Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman slashed to death.
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Forensic investigators are already searching for DNA traces on the blade, which was handed over to police by a retired motorcycle officer, according to Lieutenant Andrew Neiman from the Los Angeles Police Department, who talked to reporters at a news conference on Friday, said Reuters. Police are also looking into whether criminal charges could be filed against the officer who held onto the knife, Neiman said, adding that any officer who comes into contact with evidence is required to turn it over to investigators in all circumstances.
Instead of delivering the weapon to the proper investigators, that police officer took the knife home, keeping it for 18 years.
The item has been submitted to a lab for study, Neiman said, where it will be tested for blood, DNA and hair samples.
The former National Football League star and actor was acquitted in the 1995 double homicide of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
Boston attorney Alan Dershowitz called the discovery of a knife at OJ Simpson’s former home “suspicious”.
Prosecutors in the criminal trial never introduced it as evidence, the LA Times said.
The knife came to light in the past month, but Neiman did not say how that occurred, stressing the authenticity of the story was not confirmed.
“It is a knife, not a machete”, he said.
On Friday, LAPD officials and former Simpson defense attorneys alike remarked on the timing of the disclosure, as it coincides with the airing of an FX miniseries, “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”.
As part of the investigation, LAPD detectives were trying to piece together the timeline of exactly when the demolition of the property started and ended, and who obtained the knife and had possession of it from then until now, according to ABC News.
But in the court of public opinion, Dershowitz said the knife could be an interesting catalyst to the public perception of OJ Simpson.
“I don’t know why that didn’t happen or if that’s entirely accurate or if this whole story is possibly bogus from the get-go”, he said.
The source wouldn’t elaborate on specifics, but said “the characteristics and condition of the knife were not consistent with the weapon used in the Brown and Goldman murders nor does it appear it was buried for a length of time that would put it in the time frame of the slayings”.
Detained four days later after an infamous auto chase that was watched live by television viewers across America, he was eventually found not guilty after the so-called Trial of the Century the following year. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it would change much legally”.
Unnamed sources first reported the weapon was found years ago, but individuals remembered different times, ranging from “several years ago” to 1998, when the house was demolished. It will just raise more questions about the incompetence of the investigation and probably lead to more books and more movies.The weapon used in the killings has been a mystery for decades. He is now imprisoned in Nevada for a 2008 armed robbery and kidnapping conviction.
The Simpson-Goldman murder is still considered an open case, since no one was ever convicted of the crime.
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“There will be no new prosecution for O.J.”, Cossack said.
