to protect Goodwin.

She would be Jacobs’ only witness. Shortly after the grand jury hearing started, Jacobs was fired for staging a failed attempt to get the state attorney general to prosecute his boss, DA Tony Rackauckas, for corruption. Removal of the star prosecutor in the fledgling Goodwin case seemed to sound the death knell. The prosecution scrambled to remain on track with the remaining witnesses by appointing one of Jacobs’ top deputies, but in the end the hearing fizzled out.

Lillienfeld wasn’t happy about the situation.

“I thought Jacobs was such a good fit because he was so aggressive and passionate, I didn’t think I’d find another guy who was a fit for me and this case,” Lillienfeld remarked. But what the detective ended up getting was someone like his old partner, which was the best he could hope for.

If Jacobs’ style resembled Lillienfeld’s, then David Brent’s was like Robinson’s. Methodical and precise, Brent was less street fighter and more of a scholar. With his fair share of high-profile cases and death row convictions, Brent was being groomed to take over the homicide unit and was the natural successor.

“I was feeling confident from the other cases I had won that I could do this,” Brent said years later. “There were enough hooks that I could make a plausible story with a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work. I thought I could convict Goodwin. I was completely convinced that he was good for it, I had no doubt in my mind.”