by A. G. Coleman
In reference to the murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, by the Manson Family, Roman Polanski said, "If I'm looking for a motive, I'd look for something which doesn't fit your habitual standard, with which you use to work as police - something much more far out."
In cases of spousal murder, can anyone remember such a brutal, slashing knife attack? A gunshot, strangulation or beating is more common. Ask homicide detectives what comes to mind when they see a large number of cuts and stab wounds, and they tell you they suspect first a homosexual murder, then a ritualistic killing. Mark Fuhrman confirms this is not a typical spousal abuse killing. Interestingly, in his claim for a disability pension, he says that, "He (Fuhrman) is enraged if he doesn't like somebody, and would as soon slit someone's throat as talk to him."
A few days before the murders, Simpson threatens Nicole with revealing her tax fraud. Brentwood yuppies, aside from indulging in cappuccino, drugs and sex, cheat on taxes. Some people fear ruin by the IRS, if the investigation spreads. Faye Resnick mentions that O.J. delights in inveigling friends in business ventures, some of questionable legality, to control them.
Ironically, Simpson entered into a sham transaction with Lou Brown in 1991, taking a lien on the Brown's home to protect it from creditors. (The $300,000 lien remains in place to this day, and Fred Goldman, following the civil trial, demands the promissory note as part of his judgment against Simpson.) Nicole, vulnerable to her ex-husband reporting her to the IRS, retaliates with hints at reporting this or similar transactions, and infuriates O.J. or others.
The defense proposes a drug murder, directed at Faye Resnick, who owes her suppliers. Many point out that dealers seldom murder clients over modest drug debts, and not in so spectacular a fashion, but they are not so kind to their fellow traffickers. Osvado Montalvo, a hit man for the Cali cartel, prior to 1992, proudly relates that a woman stole a mere $20,000 from the cartel, and that he removed her fingernails and teeth.
Another scenario is that Resnick, who in the days preceding the murders uses cocaine and Valium, steals or "borrows" the spare key and the garage door opener from the Bundy condo. She plots with others, as druggies often do, even when there is no compelling financial reason, to rob Bundy of money, jewelry and drugs. Perhaps she assures her comrades the condo will not be occupied. Possibly they conspire to plant items pointing to Simpson, if only as a prank that will cause him trouble.
When Nicole offers Resnick the spare key and door opener to Bundy, but finds them missing, they launch a search. Nicole assumes O.J. filched them, and Faye does not dissuade her from this notion. Nicole's other friends and her maid conduct searches, each time reinforcing the idea that Simpson took them, and people later testify to this.
It is knowledge of an impending robbery or drug bust, and not an expected attack by Simpson, that fills Resnick with dread, and causes her to leave Bundy, while exhorting Nicole to leave too. Faye exaggerates her paranoia, ensuring an intervention by friends and a visit to drug rehab, thus simultaneously providing a safe place and an alibi for herself. Her drugged state causes Nicole to discount the warnings. The robbery or drug transaction goes awry, and the perpetrators flee, never entering the home.
Resnick's actions as a mediator between Nicole and O.J. are not in good faith, exacerbating their breakup. She harbors resentment toward Simpson for his treatment of her friend, and does not stop at implicating him in the murders, particularly if she is a conspirator in a botched robbery or drug deal and could be charged with murder. If witnesses are involved with illegal drugs, they are easily pressured to say nothing or change their stories, either by acquaintances who threaten to snitch, or by authorities who offer to overlook indiscretions.
Or maybe Resnick snitches for the DEA. Simpson says he heard from Nicole, that a friend of Resnick's was murdered in San Francisco many years earlier, and that Faye fled to Australia. Did Faye, Nicole, possibly O.J. himself, and who knows which of their friends, import drugs from Mexico on frequent trips to Cabo San Lucas? What better cover than carrying a suitcase of pharmaceuticals in the entourage of the famous football player. Customs agents would treat Simpson with the same deference as the police. This unauthorized traffic cuts in to a Westside franchise, and calls for an exemplary murder.
Tracy Ann Hill is arrested in Redding, California, in possession of a large quantity of cocaine. She has Simpson's phone number and a prescription vial bearing A.C. Cowling's name. A law enforcement report later lists Hill as working for an organized crime ring run by mobsters from the former Soviet Union.
Speculation on a drug connection assumes the people at Bundy are users, perhaps buying from suppliers at the Mezzaluna. What if the situation is reversed, and Bundy is a wholesale distribution point? One conspiracy theorist, Sherman Skolnick, suggests there is a tie between the Mezzaluna and the Mexican Herrera cartel, with affiliations to the CIA and Japanese Yakuza.
On June 11th, the day before the murders, the Joint Southern California Drug Task Force arrest, in Santa Ana, Maria Conception Herrera and Martin Antonio Coronel Lopez, and seize 386 kilos of cocaine, not a small amount. The cocaine is destined for Santa Fe Springs; Boise, Idaho; Minneapolis and Vermont, all locations frequented by the upscale crowd.
This raises two further possibilities: first, part of that shipment is headed for Brentwood, and when it doesn't arrive, somebody intending to take delivery there is displeased; second, Resnick or others provide drug enforcement with information that culminates in the Santa Ana bust, and another interdiction is planned for Bundy the following evening.
The last scenario, accounting for many discrepancies, and one appealing to devoted conspiracy theorists, involves a frame-up or cover-up at a level much higher than the LAPD. There are some hints in this direction. The time of the murders is never firmly established, but inferred from barking dogs and Heidstra's hearing a shout of, "Hey, hey, hey!" There are two reports that the murders occurred earlier. One is a call to police from the media, asking if they are sitting on the story of a double murder on the Westside; the other a call from a woman to 911, at 10:30 pm, asking if they have a report of a double murder in the 800 block of South Bundy.
There is a rumor that Goldman is followed from the Mezzaluna to Bundy, perhaps as part of drug bust, and under defense questioning the lead detectives hint at this on the witness stand. Another Mezzaluna waiter, Michael Nigg, is murdered in a parking lot in North Hollywood after the Bundy murders and several other personnel suffered the same fate in previous months. Sherman Skolnick claims that the DEA is at the scene, and records surveillance videotape of the murders. There are signs throughout the case that authorities know what happened at Bundy much earlier than stated.
Strangely, on the Sunday following the murders, the Los Angeles Times publishes an interview with FBI Director, Louis J. Freeh, in which he says the turf war between the FBI and DEA is over and promises greater cooperation between the two agencies to avoid future misunderstandings in undercover operations, which might endanger the life of agents and informers.
A convicted check forger, John Dunton, reports to police that a private investigator witnessed the murders of Ron and Nicole. He refuses to repeat the story in front of the Grand Jury, for fear of his life, and is jailed for contempt. In any investigation, people make strange assertions; some even repeatedly confess to crimes. Dunton does not confess, or claim he is a witness, or that a private investigator committed the murders, but that a private investigator is a witness to the murders, a strange assertion indeed.
Then, Anthony Pellicano, famed private investigator to the stars, without being named as the witness in question, issues a statement and denies he was the one who saw the murders. Pellicano occasionally works for Michael Jackson and one time performed a task for the Scientoligists, wherein he delivered information to the CBS show "Sixty Minutes" for an expose on Werner Erhard, the founder of EST, with whom Scientology has had a long-standing feud.
Simpson claims he is warned, before the murders, that he is in danger from racists, who resent his marriage and are outraged over large donations he makes to Jewish charities. A tight, underground group of neo-nazi or anti-Israeli terrorists could commit murder, plant evidence and maintain silence. He says he returned home the previous week to find his kitchen door open, and that three cars once tried to force his Bentley off the freeway in the early morning hours, though he ascribes the latter to carjackers.
The evening before the murders, he uses two tickets he has purchased to a $25,000 per-seat charity gala where the guests of honor are Leah Rabin, the First Lady of Israel, and Jehan Sadat, the widow of Anwar Sadat, the assassinated President of Egypt. Might this event set off a frame-up of O.J. by the above mentioned conspirators or by friends jealous of the money donated to charity.
Why would conspirators bother with an elaborate scheme, instead of simply murdering him? Is it a continuation of Charles Manson's Helter Skelter: an attempt to start a race war in Los Angeles? Recall that Manson had an acquaintance, named Shea, murdered, in part because he married an African-American, and the Manson Family left the sign of the Black Panthers at their crime scenes to shift blame to that group. Manson says, "...the white women with the half-black babies have been killing us..."
Manson also ran a murder school for his girls, giving each a Buck knife and demonstrating how they should slit the throats of the pigs, by yanking the head back by the hair and drawing the knife from ear to ear, exactly the method the prosecution suggests for the Bundy killings. Manson predicted the race war will, "split whitey down the middle, between the hippie-liberals and all the uptight conservatives..." He did not foresee the hippie-liberals transmuting into anxious and vindictive yuppies before the millennium. The riots following the verdict in the first trial of the police officers charged with beating Rodney King proved that igniting a race war is not difficult. Charlie, in a recent parole hearing, announced work on his internet web site. Does he harbor dreams of Helter Skelter, and does he have the means to manipulate or inspire others from his jail cell? One witness in the Manson trial, when asked if he feared Charlie, replied, "Well, not Mr. Manson himself, but the reach that he has, you know."
There is the matter of the disappearance, in February of 1995, of Philip Taylor Kramer, the former bass player for "Iron Butterfly." He is also an accomplished computer expert with a background in nuclear weaponry, guidance systems, motion detectors, data compression/decompression and fractal image technology. The last contact with Kramer is a 911 call, in which he says, "I'm going to kill myself. O.J. is innocent. They did it." At the time of Kramer's disappearance he worked for a multi-media company in which some of Michael Jackson's brothers were investors.
The best bet for grand intrigue involves a Washington VIP or foreign dignitary at Bundy at the time of the murders. A tabloid reports that someone is found hiding in a closet inside the condo after the murders. During a previous episode at Gretna Green, when Simpson broke the French doors and Nicole called 911, Kato Kaelin suspected Nicole had a visitor hiding in the bedroom. Following the murders at Bundy, a denim jacket is hanging over a chair when police arrive, but later disappears, and there is suspicion Fuhrman removed it. If a VIP is escorted from Bundy and traces of his or her visit eliminated, it accounts for a delay in officially reporting the murders, while local authorities wait for instructions from superiors.
The VIP scenario also answers why a supervisor orders all lead detectives away from Bundy and over to Rockingham. While the four are already aware of some of the bizarre circumstances at Bundy, they do not want to "officially" know the details. It also justifies the extraordinarily long delay in calling the coroner, and the peculiarity of sending criminalists first to collect evidence at Rockingham, rather than at the murder scene.
A high-level cover-up means all proof is untrustworthy. In the name of national security, broadly defined as not embarrassing folks in high places, phone records are easily altered, evidence fudged if not faked and perjury tolerated. Those who lie to Congress don't hesitate to deceive a local jury. I'd speculate that technology exists to clone a small amount of blood from any genetic sample.
It is unfair to leave president Clinton out of a conspiracy, since accusers say his administration masterminds all recent unnatural disasters. Simpson plays golf with the President at Del Mar, California, three weeks before the murders. (The famous La Costa resort and spa is near Del Mar, as is the town of Rancho Santa Fe, the site of the Heaven's Gate suicides. Is this area now a Bermuda triangle of machination?)
Knowing what we now know about the President's fund raising habits, does Simpson make a political donation, and what is the quid pro quo? Only a week later, Simpson's orders his assistant, Cathy Randa, to purchase the cheap disguise. Believers in the Vince Foster, Ron Brown, TWA flight 800, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City and Mena conspiracies can accept this idea. The Simpson affair pushes Whitewater off the front page for months.
The CIA and the Rand Institute, on June 13th, issue a scathing indictment of Beijing buying influence in American politics: this during the Nixon and Reagan administrations. Is it to the Clinton administration's advantage to push this continuing story out of the news? Coincidentally, the Oklahoma City bomb exploded on the very morning Gennifer Flowers released her book. Is such speculation far-fetched? Keep in mind that those who now constitute the "establishment" spent their college years defending Stalin's and Mao's mass murder of millions as necessary for the greater good.
While it's implausible that Fuhrman and the LAPD frame Simpson as defense lawyers maintain, the idea that authorities enhance, if not plant, evidence is less so. The famed FBI lab is recently caught fudging reports in the case against Timothy McVeigh to favor the prosecution, and Roger Martz, who testified in the Simpson trial, is reprimanded and demoted. A lab technician in the San Francisco police department is discovered falsifying results in 900 cases. The late comedian, Lenny Bruce, though he had heroin in his car, was still "framed" by a lazy LAPD detective who dropped a packet of heroin at Bruce's feet. The detective was later himself convicted of smuggling heroin into the country from Mexico. Recently, there are suggestions evidence was destroyed or tampered with in the case against Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert Kennedy. In a decision granting a new trial for Geronimo Pratt, a Black Panther convicted of murder in 1972, an appeals court judge lambasted the Los Angeles district attorney's office for suppressing evidence favorable to Pratt, including information that at the time of the murder the FBI had Pratt under surveillance in Oakland and knew he could not have committed the crime in Santa Monica.
A good indicator of a cover-up is the extent and vehemence of attacks on all who question the "official" story. There are now on the internet persons, possibly organized cults, perhaps even auto responding, mock-bot engines, that denigrate individuals who disagree with the popular wisdom. The sameness of the responses, the childlike, new-age phrasing, the pedanticism, the personal aspersions, all indicate a primitive sort of artificial intelligence. Hackers recently uncloaked the president of a major Hollywood record company, or more likely his overworked and underpaid minions, posting over 7000 messages to various newsgroups on a variety of subjects.
The technique is particularly evident in discussions of the Simpson matter and the explosion of TWA flight 800. By comparison, comments on the JonBenet Ramsey murder, often veering to the unbelievably lewd, seldom generate such heated rejoinders. What terrible fate would befall the nation if the whole truth about these two affairs were known? As Marshall Mcluhan said in a 1977 TVO interview, "The literate man is a sucker for propaganda."
Jay Leno occasionally serves as a government disinformation agent, much as Walter Winchell did in his day. On the Tonight Show, old Pierre Salinger is mocked, with jokes so awesomely lame that audience response is sweetened with a laugh track, each time he questions official views on the TWA 800 crash. Leno takes particular pleasure savaging O.J. in his monologues, partially insuring the judgment against him in the civil trial.
There are nearly 100 books on the Simpson affair, many written by principal participants for extraordinarily large advances, yet except for a few tidbits to insure talk-show publicity, none reveal much beyond what was already presented publicly in the trials. The authors confine themselves to biography and finger pointing and strain to fill 300 pages. Were some of the sizable advances essentially disguised payoffs to insure silence?
Those who express outrage at The Butcher of Brentwood playing golf say their protest is aimed at a wealthy defendant buying his freedom. The killers of Marilyn Monroe weren't brought to justice. Claus von Bulow and John DeLorean walk free, and passels of unconvicted Kennedys wander our streets, yet none of these cases generate similar indignation. Simpson's footnote in history may be as the Jackie Robinson of the legal system; the first African-American rich enough to level the playing field in a court of law, or more correctly, tilt it in his favor. If he is poor, the government happily provides his defense. Then, fourteen years hence, the morally superior gather outside San Quentin for a candlelight vigil.
If culpable, Simpson's greater sin is his failure to confess and express remorse (even when tempted with a multi-million dollar bribe). As the anti-Simpsonites quaintly phrase it, "He is in denial," a high crime in times when malefactors appear on talk-shows to fess up and receive absolution from the host and applause from the audience. In recent years, only one other African-American man is so vilified by the media as Simpson, and that is Justice Clarence Thomas. Both are guilty of thumbing their noses at the liberal establishment. Other random oddities:
Why does Philip Vanatter phone Marcia Clark for assistance in preparing the search warrant? He claims that although it isn't usual policy, he personally picks her as the prosecutor, and invites her to visit the crime scene and Rockingham that morning. Has she a personal interest in prosecuting the case? Does she know the victims? Some say she knew Simpson socially and visited Rockingham previously, but she denies this. Prior to the trial, on a salary of $96,000 per year, she is reputed to run notoriously high credit-card debts.
Clark's first husband, Gaby Horowitz, an Israeli, and a professional backgammon player, was shot and left paralyzed, under peculiar circumstances, by a minister in The Church of Scientology who later performed Clark's marriage to her second husband, Gordon Clark. Some claim that Gordon was a mid-level official in the Church of Scientology, while others dispute this, saying the official was another person of the same name, and that Marcia's second husband was merely an ordinary member.
Horowitz gambled at the same clubs frequented by Simpson and undoubtedly knew him. Another nightclub operator, Brett Cantor, was murdered a year previous to the Bundy incident, in a manner nearly identical to the murders of Nicole and Ron Goldman. Nicole and her crowd frequented Cantor's club and Ron once worked for him. While this seemingly points to another murderer duplicating his or her work at Bundy, the anti-Simpson folk ask, "Where was O.J. the night Cantor was slashed?"
We know Manson was influenced by Scientology, though the church denies he was a member. He was also involved, in San Francisco, in The Process - Church of the Final Judgment. Both rreligions are offshoots of the Solar Lodge of the Ordis Tempis Orientis, in Pasadena. The Riverside lodge of the OTO tried to start a race war in Los Angeles, in the 1960s, by directing psychic energy towards the Watts area.
If this is premeditated murder, does Simpson go to Bundy armed only with a knife? He knows of Nicole's proclivity to party, plus her involvement with drugs, and might anticipate an encounter with armed guests. Nicole had a maid and Simpson claims not knowing her schedule. If that's true, he intends killing her too, should she be there. Interestingly, there is little mention of Nicole's maid, except in Cora Fischman's deposition and the Lange/Vanatter book.
Bill Chang, manager of the ice cream shop where Nicole stops with her children, tells police that Nicole is accompanied by an unidentified man. Later he says that the man is probably an independent customer. Shades of the McVeigh trial, where employees of the truck rental agency initially report McVeigh is with John Doe Number Two, and later decide the accomplice is an unrelated customer.
Footprints at Bundy show that the killer slowly and deliberately walks to the back gate, then returns to the bodies before leaving the property. Simpson was pigeon-toed and bowlegged in childhood, from rickets, and photos still show an unusual stance, though not so obvious to be called pigeon-toed. The bloody shoe prints at Bundy reveal no such pattern.
Simpson is meticulous in his attire; therefore, would he change clothes after the recital and commit a gaucherie by wearing expensive shoes and dress socks with sweats? The knit cap dropped at Bundy is far too small for Simpson. Even Chris Darden says it is stretched out of shape, almost deformed. Why would Simpson don an undersized cap? It isn't cold on a June evening, and O.J. breaks into a sweat when angry. It isn't much of a disguise either. At hand are the false goatee and mustache, if he wants to partially conceal his identity.
Nicole gives presents, including Aris Isotoner gloves, to other friends in their circle. Simpson also gives away clothing twice a year, once at Rockingham, and once at his apartment in New York, when he moves between coasts. Interestingly, in early 1994, he gives clothes to Fuhrman. No, not that Fuhrman; coincidentally, the concierge at his building in New York had the same name.
Whether the gloves do or do not fit in the courtroom demonstration in now a matter of faith, rather than fact. Some say the gloves shrunk from previous use in snow and rain, but if so, they are already undersized when Simpson puts them on to do murder. Now we have him with too small gloves and a too small cap. Are we to believe Simpson takes this odd opportunity to clean his closet of ill-fitting clothes and unwanted shoes? On the other hand, if someone is intent on framing him, why would they chose small gloves and cap?
Those convinced of his guilt say photos show him wearing the murder gloves and the murder shoes. That is not entirely correct. The photos show identical models of these items, which may or may not be the ones used. Another peculiarity: since Simpson denies owning Bruno Magli shoes, why doesn't he also deny owning Aris gloves?
There are lengthy and complicated disputes about the shoes and the photos of Simpson wearing them. None of the photos surfaced during the criminal trial, in spite of massive publicity. One of the more interesting points is whether the Bruno Magli, Lorenzo model, European size 46 shoes, correctly translate to a U.S. size twelve. Other shoe manufacturers express a European size 46 as a U.S. size eleven-and-one-third to eleven-and-one-half. If they are much smaller than a size twelve, Simpson would now be wearing too small gloves, with an undersized knit cap and shoes that are not only ugly-ass, but tight.
Kato says O.J. wore a dark blue or black sweatsuit that evening. Blue or black cotton fibers are found on the victims at the crime scene. It's likely that black or blue cotton fibers, transferred in the laundry, can be found on almost anybody's clothes. In the same vein, it's also likely many people have traces of blood in their bathroom drains from shaving or cuts. Passersby at Bundy can't see the bodies from the sidewalk at night, but blood is running down the front walkway to the street and bloody pawprints are on the sidewalk, yet supposedly no one notes anything amiss for nearly two hours.
When a murderer butchers two victims in an expensive neighborhood, would police not search the immediate area, perhaps with helicopters or dogs, or at least warn residents to lock their doors, lest another Richard Ramirez is prowling? Here is another clue that authorities already know the circumstances of the killings.
There are two gates on the pathway behind the guest cottages. As Kato investigates the thumps he opens the first one, and leans the broken gate against a tree. Would Simpson, in a rush, bother closing a broken gate? No one finds blood on this gate, though blood is seen on an overhead wire running along the walkway, and on the wall near the air conditioner, yet no samples are preserved for analysis.
After hearing the thumps, Kato first discusses them in his phone call with Rachel, and delays before investigating. When he returns from the walkway, he sees Simpson on the lawn. If Simpson drops the glove, and is rushing to meet the limo, what is he doing during those minutes?
While loading luggage and looking for a flashlight, Kato does not see blood-drops in the foyer or the entryway at Rockingham, though he does not specifically look for them. However, would not both he and Simpson walk on and smear some of the drops? Fuhrman inspects Kato's boots, and sees no blood. In proclaiming Simpson's guilt, people say, "A trail of blood leads from his Bronco right to his front door." If he is dripping blood, the trail should run from the Bronco, up and down the walkway where he drops the glove, then to his front door.
The detectives go to Rockingham, and do not draw their weapons, even when searching the walkway, though they claim to enter with the thought there may be more bodies or a crime in progress. Again, this indicates they already know who committed the crime. If it is Simpson, how do they know they can arrest him peaceably? If they know of another murderer, they would take precautions. Did somebody, knowing Simpson was in Chicago, send all four to Rockingham, not to plant evidence, but to discover incriminating evidence previously placed by others?
If Simpson is not the prime suspect, and if police do not believe his arrest is imminent, why does Tom Lange, talking to Judi Brown, to inform her of her daughter's death, arrange for Sydney and Justin to be taken to the Brown's home?
As the detectives escort Kato and others from Rockingham, they pointedly tell them to avoid the blood drops at the front door. It makes more sense to take them out the back door, instead of through the evidence, unless the police purposely want independent witnesses corroborating the presence of blood drops at that time.
Lange takes the Reebok sneakers with red spots on them, that O.J. claims wearing the previous evening, but treats them cavalierly, carrying them unprotected and tossing them in his car, as if he knows they are not evidence. He says the soles do not match the bloody shoeprints at Bundy, but at this time how can he know there is not a second murderer?
Though the socks found in the bedroom at Rockingham show no visible blood, as several observers verify, police seize them as evidence. Why target bloodless socks? What about the bloodless suspenders on the bed? Dress socks and suspenders go together. Simpson supposedly wears sweats earlier, but after leaving Kato he could change to a tuxedo for a formal, evening murder. Other, more suspicious items, including wet laundry and an empty knife box are ignored.
Irwin Golden, deputy L.A. medical examiner, admits that he discarded the contents of Nicole's stomach -- which could have helped fix a more precise time of death. Was this negligence, or did the stomach contain evidence at odds with prosecution theories?
There is, finally, an irrefutable proof, one that does not depend on witnesses or evidence, that O.J. Simpson is innocent beyond all doubt. Would you, if you had committed a brutal double murder, then bought your acquittal, dare venture under the open sky waving metal rods in the air?
Quotes from Roman Polanski and Charles Manson are from "Helter Skelter," by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, published by W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.