Finding the front door of the four-bedroom condo standing open, one officer later testified, he entered and came upon a contrasting scene of calm and tranquillity. There was no evidence of mayhem or that a robbery had taken place. Candles burned in the downstairs living room. A partially melted carton of Ben & Jerry’s chocolate-chip cookie-dough ice cream rested on the banister of a staircase. More candles lighted the master bedroom upstairs and flickered in the bathroom, where water had been drawn for a soak in the tub. Two young children, a boy and a girl, were sound asleep in their own bedrooms, oblivious to the carnage outside.
From family photos and other items in the condo, the police came to a shocking realization. The woman who lay dead across the threshold was Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, the ex-wife of the famous former football star O.J. Simpson, then 46. The male victim, investigators later learned, was Nicole’s friend Ronald Goldman, 25, a waiter and aspiring model. Riske telephoned his superiors; once more officers arrived, Brown and Simpson’s children, Sydney, 8, and Justin, 5, were awakened and taken to a west Los Angeles police station while police tried to reach their father.
Paul Hurschmann/AP
Those were the first hours of a real-life drama that would grip the country for the next 16 months. Within days—and following a police chase of a white Bronco truck in which Simpson held a gun to his own head— the NFL Hall-of-Famer was arrested and charged with double homicide. Now, 25 years after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, the story of O.J. Simpson’s criminal trial and acquittal still has the power to shock and divide the nation. In a new special edition,True Crime Stories: The Trial of O.J. Simpson, PEOPLE looks back at an American crime saga like no other.
PEOPLE’s special issueTrue Crime Stories: The Trial of O.J. Simpsonis available nowon Amazonand wherever magazines are sold
source: people.com
