Murders and Motors

[Stan Reid]

My other main interest is crime history and there are some intersections so here's the place to post actual murders related to motor sports or where a motor vehicle was a principal element in the case.

[Stan Reid]

Christopher Wilder ran in the IMSA series and in the 1984 Daytona 24 hours. He was also a serial murderer known as the Beauty Queen Killer. Wilder murdered at least 8 young women between February and April of 1984, most of whom he lured away with promises of modeling careers and things of that sort. After a failed abduction in New Hampshire, he was run down by police on April 13 of 1984. He then killed himself with his own gun while officers were attempting to arrest him. Wilder is also a suspect in at least 9 additional murders including two in his native born country of Australia.

[Stan Reid]

David Blakely was racing driver who ran in numerous races in the U.K. as well as on the continent and who sometimes raced a car of his own design called the Emperor. His biggest race was probably the 1953 Nurburgring 1000 km. He was also scheduled to participate in the 1955 Le Mans 24 hour, driving for Bristol, but he didn't make it because he was murdered. As he exited an English pub on April 10 of 1955, he was confronted by his ex-girlfriend, a nightclub hostess named Ruth Ellis. She pulled a .38 caliber revolver from her purse and began firing. Two bullets missed Blakely, although one slightly injured a woman who was close by. As Blakely ran around his car, she brought him down with one round and then, as he lay helpless on the pavement, she stood over him and fired the three remaining bullets into him a point blank range and even continued to pull the trigger after the gun was empty. She then calmly told spectators to call the police. Ruth Ellis, 28, was hanged on July 13 of 1955. She was the last woman executed in England.

[Stan Reid]

On March 16 of 1988, LSR driver and drag racing champion Mickey Thompson and his wife Trudy are gunned down in the driveway of their California home by two assailants. Michael Frank Goodwin, a former business partner of Thompson, was eventually convicted of murder and sent to prison for life. The jury found that Goodwin had hired the two men to kill the Thompsons. At present, the actual shooters have not been identified or captured.

[Stan Reid]

He had been an entry level racing driver around the WWI era but B. H. (Beverly Homer) DeLay was mostly known as a stunt pilot in air shows and in the movies. At a California air show on July 4 of 1923, his plane "Wasp" crashed killing both him and his passenger, businessman R. I. Short. Upon investigation, it was found that the plane's wing structure had been tampered with for the purpose of causing an inflight failure. DeLay had been involved in a dispute over the ownership of an airport with another businessman named C. E. Frey but no arrests were ever made in the case and the murders remain unsolved.

[Stan Reid]

On February 9 of 1997, up and coming NASCAR driver Chris Trickle was shot in the head while driving on a Las Vegas freeway. He later died of the wound. His killer or killers have not been captured or identified and no motive has been determined.