Tom Lange — Lead OJ Simpson Detective on the Evidence the Jury Never Heard | Part 1
Tom Lange was the lead homicide detective for the LAPD on the night of June 12, 1994. When a call came in about a double homicide on the west side of Los Angeles, Lange and his partner Phil Vannatter were the detectives the department trusted with its highest-profile cases. What they were about to work would become the most watched criminal trial in American history.
In this first of two parts, Lange walks through the night hour by hour: arriving at Bundy Drive at 4AM, assessing the crime scene, and then making an unusual decision — ordered by brass — to leave Bundy before the scene was fully processed and drive to OJ Simpson's Rockingham estate. At that point, Simpson was not a suspect. He was the estranged husband with two sleeping children. What Lange found when he got there changed that calculus entirely.
The moments Lange describes are precise and unhurried: Fuhrman scaling the estate wall, the unanswered front door, the conversation with Arnelle Simpson, Kato Kaelin's three thumps in the night, and the walk down a dark corridor behind the bungalows that ended with a right-hand leather glove in the middle of the path. A match to the one already bagged at Bundy Drive.
Then comes the detail that still sits uncomfortably even three decades later: a witness at LAX watched OJ Simpson dump items from a small duffel bag — the same one Kato tried to carry and OJ refused to let him touch — into an airport trash container at 11PM. The witness didn't come forward until nine months into the trial. The trash was long gone. The bloody clothes, the shoes, the murder weapon — none of it was ever found. Three pages of investigative evidence that never reached a jury.
Part 2 picks up with the OJ interview, the moment Lange realized he was talking to a sociopath, the Bronco chase, and why a case this strong was never going to be won.
Transcript
Well, I'm figuring now we got a problem.
Speaker:We could have another
Speaker:crime scene here later.
Speaker:She denied saying that, but she, that's
Speaker:exactly what she said.
Speaker:She didn't know.
Speaker:Today, the lead homicide detective in the
Speaker:OJ Simpson murder case tells
Speaker:us what the jury never heard.
Speaker:Detective Tom Lange was the lead homicide
Speaker:investigator for the LAPD.
Speaker:On the night of June 12th, 1994, he got a
Speaker:call about a double on the west side.
Speaker:What he found would become the most
Speaker:watched criminal
Speaker:trial in American history.
Speaker:First of all, great.
Speaker:Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker:And I'm honored that you'd
Speaker:even ask me to be out here.
Speaker:Basically what we had, we
Speaker:were on call, excuse me.
Speaker:And Phil and I that particular night for
Speaker:any homicide that would occur within the
Speaker:city of Los Angeles at the time, we had
Speaker:18 geographical units and 18 g-air
Speaker:geographical areas, but our HD would have
Speaker:only high profile cases.
Speaker:Cases that took more time, serial killing
Speaker:cases, not because we're any better, but
Speaker:we perhaps had a little more experience
Speaker:than most of the units and we had the
Speaker:time and more importantly, the resources
Speaker:to handle high profile cases.
Speaker:I was spoken about 3 AM by Michael Oster,
Speaker:John Rogers, who simply said,
Speaker:we've got a double on the west side.
Speaker:Here's the address.
Speaker:Uh, see you there.
Speaker:Everything.
Speaker:Nothing is really
Speaker:discussed until we get there.
Speaker:It's just that you're
Speaker:rolling on these things.
Speaker:It's happened many times before.
Speaker:Uh, we'll find out what's going on once
Speaker:we get there, but there's not a lot of
Speaker:conversation that goes off initially.
Speaker:All he said was he was going to double on
Speaker:the west side and here's the address.
Speaker:So I had the Bundy address and as I hit
Speaker:it down there, there's no traffic, which
Speaker:was good, uh, I don't think in the double
Speaker:on the west side was kind of unusual
Speaker:because of crime rate in the Brentwood
Speaker:area, the west LA areas, similar to the
Speaker:loan compared to the rest of the city.
Speaker:Uh, so it's kind of rare.
Speaker:So I really didn't know what was going on
Speaker:at the time, which is kind of the way we
Speaker:want to keep it initially.
Speaker:Once I got there, I noticed that the, uh,
Speaker:tire scene, the entire Bundy block had
Speaker:been blocked off by tape and the police
Speaker:cars on either side,
Speaker:north and south on Bundy.
Speaker:There's an alley behind the location that
Speaker:they've also been secured.
Speaker:What we look for in a crime scene is, uh,
Speaker:we want to expand it, uh, in a crime
Speaker:scene, obviously in the bodies are there
Speaker:and evidence is there.
Speaker:That's not the first thing we look at.
Speaker:We want to expand a crime scene out.
Speaker:It's just as far as we can go because
Speaker:what comes in goes out and we don't know
Speaker:how far out this evidence could lead us.
Speaker:So they've done a really good job
Speaker:extending out the crime scene a couple of
Speaker:blocks at all areas that had the rear,
Speaker:uh, alley secured also.
Speaker:Uh, when we got there again, there was
Speaker:very few people, um, that Bundy was
Speaker:completely closed down.
Speaker:And I got there, I guess it was close to
Speaker:four o'clock red or 4AM.
Speaker:And the first problem I saw that we had
Speaker:was it was Monday morning.
Speaker:Monday is a major thoroughfare between.
Speaker:Bundy Drive and, uh,
Speaker:uh, going to going north for traffic.
Speaker:People going to work in the morning and
Speaker:usually starts about six 30 or seven.
Speaker:We've been having a problem
Speaker:regardless of this crime scene.
Speaker:There was there, we had to
Speaker:keep that street blocked off.
Speaker:So we had to take
Speaker:that into consideration.
Speaker:Uh, and once we got
Speaker:there, we did fight out.
Speaker:It was a male and a female.
Speaker:The female was told to be either OJ
Speaker:Simpson's current wife or a strange wife.
Speaker:We didn't know we knew they were not
Speaker:living together at the time.
Speaker:So it was some marital discussion, you
Speaker:know, and I was that the other young man
Speaker:had not been identified at the time.
Speaker:Generally in a homicide scene, again, I
Speaker:can say that really the body is enough,
Speaker:the most important thing.
Speaker:Why is there evidence of the crime scene?
Speaker:Everything is evidence.
Speaker:It sounds a little impersonal to say
Speaker:that, but the bodies are in fact evidence
Speaker:and it must be treated like evidence with
Speaker:obvious certain respects.
Speaker:When you arrived on the scene at Nicole's
Speaker:home, uh, the site of the two murder
Speaker:victims were the bodies
Speaker:inside or outside them?
Speaker:Yeah, both the bodies were outside the,
Speaker:the home, uh, near the truck door.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And at that point, go on and let us know
Speaker:what your initial observations were and
Speaker:your theories about
Speaker:what might've happened.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, very strong a little later, uh,
Speaker:initially at a crime scene, you want to
Speaker:make sure it's
Speaker:secured as much as you can.
Speaker:Again, the biggest problem we foresaw is
Speaker:the fact that Bundy drive with the opened
Speaker:up very shortly when the sun came up,
Speaker:look, you lose the media.
Speaker:Uh,
Speaker:once we found out that, uh, Simpson's,
Speaker:uh, white or strange white was involved.
Speaker:Uh, this kind of, uh, through a wrench
Speaker:into the end of the works, that of the
Speaker:media was going to be showing up.
Speaker:We had a commander on the scene who made
Speaker:a decision, uh, as far as Simpson.
Speaker:Now at this point, another officer had
Speaker:arrived at the name of Mark Fuhrman.
Speaker:I know you know who that is.
Speaker:He had worked, he's not a homicide cop.
Speaker:He was a detective that worked West LA.
Speaker:He was familiar with Simpson.
Speaker:He was familiar with a couple of radio
Speaker:calls and he had handled when OJ and
Speaker:Nicole had a couple of
Speaker:arguments, he'd showed up.
Speaker:And so he knew where we're rocking.
Speaker:Am I was where Simpson's home was the
Speaker:commander made a decision because of
Speaker:everything we had going on in the
Speaker:notoriety of the case that Fuhrman and
Speaker:his partner, uh, Ron Phillips and myself
Speaker:and my partner Phil
Speaker:Vannatter would take a
Speaker:take two cars and go up to Rocky game,
Speaker:which is only a couple of miles away as
Speaker:the crow flies, we got there.
Speaker:We were in contact.
Speaker:OJ Simpson explained to him what was
Speaker:going on, but the problem that his wife
Speaker:or ex wife was no longer living.
Speaker:We also had two children.
Speaker:Oh geez.
Speaker:Kids, kids were sleeping upstairs.
Speaker:By the time I had lied, they'd have been
Speaker:removed to West LA station.
Speaker:They were not there, but
Speaker:they weren't out of concern.
Speaker:He certainly should be notified that his
Speaker:children were there and they should
Speaker:pick them up or maybe a fort down to the
Speaker:station or whatever.
Speaker:So once we got there, we did, we leave
Speaker:Fuhrman and Phillips with Simpson.
Speaker:We tell him what was going on and we
Speaker:would return and handle the
Speaker:crime scene investigation,
Speaker:this had to happen right away before the
Speaker:sun came out before the track, I can have
Speaker:anything else because we would have other
Speaker:problems that would come off.
Speaker:You know, they go out
Speaker:from here a little bit more.
Speaker:I'm confused though, because my
Speaker:recollection, and
Speaker:again, this is 32 years ago.
Speaker:I may have forgotten some things, but I
Speaker:thought OJ before any interview occurred
Speaker:with or any communication really between
Speaker:you or any other members of the LA police
Speaker:department had already gotten in a limo
Speaker:and going to the airport
Speaker:and took off for Chicago.
Speaker:Are you saying that there was actually a
Speaker:conversation with him
Speaker:before he left the city?
Speaker:No, no, I haven't gotten to that point.
Speaker:That's why I wonder if you want to
Speaker:continue on with what
Speaker:happened when we got to, to Rocky.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So in other words, you've
Speaker:been to the murder scene.
Speaker:Uh, you've done your initial
Speaker:observations,
Speaker:collected evidence, et cetera.
Speaker:And now you're going
Speaker:over to where OJ lived.
Speaker:Is that correct?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No, we haven't done
Speaker:anything at the crime scene.
Speaker:The crime scene like this is no
Speaker:collection of evidence till a criminal is
Speaker:shows up, uh, till everything gets noted,
Speaker:documented photograph.
Speaker:Uh, crime scene like this will take
Speaker:hours, hours, but first things first type
Speaker:of thing, this commander had in mind
Speaker:other things to look at the big picture.
Speaker:This is not a crime scene where we're
Speaker:going to be left alone to our own devices
Speaker:to handle if it was as great.
Speaker:That's the best thing in the world.
Speaker:To have a said cop that he's there all by
Speaker:himself with all of his people, prints,
Speaker:photo photographers, criminalists, got
Speaker:all the time in the world.
Speaker:Nobody's going to bother us.
Speaker:That wasn't this case.
Speaker:And we knew it was
Speaker:going to get a lot worse.
Speaker:That's why the four of us went up there
Speaker:to remain with Simpson, assuming he was
Speaker:there, we assumed he was there and the
Speaker:other two would come back and continue
Speaker:with the crime scene.
Speaker:So getting back to rock again, the four
Speaker:of us arrived up there in two cars, uh,
Speaker:right about five, 10 AM, five 15 in the
Speaker:morning, there's a phone right at the, at
Speaker:the front of the house.
Speaker:So there's an Asford gate with a huge
Speaker:gate and there's a Rockingham gate on the
Speaker:other side to the west of
Speaker:the, uh, of the entrance.
Speaker:And we're now talking about
Speaker:the residents of OJ Simpson.
Speaker:Is that correct?
Speaker:When you say Rockingham?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Rocking 360 Rockingham.
Speaker:Now we went up to like this heads about
Speaker:two miles as the crow flies took us less
Speaker:than five minutes to get up there.
Speaker:No traffic.
Speaker:The two cars pulled up, went up
Speaker:Rockingham, North and Rockingham to the
Speaker:Rockingham gate, the main gate to the
Speaker:house, uh, which was
Speaker:closed, uh, no access there.
Speaker:So we went around the corner to the back
Speaker:gate, which was the Asford gate.
Speaker:Now the Ashford gate was very similar to
Speaker:the Rockingham gate, but they had a phone
Speaker:outside phone we could
Speaker:call inside the residence.
Speaker:So we stopped.
Speaker:The first thing we're going to do is get
Speaker:out of the phone, see if we can get
Speaker:somebody inside,
Speaker:hopefully Simpson is in there.
Speaker:Uh, we saw two cars in the
Speaker:driveway that were the lights on.
Speaker:Uh, obviously to us at five 15 in the
Speaker:morning, uh, there were people home,
Speaker:probably sleeping when we do there was
Speaker:someone inside because of
Speaker:the cars and the lights on.
Speaker:We figured there probably was.
Speaker:Well, we got out of the phone and tried
Speaker:to get in and no one would answer.
Speaker:Once we did that, the Asford gate, uh,
Speaker:was secured, but it wasn't locked.
Speaker:There was a wall connects
Speaker:on both sides of the gate.
Speaker:The wall is not, it's
Speaker:only like five feet high.
Speaker:I believe it was 15 inches thick.
Speaker:Very easy to get over the wall.
Speaker:Once we had a problem with the gate, we
Speaker:noticed it while it was not locked.
Speaker:The latch was inside.
Speaker:Fuhrman is standing by the wall.
Speaker:So he says, well, I can just
Speaker:jump over and open the gate.
Speaker:He says, yeah, go ahead and do that.
Speaker:So it took two seconds for Fuhrman to
Speaker:crawl over that five foot
Speaker:wall, get on the other side.
Speaker:And he opened the gate
Speaker:for us and we went in.
Speaker:Now there's some concern at this time
Speaker:about the lack of
Speaker:response from inside the house.
Speaker:Nobody's answering the phone again.
Speaker:There's cars in the driveway.
Speaker:There's lights on inside.
Speaker:The porch light is on.
Speaker:The four of us go to the front door,
Speaker:knocking the door, no response, ring the
Speaker:bell, no response, becoming more
Speaker:concerned at this point.
Speaker:You just left the
Speaker:very bloody crime scene.
Speaker:The estranged wife or the wife still away
Speaker:from OJ and another man of
Speaker:him brutally slaughtered.
Speaker:This was not just a hit and run on the
Speaker:assembly, but some tiny, there was some
Speaker:kind of a fight from
Speaker:the initial observation.
Speaker:Now, very might at this time, we haven't
Speaker:done any deep investigation at all of the
Speaker:crime scene and no very
Speaker:little about what's there.
Speaker:I don't know nothing
Speaker:about the evidence yet.
Speaker:Again, the buyers are the last thing in a
Speaker:crime scene and homicide investigator is
Speaker:really concerned with going back to the
Speaker:Rockingham house,
Speaker:nobody's answering the front.
Speaker:So we decided to go around the rear when
Speaker:we go around the rear and we approach and
Speaker:there's a rear door going
Speaker:in the rear of the house.
Speaker:We're not going to do it on the screen.
Speaker:That's how screen that's kind of a glass
Speaker:door on the outside.
Speaker:We knocked down at no response.
Speaker:There are three bungalows on attached to
Speaker:the house on the side of the property
Speaker:line, nobody's answering the house.
Speaker:So we went to the bungalows.
Speaker:The first bungalow, a young woman opens
Speaker:the door as our nail.
Speaker:So J's, uh,
Speaker:daughter, we got quesadilla at the same
Speaker:time, like what is it at the same time,
Speaker:firmly goes next door and
Speaker:knocks on another bungalow.
Speaker:And it's Kato Kaelin
Speaker:about the same time.
Speaker:Both of them come to the front doors.
Speaker:I'm talking to R and L firmness next
Speaker:door, talking to, uh, Kato
Speaker:Kaitlin, my partners behind me.
Speaker:So obviously we've woken both of them up.
Speaker:This is like I said, right about now,
Speaker:five 20 in the morning and they're ready
Speaker:to know what's going on.
Speaker:All of a sudden there's four cops
Speaker:knocking on their doors at five 20 in the
Speaker:morning, they're very concerned.
Speaker:Our nail is white eyed and she's half
Speaker:asleep and she's what happened.
Speaker:Is everything okay?
Speaker:And what's going on?
Speaker:Well, we don't want to hit her with
Speaker:anything right away.
Speaker:When I see if anybody's inside the house.
Speaker:And so I said, uh, uh, after we've
Speaker:identified ourselves, of course, I said,
Speaker:listen, is your dad, is your dad home?
Speaker:Simpson wasn't home, but what Lange found
Speaker:would change everything.
Speaker:You have a key to get in the house.
Speaker:Can I get in there?
Speaker:And she says, uh, well, yes.
Speaker:And I'll see what's, what's going on.
Speaker:What's, what's, what happened?
Speaker:I said, I'll explain everything to you,
Speaker:but I'd just like to see
Speaker:if your dad's here for now.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So she goes and she gets a key.
Speaker:Meanwhile, that store.
Speaker:Fuhrman is talking to Kato and we're not
Speaker:aware of that conversation right now.
Speaker:All my attention is
Speaker:getting inside the house.
Speaker:We possibly have another crime scene.
Speaker:We've already already also been told as a
Speaker:housekeeper who lives in there.
Speaker:So I know it goes as she starts opening
Speaker:doors and no, if you will, let
Speaker:me, let me use the key myself.
Speaker:I'm going to just check out everything.
Speaker:She's starting a panic.
Speaker:She really getting upset
Speaker:and you can't blame her.
Speaker:She really believes down my mind that her
Speaker:dad is inside the house as I do.
Speaker:Now I'm expecting possibility of fighting
Speaker:another crime scene.
Speaker:It's like we just left.
Speaker:I unlocked the door and I go ahead.
Speaker:And the first thing I go to the house
Speaker:keepers, uh, bedroom.
Speaker:Nobody's there.
Speaker:Find out later the
Speaker:housekeeper had that Sunday night off.
Speaker:Uh, the bed is made no problems.
Speaker:I walk around inside.
Speaker:I yell a couple of things.
Speaker:Uh, OJ, you're here.
Speaker:No lights are on upstairs and looking
Speaker:around and everything is fine.
Speaker:I worked back out by this time.
Speaker:Kater was come out and he's explained
Speaker:that sets him the night before it got out
Speaker:of played, it was heading for Chicago.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:Now there's no problem here.
Speaker:Fine.
Speaker:Um, he's in Chicago.
Speaker:So I finally have to test it.
Speaker:Tell, uh, have to tell that, uh, Arnold,
Speaker:that, uh, Nicole has been killed.
Speaker:I didn't say how didn't
Speaker:say why or anything else.
Speaker:She starts screaming.
Speaker:These are upset.
Speaker:Kato's in shock.
Speaker:I said, we're going to leave these two
Speaker:detectives here with you.
Speaker:And I'm going back and we're going to
Speaker:come back just as soon as we can.
Speaker:We have the kids in custody.
Speaker:They're at the police station.
Speaker:Uh, sometime we're going to try to hold
Speaker:your dad, um, and see if he can come and
Speaker:pick them up, we're going to get back and
Speaker:talk to you just as soon as we can.
Speaker:But for now, I'm going to ask you just to
Speaker:stay here with these detectives.
Speaker:Um, they will talk to you later and I'll
Speaker:get back to you just as soon as I can
Speaker:make some modifications and talk to your
Speaker:dad, she's not a suspect at all.
Speaker:Uh, he's been out of town and I don't
Speaker:know the details about any of that,
Speaker:except that it's not here.
Speaker:So clearly it's not the indicators in
Speaker:kind of a suspect that these couple of
Speaker:thousand miles away.
Speaker:So that strikes me though.
Speaker:Correct me if I'm wrong again, but.
Speaker:It seems odd perhaps based on what I see
Speaker:on television, a little bit.
Speaker:I know about law enforcement that, that
Speaker:you would go to the home of the suspect
Speaker:or the victims estranged or, or in this
Speaker:case divorced husband to let them know
Speaker:that their ex wife has been murdered.
Speaker:I mean, wouldn't that normally happen
Speaker:much later if at all?
Speaker:I mean, normally I would think when you
Speaker:see a murder victim, your first instinct
Speaker:wouldn't be to go to her ex husband's
Speaker:house to interview him to
Speaker:see if he's okay or whatever.
Speaker:Excellent point to it.
Speaker:Agree.
Speaker:You're correct.
Speaker:Unless this is a high profile case,
Speaker:unless the media is involved and unless
Speaker:you have a commander or deputy chief at
Speaker:the scene or is interested in imagery,
Speaker:not necessarily your investigation.
Speaker:This is one of those things that, uh, it
Speaker:kind of brought you that you have to put
Speaker:up with it, but it's part of the deal.
Speaker:The brass is interested in imagery.
Speaker:I'm interested in
Speaker:investigating the murder.
Speaker:This one I understood.
Speaker:Plus we had the two
Speaker:children, very young kids.
Speaker:We had to consider that
Speaker:this wasn't my choice.
Speaker:It was a choice of the brass to do this.
Speaker:Any high profile case,
Speaker:you're going to have that problem.
Speaker:We had the same problem when he was going
Speaker:to turn himself in or we were
Speaker:going to go out and arrest him.
Speaker:The same, same problem occurred because
Speaker:we don't like to do
Speaker:things with the media.
Speaker:We don't do perp walks.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:The brass was the perp walks.
Speaker:They liked the media.
Speaker:They got a press media.
Speaker:We don't tell me what happened when you
Speaker:first, um, interviewed OJ about the
Speaker:murders and your first conversation with
Speaker:him, uh, and tell me when that occurred
Speaker:and what he said and what your thoughts
Speaker:were after the interview.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, uh, contacted him
Speaker:on the phone initially.
Speaker:So I am assuming you're talking after
Speaker:when he returned to LA.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Uh, he returned to LA.
Speaker:He said, uh, he was going to be back in
Speaker:the first light that he could.
Speaker:And when he did return, he
Speaker:was picked up at the airport.
Speaker:We wanted to pick him up.
Speaker:We know he insisted that, uh, uh, he
Speaker:would come by with his attorney or the
Speaker:friend by rocking him.
Speaker:This point, I have to say this really
Speaker:quick by the time he was on a plane
Speaker:coming back while he wasn't necessarily a
Speaker:suspect, uh, the glove had been found.
Speaker:Rocky him had been
Speaker:declared a crime scene again.
Speaker:You have to make decisions sometimes in a
Speaker:hurry, but you have to make
Speaker:decisions one way or the other.
Speaker:We're not going to sit and
Speaker:wait for him to come back.
Speaker:What's that glove was found.
Speaker:That's a crime scene.
Speaker:It was secured as such.
Speaker:I made a decision that, uh, affirmative,
Speaker:his partner would remain there at the
Speaker:crime scene, Phil would go get a search
Speaker:warrant to search for acting him.
Speaker:I would return to Bundy and start
Speaker:conducting that crime scene.
Speaker:We would await symptoms arrival.
Speaker:Then we would hook up back at Parker
Speaker:center where we would interview him.
Speaker:Once he got there, the glove was a key
Speaker:piece of evidence, obviously.
Speaker:And it became a very
Speaker:controversial piece of evidence.
Speaker:Tell us how the glove was found when it
Speaker:was found and, uh, you know,
Speaker:I'm still at the crime scene.
Speaker:All four of us are, as I said, I'm
Speaker:dealing with our nail.
Speaker:Fuhrman is talking to Kato Kaelin.
Speaker:Kato makes a statement.
Speaker:And in fact, that he was
Speaker:in bed the night before, uh,
Speaker:when he heard a loud bay or something
Speaker:outside of his wall, he's in his bed,
Speaker:leaning against the outside wall and
Speaker:there's an air
Speaker:conditioning unit right outside there.
Speaker:And he heard three faults on the wall.
Speaker:And he couldn't understand.
Speaker:He thought that had been an earthquake.
Speaker:He's telling us the Fuhrman when he's in
Speaker:his initial statements.
Speaker:Fuhrman gets this information, uh, later
Speaker:I'll several minutes later.
Speaker:He says, okay, Kato hang on here.
Speaker:We'll be back to see a little bit.
Speaker:He goes outside and tells
Speaker:his partner what Kato had said.
Speaker:That there was just stopping noises and a
Speaker:little shaking behind his bed.
Speaker:As he was talking to his girlfriend on
Speaker:the telephone, Fuhrman goes back around
Speaker:just to see where made in
Speaker:the noises were coming from.
Speaker:Uh,
Speaker:he walks back there.
Speaker:There's a narrow corridor behind the
Speaker:bungalows leading back to an area where
Speaker:there's just a lot of junk, the, uh,
Speaker:there's an old busted wheelbarrow and his
Speaker:shovels, russet shovels and tires and
Speaker:things where there's
Speaker:just junk back there.
Speaker:It's very dark back there.
Speaker:So for it enters the gate is off.
Speaker:It's leaning against the bungalow.
Speaker:There's no lights, like I said, but he
Speaker:starts walking back there towards the air
Speaker:conditioning unit that juts out blocking
Speaker:the passage to the, this
Speaker:junk yard in the back area.
Speaker:And then he looks in each season, he
Speaker:looks on the ground as he's walking with
Speaker:flashlight and he sees the glove right in
Speaker:the middle of the war.
Speaker:Wait near the air conditioning unit.
Speaker:He looks at it and he had been at the
Speaker:crime scene like an hour before I had, he
Speaker:was related with the evidence.
Speaker:It was there.
Speaker:He was so familiar with the fact that
Speaker:there was a left leather glove at the
Speaker:crime scene between the two bodies.
Speaker:They never saw a right glove while they
Speaker:were there, but 15 officers who were
Speaker:there before him never saw a right hand
Speaker:glove at the crime scene.
Speaker:So he was looking and he
Speaker:sees this left hand glove there.
Speaker:So we have two and two is four, four,
Speaker:four is eight comes back out and he tells
Speaker:his partner what's going on.
Speaker:His partner finds me and he says, uh, for
Speaker:him and find the glove.
Speaker:He wants to show it to you.
Speaker:And I said, what's going on?
Speaker:He said, well, it looks like
Speaker:the left glove from a Bundy.
Speaker:Now he's partnered been like hour before
Speaker:I had also, they have
Speaker:more information than I do.
Speaker:I wasn't aware of any of this evidence
Speaker:until I find out about a
Speaker:glove, the right angle here.
Speaker:There's a left handed glove
Speaker:back over at the crime scene.
Speaker:So I go and I look at the glove and they
Speaker:say, oh, so left handed
Speaker:glove and everything else.
Speaker:So I'm looking at this and for him and
Speaker:his partner discussing everybody didn't
Speaker:understand why there was only a right
Speaker:left handed glove there.
Speaker:Now they tell me that they were bloody
Speaker:footwear impressions, leaving the scene
Speaker:and alongside the bloody footwear
Speaker:impressions, there was tailing the blood
Speaker:alongside and in conjunction with the
Speaker:direction and the, of the footwear
Speaker:impressions indicating perhaps whoever
Speaker:left the footwear impressions and blood,
Speaker:the source was also the
Speaker:left side of their body.
Speaker:It was making these tailing of the blood
Speaker:trail alongside the footwear impressions.
Speaker:They were cooperating one another.
Speaker:And in other words, bloody footwear
Speaker:impressions were walking this way.
Speaker:The blood was tailing on the same
Speaker:directions, adjacent to
Speaker:the footwear impressions.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Let me just ask.
Speaker:I mean, obviously you've got a left
Speaker:handed glove at the scene full of blood.
Speaker:It obviously belonged to the murder.
Speaker:And now you found the matching, what
Speaker:seemed to be maybe the matching glove at
Speaker:the residence of OJ Simpson.
Speaker:Um, right away, I mean, in your head, are
Speaker:you thinking, wow, maybe
Speaker:OJ murdered Nicole and Ron?
Speaker:Uh, yes and no.
Speaker:Let's, a little light goes
Speaker:on in the back of your mind.
Speaker:You got a hundred
Speaker:other things you're doing.
Speaker:You don't jump to conclusions at all.
Speaker:Again, we got to go by what we see at the
Speaker:time when we see it and
Speaker:take action at that time.
Speaker:You can right away, the action taken here
Speaker:would have to be, this is declared a
Speaker:crime scene period, but you can't do
Speaker:anything without a warrant under those
Speaker:circumstances that's when
Speaker:decisions had to be made.
Speaker:So that decision was find the DMS and
Speaker:another, another problem we had initially
Speaker:is we needed to district attorney is
Speaker:going to be high profile case.
Speaker:We do this at the time.
Speaker:We got to get a DA involved early on.
Speaker:We had a little discussion,
Speaker:Phil and I did about Marcia.
Speaker:This is this all of this stuff I put into
Speaker:a book and that's one of the reasons I
Speaker:wrote the book because there are so many
Speaker:little things that
Speaker:happened at the same time.
Speaker:It's difficult for me to throw them all
Speaker:in here at the same time.
Speaker:It's flighted, but I'll try to get around
Speaker:a lot of these things.
Speaker:The decision was made to
Speaker:get our DA contact her.
Speaker:It was Marcia Clark, get a warrant, Phil
Speaker:would return and then when they conduct a
Speaker:crime scene investigation at Rockingham.
Speaker:I mean, well, I would return to Bundy and
Speaker:do the same thing and that's what
Speaker:happened, a waiting session coming back.
Speaker:At what point or, or ever was a Kato
Speaker:Kaelin considered a subject suspect?
Speaker:Kato Kaelin never really wasn't suspect.
Speaker:Uh, he was very cooperative.
Speaker:You could tell with his demeanor that,
Speaker:uh, I had a lot of experience talking to
Speaker:people at this point, my career.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And this is not any kind of a suspect in
Speaker:my mind, but of course, if there were any
Speaker:evidence to show otherwise, he had been
Speaker:treated as a suspect.
Speaker:He and Arnel at this point are witnesses.
Speaker:So it was just interesting and it was
Speaker:just interesting and coincidental then
Speaker:perhaps that the glove and the blood
Speaker:trail, uh, was along the exterior of his
Speaker:bungalow and that may have been the
Speaker:explanation as to when he said he heard
Speaker:the three thumps against his wall was
Speaker:perhaps when that individual OJ Simpson
Speaker:was going through that passageway.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And no, there was no
Speaker:blood trail back there.
Speaker:Just the glove by itself.
Speaker:Fuhrman did the right thing and following
Speaker:up on what he heard from Kato Kaelin,
Speaker:uh, it just makes sense.
Speaker:It's so when you effective as a homicide
Speaker:cop, you gotta be very nosy.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:You got to ask questions.
Speaker:You got to follow up
Speaker:at every little thing.
Speaker:And this is what Fuhrman did.
Speaker:And he did it properly.
Speaker:I have a lot of problems with the way he
Speaker:handled a lot of things, but in this
Speaker:case, he did the right
Speaker:thing and following up.
Speaker:Now I want to, I want to back up and
Speaker:clarify something because we all know
Speaker:what you just told us about how OJ left
Speaker:and went to Chicago in your investigative
Speaker:steps, you clearly found out like through
Speaker:the FAA and the flight logs or whatever
Speaker:airline, perhaps he
Speaker:flew, did he fly private?
Speaker:Did he fly commercial
Speaker:and when did he leave?
Speaker:And what was the purpose of going to
Speaker:Chicago or at least what he said the
Speaker:purpose was and how soon did he get back?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:A flu commercial airlines, they've been
Speaker:picked up by a limousine.
Speaker:Now again, here's more important things
Speaker:that occurred, uh, when he was picked up.
Speaker:He was picked up a little after just
Speaker:before 11 PM, perhaps.
Speaker:I don't have the minutes.
Speaker:It's probably been maybe about a quarter
Speaker:to 11 or something like
Speaker:this, uh, that evening.
Speaker:Uh, he was running almost a little late.
Speaker:Uh, the limo driver, a lot of things are
Speaker:happening here at the same time.
Speaker:You want me to go
Speaker:into all of these things?
Speaker:I can't, uh,
Speaker:Simpson is waiting for the limo.
Speaker:The limo shows up coming up.
Speaker:Rockingham or the driver label Allan Park.
Speaker:He later tells us he goes by the Rockingham
Speaker:gate because it seems to be closed.
Speaker:He turns around on the Ashford goes to
Speaker:the Ashford gate goes to the phone like
Speaker:we did the same phone.
Speaker:And the night before, of course, he tries
Speaker:to get something inside.
Speaker:Nobody answers.
Speaker:He realizes it now
Speaker:it's about 20 of 20 to 11.
Speaker:And he looks up and he sees someone
Speaker:walking across the lawn
Speaker:towards the front door.
Speaker:From the Rockingham gate.
Speaker:He says, you can't really recognize him.
Speaker:The later I, he says, I
Speaker:believe that's OJ Simpson.
Speaker:This person enters
Speaker:the front goes upstairs.
Speaker:He gets back on the
Speaker:phone and Simpson answers.
Speaker:Simpson says something to the effect to
Speaker:just get out of the shower.
Speaker:Um, I'll be down at a couple of minutes.
Speaker:You can come in the gate.
Speaker:And again, like I said,
Speaker:the gate wasn't locked.
Speaker:She says, okay, fine.
Speaker:I'll do that.
Speaker:So Allan Park pulls the limo in
Speaker:through the Ashford gate.
Speaker:At this point, a couple of minutes later,
Speaker:Cato comes out later.
Speaker:Simpson comes out with some bags.
Speaker:You got a golf club. And one bag has got
Speaker:other smaller bags there.
Speaker:He's just going for an
Speaker:overnight trip to Chicago.
Speaker:It's one of the
Speaker:companies that he sponsors.
Speaker:They're having a golf
Speaker:tournament or something.
Speaker:Then that effect is going
Speaker:to play in the following day.
Speaker:It's going to be staying at
Speaker:night in a hotel in Chicago.
Speaker:Reservations are then
Speaker:made everything is planned.
Speaker:The limo will take him to the airport.
Speaker:He'll do his thing in Chicago. Come back the next day. They'll do was staying in Chicago.
Speaker:Come back the next day.
Speaker:There was a time, but before you go on,
Speaker:um, I just want our audience to
Speaker:understand the timeline here.
Speaker:The murders occurred what,
Speaker:approximately 9pm that night.
Speaker:And now we're talking about OJ getting
Speaker:into a limo at his house at 11pm.
Speaker:Is that approximately correct?
Speaker:No, no.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:I'm going to say, and it there's a lot of
Speaker:discussion on this too.
Speaker:The murders occurred —
Speaker:the DA says — about 10:15 PM.
Speaker:I don't believe that's true at all for
Speaker:other reasons we get into.
Speaker:I'm going to say about 10 35.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:We went between Bundy and later on by the
Speaker:investigation that we wanted to see how
Speaker:long it would take on a Sunday night,
Speaker:about 10 30 to get some Bundy to rock.
Speaker:We did it three different ways.
Speaker:Slow, fast red lights and siren very
Speaker:slow, stopping for every lights and
Speaker:everything else at no point to take us
Speaker:forward four and a half minutes.
Speaker:And on Sunday night at 10 35
Speaker:to get from Bundy to right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Four and a half minutes max.
Speaker:This gives him plenty of time with, with
Speaker:the level drivers, uh, 10 40, uh, beliefs
Speaker:that that's what he kind of pulled up and
Speaker:says, it wasn't there Simpson walking in
Speaker:and putting everything at the limo,
Speaker:getting in there, going to the airport.
Speaker:Um, a lot of little things happening here
Speaker:in the, in the end of them when the
Speaker:loading up the car, one of them, uh, Kato
Speaker:was trying to, to try to get all the, uh,
Speaker:luggage and the golf clubs in the limo
Speaker:because they might be running a little
Speaker:late tail goes to grab this small duffel
Speaker:bag and Simpson says, no, leave it alone
Speaker:and I'll take care of that.
Speaker:And which later on Kato tells us about,
Speaker:he's a bit surprised about that, but they
Speaker:load everything up and the
Speaker:limo takes off at the airport.
Speaker:Allan Park says they get to the airport.
Speaker:They get there about 11
Speaker:little after 11 o'clock.
Speaker:As they pull up American airlines, the
Speaker:second level at LAX, there's nobody
Speaker:wrong, no traffic,
Speaker:the limo pulls right up.
Speaker:I'm being honest to them.
Speaker:There's a small vehicle and M G M and M G
Speaker:convertible part behind the limo.
Speaker:There's a man in it.
Speaker:He's waiting for his wife who happens to
Speaker:work at airlines, the American airlines
Speaker:counter, she gets off at 11.
Speaker:She's running a little bit late.
Speaker:He's picking her up from work.
Speaker:The limo pulls in front of this.
Speaker:He looks at the limo.
Speaker:There's nothing else
Speaker:around nor the traffic.
Speaker:And he sees OJ Simpson jump out.
Speaker:He looked at it and we saw, Oh, there's
Speaker:OJ Simpson, a red cap comes out.
Speaker:They start taking the luggage out.
Speaker:The golf clubs out and the, the Island
Speaker:park and the red cap, take the golf clubs
Speaker:and everything else inside the, uh, the,
Speaker:uh, terminal and he
Speaker:looks at turns around.
Speaker:He looks again, he's looking for his wife
Speaker:and he's looking back over.
Speaker:She's running a little late.
Speaker:He turns back around and at the entrance,
Speaker:there are two trash containers.
Speaker:One on the left, one on the right.
Speaker:There are about 44 inches high.
Speaker:They're open on four answers.
Speaker:The flat top on both.
Speaker:He sees OJ Simpson standing next to the
Speaker:one on the left of the opening and a
Speaker:small duffel bag that is described later
Speaker:by Kato Kaelin is on
Speaker:top of the container.
Speaker:Simpson is reaching into the bag,
Speaker:removing some kind of objects and taking
Speaker:them out and pushing them
Speaker:into the trash container.
Speaker:Now, very light.
Speaker:The bodies have not been found.
Speaker:Nobody's expected of anything there.
Speaker:So the, the man waiting for his wife
Speaker:and like a man, but that
Speaker:was skipped to us, uh, Mr.
Speaker:Jonas is watching Simpson do this.
Speaker:And there's really
Speaker:thinking anything of it.
Speaker:He's just taking garbage.
Speaker:Perhaps he had this bag and putting in
Speaker:the trash container.
Speaker:Simpson ships up the
Speaker:bag after walks inside.
Speaker:They go on.
Speaker:I think a key piece of evidence that was
Speaker:missing, uh, to convict OJ Simpson of the
Speaker:crime was the, with a stabbing, you would
Speaker:expect a lot of blood, a lot of blood on
Speaker:the victims, but also a lot of blood on
Speaker:the murder and no bloody clothes were
Speaker:ever found to, um,
Speaker:help convict OJ Simpson.
Speaker:And so what you've just described is a
Speaker:theory that OJ Simpson took his bloody
Speaker:clothes, put them in that briefcase or
Speaker:that duffel bag, and then put them in a
Speaker:trash can at LAX and from what I remember
Speaker:reading that the duffel bag was then
Speaker:thrown away when he got to
Speaker:Chicago in another trash can.
Speaker:And I don't even know if that evidence
Speaker:came out at the trial is that, but that's
Speaker:a key piece of evidence.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:It is, uh,
Speaker:there's three
Speaker:typewritten pages of evidence.
Speaker:It was never used.
Speaker:This is another issue we get into.
Speaker:However, that was one of them.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That's very important.
Speaker:That's just the bloody clothes, but the
Speaker:shoes, whatever the bloody clothes —
Speaker:the murder weapon was never found.
Speaker:What did he put in the trash container?
Speaker:Did you ever find out what he
Speaker:put in the trash can at LAX?
Speaker:We never did because I didn't find out
Speaker:about it for nine months,
Speaker:nine months during trial, Mr.
Speaker:Jonas, after the bodies were discovered
Speaker:and the news got all of this, it went out
Speaker:over to all the news stations, skipped
Speaker:you and us heard the mention that the
Speaker:murders occurred about nine 40 or so.
Speaker:And so G Simpson may
Speaker:or may not be a suspect.
Speaker:Well, he's sick at nine 40.
Speaker:I saw him at the airport about 11 or so.
Speaker:And, and, uh, they couldn't have done it.
Speaker:So he calls it a fence and a fence says,
Speaker:thank you very much.
Speaker:We'll get right back to you.
Speaker:They never did skip to us.
Speaker:Nine months later is
Speaker:watching the trial on TV.
Speaker:He sees all this going down.
Speaker:He calls me on the phone.
Speaker:I have a lunch.
Speaker:I just left the trial.
Speaker:I said, where are you now?
Speaker:He says, well, I haven't worked.
Speaker:Can you get over to back to the airport
Speaker:where you saw this and meet us there now?
Speaker:He says, okay.
Speaker:So he goes back there.
Speaker:I grabbed a photographer, my partner.
Speaker:We run out there.
Speaker:He gives us a walkthrough.
Speaker:There's no video
Speaker:cameras or anything else.
Speaker:Containers are still there.
Speaker:Nine months later,
Speaker:what are we going to find?
Speaker:There's three pickups a day
Speaker:going to two common dumps.
Speaker:No way ever going to find
Speaker:anything that was taken there.
Speaker:This is using trial.
Speaker:I never was
Speaker:the statement about the duffel bag ended
Speaker:up being tossed in Chicago.
Speaker:How would, how was that found out?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I never heard that
Speaker:because we never found the bag.
Speaker:We went back to Chicago.
Speaker:Got other evidence.
Speaker:We were not that also wasn't
Speaker:used broken drinking glasses.
Speaker:That's another story.
Speaker:We went back to your two days later.
Speaker:I went back to with the, with Bill, I was
Speaker:in the DA and another detective.
Speaker:We searched the
Speaker:grounds with the Chicago PD.
Speaker:They were very cooperative.
Speaker:They secured the, the hotel room where
Speaker:Simpson was staying.
Speaker:I found broken glass and blood in there.
Speaker:Booked all that stuff was never used.
Speaker:There was a reason that I booked that we
Speaker:can get into because of the cut figure.
Speaker:That was one of the elevators he gave to
Speaker:get three elevators.
Speaker:Uh, it was staged.
Speaker:Nine months of evidence.
Speaker:None of it would ever reach the jury.
Speaker:When OJ Simpson returned from Chicago,
Speaker:Tom Lange sat across from him and knew in
Speaker:30 seconds what they were dealing with.
Speaker:Join us for part two as we continue our
Speaker:interview to understand what happened.
