posted on Jun, 12 2014 @ 07:32 AM
OJ Simpson is locked away in a jail cell in Nevada these days for kidnapping and armed robbery in 2008. However it is the events surrounding OJ from
20 years ago that captivated the Western world.
On June 12th 1994, Simpson's ex wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were found dead outside Nicole’s Los Angeles home. Their throats had been
slashed and police rapidly made Simpson their Prime Suspect.
Instead of turning himself in for questioning Simpson got into a white Ford Bronco and so began a police chase across L.A. The pursuit of OJ Simpson
was beamed live by satellite across the globe from news helicopter mounted cameras.
Here are some lesser know details of the events :
According to a Nielsen survey said the trial verdict was the third most
"impactful" televised happening of the last 50 years, behind the September 11, 2001 attacks and Hurricane Katrina.
Domino's Pizza reported record deliveries as Americans remained glued to their televisions at dinner time watching police chase OJ Simspon on the
freeway.
OJ Simpson stayed at the home of Kim Kardashian in the five days between the murders and the Ford Bronco chase. Her father Robert Kardashian was
Simpson's lawyer and friend. Kim Kardashian was 13 at the time.
At the end of the chase police found $9,000, and a fake beard and moustache in the Ford Bronco.
Nine members of the criminal jury that acquitted Simpson were black. Eight members of the civil jury that later found him liable, were white.
The Goldman family have received less than one per cent of the money the millions of dollars in damages Simpson was ordered to pay them at the end of
the civil trial.
The Ford Bronco chase happened on the same day as the opening ceremony of the 1994 football World Cup in Chicago. The 2014 tournament opens in Brazil
exactly 20 years to the day.
Source:
Telegraph newspaper
Next came the sequel - ‘The Trial of OJ Simpson’ on TV. It fascinated
audiences and ultimately split opinion and still does to this day. After this most bizarre episode in Simpson’s life he was acquitted by the jury
with the enduring image of him trying to squeeze his hand into a glove found at the scene that could link him to the crime.
Simpson walked free but suffered from the after effects of the trial. The Brown and Goldman families won a wrongful-death judgment against him and
were awarded $33.5m in damages. Although they have seen very little of it as stated earlier. His acquittal divided America - polls showed that while
black Americans overwhelmingly believed Simpson was innocent, white Americans largely thought he should have gone down for murder.
OJ became a celebrity outcast was often heckled in public and could never take back the life he once had. Eventually Simpson ended up in a jail cell
for another crime where many believe he should have been sent a decade earlier.
But was he really guilty of the murders back in 1994 and his trial a miscarriage of justice?