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 Forensic investigators were conducting DNA tests on the
blade, which was recently turned over to the Los Angeles Police
Department by a retired motorcycle officer, Lieutenant Andrew
Neiman told reporters at a news conference.
Neiman said the officer told investigators he was given the
knife by a construction worker, who in turn claimed to have
found it on Simpson's property in the Brentwood neighborhood of
Los Angeles when the house was being torn down in 1998.
Simpson's former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend
Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death on June 12, 1994, at her
condominium a few miles away.
The murder weapon had not been recovered at the time of his
sensational trial, which was carried live on major television
networks in the United States and transfixed much of the nation.
A medical examiner testified for the prosecution at the time
that Brown Simpson and Goldman were likely slain with a
single-bladed, six-inch knife.
Police declined to elaborate on the timeline of when the knife
was recovered but Neiman said it was possible that "the whole
story is bogus from the get-go."
He also would not name the retired police officer or speculate
on why the weapon had been given to police only in the past two
months.
"We still don't know if that is an accurate account of how this
item came into our possession," Neiman said, adding: "If you are
the individual that provided that knife (to the police officer)
we would love to have you contact our Robbery Homicide
Division."
Authorities have not described the knife but the celebrity
website TMZ reported it was a kind of folding knife typically
used in hunting and fishing.
NBC News, citing unnamed law enforcement officials, reported
that it was a smaller, relatively inexpensive utility-style
blade typically carried by construction workers or other
laborers and inconsistent with it being the murder weapon.
Legal experts said Simpson could not be put on trial for the
murders again because of the doctrine of double jeopardy.
“There really are no exceptions. Once somebody has been found
not guilty of a crime, he cannot be charged with that crime
again, under any circumstances,” said University of Southern
California law professor Michael Brennan, a former criminal
defense attorney. “O.J. could confess to the crimes and he
couldn’t be charged again.”
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Marcia Clark, the lead prosecutor in the trial, told Entertainment
Tonight in an interview she was pleased police were taking the find
seriously, even if it was unlikely to lead to a new charges.
"The likelihood of any prosecution stemming from this evidence is
very, very slim," she said. "But we have to find out what this
means, what the truth of this is."
Clark also said she believed it was possible that DNA evidence could
be lifted from the blade that could shed light on the case.
Simpson was found liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and
Goldman by a civil court jury in 1997 and ordered to pay $33.5
million in damages to the victims' families, a judgment that has
remained largely unfulfilled.
He was convicted in Las Vegas in 2008 of kidnapping and robbery in a
bungled attempt to recover memorabilia from his storied football
career and was sentenced to a prison term of up to 33 years.
Highlighting the enduring fascination the case holds for the
American public, there were roughly 150 tweets per minute about O.J.
Simpson on Friday, according to social media analytics firm Zoomph.
Reports about the knife surfaced just as a popular new FX cable
television drama series, "The People v. O.J. Simpson," chronicling
the trial, is airing.
(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Chicago, Jill Serjeant in New York,
Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb in
Los Angeles; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Rigby and
James Dalgleish)
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