FBI releases 475 pages of documents related to OJ Simpson murder case
The Federal Bureau of Investigation released 475 pages of documents Friday regarding OJ Simpson, the former NFL star, actor and infamous suspected double murderer who was acquitted of charges that he murdered his ex-wife and her boyfriend.
The documents focus largely on the investigation into the 1994 stabbing deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Simpson was a person of interest whose 1995 trial became one of the world’s most watched popular culture events of the last century.
The majority of the files included in the dump Friday, including some redactions, relate to the collection and testing of forensic evidence from the crime scene. They also include details of an FBI visit to Italy to investigate the production and distribution of Bruno Magli shoes, the rare brand worn by Los Angeles homicide investigators by the killer.
The FBI also sent a memo alerting its investigators to the widespread public attention the case was receiving.
“Due to the intense media interest in captions, and the potential adverse impact that public dissemination could have on ongoing criminal proceedings,” the memo states, “the following information should be treated on a strict ‘need-to-know’ basis , and may not be handled outside of FBI distribution. All media inquiries should be directed to the Los Angeles Police Department.”
The FBI instructors sent to investigate Bruno Magli’s retailers were instructed: “Under no circumstances should interviewing agents mention that this investigation relates to OJ Simpson or the Los Angeles, California murder investigation.”
In addition, the files released on Friday include a pair of lengthy letters addressed to the FBI night supervisor and dated within a month of the crimes from an individual who claimed to have had premonitions of the murders.
Despite the not guilty verdict, three years after Simpson’s criminal trial, he was found liable in a civil suit brought by the victims’ families and ordered to pay $33.5 million. In 2008, he was sent to prison for fifteen years for a botched robbery in Las Vegas in which he forcibly tried to recover sports memorabilia that he claimed had been stolen from him.
Simpson died in April of prostate cancer at the age of 76. The FBI publicly releases data it keeps on individuals after they die.