His Name Is Ron (46 page)

Dan began the day with further questions concerning the defendant's statement, the day after the murders, to Detectives Lange and Vannatter. The killer had since, in various forums, changed details of his story, but he refused to admit that he had lied to the police. He explained the discrepancies by claiming that his story was just “more accurate now,” or that the transcript of the police interview was wrong.

For example, in trying to explain why there was blood in his Ford Bronco, he had told the detectives that he cut his hand Sunday evening. He had said, “I recall bleeding at my house and then I went to the Bronco. The last thing I did before I left, when I was rushing, was went and got my phone out of the Bronco.”

Only later did he learn that his cellular phone records showed that he tried once more to reach Paula Barbieri at 10:03
P.M.
, and he did not want anyone to place him in the Bronco shortly before the murders. So his “more accurate” story was that he was standing in his yard when he made the 10:03
P.M
. call and, later, as he was rushing about getting ready to go to the airport, he ran to his Bronco and retrieved, not the phone, but the accessories for it.

Dan asked the killer to explain at length what he did after returning from McDonald's with Kato Kaelin. The witness said that he went to his garage to look for his old, favorite sand wedge to take along on his business/golfing trip to Chicago. “And I also needed some balls that I play with, a ball called a Maxflite 100HT,” he said. “Unless you play golf, you don't understand how important that is to a golfer, the type of ball that they play with.”

As the subject turned to golf, his entire demeanor changed. He seemed relaxed and confident. We found this incredible. During his trial testimony for the vicious murder of his ex-wife and Ron, he was giving golfing tips!

After hitting a few chip shots on his lawn and allowing his dog, Chachi, to do “her business” in the yard of his neighbor, Mr. Sheinbaum, he went inside, “turned off the lights downstairs, except for my lamps that I normally keep on, and I went upstairs.”

Dan forced the murderer to admit that he had not told Lange and Vannatter anything about chipping golf balls or walking his dog or turning off lights. This, in fact, was the killer's well-rehearsed version, designed to fit in and around the details supplied by other witnesses—details that he did not know when he gave his initial statement to the detectives.

The witness continued: “I went upstairs. I recall having a little time before the limo driver would call me.

“My limo drivers always call me fifteen minutes before the call time, and that historically is when I go into gear, doing my final preparations to leave, and I knew I had time to sit on my bed, which I did when I went back in the house.”

It was about 10:35 or 10:40
P.M.
when, he said, he glanced at the clock and realized that he was running late. He jumped into the shower. Over the sound of the water, he may have heard the phone ringing, announcing the arrival of the limo driver.

Minutes later, half-dressed, he brought a suit bag downstairs. He stepped outside briefly to look in his golf bag to make sure he had his black golfing shoes. That, he claimed, was the moment when Allan Park said that he saw a man entering the house.

To us, the entire story sounded absurd, and it was certainly memorized. Dan commented to us that if he asked the killer to repeat his story, he would get it back verbatim.

A series of questions brought a series of denials.

Dan asked, “You have no explanation for how your blood was found in that Bronco?”

The witness answered, “That's correct.”

“And you have no explanation, sir, for how blood of Nicole's was found on the carpet of the driver side, do you?”

“No.”

“And you have no explanation for how Ron Goldman's blood got in your car that night, do you?”

“Me personally, no.”

Then who? we thought.

The killer acknowledged that he had told Detectives Lange and Vannatter that he cut his finger sometime between 10
P.M
. and 11
P.M
. that night, and may have reopened the cut in Chicago. He now said, “I didn't see that or any mark on my hand between ten and eleven on June 12,” and explained the contradiction by saying that, earlier, he must have assumed that he cut his hand the night before.

He denied that he had any other injuries to his fingers when he returned from Chicago. He really did not know how he sustained other cuts by the time he was examined on June 15. If they were fingernail gougings, they
must have been inflicted by his seven-year-old son, Justin, as they were roughhousing.

Paul looked at Kim in amazement and said, “Did he just say Justin?!”

“Sickening, huh?” she replied.

Dan exhibited close-up photos of the defendant's hand, taken by the police on June 13. Although there were clearly other cuts depicted in the photos, the killer was evasive, first denying that he could see them; then, when Dan asked where he had sustained the injuries, he replied, “Who knows?”

We had not seen these particular photos before, and they made Patti squeamish. She realized that these cuts might have been made by Ron as he struggled to save himself.

Watching the killer on the witness stand, lying through his teeth, brought us a certain amount of relief. His arrogance was sickening, but until now we had been unable to have the satisfaction of knowing that he was under pressure, that the world could now know him for who he is. Without question, it was unfortunate that this trial was not being broadcast on live TV.

Over the lunch break, numerous reporters told us they were astonished at the level to which he had sunk; he was not responsible for anything; he could not explain anything. The only thing he could say with certainty was that no one in the whole wide world knew where he was between 9:35
P.M.
and 10:55
P.M
. on the night of the murders.

Dan returned to the subject of the killer's actions after he was informed of Nicole's death. The witness sighed and took a deep breath. Kim passed Patti a note saying that she could not believe his lack of emotion. She wrote: “Every time I think about you and Dad calling me to tell me the horrific news, I get choked up, and I always will. And when HE relives that event, the call? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.”

We knew that from that moment until his arrival back in L.A. he was on the phone almost constantly. He used the phone in his hotel room. On the way to O'Hare Airport, he used his cell phone. He used the Airfone during the flight back to L.A. He spoke several times with his assistant, Cathy Randa, and his business attorney, Skip Taft. He spoke with his daughter Arnelle, and others. He arranged to have criminal attorney Howard Weitzman on hand when he returned to Rockingham. But he was also frantic to contact Kato Kaelin. Kaelin was the last person he tried to call
from his cell phone while on the ground, and the first person he tried to reach from the Airfone. He tried at least two more times during the flight, but he was unable to get Kaelin on the phone.

Now Dan forced the killer to admit that he had never before called Kaelin from out of town; they simply were not close friends at all. But he denied that he was trying to find out what Kaelin had told the police.

During the flight, the killer said that it was “more than likely” that he was crying and displaying signs of distress. His left hand was bleeding. At one point he vomited. Yet he still signed autographs.

Dan asked, “You are perfectly able, even when you are feeling very low and devastated … to act normal in public and give autographs?”

“Yes.”

During the killer's June 13 interview with Lange and Vannatter, the detectives had raised the possibility of his taking a lie-detector test. The murderer had said, “Wait a minute. I've got some weird thoughts, you know, about Nicole.”

When Dan asked what he had meant by that, the witness explained: “I think my biggest concern was, I was really tired, I didn't understand what a polygraph was, and I just wanted to make sure that it focused on what it was, this particular crime, and not on other things that may be in your mind. … I think what my process was is that I had a lot of weird thoughts about those type of things, I wanted to know just how true-blue it was, and eventually I told them I would—I would do one after I had got some sleep and stuff.”

Dan now seized upon the opportunity Baker had given him during his opening statement. We knew from Schiller's book that the defendant had taken a lie-detector test on June 15 at the office of Dr. Howard Gelb. F. Lee Bailey confirmed this during an appearance on
Larry King Live.
Dan asked, “And you did take the test, and you failed it, didn't you? … You got a minus 22?”

Even as the killer denied failing a lie-detector test, Baker objected. A heated bench conference followed before Judge Fujisaki allowed Dan to pursue the subject further. He asked, “You went to the office of some person on Wilshire Boulevard and sat down and were wired up for a lie-detector test, true?”

“That's not true,” the witness lied. Then he added. “I mean that's not true in totality…. What I was asking him is how did it work, and I wanted to understand it. And he sort of gave me an example how it—”

“And he hooked you up to the process and started asking you questions about Nicole, and Nicole's death and whether you were responsible for it, true?”

“I don't know if he went that far with it.”

“Okay. At the end of that process, you scored a minus 22, true?”

Once more the killer lied, claiming, “I don't know what the score was.”

Dan pointed out that minus 22 indicated “extreme deception,” but Baker lodged an extreme objection and the judge sustained him.

So he was hooked up to this intricate machine, Kim thought, was asked questions, but didn't know what was going on. He must be dumber than I thought.

Dan took the defendant through a chronicle of the infamous Bronco ride. The killer tried his best to feign an emotional reaction, but in our opinion he failed miserably. “Whatever acting career he had just went down the tubes,” Patti said.

Dan quoted from the killer's cell phone conversation with Detective Lange. The killer had said: “Just tell them all I'm sorry. You can tell them later on today and tomorrow that I was sorry and that I'm sorry that I did this to the police department.”

Lange had said, “… nobody's going to get hurt.”

And the killer replied, “I'm the only one that deserves it.”

Now, under oath, he said that he did not recall making that statement, even though it was on tape. However, he admitted that he had been contemplating suicide.

Dan seized on that admission to bring his direct examination to a dramatic conclusion. He asked, “And that is why you were going to kill yourself, because you knew you were going to spend the rest of your life in jail, correct?”

The witness answered, “That's incorrect.”

“And you knew that you dropped the blood at Bundy, correct?”

“That's incorrect.”

“And knew, sir, that you went there that night and you confronted Nicole and you killed her—”

“… No, Mr. Petrocelli. That's totally, absolutely incorrect.”

“… And Ronald Goldman got into a fight with you as he tried to stop you, and you cut him and you slashed him until he died, collapsed in your arms. True or untrue?”

“Untrue.”

“And you left him there to die, Mr. Simpson, with his eyes open, looking right at you. True or untrue?”

“That's untrue.”

Dan said, “I have no further questions.”

THIRTY-FIVE

We planned to host our usual large Thanksgiving dinner for some of our friends: the Zieglers, Zabners, Shannons, and Golds. Patti's mother also joined us to make her incredible homemade stuffing and sweet potatoes. Patti always handles the lion's share of the work, but the holiday bird is my task.

That morning I picked up the fresh turkey we had ordered from Pavilions, and brought it home to prepare for roasting. I held the bird over the sink, cut open the sealed bag, and slid my hand into the cavity. Blood gushed out, covering my right arm. I pulled my hand out quickly and realized that I was clutching the bird's bloody neck. My body felt cold and numb, and I began to shake uncontrollably. My knees buckled. I was light-headed and nauseated. Afraid that I might actually pass out, I dropped the bird into the sink and staggered to the family room.

Patti found me a few minutes later, sitting quietly in a chair. She could see immediately that I was in shock. “What's wrong?” she asked.

I heard my voice quiver as I explained: “I was cleaning the turkey, and all that I saw was blood spurting out—I can't ever remember that happening before.”

“Why didn't you tell me? I would have helped you,” Patti said. She rubbed my shoulders.