By SAMANTHA HART
Staff Writer
Fox Network aired O.J. Simpson’s “lost confession” to the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman on March 11.
In 2006, Simpson was interviewed about the events of June 12, 1994, the night of the murders. Since Simpson has already been tried and found not guilty in criminal court for the murders, he cannot be tried again, because that would be double jeopardy.
In Simpson’s supposed confession, he described in detail what would have happened, hypothetically, if he had been there on the night of the murders.
Fox aired the interview and, during brief pauses, the Fox panel of commentators noted the tell-tale signs of a liar. Christopher Darden, the prosecutor during The People v. Orenthal James Simpson, said that Simpson’s statements during the interview were most certainly fictitious when he discussed the events leading up to the murder.
Darden also noted that Simpson stated that he was still angry with Brown, even after her death. This led Darden to believe that Simpson was very controlling in their relationship and was quite angry with Brown for dying, even though he was found responsible in a civil suit for her and Goldman’s death. Regan, who conducted the 2006 interview and was among the panel of commentators during the airing of the hypothetical confession, said that, “What [Darden is] essentially saying is that after you kill someone, you’d think the anger would go away, but it didn’t.”
According to the New York Post, Simpson often referred to another character in his hypothetical scenario named Charlie. He claimed that Charlie was with him during his explanation of the murder. Simpson professed that Charlie was there when he was at the crime scene and helped him dispose of the knife and bloody clothes. Simpson also vaguely “remembered” leaving the controversial bloody glove at the crime scene, stating that he must have left it there since they found it there, discrediting his former claim that the police planted it there to frame him.
Simpson had frequent slip-ups, saying “I remember” or “I felt” instead of sticking to the hypothetical. Although Simpson couldn’t face further danger legal dilemmas based on a confession, he certainly could have changed his reputation.
The interview was conducted in 2006, but wasn’t released until this year. This was based mostly on the premise that many people involved with the case were sure that he was going to discuss the Brown family (which he did) and the Goldman family. They were also afraid that he would profit from the interview no matter what he said.
After hearing what Simpson had to say, Darden and Eve Chen, friends of the Browns, both said that if they knew that Simpson basically confessed, they wouldn’t have objected to the interview being released when it was first created.
