by Kim Goldman
Another memory haunted Michael. He was the youngest brother, always looking up to Ron, Kim, and Brian. But Ron had moved out to a series of apartments. Kim had gone away to school, first in Santa Barbara and then in San Francisco. Brian was in college, back east. Michael recalled the moment when Ron had taken him aside and said, “Okay, Sport, you just went from the youngest brother to the oldest at home. You have to take care of Lauren now. It’s your job. I’m leaving it to you. Don’t disappoint me.”
Michael suddenly remembered that Lauren’s junior high graduation was tomorrow night, and he wondered how she was going to get through that.
On a normal day, I drive past Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park twice, going to and from work. It is on Lindero Canyon Boulevard, in Westlake Village just off the entrance to the Ventura Freeway. But this was not a normal day. Would there ever be another? I wondered. Rob drove Jim, Patti, Kim, and me to the cemetery, where we had a 2:00 P.M. appointment.
Nothing seemed real. Kim had always thought of me as being very strong—emotional, but strong—and now she witnessed me disintegrate before her eyes. It was as if all the oxygen had been siphoned from my body. I could not hold my head up. My shoulders melted into my chest. I kept repeating: “It’s not right. It should be me. You’re not supposed to bury your children.”
Kim could not believe that we were making plans to bury her big brother. There was nothing anyone could say, nothing anyone could do, to lessen her grief.
The funeral director asked, “Does Ron have a mother?”
I replied, “Yes.”
“What is her name?”
“Sharon Rufo.”
“Where is she living? Does she live here?”
“No, in St. Louis.”
The director then informed us that, according to California law, he needed the signatures of both parents to proceed with the burial plans.
That confused us. “She hasn’t seen Ron in years,” I commented. “I don’t know if it’s going to be that easy for me to get her signature.”
Kim called home and asked Joe to get Sharon’s telephone number. She wrote it down and handed it to one of the funeral directors. He immediately called, but was told that Sharon was unavailable and would call back later.
Another gentleman reminded us about Jewish burial practices. Traditionally, he said, Jewish people do not embalm and the deceased is wrapped in a sheet. The coffin is plain—as earthlike as possible. Kim thought: Forget tradition, I want it to be nice. I want it to be dignified. I want Ron buried in a suit, not a sheet.
Lifeless and limp, running on empty, I left the room for a few minutes to use the bathroom. While I was gone the mortician approached Patti and Kim. He looked directly at Kim and explained, “I didn’t want to say this in front of your father, but I have just spoken to the coroner. If you want Ron buried in a suit, the body will have to be embalmed. There is no way to keep him intact without embalming him. He is too badly cut up—the autopsy, you know—”
“—Go ahead, embalm him,” both Patti and Kim said quickly.
When I returned, Patti and Kim told me of their decision and why it was necessary. We had been too immobilized even to think about asking the authorities for details of the crime, so this was our first inkling of its vicious nature. The images that ran through my mind were more than I could bear. My son was gone, and now the thought of what he had endured filled me with even more intense anguish.
We needed to choose a coffin, but it was just too painful to consider. We walked into the room, pointed at a simple oak casket, and fled.
Television sets were on all through the house, and every channel seemed to be running constant reports about the murders.
Officials were refusing to identify any suspect publicly, but there were reports that police had found a blood-soaked glove at O. J. Simpson’s estate, and they believed that the glove may have been worn by the killer. Police were saying very little about the crime, declining to offer a possible motive or to say exactly when the attack was believed to have occurred. Officers said only that there were signs of a struggle and that there was no evidence that the attack occurred during a robbery or a burglary.
Police revealed that they had been called to Nicole’s townhouse, in the 800 block of South Bundy Drive, several times in the recent past to deal with domestic disputes between Simpson and his former wife. “It’s an ongoing problem,” one officer said. We also learned that Simpson had pleaded no contest to a spousal-battery charge filed after he allegedly hit Nicole, kicked her, and threatened, “I’ll kill you.” None of this seemed to make any sense. What did it have to do with Ron?
Were Ron and Nicole lovers? Absolutely not. Ron never hid those things from his family, especially his sister. Kim had no doubt that if the two had been involved in a romantic relationship, or even a close friendship, he would have confided in her, in all of us. In fact, it was a standing joke between Ron and Kim. Ron used to tell his dates that they had to meet Kim, to “pass muster,” and she told her dates the same thing about Ron.
Nicole was simply a friend who happened to come to Mezzaluna that Sunday night; her mother had left a pair of glasses there; Ron offered to return them.
Kim took a call from Jeff Keller and Mike Davis, who introduced themselves as two of Ron’s friends from Brentwood. They informed Kim that they and some others from the area had been interviewed for a segment about Ron on one of the many tabloid TV shows, and they did not want our family to be surprised by the broadcast. We appreciated that. Kim told them about the funeral arrangements and they indicated their desire to attend.
In the television reports we continued to hear frequent references to “Nicole’s friend Ron, an aspiring actor,” or “sometime model,” and these descriptions upset us. Ron had been searching for his niche, but he’d had ambitious plans for his life, and they never included acting or modeling. The reporters did not know Ron, so how could they characterize him so falsely and in such a cavalier way?
Every time Michael heard the phrase “Nicole Brown and a friend,” it drove him crazy. Finally he shouted at the screen: “You know what? He’s got a name. He’s got a family. It’s not just Nicole Brown and … a friend!”
Over the years Ron and Kim had made their own decisions about their relationship with their mother. I could picture them so clearly—two little tykes, standing on the balcony of our second-floor apartment, gazing at the street below, waiting for their mother to arrive for a planned visit. She rarely showed up, but she always had a good excuse. One day when the kids were still young, about nine and six, they came to me and asked: “Do we have to call Mom … Mom?”
Surprised, I asked, “Why?”
“Well, she doesn’t act like a mom, so why do we have to call her Mom?”
Their matter-of-fact manner surprised me. They had clearly given this a great deal of thought.
I replied, “No, not if you don’t want to, but what will you call her?”
“Sharon,” they answered simultaneously.
“If that’s what you want, it’s okay. Are you sure?”
Again they answered in unison: “Yeah.”
They never again referred to Sharon as “Mom.”
And now Kim asked: “Why do we need Sharon’s signature? She hasn’t seen Ron in years. She wouldn’t know him if she saw him. It’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t know why,” I answered. “But we have to do it. Let’s be done with it.”
A determined look appeared on Kim’s face.
After all my years as primary caretaker, our roles suddenly reversed. While I sat, staring at the walls, Kim began trying to take care of me. She placed the call to St. Louis and told Sharon that we would fax her a paper to sign so that we could bury Ron.
Sharon answered, “No.” She did not want Ron buried in California; she wanted him buried in Chicago, where, she said, his family was. It made no sense. She lived in St. Louis, and her parents now lived in Florida. In addition, Ron had not seen anyone from Sharon’s sid
e of the family in many, many years.
An emotional, tear-filled argument ensued. Kim begged, “Please, if you ever loved me at all, you will do this for me.” But Sharon held firm.
I could not understand the mentality of this woman, and I sensed a premonition. This tragedy, horrible as it was, seemed destined to open old, deep, all-but-forgotten wounds. I could not deal with the memories now, but I knew that I would have to face them.
Kim called back several times, but could not get Sharon to change her mind.
Lauren did not know why the entire world was watching.
She continued to vacillate—she wanted to be alone, then she wanted to be with her friends. It did not matter, because they were going to be here anyway. Breann, Teresa, Vicky, Jenny, Jamie, Julie, Megan, and John—all of them—were determined to remain close.
All Lauren could think of was the way Ron loved to dance and joke around. She remembered the day when they were sitting in the family room watching a favorite music video. Ron suddenly swooped her up, spun her around, and danced with her while her legs dangled in the air. She also remembered how Ron—aided and abetted by Michael—would often hold her down on the floor and tickle her unmercifully. None of that was going to happen anymore.
This evening, Rabbi Johnson held a service at our home. When he asked Lauren to repeat some of the parts of the Torah that she had recited at her Bat Mitzvah, she was surprised that she remembered them after nearly a year. She knew that whenever she thought about her Bat Mitzvah, she would remember Ron and how much fun we all had at the party following the ceremony.
Ron’s date that night was a lovely young woman named Lauren Cohen, whom we all liked a lot. She was not glamorous, as many of Ron’s girlfriends had been, but she was very pretty and radiated a genuine warmth. She made an easy connection with everyone. I took Ron aside and, glancing at Lauren, told him I thought he had a real winner. He responded with an ear-to-ear grin.
At one point during the party, Ron and I picked up inflated rubber guitars and lip-synched to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock ’n’ Roll.” Ron spent the entire evening dancing, singing, smiling, and laughing. It is a memory permanently etched in our minds.
That night, all of Lauren’s girlfriends had told her how cute and how much fun Ron was. They were the same friends who remained close to her now, and some of them stayed as late as midnight. Several of them asked if she wanted to sleep at their houses, but she preferred to stay at home.
When Lauren was finally alone, trying to get some sleep, her eyes fell upon a poignant object. She remembered the time she caught the flu from Ron. She was lying on the couch with a 104 degree temperature when Ron walked in with a special present. He felt so guilty about bringing the flu bug into the house that he had bought “Squirt” a new teddy bear.
She clutched the bear close to her now.
FOUR
For some unfathomable reason, the sun continued to rise and set. Details still had to be attended to. Rob drove Joe, Kim, and me to Ron’s apartment to pick out a suit for the funeral. Kim and I wandered aimlessly around the living room, incapable of any kind of decision making. Joe and Rob went to Ron’s closet and selected a dark blue suit.
As we were about to leave, the phone rang. For a moment, we simply stared at it. Finally Kim picked it up.
A man’s voice asked, “Is Ron there?”
Kim began to cry hysterically. “What?” she sobbed, “Why are you asking me this? Don’t you know he’s been killed?” She slammed the receiver back into its cradle.
Moments later, the phone rang again. When Kim picked it up, the same voice asked, “Is this Kim? His sister?”
“Yeah,” Kim replied, still shaken. The poor man was nearly as upset as Kim. “I’m really sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t know what to do, what to say. I just wanted to go to the funeral. I wanted to know where it would be. I used to work with your brother and he talked about you all the time. I’m really sorry.”
The words “he talked about you all the time” pushed every emotional button Kim had. The comment devastated her, but it also made her feel cherished to know that her brother spoke of her to people whom she had never met.
The rest of us watched in silence as Kim wandered through Ron’s apartment, opening cabinets, looking into sparsely stocked cupboards, checking the refrigerator’s contents. There was very little to eat here. Kim commented about the likelihood of Ron starving to death. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. “How could I say something so stupid?” she muttered to no one in particular.
Seven years earlier, shortly after we moved to California, someone had suggested that Rob and Barb Duben should call us because they had children about the same age as ours, attended the same synagogue, and otherwise had a lot in common with us. Barb’s response had been “I don’t want to meet them. I’ve got too many friends already. I can’t deal with any more friends.” We had laughed about that comment over the years because when we did meet, the four of us hit it off immediately. We became the closest of friends, sharing vacations and other good times. Now we shared the worst of times. Rob and Barb were there for us, doing everything possible to help us through this horror, as were many more of our wonderful friends.
The phone rang constantly. Gifts of food and flowers covered every available table and countertop. People did everything for us, cooking or warming meals, answering the phone, running errands, responding to the doorbell. It was similar to what is called “sitting shiva,” when people care for a bereaved family the week following a funeral, but it was much more than that. Our friends were here, not out of a sense of duty, but because they truly cared. They were the rocks that we held on to. We could not have made it without them.
By now an army of reporters, with their vans, cameras, and microphones, were camped outside, lining both sides of the street. We were under siege, but still unaware of the magnitude of what lay ahead.
The media were reporting that mounting evidence was linking Simpson to the murders, and projecting the possibility that he could be arrested within days. Sources said that bloodstains were found in Simpson’s car and at his Brentwood mansion.
Neither the coroner’s office nor the police would release further details about the time of death, the exact nature of the wounds, or the weapons used to inflict them. However, a source said that Nicole’s throat was slashed and that Ron’s wounds indicated that he put up a fierce struggle before he died.
The press said that investigators planned to move quickly and might rely on matching blood types, rather than waiting for full DNA test results.
We learned that Assistant District Attorney Marcia Clark was assigned to the case.
Simpson’s lawyer, Howard Weitzman, insisted that his client was not involved and that he was a victim of unfair and unfounded rumors.
That same day, Simpson retained the services of Robert L. Shapiro, a high-profile attorney who had previously represented a number of celebrities, including baseball player Darryl Strawberry and Frank Sinatra’s daughter Tina. Although he said he would remain as an adviser, Weitzman stepped aside, saying, “I have decided because of my personal relationship with O. J. Simpson and my many other professional commitments, I can no longer give O.J. the attention he both deserves and needs.”
Shapiro stepped quickly and eagerly into the spotlight. It was reported that he had solicited the services of a criminologist and a pathologist whom he refused to identify other than saying they were top professionals.
The Los Angeles Times ran a hastily prepared profile of Ron that bore little resemblance to the son and brother we knew. Ron sounded like some fast-track Brentwood “wannabe”:
Life for Ronald Lyle Goldman was a nonstop merry-go-round of working out at a trendy gym, serving dinner at a trendy restaurant and dancing at trendy nightclubs. … he had model good looks, a body sculpted by daily weight lifting sessions and tennis, and a magnetic personality that friends said made them want to hang around him, just to see what h
e would be up to next….
In the article, Ron’s best friend, Mike Pincus, confirmed what we already knew. “He definitely would have told me if he was seeing O. J. Simpson’s ex-wife,” Mike said. “That’s just the kind of guy Ron was. Whenever he was dating someone, we all knew about it.”
Kim’s reaction to the friends and neighbors who filled our house was very much like Lauren and Michael’s. When she was around people, Kim wanted to be alone. When she was alone, she could not stand the isolation. She spent much of the day maniacally dialing the phone, ignoring time zones, calling a variety of old friends around the country, confirming the horrible news.
“I need to talk to Brian,” Kim said. Brian Swislow had been Kim’s first serious boyfriend. He and his sister Julie still lived in Chicago, and the four of them, Brian, Julie, Kim, and Ron, had remained close over the years. She called him and broke the news. He was crushed, as she knew he would be.
After they talked, Kim recalled a conversation they once had. Brian told her that he gave a sentimental speech at Julie’s wedding, and what a wonderful experience it was. Kim told him how much she looked forward to the day when Ron and I would give her away at her own wedding.
“Sometimes looking at Brian and Julie was like looking at a mirror image of us,” Kim said, “but now a piece of that reflection is gone forever.”
The funeral was scheduled for tomorrow, but Sharon was still refusing to sign the wretched release form, still demanding that Ron be buried in Chicago. At this moment she was in control, and she knew it. Could she really stop us from burying Ron where and when we chose? That possibility frightened us. Deciding once more to take matters into her own hands, Kim called Sharon back and begged for cooperation.
Sharon responded by spouting how she had been shut out of Ron and Kim’s lives—everything was my fault, Patti’s fault, Patti’s kids’ fault, Ron’s fault, or her second husband’s fault. The fact that she had told Kim repeatedly that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with her, or her brother, apparently escaped her memory. Sharon complained to Kim that I should be grieving with her instead of with Patti. She was also angry that I had informed Kim about the tragedy before notifying her.
