O.J. Simpson: "I did it", Unraveling the Trial of the Century

[EPISODE 58] If I Did It: O.J. Simpson, Unraveling the Trial of the Century 

Kyle Risi: So oj simpson went to nicole's house that night furious about what had happened earlier in the day He wore a ski cap Brown leather gloves and he had a knife he knocked on the door and when nicole answered he pulled her outside of the house And stabbed her to death While this was happening, Ron Goldman walks up to the house to return the glasses and he sees OJ Simpson killing Nicole. So OJ turns on him and kills him too. Then he goes over to Nicole, who is still alive, and very precisely and very effectively, he slits her throat.

Kyle Risi: Welcome to the Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. We're a weekly variety podcast where each week I tell Adam Cox all about a topic that I think he'll find both fascinating and intriguing. We dive into the stories pulled from the darker corners of true crime, the annuls of your old unread history books, and the who's who of extraordinary people. We give you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

Kyle Risi: I'm your host this week, Kyle Reese. 

Adam Cox: And I'm your co host, Alan Cox. 

Kyle Risi: And after five weeks? We're finally back for season two of The Compendium. 

Adam Cox: I know, it's been a while.

Adam Cox: I feel refreshed and raring to go. Ready to be intrigued. It's been a really dull five weeks. I've learnt nothing new. 

Kyle Risi: I must admit, I was quite nervous to get into the studio today, just because it's been so long 

Adam Cox: yeah, it's like going back to school, isn't it?

Adam Cox: We've had summer off, we've had fun, and now it's back to it. 

Kyle Risi: Well, in today's episode of the compendium, we're exploring an assembly of ways where justice is loose, but the evidence is tight.

Adam Cox: What? What? 

Kyle Risi: No clues there? 

Adam Cox: No, once again, it might be season two, but I'm still confused as ever. 

Kyle Risi: Well, on today's episode of The Compendium and Assembly of Fascinating and Intriguing Things, I'm going to be telling the story of O. J. Simpson! Oh yeah. And I'm a little bit gutted because, obviously, it broke a couple weeks ago that he died, and actually, I'd written this episode.

Kyle Risi: Just before we went away to Australia. Ah, okay. And so the fact that it was breaking news across the world that he had died just like last week. I was like, fuck, I missed another point, man. I've missed it. I'm not topical. 

Kyle Risi: But, What is it that you know about OJ Simpson? 

Adam Cox: So he was a huge American football star. Um, that's kind of how he started his career. Um, I can't remember what team he played for, but then he made that move, I guess, as he was finishing his sports career, moving into TV and film. So I think one of his most famous film series is the Naked Gun series with Leslie Nielsen. 

Kyle Risi: Surely not Lesley Nielsen. 

Adam Cox: Don't call me Shirley. Um, so he was, he was famous for all the kind of slapstick comedy. Um, of those at the airplane movie and naked gun and I guess, uh, that was kind of one of, um, OJ Simpson's big breaks as a movie star. Yeah, that's it. 

Kyle Risi: Because I think I guess the, when he was coming towards the end of his career, he needed to kind of make sure that he had the next move planned, if you will. And I think that one of the things that he thought that he would do really well at is, like, working in TV and production and films and things like that. So he kind of set the wheels in motion to carve a career for himself after.

Kyle Risi: So I recently picked up Jeffrey Toobin's book, The Run for His Life, and so he's this American lawyer, blogger, author, legal analyst for CNN. So over the years he gained international fame for his coverage and analysis of various high profile legal cases, including, of course, the O. J. Simpson trial. So if after you listen to this episode and if you're convinced that OJ Simpson in fact did it because I'm gonna say it right now.

Kyle Risi: This is not an unbiased impartial podcast on whether or not he did it or not because the motherfucker did it he He killed his wife and if you believe that as well, then go read his book because it's just brilliant Now, by the way, does the name Geoffrey Toobin ring any bells to you?

Kyle Risi: No. You may remember during lockdown, I think it was like 2020, there was this huge scandal involving this journalist who got himself fired from the New Yorker after he was caught giving himself a little treat after a Zoom call. Do you remember that? Oh, 

Kyle Risi: yeah, vaguely.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, well, that was Geoffrey Toobin because he left his camera on after a Zoom call. Oh. Yeah, he pretty much showed. Everyone at, like, the New Yorker, he's a little soldier. I guess. What a 

Adam Cox: way, 

Kyle Risi: does that end his career? Well that's the thing, I hope it doesn't.

Kyle Risi: Because the thing is though, there'll be loads of people out there that'll be like, oh yeah, what a goofball and they'll probably want to go read his book. But, if you can put that aside, go and read his book because it's just brilliant. If you want a proper account on everything around O. J. Simpson, then this is the guy that you should be listening to, or the book that you should be reading. 

Adam Cox: Well, I will consider that, depending on how your story goes. 

Kyle Risi: But also, if you're not a reader, then I would highly recommend the brilliant podcast called You're Wrong About, with Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbs.

Kyle Risi: Who do an incredible job of giving an in depth analysis of all the different elements of the story. And I think there's like five episodes in the series, but it's really annoying though, because for some reason they didn't finish the series, so it's left you on a bit of a cliffhanger, but in those five episodes, they go really in depth in a lot of the themes that is covered in the series. About the trial, the racial tensions it's just brilliant.

Kyle Risi: There's also a five part documentary series called Made in America, where each episode is like an hour and a half long and they go really deep into detail. So I'll link all of these in the show notes. So after listening to of course, your favorite podcast duo, Adam Cox and Kyle Racey, then go and check out some of the sources that we have in today's show notes. 

Adam Cox: Hopefully we do this story justice 

Kyle Risi: I hope so, in today's episode, I'm going to be telling you everything that you need to know about what happened, how OJ Simpson murdered his ex wife and her friend, Ron Goldman, I'll tell you about the infamous white bronco chase, the trial, and all the events following the verdict. And as always, as I like to say, this one's a doozy.

Kyle Risi: And just so there's no doubt about what the conclusion is going to be today. Like, he did it. He did it. He did it. 

Adam Cox: If you're looking for a non, uh, or an impartial view, then, you know, read the newspaper.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, go somewhere else, because this isn't it, because we are talking about a cold blooded And also, unapologetic as well, because he is a big piece of shit. But we'll get on to it. 

Adam Cox: Rest in peace. 

Kyle Risi: But before we get on to that, should we do all the latest things? 

Adam Cox: Let's do it.

Kyle Risi: This is a segment of our show where we catch up on all the week's happenings and share a quick tidbit, strange fact, or laugh at a bit of weird news from the past week.

Kyle Risi: So Adam, it's been five weeks, we've been off and we're finally back after um, a little adventure in Australia. So, I can't believe it's gone so quickly. Five weeks, man. 

Adam Cox: It has, and to be honest with you, I have done no preparation for this because I've been on holiday, Kyle. So. 

Kyle Risi: Well, actually I was like determined to write four episodes when we're out But we're just every day. It's just been so bloody busy. Yeah, they just had no time whatsoever. But oh my god, Australia It 

Adam Cox: was 

Kyle Risi: so much fun. Yeah. 

Adam Cox: We saw the reef we went into the mountains the rainforest So much to see. And to be honest, actually, I do have something that we can talk about today because, um, remember the trip where we went to the Blue Mountains?

Kyle Risi: Oh, yeah. The entire day was foggy as hell. Exactly. We saw nothing. 

Adam Cox: We were driven around in this minibus, to the Blue Mountains, which is this really scenic area where you get to see the Three Sisters, these rocks. And the driver took us to around about six different lookout points and all you could see was fog and mist. So we saw nothing, but the pictures looked lovely. Um, so I imagine if you do go, it will, you know, go on a sunny day. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Make sure you have access to the pictures of what it should look like just in case it's really foggy.

Adam Cox: But we still had a really good day. And one of the reasons we had such a good day was because of our driver. He was really entertaining. Yeah. And he kept spitting out all these facts about Australia, and there's a couple that stuck with me, and one was about the Australian accent, and where it came from.

Adam Cox: Oh yeah, so, he was saying, obviously, Australia is a part of a colony, or part of the Commonwealth. Yeah. And so the English, when we first discovered, and I use quotations with that, because obviously we didn't, when we landed on the side of Sydney and we basically commandeered it for ourselves, We sent a lot of our convicts and criminals initially.

Adam Cox: Mm-Hmm. to Australia. And this was around our, um, was it the 17 hundreds? 18 hundreds. That's the sort of the period where we're sending convicts over. 

Adam Cox: So it's about that sort of period. And, um, I think, that, what, and I think when they would send the convicts over, they'd also send, alcohol. And a lot of the alcohol didn't last the trip, so wine would go bad, I think beer would go stale. Uh, but one bit of alcohol that did survive and last the trip was rum. And so rum formed a part of their early currency that they'd use to 

Kyle Risi: did they not say that for each adult that was living in Australia at the time, they had something like 16 shots of alcohol per day? That's a much rum that they had. Yeah. They had a lot of rum. 

Adam Cox: There was a lot of rum to go around.

Kyle Risi: So people were, people were finely tuned.

Adam Cox: Yes, so people would drink rum a lot and were basically drunk a lot of the time. And so what they think is that the Australian accent, uh, has come from the drunken slur of two people at the time drinking too much rum. And so I think you've got all these people that are coming to Australia, they're constantly drunk. And then that's somehow, um, rubbed off on those that are growing up there and coming to Australia. So people dropping sort of vowels or shortening words and things like that. That's all stemmed back from people being too drunk. 

Kyle Risi: But is that true though? What are your sources, Adam?

Adam Cox: Well, so I've looked at a number of newspaper articles that have corroborators, because we thought like this guy is just like making stuff up to entertain us. But he said that most experts believe the Australian accent, known for its flat tone, Nasality, an elision of syllables, um, this is a newspaper, I'm not saying that you're nasally, Australia, um, developed from the mix of dialects found in the early colony, whose residents included convicts and settlers from across Britain and Ireland.

Adam Cox: And various myths have arisen to try to explain certain features of the Australian drawl, including the claim that Australians mumble to avoid swallowing flies? But this latest theory suggests that colonies heavy drinking played a role, and appears to have largely been welcomed in Australia. Yeah. And so, um, yeah, that's, that's where it's kind of come from and a few people have kind of like said that the way that the pitch of the voice rises and falls is this drunken slur, but I don't know whether we'll know the exact truth. Probably not. But people back then were drunk a lot. 

Kyle Risi: So what you're saying is that when we go out on a night out down Prince of Wales Road, you know, on the strip, and everyone's really drunk at 2am in the morning, everyone's essentially Australian. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and I guess if you're around enough people and you maybe you're not drunk, you maybe try and act drunk or you impersonate accents that you're around and so that kind of rubs off on other people that were arriving and so kids would be there sounding drunk, but they hadn't touched a drop of rum.

Kyle Risi: No, not yet. Not yet. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, that's my latest thing for this week. 

Kyle Risi: I mean, just for me, Australia was just incredible. I mean, I had high expectations for the country anyway, and all of those expectations were just completely surpassed because Australia was just incredible.

Kyle Risi: We visited Sydney, then we went up to Cairns. We spent most of our time up in Cairns visiting the rainforest, which just unbelievably hot. We went scuba diving. Snorkeling. Snorkeling. 

Adam Cox: Yep. Uh, hunt hikes. We almost died in a gorge by wearing flip flops, which you should not do.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, so, but anyway, we are really chuffed to be back, um, for season two of the Compendium podcast, and hopefully this year is gonna be the best year ever 

Adam Cox: we also received quite a lot of, um, sort of suggestions whilst we're away. So we're definitely looking at some of those ideas that people have sent in for season two as well. 

Kyle Risi: That's it. Can't wait. Cool. But yeah, should we get on with the story? 

Adam Cox: Let's do it. That

Kyle Risi: So Adam, O. J. Simpson was born Orenthal James Simpson in 1947 in San Francisco. That's what the O stands for. Orenthal. Yeah, Orenthal. I did not know that. It's a strange name, isn't it? So we'll skip his early life 'cause it's not important. The only important thing that we need to know about him at this period is that he had no idea he was gonna grow up to be a cobled murderer.

Kyle Risi: That's the thing that we're certain about. So, OJ goes on to become one of the most famous American footballer, play the most famous American football players of all time. And he plays for the Buffalo Bills from 1969 to 1977. And then the 49ers in San Francisco from 78 to 79. And he starts getting close to retirement age and he then becomes determined to make a name for himself following his eventual retirement.

Kyle Risi: So in the lead up to this he starts doing really small parts in movies and in television and things like that. Now as you mentioned earlier on he of course was in Naked Gun but he was also Naked Gun 1, 2, and 3. So I didn't realise he was in all three of them. And he's also done others too, but like Naked Gun is what he is obviously most famous for.

Kyle Risi: So, He catches the bug for acting and he decides that he's going to start up his own production company And he starts casting himself in all sorts of lead roles and Adam. He's he's not good 

Adam Cox: I love the fact that he had his own production company were like I'm gonna star in this. 

Kyle Risi: No one's casting me. So I know If I own the production company, then nobody can say no to me. Write the theme tune, sing the theme tune, kill the theme tune. What? So he also starts doing a lot of sports commentary. Like imagine when there's a football game on and they cut to the commentator and they're standing at the edge of the field. It's that kind of stuff that he's kind of doing. And. All of this kind of works out pretty well for him because he manages to carve out a persona for himself which eventually transcends his retirement from football.

Kyle Risi: And at his height OJ Simpson is extremely famous to both black and white Americans, largely because he's so personable and so relatable on camera. But also, because to African Americans, he is this black athlete that has managed to transcend those racial lines.

Kyle Risi: So to them, he was this representative figure that kind of said that if I can see it, then I can be it kind of thing. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. Good role model at the time. 

Kyle Risi: Exactly. And then to white Americans, he was just this huge sports hero that everyone just loved. America's got its issues with race. We all know that this isn't a podcast about that outside of obviously OJ Simpson, but they were able to put those types of things aside and see him for the brilliant athlete that he was. And OJ Simpson, he didn't really pick a camp like when journalists would ask him like, what's it like to be a black kind of successful athlete in America today, and he used to say like, I'm not black.

Kyle Risi: I'm, I'm OJ, you know. So during this time, he just had this massive universal appeal to all Americans. 

Adam Cox: Did he shy away from that question then? 

Kyle Risi: Well, it gets really complicated because when his trial comes around, the prosecution team will point out that actually he never identified or even gave back to the black community. In fact, he tried very hard to distance himself from the black community.

Adam Cox: Right. 

Kyle Risi: But we'll come on to that later on. It's really fascinating. So he marries his high school sweetheart around the age of 20 and they have three kids together. So, and for OJ, his life is pretty Like he's an athlete, he's successful, everyone loves him.

Kyle Risi: And then at the age of 30, his football career ends and he has a whole other career lined up for him and the cracks in his kind of wholesome persona that he's kind of created over the years, this is when those start to merge, right? 

Kyle Risi: So he gets divorced from his wife. And it's discovered that he'd been cheating on his wife pretty much their entire marriage So following the divorce, he ends up meeting an 18 year old teenage girl called nicole brown And when they first meet nicole was a waitress in a restaurant.

Kyle Risi: They fall in love. They start dating etc and almost Immediately from the very beginning, OJ is extremely controlling. At the time, Nicole was living with a gay male roommate, which OJ Simpson did, Not enjoy. And so he forces her to move in with him. And I mean, I use the term forces, but remember, he's an extremely famous, rich, successful athlete. Like he is one of the most famous people in the world.

Kyle Risi: So I don't think like, anyone would need much persuading. If someone says, do you know what? Just come and move in with me. Look at my mansion. Look at this gorgeous mansion. You've got a private swimming pool, you've got a wardrobe of your own, I'll give you this car.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, 

Adam Cox: she's 18 as well. That's gonna seem pretty exciting, I would have thought. Oh, exactly, yeah. 

Kyle Risi: So I think if someone said to me like, Oh, you're living with roommates? Aw, do you want to come live with me in my mansion? I'd be like, 

Adam Cox: Hell yes! I'd be like, Bye! 

Kyle Risi: See ya, gay mate! But I think the kind of, obviously the use of this terminology just acts to kind of foreshadow what's to come. So later after she then moves in with him, he insists that she quits her job because he's like, what do you need a job for? He's like, I have all the money that you'll ever need. I'm going to support you. I'm going to provide for you. I'm going to give you everything that you need. 

Adam Cox: Which sounds great until he then says, you can't do these things though. 

Kyle Risi: Exactly. So soon after this, he starts controlling who she can see, where she can go, what she's allowed to wear.

Kyle Risi: And eventually it's just impossible for Nicole to do anything that doesn't center around her. OJ Simpson and his needs right and so as you can probably guess the control eventually turns into emotional abuse and then physical violence and then each time Nicole tries to get away as with all abusers he then just promises that he's going to change and won't happen again etc. Etc. 

Kyle Risi: And OJ Simpson We know a lot about the abuse that took place because Nicole actually started to document all of this in her diary She started taking pictures of her injuries Which she would then store in a safety deposit box because she feared, she genuinely feared that one day He might kill her.

Kyle Risi: So even from this early stage before they've had kids or anything like she already is fearful of him She's already in abusive Relationship and she knows it because she's documenting it. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and I guess she's obviously feeling she can't leave or escape very easily 

Kyle Risi: Well, that's the thing as well.

Kyle Risi: So we'll come on to that in just a second because she even says to herself like she if anything ever happens to her She wants there to be evidence that he did it. 

Adam Cox: Wow. That's really You She must have been so much fear to document that and to kind of like, this is why I'm doing it.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. Yeah. So Nicole was stuck. So she was also young. She didn't have a job. She had no opportunities outside of the marriage, but also OJ starts to employ several of her family members as well, so they too are relying on him financially. So escaping the abuse wasn't going to be easy because so many people in her family depended on him 

Adam Cox: financially. I was going to say like, what, aside from the emotional abuse and maybe not feeling like you could escape, what was keeping her there? But it seems like, Yeah, if they broke up a family would lose their livelihoods. 

Kyle Risi: That's it. Yeah, it's crazy. So she completely trapped So together they end up having two children sydney and justin and initially nicole thinks that the abuse will stop once they have children But it just doesn't he's also constantly cheating on her as well Even more so when she falls pregnant and his justification is that he doesn't want to have sex with her when she's fat You Fuck.

Kyle Risi: No, I know. Sorry. Oh, Adam, 

Adam Cox: sorry. 

Kyle Risi: Did you 

Adam Cox: just swear I did because I just thought that was horrendous. 

Kyle Risi: I don't think I've ever heard you swear listeners. You heard it here first. Adam dropped the F bomb . 

Adam Cox: Sorry, I take it back. . 

Kyle Risi: So he 100% believes that he's entitled to sleep around with anyone that he wants while she's pregnant.

Kyle Risi: But the thing is though, even after she gives birth, nothing changes. His excuse now was that she wasn't losing the weight fast enough, and he actually believes that she shouldn't have been allowed to gain any more weight than what a newborn baby physically weighs.

Adam Cox: So, not the additional water, and like, everything else that's needed, the additional skills. The giant 

Kyle Risi: hands and the huge clown feet! No! Not allowed! 

Adam Cox: What the hell? I know he's a piece of shit. Where did they get this information from? Is it purely from her diaries? Or is it from other people around at the time?

Kyle Risi: It's a good question. I don't know. A lot of this comes from Geoffrey Toobin's book, wherever he gets his resources from. So it's going to be from interviews that he's conducted and obviously from her diaries. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: And also the thing is though, throughout their entire relationship, the police are constantly being called out to the house for domestic violence. And so this is just an awful situation that Nicole is in. And in the Made in America documentaries, they play a lot of the 9 1 1 calls and you can just tell how petrified she is because in these calls you can hear him in the background and all you hear is this rage in his voice. So there is just no question that this was an Extremely violent violent relationship. 

Kyle Risi: So finally in 1992 after seven years of marriage Nicole finally files for divorce She gets her own little place But they don't sever ties completely because they remember they've got two kids together and as a way for Nicole to keep the family together she wants to kind of take a little bit of a step back from the relationship living together and restart dating OJ Simpson again.

Kyle Risi: And slowly her feeling is that they can start mending the relationship and they can build things up nice and slow, build up the trust again, because again, as all abusers do, they promise that they won't do it again, they love them, etc. I was going to say, does 

Adam Cox: she generally believe that if she's filed for divorce, but then is willing to build the relationship?

Kyle Risi: Yeah, she wanted to, she wanted to, she wanted to make it work, like she had, she wants the best for her kids and she does love her husband, right? 

Adam Cox: Right, okay. 

Kyle Risi: And this does work for a while, but again, he just keeps slipping. When he doesn't get his way, he starts threatening to cut her off financially. And he even threatens to take the kids away, telling her that because he is famous, he has the means to care for the kids better than she could ever do it. So, I get it. It's a bit of blackmail, so I understand why you'd want to keep him sweet. Even though you don't want to be in a relationship with him or married to him anymore. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, was there a danger of him ever being abusive to his kids though? 

Kyle Risi: Well, there's no evidence of that. I mean, the kids were very, very young anyway at the time. So OJ just does whatever he can to just keep maintaining control over Nicole.

Kyle Risi: So he starts following her wherever she goes with friends and things like that. So, what he would do is he would often park outside her house and just wait and watch. Just like an absolute creep. Even sneaking up to watch through the windows to see if he can see anything going On.

 and eventually when Nicole is 35, she decides that she is now done. Like all the bullshit, the following, the stalking, the manipulation. She just, she wants out and she wants a clean break. So she moves into her own little place with the kids and OJ will only be involved as much as he needs to be for the sake of the children.

Kyle Risi: But other than that, that is it. She is done. Good for her. So she's made the decision. So for the first time, Nicole is genuinely, genuinely happy. She's out socializing on her own. She's thinking about a career and building up kind of her own independence. And of course. As is the case with all abusers, OJ just cannot deal with this at all because before now she has always come back to him.

Kyle Risi: He's always said, I'm sorry, I'll never do it again. She's always forgiven him. And then the cycle just starts again and again.

Kyle Risi: And so this is the first time that he's realizing, She's not coming back. So one day, one of the kids is having a dance recital. Nicole invites the whole family to come out and watch. She is there with her sisters and her mom. OJ comes separately, but Nicole doesn't save him a seat next to them, right?

Kyle Risi: So he has to go and sit somewhere else in the auditorium. And this just makes him absolutely furious because he can see them all sitting together, having a great time. They're all happy. And he's just sitting there on his own. So he's just furious. This just drives him mental. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, he'd probably like the anger raging inside of him. Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: exactly. I can imagine him sitting there just seething. Do you know what I mean? So after the dance recital, the family go to dinner to a restaurant called, Mezzaluna.

Kyle Risi: And it's a place that Nicole ate at all the time with the kids. And she knew all of the staff. She's super friendly with the management and all of the staff. But she tells OJ that he's not invited to come and have dinner after the recital. So they have dinner and then afterwards the family head home and halfway Nicole's mother realizes that she's left her reading glasses at the restaurant.

Kyle Risi: So Nicole says that she'll call the restaurant and she speaks to one of the waitstaff, a guy called Ron Goldman, who she knows socially and there's loads of kind of speculation of how well she knew this guy. But according to the sources that I've read, they were just platonic friends that would occasionally meet on nights out but there is speculation that they may have been, like, involved, but I don't believe it at all. They were just friends. It was just, Oh, you work at that restaurant that I go to with my kids all the time, and you're really friendly, and you make my kids laugh, and yeah. I've seen you on a night out a couple times, and that's it. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, yeah. 

Kyle Risi: So Ron agrees that he will drop the glasses around her house once he finishes his shift. So, around midnight that same evening, a neighbourhood couple find Nicole's dog wandering the streets.

Kyle Risi: And the dog is barking and seems really agitated. And they also notice that the dog's got a lot of blood on its paws. So they decide that they're going to take the dog back to Nicole's house. And when they get there They find Nicole and Ron Goldman dead in the front yard.

Kyle Risi: They'd both been stabbed to death in what looked like an absolute fit of rage. 

Adam Cox: Damn and left on the front lawn. So that's not a premeditated murder in a sense. It's not someone that's hunted someone out to go specifically do it. Sure. It feels very much like a spare of the moment thing.

Kyle Risi: So as we know, Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman were the victims and there was a whole court case about it and I'm not going to keep you in suspense because he was found not guilty of their murder. but i'm here to tell you that he did it.

Kyle Risi: We know he did it. He even makes jokes about doing it So i'm just going to exactly he's an absolute piece of shit and we're going to cover all that in a minute But i'm just going to tell you exactly how he did it and what happened 

Kyle Risi: So oj simpson went to nicole's house that night furious about what had happened earlier in the day He wore a ski cap Brown leather gloves and he had a knife he knocked on the door and when nicole answered he pulled her outside of the house And stabbed her to death While this was happening, Ron Goldman walks up to the house to return the glasses and he sees OJ Simpson killing Nicole.

Kyle Risi: So OJ turns on him and kills him too. Then he goes over to Nicole, who is still alive, and very precisely and very effectively, he slits her throat.

Kyle Risi: And the reason why they think that OJ Simpson knew how to kill in this way is because at this precise moment. He was filming a new TV series called Frogmen about Navy SEAL divers and for maximum authenticity producers put the cast through rigorous training including how to look inconspicuous by wearing banner clovers and gloves, etc.

Kyle Risi: And one of the things OJ would have learned was how to kill someone by slitting their throat like a Navy SEAL would do. Very precisely, very effectively. So people have speculated that this is how he knew how to do this. 

Adam Cox: Wow, well I take back what I said where it sounded opportunistic. He actually went there and did that. I did not know he dressed like thAt either. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, he was fully kitted out. so after killing Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, OJ drops one of the gloves and the ski cap that he was wearing. He then drives home in his white Bronco and parks on the side of the house because he is organized for a limousine to be waiting to pick him up. To take him to the airport on a work trip So he can't park in the driveway because he doesn't actually want the driver to know that he wasn't home, right?

Kyle Risi: This is going to stand as kind of his alibi, right? So oj simpson then jumps over the fence He sneaks around the side of the house and while he's sneaking past his guest house on his property a friend of his, Kato Kaelin, who is staying in the guesthouse, hears something through the wall, like footsteps or a scuffle, but he doesn't actually know it's OJ Simpson, and then the noise is gone and then he forgets about it.

Kyle Risi: Right. But he very clearly remembers someone walking down the side of the guesthouse. 

Kyle Risi: On the way into the house, O. J. drops the other glove at the back of the guest house. He goes inside the main house, he gets rid of his clothes, he gets dressed, he collects his luggage, he gets into the limo where the driver is waiting for him, and he goes to the airport ready to catch his flight to Chicago.

Adam Cox: Wow. To think that you're just going to go do that now after what you've just done. 

Kyle Risi: What a bastard. What a piece of shit. Yeah. So that's what happened. Of course, there's a lot of speculation throughout this case, which we'll cover some of it. But ultimately, OJ Simpson killed his ex wife and her friend, Ron Goldman. What are you thinking so far? 

Adam Cox: Well I was a bit concerned that we were going to go in and say, you know, that he definitely did it and no, sort of non biased, but based on what you said, he does sound like a piece of shit and he does sound like he did it.

Adam Cox: And is this all the evidence that they were able to pin on him, I'm guessing, and this is the concise or condensed version. 

Kyle Risi: It, yeah, this is based on the evidence they found. But the thing is that when it comes to the court case they played cards that just fed into Some more social issues and racial tensions that ended up finding him not guilty And we're going to cover some of it because it's really fascinating Because I don't know if many people know this but he did go through a second trial a civil trial Where he was found completely guilty, but he couldn't be prosecuted for it because he had already been found not guilty In the criminal trial, but we'll go through that in a moment and why that's significant 

Kyle Risi: So the police are called obviously because the neighbors have stumbled upon this gruesome scene And when they get there, it doesn't take them long to realize that this is nicole brown's house on account of the pictures with oj simpson around the house Here's the gut wrenching thing about this whole ordeal their children were both upstairs asleep this entire time.

Kyle Risi: No way. So thank god they did not wake up. So this animal killed his ex wife while his kids were asleep in their beds and then just left them there to potentially find their mother dead in the front yard. Isn't that so sick? 

Kyle Risi: So the police find the ski cap and the bloody glove and at this precise moment the police don't know that O. J. Simpson is involved. Initially they think that if Nicole was targeted, then whoever did this might also. be after OJ Simpson. 

Kyle Risi: So they go to OJ's house and they see the white Bronco parked by the side of the house. And when they inspect the car, they see blood on the driver's side door and blood on the inside carriage on the driver's side.

Adam Cox: So, he hasn't even, I guess he didn't have time to do a bit of a clean up, but I would have thought the reason he had the gloves and the mask and maybe he did it outside was to leave minimal DNA or anything there. But then he's done all this and didn't think to wipe down his car. Yeah. What an idiot.

Kyle Risi: What an idiot. 

Kyle Risi: And so the presence of blood gives the police reason to believe that something is up. So they jump over the fence, and they force their way into property, and this is where things get murky. Because later on, O. J. Simpson's defense team will say that the police only jumped the fence so they could plant evidence.

Kyle Risi: Oh, okay. And that evidence was the other bloody glove that O. J. Simpson dropped when he was sneaking around the side of the guesthouse. And so because of this, the entire defense will revolve around a very racist police detective who was there that night called Mark Furman, right?

Kyle Risi: So he's going to be very important to the story. And the claim was that he had planted the bloody glove to pin the murder on O. J. Simpson. 

Adam Cox: That was a thing of the 90s, wasn't it? Where the police were found to be quite Well, convicted of racist.

Kyle Risi: That's it. Yeah. And actually this plays a huge part of it. And it seems like the police brutality and police racism against minorities comes in these different waves. And by the time that this case had happened or by the time that OJ Simpson had murdered Nicole Brown, they were just coming or recovering from the Rodney King brutality, which we'll cover in just a minute.

Kyle Risi: OK. And you'll understand how that led to them finding him Not guilty. And so because of this the entire defense will revolve around a very racist police detective Who was there that night called mark firman And the claim was that it was him who had planted the glove in order to pin the murder on OJ Simpson And they based this on various pieces of 

Kyle Risi: evidence where mark was caught out saying and doing some very questionable Racist stuff in the past they dragged that all up with him And there's no question like he was a racist piece of shit So for instance, he was being interviewed by a screenwriter who's doing some work on the LAPD and she says that she spent hours with Mark and almost the entire time, all he did was spew the most awful racist things against African Americans.

Kyle Risi: And on top of this, he was also known to exert excessive force when arresting African Americans. But also, he once tried to sue the LAPD pension fund after they refused to let him retire early, because, as he puts it, working with all these blacks has made me super racist, and so he wanted to retire early?

Adam Cox: That, that's what's made him a 1. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Also, over the years, Mark had also been one of the officers that had been called out to the Simpsons house after, like, he'd beaten up Nicole. So the defense team speculated that not only was he a racist piece of shit, but that he had also disliked OJ Simpson from the very start for beating up his wife. And so as a result, they say that Mark planted the glove in order to incriminate OJ Simpson for the domestic violence against his wife. 

Adam Cox: Right, but I guess, is there anything found against this policeman? Like obviously he's not a good man, but was he actually doing a good job with the case in terms of following it through and going by the rulebook?

Kyle Risi: I don't really go through that really. I think just from, in spite of that, they pulled up his racist behaviour, they used the backdrop of everything that happened with the LAPD and Rodney King, and they used that to, to their advantage. So I don't think whether or not he was a good police officer or not, it was his character that was pulled into question.

Adam Cox: Yeah, and I just wondered if he actually did do anything that did jeopardize the case, or if actually he did follow the rules in this instance, even though he is a piece of shit. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. And so, the entire trial will then end up coming down. to this glove that supposedly was planted by the LAPD and Mark Ferman.

Kyle Risi: But here's the crazy thing, the glove was by far the least incriminating piece of evidence against OJ Simpson in this case because they found a trail of blood leading from the scene where he murdered Ron and Nicole leading out to his parked car on the street.

Kyle Risi: They also found blood in his car, they found a blood trail leading from his car over the fence, down the path, along the side of his house, all the way up into his bedroom, also, there was only three people's DNA in their blood. It was his, Ron Goldman's, and Nicole Brown's. 

Adam Cox: So the evidence is overwhelming. At this stage. Yep. And all this is brought up in court and yet he's not convicted. 

Kyle Risi: Yet the defense team claimed that this Mark Furman planted all that blood and that glove. Like come on. How could he do that? Exactly. Exactly. If there's anything that life has taught us up to this point is that racists are not the smartest of people. Mark Furman could not have pulled that off in that time at this scene, at both scenes. 

Adam Cox: He would have to have scooped up all their DNA. Into a pipette and then just drop that 

Kyle Risi: yeah, and smear it 

Adam Cox: and everywhere. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly When oh geez, it's mental. So when the police locate OJ Simpson in Chicago They call him up at his hotel room and they tell him like I'm sorry to tell you mr. Simpson But your wife Nicole is dead and it's the biggest play of mediocre acting you've probably ever heard in your life. Much like what we saw in The Naked Gun. So he's wailing, he's saying, no, no, not Nicole. And then he says, I'll come home. And then he hangs up.

Kyle Risi: And not once does he ask, how does she die? It could have been a car accident, could have been an overdose, she could have fallen and hit her head, not once does he say, how did she die? You'd want to know that, right? 

Adam Cox: You'd want to know some detail, or you wouldn't hang up. You would not hang up. 

Kyle Risi: No, no. 

Adam Cox: Piece of shit, right? Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So, OJ flies back to LA, he goes in for voluntary questioning without a lawyer, and when he's there, the police are Starstruck that they're talking to this huge star and OJ knows this so he's just this incredibly kind of like Cavalier kind of casual arrogant piece of shit in front of them. Please don't say that he offers to give them his signature or anything

Kyle Risi: So the interview lasts for 30 minutes and when they're speaking to him They notice that he has a cut on his third knuckle on his left hand, which is super, super swollen, and it's, it's literally oozing. And when they ask him how he got it, he says he can't remember. So it's a pretty serious cut on his hand.

Kyle Risi: They don't even flinch, right? And later on, when he finally lawyers up, He then says he had actually cut himself on a glass when he was in Chicago, but I'm sorry, you would remember that, especially if it was just the day before, right? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, I think it was on the knife you used to kill your ex wife.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. So they also ask him about his whereabouts at the time of the murders, what contact he had with Nicole in the hours preceding and his activities following. And he just denies any involvement. So after the interview, as you quite rightly pointed out, he signs a bunch of autographs for the officers. And this will be the one and only time that he is interviewed by police because the very next day he lawyers up and of course, the police can't get anywhere near him. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. Well, to be honest, anyone in any kind of mourning state, would not be offering up autographs. 

Kyle Risi: No, exactly. What a piece of shit.

Kyle Risi: I think that's the tagline for this show, right? What a 

Adam Cox: piece of, is that what we're naming this? We should call this 

Kyle Risi: episode, What a piece of shit. 

Kyle Risi: So, it's four days after Nicole's murder. It's her funeral, and in America they quite often do these open casket affairs where they will display the body to mourners, uh, at like a wake. And Nicole is dressed in an outfit that goes all the way up to her chin because OJ Simpson had almost decapitated her when he murdered her. And apparently, at the funeral, OJ leans into the casket, he kisses Nicole on the lips, and he says, I'm so sorry Nick, I'm so sorry.

Kyle Risi: What are you sorry for, Mr. OJ? What are you sorry for? Murdering your wife? 

Adam Cox: How dare that he gets to be able to do that afterwards. It's sickening. 

Kyle Risi: It's sickening. So OJ hires some pretty high profile lawyers. It's a guy called Bob Shapiro and OJ's, and Nicole's, oldest and best friend, who they would hang out with all the time. He's a lawyer called Robert Kardashian. 

Adam Cox: Ah, yes, this is how the Kardashians sort of got their name a little bit, wasn't it? 

Kyle Risi: I mean, apart from kind of Kim Kardashian's dirty sex tapes. 

Adam Cox: What I meant was, I guess that's where the name sort of came from. He got a lot of notoriety from this case. 

Kyle Risi: That's it.

Kyle Risi: That is it. So we know him because of course he's married to Kris Kardashian. And that's it. I honestly think that this is just so deplorable, because I don't think that I would be able to take on a case where my best friend was accused of murdering his wife, who is also my best friend, you know, just on the off chance that they did it.

Kyle Risi: Yeah,

Adam Cox: it feels like you're too connected or close to this case, you shouldn't be on it. Stay clear. Why was he allowed? 

Kyle Risi: Don't know. Money, fame, profile, I don't know. Who knows? So the thing is as well is that Robert Kardashian came out of retirement specifically to work on this case. So he wasn't actually like actively practicing as a lawyer at this time.

Kyle Risi: So Robert Kardashian and Bob Shapiro, they form what they call the dream team and they team up to be OJ Simpson's defense in his criminal trial. So as the police investigation is underway, it is eventually established that all of the evidence. Is actually pointing to OJ having did it and they make moves to arrest him for Nicole and Ron's murder but Bob Shapiro is like no no because like Our client is like one of the world's biggest celebrities like you will cause an absolute media frenzy Is that really what you want?

Kyle Risi: And remember he's black. We've just come out of the Rodney King kind of affair. Do you want that kind of attention? And the police are like, okay, yeah, no, maybe you're right. 

Kyle Risi: So, Bob Shapiro's like, what we'll do is we'll arrange for OJ to surrender to the police station tomorrow morning at 11am and it'll be nice and cordial, respectful, we'll keep a low profile and And they're like, okay.

Kyle Risi: Police are like, fine. But the next morning, OJ decides that him and his best friend, A guy called AC, are going to make a run for it. AC and OJ are like, they're inseparable best friends, right? They do everything together.

Kyle Risi: They even have, both have the same white Bronco. So a lot of people believe that it was OJ Simpson's white Bronco that they made their getaway in. But of course, remember that was impounded now, right? So it was his friend's Bronco who had the exact same Bronco. They bought two twin, twinning. So it's obviously not the one that's in question. It's, it's AC's Bronco. 

Kyle Risi: so they get into AC's White Bronco. And they're making a getaway. So OJ will later claim that he just couldn't live with the idea that Nicole was no longer alive and that he was driving off with the intention to kill himself. 

Adam Cox: Or he couldn't live with the fact that he did it. 

Kyle Risi: Exactly. But that's an absolute crock of shit because later in the car, the police will find his passport.

Kyle Risi: Uh, 10, 000 in cash, a wig, and a fake moustache. Oh my god, a fake moustache? And also, during the entire kind of getaway, he was making his way down the San Diego freeway directly from Mexico. 

Adam Cox: I really want to see what he would have looked like in the wig and moustache. I want to know how, like, good this disguise would be.

Kyle Risi: I don't think he was wearing it just yet. So he was just bundled into the back seat while AC was driving, I believe. 

Adam Cox: Right, and he sort of gets to the border, puts on his new disguise. 

Kyle Risi: And that's it, oh, no one's going to recognise me. So meanwhile, the media are all patiently waiting for OJ to hand himself at the police station. Of course, that never happens. So when 11 a. m. comes and goes, the media are like, um, What's going on? Um, okay. So they start to piece things together and they discover that OJ, one of the most famous people on the planet, is now a fugitive making a beeline for Mexico in a white Bronco and it becomes the biggest news story in the world at the time.

Adam Cox: That is amazing in a way. 

Kyle Risi: It's amazing. So Bob Shapiro and Robert Kardashian, they of course jump into action to try and control the narrative about what's happening. And immediately they hold a press conference and they tell the world that OJ is not on the run. He's actually off to kill himself and that Robert Kardashian then pulls out a note that OJ has left and he reads it out live on television.

Kyle Risi: Right. And it basically says. To whom it may concern, I've had nothing to do with Nicole's murder, I loved her, I always have, I always will. If we had a problem, it's because I loved her too much. 

Adam Cox: I mean, these defense lawyers are clearly doing a very good job in terms of trying to like, how are we gonna save this shit show?

Kyle Risi: Exactly, exactly. He then goes on to say, Please don't listen to what the press are saying, uh, because he believed that him and Nicole had a great relationship. He then goes on this tirade of thanking all of his friends. He thanks like 30 people. It's really weird. And he says he doesn't understand why this is happening to him.

Kyle Risi: Why does this thing always happen to me? And then he has the gall to say that at times Are you ready for this? At times I felt like the battered husband. 

Adam Cox: Oh, shut up. Just, he should have drove off a cliff. He 

Kyle Risi: should have. He then says, please don't feel sorry for me. Um, he's had a great life. Please think of the real OJ and not this lost person that he's become.

Kyle Risi: And he signs off with peace and love. OJ Simpson. Isn't that just gross? Yeah. So, this new story is unfolding live on TV with the police commencing this huge police chase pursuing OJ in this infamous white Bronco. There are helicopters all over the place and news station vans are all honing in on the situation and they're all just chasing after him.

Adam Cox: Was it like, was this on TV, like the car chases that you see which would like interrupt broadcasting or programming? 

Kyle Risi: That's it. We all kind of like remember those moments because we've either seen snippets of it on uh, kind of television that have been reimagined like by Family Guy and in various documentaries.

Kyle Risi: But here's the thing, just describe what's happening. Like, describe what you think is happening right now. Imagine the scene. 

Adam Cox: What's going on? 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, describe the car chase. 

Adam Cox: Um, what I'm imagining like this really like Fast, like, trying to get away from the police, like, on this highway. Swerving, 

Kyle Risi: beeping, like, car swerving out the way, oh my god, oh my god, someone just nearly hit 

Adam Cox: me.

Adam Cox: Like driving into trash cans. Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: exactly. Yeah. Yeah, here's the reality. Okay. Throughout the entire police chase, AC and O. J. Yeah. Okay. I'll just casually driving down the freeway at a cool 25 miles per hour. There is no speeding. There is no tire popping chains been flung into the road. There's no swerving.

Kyle Risi: There's no attempt to force him off or to like getting to pull over. Right. There's none of that. It's just. traveling down the road at 25 miles an hour. 

Adam Cox: They're like going way below the limit, right? That's a violation! 

Kyle Risi: If we can't get him on anything, get him on driving too slow on the freeway. I was just thinking, yeah, pin him on that.

Kyle Risi: Get him, get him boys! So OJ's just in the back seat, he's holding, uh, a gun and there are like 50 police cars trailing behind. And the world is just watching. And apparently on this day, this was the day, the worst day on record for U. S. soap operatings, because everyone had tuned in to watch this, inverted commas, high speed car chase that we've all been brainwashed to believe that it was.

Kyle Risi: Oh, right. And, uh, I mean, the police, I mean, it's more like a police escort than a car chase, and it just goes on for miles and miles, and they're not going to get to Mexico tonight. I was going to say, 

Adam Cox: do they like, will you pull over, and they go, sure. Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: so, there's a very good reason why they don't act aggressively, Because up to this point in American history, America was going through its latest wave of people speaking out against police brutality and violence against African Americans.

Kyle Risi: Because it was only a couple years prior, in 1991, that an African American guy called Rodney King was brutally beat up by the LAPD and someone captured the entire event. on Camera, and so that ends up going to trial and in spite of the video evidence of the LAPD Uh beating up this guy. They are completely acquitted of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

Kyle Risi: It's it's almost like george lloyd all over again um And so when this comes out, there's huge civil unrest across la with people rioting and protesting in the streets So like I said, it's it's extremely dangerous extremely familiar to what we keep seeing time and time again. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and I'm guessing off the back of that, people being very cautious of what's said and done.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. Exactly. So in the aftermath of Rodney King, we have the remnants of these racial tensions between African Americans and the LAPD. So during the OJ car chase, the police don't want to be seen to using, be using excessive force against African Americans, especially with the whole world watching. It's not just caught on camera, it's literally live on TV. 

Kyle Risi: So the police just followed behind this white Bronco. And they do have a connection between like negotiators and OJ Simpson over the phone and they're trying to get him to kind of surrender but OJ is just like incoherent and he's saying that he wants to go to his mom's house and then he wants to go to Nicole's grave and he's just all over the place he's obviously just very emotional regardless of what's happened like it would be a very emotional situation 

Kyle Risi: oh also during the the chase Domino's Pizza has a 40 percent spike in sales while people are tuning in to watch the entire event live. On television, because it just goes on for hours and hours. Wow, 

Adam Cox: like car chase special. 

Kyle Risi: Car chase special. For two pizzas. Ha ha ha ha, yes. An OJ and AC special. Um, so, and people are cheering OJ on.

Kyle Risi: Especially, like, amongst the African American community. Who are, of course, still very much living through the aftermath of what happened with Rodney King. And rightfully, they have this distrust of the LAPD, so swathes of people are coming out onto the streets and they'll be holding up signs, and they'll be cheering on, they'll be like, go OJ!

Adam Cox: As he drives past at 25 miles an hour. It's like, quick, we're not gonna, we're gonna miss it. I don't know, wait. 

Kyle Risi: It's almost like a royal procession where the queens, they're just waving, right? Feels like a parade. So eventually the negotiators, they convince him to go back home. And when he arrives, he just sits there waiting for it to get dark in his driveway.

Kyle Risi: So that it's harder for the police helicopters to get any decent footage of him being arrested. And eventually he surrenders and he is charged with the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Obviously, he doesn't get bail on the account that he had his passport and wig and a fake moustache in the car. So they just lock him up for six months until his trial begins. 

Adam Cox: Oh, so he was in prison for six months before. Wow, that's quite a long period of time. But I guess there's a big case, so a lot to Huge case. Get ready. 

Kyle Risi: Huge. And that's where we're at now, the trial. So the trial is just a complete circus. Every day is broadcast live on TV and it runs for nine months in total. Whoa! Nine months? Yeah, it's a long court case. Obviously, we're not going to cover everything because that's definitely a journey that you should take on your own. Alright, being the compendium.

Kyle Risi: But the important thing is that everything ends up coming down. To the glove and whether or not race had played a part. So on the prosecution's team is a woman named Marsha Clarke who of course is played by Sarah Paulson.

Kyle Risi: That's it. And a guy called Chris Darden, who is played by Sterling K. Brown in the Ryan Murphy's People vs. O. J. Simpson. Their initial strategy is to present a dual approach, they began by focusing on the domestic violence kind of aspect of of things and they are trying to portray OJ as having a motive And being capable of killing Nicole Brown because of his domestic violence history 

Kyle Risi: Sure.

Kyle Risi: The other part of the strategy was to present the huge amount of scientific evidence including his You clothing fibers, and of course, the huge amounts of DNA evidence that they had in their arsenal. 

Adam Cox: How they managed to do this Slam dunk! I know, so you say that and you just think, oh yeah, they've got this in the bag, right?

Kyle Risi: Exactly, but here's the thing regarding the DNA. 

Kyle Risi: In the early 1990s, DNA wasn't that widely understood by the general public in any way, so prosecution team struggled to get the jury to appreciate the precision and the significance of Having DNA in a case like this and I don't know how true this is But I read on Reddit that in order to explain what DNA was to the jury They actually play that little animation at the start of Jurassic Park where they explain how they resurrected the dinosaurs and then they get the little DNA and in the side the strand is a Blueprint to all life and and basically they have to play that in order to explain what DNA is.

Kyle Risi: I mean I 

Adam Cox: feel like that sort of undermines what they're saying. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, do you 

Adam Cox: think? Just like, uh, why are dinosaurs involved in this? They've used dinosaurs to extract DNA from OJ Simpson? 

Kyle Risi: OJ killed the dinosaurs? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, okay. So, 

Kyle Risi: that apparently happened. So, so it goes something like a DNA strand, like me, is a blueprint for building all living things and sometimes animals that went extinct millions of years ago, like the dinosaurs, they left their blueprints behind for us to find.

Kyle Risi: We just had to know where to look for them. It was that kind of dialogue. Right. And they hopefully try to explain the significance of it. But on OJ's defence team, their strategy was, of course, to undermine this weird, new, bizarre evidence 

Adam Cox: That's crazy that they were undermining that and critiquing that. Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: especially years later, if they're still practicing lawyers, I bet they now use DNA in their own defences when they debunked it in this case. Are they still DNA deniers? That's what I was thinking, 

Adam Cox: yeah. How do they get away with that? Or people not, well obviously people have now like critiqued this case and everything. Yeah. But yeah, you'd think like, you're not a good person. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, yeah. Or like, I would love to go to one of Ben Shapiro's court cases today , if he's still practicing law, and just sit there, and if he mentions DNA say?

Kyle Risi: Like, I'll be like, um, FAKE NEWS! DNA doesn't exist! It's 

Adam Cox: probably like a flat welder kind of person. 

Kyle Risi: Do you reckon? Yeah. I guess you just got to do what you got to do in the interest of your client, right? 

Adam Cox: Yeah. You just don't want to lose. That's the main thing, isn't it? No.

Kyle Risi: But also part of the defense is they were going to make this entire defense about race. And they think that they have a chance because all they have to do is convince 12 members of the jury Of which nine happen to be African Americans. That this was indeed the case. And ultimately, this strategy ends up being successful. It works. It gets O. J. acquitted of the murder of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown. 

Adam Cox: And didn't the defense have kind of a hand in picking the jury? I know both sides do, but they obviously were trying to, um, I don't know. use this to their advantage by getting more African American delegates?

Kyle Risi: Sure, they go through what they call, um, jury selection. But here's the problem, right? So you've got to think of the strategies that they're employing. So Ben Shapiro and his team are going, we want black people, we want black people, we want black people. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: What is Marcia Clark doing? We want women, we want women, we want women.

Kyle Risi: Why? Because their defense is the domestic violence stuff. And they think that, of course, the DNA is going to hold strong because that's scientific evidence. So, you know, That's the thing, that's where Marsha Clarke went very wrong. She assumed that this was going to be a slam dunk domestic violence case, but it wasn't.

Adam Cox: Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Right?

Kyle Risi: So, OJ's defense team, they make out OJ to be this huge hero of the African American community, which just couldn't be further from the truth. Because ever since OJ made it as a celebrity, he actively worked really hard to disassociate himself from African AmericanS. and we see evidence of this Because when asked, he always maintained that he wasn't black, he would say, I'm OJ, I'm not black.

Kyle Risi: And that, in its words, is a dissociation from your race and your people and your community.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess I don't know when he said that versus when some of the police brutality was happening, but it feels like a way of trying to, be Neutral in a way, especially if he's got these sponsorships and things like that.

Kyle Risi: Sure, possibly you're right, but get this this will give you a sense of how he felt So oj lived in an area known as brentwood. Which is of course very affluent very rich white community and oj would have been One a very small number of black people living in that community.

Kyle Risi: So when he was being arrested outside his house . Remember, like, a huge crowd of African Americans had gathered to show their support? Well, while he was being arrested, a witness overheard him remark, What are all these N words doing in Brentwood? He was really shocked by how many black people had gathered.

Kyle Risi: And this becomes a big point of contention during the trial, which tries to prove that he tried to distance himself from the black African American community, like, for his whole career. 

Kyle Risi: But regardless the defense makes it all about race and corruption against the LAPD and their whole defense pivots on this theory that this very racist detective Mark Fuhrman had planted the glove to deliberately incriminate OJ Simpson in the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman And 

Kyle Risi: So the defense team suspects that at some point during the trial there will be the question of whether or not the glove belongs to OJ Simpson in the first place.

Kyle Risi: They also know that OJ Simpson suffers from arthritis in both of his hands so they get him to stop taking his medication knowing that this will cause his joints to swell up Meaning that if the prosecution team do ask him to try on the glove in front of the jury, then the glove would not be able to fit.

Adam Cox: And this is where that famous line came from. If the glove don't fit, you must acquit. 

Kyle Risi: Exactly. So finally the moment arrives that the defense team had been anticipating, and it's one of the most iconic moments in the entire trial. Chris Darden, without Marcia's permission, says that he wants OJ to try on the glove to prove that it's his glove.

Kyle Risi: So, OJ gets up, they hand him a pair of latex gloves, of course that is to protect the gloves from any contamination, because of course it's critical evidence, then in the most theatrical way, that he can.

Kyle Risi: He starts to pull on the gloves onto his hands one by one. He's like straining his body. He's trying to get them over his fat fingers and he's like, oh my god, it's not getting on.

Kyle Risi: And he's pulling on, really emphasizing they don't fit and he's showing the jewelry as he gets kind of towards each stage of putting them on. And he's like, it doesn't fit. It doesn't fit. He holds up his hands and he shows everyone. But the thing is, Adam, they fucking do fit. I've seen that footage.

Kyle Risi: They're on his hands. And apart from the the Dramatics. The dramatics of it all, they're on there, even with Those latex gloves under there. I don't know call me an idiot, but those gloves fit 

Adam Cox: They're on him, but I guess his performance where his acting did pay off Made people think like oh, they could they can't fit.

Adam Cox: It can't be his glove. Exactly I feel like that's such a stupid thing. I don't know Of course, if you are defending yourself, you're gonna try and make an issue or a deal of that saying like all they're too tight They don't quite fit, you know, I would never have gloves that would take me a minute to get on.

Kyle Risi: So the entire courtroom They're just shook and the gloves don't fit and so they quit. Yeah. Yeah, and that was well played by the defense team Also, I feel really bad for Chris as well because he's remember he's a black lawyer and he's defending a man who? is still seen at this moment a hero by millions of African Americans.

Kyle Risi: So he's literally seen as a traitor to their community. Also Chris Darden, like he was only brought into the case really late in the game because Marsha eventually realizes that this case isn't going to be as straightforward. 

Kyle Risi: As she thought it's not going to be a case about domestic violence instead It'd become this case with these undertones of white versus black so to dispel these optics She brings in this black prosecutor to help appeal to the majority black jury But even this is a misfire because later the jury said that the second that chris walked into that courtroom They knew why he was there.

Adam Cox: Yeah I can understand Why Marcia would do that because she's trying to show like look, let's get him on the right reasons But it's a play at the end. It is 

Kyle Risi: It's like trying to clear all these Distractions like if I bring in a black lawyer Then it's almost no longer about race. We can focus on what it actually is about. Which I, I respect that, but it just seemed to these people, the African American community, who were still really hurt by Rodney King, that it was a very obvious, calculated 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and that's, I think that's what perhaps comes across as slightly, oh, is this, are you being a bit dishonest here or whatever?

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So despite all of the evidence, remember we got Simpson's cap, we got his gloves, we got his blood. We also have some blood soaked footprints at the scene in a man size 12, which just so happens to be Simpson's kind of exact shoe size.

Kyle Risi: And get this, the brand of the shoe was by a guy called Bruno, uh, Mali or Maneli. Now, This particular shoe, in a size 12, only 299 pairs of this particular shoe were ever made in the world. 

Adam Cox: So they're an exclusive shoe, probably quite expensive. 

Kyle Risi: And OJ Simpson was photographed wearing these same shoes only 9 months before the murder. And when he was questioned about it, like, before he knew that the world had had this photograph of him wearing these shoes, he was asked about it. He was like, I'd never wear those ugly ass shoes.

Kyle Risi: Really? Yeah. But only 299 were made and we have a photograph of you wearing them 9 months previous and he was 

Adam Cox: Did 

Kyle Risi: I? Really? 

Adam Cox: Oh, I threw these out. They were horrible shoes. They didn't fit. Like the gloves. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, so like, what are the chances of another murderer with the same shoe size as you? Like, whose glove doesn't fit?

Kyle Risi: Size 12 feet, but tiny hands! What kind of man is this? Like a T Rex. ,

Kyle Risi: so in spite of all of this, during the closing arguments, o J's lawyer gets up and says those very famous lines, it doesn't matter what's happened, it doesn't matter what you've heard. One thing that you need to remember in that verdict room is if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. And then the jury is sent off to deliberate and decide on their verdict.

Adam Cox: Mm. And having something that rhymes. They're a pretty clever defense team You gotta admit in terms of the things that they use to kind of Build his case because there's so much evidence like now that stuff just wouldn't have stacked up. I don't know. 

Kyle Risi: No, that's right I mean if I murdered someone then I would want them on my team Yeah, so it is expected to take days potentially weeks for the jury to come up with their verdict And so immediately following closing statements Bob Shapiro gets on a plane and he goes on holiday only to be called back Four hours later because the jury had decided their verdict and it was unanimous OJ Simpson was declared not guilty on both counts of murder.

Kyle Risi: Wow, and here's the shocking bit later one of the black female jurors Uh in the made in america documentary openly admits that the jury decided oj was not guilty As payback for rodney king And I watched that footage and she said it and it's disgusting. 

Adam Cox: Wow. Yeah. So they've, they've gone, but this white person died, but you killed a black person.

Adam Cox: So we'll 

Kyle Risi: take this. That's it. Now, of course, obviously they do obviously interview the other members of the jury. Not all of them agree with this, but the rest of them said plainly that the prosecution did do a bad job. That's how they felt. They genuinely felt that. And they. failed to provide decent arguments for a bunch of things and they showed us a cartoon as if we were stupid.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I can understand. And like I said, the lawyers did a very good job in making a compelling case, I think. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. And I mean, at the time, let's pretend that DNA doesn't exist. I mean, would we see this case through a different lens? I don't know. 

Adam Cox: Possibly. If you didn't have that to say this was 100 percent him, you probably wouldn't 

Kyle Risi: Possibly. So yeah, while they were deliberating in the verdict room, they generally didn't think that beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty. So they found him not guilty. But I personally think it lands somewhere in the middle. I think that, In part racial tensions was a factor. I also think that the prosecution team like you said as well They probably messed up their strategy a little bit.

Kyle Risi: They miscalculated a couple things It wasn't going to be a domestic violence case There was going to be elements of race in there and they just didn't account for that Yeah, and the interesting thing is that Marsha Clark came into this trial believing that she could paint this picture Of a domestic violence case that resulted in murder, thought that she would win favor from the woman on the jury It wasn't until it was too late that she started to see the racial tensions at the heart of all this And the thing is that even after OJ is declared not guilty.

Kyle Risi: This meant that there was still a cold blooded murderer on the loose, just stabbing people to death around LA. But the police never continued looking. And I think that tells me that despite of the verdict, they all knew that he was guilty. They were pretty confident of it. Otherwise they would have continued to search, right?

Adam Cox: Yeah, they would have done. Absolutely. 

Kyle Risi: So following the trial, OJ promises that he would spend all of his money and all of his time up until the day that he died. looking for the person who did this. He didn't. Piece of shit. So obviously when the not guilty verdict was read out, both the Browns and the Goldman's were obviously furious.

Kyle Risi: And I feel really bad for both families for different reasons. For Nicole's family, Things were really complicated. So regardless of how they felt, they had to work really hard to suppress this because obviously their grandkids were at the center of this as well. So if they wanted to continue seeing them, they had to put their beliefs or their belief that he had killed their daughter aside.

Kyle Risi: Because don't forget, OJ custody. Of his kids back, right? Because remember, he was found not guilty. He didn't do this according to law. So of course his kids went back to him. 

Adam Cox: How did Nicole's parents cope with that, or her family, just knowing that, oh, we get to keep them, we get to see them this weekend and have to go pick it up from him.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, isn't that gross? Yeah. As for Ron Goldman's family, they were Relentless. They were not going to stop until OJ paid for what he did one way or another. So they actually take him to civil court, which is different to criminal court because in a criminal trial, uh, the case is brought by the state against an individual accused of a crime, right?

Kyle Risi: So there is a burden of proof on the prosecution who must prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Which of course the jury did not find. Whereas in a civil court, they deal with kind of disputes between individuals.

Kyle Risi: So in OJ Simpson's civil trial, the Goldman sue him for the wrongful deaths of their son. And Nicole. The thing is that in a civil trial the standard of proof is a lot lower than what it is in a criminal trial, which is based on the. preponderance of evidence, right? This basically means that was the defendant, so OJ Simpson, likely than not to have committed the crime.

Kyle Risi: So based on the evidence was he likely rather than reasonable doubt. Oh there's reasonable doubt that he didn't do it based on x, y, and z. But this is he's more likely to have done because of who he was, the connection that he had, his past, like the evidence that was found at the scene, etc. I think I get you, yeah.

Kyle Risi: And during this trial, the prosecutor is learned from all the mistakes that they made at the criminal trial. And during this trial, he is actually compelled to testify, which means that he has to get up on stand. And they question him about his history of domestic violence.

Kyle Risi: They question his alibi, finding a bunch of gaps in his story. They re examine the physical evidence, the gloves, the blood on his clothes, the bloody footprints that they found at the scene, in his car, in his house. They analyze everything.

Kyle Risi: They also analyze his behavior following the murders as well and in the Made in America documentary you see footage of them questioning him and it's plainly plainly obvious that he's just lying through his teeth you see times where he just doesn't have an answer at all and he just mumbles his way through and he's they're just constantly calling him out on things 

Kyle Risi: so the civil trial goes on for four months and in the end they find him unequivocally guilty and culpable of the wrongful deaths of their son. Ron Goldman and also Nicole and he is ordered to pay 33. 5 million dollars in restitution 

Kyle Risi: But after this ruling he immediately Files for bankruptcy and he moves to florida because in florida They have these really strict homestead exemption laws Which makes it difficult for creditors to force you to sell your primary residence to satisfy a debt.

Adam Cox: he was just doing anything he could to get out of, like, giving up his home and anything else that they could take him For. 

Kyle Risi: That is it. so to make money, OJ would do these really sad and seedy nightclub appearances, uh, to make some money. He would end up signing some autographs at a mall, but every dollar that went into his pockets, the Goldmans would be just standing behind him going, Yep, thank you very much.

Kyle Risi: So he found it extremely difficult to make any kind of money whatsoever. So one thing he does try to make money on is from writing a book. He decides that he's going to write a book called if I did it Oh my god. Which talks about how he would have committed the murder if, in fact, he had done it.

Kyle Risi: Ron Goldman's dad is like, yeah, I don't think so, he marches straight to court. But here's the thing. He doesn't get the judge to stop the book from being made. Instead, the judge awards the Goldmans full and complete rights to the book.

Adam Cox: Really, so it backfires on OJ. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, so, like an absolute baller, the Goldmans publish the book. They still call it, If I Did It, but they make the if the tiniest writing so you can barely see it. And it looks like the cover says, I did it. No way. And there is a picture of a bloody footprint that they find on the murder scene that belonged to OJ Simpson on the front cover.

Adam Cox: It's an interesting take of this family to do that. I guess they're trying to find any way they can, obviously, to bring him down, because they know the criminal justice system hasn't done that, to, rather than just move on and try and put it behind you, they've actively done this, and that's quite an interesting way of trying to cope with it, I don't know how I would have dealt with this, but it's an interesting way that their family did this.

Kyle Risi: I, I take my hat off to them. I think it's brilliant. 

Adam Cox: Yeah,

Kyle Risi: so basically this means that the only money that he's actually allowed to keep is his pension and any money that he makes without the Goldman's finding out about which isn't much because They are relentless like every time he makes a buck makes a dime.

Kyle Risi: They're like pay up murderer Wow. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So here's something else that's deplorable. So OJ Simpson is now a star of a new show called Juiced. It's a prank show, right? Imagine you've been punked! But instead of that, it's like you've been juiced! In one of the pranks, as himself, He tries to sell a white Bronco with a bullet hole circled with a sharpie and it's signed by him. And he puts an ad out in the classifieds and when someone who is interested shows up to see the bronco he jumps out and goes you've been juiced 

Kyle Risi: how could he do this i mean he does it but he doesn't do it well because no surprise it lasts one episode and like it doesn't get renewed he's a complete piece of shit yeah how cool 

Adam Cox: If you felt any remorse whatsoever, you just would not do this, right? You just wouldn't. 

Kyle Risi: He's just not very smart, I don't think. No, he's a dumb idiot. But he's trying to make money, So then in 2007, OJ Simpson is attempting to earn some money illegally without the Goldman's knowledge by selling a variety of sports memorabilia.

Kyle Risi: Most of it is his. memorabilia. And he would literally just sign them and then just sell them for whatever he physically could get for it? So one day he hears about two guys, a guy called Bruce Roman and Alfred Beardsley. Now, they had been found to be selling a bunch of memorabilia out of their hotel room in Las Vegas.

Kyle Risi: And OJ was claiming that they had stolen the memorabilia from him. In fact, they had actually purchased this memorabilia from a storage container which had been auctioned off because, surprise surprise, OJ Simpson had stopped paying the lease on it and so these guys bought up all of the memorabilia. 

Kyle Risi: So OJ decides that he's going to gather a bunch of his tough little mates, they travel all the way to Las Vegas and they commit an armed robbery on these guys and like idiots they get caught in On all the different cameras in the hotel and they are just arrested and they're found guilty of armed robbery and get this The judge sentences him to 33 years in prison 

Adam Cox: So to get their own back on the previous conviction. 

Kyle Risi: that's where he's been since 2017, because after nine years, he's let out on parole for good behavior and he's now a free man. So OJ is now 75 years old, living in a gated community in Las Vegas.

Kyle Risi: And of course, up until the news broke on the 12th of April, 2024, he died after a secret battle with cancer. And that's the end of OJ Simpson, I guess. And I guess the news is just going to be filled with OJ clickbait for the next two months.

Adam Cox: And that's kind of, yeah, the end of his story. So he only served nine years in prison, regardless, obviously not for the crime, or that specific crime. Um, he managed to lead a majority of his life as a free man.

Adam Cox: Yeah. That sucks, really, doesn't it? 

Kyle Risi: It's so sucky. And the thing is, though, now that he is dead, of course, the media have just been dredging up, his life story, and the key events in his life, and of course, the murder of Nicole Simpson and and Ron Goldman. 

Kyle Risi: But even after everything, people are still today really divided on all aspects of the story. Whether or not he did it, some of the details, the relationship between Ron Goldman and Nicole Simpson. Not that that warrants or justifies his murder, but when you read some of the comments online, people get really het up on what the dynamic was between Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown as if it justifies their murder. What happened, yeah. But it just doesn't make, it doesn't matter, you're splitting hairs. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, I think, I can understand there being a lot of interest in the case because of how it just happened. Didn't go to plan or Just out of this overwhelming amount of evidence that should have brought him down didn't so there I can understand a lot of interest But I feel like we're still talking a lot about oj rather than actually the people that lost their lives. 

Kyle Risi: Exactly So elon musk has also been on the record. Um, he tweeted the other day. Obviously, he's just a completely detached idiot So he tweeted that everyone makes mistakes in life and oj simpson was no exception. However you feel about his alleged crimes, The Juice brought so much joy to sports fans in his college and pro football careers and made countless people laugh with his antics in Naked Gun. May he rest in peace. 

Kyle Risi: What a piece of shit, Elmo. Yes, a new name. Like, guys, aside from the brutal murders, he was a fun dude. Like, get over yourself, how could you say that? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, that's not, you can't, I'm sorry, you can't put, like, a problematic boss on the same line as, a murderer. I was just looking whilst you were reading the last little bit there about his book. Apparently it reached Amazon's bestseller list after his death. 

Kyle Risi: Really? 

Adam Cox: So if the Goldmans obviously are getting all the revenue from that. And we are obviously talking a lot more about OJ Simpson right now. At least they're getting some kind of compensation from the fact that they won that civil lawsuit. 

Kyle Risi: Good, I didn't know that. But I also guess finally OJ Simpson can now rest knowing that his wife's killer is finally dead, because he did say that he would spend all of his time and all of his money trying to find the person who killed her. .

Adam Cox: Yeah, but now he can rest. Yeah, he 

Kyle Risi: can now rest in peace. So, I just hope at his funeral procession. That it's led by a white bronco meandering slowly through the streets with dozens of kind of cops in slow pursuit of the, of his coffin. 

Adam Cox: Can you imagine? Yeah. That's one way to go. 

Kyle Risi: And that is the story of OJ Simpson and how he killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman.

Adam Cox: And if you don't agree with us, then I'm sure there's podcasts out there which say he is innocent. So listen to that instead. 

Kyle Risi: And I know the story is really huge and a lot of people still consider it really juicy But as with many of these true crime stories, we need to remember that the heart of the story a 35 year old mother was brutally murdered at the hands of her husband.

Kyle Risi: Also, often overlooked in the story, is a young man who was completely unconnected to OJ Simpson. His life was just taken from him, and I feel so bad for Ron Goldman's family, because in the midst of all of this, Ron often gets forgotten. Like Ron was only 25 years old. He was working as a young model and he had aspirations to one day open up his own restaurant.

Kyle Risi: And Ron, by all accounts was a really decent, young, caring person. And his life was just taken from him because he was doing a good deed, returning a pair of glasses and walked in on a man, brutally murdering his wife. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. Just wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. 

Kyle Risi: But you guys, you go ahead. You dive down that rabbit hole because there's so much to uncover in the story, especially around the complexities of the racial tensions between the LAPD and the African American community.

Kyle Risi: It will really help you understand that the way that the African American community is being brutalized today isn't something that's new. It was one of many different instances where time and time again the African American community are being brutalized by people who are supposed to be protecting us.

Kyle Risi: So despite this being the case where two innocent people were murdered, this case surfaces a lot of hurt amongst the African American communities across the USA. So remember, there's so much for you to explore from Jeffrey Toobin's book, The Run For His Life, to the Made in America documentaries, with each episode being like a mini film in itself.

Kyle Risi: So check those out. But yeah, that's the story of OJ Simpson. Any last words? 

Adam Cox: Yeah. What do you got? One last thing, because I know when you're researching this, I snooped at some of your research. Wasn't there a video of Ruby Wax? So she's an interviewer, he's American, uh, comedian, quite famous in the UK, also like a TV presenter. Uh huh. She had interviewed him, did she not? Yes. And didn't he make a joke? of like, stabbing. Yeah, he did. Knocked on her door and was doing like, stabbing signs.

Kyle Risi: That's it, yeah. So she was at a hotel room. The door, someone knocks at the door. She opened the door and there was OJ Simpson. With a knife. Pretending to stab her like in, uh, the Psycho movie. And he was, like, his face was right up at the camera. And his eyes were really wide and then he just laughed it off. Piece of shit. Check this out on YouTube, it's disgusting. The scene before that, they were walking through the streets and Ruby Wax is interviewing him, and this woman walks up to OJ and, like, interrupts them , and asks if she could shake his hand. And her comment was, like, I've never shaken the hand of a murderer before. And Ruby Wax is like, Does that not upset you? And he's like, Nah. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. That's weird. Doesn't upset me. That's weird. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Very 

Adam Cox: weird. 

Kyle Risi: But yeah, that's the story. Should we run the outro? Let's do it. So here we come to the end of another episode of The Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things.

Kyle Risi: If you found today's episode both fascinating and intriguing, then subscribe. And leave us a review but don't just stop there though Schedule your episodes to download automatically as soon as they become available Remember, we're on instagram at the compendium podcast So stop by and say hi or visit us at our home on the web at thecompendiumpodcast. com We release new episodes every tuesday and until then remember in the court of public opinion the glove always fits See you next time. See you