The truth is it doesn't really matter. The truth is a much bigger story--a much, MUCH bigger story--was just about to break
"Mike!...this is Barry," a frantic voice on the other end of the cell phone shouted..."O.J. Simpson's wife or girlfriend and some other guy just got murdered at O.J.'s house...where the hell are you?!"
The jacked-up caller who always sounded frantic was Barry Levin--chief assignment editor for the t.v. show "A Current Affair"--a good guy and a good friend--sort of a legendary figure in the early untamed days of tabloid t.v.
Barry knew his stuff. After years of working for the supermarket tabloids, he had a lot of great and very productive sources for the kinds of smut and swill that had become the stock and trade of our show "A Current Affair."
"We're on the 10"....I said...."headed to Santa Monica."
"Get-off....go to Brentwood!".....the stressed-out voice shot back.
In those early moments of what would become one of the most extraordinary murder sagas in this nation's history, Barry Levine was obviously still sorting out the specifics of the story. But as usual Barry's tip was pretty much on target.
Two people were dead--one of them was linked to O.J. Simpson--cops still had a very acitive crime scene--and we were close--really close! Call it dumb lucky--we ended being one of the first t.v. crews at the scene that bizarre and terrible morning--the morning they found the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman--a morning that now seems more like an episode of the "Twilight Zone" than a real life memory--a day that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
I say that not just because grisly nature of the double homicide--the butchered bodies of the two victims--that unforgettably river of human blood cascading down the walkway in front of Nicole's condo.
No....the reason that I still sometimes lose sleep all these many years after the fact is something far more personal, far more selfish and far more self-serving. Indeed the thing that continues to torment me to this today is one brief and agonizing moment of missed opportunity--one of those rare occasions in a reporter's career when you have the opportunity to ask precisely the right question at precisely the right time--an opportunity that presented itself to me on that bizarre day--an opportunity that I completely and utterly blew!
Don't get me wrong--there were a lot of freaky and unforgettable moments on that first day of what would become "crime and trial of the century."
Like the moment a speeding car came racing up to the chaotic scene and a rather eye-catching character jumped out. It was a woman with short ,dark, tightly-curled hair in a style that sort of looked Little Orphan Annie--her vibe electric and pissed-off--and wearing what could only be described as a very tight and very short mini-skirt--high heals on her feet.
Hopefully my observations concerning her appearance doesn't make me sound like too much like a sexist pig. But I've got to confess given the setting--a double murder scene--it seemed to be a rather odd fashion statement But hey...it was L.A!
You have probably guessed--the woman with "Little Orphan Annie" do and don't-mess-with-me demeanor was none other than Deputy L.A. County prosecutor Marcia Clark--at that moment making her first appearance on that crazy stage--one of many unsuspecting characters suddenly and unwittingly on a crash course with infamy.
It was probably the way she carried herself or maybe the fact that she made a beeline toward the crime tape that told me she was more than just some casual passerby or some crazed lookilou.
I was trying to light a cigarette as the car pulled up and she went whizzing by so I asked her if she had a match--hoping to slow her down just long enough so I could ask her some more pointed questions about what the hell was going on.
"I don't smoke" she said--contempt dripping from her voice.
I'm certain at that moment--like all of us--Marcia Clark had no idea where all of this was headed as she quickly ducked under the yellow tape to begin confer with police.
And there were certainly plenty of other weird moments that morning--moments when other faces destine for infamy first appeared--cops like Furhman and Van Atter--O.J. buddies like the Kardasian and Kato--so many characters! The circus was under way!
And on that very first day there I was ring side. My camera crew--a couple of wacky brothers named Paul and Scott Johnson--shooting it all.
Which leads me back to "the moment"--that one painful moment--more than any other moment in my 30 year career--a moment that I would give just about anything to live again. It was late afternoon and all action had suddenly shifted to downtown Los Angeles--the headquarters of the L.A.P.D. Parker Center--a building made famous in the opening sequence of the old t.v. show "Dragnet."
After discovering the bodies, L.A. cops pretty quickly put two and two together and figured out who the victims and who the possible players were. At which point they promptly began looking for the murdered woman's ex-husband to ask the well-known wife-beating movie star and former football player what he might know about the killings.
Of course by the time cops caught up with O.J.--he had already hopped a fight to Chicago and was busy in a hotel bathroom washing the blood off his hands.
Within hours however--as the news of the savage slaughter ricocheted around the world--O.J. headed back in L.A. where he was questioned by investigators at Parker Center.
And it was there at the front doors of the police headquarters that my camera crew and I had camped out with about a dozen other crews--all waiting for the big shot--" the money shot"--the first pictures of O.J. Simpson coming out of the cop shot after grilled by detectives.
As it turns out, however, it was not the Juice who came out first. No....it was well-known L.A. defense attorney Howard Weitzman. In an industry of dirt-bags Weitzman always struck me as a pretty stand-up guy. (And that's probably why he didn't last very long as O.J.'s lawyer ). But on that hot Southern California afternoon Wietzman had obviously been called in--on the quick--to hold O.J.'s bloody hand.
"O.J. will be coming out in just a second," the attorney told the assemblage of snarling media dogs.
"But he won't be making any comments. We will have a statement later...but no comments today!"
The veteran lawyer of course knew exactly what he was doing. He was trying to run little interference for his client--hoping to throw up a little smoke to help poor old O.J. get out the door. And I am terribly sad to report that it seemed to work.
And then suddenly there he was--the Juice!--walking out of the police station in a white golf shirt and dark pants. But this wasn't the mighty NFL running back bowling people over on the football field--or even the smiling pitchman sprinting through the airport--no for that one fleeting moment O.J. was scared--scared shitless!
At this point I should probably make it very clear--for the record--that I have long been thoroughly convinced that O.J. Simpson is a lier, a coward and a killer--an opinion that I arrived at early in my coverage of the story and light-years before the pompous, pudgy old asshole penned his offensive little opus "If I Did It." Of course he did it.
But at that moment on his way out of the cop shop heading to an awaiting Mercedes Benz--a moment captured by a dozen t.v. camera crews and today rebroadcast every time Simpson slithers back into the headlines--O.J. Simpson was clearly shaken and vulnerable. The Juice had just killed two people. The cops were already on his ass. He had not yet had time summons his old swagger or even to get his story straight. He was the proverbial deer in the headlights--a slump shouldered--terrified child caught breaking the rules. And it was there with the unblinking t.v. cameras rolling on his every move that I wish to god I would had had the balls to ask the one "right" question "Did you kill them?"
Don't get me wrong I don't for a moment flatter myself that I could changed the course of history or provoked some Perry Mason-like confessions there on the police station's patio.
But at that moment--captured in what has now become an infamous clip of video--that moment long before Simpson surrounded himself with his "dream team" of sleazeballs and schisters --that moment when I hear myself and the other reporters pitching Simpson softball questions like: "O. J. do you have any comment?" or "do you have anything to say?" I want to hit myself over that head with a two-by-four! What a gutless bastard!
At this point all of this probably sounds pretty petty and stupid to those of you who has persevered through this lengthy and tortured confessional and narrative. But for me I was a defining moment of my career--a moment I learned a very important lesson. Don't be afraid to ask the tough question even at the risk of sounding like a prick. Me and the other reporters that day gave O.J. the celebrity discount. Since that day I've heard Simpson whin like a baby about a "rush to judgment"--what a bunch of bullshit. Granted he had not yet been named a suspect and police had let him walk--but it was clear where the story was headed and very frankly it was pretty clear who had committed the murders. I cut O.J. some slack that day--too afraid to throw him the zinger there in front of all those other cameras because--hey it was O.J. It was a mistake.
Now I'm sure that had I or one of the other reporters asked the tough question O.J. probably would not have said a thing. But there with the merciless cameras tight on his face--before his supporters and his ego had had a chance to rallied and circle the wagans--O.J. was completely and publicly vulnerable for perhaps the one and only moment following the murders--and at that moment I would have loved to see him wince had I or somebody else asked him point blank "did you kill them? On that extraordinary day I missed that opportunity. I regret it to this day and I swear to God I'll never let something like that happen again...mw