Early on we had formed a negative impression of Faye Resnick. Her book about her friendship with Nicole, proclaimed as sordid and opportunistic, and her admitted drug use left her open to criticism and ridicule. We had not read her memoir and had been angered that she chose that route rather than protecting her credibility as a witness, which might have helped us in court.
As time passed, however, Resnick became more of a central figure. The defendant claimed that Resnick, not Nicole, was the real target that night, set up for a “hit” by drug dealers. The two were in agreement on only one major point: In the months preceding the murders, Resnick and the defendant had spoken frequently. The killer claimed that he was upset with Resnick and her drug-using friends, and was worried about Nicole being drawn into her world. Resnick had a very different story to tell when the attorneys traveled to New York to take her deposition.
It quickly became clear why she had been so certain, from the very beginning, who the killer was.
Referring to the defendant, Dan asked, “You have seen him fly off the handle?”
“Yes, I have,” Resnick answered.
“Now, during those occasions when you saw Mr. Simpson get very angry toward Nicole, describe what his face would look like when he would get angry. And for that matter—you can describe, like, his whole body. You know what I mean?”
“Yes, I know,” she responded. “O.J. would get very—his facial structure, his jaw would protrude, his teeth would clench, sweat would come pouring from his head. You could see that his body, that he would perspire through his clothing. His eyes would get narrow and black. He became—and the only way to describe it is animalistic when he would become angry at Nicole.”
“And that would happen suddenly?” Dan asked.
“It would happen within minutes.”
“You could see changes in his face?”
“Yes.”
“What about his body? Was there any body language that also changed?”
“He just became bigger than life. He just got big.”
“Dominant?”
“Very—it was very aggressive, just, you—”
“Did it frighten you?”
“Absolutely.”
Much of Resnick’s testimony consisted of conversations with Nicole that would probably be considered as hearsay evidence, inadmissible in court, so we were particularly interested in her encounters with the defendant himself. According to Resnick, in the month preceding the murders, he telephoned her numerous times, threatening to kill Nicole because he could not bear the shame and humiliation that he felt she inflicted on him by breaking off their relationship. She quoted the defendant from a May 1994 conversation: “I know she is seeing another man, and if I catch her with another man … I will kill her.”
One evening we played a game called “What If?” One of the questions was “What if I only had an hour left to live?”
I responded, “For the first five minutes, I would do the obvious, then I would do something else for the remaining fifty-five.”
Kim was not so charitable. “I would beat him, take him into a corner, and torture him until he was dead, and I would take the full hour to do it.”
In my wildest fantasy I see myself alone with the killer. No one sees me come into the room and no one sees me leave. I put a gun to his head and I say, “You have one chance to tell the truth. If you tell the truth, you will live. If you lie to me, you will die. The question is this: Did you murder my son?” And if he says, “Yes,” I say, “I lied, you piece of trash, and you’re out of here.”
I recognize this as the fantasy of a father in agony. In reality, I could never do this. It is not who I am or who we are.
However, sometimes fantasy and reality come too close for comfort. I had just completed a business meeting in a pleasant, modern office complex in L.A., and as I walked through the parking lot, I heard someone call out, “Mr. Goldman?”
I turned and saw a man walking toward me. He introduced himself and said, “I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your loss. How are you doing?” Before I could answer, he continued. “I have an office right up there.” He pointed to the second floor of the building I had just left and kept talking. “Look, if you ever decide you want to kill that son of a bitch, just let me know. I can get you a high-powered rifle and scope that will never be able to be traced and you can take care of him.”
“No, no, no,” I stammered quickly. “I don’t have any interest in anything like that.” I desperately wanted to exit myself from this conversation.
“Yeah, well, I understand,” the man said. “If you don’t want to be the one to do it, I’ll find you somebody who can do it for you.”
My mouth was agape. I could not believe what I was hearing. A total stranger was standing here, in the middle of a parking lot, in the bright California sunshine, offering to commit, or arrange for, cold-blooded murder. And he was deadly serious. “Thanks, but no thanks,” did not seem quite strong enough, but that was all I could muster.
As I walked away he called out, “If you ever change your mind you know where to find me.”
I was deeply shaken. A whole family of things came to mind as I drove home after this freakish encounter. For an instant I wondered if this could be a setup, a sting of some kind designed to get me into trouble, but upon reflection, I doubted it. You only have to pick up the newspaper or watch the news on television to realize that there are many people who perceive violence as a legitimate solution to their grievances.
A long-suppressed memory returned to me.
My mind transported me back to Army basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. We were there for one reason. We were being taught to kill.
The instructors “armed” us with a rifle-bayonet mock-up—little more than a stick, padded at both ends. We looked like hockey goalies, wearing helmets, padding on our chests, and crotch protectors. Two by two, young soldiers entered a sandpit.
The training sergeant grew frustrated with the ineptitude of the combatants. None of the men were mastering the techniques to his satisfaction. He looked at me; I was a squad leader. “Get in there, Goldman,” he ordered. “You show ’em how it’s done.”
So I suited up and entered the pit. Instantly my opponent whacked me on the side of my head.
I went berserk. Survival instinct took over, and I flew through the motions I had been taught. After I knocked my opponent on his butt, the sergeant sent in another, and I dispatched him quickly. The sergeant continued to throw men into the pit and, one after another, I crushed them into submission. The illusion was very powerful; I truly felt as if I were fighting for my life.
Not until later that night did the emotional impact of the training exercise descend on me. I realized that if I was placed in a kill-or-be-killed situation, I was capable of violence. If I had to, I would fight for my life. If I had to, I could kill. But I would be left with a dismal sense of remorse. I wondered: How can someone consciously decide to kill someone else and not think twice about it? It is beyond my understanding.
Now, many years later, as I drove home on the Ventura Freeway, I recalled other memories from my military training. A young soldier learns to kill in a multitude of ways. The belt that holds up your pants can be used to strangle an enemy. If you put a lemon-sized rock into your sock, it can crush a skull with one powerful swing.
But the most troublesome techniques then, and especially now, were the uses of knives and bayonets. They can slash a windpipe or pierce a heart with chilling speed and efficiency.
I believe that we learn things throughout our lives that never leave us. Those things come to the surface when we need them. We surprise ourselves, often, with bits of information and pieces of knowledge that we had not thought of, consciously, in years. They are there, etched into some hidden corner of the mind. And I believe that phenomenon came into vicious play on the night of June 12, 1994.
During the fifth day of the killer’s deposition, Dan had asked about the time he was in Puerto Rico to play the role of a character named Bullfrog in an action-adventure movie entitled Frogman.
There was one scene where he wielded a serrated knife. Dan asked, “Did anybody show you in connection with that particular scene how to perform the physical actions?”
The killer replied, “How they wanted it to be done, yes.”
Dan produced excerpts from the Frogman script and read them aloud:
Without a sound, Bullfrog has entered the dive show shop. Doesn’t turn on the lights. Doesn’t have to…. Bullfrog comes up with a lethal, serrated dive knife…. Bullfrog cases the area. All clear…. Looking toward the back of the shop. Through the mazes of counters and gear, he sees a shadow…. Bullfrog steals past. Silent. Bullfrog’s made a circle. He’s behind the shadow. He lunges and, in one swift move, has the intruder on the floor, one arm twisted back in a punishing hold.
That scene was filmed two months prior to Ron’s murder.