The Mysteries of History (June 12 Edition)
Medgar Evers Murdered; Simpson/Goldman Murders
1963 — Medgar Evers Murdered by a Sleazy Sneaky Sniper
public domain image from wikimedia commons
On this date in 1963, Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers was gunned down in his driveway, with his family inside, by a white supremacist and a coward (or do I repeat myself?).
The murder of Medgar took place almost exactly 18 years after Evers participated in the Invasion of Normandy (“D-Day”) during World War 2. Evers was buried at Virginia’s Arlington National Cemetery; John F. Kennedy, who himself would be killed less than six months later (on November 22nd), publicly condemned the murder.
The shooter was not found guilty by two all-white juries, who had been unable to reach a verdict; thus, he was set free. Finally, three decades later, the still-hateful murderer was sentenced to life in prison. He died in 2001, thirty-eight years after he should have.
Questions: What connection did Medgar Evers have with Emmett Till? Did the Evers and Till families know each other?
1994— Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman Murdered
public domain image from wikimedia commons
On this date in 1994, the ex-wife of the charismatic ex-football superstar O.J. Simpson, Nicole Brown Simpson (born 1959), along with a friend named Ronald Goldman (born 1968) were brutally murdered outside Ms. Brown Simpson’s home in Brentwood, California (the Los Angeles neighborhood, not the city roughly halfway between San Francisco and Stockton).
Distraught and afraid, O.J. Simpson (1947-2024), who was a suspect in the case, along with his friend and former teammate Al (“A.C.”) Cowlings (born 1947) led the police on a long, low-speed, shown-live-on-television police cruiser/Ford Bronco chase through southern California.
Most people consider O.J. to be guilty of the murders, but he was found innocent at his criminal trial; subsequently, he was found liable for the deaths at a civil trial and was ordered to pay a large fine (which he never did).
The following is what I wrote about the Simpson/Goldman murders and trial of O.J. Simpson in my book Still Casting Shadows: A Shared Mosaic of U.S. History — Volume 2: 1914-2006:
“Round up the usual suspects”—Claude Rains as Capt. Renault in the movie Casablanca
“The only good nigger is a dead nigger.”—LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman
“I didn’t do it…I didn’t do it…but it’s all my fault.”—O.J. Simpson
Mrs. Brown you’ve got a lovely daughter Girls as sharp as her are something rare … But it’s sad She doesn’t love me now… —from the song Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter by Herman’s Hermits
. . .
Former football star, actor, and orange juice pitchman O.J. Simpson was the prime suspect when his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Gold man, a male guest at her home, were found brutally murdered on June 12th of this year. Goldman, a martial arts devotee, defended himself (and possibly Nicole) valiantly, but eventually succumbed to the vicious onslaught of a knife-wielding assailant. Both victims perished from multiple stab wounds. Nicole’s head was practically severed from her body, her throat cut ear to ear.
Placing O.J. under the loupe was, it seemed, a no-brainer: he and Nicole had always had a tempestuous, on-again, off-again relationship; the police had responded to 911 calls from Nicole in the past when O.J. was beating her. And, if that’s not enough, O.J. had even on occasion told people that he was going to kill Nicole.
Yet there are reasons for questioning whether O.J. really was the murderer. If he had been overcome by a fit of jealous rage on finding Ron Goldman in Nicole’s house with her, why had he not flown into such a violent rage on a past occasion when he came upon Nicole and her then-lover engaging in sex on the couch? On that occasion, he simply berated the two for their lack of discretion (the Simpsons’ kids were upstairs) and left.
Other questions arise, too: Why would O.J. kill his children’s mother in the same house in which the children were sleeping upstairs? After all, he knew that they were there that night.
Timing is another issue: Was it humanly possible to perpetrate the murders, clean himself up, and ditch the murder weapons in the little amount of time he had between attending his daughter’s dance recital earlier and his leaving for a business trip in Chicago later that night?
And why were no bruises found on O.J.’s body, when the young and athletic martial arts practitioner Ron Goldman had furiously fought with his assailant? Goldman had bruises on his hands, indicating he had made violent contact with the murderer prior to his bloody demise.
O.J.’s well-known aversion to blood is another eyebrow-raiser. If he were indeed the assailant, why would he choose a knife as his weapon? Would he go to McDonald’s for a burger just prior to the murder? That is exactly what O.J. and house guest Kato Kaelin had done an hour before the murder.
Had O.J. been the knife-wielder, so assert many authorities, he would have been covered—indeed, completely drenched—in blood. However, only minuscule amounts of blood were found in O.J.’s vehicle, on his clothing, and in his house—such a small amount that it was barely enough to fit under a man’s fingernail.
There was no blood on the brake or accelerator (it would surely have been impossible for the perpetrator to avoid walking through the rivulets of blood that gushed out of Nicole and Ron after their throats were cut). There were only traces of blood found in O.J.’s vehicle, house, and on his clothing. The police tore apart the plumbing in Rockingham, O.J.’s estate, to see if he had washed himself clean. Had he done so, there would have been blood in the pipes. None was found.
What about the infamous bloody gloves? The prosecutors claimed the bloody glove found at the scene of the murders fell off O.J. during the attack. But how would a glove just fall off, unless it was extremely loose fitting? When the prosecutors bone-headedly had O.J. try on the gloves in the courtoom (bone-headed because they should not have instigated something unless they knew for certain it would strengthen their case), the gloves were way too small for O.J.—in fact, they were so small, he couldn’t even put them on.
But if O.J. was not the murderer, who was? According to the book “O.J. is Guilty, But Not of Murder” by private detective William C. Dear—who spent six years investigating the case—the most likely suspect is O.J.’s son Jason. Despite the fact that Dear’s book is written rather amateurishly (many of the conversations he records seem stilted—the dialog he reports does not ring true, or at least does not sound natural), the conclusions he draws are perhaps worth considering.
Among the reasons Dear has for believing O.J. is innocent of the murders are:
• Although the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) found nine sets of fingerprints at the murder scene, none of them were O.J.’s.
• O.J.’s son Jason, twenty-four years old at the time of the murders, was a “problem child” who had “anger management” issues—big time, as the saying goes.
• The day after the murders, O.J. retained Carl Jones to represent his son Jason. Jones was a criminal defense attorney who specialized in defending clients accused of murder. And yet, Jason was never considered to be a suspect by the police.
• The police investigators at the scene of the crime had done a very sloppy job of collecting evidence, examining the crime scene, and maintaining the integrity of the forensic evidence. For example, photographs show them at the scene without rubber gloves or protective booties over their shoes. They walked from one body to the other, thus carrying evidence from one location to the other. Perhaps worst of all, they covered Nicole’s body with a blanket from another location in the house—and the blanket was doubtless contaminated with hair, etc. which could have then been transferred from the blanket onto her clothing and body.
• Jason was a chef, and owned a collection of chef’s knives which he carried with him to and from work. He had worked as a chef that night, and may have been upset with Nicole for promising to bring the family to the restaurant where he worked after her daughter’s dance recital but then changing her mind. Jason had prepared for their appearance by reserving a table for them and ordering special food. Not only that, Jason had been arrested (in fact, was still on probation at the time of the murders) for assault with a deadly weapon.
• Jason was not averse to using knives in a violent manner. He had on at least one occasion deliberately stabbed himself in a suicide attempt.
• Jason was prone to rage and impulsive behavior. Shortly before the murders he had checked himself into a psychiatric hospital, saying that he felt he was on the verge of “raging.” Dear makes the claim in his book that Jason suffers from IRD (Intermittent Rage Disorder), a condition which causes people to “go berserk,” after which they often-times don’t remember what they did while in that state.
• Two of Jason’s former girlfriends claim he beat them. On one occasion, he chopped off the hair of one of these ex-girlfriends in a fit of rage using one of his chef’s knives.
• Regarding O.J.’s Bruno Magli shoes, whose imprints were found at the crime scene, Jason often borrowed his father’s clothing. Jason’s feet are only ¡ size smaller than O.J.’s:
• When first questioned about his whereabouts on that fateful and fatal night, Jason claimed he hadn’t spoken with Nicole since a couple of weeks before her murder. He later updated this to June 7th (five days before the murder). After yet more questioning, he admitted to speaking with her the day before she was murdered, and finally, on the day of the murders.
• A former coworker of one of Jason’s girlfriends said of Jason: “The guy is psycho. One minute he’s the sweetest nicest guy you ever met and the next minute he’s all angry and upset, a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type. Jackie often came into work with bruises on her face and arms from where he would hit and shove her around.” Jackie herself said of Jason: “You could see one of those fits coming on, especially if he wasn’t on his Depakote [medication frequently prescribed to people who suffer from rage] and had been drinking or doing drugs. Something would just start coming over him. I could actually see it ‘bubble up.’ He would get this look in his eyes and he would start to shake and then he would go ballistic…There was one time—I don’t even remember what for—when he dragged me into the bathroom and picked me up and held me over his head and dropped me into the empty tub. It hurt so much I thought that Jason had broken my back.”
• Two months prior to the murders, Jason tried to strangle his girlfriend Jennifer Green at her birthday party.
• Traces of skin and blood were found under Nicole’s fingernails that did not belong to her, O.J., or Ronald Goldman.
• Jason was never asked to furnish an alibi regarding the murders. Nor were his fingerprints examined to compare them with those found at the murder scene.
• Experts established that the probable murder weapon was a chef’s knife.
• Jason’s psychiatrist shredded all of Jason’s medical records after the murders.
Defense attorney F. Lee Bailey accused police officer Mark Fuhrman of finding a second bloody glove at the crime scene and surreptitiously depositing it at Rockingham. Far-fetched? Grasping at straws? Perhaps. Yet, in excerpts from taped interviews, Fuhrman was found to be a rank bigot, deriding minorities in the crudest of terms, bragging about beating suspects and evading discipline for such heinous behavior. He had even once said, paraphrasing John Chivington’s take on America’s indigenous peoples, that “the only good nigger is a dead nigger.”
During his tenacious investigation, William Dear hired a London firm called Complete Investigations, an independent crime investigation laboratory run by two retired British policemen, Terry Merston and Peter Harpur, to appraise the job the LAPD had done. Between them, Merston and Harpur had more than fifty-eight years of combined investigative experience. A portion of their appraisal was:
It can be seen that Detective Fuhrman has little or no regard to scene and evidence protection, or preventing contamination, being that he is beside the body of Nicole without any protection…He also commits the…sin of attending other connected scenes during the investigation, therefore creating the real possibility of contaminating the other scenes.
Their report gets even more damning:
Due to the fact that…Detective Fuhrman is not wearing any protective footwear, it is entirely possible that he or any one of the other detectives has walked the blood onto the driveway of O.J. Simpson’s house. Conversely, it is also possible that when returning to the murder scene from O.J. Simpson’s house that the detectives have inadvertently transferred the blood of O.J. Simpson from his house to the murder scene at Bundy Drive. … It is obvious from the carnage at the murder scene and other evidence that the murderer would have had to have been in close contact with both of the victims. Due to the severity of the injuries and the amount of wounds resulting in the severing of both jugular veins of Nicole Simpson and one jugular vein of Ronald Goldman, causing blood to gush from the victims, there is no doubt that the perpetrator of these vicious attacks would have been soaked in blood from head to foot. The distinct lack of blood in the Ford Bronco would therefore exclude it from being the murderer’s ‘get away’ vehicle.
But if O.J. did not commit the murders, why did he have any blood at all on his clothing, in his car, and at his estate? A scenario, or theory, of Dear’s is that after Jason killed Nicole and Ron, O.J. somehow found out about it—perhaps after receiving a call from Jason on his cell phone. O.J. may have then gone to the scene to check on not only Nicole, but also on his younger son Justin and daughter Sydney. Thus could he have picked up the traces of blood that were found on his clothing, in his car, and in his estate.
Suspiciously, when being questioned about the incident, Jason made a point of claiming he did not own a cell phone, whereas in actuality telephone company records show that he did.
Merston and Harpur’s report concluded this way:
From the available evidence it appears that O.J. Simpson was in all probability at the murder scene, at some time after the events, for some reason best known to himself.
Many people are 100% certain O.J. is guilty; others are just as convinced of his innocence. Based on the evidence, though, it is impossible to be that certain about what actually took place in Nicole Simpson’s house on the night of June 12th. It is possible that the only person alive who knows who the mur derer was is the murderer himself.
In any event it is clear that there is more evidence against O.J. (who was acquitted) than there was against Leonard Peltier, who was convicted and is still imprisoned decades after his apparently wrongful incarceration (see the 1975 and 1977 chapters for more details) [Update: Peltier was released on February 18, 2025]
After reading Dear’s book, I was fairly certain O.J. was innocent, and that it was his son Jason who was guilty. But after watching American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson (particularly because of two shocking revelations by O.J.’s ex-agent Mike Gilbert, especially the bombshell at the end), it’s apparent to me that O.J. was, in fact, guilty. That doesn’t change the fact that Detective Defective Fuhrman was a lowlife of the worst sort, and quite possibly did engage in nefarious and underhanded attempts to point the blame at Simpson.
There aren’t a lot of totally innocent people in the case. The most egregious guilt falls on O.J. Simpson first, then Mark Fuhrman, but Mike Gilbert was also guilty for his role he played in seeing to it that the gloves didn’t fit and in his support of O.J. throughout the trial, even though he thought his client was guilty the whole time. Narcissism (Simpson), racism (Fuhrman), and greed (Gilbert) seem to be the prime causes of the sins those men committed.
Questions: Did you ever see O.J. Simpson play football? If so, did you see him play live? Why was his 1973 total of 2,003 yards rushing while playing for the Buffalo Bills especially impressive? Why was O.J. filmed running through an airport in the late 1970s? Did he ever film orange juice (O.J.) commercials? Do you think O.J. is without-a-doubt guilty of the murders of his ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman? If not, did the material above change your mind, or did you always have your doubts? Have you seen the documentary series American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson?
