The Mammoth Book of New Csi (30 page)

The medical examiners then took the bodies away to conduct autopsies. They were both found to have been slain with a knife approximately 6 in. (15 cm) long. Nicole had received four deep wounds. One of them, a slash across the neck, had almost beheaded her. She also had a large contusion to the back of the head, indicating blunt-force trauma. There were cuts to her hands, defence wounds showing that she had tried to fend off the attack. Analysing the wounds, the pathologist concluded that the attacker was probably right-handed and slit her throat, left to right, from behind.

Ronald Goldman also had a large contusion on the back of the head, which suggested he also might have been struck from behind. There were six wounds found on his face and neck and several more on his body, a total of nineteen in all. Some of the wounds intersected, indicating a frenzied attack; four of the lacerations were lethal penetration wounds, fatally damaging internal organs. Hairs were taken from Goldman’s shirt. The shirt itself and cap were also taken as evidence, but they were packaged together in the same bag. Investigators swabbed blood from the various blood pools with wet cotton swatches, which were then sealed in plastic bags before being consigned to a truck.

Meanwhile, investigators took pictures of footprints leading from the bodies. There was a single set, leading them to conclude that there was a lone assailant. Several coins were found along with fresh blood drops behind Nicole’s condo, in the area where the cars were parked – indicating that the attacker had left that way.

After Vannatter returned to the Rockingham Avenue estate, O. J. Simpson had arrived home only to be handcuffed by Patrol Officer Don Thompson and Detective Brad Roberts, Fuhrman’s partner. Vannatter quickly released him, noticing as he did so a bandage on the middle finger of Simpson’s left hand. Once Simpson was arrested, Vannatter would only have forty-eight hours to file charges. As yet, they had little evidence against him. The police needed his cooperation, firstly to get a blood sample from him. Simpson complied, and Detective Philip Vannatter received the vial at 3.45 p.m. However, the vial would not make it into the hands of Dennis Fung, who was responsible for recording the evidence, until 5.30 p.m.

At the Parker Center headquarters of the LAPD, Vannatter interviewed Simpson for thirty-seven minutes. During that time, Simpson gave contradictory accounts of the times he had used his Ford Bronco and how he cut his hand. On one occasion he said that he had cut his hand on a broken glass in his hotel room in Chicago. On another, he said that he had cut his hand in Los Angeles and reopened the wound on the glass in Chicago.

On 16 June, Nicole Brown Simpson was buried in Lake Forest Cemetery, Mission Viejo, in Orange County. Nicole’s mother recalled how, at the wake the day before, Simpson had leant over the open coffin, kissed Nicole on the lips and murmured: “I’m so sorry, Nicki, I’m so sorry.”

Later that day, the police filed a formal complaint. Simpson’s lawyers convinced the Los Angeles Police Department to allow Simpson to turn himself in at 11 a.m. on 17 June 1994, even though the double murder charge meant there was no possibility of bail. It also meant that Simpson could face a death sentence if convicted.

Over a thousand reporters waited at the police station for Simpson, but he did not show up. Simpson had been staying at the house of Robert Kardashian, one of Simpson’s defence lawyers and a personal friend, in the San Fernando Valley. Three patrol cars were sent to Kardashian’s house to get him. The police then learnt that Simpson had left with his close friend Al Cowling in a white Ford Bronco.

At 2 p.m., the LAPD issued an all-points bulletin. At 5 p.m., Kardashian read a letter from Simpson to the media. It said: “First everyone understand I have nothing to do with Nicole’s murder.” It also sent greetings to twenty-four friends and concluded: “Don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve had a great life.”

Simpson’s psychiatrists thought that the letter could be a suicide note. He said later that he was “just gonna go with Nicole”. Another of Simpson’s lawyers, Robert Shapiro, made a television appeal to Simpson to surrender.

The police traced calls from the phone in Simpson’s Bronco, which was then in Orange County. At 6.45 p.m., a police officer saw the Bronco going north on Interstate 405. At the wheel was Al Cowling. When the officer approached the vehicle, Cowling dialled 911 and said that Simpson was suicidal and had a gun to his head. The officer backed off and Simpson’s Bronco headed off at 35 mph (56 km/h). Soon there were twenty police cars following him in a low-speed chase.

Over twenty helicopters carrying news crews joined the pursuit, providing live coverage that was broadcast worldwide. Former University of Southern California American football coach John McKay broadcast an appeal to Simpson to pull over and let himself be arrested, rather than commit suicide.

The chase ended at 8 p.m. at Simpson’s home in Brentwood, having covered 50 miles (80 km). His son Jason ran out of the house to greet him. Simpson remained in the Bronco for another forty-five minutes. Then Simpson was allowed to go inside where he talked to his mother for about an hour. Shapiro arrived at the house and, a few minutes later, Simpson surrendered. A search of the Bronco found $8,000 in cash, a loaded .357 Magnum, a passport, family pictures, a change of clothing and a false beard.

On 20 June, Simpson was arraigned on two counts of first-degree murder and pleaded not guilty to both. The following day, a grand jury was called to determine whether to indict him, but had to be dismissed two days later due to excessive media coverage. It was thought that this might influence its decision. The grand jury had heard from Brentwood resident Jill Shively, who testified that she saw Simpson speeding away from the area of Nicole’s house on the night of the murders. She said that the Bronco almost collided with a Nissan at the intersection of Bundy and San Vicente Boulevard.

Another witness to the grand jury was Jose Camacho, a knife salesman at Ross Cutlery. He said that, three weeks before the murders, he had sold Simpson a 15 in. (38 cm) German-made knife. Neither Shively nor Camacho appeared at the criminal trial as, in the meantime, they had sold their stories to the media. Shively had got $5,000 to talk to the tabloid TV show
Hard Copy
, while Camacho had got $12,500 from the
National Enquirer
.

After a week-long court hearing, the California Superior Court found that there was enough evidence to bring Simpson to trial for the murders. At his second court arraignment on 29 July, when asked how he intended to plea, Simpson said: “Absolutely, 100 per cent, not guilty.”

After the preliminary hearings, the trial was moved from Santa Monica to the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles where there were more African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos and blue-collar workers than in the jury pool in Santa Monica. When the jury was selected, it comprised eight African-Americans, two of mixed descent, one Hispanic and one white. The alternate jury was made up of seven African-Americans, one Hispanic and four white people.

The judge took the jury to visit the crime scene at South Bundy Drive and the Rockingham Avenue estate. Although the legal ruling was that both had to remain as close to their condition on the night of the murder as possible, the defence had been to work on Simpson’s home. All the pictures of scantily clad white females, including a nude photograph of Paula Barbieri, Simpson’s girlfriend at the time of the killings, had been taken down, along with those of his white golfing buddies. These had been replaced by decorous images – photographs of his mother and Martin Luther King, and a print of a famous school integration painting by Norman Rockwell. There was even a Bible on the bedside table in Simpson’s bedroom.

The jurors from downtown LA were not prepared for the opulence of Simpson’s surroundings. He had bought the 6,200 ft
²
(576 m
²
) property for $650,000 in 1977 and spent another $2 million upgrading it over the years. It had seven bathrooms, a tennis court and an Olympic-sized pool, surrounded by waterfalls.

The outcome of the trial was anything but a foregone conclusion. The prosecution had no murder weapon, no good fingerprints and no eyewitnesses to the murders. However, they felt they had enough DNA and crime scene evidence to convict. According to Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark, the “trail of blood from Bundy through his own Ford Bronco and into his house in Rockingham is devastating proof of his guilt”.

From the physical evidence the police collected, the prosecution contended that Simpson drove over to Nicole’s house on the evening of 12 June with the clear intention of killing her. After putting the two children to bed, Nicole opened the front door, either in reply to a knock or after hearing a noise outside. Simpson then grabbed her before she could scream and silenced her with a knife. Forensic evidence from the Los Angeles County coroner suggested that Ron Goldman arrived at the front gate to the townhouse sometime during the attack. Simpson then turned on him, grabbed him a choke-hold and stabbed him repeatedly in the neck and chest with the other hand.

According to the prosecution, Nicole was then lying face down and, after he finished with Goldman, Simpson put his foot on her back, pulled her head back by her hair and slit her throat, severing her carotid artery. Simpson then left a trail of blood from the townhouse into the alley behind. There was also testimony that three drops of blood were found on the driveway near the gate to his house on Rockingham Avenue.

Nicole’s pet Akita had led a neighbour to the crime scene at 11 p.m., leading investigators to conclude that the murders had taken place between 10.15 and 10.40 p.m. The dog had not barked earlier, at the approach of the murderer, suggesting that it knew the killer – further evidence that it was O. J.

Simpson had last been seen in public before the murders at 9.36 p.m. when he returned to the front gate of his house with Kato Kaelin. They had been to a McDonald’s in Santa Monica. Simpson was not seen again until 10.54 p.m., when he left his house in a limousine hired to take him to Los Angeles International Airport on his way to a Hertz convention in Chicago. As it took just five minutes to drive from Nicole’s condo to Simpson’s house, there was plenty of time for him to have carried out the murders, which both the prosecution and defence agreed took place between 10.15 and 10.40 p.m. What’s more, a car similar to Simpson’s white Bronco was seen speeding away from the South Bundy Drive area at 10.35 p.m.

When driver Allan Park arrived with the limousine at the Rockingham Avenue entrance to Simpson’s estate at 10.25 p.m., he said he did not see Simpson’s white Bronco parked there. Park testified that he had been looking for the house number. Next morning, the Bronco was found parked next to the house number – implying that Park would certainly have noticed the Bronco if it had been there at that time. Simpson maintained that it had been parked there for hours. Rose Lopez, a neighbour’s housekeeper, said that she had seen Simpson’s Bronco there but, under cross-examination, was force to admit that she could not remember the precise time. Her testimony was not presented to the jury.

Park pulled up opposite the entrance in Ashford Street, then drove back to the Rockingham Avenue entrance, checking to see which driveway would have best access for the limo. Deciding that the Rockingham entrance was too narrow, he drove back to the Ashford gate. A 10.40 p.m., he buzzed the intercom but got no answer. He looked though the gate and saw that the house was dark except for a dim light coming from a second-storey window – Simpson’s bedroom. Park then made a series of calls from his mobile in an attempt to get the phone number for Simpson’s house.

At the time, Kato Kaelin was on the phone to Rachel Ferrara. At around 10.50 p.m., he heard three thumps against the outside wall of the guest house. Kaelin hung up the phone and went outside to investigate. Instead of venturing directly down the dark pathway where the thumps came from, he walked to the front of the property where he saw Park’s limousine outside the Ashford gate.

At the same time as Park saw Kaelin, he said he saw “a tall black man” of Simpson’s height and build enter the front door of the house from the driveway. Then the lights went on. Simpson finally answered the intercom and explained that he had overslept. He would be at the front gate soon, he said. Kaelin opened the gate to let Park in, and Simpson came out of his house through the front door a few minutes later. His luggage was already outside the front door. Park and Kaelin helped load it into the trunk. Kaelin said that Simpson told him not to touch a small black bag, which he loaded into the limousine himself. Prosecutors believed that the bag contained bloody clothes and the murder weapon. Park testified he saw five bags loaded into the car before Simpson left Rockingham Avenue, but the airport porter, skycap James Williams, counted only three bags when Simpson got out of the car. He said he noticed Simpson standing by a trash can afterwards, which led prosecutors to speculate that Simpson stuffed the small bag into the bin. It was never found.

Both Park and Kaelin testified that Simpson looked agitated. Park said he was sweating profusely and insisted on keeping the air conditioning on all the way to the airport. But other witnesses, such as the ticket clerk at Los Angeles International Airport who checked Simpson in and a flight attendant on the plane, said that Simpson acted perfectly normally. He even signed autographs, the defence said. Detective Ron Phillips testified that, when he called Simpson in Chicago to tell him of the murder of his ex-wife, he sounded shocked and upset, but was strangely uninterested in the way she died. Nor did he enquire about the safety of his children.

Defence lawyer Johnnie Cochran said that Simpson was not sleeping when Park arrived. He was, in fact, packing for the trip to Chicago. Then he went out into the grounds and hit a few golf balls. Those caused the thumps Kaelin had heard when they bounced off the wall of the guest house.

The defence claimed that Simpson was not physically capable of the murders. Ronald Goldman was a fit young man who put up a tremendous struggle against his assailant. Simpson was then a forty-six-year-old whose injuries as a football player had left him with scars on his knees and chronic arthritis. But Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark introduced an exercise video Simpson had made two years earlier that showed Simpson was anything but frail. And Nicole’s sister Denise testified that, during fights in the 1980s, she had seen Simpson physically pick up Nicole, hurl her against a wall and throw her out of the house. Officers found arrest records indicating that Simpson was charged with beating his wife and photographs of Nicole’s bruised and battered face were shown in court. Simpson denied beating his wife, even though he had pleaded
nolo contendere
– “no contest” – to charges in 1989. He did acknowledge that they had “physical altercations” and that they engaged in what he repeatedly referred to as “rassling”. But he denied causing her bruises. Most nights, he said, the skin of her face would appear reddened as she picked her pimples. But Nicole’s friends insisted that Simpson physically abused her and that she was afraid that he was going to kill her. He had a short temper and was a jealous man. There were even reports that he was stalking her.