Police Sources Link Evidence to Simpson : Crime: Probe reportedly focuses on bloodstains at murder scene and the ex-football star’s home. An arrest could come soon, the sources say.

Mounting evidence links former football star O.J. Simpson to the brutal slayings of his former wife and a man she knew, and the famous athlete could be arrested within days, Los Angeles police sources said Tuesday.

Much of the investigation Tuesday focused on bloodstains that sources say were found in Simpson’s car, at his Brentwood mansion and at his former wife’s townhouse two miles away, where the crime was committed.

Officers also were interviewing friends and other potential witnesses and were trying to determine whether Simpson told the truth in a three-hour interview with police Monday.

Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and Ronald Lyle Goldman, 25, were stabbed to death Sunday night, and sources said Simpson had scratches on his body when he was questioned by police Monday.

Among the pieces of physical evidence in the case are bloodstains found Tuesday in one of Simpson’s cars, the sources said. They said a bloodstained glove found at Simpson’s mansion matches one discovered near the bodies at his ex-wife’s townhouse in Brentwood. In addition, they said, rust-colored spots found on the mansion driveway have been determined to be bloodstains.

But Simpson’s attorney, Howard Weitzman, insisted Tuesday that his client is not involved in the killings and is the victim of a swirl of unfair and unfounded rumors.

“I am convinced that he is innocent,” Weitzman said, denying that a bloody glove was found at Simpson’s house.

Asked if he believes reports that his client will be arrested soon, Weitzman added: “I hope that’s not true, but, as we know, they arrest innocent people on occasion.”

Police are conducting tests of the blood to determine whether any of it came from the football star, his former wife or Goldman, a waiter at a nearby Brentwood restaurant frequented by Nicole Simpson. While tests to match blood types take little time, DNA tests--which can establish more positive identification--take longer.

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But police apparently plan to move quickly and might rely on matching blood types rather than waiting for a full DNA match. If Simpson’s blood is found at the scene of the crime, or either of the victims’ blood types turns up among his possessions, police say an arrest could follow quickly.

One source close to the case said Tuesday that authorities consider Simpson their prime suspect, adding that an arrest is expected within the next few days.

A highly regarded prosecutor, Marcia Clark of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office’s special trials section, has been assigned to the case. Prosecutors are seldom assigned before an arrest has been made.

Police said Tuesday that Nicole Simpson and Goldman were not linked romantically and that their relationship does not appear to be at the heart of the incident.

Some friends said he apparently was just in the wrong place at the wrong time--returning a pair of glasses she had left at the restaurant--when the attack occurred. But other friends said the two were close. They occasionally went out dancing, those friends said, and Goldman was seen driving Nicole Simpson’s car.

The county coroner’s office, which completed autopsies on the pair Tuesday, said both victims died from “multiple sharp-force injuries.”

Neither the coroner’s office nor police would release further details about the time of death, the nature of the stab wounds or the weapons used to inflict them. However, a source said that the woman’s throat was slashed and that Goldman’s wounds indicated that he put up a fierce struggle before he died.

Searching for possible motives in the crime, detectives also were attempting to chart the course of the Simpsons’ often tempestuous, sometimes violent, off-and-on relationship.

A man who lived in the Westwood apartment next to Nicole Simpson’s when she was first dating the football hero said Tuesday that he frequently heard the couple quarreling loudly. “We would see her with black eyes,” said the neighbor, who asked not to be identified.

The Simpsons subsequently married, then divorced in 1992, three years after he pleaded no contest to a battery charge filed after he allegedly struck her and told her, “I’ll kill you.”

Psychologist Susan Forward said she had counseled Simpson’s ex-wife on two occasions and that Nicole Simpson told her she was being battered and terrorized by the ex-football star.

Although Nicole Simpson told the therapist that her former husband continued to threaten her after they separated, Simpson and his ex-wife were seen together at a number of social events after the divorce, and friends said their relationship seemed congenial again.

The friends said the couple had been attempting to get back together in recent months, and a saleswoman at a sportswear store on San Vicente Boulevard said Tuesday that Simpson had expressed optimism about the prospect of reuniting with his former wife, who often bought gym clothing at the store.

“O.J. was in here around Christmastime,” said Jodi Kahn. “He said he was going to reconcile. He seemed like he was really happy.”

But a source close to the investigation said Tuesday that Nicole Simpson told her former husband several weeks ago that they could never reconcile, and police said they had been called to the townhouse in the 800 block of South Bundy Drive several times in recent months to deal with disputes between the two.

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The blood-soaked bodies of Nicole Simpson and Goldman were found sprawled on a walkway in front of the townhome shortly after midnight early Monday morning. Within a few hours, police began looking for Simpson. By dawn, authorities learned that he was in Chicago.

Weitzman said Simpson had taken a “red-eye” flight there from Los Angeles late Sunday night to attend a meeting hosted by Hertz, the auto-rental firm for which the football hero has long been a spokesman.

Although the precise times of death have not been announced, sources close to the case said police believe there was ample time between the slayings and the departure of the flight for someone to have driven from Brentwood to Los Angeles International Airport.

Los Angeles police reached Simpson by telephone in Chicago, and he flew back to Los Angeles late Monday morning. Officers picked him up at his mansion in Brentwood, took him to police headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles and questioned him for about three hours. Weitzman said that after the questioning, Simpson went to the home of a friend.

Police searched Simpson’s hotel room in Chicago, where sources said they found a bloody towel and broken glass. Weitzman dismissed the significance of that discovery, saying it confirmed what Simpson already has told authorities--that he slammed his hand down when informed of his ex-wife’s death and cut his finger.

Crowds of news reporters swarmed outside Simpson’s Brentwood home Tuesday, but he did not appear and the curious had to make do with the comings and goings of deliverymen, paparazzi and occasional movie stars such as James Garner, who happened to drive past. Well-wishers included friends and relatives of the football hero, most of them declining to speak to reporters as they came and went.

Most onlookers missed the police, who left the home early in the morning.

As the investigation drew international attention, Weitzman continued to assert that his client is innocent.

“Not only is he going through a tremendous grieving period, but all these rumors about his possible involvement are circulating,” Weitzman said.

“He came back here, cooperated, and has not been officially told he cannot leave or that he is a suspect,” he added. “But he has to sit here and listen to all these rumors. . . . It really is a horrible time for O.J.”

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Times staff writers Josh Meyer and Carla Hall contributed to this story.