Simpson’s New Lawyer Seeks Second Autopsy : Inquiry: Attorney Robert Shapiro is hired by ex-football star, who is reportedly being treated for depression.

As authorities sifted through evidence Wednesday in a double slaying attracting international attention, O.J. Simpson hired a new lawyer who said he will seek a second autopsy and private forensic tests and announced that the ex-football great is under treatment for depression.

‘He is deeply upset,” said Robert L. Shapiro, one of Los Angeles’ best-known lawyers, whom Simpson retained early Wednesday. “He is under a doctor’s care for depression. . . . He is going to be in seclusion with his family to grieve over the loss of the mother of his children.”

Shapiro said he told Simpson, who has not emerged in public since Monday: “Don’t turn on the TV, don’t read the paper.

“He has spent the night with his two young children and with his family,” Shapiro said.

Later, a source close to Simpson said the former football player slipped out of his Brentwood home Tuesday to meet the children at another location. He returned home Wednesday, the source said, and they went back to their grandparents’ house in Orange County.

In a brief statement released after he took over the case, Shapiro said Simpson was at his Brentwood home waiting for a limousine when his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and a 25-year-old male friend were killed Sunday night.

Simpson traveled to the airport late that evening and caught a “red eye” flight for Chicago. A source said he was the only passenger to travel in the first-class section of the American Airlines flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Chicago.

Simpson’s previous attorney, Howard Weitzman, had said he believed that Simpson was in the limousine or at the airport when the killings occurred. So far, an exact time of death has not been released by authorities, although Weitzman has said he was told that it was about 11 p.m. Sunday.

Los Angeles police discovered the bodies after midnight and called Simpson at his Chicago hotel Monday morning to tell him that his ex-wife had been found dead in Brentwood. Simpson, who made a number of phone calls from the hotel, returned to Los Angeles that morning and was questioned by police the same day.

As Simpson remained secluded Wednesday, the family of his ex-wife’s friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman, held an emotional news conference. Goldman, 25, was a waiter at a Brentwood restaurant and, his friends said, a frequent companion of Nicole Simpson’s.

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On the evening he was killed, he had gone to her house to return a pair of glasses that someone in her party had left at the restaurant that night. Wednesday, Goldman’s family gathered outside their Oak Park home in Ventura County to talk about his life.

“Ron was a special human being who didn’t deserve what’s happened,” said the victim’s father, Fred Goldman, as his wife wiped tears from his face.

Meanwhile, Simpson’s young children were staying out of sight at the Monarch Bay home of Nicole Simpson’s parents. A woman who identified herself as a friend of the family answered the phone there and said the children had been told that their mother was dead. The children--Sidney, 9, and Justin, 6--were doing as well as could be expected, the friend said.

She added that the family will have nothing further to say until next week after funeral services. They issued a statement Tuesday expressing sadness at the loss of their daughter.

Although the Los Angeles Police Department has not officially declared O.J. Simpson as a suspect in the killings, sources close to the case have said he is a suspect. Weitzman--who has vigorously defended Simpson’s innocence over the past three tumultuous days--is to remain as an adviser, but he has given up the lead role to Shapiro, a celebrated Century City lawyer whose clients have included Darryl Strawberry and Tina Sinatra.

Explaining why he has stepped down, Weitzman said in a statement: “I have decided because of my personal relationship with O.J. Simpson and my many other professional commitments I can no longer give O.J. the attention he both deserves and needs.”

Among Shapiro’s first moves were to solicit the services of a criminologist and a pathologist, whom he would not identify except to say that each is a top professional. They will respectively review the findings of the police and perform a second autopsy on the two victims, he said.

The experts would only have standing in the case if Simpson were to face charges, as witnesses are not entitled to bring in their own experts to review evidence. Nevertheless, Shapiro said he had no information indicating that Simpson’s arrest is imminent.

Shapiro met with police Wednesday, saying afterward that he had pledged Simpson’s full cooperation during the investigation.

“I have introduced myself to the members of the Los Angeles Police Department,” Shapiro said, “and to offer our complete cooperation with them in their investigation to solve this crime.”

There was little word from investigators Wednesday. Sources said they were continuing to interview witnesses--including a therapist who said she treated Nicole Simpson on two occasions. Simpson’s ex-wife said during the sessions that he was stalking her, the therapist has said.

But police were waiting on results of blood tests and other forensic evidence. Sources inside the Police Department have said that if blood samples taken from Simpson’s car and home match those of either victim, investigators will move quickly to arrest Simpson or to arrange for his surrender.

Likewise, if any of the blood samples taken from the scene match Simpson’s, investigators are expected to move quickly against him.

Preliminary results from those blood tests could be ready as early as today, sources said, though other forensic work such as microscopic searches of Simpson’s shoes and clothing could take longer, as will detailed DNA testing of the blood samples.

Once police make an arrest, they have 48 hours to present a case to the district attorney’s office for prosecution.

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Times staff writers Josh Meyer and Eric Malnic and correspondent Matthew Mosk contributed to this story.