O.J. Simpson's murder trial dominated headlines for months,
but who was Nicole Brown Simpson, the woman O.J. was accused of killing?
There's nothing quite like the love of a dog, and on that June night in 1994,
it was the "melancholy" howling of Nicole Brown Simpson's dog that
first alerted neighbors to the fact that something terribly wrong had happened.
Neighbors all heard the dog, reported the Associated Press:
Steven Schwab took a break to walk his own dog when he came across the white Akita,
and saw that the dog was splattered with blood. Schwab's neighbor — also summoned
by the dog's wails — decided to take the dog and walk it back in the direction it had come from.
The dog ran up the path to a condo, where the bloodied body of Nicole Brown Simpson lay. Later,
the Los Angeles Times reported that the dog's actions allowed
authorities to pinpoint the time of the murders.
The Washington Post reported that the courtroom was uncomfortable on
the day that they were shown photos of the crime scene and read descriptions from the
coroner's findings. Highlighting the brutality of the killings was necessary to establish the
idea that the murders had been committed in a fit of jealous rage. Los Angeles County
Coroner Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran testified that Nicole Brown Simpson
had been lying on the ground, unable to fight back against an attacker that stood over her,
as her throat was cut with such force that the knife sliced into her spine.
The New York Times reported that prosecutors were also able to make strong cases for a
few other things based on the state of the bodies. Although Nicole was covered in blood,
her feet were clean, which led police to conclude that she had been killed first,
and that she had been restrained as it happened.
Law enforcement testified that Ron Goldman, on the other hand,
fought back. Marks in the dirt around his body — and the fact that his shirt
was pulled up — seemed to indicate that a struggle took place immediately after Nicole
was killed. Nicole was stabbed a total of 12 times, while Goldman was stabbed 25 times.
"Mr. Simpson is a fugitive of justice right now."
According to the Associated Press' timeline of Nicole Brown Simpson's murder and the
following court case, the night started with her daughter's dance recital. Her
children — Sydney and Justin — were just eight and five years old when she was
killed at their home. Had their dog not alerted neighbors and dragged them to the crime scene,
it's entirely possible they would have discovered the bodies of their mother and Goldman.
PennLive says that when law enforcement first responded to the call from neighbors,
they found a tranquil scene inside the home. She had drawn a bath and made a bowl of ice cream,
and the television was on. Her children were sound asleep in their respective bedrooms,
unaware of what had happened just outside their doorstep.
Nicole's family has spoken about the struggle to protect the children from the media circus that
followed, and their attempts at helping them live as normal a life as possible.
Regardless of whether one thinks O.J. Simpson was guilty or innocent, there's no denying
that Nicole Brown Simpson's murder brought a chilling history to light. During O.J.'s trial,
prosecutors pointed to an incident that happened on January 1, 1989:
When police arrived at the Simpson home, Nicole had injuries so extensive that she
was taken to the hospital for treatment. The official police report quoted her as saying,
"He's going to kill me! He's going to kill me!"
According to The New York Times, it was the ninth time officers had responded
to domestic violence-related calls at the home. Four months after the call,
O.J. was sentenced to two years' probation, 120 hours of community service, a $200 fine,
and a court-ordered $500 donation to a women's shelter. Officers recounted Nicole as saying,
"You never do anything about him. You talk to him and then
you leave. I want him arrested. I want him out so I can get my kids."
When questions were raised about whether or not O.J had gotten
preferential treatment because of his fame, Lucy Friedman of New York City's
Victim Services said that jail sentences for domestic battery were rare, saying,
"It's still not considered as serious a crime as battering on the street."
"Finally in 1992, Nicole woke up to the reality of her situation."
Nicole Brown Simpson's death came about two years after she left
and divorced O.J. Simpson. They had been married for about seven years,
and in the middle of their time together, O.J. had been charged with spousal battery.
According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, their relationship had started
with often-overlooked warning signs. That, they say, included a courtship that progressed very,
very quickly, in which Nicole was showered with gifts that O.J. often talked about:
The hotline says that a new partner might be more willing to accept or overlook
hints of abusive behavior if they're also being treated as if they are being put on a pedestal.
There were also reports of intimidation,
and the hotline cites one incident where police were called after O.J. smashed
her car's windshield with a baseball bat. In the Fox television special,
O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession?, domestic violence commentator Rita Smith points out:
"Subtle, and not so subtle, forms of violence are used to continue to keep control over their
victim. So him just bouncing the bat off the tire, initially, was a subtle message:"
"I am in charge. I will determine the framework for this relationship."
O.J. recalled the incident and indicated there was nothing wrong with what happened, saying,
"I mean, it's my car, I paid for it, I said, 'I pay for everything around here.'"
During O.J. Simpson's trial for Simpson's murder, prosecutors decided that they needed to establish
a motive. When they started interviewing those who knew Nicole, they uncovered what they presented as
a pattern of stalking and harassment in the months and years leading up to her death.
One of the most intriguing testimonies came from Keith Zlomsowitch, a name that might
not be instantly recognizable, but that is forever tied to the tragic events of that
1994 night. Zlomsowitch was — in addition to having dated Nicole — the owner of the
restaurant that Nicole had eaten dinner at on the night of her death, and the employer of Ron
Goldman. Zlomsowitch testified to a series of incidents where he said O.J. had spied on them,
kicked the door of her house in, and issued some pretty serious threats. It was also Zlomsowitch
who asked Goldman to drop off a pair of sunglasses that Nicole had left behind.
Los Angeles police officer Ron Shipp was in a bit of a unique position:
Not only was he a friend of the Simpsons, but he was also one of the responding officers to her
phone calls to the police. He told Vanity Fair she had told him she was being stalked, and recalled,
"The Juice peeking through a window? Come on! I
didn't see that happening. [...] I gave this guy so much leeway."
Faye Resnick was most recently featured on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,
but in the early 1990s, she was a friend of both Nicole Brown Simpson and O.J. Simpson. Just a few
months after Nicole's murder, the release of her book, Nicole Brown Simpson: The Private Diary of
a Life Interrupted brought the trial to a halt as it was debated whether or not the contents would
have an influence. Still, Vulture says that the book — described as tawdry and tragic — reads,
in part, as troublingly honest. That's particularly evident in places where
Resnick not only accuses O.J. of some manipulative behavior, but seems to reveal some of her own,
including an incident where she asks Nicole not to leave O.J. until after a party she was planning.
"He's just saying anything he can without proof, without evidence."
According to the Associated Press, Resnick said that she had called Nicole just a
few hours before her death. She also said that a few days prior,
she had told Nicole that she was afraid that she was going to die. She recalled telling her,
"Please, let's just get out of here. Let's go to Europe."
Nicole told her in response that the drugs she was taking were making her paranoid. Needless to say,
Nicole didn't go to Europe, and on the night she was murdered,
Resnick was in an addiction treatment facility.
The year 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the verdict in O.J. Simpson's criminal trial. On
that occasion, Investigation Discovery aired O.J. and Nicole: An American Tragedy, with one of the
major reveals of the show being Nicole's diaries. Her sister, Tanya Brown, was quoted as saying,
"Maybe she knew this was her destiny, and maybe subconsciously, she knew something
was going to happen. Maybe that's why she kept real detailed diary entries."
The diaries, it was revealed, were discovered in a safe deposit box along with photos of
her injuries. The first entry went all the way back to 1978, and she wrote,
"1st time he beat me up [...] Threw me on the floor, hit me, kicked me. We went to
the hotel where he continued to beat me for hours and I continued crawling for the door."
She also wrote about other incidents that sent her to the hospital, and she detailed pretending that
she was in an accident of one sort or another. In another entry, she wrote that he had pulled
a gun on her and demanded she have an abortion. The diaries weren't allowed to be entered as
evidence during the murder trial, as it was ruled they were hearsay and not admissible.
"Subconsciously she knew something was gonna happen."
It's no secret that in many cases, the names of the victims get overlooked and buried behind the
names of accused killers. And that, says some of Nicole Brown Simpson's closest friends and family,
is the second part of the tragedy. As a friend told the Los Angeles Times,
"I feel that Nicole has gotten lost in all this."
Even as the criminal court case of O.J. Simpson dragged on, she was portrayed as
a victim of domestic abuse and, ultimately, of murder. But those who knew her best argued
that so much more was lost in the courtroom. They knew a Nicole who had spent all of her
adult life in a celebrity relationship — the couple met when she was 18 years old — and
they also knew that she had been determined to break away from that and forge her own path.
They knew a Nicole who was, quote, "bubbly, always happy and smiling," according to her
former teacher Bill Prestridge. They described a girl who was ready to get out of high school,
who wanted to do big things, and for a time, all appearances seemed to be
one of a happy and loving relationship. However, one friend was quoted as saying,
"The truth is, no one really knew her during her
marriage. [...] She was never free to be herself or [to] have friends."
While no killer ever served jail time for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman,
something else did happen: It put domestic violence on the nation's
radar as an issue that wasn't just something that lurked behind closed
doors anymore. The statistics from a 2018 Violence Policy Center report were pretty
staggering. It's estimated that one in four women will be victims of domestic
violence. The numbers were just as shocking for men, with one in nine also being victims.
Nicole Brown Simpson's death and ultimately her letters, diaries, and photographs opened up a
conversation about domestic violence. In some cases, it was in the context of Nicole's death
that people heard the term "domestic violence" for the first time. That's true for Katie Ray-Jones,
who went on to become the CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. On the heels of the
trial came the Violence Against Women Act, and Ray-Jones described the case as, quote,
"exposure into this world of abuse, specifically physical abuse and emotional abuse, and that
controlling behavior that we all started hearing about as the trial unfolded."