f***@gmail.com
2018-09-17 05:39:17 UTC
From: http://smartfellowspress.com/Iago/chap2.htm
Chapter 2: GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER
"WE COULD HAVE KILLED PEOPLE AND GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT."
—Mark Fuhrman, former LAPD detective, best-selling author
One undeniable fact in the 1994 killing at 875 South
Bundy is that somebody got away with murder. Most people
think it was O.J. Simpson. If all you know about the case
is what you heard from reporters and expert commentators,
you are probably one of them. I know I was.
Driving before dawn to work at a Ford design studio near
Greenfield Village, I heard the jolting news on my car
radio, "Nicole Simpson, estranged wife of actor/color
commentator O.J. Simpson, was found stabbed to death..."
As I stopped for the light at the intersection of the
I-39 service drive and Rotunda, I flashed on the mental
image I’d had of the ’89 incident involving O.J. and the
woman who was now deceased. I had been stopped at the
same light in ’89, en route to the same studio when that
picture was first brought to mind by a radio news
reporter describing Nicole as a "white female, later
identified as the wife of O.J. Simpson." This time, with
the dead body of the woman and a younger man laying
beside her, I saw Paul Robeson in my mind’s eye in place
of the other black football hero and actor. I envisioned
him on stage with a bloody dagger in his hand and a dead
white woman with blond hair at his feet. I kept thinking,
Othello!
Who didn’t?
Naturally, everyone I worked with pretended not to have
an opinion on the case—you know, innocent until proven
guilty and all that. It was much too soon to talk about
Othello with no proof that O.J. had killed his ex. But
what do you do with images alive in the popular culture
that spring to mind with a key word or phrase? How do you
get around the way the human brain is wired to "see"
complete mosaics instantaneously with the stimulus of a
few familiar tiles? Isn’t that what happened to
Shakespeare’s Moorish general? Wasn’t it false bits of
information from a trusted source that lead him to
inflict the ultimate punishment for wrongdoing on someone
who had done no wrong? Wasn’t the person really
responsible for the woman’s death someone else? Nobody
seems to remember that part of the tale. In America, sex
and color still count too much. They are the "tiles" that
color everything we think about men and women.
We have become quite sophisticated in the language we use
to disguise our true thoughts and feelings about race,
but the essential messages usually come in loud and
clear. For instance, everyone knows what is meant by the
"candle power" of the jury that found O.J. "Not guilty"
and the one that found him "Responsible." These and other
racist code words complete the picture formerly drawn
with one of Mark Fuhrman’s favorite words. If you’re an
OJI, you’ve probably gotten a taste of "the black
experience" whatever color you are.
That attitude is no different at its core now than it was
in the mid-’60s. That was when a modeling supervisor in
Ford Motor Company’s Styling Center named Vic Clark
greeted me with a warm smile, a hearty handshake and the
words, "Welcome aboard! I knew a ol’ boy named Jasper
back in Indiana. Now, that was one nigger that didn’t
mind workin’."
People like Vic still run things in too many places, but
we can’t always tell who they are and what pictures
they’re pumping into our brain to help us process our
thoughts. Who, for instance, generated those stories
about O.J. before he was arrested, stories that had me
and everyone I knew saying, he did it? Right, Mark
Fuhrman. Remember the blood-drops leading up the driveway
(they actually went the other way), plus the bloody knife
and the bloody ski mask police found in his bedroom
closet (pure BS)? What about the gloves in his size (that
didn’t fit), the dark clothes in the washer (Arnelle’s
underwear) and the knit cap?
I could see him wearing the cap. Hell, I had seen him
wearing it. Millions of people shared that vision from
his role in The Naked Gun. That’s why the cap never made
sense to me. It convinced me that O.J. had to have been
out of his mind to wear it.
According to the media, there was no doubt of his guilt
since he could have been innocent only if he was framed
by cops. I asked myself, what cop would do that to a
famous multi-millionaire who could summon the best legal
resources anywhere to his aid? Who in the LAPD could hate
O.J. that much, be that close to the evidence and feel
that secure? Who could be so intelligent and so arrogant
as to think he could convince the DA, misdirect the
defense, and fool the whole damn world, all at the same
time? Who could be so knowledgeable, so ambitious and so
sure of the American mass media as to think he could use
them to serve his personal ends the way Joe McCarthy and
Ho Chi Minh did to serve theirs? Who would think that he
could falsely implicate a man for murder, a man whose
name is a household word, without putting a national
spotlight on himself? What kind of man would want to put
himself in that position? There couldn’t be anybody like
that on the LAPD, could there? ....Nah!
O.J. did it, I thought. He must have, but....
Okay, so he flew into a jealous rage after seeing his ex
with a younger man. Why did he take the time to dig up
that cap before assaulting them? How could he have lost
both gloves? What, specifically, set him off? For a black
man of his status who had been busted and quietly
forgiven in the national press for beating his white
wife, it must have been BIG! He had to know that the
police would think he did it. And why would a black,
internationally famous, ex-football star and actor use a
knife? ....Why would he use a knife? Doesn’t he know
about Paul Robeson’s best known role, and the picture of
him with a dagger in his hand. Hasn’t he ever heard of
Shakespeare’s Othello?
I was sure that all of these questions would be answered
when the prosecution presented its case. In that I like
to think of myself as a fair-minded person the way
everyone else does, I told myself that I would reserve
final judgment until I heard all of the evidence. Still,
I couldn’t ignore what I heard until I’d heard it all.
Marcia Clark’s opening was so impressive that it took a
special effort to listen to the defense. What could they
say to refute the evidence? So much of it. So scientific.
So macroscopically and microscopically particular to
Orenthal James Simpson. How could he not be guilty? How
could one begin a rational process of evaluation with an
honest presumption of innocence? It couldn’t be done.
It was not, however, the defense that started my
turnaround from OJG to OJU (undecided). It was Marcia
Clark, Christopher Darden, and Brian Kelberg. The
prosecutors failed to answer any of the questions about
the motive and the weapon required to complete the logic
of the physical evidence. If the condition of the bodies
told them it was a rage killing, where was the evidence
of rage in O.J. that night, or the mind-altering
substance or event that would produce it? Not only did
the prosecution serve up incidents that could have meant
anything you wanted them to, they made it clear that they
never—not for one instant—considered anyone but O.J. as a
suspect. Where could they possibly go from there?
I ran into the same thing when I joined the Court TV
Discussion Group and tangled with some very bright and
single-minded OJG’s. They were the ones who turned me
into an OJI.
The essence of proof is that it eliminates all but one
possibility. If you consider only one possibility you can
come to only one conclusion. There is no rational process
of evaluation which can follow from that and no rational
grounds upon which anyone can challenge it. All you can
do is add more evidence or take some away. The conclusion
has to stay the same, even when the coroner’s testimony
points to a suspect with a military background—someone
who knew how and when to use both ends of a certain kind
of knife as different kinds of weapons—someone who could
procure such a weapon without calling attention to
himself—someone who enjoyed drawing blood and watching
his victims die.
In my effort to fill the gaps left by the prosecution and
the defense, both of whom made the same error of early
exclusion, I ran into a wall that couldn’t be scaled,
bypassed or ignored. It’s an attitude about the case
characterized on both sides by the automatic rejection of
any suggestion that the killer may have been someone in
particular other than O.J. Simpson. It took me a long
time to see it myself, which I never would have if I
hadn’t worked for a Klansman at Ford named Vic Clark, and
the killer hadn’t used the butt of his knife to
incapacitate one of his victims. None of us wanted to
accuse someone of murder before a worldwide audience
without good cause. All of which was lucky for the man
who became the number one best-selling author in the
country after the verdict against Simpson in the civil
trial was announced. That man, who, in one way or another
is connected to every scrap of evidence against O.J as a
wife-beater and a killer, is Mark Fuhrman.
Anyone with as much as a passing interest in the case
that made Fuhrman a hero to many who once despised him,
has seen all of the evidence and heard all of the
arguments against Simpson. Everything he said in his
defense has been angrily rejected, stubbornly attacked,
aggressively investigated and exhaustively explored—in
that order. His every gesture that could be shown as
evidence of guilt has been shown as evidence of guilt. We
know every incriminating fact there is about the five
blood-drops identified as his at the bloody murder scene
and the blood he admits was his at his home. We know
about his size 12 Bruno Maglis, his ill-timed cut finger,
and the rare gloves and carpet fibers. We’ve seen the
photographs and videotapes, we’ve heard the audiotapes,
and we’ve heard from numerous expert witnesses. We have
everything we need to conclude that O.J. Simpson
butchered two people. That is, we have everything except
a solid motive, a credible weapon and a clear
opportunity. What’s missing is a line of reasoning that
excludes any other possibility.
Where is the evidence that excludes Mark Fuhrman? I’ve
heard that he had an alibi which was confirmed by the
LAPD, the FBI and F. Lee Bailey’s private detectives.
I’ve heard Bailey’s top investigator, Pat McKenna, say
that he was sure Fuhrman planted evidence but that he did
not think the killer did. Bailey himself said that he
"knew," Fuhrman didn’t do it. However, no one I know of
has documented the evidence to support that conclusion.
According to Fuhrman’s own testimony, only his wife can
confirm his alibi, and no one asked her to do it. The
law, of course, cannot compel her. However, I fear for
her life if she or her husband should ever want a
divorce.
Planting ideas was every bit as important in the O.J.
Simpson case as planting physical objects. "Spin doctor"
Fuhrman, like Shakespeare’s spin doctor, Iago, was
unquestionably on top of that, from the "ski mask"
supposedly found in O.J.’s bedroom closet (item 17 in his
notes) to the "haphazardly" parked Bronco. Evidence or
ideas that were planted or shaped in some way by Fuhrman
and his partner Brad Roberts influenced everyone closely
involved in the case. What you get from most "informed
sources" as a result, is what you can expect when you
begin with your conclusion and work backward through the
"relevant" facts.
That kind of reasoning may be helpful in exploring
possibilities. But when you have to jettison troublesome
little facts that don’t add up to your conclusion and
force-fit conjecture that does, it’s time to consider a
different approach. It’s time to take the evidence as it
exists, for and against the accused, and see what other
scenario can be constructed. Then you have to throw rocks
at it, and see how it holds up.
In the absence of facts, some speculation will have to
suffice, but it should be dependent on facts or subject
to verification. For example, I could not find
verification of Fuhrman’s shoe size for years, despite
trying everything I know to get it. Based on his height,
I assumed that his feet might fit into a pair of size 12
Bruno Maglis. Either they could or they couldn’t. There
was no reason for a question like that to have remained a
mystery forever. But I sure didn’t have the answer until
I bought a copy of Fuhrman’s book and figured it out from
a photo of him in Nicole’s front yard with a size 10
envelope by his foot.
Based on the fact that Fuhrman was a police officer, I
assumed that he had the ability to monitor cellular phone
conversations with a police scanner. That, too, can be
determined beyond any doubt. Based on the fact that he
was an ex-Marine, I assumed that he had training in the
use of both ends of a certain kind of knife as different
kinds of weapons. Based on the fact that he enjoyed blood
sports, I assumed that he used a knife with that kind of
handle to skin and gut his prey. A Marine Corps survival
knife and a good hunting knife both have the same kind of
handle, so I know that he must have been comfortable with
the feel of both of them. Ditto a German Stiletto.
The fact that he said he enjoyed killing people and was
one complaint short of making the Christopher
Commission’s list of the LAPD’s most violent cops, tells
me something else. It tells me that he probably had the
first-hand knowledge he said he did of how it feels to
take a human life. His police record shows that, in front
of civilian witnesses, he pumped five bullets into an ATM
robbery suspect, planted a knife by his hand and
screamed, "Die, nigger! Why won’t you die!" He did this
in front of two other cops who weren’t necessarily his
buddies. What happened when the only witnesses were his
buddies, or when there were none? In the words of Mark
Fuhrman, "dead men tell no tales."
Whoever killed Ron Goldman did it after a short fight.
Think of a round in boxing. Believe me, two minutes is a
long time in that kind of physical contest. The pattern
of BLOODSTAINS on Ron’s shirt and pants suggest that he
was on his feet for much longer than that after his
initial wounds were inflicted. That is consistent with a
short fight in which he was taunted and tortured long
after he could put up a fight. Mark Fuhrman’s taped
characterization of his attitude toward fighting,
killing, torture, and Jews, was as close to a confession
as was ever heard in the case. It was what the autopsy
report said about the killer.
Fuhrman told Laura Hart McKinny that he killed people in
Vietnam, but he told F. Lee Bailey that he never got off
the ship. He told one psychiatrist that he had been a
machine-gunner. He told Bailey that he had been a
military policeman. Because Judge Ito sealed his military
records, there is no telling what he really did. All we
have is his word on tape that he enjoyed killing people
and watching them suffer—and complaints from a few
survivors in California that agreed with him.
Until I began the final chapters of this book, I thought
the timeline was open to debate. I was wrong. There is a
systematic way of eliminating the speculation. Until I
discovered that process, I was willing to allow that the
defense’s timeline witness might have been mistaken.
Still, the prosecution’s timeline rested on the testimony
of a man whose powers of observation and recall were
demonstrably unreliable. It assumed that Allan Park’s
hindsight was 20/20 when he didn’t recall seeing the
Bronco before he saw O.J., and irrelevant when he didn’t
recall hearing the Bronco return. The fact that he
recalled seeing another car that wasn’t there would tend
to support O.J.’s alibi. The fact that he never said he
saw the Bronco , even when he was leaving for LAX, would
also tend to support O.J.’s alibi.
Paradoxically, a Bronco that never moved during the
killing works against the most plausible theory that O.J.
was framed. The only way a perfect frame could work,
would be if O.J. didn’t have a solid alibi and the people
setting him up knew it. By the same token, the setup
didn’t have to be perfect if the killer was sure the
prosecutors would argue imperfect evidence as though it
was perfect. It had to be a cop who knew people like Gil
Garcetti, Marcia Clark, and Christopher Darden in 1994 as
well as we have come to know them since. It had to be
someone who knew how to reel in Marcia Clark from a sea
of deputy prosecutors in advance of the murders, with
ironclad assurance that he would get her. Warrant
problems + spouse abuse allegations = Marcia Clark, up
front, on the scene and eager to help the cops.
In California, the rage killing of one person would not
normally carry the penalty of death. The murder of two
people in a particularly brutal way is supposed to, on
grounds of "special circumstances." In other words the
double homicide could have been an attempted triple
homicide, with the media and the law as weapons selected
by the killer to torture and kill his third victim, O.J.
Simpson.
The only way all of the evidence in the case makes sense
is if you see it as a made-for-television drama staged to
make the accused and his chief accuser look like
something they weren’t. You have to see it as a grisly
publicity stunt by which Mark Fuhrman sought to call
attention to himself and launch a new career as a
best-selling author and media personality.
For two years, my theory had gaps of its own, left by an
absolute refusal of anybody with the resources to
investigate the possible involvement of Fuhrman in the
murders, to do so. For OJG’s the MFG idea was too silly
to contemplate. For OJI’s it was too risky.
1). O.J.’s Alibi—If the only way that a premeditated plot
to frame O.J. could have worked for Fuhrman is if the
Bronco had been stolen and returned, O.J.’s alibi goes
with it.
2). Phillips’ Call—Fuhrman said he wasn’t on call that
night. If he had no way of knowing he’d be called to the
crime scene by his boss, Ron Phillips, he couldn’t have
planned the killing or carried out a successful frame.
3). Fuhrman’s Alibi—If an investigation proved that
Fuhrman was a speaker at the Police Protective League
picnic he was supposed to have been attending at the time
of the killing, his alibi would prove that he didn’t do
it.
4). Other Loose Ends—A real investigation of Fuhrman as a
murder suspect could prove that the shoe didn’t fit worth
a damn, either literally or figuratively.
The only reason that the evidence against O.J. ever
looked impressive is because he was the only suspect.
When there was no more proof that he committed the
murders than there was that Fuhrman did, there did seem
to be evidence that pointed to both men and some that
pointed only to Fuhrman. Moreover, the quality of the
evidence against Fuhrman has always been on an entirely
different level. The facts and circumstances that
incriminate him could not have been altered, anticipated,
manipulated or misrepresented by another party to frame
him. Not so with the evidence against Simpson.
Much of that evidence, in explicit or implicit form, can
be characterized as look-alike—duplicates or close enough
approximations to be identified as O.J.’s by description
or type. The Swiss Army knife, the German Stiletto, the
expensive Italian shoes and the sports utility vehicle
that Robert Heidstra saw on Dorothy all fall in that
category. Even some hair and fiber evidence was made up
of types of hair and fibers traceable to someone other
than Simpson if anyone had cared to do it. And the blood?
If the possibility of tampering by Mark Fuhrman or Brad
Roberts did not exist, neither would much doubt of O.J.’s
guilt. Only it does exist. In fact, with a little inside
help here, a purloined key there, and the right spin on
the wrong questions, it would have been easy for either
of them to do it.
The balance of evidence falls entirely in favor of
Item: The shoeprints left by the killer implicate O.J.,
but could have been worn by someone else for that
purpose. They could have been worn by a man with motive,
means, opportunity and size 12 Bruno Magli shoes. They
could have been worn by a man with contacts in Nicole’s
inner circle who knew how much the Bruno Maglis resembled
shoes O.J. wore to his daughter’s dance recital. If you
don’t know it now, you will learn that Mark Fuhrman fits
that description in every respect.
Item: Strong evidence suggests that two knives were used
by one man to cause the different kinds of bruises on the
victims’ skulls and the bloodshed that made the
shoeprints possible. All of which points to an
ambidextrous military history buff (combined sword and
dagger fighting style of 16th century Italy—home of the
Stiletto, with the long blade held in the right hand and
the short blade in the left). That’s Fuhrman, not
Simpson.
Item: The long-bladed knife with the heavy handle and
hammer-like butt used to incapacitate Nicole was not the
one O.J. purchased at Ross Cutlery, but one just like it.
The way it was used points to a military man. The way the
short knife was used to torture and kill Ron Goldman,
points to a martial artist who enjoyed making people
suffer. That’s Mark Fuhrman—who searched O.J.’s house and
said he found evidence of a missing Swiss Army knife
after another detective found the Stiletto unused.
Item: The German Stiletto could have left wounds
consistent with a Swiss Army knife and vice versa.
Therefore, had either knife been found by Fuhrman or
Roberts in their search of O.J.’s home, nothing could
have stopped them from pulling a switch. "The" murder
weapon could have been found with Ron’s, Nicole’s and
OJ’s blood on it in an alley one block south and two or
three blocks east of Bundy, with no way for O.J. to prove
it was a duplicate of the missing one. Imagine what
Jeffrey Toobin would have said about the candlepower of
anyone who believed a claim like that.
Item: I was so focused on the hammer-like quality of the
weapon Nicole was hit with, I forgot about the thin blade
that cut her until I saw it again during Dianne Sawyer’s
interview with Fuhrman after the civil trial. While
Stilettos may be advertised as hunting knives, I kept
thinking that "the" murder weapon was a conventional
hunting knife. I’ve seen lots of hunting knives and more
Stilettos than I like to admit. I’ve seen only one like
Sawyer had on the table during her Prime Time Live
interview with Fuhrman. That’s when I remembered that I
had seen it in O.J.’s criminal trial. It not only fits
Fuhrman better as a weapon of choice, it’s one that O.J.
could not have procured in secret. Fuhrman could have.
What would a homicide detective like Fuhrman have to gain
by procuring a knife identical to the one O.J. bought at
Ross Cutlery, then searching his house for a murder
weapon after O.J.’s ex was found with her throat cut?
...Give me a break.
Item: The Rockingham glove points both ways. That is, it
would if had fit O.J.’s hand. Several witnesses commented
on how surprisingly large O.J.’s hands were. No one ever
said that about Fuhrman’s hands.
Item: Assume that O.J. dropped the glove in a bumbling
rush to sneak into his house at 10:45 P.M. Does the
"trail of blood," that Roberts pointed out at Rockingham,
and the wet, sticky condition of the glove with no debris
on it when Fuhrman reported finding it at 6:06 the next
morning support that assumption?
Now assume that Roberts planted it.
Where was Roberts during and after Fuhrman’s talk with
Kato and before Fuhrman found the glove? Why did he make
no reports of his activities? Why did Phillips stumble
over Roberts’ name on the witness stand and imply that
his partner was Tom Nolan instead of Fuhrman? What was he
doing with the blood on O.J.’s driveway before Dennis
Fung intervened? How did he end up driving to Bundy
alone? Why is there no record of when he came to
Rockingham or how he got there? Why didn’t we know until
both trials were over that Roberts and Fuhrman were both
involved with "finding" the socks on O.J.’s rug? Why
didn’t Robert Heidstra get a chance to hear his voice?
Item: Neither the bumbling rush theory nor the plant
theory make much sense unless you assume that the killer
or killers planted both gloves. Simpson’s only reason to
plant them would have been to prove they didn’t fit his
unusually large hands—which opens the question of what he
could gain by leaving the cap and the shoeprints. The
plant theory makes perfect sense if Fuhrman was the
killer who gave one to Roberts to plant where he knew
he’d find it. He had a good excuse (three bangs on Kato’s
wall) to look there. Fuhrman knew about the Rockingham
glove before anyone else who wasn’t directly involved in
the killings. He is the only man who can be tied directly
to that look-alike glove which held the look-alike knife
[Image] that killed Ron Lyle Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.
Item: At Rockingham, Fuhrman followed a lead to the
right-hand glove that he should not have known about
because he wasn’t supposed to be on the case, let alone
at Simpson’s estate without a warrant. His link to that
glove and the undisturbed ground around it was his idea.
He put himself there and negotiated some thorny high
hurtles to do it. The idea that the Bronco was parked
suspiciously "crooked" was Fuhrman’s idea. The "bleeding
killer" theory was his, as well as the "people in need of
assistance" inside the Rockingham walls—the shaky grounds
for entering the estate that guaranteed Marcia Clark’s
role in the case.
Everything that points to Fuhrman as a killer out to
frame O.J. was exclusively within his control or the
control of his friends. That is not true with any of the
evidence against O.J., which is the essence of my problem
with the case against O.J., and the core of my case
against Fuhrman.
At every turn where the most improbable set of
circumstances would have to exist to clear O.J. and
implicate Fuhrman that’s what we find. That goes for the
long list of rare characteristics the killer and his
associates would have to have. The same goes for all of
the missing, duplicate, altered, misrepresented or
switched items of evidence that would have to exist at
all the right times and places with access by all the
right people. It would require misdirection and a
knowledgeable use of the power of suggestion.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that a stage magician uses all of
these things to take advantage of how human perception
works—the tricks of the trade to make a convincing
illusion.
That is not simply a tall order to fill; it is so
unlikely by the laws of random probability as to approach
the infinite. O.J. Simpson was framed by Mark Fuhrman for
a murder committed by Mark Fuhrman with the assistance of
his partner Brad Roberts, his old friend Ron Shipp,
Nicole’s "best friend" Faye Resnick, and her sister,
Denise Brown. The only member of that quintet I have any
doubt about is Denise—but only the tiniest bit—and only
because it’s hard for me to come to terms with sororicide
for money.
From the outset of the case when O.J. didn’t appear to
have an airtight alibi, something wasn’t quite right. He
didn’t have a compelling motive either, not for a popular
public figure who wasn’t under the influence of an
enraging precipitating event or a mind-altering drug.
Furthermore, if he had any reason to believe that a
critical inspection of blood and trace evidence would
hurt him, why did he hire the world’s leading forensic
authority, Dr. Henry Lee, to do his own investigation?
Dr. Lee, who is normally sought out by prosecutors, did
not trust the integrity of any of the blood and fiber
evidence (remember the cockroaches in the spaghetti?).
The reasons he gave were never convincingly rebutted. His
offer of his services to the prosecution in their "search
for truth" was declined. Furthermore, his ability to do
his job properly was rudely, deliberately and
consistently sabotaged by the LAPD and the DA’s office.
Had a civilian done as much to a prosecution forensic
expert, he would have been tried, convicted and thrown in
prison for obstruction of justice.
The idea that O.J. is guilty has corollaries, which, of
course, are like in-laws. When you take one member of the
family as your own, you have to take them all. Here is a
1). On the day he got a "Dear John" voice-mail from Paula
Barbiari, he secretly procured, used and disposed of an
unusual knife identical to the one he was known to have
bought at Ross Cutlery—or a large Swiss Army knife that
no one can show he ever owned.
2). He kept, unused in his home, the twin of the German
Stiletto used in the murders—or the large Swiss Amy knife
came out of a small knickknack box.
3). He put on a blue knit cap exactly like the one he
wore in the movie, The Naked Gun, to help disguise
himself.
4). He put on a sweatsuit of which there is no record and
no trace of his ever having in his home, took off his
Reeboks and sweatsocks and put on his dress socks and
casual dress shoes.
5). He drove his white Bronco to an area where it and his
distinctive gait would tell the neighbors who he was,
regardless of what he wore on or over his head if he were
seen.
6). He parked the Bronco on Rockingham, ran through a
neighbor’s yard next to Kato Kaelin’s guest house while
dripping blood on his driveway, jumped a fence, and
accidentally banged into Kato’s wall three times.
7). He strolled back to the front of the house with the
shoes somewhere other than on his feet and the sweatsuit
with blue/black fibers still on his body, unconcerned
that the chauffeur saw him coming from where he dropped
the bloody glove.
8). He ran upstairs, cleaned himself up, and dispose of
the knife, shoes and sweatsuit and all of its
fibers—except for the ones he left on the socks—and was
ready to go to LAX in less than 10 minutes.
Odd things do happen. Unlikely events are not the same as
impossible events, as I am constantly reminded by the
mind-bending coincidence of being in the same place five
years apart when I heard the different news stories about
O.J. and Nicole. Therefore, I can accept without much
question three or four of those improbable corollaries to
the proposition that O.J. did it. But even if some of
them didn’t cancel out others, how could I accept all
eight? And that’s the short list. The long list has
several times as many improbable corollaries.
That brings us back to Mark Fuhrman with his violent
hatred of black men and mixed couples. What on Earth was
he doing on the police force, let alone on the case of a
famous black man suspected of killing a white woman?
Please don’t say O.J. wasn’t a suspect. Unless the killer
is obviously someone else, the husband is always the
number one suspect.
Rosa Lopez testified that she heard two men talking
between the houses the night before, men whose voices she
didn’t know. The next day two men came by. One stayed in
the car. The other one identified himself as Detective
Mark Fuhrman. Both men spoke to her. Immediately after
Fuhrman determined that she could not identify the voices
she heard as his and Roberts’, the two men left.
What bothers me about that visit more than the questions
that weren’t asked, was the potential for foul play. If
Mrs. Lopez had disappeared that morning, never to be seen
again, there were no witnesses and no reports to say that
either of them had ever been there.
Fuhrman denied, at first, that he talked to her about
anything. When the logic of an ace detective not
questioning a potential witness to O.J.’s goings and
comings became untenable, he said he didn’t realize who
she was because the woman he talked to spoke perfect
English. No other LAPD officer interviewed her about what
she saw or heard. The LAPD sent a detective to talk only
to Mrs. Lopez’s employer, Mrs. Salinger, who wasn’t even
in the country on the 12th of June.
Not until Robert Shapiro’s investigator, Bill Pavelic,
erroneously reported that Mrs. Lopez saw the Bronco at
the time Marcia Clark erroneously reported that the
killing began, did Ms. Clark show any interest in Mrs.
Lopez. Then she angrily accused the defense of outrageous
misconduct in failing to tell her what she told them. The
conduct of the district attorney’s office in failing to
talk to Ms. Lopez, except for the purpose of protecting
Mark Fuhrman and attacking her, has never been an issue.
Fuhrman, of all the officers on the force, had the only
opportunity to "discover" the most dramatic evidence
against Simpson. The testimony of Rosa Lopez supports the
idea that he might have been there before he was called
"at home" by Phillips. In his own words, "I’m the key
witness in the biggest case of the century. And if I go
down, they lose the case...The glove is everything.
Without the glove, bye, bye." He didn’t mention the
splintered wood by the Bronco or the bloody fingerprint
on the gate until much later. He never did mention the
partial print on a lens of Judith Brown’s glasses or the
fact that the lens disappeared.
For a long time I believed that the shoes may have been
O.J.’s at one time despite his denials. The trouble was,
IF—and that was a big IF—O.J. had owned those "ugly ass"
Bruno Maglis, how could he have owned up to it when the
media were unanimous in saying ownership proved guilt? I
wondered what would have happened if the people bringing
us the news hadn’t been telling the world ahead of time
what the evidence had to mean.
That is now a moot question because I now know the
photographs were faked.
But what of the cap that had to be his or one of his
kids’, and the gloves Nicole bought "for O.J.?" What of
the timing of the cut finger? What of Nicole saying that
O.J. was going to kill her? What could these things mean
if not what they appear to mean?
If someone had set out to frame O.J., he would have known
all of these things and anticipated how they would look
with O.J. accused of murdering Nicole. He would have to
have known the criminal justice system and the kind of
evidence most likely to be given weight by the DA. He
would have to have been willing to bet his life that the
LAPD and the DA would zealously pursue the obvious clues
"...truly the giant mountain of evidence that we have
produced in court over these many weeks points to only
one person—and we know who that person is."). It had to
have been somebody who trusted other officers, and
officers of the court, to back him "without having to say
a word." It had to have been someone secretly affiliated
with Faye Resnick, Denise Brown, an spouse-abuse expert,
forgery expert, and friend of Denise and Faye—Ron Shipp.
Did such a person exist? Yes. Mark Fuhrman.
A frame-up, by definition, makes an innocent person look
guilty. What kind of a frame would it have been if the
evidence didn’t shout, "O.J. did it? Since a murder that
a man didn’t commit could never be proven, the evidence
against him would have to be circumstantial. The
specificity of the evidence would have to be extreme. The
amount would have to be overwhelming. It wouldn’t be
enough for the killer to wear size 12 Reeboks that
thousands of men could have worn. They had to be rare
shoes traceable to O.J. Simpson, whether he ever wore
them or not, as long as they were "missing" when police
went looking for them. It couldn’t have been a pair of
gloves that anyone could have owned, they had to be rare
gloves traceable to O.J. Simpson whether he ever wore
them or not. For DNA processing in the LAPD lab—where
anything could happen with the theft of one key—a
strangling wouldn’t do, especially with the knowledge
that O.J. was given Swiss Army knives and had recently
purchased a German Stiletto. Only a knifing would insure
the proper picture in the frame and lots of blood on the
scene to insure impressions of "missing" rare shoes.
These are "little things" that only a
brighter-than-average man who pays close attention to
details would have considered important, a man exactly
like Mark Fuhrman.
If O.J. was the victim of a frame-up, the people behind
it would have required several things: They would have
required intelligence, as in smarts, and intelligence, as
in access to biographical and tactical information and
the ability to gather information on the fly. They would
have required specialized training in silent kills,
special knowledge of the victims, and specialized
knowledge in homicide investigations. They would have
required a thorough understanding of the Los Angeles
County District Attorney’s Office, and how to get the
prosecutor they wanted to handle the case up front.
They would have required access to the incriminating
items of clothing; close proximity to Rockingham and
Bundy; access to both properties, transportation to them
and between them in a vehicle that could be mistaken for
a white Bronco. They would also have required patience
and a simple, long-range plan that could be modified as
needed over many months of waiting, if necessary, for
unmanageable elements of a successful attack to fall into
place. The plan would have to include one or more people
who could be called on at any time for the appearance of
an alibi but the alibi would have to be vulnerable to a
critical inspection.
Enough of these things applied to Mark Fuhrman to have
justified an objective investigation of him as a murder
suspect in June of ’93. He could have learned everything
he needed to know about O.J. and Nicole through police
records, tabloids, gossip shows, mutual acquaintances
like Ron Shipp, Faye Resnick, Denise Brown, or the
personal relationship he boasted of having with Nicole
two years before her death. Although the shoes did not
have to be Bruno Maglis, they probably were. Nicole bough
Bruno Magli brand shoes for herself at Bloomingdale’s in
New York. Fay Resnick went shopping with her in New York.
Therefore, Faye Resnick could have furnished the shoes
and gloves as well as the cap.
If Fuhrman was as good at planting evidence as he said he
was, getting the evidence would have been no trick at
all.
As far as smarts are concerned, Mark Fuhrman had enough
to get dozens of people who should have known better to
vouch for him after his violent, racist attitudes, on
record since 1982, were disclosed. He got the Police
Protective League (the LAPD union) to go to bat for him,
and millions of others to believe in him and to attack
anyone who didn’t before the McKinny tapes exposed him
for the violent racist he was from 1985 to 1995. He
showed that he could plan, organize and carry out
extremely complex tasks. In the eyes of most Americans,
he "proved" on the witness stand that he was a good cop
falsely accused of racism by an unscrupulous defense
team. For most people, even if he had been a racist at
one time in the distant past, that had nothing to do with
the evidence against O.J. Simpson. Mark Fuhrman persuaded
two thirds of a continent that anyone who said his racism
did matter was too stupid or too blinded by his or her
own prejudice to see the truth.
Fuhrman’s book, Murder in Brentwood, should have jogged
some memories about the origin of that idea. The book
begins, in earnest, with a phone call from Phillips and
moves swiftly to the murder scene where he gives no hint
of having known Nicole intimately. He then shows how he
found the evidence and made the deductions that proved
O.J.’s guilt. You’d have to be pretty dense not to see
how right he is on the facts that say O.J. is the killer.
They’re all there, all th...
Chapter 2: GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER
"WE COULD HAVE KILLED PEOPLE AND GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT."
—Mark Fuhrman, former LAPD detective, best-selling author
One undeniable fact in the 1994 killing at 875 South
Bundy is that somebody got away with murder. Most people
think it was O.J. Simpson. If all you know about the case
is what you heard from reporters and expert commentators,
you are probably one of them. I know I was.
Driving before dawn to work at a Ford design studio near
Greenfield Village, I heard the jolting news on my car
radio, "Nicole Simpson, estranged wife of actor/color
commentator O.J. Simpson, was found stabbed to death..."
As I stopped for the light at the intersection of the
I-39 service drive and Rotunda, I flashed on the mental
image I’d had of the ’89 incident involving O.J. and the
woman who was now deceased. I had been stopped at the
same light in ’89, en route to the same studio when that
picture was first brought to mind by a radio news
reporter describing Nicole as a "white female, later
identified as the wife of O.J. Simpson." This time, with
the dead body of the woman and a younger man laying
beside her, I saw Paul Robeson in my mind’s eye in place
of the other black football hero and actor. I envisioned
him on stage with a bloody dagger in his hand and a dead
white woman with blond hair at his feet. I kept thinking,
Othello!
Who didn’t?
Naturally, everyone I worked with pretended not to have
an opinion on the case—you know, innocent until proven
guilty and all that. It was much too soon to talk about
Othello with no proof that O.J. had killed his ex. But
what do you do with images alive in the popular culture
that spring to mind with a key word or phrase? How do you
get around the way the human brain is wired to "see"
complete mosaics instantaneously with the stimulus of a
few familiar tiles? Isn’t that what happened to
Shakespeare’s Moorish general? Wasn’t it false bits of
information from a trusted source that lead him to
inflict the ultimate punishment for wrongdoing on someone
who had done no wrong? Wasn’t the person really
responsible for the woman’s death someone else? Nobody
seems to remember that part of the tale. In America, sex
and color still count too much. They are the "tiles" that
color everything we think about men and women.
We have become quite sophisticated in the language we use
to disguise our true thoughts and feelings about race,
but the essential messages usually come in loud and
clear. For instance, everyone knows what is meant by the
"candle power" of the jury that found O.J. "Not guilty"
and the one that found him "Responsible." These and other
racist code words complete the picture formerly drawn
with one of Mark Fuhrman’s favorite words. If you’re an
OJI, you’ve probably gotten a taste of "the black
experience" whatever color you are.
That attitude is no different at its core now than it was
in the mid-’60s. That was when a modeling supervisor in
Ford Motor Company’s Styling Center named Vic Clark
greeted me with a warm smile, a hearty handshake and the
words, "Welcome aboard! I knew a ol’ boy named Jasper
back in Indiana. Now, that was one nigger that didn’t
mind workin’."
People like Vic still run things in too many places, but
we can’t always tell who they are and what pictures
they’re pumping into our brain to help us process our
thoughts. Who, for instance, generated those stories
about O.J. before he was arrested, stories that had me
and everyone I knew saying, he did it? Right, Mark
Fuhrman. Remember the blood-drops leading up the driveway
(they actually went the other way), plus the bloody knife
and the bloody ski mask police found in his bedroom
closet (pure BS)? What about the gloves in his size (that
didn’t fit), the dark clothes in the washer (Arnelle’s
underwear) and the knit cap?
I could see him wearing the cap. Hell, I had seen him
wearing it. Millions of people shared that vision from
his role in The Naked Gun. That’s why the cap never made
sense to me. It convinced me that O.J. had to have been
out of his mind to wear it.
According to the media, there was no doubt of his guilt
since he could have been innocent only if he was framed
by cops. I asked myself, what cop would do that to a
famous multi-millionaire who could summon the best legal
resources anywhere to his aid? Who in the LAPD could hate
O.J. that much, be that close to the evidence and feel
that secure? Who could be so intelligent and so arrogant
as to think he could convince the DA, misdirect the
defense, and fool the whole damn world, all at the same
time? Who could be so knowledgeable, so ambitious and so
sure of the American mass media as to think he could use
them to serve his personal ends the way Joe McCarthy and
Ho Chi Minh did to serve theirs? Who would think that he
could falsely implicate a man for murder, a man whose
name is a household word, without putting a national
spotlight on himself? What kind of man would want to put
himself in that position? There couldn’t be anybody like
that on the LAPD, could there? ....Nah!
O.J. did it, I thought. He must have, but....
Okay, so he flew into a jealous rage after seeing his ex
with a younger man. Why did he take the time to dig up
that cap before assaulting them? How could he have lost
both gloves? What, specifically, set him off? For a black
man of his status who had been busted and quietly
forgiven in the national press for beating his white
wife, it must have been BIG! He had to know that the
police would think he did it. And why would a black,
internationally famous, ex-football star and actor use a
knife? ....Why would he use a knife? Doesn’t he know
about Paul Robeson’s best known role, and the picture of
him with a dagger in his hand. Hasn’t he ever heard of
Shakespeare’s Othello?
I was sure that all of these questions would be answered
when the prosecution presented its case. In that I like
to think of myself as a fair-minded person the way
everyone else does, I told myself that I would reserve
final judgment until I heard all of the evidence. Still,
I couldn’t ignore what I heard until I’d heard it all.
Marcia Clark’s opening was so impressive that it took a
special effort to listen to the defense. What could they
say to refute the evidence? So much of it. So scientific.
So macroscopically and microscopically particular to
Orenthal James Simpson. How could he not be guilty? How
could one begin a rational process of evaluation with an
honest presumption of innocence? It couldn’t be done.
It was not, however, the defense that started my
turnaround from OJG to OJU (undecided). It was Marcia
Clark, Christopher Darden, and Brian Kelberg. The
prosecutors failed to answer any of the questions about
the motive and the weapon required to complete the logic
of the physical evidence. If the condition of the bodies
told them it was a rage killing, where was the evidence
of rage in O.J. that night, or the mind-altering
substance or event that would produce it? Not only did
the prosecution serve up incidents that could have meant
anything you wanted them to, they made it clear that they
never—not for one instant—considered anyone but O.J. as a
suspect. Where could they possibly go from there?
I ran into the same thing when I joined the Court TV
Discussion Group and tangled with some very bright and
single-minded OJG’s. They were the ones who turned me
into an OJI.
The essence of proof is that it eliminates all but one
possibility. If you consider only one possibility you can
come to only one conclusion. There is no rational process
of evaluation which can follow from that and no rational
grounds upon which anyone can challenge it. All you can
do is add more evidence or take some away. The conclusion
has to stay the same, even when the coroner’s testimony
points to a suspect with a military background—someone
who knew how and when to use both ends of a certain kind
of knife as different kinds of weapons—someone who could
procure such a weapon without calling attention to
himself—someone who enjoyed drawing blood and watching
his victims die.
In my effort to fill the gaps left by the prosecution and
the defense, both of whom made the same error of early
exclusion, I ran into a wall that couldn’t be scaled,
bypassed or ignored. It’s an attitude about the case
characterized on both sides by the automatic rejection of
any suggestion that the killer may have been someone in
particular other than O.J. Simpson. It took me a long
time to see it myself, which I never would have if I
hadn’t worked for a Klansman at Ford named Vic Clark, and
the killer hadn’t used the butt of his knife to
incapacitate one of his victims. None of us wanted to
accuse someone of murder before a worldwide audience
without good cause. All of which was lucky for the man
who became the number one best-selling author in the
country after the verdict against Simpson in the civil
trial was announced. That man, who, in one way or another
is connected to every scrap of evidence against O.J as a
wife-beater and a killer, is Mark Fuhrman.
Anyone with as much as a passing interest in the case
that made Fuhrman a hero to many who once despised him,
has seen all of the evidence and heard all of the
arguments against Simpson. Everything he said in his
defense has been angrily rejected, stubbornly attacked,
aggressively investigated and exhaustively explored—in
that order. His every gesture that could be shown as
evidence of guilt has been shown as evidence of guilt. We
know every incriminating fact there is about the five
blood-drops identified as his at the bloody murder scene
and the blood he admits was his at his home. We know
about his size 12 Bruno Maglis, his ill-timed cut finger,
and the rare gloves and carpet fibers. We’ve seen the
photographs and videotapes, we’ve heard the audiotapes,
and we’ve heard from numerous expert witnesses. We have
everything we need to conclude that O.J. Simpson
butchered two people. That is, we have everything except
a solid motive, a credible weapon and a clear
opportunity. What’s missing is a line of reasoning that
excludes any other possibility.
Where is the evidence that excludes Mark Fuhrman? I’ve
heard that he had an alibi which was confirmed by the
LAPD, the FBI and F. Lee Bailey’s private detectives.
I’ve heard Bailey’s top investigator, Pat McKenna, say
that he was sure Fuhrman planted evidence but that he did
not think the killer did. Bailey himself said that he
"knew," Fuhrman didn’t do it. However, no one I know of
has documented the evidence to support that conclusion.
According to Fuhrman’s own testimony, only his wife can
confirm his alibi, and no one asked her to do it. The
law, of course, cannot compel her. However, I fear for
her life if she or her husband should ever want a
divorce.
Planting ideas was every bit as important in the O.J.
Simpson case as planting physical objects. "Spin doctor"
Fuhrman, like Shakespeare’s spin doctor, Iago, was
unquestionably on top of that, from the "ski mask"
supposedly found in O.J.’s bedroom closet (item 17 in his
notes) to the "haphazardly" parked Bronco. Evidence or
ideas that were planted or shaped in some way by Fuhrman
and his partner Brad Roberts influenced everyone closely
involved in the case. What you get from most "informed
sources" as a result, is what you can expect when you
begin with your conclusion and work backward through the
"relevant" facts.
That kind of reasoning may be helpful in exploring
possibilities. But when you have to jettison troublesome
little facts that don’t add up to your conclusion and
force-fit conjecture that does, it’s time to consider a
different approach. It’s time to take the evidence as it
exists, for and against the accused, and see what other
scenario can be constructed. Then you have to throw rocks
at it, and see how it holds up.
In the absence of facts, some speculation will have to
suffice, but it should be dependent on facts or subject
to verification. For example, I could not find
verification of Fuhrman’s shoe size for years, despite
trying everything I know to get it. Based on his height,
I assumed that his feet might fit into a pair of size 12
Bruno Maglis. Either they could or they couldn’t. There
was no reason for a question like that to have remained a
mystery forever. But I sure didn’t have the answer until
I bought a copy of Fuhrman’s book and figured it out from
a photo of him in Nicole’s front yard with a size 10
envelope by his foot.
Based on the fact that Fuhrman was a police officer, I
assumed that he had the ability to monitor cellular phone
conversations with a police scanner. That, too, can be
determined beyond any doubt. Based on the fact that he
was an ex-Marine, I assumed that he had training in the
use of both ends of a certain kind of knife as different
kinds of weapons. Based on the fact that he enjoyed blood
sports, I assumed that he used a knife with that kind of
handle to skin and gut his prey. A Marine Corps survival
knife and a good hunting knife both have the same kind of
handle, so I know that he must have been comfortable with
the feel of both of them. Ditto a German Stiletto.
The fact that he said he enjoyed killing people and was
one complaint short of making the Christopher
Commission’s list of the LAPD’s most violent cops, tells
me something else. It tells me that he probably had the
first-hand knowledge he said he did of how it feels to
take a human life. His police record shows that, in front
of civilian witnesses, he pumped five bullets into an ATM
robbery suspect, planted a knife by his hand and
screamed, "Die, nigger! Why won’t you die!" He did this
in front of two other cops who weren’t necessarily his
buddies. What happened when the only witnesses were his
buddies, or when there were none? In the words of Mark
Fuhrman, "dead men tell no tales."
Whoever killed Ron Goldman did it after a short fight.
Think of a round in boxing. Believe me, two minutes is a
long time in that kind of physical contest. The pattern
of BLOODSTAINS on Ron’s shirt and pants suggest that he
was on his feet for much longer than that after his
initial wounds were inflicted. That is consistent with a
short fight in which he was taunted and tortured long
after he could put up a fight. Mark Fuhrman’s taped
characterization of his attitude toward fighting,
killing, torture, and Jews, was as close to a confession
as was ever heard in the case. It was what the autopsy
report said about the killer.
Fuhrman told Laura Hart McKinny that he killed people in
Vietnam, but he told F. Lee Bailey that he never got off
the ship. He told one psychiatrist that he had been a
machine-gunner. He told Bailey that he had been a
military policeman. Because Judge Ito sealed his military
records, there is no telling what he really did. All we
have is his word on tape that he enjoyed killing people
and watching them suffer—and complaints from a few
survivors in California that agreed with him.
Until I began the final chapters of this book, I thought
the timeline was open to debate. I was wrong. There is a
systematic way of eliminating the speculation. Until I
discovered that process, I was willing to allow that the
defense’s timeline witness might have been mistaken.
Still, the prosecution’s timeline rested on the testimony
of a man whose powers of observation and recall were
demonstrably unreliable. It assumed that Allan Park’s
hindsight was 20/20 when he didn’t recall seeing the
Bronco before he saw O.J., and irrelevant when he didn’t
recall hearing the Bronco return. The fact that he
recalled seeing another car that wasn’t there would tend
to support O.J.’s alibi. The fact that he never said he
saw the Bronco , even when he was leaving for LAX, would
also tend to support O.J.’s alibi.
Paradoxically, a Bronco that never moved during the
killing works against the most plausible theory that O.J.
was framed. The only way a perfect frame could work,
would be if O.J. didn’t have a solid alibi and the people
setting him up knew it. By the same token, the setup
didn’t have to be perfect if the killer was sure the
prosecutors would argue imperfect evidence as though it
was perfect. It had to be a cop who knew people like Gil
Garcetti, Marcia Clark, and Christopher Darden in 1994 as
well as we have come to know them since. It had to be
someone who knew how to reel in Marcia Clark from a sea
of deputy prosecutors in advance of the murders, with
ironclad assurance that he would get her. Warrant
problems + spouse abuse allegations = Marcia Clark, up
front, on the scene and eager to help the cops.
In California, the rage killing of one person would not
normally carry the penalty of death. The murder of two
people in a particularly brutal way is supposed to, on
grounds of "special circumstances." In other words the
double homicide could have been an attempted triple
homicide, with the media and the law as weapons selected
by the killer to torture and kill his third victim, O.J.
Simpson.
The only way all of the evidence in the case makes sense
is if you see it as a made-for-television drama staged to
make the accused and his chief accuser look like
something they weren’t. You have to see it as a grisly
publicity stunt by which Mark Fuhrman sought to call
attention to himself and launch a new career as a
best-selling author and media personality.
For two years, my theory had gaps of its own, left by an
absolute refusal of anybody with the resources to
investigate the possible involvement of Fuhrman in the
murders, to do so. For OJG’s the MFG idea was too silly
to contemplate. For OJI’s it was too risky.
1). O.J.’s Alibi—If the only way that a premeditated plot
to frame O.J. could have worked for Fuhrman is if the
Bronco had been stolen and returned, O.J.’s alibi goes
with it.
2). Phillips’ Call—Fuhrman said he wasn’t on call that
night. If he had no way of knowing he’d be called to the
crime scene by his boss, Ron Phillips, he couldn’t have
planned the killing or carried out a successful frame.
3). Fuhrman’s Alibi—If an investigation proved that
Fuhrman was a speaker at the Police Protective League
picnic he was supposed to have been attending at the time
of the killing, his alibi would prove that he didn’t do
it.
4). Other Loose Ends—A real investigation of Fuhrman as a
murder suspect could prove that the shoe didn’t fit worth
a damn, either literally or figuratively.
The only reason that the evidence against O.J. ever
looked impressive is because he was the only suspect.
When there was no more proof that he committed the
murders than there was that Fuhrman did, there did seem
to be evidence that pointed to both men and some that
pointed only to Fuhrman. Moreover, the quality of the
evidence against Fuhrman has always been on an entirely
different level. The facts and circumstances that
incriminate him could not have been altered, anticipated,
manipulated or misrepresented by another party to frame
him. Not so with the evidence against Simpson.
Much of that evidence, in explicit or implicit form, can
be characterized as look-alike—duplicates or close enough
approximations to be identified as O.J.’s by description
or type. The Swiss Army knife, the German Stiletto, the
expensive Italian shoes and the sports utility vehicle
that Robert Heidstra saw on Dorothy all fall in that
category. Even some hair and fiber evidence was made up
of types of hair and fibers traceable to someone other
than Simpson if anyone had cared to do it. And the blood?
If the possibility of tampering by Mark Fuhrman or Brad
Roberts did not exist, neither would much doubt of O.J.’s
guilt. Only it does exist. In fact, with a little inside
help here, a purloined key there, and the right spin on
the wrong questions, it would have been easy for either
of them to do it.
The balance of evidence falls entirely in favor of
Item: The shoeprints left by the killer implicate O.J.,
but could have been worn by someone else for that
purpose. They could have been worn by a man with motive,
means, opportunity and size 12 Bruno Magli shoes. They
could have been worn by a man with contacts in Nicole’s
inner circle who knew how much the Bruno Maglis resembled
shoes O.J. wore to his daughter’s dance recital. If you
don’t know it now, you will learn that Mark Fuhrman fits
that description in every respect.
Item: Strong evidence suggests that two knives were used
by one man to cause the different kinds of bruises on the
victims’ skulls and the bloodshed that made the
shoeprints possible. All of which points to an
ambidextrous military history buff (combined sword and
dagger fighting style of 16th century Italy—home of the
Stiletto, with the long blade held in the right hand and
the short blade in the left). That’s Fuhrman, not
Simpson.
Item: The long-bladed knife with the heavy handle and
hammer-like butt used to incapacitate Nicole was not the
one O.J. purchased at Ross Cutlery, but one just like it.
The way it was used points to a military man. The way the
short knife was used to torture and kill Ron Goldman,
points to a martial artist who enjoyed making people
suffer. That’s Mark Fuhrman—who searched O.J.’s house and
said he found evidence of a missing Swiss Army knife
after another detective found the Stiletto unused.
Item: The German Stiletto could have left wounds
consistent with a Swiss Army knife and vice versa.
Therefore, had either knife been found by Fuhrman or
Roberts in their search of O.J.’s home, nothing could
have stopped them from pulling a switch. "The" murder
weapon could have been found with Ron’s, Nicole’s and
OJ’s blood on it in an alley one block south and two or
three blocks east of Bundy, with no way for O.J. to prove
it was a duplicate of the missing one. Imagine what
Jeffrey Toobin would have said about the candlepower of
anyone who believed a claim like that.
Item: I was so focused on the hammer-like quality of the
weapon Nicole was hit with, I forgot about the thin blade
that cut her until I saw it again during Dianne Sawyer’s
interview with Fuhrman after the civil trial. While
Stilettos may be advertised as hunting knives, I kept
thinking that "the" murder weapon was a conventional
hunting knife. I’ve seen lots of hunting knives and more
Stilettos than I like to admit. I’ve seen only one like
Sawyer had on the table during her Prime Time Live
interview with Fuhrman. That’s when I remembered that I
had seen it in O.J.’s criminal trial. It not only fits
Fuhrman better as a weapon of choice, it’s one that O.J.
could not have procured in secret. Fuhrman could have.
What would a homicide detective like Fuhrman have to gain
by procuring a knife identical to the one O.J. bought at
Ross Cutlery, then searching his house for a murder
weapon after O.J.’s ex was found with her throat cut?
...Give me a break.
Item: The Rockingham glove points both ways. That is, it
would if had fit O.J.’s hand. Several witnesses commented
on how surprisingly large O.J.’s hands were. No one ever
said that about Fuhrman’s hands.
Item: Assume that O.J. dropped the glove in a bumbling
rush to sneak into his house at 10:45 P.M. Does the
"trail of blood," that Roberts pointed out at Rockingham,
and the wet, sticky condition of the glove with no debris
on it when Fuhrman reported finding it at 6:06 the next
morning support that assumption?
Now assume that Roberts planted it.
Where was Roberts during and after Fuhrman’s talk with
Kato and before Fuhrman found the glove? Why did he make
no reports of his activities? Why did Phillips stumble
over Roberts’ name on the witness stand and imply that
his partner was Tom Nolan instead of Fuhrman? What was he
doing with the blood on O.J.’s driveway before Dennis
Fung intervened? How did he end up driving to Bundy
alone? Why is there no record of when he came to
Rockingham or how he got there? Why didn’t we know until
both trials were over that Roberts and Fuhrman were both
involved with "finding" the socks on O.J.’s rug? Why
didn’t Robert Heidstra get a chance to hear his voice?
Item: Neither the bumbling rush theory nor the plant
theory make much sense unless you assume that the killer
or killers planted both gloves. Simpson’s only reason to
plant them would have been to prove they didn’t fit his
unusually large hands—which opens the question of what he
could gain by leaving the cap and the shoeprints. The
plant theory makes perfect sense if Fuhrman was the
killer who gave one to Roberts to plant where he knew
he’d find it. He had a good excuse (three bangs on Kato’s
wall) to look there. Fuhrman knew about the Rockingham
glove before anyone else who wasn’t directly involved in
the killings. He is the only man who can be tied directly
to that look-alike glove which held the look-alike knife
[Image] that killed Ron Lyle Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.
Item: At Rockingham, Fuhrman followed a lead to the
right-hand glove that he should not have known about
because he wasn’t supposed to be on the case, let alone
at Simpson’s estate without a warrant. His link to that
glove and the undisturbed ground around it was his idea.
He put himself there and negotiated some thorny high
hurtles to do it. The idea that the Bronco was parked
suspiciously "crooked" was Fuhrman’s idea. The "bleeding
killer" theory was his, as well as the "people in need of
assistance" inside the Rockingham walls—the shaky grounds
for entering the estate that guaranteed Marcia Clark’s
role in the case.
Everything that points to Fuhrman as a killer out to
frame O.J. was exclusively within his control or the
control of his friends. That is not true with any of the
evidence against O.J., which is the essence of my problem
with the case against O.J., and the core of my case
against Fuhrman.
At every turn where the most improbable set of
circumstances would have to exist to clear O.J. and
implicate Fuhrman that’s what we find. That goes for the
long list of rare characteristics the killer and his
associates would have to have. The same goes for all of
the missing, duplicate, altered, misrepresented or
switched items of evidence that would have to exist at
all the right times and places with access by all the
right people. It would require misdirection and a
knowledgeable use of the power of suggestion.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that a stage magician uses all of
these things to take advantage of how human perception
works—the tricks of the trade to make a convincing
illusion.
That is not simply a tall order to fill; it is so
unlikely by the laws of random probability as to approach
the infinite. O.J. Simpson was framed by Mark Fuhrman for
a murder committed by Mark Fuhrman with the assistance of
his partner Brad Roberts, his old friend Ron Shipp,
Nicole’s "best friend" Faye Resnick, and her sister,
Denise Brown. The only member of that quintet I have any
doubt about is Denise—but only the tiniest bit—and only
because it’s hard for me to come to terms with sororicide
for money.
From the outset of the case when O.J. didn’t appear to
have an airtight alibi, something wasn’t quite right. He
didn’t have a compelling motive either, not for a popular
public figure who wasn’t under the influence of an
enraging precipitating event or a mind-altering drug.
Furthermore, if he had any reason to believe that a
critical inspection of blood and trace evidence would
hurt him, why did he hire the world’s leading forensic
authority, Dr. Henry Lee, to do his own investigation?
Dr. Lee, who is normally sought out by prosecutors, did
not trust the integrity of any of the blood and fiber
evidence (remember the cockroaches in the spaghetti?).
The reasons he gave were never convincingly rebutted. His
offer of his services to the prosecution in their "search
for truth" was declined. Furthermore, his ability to do
his job properly was rudely, deliberately and
consistently sabotaged by the LAPD and the DA’s office.
Had a civilian done as much to a prosecution forensic
expert, he would have been tried, convicted and thrown in
prison for obstruction of justice.
The idea that O.J. is guilty has corollaries, which, of
course, are like in-laws. When you take one member of the
family as your own, you have to take them all. Here is a
1). On the day he got a "Dear John" voice-mail from Paula
Barbiari, he secretly procured, used and disposed of an
unusual knife identical to the one he was known to have
bought at Ross Cutlery—or a large Swiss Army knife that
no one can show he ever owned.
2). He kept, unused in his home, the twin of the German
Stiletto used in the murders—or the large Swiss Amy knife
came out of a small knickknack box.
3). He put on a blue knit cap exactly like the one he
wore in the movie, The Naked Gun, to help disguise
himself.
4). He put on a sweatsuit of which there is no record and
no trace of his ever having in his home, took off his
Reeboks and sweatsocks and put on his dress socks and
casual dress shoes.
5). He drove his white Bronco to an area where it and his
distinctive gait would tell the neighbors who he was,
regardless of what he wore on or over his head if he were
seen.
6). He parked the Bronco on Rockingham, ran through a
neighbor’s yard next to Kato Kaelin’s guest house while
dripping blood on his driveway, jumped a fence, and
accidentally banged into Kato’s wall three times.
7). He strolled back to the front of the house with the
shoes somewhere other than on his feet and the sweatsuit
with blue/black fibers still on his body, unconcerned
that the chauffeur saw him coming from where he dropped
the bloody glove.
8). He ran upstairs, cleaned himself up, and dispose of
the knife, shoes and sweatsuit and all of its
fibers—except for the ones he left on the socks—and was
ready to go to LAX in less than 10 minutes.
Odd things do happen. Unlikely events are not the same as
impossible events, as I am constantly reminded by the
mind-bending coincidence of being in the same place five
years apart when I heard the different news stories about
O.J. and Nicole. Therefore, I can accept without much
question three or four of those improbable corollaries to
the proposition that O.J. did it. But even if some of
them didn’t cancel out others, how could I accept all
eight? And that’s the short list. The long list has
several times as many improbable corollaries.
That brings us back to Mark Fuhrman with his violent
hatred of black men and mixed couples. What on Earth was
he doing on the police force, let alone on the case of a
famous black man suspected of killing a white woman?
Please don’t say O.J. wasn’t a suspect. Unless the killer
is obviously someone else, the husband is always the
number one suspect.
Rosa Lopez testified that she heard two men talking
between the houses the night before, men whose voices she
didn’t know. The next day two men came by. One stayed in
the car. The other one identified himself as Detective
Mark Fuhrman. Both men spoke to her. Immediately after
Fuhrman determined that she could not identify the voices
she heard as his and Roberts’, the two men left.
What bothers me about that visit more than the questions
that weren’t asked, was the potential for foul play. If
Mrs. Lopez had disappeared that morning, never to be seen
again, there were no witnesses and no reports to say that
either of them had ever been there.
Fuhrman denied, at first, that he talked to her about
anything. When the logic of an ace detective not
questioning a potential witness to O.J.’s goings and
comings became untenable, he said he didn’t realize who
she was because the woman he talked to spoke perfect
English. No other LAPD officer interviewed her about what
she saw or heard. The LAPD sent a detective to talk only
to Mrs. Lopez’s employer, Mrs. Salinger, who wasn’t even
in the country on the 12th of June.
Not until Robert Shapiro’s investigator, Bill Pavelic,
erroneously reported that Mrs. Lopez saw the Bronco at
the time Marcia Clark erroneously reported that the
killing began, did Ms. Clark show any interest in Mrs.
Lopez. Then she angrily accused the defense of outrageous
misconduct in failing to tell her what she told them. The
conduct of the district attorney’s office in failing to
talk to Ms. Lopez, except for the purpose of protecting
Mark Fuhrman and attacking her, has never been an issue.
Fuhrman, of all the officers on the force, had the only
opportunity to "discover" the most dramatic evidence
against Simpson. The testimony of Rosa Lopez supports the
idea that he might have been there before he was called
"at home" by Phillips. In his own words, "I’m the key
witness in the biggest case of the century. And if I go
down, they lose the case...The glove is everything.
Without the glove, bye, bye." He didn’t mention the
splintered wood by the Bronco or the bloody fingerprint
on the gate until much later. He never did mention the
partial print on a lens of Judith Brown’s glasses or the
fact that the lens disappeared.
For a long time I believed that the shoes may have been
O.J.’s at one time despite his denials. The trouble was,
IF—and that was a big IF—O.J. had owned those "ugly ass"
Bruno Maglis, how could he have owned up to it when the
media were unanimous in saying ownership proved guilt? I
wondered what would have happened if the people bringing
us the news hadn’t been telling the world ahead of time
what the evidence had to mean.
That is now a moot question because I now know the
photographs were faked.
But what of the cap that had to be his or one of his
kids’, and the gloves Nicole bought "for O.J.?" What of
the timing of the cut finger? What of Nicole saying that
O.J. was going to kill her? What could these things mean
if not what they appear to mean?
If someone had set out to frame O.J., he would have known
all of these things and anticipated how they would look
with O.J. accused of murdering Nicole. He would have to
have known the criminal justice system and the kind of
evidence most likely to be given weight by the DA. He
would have to have been willing to bet his life that the
LAPD and the DA would zealously pursue the obvious clues
"...truly the giant mountain of evidence that we have
produced in court over these many weeks points to only
one person—and we know who that person is."). It had to
have been somebody who trusted other officers, and
officers of the court, to back him "without having to say
a word." It had to have been someone secretly affiliated
with Faye Resnick, Denise Brown, an spouse-abuse expert,
forgery expert, and friend of Denise and Faye—Ron Shipp.
Did such a person exist? Yes. Mark Fuhrman.
A frame-up, by definition, makes an innocent person look
guilty. What kind of a frame would it have been if the
evidence didn’t shout, "O.J. did it? Since a murder that
a man didn’t commit could never be proven, the evidence
against him would have to be circumstantial. The
specificity of the evidence would have to be extreme. The
amount would have to be overwhelming. It wouldn’t be
enough for the killer to wear size 12 Reeboks that
thousands of men could have worn. They had to be rare
shoes traceable to O.J. Simpson, whether he ever wore
them or not, as long as they were "missing" when police
went looking for them. It couldn’t have been a pair of
gloves that anyone could have owned, they had to be rare
gloves traceable to O.J. Simpson whether he ever wore
them or not. For DNA processing in the LAPD lab—where
anything could happen with the theft of one key—a
strangling wouldn’t do, especially with the knowledge
that O.J. was given Swiss Army knives and had recently
purchased a German Stiletto. Only a knifing would insure
the proper picture in the frame and lots of blood on the
scene to insure impressions of "missing" rare shoes.
These are "little things" that only a
brighter-than-average man who pays close attention to
details would have considered important, a man exactly
like Mark Fuhrman.
If O.J. was the victim of a frame-up, the people behind
it would have required several things: They would have
required intelligence, as in smarts, and intelligence, as
in access to biographical and tactical information and
the ability to gather information on the fly. They would
have required specialized training in silent kills,
special knowledge of the victims, and specialized
knowledge in homicide investigations. They would have
required a thorough understanding of the Los Angeles
County District Attorney’s Office, and how to get the
prosecutor they wanted to handle the case up front.
They would have required access to the incriminating
items of clothing; close proximity to Rockingham and
Bundy; access to both properties, transportation to them
and between them in a vehicle that could be mistaken for
a white Bronco. They would also have required patience
and a simple, long-range plan that could be modified as
needed over many months of waiting, if necessary, for
unmanageable elements of a successful attack to fall into
place. The plan would have to include one or more people
who could be called on at any time for the appearance of
an alibi but the alibi would have to be vulnerable to a
critical inspection.
Enough of these things applied to Mark Fuhrman to have
justified an objective investigation of him as a murder
suspect in June of ’93. He could have learned everything
he needed to know about O.J. and Nicole through police
records, tabloids, gossip shows, mutual acquaintances
like Ron Shipp, Faye Resnick, Denise Brown, or the
personal relationship he boasted of having with Nicole
two years before her death. Although the shoes did not
have to be Bruno Maglis, they probably were. Nicole bough
Bruno Magli brand shoes for herself at Bloomingdale’s in
New York. Fay Resnick went shopping with her in New York.
Therefore, Faye Resnick could have furnished the shoes
and gloves as well as the cap.
If Fuhrman was as good at planting evidence as he said he
was, getting the evidence would have been no trick at
all.
As far as smarts are concerned, Mark Fuhrman had enough
to get dozens of people who should have known better to
vouch for him after his violent, racist attitudes, on
record since 1982, were disclosed. He got the Police
Protective League (the LAPD union) to go to bat for him,
and millions of others to believe in him and to attack
anyone who didn’t before the McKinny tapes exposed him
for the violent racist he was from 1985 to 1995. He
showed that he could plan, organize and carry out
extremely complex tasks. In the eyes of most Americans,
he "proved" on the witness stand that he was a good cop
falsely accused of racism by an unscrupulous defense
team. For most people, even if he had been a racist at
one time in the distant past, that had nothing to do with
the evidence against O.J. Simpson. Mark Fuhrman persuaded
two thirds of a continent that anyone who said his racism
did matter was too stupid or too blinded by his or her
own prejudice to see the truth.
Fuhrman’s book, Murder in Brentwood, should have jogged
some memories about the origin of that idea. The book
begins, in earnest, with a phone call from Phillips and
moves swiftly to the murder scene where he gives no hint
of having known Nicole intimately. He then shows how he
found the evidence and made the deductions that proved
O.J.’s guilt. You’d have to be pretty dense not to see
how right he is on the facts that say O.J. is the killer.
They’re all there, all th...