Murder In The Fast Lane

A Woman Seeks Justice For The Murder Of Her Brother And Sister-In-Law

(CBS)  Both Collene and Danny believe Michael Goodwin was behind the killing; and Det. Lillienfeld acknowledges Goodwin was the main focus of suspicion.

There was a theory, but no indictment. Did Goodwin get away with murder?

Police couldn't prove it. But over the course of the past 18 years, they weren't the only ones investigating Goodwin: Collene was determined he would be brought to justice.

Collene is all too familiar with murder close to home, even before Mickey and Trudy were shot dead. Detective Larry Flynn watched 20 years ago as Collene, a housewife and mother, learned what it takes to solve a murder.

The victim was Scott Campbell, one of Collene's two children.

When Scott was 29, he disappeared without a trace. That's when his mother first met Det. Flynn.

"I said, 'Come back in 24 hours,' and she said 'Oh no, no, no. That’s not gonna work that way,'" he recalls. "We locked horns the first time we ever met and I mean you don’t want to lock horns with Collene because if you do you are gonna lose."

With Collene on their backs, police learned Scott had met two men, Larry Cowell and Donald Dimasio, and was to fly in a private plane to Fargo, N.D.

Asked if this could have been drug related, Flynn says, "Probable."

Scott never made it to Fargo - he never made it home alive. Somewhere between Los Angeles and Catalina Island, Scott met his death.

"Dimasio reached around and broke his neck. And according to Kalb he put the plane in a right bank and opened the door, and he went out," Det. Flynn explains.

Scott's body was never found.

How did police know this? Not through their own work, but through Collene. Frustrated things were going slow, she tracked down the man her son was to meet in Fargo.

"I picked up the phone and called him and said 'I know you know what happened to my son. You were the last phone call he made,'" Collene explains.

Collene convinced that man to come to California and wear a wire. Conversations about Scott's killing were then recorded on tape.

Having pretty much solved her son’s murder and having sent his killers to prison, Collene decided she liked getting things done and needed a platform. She began working as an advocate for victims' rights.

"What is it that you know about the system most people don’t?" Lagattuta asks.

Says Collene, "I know the system sucks."

And so when that call came about Mickey and Trudy, Collene knew that she was beginning a hideous personal journey once again. "I know what it feels like to have people say this will bring you closure. There’s no closure when somebody’s been murdered. It just goes on and on and on," she says.

In order to change the system, she decided she had to be a part of it. She became the first woman mayor in her hometown of San Juan Capistrano.

And now Collene is aimed at solving her second set of murders.

"It’s a unique position being a murder cop. And you kinda take on, I think, somewhat the life of the victim," Lillienfeld says.

Lillienfeld has come to know everything about Mickey Thompson and about Collene. "She’s a grieving, pissed off elderly woman that lost a brother and a sister in law that she loved dearly," he says.

And as the years go by, for the detective and for Mickey's sister, there are two constants: Collene's unshakeable resolve; and secondly, Michael Goodwin, another legend of the racetrack, and from day one, the man Collene was convinced was behind the murders.

"This is a man who told a lot of people that he was gonna kill my brother," Collene says.