Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — In a case that’s had more unexpected, startling and outrageous twists than television’s best crime-show writer could concoct, Los Angeles police revealed Friday they are examining a knife they were told was found at the home where O.J. Simpson was living when he was charged and later acquitted of stabbing to death his ex-wife and her friend more than 20 years ago.
The knife — believed to have been recovered by a construction worker tearing down the house and then given to an off-duty cop — surfaced just as the popular “People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” anthology is airing on the FX television channel.
A citizen supposedly found the knife and turned it over to a now-retired police motorcycle officer who was working as a security guard at a filming location, police Capt. Andy Neiman said.
It was being analyzed by an LAPD crime lab for DNA or other material that could possibly link it to the killings.
Neiman stressed that the authenticity of the story was not confirmed and investigators were looking into whether “this whole story is possibly bogus from the get-go.”
“It’s unusual how this all of a sudden becomes a huge story during this time,” Neiman added, referring to the TV show.
Even if the knife is linked to Simpson, legal experts say he couldn’t be criminally charged again because of the double jeopardy rule.
“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 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. Other knives have surfaced during the case but were not linked to the crimes.
In 1994, a salesman testified at a preliminary hearing that he sold Simpson a knife before the killings.
That same month a woman turned in a red-stained kitchen knife she said she found near Simpson’s home, and a handle and a piece of blade of a knife were found in a tank that collects waste from airplanes at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, where Simpson flew the night of the killings.
In 1998, a residential construction crew found a folding-blade knife in Simpson’s former neighborhood but police said there was no evidence to show it was related to any crime.
The bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman were found stabbed multiple times outside her home on June 12, 1994.
The discovery led to the so-called “Trial of the Century,” in which the former football star was represented by a team of high-profile attorneys led by the flamboyant Johnnie Cochran.
A jury acquitted Simpson in 1995 after deliberating only four hours.
In 1997, a civil court jury found him liable for the slayings and awarded $33.5 million in damages to the victims’ families.
Fred Goldman, father of victim Ron Goldman, declined to discuss this latest turn in the case.
“He doesn’t feel he has much to say at this point. He wants to wait until he knows more,” Goldman’s wife, Patti Goldman, said during a brief phone interview.
Simpson’s Brentwood mansion was torn down after he moved to Florida following his acquittal.
Simpson, who has always maintained his innocence in the killings, is now serving a sentence of nine to 33 years in a Nevada prison for a 2007 armed robbery and kidnapping conviction in which he tried to retrieve football memorabilia. He is eligible for parole next year.
His Las Vegas lawyer said he hadn’t talked to Simpson about the recently discovered knife but raised question about who was in possession of it over the years.
“The only thing I’ve heard is that some cop claims some other guy claims he found a knife on some property,” attorney Malcolm LaVergne said. “From what I can see there’s no chain of custody.”
Police don’t know the identity of the person who found the knife and have asked that he or she come forward.
Neimen said police are also looking into whether criminal charges could be filed against the ex-officer who held onto the knife, adding an officer who comes into contact with evidence is required to turn it over to investigators in all circumstances.
Copyright 2016 Associated Press