Twenty-two years after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman precipitated the most famous trial of the century, the LAPD is testing a knife that was found years ago but was kept by an LAPD cop in his home until this January.
According to TMZ, the buried folding buck knife was found by a construction worker at some date after the home of O.J. Simpson was demolished in 1998. When the home was demolished, Simpson was asked how he felt, and he responded, “I am a sentimental guy. But there’s things you’ve got to compartmentalize. You take them and file them away. I’ve always tried to live my life forward and not backward.”
TMZ sources report that the construction worker brought the knife to an off-duty LAPD traffic cop working security for a movie shoot at a house across from Simpson’s home. The sources add that the officer took the knife home.
After the cop retired this January, he told a friend who worked in LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division (RHD) that he wanted to frame the knife, and asked the friend to obtain the DR (Departmental Record) number for the Simpson murder case, intending to engrave the number in the frame.
The friend, outraged, told his superiors, who demanded the knife be relinquished to the police, where it is being tested for hair and fingerprints before the Serology Unit tests it for DNA and other biological evidence.
A TMZ source stated that police who saw the knife believe that blood residue exists on it, though it has been rusted over time.
Since O.J. Simpson was already tried for the murders, he cannot be prosecuted again, but because he was found not guilty, the case is still open.