The Los Angeles Police Department is conducting tests on a knife purportedly found at O.J. Simpson’s old property after they recovered it from a retired LAPD officer within the past month.
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The knife was reportedly turned over in January by George Maycott, a retired police officer who had held on to it for years as a memento. Sometimes a knife is just a knife. It had no blood or anything to indicate it was used in a violent crime, he said.
Plus, considering how deep and violent the wounds are, the knife in question would have needed to be heavy and sturdy – and a knife expert told TMZ that the one in question was made with heavy-duty American-made steel at that time. The case is not considered closed until there is a conviction, he added. Our sources say the officer took the knife home and kept it … kept it for years.
On Friday, at a hastily arranged press conference, LAPD spokesman Captain Andrew Neiman confirmed the knife had been submitted to the lab for testing, but said it remained unclear whether it was “a piece of evidence, or just … a made-up story”.
TMZ.com, which first reported the story, said the weapon was a folding buck knife and it was found buried at the perimeter of the estate. He thought of getting it framed or put on a plaque, together with a case number, even though there was no reason to believe it was evidence, his lawyer said.
Residents of the upscale neighborhood of Brentwood, CA, walk past OJ Simpson’s house where a moving company truck, hired by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, is parked on March 28, 1997.
Copeland said his client feels the LAPD is being dragged through the mud.
Simpson was charged and acquitted in the slayings. Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman were white and O.J. Simpson is black. A murder weapon was never found. Jobs were being done at the property for at least two years as a new home was being built, Weber said.
Despite what happens in the knife investigation, Simpson can not be tried again in the deaths because of the double jeopardy clause.
“The only possible way around [double jeopardy] is if you can get a federal indictment for violation of civil rights”, but the statute of limitations has “almost certainly” passed on any such violation, Dershowitz said.
And should the knife actually check out?
Ever since the knife news broke Friday morning, Weber said he’s been getting emails from friends with links to online stories, some recalling how he told the media back in 1998 that he would look for the weapon.
“We could not charge Mr Simpson”, Neiman said.
“You’d think in the police handbook 101, you’d turn in any kind of evidence”, Kaelin said.
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Defendant OJ Simpson wearing the blood stained gloves found by Los Angeles Police and entered into evidence in Simpson’s murder trial displays his hand in front of the jury at the request of prosecutor Christopher Darden. If further investigation bears this out, then forget it: The case remains open. Authorities are asking the construction worker to come forward. He also said that police were “quite shocked” to learn about the knife after so many years.
