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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Knife Found at Simpson Estate Faces Testing

LOS ANGELES (CN) - Los Angeles Police Department investigators are testing a knife purportedly found on a property once owned by O.J. Simpson, a department official confirmed Friday.

A jury acquitted the former football player of the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman on Oct. 3, 1995. The two victims died from stab wounds on the evening of June 12, 1994, as Brown's two young children were sleeping inside their Brentwood residence.

The criminal case against Simpson, which began on Nov. 9, 1994, was billed as the "trial of the century." The American public was deeply divided along racial lines over Simpson's guilt or innocence.

LAPD Capt. Andrew Neiman said that the department became aware of a knife that a construction worker claimed to have found at Simpson's former Rockingham estate in Brentwood. The department came into possession of the knife in the "last month" after it was allegedly given to an LAPD officer, he said.

Interest in the case has skyrocketed recently because of the FX mini-series "The People v. O.J. Simpson." The coincidence of the discovery and the airing of the TV show was observed by Neiman, who said this morning that the "timing is certainly interesting."

The officer has said he had received the knife two decades ago, Neiman said. The knife was found "possibly during the demolition" of the estate in 1998, he said.

"We need to vet that. We still don't know if that's an accurate account of how the item came into our possession," Neiman said at a morning press conference.

He added that the item had been described as a knife but added, "I'm not going to go into the description of the knife because that could be germane as to whether or not this an actual piece of evidence, or it's just a facsimile, or a made-up story."

Neiman said that an off-duty officer was working in the area of the estate when someone claiming to be a construction worker gave him the knife and said it had been found on the property.

Years after his acquittal in the Brown-Goldman case, Simpson was convicted of kidnapping, robbery, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon and other charges after claiming that he was trying to get back memorabilia that he owned. He is serving his sentence in a Nevada prison.

The existence of the knife was first reported by TMZ.

Attorney Carl Douglas helped win Simpson's acquittal. He could not immediately be reached for comment by phone on Friday.

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