Killers for Hire (2 page)

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 strange.

“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.

A Toyota pickup was just north of the van with the door open and keys on the floorboard. A Lincoln Continental with the license plate “MT TT” was near the top of the driveway. The wooden taupe-colored garage door, affixed with the letters “MT,” contained three bullets.

Other bullets were found a few feet from Mickey’s body and under his head, indicating the final shot happened when he was lying down. In all, it appeared that eight rounds had been fired from two different 9 mm guns.

After the Thompsons’ housekeeper arrived and deactivated the burglar alarm, the detectives searched the house. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

Detective Griggs went into the garage and saw two carpeted steps leading up to a wood-paneled office adorned with numerous plaques, framed black-and-white photographs and awards. A rack with several rifles was affixed to one wall and a mannequin resembling Thompson dressed in a racing outfit stood in a corner. An adjoining restroom contained a wall safe.

Griggs videotaped a self-guided tour of the crime scene, starting on the street and proceeding to the garage/office. As he stopped beside each corpse, Griggs lifted the blood-smeared plastic for the benefit of the camera. The cameraman noted the blood flowing along the gutter and down the top of the driveway.

Behind the 3,558-square-foot two-story house and to the west was a separate two-story, 5,000-square-foot building that had been the former offices of the Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group. He had moved his business operations to the Anaheim Stadium five months earlier, so now the building was a car barn that housed several racing vehicles. Pieces of junk cars and automobile debris were strewn about.

Just past Mickey’s body on the pathway leading to the back of the house, criminalist Elizabeth Devine found some cut orange peels that appeared to be fresh. Griggs didn’t think they were important, so she just made a note of them in her report. She did not collect them or take any photographs.

But the most intriguing piece of evidence was a gray stun gun found on the driveway between the two bodies. It was a hand-held contact-style weapon with two prongs that are placed against a body. A base plate containing the serial number that normally holds the battery in place was missing.

The Thompsons’ German shepherd mix, “Punky,” was found behind the house staggering around, as if he had been shocked with the stun gun.

Trudy and Mickey Thompson (family photo)
courtesy of LA Superior Court

Detectives theorized that the Thompsons were ambushed as they were getting ready to leave for work; Trudy was backing out the van and Mickey was closing the garage door. One gunman fired a shot into the van and Trudy jumped out, attempting to escape down the driveway. Another shot Mickey to prevent him from helping her. Both were killed within the next few seconds, and the suspects fled the scene on bicycles.

High drama even by Los Angeles standards.

Police radio broadcasts of the crime were immediately sent to all sheriff’s patrol deputies, and everyone was on the lookout for two men on bicycles. Tips started flooding in—it seemed like any man riding a 10-speed bike was going to have a pretty unlucky day.

Several men were detained and then released after it was determined that they didn’t match the correct description.

In neighboring Baldwin Park, Oscar Vezar had been driving to work an hour after the shootings and heard news of the murders on his car radio. He saw a Caucasian man about 35 years old, with long golden-blond hair, riding a 10-speed bike and looking around nervously. The man rode to a bus stop, got off the bike and tried to stop cars, apparently desperate to get a ride. Eventually a motorcyclist stopped and picked up the man.

Police retrieved the bike from the bus stop and took it back to the crime scene to be dusted for fingerprints. A check of the serial number revealed that nine such bicycles were shipped to Montgomery Ward stores in California during June 1985.

Meanwhile, several concerned friends and family members began showing up at the crime scene after hearing on the radio that a shooting had happened in Bradbury. This included Thompson’s son, Danny, from a first marriage, his sister, Collene Campbell, and Bill Marcel, vice president of operations at Thompson’s company.