by Kim Goldman
Michael stood next to Kim, adjacent to a water fountain. When the courtroom doors opened and people started piling in, Michael said, “Come on, Kim.”
“I’m not going,” Kim replied. She just stood in the doorway, staring into the courtroom, trying to stop shaking.
“Kim, you have to go,” Michael said.
Some of the investigators encouraged her to enter.
“No,” she said.
One of them put his hands on her shoulder and said, “You can do it. Be strong.” Gently he pushed her into the room.
Somehow Kim got to her seat. She shared a brief glance with Tom Lange and Phil Vannatter. Her silent tears continued to flow. Next to her, Dominick Dunne kept his eyes toward the front of the courtroom.
Judge Ito was already there.
Michael closed his eyes and prayed.
The killer came in through the side door, a bit more subdued than usual, but smirking and waving at his side of the audience. I put my arms around Kim. I was crying.
The jury filed in, never looking at us.
Michael grabbed Lauren’s hand and started kissing it. He said, “Please, Ron, please.”
Lauren’s heart was pounding. Her knees and hands were shaking. She looked at the killer and saw a blank face.
Michael and Lauren kept repeating the words “Please, please, please.”
Patti had her left arm around Michael and Lauren. Her right hand clutched mine. She did not want to look at either the defendant or the jury, so she stared straight ahead.
Judge Ito called for his clerk, Deidre Robertson, to read the verdict.
Patti took several deep breaths.
“Please, Ron, please, please,” Lauren whispered to her slain brother. She stared at each juror. None of them showed any expression whatsoever.
Mrs. Robertson began to read: “… We the jury find the defendant … Orenfal—”
Patti’s mind instantly plunged into despair. Oh my God! she thought. Deidre can’t even say his name correctly. She’s in shock, too. She’s horrified by this verdict and in shock, just like us. I can’t believe this is really happening. He’s going to walk!
Mrs. Robertson continued. “—Orenthal James Simpson not guilty of the crime of murder … upon Nicole Brown Simpson, a human being.”
A unanimous gasp echoed throughout the room. The killer mouthed the words “Thank you” in the direction of the jury.
“Murderer!” Lauren thought. She bent over, willing herself not to vomit on the floor.
“Breathe, Lauren, breathe,” Michael said.
Kim was sobbing uncontrollably, her head hidden in my shirt.
“Oh my God!” Patti said aloud. She felt her neck collapse and buried her head in her lap. Crying hysterically, she asked herself: Is this for real? What in the hell is wrong with this jury?
I was staring straight ahead with a blank, lifeless expression on my face. I was simply, totally, terrifyingly numb. I heard the word “murderer” slip out of my mouth.
Michael’s body was shaking, but he maintained his firm grip on Lauren’s hand.
Kim was desperate to hear the verdict regarding Ron. She had an irrational hope that it might be different.
But Mrs. Robertson read: “We the jury find the defendant Orenthal James Simpson not guilty of the crime of murder … upon Ronald Lyle Goldman, a human being.”
“He killed Ron!” Kim cried.
“Bastard!” I spat.
“How could they do this?” Lauren sobbed. She rocked back and forth, holding her stomach, trying to breathe.
Judge Ito ordered the jury polled and we watched in total shock as each juror said yes when asked whether he or she agreed with this damnable verdict.
With each nod of the head, Lauren realized anew that this disgusting man, who had murdered her brother, would be free. He would be free to walk the public streets, eat in public restaurants, and shop the public malls.
Kim’s chest was heaving. Tom Lange patted her on the back. Patti had her left arm around Michael and Lauren. She rested her hand on me as I embraced Kim.
Judge Ito appeared dumbfounded, as if he did not know what to do.
The words “not guilty” reverberated through Michael’s head. He looked at the killer and saw him grinning from ear to ear. Michael’s impulse was to leap across the railing and bash the smirk off his face.
Then came the real message of the verdict. As the jury left the courtroom, Michael saw Juror 6 raise his left fist in some kind of salute toward the defense team. He did not know exactly what the gesture was, but he realized immediately that it carried a racial message. He thought: That’s what this is all about. We could have had fifty eyewitnesses. We could have had a videotape of the actual murders, and the verdict would have been the same.
Patti saw this gesture also, and recognized it as the black-power salute. You son of a bitch, she thought. How dare you do that in this courtroom in front of these families and these people. How dare you?!
Then the killer looked directly at Kim and smiled. Johnnie Cochran did the same.
“You fucking murderer!” Kim yelled. She felt a strange need to apologize for her language, and turned to those around us. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
Judge Ito ordered everyone to stay calm and remain seated.
Defying him, we got up and walked out, with words echoing in our heads that would remain there forever: “… not guilty of the crime of murder … upon Ronald Lyle Goldman, a human being.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
We rode the elevator back up to the D.A.’s office. The halls were lined with people of every description. Tears were the common denominator. I wanted to scream out my fury. My hands were balled into fists, and I felt like punching a hole in the wall; I wanted to destroy something. It was as if the wind had been knocked out of all of us. Michael and Lauren were sobbing. Patti was in shock.
Kim walked over to a window and stared out, weeping bitterly. Mark kept a close eye on her.
Judge Ito’s clerk, Deidre Robertson, approached and told us that the judge had locked himself inside his chambers and was refusing to speak to anyone. She confirmed Patti’s instant realization that the reason she had stumbled on the defendant’s name while reading the verdict was because she could not believe it. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “The system really let you guys down.”
In the background Kim heard the Brown family chattering. “Do you think he’ll be able to play golf?” one of them asked. Another chimed in, “Do you think he’s going to want to pick up the kids this afternoon?”
I nearly blurted out: The son of a bitch was just found not guilty and you’re worried about whether he’s going to pick up the kids this afternoon?! But somehow I managed to hold my tongue.
Tanya Brown mused, “I wonder who he’ll go out to dinner with now.”
Kim felt as if she were trapped in a mental ward, and she could not remain silent. She yelled out, quite loudly, “Shut up, Tanya! Who cares who he’s going to party with. There is a murderer walking the streets, folks!”
I said quickly, “I need to get out of here. I need to get some air.”
Kim ran outside of the room with me and sobbed, “Thank God you said that. I was ready to jump out the window.”
That afternoon our house was once again filled with friends and neighbors. Our victim’s advocate, Mark, and his wife, Chanele, were the only ones present from the prosecution team.
Kim felt as if she were isolated inside a strange bubble. It was as if a nuclear bomb had exploded and we were the only people left on the face of the earth. Everything was somber and still. Time was suspended.
Kim found herself wishing that she had a vice, something to allow her to blow off steam, to find some release. She thought: I’m not much of a drinker. I don’t use drugs and I don’t smoke. I don’t gamble. I don’t run marathons. It’s a good thing that I’ve never tried cocaine, because that type of escape would probably be very attractive to me right now. There’s nothing I can do
to escape from the pressure cooker I am living in.
She wanted to go to the cemetery, but what would she say to Ron? She had never promised him that we would make the murderer pay for his crimes, because she knew that we did not have the power to do that and she did not want to promise something that she could not deliver. Still, she would have to tell him that the killer got away with it. We all felt as if we had failed Ron.
It was about 4:30 P.M. when Kim slipped away and drove to the cemetery. Some members of the press and a few photographers were there, but they left her alone. She sat on the gentle slope of the hill, beneath the large oak tree, staring at the headstone. She thought: I’ll never get used to it, seeing my brother’s name etched into hard, cold stone.
As she looked at the dates that marked the beginning and the end of Ron’s life she realized, with full force, that now no one would ever be held accountable for his murder.
She cried inconsolable tears. Over and over again she said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We couldn’t do anything. Please, don’t be mad at me. We tried our hardest. Everybody fought for you, but we let you down.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
As we faced the chilling reality that Ron is gone, that we are never going to see him again, and that his murderer escaped punishment, the sense of permanence was, and is, overwhelming. There is no way to escape it.
Lauren complained, “I have such a hatred for him. I have never felt such hatred for someone. I’m afraid someday he will be in the house. I see him on TV and I just scream and curse him. I can’t look at him.”
Deep emotions caught us all off-guard. Driving alone in his car, Michael heard one of Ron’s favorite songs on the radio. It was Chicago’s recording of “Inspiration.” Michael sobbed so heavily he could barely see the highway.
I came across a collection of old photographs. Leafing through them, I found several that were taken at Halloween, when Kim was about seven and Ron was ten or eleven. I had made the costumes myself. Kim was a sunflower and Ron was Count Dracula. Tears flooded my eyes, and my body began to shake at the sight of the mock coffin that I had fashioned as part of Ron’s costume.
Kim came into the room. Wordlessly, I handed her one of the pictures. I did not need to explain myself. She knew exactly why I was crying.
Patti told a friend, “Sometimes I think I can’t take this anymore. I’m at my breaking point. It’s just—everything is just too overwhelming. I want to pull the covers over my head and hide. All the stress—every single day—strangers approaching us—constantly talking to lawyers—constantly being approached by the media. It’s been nonstop since that horrible June twelfth.”
Kim was seriously concerned that she would suffer a nervous breakdown. She was living in the past and obsessed about her future.
During the criminal trial the killer was locked up, and escorted to and from court by police. Now he walked the streets, drove the freeways, and dined in whatever establishment would have him.
I, too, have imagined walking through a mall and seeing him, or entering a restaurant and realizing that he is there. One part of me would say, “I’m out of here.” Yet another part of me would bristle and sneer, “Why should I be the one who is forced to leave?”
Kim said, “Dad, once the civil case is over we will begin the mourning process that we need.” But after considering her words, she concluded, “I don’t think that’s really true. I feel that time, that process, was taken from us. We will never be able to go back in time.”
The killer began to mouth off in public, but only on a selective basis. He spoke by phone with Associated Press reporter Linda Deutsch. He tried to negotiate a pay-per-view gala, but no one was interested. He made a surprise call to Larry King Live. We were angered, reminded of the dismal fact that if he was in prison, he would not have these opportunities.
He placed a phone call to Bill Carter, a New York Times reporter whose beat was television, and who previously interviewed him for a book about Monday Night Football. Caught off-guard, Carter scrambled to take notes. Despite the ambush tactics, Carter elicited a few interesting comments. For example, the killer asserted, “Maybe I’m a little cocky, but in my heart I feel I can have a conversation with anyone.” He then declared that he would like to debate Marcia Clark, in order to “knock that chip off’ her shoulder. We thought that was a poor choice of words for a powerful athlete who had pled no contest to beating up a woman. However, it did conjure a laughable mental picture of this man verbally sparring with the razor-sharp intellect of Marcia Clark.
When Carter asked if he was broke, the killer replied smugly, “I still have my Ferrari. I still have my Bentley. I still have my home in Brentwood and my apartment in New York.”
That was an interesting comment in light of the only avenue of justice that remained open to us. Once acquitted of criminal charges, the murderer could never be retried. Even if new evidence surfaced, even if he confessed, the criminal courts could never punish him for murdering Ron and Nicole. However, the double-jeopardy statute does not apply to a civil case. If a drunk driver kills your wife, you can sue to collect damages. If your daughter dies in an airplane crash, you can sue the airline. And if a crazed, knife-wielding maniac slashes the life away from your son and brother, you can ask a civil court to take away his Ferrari, his Bentley, his home in Brentwood, his apartment in New York, and every red cent that he has.
At a postverdict press conference in the courtroom, as he waited for the authorities to release a double murderer onto the streets, Jason Simpson had read a prepared statement purportedly written by his father: “I will pursue as my primary goal in life the killer or killers who slaughtered Nicole and Mr. Goldman. They’re out there somewhere. Whatever it takes to identify them and bring them in, I will provide it somehow.”
We have this to say to the killer: We have yet to see you pursue as your “primary goal in life the killer or killers who slaughtered Nicole and Mr. Goldman.”
But that is our primary goal. And we now set about to pursue you with vigor.
From the very beginning of the case, we wanted to do something for the prosecution team to show our appreciation for their tireless work. We had the utmost respect and admiration for them all. So we hosted a large “thank you” dinner party at La Pasta, a local Italian restaurant, and were gratified that so many attended. It was a chance for us to share some happier moments, outside the courtroom setting, where we could unwind and be ourselves. We knew that it was the last time we would all be together.
After that, however, we moved forward. When we had originally filed our wrongful-death lawsuit, we had not envisioned the need to follow through; rather, it was a safety valve, in case the criminal trial resulted in the unthinkable. The verdicts had devastated us, of course, and we were now extremely grateful that the civil courts gave us one final option.
Not everyone was supportive of our decision to pursue justice for Ron through civil proceedings. Occasionally someone would ask, “Are you sure you want to go through this again?” or “Why not just let it go and get on with your lives?” Patti’s dad told her he was concerned about the stress she had been under, the weight she had lost, and how tired she appeared at times. “You’re never going to get him,” he predicted, “so why put yourself through this?”
We all knew the answer to that: His name is Ron.
Hundreds of people wrote to us or to our attorney, Bob Tourtelot, offering their condolences. Many of them were professionals who offered us legal and technical support.
We had developed the utmost respect for Bob, but even after he resigned as Mark Fuhrman’s attorney, we were worried that the taint remained. In addition, everything connected with this case had grown far larger and more complex that we could ever have imagined. The killer hired Robert Baker, an attorney with a tough-as-nails reputation, to represent him in the civil case, and it was clear that Baker would head a new version of the “Scheme Team.” We wondered whether Bob’s small, two-attorney firm had the ability to handle the m
ountains of intricate paperwork that the high-powered Baker would surely create.
By now we knew that highly competent attorneys would take our case on a contingency basis, but we also knew that we would somehow have to cover expenses. On the air, the night after the verdict, KABC radio talk-show host Bill Press had pledged $100 to support us in the civil case and challenged others to do the same. Five thousand dollars was quickly raised and additional money followed. The Ron Goldman Justice Fund was born.
Then one day, with no warning, I received a telephone call from the chief executive officer of a well-known corporation. I had never met the man. He told me that he was 100 percent on our side and that it was obvious who had committed the murders. He added, “If you don’t mind me sticking my nose in it, I’ve thought about your attorney and I don’t think he’s big enough for this. You need a firm that is bigger, stronger, and more well established.” It was an echo of what we had been saying to one another. The gentleman recommended Daniel Petrocelli, a partner in the Los Angeles firm of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp. Dan is renowned for aggressively pursuing—and winning—tough civil cases.
We met Dan and liked him immediately. Patti characterized him as “full of piss and vinegar.” Kim sensed positive energy and optimism flowing from him.
Dan said to us, “I am in this and I am going to fight. Are you in? Are you up for it?”
We responded, “Obviously you don’t know us! Absolutely!”
Dan and his associates set to work immediately.
The same corporate CEO who had recommended Dan pointed out that the money we had raised for the Ron Goldman Justice Fund was woefully insufficient. And we knew that the defense would do everything it could to drive our expenses as high as possible.
With our grateful permission, our new friend set up an office inside his corporate headquarters and called it the Ron Goldman Justice Fund Room. He established a toll-free telephone number for contributors to call, placed ads in newspapers across the country, and even allowed some of his employees to act as volunteers during company time.
