You're Wrong About - The O.J. Simpson Trial: Kato Kaelin Part 2

Episode Date: January 20, 2020

Sarah tells Mike the ending to the story of the mimbo and the alibi. Digressions include O. Henry, Nigerian e-mail scams and Dave Coulier. Mike wildly over-simplifies the Brexit vote. Continue reading →Support us:Subscribe on PatreonDonate on PaypalBuy cute merchWhere else to find us: Sarah's other show, Why Are Dads Mike's other show, Maintenance PhaseSupport the show

This is my theory about why we need to replace alcohol culture with weed culture on college campuses, because what we need is a bunch of frats that over-consume and end up just like with couch-lock talking about society. Welcome to You're Wrong About, the podcast that takes you to McDonald's and never provides an alibi. Well, I understand it. I don't know what it means. I don't want to do that to people. I was trying to turn the McDonald's trip, the hamburgers, into a metaphor, but I don't know what it's a metaphor for. Well, it's for us being O.J. Simpson, which is the part that gives me pause. Welcome to You're Wrong About, the show where your co-hosts try not to compare themselves to a murderer.

There you go. Isn't that better? I mean, I don't know. I do it sometimes on purpose. That's true. So we have two wrong taglines. Yes. I am Michael Hobbs. I'm a reporter for The Hovindan Post. I'm Sarah Marshall. I'm researching a book on the satanic panic. We are on Patreon at patreon.com slash You're Wrong About and lots of other places. And we have some cute tote bags for you.

And today we're talking about Cato Kalen again, right? Yes. Are you excited? Yes, because I want to know the end of the mystery. I want to know what the alibi is. Why do you think you're going to get answers to anything? This is so adorably optimistic. I'm going to get the golden ticket. So where should we start? Well, I want to start with you recapping what we have learned about Cato Kalen most recently and tell us factually, but also tell us what are your perceptions?

So Cato Kalen grew up in a happy Catholic middle-class home in a pretty functional family? As far as we know. Everything is a functional family as far as we know. Yes. And he sort of bounced through life without a lot of his struggles kind of seeming to internalize within him. He seems to have just kind of gone from job to stand-up comedy to acting a little bit willy-nilly and attracted people around him also kind of just like a rolling snowball picking up little branches and twigs. And then he kind of serendipitously meets Nicole Brown Simpson. He kind of stumbles into living in her guest house. He ends up witnessing quite a

bit of abuse that he doesn't really know how to process. And he becomes a confidant to Nicole. And he also becomes a confidant to her abuser, OJ Simpson, who eventually ends up convincing him to move into OJ's guest house. So yeah, that's where we left him. He's moving in with OJ. Yeah. And so he moves in with OJ and we are going to pick up with the weekend of June 11th and June 12th, which is the two days preceding the murders. Oh, okay. How long has he been living with OJ at this point? At this point for like six months. But the thing is that OJ has not been around that much. Because he's playing golf. He's traveling around. He's hanging out with Paula Barbieri.

It is the football season. And so OJ is spending a lot of time in New York and a lot of time traveling around covering that because he's doing commentary for NBC. So during the football season, he's busy and he's traveling a lot. So Kato is hanging out in the guest house, hanging out more or less by himself. Yeah, pretty much. This is a winter into spring of 1994. Kato has moved into the guest house at OJ's, which is basically a studio apartment. It's one of three guest houses at OJ's house on Rockingham. Yeah, it's a big place. It's really kind of an estate compound. And the other residences are used by Arnell, who's OJ's daughter from his first marriage. And by his housekeeper Gigi, who normally doesn't spend the night there. But if she needs to, there's a guest house reserved

for her. And then the guest houses have a communal kitchen. And Kato is allowed to come and go in the main house as much as he wants and have whatever he wants from the fridge. And the only rule really is that he can't bring in anyone OJ doesn't know into the main house without his explicit permission. Do they hang out a lot during this time? Not very much. But then when OJ stops traveling, he starts hanging out with Kato much more. And as spring starts turning into summer, and as OJ's attempts to reconcile with Nicole Falter, he starts reaching out to Kato more. And then it becomes like Kato is this on call kind of pal and listener for him. Interesting. Which makes sense that OJ would want that given his way of relating to people, you know, and just like

needing someone to be talking to. Yeah, just like someone to bounce himself off of. Yeah, so having someone on call in a guest house. I mean, isn't that weird that he was like the emotional helper dog to both OJ Simpson and to Nicole? Yeah, I mean, to me, it demonstrates his general almost indifference that he's just someone who can kind of absorb other people's energy without necessarily reflecting on it a lot or thinking about sort of what does this person really need from me. He just kind of has the same personality with everybody. Hey, I'm here. I'm friendly. I'll listen. He doesn't seem to be in this almost childlike role, right? Where it's like they're kind of they're providing for him financially in exchange for

emotional work. Right. And also there's advantage to him living with OJ now and in a sense he has traded up because OJ is more powerful. OJ has more direct connections to powerful people. OJ can help Kato with his acting career, which you know, despite his roles in films such as Beech Fever has never really taken off. Yeah, you can look at it from that perspective as well. And like, even if you aren't saying that Kato made his choice for that reason, it can't have hurt. Yeah. Yeah. You know. So what happens on this weekend before the murders? First of all, there's a quote that I really like from the trial jumping ahead to Kato's testimony.

This is when he's being cross-examined by Bob Shapiro. Shapiro asked Kato, can you tell us what OJ's life was like in January of 1994? And Kato says, golfing. He's doing his NBC commentary traveling. And he's also doing a lot of the golfing for hurts. Must be nice. Must be nice. Well, it's also, it is sad though, right? Because you look at, this actually reminds me of a moment in Paula Barbieri's book that actually, to me, is quite sad, where she talks about like the great love of OJ's life, golfing. And you're like, right. Because Paula meets him when he's in his mid 40s. Like his football years are like far, far behind him. Yeah. He has bad knees. He doesn't run anymore.

You know, he used to, he used to be the fastest boy and he can't run anymore. And she's like, OJ's great love golfing. And you're like, God, that's a bummer. You know, just that like, his life is like obviously very cushy, very privileged. You know, he's doing awful things in his marriage to Nicole and never facing real consequences for them. He's materially, you know, completely provided for and has the kind of power that many offers people. And because of that, and within that, his life just seems just empty. You know, his friends are these hangers on. He spends an incredible amount of time playing golf. And he has this sort of ceremonial role as like someone who's wheeled out and who people are happy to see, but who doesn't

do anything anymore. Right. You know, I mean, it's the kind of life that someone like Kato would probably be really content with because he wouldn't like overthink it and he wouldn't be comparing it to this life that he dreamed of. It would just be like, yeah, I play golf all the time and I go on TV and I talk about stuff. I think Kato would be really happy if he had like a Dave Coulier level of fame. I feel like what makes OJ really dangerous is that he has experienced this pure fix, like this pure form of the drug that he got so addicted to like in his glory days when like he was the best at something. Yeah. And if you're a narcissist, truly being the best at something probably doesn't help. Yeah. Because then eventually you're going to unbecome the best at something.

Right. And then your wife isn't going to be able to make you feel as good as you did back then. And God help her. This is why English people voted for Brexit and Scottish people didn't because English people see themselves as rightfully returning to their place atop a giant empire. And people in Scotland have always thought of themselves as a small country among other small countries. So they're not comparing themselves to this glorious past. And so the echoes of these memories of past glories can provide a sense of kind of desperation in people or the ends justify the means to get back to where I rightfully should be. Right. And then you elect a posh weirdo to represent you, which feels somehow connected to that. So it's Saturday, June 11th in Los Angeles.

Cato sleeps in until 10 and then he goes and takes a 10 mile run. And while he is running down the four street stairs, which is a 99 step staircase that leads to Sunset Boulevard, he runs into Nicole and her friend, Cora Fishman. And they don't speak. Oh, what? They just like walk past each other pretending not to see each other? Well, she at least doesn't seem to acknowledge him. Oh, wow. Can you remind us the last we heard about Cato and Nicole's relationship? Well, yeah, she understood exactly what was happening. She understood that OJ was trying to manipulate him and take him out of her confidence and take away a source of support for Nicole. And Cato did not see what was happening. And so he just sort of duped to do wandered into OJ's orbit, thinking it was no big deal. And Nicole

understood that it was. Yeah. Yeah. And so he sees her outrunning, but they don't they don't speak, they don't interact. And he gets back to rocking him a little bit afternoon, he takes a shower. And then he's starting to get dressed when he sees OJ in the window of his house waiting to Cato to try and get his attention and calling him. And he's like, Cato, I need you. Come talk to me. And so Cato is like, OK, he kind of he kind of is like a family dog, right? He gets passed around. Yeah. Yeah. And when you're like, I don't really have much time for Cato right now. Yeah. And he like, don't play with him. But when you need a comforting presence, you're like, Cato, come in the house, Cato. So Cato comes in and OJ asks what he's up to, who's he dating.

And Cato is like, oh, you know, no one's special. How about you? And OJ is like, oh, you know, the same. And Cato knows that OJ has just finished shooting a pilot for a TV show, which is. Oh, is this the Frogman? Yeah. Frogman. Can you remind us what Frogman is? I love quizzing you on this. I'm sorry. Wasn't it something about scuba divers? It's about Navy Seals. Navy Seals. OK. And in what context have we heard of this show so far? Because this is important to remember, I think. Right. Because Nicole has a phobia of frogs, and OJ has been lording it over her. LOL, I'm in a show called The Frogman, and you hate frogs. What a funny story. Yeah. And they were on this like, we're reconciling, we're everything's fine,

and we're making our relationship work trip to Cabo. And then for no apparent reason, he decides to just start taunting her about the Frogman thing and be like, hey, baby, I'm the Frogman. Even if he wasn't being a dick, it's like not a funny story. Right. Like if I were writing an article that like the title was about cinnamon buns, and I knew you loved cinnamon buns, it wouldn't be interesting if I brought that up all the time. It's like the cruelty once again is the point. And so yeah, the Frogman is like the pilot that he's been shooting and also kind of the impetus for one of the big cracks, you know, at the end of his relationship with Nicole. Right. All that's to say that OJ has just finished this

Frogman pilot, and then he was really expecting this reconciliation with Nicole to continue and apparently felt very blindsided when after coming back from this trip to Cabo, she was like, this is really over. This needs to be over. And he was like, what? But I buy you something. Right. And so Cato is experiencing OJ and the immediate aftermath of all this after he has experienced himself being rejected and doesn't have any work to do. Right. So he gets like he doesn't have really any structure in his life right now besides whatever he imposes. And disliking Nicole or like having this resentment and Nicole building up of like, how could she do this to me? Why did she betray me? Everything was going well. And then she turned

on a dime. Like you can imagine how this situation would read to him. Like, oh, all I did was make a joke about the frogs. All of a sudden, she's cutting me out of her life. She's the evil one in this scenario. You can see that building. Yeah. And Cato says, you know, that afternoon, basically OJ is watching TV. He kind of always has the TV on. And Cato recalls OJ saying, Cato, I'm so lonely. I can't stand this. I'm bored out of my mind. There's nothing to do. And Cato is like, OJ can have any woman you want. How could he be lonely? And OJ says, well, it's not like that, man. I'm just too lonely. I like hearing my kids' voices around the house knowing they're there. I want the white picket fence, the wife, the whole dream. Then don't beat

up the one you have. And here, now we're going to hear Cato's impressions of OJ's relationship with Paula. So Mark Elliott writes, OJ and Paula had already been dating for nearly two years. As he had with Nicole, OJ began seeing the young actress while he was still married. Once Nicole had been the other woman, now she was the wife and it was Paula's turn to play that role. Interestingly, Cato didn't actually meet Paula until May 1994. It was as if OJ hadn't wanted to bring Cato into that part of his life. Perhaps Nicole's friendship with him had something to do with that. Still, Cato felt he knew Paula quite well from the way OJ talked about her. She was madly in love with him, Cato recalled. When I finally did see the two of them together, I believed it,

but he didn't love her. I believed that too. He said she was eager to settle down and to that end would do anything for him. However, to OJ, Paula was strictly a sexual partner, among the best he'd ever had. After I do it with her, he told me she can get me right back and ready for more. No other woman can do me like her. He told me she was flat out the sexiest woman he'd ever known, but that he didn't love her and had no intention of marrying her. Oh my god, that's really sad considering what we know about Paula. Yeah, what do we know about Paula? Well, she wants a dude. She's also lonely. Her life is really busy and she clearly really likes OJ.

And also, didn't you say that in her book she says the sex was not that great? So she's in it for the relationship and not sex, and he's in it for sex and not the relationship. That's like, oh, Henry. She's like, well, obviously, we have this great spiritual connection. We have this great romantic connection. But the sex is not amazing, but whatever, you can't have everything. And OJ is like, obviously, the sex is amazing and everything else I could take her for. Although, do we have other accounts that this is actually how OJ felt? Because there is a thing where men will actually be really interested in intimacy with women, but they'll still tell their buddies, oh, the sex is really good. He could also just be telling this to Kato.

Right. And I can also see OJ having a particular attachment to Paula because she seems like a very nurturing person and him being uncomfortable with the degree of attachment that he feels for Paula. Like, yeah, I can see that also being true. Kato's not the guy that you keep around for your relationship therapy, I think. I don't think you should go to him for that degree of finesse. Right. So OJ's lonely. He's more angry at Nicole for distancing him and also feeling trapped by this emotional vacuum that he feels like he's in all of a sudden. Yeah. And this is the day before Paula leaves him a message breaking up with him and flies out to be with Michael Bolton. I forgot about that. He probably knows the fixes in there as well.

I would guess he has some sense of that. Paula is really just kind of biting her time at this point. She, according to her book, already knows that she wants to end things with him, but hasn't bitten the bullet yet. So like, he probably has some awareness of that at this point. And so Nicole has rejected him. Paula is slipping away. He's complaining about wanting the dream and the white picket fence and feeling sorry for himself is what it sounds like. And he also complains to Kato that he was supposed to have the kids that weekend and Nicole changed her mind at the last second and kept them. So he's complaining about her also allowing the lines of her keeping the kids away from him. So this is 48 hours before the

murders? It's like 36 hours before. According to Kato, OJ has suggested in the past that Kato go to a nightclub that Nicole likes to go to on the night that she likes to go there. So that essentially in Kato's understanding so that Kato can scope out the place and see if she's there. And then report back? Yeah. What? Yeah. So he's trying to use Kato to spy on Nicole. And Nicole will be quoted by friends later saying that she suspects that Kato is spying on her and that she sees him out and about and in clubs an awful lot for someone who, you know, is making the kind of money that he is not making. So he may have been already dispatched to do this? Yeah. Like if he followed through on that, then he's not talking about it, but that certainly,

you know, doesn't rule out the possibility that he was. He also might not have been aware that he was being used in this way. Yeah. That's also extremely possible. Yeah. Like you can suggest to Kato like, Hey, you know, there's this great club and like, I've heard the women are really hot there on Thursday nights without telling him that like, that's where Nicole goes on Thursday nights. Yeah. And he might just go there and be like, Hey, you know, I saw Nicole. Oh, was she with anybody? Like you can very easily set up those scenarios without Kato knowing he's being a pawn, especially because it's Kato. I mean, this is something where he is essentially being asked to do that. And he's like, No. But like, you know, I think it's possible that there was

other stuff that he was less overt than he would have been unaware of or other stuff that OJ would have tried that we don't know about. Yeah. So I'll read you a little more over sandwiches. They began to discuss one of OJ's favorite topics, women. At one point, OJ turned to Kato and said, I need to meet a nice person. Kato took the cue. And before long, the conversation drifted to Tracy Adele. She was the current Playboy Centerfold. Say it with me now. Must be nice. Kato had first met Tracy a few months earlier at a party in her West Hollywood apartment complex. The party was taking place on the floor below hers. He looked up, saw Tracy and a couple of friends on her terrace introduced himself and asked them to come on down. Tracy and Kato hit it off and dated a few times.

This is like Kato lives in Melrose Place, right? He heard from her early in June when she called all excited. The issue of Playboy with her in it had just hit the stands. Now as OJ and Kato sat in his living room and talked, Kato happened to mention that a friend of his was this month's Playboy Centerfold and he could introduce him to her. OJ kicked back on the sofa. This is my favorite part. OJ kicked back on the sofa, his arms spread out, smiled and said, hey, let's get a copy of the magazine. See what she looks like and call her. He has to make sure she's not one of those ugly Playboy Centerfolds. He's like a Playboy Centerfold. You say, well, I need to take a look. Trust but verify. And indeed it turns out

that OJ says she wasn't his type. She had dark hair, was about five, ten, maybe six feet. He preferred slightly smaller blondes. Nice. Imagine your friend being like, I know a Playboy Centerfold and being like, let's take a look and then you're like, what do you have in a slightly smaller blonde? So Kato calls Tracy and leaves a message for her from OJ. It is described in the book as a cute message. Hey, it's me. Yours truly. While OJ waits for Tracy to get the message and call back, he decides to start calling around generally. Just women in general. Just let's call the women. I mean, he's not like going through the phone book calling all of the names that look like women's names to him. But he's just, yeah, you know, he has his book. And Kato apparently,

when the phone rings in between OJ's calls, he'll answer for OJ and like answer with a little joke. Oh no, what's what's the little joke? I'm thinking of his lobster joke from the comedy waiter ring. Here's the example joke. Hi, he'd say, putting on an exaggerated effeminate voice. Oh my god. Which I will not do. This is Snipper's hair salon. You're late for your appointment. OJ loved it. Often listening in on the extension for the caller's reaction, laughing in that silent way he had where his head bobbed up and down and no noise came out of his mouth. Remember when men could do a lisp and that was the whole joke? Yeah. It was like that or swap your R's and L's and pretend to be an Asian person was like the height of comedy for like a decade and a half. I know.

The 80s were a dark, dark time. By four o'clock, when it appeared that Tracy was not going to call back, OJ's mood shifted and he decided to watch a little TV. He picked up the remote and began flicking from channel to channel. Jesus, he sighed, kicking into the by now familiar refrain. I'm so bored, Kato. This isn't right, me sitting here inside the house on such a beautiful afternoon watching TV. He got that right, Kato thought to himself. As OJ flipped through the channels, he'd recognized several actors and actresses he'd worked with or had met socially. Kato recalled that OJ would say things like, yeah, I know her. I've been with her. Or I know that guy. He's a complete dick. Or I've been with her. She's fantastic.

One channel was running a rerun of WKRP. The show star, Tani Cattain, had gone out with OJ for a while. Kato knew that Nicole and Tani didn't like each other and he was amused that OJ stayed on that station before continuing to channel surf. Man, I know OJ sounds really boring, dude. Just moaning and talking about his conquest is just so tedious. And watching someone flip through the cable channels being like, yeah, I've been with her. There's the woman I cheated on my wife with when she was pregnant. Yeah, oh my god. It reminds me of dates I've been on with Harvard Ivy Leagueers who talk about all the fucking internships they had. You're like, yeah, really? Yeah. I use that

company's products. It's fascinating. This part to me is bananas and this is why I think disreputable memoirs by people at the heart of media scandal should be more widely read, because I've never seen this talked about elsewhere and it's just so weird. Okay, so the book says he finally settled on the USA channel because it happened to be playing The World According to Garp. Oh, you've got to see this one part. OJ said, according to Kato, OJ was referring to a scene where Garp's wife was going to give head to a young guy in her car, parked in the driveway of her home. The guy comes over one last time to Garp's wife, and she says no, no. He says one last time so they get in the car and start. Garp in his own car

arrives at the house and, out of force of habit, turns off his lights and coasts into the garage. Because it's raining and dark, Garp crashes into his wife's car while she's going down on her boyfriend. The force of the collision causes her to accidentally chomp off the head of her lover's penis. Okay. That was a very long pause. I don't, yeah, I mean, yeah. Does OJ like think this is the funniest thing in the world or something? Well, here's what Kato says. Kato recalled how they watched the scene in silence. Then OJ, seemingly out of nowhere, said, yeah, I remember Nicole doing that with Keith nearly a year earlier. Well, biting the head of his penis off? No, giving Keith a blowjob, because that was what OJ saw when he spied on that, and that was what he

was shouting about when he broke her door down the previous October. Right, but that doesn't seem like the main point of the scene. Right. That's not what the scene is about. Like you or I, if we watched that scene and someone asks what it's about, we wouldn't say oral sex. Yeah. We would say accidental maiming. Yeah. Right. So OJ still soar about this stupid Keith thing. Clearly. Clearly. He, you know, just imagine watching that scene in silence with OJ Simpson. So the book goes on, OJ's talk made Kato very uneasy. He was afraid OJ's mood would change. Yeah, OJ went on and the kids were home. Kato didn't want to hear it. Nicole was a friend of his. But Kato didn't want to challenge OJ either. When OJ finished the tale, he laid back,

lost in thought. To shift the mood, Kato said, that Robin Williams sure is funny. Man, that's very, I'm in an abusive relationship logic. Right. We're like, Kato's already internalizing. This guy could turn on a dime. So it's up to me to distract him with something else. Like, look at this comedian. Yeah. So he knows on some level that OJ is emotionally volatile and he knows that he has to get him out of this place. Yeah. I mean, he's really, he's, he's doing that work. He's part of this labor force along with Paula Barbieri and everybody else. And even if he doesn't know that consciously, he clearly understands it. And he also isn't going to say, okay, I'm uncomfortable. Yeah. Because he can't

push back because he knows OJ will blow up. And he has seen him blowing up. Yeah. That's one thing that's interesting about Kato too, is that a lot of people like they've heard about OJ blowing up from Nicole or they've seen some of his anger, but they haven't seen him go after Nicole in a rage. Yeah. Seething the way that Kato has at this point. So like he, he understands some of what OJ is capable of. Man. Apparently the only thing that finally gets OJ to shift topics is when Paula Barbieri calls because they're going to this fundraiser dinner that night and she's calling to ask what he wants her to wear. So after he talks to Paula, okay, starts talking to Kato, says he's really tired. He doesn't want to go to the event. He'd rather go with Kato to the event

instead of Paula, because at least he'd have fun with Kato. He's seeming kind of like over Paula in this moment. Okay. So at the end of the day, OJ goes to his event. Kato goes out clubbing and comes back to Rockingham at two in the morning and goes to bed and wakes up at about noon and wakes up to an empty house and OJ is off playing golf. So this is the day of the murders, right? This is June 12th. Yeah. This is this is the morning of. So this is the day when there's the recital, right? The recital is happening this afternoon. OJ has to go to fly to Chicago late that night. Okay. And again, Kato goes for a run, comes home, he's going to go to Santa Monica to play basketball with some friends. But as he's heading out, OJ once again calls for him and

waves him into the main house. And so he goes in to talk to him. So this is like 2 30 in the afternoon. And they talk about how his golf game went. And then Kato tries to head out and OJ is like, no, no, you should hang out. And then he tries to call Tracy, who is the centerfold. Kato tried to set him up with the day before. So again, Tracy talked for a while and according to Kato, OJ says, you know, Tracy, I've got everything a man wants in the world, everything. I've got plenty of money. I've got the beautiful home. But you know, I'm just not happy. Can you make me happy? Oh my god. What do you think about all this? You know that thing about how the Nigerian scams are deliberately bad? I did not know that. How come? Yeah, they're deliberately

bad because if they were reasonably convincing, then they would end up spending a lot of time on people who are kind of on the fence, like people who are savvy enough to figure out that it's a scam. And so what you want to do is you want to send out an extremely incompetent email to millions of people and like 0.1 of 0.1, 0.1 percent of those people are going to be totally unsavvy enough to fall for it quickly. And so you don't waste your time going through all these steps with people that ultimately are going to drop out. And it seems like this strategy of calling up women who you barely know and giving them this pitch of like, I want something serious in my life. Are you the girl for me kind of making them do this little tryout? It is like

tryouts, isn't it? It's like a Broadway cattle call. And it's perfectly calibrated to find women with like relatively low self-esteem who are going to be like, well, this guy wants to get serious. This guy that I don't know at all, I should just dive into this relationship and immediately start trying to prove myself to this guy that I've never met. Yeah, I think you're right. Like OJ Simpson is essentially a Nigerian princess. And he's just compulsively calling around. You know, he talks to Tracy and then he calls a bunch of other women. He apparently calls Jasmine Guy, who he said to Kato is like one of the only black women who he's attracted to, which is also an interesting statement. And then Kato is like, okay, I should really go. I think

I'm really going to go now. And he knows that OJ is going to head to Sydney's Dance Recital at five that afternoon. And he also knows that OJ and Paula have been arguing about this recital, which I can see being a factor in Paula deciding to break up with him, because basically Paula really wants to go. And OJ is like, no, no, no, it's for family. By implication, you can't come. And this is like, she talks about this in her memoir that she really likes being part of the kids lives and feels some hostility from Nicole that that seems to come from partly from the fact that she's kind of taking on this mothering role in the kids lives, which is, you know, yeah, and that she wants kids of her own and feels on some level that her and OJ's relationship

is destined to not work out because he doesn't want to have any more children. So Paula is not being led into this family that she wants to be part of and is feeling repelled and finally like, fine, like I give up. And OJ is about to feel rejected from this family that he's trying to worm his way back into. So it's, I don't know, it's just weird to have that much inspired by a dance recital. You know, just like this little middle school dance where kids are dancing to footloose. But it's because you know, this is what families are. Yeah, everything becomes a huge metaphor for something bigger. Right. Right. Because of course, it's not the dance recital. It's like the whole two previous years of Paula and OJ's relationship. It's the 17 years of OJ

and Nicole's relationship. It's just all of this history just hurtling toward this one afternoon in Brentwood. Yeah, it becomes like a WWE wrestling arena. Yeah. And so Kato is like, well, I'm finally going to go play basketball. Like I have been trying to do this entire afternoon. Time for Kato to be Kato. And then he picks up some sushi from a place in the neighborhood and heads home to watch the next game, which is his big plan for the night. This is what I want when I look at history. I guess I want everyone to be able to have the little plans they had. I want that guy walking his dog to get back home without finding anything relating to a murder scene and be able to watch the Mary Tyler Moore show. I want Marcia to clean off her desk. I want Paula to start dating Michael

Bolton. I want Nicole to buy half off picture frames. I'm June 13th. Yeah. I'm imagining a little sliding doors musical montage right now. Yeah. So Kato comes in and according to him, O.J. smiles and says, Sydney was great. And then the smile goes away. And he says, but Nicole was trying to play hardball with me. Right. So what do you know about how the dance recital goes from what we've talked about so far? My understanding is that he tried to sit with them and they said, no, you can't sit with your family. And he perceives this as a huge slight, of course. Yeah. And it's actually even more passive than that. What happens is that Nicole doesn't specifically save a seat for him. Oh, okay. And he gets there late as usual and Nicole didn't

save a seat for him. And so he has to go sit somewhere else. So it's important to make that distinction clear. And this to me is so typical of just the kind of abuse we've seen from him so far where it's like, Nicole failed to anticipate this very specific thing and to know what I would want and would make me feel valued. And I do not doubt that from her experience of being married to him and of being in this, what their relationship has become after the war. So I'm sure that she did know that he would feel slighted by that. But the whole point of this is that she's not tying herself into knots to try to keep him from boiling over. Right. Also, these are often the symbolic battlegrounds on which toxic relationships wage war.

These little things of like, I told you to buy 2% milk, but you got whole milk. And you know that I can't drink whole milk. These little things that to any outsider would be like, whatever, sit in a different seat and go chat with them afterwards. But to people within those relationships, this is like a front in a long campaign of what he perceives as constant slights, constant cutting him out of the relationship. And what probably to her feels like, well, he fucking shows up late to everything. You can't rely on this guy for anything. I'm sick of saving seats for this guy. Why would I even expect necessarily that he would show up if he misses other important events? They're both perceiving it as this completely symbolic act, which it is,

which everything is in family. Wasn't there some famous thing where there was some town that they like they rehabilitated like a wounded otter or something like that. And they spent all this money on it. And then they like got together and it was like swimming back out to sea. It's probably something completely different because go with this mental image. And then like an orca came and snacked it right down. This feels like that in a way where it's just, you know, she's like going to therapy and her friends are like, yeah, move on, you're ready, like end this dumb relationship. And you know, her therapist is like, you know, don't try and appease him, just like cut him off. And so and she's like, okay, like I'm going to I'm tentatively I'm not going to save a seat for

OJ. Right. I'm not going to shape every action around appeasing him. And then it's like, well, all of your worst fears are absolutely real. And you will be punished for that in exactly the way that you knew that you would be. Yeah. I mean, her worst fear with a small symbolic act like that comes true. Yeah. And she knows, I mean, she has to know that he will, but also that like everything else has the same effect on him. And if it's not this, then it'll be the next thing. Yeah. And so then according to Kato, you know, first OJ is talking about how she didn't save a seat for him. She didn't include him. And then of course, afterwards, he wants to come to dinner with them at Metsaluna and they say, no, you can't come to dinner with us. And he says that he said

to Nicole, what are you doing? I want to spend time with my kids. And he says to Kato, what, she can take my kids away from me now. They're my kids too. And again, at like, you know, you always see him bringing it back to like the kids, like she's, this is all about the kids. This is not about me. This is not about Nicole. This is about kids. She was having sex with Keith with the kids upstairs. She's the one who has guys over with kids in the house. She's keeping the kids away from me. She's not letting me see my kids like he's making it so that it's not about what he wants and his feelings being heard. It's always about no, like she's doing this, this terrible thing actually. And I'm just objectively taking action about it.

Also, I think people shop around for the least unlikable arguments for their beliefs in a way that they don't realize they're doing, right? Because another way to see it is like, she's hurt my ego. It hurts my feelings. But he can't like admit that to himself, right? That I am reaping what I have sown. I have behaved terribly. And she is now responding in a way that is like one teaspoon of how terribly I have acted. But he can't allow himself to make that argument. So he goes, he casts around for like, what are the other arguments like? Ah, the kids, right? It's not even her. It's about, I love the kids. And so- Yeah, that's the ticket. And he has to save the children. Just like all people with unimpeachable

motives. Yeah. You can tell I've been to a lot of community meetings this year because I'm used to these kinds of arguments. Yeah. And just, ah, you know, I guess the action of worlds where O.J. has an ego that doesn't shatter if you look at it and is able to be like, wow, like I'm feeling grief and shame and regret about the fact that I had this family and I didn't appreciate it enough. And now I've lost it. And maybe there are some things that you can't get back. Right. Maybe actions have consequences. And so he's going on to Cato apparently at some length about how she thinks Nicole isn't dressed appropriately. She's wearing a black sun dress. And he thinks, he describes it as like a very tight, sexy black dress. And he's saying,

is she going to wear dresses like that when she's a grandmother? Is she going to wear mini skirts? For this kind of function, can't she dress like a woman? How can she dress like that for this kind of function? Jesus Christ. Why can't she dress like a proper mother? Why is she doing this to me? Why is she out there existing? Cato says, I wanted to get the conversation somewhere else. I guess in my heart, I knew that something had happened at the recital. And in order to do that, he's like, hey, okay, can I take a jacuzzi? And O.J. is like, yeah, sure, whatever. And so again, Cato is like, well, this is getting into a weird area. And I don't want to be a part of it. And like, I don't know. And again, it's like, can you blame him for, you know, without the kind of foresight to

imagine that what was about to happen was going to happen? You know, just how many times have we in dealings with someone who is relating to us like this, has been like, that's great. I don't want to be part of this conversation anymore. How can I like slide out with as little resistance as possible? And like not challenge you about what you're saying, and not try and intervene in any meaningful way, but just kind of to be like, okay, I need to go. Right. But just like light off a flare, like Robin Williams, jacuzzi, just sort of get them distracted and then go. This is what I do with my relatives as soon as they bring up millennials. So Cato takes a jacuzzi and mellows out. And about half an hour later,

he heads back to his guest house. And pretty soon, here's a knock on the door. And O.J. is like, Cato, did you know you left the jacuzzi guts on? And Cato's like, no, oh no, I feel terrible. And O.J. is like, whatever, I shut them off for you. And then he starts to head out, and then he stops. And he's like, you know, those two girls who came by the other night for the barbecue, who are these sisters named Susan and Lisa Marie, who Cato also knows who he put O.J. in touch with. And Cato's like, yes, Susan and Lisa Marie, like, I remember them, I remember you not seeming particularly interested in them. Yeah. And O.J. is like, let's do that again. Can he set something up for Tuesday night? And Cato says, I'll work on it. And then the book says,

O.J. started for the door again. Cato could no longer ignore the weird vibes in the room. Everything all right, O.J.? He asked. Yeah, sure. O.J. closed the door behind him as he left. Cato wondered just how lonely he was. And apparently right after O.J. leaves Cato and goes back up to the main house. So at 7.35 or so, he leaves a message for a Raiders cheerleader named Gretchen Stockdale, which I will now read to you. Hey, Gretchen sweetheart, it's Orinthal James, who is finally at a place in his life where he is like, totally, totally unattached with everybody. In any event, I've got a Sunday evening. I'd love, I guess I'm catching a red eye at midnight or something to Chicago, but I'll be back Monday night.

O.J. That's not like a baller move. That's like, I'm desperate and I have nobody else move. Really? If someone left you a message and said they were totally, totally unattached with everybody, you wouldn't be like, yeah. And like, meet up with me as soon as possible. I have nothing else going on. You're like, oh, this guy has reached a state of pure nihilism. I am there. O.J. These are the people that I end up dating for years. But yeah, other normal people would not respond to that with the same way that I would. And O.J. comes back and he says, I've got an embarrassing question to ask you. And Kato's like, what? And then his head is like, oh, fuck, I fucked up. I fucked up the jacuzzi. What did I do? O.J. says, I have all hundreds.

Can I borrow $5 to give to the Sky Cap at the airport? And Kato's like, sure. And then he gives him a 20, which is the smallest bill that he has on him. And O.J. says he's going to go get something to eat. And Kato says, you mind if I come along? Can I go? And according to Kato, he paused. It seemed for a while. He looked at me in a very odd way. His stare made me feel as if I had been out of line to invite myself along. In my head, I'm thinking, and I've thought so many times since I wasn't supposed to go. I had invited myself and felt uncomfortable about it. I was about to say, you know what? On second thought, I'm not really hungry. But before I could, he said, yeah, sure, come along. We'll grab a burger or something. And so they get in his Bentley and

go to McDonald's. So is the implication here that O.J. was planning on using this time to commit the murders? And he was trying to kind of give himself an alibi? Like, I'm going to tell Kato that I'm getting a burger? Well, that's my guess. I mean, I can't think of anything else. Yeah. Which also connects to another aspect of the murders that we didn't really talk about in the previous episode when we were talking about premeditation. And which after the fact, I was thinking about this McDonald's thing and I'm also thinking about this other thing. I feel like maybe change is the picture. So we know that the killer was wearing a hat and gloves. Or at least that that's indicated by the fact that there was a hat found at the crime scene

at Nicole's house. And as we know, pretty well by now there was a glove found at Nicole's house and a glove found at his house. Right. I mean, what do you think about that compared to what we've been talking about in the first Kato episode when we talked about premeditation? Yeah, that implies premeditation. Right. The hat I can see is a disguise. Not so much the gloves. The gloves really seem to say murder. Yeah. Like they seem to suggest much more straightforwardly like I am going to use this knife I have. Yeah. Yeah. It's LA in June. There's no other reason to wear a hat and gloves. Right. But I guess like to me that like what I still have that is kind of jumping ahead a little bit, but let's do that here,

is that the fact that, you know, O.J., as far as anyone has ever said, ever, as far as I can tell, remains in like complete denial. And it feels like there's a level of denial there that to me feels like it goes along with some kind of compromised premeditation. Because if you're putting on gloves, like you know what you're doing. Right. You can tell yourself you're not doing it, but you know what you're doing. Yeah. I feel like, I don't know, like I see more premeditation in the picture now than I did when we talked about this last, but I see like this denial that complicates it. Why did that complicate it for you? Does it complicate it for you? Well, what's interesting to me about

all the work we've done on abusers kind of accidentally, as we've gotten more into this show, is there is almost like this pact that abusers expect everyone around them to keep, that I'm going to blow up at you. I'm going to act completely bananas. And then afterwards, I expect you to treat it like it's no big deal. Right? Like I kicked in your back door, but like whatever, like why do we have to talk about that? Why do we have to discuss that like it's such a big deal? Why are you bothering me about paying for it? Yeah. I mean, it kind of reminds me of John Allen Muhammad to some extent too, that there's this move to push beyond it very quickly. And like, I don't want to revisit my rage. I don't want to discuss my rage. And I

expect you to not bring it up with me because me being reminded of it will trigger rage again. And if you remind me of the ways I harmed you when I was angry, then like you will harm me. And you have to feel bad for that. And we get to skip past whatever I did to you by talking about how you harming me by mentioning it. Right. And so I think there's some level of compartmentalization that happens in people that commit abuse like this, where it's like, well, no, that's when I was really mad. And I don't think about that. I don't want to consider that at all. And I don't want you to bring it up with me. And so I wonder if this is like an extreme version of that of like this blind rage. And then afterwards it's like, ah,

you know, whatever, come on, why do you keep bringing this up? Why do you keep asking me if I killed Nicole? Of course, I didn't kill Nicole. Right. Of course, I'm not that person. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Also, I don't know if you've ever been in a blind rage. I've been in a myopic rage, I think. Like you needed glasses. You know, it's like maybe a quarter of a blind rage or something. You went to Lenscrafters. I've experienced overpowering emotion, but I don't, I mean, clearly like I haven't experienced homicidal rage. This is all pure speculation, but just like my uneducated hunch. No, but this is helpful. Maybe it's more useful to us to think of the murders

as essentially another battery incident, like another abuse incident. Right. Because if you look at every other incident where he beat Nicole, where he like locked Nicole in the hallway of a hotel where he locked her in his wine cellar, they did not speak of them. You didn't bring it up after the fact. The marriage was based on that premise of like, I will never, you don't, you don't confront me with what I've done to you. Right. And so, yeah. And so I can see like locking her without her clothes, like in, in the hallway of a hotel, like he knew what he was doing then. And then after the fact, like could not acknowledge the part of himself that had planned out that act. Right. You know, so I guess it's like, I guess I, I connect the, the willful

dissociation with a lack of premeditation, but like those two things don't have to go together. Like you can be aware of what you're doing at the time. And then later on just refuse to accept that part of yourself, I think. And then record over it like a VHS tape. Yeah. Just the minute it's over. Yeah. And you can also be like, I think emotionally out of control and like in a blind rage, which doesn't mitigate your guilt, but you know, it talks about the kind of reasoning that you're capable of and the kind of, you know, the lack of sanity inherent in killing someone. And you can also, you know, do what you're doing fairly competently. But I'm on the edge of my seat. What happens when they go out for burgers?

Do you want to guess what, what they ordered? Because this is what I always want to know when people go to McDonald's and nonfiction. No, I'm, I'm against finding literary symbolism in coincidental events. I don't think there's symbolism. I just want to know what people order at McDonald's. It's a good personality test. The only thing I could speculate on is that OJ would order a lot. He seems like a dude with a big appetite and that Kato would get like a Atkins chicken salad or something. Oh my God. That's really okay. So let me read this passage to you. Oh God. OJ was in the same mood he'd been in for a while, which made Kato increasingly uncomfortable. OJ ordered the largest burger they had and a Coke. Nice. Kato, who rarely eats

breads or fried or fast foods, wasn't a frequent customer of McDonald's. But since he was there with the juice, he ordered a chicken sandwich, french fries and a large orange soda. Okay, I was wrong. I was wrong. I was right about the chicken. You were right on both counts. He were right that Kato doesn't normally eat bread and you were right that OJ got a big burger. You were great. But Kato gave in and had the carbs. And then later, there's some debate as to, well, why did OJ go to a McDonald's that was farther away from his house than one that's to way that people pick over the most meaningless details of these crimes? Yeah. Well, and it's possible. I mean, my guess would be that like maybe he could use one of the

drive-thru people for an alibi and it's like more convincing if he's farther away. Sure. But also it's like, yeah, why are we looking at the McDonald's at which McDonald's he went to? And yet we have to exclude the evidence of domestic violence. Yeah. I mean, as someone with like an anthropological understanding of every single Taco Bell in Seattle between 1997 and 2004, like some Taco Bells were better than other Taco Bells. Right. That's true too. I certainly have favorite fast food outlets. Yeah. They might have just been like more generous with the fries at that location or something like it could be totally meaningless. Maybe they recognize him more there. Yeah. And then apparently OJ paid for the food with the 20 that Kato had just

given him for the skycap and then gives Kato back his change. So he doesn't have any cash for the skycap after all, which suggests that he didn't need to go to Kato's room and was establishing some kind of an alibi. Wait, skycap? That's the person who you would tip and they would carry your luggage to somewhere. I've never done it. It seems like a, I think it still exists. I think it's what people, when they used to feed you when you would fly and you could go to the gate and romantically say goodbye to someone, it was a time called the 90s and we'll never get it back. Oh, so you could pay somebody to go check in your baggage and just go straight to the flight? All right. Let's actually look this up. This is fucking amazing. Because I always just travel with

a big tote bag because I don't want to pay $50 to have multiple pairs of pants. That sounds incredible. This and comedy waiters are things we need to bring back. Yeah. They handle luggage strollers and car seats, performs, oh, they do curbside check-in. Where you check your bags at the curb. Do you ever do that? No. I didn't even know that was a thing. This is still a thing. It's not that it doesn't exist. It's just that we're dirtbag millennials and we just don't expect anyone to do anything for us, apparently. Yeah. So OJ doesn't have cash for the skycap. Yeah. So he throws Kato his food and wolfs his and what Kato describes as no seconds flat. Okay.

And Kato decides just to have a few fries while they're on the way back. And he notices as they're driving to the McDonald's just how tired OJ looks and suggests that OJ gets some sleep before his flight and OJ is like no time and kind of looks at the clock and so does Kato. And later on, this will be the reason he says that he knows what time it was when they read a particular intersection, 26 in San Vicente on their way to McDonald's that it was 9.18 p.m. Okay. So the best of our guests, the murders happen when? Between 10.15 and 10.30. Okay. We know that OJ was calling Paula Barbieri at 10.03. Okay. And leaving a message for her then. Okay. So that's the last anyone hears from him that establishes him as, you know,

doing something pre the murders. Right. Like in a place at a time. We don't know geographically where he was when he was making this call, but we know that he was making it and couldn't have been doing something else. Right. So theoretically he could have been on his way to Nicole's house when he made that call. Yeah, he probably was. Okay. So they get back to Rockingham. Kato asked what airline OJ is flying. He says, I don't know. I think American. He says, what's the trip for again? And OJ says, some hurts thing. And Kato by now is like, I really don't think I'm supposed to be talking to you right now. And so they pull into Rockingham, OJ parks the Bentley and Kato gets out of the car and says to himself, I'm going to take this food

to my room and eat it there and be done with this weird situation. And they don't speak to each other. And OJ looks back as he's heading to his guest house and he sees that OJ is standing next to the Bentley. And he doesn't see him go toward the main house. And he says, I never saw him go into the house and kept wondering to myself why he didn't. I don't know why, but this entire night I kept having the feeling that something was not right. It just wasn't right. Calls his friend Rachel, who he met on the set of Savaté, the French kickboxing in the Old West movie. And as with many women, they've dated a few times, but you know, just kind of have a casual relationship. And it's some time in this period that the murders are taking place.

And this is the time when OJ tells the cops he's at home watching TV. Isn't he? He doesn't say he's watching TV, but he just says that he was at home. Okay. The accounts change. But the story is that he's sleeping or that he's practicing golf, but that he's, yeah, he's just quietly in his house. Okay. The next thing anyone hears is Kato is on the phone with Rachel. And at 1040, he hears three thumps on the wall of his guest house. These are the things that he thinks is an earthquake. And Mark Furman thinks is OJ dropping the glove. Or OJ somehow hitting the wall, hitting the air conditioner that's attached to the wall, like some kind of impact from him running in the dark or jumping over the wall

to get back into the house. Yeah. And Kato thinks it might be an earthquake and also is thinking that it might be a prowler or like a burglar coming out of the property. That's his other thought. And he's kind of freaked out because it's a big place. Yeah. If you hear like a weird noise, like your first thought is not that it's the owner of the house that's up to it, but that like someone else. Yeah. Some sex offenders come into traffic, people in parking lots. So he decides he's going to go outside and check it out. And he says to Rachel, if I'm not back in 10 minutes, start to worry. And he has a little pen light. And so he heads out. That's when he notices that there's a limo waiting outside one of the gates

to the house. And he's like, oh, so OJ hasn't left yet. That means I'm not here alone. And he feels better knowing that the limo is there. And he also sees OJ's dog Chachi on the front lawn. It's important that we mention all the dogs. Right. We don't want to do dog erasure in this story. And so the book says Kato then proceeded to the end of the garage where a wrought iron gate led to a long, narrow pathway behind the main house that extends its entire length past his guest house, Arnell's and the maids quarters. The gate was broken off its hinges. Kato picked it up, moved it out of the way, stepped into the pathway and says he decided not to go very far. It was pitch blackout,

no lights, and the little pen light proved useless. He figured if someone were still back there, it might not be such a great idea to confront him. For whatever reason, he says he went no farther. This is why people make fun of people in horror movies. I'm going to take my little tiny light and go wander around like looking for the killer. Can you guess what is later going to be found in this very alley? Oh, the glove? Yeah. I mean, he is where he would have crossed paths with seeing O.J. Yeah, and it is, and you know, it's kind of brave. He's like, I'm going to investigate that dark alley. It's important to give people credit for the tiny things they do. Yes. So he doesn't proceed very far and then he heads back out to the front of the house and sees that the

limo is still there and is still waiting outside of the gate. And he's like, that's kind of weird. It's weird that O.J. is not letting the limo driver in, seeing as how O.J. is home right now and everything. And so he goes to the gate and lets the limo driver in. Driver is a guy named Alan Park and Kato starts chatting with him and he's like, did we have an earthquake? And the guy's like, nope. And then as they're talking, they notice that O.J.'s golf bag is in front of the main entrance to the house, which Kato knows from experiences where this is the area where O.J. puts his luggage for the driver to pick up. He realizes that when he first left the guest house to investigate, he didn't see the clubs out there. And Kato is figuring that O.J. must have taken an

app and overslept and that's why he didn't let the limo driver in. So he goes back to the alley to check around again for some reason. And when he comes back to the front of the house again, O.J. is out there and O.J. is like, hello, I overslept. And Kato notices that there's a little blue duffel bag on the grass next to the Bentley. And Kato is like, that's weird. Like O.J. doesn't, he always puts his baggage in one place. It's always by the front door. So why is there this little duffel bag here? And Kato's like, hey, don't forget this bag. And O.J. is like, oh no, don't worry, I'll get it. And he comes and picks it up and Kato doesn't see what he does with it. But his sense is that he got into the limo with the bag and put it on the seat beside him.

And apparently, if that's the case, did something to dispose of it because it wasn't ever found. So the theory there is that that little bag that Kato saw had potentially bloody clothes in it or something like that. Right. He didn't want to throw it away in the garbage of the house or whatever. Yeah. It's weird that Kato is like a really important witness. Yeah. And I was not aware of this remotely at the time. I thought he was just like, whatever,

logistics help confirm the address. Like I didn't think he was important, but all the things that he's saying, it's all circumstantial evidence, but it's all very congruous with this dude did it. Right. And regardless of whether it did support the defendant's guilt, he is the one who had the most interaction with the defendant immediately before and immediately after these murders took place. So no matter what, he's going to be strategically pretty important. Yes. I mean, I can't think of another witness that's more important than Kato. Well, I mean, Kato the Akita. Right. The Akitos.

As we know from reading a million Pamela Call-Off stories through the years, like this is the kind of evidence that gets people convicted even without forensic evidence. You don't have an alibi. You cannot account for the time that you've disappeared from any evidence. There's creepy things like a duffel bag, a thump. I mean, people go to jail for this stuff. If this were a Texas Monthly article and these pieces of evidence were the only things we knew, then yeah, he could conceivably be in prison for life because based on that and if he were someone else. Yeah. It's just incredible that these facts end up almost like a weird footnote rather than being like a pretty big deal. And which of course speaks to just the embarrassment

of riches in terms of evidence in this case where they're like, blue duffel bag. We have the blood trail. Right. And so Kato is still just kind of chatting with O.J. He notices the duffel bag, but he's like, oh, that's weird. Well, anyway, because there's no reason to ascribe significance to it at this point. And Kato's like, O.J., I heard this noise behind my room. It kind of spooked me. I thought we'd had an earthquake, but I guess we didn't. I'd like to take another look around. And Mark Elliott writes, O.J.'s eyes lit up and his head went back as if he were surprised. You did. You heard noises behind the house. Kato's like, yeah, maybe someone's trying to break in and O.J. goes, well, we better go check on it. I'll go one way around the house and you

go the other way. To Kato, this seemed extremely odd behavior, which he would later describe as bad acting. Yeah. He says, in my head, I said to myself, why? I don't understand. A minute ago, O.J. was rushing to make his flight. Now suddenly he wants to search the premises. I suggested we need a better flashlight. I asked a limo driver if he had one. So they go into the house to look for a flashlight. And then O.J. is like, is that the time? Never mind. It's 11.15 and O.J. leaves and he's like, okay, Kato, put the alarm on. Then Kato doesn't know the code and thinks it's weird that O.J. would ask him to turn it on because he's never asked him that before. And he knows that Kato doesn't know the code to the alarm. And O.J. is like,

okay, I'll do it. And then Kato sees them off. And as they pull away, Kato gives O.J. a thumbs up. Which just is like, later on, this will seem overwhelmingly weird to him. But at the time, he's still kind of playing along. And he's like, okay, have a good flight, kind of worried about the burglar, but have fun. And so Kato goes back to his room and calls Rachel again. I would love to hear from Rachel. I want to read Rachel's book. And he gets a call waiting from O.J. after about 15 minutes. And O.J. is like, by the way, I forgot to set the alarm. Can you do it? And Kato is like, okay, that's weird. Like, why would you? All right, fine, whatever. So Kato sets the alarm, goes back to talking to

Rachel until about 1.30. He's pretty freaked out at this point because there's this like, what was that noise? What were the thumbs on the wall? What was that noise you heard? Why is O.J. acting weird? O.J. has been acting weird since 7pm. So like, the whole thing is just weird. Yeah, I guess I can imagine having this creeping sense of unease, you know, where you don't see these things as connected, but you're just like, I am not opening the door for any reason for the rest of the night. I'm going to keep talking to Rachel. And so he eventually goes to sleep and has kind of a, he sleeps kind of fitfully. He keeps waking up very early in the morning and hearing O.J.'s phone in the main house keep ringing.

Who do we think that is? Well, that's going to turn out to be the police trying to reach him and trying to get into the house. Oh, okay, interesting. And as you know, we next hear from Kato Kalin when he is woken up by four policemen, officers, Van Adder Lang, Phillips and Furman, knocking at his door after Furman has gone over the wall of rocking him and left the other cops in and found the bloody glove that Kato failed to find in the alleyway behind his room. And is this how he finds out that Nicole has been killed as well? Eventually, yeah. Because the detectives question him, they think he's on drugs, they notice that his eyes are kind of bloodshot. Okay. And he's like, no, I have a condition.

Which according to everything I've read is true. So he's their first point of contact at the house. They ask him who else lives there. And he tells them about Arnell O.J.'s daughter who lives in one of the other guest houses. They knock on her door and she takes a while to answer it. But finally she does. And they introduce themselves to her and still haven't made clear why they're here or what they're investigating. But they figure out from her that O.J. has flown to Chicago to quote a Hertz Convention or something. And they all go in the house to continue the questioning. Kato is telling the detectives about the duffel bag and about the various things that he saw. And then the book says, suddenly Arnell's voice rose loud and clear through the house,

a wailing terrified cry. I have to call Al, she screamed. She ran to the telephone and called O.J.'s close friend Al Cowlings, otherwise known as AC. It seemed only a matter of moments before he showed up at the front door. Everyone then convened in the living room and the detectives officially announced what was going on. Nicole had been murdered. Arnell began weeping softly. Kato went to hold her. And as he did so, all the strange events of the previous night began to play off each other in his head. I kept telling myself, I knew this was a weird night and now it was all making sense to me. Through her tears, Arnell asked the detectives if Nicole's family had been informed. They said no. She volunteered to make the call. And so she's the one who calls

the Browns and tells Nicole's mother that Nicole has been murdered and that the kids are okay and that they're at the police station. And she and AC go with one of the detectives to the police station to pick them up. Then at her questions Kato and Kato told him what happened and denied ever smoking even a cigarette. They're still asking him if he's a drug user. Kato leaves to go get dressed. He's escorted by the police back to his guest house. And when he gets to the main house, Arnell and AC have come back with the kids. The book says it was clear the kids had no idea at this time what was going on. Sydney lay down on a small day bed near a coffee table and the breakfast nook of the kitchen and collecting her security blanket

against her face and sucking her fingers habits she'd had for as long as anyone could remember. Justin, always a bit hyper, now seem confused as if he didn't understand why he was at his father's house. When he saw Kato, his face brightened up. Streets of Rage, she shouted, and held up a gang cartridge she had been carrying around with him. He ran to the TV set in the kitchen next to the breakfast nook, plugged it in and started playing. Kato joined him. So Kato's playing Streets of Rage with Justin. And one of the detectives says, loud enough for Kato to hear, let's take him down to the station for an interview. And that's when he realizes that he's being seen as a suspect in all this.

So they're walking him out the front door when one of them takes Kato by the arm and says, watch out for the blood. Kato looks down and sees that there are drops of blood on the floor by the front door. Unbelievable that they're not immediately thinking O.J. did it or like that they're seeing Kato as the main suspect now and not O.J. because the blood is in the main house. I don't know if they see him as the main suspect, but it's interesting how seriously they're taking Kato while simultaneously, like when they get O.J. as we know, they're not going to spend that much time questioning him about his whereabouts or his activities or anything else. Does Kato say anything about if they ask him about the abuse at this point?

Nothing that comes up in this book about the questioning at the house seems to involve questioning about the abuse. Because it is fascinating that he saw the guy with like a pool of blood in his house kicking in the door and threatening to beat the woman who's been murdered. That seems like an extremely relevant consideration and it doesn't seem like anybody really asked. Do you ever hear O.J. say he was mad at Nicole? Do you ever see him hit Nicole? Did Nicole ever say anything? These are obvious questions to ask. It's weird. It is. And you don't want detectives in an investigation to narrow down on a suspect to the exclusion of all others on the first day. But Kato is taken to the station

and held without anyone telling him what's going on or how long he's going to be stuck there. They hold him for two hours before the detectives who are supposed to question him show up. And then once they do start questioning him, they grill him for quite some time. So he gets a worse interrogation than O.J.? Oh yeah. They're like, why didn't they go to the McDonald's on Wilshire? Which was much closer to the house on Rocking Ham. What was that about? He says they go over the details of the night at least a dozen times, ironing out what happened when, what location, what minute. And they're also questioning him about O.J.? They're like, did he have any cuts? Did he have any band-aids?

Like, are we going to have to pressure you to tell us the truth about him? They asked if O.J. drove past Nicole's house on Bundy on the way back from McDonald's. And Kato says no for, you know, he's told him this before. No, he didn't. And one of the detectives leans in and says, hey man, if you're lying to us, we know you're going to jail. Are you lying to us? And the book says, the two detectives left the room again and returned about a half hour later. They began the same questions over again. Kato would give the same answers. And this time, when either car or tip and repeated them, they'd make small mistakes, which Kato would correct. For instance, now Kato, you said 475 Bundy and Kato would say no,

I said 875 Bundy. He was convinced now they were trying to trap him. This continued until three o'clock. Kato had now been unofficially locked up for eight hours. He began to wonder if it wasn't a good idea for him to have a lawyer. Sure, yes. Kato, yes. So after eight hours, he asks if he can make a phone call and he's taken to a phone. He calls to listen to his messages. And the first message is from his mother in Milwaukee crying, saying, Kato, Kato, you're not dead. Tell me you're not dead. And all these other messages from people freaking out, asking him if he's dead, because it turns out that a reporter has leaked the story that along with Nicole Branson, there was a second victim down in the scene who was an actor and people who

know Nicole and know about her friendship with Kato assume that it was him. Wow. And so when Grant Kramer hears the reports on the radio and goes over to Rockingham looking for Kato and can't find him, he assumes that his friend Kato is the second murder victim. And so confirms it to reporters. No way. And that's the first time the media hears about Kato Kalin as Grant Kramer. Helpfully spelling it out for everyone who doesn't know how to spell Kato Kalin. So does this imply that after Kato's interrogation, the cops had a pretty good idea of the timeline before they interviewed O.J.? Well, they would have started talking to him, yeah, before noon. So yes, I mean, assuming a lot, assuming that they get this information and then

efficiently pass it on to the detectives who are going to be talking to O.J. later that day, then they have the capacity to have a firmer timeline locked in place. Yeah. It seems like that's a lot of ammunition for their interrogation of O.J. You would think. We know when you got back from hamburgers, we know somebody was in the house and didn't see you in the house. We know Kato saw you not going back into your house at this time. Yeah. And also that they can use Kato when they have him and they're questioning him, they never say, well, if we asked your friend Kato Kalin about this, then what would he say? Right. It just makes me double mad at that police interrogation again.

Yeah. I mean, it's amazing that they had Kato in custody for eight hours. And O.J. was questioned for 30 minutes. Yeah. Poor Kato. So despite this all day grilling at the end, he's like, can I go home now, please? And they're like, okay, yeah, sure, whatever. So they're using him to get information. It seems like they're questioning him the way that they would question someone who they do not suspect that strongly. Yeah. It's just extra incongruous that they're talking to O.J. the way that they are. Yeah. I mean, the only evidence that Kato did it was that his eyes were red, so. He might have been a pothead, okay, Mike? Like if you smoke a little weed, like

you're capable of any amount of violence. I think if anything, that should be exonerating. So Kato goes to his friend Grant Grammer's house. Grant who brought him to Aspen. Grant who told the media he was dead. It's a storied friendship. And later on, he starts seeing stories in the tabloids that he says has information that only Grant could have known and photos of Kato Grant and Nicole that Grant said were stolen from him. For fuck's sake, Grant. So Kato heads back to Rockingham the night of June 13th. The neighborhood is by then totally packed with reporters, random citizens who come out to watch. Weirdly, this is the only place I've seen this reference. There are restaurants that are dropping off free food for O.J. and the

other people in the house as like a gesture of condolence. What the fuck? Americans don't eat gifted food? Halloween. No one's open in those bags. Kato also has to fight his way through the crowds of reporters and Lucky Luz and whoever else. And these are the first media images of him as this mysterious shaggy haired guy who hopefully at least one person who was watching the news that night recognized from Beach Fever heading into O.J. Simpson's estate. And in the house, O.J., I guess what O.J. is doing. Is he watching TV? Yes. The History Channel? No, he's like channel surfing basically looking at looking for references to himself, it seems like. Maybe not looking for them, but certainly encountering a lot of them.

Clicking from channel to channel. And at this point, he's come back from Chicago. He has been very briefly put in handcuffs and he's been taken in for his 32-minute very gentle police questioning. He's also been sent home to hang out with the primary timeline witness against him, where it would be extremely easy to coordinate their stories. That he has. Yeah, it seems like a weird oversight on the part of the cops. And Kato says, I didn't see any emotion in him and that bothered me. I felt sick to my stomach. Each time a reporter said something O.J. didn't like or agree with, he would shake his head and say out loud, that's not true, that's not true. At one point, a reporter came on and said O.J.

couldn't account for his whereabouts during the time of the murder. Again, he shouted, that's not true. Then added, Kato knows where I was, Kato knows he's my alibi. Oh, yikes. Where's Kato? At that point, he turned, saw Kato in the house for the first time, smiled, pointed and said, Kato went to McDonald's with me. Yeah, O.J., Kato remembers saying out loud, I was on the spot with everybody there and I didn't know what he meant by alibi. Did he mean I went to McDonald's with him? Yeah, I said, I did go to McDonald's with you. And O.J. goes, and Kato knows I went back in the house after.

And Kato said, in my head, I went, no, I never saw you go in the house after McDonald's. And I didn't. The last thing I remembered seeing before going into my room was O.J. standing by the driver side of his Bentley. But now I could feel everyone's face on me. I said nothing. But in my head, I was screaming to myself, what am I doing here? I was afraid for my life. And then before he has the chance to answer, someone else shout something at the TV at something a reporter says. And Kato was like, whoa, made it out of another tense moment. Man, what do you think of that? It sounds like he thinks O.J. is capable of this or like, or at least he's entertaining the possibility that O.J. is a murderer. It just seems very odd that they're in the same place at the same time after

this crime takes place. Yeah. And that for what he's talking about and talking about, you know, feeling sick to his stomach, fearing for his life, you know, having the sense that he keeps referring to you that like something is wrong, like something is really wrong. The same with Paula, where it's like they're saying stuff where you're like, so you know, like on some level, you know, but not consciously. Or if you do know it consciously, then you're going to like stuff that information down or you're not going to admit it. But like, you're describing the feeling of knowing what's going on. Right. And it's like, you don't really know what to do almost with that information. Yeah. And that Kato's approach, as it has been previously, is to like minimize the

weirdness and like find a way to end the moment without, you know, saying anything super direct. And then like wait for the next weird moment to happen. It's like one of the many ways that people have found to like pacify O.J. or to have relationships with him, you know, it's like we're seeing the same logic kind of replicated here. Right. Robin Williams, funny guy, jacuzzi, great stuff. You know, how about that? Robin Williams. Let's talk about that. And so a little bit later, Kato is in the kitchen. He's also noticed that O.J. has just a piece of tissue in this book wrapped around his finger. He sees like clearly a deep cut, clearly like blood soaking through. So he's thinking about that. And then O.J. gets up and goes to

the kitchen and signals Kato to come join him. And Kato is kind of talking to O.J. in the kitchen as O.J. is making a plate for himself. And O.J. says, you know, we went to McDonald's, don't you, Kato? Oh man. And Kato says, sure, the police question me about that. And I told them we went to McDonald's. They asked me if we drove past Nicole's house on Bundy and I said no. And O.J. says, and then we came back and I went into the house. And Kato says, yeah, I think I don't really, I went in my room and O.J., you know, was looking at Kato and Kato says later, I didn't feel any sense of remorse on O.J.'s part over what happened to Nicole. Yeah, Nicole's been killed. I mean, that should be his primary response right now. Not, we went to McDonald's, right?

Right. If someone I loved were murdered, like, I don't know how I would respond. I really don't. I can see myself fixating on things that made me seem guilty. I can see myself acting weirdly. But yeah, it's, it's worth returning to the fact, as you've mentioned before, that like everything Marcia said would happen is happening. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because when they let him go, the detectives were like, he's too famous to flee. It's fine. And Marcia was like, well, okay, but like, what if he tries to intimidate witnesses? And like, what does he go off and immediately do? I mean, he's living with the main witness. I feel like that's a pretty, like, that's a pretty relevant consideration when you're trying to figure out, should we let this guy go

home or not? Yeah. Yeah. Like, are there any key timeframe witnesses who are dependent on you for housing? Yeah. And whose sense of safety might also, you know, relate to your situation? Yeah. Yeah. And basically, the moment ends without Kato saying anything more committal than that. He like, once again, kind of finds a way to be like, sure, yeah, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Basically, you know, and O.J., I guess, feel satisfied that Kato is going to protect him or at least satisfied enough for now. He's not going to kill him in the guest room, sure. You know, and then basically the household tries to go to sleep. O.J.'s housekeeper, Gigi, is crying in the corner that night. And Kato tries to comfort her and decides that

he's going to sleep on the floor by her in the living room. Oh, yeah. I know. It's like, you look at him and you're like, you didn't have it in you to like really do what, what someone somewhere needed to do to like stand up to this. You're like, I'll, I'll sleep on the floor next to the housekeeper though. Yeah. Basic sweetness. You have to appreciate the little things people can do. The world needs little Labradors, little Kato Labradors. And also other kinds of dogs. Yes. This is where I want to end Kato's story for now, is just thinking about what he describes too, is that the media, all being outside in circling Rockingham, the number of lights shining in means that if someone goes to the shades to like look through and open them a little bit,

just this like white light pours into the room, which I feel like is something that these media jams definitely happen. Like the media has not become a smaller force, obviously, but I feel like the nineties were so about, you know, these that the scandals that we saw would involve someone being encircled like this, like having, you know, just like the vans and the crowd of reporters and the camera people and the boom mic people and this gauntlet of people that you have to get through to get, you know, out of your house or into your house and that, you know, you're the person who the swarm has found this time. And that it's all in service of what? Like what's the best photo you're going to get? A random house guest taking out the garbage?

Yeah. What I never understood about these scrums was what are you trying to get? You're not going to get any meaningful information. So why are you even there? Yeah. And I mean, I feel like we use the term feeding frenzy for these things. Yeah. And it makes sense, right? You see the sense of anxiety of like, you know, if we don't have our outlet there, then everyone else will have a live feed of this and we won't. And we need to get, we need to be there to fight over whatever crumbs fall off of this loaf. Yeah. So we're leaving Kato flooded in Klee glides, sleeping next to the housekeeper, up by her side in little dog bed. I'm sure it's not true, but in my head, but how you're going to picture it. Yeah. And if anyone comes after her, he will bite them.

So who are we going to talk about next time? We are going to return to our friend Marcia Clark next time. And we're going to talk about her adventure meeting Kato Kalin and experiencing him as her grand jury witness. Oh, right. And we're going to talk about what a grand jury is, because it's going to be so fun. Oh my God. Thank God. I know. I grew up thinking of a grand jury is the thing that you see online order sometimes where they're like, this case is going to be slightly harder to prosecute than usual. We can't just send them. I mean, grand juries are, that's a bad explanation actually, because they're like totally, they're part of the process. There are no spoilers. Don't spoil me. Keep me fresh. Yes. Grand juries are one of the many

thrilling procedural aspects of this trial that we are going to talk about. And I'm beyond thrilled to be able to bring dry legal procedure into the story and to force you to get through it in order to learn about the gossipy parts. I'm excited for all the logistics. And if I get bored, I'll just suggest that I go into your jacuzzi and forget all about what we were talking about.