Simpson Accused of Hitting 1st Wife
Orlando Sentinel (Florida)
Simpson Accused of Hitting 1st Wife;Court Papers say the Incident was 20 Years Ago.Also say O. J. Planned Suicide the day of his Arrest
By Line: Compiled From Wire Reports
Section: A Section; Pg. A1
Dateline: Los Angeles
Court papers released Tuesday contended that O.J. Simpson hit his first wife and called her the day he was supposed to surrender on murder charges to say he had been framed and planned to kill himself.
The new disclosures came as Simpson’s lead trial lawyer suggested that he was considering firing at least one of the defense team’s top attorneys to settle a disruptive feud before opening statements, scheduled to begin Thursday.
“No final decision has been made on that yet,” said Johnnie Cochran Jr. “All things are possible.”
As Cochran worked to resolve the dispute, the Simpson team was confronted with public airing of the allegation that Simpson once hit his ex-wife, Marque-rite Simpson Thomas. Attached to the prosecution motion unsealed Tuesday is a statement of Los Angeles police Officer Terry Schauer, who said he responded to a domestic violence call at Simpson’s home about 20 years ago.
“His first wife was there with two small children,” Schauer said in a state-ment last year. “She told us that she had been hit by her husband, O.J. Simpson, who left the location. . . . Some other officers took her from the house, and, I believe, took her and the children to the Holiday Inn at Sunset and the 405 freeway, where she spent the night.”
The allegation marks the first time that Simpson has been publicly accused of striking his first wife, and it contradicts her contention that she was not a victim of domestic abuse.
In their motion, which seeks to compel Thomas to testify at Simpson’s murder trial, prosecutors also state that they want to question her about a call Simp-son made June 17, the day of the televised freeway chase and the day he was ar-rested in the slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.
Shortly before he was scheduled to turn himself in to police, Simpson called his former wife and children and “told everyone that he was ‘framed,’ for the murders and was going to commit suicide,” the motion states. “Jason (Simpson, O.J. Simpson’s oldest son) quickly got on the phone and told his father not to kill himself and that everyone needed him.”
Thomas told police that in addition to talking about his suicide plans, Simp-son asked her to promise that his younger children, whose mother was white, would learn about their black heritage.
“O.J. wanted her to promise,” the documents said. “She stated that she would try.”
The details about that call and about the latest domestic abuse allegation surfaced amid signs that the defense team remains badly divided. In recent days, Cochran has been attempting to mediate a feud between Robert Shapiro and F. Lee Bailey, prominent lawyers and longtime friends whose relationship has broken over allegations of news leaks within the Simpson team.
According to sources in the team, tensions erupted when an investigator work-ing for Bailey accused Shapiro of selling a transcript of Simpson’s June 13 statement to police to the Star, a supermarket tabloid. Shapiro denied that, and the editor of the Star said this week that Shapiro was not the source of the transcript.
Seeking to root out the source of that and other leaks, sources say an inves-tigator working with the Simpson team, former Los Angeles police Detective Bill Pavelic, baited several traps for Bailey, at one point seeing to it that the Boston attorney received word of a false lead regarding the Simpson case.
When a reporter called another member of the defense team to verify the re-port, defense sources say Pavelic felt he had confirmed that Bailey was the source.
While the defense team attempts to stem its infighting, lawyers on both sides of the case are rushing to resolve a few lingering issues before opening state-ments. Also unsealed Tuesday was a defense motion objecting to the prosecution’s planned use of more than 200 recently announced possible witnesses.
That list of potential witnesses, attached to the defense motion, includes the father and sister of Goldman, as well as dozens of acquaintances of O.J. and Nicole Simpson.
Among others, it includes such notables as former baseball star Steve Garvey and Simpson football teammate Reggie MacKenzie.
The list released Tuesday marks the first time that either side has publicly disclosed names of people it might call, but sources say it includes many who will not actually take the stand. The number of witnesses they are allowed to call about domestic abuse allegations will be influenced by Superior Court Judge Lance Ito’s decision about how much of that evidence the jury will be allowed to hear.
Ito had said he hoped to have that ruling Tuesday, but it was not finished by day’s end. He is expected to rule today.
Sufferer’s Mother Entitles Simpson A Murderer
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
July 28, 1994, Thursday, HOME FINAL EDITION
LOS ANGELES - For the first time in the O.J. Simpson case, a victim’s relative has branded Mr. Simpson a murderer, in a lawsuit accusing him of “willfully, want only and maliciously” killing Ronald Goldman.
In a wrongful-death lawsuit disclosed Wednesday, Mr. Goldman’s mother, Sharon Rufo, seeks unspecified damages for the loss of her 25-year-old son’s companionship and support.
Ms. Rufo, who lives in St. Louis, had not seen her son in the five years before his death. She is divorced from Mr. Goldman’s father, Fred.
And at a court hearing Wednesday, Judge Lance Ito resolved a last-minute snag in testing of blood samples set to begin Thursday.
Prosecutors hope the evidence will link Mr. Simpson to the June 12 stabbings of Mr. Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and Mr. Goldman, a friend of hers.
Officials at Cellmark Diagnostics, the Germantown, Md., laboratory hired by the prosecution to conduct the delicate tests, had objected to Judge Ito’s order allowing defense scientists to cut blood samples for possible independent testing. Judge Ito will decide later whether the defense may use 10 percent of the samples for those tests.
Cellmark officials had written to the judge explaining that the lab preferred to use its own technicians. But Judge Ito reaffirmed a ruling handed down Monday, saying the cuts by defense experts could proceed as scheduled.
Meanwhile, encouraged by the promise of a huge reward or the chance to contribute to a historic investigation, 250,000 callers have flooded a newly created hotline with tips about the O.J. Simpson murder case.
Similarly besieged police have designated a full-time “clue chaser” to run down the leads coming to them.
“It’s beyond belief,” Mr. Simpson’s lead defense attorney, Robert Shapiro told The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday. He said calls have become “so overwhelming” that the operators have had to install a special backup recording system to keep up with the crush.
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 grisly murders.
Although some of the tips are seemingly 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, Mr. 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.”
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.