Tom Lange — The Airport Witness and the Missing O.J. Simpson Evidence | Part 2
Tom Lange was the lead LAPD homicide detective on the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. In the second half of his return to Heroes Behind the Badge, Craig Floyd asks the question that has followed the case for more than three decades: if Simpson acted alone, how did he get rid of the bloody clothes, shoes and knife before catching a flight to Chicago that night?
Tom starts with the clock. His team drove from Bundy to Rockingham three times, and it never took more than four and a half minutes. From there he lays out a theory he says he can't prove: that Simpson carried the evidence behind the guest bungalows, dropped a glove where Kato Kaelin heard the thumps, and then took everything to the airport in a small bag he wouldn't let anyone else carry.
At LAX, a witness watched Simpson push items down into a trash container. The witness went to the defense first and reached Tom months later, after the trash had long since gone to one of two landfills. The prosecution chose not to call him. Decades later, limo driver Allan Park told Tom he had seen Simpson at the same container, and that he had told the prosecution before trial. Tom also explains why the blood on Simpson's socks was spattered, not poured, and what that means for the claim that his partner Phil Vannatter planted it.
The episode closes on Tom's career beyond this one case. He has worked well over 100 homicides, says this one isn't in his top 50 for difficulty, and has never cared for the notoriety. Craig recalls the journal Tom kept from the first day of the investigation, which he donated to the National Law Enforcement Museum.
Across both parts, Tom answers the viewer questions, the Ippolito accomplice claim, and the question of what happened to the evidence that never reached the jury.
New episodes drop on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
Learn more at citizensbehindthebadge.org.
© 2026 Citizens Behind the Badge. All Rights Reserved.
Transcript
There's two trash containers, one on the left, one on the right.
Speaker:44 inches high, four square, flat top, four openings.
Speaker:This little bag that I discussed is on top of this container.
Speaker:Simpson is reaching into the bag, pulling thi- items out
Speaker:that you can't be identified by this witness, and placing
Speaker:them down into the container.
Speaker:Not just throwing them in there, but shoving them
Speaker:down in the container
Speaker:Tom Lange led the LAPD investigation into the
Speaker:murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
Speaker:That same night, Simpson caught a flight to Chicago.
Speaker:What he did at the airport before he left is where
Speaker:this conversation picks up
Speaker:I get it that, uh, OJ did it, did it by himself at the murder scene.
Speaker:All the evidence pointed to him.
Speaker:But, you know, there, there's this nagging question I think
Speaker:on, on most minds, which is how does OJ commit a murder with
Speaker:all that blood and, and somehow within a matter of, you know,
Speaker:minutes, if not, you know, an hour or so, dispose of his
Speaker:bloody clothes, his… the bloody weapon, and, and, you know, you
Speaker:would think maybe he did have some help after the fact that,
Speaker:that somebody maybe, uh, helped dispose of some of the evidence.
Speaker:What, what, what are your thoughts about how he got rid of all
Speaker:the blood and evidence, uh, in such a quick manner, in such an
Speaker:effective manner as it turned out?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Uh, yeah, another great question.
Speaker:Uh, we spent a lot of time on this, and w- um,
Speaker:right down to minutes.
Speaker:How long does it take to get from point A to point B?
Speaker:In other words, Bundy to Rockingham at 10:30
Speaker:on a Sunday night.
Speaker:Not long.
Speaker:Uh, people say that the times come together.
Speaker:The murders occurred probably about 10:35, 10:36
Speaker:because of Heidstra, the guy walking his dog.
Speaker:I believe his testimony.
Speaker:Prosecution didn't.
Speaker:They didn't think it was… They, they thought it be,
Speaker:uh, it happened about 10:15.
Speaker:Well, I, I go along with the guy walking the dog, quite frankly.
Speaker:Number one, he was there.
Speaker:He does the same thing every night, same
Speaker:timeframe, everything else.
Speaker:So I would stick with that timeframe We took three trips
Speaker:from Bundy to Rockingham on a Sunday night at 12:35, 10:35.
Speaker:At no point did it take more than four and a half minutes to
Speaker:get from Bundy to Rockingham.
Speaker:We went code three in a police car, red lights and
Speaker:siren, took about two minutes.
Speaker:We went busting street signs, it took about, uh, three minutes.
Speaker:Then we stopped at every … Took our time to get from Bundy
Speaker:to Rock- never took more than four and a half minutes.
Speaker:So we had plenty of time to get from one point to the other.
Speaker:As far as what he did with this stuff.
Speaker:When Fuhrman found that glove behind the, uh, behind Kato's
Speaker:bungalow, that was just good fortune that Kato happened
Speaker:to mention the thumps.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:To Fuhrman, who happened to be talking to him.
Speaker:Fuhrman did the proper thing in going around
Speaker:behind, being curious.
Speaker:Now, why would somebody be thumping into the, into the,
Speaker:uh, air conditioning unit?
Speaker:If you look at that area back there, it's very narrow.
Speaker:Simpson's a big guy.
Speaker:You've got this huge air conditioning unit taking
Speaker:up at least two-thirds of the width of that walkway.
Speaker:There are no lights back there.
Speaker:There's a fence and there's a wall.
Speaker:You have almost … You've gotta go walk sideways if you wanna
Speaker:get by the, uh, air conditioner.
Speaker:Now, why is the glove near the air conditioner behind there?
Speaker:Because if you continue beyond those three bungalows all
Speaker:the way to the rear, there's a large open area, probably
Speaker:about 40 by 40 feet, where they store a lot of junk.
Speaker:There's old wheelbarrows, shovels, dirt, cement, just crap
Speaker:that, construction crap that's piled back there that they
Speaker:It's like a junkyard.
Speaker:Put it back there until they find something better to do with.
Speaker:It's n- it's, it's not easy to get to because you have to go
Speaker:behind the bungalows, and you got this air conditioning unit.
Speaker:This is my belief.
Speaker:I can't prove this, but I believe that when Simpson
Speaker:got home and the limo driver, Allan Park, was trying to get
Speaker:ahold of him, he's in a hurry.
Speaker:We find blood in the shower, so he started to take a shower.
Speaker:We're unable to type the blood in the drain, but we know there
Speaker:was human blood in the, in the drain Where Simpson started
Speaker:to take kind of a shower.
Speaker:I say that he picked up the bloody clothing, shoes,
Speaker:gloves, everything that he had, probably the knife, and
Speaker:went back behind the bungalows and was gonna take all of this
Speaker:stuff to this little junk area and dump it there temporarily.
Speaker:Because he had to get a plane that night within an hour and a half.
Speaker:He didn't wanna be caught with all this stuff.
Speaker:He got behind there.
Speaker:He was gonna dump it there temporarily.
Speaker:When he returns the next day, later in the day, he'll come
Speaker:back and deal with that then.
Speaker:But he couldn't deal with it now.
Speaker:He had to get rid of it temporarily.
Speaker:So Simpson went back behind the, uh, the bungalow there
Speaker:and ran into the air unit because he was a big guy.
Speaker:I'm not anywhere near as big as Simpson, and I couldn't
Speaker:e- I had a hard time getting around that air conditioning
Speaker:unit, but I did it anyway and found this area back there.
Speaker:There were still cob- uh, spider, spiderwebs and everything
Speaker:else, so I know nobody had been back there in a while.
Speaker:He didn't get any further than the air conditioning unit.
Speaker:And when he bumped into the air conditioning unit,
Speaker:he inadvertently dropped that right-hand glove.
Speaker:And he walked back out and he says, "Now what am I gonna do?
Speaker:I got, I got a chauffeur waiting here.
Speaker:I got all this stuff.
Speaker:What am I gonna do with it?"
Speaker:Well, m- cut now to the, to the limo there and Kato coming
Speaker:out and Ash- and, uh, at the Ashford gate and Simpson
Speaker:coming out with his bags.
Speaker:He had one little half-moon shaped travel bag that
Speaker:he had in the driveway.
Speaker:Kato says, "Here, let me get that." He says, "No,
Speaker:no, I'll take care of that one," and he grabs the bag.
Speaker:He doesn't let Kato take this one.
Speaker:They load up his golf clubs and everything else, and he
Speaker:takes off to the airport,
Speaker:okay?
Speaker:Where is the, where's the knife?
Speaker:Where are the cl- or the shoes?
Speaker:Where is anything that he wanted to dump, which is my
Speaker:belief, that he wanted to dump behind in that little junkyard
Speaker:behind the Rockingham home until he could deal with it?
Speaker:Well, how about that little bag?
Speaker:Because now we'll switch to the airport 30 minutes later, where
Speaker:a very good witness sees Simpson, identifies him, looks behind.
Speaker:He's waiting there for his wife to appear, and she's running late.
Speaker:She happens to work in American Airlines.
Speaker:She's still working.
Speaker:He turns back around and he sees Simpson's limo pull in.
Speaker:Sees L- Simpson jump out, the red cap comes out, the chauffeur
Speaker:gets out, and they start taking out Simpson's stuff, and he,
Speaker:and he identifies Simpson.
Speaker:And he sees Simpson standing, once everything is inside, it's
Speaker:just Simpson standing there.
Speaker:No one else is around.
Speaker:Simpson just standing at the left side of the entranceway.
Speaker:There's two trash containers, one on the left, one on the right.
Speaker:44 inches high, four square, flat top, four openings.
Speaker:This little bag that I discussed is on top of this container.
Speaker:Simpson is reaching into the bag, pulling thing, items
Speaker:out that can't be identified by this witness, and placing
Speaker:them down into the container.
Speaker:Not just throwing them in there, but shoving
Speaker:them down the container.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Simpson zip up the bag, pick up the bag, walk in, and that's it.
Speaker:Now he's thinking, well, that's kinda strange, but not a big deal.
Speaker:The next morning, this thing breaks, because at the time
Speaker:that this happened, the bodies hadn't even been discovered.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Nobody knows about this.
Speaker:The next day he hears the news about that Simpson, about,
Speaker:uh, Ni- Nicole and Goldman, and Simpson could be a suspect
Speaker:because this, that, and the other.
Speaker:The, the media speculating this and all.
Speaker:This guy calls up the defense.
Speaker:He gets one of the, uh, defense investigators that I've known for
Speaker:years, and he tells him the story.
Speaker:Well, the investigator knows better.
Speaker:He doesn't, uh, he doesn't wanna hear any of this,
Speaker:so he tells the attorneys.
Speaker:Uh, the attorneys aren't about to let this go.
Speaker:Now, if they use this guy as a witness, it's,
Speaker:it's, it's discoverable.
Speaker:If you don't use this witness, it's not discoverable.
Speaker:They don't have to tell us anything about this guy, and they
Speaker:don't until eight months later.
Speaker:I'm sitting in court, I go back to lunch, my phone rings.
Speaker:It's the same witness.
Speaker:He tells me this story, and initially he had called the
Speaker:defense, and the defense, of course, didn't want
Speaker:anything to do with it.
Speaker:So he tells me this story, and to that date, nothing
Speaker:has been discovered.
Speaker:What happened to the evidence?
Speaker:The same question you guys are just asking.
Speaker:Well, uh, how about that trash container?
Speaker:So we get ahold of this guy and I say, "Meet us at the airport."
Speaker:I said, "Can you get out there right now?" He says, "Yes." So
Speaker:I bust out there with another guy and a photographer, and I
Speaker:meet him at American Airlines.
Speaker:Number one, there's no cameras anywhere back then in '94.
Speaker:We're looking at the containers.
Speaker:We find out there's two pickups a day in LAX, the airport, and
Speaker:they … Uh, sorry, three pickups a day, and they go to two common
Speaker:landfills within the area.
Speaker:What are the chances of finding anything eight, nine months
Speaker:after the murders at one of two landfills It's an impossibility.
Speaker:In fact, they've already started building a, a home
Speaker:development on one of these right off the San Diego Freeway.
Speaker:There's no chance we're gonna do it.
Speaker:Is that a reasonable thing to think that maybe there's
Speaker:something inculpatory in those trash containers?
Speaker:Well, we go through all of this.
Speaker:I rush into Marcia, the DA, and I say, "Marcia, look what we got."
Speaker:I, I don't get excited very often, but I was excited because
Speaker:of this witness seeing Simpson's arm in the trash container.
Speaker:We've haven't seen this bag since then.
Speaker:So I tell her what I have and she says, "Well, not really
Speaker:because it's a one-on-one." Well, what she's saying is
Speaker:we can't corroborate his story because we only got
Speaker:one witness seeing one thing.
Speaker:I'm, I'm saying, "So what?
Speaker:This is good stuff.
Speaker:This is a hole we have here.
Speaker:People wanna know where are the shoes, the gloves, the clothing?
Speaker:Well, what about this?
Speaker:This is very reasonable.
Speaker:This is a solid witness.
Speaker:Why in hell wouldn't you wanna use him?" "Well, because
Speaker:we got this one-on-one, we can't back him up," you know.
Speaker:This goes on nonsense.
Speaker:You know what happened with all of this crap, you
Speaker:never saw this guy testify.
Speaker:Now,
Speaker:20, 27 years pass and I'm doing a special on this
Speaker:thing, and I'm interviewing the limo driver, Allan Park.
Speaker:And he's telling me about what happens.
Speaker:And he's saying, "Yeah, I, I dropped Simpson, uh, off
Speaker:and we're driving away and I just saw him there standing
Speaker:by the trash container.
Speaker:He's got some bag in his…" And it kept going.
Speaker:I said, "Wait up, what'd you say?" And I s- I said, "You saw Simpson
Speaker:standing by a trash container?" He said, "Yeah, he was standing
Speaker:by the container to the left there of the door going in, and I know
Speaker:his bag was there and nobody else.
Speaker:He's just kind of looking around.
Speaker:I drove away.
Speaker:I had to go on my next call, but I saw him as I drove away." I said,
Speaker:"You didn't tell anybody this?" He says, "Yeah, I told somebody."
Speaker:I said, "When?" He said, "Well, I told Marcia when she interviewed
Speaker:me 27 years ago before the trial."
Speaker:And you know, Tom, I think you just answered- Wow … you
Speaker:just answered a couple- That's the testimony of the witness.
Speaker:She lied to me.
Speaker:She lied to me.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I
Speaker:want
Speaker:to- He saw that all along.
Speaker:And it was also something in our first, uh, podcast
Speaker:with you that you told us that's for another day.
Speaker:We'll talk, you know, that'll be a whole another episode that we
Speaker:could get into to discuss that, but that is really interesting.
Speaker:And why do you think Marcia held that back?
Speaker:Okay, she's playing games.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:Don't misunderstand me, Marcia Clark is a very intelligent woman.
Speaker:She was an outstanding prosecutor, but she was playing games here,
Speaker:which I don't have a problem with if you tell me about it.
Speaker:The game was, this is LAPD on trial.
Speaker:Again, we'll go back to what I started with.
Speaker:There's no evidence, nothing that's helpful to her
Speaker:here, so you're gonna have to do something drastic.
Speaker:Well, what do we do?
Speaker:We put the cops on trial.
Speaker:Every one of you guys knows that's exactly what happens all the
Speaker:time to one extent or another.
Speaker:This is a big deal.
Speaker:This is a big extent here because you got a double murder.
Speaker:We're gonna put these cops on trial with a jury who
Speaker:really doesn't like cops.
Speaker:This is two years after Rodney King, and I don't blame a lot
Speaker:of people for that because it, it looked horrible.
Speaker:It's, it was not a good moment for LAPD, period.
Speaker:I don't care how you cut it.
Speaker:But you don't lie about these things.
Speaker:She knew we were on trial.
Speaker:She knew we were gonna go through a lot of crap.
Speaker:That's fine, but all she has to tell me as her investigator
Speaker:is what she's doing.
Speaker:I wanna know what you have in your mind if you're saying, "Listen,
Speaker:Tom, you guys are on trial, so I'm gonna have to play this game.
Speaker:I don't wanna put this one on.
Speaker:I don't wanna look like you're really doing your job and out
Speaker:there looking at evidence." In, in a homicide investigation, when you
Speaker:file a case, it belongs to the DA.
Speaker:It no longer belongs to the police, but that doesn't
Speaker:mean the investigation ends.
Speaker:Your investigation can start up 20 years later.
Speaker:If there's something, evidence in this case, you're
Speaker:gonna be the investigator, but you work for the DA.
Speaker:You don't work for yourself.
Speaker:Your job is over.
Speaker:She's got the case.
Speaker:It's their case.
Speaker:They filed it.
Speaker:You'll continue to work for them, and that's what we did.
Speaker:The majority of the, the, uh, evidence in this case came
Speaker:after that case was filed.
Speaker:It was filed on the basis of the DNA and a blood, foot-
Speaker:footwear impressions, and all the stuff at the crime scenes.
Speaker:But I got three typewritten pages of things that should
Speaker:have been brought up throughout the trial that answer a lot of
Speaker:those questions you probably have, that were never brought
Speaker:because we were on trial.
Speaker:And that's fine.
Speaker:If that's the district attorney's way to handle things, it's your
Speaker:case, you do what, do what you want, but tell me about it so I
Speaker:know what the hell's going on.
Speaker:So what was your relationship and discussions with her
Speaker:post-trial and afterwards?
Speaker:Interesting question, because there was none.
Speaker:I was genuinely pissed.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think that she was an intelligent woman, maybe a
Speaker:little bit of a sociopath.
Speaker:I don't know, but I don't think she had a
Speaker:conscience with any of that.
Speaker:Again, which is fine.
Speaker:Cops are on trial, you gotta handle it that way, but
Speaker:tell us we're on your side.
Speaker:So you- I was on the stand for over eight days.
Speaker:I had more problems with her on direct than I did with Johnnie
Speaker:Cochran on cross, because I knew exactly where he was coming from.
Speaker:I didn't know where she was.
Speaker:It was, it was like one-on-one against one
Speaker:another, and I'm her witness.
Speaker:Did you ever have a conversation where you went to her and
Speaker:you say, "You know, you screwed this up. It's on you"?
Speaker:Probably not face to face like that.
Speaker:Uh, timing would've been terrible.
Speaker:It would've been, uh, would've looked like an idiot.
Speaker:She would've denied it, and we would've had the problems
Speaker:then that we have today.
Speaker:It's a little too soon for that.
Speaker:It's very obvious what happened, and everybody knows about it.
Speaker:The other prosecutors know about it.
Speaker:Everybody knows what went on with this whole case.
Speaker:Um, it's just unfortunate.
Speaker:How about all these years later and the defense attorneys?
Speaker:Did you ever have a sit down with them and just kinda
Speaker:reminisce about the trial and, and say, "Yeah, well…"
Speaker:Well, like I say, Johnnie Cochran, uh, and a, a couple
Speaker:others, yeah, we, we played a game back and forth.
Speaker:A few of them were kind of straight-laced, too much so.
Speaker:Johnnie Cochran had a great sense of humor, very funny.
Speaker:Some of the stories were hilarious.
Speaker:But we really got along.
Speaker:We'd have coffee sometimes and sit together, and it'd be like
Speaker:you put your, your game face on, and you go in, and you knew
Speaker:exactly what was gonna happen.
Speaker:Because while they weren't in charge, they kinda were,
Speaker:because they had us as, as their, you know, their, their foils.
Speaker:That was very easy for the defense to do under these circumstances
Speaker:because, again, unfortunately the timing of the Rodney King thing.
Speaker:And when your own prosecutor is playing games with you
Speaker:and you don't know it, uh, it makes it just twice as bad.
Speaker:So Tom, what I'm talking about is after the trial's over,
Speaker:you know, however long, couple years, whenever, did you ever
Speaker:sit down with those guys and, and throw it around a little bit?
Speaker:Not sit down, but it would be a little remark here and again.
Speaker:Um, it wasn't that type of a thing.
Speaker:Uh, it's, the one problem that I had with their attorney,
Speaker:probably the only one, were with Alan Dershowitz
Speaker:Who is still in the news.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It came out just a couple of days ago of this crime.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I like him.
Speaker:I did like him.
Speaker:I have a problem with him now because he's either
Speaker:totally ignorant of the evidence or he's lying.
Speaker:And I don't wanna say he's lying, but he's lying.
Speaker:Blood on the socks.
Speaker:Are you sure?
Speaker:Are you sure about that, Tom?
Speaker:The blood on the sock- we had the socks, we had our own criminalist,
Speaker:uh, Rod Englert, 50 some-odd years experience as a criminalist
Speaker:and a cop, good friend of mine.
Speaker:Had those socks.
Speaker:He was, he was, he was hired.
Speaker:Again, Henry Lee wanted to be hired, I think, by the, by the
Speaker:prosecution, but they ended up with Rod Englert, which is
Speaker:just as good, if not better.
Speaker:Rod got those socks, put them under high intensity lighting.
Speaker:The blood on the socks was spattered.
Speaker:It was not poured.
Speaker:To this day, Alan says, "My partner Phil Vannatter took
Speaker:the beaker of blood and poured it on the socks."
Speaker:There's no pouring, there's no socks, it's
Speaker:soaking on those socks.
Speaker:It's spattered with blood, the same type of spatter
Speaker:on Ron Goldman's shoes that's at the crime scene.
Speaker:It's spattered with 39 projectiles on one sock, 19
Speaker:projectiles on the other.
Speaker:Simpson's glo- appear- uh, blood appears on the rim of the sock
Speaker:and on the toe of the sock, where he probably removed the
Speaker:socks and threw them on his, on his, uh, bedroom floor.
Speaker:But all the blood, Nicole's blood, is spattered.
Speaker:39 projectiles on one, 19 on the other, no question.
Speaker:Here are the photographs.
Speaker:I don't think Al never even looked at those socks.
Speaker:If you look at them, you see the spatter marks,
Speaker:because I saw photographs.
Speaker:And they're all spatters.
Speaker:There's no soaking of blood.
Speaker:When you pour blood on socks, there'd be a soaking.
Speaker:Vannatter, number one, didn't plant evidence.
Speaker:He's not a crooked cop.
Speaker:He wouldn't do that.
Speaker:There's no evidence that he did.
Speaker:To this day, he still spouts this stuff.
Speaker:That's bad enough, but nobody confronts him.
Speaker:They don't confront him with the evidence.
Speaker:Say, "Here are the photographs."
Speaker:By the way, you didn't see those at trial either.
Speaker:But these are spatters.
Speaker:This is not a pouring of blood.
Speaker:And, and to beseech someone's reputation, like of Phil
Speaker:Vannatter, who's been gone now for years, and to say that
Speaker:he planted blood, why would he do that to begin with?
Speaker:This is a double murder case.
Speaker:He'd go to jail the rest of his life if that could be proved.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Regardless of this outcome on the case, that was just not true.
Speaker:And to this day, Dershowitz gets away with this crap,
Speaker:and I can't believe it.
Speaker:You know, and I wanna ask you a personal question.
Speaker:I get- Forget about Dershowitz, and there's been
Speaker:all this latest stuff with these so-called mob guys.
Speaker:But just in general, say we, we rewind just six months before, uh,
Speaker:ago, before all this latest stuff.
Speaker:Just in general, Tom, if OJ Simpson … Say you, you
Speaker:are … Tom, you were the lead LAPD homicide investigator
Speaker:in the OJ Simpson case.
Speaker:Had he been convicted, do you think that we'd still
Speaker:be talking about it today, and do you think there would
Speaker:have been this much intrigue and interest for this long?
Speaker:Definitely not.
Speaker:Um- Again, you see these things.
Speaker:You're gonna see, right, this isn't gonna go away
Speaker:because this is probably 32 years later, if not more so.
Speaker:Again, the, the people who are most interested in this case
Speaker:weren't even born back then.
Speaker:This is a new generation-
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:… that are being entertained with all of this BS.
Speaker:They're being entertained because of the celebrity.
Speaker:They're being entertained by, "Well, the cops did this and
Speaker:the cops did that." This is entertainment for most people.
Speaker:For me, it's a job.
Speaker:Uh, I look at it different.
Speaker:That's the problem with high-profile cases.
Speaker:I've got a lot more cases that were a whole
Speaker:lot more difficult than
Speaker:This isn't in the top 50, guys.
Speaker:This is not that difficult to figure out what happened here.
Speaker:Uh, and again, when you have exculpatory evidence,
Speaker:you deal with that.
Speaker:I had nothing to deal with that as far as … If anything,
Speaker:it was exculpatory here.
Speaker:Um, if it not had been for the way this thing is pushing, people
Speaker:are making a lot of money on this.
Speaker:And all of a sudden, The New York Times comes out with this,
Speaker:this ex- this all this nonsense.
Speaker:It is total nonsense, and it's gonna go away as quick as it came.
Speaker:But stick around, because it ain't going anywhere.
Speaker:So T- Tom, you call it nonsense and, uh, and the BS and everything
Speaker:else, but you know, cop to cop, 32 years or so later,
Speaker:are you glad that you were the lead investigator on this?
Speaker:Boy, he came up with some pretty good questions.
Speaker:Uh, I, in some ways, yes.
Speaker:In other ways, perhaps no.
Speaker:I don't care for the notoriety.
Speaker:I never did.
Speaker:It drives my wife nuts.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We went to Europe on a vacation after this, and
Speaker:people were coming up to me.
Speaker:In Europe.
Speaker:Uh, they'd watched the trial.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's just cameras in the court.
Speaker:That's the other thing, if there'd been no, if, if the
Speaker:cameras weren't allowed in there, they wouldn't have
Speaker:known most of the people that were involved with us, and it
Speaker:would have been a lot better.
Speaker:I'm not, I'm not in, into entertainment, okay?
Speaker:I don't like the recognition at all.
Speaker:I wanna do my job, and I want to be proud and have respect
Speaker:for the job that I do, not because it's a big exposure, uh,
Speaker:to, to, uh, entertainment for most people, which it has been
Speaker:entertainment for most people.
Speaker:Again, um, uh-
Speaker:But do you, do you believe it's defined your legacy?
Speaker:I hope not, because I had a lot of other cases that
Speaker:were real cases, all right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Uh, and it took real police work.
Speaker:This took a little bit of some.
Speaker:You gotta play some games, but I've, I'm probably at
Speaker:well over 100 homicides, and the unit that I worked
Speaker:didn't take the self-solvers.
Speaker:Here's your case and you had to work.
Speaker:Some of them never got solved, but I know who did,
Speaker:uh, these types of things.
Speaker:The district attorney's office is in charge of these
Speaker:cases, you know, their cases when they file them, but
Speaker:that's a political office.
Speaker:If you're the DA and you're running to maintain your office
Speaker:or to, to con- to, to continue on as a district attorney in
Speaker:any major city, and you don't have a 90-plus conviction rate,
Speaker:you ain't gonna be the DA.
Speaker:It's as simple as that.
Speaker:I have had a lot of cases turned down that should not have been,
Speaker:and I came back when they've killed again on serial cases,
Speaker:and it just pisses you off at the time, but that's politics.
Speaker:Cops sh- cops make lousy politicians, and
Speaker:politicians make lousy cops.
Speaker:You keep those things in mind.
Speaker:So I define the… I don't know what's to define
Speaker:because it's all there.
Speaker:I mean, there, there's, there's no unanswered questions.
Speaker:There's just supposition now and hearsay.
Speaker:There's nothing relevant that hasn't been answered
Speaker:You know, um, I, I think I mentioned this in their
Speaker:last episode, and, and Bill, you were with me.
Speaker:Uh, Dennis, this may be news to you.
Speaker:But Tom, uh, uh, years after the OJ case was over, uh, we did a
Speaker:Witness to History event where Tom was, uh, part of a panel to
Speaker:discuss the OJ case as part of the National Law Enforcement Museum.
Speaker:And, uh, after that event, uh, Tom was very gracious and, and
Speaker:donated one of the most, uh, uh, valuable historical items I think
Speaker:we have in the museum collection.
Speaker:And that is the journal he kept from, uh, day one in the case,
Speaker:uh, through his investigation, all his observations, all
Speaker:his opinions about what was going on, and, uh, that is now
Speaker:part of, uh, the National Law Enforcement Museum archives.
Speaker:And I think, uh, you know, 100 years from now, generations
Speaker:from now, people are gonna, uh, still be intrigued by
Speaker:this case, and they're gonna wanna know what happened.
Speaker:And, uh, the lead detective in the case, his observations and
Speaker:opinions are gonna be perhaps more valuable than anything else.
Speaker:So Tom, I, I just wanna thank you again for, for donating
Speaker:that, that, uh, very historical piece of, uh, uh, history, and,
Speaker:uh, being with us again today to talk through this case.
Speaker:Every time we're together, I, I learn new things, and,
Speaker:and you enlighten me about, uh, the facts in the case.
Speaker:Uh, just so, such overwhelming evidence that, that OJ Simpson
Speaker:committed these murders, and it's a travesty of justice
Speaker:that he was not convicted.
Speaker:But, uh, but you did your job, sir. Right.
Speaker:And you are truly one of those heroes behind the badge.
Speaker:And, and to, a- and to your, and to your legacy, Tom,
Speaker:uh, uh, if you get a chance, check the comments in, uh,
Speaker:on the last two episodes.
Speaker:I'm sure we'll get plenty on this one, too.
Speaker:Uh, there was a true affection for you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, I mean, people said, "Hey, this dude is a straight shooter.
Speaker:He's telling it like it is.
Speaker:He's a h- he's the hero.
Speaker:He's the one that stood up and, uh, uh, uh, with all
Speaker:this political bullshit going on, he's the one that stood
Speaker:up and told the real story."
Speaker:A lot of people get it, okay?
Speaker:They get it, and they appreciate you after all
Speaker:these years still coming on to do this type of a podcast.
Speaker:And, uh, your legacy certainly, uh, is not just one case.
Speaker:So many of our guests on Heroes Behind the Badge, they're here
Speaker:because of one case, but that is not their legacy And, uh, there's
Speaker:a lot of people out there in our audience that support you.
Speaker:So, uh, we appreciate you spending this time again with us.
Speaker:Every time we get, uh, something a little new, don't we?
Speaker:We get a little something that we didn't know before.
Speaker:And, uh, for that, I thank you.
Speaker:Uh, you don't have to do this, but you chose to do it,
Speaker:and we appreciate that, so.
Speaker:Well, I appreciate you saying that.
Speaker:Thank you very much.
Speaker:Again, that's gonna wrap it up for this episode of
Speaker:Heroes Behind the Badge.
Speaker:You've been listening to Tom Lange.
Speaker:If you liked anything Tom had to say, please
Speaker:subscribe, like, and follow.
Speaker:We're sponsored by Citizens Behind the Badge,
Speaker:citizensbehindthebadge.org.
Speaker:Check us out.
Speaker:You can get all the information about how you can support the
Speaker:men and women of law enforcement.
Speaker:We'll see you next time on Heroes Behind the Badge.
Speaker:Thank you for joining us on Heroes Behind the Badge.
Speaker:If you stand with the men and women who wear the badge, add
Speaker:your name to the Declaration of Support at behindbadge.org.
Speaker:There's another story waiting for you.
Speaker:Stay with us.
