Murder in Brentwood (3 page)

Ron and I met at the station shortly before 2:00 A.M. We got our briefcases, flashlights, and other gear, then drove to the crime scene at 875 South Bundy Drive, arriving at 2:10. Two black and white police vehicles were parked in the middle of the street. My friend Sergeant Marty Coon was standing nearby with Sergeant Dave Rossi, the West LA watch commander.

Officer Robert Riske had been the first on the scene. I knew Riske only casually from previous arrests, but my impression was that he was quiet, professional, and competent. His performance at this crime scene did not disappoint me. He did an outstanding job under the circumstances.

Riske told us how he had discovered the victims’ bodies, where he had been, and what he had seen. Even without Riske s direction, it was easy to see the blood-stained sidewalk and large canine paw prints in red leading away from the residence.

Dark red blood had flowed down the large cobblestone walkway; it appeared to come from the front steps where the female victim lay in a crumpled position. Her head hung limply, with blood-stained hair hiding her face. The blood had coagulated and pooled in the grout between the bricks. The male victim lay face up by the walkway.

Following Riske s lead, we walked along the side of the walkway to avoid stepping in the blood or other possible evidence. Riske shined his flashlight to point out items of possible value. A dark-colored stocking cap and glove were beneath a small shrub. There was also a white envelope near the male victim s feet.

The first thing that struck me was that the victims did not match. The male was fully clothed, wearing a jacket and lace-up canvas boots, while the female was wearing a short, one-piece black summer dress and was barefoot. They had obviously not been walking together outside. The front door was wide open; Riske said he had found it that way when he arrived. I could hear music playing from inside the residence, and soft lights were shining from the house down onto the homicide scene.

Ron and I wanted to gel closer to the female victim without damaging any possible evidence.

“Is there another way we can approach the victims?” Ron asked.

“We could come in from the back of the house,” Riske responded.

As we backed out of the scene and walked around to the alley behind the house, I began making some preliminary deductions. The female victim was probably inside her residence just prior to her death, and had been there at least long enough to take off her shoes. She had returned, for whatever reason, to her front door and opened it. Conversely, the male victim was dressed for the outdoors. Either he had intended to enter the residence and never made it in, or he could have been leaving and the female victim was escorting him to the door.

At the rear of the residence, the garage was open, with a white Ferrari inside. A black Jeep Cherokee was parked outside on the driveway. Riske led us past the Ferrari and into the rear of the condo. As we walked up the stairway, Riske pointed out a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream cup on the stairway rail. When he had first noticed it, the ice cream had not yet appeared to have melted. He explained that when he walked through the house initially he had not found anything unusual. Two children, a boy and a girl, had been sleeping in the upstairs bedroom, and he had arranged their transport to the West LA station.

As we walked through the house, I noted that there were lighted candles in the bathroom around the tub, and also in the living room. Romantic music was playing. The female victim had been home for several minutes prior to her death, at least enough time to light the candles and put music on the stereo. I also noticed a lithograph poster of O.J. Simpson on the wall in the front room.

Riske led Ron and me through the open front door, which showed no obvious signs of forced entry. From the front porch landing, Riske pointed to a bloody shoeprint heading west down the walkway. We could easily see the victims from the landing. We were within a couple of feet of the female victim and several feet away from the male victim, who was now in full view.

The female victim s head was resting with her chin on her upper chest-or so it appeared, but her hair was obscuring her face. She was soaked with blood, which seemed to come from her neck or face area and drained down onto the walkway. Her right leg was wedged under the metal fence. On the ground nearby was a takeout menu.

Although the male victim was more visible now, his wounds were not so obvious, and I could not tell how much he had bled or from where. Riske led us around the front porch and down the walkway along the north side of the condo, pointing out a trail of blood drops just to the left of the bloody shoeprints. As the shoeprints faded out, we came to a heavy metal gate that was about two-thirds of the way open. Riske pointed to smears of blood on the upper rail of the gate. I noticed two blood drops on the bottom inside of the gate. We continued out to the rear driveway.

In the driveway, just north of the Cherokee, Riske showed us two coins on the pavement, intermingled with drops of blood. The blood trail stopped at the beginning of the alley. There, the person either had stopped bleeding or had entered a vehicle.

Riske walked around lo (he front of the residence while Ron and I went back inside the house. Ron had previously told me that I was the lead detective on the case, and I began making my preliminary notes. The initial indications were that the female victim was O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife, but that could not be verified yet, and I was not about to jump to conclusions. The male victim was as yet unidentified, and my impression was that he did not fit with the female victim.

At this point in the investigation, my instincts leaned toward an attempted residential robbery. The cause of death seemed to be some type of traumatic force, maybe a blunt object or a firearm. The scene indicated that the female victim had opened the door, either answering it or possibly investigating a noise outside.

The male victim’s presence was not as easily explained. He could have left the residence and been confronted by an assailant who then killed him, either intentionally or in the course of a struggle. The female might have heard the struggle and opened the door to investigate. Then she too was killed, and the suspect fled down the walkway.

I also considered the possibility that the male victim was a suspect. Perhaps he had been killed accidentally by another suspect during the murder of the female victim.

On any investigation, you can’t jump to conclusions and then try to make the evidence fit your theory of what happened. Instead, you must to let the evidence speak for itself. And you have to listen to it. Every aspect of the case must constantly be questioned. You must try to put yourself in the suspect s mind and walk through the crime in different ways. What did he see? Was the suspect mad or methodical? Was he sloppy or neat? Was the crime planned or spontaneous? Was this the work of a professional or an amateur?

I sat down on the living room couch and continued writing my preliminary notes. At that point my partner Brad Roberts arrived, walking into the house from the garage. I gave him a general briefing before walking him through the scene. He commented on the apparent lack of a struggle inside the house,

The first thing that struck me is that the victims did not match.

and I agreed. We moved onto the front porch, and I pointed to the shoeprints and blood drops. We both examined the drops more closely than I had before and noted that the bleeder appeared to have been moving west, corroborating the direction of the shoeprints. I also pointed out the other visible pieces of evidence-the cap, glove, and white envelope.

At this stage we couldn’t get any closer to the victims, so I took Brad down the north walkway, showing him the bloody shoeprints and blood drops. When we walked toward the alley, we noticed two additional blood smears on the gate that were not observed in the initial walk-through. We were carefully scanning the gate with our flashlights

[The first thing that struck me was that the victims did not match.]

when we were both shocked by the sight of a bloody fingerprint on the brass deadbolt knob.

In our years on the force, Brad and I had seen thousands of fingerprints. This print was no doubt at least several “points” in quality. The more identifiable points of comparison, the better the chance of identifying the suspect. This print was identifiable, comparable, and high in quality. I wrote these observations down in my notes.

As we walked onto the rear driveway, I pointed out the coins and the blood drops on the ground or nearby. Together, we came up with one possible explanation. The suspect had come down the walkway, bleeding as he walked, then reached for his car keys, turning the pocket inside out and sending loose change spilling onto the ground. This would suggest that the suspect was male, as females generally do not carry change in I heir pants pockets, and that the suspect was very excited, not calm and professional.

The suspect had dropped or lost a left glove in a struggle by the walkway at the front of the house. So, his left hand had been bare and apparently bleeding. As he approached his vehicle, the suspect reached into his pocket with his ungloved left hand, and the change fell from the pocket as it was turned inside out.

Brad walked around to join Ron Phillips in front of the house while I went back into the house to complete my notes. When I was about two-thirds done writing down my observations, Ron walked in from the garage.

“I just talked to Bureau Chief Frankel,” Ron said, standing over me. “He’s assigning the case to Robbery/Homicide.”

I looked at Ron.

“Okay, just let me finish my notes, and I’ll be right out.”

Being relieved of a case such as this one brings on a combination of emotions. Initially, any good detective, particularly a homicide detective, wants to keep a “Whodunit.” But if the female victim was really Nicole Brown Simpson, there would be extreme pressure to solve the case, and a lot of people would be putting their fingers in the pie. From the beginning I know that Ron, Brad, and I could not handle the case purely from a logistical point of view. The case would absorb the attention of the detectives assigned to it every waking minute. Brad and I could not take such a case. We were responsible for all the murders committed in West Los Angeles, and those investigations could not come to a halt because of a single case. Conversely, Robbery/Homicide does have the luxury of assigning detectives to only one case, as would be necessary in this case. Having the case reassigned to Robbery/Homicide was inevitable.

My notes completed, I walked through the garage to the rear alley and around to the front, where I joined Ron, who was standing in the street talking with Lieutenant Frank Spangler, commanding officer of West LA detectives. I gave my notes to Ron, who put them in his notebook. Then we stood in the street and waited for the Robbery/Homicide detectives to arrive. I felt that I had done a good job in the short period that I had been on the scene, and was confident that my notes would assist the detectives taking over the investigation.

MARK FUHRMAN’S NOTES

THE SCENE AT BUNDY

AT SCENE 0212 HRS – 875 S. BUNDY

SGT. ROSSI, AM WATCH ASST W/C COMMANDER BRIEFED DETS ON SCENE

1. OFCR RISKE REC’D R/C “POSS 459 SUSPS THERE NOW 874 S BUNDY.” RESIDENT OF 874 HEARD SOMETHING ACROSS THE STREET.

2. TWO PEOPLE WALKING DOGS FOUND BODIES.

3. RISKE FOUND FRONT DOOR TO 875 S BUNDY WIDE OPEN. TWO BODIES INSIDE THE WALKWAY GATE, ONE FEMALE WHITE, ONE MALE WHITE BOTH EXPIRED – UNKNOWN CAUSE OF DEATH – POSS GSW.

4. RESID APPEARS UNTOUCHED – NO RANSACKING. STEREO PLAYING, LIGHTS LOW, CANDLES LIT IN LIVING ROOM AND UPSTAIRS BATHROOM.

5. HANDWRITTEN NOTE ON UPSTAIRS COFFEE TABLE, “CARA 575-5713 CAL PIZZA KITCHEN” PIZZA MENU BY FEMALE VICTIM’S LEFT LEG.

6. CUP OF ICE CREAM AT BOTTOM OF STAIRS (READ OF RESID) LEADING INTO GARAGE, NOT YET MELTED WHEN OFCR RISKE ENTERED RESIDENCE.

7. CHILDREN (2) SLEEPING IN UPSTAIRS BEDROOM – AWOKEN BY OFFICERS.

8. PAGER LYING ON GROUND NEXT TO MALE VICTIM.

9. BLOODY FOOTPRINTS LEADING FROM VICTIMS W/B TO ALLEY.

10. CANVAS OF NEIGHBORHOOD BY PATROL DIDN’T YIELD MANY RESPONSES.
 
RESIDENTS WOULDN’T OPEN DOOR.

11. “AKITA” DOG FOUND RUNNING LOOSE BELONGS TO VICTIM (FEMALE).

12. NEITHER VEG ->WTFERRARE/BLK CHEROKE IN GARAGE / REAR PARKING WERE WARM TO TOUCH.

13. AT REAR GATE ON N/S OF RESID – TWO BLOOD SPOTS AT BOTTOM INSIDE OF GATE.
 
THIS AREA MIGHT HAVE BEEN WHERE THE DOG WAS KEPT. SUSP RAN THROUGH THIS AREA. SUSP POSSIBLY BITEN BY DOG?

14. REAR GATE, POS BLOOD SMUDGE ON UPPER RAIL OF GATE.

15. REAR GATE, INSIDE DEAD BOLT (TURN KNOW TYPE) POSS BLOOD SMUDGE AND VISIBLE FINGERPRINT.

16. BLOODY PAW PRINTS OF LARGE DOG LEADING FROM RESID, SIB ON SIDEWALK APPROX 60 FT S. OF RESID.

17. SKI MASK, ONE GLOVE BY FEET OF MALE VICTIM.

By now it was about 3:00 A.M. Brad and I were talking about being relieved from the scene and eating breakfast before beginning our normal shifts. Ron was standing nearby, and we asked him, half-jokingly, to take us to breakfast at Coco’s restaurant, one of our favorite early morning eating spots. Maybe he would, the look on his face seemed to say. We were tired, hungry, and knew we had a long day ahead of us. Looking back, that was the only conspiracy we engaged in at the crime scene-trying to get the boss to buy us breakfast.

While we were waiting for the detectives, Ron sent Brad to interview the couple who had found the Akita, believed to be Nicole Brown Simpson’s pet, wandering near the scene. Although the case had already been reassigned, Ron wanted those witnesses interviewed before they went to sleep or had to go to work.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Spangler, who had been trying to get a clearer view of the male victim through the wrought-iron fence on the north property line, said he thought he saw a gunshot wound. I walked over, looked through the fence, and shined my light on the victim. It was then that I recognized the wound as a laceration, not a gunshot. Walking back to Spangler, I informed him what I thought. “How can you be so sure?”