Evidence photo of KIA damaged hood. “This isn’t Miss Goodbrand’s first rodeo."

People who do not have drug issues or mental health issues usually do not dance on the hood of automobiles,” a judge said during a pre-trial hearing on Monday, February 10, 2020.

Witnesses told Oceanside police that an adult, white female was jumping up and down on the hoods of parked cars, and kicking at windshields, and beating on car roofs, according to police testimony.

A photo of the dented hood on a white 2020 KIA Optima was offered as evidence.

Oceanside police arrived at a parking lot at 1046 Mission Avenue after 5:23 p.m., the evening of January 22.

A woman passerby told police that she had left the Walmart store there and was headed for her own car, when she saw the woman abusing a parked car, and she stopped to speak to the woman. The passerby was able to persuade the offender to come down off one beleaguered car, but their conversation degraded, and the women began to fight. Ultimately the passerby got her thumb bit, it is alleged, and police arrested Michelle Irene Goodbrand, 52.

Goodbrand pleaded not-guilty to felony vandalism and misdemeanor battery through her public defender.

Oceanside police officer Liciana del Castillo gave testimony nineteen days after the incident, the officer said the suspect had no known relationship with any of the alleged cars nor car owners nor passersby.

Goodbrand was first brought into the courthouse on January 26 for arraignment, but she became so agitated and anxious to explain it all to a judge that she created an uproar, according to attorneys’ statements, later. A bailbond agent who was present withdrew his offer to post bond for Goodbrand, and the judge increased her bail, and she was taken to Las Colinas Women’s jail and held in lieu of $50,000 bond, until her hearing on February 10, 2020.

Jail records stated that Goodbrand is a white female, 5 feet 9 inches tall with brown hair and hazel eyes and weighing 135 pounds.

A prosecutor declared, “This isn’t Miss Goodbrand’s first rodeo, so to speak.” He said the woman’s prior criminal history includes a warrant out of Texas, which might be a trespass and failure to pay fines; plus she has a resisting arrest conviction, and destroying evidence, and a DUI in 2012, and most recently she has a felony conviction for abuse of elder, in 2014.

Defense attorney Jacob Holland pleaded before Honorable judge David G. Brown, and the judge was persuaded to reduce the current, felony vandalism charge to a misdemeanor. Judge Brown also granted Goodbrand release on her own recognizance, after he admonished her that she is not to use any controlled substance without a prescription, and she must have a valid license and insurance to operate any vehicle, and she must submit to police searches and testing for drugs or alcohol.

“I just sense drug usage or mental illness,” the judge speculated, and then he set the next court date for February 26, when a date for misdemeanor trial will be calendared.