His Name Is Ron

by Kim Goldman

  Judge Fujisaki had a stern response. His decision to ban Charlotte Blasier had nothing to do with the plaintiffs. “It has to do with maintenance of order in the courtroom,” he said, “and the court will not change its ruling. Bring the jury in.”

  Blasier jumped into the fray, requesting an opportunity to bring the matter before another judge. But Judge Fujisaki snapped, “It’s my courtroom, Mr. Blasier.” Once again, our respect for this judge increased.

  Dan began his presentation by displaying, on the large overhead screen, a photograph of Ron, grinning as he held a baseball bat; I started to cry immediately. “By now, today,” Dan said, “Ron Goldman would have been twenty-eight years old, and I think he would have had that restaurant that he wanted to open.”

  Next, Dan showed Nicole, smiling over her shoulder as she walked through a crowd. “Nicole Brown Simpson would have been thirty-seven years old,” he said, then added softly, “Nicole … will never see her children grow up.”

  Suddenly Dan contrasted those glowing, vibrant pictures of life with the stark reality of death: There was Ron’s body, crumpled around a tree stump; there was Nicole, curled in a pool of blood at the foot of her front stairs.

  I doubled over, sobbing. I felt one of Patti’s hands on my shoulder, offering me a Kleenex. I reached back to clutch her other hand.

  Joanne broke down completely. This was her first exposure to these photographs. Elayne, her eyes rimmed with tears, rubbed Patti’s and Kim’s shoulders.

  Kim’s reaction was the same as it had always been: extreme anger. She glanced toward the killer and was sickened to see that he showed no emotion whatsoever. She thought: He has never acknowledged any sorrow over the fact that two human beings were brutally murdered.

  Dan noted that neither Ron nor Nicole was able to take the witness stand. But, he declared, in “their last struggling moments” they “provided us the key evidence necessary to identify their killer.

  “They managed to get a glove pulled off, a hat to drop off; they managed to dig nails into the left hand of this man, cause other injuries to his hand, forcing him to drop his blood next to their bodies as he tried to get away.

  “And by their blood, they forced him to step, step, step as he walked to the back, leaving shoe prints that are just like fingerprints in this case that tell us who did this … unspeakable tragedy.

  “So these crucial pieces of evidence after all are the voices of Ron and Nicole speaking to us from their graves, telling us, telling all of you”—Dan pointed directly at the defendant and continued—“that there is a killer in this courtroom.”

  The killer responded with an insolent stare.

  We knew that Dan was good, but even we were not prepared for the passion and the brilliance of his closing argument. The courtroom was hushed. Jurors and spectators alike were riveted on every word he uttered, every move he made.

  In a blistering series of rhetorical questions, Dan asked the jurors whether the defendant ever explained why his blood was at the crime scene, in his driveway, in his bathroom, or in his Bronco. Did he ever explain how the victims’ blood got into his car or on a glove discovered at his home? Did he tell them why his hairs were entwined in the knit cap that lay by the bodies? Why were the victims’ hairs found on the blood-caked Rockingham glove? What about the rare carpet fibers found at the crime scene, matching those from the defendant’s Bronco? Did he explain why there were now thirty-one photographs showing him wearing the “ugly-ass” Bruno Magli shoes that he swore he had never owned?

  Dan reminded the jury that one week earlier the defendant had had his chance to answer these questions. But, confronted with such conclusive evidence, what did he choose to address? He talked about breaking football records, winning awards, and playing golf.

  Dan asked, “What kind of man … confronted with this bruised and battered picture of Nicole, says … I was just defending myself? … What kind of man takes a baseball bat to his wife’s car … and then says he was not upset? … What kind of man says his deceased wife is lying when you heard her voice trembling on that tape? … What kind of man says cheating on your wife isn’t a lie?”

  In a strong, confident voice, Dan proclaimed, “Well, let me tell you what kind of man says those things. … A guilty man. A man with no remorse. A man with no conscience. This man is so obsessed with trying to salvage his image and protect himself that he’ll come into this courtroom, knowing the whole world is watching, and he will smear the name and reputation of the mother of his children while she rests in her grave.

  “This is a man, ladies and gentlemen, who I submit to you has lied and lied and lied to you about every important fact in this case.

  “Every one.”

  As Dan spoke, Baker and the killer muttered comments to each other. At times their voices were loud enough to carry across the courtroom. They appeared to be making a conscious effort to disrupt Dan’s rhythm. Their obvious arrogance and disrespect showed a clear contempt for anyone who would dare to oppose them.

  In the spectators’ section, some of the killer’s family members once more busied themselves with word puzzles, even as Dan presented a riveting oration that he characterized as “a few sort of obvious observations.”

  He said, “Bundy is the home of Nicole Brown Simpson. These murders didn’t occur at—in a dark alley or parking lot or convenience store; they occurred right at her home, not far from her front door, which was left wide open, with the lights on inside…. There’s no evidence of a burglary here, robbery, vandalism, or rape, or any kind of sexual assault. We’re not dealing with that here….

  “The children were upstairs, asleep in their bedrooms, unharmed….

  “Ron Goldman went there at the very last minute, when he was asked by Nicole, right before ten o’clock, to drop off a pair of glasses.

  “Nobody knew Ron Goldman was going to Nicole’s condominium on his way to meet some friends….

  “So it is very clear that Nicole Brown Simpson was the target of this attack. By someone who knew she would be home and someone who knew where she lived.

  “It’s not a gunshot killing. We’re talking about a killing by a knife, up close, by a person—obviously from these wounds—in a state of rage….

  “And all these signs, ladies and gentlemen, point directly to a person who knew Nicole, knew where to find her, and had no reason to go to her house that night except to confront her, and had no reason to expect Ron Goldman, who showed up unexpectedly.

  “There’s no such person other than O. J. Simpson, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Dan turned to a systematic review of the evidence. He placed a three-ring binder on the podium, holding an outline of the points he planned to cover. Each time he finished a point, he flipped a page over with a loud, almost popping flourish, as if to say: That’s one more piece of the damning, compelling, complete trail of physical material that has been before the public for two and one half years and proves conclusively that the defendant and the killer are one and the same.

  Dan assured the jury that the defense, in its closing argument, would once again cry “Contamination!” and “Conspiracy!” He predicted, “You’re going to hear all that stuff, okay. None of it is true….

  “But I’ll tell you one thing. They can’t make that argument, even that lame argument … about these shoe prints.

  “They can’t argue that the shoe prints are planted…. This is one of the single most crucial pieces of evidence in this case….

  “If that photo is real, O. J. Simpson is the killer. That’s it. It’s the end of the ball game.”

  During the lunch break, one reporter—a veteran who had been covering criminal cases for years—commented to me, “It’s the finest closing argument I’ve ever witnessed.”

  I thought: Everything that Dan laid out so passionately was so incredibly clear. There was a volume of evidence, all pointing to one person. It was unbelievable to hear all of that condensed into a three-hour period.

  But Dan was not
satisfied. “I’ve got more to do,” he declared. With a sandwich in one hand, he spent much of the break going over his notes, discussing with his associates what he wanted to cover during the afternoon session.

  Throughout the afternoon Dan pounded away. What was at the Bundy crime scene? Ron’s blood, Nicole’s blood, the defendant’s blood, Bruno Magli shoe prints, an Aris Isotoner glove, a watch cap, hair from the defendant, and fibers from his car. What was in the defendant’s Bronco? Ron’s blood, Nicole’s blood, the defendant’s blood, and more shoe prints. What was at the defendant’s Rockingham estate? Ron’s blood, Nicole’s blood, the defendant’s blood, a matching Aris Isotoner glove with blood, hair, and fibers all over it, and a pair of bloody socks.

  It was exhilarating. These were the words I longed to shout from the rooftops. The killer’s mask of affability was ripped from his face, exposing him for the lying, vicious, egomaniac we knew him to be.

  Kim thought: I know we’ve got all the facts on our side in this case, but Dan’s making it sound so sensible, so reasonable. This is amazing.

  Several times during the presentation I caught myself trying to read the faces of the jurors. Each time I lectured myself: Cut this out. You’ve done this before and it didn’t work.

  Dan mused, “You know when someone leaves their blood at the scene of a murder, that’s usually the end of the ball game, and that person did it.

  “Now, if Mr. Simpson did it, as we believe the proof shows, and if he left blood there, which we believe the proof shows, then one would expect there to be some injury to Mr. Simpson, something cut, something abraded, gouged, whatever, but someplace where that blood came from.

  “And, in fact, when Mr. Simpson returned from Chicago the next day and went down to talk to the police, he had cuts or marks or gouges, whatever you want to call them, but he had injuries. Where? Left hand. Left hand. That’s where the blood was dropped, to the left of various shoe prints. He had injuries to his left hand.

  “Do you know what kind of an extraordinary coincidence it would be for O. J. Simpson’s ex-wife to be murdered by a killer who bled from the left hand and he has a cut on the left hand and he didn’t do it? And he got that cut that night, at the time she’s being murdered.

  “So when he came back from Chicago, he had a big problem.”

  In sum, Dan said, “It all points to him and no one else. Nobody else. Just him. Just him. Because he did it.”

  Afterward, in our war room at the Doubletree, Kim said to Dan, “I love it when you use words like ‘liar.’ You told it like it is.”

  There was much discussion about the killer’s reaction to Dan’s closing. He had spent most of the day with his head down, scribbling notes. Even when Dan pointed at him and called him a liar and a killer, he had little response. Instead, it was the little, inconsequential things, that seemed to irritate him. For example, at one point Dan declared that the defendant had played one of the most violent of all sports. The killer’s head shot up and he mouthed the words, “Football’s not violent!”

  It was very strange. We would never be able to get inside the mind of this man. But it was a place we did not want to go.

  That evening at home we were consumed with conflicting passions. We were in awe of what Dan had accomplished in the courtroom. There were pieces of evidence that we had almost forgotten, but Dan did not miss an iota of it.

  All indications were that our plaintiffs’ team would finish its presentation in the morning. We had no idea how long the defense would take for its closing statement, but what could Baker and his associates possibly say?

  I quipped, “I see only two possibilities. One, he could say, ‘Everybody’s lying.’ Two, he could say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is a Heisman trophy winner. How can you imagine that he could do such a thing?’ ”

  * * *

  On Wednesday morning, Dan summarized. “In the end, it all comes down to this: There’s blood, there’s hair, there’s fibers, there’s cuts, there’s sweatsuits, there’s hats, there’s no alibi, there’s plenty of time, and there’s motive.

  “And that’s on our side of the scale.

  “What’s on his side?

  “His word that he didn’t do it, his credibility, his truth telling.”

  Dan reminded the jurors of an instruction they would receive: “ ‘A witness willfully false in one part of his or her testimony is to be distrusted in others’…. What that means is that if you believe O. J. Simpson lied to you on just one important point … you can reject his entire testimony.”

  Suddenly Dan said, “Can you bring out the board, Joe?” His assistant, Joe Lester, displayed a huge chart on an easel, depicting fifty-seven witnesses and documents that contradicted the defendant’s sworn testimony:

  Either: Simpson Is Lying

  Or: All of These Witnesses and Documents Are Lying, Mistaken, or Faked

  Nicole Brown Simpson

  Writings by Nicole Brown Simpson

  India Allen

  Albert Aguillera

  Mark Day

  John Edwards

  Sharyn Gilbert

  Al Cowlings

  Lenore Walker

  Medical records from 1989 beating

  Photographs of Nicole’s face after 1989 beating

  Frank Olson

  Robert Lerner

  Donna Estes

  Jackie Cooper

  Nancy Ney

  GTE telephone records

  Paula Barbieri

  Craig Baumgarten

  Ronald Fischman

  Juditha Brown

  Kato Kaelin

  Allan Park

  Charles Cale

  Dale St. John

  Gigi Guarin

  Robert Riske

  Michael Terrazas

  David Rossi

  Donald Thompson

  Ron Phillips

  Tom Lange

  Daniel Gonzales

  Leslie Gardiner

  Frank Spangler

  Richard Aston

  Thano Peratis

  Willie Ford

  Angelica Guzman

  Dennis Fung

  Andrea Mazzolla

  Collin Yamauchi

  Jim Merrill

  Raymond Kilduff

  Mark Partridge

  Skip Taft

  Michael Baden

  Photograph of left hand on June 13

  Phillip Vannatter

  Robert Kardashian

  Kelly Mulldorfer

  Harry Scull

  Photograph of Simpson taken by Harry Scull

  E. J. Flammer

  30 photographs of Simpson, taken by E. J. Flammer

  Buffalo Bills Report, 11/93

  Orenthal James Simpson

  “For him to be innocent and for him to be believed,” Dan declared, waving his hand at the chart, “you have to disbelieve all of them…. All these people, all these writings, all these photographs, they either have to be fraudulent, lying, altered, mistaken. Bottom line, they all have to be wrong, and only he is right….

  “These photos all have to be false; police all have to be liars, mistaken about everything they did.

  “Medical records of Nicole’s ’89 beating, wrong.

  “People who witnessed domestic violence incidents, wrong.

  “GTE telephone records showing he picked up the message, wrong….

  “His lawyer, Skip Taft, who saw the cut on his fourth finger the day when he came back from Chicago, wrong.

  “His lawyer friend of, what, twenty, thirty years, Robert Kardashian, wrong. Lied. He lied. He lied when he said Simpson asked him to get the golf clubs. That was a lie.”

  Dan was on a roll.

  “And Orenthal James Simpson, I guess he’s got to be a liar, too, because he told us how mistaken he was when he told the police all those things that he now wants to recant. … I was wrong. I was assuming.

  “When he said he was driving over to Paula’s after the recital. I was wrong, that wasn’t Sunday, that was Saturd
ay.

  “When he said he picked up Paula’s message. Oh, I was wrong about that, too, I didn’t pick it up.

  “So I guess he’s a liar.”

  Without missing a beat, Dan requested, “Can you bring out the next board?” Joe set up a huge display showing all thirty-one color photographs of the killer wearing Bruno Magli shoes. In the center of the board was a plastic pocket holding a copy of the Buffalo Bills Report from November 1993.

  Dan said, “This is just a good illustration of how a liar gets trapped in his lies.” He reminded the jury of the killer’s statement during his deposition that he would never wear those “ugly-ass” shoes. Then, a few months later, the Harry Scull photograph surfaced. The defendant’s only option was to claim that the photo was fake. But suddenly he was confronted with thirty additional photos.

  “Understand something,” Dan said, “he took this witness stand in his own defense, with his whole case riding on this one point…. Did his lawyer ask him a single question about these photographs …?

  “No. I had to ask him…. And maybe for the first time in his life, I guess he realized he was out of room to run.”

  Dan paraphrased the killer’s response: “Yeah, I was there…. Those are my clothes, not my shoes.”

  Gesturing to Joe, Dan said, “Can you reach that for me.”

  Joe pulled the four-page Buffalo Bills Report from its plastic pocket and handed it over. Turning to page 3, Dan displayed for the jurors a large photograph of the killer wearing Bruno Magli shoes. It was frame 7-A of the Flammer photos. “Well, wait a minute,” Dan said. “This came out in the newspaper, November 1993.” That was eight months prior to the murders. Dan asked caustically, “How could this be a fake?”

  We had never seen anything like this—either in real life or in courtroom dramas. The room was stone-cold silent.