The knife is being analyzed by Los Angeles police for any possible connection to the 1994 stabbing deaths of Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
Advertisement
“The off-duty, or retired, officer was working in the area of the Rockingham estate, and he claimed that an individual who claimed to be a construction worker provided him with this knife claiming that it was found on the property, so he held on to it”, Neiman said.
“It is a knife; it is not a machete”, Neiman said at a news conference in front of police headquarters. The LAPD will investigate it, however, because it considers the Simpson-Goldman slayings an open case.
“If they were going to find this knife and make it useful in the murder trial they should have found it 20 years ago, and they didn’t”, said Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and longtime observer of the Simpson case.
“It is being treated as we would all evidence”, LAPD Capt. Andy Neiman said Friday. “I don’t know why that didn’t happen”.
The murder weapon had not been recovered at the time of his sensational trial, which was carried live on major television networks in the United States and transfixed much of the nation.
Earlier this year, Maycott contacted someone at the department to get the Simpson case number.
LAPD officials said the officer may have been retired.
Somewhere among the rubble and piles of wood, a construction worker allegedly found a knife on the O.J. Simpson’s estate in the late 90s. “The reality is these things have been happening for some time”, Lange said, adding there are “many knives” that have been turned over since the killings. Next week it goes to the serology unit for DNA testing.
Lange said the discovery of the knife isn’t new. Such a knife would typically be used for hunting. We do not know if that is accurate.
Attorney Carl Douglas – a member of Simpson’s legal “Dream Team” – called the news of the knife “ridiculous”.
“According to Dr. Irwin Golden, as reported by TMZ, a knife with at least a 4″ blade would have been needed to do the deed – and the knife in question has a 5” blade.
FOX 11 reporter Hal Eisner reported on the day Nicole Brown Simpson’s body was found in 1994.
“Interesting timing. Interesting timing”, he said with a smile.
A civil court jury later found Simpson liable in the deaths, and victims’ families were awarded $33.5million in damages.
Copeland said his client feels the LAPD is being dragged through the mud.
He did, however, say that even if the knife is proven to be the murder weapon and could link Simpson to the two killings, it was his understanding that “double jeopardy would be in place here”, meaning the former football player and movie star could not be indicted on charges for which he has already been acquitted.
Advertisement
In October 2008 he was found guilty on 12 counts, including kidnapping and armed robbery, for a confrontation in a Las Vegas hotel room over sports memorabilia that Simpson said had been stolen from him.
