THE SIMPSON MURDER CASE : A Violent Deja Vu : Officer’s Arrival at Scene of Slayings Brings Back Memories of Tate Murders

The murder scene at Nicole Brown Simpson’s condominium, said Los Angeles Police Officer William Richard Walley, one of the first officers to arrive, was as gruesome as any he has ever seen: The former wife of O.J. Simpson and a young man were found on the doorstep brutally stabbed with a knife.

And Walley should know: He was one of the first officers on the scene at the Benedict Canyon home of Sharon Tate after the murders of the pregnant actress and five of her friends in August, 1969, by followers of Charles Manson.

Then a 22-year-old rookie, Walley was working in the LAPD’s West Division when he was sent to the Tate house, where the victims had been stabbed repeatedly and blood had been splattered on the walls. Now 48, and with plans to retire in January, Walley finds it peculiar that his career opened and closes with arrivals on the scenes of two of the most shocking and high-profile murder cases in the city’s history.

“I’ve seen many murders over the years, and (Simpson’s) was kind of a flashback . . . the celebrity involvement and an extremely violent scene.”

Walley has seen “a lot of victims of shootings, stabbings, hangings--everything there is to see in 27 years.”

Walley, who has a gravelly voice and a reflective nature, works the night shift at the West Los Angeles station, where he has been assigned since 1979.

During the first hours of his shift on June 12, he and other officers were called to Nicole Simpson’s townhouse on South Bundy Drive in Brentwood, where her body and that of her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman were found.

Walley was ordered to search the house. “(Simpson’s two) kids were sleeping in the house. After we conducted a search for any more victims, we got them dressed.”

Walley said he took the two children, ages 9 and 6, “out the back way, through the garage. I had to lie to them.” He would not say what he told the children.

He drove the children to the West Los Angeles station and then returned to the scene, directing curiosity-seekers away from the townhouse.

Walley said he had been to the Simpsons’ house when O.J. and Nicole Simpson were still living together some years ago, on a social visit with a fellow officer who had attended college with the football Hall of Famer.

Walley, a football fan, added that he got a kick out of seeing Simpson’s Heisman Trophy, which he earned as a USC running back for the 1968 season, and all the other awards in a large and crowded trophy case.

The only other time he saw Simpson, Walley said, was when he turned himself in at the West Los Angeles station after the January, 1989, spousal abuse complaint by Nicole Simpson.

In 1969, at the scene of the Tate murders, Walley did guard duty and, after the bodies and evidence were removed, watched the house alone for 16 straight hours.

“There were a lot of people coming to the gate, looky-loos,” he said. “My job was to walk around the house and watch, and keep people away. Since the house was on a hillside, people would climb up to try to get a look.”

There were tense moments. “At around 11 p.m., I was sitting in my car, watching the house. It was so eerie; I was there by myself, we still had no suspects, and we didn’t have radios then like we do now, so it was hard to communicate. I thought the suspects might return to the scene.”

Suddenly, he said, “a cat jumped on the hood of my car, and I almost shot through the windshield.” The next night he was paired with another officer to watch the house.

Fear was rampant on the Westside and through the canyons, he said, because there were no immediate arrests.

When Rosemary and Leno LaBianca were killed a few miles from the Tate home two days later, the collective fright heightened. “People were paying off-duty cops to baby-sit their houses,” Walley said. As the months passed, the fear subsided. Manson and others were arrested on murder charges in October of that year.

The Tate-LaBianca murders and the Simpson case, Walley said, seem equally extraordinary.

“All the murders you see (as a cop) don’t really bother you--unless it’s really drastic,” he said.