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25 Years Ago Today; A Brutal Murder in Brentwood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_murder_case
The O. J. Simpson murder case (officially People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson) was a criminal trial held at the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Former National Football League (NFL) player, broadcaster, and actor O. J. Simpson was tried on two counts of murder for the June 12, 1994, slashing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. On the morning of June 13, 1994, the couple was found stabbed to death outside Brown's condominium in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Simpson was a person of interest in their murders. He did not turn himself in, and on June 17 he became the object of a low-speed pursuit in a white 1993 Ford Bronco SUV owned and driven by his friend Al Cowlings. TV stations interrupted coverage of the 1994 NBA Finals to broadcast the incident. The pursuit was watched live by an estimated 95 million people.[2] The pursuit, arrest, and trial were among the most widely publicized events in American history. The trial—often characterized as the trial of the century because of its international publicity—spanned eleven months, from the jury's swearing-in on November 9, 1994. Opening statements were made on January 24, 1995, and the verdict was announced on October 3, 1995, when Simpson was acquitted on two counts of murder. Following his acquittal, no additional arrests related to the murders have been made, and the crime remains unsolved to this day. According to USA Today, the case has been described as the "most publicized" criminal trial in history.
Simpson was represented by a very high-profile defense team, also referred to as the "Dream Team", which was initially led by Robert Shapiro and subsequently directed by Johnnie Cochran. The team also included F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Kardashian, Shawn Holley, Carl E. Douglas, and Gerald Uelmen. Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld were two additional attorneys who specialized in DNA evidence.
Deputy District Attorneys Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden thought that they had a strong case against Simpson, but Cochran was able to convince the jurors that there was reasonable doubt concerning the validity of the State's DNA evidence, which was a relatively new form of evidence in trials at that time. The reasonable doubt theory included evidence that the blood sample had allegedly been mishandled by lab scientists and technicians, and there were questionable circumstances that surrounded other court exhibits. Cochran and the defense team also alleged other misconduct by the LAPD related to systemic racism and the actions of Detective Mark Fuhrman. Simpson's celebrity status, racial issues, and the lengthy televised trial riveted national attention. By the end of the trial, national surveys indicated dramatic differences of opinion between black and white Americans in the assessment of Simpson's guilt or innocence.
The immediate reaction to the verdict created a division along racial lines. A poll of Los Angeles County residents showed that most African Americans felt that justice had been served by the "not guilty" verdict, while the majority of whites and Latinos expressed an opposite opinion on the matter.
After the trial, the families of Brown and Goldman filed a civil lawsuit against Simpson. On February 4, 1997, the jury unanimously found Simpson responsible for both deaths. The families were awarded compensatory and punitive damages totaling $33.5 million ($52.3 million in 2018 dollars), but have received only a small portion of that monetary figure. In 2000, Simpson left California for Florida, one of the few states where one's assets like homes and pensions cannot be seized to cover liabilities that were incurred in other states.
Brown–Simpson marriage
Simpson with his daughter Sydney, 1986
Nicole Brown met O.J. Simpson in 1977, when she was 18 and working as a waitress at a Beverly Hills private club called The Daisy. Although Simpson was still married to his first wife, Marguerite, the two began dating. Simpson and Marguerite divorced in March 1979.
Simpson and Brown were married on February 2, 1985, five years after Simpson's retirement from the NFL. The marriage lasted seven years and produced two children, Sydney (b. 1985) and Justin (b. 1988). Simpson was investigated multiple times by police for domestic violence and pleaded no contest to spousal abuse in 1989. Brown filed for divorce on February 25, 1992, citing "irreconcilable differences" as the reason. Following the divorce, Simpson and Brown got back together and the abuse continued. Audio released during the murder trial of O.J. Simpson revealed that Brown called 9-1-1 on October 25, 1993, crying and saying that "He [Simpson] is going to beat the shit out of me". After this incident, the relationship would end for a second and final time.
Murders
At 12:10 a.m. on June 13, 1994, Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman were found murdered outside of Nicole's Bundy Drive condominium in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, California. She had been stabbed multiple times in the head and neck, and had defensive wounds on her hands. Her larynx could be seen through the gaping wound in her neck, and vertebra C3 was incised; her head remained barely attached to the body.[26] Both victims had been dead for about two hours prior to the arrival of police. Robert Riske, one of the first two officers on the scene, found a single bloody glove, among other evidence.
Detectives went to Simpson's Brentwood estate to inform him that his ex-wife had been murdered. Mark Fuhrman climbed over an external wall and unlocked the gate to allow the other three detectives to enter as well. The detectives argued that they entered without a search warrant because of exigent circumstances – specifically, in this case, out of fear that Simpson might have also been injured. Simpson was not present when the detectives arrived early that morning; he had taken a flight to Chicago late the previous night. Detectives briefly interviewed Kato Kaelin, who was staying in Simpson's guest house. In a walk-around of the premises, Fuhrman discovered a second bloody glove; it was later determined to be the match of the glove found at the murder scene. Through DNA testing, the blood on the glove was determined to have come from both victims. This evidence, matched with other evidence that was collected at both scenes, was determined to be probable cause to issue an arrest warrant for Simpson.
While Simpson was waiting in his bedroom, he invited longtime friend and police officer Ron Shipp for a private discussion; Simpson jokingly told him, "To be honest, Shipp, I've had some dreams about killing her."
Arrest of Simpson
Simpson's mugshot, 17 June 1994
Lawyers convinced the LAPD to allow Simpson to turn himself in at 11 a.m. on June 17, 1994, although the double murder charge meant that no bail would be set and a first-degree murder conviction could result in a death penalty. More than 1,000 reporters waited for Simpson at the police station, but he did not arrive. At 2 p.m., the LAPD issued an all-points bulletin. At 5 p.m., Robert Kardashian, a friend of Simpson and one of his defense lawyers, read a letter by Simpson to the media. In the letter, Simpson sent greetings to 24 friends and wrote, "First everyone understand I had nothing to do with Nicole's murder ... Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life." Some interpreted this as a suicide note; Simpson's mother Eunice collapsed after hearing it, and reporters joined the search for Simpson. Simpson's lawyer Robert Shapiro was present at Kardashian's press conference and said that Simpson's psychiatrists agreed with the suicide note interpretation. Through television, Shapiro appealed to Simpson to surrender.
News helicopters searched the Los Angeles highway system for Simpson's white Ford Bronco. At around 6:20 p.m., a motorist in Orange County notified CHP after seeing someone believed to be Simpson riding in the Bronco on the I-5 freeway heading north, driven by his longtime friend Al "A.C." Cowlings. The police tracked calls placed from Simpson on his cell phone. At 6:45 p.m., police officer Ruth Dixon saw the Bronco head north on Interstate 405. When she caught up to it, Cowlings yelled out that Simpson was in the back seat of the vehicle and had a gun to his own head. The officer backed off, but followed the vehicle at 35 miles per hour (56 km/h), with up to 20 police cars following her in the chase.
More than nine news helicopters eventually joined the pursuit; the high degree of media participation caused camera signals to appear on incorrect television channels. The chase was so long that one helicopter ran out of fuel, forcing its station to ask another for a camera feed. Radio station KNX-AM also provided live coverage of the low-speed pursuit. USC sports announcer Peter Arbogast and station producer Kash Limbach contacted former USC football coach John McKay to go on the air and encourage Simpson to end the pursuit. McKay agreed and asked Simpson to pull over and turn himself in instead of committing suicide; "My God, we love you, Juice. Just pull over and I'll come out and stand by you all the rest of my life", he promised.
LAPD detective Tom Lange, who had previously interviewed Simpson about the murders on June 13, realized that he had Simpson's cell phone number and called him repeatedly. A colleague hooked a tape recorder up to Lange's phone and captured a conversation between Lange and Simpson in which Lange repeatedly pleaded with Simpson to "throw the gun out [of] the window" for the sake of his mother and children. Simpson apologized for not turning himself in earlier that day and responded that he was "the only one who deserved to get hurt" and was "just gonna go with Nicole." Cowlings's voice is overheard in the recording (after the Bronco had arrived at Simpson's home surrounded by police) pleading with Simpson to surrender and end the chase peacefully. During the pursuit, and without having a chance to hear the taped phone conversation, Simpson's friend Al Michaels interpreted his actions as an admission of guilt.
ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN, as well as local news outlets, interrupted regularly scheduled programming to cover the incident, which was watched by an estimated 95 million viewers nationwide; only 90 million had watched that year's Super Bowl. While NBC continued coverage of Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the Houston Rockets at Madison Square Garden, the game appeared in a small box in the corner while Tom Brokaw covered the chase. The chase was covered live by ABC anchors Peter Jennings and Barbara Walters on behalf of the network's five news magazines, which achieved some of their highest-ever ratings that week. Benefiting from the event occurring in the evening, Domino's Pizza stated that its pizza delivery sales during the chase were as large as on Super Bowl Sunday.
Thousands of spectators and on-lookers packed overpasses along the route of the chase, waiting for the white Bronco. In a festival-like atmosphere, many had signs urging Simpson to flee. They and the millions watching the chase on television felt part of a "common emotional experience", one author wrote, as they "wonder[ed] if O. J. Simpson would commit suicide, escape, be arrested, or engage in some kind of violent confrontation. Whatever might ensue, the shared adventure gave millions of viewers a vested interest, a sense of participation, a feeling of being on the inside of a national drama in the making." Sports Illustrated later commented the chase and subsequent hoopla was "The Sugarland Express meets The Fugitive".
Simpson reportedly demanded that he be allowed to speak to his mother before he would surrender. The chase ended at 8:00 p.m. at his Brentwood estate, 50 miles (80 km) later, where his son, Jason, ran out of the house, "gesturing wildly", and 27 SWAT officers awaited. After remaining in the Bronco for about 45 minutes, Simpson was allowed to go inside for about an hour; a police spokesman stated that he spoke to his mother and drank a glass of orange juice, causing reporters to laugh. Shapiro arrived, and Simpson surrendered to authorities a few minutes later. In the Bronco, police found "$8,000 in cash, a change of clothing, a loaded .357 Magnum, a passport, family pictures, and a fake goatee and mustache." Neither the footage of the Bronco chase nor the items found in the Bronco were shown to the jury as evidence in the trial.
As Simpson was driven away, he saw the crowds, many of whom were African Americans, cheering him; Simpson said, "What are all these n****** doing in Brentwood?"
</snip>
The O. J. Simpson murder case (officially People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson) was a criminal trial held at the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Former National Football League (NFL) player, broadcaster, and actor O. J. Simpson was tried on two counts of murder for the June 12, 1994, slashing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. On the morning of June 13, 1994, the couple was found stabbed to death outside Brown's condominium in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Simpson was a person of interest in their murders. He did not turn himself in, and on June 17 he became the object of a low-speed pursuit in a white 1993 Ford Bronco SUV owned and driven by his friend Al Cowlings. TV stations interrupted coverage of the 1994 NBA Finals to broadcast the incident. The pursuit was watched live by an estimated 95 million people.[2] The pursuit, arrest, and trial were among the most widely publicized events in American history. The trial—often characterized as the trial of the century because of its international publicity—spanned eleven months, from the jury's swearing-in on November 9, 1994. Opening statements were made on January 24, 1995, and the verdict was announced on October 3, 1995, when Simpson was acquitted on two counts of murder. Following his acquittal, no additional arrests related to the murders have been made, and the crime remains unsolved to this day. According to USA Today, the case has been described as the "most publicized" criminal trial in history.
Simpson was represented by a very high-profile defense team, also referred to as the "Dream Team", which was initially led by Robert Shapiro and subsequently directed by Johnnie Cochran. The team also included F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Kardashian, Shawn Holley, Carl E. Douglas, and Gerald Uelmen. Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld were two additional attorneys who specialized in DNA evidence.
Deputy District Attorneys Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden thought that they had a strong case against Simpson, but Cochran was able to convince the jurors that there was reasonable doubt concerning the validity of the State's DNA evidence, which was a relatively new form of evidence in trials at that time. The reasonable doubt theory included evidence that the blood sample had allegedly been mishandled by lab scientists and technicians, and there were questionable circumstances that surrounded other court exhibits. Cochran and the defense team also alleged other misconduct by the LAPD related to systemic racism and the actions of Detective Mark Fuhrman. Simpson's celebrity status, racial issues, and the lengthy televised trial riveted national attention. By the end of the trial, national surveys indicated dramatic differences of opinion between black and white Americans in the assessment of Simpson's guilt or innocence.
The immediate reaction to the verdict created a division along racial lines. A poll of Los Angeles County residents showed that most African Americans felt that justice had been served by the "not guilty" verdict, while the majority of whites and Latinos expressed an opposite opinion on the matter.
After the trial, the families of Brown and Goldman filed a civil lawsuit against Simpson. On February 4, 1997, the jury unanimously found Simpson responsible for both deaths. The families were awarded compensatory and punitive damages totaling $33.5 million ($52.3 million in 2018 dollars), but have received only a small portion of that monetary figure. In 2000, Simpson left California for Florida, one of the few states where one's assets like homes and pensions cannot be seized to cover liabilities that were incurred in other states.
Brown–Simpson marriage
Simpson with his daughter Sydney, 1986
Nicole Brown met O.J. Simpson in 1977, when she was 18 and working as a waitress at a Beverly Hills private club called The Daisy. Although Simpson was still married to his first wife, Marguerite, the two began dating. Simpson and Marguerite divorced in March 1979.
Simpson and Brown were married on February 2, 1985, five years after Simpson's retirement from the NFL. The marriage lasted seven years and produced two children, Sydney (b. 1985) and Justin (b. 1988). Simpson was investigated multiple times by police for domestic violence and pleaded no contest to spousal abuse in 1989. Brown filed for divorce on February 25, 1992, citing "irreconcilable differences" as the reason. Following the divorce, Simpson and Brown got back together and the abuse continued. Audio released during the murder trial of O.J. Simpson revealed that Brown called 9-1-1 on October 25, 1993, crying and saying that "He [Simpson] is going to beat the shit out of me". After this incident, the relationship would end for a second and final time.
Murders
At 12:10 a.m. on June 13, 1994, Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman were found murdered outside of Nicole's Bundy Drive condominium in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, California. She had been stabbed multiple times in the head and neck, and had defensive wounds on her hands. Her larynx could be seen through the gaping wound in her neck, and vertebra C3 was incised; her head remained barely attached to the body.[26] Both victims had been dead for about two hours prior to the arrival of police. Robert Riske, one of the first two officers on the scene, found a single bloody glove, among other evidence.
Detectives went to Simpson's Brentwood estate to inform him that his ex-wife had been murdered. Mark Fuhrman climbed over an external wall and unlocked the gate to allow the other three detectives to enter as well. The detectives argued that they entered without a search warrant because of exigent circumstances – specifically, in this case, out of fear that Simpson might have also been injured. Simpson was not present when the detectives arrived early that morning; he had taken a flight to Chicago late the previous night. Detectives briefly interviewed Kato Kaelin, who was staying in Simpson's guest house. In a walk-around of the premises, Fuhrman discovered a second bloody glove; it was later determined to be the match of the glove found at the murder scene. Through DNA testing, the blood on the glove was determined to have come from both victims. This evidence, matched with other evidence that was collected at both scenes, was determined to be probable cause to issue an arrest warrant for Simpson.
While Simpson was waiting in his bedroom, he invited longtime friend and police officer Ron Shipp for a private discussion; Simpson jokingly told him, "To be honest, Shipp, I've had some dreams about killing her."
Arrest of Simpson
Simpson's mugshot, 17 June 1994
Lawyers convinced the LAPD to allow Simpson to turn himself in at 11 a.m. on June 17, 1994, although the double murder charge meant that no bail would be set and a first-degree murder conviction could result in a death penalty. More than 1,000 reporters waited for Simpson at the police station, but he did not arrive. At 2 p.m., the LAPD issued an all-points bulletin. At 5 p.m., Robert Kardashian, a friend of Simpson and one of his defense lawyers, read a letter by Simpson to the media. In the letter, Simpson sent greetings to 24 friends and wrote, "First everyone understand I had nothing to do with Nicole's murder ... Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life." Some interpreted this as a suicide note; Simpson's mother Eunice collapsed after hearing it, and reporters joined the search for Simpson. Simpson's lawyer Robert Shapiro was present at Kardashian's press conference and said that Simpson's psychiatrists agreed with the suicide note interpretation. Through television, Shapiro appealed to Simpson to surrender.
News helicopters searched the Los Angeles highway system for Simpson's white Ford Bronco. At around 6:20 p.m., a motorist in Orange County notified CHP after seeing someone believed to be Simpson riding in the Bronco on the I-5 freeway heading north, driven by his longtime friend Al "A.C." Cowlings. The police tracked calls placed from Simpson on his cell phone. At 6:45 p.m., police officer Ruth Dixon saw the Bronco head north on Interstate 405. When she caught up to it, Cowlings yelled out that Simpson was in the back seat of the vehicle and had a gun to his own head. The officer backed off, but followed the vehicle at 35 miles per hour (56 km/h), with up to 20 police cars following her in the chase.
More than nine news helicopters eventually joined the pursuit; the high degree of media participation caused camera signals to appear on incorrect television channels. The chase was so long that one helicopter ran out of fuel, forcing its station to ask another for a camera feed. Radio station KNX-AM also provided live coverage of the low-speed pursuit. USC sports announcer Peter Arbogast and station producer Kash Limbach contacted former USC football coach John McKay to go on the air and encourage Simpson to end the pursuit. McKay agreed and asked Simpson to pull over and turn himself in instead of committing suicide; "My God, we love you, Juice. Just pull over and I'll come out and stand by you all the rest of my life", he promised.
LAPD detective Tom Lange, who had previously interviewed Simpson about the murders on June 13, realized that he had Simpson's cell phone number and called him repeatedly. A colleague hooked a tape recorder up to Lange's phone and captured a conversation between Lange and Simpson in which Lange repeatedly pleaded with Simpson to "throw the gun out [of] the window" for the sake of his mother and children. Simpson apologized for not turning himself in earlier that day and responded that he was "the only one who deserved to get hurt" and was "just gonna go with Nicole." Cowlings's voice is overheard in the recording (after the Bronco had arrived at Simpson's home surrounded by police) pleading with Simpson to surrender and end the chase peacefully. During the pursuit, and without having a chance to hear the taped phone conversation, Simpson's friend Al Michaels interpreted his actions as an admission of guilt.
ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN, as well as local news outlets, interrupted regularly scheduled programming to cover the incident, which was watched by an estimated 95 million viewers nationwide; only 90 million had watched that year's Super Bowl. While NBC continued coverage of Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the Houston Rockets at Madison Square Garden, the game appeared in a small box in the corner while Tom Brokaw covered the chase. The chase was covered live by ABC anchors Peter Jennings and Barbara Walters on behalf of the network's five news magazines, which achieved some of their highest-ever ratings that week. Benefiting from the event occurring in the evening, Domino's Pizza stated that its pizza delivery sales during the chase were as large as on Super Bowl Sunday.
Thousands of spectators and on-lookers packed overpasses along the route of the chase, waiting for the white Bronco. In a festival-like atmosphere, many had signs urging Simpson to flee. They and the millions watching the chase on television felt part of a "common emotional experience", one author wrote, as they "wonder[ed] if O. J. Simpson would commit suicide, escape, be arrested, or engage in some kind of violent confrontation. Whatever might ensue, the shared adventure gave millions of viewers a vested interest, a sense of participation, a feeling of being on the inside of a national drama in the making." Sports Illustrated later commented the chase and subsequent hoopla was "The Sugarland Express meets The Fugitive".
Simpson reportedly demanded that he be allowed to speak to his mother before he would surrender. The chase ended at 8:00 p.m. at his Brentwood estate, 50 miles (80 km) later, where his son, Jason, ran out of the house, "gesturing wildly", and 27 SWAT officers awaited. After remaining in the Bronco for about 45 minutes, Simpson was allowed to go inside for about an hour; a police spokesman stated that he spoke to his mother and drank a glass of orange juice, causing reporters to laugh. Shapiro arrived, and Simpson surrendered to authorities a few minutes later. In the Bronco, police found "$8,000 in cash, a change of clothing, a loaded .357 Magnum, a passport, family pictures, and a fake goatee and mustache." Neither the footage of the Bronco chase nor the items found in the Bronco were shown to the jury as evidence in the trial.
As Simpson was driven away, he saw the crowds, many of whom were African Americans, cheering him; Simpson said, "What are all these n****** doing in Brentwood?"
</snip>
12 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
...his comment at the end of the OP just shows what a truly miserable bastard he was. 
I watched Capricorn One last weekend, and OJ was one of the astronauts. I couldn't help but to add my own commentary, especially when James Brolin's character was handing out survival items to his two fellow astronauts, and gave the knife to Sam Waterson's character. I exclaimed, "Whew! That was close!" 
...and she was no longer around to attest to the changes. 
RIP Nicole and Ron
