I WAS IN LOS ANGELES to work—not to enjoy myself. I was here to find out everything I possibly could to try to tie up all the loose ends.
Through an associate who had been given permission to examine and photograph the original documents, exhibits, photographs, and diagrams that had been used in the original O.J. Simpson trial, along with some that had never been introduced, I was allowed not only to examine these items for the first time but also to photograph them. These exhibits were now in a rental storage facility south of Los Angeles, where they have been stored since the trial.
I did not realize how important these trial documents, photographs, and diagrams would be in furthering my investigation. I only wished I had had all of these items originally to submit to Merston, Harpur, Cron, and the other experts at the onset, instead of the limited ones that I had—the same items which had been released to the general public after the trial.
Among the items I examined were several that helped me answer lingering questions—a lot of things that had been speculated about in the newspapers and magazines—which I could now determine for myself.
I could see the blood spatter patterns and the marks across Nicole’s throat. I could see the wounds that poor Ron Goldman had sustained before he died. I had always felt that Nicole had been struck on the top of the head first, rendering her unconscious, while the assailant fought with Ron Goldman. All the evidence I was now viewing confirmed this. There in the autopsy photograph was the wound indicating the blow to the back of Nicole’s head. It was obvious the assailant had struck her on the top of her head, rendering her unconscious, causing her to fall down and strike the Spanish tile. As Goldman fought for his life, Nicole laid unconscious, blood continuing to flow, which led to her bruising.
If Nicole had been killed first, with the way the wounds appeared, there would have been no blood flowing, and if no blood flowed through the body, there would have been no bruising. These autopsy pictures told me what I needed to know. Now it wasn’t just speculation. It was all there, right in front of my eyes! Proof of the scenario I had long imagined.
One of the photographs showed the rear of Kato’s bungalow and the chain-link fence. I could see sharp, exposed prongs along the top of the fence. Since the prongs pointed upwards, this would make it more difficult for somebody to climb over—especially at night and in a great hurry. Without gloves on, in all probability, the prongs would leave cuts on your hand.
Dr. Warner Spitz, the author of the definitive pathology textbook, Medicolegal Investigation of Death: Guidelines for the Application of Pathology to Crime Investigation, is considered one of the top forensic pathologists in the world. I had listened to Dr. Spitz’s testimony in court regarding the marks on O. J.’s left hand, not the finger sliced by the glass in Chicago. He had pointed out that the jagged edges of three curved wounds on O.J. Simpson’s hand were not caused by glass and not by a knife. Dr. Spitz explained that broken glass or a knife blade would produce smooth-edged cuts. Dr. Spitz said, “These are fingernail marks” that could have been inflicted by either Ron or Nicole during the struggle with the killer.
I have great admiration for Dr. Spitz and counseled with him during the Milo murder in Akron, Ohio. I could not dispute his testimony, even though it had given me some concern during the original criminal trial. But in this autopsy, I felt Dr. Spitz was wrong in his findings.
I had wondered whether these three jagged edges of curved wounds came not from Nicole or Ron but from O. J.’s climbing over the fence behind the bungalow where the bloody glove was found. Since I had been unable to see the on-scene photographs until March of 2000, after viewing them, I determined that if O.J. had climbed over this fence, the extended sharp, exposed prongs could have left the three marks on his left hand which Dr. Spitz referred to and not, as he had concluded, been inflicted by Nicole’s fingernails or Ron during the struggle.
In addition, if O.J. Simpson had been wearing the gloves during the struggle, would those three jagged marks have been on O. J.’s hand in the first place?
Once you climbed over that four-foot chain-link fence, there appeared to be very little room to stand up. This would have made it easy for O.J. to have lost his balance, and, in his haste, to have stumbled against the rear of Kato’s bungalow, dropping the glove and making the sounds Kato Kaelin described as “three thuds,” on the night of June 12.
I was also able to view the photograph of the glove lying on the ground on top of the leaves, found behind Kato’s bungalow, that matched the one left at the Bundy crime scene.
There was no blood found behind the bungalow. The only blood we could see in the on-scene photographs, which forensic experts had diagrammed, was a couple of spots in the driveway and a couple of spots in the foyer as you entered O. J.’s home.
There was no blood on the walkway or the staircase leading up to his bedroom, but there were the two socks lying there in plain sight in front of his bed.
If O.J. was as meticulous as they said he was, why would a man who had supposedly committed two premeditated murders leave telltale evidence of two socks lying on the light colored oriental rug for all to see? Why not just put them in your pocket? Could it have been that they came—not from O. J., but from someone else who needed to stage the crime scene?
There was no blood in the shower, no blood in the washer and dryer pipes. There was no blood in the toilet or washbasin. All of the pipes in O. J.’s bathroom and laundry room had been removed and examined for signs of blood. None was found.
Crime scene technician Dennis Fung found no trace of blood on any of O. J.’s dirty clothes in the laundry hamper.
Yet, in the on-scene photograph, two single socks remained, lying exposed on the carpet. It didn’t make sense.
Originally, I never thought that the LAPD investigation was a cover-up. I never thought that Rockingham was the scene of a frame-up. But now I couldn’t help but wonder about the two socks. It certainly left me with a lot of unanswered questions. Maybe the socks were, in fact, planted there. I didn’t know.
I interviewed Rod Englert, the crime scene expert Marcia Clark had called while he was on vacation in Hawaii.
“You’ve got to return,” she had told him. “There’s blood all over O. J.’s vehicle, we need your help.”
With that in mind, Englert said he immediately canceled his vacation and flew back to assist in the investigation.
According to Englert, when he arrived in L.A. he was shocked to find very little blood in the Bronco, not what he had anticipated based on his original conversation with Marcia Clark.
Englert said there was no blood on the brake, no blood on the accelerator, a speck of blood on the carpeted floor mats and a small smear on the rear of the Bronco’s console. This was definitely not what he had expected from a man who supposedly had killed two people and had fought a to-the-death struggle with Ron Goldman.
I finally located Robert Heidstra, whom we had all assumed (and I hate that word assumed) had been in the alleyway behind Bundy when Nicole and Ron had been murdered.
As it turned out, during our conversation, when he showed us where he was standing that night—where he claimed he had heard the “Hey . . . Hey . . . Hey . . .”—it was clear he was actually on the opposite side of Bundy Drive, in the opposite alley.
I then measured the distance as being 440 feet from the alley behind Nicole’s residence to the alley behind the residence across the street from Bundy. I began to doubt Robert Heidstra’s credibility. It further bothered me that Heidstra had waited for days, and then told his veterinarian what he had seen and heard, not the police.
Heidstra’s story weighed heavily on my mind.
One evening I went for a walk on the Santa Monica pier to stretch my legs after a late dinner. The pier was virtually deserted. I stopped near the end and was looking out across the shoreline to Malibu, enjoying the cool night air, when four white males appeared out of the shadows and started walking toward me. As they got closer, I thought, if there was going to be trouble—if this was going to be a robbery attempt—I wanted to be ready to protect myself.
As the men approached, I turned to the right and took a defensive position. My instructor in karate had taught me that if anybody ever came at you with a knife and you had no way to defend yourself, you should take three steps forward and, with each step, you should holler, “Hey . . . Hey . . . Hey . . .” which provides a moment of surprise to throw the perpetrator off and to give you additional time to decide on what to do next.
The four men walked to within sixty feet of me, then veered off to the left. Perhaps my lack of fear had caused them to change their mind, if indeed they had viewed me as a target. But then I saw a police car had pulled up behind them, to my right. Maybe I was lucky, but during that brief moment when my adrenaline surged, preparing for confrontation, it occurred to me that “Hey . . . Hey . . . Hey . . .” may have been said by Goldman after the assailant heard the back gate open. The assailant then delivered the blow to the back of Nicole’s head with the blunt end of the knife, rendering her unconscious, causing her to fall and hit her head on the Spanish tile.
The assailant, realizing he couldn’t get away, then lay in wait for Ron Goldman. Goldman, finding Nicole crumpled on the walkway, was confronted by the killer. This left him trapped in a very short and narrow area near Nicole’s front gate in which to defend himself. Goldman, reportedly proficient in karate and tae kwon do, goes into his defensive tactic, saying, “Hey . . . Hey . . . Hey . . . .”
Now, with the closer proximity to the front gate near Bundy Drive, it was possible that Robert Heidstra had heard “Hey . . . Hey . . . Hey . . . ”
Those may have been Ron Goldman’s last words, as he began the fight of his life against the assailant.
The repeated blows of the blade striking Goldman finally completed the deed, leaving him lying in a pool of blood with his eyes wide open, dead . . . his blood draining from some twenty-seven wounds, one right through the side of his neck, according to the autopsy photograph.
I talked to Charles England, a karate expert, in Dallas before we left for Los Angeles. He explained to me that, no matter how accomplished a karate expert you are, once you are cut, especially several times, you then forget a lot of things you’ve been taught and go automatically into survival mode, fighting for your life.
Upon returning to Dallas, with the colored photographs in hand, I met with England again and explained my new theory. Not only was he in agreement, he also pointed out something more.
“With these pictures,” England said, “there is no doubt that Goldman had struck hard blows to the assailant, leaving his knuckles badly bruised and swollen.”
England’s observation concurred with what Dr. Henry Lee, the forensic expert, had testified. Dr. Lee said it appeared the assailant limped off after the attack, which meant to me that Ron Goldman had caused his attacker some injury. It was obvious Goldman had made contact with the face and/or body of the assailant because of his bruised and swollen knuckles shown in the autopsy photographs.
This information was crucial to establishing O. J.’s innocence, because within twenty-four hours of the murders or less, O.J. had been taken to the Los Angeles Police Department and had stripped, voluntarily, where they examined him from one end to the other, taking pictures and drawing blood. They found no marks or bruising on his body other than the cut on his left hand.
I also remembered that Ron Shipp, who had seen O.J. in his bedroom clad only in his boxer shorts the night after the murders, had said, “There were no marks or bruises on O.J. that would indicate he had been in any type of scuffle.”
Even the jurors in O. J.’s criminal trial had concerns about Goldman having bruises on his knuckles. In the book The Run of His Life, on page 426, Jeffrey Toobin stated the jurors said, “If they [the bruises] were from fighting back, why didn’t O.J. have any bruises on his body? . . . The jurors knew that Dave Aldana, the Hispanic man in seat four, was a martial arts expert. He got up and demonstrated how to defend in tae kwon do. He thought Goldman had put up a good fight.”
I knew now that Goldman had definitely made numerous contacts with his assailant before he died. This was just another strong piece of evidence that proved to me O.J. was at the crime scene, but not until after the murders.