The Prosecution failed to Make Its Case Against OJ.

O J Simpson passed away from prostate cancer on April 15.  The papers and TV were full of rehashing his guilt so I sent the following to the Letters to the Editor of our local paper.  It was printed by them on Wednesday Apr. 17.

In the OJ Simpson case, the prosecution was unable to establish exactly when the murders took place.  Even if either of their guesses were true, OJ still could not possibly have done everything the prosecution said in the time he was said to have done it.  Timelines matter.  The best book on the crime that I would recommend is KILLING TIME by Freed and Briggs.  They help the readers work with the timelines. 

The other thing they do is include the autopsies of the victims.  The autopsies show four different knives were used.  It took four guys, not one, to take down the two athletic victims.

What makes this case so hard is that the media played up everything about the case they got, which was mostly from the prosecution, and the general public saw and heard what they wanted to hear.  The European-American folks heard and saw all the terrible stuff about OJ and the African-American folks heard and saw all the racist gimmicks they had experienced.  

What the general population did not experience was sitting in the courtroom for months on end as the prosecution talked down to the jury of mixed races and the jury having hours to study the photos and other visuals left by the prosecution.  That experience was put into a book MADAM FOREMAN, A RUSH TO JUDGMENT by Amanda Cooley.  It was not Johnny Cochran's theatrics that pursuaded the jury.  It was the lousy DNA work done by the police and pictures of the bloody gloves rolled up in balls.  Read the book to see why.

The People V. . . . OJ's alibi

Marcia Clark presented the narrative that OJ, after he left his daughter's recital around 6:30 pm on the 12th of June, 1994, went home angry and fuming, building a rage in him that around 10 pm took him in his Bronco to the condo of his wife Nicole.  Using a key not found by the police, he got into the condo's gated area, lured Nicole out of the condo, and was cutting and slashing at her when Ron came by with her mother's glasses.  In his rage, by 10:15, he had dispatched the two, was chased by the Akita, got back to Rockingham after changing out of the bloody clothes and disposing of them by 10:54 pm when the limo driver saw him entering the mansion.

In the book KILLING TIME, one can find both the transcript of the interview of OJ and Vannatter and a summary of his deposition for the civil trial that later found him financially liable for the deaths of Nicole and Ron.

The interview shed little light on what he was doing because the questioning detectives failed to press him for details.  He spoke about the recital, about his relationship with Nicole and how they had tried but decided the decision to divorce was the right thing for them, and that he was very careful with his clothes, hanging them up for reuse if they did not need to be cleaned.  Perhaps the most important thing that came out of the interview, however, was an explanation for the drops of blood seen in the Rockingham driveway and inside in the kitchen.  OJ said that in his rushing around as he got ready to leave for Chicago, he went to the Bronco, reached for his cell phone which he had left in there, and jammed his finger.  He discovered it was bleeding when he went back in the house to help Kato find a flashlight for checking about those odd bumps on his back wall.

The deposition provided many more details.  After the recital, he headed home hoping to contact his girl friend with whom he'd had a date the night before.  He phoned her but got no answer.  He was hungry, not having accepted the invitation of Nicole's parents to go out with them after the recital.  So he and Kato went and got McDonalds, getting home about 9:35.  He went outside to his car where he kept his golf bag, checked his golf clubs for the Chicago trip, practiced a little with one of the clubs, quit when he thought he might dent his Bentley, and went back inside.  He killed time petting his dog, watching a little TV, and then going to the toilet.  While he was in there, someone called from the gate but only let it ring four times.  At 10:36, he realized his ride was coming soon and he better shower.  While he was in the shower, he again heard the phone but had no chance of answering because it only rang a few times.  When he went out to find his golf shoes, he saw the limo, and back inside he answered the gate phone to let the limo in.  He finished packing, leaving everything in the bedroom in order, asked Kato and the driver to put his golf clubs and suitcase in the limo because his finger might start bleeding again, and left about 11:15 for LAX.

The title of the Freed and Briggs book KILLING TIME is most fitting.  Both narratives, the prosecution's and the defense's, describe the time between 10 and 11 pm and depending on how the words are defined, covers both.  The jury decided OJ's description of killing time fit the facts best.

The People V. . . . How They Died

According to Marcia Clark's opening statement, Nicole and Ron were slashed to death by a raging OJ in a matter of minutes.  Larger than either of his victims, he dominated  them with his knife and made swift, bloody work of them.

If that were so, the autopsies would show deep, arbitrary slashes and deft killing cuts.  There would be no defensive wounds because his rage would have overcome them rapidly, leaving no time to attempt defensive postures or responses from the victims.  A slashing attack would have left deep cuts on the arms and upper body.  There would be one blade shape in both bodies but that would hardly be an issue because of the speed of slashing and little time for stabbing and pulling out the weapon.

There was one deft slashing cut, the one that crossed Nicole's throat.  And, as you may recall, there were many shallow stab marks, bruises, and abrasions.  In addition, both victims had several parallel skin deep cuts at their throats.  The deep stabs near the throat down between the neck and clavical on Nicole cut an artery.  There was a similar stab attempted on Ron.  There were two stabs to his right side that caused the most damage, one that cut the aorta and and the other that entered his right lung causing bleeding that flooded it.    

Now let me set the stage for the murders.  Based on information available that the prosecution could have had and may have used in the trial, here is what happened prior to the actual murders:

Nicole had been on the phone with Faye Resnick who called her from the rehab center sometime before ten pm.  The children heard their mother sounding very upset during the call.  After she hung up, Nicole went into the kitchen to get out a butcher knife.  She set it next to the kitchen door which was the main entrance to the condo.  She had soft music playing and had lit a number of candles for her bath.  Those may have just been for her or they may have been set up for a romantic date.  She got out some ice cream to calm herself down and relax when the phone rang again.  This time it was her mother who had left her eyeglasses at the restaurant and asked for help to find them.  Nicole called Mezzaluna and caught Ron just before he left work.  He said he'd look for them and bring them over.   

Here's how I reconstruct the murders:

When someone knocked on her door, distracted from whatever Resnick had said to frighten her enough to get out the knife, she opened it and before she could react, she was grabbed by a large man and dragged out the door onto the stoop.  He put a knife to her throat from behind and demanded where the cocaine was.  She probably stomped on his foot and gave him a head butt that broke his nose.  What she hadn't anticipated was another man who came up in front of her with another knife, also threatening her that she needed to turn over the cocaine or else.  

She was not held as tightly from behind by the one who'd first grabbed her, but was not focussed too well because of his bleeding nose.  When she refused to respond, the second man tried to stab her but using her head and hands to parry the knife thrusts, she became a difficult target for the stabbing.  A third man stepped up and stabbed her between the neck and clavicle, seeking to cut a major artery.  It took three tries before he hit it.  

Just then, Ron came onto the scene and challenged the three men attacking Nicole, yelling "Hey, Hey, Hey."  As he attempted to protect Nicole, a fourth man grabbed him from behind and held a knife to his throat, nicking him as he struggled.  He was able to do some damage with his feet so one of the men struck Nicole in the head and she collapsed.  Ron found a way to break free.  Except for the one with the broken nose, the rest then turned on Ron forcing him into the small yard.  He got a few blows in with his hands and also protected himself from their knife thrusts with his hands and head as Nicole had.  But with the three encircled around him, thrusting, he no longer had a chance.  Stabbed from both sides and in the front, especially in the right side, he was losing blood mostly from internal bleeding, weakened, and fell.  As a warning to others who would hold back from the cartel, the leader of the group left Nicole with the "Colombian necktie."

With both victims collapsed, one of the men opened the condo door to go in to search for the cocaine, only he was met by a snarling Akita who charged out the door at him.  At that point, the men decided to leave. noticing pedestrians were on Bundy and might realize what was going on.  They ran out the back gate with the dog biting at them, jumped into a white van/SUV, and drove south.

In my novel, the leader of the cartel murderers came back after the dog was gone, tracked blood in a pair of Bruno Magli shoes stolen from OJ's house, smeared blood on the stolen gloves, and left them near the bodies.

The reason I felt that could have happened was because the barking dog was taken from the scene of the crime by a couple who found him on the sidewalk at 10:55 pm.  They did not notice the blood on the dog until they got him to their nearby apartment.  They called a friend who was willing to take the dog back to take a closer look.  The friend was the one who was able to see Nicole's body.  So there was about an hour between when the dog was taken away and the friend returned with him, found a body at 11:55, and called the police.

As I recall, Professor Briggs, co-author of KILLING TIME, was interested in trying to do a computer simulation of how the crime could occur, given the information from the autopsies.  He was unable to reproduce the crime with only one person.  It took no less than three and the limited space of the tiny yard held no more than four assailants.

The prosecution said the defense bruises and abrasions on Ron were damage caused by bumping into the walls of the yard and then the fall to the ground during the attack.  I don't think so.

One final note, I am still operating on memory from reading ten years ago.  If anyone takes this blog seriously, they can do what I plan to do, look up the trial transcript which is on line, and also reread the key books.   

The People V. . . . The Glove Demonstration

Let me begin by offering a disclaimer and an observation on memory.

My disclaimer is that I read the books about OJ's case ten years ago.  While I have scanned most of and read a little of KILLING TIME since watching the AMERICAN CRIME STORY series, I have largely gone on the basis of memory and lack thereof in my preparing this blog.  I have already stated that my focus was on evidence and timelines in order to sort out this particular crime and paid little attention to the dynamics that have largely occupied the writers of this series.  The writers have played up or even made up elements for the story to make it more interesting.  But I have usually had no recollection about just how far the writers wandered from what actually happened in and around the trial.

My observation on memory is that I discovered in reviewing the details that my memory has been a little off.  I used to think there were four different knife shapes involved in the autopsies.  But in studying them for the blog a couple weeks ago, I saw there were only three different shaped blades identified by Dr. Golden.  I must then point out that this kind of slight discrepancy happens all the time, and not just with me.  The two main books covering the narrative of the whole event, Jeffery Toobin's THE RUN OF HIS LIFE and Lawrence Schiller's AMERICAN TRAGEDY that I now have in my personal library are second editions and are actually different than the first editions I read ten years ago.  So details that may not have been in the earlier editions have slipped into the second.  Which details differ is hard to know because I do not have either first edition available as I write this.  Let me just say that because memories change over time for a wide range of reasons, we run into some questions that are hard to clear up.

I bring up the disclaimer and observation because the trailer for Episode Eight indicated there would be a lot about the "jury rebellion" that occurred not long after the glove demonstration.  I remembered so little about that I decided to read Toobin's take on the jury's behavior and how suddenly several members were removed.  I happened upon his telling of the glove demonstration.  He seemed to be remembering things I did not recall seeing in his first edition, mainly about the latex gloves OJ wore when he put on the bloody gloves in the court room.

In the second edition, he said he saw that the latex gloves themselves were not all the way on and that OJ ignored Chris Darden's request that he straighten his fingers in order to get the gloves on properly.

There are two reasons I think that Toobin may have unintentionally enhanced his memory.  One, Schiller made no such claims about the demonstration even though he, like Toobin, went from being impartial in the first edition of his book to believing OJ was guilty in the second edition.  Two, in Episodes Seven and Eight both Marcia Clark and DA Gil Garcetti responded to the demonstration that it was obvious to them the gloves did not fit.

Let me give a little more information on the gloves, based on the testimony of the executive of the glove company that made them.  The gloves were designed to fit snuggly and smoothly over the hands.  For OJ's purposes, such a glove was perfect for holding a microphone on the sidelines during TV broadcasts of football games on cold days.  

According to Toobin, all of the defense lawyers checked the gloves and tried them on one day and were convinced that they were too small to fit OJ.  They knew his hand size because when they left their visits with OJ, some put their hands on the glass window of the visitor's booth (all the visits were not in a spare room where they could be face to face) and OJ would put his hand up against theirs from the other side of the security glass.

If by chance those gloves were the ones purchased originally by Nicole at Bloomingdales in New York five years before, what other explanation could there be?  I suggest they were too small and OJ never wore them.  He could have gotten a larger size than XL that he could wear.  No one investigated that possibility but it could easily have happened.

If OJ had other gloves that were larger and did fit, how did these smaller ones get involved in the murders?  As came out in the trial, OJ's mansion had many guests and something as small as a pair of nice gloves could easily have been taken by almost anyone who came as a guest and no one would have noticed, particularly if they were unused.

Such forethought implies someone setting up OJ before the crimes.  The coincidence is too strong to be chance.  

We've already seen that the police, Fuhrman in particular, may have scrounged things like the gloves just in case.  As we'll see in one or both concluding episodes, Fuhrman could have conceived doing something like that or even actually would do it.

The other group mentioned in passing, the Colombian cartel, may already have had in the works for some weeks the prospect of a murder of Faye Resnick, the cocaine junkie who lived with Nicole at that time, or even Nicole herself.  

In the deep racist mindset of people like Fuhrman, OJ had stepped over the line by marrying a white woman.  To Fuhrman, OJ was uppity and not supposed to be rich and famous so he had to be brought down on few notches.  Gathering things that could be used as evidence in the future would be the smart thing to do.

And if you want back $25 K of cocaine that you think is stored at Bundy, you'd take advantage of gathering things that could be left at the scene if you thought you'd have any problems, things that would incriminate someone else.

Are either of these narratives more believable than the prosecution's story of an enraged 46 year old guy with bad knees who used three different knives to kill two younger and athletic people in that small space and come out with only a nick on the finger?

Reasonable doubt is what the defense needs.  When speculation provides a better explanation than the description provided by the prosecution, the jury has reasonable doubt.

On top of the demonstration that the gloves did not fit, most of the jury probably already had their minds made up.

The People V. . . . Fuhrman timeline

The series about the Simpson case has shown the kind of self-centeredness of Detective Fuhrman that makes him an unlikeable character.  Narcissism is not just a problem for OJ.

Fuhrman talks a lot about the case in his book MURDER IN BRENTWOOD.  His book is so full of himself it is almost laughable.  His arrogance and lack of professionalism are obvious in his description of what he did that early morning.  First, he makes himself at home on the couch in the Bundy condo after he has toured the crime scene.  Second, his critique of Vannatter and Lange for their failures to do their duties is gratuitous, because third, Fuhrman’s description of his own actions which show he was as inept as they had been when he was left in charge for periods of time at Rockingham and Bundy.

He is just the kind of person who would find a way to become the center of attention in any circumstance.  So he was in his element when the call came that the ex-wife of OJ Simpson had just been murdered.

The moment he learned that he was being replaced as lead detective, he looked for a way to be so important to the case that he would be in the middle of it anyway.  Here is what I think he did, based on his own book, which Jeffery Toobin accepted as fact for THE RUN OF HIS LIFE.  

The following was also how the defense understood Detective Fuhrman’s role.  We may see that in Episode Nine or Ten of AMERICAN CRIME STORY.

I am following the LAPD timeline from the previous blog posting, put together in the order gleaned from the series writers of the TV show and the specific times provided from the book KILLING TIME by Freed and Briggs.

Because Rockingham and Bundy were five minutes apart, Fuhrman would be able to leave and return with hardly anyone noticing.  With so many officers around, he would not be missed, especially if he usually operated in seclusion, like the inside of the condo to make notes.  He figured that by taking one of the pieces of evidence from Bundy and depositing it somewhere else, and then being the one to find it, he could take back the attention he enjoyed.  Before joining his partner and his captain on the corner, he picked up one of the gloves and put it into an evidence bag.  The glove would still be wet with blood two or three hours after the likely time of death.  He figured that OJ would be the prime suspect.  Significant others, even divorced ones like OJ, usually did it.  

As they stood there waiting for Vannatter and Lange, about 3:30 or so, he probably excused himself to go to the bathroom, climbed into his car and drove over to Rockingham.  He may even have taken his partner.  Chachi, the watchdog, would be no bother.   He and the dog were buddies from many previous visits.  Parking further down Rockingham, walking up to the estate, and then climbing the wall, he would check out likely spots to put the glove.  The foot traffic around these mansions at 3:30 in the morning would be less than around the Bundy site with all its condos.  According to his book, Fuhrman went along the unused walkway next to the garage.  He ran into a problem, he wrote: cobwebs.  He turned that into a verbal drama in his book, making it scary because he could not see that far in front of him, and making it brave, because he soldiered through it with his gun at the ready and the flashlight showing the way.  He went the length of the walkway and got no brilliant ideas about where to plant the glove.  

When he returned to where a street light shown on Rockingham, he realized his jacket was full of cobwebs and that he’d have a devil of a time explaining them.  Still hanging on to the evidence bag with the glove in it, he knew he had to somehow get back to Rockingham and see if anyone there could say something that would give him an idea where to plant it.  

Rosa Lopez testified to hearing a loud argument somewhere around 3 am and it could have been Fuhrman and his partner arguing over the cobwebs on the jacket, not leaving the evidence, and how to get back to drop it later.  

Fuhrman could also have had along his dog-handling friend who still had blood on his uniform from the dog at Bundy.  He might have had him climb into the Bronco at this point.  Or the friend may have been among the officers who followed the four detectives when they came to Rockingham around sunrise.   

Upon returning to Bundy by 4 am, Fuhrman left the jacket in the car and rejoined the captain at the corner to wait for the detectives from downtown.  Vannatter showed up just after that and Lange arrived about 4:30.  It is unlikely Fuhrman told them of his plan.  Really all he had to do was have his partner tell them that he was familiar with OJ’s home and they’d likely let him lead them there.  To show his humility, he pretended to need to be reminded and got directions from another officer.  He and his partner then led the way, arriving a little after 5 am.  The two lead detectives, like Fuhrman, believed in the theory about estranged partners usually being the killers so they were ready to presume OJ was guilty and would be looking for any sign that pointed in his direction.

When they arrived at the estate, Fuhrman struck gold.  Kato Kaelin had this weird story about bumps on his back wall at about 10:40 or so.  That left Fuhrman with the problem of how to get the glove back there.  He decided to see if anyone was awake next door, since it was daylight.  The housekeeper, Rosa Lopez, talked about hearing the argument around 3 am.  He asked if he could check the back yard that abutted the Simpson estate and got permission.  In his book, he spoke about going into the yard to have a look.  

I think it was then that he took the still wet glove from the plastic evidence bad and slipped it over the fence just below Kaelin’s air conditioner.

He then was in a position to get the other detectives and lead them to the glove.  

That confirmed Vannatter’s belief that OJ was the culprit.  But he knew it would take more evidence than just that so he got extra blood from OJ when he interviewed him that afternoon.  Vannatter would have had plenty of time to leaves drops of OJ's blood at the Bundy crime scene before returning to Rockingham by 4 pm.  And he probably did take samples of blood from the autopsies of Nicole and Ron, which he and Lange witnessed the next morning.  With the three vials of blood, Vannatter was in a position to spread it wherever it would do the investigation the most good, mainly the Bronco and the back gate at Bundy which were not examined until weeks after the crime.

Fuhrman wasn’t finished.  While Vannatter and Lange were interviewing OJ downtown, Fuhrman was in charge at Rockingham.  He had plenty of time to hunt up something innocuous like socks.  So he drives back to Bundy, looks around as if he is “detecting,” dips the two socks into a bloody spot and returns to Rockingham, plants the socks on the floor of OJ’s bedroom where the photographer later photographs them.

This narrative of how things could have happened explains how it is that the glove got where it did, how the socks were not in the first photo of OJ’s bedroom and were there on the floor late that afternoon when another photo was taken, and how the socks had parallel blood spots, as if they had been side-by-side and flat when the blood soaked into them.  The press would not have understood any of Fuhrman’s coming and going, if he were even noticed, as part of the framing of OJ.

After all, it was not the press who noticed Lange’s keeping OJ’s shoes overnight nor Vannatter’s ignorance of the street lingo surrounding the Colombian cartel.  It was the defense’s investigators.

Please understand that this telling does not prove OJ was innocent.  It just shows how the LAPD could have easily “enhanced” their case against their chief suspect.  We have yet to explore OJ’s alibi and the actual murders themselves.

The People V. . . . The Detectives’ Actions

As was described in an earlier posting, the activities of the detectives related to the case can be drawn with some accuracy, showing some gaps that should concern us.  Some of the details from the book KILLING TIME by Freed and Briggs.  The outline and familiar details come from the series.

As Episode Six showed us, Detective Lange admitted to holding evidence overnight, something he never did otherwise, opening the door to seriously doubting how scrupulous he and the others were.  

Vannatter’s ignorance of a common Colombian cartel killing technique intended to intimidate anyone crossing them, as shown in Episode Seven, also was a chink in the prosecution’s belief the officers were competent.

Let’s review the detective’s actions to see where they say they were, when they did what they did, and see if they showed sound police skills or something else.  The detectives involved testified to the actions below.  I will try to add when the press became involved, since Marcia Clark was shown to argue in Episode Seven that their presence would have spotted police shenanigans.  Where I can, I will also add police photographers and other specialists as they became involved.  

1985        Fuhrman responded to a domestic dispute call between OJ and Nicole at Rockingham.  No arrest was made at the time.

Sometime     Fuhrman, along with other LAPD officers, may have availed himself of the hospitality of the Simpsons.

Sometime     Fuhrman bragged around the LAPD of knowing about Nicole’s breast augmentation “up close and personal.”  (This is from KILLING TIME but may come up in the last episode of the series.)

Based on these, Fuhrman was known in the department as knowledgeable about Rockingham and the Simpsons.

June 13, 1994

12:17 am       Police respond to a 9-1-1 call at Bundy.

2:10 am         Over a dozen officers are already at the crime scene when Fuhrman and his partner sign in at Bundy.  One of the officers is a friend of his and is playing with Nicole’s dog, Kato, which is still covered with blood from the crime scene.  Fuhrman is shown around and then goes inside Nicole’s condo and makes notes about the crime scene he has just toured.  

2:30 am         Fuhrman’s boss arrives and tours the site.  Fuhrman’s partner comes in and lets Fuhrman know that downtown is sending two homicide detectives to take over the case.  He is officially being dropped from handling it.

2:50 am         Fuhrman ceases “detecting” and waits with the other officers on the corner near Bundy for the two detectives.

3:25 am         Police photographer arrives, gets pictures of Fuhrman and others around the crime scene.  (Pictures are from Fuhrman's book MURDER IN BRENTWOOD.)

4:05 am         Detective Vannatter arrives, views crime scene, and then joins the other officers on the corner.

Sometime      Fuhrman is photographed again at Bundy only without his jacket on.  (This is from Fuhrman's book.)

4:25 am         Lange arrives, tours the crime scene, joins the others at the corner, and learns the captain wants them to contact OJ about the crime and to come get the two children.  Lange and Vannatter ask Fuhrman and his partner to lead the way to Rockingham but Fuhrman pauses to get directions from one of the other police.

Sometime      The press may have already arrived at Bundy before detectives leave for Rockingham.  But they would have been subject to restriction of their movements to protect the crime scene’s integrity and they would have seen a dozen or more police coming and going around the site.  

5:05 am         The four detectives and another car with four officers arrive at Rockingham.  They try for 10 to 15 minutes to get someone inside to answer the gate phone to let them in.  They contact the mansion’s security company seeking help.

5:20 am          Fuhrman checks out the Bronco to see if an owner can be determined.  He sees a package with OJ’s company name on it and some other stuff.  He learns it belongs to Hertz and is available to OJ because of his doing ads for them..

5:30 am         Vannatter joins him and they find what looks like a blood spot on the driver’s side door.  They take that as a sign that more victims may be inside the estate.  

5:45 am         After discussing the matter and trying to call the phone inside (a number they got from the security company) with no luck, Fuhrman is sent over the wall to open the gate.  OJ’s watchdog, Chachi, offers friendly greetings.  The detectives go to the front door, ring the bell, and get no response.  They walk around to the left and follow the walkway to the guesthouses behind the mansion.  

6:00 am         They find Kato in one.  He refers them to OJ’s daughter Arnelle who is asleep in the other guesthouse.  While Vannatter and Lange go to wake her and contact OJ, Fuhrman questions Kato alone.  Kaelin tells of the bumps on his wall at 10:40 or so the night before.  

6:05 am         (The sun has been up about an hour but) Fuhrman testifies he took his flashlight and worked his way back along the walkway next to the garage on the other side of the mansion to behind Kaelin’s apartment.  (In his book, Fuhrman is even more graphic, saying the walkway was dense with cobwebs and that he made his way to the backyard through cobwebs all the way before turning back and finding the bloody glove near Kaelin’s AC).  He checks further, he testified, for bodies or something to go with the glove he found there.  

6:30 am         Fuhrman shows the other detectives the glove, which he left in place.  

6:45 am         Vannatter sends Fuhrman and his partner back to Bundy to see if the glove matches the one at Bundy.  He sends Lange back to take charge at Bundy.  Vannatter stays at Rockingham.  (In his book, Vannatter wrote that he saw the blood drops up the driveway to the front door – though not to the walkway where the glove lay – and connects the blood trail at Bundy to Rockingham).  

7:00  am         Fuhrman and the police photographer return to Rockingham to photograph the glove there for comparison with the one at Bundy.

7:10 am          Criminalist Fung arrives at Rockingham to gather blood evidence off the driveway and in the kitchen.  There is so much blood he is busy there for three hours.

Sometime      The following was not testified to at the trial: Fuhrman’s police officer friend who had played with Nicole’s bloody dog at Bundy was asked by Fuhrman to help check the Bronco by sliding in and popping the hood.  (This is from KILLING TIME.)  

9:00 am          The coroner arrives at Bundy.  Massive searches are underway in Chicago at the hotel where OJ stayed, at Ohare Airport, at LAX, and in the neighborhood around Rockingham for the bloody clothes, shoes, and knife. 

   

10:10 am        The criminalist arrives at Bundy.

Sometime        A photograph is taken of OJ’s bedroom and shows nothing out of place.  (This is from KILLING TIME).

Sometime       The press would probably not have come to Rockingham prior to setting up for OJ’s return and would not at that time have known Rockingham was a LAPD-designated crime scene like Bundy.  Again, they would have seen many police officers coming and going and would have had their own movements restricted.

Noon               OJ returns from Chicago.  

!:30 pm           Fuhrman remains at Rockingham while Vannatter and Lange meet with OJ downtown at the LAPD center.  OJ volunteers blood which Vannatter keeps.  (The series does not mention this but it is in KILLING TIME.) 

2:20 pm         The interview ends.

4:00 pm         Vannatter and Lange takes over the investigation at Rockingham from Fuhrman.  

5:30 pm         The criminalist returns to Rockingham and begins going over the house.  A picture taken in OJ’s bedroom shows a pair of socks on the floor, later identified as the bloody socks OJ allegedly wore during the crime.   Lange takes a pair of OJ’s shoes and takes them home with him.

6:30 pm         Fuhrman leaves Rockingham, his responsibility of keeping the site secure having ended.

Sometime       Several hours later, Vannatter turns (what is left of) OJ’s blood sample over to the criminalist (KILLING TIME).

June 14           Vannater and Lange observe the autopsies of Nicole and Ron, perhaps taking blood samples of each with them (KILLING TIME).  Sometime, Lange turns over the shoes he kept overnight to the criminalist.  

June 15            OJ’s Bronco is taken to a police parking area and left unsecured.

June 17            OJ is arrested after the slow Bronco chase

July 5               Blood evidence is gathered from the Bundy back gate (KILLING TIME, but may be shown in the series).

August 26         Criminalist Fung begins examining the Bronco for evidence, checking the blood on the door and inside (KILLING TIME, but may be shown in the series).

Those accustomed to the precise and prompt investigative techniques of contemporary crime shows will shudder at the loose way things happened in 1994.  And there were few if any of the press able to be close enough to the investigation at this point to know whether or not the four detectives handling things were acting properly.

The defense offered a scenario that had Fuhrman manipulating the evidence by planting the glove at Rockingham.  That will be handled in another posting summarized from this timeline.  There is a chance that will be shown during the ninth or tenth episodes of “The People V. O. J. Simpson.”

The People V. . . . The Autopsies 2

In the autopsies published in the book by Freed and Briggs, KILLING TIME, Dr. Irwin Golden, the coroner, described several of the wounds, bruises, and abrasions as "defensive."  The stab wounds into both victims' scalps were defensive in that the skull is pretty tough and those with martial arts training will lower their heads to receive a stab move if they can't evade them.  Both victims had stab marks into their hands which Golden listed as defensive.

Also considered defensive moves by Golden were the forearm bruises on Ron Goldman which are most likely the attempts to block an arm wielding a knife.

Imagine the force involved when a murderer is trying to stab someone and the victim tries to stop the move by using a forearm.  If the blow causes a bruise on the victim, realize that there would be a comparable bruise on the forearm of the killer.  Ron was not a passive victim.  With both his tennis agility and marital arts training, he was capable of putting up a fight and the bruises on his arms show he was able to do some defensive acts.  And the killer would come away with signs of those impacts.

The autopsy on Ron also indicated that he may have struck some serious blows.  In addition to the bruises reported on his arms, there were bruises and abrasions on the knuckles and the back of his fingers that are characteristic of offensive moves in karate.  Golden indicated they were "defensive" moves" but that can be understood as the actions of someone defending himself.  If there were such blows, they landed on the killer(s).

As strong and agile as OJ might have been at the age of forty six with knees that were arthritic, it is highly unlikely that he could have come out of that bloody attack without himself having been seriously beaten up.  Put Ron and OJ into that small garden area outside the Bundy condo, a space smaller than your smallest bedroom and only slightly larger than your walk-in closet, can you imagine anyone coming out of a "to-the-death" struggle without bruises and abrasions?

When OJ was examined by police physicians the day he got back from Chicago, and a few days later by the physicians brought in by the defense, there was not a bruise on him anywhere.

The autopsy also reveals that Nicole not only used her skull and hands to block attempts to stab her, she may have struck a serious blow on one of the killers.  On the right side of her head is a serious bruise.  It is possible that she used a head butt against someone holding her from behind and broke his nose.  She was five foot five, and weighed 129 pounds so a move by her could pack a wallop, with a corresponding bruise on her own body.  According to Freed and Briggs in their book KILLING TIME, blood was found on her back that did not belong to her, Ron, or OJ.

A careful reading of the autopsies offers clues not only that there were more than one person involved in the attack on Nicole and Ron, but that they fought back with some skill and force, doing damage to their attackers and requiring from 8 to 15 minutes before the two were overcome.  Nicole was not a pansy and Ron, an athletic 171 pounds on a five foot nine body, did not go down without a major fight.

That major fight could not have been with OJ.

The People V. . . . The Autopsies 1

The autopsies where done on June 14, Nicole at 7:30 am and Ron Goldman at 10:30 am, with Detectives Vannater and Lange present, roughly 36 hours after the murders.  Dr. Irwin Golden conducted both.  He was not called to testify by the prosecution.  His supervisor did that.

Before I try to describe any of the wounds the victims received, I need to clarify two things, the shapes of the stab wounds and the difference between a bruise and an abrasion.

The latter is easy in that abrasions have a break in the skin such as a scrape and a bruise does not.  I will deal with them in my next posting.  For this one, I will focus on the stab wounds.

The stab wound shapes are much more subtle.  For example, a standard kitchen knife having a six inch blade has a stabbing shape of a long, narrow triangle.  One end of the stab is tapered and the other end had a flat edge about one sixteenth of an inch wide.  A sword or its dagger-sized cousin the stiletto leaves a stab wound that has two tapered edges and no flat edges.

Dr. Golden identified stab wounds of at least three kinds: stiletto, standard blade with 1/32 inch flat edge, and standard blade with 1/16 inch flat edge.

When Detective Fuhrman tried to reconcile the three different shapes of stab wounds, he suggested a field knife that was tapered from the point to two inches in where the flat edge began relatively thin and widened as it got farther from the point.  Below, let me address the stab wounds each received under the three shapes Dr. Golden identified with each victim.  First will be the length of the wound, then the size of the edge, and finally the depth of the wound which he was able to determine by using a probe into the wound.

Nicole Brown Simpson's stab wounds:

To the left side of the neck: 
(1) 5/8" wide, 1/32" edge, 1-1/2" deep
(2) 1/2" wide, 1/32" edge, 2" deep
(3) 7/8" wide, 1/32" edge, 1" deep 

To the left hand:
(1) 1/4" wide, 1/16" edge, 1/4" deep
(2) 1/2" wide, 1/16" edge, 1/4" deep 

 To the scalp:
3/16" wide. tapered edges, 1/8" deep

This kind of detail suggests that there were at least three different knives (or even two or more attackers with the same kind of knife) involved since the respective depths preclude the kind of knife Fuhrman envisioned.

How about what the autopsy reports about Ronald Goldman?

To the left side of neck:
6" wide, 1/16" edge, 2" deep 

To the right side of the neck:
5/8th" wide, 1/16" edge, 2" deep (additional tapered stab mark was there too)

To the right ear:
1-1/4" wide, 1/16" edge, 1/4" deep

To the right cheek:
5/8" wide, 1/32" edge, 1/4" deep

To the scalp:
(1) 5/8" wide, 1/16" edge, 3/8" deep
(2) 1/4" wide, 1/16" edge, 1/4" deep

To the chest:
(1) Right side, 5/8" wide, 1/32" edge, 4" deep
(2) Right side, 1-1/2" wide, 1/32" edge, 2" deep
(3) Right side below ribs, 3/8" wide, tapered edges, 1" deep
(4) Left abdomen, 3/4" wide, 1/16" edge, 5-1/2" deep

To left thigh:
2-1/8" wide, 1/32" edge, 3-1/2" deep

To the right clavicle border:
1/2" wide, 1/16" edge, 1/4" deep

To the hands:
(1) Right hand, 3/4" wide, tapered edge, 1/2" deep
(2) Right hand, 1/2" wide, 1/16" edge, 1/4" deep
(3) Left hand thumb web, tapered edge, 1/4" deep

Note that all but one of the major wounds is a stab wound and not a slash.

Again, it has to be concluded that there were at least three different knives.  Given the amount of time it took for the two victims to bleed to death (I have chosen not to add all of the knife-related injuries nor have I indicated which were fatal).  Each victim was left unconscious.  Ron's wounds led to fatal internal bleeding as well as some external while Nicole's were external.  It is highly unlikely that OJ would have carried three knives and took turns using them.  Look at the stab wounds to Ron's chest.  All three kinds of blades are indicated and they went into Ron from different directions.  

Freed and Briggs, in their book, report that witnesses saw four men fleeing the scene.      

O. J. Simpson’s “Confession”

Two years after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, a book came out entitled KILLING TIME by Donald Freed and Raymond Briggs. It was the first book I bothered to read about the sensational crime.

Having investigated much less traumatic events, usually cases where a minister was accused of sexual misconduct, I wasn’t about to immerse myself in a major crime like that. I watched bits of the trial, scanned some of the articles in the papers, even read an article or two in TIME or NEWSWEEK. When the glove did not fit and the jury voted not guilty, I was satisfied that OJ didn’t do it, though I had no idea who else might have done it.

I saw an interview on TV with Dr. Briggs who described the book. I decided to read it because he brought up the importance of developing a chronology of events, something I did on the church cases.

The book was more than a “how to” book on trying to sort out the facts. It included, among other information that had not been published in the news, evidence of a number of smokers in Nicole’s garage, the fact that she and Ron had black belt karate skills, that there wasn’t a mark on OJ except for a minor cut on his finger which bled because he had taken Nsaids for his arthritis for many years and would have bruised and bled very easily, and, most important, the autopsy reports on the two victims which showed the probability of four different size and shape knife wounds, indicating at least four assailants.

The chronology I developed also showed he couldn’t have done it.

I was writing a novel about an adult Sunday School class that solved crimes and decided to integrate what I read into the story. To be fair, I read all kinds of other books, mostly against OJ. When I got done, I was most moved to believe the jury. Some of them had written a book about what they heard and saw during the trial that persuaded them OJ was innocent.

I sent my book to friend for his critique. He didn’t accept my analysis. I showed it to a crime lab specialist and he didn’t either. Another friend who is probably the most intelligent person I know was still convinced OJ did it after reading my book.

It must be a lousy book because no one agreed so I never tried to publish it.

Some dozen years later, I added as a PS to the first friend I’d showed my book, “OJ didn’t do it.”

He wrote back immediately, “He confessed. He wrote a book about it.”

---To be continued--- (See the posting below.)

Conviction of OJ Simpson

He didn’t do it.

I’m not sure what the facts are in the current conviction of OJ Simpson over the memorabilia. My guess is that he was probably caught in the middle of a situation where a friend brought the gun and the DA would ordinarily have charged him with a misdemeanor . . . if it had been anyone but OJ.

For some reason (my opinion is that it is deep-seated racial prejudice), sane, intelligent people want to punish OJ for his ex-wife’s death even though a jury (mixed racial) found him innocent. They (including some dear friends and relatives) were glad when the civil trial (with an all white jury) awarded millions of dollars to the Browns and the Goldmans. And when he was able to protect enough of his wealth to be able to support his family (another civil court going on at the same time as the suit by the Browns and Goldmans awarded OJ custody of his kids, which a lot of folks do not pay attention to), the public seems to delight in scrapes he has gotten into and hope the judge in this memorabilia case put him into jail for life.

I read more on the original case than I wanted. But the most convincing pieces of evidence are the autopsies of the two victims.

There were two major factors which people seem to want to disregard.

One, there were bruises on the bodies, mainly on Ms. Simpson’s head and Mr. Goldman’s hands which show they both inflicted damage on the attacker(s). The hand bruises show significant injury was inflicted and the head bruise is where it would be if she had head-butted an assailant who was behind her holding her, possibly breaking his nose.

Both victims were athletic and had training in karate.

Careful examination of OJ at the time he voluntarily went in to talk with the police showed no bruises or injuries. If he had been the attacker, there is no way in those close quarters of the murder scene that he would have come out with only two small breaks in his skin of one finger.

Two, the autopsies indicated stab wounds from FOUR different knives from multiple angles which could only have been inflicted by multiple attackers.

The autopsies are printed in more than one book on the case and can probably be found on the internet. I saw them in the book KILLING TIME by David Freed and John Briggs.

I also wrote a novel which goes into the timeline and the blood evidence and hypothesizes who the real murderers were. If you are interested, I can send you a copy electronically.

OJ did not commit those murders most of America want to believe he did. And now we wait to see if the judge puts him away for life or is willing to face the howling masses if he does anything less.