Did He Get Away With Murder? O. J. Fumbles As The Web Of Evidence Tightens
The Age
Saturday November 30, 1996
Los Angeles.
WHILE in prison awaiting trial for murder, O. J. Simpson published a book entitled I Want to Tell You. This week he told us, but his telling changes any previous evaluation of his surprise acquittal. It now seems not so much a racial verdict by a black jury on a black hero - white America's orthodox belief. It was more the prosecution's incompetence.
In the civil trial brought by families of the murder victims, Mr Simpson's ex-wife Nicole, 35, and her friend Ronald Goldman, 25, Mr Simpson was confronted this week by new evidence. Its freshness often caught him without the glib replies he had previously fashioned - but it strains belief that the prosecutors ignored such damning new allegations.
For 18 months Mr Simpson has obsessively mulled over the criminal trial evidence. At every opportunity he promulgated his own version in calls to television shows, a video, on radio programs, and even an appearance at Oxford in England. His story now appears insufficient and implausible. The old football star is in a new game with different rules he does not fully understand.
The O. J. version was never rigorously tested. In his only US interview, on a black television network, questions were tame. In last year's trial he exercised his right to remain silent.
This time he either testified or forfeited the case, and immediately he made two fundamental mistakes. He contradicted disinterested witnesses who could refute him, and worse, he opposed documented evidence. The conclusion the jury will be invited to draw: Mr Simpson is a liar.
His troubles began on Day 1 as he sat under a photograph of Nicole showing her bruised and cut face after a violent episode early on New Year's Day 1989. Yet Mr Simpson asserted he never struck her; she struck him. The photo raised the question: If she hit him, why was she battered?
The jurors also knew that Mr Simpson later pleaded guilty in court to spousal abuse.
Then came the phone message from his then girl-friend, model Paula Barbieri, on 12 June 1994, the day of the double murder. Chief counsel Daniel Petrocelli, representing the Goldmans, suggested that when Ms Baribieri dumped him, he became enraged, and further blamed Nicole for now being alone. Mr Simpson went to his ex-wife's house where he cut her throat and stabbed Mr Goldman, a waiter, when he arrived to return a pair of spectacles belonging to Nicole's mother.
Ms Barbieri, portrayed by the criminal trial defence team as a loyal lover, will be a witness, possibly next week. She is not totally disinterested, but she will testify about her phone message - backed by vital time sequences on computerised phone records. These put Mr Simpson in his Bronco at 10.03 pm using his mobile phone, whereas he testified that he stayed home until leaving for Los Angeles airport at 11 pm.
Ms Barbieri is backed by another witness, Dr Lenore Walker, a spousal abuse expert who took notes in a jail interview with Mr Simpson before his criminal trial. He told her that Ms Barbieri had dumped him. Dr Walker will draw from her notebook when she appears in court.
Then Mr Simpson contradicted limousine driver Allen Park, who recalled ringing the bell at an apparently empty house while waiting to take Mr Simpson to the airport. Why should Mr Park lie? He has not sold his story like other witnesses. Mr Park is the disinterested witness.
But Mr Simpson's "alibi" was already tattered. During his 80 unaccounted minutes on the night of the murder, he has said, variously, he was chipping golf balls, sleeping, watching TV, showering, packing, moving his car, and as records show, phoning Ms Barbieri.
A surprising omission in Mr Simpson's testimony this week was his refusal to offer any explanation for DNA blood evidence. Tests showed his blood at the murder scene, in his car, and in his kitchen. Mr Goldman's and Nicole's blood were in his Bronco.
His defence will repeat criminal trial charges that Mr Simpson was the victim of sloppy forensic work and a police conspiracy to frame him. His ploy might be that he has no explanation because they have it. But, say observers, why did Mr Simpson not reply to Mr Petrocelli's blood-in-the-Bronco inquiries by demanding: "Ask the police"?
His explanation for the notorious cut on the middle finger of his left hand - as well as three other cuts and seven abrasions on his hands - are now as confused as his alibi. This time he repeated that he cut the finger on a broken glass in Chicago when police called to tell him his ex-wife had been killed. Earlier, he said he slammed the glass down, but police found no blood on the shards. Now he said he could not remember.
MR Simpson also failed to debunk the so-called soft leather shoe evidence. An FBI footwear expert identified footprints at the murder site as $US160 Bruno Magli shoes with a unique sole pattern. Criminal prosecutors could not link them to Mr Simpson, and in a pre-civil trial deposition on oath, Mr Simpson denied owning such "ugly" footwear.
Now, Mr Petrocelli produced a photograph of Mr Simpson wearing such shoes at a football match in 1993. Mr Simpson retorted that it was a fake, presumably because it appeared in the tabloid that American celebrities hate, the National Enquirer. The weekly rejects the suggestion, and published two more photos of Mr Simpson wearing the Maglis in 1993 at a Michigan shoeshine stand.
More apparel trouble came over his jogging suit. Mr Park said he saw a tall male figure in dark clothes entering the Simpson mansion shortly before they left for the airport. Forensic experts also found dark cotton fibres at the crime scene.
Mr Simpson said he never owned such a garment, but again in new evidence, the plaintiffs showed Mr Simpson in similar suit performing in a video exercise weeks before the murders. He testified that he borrowed it from the gym.
Jurors also heard about the extraordinary "chase" -- the slow procession of police cars behind a Bronco driven by Mr Simpson's old football pal, A. C. Cowlings, five days after the killings. The two had visited the cemetery containing Nicole's grave and were returning to the Simpson mansion. When police spotted him, Mr Simpson put a gun to his head.
Unaccountably, an event millions saw on TV across the world, was not introduced as evidence last year. Now, the LA police have issued a transcript of a frantic series of calls from Detective Tom Lange to Mr Simpson's mobile phone, in which he pleads compassionately with Mr Simpson not to commit suicide.
Detective Lange probably saved his life. Mr Simpson compliments him several times as a "good guy' and apologises to the LA Police Department for fleeing from his arrest.
Months later in court, the defence castigated Detective Lange as part of the police conspiracy to frame Mr Simpson. If so, why didn't Mr Simpson yell at Detective Lange on the mobile phone?
Mr Petrocelli will make much of it in his closing speech, asking: Were these the actions of an innocent man? He may also refer to another, unnoticed detail when he questions a later witness.
When a policeman told Mr Simpson in Chicago of his wife's death, he never asked how she was killed. He also didn't mention their two young children, although he knew both were sleeping at Nicole's house.
Other than maintaining poise under pressure, Mr Simpson's testimony this week offered little to further his argument: that he never committed the murders.
But observers caution against underestimating the defence case - as many did before.
O.J.'S OBSTACLES.
HOW DOES HE EXPLAIN THE BLOOD?
Simpson time and again told the jury that he had no explanation for the physical and scientific evidence.
He simply did not know how blood ended up in his Ford Bronco, in his driveway, in his foyer and in his bathroom within hours of the murders. He could not explain how blood consistent with his DNA turned up at the crime scene. Or how blood consistent with the victims ended up smeared in his Bronco.
Petrocelli: You have no explanations on how blood matching your blood or DNA matching your DNA was found in that Bronco?
Simpson: That's correct.
Petrocelli: And you have no explanation for how Nicole's blood was found on the carpet?
Simpson: No.
Petrocelli: And you have no explanation for how the blood of Ronald Goldman got in your car?
Simpson: No.
Petrocelli: No explanation for this jury?
Simpson: None.
Simpson indicates to Lange during their mobile phone hook-up that he is going to kill himself:
This (the gun) is not to keep you guys away from me. This is for me.
Later Simpson says: Ah, just tell them I'm all sorry. You can tell them later on today and tomorrow that I was sorry and that I'm sorry that I did this to the Police Department.
THE FIVE NOT-SO-EASY PIECES.
1. CUTS TO THE HAND.
Petrocelli pressed Simpson to explain how he got the cut on the middle finger of his left hand as well as seven other nicks and scratches that were recorded in an examination by his doctor five days after the murder. Simpson said he cut his middle finger on a glass in his hotel room in Chicago but couldn't recall how it happened.
2. SHOES OF A FOOTBALLER.
After the criminal trial, a freelance photographer produced a photo purporting to show Simpson wearing Bruno Magli shoes at a 1993 football game. A footprint expert testified that the bloody footprints at the crime scene were made by a size 12 Bruno Magli shoe. Simpson wears size 12 but denied ever owning Bruno Maglis.
3. THE CELLULAR PHONE CALL.
In a transcript of Simpson's cellular phone conversation with police during his slow-speed flight in the Bronco, LAPD Detective Tom Lange told Simpson to come home and surrender, adding: "No one's going to be hurt." Simpson's reply: "I'm the only one that deserves it." Simpson testified that he did not remember that particular exchange. But he did acknowledge telling Lange: "You've been honest with me from the very beginning. . . . I know you're doing a good job." Later, Simpson would accuse the police of framing him, however, he never once protested that the police had planted evidence and never once demanded that they hunt for the real killer, as he acknowledged this week.
4. THE LIE DETECTOR TEST.
Petrocelli asked Simpson about a lie-detector test he took two days after the murders in which he scored a "minus 22," a score that Petrocelli said meant "extreme deception." Simpson acknowledged that his defense team wired him to a lie detector machine three days after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. He insisted that he did not take a formal polygraph test - just learned how the machine operated.
5. THE NOTE.
Simpson was asked about the note he wrote on 17 June, 1994, the day he was supposed to turn himself in to police but instead left in a Ford Bronco driven by his friend Al Cowlings. It was suggested that the date of the note - five days after the murders - showed that Simpson's despair had more to do with his imminent arrest than with grief over his ex-wife's death, a suggestion that Simpson denied. In the letter, Simpson bade farewell to friends and referred to himself as a battered husband. "In this scenario, who battered who?" Simpson was asked. "I meant to convey that at times I felt battered," Simpson replied, adding that he "kept a log" of the incidents when his ex-wife initiated physical altercations.
WHERE HE IS VULNERABLE: THE EXPERTS' ASSESSEMENT.
* Limousine driver Allan Park said that when Simpson finally answered his gate buzzer on the night of the murders, Simpson apologised and said he'd overslept; Simpson denied that.
This account questions how Simpson could have been napping at a time when Simpson says he was packing and showering.
* Simpson house guest Brian "Kato' Kaelin said Simpson wore a dark jogging suit on the evening of the murders; Simpson denied ever owning any such clothing, though he did wear a similar outfit in an exercise video made a few weeks before the killings. Simpson said he did not keep that jogging suit.
Investigators found dark-colored cotton fibers at the crime scene, fibre that might have been consistent with a dark jogging suit.
* Lenore Walker, a nationally renowned domestic violence expert, recorded in her notes of an interview with Simpson that he told her he had received a long message from his girlfriend, Paula Barbieri, the morning before the murders; Simpson denied telling Walker anything of the sort.
Walker's notes cast doubt on Simpson's insistence that he never received a message from Barbieri ending their relationship, a message she has said she left him on the morning of 12 June. Simpson and Goldman were killed that night; lawyers for their families have suggested Simpson's raged at learning his girlfriend had ended their relationship was, in part, a motive to kill.
* Barbieri has said she saw Simpson's passport on a night stand before he took off with Al Cowlings on the famous Bronco chase; Simpson testified that Barbieri was mistaken.
* Simpson testified that he had only one serious cut on his hand the day after the murders; lawyers for the plaintiffs say Skip Taft, Simpson's longtime friend and personal lawyer, noticed a second cut on Simpson's left hand that day.
In each of the above examples, Simpson's version of events squares with his innocence, while the other version tends to raise doubts.
© 1996 The Age
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