His Name Is Ron (37 page)

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.