FOR 21 years, the question of whether OJ Simpson murdered his former wife has hinged on the dramatic courtroom moment when the former American football star tried to squeeze his hand into a blood-stained leather glove.
Last week the saga took a new twist with the emergence of a rusty, reportedly blood-stained knife supposedly found buried in the garden of Simpson’s former home in the Los Angeles suburbs.
Yet no sooner had news of the “find” emerged than doubts arose over whether it was genuine — while commentators noted it coincided with the screening of a hit television drama about the trial.
The knife was reportedly turned over in January by George Maycott, a retired police officer who had held on to it for years as a memento.
Maycott said he was working off duty near the estate in 1998 when he was handed the folding hunting blade by a man claiming to be one of the workers involved in the demolition of Simpson’s home.
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The knife’s existence supposedly only came to light after the officer decided to frame it and hang it on his wall. Maycott allegedly called a former colleague to ask for the number of the OJ Simpson case so he could have it engraved on the blade.
Captain Andrew Neiman of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) told reporters he was “quite shocked” to learn about the knife. He said it was unclear why the officer had not handed it over before.
Maycott’s lawyer responded that when his client had tried to do so police told him Simpson’s acquittal meant there was nothing more they could do.
He insisted the emergence of the knife had nothing to do with the TV series — American Crime Story: The People v O J Simpson — insisting the timing was “purely coincidental”.
The knife was being examined by experts at the LAPD this weekend. Police have asked the demolition worker to explain where and when he found it. He may prove reluctant to do so.
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“I think it’s a joke,” Mike Weber, owner of the construction firm that spent six weeks knocking down the house, told the Los Angeles Times. “No one on my crew found anything.”
Weber conceded, however, that several hundred people were involved in building a new house on the site after his company’s work was done.
Marcia Clark, the former prosecutor who lost the case against Simpson but then cashed in by writing her memoirs, warned “it might be a hoax” — suggesting that the knife might have been “planted” on the Simpson property.
America’s NBC news cast further doubts over the knife, quoting unnamed law enforcement officials as saying the “characteristics and condition” of the knife were not consistent with those of the murder weapon. It also did not appear to have been in the ground for the appropriate amount of time, they said.
After the vicious killing on June 12, 1994 of Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and her young lover Ron Goldman, 25, Simpson quickly became the prime suspect — a jealous ex-husband who struggled to deal with Brown seeing other men.
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The former American football star appeared to admit his guilt after escaping from police in his white Ford Bronco, leading to a car chase broadcast live on television.
In the eyes of the law, the case has never been solved. Simpson was found not guilty of murder and no other suspect was brought to trial.
Police spent months hunting for the blade that was used in the stabbings. A 15in knife bought by Simpson at Ross Cutlery in Los Angeles was considered by prosecutors as the most likely candidate, but it could not be found. Simpson’s lawyers then produced the knife and it was found to have no scratches and no traces of blood.
Simpson’s all-star defence team coined the phrase “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” in relation to the gloves, which contained DNA from Simpson, Brown and Goldman.
Even if analysis proves that the newly discovered knife is the murder weapon, double jeopardy laws mean there is no prospect of Simpson facing new murder charges.
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“The only possible way around [double jeopardy] is if you can get a federal indictment for violation of civil rights”, but the statute of limitations has “almost certainly” passed such a violation, said Alan Dershowitz, a member of Simpson’s legal team.
To prompt a further trial, the knife would have to point to a new suspect.
Simpson is at present serving a 33-year jail sentence for a different crime. In 2008 he was convicted of 12 charges related to an armed robbery in a Las Vegas hotel. He claimed he was trying to steal back valuable sports memorabilia that had been taken from him.
In the years after his acquittal over the killings, Simpson was hit with a barrage of civil and criminal legal actions. In 1997 the Goldman family won a civil case that concluded he was “responsible” for the deaths.
He was ordered to pay a total of $33.5m in compensation and damages.
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Interest in the case has been revived by the acclaimed television series, which stars Cuba Gooding Jr as Simpson and Friends star David Schwimmer as his friend and lawyer Robert Kardashian – the late father of reality TV’s Kim Kardashian.
Carl Douglas, one of Simpson’s former lawyers, called the claims about the knife “ridiculous”.
“It’s amazing how the world cannot move on from this case,” he said. “The media is apparently still fascinated by everything OJ Simpson.”