Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Packer Plus
Manhunt, pursuit, arrest end dramatic day for O.J.
Editor’s note: This story was published June 18, 1994.
Los Angeles, Calif. — Charged with murdering his ex-wife and her friend, O.J. Simpson did what made him famous: He ran.
Instead of surrendering to police Friday, Simpson vanished leaving behind what sounded like a suicide note that proclaimed his innocence. After a fivehour manhunt, police spotted the former football star riding down the highway, holding a gun to his head as his old football teammate drove south.
Clutching a family photo, Simpson was arrested in the driveway of his mansion after more than a dozen police cruisers trailed the white Bronco at moderate speed for 60 miles. Millions nationwide watched the unfolding drama on television as thousands of people along the freeways and city streets waved and cheered “Go O.J.!”
Simpson was fingerprinted, photographed and jailed without bail. He was to be arraigned on two counts of murder as early as Monday. Prosecutors said they would decide later whether to seek the death penalty.
Simpson was allowed to call his mother, Eunice, and drink a glass of orange juice before police took him away, said Cmdr. David Gascon. Simpson’s mother had been admitted to a San Francisco hospital for undisclosed reasons Friday night and was in stable condition.
Police believed that Simpson, 46, held a gun to his head during the chase, a state police spokeswoman said. A gun was found in the car after his surrender.
In a rambling and desperately emotional handwritten letter he gave to his lawyer before fleeing, Simpson denied he killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald L. Goldman, accused the media of savagely twisting events and strongly suggested he would commit suicide to spare his two young children further embarrassment.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, I’ve had a great life,” the letter said. “Think of the real O.J., not this lost person.”
In the letter, read at a news conference by Robert Kardashian, a friend of Simpson, he said goodbye to friends and asked the media to respect a “last wish,” to “leave my children in peace.”
“I think of my life and feel I’ve done most of the right things,” Simpson wrote. “So why do I end up like this? I can’t go on. No matter what the outcome, people will look and point. I can’t take that. I can’t subject my children to that.”
PROMISE TO SURRENDER
His lawyer, Robert Shapiro, said he had given police his promise that he would deliver Simpson Friday morning to Parker Center police headquarters. After receiving a phone call from police informing him that murder charges had been prepared, Shapiro said he went to the San Fernando Valley house where Simpson had been staying, bringing along several doctors to examine and advise his client.
A distraught Simpson told the lawyer he needed time to talk to his family, then called his children, his mother and his personal lawyer, to whom he dictated an amendment to his will, according to Shapiro. He also wrote three letters.
Shapiro said Simpson then secluded himself with Al Cowlings, a longtime friend and former football teammate, while Shapiro and the experts waited in a separate room for police to arrive. When they did, Shapiro said he discovered that Simpson and Cowlings had vanished.
THE VICTIMS
The bodies of Nicole Simpson and Goldman, a 25-year-old aspiring model and waiter at a trendy restaurant, were found outside Nicole Simpson’s posh condominium.
Mortally wounded by multiple stab wounds, the bodies were discovered in a pool of blood by a passer-by.
The couple divorced in 1992 after a seven-year marriage. While still married, Nicole Simpson called police in 1989 saying she feared he was going to kill her. She had been punched, slapped and kicked by Simpson, who pleaded no contest in the case, authorities said.
Nearly a week of evidence-gathering turned up a bloody glove and ski mask in Simpson’s home and blood in his car and on his driveway, according to news reports.
Simpson’s attorneys say he was at home at the time of the slayings, waiting for a limousine to take him to the airport for a flight to Chicago. He attended his wife’s funeral Thursday and hired forensic experts to assist in his defense.