Tips Flood O.J. Hotline, Keep Cops Scrambling
Chicago Sun-Times
July 28, 1994, THURSDAY, Late Sports Final Edition
Encouraged by the promise of a huge reward or the chance to contribute to a historic investigation, 250,000 callers have flooded a hot line with tips about the O. J. Simpson murder case, while similarly besieged police have designated a full-time “clue chaser” to run down the leads coming to them.
“It’s beyond belief,” Simpson’s lead attorney, Robert L. Shapiro, said Wednesday of the hot line deluge. He said calls have become so overwhelming that operators have had to install a special backup recording system.
Tipsters have included private investigators with clues based largely on news reports, amateur detectives with theories implicating other would-be suspects, and people claiming to have witnessed the events surrounding the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and Ronald Lyle Goldman, 25, on June 12 outside her apartment in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.
Although some of the tips seem credible, many appear to be the products of overactive imaginations. One Maryland woman has called repeatedly to tell of dreams in which she sees another killer. To her frustration, Simpson’s camp has not gotten back to her.
“We’re hearing from every psycho and every crazy person,” said Bill Pavelic, an investigative consultant working with the Simpson team. “But if I get one call in a hundred that’s a good lead, it’s worth it.”
Rising to that thin promise, investigators on both sides of the nationally publicized probe are painstakingly chasing down each lead, reluctant to pass up any information that could prove important.
The pace of tips has convinced some Los Angeles police officials that Simpson’s camp may be fueling the fires in part to occupy detectives who otherwise might be building a case against Simpson.
Any tip that is not checked out could be used against the prosecution at trial. Simpson’s camp already has made clear its intention to attack the thoroughness and competence of the investigation into their high-profile client.
“There’s people that are giving us theories, there’s psychics, that kind of thing,” said Detective Dennis Payne of the police department’s robbery-homicide division. “And then there’s people who have information. We’re checking it all out.”
With the stakes so high for both sides, police detectives and Simpson investigators are simultaneously pounding the pavement. In fact, Simpson’s crew and police department detectives occasionally have run into one another at the crime scene and other locations.
According to sources in both camps, the most recent wave of tips has featured several from eager private investigators trying to ferret out new clues in the case.
While most of the tips are about the principal players in the celebrated who-dunit, many come from people with a dizzying array of thoughts on other issues. One woman, for instance, hypothesized that a large dog might have carried a bloody glove to Simpson’s home.
She called police and Simpson’s hotline Wednesday, urging both sides to demand a test of the glove to determine whether it had saliva that could be matched to a large white Akita owned by Nicole Simpson. So far at least, neither side has complied.
Then there’s the case of the self-professed burglar who says he was casing houses in Brentwood on the night of the killings, looking for a place to pick up some quick jewelry and cash. He came forward within days of Simpson’s arrest and said he heard a woman scream and saw two white men fleeing from the scene of the crime at about the time the killings took place.
The two men, according to the prowler, were carrying a bag or a pillowcase and took off from Nicole Simpson’s home by running out the front of the condominium property, not out the back gate, as police and prosecutors have theorized that Simpson did.
The prowler, who asked that his name not be used, has been interviewed by Simpson’s investigators, who said they find him credible. He has spoken with detectives over the phone and is scheduled for a formal interview this week.
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