Murder in Brentwood (4 page)

“Because I’m the detective, and you’re the lieutenant.” We both laughed.

“I guess you’ve got a point there,” Spangler said. At about 4:05 A.M., Detective Philip Vannatter from Robbery/Homicide arrived, and Ron and I were introduced to him for the first time. Ron briefed Vannatter on the situation, gave him my notes, and led him on a walk-through of the crime scene. Shortly after Vannatter completed his initial walkthrough, Detective Tom Lange arrived. Once again, Ron and I were introduced to a detective we had never met before. Ron briefed Lange and led him on a walk-through.

Lange, Vannatter, and Ron Phillips all stood in front of the house discussing the scene until Ron walked away and started talking on his cellular phone. After a few moments he turned his head away from the phone and asked me if I knew the way to Simpson’s estate on Rockingham Avenue. I told him I had been there in 1985 or 1986 on a family-dispute call, and thought I could find it again. Ron went back to his phone call.

Even though I had been to the Rockingham estate before, I didn’t know if I could locate it immediately. I also didn’t know if I could give precise directions to someone else. I knew that Riske worked the area, and he gave me the exact address and brief directions, which jogged my memory.

I returned to the front of the Bundy residence and saw Lange walking toward an unmarked police vehicle.

“Ron, Mark, let’s go,” he said.

Lange and Vannatter were going to follow Ron and me to Simpson’s Rockingham estate. While Ron drove, I gave him directions and asked why we were going to the Simpson house, lion told me that Keith Bushey, the West Bureau commander, had asked that an “in person” death notification be given to O.J. Simpson.

The lead detectives would talk to Simpson. Then we would reunite him with his children, and assist with any notifications of the other family members. Although I didn’t convey my thoughts to Ron, I knew our chances of breakfast at Coco’s were gone.

Chapter 3

THE ROCKINGHAM ESTATE

“O.J., you did get a call telling you your wife got killed, didn’t you?... Where your wife was killed there was a blood trail. And that blood trail led us here.” At this point Simpson stopped asking questions. He broke into a sweat and began hyperventilating. He just kept muttering: “Oh man, oh man, oh man.”

NOTES OF DETECTIVE BRAD ROBERTS

WE ARRIVED AT SIMPSON’S Rockingham estate about 5:05 A.M. The neighborhood was quiet. The large mansions, manicured lawns, and meticulously maintained properties were the homes of millionaires, not working people. I noticed two vehicles parked nearby, a dirty and cluttered Nissan 300ZX car just east of the Ashford Street gate and a white Ford Bronco parked on Rockingham. The Nissan did not seem to fit the neighborhood, so I ran a check on the license plate, which came I back clean, with a Hollywood address. Phillips parked along the curb on the north side of the residence. Lange and Vannatter parked behind us. Lange, Vannatter, and Phillips all approached the large iron gate and rang the doorbell for several minutes. No one answered.

There certainly seemed to lie enough people at the gate, so I walked to the corner of Ashford and Rockingham to look at the front of the house. Two rooms had lights on. The Bronco was parked haphazardly, at an odd angle.

I walked over to check out the Bronco and noticed a piece of splintered wood lying on the parkway next to the right front corner of the car. The wood appeared to be a piece of a white picket fence, approximately one foot long. Closer inspection with my flashlight showed a very weathered exterior paint that looked very much like old, oil-based lead paint. The wood was freshly splintered; the interior wood was naturally colored and not yet oxidized. There was a small, rusty nail hole where the wood had broken. I figured the rust meant it had been held in

place by a non-galvanized nail. That

[If my twenty years as a cop taught me anything, it’s that people get away with murder every day.]

indicated an old fence. The piece of wood alone might not have appeared suspicious, but the parkway was as well groomed as a golf course, with not a picket fence in sight.

I approached the Broncos drivers side and placed the back of my hand on the vehicles hood, which was cold. Scanning the exterior, I noticed a very small, reddish-brown spot above the drivers side door handle. The vehicle was very clean, so the stain stood out despite its small size. Using my flashlight, I viewed the spot closer. It appeared to be blood.

Was this Bronco connected to the crime scene we had just left? I searched for other evidence of blood on the door. Down on my hands and knees, I discovered three or four small stains on the doorsill which also appeared to be blood. My first impression was that they could be small brush marks from the soles of the drivers shoes. Shoes with blood on them.

I continued to examine the vehicle. The side windows in the cargo area were tinted, so I had to cup my hands around my flashlight in order to concentrate the light inside. In the rear cargo area, there was a brown, wrapped package with “O.J. Simpson Enterprises-Attention; Cathy” written on the front. There was also a shovel and a folded piece of heavy gauge plastic. The shovel, an old, used, dirty gardening model, seemed out of place in the Bronco, which didn’t look like a work truck.

I looked toward the house and saw that Lange, Vannatter, and Ron were still standing near the gate. Ron was talking on his cellular phone. I walked closer and called them over, saying “I think I saw something on the Bronco.” I didn’t want to shout, both because of the early morning hour and the possibility that this could be important evidence.

Lange and Vannatter came over immediately. As I walked with them toward the Bronco, I explained the awkward position of the car, the splintered piece of wood on the parkway, and then showed them the spot on the door. I told them that I thought it was blood. Phillips joined the discussion, and I remember him saying “If Mark says it’s blood, it probably is.”

Vannatter asked if I had run a DMV check on the Bronco. I hadn’t, so I went ahead and ran one. The Bronco belonged to Hertz Rent A Car.

To me, these pieces of possible evidence had serious implications. We had just come from a gruesome, bloody double homicide. Blood on a hastily parked vehicle that could be rented to O.J. Simpson might mean that we had another crime scene at Rockingham. Our initial reason for going to Rockingham-to tell O.J. Simpson of his ex-wife’s death-was slowly evolving into the suspicion that something was amiss. Whether Simpson was a victim, a possible suspect, or not even involved, the Bronco seemed to be connected in some way.

Lange and Phillips went back to the front gate and tried the doorbell again. Vannatter and I stayed near the Bronco and discussed the newly discovered evidence. We both agreed that the spot looked like blood and the vehicle was probably O.J.’s. I said there could be more victims in the house, possibly injured or unconscious. We might be looking at a murder/suicide or a kidnapping, but we were definitely facing an emergency situation. Vannatter agreed, offering similar concerns.

“I don’t care whose house this is, there could be people injured or dying in there right now,” I told him, raising my voice. “We have to do something!”

Vannatter agreed.

Phillips got on the phone to the West LA station’s watch commander, Sergeant Rossi. From what I overheard of their conversation, Rossi was trying to get the phone number inside Simpson’s estate from Westec, a private security firm.

Within minutes, a Westec patrol car arrived. Phillips asked the security guard for Simpson’s phone number, which the officer could not give us without his supervisor’s approval, so Ron asked him to get his supervisor.

Several minutes later, I saw another Westec patrol car driving slowly along Rockingham. I walked toward the car as the driver stopped and got out near the white Bronco. I introduced myself as a detective, although my badge was in plain sight, and told him we needed to reach someone inside the house. The sergeant informed me that a live-in maid should be there all the time, which I relayed to the other detectives.

If ever there was probable cause to enter private property, we now had it. We had just come from the scene of a brutal double homicide, where one of the victims was apparently the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson. The Bronco, which Simpson probably used, had what we believed to be blood on the door. The vehicle was parked haphazardly, and there was a shovel and some plastic in the rear cargo area. A maid was supposed to be at the estate, and lights were on upstairs and down, yet no one was answering the door.

We had to make a decision and quick. After a brief discussion, Vannatter decided we should go in. As the junior officer, and the youngest among us, I volunteered to climb over the wall. Vannatter told me to go ahead. I jumped the wall and released the hydraulic arm on the gate, admitting the other detectives to the Simpson residence.

We walked to the front door and rang the bell several times, but no one answered. After a few moments, someone (I believe it was Phillips) decided we should go around to the rear of the estate. A stone path was visible to the north of the house, which appeared to lead to the backyard. We all walked in that direction, with me in the rear. A large black dog appeared, but let us walk by him.

As we turned into the pool area, I could see three bungalows on the south side of the property. Ron approached the first bungalows glass French door and looked inside. He turned back toward us and said, “There’s someone on the bed.”

When Ron knocked on the door, a white male about thirty years old answered. Ron asked him if Simpson was in the house. One of the other detectives, I’m not sure which one, said that there was an emergency. The man, later identified as Kato Kaelin, a permanent houseguest, told us that Simpson’s older daughter Arnelle was in the next bungalow, and pointed toward her room. While Ron, Vannatter, and Lange went toward that bungalow, I stayed with Kato Kaelin.

Even for someone who had just woken up, he appeared more than a little disheveled, with glassy and bloodshot eyes. When I asked if he had been drinking, Kaelin replied that he didn’t drink. Because of his demeanor and appearance, I was suspicious of narcotics use and asked him to let me examine his eyes, and he complied. I checked for vertical or horizontal nystagmus, which requires having the subject face you and follow your finger, or an object such as a pencil, with his eyes while keeping his head still. Certain drugs, alcohol, or a combination of the two will make the eye bounce as it reaches the limits of its movement. Kaelin showed no symptoms of nystagmus. As I sensed then and realized later, Kaelin was a little goofy, a little unorthodox, and actually pretty funny. He was just being himself.

I asked Kaelin for permission to look around inside and to make sure no one else was in the bungalow. Again, he made no objections. While I looked around the room, I asked him his name, where he was last night, and other routine questions. There was a pile of doilies and pair of boots next to the bed. With his permission I inspected the boots, checking for blood and the design of the sole. There was no blood, and the sole didn’t resemble the shoeprints at the Bundy scene.

I kept asking Kaelin questions in no particular logical order. I asked what he did the previous night, and then followed with, “Who owns the white Bronco out front?” While he was telling me that O.J. drove the car, I quickly followed with “Anything unusual happen last night?”

His answer stopped me cold, although he didn’t seem to realize its importance.

Kaelin told me at about 10:45 P.M., he heard and felt a couple of loud thumps on the wall above his bed. He thought there had been an earthquake, because the thumps had caused the picture above his bed and to the right of the air conditioner to shake. He went on to describe a limo parked outside the Ashford gate around the same time.

I asked Kaelin to follow me out of his bungalow. By that time a door to the main house had been opened. I walked inside with Kaelin and asked him to sit at the bar and wait for someone to come talk to him. Unfamiliar with the house, I walked toward the sound of voices, which led me to the kitchen where Phillips, Lange, and Vannatter were standing. Phillips was talking on the phone. Vannatter was closest to me, so I asked “Phil, would you talk to this guy at the bar?”

Vannatter appeared to acknowledge my question, so I continued outside, hoping to see if there was any access to the south side of the bungalows where Kaelin had described the thumping on his wall. Walking toward the garage, I noticed a chain-link fence running along the edge of the property. Along this fence was a narrow cement sidewalk with an open gate that led down the south side of the house. The sidewalk was dark and shadowed by overhanging trees and shrubs.

As I stared down the path, I suspected that a person walking down it had caused the thumps on Kaelin’s wall. The possibility that someone could have been injured, near death, or already dead was still on my mind. That the thumps could have been made by a suspect was possible, but still remote to me at that point.

I looked down the dark path and noticed a gate about three feet tall that was half open. Looking up, I began to orient myself to the buildings, and determined where the garage began and ended. I continued down the leaf-covered path and gave this part of the house a cursory look, but nothing appeared disturbed.

Returning my attention to the path, I looked up to a very high wall that continued to the end of the buildings. This appeared to be the bungalows, as I remembered they had a steep, single-pitch roof. I looked further along the path and noticed a dark object. At first I thought it was dog droppings, but as I walked closer, the object began to resemble an old gardening glove, either lost or discarded. As I knelt by the glove, I saw that it wasn’t old or a gardening glove. It was a right-hand, dark brown leather glove with something slightly wet-looking on it. One of the fingers seemed stuck to the palm, and I concluded that the substance on the glove must have been somewhat sticky, perhaps dried or drying blood. There were no fallen leaves from the overhanging trees, no dirt-virtually nothing on top of the glove, which indicated it hadn’t been there long.