O. J. Simpson

 

The murder trial of a former American football star, Orenthal James Simpson ( better known to his fans simply as ‘O. J.’ ) dragged on for nine months in true Hollywood style in 1995. It was played out in court like an extremely tacky novel, with 11 formidable lawyers representing the easily recognizable sportsman standing in the dock. Unbelievably 91 per cent of the American population watched the trial on television, while a further 142 million tuned their radios to hear the eventual outcome of possibly the world’s greatest true life soap opera.

Simpson was standing trial for the double murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend, Ronald Goldman, but the proceedings turned into a political fight as to whether a black man could find justice in a legal system predominantly controlled by whites. Sadly the focus on the two hapless victims was totally overwhelmed by the team of polished lawyers who seemed willing to try any tack to turn their client into a political pawn.

 

the events unfold

 

The evening of 12 June 1994 was shrouded in fog and the howling Akita dog pacing up and down the street in a distressed manner, added to the eeriness. Steven Schwab, who lived in South Bundy Drive in Los Angeles, was walking his own dog at around 11.00 that night, when he came across the Akita. It was acting strangely and its fur and paws were covered in blood. At first the man presumed the dog had been injured, but on closer inspection could find no wounds. His neighbour Suka Boztepe agreed to look after the dog until morning, but was not happy when the Akita continued to pace up and down, whining continually. Eventually he decided to take the dog out for a walk in the hope that he could settle it down for the night. The dog was powerful and dragged Boztepe to the gates of number 875, where it just stood staring into the darkness.

Boztepe tried to focus his eyes and cautiously walked a little way down the path. He stopped abruptly when the dog let out a pitiful cry, and could just about make out the outline of a body lying at the foot of some stone steps. Boztepe retraced his steps and immediately contacted the LAPD.

Two police officers arrived at the three-level condominium at a little after midnight. The first thing the officer noticed in his torchlight was a large pool of blood, and then he saw the first body. It was a woman, lying face down, pressed up against the steps that led to the front door of the condominium. She was covered in blood, which appeared to have gushed out of wounds to her upper body and throat. Just a little to her right, hidden partially by a bush, lay the body of a man, who was also steeped in blood.

The woman turned out to be Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of the retired football player O. J. Simpson. She was the owner of the condominium and on searching the property, the LAPD found Brown’s two children fast asleep in their bedrooms. At this time the identity of the dead man was uncertain. When the forensic team arrived they discovered a number of objects close to the bodies. There was a dark blue knitted cap, a set of keys, a beeper, a white envelope speckled in blood and also a bloodstained leather glove. Leading away from the bodies was a set of bloody footprints that continued to the back of the property.

O. J., being Nicole’s former husband, was immediately placed on the list of suspects, although there was no evidence at the time that linked him directly with the scene of the crime. Meanwhile, O. J. himself, was on board an American Airlines flight to Chicago, unbeknown to the police.

When the police arrived at O. J.’s gated estate at Rockingham Avenue just 3 kilometres (2 miles) from where the bodies had been found, they noticed a 1994 white Ford Bronco parked bizarrely outside the property. As one of the officers took a closer look, he noticed in the beam of his torch what appeared to be a blood spot on the door near the driver’s handle.

The lights in the house were blazing and the police felt sure someone was in the house. However, despite several efforts to arouse someone, they received no response to either their phone calls or knocking on the door. Without a search warrant they were unable to break into the property, so they decided to walk round the side of the property to a row of three bungalows. They managed to raise the occupants of two of the bungalows, Arnelle Simpson, O. J.’s daughter and a friend, Kato Kaelin.

When Arnelle learned that her stepmother had been murdered she called a close friend of her father’s, Al Cowling, who was able to tell her the police the whereabouts of her father. The police placed a call to the O’Hare Plaza Hotel in Chicago, informing O. J. that his wife had been murdered. Although evidently distressed at the news, the policeman thought it was strange that O. J. never asked any details about the murders, apart from enquiring about the safety of his children. He told the police he would catch the next available flight back to Los Angeles.

Because of O. J.’s status, the police were aware that the news of the double murder would make the headline news, so they thought it apt to break the news to Nicole’s parents before they heard about it on the morning news. They arrived at Dana Point in Orange County just before 6.30 a.m. and sadly passed on the news to Nicole’s father, Louis Brown, that his daughter was dead. As the policeman attempted to comfort Brown, a woman’s voice started crying out in another room – ‘O. J. did it! O. J. killed her! I knew that son of a bitch was going to kill her!’ The outbreak came from Nicole’s own sister, Denise.

Back at Rockingham Avenue, the police had found another leather glove covered in blood, which seemed to be an exact match to the one found beside the body of Nicole. On further investigation they found what appeared to be spots of blood on the ground near two cars parked on the driveway. The trail led them out of the gates and stopped at the back of the white Ford Bronco parked outside the estate. When the police peered through the window of the car they noticed other blood spots on the driver’s door and some on the passenger side of the vehicle. On returning to the garden, the police found the trail of blood took them right up to the front door. With all the evidence to hand the investigating officers returned to their station to prepare a search warrant to enter the home of O. J. and seize and relevant clues.

As soon as O. J. returned to Los Angeles he was taken in for questioning. When asked about a deep cut to his right hand, O. J. initially claimed he did not know how it had happened. When asked again later in the interview about the cut, O. J. said he might have received the injury when he reached inside his Ford Bronco on the night of the murders. Then he changed his mind and said it had most probably happened when he had broken a glass in his Chicago hotel room on hearing the news about the death of Nicole. Although the initial interview was not very forthcoming, the police eventually accumulated enough evidence against O. J. and they issued a warrant for his arrest.

 

the chase

 

O. J. contacted his attorney, Robert Shapiro, and asked him to make a deal with the police, which allowed him until 10.00 the following morning to turn himself in. However, when the allotted time came and went and there was no sign of O. J., the police informed Shapiro that they would be going to his house to pick him up. When they arrived O. J. was nowhere to be found, but he had left behind a letter addressed to ‘To Whom it May Concern’.

 

. . . Don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve had a great life, great friends. Please think of the real O. J. and not this lost person. Thanks for making my life special. I hope I helped yours. Peace and love, O. J.

 

At around 6.20 that evening, a man phoned the police and said he had seen O. J. driving around in a white Ford Bronco, apparently belonging to a close friend of the star, A. C. Cowlings. The police put together a posse of cars and went in hot pursuit, followed by a news helicopter and several curious members of the public. It couldn’t in any way be described as a fast chase through the streets of Los Angeles – to the contrary it was more of a crawl, and ended with O. J. being arrested in his own driveway. Inside the car the police discovered a false beard and moustache, a loaded gun, a passport and $8,750 in cash.

 

the trial

 

The prosecution believed that their case was so strong against O. J. that they had no doubt that the jury would find him guilty of murder. However, a series of major blunders cost the prosecutors their case. After the initial hearing, when O. J. categorically denied any connection with the murders, the trial opened on Tuesday, 24 January 1995.

Despite the dismal weather on the first day of the trial, everyone was intrigued and wanted to be there to watch what turned out to be a total farce. Over the next 99 days, the prosecution presented 72 witnesses, many of them friends and relatives of his ex-wife. The majority suggested that O. J. had both the motive and the opportunity to carry out the murders, and pointed out to the court that he already had a history of domestic violence. Despite the prosecution supplying endless pieces of evidence which could have placed O. J. at the scene of the crime, the defence used every tactic to prove that the evidence provided was ‘contaminated, compromised and ultimately corrupted’.

The prosecution felt the case was slipping away from them and decided to use a piece of circumstantial evidence, the bloodstained gloves found at O. J.’s property and by the side of Nicole’s body. The judge instructed O. J. to put the gloves on, but the star seemed to struggle to get them to fit. ‘They don’t fit. See? They don’t fit,’ O. J. claimed. The damage had been done and the seed of doubt had been planted in the jury’s minds.

O. J.’s defence team worked like a well-oiled piece of machinery and earned themselves the nickname the ‘Dream Team’. Day by day they undermined the evidence submitted by the prosecution, raising more and more doubts until eventually they virtually forced an acquittal. It would be a forensic expert by the name of Henry Lee, that finally won O. J. his acquittal by firmly planting doubts leaving a final impact on the jury.

By the time the teams put together their closing arguments, the case had already gone down in Californian history as the longest trial in front of a jury. The American public watched and waited with baited breath to hear the outcome of the trial that had become their favourite soap opera. At 10.00 a.m. on 3 October 1993, the jury announced their verdict:

 

We the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder.

 

From O. J. could be heard an audible sigh, but from the friends and family of his ex-wife, there were cries of ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’

O. J. was ordered to pay compensatory damages of $8.5 million and punitive damages of $25 million.

 

where are they now?

 

Despite being a broken man, today O. J. lives well on a substantial pension plan set up by the former football star when he was still making millions. This type of pension is exempt from civil court judgements, which means he can live quite comfortably off $25,000 a month.

Nicole’s parents, Louis and Juditha Brown, became embroiled in a protracted court battle with their former son-in-law, in an attempt to win custody of the couple’s two young children, Justin aged 10 and Sydney aged 13. Their daughter, Denise Brown, focuses her attention on the plight of battered wives and travels around the country speaking of domestic violence.

As for the Akita dog, who alerted people to the plight of its master, she now lives with Nicole’s parents in Orange County. She is a great playmate for the Simpson children when they go to visit.

In November 2006, O. J. published a book entitled If I Did It and the publisher, Judith Reagan, told the Associated Press, ‘This is an historic case and I consider this to be his confession!’