TMZ broke the news this week that a new twist in the O.J. Simpson case presented itself after a knife was found buried on Simpson’s former estate in Brentwood, California. Recall that the weapon used to kill Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman was proposed to be a “long, serrated knife”. The knife has never been found and it was theorized to have been dropped in Chicago during O.J.’s trip to the windy city the day of the murders. Now we find it may have been at Simpson’s home all along.
Los Angeles police say they are examining the knife that was reportedly found years ago on Simpson’s estate. Los Angeles police Captain Andy Neiman told reporters:
“The actual item is described as a knife. I’m not going to go into the description of the knife because that could be germane to determining whether or not this actual piece of evidence is in fact evidence or is just a facsimile or a made-up story.”
Despite LAPD’s tight lips, others have said the knife found on Simpson’s property is a large, long-bladed Buck knife.
As if the O.J. Simpson case could get no more bizarre, police say that an ex-Los Angeles traffic officer received the knife from a construction worker who found it “back in the 90s”, likely when the estate was being demolished (the home was torn down in 1998). The now-retired officer “held onto it” until last month when authorities discovered he possessed potential new evidence.
Captain Neiman said he didn’t know why the ex-officer waited so long to turn it over to the police and that the officer possibly held onto it in the mistaken belief that the case was closed.
Regardless of the case’s status, a retired LAPD inspector general indicated the holding of potential new evidence was an atrocity:
“If true, it’s remarkable to think an LAPD officer — or retired officer for that matter — would retain for himself the possible murder weapon from the O.J. Simpson case rather than immediately turn it in to the department for analysis as any responsible law enforcement officer would do.”
The knife of course will be tested for blood DNA evidence. However, according to legal analysts,
“It’s going to be a difficult test because this stuff is probably degraded significantly by being buried in the soil.”
Of course, given double-jeopardy protection, new evidence will not result in a new trial.
