His Name Is Ron

by Kim Goldman

  In a shy and unassuming manner, Chris Darden opened the trial. Speaking directly to the jury, he said, “We’re here today, obviously, to resolve an issue, to settle a question … Did O. J. Simpson really kill Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman? … The evidence will show that the answer to the question is yes.”

  Chris attacked head-on the problem of the defendant’s fame. “Like many men in public, there is a public image, a public side, a public life,” he said, characterizing that image as “the smiling face you saw in the Hertz commercial.” But, Chris declared, “He may also have a private side, a private face. And that is the face we will expose to you in this trial, the other side of O. J. Simpson—the other face that Nicole Brown encountered almost every day of her adult life, the face she encountered at the last moment of her adult life, the face that encountered Ronald Goldman during the last moments of his life.”

  The prosecution had decided to lead with a one-two punch. Chris outlined the evidence of the defendant’s systematic abuse of Nicole, thereby providing a motive. Then it was Marcia Clark’s turn to discuss the physical evidence.

  Methodically she listed the blood and hair samples connecting the defendant to the crime. She displayed photographs of five separate drops of blood, collected from the crime scene. As each photo was displayed on a screen in front of the jury, she intoned, “Matches the defendant.” She declared that hair samples found on a cap at the crime scene appeared to match the defendant’s hair. Fibers on the cap resembled fibers from the carpet of the defendant’s car. A hair found on Ron’s shirt resembled the defendant’s hair. On and on it went. We were amazed at the sheer volume of physical evidence.

  Then came the first of what we knew would be many difficult moments. The prosecution team projected two large photographs of the murder scene, which were not shown on TV but were very visible to us. Although we were warned not to look, we did. One photograph showed Nicole’s body, wearing the same black cocktail dress that she had worn to Mezzaluna earlier that evening.

  The other showed Ron’s body, slumped around a tree stump. His shirt was pulled up, and there was blood all over the place. Weeping and holding on to one another, we were overcome by a barrage of feelings: shock, hurt, nausea, sorrow, and helplessness. How could anyone commit such brutality? Patti found herself hoping that Ron had died quickly. She could not bear the thought of him being scared and in agony. None of us could.

  Up until this day, we could only speculate as to what had happened. Now there was nothing left to wonder about.

  We continued to cry and embrace one another until the image was gone. But it was gone only from the screen. It was etched so deeply into our minds that it will never disappear.

  Patti did not know a thing about Johnnie Cochran, but when he strutted into the courtroom the following day, glad-handing and blowing kisses, she decided that she detested him. The entire team of defense attorneys, with the defendant in their center, laughed and joked with one another as they awaited Cochran’s opening statement. There was no sense from them that two young lives had been lost and that we were all there to search for the truth.

  Court convened, and Judge Ito gave the floor to the defense. Moving meticulously, Cochran pushed his chair in, straightened his suit jacket, tugged at his tie, and walked slowly toward the podium. He glanced at Judge Ito, smiled, and nodded his head. Judge Ito returned the smile.

  In silky tones, Cochran wasted no time in tugging at the sympathies of the black jurors. “You’ve heard a lot about this talk of justice,” he said. “I guess Dr. Martin Luther King said it best when he said that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ So we are now embarked upon a search for justice, this search for truth, this search for the facts…. You, as jurors, are the conscience of this community.”

  At the mention of Dr. King, Patti’s stomach tightened. Why would he bring that name into this trial? she wondered. Will this turn into some kind of racial test? No, she decided, they couldn’t stoop that low.

  Kim stared carefully at “the conscience of this community.” To her, these men and women generally appeared to be attuned to what was going on, and serious about their task.

  Cochran continued. “It seems to me that this case, the prosecution’s case, is about a rush to judgment, an obsession to win at any cost and by any means necessary.” He then promised the jury that the defense would call several witnesses whose testimony would prove the defendant’s innocence. Other expert witnesses would attack the credibility of the physical evidence and the professionalism of the investigators.

  Referring to Detective Mark Fuhrman, he said in a foreboding tone, “He’s very much a part of this case.”

  Cochran said, “We expect there will be testimony that on the date of June 12 Mr. Simpson was involved in the acute phase of his rheumatoid arthritis. And on that date, after he had played golf, the problems with his hands were so severe he could not shuffle the cards when he played gin rummy at the country club thereafter.”

  W-a-a-a … give him a tissue, Kim thought.

  The smoother Cochran attempted to be, the more reptilian he became. He seemed to slither from sentence to sentence.

  Calling for a demonstration of how “Mother Nature and Father Time have taken their toll,” he invited the defendant to come over to the jury box. To Patti and Kim’s disgust, the defendant, feigning embarrassment, loped awkwardly across the room, flanked by two deputies. Jurors stood up to get a better view as the defendant rolled up his left pant leg to reveal a knee scarred by football injuries and surgeries.

  Patti engaged in a mental dialogue: Why is he allowed to get so close to the jurors? So they could and would feel sorry for him? Are they implying that he has difficulty walking or standing? He manages to play golf—all the time. Big deal, he has a scar from an old football injury. Well, I have a scar on my lower lip from falling off a playground slide—from the very top—it was so high! I had a lot of stitches. Does that mean I can’t talk now? What is this?

  Cochran continued to ramble on at length before Judge Ito finally called a halt. The jury was dismissed for the day so that the court could rule on procedural matters. Cochran would have to finish his statement tomorrow.

  Before long, the court was embroiled in a new fight. Under California law, both sides are required to share evidence in a timely manner. But now the defense team suddenly handed over statements from more than a dozen witnesses who had been interviewed months earlier. Carl Douglas assumed responsibility for the omission, declaring apologetically, “Both sides have made mistakes. We are human.”

  This was not good enough for Bill Hodgman. He accused the defense team of deliberately hiding evidence from the prosecution, only revealing it after Chris and Marcia had presented their opening statements. His face red, his voice filled with rage, Hodgman sputtered, “I don’t think in the history of jurisprudence have we ever had anything occurring like what happened today in this courtroom.”

  Exhausted by the day’s activities, Kim walked into the house at 5:50 P.M. and found a message on her answering machine. Her cousin Stacy had called from Chicago, reporting that Sharon was going to be a guest on CNN’s Larry King Live that very evening at 9:00 P.M. It did not immediately register in Kim’s mind that Stacy was referring to Eastern time. When we realized that the show aired in California at 6:00 P.M., we rushed into the family room and gathered around the television.

  There was Sharon, with permed, shoulder-length, auburn hair. She wore a red and black jacket, bright red lipstick, and heavy black eyeliner. Larry King asked her why, as Ron’s natural mother, she had not been more visible. Sharon complained that the press coverage had focused on Ron’s California family. She said, “I just want everyone to know that Ronnie has family, you know, back in Chicago …”

  Kim was practically on top of the set, growing more agitated by the minute. “I’m gonna call, I’m gonna call,” she said.

  I tried to calm her down. “Wait and see what she says, Kim,” I advised.

&
nbsp; Larry then asked, “Were you and Ron close?”

  Sharon looked as if she might find the appropriate words printed on the ceiling of the TV studio. Speaking haltingly, she claimed, “Ron and I were very close. And I resent the fact that I have been called the estranged mother. I’m not the estranged mother.”

  This was more than Kim could take. “I’m gonna call, I’m gonna call,” she repeated. Patti went upstairs and got the special CNN number. Kim soon had the phone to her ear. She paced back and forth in front of the television set, waiting for the connection to go through.

  On the screen in front of us, Sharon continued to play the role of the bereaved mother, commenting on her warm and wonderful relationship with Ron. I thought: She wouldn’t have recognized Ron if he’d been standing right next to her.

  “You spoke to him frequently?” Larry asked.

  Sharon’s response was that her parents received a letter from “Ronny” one week before he was murdered.

  Suddenly Larry was alerted that a call had come in on the special line. He said to Sharon, “I’m told that your daughter Kim is on the phone.” He punched the proper button and asked, “Kim, are you there?”

  Kim said, “Surprise!”

  “Good,” Larry responded.

  “I just have one thing to say and that might lead to a few things,” Kim said, speaking directly to Sharon. “Part of the reason that you have not been included is because you have not included yourself in Ron’s or my life from the beginning. You feel like the estranged mother because you are the estranged mother. Okay? And, by the way, close? You were not close with me, and you don’t have a right to sit here on national TV and claim your fame to Ron’s death. You have only surfaced since Ron’s death. You didn’t even choose to come to the funeral until the day before.”

  Not a tear fell from Sharon’s eyes as her daughter attacked her.

  Larry’s voice dripped with irony as he asked Sharon, “This is your daughter?” Sharon did not respond, so he asked Kim, “It is your mother … why do you have such anger?”

  “Excuse me,” Kim snapped. “She is my biological mother. She walked out on me when I was three years old. I did not live with her after my father and she got divorced. My father raised Ron and me from the beginning and if she doesn’t know that, then she needs to go back to wherever—”

  “So you have no feelings for your mother?”

  “No, I have put up with enough baloney from her,” Kim said.

  Larry asked if Kim believed that Sharon was truly grieving.

  “No, I don’t take away from her grief at all,” Kim said. “Because she has a lot of guilt which leads to her grief. Okay? I see her smirking and you know what? You would not have recognized my brother at all. You didn’t see him for at least fifteen years.”

  Sharon finally found her voice. “Kim,” she said, “there are two sides to a story. … I am sick and tired of hearing all this brainwashing that your father has done.”

  Kim snapped, “I’m sick and tired of you, honey.”

  After the call Kim was upset, angry, hurt—wired. The confrontation brought old wounds to the surface—all the maneuverings, all the lies, all the shuffling of blame. Her mind spun upon painful scenes:

  We’re little kids. We want to spend time with her but she tells us that she can’t afford to do the things that our dad does for us … didn’t understand … only four and seven … just wanted hugs and someone to play with … didn’t care what she could or couldn’t buy for us.

  I can still hear the words: “I love you more than Ron … mommies and daughters belong together and boys belong with their father.”

  I am eleven. Ron and I are getting ready to go to a six-week wilderness camp. I hadn’t seen her in a long, long time but I see her right before we leave. She tells me that she can’t handle Ron and doesn’t want him, but I am more important and more special and she wants me to come live with her when we get back. I have to promise not to tell Ron and Daddy what she had said. But Ron and Daddy are my world. I spend the next six weeks with this on my shoulders, worrying and wondering what I should do. I finally tell Ron what she said, and he doesn’t seem to care. I think he already knows how she feels about him and hearing her words just verifies it. I finally tell my dad. He doesn’t say much.

  Never a kind word about anybody … always filled with venom about my dad, the women he dated, and eventually Patti and her children. Never, in all those years, did my dad badmouth her or try to mold our opinions against her. She did that all by herself. She didn’t need any help from him.

  I’m thirteen. I call her … upset … crying about something. Her response? “Stop crying. Call me when you can talk without crying. Like when you’re nineteen!”

  Years pass. I try again. I call her. She sounds pleased to hear from me, but she never calls back.

  October 1992. I call her and tell her that I have forgiven her for all the choices she made over the years. “I’m finished expending energy on our relationship or our past,” I say. I just wanted her to know that I felt I’d resolved the problems within myself.

  How does she respond? With words that chill me now: “The next time we talk will probably be when someone dies….”

  Kim was not the only one who was distressed that evening. We called Patty Jo Fairbanks to get an update on the prosecution’s plans to deal with the defense team’s blatant misconduct in withholding evidence. But Patty Jo was uncharacteristically vague, saying only that something had happened and she could not talk to us.

  Something had happened? What?

  After worrying about this for some time, we called Patty Jo again and pressed her for information. This time she told us that something had happened to Bill Hodgman, but she did not give us any details.

  At 11:30 that night, Gil Garcetti held a press conference at California Medical Center. He disclosed that, during an early-evening meeting of the prosecution team, Bill had been “quite subdued.” Then Garcetti said, “He told me that he was not feeling well. He said he was disoriented and felt chest pains.” Paramedics had brought him to the medical center. Tests did not reveal any evidence of a heart attack, but he was going to be held overnight for observation.

  Garcetti said, “It is very likely we are going to ask that the case be postponed for a period of time.”

  The trial had only been under way for two days. Sometimes I wondered if it would kill us all.

  THIRTEEN

  Amid all this insanity, the defendant had the audacity to publish a book. I Want to Tell You was his response to letters he had received while he was in jail.

  Kim declined a reporter’s request to comment, but her mental response was: I haven’t read the book and have no intention of ever reading the book. I think it is self-serving garbage and it bothers me that he is making money and autographing copies during breaks in the trial.

  That is what Kim wanted to tell him.

  Finally the first witness took the stand. She was Sharyn Gilbert, the dispatcher who answered Nicole’s 911 call at 3:58 A.M. on New Year’s Day, 1989. Her testimony laid the groundwork for the introduction of People’s Exhibit 1.

  We had heard the tape on the news, but when Patti and Kim listened to it being played in the courtroom, with the Brown family sitting so close by, they ached for the family as they heard the fear in their daughter’s voice. A sad silence hung throughout the courtroom.

  This was followed by the testimony of the police officer who responded to the call, Detective John Edwards, who had found Nicole outside of the Brentwood estate, hiding in the bushes. He said that she ran to him and collapsed into his arms, hysterically crying that her husband was going to kill her.

  This was the episode that resulted in the defendant’s “no contest” plea to spousal abuse, and we could see why. Photographs of Nicole were displayed on the screen and copies were handed to the jurors for their perusal. They showed a bruised and haggard-looking young woman with hollow, frightened eyes.

  Patti and Kim met witnes
s Ron Shipp and his wife, Nina, upstairs in the D.A.’s office, and liked them immediately. In court Nina sat next to Kim as her husband testified. Under her breath, Nina continually muttered, “There’s more … why don’t they ask him about the rest of it?”

  Throughout the testimony the defendant avoided eye contact with Shipp. He busied himself by jotting notes or whispering to his attorneys. Once, when one of the defense lawyers made an absurd comment, Shipp looked over and said, “This is sad, O.J … really sad.”

  Since Shipp happens to be a distant cousin of Johnnie Cochran, Defense Attorney Carl Douglas handled the cross-examination. It was Douglas’s day in the sun, his chance at the limelight. His lispy voice echoed through the courtroom as he accused Shipp of being a drunk, a womanizer, and especially a liar. The litany rang in our ears: “Did ya lie about that, Mr. Shipp? Do ya lie about a lot of things, Mr. Shipp?”

  Near the end of two days of testimony, Douglas sank to new depths. He asked Shipp, “Isn’t it true, sir, that you have in the past told Mr. Simpson’s friends that if Mr. Simpson were not around, you might have a shot at Nicole Brown Simpson yourself?”

  “No, I did not,” Shipp replied.

  “You’ve never said that to any of Mr. Simpson’s friends?”

  “Excuse me for smiling,” Shipp said. “But, no, I did not.”

  We felt very bad for the Shipps. Ron had put his reputation on the line, told the truth, and was attacked without mercy. And Nina had to listen to it. At the conclusion of the testimony, when the jurors were getting up to leave, Patti gave Shipp a thumbs-up for doing such a good job.

  The following day, Marcia informed Patti that her thumbs-up gesture had been a “boo-boo.” The defense had thrown what Patti characterized as “a hissy fit” and complained to Judge Ito. The judge addressed the issue in open court, reminding everyone not to make gestures to any of the witnesses. As the judge lectured, Patti felt his eyes trained directly on her, and she was sure that everyone knew he was talking about her.