O.J. Simpson’s former sports agent says the former NFL star, who was acquitted of double murder, confessed to killing his ex-wife while high on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol.
The NFL-running-back-turned-actor, who died on April 10 at 76 from prostate cancer, avoided jail in 1995 when he was cleared in criminal court of killing his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman the previous year. Simpson was found liable for their deaths in a civil case brought by the pair’s families in 1997, in which he was also ordered to pay $33.5 million in compensation.
Simpson’s ex-sports agent Mike Gilbert opened up about the shamed late athlete’s alleged confession to the murder of Brown Simpson in his 2008 book, How I Helped OJ Get Away With Murder: The Shocking Inside Story of Violence, Loyalty, Regret and Remorse. Sections of the book have re-emerged in the wake of his late client’s death.
Gilbert said in the book Simpson confessed to killing Brown Simpson on the night of June 12, 1994, after he had taken a sleeping pill before smoking marijuana and drinking beer in his home in Brentwood, California.
“If she hadn’t opened that door with a knife in her hand … she’d still be alive,” he said Simpson mumbled.
“Nothing more needed to be said. O.J. had confessed to me. There’s no doubt in my mind,” Gilbert went on.
Brown Simpson — who was found in the fetal position in a pool of blood — was stabbed so fiercely in the attack that killed her medical examiners said she had almost been decapitated.
Simpson was acquitted after his blockbuster “Trial of the Century” saw his defense lawyer Johnnie Cochrane coin the phrase, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” after Simpson’s hand appeared not to fit into the blood-stained glove found on his property the day he was arrested on suspicion of butchering Brown Simpson and Goldman.
Gilbert says in his book he gave Simpson tips on how to make his hands swell so they wouldn’t fit into the infamous bloody gloves.
Simpson was represented by a defense team dubbed the “Dream Team,” which included high-priced lawyers Robert Shapiro, Robert Kardashian and Alan Dershowitz alongside Johnnie Cochran.
They argued DNA evidence in the case wasn’t properly handled by laboratory technicians and claimed the Los Angeles Police Department tainted the investigation.
After less than four hours of deliberation, a majority Black jury found Simpson not guilty of two counts of murder amid simmering racial tensions across America.
In 2008, Simpson was convicted of robbery and kidnapping and sentenced to 33 years. He was subsequently released by the Nevada Division of Parole and Probation in 2017.
