RedHanded - OJ Simpson - Part One: The Juice is Loose | #429

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Orenthal James Simpson, aka “OJ”, aka “The Juice”: the single most famous man in American sporting history. By the early 90s he had not only established himself as the greatest American Football player who’d ever lived – but he had also transcended sport, turning himself into a charismatic advertising machine and national icon.However, in June 1994, it all fell apart – when he killed his ex-wife Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman in cold blood, leaving a trail of evidence and eventually going on a highly televised (but actually pretty slow) car chase. But somehow, he got away with it. Welcome to the most American thing since apple pie: the life of OJ Simpson, and his unquestionable guilt.  Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondry's American Scandal. In our latest series, three teenage boys from West Memphis, Arkansas, are accused of a vicious triple homicide. There's no real evidence linking them to the crime except rumor and fear, and that'll be enough to convict them. Listen to American Scandal on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Siruti.

And welcome to Red-Handit, the penultimate of 2025. My God. I was expecting you to say 2026, because that's when my brain is now. I can't believe we're still even in 2025. My brain is not even past the end of this script. I promised I would watch Frankenstein for Under the Duve. I have only been consuming OJ content for the past like two and a bit weeks, apart from my little break to do shirley miss cabbage for shorthand i feel like my brain is a bad place let's get it all out there yes and then you can just forget about him forever and ever oh god so happy christmas

everyone no we like to end the year with like a bait crime case and oj just fit the bill perfectly this year it fits it so much better than we originally thought it is i love when that happens fucking mental. Great. Can't wait. I understand why it captured America. I understand why it didn't catch on here and, like, we'll get there. There are lots of reasons for that. But even if you took out all of the incredibly famous people, the story itself is still really good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I will say, content creators, podcasters, Netflixers, the S. It is okay to make things that are just two hours long. Do you know how many hours the ESPN series OJ Made in America is? 17. Eight. Hours. It won an Oscar.

I think because there is so much, I've come across podcast series that are like 18 episodes long. And they're not just podcasts that only do OJ. Yeah, yeah. It's overwhelming. Sometimes there will be cases, particularly these baked cases actually, where you get into it and you're just like, I am drowning. It's how I felt when I did Scott Peterson.

And I was like, enough, enough with the fucking content. I got it. But then you also want to make sure, you know, you've, you know, crossed all the T's and fucked all the eyes and everything. I think it's impossible. It's impossible. With OJ. So I've, I'm excited. I've done what I can.

Let's do it. Deep in the 70s, that's an ultra. expensive and exclusive members club on Rodeo Drive and NFL star about to wind down his hand-egged career, clocked an 18-year-old waitress. He turned to his friend and he said, I'm going to marry that girl. Not only was this athlete 12 years older than the waitress, not only was he already married. 17 years later, he would kill her.

I'm starting as I mean to go on. Strong. There is no... No way that O.J. Simpson is not a murderer. I am not entertaining for a second a reality in which he didn't do it. So if that's what you're looking for, you're not welcome here. Okay, can I ask before we get into this? Because you obviously did the research. I am aware of the OJ Simpson case, right? I've seen the dramas, seen the documentaries, I know what's up. But is there? And I think this is the kind of thing you only understand when you start to do the research on a case. Is there a big contingent of people who think he's not? guilty like with Scott Peterson yes

so it's not quite like that however people have had over 30 years to get their heads round this one and OJ didn't help himself by you know publicly being a real piece of shit after he was acquitted you know like spoilers but

that's when a lot of people lost faith in him was when he went to prison but that wasn't for years afterwards the people who think he didn't do it. There's actually, if you are, I would recommend OJ Simpson versus the people the drama because it's well done and who doesn't love Sarah Paulson. It's entertaining enough and it's not like super heavy documentary but it hits all of the major points and it's pretty accurate. They have a really good way of communicating how there's this amazing scene which

like probably never happened where Sarah Paulson's in a bar with black male friends. And they're all like, yeah, man, but the LAP, and she's like, no. And then she like lays it all out for them. And I think anybody who has held a belief at any period of time that he didn't do it actually didn't have a particular grasp of the facts of the case and also had a virulent hatred for the LAPD, which we will go on to talk about is not unfounded, but things can be. be two things. Yes. Exactly. So I do not think there is anybody left on the planet who thinks that he is innocent. Except Casey Anthony. Don't bring her into this as well. That'll push me over

the edge. We haven't got time. We haven't got time. Let's go. But she's an innocence advocate so she would know. This episode is not a who-done-it. It's a how the fuck did he get away with it? And also, a eulogy for Ron Goldman, who literally nobody ever talks about, even at trial, barely gets a look in. I understand why they did that. But it really is, it's so tragic. He was 25. And as far as I understand, just trying to do a good thing. That is my opinion.

People disagree. Bizarre reasons in my opinion. But, like, he is so unconnected to all of it. literally in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that is the only time I will say that ever in my career, I hope. Anyway, Ron Goldman's

life, like the rest of this case, was swallowed up by celebrity, decades of racial discrimination, and everyone trying to get a piece of the trial of the century. Fame plays a major role this week, so we are off to the City of Dreams,

Los Angeles. And if you You can make it there. I have come to understand it's because you've done something horrible. On the 13th of June 1994, screenwriter of almost nothing you've heard of, Pablo F. Fenvez, was watching the 10 o'clock news in Brentwood, all the way up in the hills. At around 10.15 p.m., Pablo heard a dog barking. Not barking, actually, more like wailing. Pablo would later describe the sound as a plaintive wail. But didn't think too much about it at the time. He's a writer.

And that is how he stamped his mark on this story. Got it. Now, June in California, you don't need me to tell you, is hot. Even back in the 90s, it was hot. Hot now, but still pretty hot then. So it's not unusual for people to walk their dogs at night. Very sensible thing to do. And that's exactly what another Brentwooder named Stephen Schwab was doing around the same time. And while he was caninely param-param.

Parambulating, I love to, perambulated, standing still, I really hate, I love to. There you go. While he was doing that with his dog, he crossed paths with a white Akita barking at a house. Now Akitas are very, very premium dogs, so it was strange for one of these to be on the loose. And stranger still, this dog's paws were covered in blood. Stephen checked to see if the dog was hurt, but he couldn't see anything that would cause the blood to be on all. four of this dog's paws. Akitas are also very loyal dogs and characteristically disinterested

in strangers. That's how a knight, the blood-drenched stray followed Stephen Schwab home howling at every house they passed, stopping to bark extensively down one path in particular. Stephen's neighbour, Sukru Buzz Tepe,

offered to take the dog until the morning. But the Akita was so agitated that Sukru decided to take him back. back out into the night. And the dog led Sucreux straight to 875 South Bundy Drive, which lay up a path. Sookrew never would have looked had the dog not led him straight there. It's a really complicated layout. 875 South Bundy Drive is Nicole's house. Sometimes people call it the Gretna Green house because Gretna Green Drive is on the other side. her house if the streets are like two parallel lines

like two sides of an h the path that passes her house is like the middle run of the age so you can get to her house from either side the dog goes on south bundy and there is a gate behind that gate is where Nicole is so you have to go up that path to get to her house so she's on the front path

yes but it's not horizontal in front of the house it's vertical alongside it okay which without drawing it which I had to do several times is very difficult to explain but it is not a it's a bit more complicated to get to her front door than just walking straight up to it and also the layout is not something that is usual so you wouldn't look up there unless you were familiar with that specific house basically. So Suckre wouldn't have without the dog, but he did, and in the darkness, was the body of a woman lying in a giant pool of blood, totally motionless. The dog had led Sucreou to the almost decapitated body of Nicole Brown. I refuse to call her Nicole Brown Simpson.

I'm not doing it, so don't ask me to. Nicole was a 35-year-old mother of two who had just turned over a new leaf after separating from her incredibly famous ex-husband O.J. Simpson, whose name's actually Orenthal James Simpson. It's not as good as Shugnight being called Marion, but it's still not the best name in the world,

and he also hated it. Yeah. It's like Tiger Woods' real name. It's quite funny. Eldrick. Oh, yeah. Eldrick. Woods.

If you can't get enough true crime in your life, you have to check out Always True Crime and their brilliant network of podcasts. There's honestly so much to get stuck into. First up, toil and trouble. It's a totally bingeable six-part series hosted by our mates, Hannah George and Taylor Glenn, from Drunk Women Solving Crime. But this is them like you've never heard them before. Maybe sober, who knows?

They go deep into a story that starts with magic and tarot and ends up in a courtroom. With interviews from the family at the heart of it all, it's gripping, emotional, and one of those cases where you keep asking yourself, where's the line between care and control, and who crossed it? And if you love staying on top of all of the true crime stories everybody is talking about, you will have to add true crime catch-up into your weekly routine. Adam Lloyd and Stuart Blues, two brilliant podcasters, who really know their stuff, sit down each week to chat through the cases gripping the nation.

They spotlight the stories you might have missed, revisit infamous crimes from years gone by, and basically keep you in the loop with everything happening in the true crime world. Don't pretend like you don't want it, you freaks. Pervert. You can listen to both of those shows right now. Just search for toil and trouble or true crime catch-up or both wherever you get your podcasts. Or head to alwaystruecrime.com to find, even more great listens.

You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead, in hospital rooms and doctor's offices? Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened.

and cases so baffling, they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. was 1994, so Sucreu didn't have a mobile to ring the police so he banged on the next door for help, but no one answered. It did the job though. The lady inside thought she was being burgled, so the police were there in four minutes regardless. Sokru and the blood-soaked dog were still

outside on the street when the officers arrived. Had it not been for the dog, Nicole wouldn't have been discovered for hours, which is weirdly heartwarming. Although, the dog, whose name was Cato, was later assessed by a member of the LAPD canine unit to be very lovely but totally incapable of protecting anyone. Which for an Akita. Exactly. Yeah.

As the LAPD officer approached the house that Nicole shared with her two children, he realised that on that path Nicole wasn't alone. To the right of her body, obscured by shrubbery, was a second one, slumped against, a metal fence. 25-year-old Ron Goldman had been brutally stabbed

to death. Ron was working as a waiter at a restaurant called Mezzaluna in Brentwood and he also volunteered with children suffering from cerebral palsy and taught tennis.

We have no idea who he might have become because he never got the chance. But we do know that he was incredibly brave. At the feet of his corpse there was a knitted black hat

a white envelope with a pair of glasses in it and of course a single brown leather glove left hand there was a bloody heel print next to Nicole's body but no blood on the pavement or the tarmac of South Bundy Drive

indicating that the killer had walked in the opposite direction also why does this feel like some sort of true crime anthology series where we're looking for Easter eggs and she lives on a road called South Bundy Drive. And the amount of like Cludo-style pieces of evidence that are in this is like utterly mind-boggling.

But this is where explaining the street you need it to make this bit make sense. So the officer moved through the bushes, up the walkway that led to the main entrance of the house, torch in hand, and found more footprints leading down an alley shared with neighbours, but an alley that was not visible from the street.

And this suggests that the killer must have been familiar with the location. Because if you didn't know, if you hadn't been there before, there is no reason you would know that that path continues out onto the other side of the street. You can't see it from the South Bundy side. It just looks like it goes into her house, but it doesn't. It continues. I see. And it was shared by other neighbours. On top of that, there was fresh blood on the ground.

It looked like the killer had been bleeding from his left hand. as he made his very familiar escape. Nicole's house itself was serene. Candles were lit, the bath was run, the kids were fast asleep. Oh, that's so sad. And there was no sign of a break-in or a struggle. The letter from Nicole's estranged husband in the hall

and the various O.J. Simpson paraphernalia bits in the house made it quite clear immediately who Nicole was. But how had Ron Goldman ended up dead in the hall? this mess. Earlier that evening, one of Nicole's kits had a dance recital, so the whole van family, a strange Simpson included, went to watch it at 5pm. After that, Nicole and her side of the family went to Mezzaluna, where Ron worked just down the road.

OJ did not accompany them. Simpson would posthumously insist that he was invited to that dinner, he just didn't want to go. Instead, he went to McDonald's with star of The Last Shark Nader and the real potheads of North Hollywood Cato Cailin. Yeah, well, I go for dinner with your kids when you've definitely, definitely been invited, when you've got prior plans at a McDonald's

with fucking Cato Cailen. Sure. Shut up, OJ. At a big age of 35 years old, Cato Caelin was a professional hanger on. He had lived with both OJ and he, Nicole, together and separately multiple times. Nicole's children liked their live-in babysitter so much that they named their dog after

him, the same bewildered Cato, the Akido, that alerted the neighbourhood to the bloodbath lying at the foot of 875 South Bundy Drive that night. There's like a couple of interviews with Cato Caelan, and he's just like, yeah, it was a bit confusing. After their McDonald's, Human Cato and OJ returned to Simpsons' home, a big old mansion that everyone called Rockingham

like it was a royal residence. It's just on Rockingham Street. He names it like it's Sangdringham or something, and that's just everyone just does what he says. So when I say Rockingham, I mean O.J. Simpson's house. They got back there at 9.36 p.m. Cato Caelan lived in a little bit bungalow on the Rockingham property in a quasi-fresh Prince poolhouse situation.

I don't think it's that unusual to have just someone living in your little bungalows. But I just think Katie Kalin is such a fucking knob that I just cannot. And OJ Simpson absolutely loved having people around at all times. Friends, family, lawyers, socialites, party girls, LAPD offices, politicians, actors, athletes. All of them would be somewhere in OJ's house at any given time, particularly. on the weekends. And when your house is that big, maybe you just don't notice that there are that many people around. But it also seems like a symptom of OJ's desperate need for approval.

He needed to prove to everyone how much he had and how amazing it was, being OJ. One minute after the paper play friends got home, Nicole's mother, Judy, rang Mezzaluna, the restaurant. She said that she had left her glasses behind and young Ron Goldman offered to drop them off at Nicole's house for her. Now the details of Nicole's and Ron's relationship are pretty hazy based on the candle and bath situation Nicole had going on that night perhaps they were sleeping together.

But that also does kind of also scream of just like a lady fresh off a divorce whose kids are asleep who's having a little bit of me time. The amount of candle chat that happens at trial It's absolutely fucking ridiculous. Maybe, maybe she was waiting for to, like, seduced him. Maybe she wasn't. It doesn't matter. No, no. So, yeah, we don't really know, but it's just as likely that Ron Goldman probably was just dropping the glasses off.

Why was he dropping them off at Nicole's house rather than Judy's house? Well, Nicole lived in Brentwood, which is much closer to Mezzaluna. Judy didn't. It could just be as simple as that. That really seems like Hockham's razor to me. Hello, I've left my glasses. Can you drop them off at my daughter's house, which is up the street? The end.

Watch out, she might try seduce you. Yes. Now, ulterior motive or not, Ron Goldman delivered the stray spectacles to Nicole's house on South Bundy at around 10pm. And that is how Ron Goldman ended up dead. The 25-year-old was stabbed in the neck, and the strike transected his jugular. His chest and abdomen were covered in penetrating stab wounds, which, in a medical sense, means the blade had perforated the tissue beneath the skin. Been stabbed hard.

Yeah. Ron Goldman had a different type of wound too. Defensive. And a lot of them. Defensive wounds were found on his scalp, his face, his neck, his chest, arms and hands. Which means whatever happened that night, Ron Goldman fought back. He defended himself. and most likely Nicole.

Her injuries were more gruesome still. Her neck wound was described in her coroner's report as gaping. Her larynx and her spinal column were exposed. The gash was five and a half inches long and two and a half inches wide. It was also angled up to Nicole's right earlobe, which is what happens when a right-handed person slits your throat from behind. Nicole's scalp and neck showed seven other stab wounds. and she had multiple defensive wounds on her hands as well.

One of the lacerations had gone right through the ring finger of her right hand. Which is, you know, that makes sense. That's what you're going to do, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. As already made clear, we, like the LAPD, the district attorney's office, and his own defence team are not going to pretend that O.J. Simpson did not carry out this savage attack. And what that means is that O.J. Simpson was willing to let his own children discover their mother with her larynx hanging out. And Kato the Akito is the only reason that did not happen. But he didn't

know that. No. But he just walked away. So the West L.A. police station sent four detectives to the scene. At least two more than would be sent to a murder scene, not connected to the greatest hand-eg player of all time. Nicole's two children were taken to the same station. They were woken up and carried out of their house in the middle of the night by strange men. They're five and eight years old. So with the kids out of the way, the official police agenda became who was going to notify Nicole's ex-husband, who also happened to be very famous.

Allegedly, Detective Mark Furman told his colleagues that he knew where the legend lived because he had been called out there on a domestic violence call a few years before. And we say allegedly basically because everyone on the L.A. PD denies this conversation ever happened. Nevertheless, all four detectives drove the two miles to Rockingham. The street itself was totally empty. O.J. Simpson lived in the fancy end of Brentwood. Everyone had their own massive drive,

so why would they park on the street? Save one, white Ford Bronco, parked a skew near, but not exactly outside O.J. Simpson's abode. Lead investigator, Detective Philip Van Atter, rang the Rockingham buzzer to no avail. He tried calling the landline at 5.36am and no one answered. Even though Simpson, like everyone, who is famous, had live-in staff and there was a light on, whilst they waited for an answer, the detectives ran the plates of the wonkily parked Bronco on the street

and found that it was a Hertz car. For most Americans, O.J. Simpson was synonymous, with that car rental giant. He was a Hertz spokesman for years and fronted one of their most memorable ad campaigns. It was a huge deal. It's one where he's like running through the airport. But even though it is what people would connect immediately with,

it's the connection immediately between Hertz and O.J. Simpson. It is irrelevant. You didn't need that to connect this rental car to O.J. Simpson because inside the car were papers that were visibly addressed to O.J. Simpson. They didn't even need to run the place. They just needed to like look through the window. And there was also a red stain on the jaw handle of the driver's side. A criminalist was called to test this suspicious-looking smear

to see if it was what everyone thought it was. It was. OJ had bought the Rockingham Estate in 1977, just before he met 18-year-old Nicole Brown. When he signed the deeds, he was still very married to his first wife, Marguerite. They had three children together. According to OJ, they separated between kid number two and three, but then got back together because, you know, he's just such a good person.

Marguerite, completely understandably, stone cold silent. You don't hear anything from her. I wouldn't either. So it's difficult to know what her side of the story is. Actually, no, it's not. But we only have his specific words on what actually happened for them breaking up. Now, that third child that OJ and Marguerite had, Aaron died at the Rockingham house.

She actually drowned in the pool at two years old. Her elder brother was just nine years old and he was the one who was supervising her. And I don't think anyone can get over a tragedy like that. Except O.J. Simpson. After Aaron died, Marguerite left and OJ never ever spoke about the death of his daughter unless, of course, he needed public sympathy.

OJ in fact never spoke about his children, unless he wanted to look like he was capable of actual love. When he met Nicole, football-wise, OJ was on the way out. And as much as it pains me to say it, he really was the best that there's ever been. And who cares what I think, because it is a pivotal stitch in the web of this story, as is sport in the States. It's just different. For every other country on the planet, us included. the highest level of athleticism, what you aspire to be your whole life if you're an athlete,

is to represent your country. And our national teams, for every sport, do that multiple times a year. The sports that Americans care about, by and large, obviously there are outlaws, but generally speaking, are only played in America. Therefore, being a top athlete is being a top American in a way that we just don't understand. Like, I have racked my brain for who an equivalent person would be to, we don't have one. The closest I could come up with is David Beckham. Yeah.

But he's white. It's not the same. And also race relations are different here. And like there's just like, it's just not, we don't have it. We don't have a comparative equivalent. Not only was OJ a superhuman NFL player. He was the very best at the most American sport. And he was black.

Yeah. At the time, there is no watering down the significance of that. Okay, for sure. And he does have like a classic rags to riches as well. Young Orenthal didn't have it easy. He was born into a working class home in the arsend of San Francisco in 1947. And he had rickets, which I didn't know. What?

Yeah. If you look at his legs when he's young, like when he's like a student playing at USC, Bandy. That's remarkable. And also, you know, rickets happens in, impoverished areas like he's really poor and like we think of San Francisco now to you know if you haven't been there and seen how much homelessness there is the image that you have of it is this like very bohemian like cool city full of artists and that's just not the experience that he had no

his mom worked the graveyard shift at a psych ward so she had really seen some shit and his father was inconsistently present at best although oj would later claim that he held no resentment towards his dad, and there's footage of him being at games and stuff like that. Not true. Simpson Senior was gay, and he died of AIDS in 1985, and everyone knew it. It wasn't a secret. OJ. was horrified by it. Actually, one of the biggest, like, I was going to say arguments,

one of the times he beat the shit out of Nicole most publicly was because they were on holiday in Hawaii, and they're at dinner. A gay man is sat next to Nicole, and she talks to him, and he kisses one of their children, and OJ fucking lost it. So there is no way that he was completely fine with his dad. And also, I don't want to say that his dad was openly gay because I don't think that's true. It's just everyone knew.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that would have been hard for any kid to overcome in the mean streets of San Francisco in the 50s. But OJ was never normal. He was never a normal kid. He stole and he fought and he manipulated with the best of them. But he was always just better. Like he stood out.

There's one story in the ESPN documentary where he gets caught with a group of kids, his peers. One of him is A.C. Cowling, so he goes on to drive the bronco. They're like life-long friends. And they're playing dice in the toilet and they get caught by a teacher. And he's like escorting them to the principal's office to get bollicked. And when they get to the door, Ojo just turns around and walks out. And the principal goes, where are you going? He's, oh, no, I was just helping Mr. Whoever bring them down here.

Even as a kid, he would just be like, no, fuck you. And just manipulate the system, play the game, be charismatic, get away with it. Yeah, yeah. If he was like, I don't know, what a very simplistic way to be like a good person. But like, you know, he's blessed in many ways. Like he's obviously disadvantaged in so many ways. Like he grows up in a very, very difficult situation. But in so many ways he's charismatic.

Like you say, he's charming. He's attractive, subjectively speaking. He's talented. He's athletic. And it's remarkable how far he got in the space that he's. he excelled at while being so clearly suffering with a major personality disorder or something. You can watch him learn. If you watch his really early interviews when he's a kid, like him and Marguerite get married when they're like barely in their 20s.

Maybe they were in their teens when they got married. Definitely when he was at USC. And when he's being interviewed as a college football player and is just being consistently told on camera how amazing he is. And he's just this kid. he starts there and then you can watch him become OJ he never got pissed off with people correcting him in creating this persona

because he knew that that's what he needed to do and if you watch later interviews about him like once he's figured out how to be OJ and he's not this like fumbling kid anymore and he's done a load of interviews and he's confident and in control of himself on camera and all that sort of thing he has this very like

have you ever seen Mark Warburg talk about fucking with the Boston Police Department as a child. No. It's very that energy. He's openly amidst to like fighting and stealing and like all of that sort of stuff but it was all a bit of fun and we were just kids

and everyone was doing it. It's very that. I can imagine. And O.J. Simpson, just like Tom Hardy Channel and Bronson, always wanted to be famous. And luckily for him, his path to stardom was very obvious.

Simpson hand-egged better than any hand had ever egged. So he was snapped up by USC and their Trojans, the second he was old enough to play college football. Yet again, college football are two words that need translating to the rest of the world before we can even contextualize what this meant. University sports teams in the United States, especially football, are televised events and sell out stadiums every single week, which is another reason this case has never fully resonated outside of the US. We don't have the same thing. I don't think we can ever fully understand how famous he is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just OJ in his prime. Pan is right. It's like another level of stardom. And in 1969, Simpson was the first selection in the NFL draft. And so off he went to Syracuse, Cold, dark, basically Arctic, Syracuse. Yeah, it's, they say in the ESPN documentary,

the equivalent of being sent to Siberia. He's Californian, and they're just like, off you go, into the tundra, goodbye. And so predictably, he absolutely fucking hated him. But he got his first book deal, TV interviews, and lots of nice contacts. And his first few seasons, while they were rough, he found his stride and got back to Being OJ.

He enjoyed a good many seasons, at the top of his game. But time waits for no man. And he was very candid that his false start at the Buffalo Bills taught him that nothing lasts forever. OJ Simpson knew that football was not permanent. He couldn't stand to be forgotten. So he knew he had to find another way to stay in the spotlight. So he trained his persona. And you can really, as Hannah said, see that progression when you watch interviews with him over time. He hired every voice coach under the sun. He told the New York Times that his greatest achievement was being looked at

as a man, not a black man. Meanwhile, Muhammad Ali and Jesse Owens were both boycotting the Olympics and campaigning for civil freedoms for black Americans, jeopardising their own careers for their fellow man. O.J. Simpson resisted their call to arms, infamously telling the press, I'm not black. I'm OJ. And my sausages.

He was right. In the context of the LAPD, OJ Simpson was not a black man. After Simpson hung up his boots, he made deals with loads of companies. Because of all of this media training he enforced on himself over a series of years, he figures it out slowly, doesn't happen overnight. Very calculated, very smart. The biggest deal he ever made, the most impactful one, was, of course, hurts. And OJ made himself the golden ticket for brands because it meant that Madison Avenue could capture the black market whilst reassuring that white shareholders,

that OJ wasn't one of those blacks that was going to like ruin everything with civil rights nonsense, they could do both by making OJ their guy. And he knew that and he played it perfectly because he's both sides of the coin. And OJ had a lot of gloved hands in a lot of of different pies. NSBC employed him as a sports commentator for years. He was on loads of boards of different companies. He had a healthy investment portfolio. He was the true American hero. Publicly, anyway. He married Nicole Brown in 1985. After eight years of telling her that he wasn't ready to commit. What does that mean? You live together?

Yeah. Yeah, they lived together and she had helped him raise his other two children. So they were definitely very committed. Now there had been some pretty major red flags from the moment they met. OJ being married to another woman was actually a fairly minor one. When Nicole got home from her first date with OJ, she told her roommate

that he was a bit forceful but that she really liked him. And when she says a bit forceful, what she means is that he had ripped her jeans open. Yeah, she walks into her apartment with a broken zip and her roommate is like, what the fuck happened to you? And she's like, oh, well, you know, I really like him there.

Yeah. And he's 12 years older than me. Yeah. Yeah. Now, after OJ and Marguerite divorced, Nicole lived at Rockingham for 10 years. And then she decided in 1993 that she had to move on. The extent of the abuse Nicole faced is lost to the sands of time. But there are a few major instances that we need to point out.

The same year they got married, police were called to Rockingham, in response to a domestic dispute. Nicole was waiting outside for the squad car sobbing. OJ had broken the windshield of her car with a baseball bat. OJ said to the officers that it was his car and it wasn't illegal for him to break his own windshield, which is technically true, but certainly ominous nonetheless.

And allegedly the officer that was called out to Rockingham that night was none other than Mark Furman, which is why he allegedly knew where O.J. lived. This becomes not important, but a part in the Dream Team defence later on that Mark Furman knew immediately who Nicole was, therefore who OJ was and he knew where OJ lives and that's why they get there so fast. We don't know if Mark Furman was the one that was there at Rocking last night because no report was actually filed because no arrest happened because it's not illegal to smash your own car. Which I feel like, okay, that's true, but in what context?

Context is not Mark Furman's like Fort A, or the LAPD's, actually. It's like, it's my car, I smashed it. But like, what's the reason you smashed it? He's OJ. Yeah. On the 1st of January 1989, another 911 call was made from Rockingham. Police were dispatched immediately. When they arrived, the housekeeper told them that there wasn't a problem and that they had to leave.

LAPD refused until they spoke to the woman who had made the call. after a few moments Nicole staggered outside she's just got like track suit bottoms on in a bra and she like collapses into the arms of the officer and cries he's going to kill me and he goes who's going to kill you and she goes OJ and he's like the football player and she's like yes the football killer the football player is going to kill me

wow that same officer later testified that Nicole had a split lip a black eye and an imprint of a human hand on her throat the LAPD had been called to that house eight times before and nothing had ever happened. And O.J. echoed that probable truth as he came out of the front door in his dressing gown bellowing, I don't want that woman in my bed anymore. I didn't beat her. I just pushed

her out of bed. You've been out here eight times before and now you're going to arrest me for this. This is a family matter. The officer told OJ that he was required by law to come down to the station. But because he was O.J. Simpson and being arrested in his dressing gown, would be entirely unseemly. O.J. Simpson was allowed to go back into his house to get changed before he was arrested. He did get changed, but he also got in his Bentley and drove off. Classic. Another grim omen of things to come.

Yeah, quite. On the 20th of January, 1989, OJ pleaded no contest to sparsal abuse. He was represented by MJ Estate, helmsman and USC alumnus Howard Weitzman. He was given a suspect. sentenced and 120 hours of community service. Simpson was excused, however, from group counselling for batterers because he was too famous. Instead, he just had to donate $500 to the sojourn women's shelter in Santa Monica. Nicole, in a grim twist of fate, rang that same shelter five days before she was murdered. No one needs reminding that domestic

violence wasn't taken seriously back then. And this conviction did very little to damage OJ Simpson's reputation. OJ gave a TV interview where he explained that he and Nicole had an argument. No one was hurt and everyone moved on. You can see the agreement and understanding in the interviewer's eyes. It really is this like, where everyone smacks their wife a bit. Yeah, yeah. That is just every turn.

Yeah. That's what this conviction for spousal abuses is met with. And it's not just reflected in the eyes of the bloody interview, where it's also reflected in the fact that O.J. Simpson barely lost any work. Everyone just called it a false arrest and got on with it. And when it came to his community service, OJ did not have to don a high-vis and grab himself one of those little T-Rex garbage grabbers. No, no. Instead, he organized a fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald Foundation.

At least that's what he told the judge. In reality, he just played a bit of golf and probably went to McDonald's. this is the level of stuff that he is allowed to get away with which is why it is being included it took a few years after this conviction for Nicole to leave OJ Simpson for good she really tried to make it work and I think it's really important for everyone to remember

that like she had only been a working adult for two months when she met OJ Simpson she didn't know how to do life without him and her family were all on his payroll as well and that weighed very heavily on Nicole's mind. There is speculation. I don't want to push too hard one way or the other because a lot of this information comes from Faye Resnick, who I'm just, I get to her.

It was harder for Nicole to walk away than it would have been because OJ did a lot of business deals that were very beneficial for her family and they weren't particularly sympathetic to the abuse side of things. They just were like, same attitude. I was like, oh, everyone's, everyone smacked their wife, allegedly. Yeah, it's that thing, isn't it?

Like, of, and again, I don't want to delve too much into her family's, like, motivations for these things, but it's, what comes to mind is a conversation we were having on the train when we were on the way to my wedding, and we were talking about Bonnie Blue. And how I was saying to you in that, she has all her family on her payroll. And she's like, my parents are really proud of me. They're really proud of what I do. And if you don't know who Bonnie Blue is, because you're not in the UK, though I'm probably sure you do. She's the woman who, like, there was a channel four documentary about she, like, slept with

a thousand men in a day and filmed it and put it on only fans or tried to. Anyway, and she was saying that my parents are really proud of me and they're absolutely fine with what I do. And I'm like, would they feel the same way if you weren't making millions of millions and millions of pounds and also having all of them on the payroll? Like, it's that thing of how far are you willing to go to be like, this situation is okay when you're financially benefiting from it. even when it's your own child. I don't know, quite far, presumably, if that's the case. But again, you know, I don't know enough about Nicole Brown's family to say that. I don't think anyone does.

They Resnick. But it is a shame that shame feels a weak word. It is sad that not only was she let down by the general culture at the time and the police, but even the people closest to her weren't like, you're in a bad situation. Yes, I completely agree. But in 1993, she did it. She moved out of Rockingham and she moves onto South Bundy Drive.

Which can I just say, I don't think we should underestimate the fame and the allure of fame, right? And I don't think we should underestimate how young she is, how hard it is to get out of a domestic abuse situation for stop, let alone when your husband is as famous as OJ Simpson is.

To walk away from that, to be brave enough to make that move, she should be absolutely applauded for doing that. Yeah, and they've got kids. She can't cut him off, totally. And she's just five minutes down the road. It is so complicated.

And, like, he made her life living hell every opportunity he got. Like, when she moves into the South Bundy house, she uses the Rockingham address as her, like, tax address, essentially, and he threatens to sue her to get her out of that house. Of course he did. Of course he did. Also, this is a narrative. see spun around a lot, but I think it is a reflection of the culture at the time and also

people picking up on the defences, besmirchment of Nicole. But there are people who are, well, you know, she kept sleeping with him, so it can't have been that bad. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to have been with someone since you were 18 to when you are 35. You have children and you've lived together all that time. How hard it is not to just slip it. Of course you're just like going to fall back into how you used to be. Like, that doesn't make him not an abuser, is what I'm trying to say. Of course not. I mean, like, our listeners, you guys don't need to hear us say this. But like, there is still that problem of understanding that in the wider, in the world of culture. I think it is, look, I'm not going to say that we still view domestic abuse in the

same way that it was viewed back then. Obviously, things have changed. But yes, definitely that mindset of like, well, why did you keep going back? Why were you still there? You knew what he was like. Why did you get involved with him in the first place? And look, one of the things we have said repeatedly about O.J. Simpson is how charming he is and how capable he is of presenting himself with whatever persona he wants to. So abusers can do that in general, keep you trapped. Add on to that a very famous, very powerful, very influential, very charming, charismatic man. Of course she did. There's this interview he does with Wendy Williams like decades later. I'm a book fan of of Wendy Williams. Anyway, she does this interview with him and she's like, I cannot believe I'm going to say

this to you but I really like you because he can do it. He just has this OJ thing that he can just do and he just makes you like him and he's the best in the game. So I can't blame Nicole for finding it really hard to cut all ties, but she did it anyway and because of the like tax form thing, this like threat that he was making to report her for the IRS, there's some sort of very boring like stamp duty equivalent thing that she kind of had got round by using his address and he was like, I will fucking report you. Anyway, she was like, right, okay, fine. I'm going to sell South Bundy and I'm going to move out to Malibu.

She'd found this place that she could afford. She was going to move. And she's like, I can do this. I can do this. I can go there on my own and I can start this new life and I can just do it for myself. But didn't happen that way. Nicole's South Bundy home was listed as Drop Dead Gorgeous, the day before OJ finally killed.

her. Hideous, isn't it? Wow. And I don't know if I believe this to be true because I think Nicole's estate agent has tried to wiggle her way into literally everything that's ever been made about this, which is something everybody is doing, apparently.

But the estate agent claims that she had a for sale sign that she was going to put outside the South Bundy house and she had it in her car and it was about 10 o'clock on the 13th of June. June, 1993, and she was driving. She was like, oh, well, I could go and do it. Now, no, no, I'll do it in the morning.

I don't know if I buy that. But it was, yeah, drop dead gorgeous is what the listing was. Wow. Before she was killed. The day before she was killed. Wow. If you want to read a book about O.J. Simpson, the best one is called The Run of His Life, which is where you get a lot of these sort of contextual details from.

It's long. But it's what the People v. O.J. Simpson is based on, is based on the run of his life. It's based on that book. So you'll get the same information. But if you want to, like, make it your job to know about this, that's the one you read. I see. Getting back to our story, professional layabout, Mr. Cato Caelin, briefly lived at the South Bundy House as well.

But OJ moved him into Rockingham as soon as he could, thereby eliminating a potential love rival and depriving Nicole a free child care. He just does everything he can to make her life difficult. And on that June night in 1994, it was Cato Caelan that the LAPD managed to speak to at Rockingham. After many failed phone calls, Detective Mark Furman climbed over the gate and found Cato in his little poolside bungalow.

And Cato told Furman that he didn't know whether Ojo was home or not, but that he had heard a very loud thumping sound on the other side of his bedroom wall at around 10.45 p.m. Behind Cato's man-child cabin, there was a path, and on that path there was something out of place. A brown lump, the Furman assumed, was some sort of dog fecesy at first. But it wasn't. It was a brown leather glove, a right-hand glove covered in blood. You know, when people are like, if you could go back to any moment in history, which one would you pick? And people are like, I'd kill Hitler. I would stop Mark Furman picking up that glove.

I would stop him. I would make it anybody but Detective Mark Furman who discovers the right hand glove on that path because it ruins everything. Honestly, I know we're going to get into all this, but it's just like every bit of the story you were like, how the fuck did he get away with this? And then you're like, oh, racism and incompetence. And Johnny Cochran. The three other detectives that were at Rockingham made it into the main house and worked out with the help of the housekeeper and OJ's long-suffering assistant that Simpson had been driven to the airport

and boarded an 1145 p.m. flight to Chicago. At 6.05 a.m., they rang OJ.'s hotel room at the O'Hare Crown Plaza and they told him what happened. OJ. distraughtly answered, Oh my God. Nicole is killed. Oh my God, she's dead. What do you mean you have my children at the police station? We need to know what to do with them. He did not ask how or when or where Nicole was killed. He didn't even ask if her death was an accident. A lot of people think, yeah. He said, Nicole's been murdered. He doesn't. But he doesn't seem to give any indication he thinks anything else has happened. Simpson agreed to be on the first flight back to LA and uncharacteristically he kept that promise While his children were waiting at the station

The eldest girl rang her home phone And left a message on the answering machine Which went like this Mommy please call me back I want to know what happened last night Why did we have to go to the police station Please answer mummy Oh God

Grim The grimest Nicole's family were notified as well and the first thing her sister Denise said was he killed her, he finally killed her.

Jesus. More blood was spotted in the wonky bronco and the Rockingham foyer once the forensic department showed up. When you put that with the blood on the path alongside Nicole's house you have a literal

trail of blood from the crime scene to the killer. Not to mention two fucking matching gloves, though I know people question that later. Two fucking gloves. Well, did they question that or did they just question that he couldn't have worn it? I guess we'll get to that. Two fucking matching gloves found at either end.

Just to bookend them. It's outrageous. This is way more than enough for a fucking arrest warrant, even in Los Angeles. But OJ was back at Rockingham, 1210. And before he arrived, he gave his old mate and old lawyer, Howard White's minacle. After all, he had got O.J. off pretty lightly last time he found himself in a situation like this. And Howie was waiting for the convicted wife beater at Rockingham.

But he wasn't the only one. Because with him was of course none other than Robert Kardashian. Rob, Rob, Rob, I actually secretly love Robert Kardashian. I don't think I know enough about him. Oh, you're going to learn. So, when Robert says, daughter, Kim, left organizing Paris's cupboards behind and keeping up with the Kardashians was first programmed in 2007. In every press interview, the first words out of Kim Kardashian's mouth was that her dad got OJ off. But firstly, it doesn't even close to true. I get why she does it because it contextualized. No one, she was Paris Hilton's assistant. No one knows who the fuck she is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she can say, you know who my dad is. And it's, it's, it's,

snappier. I get where she did it. So yes, her dad was a lawyer, and he did reinstate his license once OJ was charged with double homicide. But Robert Kardashian was not on the panel of attorneys that would become the notorious dream team. Robert Kardashian, although crucial to this story, was actually just OJ's friend. He's more like a consultant, a handler. Consultio, consultio, consultio, consult. He's just like an OJ shepherd. He just sort of like gets him to the places he's supposed to be. J.J. Whisperer. Yes. That's it. That's it. They like play tennis together at the club. They've been friends for ages. But like Robert Kardashian, I think he did financial law or something like. Nothing even remotely close. He just happened to be a lawyer and about a lot at the time. And it was in his role as OJ. Whisperer that Robert Kardashian was waiting for Simpson on the pavement outside Rockingham. And after some hyperventilation and handcuff theatrics, OJ Simpson agreed.

to go down to the station to be interviewed. And once they all got down there, OJ agreed to speak to officers without his lawyer present. Why? Why? Why? Because Howard Weitzman told him to. That why, I don't know. It wasn't the LAPD's idea. They're not allowed to do that. They get down there and OJ and Howard speak alone, more preferential treatment. They speak alone for about half an hour. And then they come out of this room and Howard says, we agree to an interview.

I don't need to be there, but please record it. That's outrageous. That's outrageous. So much so that the interview that followed would later be referred to in the district attorney's office as the fiasco. They could have got him so easily. But he's not black. He's OJ. I mean, it's not even that he's not black.

He's not just a murderer. he's OJ Like all of the evidence they had They didn't need to be racist To stitch him up They literally could have just been like Oh you did this man Because look at all the evidence we have

But they are so blinded By his fame And him His entire persona is like a separate fucking character In this story And the shit it shields him from I don't know what I'm surprised But

Yeah he just transcends all of it Because he's that famous. Even though OJ Simpson had just committed a double homicide and he's there, sat in front of them, flustered, he's been hyperventinating, he's being recorded and he's sat there loyalless. The detectives who questioned him could not get a decent timeline out of him. They just let him ramble. They don't push him on

anything. He gives a very vague account of his movements that evening dance recital called his girlfriend Paula, who I believe ended up going out with um oh my ex-boyfriend used to have him on a potato on the side of his bed Michael Bolton oh anyway she's not important so he calls his girlfriend I'm more interested in this potato I was young I went out with this guy he was a Western actor and I thought I was so cool that I completely ignored that there was potato with Michael Bolton's face on it yeah we've all done we've all we've all we've all we've all we've all been with Michael Bolton potato Exactly. It's just a classic archetype at this point.

And he's married now and I'm not. Anyway, moving on. Maybe it's to the potato though. Yeah, fingers crossed. So he just says that he calls his girlfriend, drives around. He may have bought some flowers and then he says he took them to the school but then he retracts it. It makes no sense. And then he flew to Chicago and then he came back. The interviews do not push him on a single thing. And even when it came to the cut on Simpson's left hand,

they go pretty easy on him. They just ask him how he got it and he said that he'd broken a glass in his hotel room in Chicago. But then the detectives asked why, if that was true, there was blood on and in his bronco, which would surely have been parked before he went to Chicago because it's outside his house and he gets picked up in a limo. He just says, I bleed all the time.

I play golf and stuff. There's always something. Golf. Okay. I'm like, who is sustaining injuries playing golf? This is what I'm saying. Also, this case, I enjoy, as we've discussed, a case where there is, like, some of the evidence that really makes it look like this person did it. And some of the evidence it really makes like this person maybe didn't do it or, like, completely didn't do it.

And, like, piecing it all together, like a puzzle and, you know, giving the police the benefit of the doubt that these investigations are difficult. Not this one, these as a general umbrella term for murder investigations. It couldn't be more obvious. This one, there's nothing that you're like, oh, did he do it? Here's some evidence that says he didn't. The only evidence that says he didn't is him saying, I didn't do it. The thing about this interview that really shocks me is, when you are the police force up against a famous person, right? The thing that is going to stymie you in the pursuit of justice, if that is so what you are seeking to,

seek is a high paid lawyer sat next to that wealthy person being like no shut the fuck up no no no no no comment don't say a word in lieu of that what the fuck is going on he is like a michael bolton potato ready for the chipper and they're just like well i don't know can i get your autograph like what are they doing? Is it just because they are fans of his? Is that literally, just to be clear, just in case anyone is wondering like I am, is that the reason? I would say 75% yes. Okay. Also, OJ Simpson had LAPD officers in his pool every weekend. Okay. He's kind of like Jack Ruby taking them bottles of whiskey, but it's like the other way around. They love OJ. And OJ knows that and he knows it's good. He had officers that were like his mates, Ronald Schip, who would like,

like run plates for him and stuff. Okay. He has a very like cozy relationship with the LAPD. Many famous people do. I think that is a smaller percentage of it, the larger percentage being they're just a bit starstruck. Not a bit a lot. And why, you may not know this,

why does his lawyer tell him to just go there without him and do this? Because we often say, what are you doing, letting them take the stand? What are you doing, letting him go and speak to the police without you? I have no idea because that to me is just like mind-boggling. But anyway. The only thing I can think of

is Howard Weitzman being like he's OJ, you can get him to do whatever he wants. Yeah. That level of confidence that nothing is going to happen here. He was right. Fuck me. After an unbearable, 32 minutes, that was it.

32 minutes. The fiasco came to a close. Oh, fuck. And the LAPD would never get OJ Simpson into an interview chair ever again. Not once, not never. I'm dead. They let him walk on out of there, just like they had on New Year's Day, 1989. Wow.

The LAPD's argument for letting him go was... Please, tell me. He's the most famous man in America where... can he hide. Everybody will recognize him. He can't run, is what they are, arguing. You haven't met OJ. The juice.

They had met him so many times. He had already run away in a car once. Yes. Oh my God. Shocking. Shocking stuff. It's truly just like it feels like children playing a police officer. I think that's what he does to people.

Yeah. I think that's what he does to men. I think women just, like, desperately want to sleep with him. I think men are just like, because they all wanted, would fight in the playground about who got to be OJ. You know, I, there is no one I can draw a parallel to in my head to how they would have felt about that person. Wow.

Team OJ, understandably, were quite annoyed with how it fights for letting this happen. They had the same question as you. What kind of lawyer would let their client speak to? to the police officer on their own, recorded. I feel like I don't have, I'm not, I'm not a lawyer, but I feel like rule number one of being a criminal defence lawyer, do not speak to the police until I get there. Don't even open your eyes.

Don't even open your eyes. Just sit there with your eyes closed and your hands in your pockets until I get there. What the fuck? So, I believe mainly because of Robert Kardashian. Howard Weitzman was benched and gutter lawyer to the stars and the Menendez's as Robert Shapiro was subbed on. And that is when the dream team began.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, the Hollywood press were having an absolute bloody field day. The blood-soaked walkway was everywhere. I can understand the frenzy. He's the most famous man in America. Yes. And it's so graphic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's in the middle of the hills. Yeah, absolutely.

Tick, tick. Totally. And they had actually managed to get a shot of O.J. Simpson in handcuffs at Rockingham. If it wasn't so diabolical, I would say it's iconic. He was only in these handcuffs for seconds, but it didn't matter they had the photo. This is such a farce. Like they go there to try and arrest him. And they specifically put the cuffs on him behind like a Wendy House or something in the garden out of shot of the photographer's They do not want this photo to be made public of OJ and Cuffs.

But one photographer just manages to get over the fence and they get it. And then it becomes a part of the narrative in America being, he's being so forcefully treated by the LAPD because he is black. There's one interview I saw where she was like, how many times did you see Jeffrey Dahmer in cuffs? I mean, first of all, loads. And second of all, why are you bringing Jeffrey Dahmer into this? think, yeah, look, I'm sure we'll get into this more in next week's episode.

But yeah, I think the narrative spin, right, is if you actually look at the reality of how O.J. Simpson was treated. It's the opposite. He's being treated like a fucking king. And it's the opposite of what everybody's perception is of what's really happening. And I'm like, yeah, the reason fucking Jeffrey Dahmer got away with it for as long as he did, it wasn't because he was not just because he was white, but it was because he lived in a fucking, like, area the police didn't want to go to. And because he was killing men and the police were just like, what? Gay shit. So no. It's fucked. It's fucked. The reality versus people's perception of it could not be further apart. So yes, the media frenzy only amplified when OJ Simpson

was charged with the murders. OJ was even on the cover of Time magazine. The face that launched a thousand outrageous. An editorial decision was made to darken OJ's image and the NACP etl all argued that the time had made him look more black to make him look like a more dangerous predator. No one could believe that such a friendly, wholesome Hurtz spokesman and hero of millions could have committed such a hideous crime. So the narrative became that OJ was being framed because he had infiltrated white society and the whites wanted rid of him.

Time issued a full apology for the cover. My God. We've talked about these sort of things before and I've never really understood these very prominent civil rights activists and pundits talking heads. They're all going on TV and they're saying, well, they've made him blacker to make him look more dangerous. I don't believe that that's what time did. No. But it really helped this narrative. I don't believe that's time did.

Well, I think what it exposes is the inherent colorist prejudice that exists within communities of color. which is a phrase I hate, but let's go with it because it is quite sweeping. So, yeah, I don't think time would have really been thinking about that. And maybe some people will be annoyed that I've said that because you'd be like, well, of course, the time, I don't know. I don't think they would. I think they would have been confused when they got a backlash. And they've just apologized because they're like, we don't know what's going on here. But yeah, it's just so missing the entire fucking point.

Yes. That this man obviously killed Nicole Brown. And Ron Goodman. And Ron Goodman. I'm sorry. I am guilty of doing the same thing you said. Ron Goldman, I even said his name wrong. Yes.

And even when you said double homicide, I was like double homicide. Ron Goldman. Say his name. Say his name. Yes. Ron. In 1993, three eight-year-old boys were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. As the small town local police struggle to solve the crime,

rumors soon spread that the killings were the work of a satanian. cult. Suspicion landed on three local teenagers, but there was no real evidence linking them to the murders. Still, that would not protect them. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondry Show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, three teenage boys are falsely accused of a vicious triple homicide, but their story doesn't end with their trials or convictions. Instead, their plight will capture the imagination of the entire country and spark a campaign for justice that will last for almost two decades. Follow American Scandal on the Wondria,

or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of American Scandal, the West Memphis 3, early and ad-free right now on Wondry Plus. Okay, time for Marsha Clock. There's two ever. She is not perfect. But neither is nobody in this case and all world. She's fucking doing her job, unlike the police. Yes. You can accuse Marsha Clark of many things. Not doing her job. Ain't one of them. And she had a silver lighter that said truth and justice on it. Nice.

Marsha Clark is who I could have been had the world not beaten hope out of me. Like she is so idealistic and she's such a fucking bulldog and she makes a lot of lot of mistakes and that's shit. But I do not doubt that it kept her up at my few years. She cares is the thing. Johnny Cochran is a slug man. I don't believe the same thing to be true of Marsha Clark. Yeah. I think she has morals and I think she stands for something.

Yeah, yeah. I think I agree with you from everything I have read. Marcia is what is known in trial lawyer circles as a lifer. Even when she tried to stop being a state prosecutor, she physically could not. You do it for a bit, you burn out, you move up to management, that's what happens. And when Marcia was moved up to management against her will, she begged the office to take her back. And she said, I can't do criminal defence. I won't do civil. This is the only job I want. And Marcia Clark may have been the only person in the entire world

who didn't know who OJ Simpson. I love that. I love that so much. But as soon as she saw the evidence coming out of Rockingham, she could not wait to send this athlete down with the rest of them. With this much rock hard rocking on evidence, how could it possibly go wrong? And Marcia had just come off the back of an absolute belter where she'd annihilated them. So she's ready to do all over again. primed. Let's go. Her optimism was totally reasonable because the blood found at Rockingham in the house and on the outside of the Bronco, the driver's side door, you know where you open the

car to drive it, that blood was a match for Nicole Brown, OJ Simpson and Ron Goldman. And that is why he is so important, not obviously because he got murdered, that's horrible, but because he's not part of this they have no relationship to each other there is no reason that Ron Goldman's blood would be at Rockingham unless it was taken there by OJ Simpson I mean

or planted by Mark Furman but we'll get there I don't want to say it's a boring story because it's not in any way but the actual evidentiary basis of his guilt or not is so tedious because it's just like who else could have done it

oh my god I like I did not realize how much evidence they had and it just makes it so much more gut-wrenching when it goes wrong truly and also absolutely illuminates how hard the system can get fucked with by the lawyers who know what they're doing additionally the blood found on the footpath behind Nicole's house the one that runs parallel to her front door the one that came from the assailant's left hand was OJ's

and OJ had a cut on his left hand from breaking a glass or playing golf or something as you do. And Nicole and Ron's blood were found on the glove

behind the guest bungalow at Rockingham. What else could prosecutor Marsha Clark ask for? Just follow the literal footprints of blood to the guilty verdict. And I wish it had been that simple.

Yeah, because we'd be wrapping up right about now. You'd be able to go and have a wee. Yes. I'll piss myself in outrage. Dirty protest. I won't really. Don't get scared to studio. On the opposing side, Team OJ, however, were limbering up.

Team captain, Robert Shapiro, may have got Eric Menendez to leave Israel, but he was no killer in the courtroom. Shapiro was the type of lawyer you'd hire if you wanted a plea deal or to settle out of court or something. something. He had never tried a murder trial before. So he called in F. Lee Bailey. Bailey, on the other hand, was a certified shock. He had defended the Boston Strangler and Patty Hurst. To him,

O.J. Simpson was very small. Bolton potatoes. And the eyebrows went up like, are we doing it? Yeah. So important. I could remember Michael Bolton's name so I could set you up. for that one. Thank you. But in this case, even Bailey wasn't enough because they have so much fucking evidence against him. So 13 days after the murders, Shapiro called every lawyer in Hollywood asking for help. And Robert Shapiro genuinely has no shame. One of the men he called told the press, Bob would have cocktails with Hitler. They make this point in the run of his life where it's not necessarily the case that Bob Shapiro actually cared what these lawyers had to say.

But because the way the law system worked in Los Angeles at the time, everything's on referral. And all of these people have got really expensive clients who get in legal trouble and they need lawyers. So Robert Shapiro is like trading in a chip who's like, because I called you, you get to say that you consulted on the OJ case, which is going to get you work. And that means you're going to send more my way. Yeah. That's all it is.

Yeah. So Shapiro got all of these lawyers together in his Century City office and began the meeting by asking how many of you think OJ did it? So yes, when he asked his question, no one answered. And they all just moved on to the specifics of the case. When a medical examiner raised the possibility of more than one killer, Shapiro asked, so that means OJ and who else? It's his defense attorney.

Stunned silence followed once more. The point is that basically from the very beginning, even before the dream team was fully formed, Robert Shapiro always knew he was defending a guilty man and just to be very, very, very clear. They're not meant to ask and they're not meant to say what they think. And there is nothing stopping those lawyers in that room going to the press. Yes. Nothing. Yep.

Just a lot of dirty, backhanded dealing and referrals. all giving. And then they all went for lunch at the club afterwards. Yeah. But it's all because Shapiro knew that he couldn't win on evidence. Dead end. Not going to work. Never going to happen. So he decided to follow what the papers were saying. Yeah. That O.J. Simpson had been framed by a genocidally racist LAPD. But Robert Shapiro couldn't do that without a bit of color on his team.

Yeah. And there was only one man in America for that job. Oh. And even though he was there first, Robert Shapiro wouldn't end up being the most famous member of the dream team. And that ruined him inside. That role fell to Invertebrate Slug Man, Johnny Cochran. Boo. Big boo.

Obviously, look, I am aware that everyone he comes with his trial. I know that. We know that. We know that. Trust me, I've been doing this long enough. And I truly believe that everybody does deserve a fair trial. Yes. What I cannot stand about Johnny Cochran is the way he plays the game.

He actually wasn't invited to the Century City Summit. He was busy being a TV consultant. And he actually said on the Today Show that he thought OJ should take a plea and get it all over with. Wow. Call it a day. Yeah, yeah. You fucked, son. Get out of there. And imagine him saying that.

I guess he's saying that because he wasn't initially invited to the little summit. so maybe he thinks he's not going to be involved in it. I think he genuinely didn't care. Yeah, okay, maybe then, maybe. And you would think if he wanted to be in on it, he would be maybe pitching himself up as somebody who should join the team. But he's saying this because he's like, even with what he knows, not being on the inside,

there's so much evidence that he should just take a plea deal. But when his phone rang and Shapiro goes, Johnny, we're playing the race card. Yeah, yeah. Get in. Johnny Cochran could not turn down the trial of a lifetime. He knew that this was going to make him famous. Oh, absolutely. And look, if I take my like, incredulous wanting justice hat off...

Mine's glued on. Mine's a little sombrero that I take off every now and then. And I put on my... I'm an attorney wanting fame and money, fares. Then, yeah, of course, Shawnee Cochran does it. Yeah, man. And you know what? Believe in yourself, I suppose. And he sure does.

Fuck, yeah, man. Robert Shapiro had decided to play the race card. important that it was his idea, as he will tell you for the rest of time. And nobody does that better than Johnny Cochran. He'd made a career out of going after the LAPD and not without good reason. Yeah, because look, I'm going to say that the race element of this plays a particularly insidious role in why OJ Simpson gets away with this. There is no doubt about that. I actually just Googled the Time magazine cover you were talking about.

They've not darked it. They've basically, like, tweaked with the contrast. Yes, this is exactly what they do. And, like, desaturated it. There's an editorial choice. Yes. It's like, that's what they have done. And it's obviously to make it look more bleak than like a glossy magazine cover picture that they would have of a photo simpson.

Right. Because he's up for double homicide. But what I will say is, while that plays an insidious role and it's very cynically used by the likes of Shapiro and Cochran to do this, no doubt, flaming the fans even further of racial division at the time, which is. is, you know, I'm not also going to play down the reality of race relations at that time in the US in particular. And so it doesn't come from nowhere. But it is so insidious and so cynical. And just such a dirty way to have allowed O.J. Simpson to get away with this. It's literally exploiting exploitation of the people you're pretending to defend. And that is what is so vile about what they do. And they're willing to sell out everybody else who

would be a part of that group of people that they're saying is marginalised and racist, which at the time, of course, in America, for sure you can say that. Absolutely. I'm not here to say that that wasn't the case. But you're selling them all out for a man who's incredibly wealthy and has done incredibly well for himself. And you know he did it. The ends don't justify the means. Because that exploitation is there to be used, because of horrific things that have happened within society, you're using those to obscure, justice from happening for a man who is wealthy enough to hire you whilst simultaneously throwing black people under the bus by increasing racial tension. So cool. Yes. Yes.

Well done Michael Bolton potato. And yes, America in general, racial tensions abound. L.A., specifically when it comes to the LAPD, is a bit of a special case, and I'm going to explain why. When it comes to marking your own homework, the LAP. are the best there is, because there's a few very boring but amount to quite a lot. Quirks of state law, which mean that the LAPD are totally independent of City Hall. So their elected officials are elected by no one but themselves. There is no input from any exterior government body. And that in turn means that if an officer is found to have done wrong,

they are investigated by a panel of their peers who are obviously going to be quite sympathetic. It's just this cyclical thing. And due to former Chief Bill Parker, who recruited his officers from clan rallies, the LAPD was extremely white, especially at the management level. And black neighbourhoods felt no sense of protection. They felt like they were being occupied by a militant force, which they were. And then we've got Chief Daryl Gates, who only built on that in lots of ways. They're very famous. We'll get on to Rodney King, I mean briefly, but we've covered it in other episodes before.

There was also Yula Love, who was shot by LAPD officers over a gas bill that she hadn't paid that was about $20 or something. They shot her dead in front of her house. Multiple examples of that. And they all happened in quite quick succession. Late 80s, early 90s. It is a bad time to be black in Los Angeles. I've got another example actually. 1982, after a number, this is Darrell Gates, after a number of black people were choked to death by LAPD officers, he said, we may be finding that in some blacks, when the chokehold is applied, the veins or arteries do not open up as fast as they do on normal people, which naturally caused outrage because he is saying that black people are, eh, not normal and react different to a chokehold than anybody else.

but it did lead to LAPD police cars which are obviously black and white being called black and normals which I think is quite funny that is very funny It's always darkest before the dawn So in 1988 Gates initiated Operation Hammer

which did exactly what it said on the tin attempted to hammer out gang members across the city Just blanket attack on black neighbourhoods, relentless So swathes of officers would swarm apartment buildings and destroy everything inside, beat up residents and on one occasion even sprayed LAPD rules on the wall. They're just a different gang. I mean, it's a gang, yes, it's a gang, absolutely. Riots erupted across L.A. in 1991.

When the officers who brutalized Rodney King were acquitted, the trial had been moved to a white area on purpose. And have you seen the footage, the Rodney King footage? Yes. It is, it's poor. So I can understand why there was this animosity. Animosity, blanket feeling of like, we are unsafe at all times because of being black. So by the time Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman were murdered,

racially motivated civil unrest was bubbling in the LA melting pot and the lid was about to blow. There was no question that at the time black people were targeted, profiled and exploited by members of the LAPD on the basis of race. And Johnny Cochran and the Dream Team had absolutely no problem whatsoever using that to their advantage. In reality, as we have pointed out several times,

OJ Simpson received special treatment, enormously preferential treatment from the LAPD, and that was a major contributing factor to his acquittal. We've got another example. Because he was O.J. Simpson, he was not dragged out of his house in the middle of the night. he was politely asked to hand himself in on the 17th of June 1994. California is a death penalty state, so Bail was not an option,

and Robert Shapiro absolutely pinky promised the police department that he would try his very best to get OJ down to Parker Centre on time. He has no intention of doing that. They want as long with OJ as they possibly could have. And Simpson was holding up at Robert Kardashian's house in the Valley, and the dream team were making the very best of their time OJ underwent a bunch of tests on the polygraph that they took

he got the worst possible store like a 24 or something like just failure deception every turn he could not have done worse on the polygram so they're like right we're fucked there next thing a forensic psychiatrist

this is all at Robert Kardashian's house a forensic psychiatrist concluded that not only was Simpson only concerned about himself his behaviour was totally inconsistent with an innocent man accused of murder and the doctor left Kardashian's house totally convinced of Simpson's guilt.

Him and the fucking everyone else. Him and his own fucking lawyer. Yes. So that meant insanity. Can't use that one either. Because we can't even pay a forensic psychologist to say that he's nuts. When it came to the morning of

what was supposed to be OJ's self-surrender, he was lying down upstairs. And then 11 a.m. came and went. No one was taking him down to park centre. The police rang Robert Shapiro multiple times and you just fobbed them off. So eventually they had to get in their black and normals and go and get him. And when the police arrived, Robert Kardashian went upstairs to bring his friend down. And O.J. Simpson was gone.

No way. He's never done that before. And he won't do it again. Oh my God. Have you seen the kid run? Yes, on television. Yeah. All the time for years.

He's loose. is the juice. And so was his lifelong friend AC Cowlings. As well as OJ's white bronco. Confusingly, it is not the same white bronco that is at Rockingham. There are two broncos. Can never have too many white broncos. Not if you're the Hertz man.

Give you them every five seconds. After a scrambling panic, Robert Kardashian emerged holding what appeared to be a suicide note. And what I was going to do was play you a clip of it being read and have you guess whether it was actually Robert Kardashian or David Schwimmer. Okay. I forgot. Never mind. So you can play at home.

This letter was written by OJ today. To whom it may concern. First, everyone understand. I had nothing to do with Nicole's murder. I loved her, always have, and always will. If we had a problem, it's because I loved her so much. Recently, we came to the understanding that for now, we were not right for each other, at least for now.

Despite our love, we were different, and that's why we mutually agreed to go our separate ways. It was tough splitting for a second time, but we both knew it was for the best. Inside, I had no doubt that in the future we would be close, friends, or more. Unlike what has been written in the press, Nicole and I had a great relationship for most of our lives together. Like all long-term relationships, we had a few downs and ups. I took the Heat New Year's 1989 because that's what I was supposed to do. I did not plead no contest for any other reason but to protect our privacy and was advised it would end the press hype.

I don't want to belabor knocking the press, but I can't believe what is being said. Most of it is totally made up. I know you have a job to do, but as a last wish, please please please leave my children in peace their lives will be tough enough paula what can i say you are special i'm sorry i'm not going to have we're not going to have our chance god brought you to me i now see as i leave you'll be in my thoughts I think of my life

and feel I've done most of the right things so why do I end up like this I can't go on no matter what the outcome people will look and point I can't take that I can't subject my children to that

This way they can move on and go on with their lives. Please, if I've done anything worthwhile in my life, let my kids live in peace from you, the press. I've had a good life. I'm proud of how I lived. My mama taught me to do unto others. I treated people the way I wanted to be treated. I've always tried to be up and helpful, so why is this happening?

I'm sorry for the Goldman family. I know how much it hurts. Nicole and I had a good life together. All this press talk about a rocky relationship was no more than that, I'm sorry, was no more than what every long-term relationship. experiences. All her friends will confirm that I have been totally loving and understanding of what she's been going through. At times, I have felt like a battered husband or boyfriend, but I loved her. Make that clear to everyone, and I would take whatever it took to make it

work. Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life, great friends. Please think of the real, OJ, and not this lost person. Thanks for making my life special. I hope I helped yours. Peace and love, OJ. First of all, when he signs off, peace and love, OJ, he draws a smiley, he draws a smiley in the oh? Who signs off a suicide note with a smiley face? I would like to see the research on that. I would like to see the studies on that. And you will have noticed whether you decided it was David Schwimmer or not. There is not a single mention of finding out who the real killers are.

Sure, sure, sure. He's just very concerned with his wrongful accusation. And he's very concerned about what he's going to do and how they perceive him. He's like, don't see me as this lost person. Remember the man I was. innocent behaviour. He's chucked his

Justice sombrero in the bin. I don't think you ever had one. Robert Shapiro took it off in below. No, no. We don't need the...

No, no, no. Never talk again. And he lists all of these people, right? Who has 15 best friends that he lists? And most of them, by the way,

are very rich, old white men. I believe the CEO of Hertz is on these list. Oh, my God. But then, Then he mentions Marcus Allen. And this is interesting. Marcus is essentially a younger, faster, better OJ. He says like protégé. And I think we can pretty well say that Nicole

and Marcus had an affair. Scandal. It's never been 100% confirmed. And it is possible that OJ made it up. I don't totally disbelieve that that could have happened. And I actually think that he talks about Marcus and his wife being like you've got a good woman there you got married at my house remember it's a threat

some people like oh well you know he forgave Marcus but he just couldn't forgive Nicole and that's what pushed him over the head nah no way he's being like I will get you from beyond the grave you motherfucker like I don't believe that it's easy breezy between the people

no way so yes in his The second white bronco, the juice was officially on the loose. The press conference went ahead and one poor bastard had to tell the press, Mr Simpson has not appeared. The police department are actively searching for Mr Simpson. One journalist who has never identified themselves and they just go,

and that's it, just is like silent room. He's catching his breath for all the running he's going to have to do. They're like, this is the best. day of my fucking life. Honestly. So the LAPD alerted Border Patrol and the Mexican police force, thinking that maybe OJ was

going to make a break for the border. With his sombrero? In the bin. At 6 o'clock, the two escapees were spotted and everybody stuck a camera on their helicopter. Everyone is out there. Every new station. Literally anyone who just privately has a helicopter are like, we are going to find that car

and we are going to sell this footage and we're going to make our millions. She fucking would. And they find him. No.J. was a little bit. in the backseat while A.C. was driving. And they were actually driving away from Mexico towards a cemetery when a coal had been buried. 20 black and normals gathered on their tail for the slowest but most famous car chase in history. The Bronco Pursuit was broadcast on every channel, sports ones included, instead of playoffs. That's like a thing that people like very

annoyed about. The Knicks were in the playoffs and it was like a really important game. They're like, I don't give a fuck about this very slow Bronco. If you just hear about the OJ case, it's so famous and everyone talks about it, like, it's so interesting. At the time. And then you actually watch it and you're like, yeah. It's kind of like watching paint dry, actually. And it is also true that Domino's received as many orders that day during this very slow car chase as they did on Super Bowl Sunday. The nation was absolutely transfixed.

No one, except presumably Nix fans, could look away from the superstar crawling towards his demise in a white bronco. Got nowhere to look. No one's broadcasting it, apart from people who are in the stadium. Proud of people clutching free OJ signs gathered at the side of the freeway hoping to catch a glimpse of him rolling by. Oh, sigh. And at 1847, for our American listeners, 647 p.m. Literally, my friend picked up my phone and she was like, what the fuck? And I was like, how do you not know how to do that?

That is quite embarrassing for you. Anyway, AC Canning's finally cracked and he called 9.1. He told the operator Simpson had a gun to his head and he was threatening to kill himself and that he wanted to see his mother and the operator is like who are you and he was like,

you know who the fuck I am! Yes, everybody knows who you are. Eventually, police managed to convince Simpson to surrender and a SWAT team were waiting for the two childhood friends at Rockingham. So a news cruise naturally. The last thing the LAPD needed was for O.J. Simpson to blow his head off on live TV.

So they cut all of the lights. Helicopter lights, house lights, street lights, darkness, because they're so worried that someone's going to film it. But I can completely understand why to the rest of the city are like, they're going to kill him and they don't want us to see. I can totally understand why that further perpetuated this narrative that they were going to kill them. It's so interesting how I was telling you about that drama I was watching called The Girlfriend, where it's like told from each person's point of view

and you never know what's quite the truth. And in each scenario, they're acting completely differently based on how they think they're acting and the story they want to tell themselves. This is just so like that. It's actually like you couldn't make it up how much the LAPD are behaving in one way. Again, I'm not saying the LAPD are great. They're fucking shit and that's why they're, He gets away with it and how it's perceived.

Yeah, fuck. That's so, so messed up. OJ Simpson and AC counting sat in that white bronco on the drive at Rockingham for almost an hour. After a lot of coaxing, OJ staggered out of the bronco and collapsed into an LAPD officer's arms, just like Nicole had in 1989 on the very same drive. He's so dramatic. Simpson was taken inside and given a glass of orange juice and he was allowed to call his mum.

He has just been on national television, evading arrest for hours. And they're just like, okay, but you can call your mom in your own home and would you like a drink of yourself? Then he was taken down to county jail. in handcuffs, where he spent the night on suicide watch. Inside the Bronco, there was $8,700 in cash. OJ's passport, a fake goatee, a fake mustache, a bottle of makeup adhesive remover, three receipts from Cinema Secrets Beauty Supply, dated to the 27th of May 1994,

and a fully loaded magnum registered to an LAPD lieutenant. But even still, public support remained strong for O. OJ, and the dream team could not risk losing that momentum. Johnny Cochran, the foremost black attorney in the country, was ready to work his magic. And on the 22nd of July, O.J. Simpson entered the plea of absolutely 100% not guilty. You can sometimes see when Johnny Cochran sat next to him, on the very rare occasions he talks in like arraignment hearings or whatever. And OJ will say something like that, and Johnny just looks at him like, shut up, which is why he never let him sleep.

Which is the one smart thing that any defence attorney defending a man like OJ Simpson can do. Judge Lance Eto was selected to try the case and OJ's defence team were given the opportunity to have him swapped out for a different judge because Eto's wife was a captain in the LAPD, her name's Captain Margaret York. But the dream team declined. Jargetoo was perfect. It's exactly who they wanted, so they moved on to jury selection. Cochrane was convinced that if he could get a majority black jury, he could hang it. That was all he needed to do. Research sessions were carried out by the defence and the prosecution, and they found that black women in particular loved O.J. Simpson,

and they hated prosecutor Marsha Clark. It was even recommended that Marcia soften up her image before the trial kicked off which may have been where the infamous perm comes from. I, look, is a perm a soft look? I think Marcia, during this time, she's suffered with really quite severe bulimia for years to the fact where she's got abscesses in her mouth,

like it's really doing a number on her. She's got two children, she's going through a divorce. she is working herself into the ground and if you have a perm you don't really have to do anything to your hair it just does it itself doesn't it because it's chemical so I can completely understand why she was like I actually I don't fucking have time to do this I get it but if anyone says she looks haggard one more time

meet me outside I get it like men and women are different but like the amount of press time the amount of column inches that focus on the way Marsha looks in the courtroom. Is that what you're bothered about? Give her a fucking break. They don't, they can't, they don't know how. So after this research into kind of how this case would play out depending on the makeup of the jury,

they put together lengthy questionnaires attempting to eliminate jurors who they thought would vote their way. That happens. Because this was such a prolific case, A lot more questions were allowed than would have been normally, arguably Itto's first mistake. But, yeah, you have to select a jury that are as impartial as possible. And if someone has beaten their wife, you don't want them on that jury if you're Marsha Clark. So this as a process is not unusual.

No, no. The prosecution and the defence will have there. attempts to veto members of the potential jewelry pool. And I wonder, do you remember when I got my first jury service letter and I was called up to the old Bailey? And then I got bumped to a Nightingale call. I reckon it's because they figured out what my job is. So they took me off the juicy case.

I just had to be fucking bored out of my fucking skull for two weeks. So just to put into context, while this is completely normal that this kind of jury selection happens, of course it is. But to help you understand just how significant, significant this was, 257 people were interviewed, and after 11 weeks, 12 jurors and 12 alternates were finally selected. And to be honest, this case was won the day the jury was seated. And according to Vanity Fair, even Simpson himself knew that.

Allegedly, O.J. Simpson told Johnny Cochran, quote, if this jury convicts me, maybe I did kill Nicole in a blackout. Judge Itto then had to decide what evidence this jury would be allowed to hear, the most significant being OJ's history of domestic violence, and whether that could be interpreted as prejudicial evidence. But I think we can all agree that a wife batterer is more likely to murder, said wife.

Eventually, the 1989 arrest and the 911 call that Nicole made in 1993 were ruled admissible. But her court, the sojourn-battered woman's centre, that she made just days before she died, was not. It still should have been enough, though. Yeah. The defence of like, well, this isn't a domestic violence case, it's a murder case. Like, why would domestic violence evidence be admissible? And look, they've got to say shit, but come on.

Exactly. That's where the judge has to do their job. Yeah. I was rooting for you, it's who I really was. Johnny Cochran rolled into opening statements, guns blazing. His first mission, which he accepted with open arms, was to besmirch Nicole Brown's name as much as he possibly could. They found in the jury selection process, the research they were doing, that this is a trope. He used it in his defense, which is the only reason I'm bringing it up.

That stereotype that black women do not like white women who are with black men because they think, oh, you took one of the good ones. He believed that black women were suited to the jury because they just, by default, would not like Nicole Brown because she's white and had a black husband, mixed race kids, etc. He makes Nicole out to be as bad as possible. And this is where Thayerasnik comes in. Morally corrupt Thay Resnick.

The Future Housewife Star had been friends with Nicole since 1990. And according to Johnny Cochran, the two women partied five nights a week and free-based a whole load of cocaine. Maybe they did. Faye does go to rehab. Nicole was actually reasonably instrumental in putting her in there.

I do think the closeness of their friendship was overblown by Faye Resnick. Because if you've got friends like her, you do not need enemies. It is actually quite unusual for a defence attorney or any attorney to name names in an opening statement. It's a bit of a risk because if the trial doesn't go the way you think it's going to go, then you can shoot you in the foot. Johnny Cochran doesn't care. He knows that Faye Resnick is going to work for him. And here is why.

After Nicole died, very, very quickly, after Nicole died, Faye Resnick went to go and see a psychic. And this psychic said to her, You're going to write a book. Nicole wants you to be faithful to your heart. Nicole wants you to call it as you see it. Does she? Really.

She's from beyond the grave speaking to you via... A psychic medium. But, you know, she's not concerned about the fact that the man who murdered her is going to get away with it or the fact that her children have been left without a mother. She really wants you, Faye Resnick, her maybe friend, to write a book about her murder. Fuck off. She's such a bell-ed. And Faye wrote that book before her friend was even cold.

Oh. And the book was released in the middle of jury selection. even if you believe that Faye Resnick thought she was helping which I don't which I do not she could have derailed the whole fucking trial there are people who defend her and say that her and Nicole were friends and she really did think she was doing the right thing

I'm not one of them but choice selection are you joking anyway Resnick claims that she wrote it because she was certain of OJ's guilt and that she wanted to do her bit for Ville victims of domestic violence. Fuck off.

So, Nicole Brown Simpson, the private diary of a life interrupted, blasted to number one on the bestsellers list, beating a book written by Pope John Paul II, which is a beautiful irony that I think I will remember the rest of my life. What a fucking title. That has been fucking focus grouped

to within an inch of its life. The whole book is just This is why I don't believe that Faye Resnick was actually her friend She spends a lot of time saying She says Nicole had six abortions In secret because she was so afraid of OJ

And I'm like You don't need to reveal that very personal information About your friend To make the point that she was afraid You're doing it to be salacious And you're doing it to sell books And it is morally bankrupt And also, it reads exactly how you think it does.

Lots of candle chat. Oh, boy. But she also puts in that Nicole had a habit of handing out like surprise blow jobs to like men who were asleep, which she called a Brentwood hello, which like, again, she's literally only just in the ground. Is that what she came and told you through that psychic to reveal to everybody? This is what I mean. Playing right into Johnny Cochran's hands as well, exactly as you said. That's what makes it even worse. And so, Johnny Cochran had absolutely no problem convincing the black female jurors

that Nicole was a no good loose-lipped nightmare that would drive any man up the wall. And OJ had written his own book too, which was also a huge success, particularly with black women. It was called I Want to Tell You, which feels like it called less time, they'll put it to the title. But it was actually written, not by OJ, but by a man named Larry Schiller, a shameless profiteer and Kardashian ally who exclusively made book deals with murderers, including Jack Ruby and one of the Manson family women. Imagine that being the answer to what your job is. I track down murderers and I get book deals out of them.

Hey, ma'am. It's a business. It's a living. This is what has struck me so much about this case is just the constant circling vultures of people who are like, how am I going to get my 15 minutes? minutes out of this. So Shiller jumped on the Resnick hate train too, writing, The answer to the death of Nicole lies somewhere in the world that Faye Resnick inhabited. Cochran also managed to chuck in that O.J. Simpson's arthritis had got so bad in his

old age that he couldn't shuffle cards. In reality, no one let Simpson shuffle the cards because he always cheated. Cheated at everything. They had a specific golf cart at the club called the Juice Patrol because he would just drop balls as he went round and they were just like, you can't do that. Anyway, Marsha Clark sucked to her timeline in the opening statement, laying out how OJ Simpson absolutely would have had time to get from South Bundy back to Rockingham in time to be driven to the airport. It was all there.

OJ's blood was at the crime scene and the victim's blood was on the glove that was discovered at OJ's house and literally on his car. But this is where it starts to get sticky. Quite literally, back then, DNA was the new kid on the block, far from the magic bullet that it can be confused with today. Another fact of the trial that the dream team were poised to blow wide open with the help of Barry Sheck, one of the few lawyers in the United States who had experience with DNA.

Johnny Cochran's job was to dismantle any faith that the jury had in the LAPD. Sheck's job was to undermine the credibility of the DNA evidence that could easily convict OJ Simpson. Ever the showman, Robert Shapiro, sent a bunch of prominent journalists bottles of cologne called DNA. He wants his 15 minutes so bad. He doesn't tell him, everyone's just like, it was obviously Robert Shapiro that sent that. He just like does it anonymously. Yeah. DNA-R-F-L-P testing confirmed that the blood on the path at South Bundy had a one in 170 million chance of coming from anyone other than OJ Simpson, which we would call a match.

Yes. And blood on socks recovered from his Rockingham bedroom had a one in 6.8 billion chance that the blood came from anyone but Nicole Brown. At that point in history, there were only 5 billion people on the planet. but it got lost in all of the noise about the blood evidence because nobody could explain to the jury in a way that was understandable and flashy like the way the defence were doing anything they couldn't get them to understand CSI hadn't hit our screens yet and sheck does play this incredibly well he had noticed a couple of discrepancies in the forensic reports when it came to the blood evidence and also the total incompetence of the criminalist who had collected the samples from the crime scene and the Bronco in the first instance. Three weeks after the murders, more blood was discovered on the back gate of Nicole Brown's house. Exactly in the place it would be if a person with a bleeding left hand had pushed it open to make a getaway.

In news that will surprise absolutely no one, that blood belonged to Mr. O.J. Simpson. But even though it was collected later, it had degraded less than the blood samples collected at the scene. How, Sheck asked the jury, could blood be in better molecular shape for testing after three weeks are being sought out in the open? According to Sheck, it had been taken from the police lab and planted on the gate in a further attempt to frame O.J. Simpson. The real reason that the blood on the gate was in better shape than the first samples, however, was because the first ones had been improperly stored by a moron. In like a hot car. Yeah. At a preliminary hearing, the technician who had drawn blood from O.J. Simpson himself stated he had taken 8 milliliters.

But the testing report showed only 6.5 milliliters of blood. Where had that other 1.5 mil of blood gone? Sheck asked. That's very smart. The technician later said that they just made a mistake. Eight mill is standard, so that's what he'd said. But it could easily have been 1.5 mil less than that. It made no difference, however.

The majority of the jury were convinced by their own life experiences that the LAPD would do anything to bring a black man down. And Sheck had just given them the method by which it had been done. It is so smart. And he also, he has this photograph of the game. that's taken the day, Nicole's discovered. But nobody knows the blood is there, they haven't noticed. So it's really distant in the background.

So he just blows up the picture of this gate to the point where it's completely unrecognizable as even an object. And he's like, where is it? And you can't see it because the picture's so bad, but it didn't matter. Like they just three-ring circus their way so beautifully for it. And also, 1.5 milliliters of blood is nothing. I mean, look, a lot of the stuff they do is dirty, underhanded, manipulated. all of this. With that, yeah, look, man, you're right.

It wouldn't make a difference. 1.5 mil. It's clearly a mistake. But also, if that's your defence attorney and they didn't go for that, you'd be pissed. It's very, very smart. Why someone would bother

three weeks posthumously splashing some blood on the gate when they already have samples of OJ's blood at the crime scene and Nicole and Ron's blood at Rockingham, I don't know. But again, it doesn't matter. No, it does.

doesn't matter. And even worse, DNA experts that the prosecution got to explain why DNA testing is so vastly superior to traditional blood testing made everything worse again. Because DNA test match numbers were so high, I told them to you, they are really, really high. But when the focus shifted to the blood evidence, when numbers indicating a match are much lower, just because the test is less accurate, not because it's not the blood, it just made it seem to the jury. that the blood matches were less convincing because they weren't those sky-high numbers. So, the largest amount of DNA evidence

ever submitted at trial in American history up to that point didn't matter at all. Gloves, on the other hand, would mean everything. And we're going to be doing a lot of glove chat. Next week. And I wish I could tell you it will be less exasperating. No. To be fair, it won't be as relentless.

Okay. There's maybe the first half, sure. Okay, well, you know, we like to see off the year with a healthy dose of rage here at Red Handed. So if you're feeling that, then, you know, just see this as preparations for the festive period where maybe you'll be forced to spend time with some family members that you don't enjoy so much. So get all your rage out while listening to these two episodes. So we will see you next week for the concluding part of O.J. Simpson and also the final episode of Red Handed for the year 2020. Bring your justice shots, Somberra. sorry I'll call me talking more.

Goodbye. Thank you.