24 Suspicious Details From The ‘If I Did It’ Book By OJ Simpson
OJ Simpson (1947-2024) was a running back for the Buffalo Bills for 11 seasons, but what most people remember him for is his trial for the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman. The trial ended with Simpson’s acquittal, but that didn’t ease suspicion that he was guilty. To make matters worse, he went on to write a book called If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.
Upon hearing the If I Did It book was in the works, Ron Goldman’s family was upset that OJ would profit off of his crimes, especially since Simpson had taken extreme measures to avoid paying the settlement he owed to the Goldman family. The family successfully litigated until the ghostwriting for If I Did It was in their possession and they later sold the book themselves, making the cover design appear to read “I Did It” by OJ Simpson.
The ghostwriter who wrote the book with OJ was Pablo Fenjves, a former tabloid reporter. When it came time for his interview about the night of the murders, OJ didn’t show up. When the ghostwriter finally got OJ to sit down, OJ claimed he wasn’t alone on the night of the murders. He said, “You know I couldn’t have done this alone.” The ghostwriter assumed the accomplice was made up, but wanted OJ to tell his story so he simply told him to call his accomplice “Charlie”.
The ghostwriter seemed to think OJ was guilty because Simpson didn’t dispute the “hypothetical” story of how he killed Nicole and Ron, he just said he hated talking about it. The ghostwriter was also suspicious due to the precise details OJ recalled of the night of the murders, like the way Nicole’s dog wagging his tail at Ron Goldman tipped OJ off that Ron had been to Nicole’s home often.
Background: OJ and Nicole’s Relationship (According to OJ)
- OJ was married to his first wife when he met Nicole Brown at a restaurant (she was his waitress). For the next month, they saw each other every day. His wife was pregnant with their third child during this time.
2. During his interviews, OJ confessed to his ghostwriter that he hit Nicole “one time” and that “the press had turned him into the poster boy for wife abuse.”
3. OJ claimed Nicole started routinely getting physical with him, saying “Mostly I’d just try to get out of her way, but sometimes I had to hold her down till she got herself under control.”
4. Of his spousal abuse conviction, OJ told a heavy-handed tale of Mark Fuhrman’s buddies needing a ‘poster boy’ to launch an LAPD campaign. In the couple’s multiple run-ins with the police over their fights, OJ claimed Nicole was hysterical and the police were out to get him.
5. Eerily, OJ said: “Given the right circumstances, I guess anyone is capable of murder.”
6. OJ talked about dropping by Nicole’s home after their divorce and looking in her window to see her on the couch kissing another man. He knocked loudly and then ran off.
7. OJ moved on and started dating Hawaiian Tropic model Paula Barbieri — the woman he called on the night of the murders.
8. After months of Nicole ‘throwing herself’ at OJ, he says the two began sleeping together again — which meant that OJ was cheating on his girlfriend Paula.
9. The murders took place on June 12, 1994. From Mother’s Day 1993 to Mother’s Day 1994 (May 8, 1994) OJ and Nicole were “reconciling”. This means they were in a relationship as of just over a month before she was killed.
10. OJ claimed that on that infamous 911 tape, he isn’t yelling at Nicole. He was “venting” to Kato Kaelin, who was also present.
11. At the time of the murders, OJ and Nicole weren’t in a good place. He said, “We weren’t talking at the time of her death. Not because I’d threatened her, but because I’d had my goddamn fill of her. She was poisoning me with anger, and I needed to get away from it.”
The Night of the Murders, as Described by OJ in ‘If I Did It’
12. Another waiter at Mezzaluna (where Ron Goldman worked), Brett Cantor, was knifed to death the year before the murders. Brett was a friend of Nicoles and upon his death OJ told her, “You better open your eyes, Nicole. Nice people don’t go around getting themselves knifed to death.”
13. Of his physical condition at the time of the murders, OJ said “I was getting old. I could hardly walk anymore, and I’d been told recently that I would eventually have to have both knees rebuilt. Plus the arthritis was killing me.”
14. Just before the murders OJ was with Nicole and her family at a recital for one of their kids, Sydney. There, he ran into one of his friends who confirmed rumors OJ had heard about Nicole doing drugs and clubbing, hinting that they barely scratched the surface of what she had been up to and enraging OJ.
15. Later that night, “Charlie” (OJ’s imagined accomplice, according to the ghostwriter) showed up at OJ’s home. Charlie was there to tell OJ more of what Nicole had been up to: he’d heard a rumor about what happened on a Mexican vacation Nicole took with Faye Resnick while Nicole and OJ were still dating. The rumor was that Faye and Nicole did a lot of drugs, got drunk and did something “very kinky” with some of Charlie and OJ’s friends.
16. At that point, OJ told Charlie to get in his Bronco, he intended to go to Nicole’s house to “read her the fucking riot act.”
17. When he parked at Nicole’s house, OJ recalled reaching into his back seat for the wool hat and gloves he kept there. He also brought a knife he had in his car.
18. After going through the back gate he knew to be broken, OJ saw there were candles burning in Nicole’s house and she had music playing. He realized she was expecting a date.
19. At this point, OJ says he was surprised by Ron Goldman’s sudden appearance through the back gate. Ron told him he was just returning Nicole’s mother’s glasses that she left at Mezzaluna. Nicole came out of the house with her dog, who OJ remembers wagging it’s tail at Goldman — as if the dog was familiar with him because he had been there before — and that set him off.
20. OJ and Nicole started screaming at each other, and she “came at me like a banshee” but “fell” against the stoop and hit her head on the ground, knocking her unconscious.
21. When Goldman began doing some defensive martial arts moves, OJ remembers holding his knife… but his next memory is of “coming to” and realizing he was soaked in Ron and Nicole’s blood.
22. OJ then removed his blood-stained clothing and handed them off to his accomplice to dispose of, along with the murder weapon.
23. OJ recalled leaving his socks on as he removes the rest of his clothing because he didn’t see any blood on them.
24. After the murders, OJ was able to sneak into his house and shower before pretending he had overslept and catching his limo ride to the airport. At the airport, he recalled signing autographs.
