LOS ANGELES // Detectives are investigating a knife purportedly found some time ago at the former home of OJ Simpson, who was acquitted of murder charges in the 1994 stabbings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, a police spokesman said on Friday.
A citizen supposedly found the knife, possibly during demolition of Simpson’s former home years ago, and turned it over to a now-retired police motorcycle officer who was working as a security guard at a nearby filming location, police Captain Andy Neiman said.
The weapon used in the killings has been a mystery for decades.
The knife’s existence came to light in the past month, but Capt Neiman did not say how that occurred, stressing that the authenticity of the story was not confirmed.
Investigators were looking into whether “this whole story is possibly bogus from the get-go”, he said.
A Los Angeles police department crime lab is analysing the knife. Capt Neiman said investigators didn’t know the identity of the person who handed it over and asked him or her to come forward.
The killings occurred June 12, 1994, and led to the so-called “Trial of the Century” in which the former football star was acquitted in October 1995 by a jury that deliberated for only four hours.
In 1997, a civil court jury found Simpson liable for the killings and awarded millions of dollars in damages to the victims’ families.
Capt Neiman did not believe that Simpson could be charged again with murder if the knife is linked to the killings.
“I’m not an attorney, but it’s my understanding from being a police officer for nearly 30 years that double jeopardy would be in place here,” he said.
The department was looking into whether criminal charges could be filed against the ex-officer who held onto the knife, according to Capt Neiman. An officer who comes into contact with evidence is required to turn it over to investigators, he said.
Internal administrative charges were unlikely since the officer is now retired.
Simpson is jailed in Nevada for a 2008 armed robbery and kidnapping conviction.
The account of the knife’s discovery was first reported by entertainment news website TMZ.
* Associated Press
