WAS O. J. SIMPSON AN HEROIC FATHER?
Keeping an Obvious Secret Secret
[Recycling, slightly revised with a new addendum, a Substack from a year ago]
Now that O. J. Simpson had died, still publicly disgraced, I was reminded of one of the most extraordinary books of investigative writing ever read by me. I say “extraordinary” because I can’t imagine anyone other than its author writing it. Needlessly unknown, it was written not by an investigative reporter, let alone a graduate of some journalism school, but by a veteran private investigator named William C. Dear.
Clumsily titled O. J. Is Innocent and I Can Prove It (2012), it marshals more than enough evidence to suggest that Nicole Simpson was slaughtered not by O.J. but by his unhappy adult son Jason. That accounts for why the famous glove retrieved at the scene was too small for O. J.’s hand. “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” his lawyers memorably argued.
Remember that O. J. was arrested not because he was seen stabbing his wife but because he unwittingly arrived late to the scene. Once he decided to take the rap for his problematic son, O. J.’s fate was sealed.
Sophisticated police should have noticed that his estranged wife Nicole was not stabbed, as happens normally with a knife-wielding killer, but slashed several times in the neck and scalp. According to Wikipedia, one gash of several inches across her throat “severed both her left and right carotid arteries and beached her right and left jugular veins. The wound on Brown’s neck penetrated 1.9 cm. (0.75 inches) into her cervical vertebrae, nearly decapitating her.”
Wounds of this sort suggest to me not that someone wanted Nicole killed but that her attacker initially wanted her handsome appearance destroyed. While O. J. abused his wife, nothing in his previous behavior suggested that he wanted her disfigured. Blood reportedly scared him. The obvious alternative conclusion holds that she was stabbed by someone else also on the scene at that time–by someone whose negative feelings about her were maddening.
Once O. J. is set aside, all fingers point to O.J.’s son by his first marriage to his high school sweetheart. Also at the scene, Jason Simpson was a ne’er-do-well who, at the time, was working as a sous-chef in restaurants. He carried with him knives needed for his job. To prove his thesis, P. I. Dear marshals a huge amount of evidence that leaves little doubt in the reader’s mind. To me, one theme here is that a private investigator makes an investigative journalist look amateur. (For a fuller summary of Jason’s culpability, see from an author new to me: https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/g59vq1/oj_simpson_didnt_kill_nicole_and_ron_it_was_his/?rdt=56545.)
What’s awesome to me is Dear’s herculean effort as he prepares time charts; he even purchases the jeep that Jason Simpson owned. He knows, for instance, that O. J. initially hired a lawyer not for himself but for his son. As Dear overkills in missing no opportunity to advertise his professional skills, so the reading of his book becomes a slog. In truth, I know of no book quite like it.
Though O.J. Is Innocent appeared over a decade ago, it is rarely mentioned in recent writing about the case, no doubt frustrating William C. Dear even more, as he discovered that the literary world might be harder to crack than that of private investigators.
P.S. Should we consider O. J. a heroic father for taking to his grave the secret of his son’s culpability?
I’ve not seen anyone recalling a special moment in the highly memorable television coverage of the white car containing O. J. going down a California highway. A reporter remembered that O. J. had been arrested before for abusing Nicole, only to be released by Ronald Schoenberg, a judge residing nearby in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. On screen flashed a picture of Judge Ronald, who was bald with a vein visibly running down his forehead. Those of us familiar with modern music immediately noticed a resemblance to the composer Arnold Schoenberg. It turned out that Ronald was indeed Arnold’s son and that he resided in the house that Arnold had purchased decades before, in a modest neighborhood that became more classy. Those of us who judge that the composer was treated badly in Los Angeles could regard O. J.’s release as Arnold’s revenge.
My favorite O. J. anecdote recalls his time in San Francisco’s Galileo high school, whose student body was mostly Chinese. Already a football star as a running back, Simpson recalled his blocking back as Johnny Chang who barely weighed 138 pounds. A unique tandem they must have been.