Murder On the Last Turn

Mickey Thompson was a renowned race-car driver and promoter. Mike Goodwin was the brash, egocentric creator of motocross. They became business partners. Then all hell broke loose.

Comments (0) By Paul Ciotti Wednesday, Oct 18 2006

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Trials based primarily on circumstantial evidence are notoriously hard to figure. Lillienfeld says he naturally hopes for a conviction, but he can live with an acquittal. The one thing he won’t be able to stand, though, is, after nine years on this case, seeing it end with a hung jury. Saris, on the other hand, tells me she’s quite confident that Goodwin’s acquittal is everything but a foregone conclusion.

And if he were convicted anyway?

(Courtesy John Bradley)

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“I would be mortified.”

When I repeat this conversation later to one court observer, who prefers to remain anonymous, he tells me he feels Saris is completely sincere in believing that Goodwin is a deeply wronged and innocent man, but you have to consider, he says, just how completely she’s succumbed, like so many others before her, to Goodwin’s alpha aura and history of telling lies; he’s manipulating her in the same way he’s manipulated everyone else in his life.

“Have you ever seen them in court together?” he asks. “Goodwin whispers in her ear, and she jumps up and asks whatever he wants her to without even laying a proper foundation.”

So what, I ask, are you saying?

“Saris is a smart woman,” he says. “But she’s not as smart as Mike Goodwin.”