Free Killers for Hire by Tori Richards

MacWillie, as she glanced at the autopsy report.

Chapter 9: The Road to Los Angeles
    A preliminary hearing was held that featured Lillienfeld as the star witness. Goodwin was ordered to stand trial.
    Benice filed a motion to dismiss the case that ultimately failed, going into elaborate detail about the prosecution’s lack of evidence and Lillienfeld’s alleged misconduct in an effort to render his testimony at the preliminary hearing useless. Benice claimed that Lillienfeld threatened Diane Goodwin and a Goodwin business partner in order to obtain damning statements and then proceeded to search Goodwin’s home office even though a sign on the door said “Do Not Enter.”
    Undaunted, Benice appealed the jurisdictional issue to a California appellate court but wouldn’t see the fruits of his labor. He wasn’t getting paid and quit two weeks before the appellate court sided with him and dismissed the case.
    Unbeknownst to Goodwin, Orange County prosecutors had been meeting with their Los Angeles counterparts just in case matters didn’t go their way. So when the dismissal happened, Los Angeles was ready and gave Goodwin what he wanted—a case filed in the jurisdiction where the crime happened. But unlike a liberal O.J. Simpson jury from downtown, this time it would be in Pasadena, 10 miles from Bradbury. An upscale area of white-collar professionals, Pasadena was almost as bad as Orange County from a defense standpoint.
    Lillienfeld drove Goodwin to the Los Angeles County Jail after the case was filed on June 8, 2004. Any time a suspect or defendant in one of his cases needs to be picked up and transported to jail Lillienfeld does it himself, always hoping to lull his target into some sort of an admission regarding the crime along the way. It’s worked in some cases, but not with Goodwin.
    “On the ride up there he basically talked about what an asshole I was, a puppet for Collene (Campbell), a crook, etc,” Lillienfeld said. “The standard stuff.”
    The case was assigned to Patrick Dixon, the head deputy of the major crimes unit, which prosecutes cases involving public officials, celebrities and other high-profile defendants. Tall and distinguished looking with gray hair and a commanding presence, Dixon is a legend of sorts within his office and is known as a master trial strategist. “I’m not a genius on the law or like some others who are good at investigating cases,” Dixon said. “But if I do have any skill, it’s tactical strategy during trial and knowing how to put on a case.”
    He joined the DA’s Office in 1976 because the idea of not having to work with a client appealed to him. Rather, he wanted to be in court “seeking truth and justice, as Pollyannish as that sounds,” he said.
    Dixon decided to approach the case in a different way than his predecessor. Instead of focusing on the conspiracy of planning the murders in Orange County, Dixon didn’t even want to make that an element. Rather, he wanted to show a pattern of guilty behavior that would leave jurors with the consensus that no one else could be responsible.
    Once Dixon filed the case, he looked for an assistant to help bring it to trial. Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson had been in the major crimes unit just a month when Dixon asked him if he wanted the case. Young, good looking and on his way up the ladder, Jackson had been in the DA’s Office nine years prosecuting juveniles, miscellaneous felonies and gang members, winning 29 murderer convictions.
    “I knew who Mickey Thompson was, having grown up in Texas and following racing in my early years,” Jackson said. “When I was younger, I had a hot rod with Mickey Thompson parts in it. I was not only flattered but awed that the office would trust me to work on this case and with someone like Pat Dixon. It was by far the biggest case I’ve ever been given.”
    In fact, Jackson would be the main attorney responsible for preparing the case for trial and attending all court