[TV static]
[static intensifies]
[tense music playing]
[indistinct crowd chatter]
[male reporter 1] It's a scene of anticipation in front of the courthouse.
[female reporter] This is a day we've all waited for for more than a year.
The verdict is in.
[male reporter 2] There is no doubt that this will go down in history.
[man] I remember my wife came up along my right side
and she looked at me and she goes,
"They're going to blame this all on you."
Thirty years later, it's a monster,
and it keeps devouring everything in its path.
…every Black!
It says if it doesn't fit, then you must acquit.
Our case was Hollywood.
It had anything and everything Hollywood could want.
[male reporter 3] Fourteen units now converged on this location.
You had celebrity.
[male reporter 4] Anything to tell us?
Money.
[crowd] Release the Fuhrman tapes!
You had race.
The cover-up continues.
And then of course, there was murder.
Our search is for the truth to determine who is responsible.
You hear all of this talk about the search for truth.
I wonder whose truth are we talking about?
I was raised to trust the process,
but I don't think justice truly exists when your loved one is brutally murdered.
[male reporter 5] Now let's go to the courtroom. The moment has arrived.
Who's nervous? Is anybody nervous? Yeah.
[judge] Deputy Trower, let's have the jurors, please.
Mr. Simpson, would you please stand and face the jury.
[music intensifies]
I believe
justice can be different things to different people.
[female juror] Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles.
In the matter of the people of the state of California
versus Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA097211.
We the jury in the above entitled action
find the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson…
[crackling]
[music distorts]
[tense music playing]
[music continues]
[man] At ten o'clock that evening,
I was watching the news in the bedroom on the third floor
with my wife.
Life in Southern California means living on the fault line.
I became aware of a barking.
[dog barking]
And all of a sudden I heard two voices.
Well, the first one I heard was a clear male, young adult voice
that said, "Hey, hey, hey."
Then I watched The Dick Van Dyke Show and that ended at just prior to 10:30.
Oh, this isn't right. I look like a strangler.
Shortly after the end of The Dick Van Dyke Show, I walked my dog.
I saw that there was a dog at the corner of Dorothy and Bundy.
I figured that this was a lost dog.
Stephen Schwab had a dog he said he had found.
We decided we would take the dog for a walk
and maybe it will know its way home.
It took us down off Bundy.
I was looking at the paws and the legs.
It was a white dog and it had what I thought was brown mud on it.
And suddenly it wanted to go to the other side of the road.
On the other side it stopped and turned and looked at the walkway.
So I looked in the direction where the dog is.
I remember blood coming down the walkway,
but I looked away very quickly.
And I said, "You have to call 911. There's a dead body."
- [music stops] - [crackling]
[sirens wailing]
[ominous music playing]
[man] In 1994, I was working as a D2,
that's a detective sergeant, in Homicide in the West LA Division.
- I had 19 years on the job. - [female reporter] Detective Mark Fuhrman.
[male reporter] LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman.
What do you believe happened that night?
[music intensifies]
Well, I wasn't supposed to be to work on Monday.
So, I get home at 1:05. The phone in the kitchen rings.
We've got a homicide on Bundy in Brentwood.
And I said, "Well, I'm not on call."
And he goes… "Yeah, I know, but I want you to handle this."
"Okay, I'm on my way."
A good cop, in my eyes, is somebody that's highly perceptive
of the environment they're in.
As far as a detective, you have to be organized.
Uh, organized in your head and organized in your task.
I get to 875 Bundy at about 2:10.
We contact Officer Riske,
a uniformed officer who was the first officer at the scene.
[static crackles]
So he briefs us.
We observed a female, white, in a black dress,
laying in a puddle of blood on the walkway.
- [camera clicks] - [music continues]
[Fuhrman] It looked like she had lighter hair,
but it was all mixed with blood.
And I saw something in the bushes.
[music intensifies]
There was a male, another victim,
a few feet from her that was on his back.
Could not tell the cause of death.
We really didn't know if we had a shooting incident,
uh, an edged weapon, blunt force.
We really didn't know exactly what took place there.
There's a detachment that you have, that you have a job to do.
The shock of these two poor people
being killed and left on a sidewalk
really doesn't enter right then.
About 2:30, my partner, Brad Roberts, shows up at the scene.
Took me out and showed me where the victims were at.
We looked at the bodies laying on the ground.
Blood running out of her head, going down the sidewalk.
Officer Riske, when he walked us through,
he pointed out a dark-colored stocking cap…
[camera clicks]
and a glove.
From that first observation, it looked like one glove.
It looked like a leather glove.
It looked like it was fairly large.
We looked at all the blood evidence and some footprints.
It seemed like the suspect running away
down the walkway towards the back gate where they fled.
[ominous music continues]
I point out some blood drops that had been dropped on the gate.
And Roberts goes, "Well, there's a bloody fingerprint on the turnstile."
Beautiful, bloody imposed fingerprint on a brass turnstile
which opened the gate in the back.
And I go, "No shit!" [laughs]
That, of course, went in my notes.
It's got to be forensically collected and photographed at the location.
It looked to be blood smudge on that leading to what I saw
might be a possible fingerprint or a partial fingerprint.
I was trying to take in everything I could.
We went to the rear of the house.
The garage was open.
We walked into the residence.
There was two children upstairs.
They had been taken to West LA Station.
- [camera clicks] - We have two victims.
We don't know the cause of death.
I had no idea how these two people fit together yet.
[camera clicks]
But she had no shoes on.
He had shoes on.
[camera clicks]
I'm starting to kind of connect up that the woman that had no shoes on
was probably in the house.
At that point, Officer Riske walked back inside and saw something.
Right by the front door, there was a letter.
It had an O.J. Simpson as a return address.
[eerie music playing]
[Fuhrman] This is Nicole Brown Simpson's house.
She's the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson.
Okay.
This is going to be a media event.
Ladies and gentlemen, here is O.J. Simpson.
- [male commentator 1] O.J. Simpson. - ♪ O.J. Simpson ♪
- [man 1] O.J. Simpson. - [man 3] O.J. Simpson.
[male reporter] He was, by some accounts,
the most popular player ever to glide across football's gridiron,
winning the Heisman Trophy.
You've got to work to be successful, and I don't consider that a sacrifice.
- I wanted the ball. - [male commentator 2] He has 2,000 yards.
O.J. Simpson has broken
what seemed to be an insurmountable barrier.
Producers come to me and ask me if I can act.
I said, "Sure, I can try to act."
[captivating music playing]
- [man] O.J. Simpson. - His image is almost the same as mine.
What is driving O.J. Simpson? That need to be liked?
When I walk down the street, I want people to know me.
"That's O.J. Simpson."
- [upbeat theme song playing] - [man] Ladies and gentlemen, O.J. Simpson.
[cheering]
It's funny. All my life, everything I've ever wanted,
I've been able to get.
[ominous music playing]
I was driving to a market called Westward Ho in Brentwood.
[male reporter] This witness, who does not want her real name used…
Tell us about that Sunday night.
As I'm approaching Bundy, a car did run the red light.
The white SUV went up onto the center median part.
So the Bronco went up on the median and stopped.
It had to stop because it was blocked by the other car.
The driver gave me a really mean look.
Gave me a look.
Like I had done something to him.
You know, like he was really angry. Like it was my fault or something.
I recognized him as a football player.
He was screaming and freaking out. "Get the car out of here! Get out! Move!"
Then I recognized his voice because I had just seen a movie with this guy in it.
It was a Naked Gun movie.
Police! Throw down your guns!
I recognized the voice as being O.J. Simpson.
[male reporter] According to the witness, the traffic altercation with O.J. here
happened right around the time of the murders.
O.J. backed off the median
and went around north on Bundy and took off.
[music fades out]
[man] My dream was to become famous.
[woman] Have a seat on the witness stand and state and spell
your first and last names for the record.
Brian Kato Kaelin, B-R-I-A-N.
I became famous for the worst possible reason.
[intense music playing]
Within a day or two, the media made me a celebrity, a liar, a freeloader,
an assassin's target, everything,
because people are so still fascinated with the obsession of a celebrity.
[male reporter 1] Simpson's infamous houseguest.
- [woman] It's Kato Kaelin. - [man] Kato Kaelin.
I was actually going to sit on the couch, but
I might stay.
I came out to California to pursue an acting career.
Nicole and I became friends in December 1993.
Her friendship meant a lot to me.
I think the big thing was that I could be trusted around her kids.
Nicole got a puppy, it was an Akita,
and the kids were all contemplating, "What can we name the dog?"
And they all settled on calling the dog Kato.
[male reporter 2] The plaintive wail of Nicole's dog Kato.
So there was two Katos now, me and the dog Kato.
The relationship of O.J. and Nicole, it was like an elevator.
It kept going up and down, off and on, off and on…
[O.J. Simpson] My wife, Nicole, who came into my life
at what is probably the most difficult time for an athlete,
at the end of my career,
and she turned those years into some of the best years I've had in my life, babes.
When they were in love, they were in love. It was like,
"You can see this couple's a great couple."
And then when they weren't, "These people shouldn't be together."
And so it was hard to know where they were at in their relationship.
They were divorced, and then they did end up dating again.
Speaking of that lady…
- [man] There she is. - With another shot of tequila.
[Kaelin] My opinion was, I think that O.J. doesn't like to lose,
and thinks he could get her back no matter what.
There's one thing Nicole was always quite adamant about,
was that I was a great father.
Even when we were divorced and apart,
when she had personal problems, she came to me.
I don't think a woman would do that
if she felt that this person was insensitive or abusive
and certainly not jealous or possessive.
And I think it just boiled down to that
he finally knew that she could actually move on,
and I think it devastated him.
I was actively searching for a place,
and O.J. offered me, in the meantime, while I look for a place, he said,
"I've got an extra bungalow."
"You can have the bungalow until you find a place."
[gentle, eerie music playing]
I'm on the phone talking to my friend. I was leaning against the bed.
Then all of a sudden, I heard this noise.
I heard a thumping noise.
And it's a pounding, and it was sort of like
three different noises, three different thumps.
And the picture moves.
The picture just moved like it was an earthquake.
And I said to my friend, "I think we had an earthquake. Did you feel that?"
And she says, "No."
And it had to have been caused by something.
Next thing you know, I'm hearing this ringing.
[intercom rings]
A ringing coming from an intercom,
and I think that's the door to be let into the gate
because someone's out there.
[intercom rings]
So I go out of my guesthouse door, and I go down the pathway,
and there's a limo driver in the limo.
[woman] Sir, as of June 12th, can you tell us where you were employed?
Uh, I was employed for Town and Country Limousine.
[intercom rings]
My order was to pick up Mr. Simpson at 360 Rockingham.
There is an intercom at the gate,
and I was using that intercom to buzz the house.
At that time, a white male… walked from behind the house area.
That's when I ran out and saw the limo.
He asked me if I felt an earthquake.
[music intensifies]
After that, I saw a figure just about where the driveway starts,
come into the entranceway of the house,
six foot, 200 pounds, all dark clothing.
[woman] Could you tell whether the person was Caucasian or African American?
Uh, Black.
[woman] Could I ask the court to ask the defendant to stand, please?
This'd be the size of the person you saw enter the front entrance
of the house at Rockingham?
Yes.
I buzzed the intercom a few more times.
This time there was an answer, which was Mr. Simpson.
He told me that he overslept, and he just got out of the shower,
and he'd be down in a minute.
So O.J. at some point came out when the limo driver was there,
and he was at the door.
Didn't talk about anything. He was rushing to go to the airport.
The limo opened up the trunk and I helped put luggage in.
And while that's going on, I saw there was another separate bag.
Small duffel bag.
And I started walking towards that bag when O.J. says, "No, no, I'll get that."
And even back then I was thinking,
"Well, that's kind of strange. Why he didn't want me to get that bag."
[music intensifies]
Mr. Simpson said, "We got to go," and we drove off.
[music peaks and continues subdued]
[Park] I pulled up to the American Airlines Terminal 5.
My name is Skip Junis.
I was at LAX to pick my wife up,
and I was parked out in front by where the skycaps usually work.
I was the only car there until a limousine pulled up.
Popped the trunk. Mr. Simpson got out.
And that's when O.J. Simpson got out of the limousine.
[Park] We started to take bags out of the trunk,
and at that time, he asked me to go get a skycap.
He did something that stood out.
He had Louis Vuitton luggage,
but he was holding this cheap canvas bag.
I watched him interact with the skycap and the limo driver.
He did not want them to touch that bag.
He had one of the duffel bags kind of strapped over his shoulder.
And I saw him go immediately to the trash can.
And he unzipped the bag.
And then he would pull something out and put it immediately in the trash can.
It looked like there was something long that maybe was wrapped in a cloth.
And then he meandered into the terminal.
[ominous music playing]
[woman] And were you aware of where that flight was going to?
Uh, I believe Chicago.
[plane engine roars]
[tense music playing]
I go back into the residence, and at about that time, Ron Phillips,
Detective Phillips, my boss,
comes in and says that Robbery-Homicide is taking the case.
I learned that I was supposed to turn this case over to Robbery-Homicide
as per Chief Frankel.
It was no longer our responsibility.
It was best for us to now leave the crime scene,
go back out, and wait for their arrival, and see if they had instructions
on what they wanted us to do since it was now their case.
To have Robbery-Homicide take the case was a no-brainer.
Of course they are. It was just a matter of when they get here.
[Lange] I was assigned to the Robbery-Homicide Division
called Homicide Specials.
It handles high-profile cases such as
celebrity cases, organized crime cases, serial killing cases,
these types of things.
- [female reporter] Your first name? - Tom.
[male reporter] Los Angeles Homicide Detective Tom Lange.
Tom Lange, T-O-M L-A-N-G-E.
At the time, I had something like 20 years of homicide investigation experience,
roughly 200 to 250 cases.
We have a saying out of the homicide manual
that you alone… step into the shoes of the murder victim,
and no one else ever is going to do that.
You alone can do something about this.
You're there for the victims.
Two detectives from Robbery-Homicide show up.
Tom Lange and Phil Vannatter.
[Lange] Scene was cordoned off. The rear alley was cordoned off.
That's one of the first things the detectives want to do
so you don't step on evidence.
[man] Did Detective Phillips point anything out to you?
- Yes, he did. - [man] What did he point out to you?
He illuminated a white envelope…
that was lying there on the ground.
- [music intensifies] - [camera clicks]
[Lange] It's slightly open, between the two bodies.
A business envelope, appears to have something in it.
Later we find out it was glasses.
It was obviously some type of a crime of violence.
It looked like probably a knife attack of some type.
It was evident that the woman was nearly decapitated.
It's obvious the footwear impressions
are going in this direction, fleeing the scene.
It's obvious that the blood tails in conjunction with that.
Perhaps the suspect is wounded on the left side of his or her body.
I know we're going to get a size from the footwear impressions.
Of great import is the fact two children who were sleeping in the house
had been removed through the garage by the police.
They were at West LA Station.
[camera clicks]
So we know that she was there with the children,
the estranged wife of O.J. Simpson.
The commander makes a decision, "Well, we need to contact O.J. Simpson
because he will, no doubt, want his children back,
and no doubt, want to know what happened."
We need to talk to him immediately because the media is gonna be all over this.
[indistinct shouting]
The former husband, wit 1, the first only witness we may have here,
is going to be a major part of this investigation.
It was our intention, myself and my partner,
to go up there and meet Mr. Simpson.
Hi, I'm O.J. Simpson.
We need to know him. We need to meet him.
Ultimately, interview him regarding this murder,
and we believe that Phillips and Fuhrman may be able to assist us
in the handling of the situation.
And Detective Phillips had informed us
that Detective Fuhrman had been to the location on a prior incident
back a number of years.
[music stops]
It was a holiday, and there was a lot of people that were off,
uh, for a New Year's Eve party,
and we walk up the driveway.
Nicole is by a Mercedes convertible.
The windshield has been smashed,
and she's just uncontrollably crying.
Simpson is off to the left,
and he's holding a baseball bat,
and he's got this look on his face, like complete rage.
And I said to Nicole, "Look, are you okay?"
"If you want to make a report, I'll take a report."
"It's the only way I can do something."
And she says, "No, I'm fine."
I said something to her that has come back to me a thousand times.
I said to her, "It's your life."
So now we have the two detectives that just assumed a double homicide
of a possible ex-wife of O.J. Simpson.
They have a hot crime scene,
and you're going to an ex-husband's house
to notify them their ex-wife is dead.
[intense music playing]
With four detectives?
You do not leave your crime scene.
I'm doing some eye rolling, but, you know, it's not my case.
They left it.
[Lange] We pull up to Rockingham.
By the gate, there's a phone.
We go to the phone. Nobody answers inside.
In front of the metal gate, I see a white Bronco parked at the curb,
kind of sticking out like someone pulled in and didn't straighten it out.
And I'm thinking in the back of my mind, "These are huge estates."
"Everybody has gates."
"Why would somebody leave a car out here like this?"
I'm walking around the Bronco, and I'm shining the light.
I'm looking, and I look at the handle,
and there's these little spots.
And I look at it real close…
And he says, "I think it might be blood on the door."
I could see it's got that dark brown, reddish,
with the little edges that are kind of translucent,
the way blood just kind of dries.
[camera clicks]
Lange and Vannatter are talking, Phillips talking.
I'm deferring because I'm the junior detective,
and I'm listening. At a point, I kind of interrupted,
and I said, "Look, we just came from a double homicide."
"We have some unexplained nature to this Bronco."
"I see what I believe to be blood. "
"This is Simpson's estate."
"We at least need to get in to make sure somebody isn't dead,
dying, injured, something."
"We need to make contact."
[Lange] Exigent circumstances.
If you believe in your mind there's an emergency,
you have an obligation to investigate it.
All we need to do is knock on the door and find out everybody's okay.
That's it.
How we gonna get in? Just went over the wall,
released the hydraulic arm on the gate.
[Lange] Fuhrman opens the gate and the four of us go in,
go up to the front door,
and we bang on the front door.
No one answers.
So we look to the side, which would be the north side.
There's a little pathway going to the rear.
And we see these bungalows. There's two or three bungalows there.
We go up to the first one, and we bang on the door.
This male, white, opens the door.
A little guy, slight build, long blond hair.
It was, uh, four detectives from the LAPD.
Detective Fuhrman was one of the gentlemen,
and he asked me, with a flashlight in my face,
if I did any drugs, anything. I said, "No, nothing."
"Is Simpson on premises?"
And he goes, "No, he went to Chicago."
He says that he went to some meeting and golf outing,
and that he would be back the following night.
And they asked me who lived in the other bungalow.
I explained that Arnelle,
O.J.'s daughter from his first marriage, lives there.
Vannatter, Lange, and Phillips all take off for that bungalow.
[scoffs] "We don't know who this guy is."
We're not just going to put our backs to this guy.
And I just stayed with him.
[Lange] Arnelle comes to the door, and I ask her,
"What's going on in the house?"
She says, "Well, I have a key."
Okay, so she goes and gets the key.
So Phil stays with her, I go in the house, looking around,
place is immaculate, no problems.
Meanwhile, we know that Simpson's back in Chicago.
We need to make a notification.
Ron Phillips calls O.J.
A male voice, which I recognize as Mr. Simpson's voice, answers the phone,
and I ask him, I said, "Is this O.J. Simpson?"
And he stated, "Yes, who's this?"
I said, "This is Detective Phillips from the LAPD."
"I have some bad news for you."
He didn't tell him how, but he said, your wife has died.
[Phillips] "Your ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, has been killed."
I think his first words were something to the effect,
"Oh my God, Nicole was killed," or "Oh my God, she's dead."
And then he got very upset on the telephone.
"We need to get you to come back here."
"Uh… We have the children."
And he stopped and he said,
"What do you mean my children are at the police station?"
I said, "We had no place else to take 'em."
At that time he said, "I'm gonna be leaving out of Chicago
on the first available flight."
[Lange] Doesn't ask about what happened or anything else.
Not a lot of questions from Simpson.
He's never asked, "By the way, how are my kids doing?"
Or, "How did she die? Who would kill her?"
We don't get any of that, which just doesn't make any damn sense.
[mysterious music playing]
[Fuhrman] I just stayed in this bungalow with Kato.
And I said, "Hey, did anything unusual happen last night?
And I told him, "I don't know if this means anything,
but this picture…" I showed him the picture,
"…moved on my wall."
"And I heard this noise. Did we have an earthquake?"
"What do you mean, earthquake?" So I just stop.
I just walk outside and I kind of orient myself.
Where's Kato's south wall?
And just exactly what was he talking about?
So then I see I have to go around.
And then I come down this walkway.
I'm looking around and then I look down.
And I looked at this object.
[music intensifies]
And it looked like…
[camera clicks]
…a glove.
It's that kind of "holy shit" moment.
[camera clicks]
I realized that looks like the same glove that's at Bundy.
And I said, "Detective Lange, let me show you something."
It looks like it's a right-handed glove.
You can kind of see the thumb.
We know that it's a left-handed glove at Bundy.
At that moment…
this was a crime scene.
We now need to obtain a search warrant before we can search for anything.
[woman] When you came back out with Detective Lange, what happened next?
Detective Lange and Vannatter, um, were involved in conversation.
Phil and I decide, well, Phil's going to go back.
He's gonna do the search warrant.
I'm going to return to the crime scene and start the crime scene investigation.
There's a bunch of discussion, and Vannatter says…
I ask him to go back to the Bundy location to look at the other glove
and to, um… make sure that I was seeing what I was seeing.
And he goes, "Go to Bundy, get close to the glove, look at it…"
To see if there was a similarity, if we had a right and a left.
I go back to Bundy. There's a photographer that was there.
Detective Phillips instructed me to get a photographer
to photograph the glove in its original position,
and if I needed to, move it to inspect it any further.
We could, in other words, photo it as we originally found it.
So I had to figure out how I'm going to step over Nicole,
not step in blood,
squat down, inspect the glove,
and get out without stepping, tripping over, or walking in blood.
[camera clicks]
Somehow… I did it.
[camera clicks]
[Lange] Back at Bundy, the press was starting to show up.
The word is out. They're already making inquiries.
When the sun came up… we've got a problem.
[tense, dramatic music playing]
I will never forget that day.
I got a phone call from the managing editor.
He said, "We have a situation in Brentwood
where O.J. Simpson's wife has been murdered."
And I remember thinking, "Well, you don't have murders in Brentwood very often."
I made my way down to the crime scene there,
and it was quite the scene.
The situation just wasn't your run-of-the-mill murder.
You knew it involved O.J. Simpson. You knew it was in Brentwood.
And those two things there meant that this was a case
very different from anything you'd covered before.
[male reporter 1] The body of 34-year-old Nicole Brown Simpson,
ex-wife of O.J. Simpson, was found after midnight.
[male reporter 2] She used to be married to former football star, O.J. Simpson.
They will not say whether Mr. Simpson is a suspect.
They're setting up cameras, 112 feet, I measured it,
across the street, on the knoll, looking down on Nicole's body.
Cameras that could highlight a human hair at 200 feet.
The body is evidence. Everything on the body is evidence.
It has to be protected from compromise.
First job at a crime scene is to protect the evidence.
I'm not gonna be able to sit down, whether it's O.J. Simpson or another suspect,
and discuss with that person evidence to see if they know something.
If I see all of that evidence on the news tonight from one of those cameras,
I've lost it.
I had an officer go inside. I said, "I want you to find
a clean, hospital-type blanket… to cover the body."
You do the last thing that you want to do,
and that's notify a family of a death notification.
I've done that several times. It's the worst part of being a cop.
She has parents living in Orange County, in the South Bay area, the Browns.
And I said, "I'm sorry to have to tell you that your daughter's been killed."
And then I hear the screaming.
"That MF-er, that son of a bitch, he killed her!" On the phone.
And I said, "Oh my God, he finally did it."
And he said, "Who?"
And, of course, I said his name.
The woman screaming is Denise, the older sister of Nicole.
"It's O.J., it's O.J. I know he did it."
"That son of a bitch, he's gonna do this? That MF-er." All this screaming.
He did it. You murdered Nicole. You know you did it.
In my mind, he would be a potential suspect.
When I say potential, that's somebody we need to talk to.
Okay, what time did he get on the flight?
Let's get the limo driver.
My order was to pick up Mr. Simpson at 10:45.
What time was he here? What did he see?
We need a time of death.
I became aware of a barking.
We need all these things to start to create the timetable.
It seems like it would be quite a leap that this guy committed two murders,
took a shower, cleaned up,
got into a limo, got to the airport, got to Chicago.
[tense music builds]
At Bundy, they've got a very difficult crime scene to process.
We gotta get everything we can get done before the media sticks their nose in it
and just gets in the way of things.
I want criminalists, I want print people,
I want photographers, and I want other people to expand our search.
My name is Dennis Fung.
Dennis Fung is a criminalist at the crime scene.
When he records evidence, it's got to be photographed.
[camera clicking]
It's got to be collected by him in a certain manner.
I never worked with Dennis before. I didn't know him.
He seemed bright.
I don't think he had a lot of experience with high-profile cases.
The nature of the processing by police,
there just were a lot of people there,
and we're still trying to figure out who the other guy was.
[camera clicking]
Eventually, the second victim was identified as Ron Goldman.
He was a young man that's obviously been in some kind of a fight,
an altercation,
been stabbed several times.
[music stops]
[gentle, ominous music playing]
[woman] I went home as I normally did after my shift was over at the bank,
and my boyfriend at the time was home, which was unusual.
He looked at me square in the eye, said, "You need to call your dad."
And I'm like, "I'm good. I just walked in the door."
"No, you need to call your dad."
And then I started thinking that maybe this was Joe's way of
luring me into the guest bedroom 'cause he was gonna propose to me. [laughs]
So, I unsuspectingly went in there, and then when there was no ring,
I'm like, "I guess I'm here. I might as well call my dad."
And my dad picked up, and my dad's wife got on the phone,
and they said, "Did you see the news today?"
And I said, "No." "You didn't see the news?" I said, "No."
"Did you see O.J. Simpson?"
"What is happening? What are you talking about?"
And then my dad told me that my brother died, and…
And then I just remember, like, dropping to my knees
and kind of just spiraling at that point, and then…
The first time that I heard what actually happened to him
was a couple hours later in the car.
The radio was on, and the newscaster said
that today Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman
were found slaughtered to death in Brentwood, California.
It's a vicious cycle, because I don't want to be here.
And I don't want to do this.
But if I wasn't, my brother wouldn't be part of it.
And so…
I have to… and other victims and survivors,
whether they're high-profile or not, we have to keep doing this.
If there is an opportunity for me to educate and to soften you
and to remind you that it wasn't just about the killer.
[crying] My brother was barely 25 years old and lost his entire life
because somebody else thought that they had the power to take it.
[solemn music playing]
My brother and I were exceptionally close.
He was funny, he was gregarious, his energy was infectious.
My brother moved to Brentwood,
fell in love with the sunshine, the beach, the women, the carefree mentality.
He was in his early twenties,
just trying to figure out what he wanted to do.
We don't get to spend much time together, so I'm very glad I was able to be here
and spend this time with you 'cause God knows where I'll be in a year.
We raced to the airport,
got on a flight,
and I just collapsed into my dad's arms.
[music fades out]
We're learning more about the man who was killed beside Nicole Simpson.
[male reporter 1] The man who was murdered with Nicole Simpson was Ron Goldman.
Over time, we found out that the second murder victim was Ron Goldman,
a waiter at Mezzaluna, a restaurant not far away.
[male reporter 2] The Mezzaluna co-workers still say, for all they know,
Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman were just friends.
My brother and Nicole knew each other from Brentwood.
It's a very small "bedroom community,"
so everybody kind of ran in the same circles.
Um, they were friends.
I don't think I connected why he was there
until we learned the information about him returning the glasses.
Nicole and her family went for dinner at Mezzaluna.
[Lange] Nicole's mother, Judith Brown, lost her glasses at the Mezzaluna.
She didn't know where, so she called Nicole.
Nicole, now, said she'd phoned the Mezzaluna,
so I ran phone records.
It was at 9:42.
That was the last anybody heard from Nicole.
The assistant manager went outside,
and in the gutter outside finds the prescription glasses.
Tells that to Ron Goldman.
He says, "I know her."
"I can drop those glasses by the house when I get off."
[camera clicks]
He was just willing to do whatever he could for anybody,
and so he offered to drop them off.
[eerie music playing]
The photographer followed Roberts and I back to Rockingham.
So we got back there about 7:30.
It was daylight, and Mark had taken me to the Bronco
and showed me the blood smudge that was by the door handle of the car.
And I went around to the passenger side, and I looked inside of it,
and I said, "Mark, get over here and take a look at this."
There was blood everywhere inside the Bronco.
There was blood on the steering wheel, blood on the center console.
It was all over the inside of that car.
[Fuhrman] And then Brad walks to the rear of the vehicle,
and he goes, "Huh, blood drops."
[camera clicks]
[Roberts] There was multiple blood drops going through the back of the Bronco,
and then all the way up the driveway right to the front door.
And I go, "You're shitting me."
[ominous music playing]
While we were waiting for the search warrant,
I took two phone calls.
I pick up the first phone call from Ron Shipp.
He was an officer on LAPD.
He was friends with Simpson.
I got a page from my mother.
She goes, "O.J. Simpson's wife, ex-wife, just died."
[music intensifies]
[male reporter] Shipp's a former LAPD cop
and was also a longtime friend of O.J. Simpson's.
How and when did you first hear about the murders, Ron?
First thing I did, just out of… shock, you know, I called the house.
I called the house, and Mark Fuhrman answered the phone.
I knew Mark pretty good.
And I said, "Mark."
I said, "Is Nicole dead?"
- [music stops] - And he said, "Yeah."
And I said, "Did O.J. do it?"
"Ron, I can't tell you." And he goes, "Come on."
"Mark, this is me." You know, I'm trying to be like, "Hey, cops, buddy."
He says, "I can't answer that."
O.J. Simpson, University of Southern California.
[presenter laughs] O.J. That O stands for Orenthal.
[audience laughs]
He runs the 100 in 9.4.
And with a name like Orenthal, you have to run fast.
[audience laughs]
Thank you, O.J.
[pensive music playing]
[Shipp] I was 15 years old when I first met O.J. Simpson.
Being a superhero, being a superstar, the guy was just like…
I was shocked on how nice he was.
You know, he wasn't cocky. He was just like real down-to-earth.
Everybody that came around him, I mean, you were his best friend.
I said, "This guy is incredible."
Your childhood. What kind of kid were you?
I was a good kid. I got in trouble a lot. I was aggressive, like most kids.
I didn't care too much about school. All I wanted to do was play sports.
One of the things I wanted most as a kid growing up in the ghetto
was not money, it was fame. I wanted to be known.
I wanted people to say, "Hey, there goes O.J."
[Shipp] I think everybody in the football world, they all knew,
he was probably the best.
You know, because he was the first guy to ever run for 2,000 yards.
But O.J., he started loving the acting.
I think looking good while doing something is half the battle.
So I like clothes with a lot of style and a lot of flair.
The whole country, you know, was all just, you know, taken back by O.J.
You have to maintain a certain image.
[Shipp] O.J., I mean, he never said no.
[screaming]
There was nothing he couldn't do.
O.J. had a lot of white people that loved him,
and O.J. had a lot of Black people who loved him.
My wife Marguerite.
[O.J. Simpson] I've been called by an agency for Hertz
that I was, as far as advertising is concerned, I was colorless.
And for the most part, I appreciate that.
O.J. was just, "Hey, I'm just O.J., I love everybody."
And he did. It wasn't fake.
You know, he loved everybody.
It's an old saying you're a credit to your race.
Well, I want to be a credit to the human race.
O.J. Simpson was a special human being.
[cheering]
But I never in my darkest dreams would ever thought…
I really didn't believe he would do it.
[helicopters whirring]
[dramatic music playing]
We get a call that the search warrant's been signed.
That means we can start searching.
Criminalist Dennis, we got another job for you.
We need you at Rockingham.
Not only do you want a search warrant at this point,
but it would be a good idea to get a prosecutor involved,
get the DA's office involved.
It's a high-profile case.
We're going to need a prosecutor sooner or later.
Sooner's always better than later.
[mysterious music playing]
Back in 1994, I was a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County.
I heard about the murders the same way about the same time everybody did.
I heard about it, uh, through the media.
My view was like, you know,
God bless those who want to get involved in something like that.
Just look at it. You know, it is a huge, huge clusterfuck.
I remember when the news came on,
and I think I saw Marcia Clark walking toward the front door at Rockingham.
That she was there at the scene didn't really register with me
because, look, it wasn't my case. It wasn't my problem.
Somebody comes to the gate. It was Deputy DA Marcia Clark.
[male interviewer] Now Marcia Clark tells her story.
[female reporter] Her style? No nonsense, no hype.
People have the notion that they know celebrities,
and they're unwilling to let go of the image they have.
Marcia Clark has a reputation of being an outstanding prosecutor,
exceptionally bright.
She said, yeah, she's free, she'll take the case.
Marcia Clark was an experienced lawyer.
She's a very smart woman, very capable.
She was clearly someone who was on a trajectory to management.
Marcia Clark had been given my name to brief,
and they wanted to sit down at a picnic table outside.
[helicopter whirring]
As I'm talking, there's three choppers above us.
And I said, "Why are we sitting out here?"
They're not only filming us, but I can barely hear.
So we moved to where the choppers couldn't see us.
I don't think anybody understood just how much was going on.
I walked her around the whole entire place, upstairs, downstairs, outside.
I'm the guy that showed her all the evidence.
We get to the master bedroom.
[camera clicks]
Two black socks at the end of the bed.
[camera clicks]
I mean, it's just…
They stand out like a pimple on a cheerleader's forehead.
I mean, they're just right there.
[camera clicks]
At the top of the stairs, there's a row of cabinets.
And Brad sees that the one door is open,
and there's all these medical supplies that are ripped open.
Just ripped open and just left.
We walk in the bathroom, we see a box.
And it looked like a knife box on the bathtub edge.
In the laundry room downstairs,
there was a smudge of what I believe was blood on the light switch.
There was fresh clothes in the washing machine,
still damp.
Nobody documented it, took photographs of it, or anything else,
because nobody told anybody.
No communication.
If you think something is evidence, tell somebody, so we can do something.
If Brad Roberts or Mark Fuhrman found a knife box or anything else,
tell somebody.
Mark handed his notes off to Ron Phillips.
I saw Phillips hand my notes to Vannatter.
Vannatter opened up his binder, put them in, closed his binder,
tucked it under his arm.
If it's that important, you tell us about it.
You should've told somebody about it.
We have to wait before we get to your notes?
He did not look at the notes.
Because Fuhrman says that makes it so, right?
We believe everything Mark Fuhrman says. He wouldn't lie, would he?
[ominous music playing]
[male reporter] Simpson's attorney says the ex-star
took a late-night flight to Chicago
and returned noon Monday after being contacted by police at his Chicago hotel.
Roberts and I are kind of searching the office,
and he goes, "Simpson's coming up the driveway."
[music continues]
He came walking very strongly up into his driveway and up into the front yard.
A police officer ran up behind him.
[Fuhrman] He said, "You're not coming in, Mr. Simpson."
As soon as he walked in the Rockingham Gate,
he grabs him, handcuffs him.
[woman] Please stand back.
I exited the residence and walked to where Mr. Simpson was.
He asked me to take the handcuffs off.
I explained the reason I was there, what was happening.
[Roberts] He was standing in the front yard on the grass,
and Vannatter asked me to go out there and be with him.
I walked out there and stood next to him.
O.J. looked at me and says, "What's all the police here for?"
I said, "Well, there's a blood trail leading from there to here."
He goes, "A blood trail?"
I said, "Yeah, a blood trail."
And he just went quiet,
started sweating and hyperventilating
and really heavy breathing, and started going, "Oh, man. Oh, man,"
over and over again.
I had asked him voluntarily to accompany me to Parker Center for an interview.
He agreed to that.
Okay, this is the final warning. Everyone step back, please.
Phil Vannatter now decides that he's taking him downtown
to Parker Center for an interrogation.
[indistinct chatter]
O.J., what can you say?
- Back up. - O.J., any comments at all?
Step back.
You don't know anything, you say?
Please step back.
Have you been told you're under arrest, O.J.?
[Lange] We have an obligation to sit down and talk to this individual,
and ask him a whole lot of questions.
[slow, dramatic music playing]
The date is June 13th, 1994, and the time is 13:35 hours.
And we're here with O.J. Simpson.
All right, what we're going to do is we want to…
We're investigating, obviously, the death of your ex-wife and another man.
What was your relationship with her?
Well, we tried to get back together, and it just didn't work.
It wasn't working. And so we were going our separate ways.
He's doing this jumping around, not giving us direct answers.
What do you think happened?
- Do you have any idea? - I have no idea, man.
You guys haven't told me anything.
And I look down, and his finger's bleeding.
So he lets the male nurse who we have in the jail
take a look at his finger, also photograph it.
[camera clicks]
It appeared that he had an injured knuckle on the middle finger of his left hand.
Going back to the original crime scene at Bundy,
it would appear that he had the injury that would have caused those blood drops
on the left side of the bloody footprints.
How did you get the injury on your hand?
I don't know.
I ask him about his bleeding finger. We get three different responses.
I know I had it when I was in Chicago.
How did you do it in Chicago?
I broke a glass.
[female reporter] In his Chicago hotel room, they later found a towel
smeared with blood.
One of you guys had just called me.
And I was in the bathroom.
and I just kind of went bonkers for a little bit.
He might have cut it back in Chicago when he broke a glass.
Is that how you cut it?
Mm, it was cut before, but I think I just opened it again.
I don't… I'm not sure.
Then in the end, he said, "I don't know how I did it."
I recall bleeding at my house
and then I went to…
went to the Bronco.
And we go through this interview, in only 33 minutes,
I get a dozen inconsistent statements.
Yeah, I knew I was bleeding, but it was no big deal.
I bleed all the time. I mean… I'm always… I play golf and stuff.
There's always something, nicks and stuff.
Get out on that golf course and hit that little white ball.
When someone tells you something, gives an inconsistent statement,
and they do it over and over and over and over,
is there a possibility that they're lying to you?
Did Mr. Weitzman, your attorney, talk to you about this polygraph?
I'm sure eventually I'll do it, but it's like,
I've got some weird thoughts now.
I said, "Would you take a polygraph?"
"I'll think about it. I might take a polygraph."
We've got some blood on and in your car,
we have some blood at your house,
and sort of a problem.
Well, take my blood test.
Well, we'd like to do that.
We've got, of course, the cut on your finger
that you're not really clear on.
He says, "Yeah, I'll give you blood."
Once they get the blood, I don't have to ask him anything.
Blood's going to do the talking.
District Attorney is not gonna go with any case, let alone a high-profile case,
without knowing they've got solid evidence.
But it's going to take some time to get the blood back.
[male reporter 1] Mr. Simpson, are you a suspect in this? Anything you can say?
O.J., are you a suspect?
You look like you're really upset by all of this.
[male reporter 2] The bottom line at this point, says a police spokesman, is this.
No one has been arrested in this case. No one has been charged.
Once again, O.J. Simpson is not a suspect in this case.
He was released after questioning…
It was clear by the end of the day that O.J. was related to this case
more than just being the ex-husband.
Once again, the investigation continues here at O.J. Simpson's home.
It looks like it's going well into the night.
Conan Nolan reporting live from Brentwood.
[Fuhrman] At the end of the day, I get a phone call.
"You're relieved."
That's it.
I'm tired. I haven't slept for a day and a half.
I can't imagine the absolute shitshow that's going to start tomorrow.
But it's not my case any longer.
Time to move on.
[tense music playing]
It was interesting that two days after the murder,
O.J. Simpson makes the announcement that he's switched attorneys.
He's hired Robert Shapiro.
[Nolan] O.J. Simpson has a new attorney.
Celebrity attorney Robert Shapiro…
[Nolan] Robert Shapiro was a high-end Hollywood and celebrity attorney
who was well-known for getting deals for his clients.
He was somebody you went to if you needed a negotiated settlement.
At the time that this murder took place,
O.J. was at home awaiting to get into a limousine
to take him to the airport.
Well-known, respected, articulate,
presented well to the media, which, let's be clear,
that was important as well.
I knew Bob Shapiro before he represented O.J. Simpson.
- [camera clicking] - He was a very popular attorney.
He tended to represent defendants
who didn't look like most of the defendants in the system.
He represented people with money.
Thank you very much.
- [music fades out] - [helicopter whirring]
O.J. Simpson remains inside his home here in this exclusive area
and section of Brentwood in West Los Angeles.
He is surrounded by family.
When I called the house, I called repeatedly.
I just kept… You know, hopefully somebody would answer.
Lo and behold, O.J. answers the phone.
I said, "I'm getting ready to head home. Should I stop by?"
He goes, "Come on by."
[on intercom] Which gate are you at, Ron?
[Shipp] I walked in the door.
He had three TVs, and he was watching every news thing
to see what they were saying about him.
When you first saw him… what do you remember?
What did you say? What did he say?
The first thing I saw, I looked at his finger.
You know, bandaged.
I asked him, "What happened?"
He just said, "I was out in the car trying to get my cell phone out of the…"
"I dropped it in there, I cut it in the seat."
I said, "Oh okay. All right. No big deal. Okay."
So somebody else comes over,
"Hey, O.J., how are you doing, man? What's going on?"
He goes, "Man, I'm hanging in there."
And that person goes, "O.J., what happened to your finger?"
He goes, "I cut my finger on a glass in Chicago."
So I'm looking at him like, wait, first you said you got the…
you were in the car trying to get a cell phone.
I got ready to leave.
O.J. follows me out.
"Hey, Ron, how long does it take DNA to come back?"
[laughing] And I'm thinking to myself, "Why would he want to know about DNA?
He said, "They asked me to take a lie detector test,"
and I said, "Why would you not want to take the lie detector test?"
And he said, "I've had dreams of killing her."
And I was like, "He had dreams of killing her and here she's dead."
And I remember thinking to myself, I was like… "Wow."
You know, because Nicole came to me in 1989, and she says,
"I've got to tell you about your friend."
And I go, "What do you mean? What's going on?"
She says, "O.J. hit me." And I went… I was like, "Yeah, right."
She goes, "No, O.J. hit me, and this is not the first time."
I really couldn't believe what I was hearing, you know?
I said, "Come on, Nicole," and she brings me all these pictures.
And I went, "Wow."
"He did all this?"
The following day, I talked to O.J. and I said, "O.J., I can't believe this, man."
I said, "Did you slap her? Did you hit her?"
"Oh, no, man, it was just a thing."
"She was the aggressor, I was trying to hold her back."
And at that time, I didn't know if O.J. was lying to me.
But now I knew.
I couldn't get out of there fast enough.
I left O.J.'s house, and I got in my car.
Just very upset and tired, and now he wants to get some rest.
And I called my wife first, and I was crying.
Yep.
I was crying because I knew he did it.
[melancholy music playing]
[Kaelin] I attended Nicole's funeral.
God, the best way I can put that,
when I saw O.J. there,
was just a complete tense situation.
O.J. seemed like he was in a daze.
He walked really slow,
and I didn't see him even talking to people.
Going to the funeral, you know, I had friends of mine that were cops,
and I got security for O.J.
It was really strange,
and I really could not go near him at that time.
[Kaelin] It just seemed like something wasn't right.
The kids came up to me throughout the entire funeral.
I mentioned Mommy's in heaven, and we had these balloons.
I said to the kids, "Take these balloons, send them to your mommy to heaven."
They had these helium balloons, and they put the balloons up,
and they were waving to them.
They weren't crying.
I don't think the immediacy of knowing that they'll never see their mom again,
it didn't really hit them.
[female reporter] Some 20 miles away in Agoura Hills, California,
relatives of Ronald Goldman gathered for his funeral.
I remember being in the…
in the mortuary, uh…
And the casket was down a long path,
and we just walked up to it, and there he was, and…
My brother was…
had his neck severed, and so they had to hide certain parts
so that we couldn't see it. [sniffles]
I remember leaning over him, and I was crying, and I
saw tears on him and thought that it was him crying,
and then I realized that it was my tears. It was all very… super fucked up.
[sniffles]
We had no idea how big this was,
how far-reaching it was.
We were inside having our service,
and then came out and there were thousands of people that had come.
And it was shocking, because I had no idea.
There were helicopters above, media was perched.
I just was very overwhelmed by that
because I didn't understand what was happening.
If what few little things we've heard in any way are true
about Ron putting up quite a fight…
maybe to help…
[voice breaking] …wouldn't surprise me either.
Unlike so many other murder victims,
our stuff happened very quickly, it was very public,
so there wasn't a lot of question about how the investigation was going.
So many other families don't get information at all,
and they have to beg and plead for it. Ours, we couldn't stop getting it.
While they have not formally identified O.J. Simpson as a suspect,
it appears at this point they are not looking elsewhere.
[tense music playing]
[female reporter] Have you wrapped up?
- No, we haven't. - [male reporter] Can you tell us anything?
The real damning evidence in this case…
[camera clicking]
…it's in the forensics, and it's in the blood.
[male reporter] Police towed this white Ford Bronco from O.J. Simpson's home.
There was blood in the Bronco.
Somebody put blood on the door handle.
We have bloody shoe prints at the scene.
We have drops of blood behind the Bronco.
We have a bloody glove that matches the one at Bundy.
I mean, you really don't have to be
a very good detective to put this together.
[male reporter] As soon as detectives can match the blood in the car
with blood at the crime scene,
an arrest warrant will be issued.
Well, the blood started to come back.
And O.J. Simpson has his blood at the crime scene.
The blood that was tailing to the left of the footwear impressions is his blood.
As far as the Bronco goes, and the blood in the Bronco,
there's only three types of blood from three people,
both victims and O.J. Simpson.
O.J. Simpson has his blood at Rockingham,
tailing from the rear of the Bronco up the driveway and into the house.
O.J. Simpson has his blood also on the right-handed glove
that's found at Rockingham along with the blood of both victims.
It was at that time, we went in and sought the warrant.
There's hundreds of pieces of evidence.
All of these little circumstantial things are beginning to add up.
So it's determined that an arrest will be made the next morning at 8:00.
[ominous music rises and fades]
Nobody could anticipate what would happen next
because it's really unprecedented.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney has just filed murder charges
against Orenthal James "O.J." Simpson.
[crowd chanting]
There is nothing like this in memory, nothing.
[male reporter] Okay, it's a white car.
[sirens wailing]
[tense, dramatic music playing]
[music fades out]