The People V. . . . Crime Scene at Bundy Drive

On the night of June 12, 1994, in the eastern Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood, on the coast near Santa Monica, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were killed.  Ms. Simpson's condo was near the front of the building on Bundy Drive.  The walkway from the street had attractive shrubbery which shielded the entry on the side of her condo.  The walkway to the street is blocked by a locked gate.  About five feet inside the gate, four stairs take the walkway up past the door of the condo on the left, and then continues back past other ground floor condos to a back gate next to the garages for the building.  The gate and the garages open onto a wide alley that runs parallel to Bundy.

There is a railing along the walkway up the stairs at Nicole's condo.  To the right of the railing is a small yard about five by ten that is enclosed by a fence.  (I found no precise description of the yard's dimensions and estimate the size from a police drawing printed in the book KILLING TIME.)  Nicole's body was found curled on her side in a near-fetal position at the foot of the stairs.  Ron's was found inside the fenced-in yard in a slouched-seated position facing Nicole's body.

Outside, on the stairs and walkway there was blood everywhere, blood that had flowed from the many stab wounds each had suffered before they died.  Neither died instantaneously, hence all the blood on the walkway.  From the blood on the ground, shoe and paw prints were evident to the front and to the back.

Inside the condo, the lights were on in the kitchen where a large kitchen knife sat on the counter near the door.  The lights were also on in the living room where music was playing.  A melting dish of ice cream was sitting on the coffee table.  The bathroom had fragrant candles lit around the tub.  Upstairs, OJ's two young children by Nicole were asleep in their beds.

The bodies were found close to midnight.  The police arrived at 12:17 am.  They find Ron's body in the side yard.  They survey the site.  

At 2:10, Detective Fuhrman and his partner arrive only to be told at 2:50 that the case was assigned to Detectives Van Natter and Lange.  They do no "detecting."

Around 4:00, Van Natter and Lange arrive and take over the investigation.  Around 6:30, they contact the coroner and tell him not too come until later.

The four detectives go back and forth between Bundy and Rockingham more than once.  The two sites are only two miles apart, five minutes drive time.  

The coroner did not arrive until 9 am.

A criminalist does not come to examine the crime scene until 10:10 am.

The People V. . . . Episode Four

The opening exchange between Johnny Cochran and OJ gave Jeffrey Toobin the title of his book, THE RUN OF HIS LIFE.  Cochran found OJ to be desperately depressed and did what he could to boost his morale.  Cochran had already told him he believed in his innocence.  Cochran then told of his own experience with depression.  Some years before, his work was going badly.  He was in divorce.  And he only had a football game against the Packers to watch.  The Packers were in steep decline at the time.  But they played a great game that day, winning and keeping OJ to only one touchdown.  Cochran said that what helped him overcome his own depression was that despite how that game was going, OJ had gotten up after every tackle and went back at it again the next play.  Thanking OJ, he described this trial as the run of his life and challenged him to get up and get after it every time he was knocked down.

This episode offered some information about Ron and Nicole.  The Goldmans described to Marcia Clark what a good guy Ron was and how he had been stabbed so terribly.  (More on the stabbing another time.)  I waited to see if the series writers would include Ron’s excellent athleticism.  But instead of saying Ron was helping coach his brother’s high school tennis team, they only touched on Ron’s volunteering for some children’s program.  That implied that Ron was a weak and helpless victim, a very inaccurate impression to give.

Nicole’s character got no specific information from the writers but they brought up how Black women tended to perceive her as a gold-digger.  And they had the Reznick character talk about cocaine parties and fights with OJ as signs of Nicole’s strength.  But Reznick herself was portrayed as a flake hooked on cocaine.

From my reading on the case, I learned that Faye Reznick indeed was a coke-head.  She stayed at Bundy in Nicole’s condo until a few days before the murders.  The only reason Reznick was not at the condo was that she finally took her friends’ advice and went into residential rehab treatment.   There was a possibility that Reznick had a stash of cocaine for which she had not paid the cartel and it may have been at Bundy the night of the murders.

Nicole and Ron Goldman were considering opening a restaurant together with Reznick.  Many Brentwood area restaurants were financially viable because they were selling cocaine on the side.  But Reznick had to clean up her act or there could have been no deal.  I hope the writers show that it was pure coincidence that Ron showed up when he did and did what he could to save Nicole.

This episode portrays the conflict within the dream team.  Egos were involved.  Shapiro was sometimes condescending as was shown in the scene with F. Lee Bailey.  But probably the telling moment in the conflict was when Shapiro made up a scenario that OJ would admit guilt and plea bargain.  When Cochran and Bailey pushed back, Shapiro asked who believed OJ was guilty.  No one raised a hand, not even Alan Derschowitz.

By this time, the defense had a pretty good idea about the quality of the evidence against OJ and what they could do to show its inadequacy.  They also had something else, a timeline which they felt proved OJ could not have done the murders.  The series writers did not either want to share that information or they did not know of it.  But that the dream team showed unanimous disagreement with Shapiro said a lot.

In a recent article in the papers, family members of the victims complained that no one talked with them before the series was televised.  But no one from the series consulted with anyone but the writer of the book on which the series is based.  OJ was not consulted.  I doubt Shapiro was either!

The writers of the series are writing for drama and not a documentary.  They are taking some license with the story and there seems to be a bias toward the side of the victims’ families and the LAPD.  The closing moments of this episode point to a conflict between Cochran and Chris Darden.  That particular drama will be one subplot to watch for sure but let us not lose sight of the evidence that slips in around the edge of the drama.  That is why I am here.