The People V. . . . Blood Evidence

For all the drama about the jury, the eighth episode had significant references to the evidence.  What was offered in the show by Criminalist Dennis Fung in three minutes of scientific jargon was actually spread out over weeks of expert testimony.  The prosecution tried its best to "educate" the jury about DNA; how it was determined; how the crime scene, Bronco, and Rockingham all had the blood of OJ, Nicole, and Ron.  The series writers emphasized that they thought the jury could never understand the DNA by having the District Attorney say it loud and clear.  In her book MADAM FOREMAN, Armanda Cooley reported that the jury did understand but that the prosecution and the experts mistook their boredom over the repetitious presentations as ignorance.

The prosecution had also used hair evidence and some other minor evidence they felt backed up their narrative that OJ did it alone and then trailed blood all the way back to Rockingham.

The hair and other minor evidence tended to be related to what was found on Nicole's body.  You may not have realized what Barry Scheck was talking about when he spoke of the blanket.  When the police first arrived on the scene, one officer found a blanket inside the condo at Bundy and brought it out to cover Nicole's body.  It was a nice gesture, of course, but with that blanket came months if not years of use by the whole Simpson family, meaning hair and other evidence could have come off the blanket and not from OJ at the time of the crime.

If you've followed this blog, you will remember that Vannatter took blood from OJ the day he got back from Chicago.  In this episode, Fung admitted that Vannatter turned it in many hours after taking it and that 1.9 ml. were not turned over.  What happened to that blood between 2:20 pm and about 8 pm that night?  Vannatter never provided an explanation and neither could Fung.

On the basis of the tainted evidence and the serious questions about how it had been handled by the police, the jury had ample grounds for reasonable doubt.  The "mountain of DNA evidence" against OJ may literally have disappeared during Criminalist Fung's responses to cross examination as shown in this episode.

One odd thing occurred at the conclusion of Fung's testimony: Criminalist Fung shaking all the lawyers' hands, both prosecution and defense.  That was unprecedented.  I would like to think he wanted to thank the defense for showing all the flaws in the blood evidence gathered by the police, flaws he saw and was honor-bound to present despite his own misgivings.  More likely, he was simply showing his cultural background of respect for the officers of the court.

The episode also brought up the "rehearsal" of what OJ might say if he were put on the stand.  It showed he would have been a terrible witness if Marcia Clark had a chance to challenge him on what she saw as motive, domestic violence.  While the impression is left that OJ was guilty of hitting his wife in the January 1, 1989 episode for which he pleaded "no contest" in court and even more guilty of lying about it, something that the series writers felt changed Robert Kardashian's view of OJ's guilt, there are a number of issues OJ faced in talking about Nicole.  For one, he did not want to say anything bad about her.  For another, he wanted to protect his kids from anything negative about her.  For a third, he did not want his and her privacy violated in front of anyone, especially his best friend, Kardashian.

OJ never was completely negative in talking about her.  That she was robust in her dealings with him when she was drunk or especially angry he admitted but always with the caveat that she loved the kids and was a great mother.  As a man, he was big and could take her physical outbursts.  He knew better than to hit a woman.  The only one who ever complained about his being violent with her body was Nicole and she had a vested interest if she had plans to divorce him at some point.  Did she actually fall and get bruised after drinking that New Year's of 1989?  If that is what really happened, OJ was willing to accept responsibility for her bruises in court.  

Nicole's friends and sister reported that she had complained to them, even saying that OJ was going to kill her.  Those women could have been used by Nicole to build a case for divorce.  The court could not really accept such testimony because it was third hand, and inadmissible as hearsay under law.   

The only other event of consequence was in 1985 when Detective Fuhrman responded to a domestic dispute and saw OJ with a baseball bat hitting Nicole's car, something Fuhrman calmed and ended up not taking any legal action against OJ.  There were other calls to 9-1-1 by Nicole but the judgment of either the 9-1-1 responder or officers dispatched to the scene led to no legal action against OJ.  There is no evidence the officers were star struck by OJ nor that they saw Nicole as a drama queen.  We do not know.

While OJ would have looked bad on the stand, his relationship with Nicole would not be easily understood by anyone.

In the series, the defense had already let Nicole's sister be the spokesperson for the prosecution's attempt to show motive of extending domestic violence to killing.  And the jury had not bought it.  They understood domestic violence, spousal abuse, and being a sexist jerk but did not buy that any of those led to the crime.  In the real trial, the defense was able to bring videos from earlier in the evening of the murders where the Browns hugged a smiling OJ as he left them after a dance recital of his daughter.  Testimony had been made that he "glared" and left "furious."  The videos showed otherwise.  Marcia Clark's motive for the crimes had not been demonstrated.

But the series writers show Robert Kardashian deepened his growing doubt OJ because of the "rehearsal."  And that was to be of great influence to both Jeffery Toobin and to Lawrence Schiller by the time they revised their respective books and put out their second editions.

Please understand that OJ may have been an abusive husband and caused the bruises and abrasions shown in the pictures.  I am trying to show that just maybe things were not what Nicole said they were, that there is reasonable doubt.  I have many dear friends who cannot accept that reasonable doubt exists when a woman accuses a man of such misconduct.  The series writers believe that the Browns, OJ's inlaws, would have known Nicole better than anyone and would have taken great care in considering the safety of the children as well as her.  They did not take Nicole seriously with regard to the alleged abuse and did not encourage Nicole's leaving OJ during their marriage.  I doubt that will persuade my friends.  I think I am a reasonable person and my friends happen to be unreasonable about this point.  That leaves my reader to have to decide between us.  

No matter what the evidence showed and failed to show, the die was caste for the public myth that OJ was guilty.

The People V. . . . Episode Eight

This episode attempts to show the difficulties that occurred between jurors, Judge Ito, the lawyers on the respective sides, and even the public.  For the drama to work, the story had to be simplified.  The writers gave the impression that when there was a complaint against a juror, Judge Ito called in the suspect juror to discuss it.  The reality was that each complaint meant that the judge had to bring in someone from each legal team to be present as he questioned each juror (all twelve) so that no one juror would appear to be targeted.  Each juror had to be asked the same questions and then the judge would determine if the one who was complained about had done anything outside the rules and thus become disqualified and dropped from the jury.

In addition to the dozen who were originally named to the jury, there were an additional twelve alternates who sat in from the beginning of the trial as if they too were members.  The judge determined that the trial would be a long one and there would be attrition to the jury by health and possible behavior violations.  No one anticipated that the trial would last nine months and no one anticipated the kind of interactions that would arise when twenty four strangers would face a prison-like context as jurors.  The eighth episode attempted to dramatize that stress.

There were five major issues that caused stress, beyond the interpersonal issues that can arise when any people are stuck together and can't really get away from each other for a length of time:  one, competition between the prosecution and defense to remove jurors they did not want; two, "Stockholm Syndrome;"; three, actual violations of the rules; four, the nice hotel became prison-like because of the lack of ways to be in touch with the outside world; and five, the cultural values that differed between the Anglo group and the minorities, mainly the African American group.

One, the series writers made a great deal of the competition between defense and prosecution when the jury went through its turmoil.  In Jeffery Toobin's book, that competition was strongest during the jury selection.  While it may have been a concern in mid-trial, Toobin wrote that it appeared Judge Ito made a compensatory removal on behalf of the other side after having to remove someone who had violated the rules and was clearly partisan acted out in court room behaviors.  Toobin, when he did the second edition, was not concerned about Clark and Cochran competing.  The series writers turned it into a gripping story, though.

Two, the "Stockholm Syndrome" refers to how much friendships developed between the jurors and some of the deputies.  The series writers tried to show that.  There was real grief for some of the jurors when the deputies they had become friends with were pulled off duty without any warning or explanation.  The black outfits vs. the colorful ones that the jury wore into the trial one day was a demonstration against Judge Ito's changing of the deputies.  Those in black were showing their anger about the change and those in bright colors showed acceptance, probably because they thought the others had gotten special consideration from the previous group of deputies.  It probably would not have been an issue if one of the jurors had not complained several times that she was being sexually harassed (looked at) by one of the deputies.  Judge Ito took her at her word, having put her off twice, and then finally decided new guards might solve the problem.  As the episode showed, she was a troubled person and finally behaved in a bizarre way in order to finally get relieved of jury duty.

Three, there were complaints of getting news during conjugal visits, taking notes in order to write a book later, talking about the case instead of waiting until deliberations, and such violations.  There were several legitimate ones that led to removal of jurors.  The rest of the jury never was told why a particular juror was removed.  Each came as a shock because after they had all gone through the questioning in the judge's office, someone did not come back.

Four, the jury was intimidated not only by the isolation but by the deputies who controlled their lives day to day.  For two dozen people who were mostly minorities, it was scary to see a phalanx of Anglo sheriff's deputies telling them what to do.  Despite the circumstances, nearly everyone accepted their fate and cooperated because there wasn't a better option.  Besides, the rules made some sense in order for them to be effective as jurors. 

Five, the initial problem of the whites vs. minorities on the jury was clearly shown by the series writers in the scene about the choice of what VHS movie take to watch during breaks.  Toobin reported that the stress was eased by having a second TV in another room.  Not shown as well was the fact that the jury group overcame their differences once the crisis over the change of the deputies passed.  The series writers apparently wanted to leave the impression that the split between the jurors along ethnic lines was relevant to the verdict of the jury.  It will be interesting to see how they handle the few hours of deliberation the jury took to come to their verdict.  

Two more weeks and we will know.

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. . . . Episode Seven

When I was reading about the case ten years ago, I was looking at the books in terms of evidence and timelines.  If there was by-play among the lawyers on either side or even between OJ and his friends, I did not pay much attention to them.  So I either missed a budding affair between Chris Darden and Marcia Clark or it is the figment of the series writers’ imaginations.  Likewise with Shapiro’s relationship with the dream team.  I knew him to be a deal-maker but I do not recall the kind of undermining that seemed to be going on as shown in this series.

I do not recall any reference to a “Colombian Necktie,” the nickname for a throat slashing intended to be a warning to others about messing with the Colombian drug cartel.  At the time I read about the case, there was only one comparative reference to the terrible wound to Nicole that was the fatal blow.  Prior to her murder, over the previous several years there had been a serial killer who chose blond women to be victims of similar throat slashing.  That murderer was still on the loose and could have been a suspect.

(Update: During the trial, according toWikipedia, the defense did bring up the "Colombian necktie" trying to show there may have been other suspects that were not being pursued by the police.) 

However, due to the number of different knives used in this case and witnesses speaking of a group of men fleeing the scene, the theory of a cartel killing is more plausible.  

Marcia Clark was shown to be astounded that a seasoned detective like Phil Vannatter did not know of the cartel’s assassination tactic.  She knew about it.  And she was aware, according to the series’ writers, of the reputation of the Mezzaluna Restaurant (frequented by Nicole and where Ron worked as a waiter) as a cocaine hotspot where major dealers met.  That alternative was never brought forward by the LAPD for whatever reason.  As noted earlier, they had their man already and they had the blood evidence.

I do not remember the books describing either that moment in the trial nor the awareness Clark had of the drug scene in Brentwood.  I also do not remember any vacation where Darden invited Clark to attend a birthday party of one of his friends.  The scene gave the series writers a place to present two important things: OJ’s TV pilot about navy frogmen (precursor of their famed Seal teams) and the prosecution arguments against police framing of OJ.  

About the frogmen show which was never completed or shown, there were scenes where OJ performed some techniques for using a knife in hand-to-hand combat.  It was brought up in the trial to show he knew how to use a knife and to show his agility for a big man.  OJ’s arthritic knees were not subject to testimony until the defense brought its case but the prosecution knew it had to counter that argument and chose the frogman TV pilot to do it.

About the problem Clark faced over police collusion to frame OJ, she said that with Fuhrman and the other detectives going back and forth so many times between Bundy and Rockingham, surely the press would have seen something because they were all over the place.  I will address that in another posting.

There were two other themes dramatized in this episode.  Robert Kardashian’s growing doubts about OJ’s innocence and the glove demonstration in court.

Kardashian was one of OJ’s staunchest supporters in the beginning.  As I recall from my original reading, he began to see OJ’s narcissistic, irrational side which he found offensive.  However, the series writers suggest he was doubting because of the blood evidence and the fact that no other leads were considered by the police.  “There are no other suspects,” he bemoans, according to the script.  

Al Cowling and he are shown opening the suitcase Kardashian was seen removing from OJ’s estate on the 13^th.  They did not know if it was full of the clothes OJ needed when he moved to the Kardashian residence to get away from the press or if it actually contained the missing bloody clothes.  They found nothing incriminating in the bag.  As I recall, the clothesbag used on OJ’s trip to Chicago was that same bag and neither it nor the golf bag had any signs of blood in or on them despite all the press speculation about them.

The showing of the gloves in court was most dramatic.  I do not remember Shapiro checking the gloves nor the by-play between the defense and Darden.  I do remember Clark being against a demonstration when there was no assurance of what the results would be.  The gloves did not fit.  

Not shown were two important facts, one from the prosecution and one from the defense.  Expert witness told Clark and the jury that the gloves fit snuggly.  That is one of their best features and why they are so popular.  They were like a second skin.  Expert witness brought by defense pointed out that these particular gloves do not shrink when dried after being wet.  

There are two common theories about why the gloves did not fit.  One, OJ manipulated his hand to be stiff fingered and hence appeared hard to put on.  The jury had a much better view of that than any media or book writers and they apparently took Johnny Cochran’s words seriously: “If they do not fit, you must acquit.”  Two, the bloody gloves must have skrunk as they dried.  But that was shown not to be so with those very specially-made gloves.  If those were the gloves used by the murderer, they did not fit OJ.  

(Update: An upcoming ESPN special on OJ's life quotes someone as saying OJ stopped taking his meds so that hs hands would swell, hence the gloves would not fit.  However, to get that result, OJ would have had to know two weeks in advance that Darden was going to try the gloves on him.  Darden did not even know that far ahead that he would do it.  Also, swollen hands would have made it hard for OJ to move his fingers well enough to remove the gloves but films from the actual trial showed he had no such difficulty with his hands.)

So far, there are really only two serious points and one speculation made by the series writers that might lead to reasonable doubt: The speculation about the way Nicole was murdered being a drug cartel warning was not followed up on by either side.  Detective Lange’s admission about taking evidence to his home overnight before turning them in, something he never did otherwise was damaging.  Finally was the fact that the gloves did not fit.  Are those enough to counter the spousal abuse motive, the blood evidence, and the lack of an alibi on which the original probable cause had been adjudged?  

Three more episodes may contain more grounds for reasonable doubt . . . or not.  

The People V. . . . Time of Death

One of the problems of the prosecution that may have caused reasonable doubt was that it never had a clear time of death for the murders.  The police missed multiple opportunities to determine it with any degree of accuracy.

The prosecution took one point in time brought forward by a neighbor near Bundy, the wailing dog heard by one witness (but not by others) at 10:15 pm.  That time was never corroborated by any other witness or forensic evidence.  

It was chosen to support the theory that OJ came to Bundy shortly after 10 pm, completed the crime, left the scene, changed clothes, got rid of the knife, shoes, and bloody clothes on the way to Rockingham, accidentally dropped the bloody glove behind Kato Kaelin’s guest apartment at 10:45, went back around to the front of the mansion where the limo driver saw him entering the mansion at 10:55 pm.

However, Nicole’s body was not found until 11:55 pm and Ron’s at 12:17 am when the police arrived in response to a 9-1-1 call.

The coroner was not called in until 9 am.  So he was not in a good position to be able to determine when the deaths occurred and could only estimate they happened somewhere between 9 and 12 the night before.

Phone records in police custody showed that Nicole was talking to her mother about lost eye glasses at 9:40 pm and that Nicole then called Mezzaluna at 9:42 and asked Ron to see if he could find them.  

According to friends, Ron had already clocked out for the day and was having a drink in the bar.  After getting Nicole’s call, he left at 9:50, went home to change, which his friends said would take about a half hour.  He borrowed a car, drove to Bundy, and probably arrived about 10:30.  His timeline might not run so late if he rushed and did not take time to do his normal careful grooming.  He could have shown up as early as a little after 10.  No one who knew him actually saw him after he left Mezzaluna.  A defense witness heard someone yelling “Hey, Hey, Hey!” at Bundy around 10:35.  That might have been Ron intervening in whatever was happening with Nicole about then.

Experts testifying for the defense estimated that, based on the wounds, it would have taken 8 to 15 minutes for the victims to lose enough blood to expire, though they would have been unconscious before that.  Other experts, looking at the defensive wounds noted in the autopsies, estimated that the fight lasted as much as ten minutes.

Based on the defense’s best estimate, the start of the fight would have been about 10:35, proceeded violently based on the defensive wounds, bruises, and abrasions until the two victims collapsed somewhere between 10:42 and 10:50.  If Ron was fastidious before going to see his friend Nicole, he would not have arrived before 10:30 when a defense witness heard arguing and shouting from Bundy and then about 10:47 pm saw a white SUV racing away from there.  

That car was going south and not north so getting back to Rockingham would have taken longer.  That means the bumps heard by Kaelin occurred before the crime ended and OJ, were he the driver, would have had no time to change out of the bloody clothes and into what the limo driver saw entering the mansion at 10:54.  In any case, OJ would have had to change, shower, and get down to the limo by 11:02.  And OJ was considered as careful about his appearance as anyone in the narcissistic milieu of Los Angeles.

The police came upon the scene at Bundy at 12:17.  Inside they saw bathwater that had been drawn and was cooling, candles lit in the bathroom around the tub, and a melting dish of ice cream.  None of these was examined and tested for rate of change, something that might have helped the police determine an estimated time of death.

The prosecution was stuck having to build its case on less than circumstantial evidence related to the time of death.  Their choice of time had to do more with what they felt fit in Kaelin’s thumps on the wall (backed up by the bloody glove found there by Detective Fuhrman) and with OJ’s leaving for Chicago rather than any direct witnesses’ testimony or scientific evidence.  

The jury had no clear narrative about the actual time of death from the prosecution.  The defense's narrative was stronger to explain what happened.

It’s the details that can lead to reasonable doubt or to conviction.  And this one detail was never nailed down by Marcia Clark or Chris Darden.