Murder in Brentwood (5 page)

The glove looked very much like the one at the Bundy residence. I immediately looked around. Directly above the glove was an air conditioning unit that protruded from the wall about two feet and was braced underneath with 2x4 studs. Could someone have bumped into the air conditioner and dropped the glove? My heart started pounding. Was I on the trail of a victim, or possibly a suspect?

Adrenaline shot through my system. I was in a dangerous position, halfway down a path that a murder suspect had possibly used. Should I turn back or go forward? If I turned around, my back would be exposed to anyone who might still be hiding further down the path. Going forward seemed like a better idea. As I started to walk slowly forward, surely I held my gun, though I don’t remember pulling it out or even thinking about it. After twenty years, some things become reflex.

Within my first few steps past the air conditioner, my face hit cobwebs. Since I was slightly crouched, lower than most people would stand, I concluded that whoever had dropped the glove did not continue walking down this path. The rest of the leaf-cover was undisturbed; no one had crawled or dragged along the path either.

I continued walking and looking for other evidence, ending at the southeast corner of the property in what appeared to be a gardener’s potting area. I spent a few minutes making sure that no one had collapsed, that there were no obvious pieces of evidence in the area, and then returned to the glove.

Kneeling next to the glove, I noticed a small, light blue paper package immediately on the other side of the cyclone fence. The package was roughly two inches square and appeared to be the wrapping for a gauze bandage. I scrutinized the immediate area, looking for evidence of blood, footprints, or disturbed ground, but saw nothing.

I returned to the front of the house and told Phillips what had I found, and led him to the glove. I related all my observations and conclusions, as it was important first to get his impressions. Phillips agreed that the glove looked very much like the one at the Bundy scene, and that it did not match the surrounding condition of the path.

Ron went to get Lange and Vannatter, and I took them in turn down the path, explaining things as I went. Vannatter was very interested in the discovery, although Lange was reserved. The three of them returned to the house while I stayed outside, in part to keep an eye on the glove, but also to let the adrenaline rush wear off.

After a short time, Phillips came back outside and told me that O.J. Simpson was in Chicago on business. He had left the previous night about 11:00 P.M. As we looked at each other, I could tell we were thinking the same thing: the dog was discovered wandering the streets at 10:30 to 10:45. Kaelin heard the bumps about 10:45. The possibility that O.J. Simpson could have been responsible for the bloody murder scene on Bundy seemed both bizarre and remote, but it loomed large in our minds nonetheless.

Several minutes later Phillips came back to tell me that Vannatter wanted us to go back to Bundy and look at the glove to see if it matched the one I had discovered behind Kaelin’s bungalow. I didn’t think this was a good idea, since by going from one crime scene to the other I could transmit trace evidence with my hands and clothes. Detectives call this cross-contaminating a scene, and avoid it whenever possible. But Vannatter was an experienced detective, and he was in charge of the investigation.

Phillips and I drove to Bundy together, arriving between 7:00 and 7:15 A.M. There was already an LAPD photographer at the scene, and Ron told me to have him photograph the glove before I inspected it. The photographer’s name was Rokahr, and I had worked with him before. Together, we walked around to the back of the condo and inside, since this was still the least contaminating way to approach the victims. I stepped over the female victim, careful to place my foot on a portion of the step that was not splashed with blood. Another long step and I was standing in the flower bed, just a few feet from the male victim. I knelt close to the glove and cap. On Rokahr’s direction I pointed toward the glove, and he shot the picture.

After the first photo was taken, I inspected the glove. Moving it with a pen, I easily saw it was a left-hand, large, dark brown leather glove with beige/gray knit fabric lining. It appeared to be the mate of the right-hand glove I had found behind the bungalow at Rockingham, although this glove’s leather had a duller appearance. I left the scene as carefully as I had entered it, and walked back around to the front of the property. I drove back to Rockingham with Rokahr following me.

Upon my return to the estate, I parked just south of the Rockingham gate and was joined by my partner Brad. I left Brad at the gate by the Bronco and walked through the Ashford gate with Rokhar, looking for Vannatter. I found him and told him that the glove at the Bundy scene was for a left hand and looked like a match for the glove I found behind Kaelin’s bungalow. Vannatter instructed me to have Rohkar photograph the glove behind the bungalow, all the same time saying that now we were going to have to handle the Rockingham estate like a crime scene.

I went with Rohkar to photograph the glove. The only instructions I gave Rohkar were that I wanted the photos to depict the ambient light as we now saw it. He took several shots, and then we returned to the front of the estate.

Brad had not been to the estate before. I explained my initial observations about the Bronco, showing him the blood spot above the door handle; the small brush lines on the doorsill; and the shovel, plastic, and the package addressed to O.J. Simpson Enterprises. While briefing Brad, I noticed Vannatter walking toward the Bronco from the corner of Ashford and Rockingham. I introduced Brad to Vannatter and then continued my briefing, explaining the difficulty I had seeing through the tinted windows in the dark. On his own, Brad walked over to the passenger side of the vehicle and looked inside, cupping his hands around his eyes to see through the glass. After a short time he looked back at me.

“There’s blood all over the inside!” Brad said. He described reddish-brown stains on the steering wheel, console, seats, and door panels. I looked for myself; there were blood smudges all over the Bronco’s interior.

Vannatter was still standing close to the Bronco, and I called him over to the passenger side to look. Brad and I described the stains Brad had found inside the Bronco as Vannatter looked inside. Surprised and excited, Vannatter went back to the Ashford gate while Brad and I stayed close to the Bronco watching Rokahr photograph the blood spot on the door. As Brad and

I
 
walked back toward the Rockingham gate, he made another timely observation. Brad saw drops of blood on the street by the driver’s side of the Bronco leading toward the Rockingham gate. ‘The gate was not locked, but it was closed. Brad and I walked through the gate, observing more drops of blood on the driveway. To my knowledge, this was the first time anyone had gone through that gate from the street that morning.

Brad and I walked up the driveway past the Saab and the black Bentley to the front of the house. Looking toward the open front door, Brad saw a large drop of blood on the cement walkway outside the door. He brought this to my attention, then together we noticed three drops of blood just inside the door on the light-stained oak floor.

I believe Vannatter was talking to someone inside the house, but within seconds he came outside where Brad and I had seen the blood drops. When Brad showed them to him, without hesitation Vannatter said, “That’s it. This is now a crime scene. Let’s get everybody out of the house.”

Vannatter asked Brad and me to help evacuate the premises of all non-police personnel. Arnelle Simpson had gone to the West LA station and picked up O.J.’s two small children. She had also called O.J.’s good friend, Al Cowlings, who was now with her and the kids watching television in the next room. At our direction, Arnelle, Cowlings, Kaelin, and the kids left the house through the patio door and the Ashford gate. Brad and I had them use the patio exit lo keep foot traffic away from the blood evidence we had just found near the front door.

Vannatter also asked us to check the house to make sure no one else remained. Brad and I had already walked through most of the bottom floor, so we went upstairs to check the other rooms. When we walked into the master bedroom, which we assumed was O.J.’s room, we noticed that the room was neat except for a pair of black socks on the floor at the foot of the bed. The socks were lying there as if someone had taken them off and thrown them on the floor. This seemed odd, not just to a detective, but to anyone who might have observed the immaculate condition of the rest of the room and the entire house. After we completed securing the house, I found Vannatter in the kitchen and told him about the socks.

Brad and I went back outside, where we saw Kaelin milling around near the Ashford gate, looking confused. We were both concerned that he could be “in the wind” if someone didn’t get him to the West LA station. Although Kaelin seemed to be a witness, we were not exactly sure of his status at this point in the investigation. One thing was certain; we needed to hang on to him. I went back into the kitchen and suggested to Vannatter that someone take Kaelin to the station before we lose him. Vannatter listened, but made no comment. So, I made a decision and asked Brad to have a patrol officer transport Kaelin to the station for a witness interview. Then I told Vannatter that it had been taken care of.

Vannatter said he was going to the station himself to write a search warrant and asked Brad to write a description of the property for the warrant. Placing his hand on my shoulder, and with confidence in his voice, Vannatter said, “You’re in charge of this crime scene.”

One of the first things I did was instruct an officer to complete an impound report for the Bronco and have it transported to LAPD headquarters at Parker Center. I made sure to have the officer indicate on the report to hold the vehicle in the print garage and have special notification for the serology, fingerprints, and trace evidence sections of the Scientific Investigations Division (SID). I told the officers to fill out the necessary reports, but delay the actual impound until the criminalist had taken a sample of the blood spots. Just as the officer was completing the impound, Vannatter came over and asked what I was doing. I explained that I was protecting the possible evidence on the Bronco by impounding it and placing it under cover instead of leaving it exposed to the elements and possible contamination. Vannatter canceled the impound and told me to leave the vehicle on the street with the guard officers. I didn’t understand his decision, which increased the risk of sensitive evidence being compromised. The only justification I could even entertain was that Vannatter didn’t believe he had enough probable cause to impound the vehicle. Anyway, it wasn’t my case, so I did what I was told. Vannatter left to write the search warrant.

While Brad and I waited for the warrant to be written and signed by a judge, I went to the house that shared the south property line with Simpson’s. I knocked on the door, and a female answered. I could not see her face behind the mesh security panel, but she greeted me and I identified myself. I told her that there might have been some trouble next door and asked if she would mind if I walked along their fence and into the rear yard. The woman gladly gave me permission, adding that if I needed to come back, her permission was not necessary. The woman spoke perfect English. Much later, we learned that she was Rosa Lopez, who had such trouble with her English during the trial. After speaking to Rosa, I spent several minutes looking around the backyard but found nothing unusual.

When I returned to the Simpson property, an SID criminalist van was parked in front of the Bronco and a criminalist named Dennis Fung, whom I had never met or worked with before, was busy unloading equipment from the van. I showed him the blood spot on the door and the streaks on the sill. Although he tested the spot, which did prove to be blood, he apparently never tested the streaks. And strangely enough, Rokahr never photographed them.

While Fung was testing the blood spot on the Bronco’s door, Brad was just inside the Rockingham gate placing small plastic numbers along the driveway leading toward the house. He had found a blood trail that made a path from the Rockingham gate to the front of the house, and now was marking the spots to keep people from walking on the possible evidence and to document their position for photos. Together, we looked for additional blood spots and found several more.

At one point Brad looked back toward the gate and saw Fung picking up Brad’s numbers and replacing them with his own. But Fung was only putting numbers on every fourth or fifth drop.

“Why don’t you recover every drop of blood? It looks like you’re missing a lot of drops,” Brad asked the criminalist.

Fung replied that taking samples of every fourth or fifth drop would be good enough. Brad and I looked at each other in disbelief. Without saying a word, we both knew that had we been in charge of the case, every drop of blood would have been recovered.

As Brad and I talked by the front door, I noticed a couple of small pieces of paper lying on a park bench near the front door. Brad and I looked closer at the paper scraps and recognized them as airline baggage tags. Anywhere else, these discarded tags would not have merited a second look, but, as we had seen inside, the rest of the estate was immaculate. We both made a mental note of the tags.

At that point Vannatter called to tell me to have Fung test the glove behind the bungalow for blood. Fung used a swab to obtain a sample from the surface of the glove and tested the sample by the front of the garage. The substance was indeed blood. I called Vannatter at the West LA station to convey the results of Fung’s test. Vannatter instructed me to take Fung to the glove and recover it. I led Fung down the south walkway to recover the glove and the small blue wrapper I had noticed earlier. With me holding a brown paper bag, Fung carefully placed the glove into the bag and closed it.

We went back inside the house. The phone kept ringing, and I answered it, thinking the calls might be police-related. Most of the calls were from friends of Simpson who wanted to know what had happened. One of the calls was from Bruce Jenner’s wife, Kris. Another was from Ron Shipp, an ex-cop who was close to Simpson.