2 Describe Scene at Simpson Estate on Murder Night : Courts: Testimony could undercut parts of accused’s alibi by raising doubts about whether he was home. Defense attacks limousine driver’s statements.

Two witnesses who saw O.J. Simpson soon after his ex-wife and a friend of hers were knifed to death took the stand Tuesday to describe the scene at his estate on the night of the killings, giving testimony that could undercut elements of Simpson’s alibi by raising doubts about whether he was home when the murders occurred.

Neither limousine driver Allan Park nor guest house tenant Brian (Kato) Kaelin testified to anything that directly linked Simpson to the crimes he is accused of committing--the double slaying of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman on the night of June 12. But their accounts, which came on the third day of a preliminary hearing being broadcast to the nation, bolstered the prosecution’s efforts to show that Simpson could have committed the murders and still rushed home to meet the airport limousine about 11 p.m.

With families of the victims listening intently from a few feet away, Park said he arrived at Simpson’s home about 10:25 p.m. and unsuccessfully began buzzing the intercom at the gate about 10:40 p.m.

“There was no answer,” Park said. “I continued to buzz the bell a few times.”

Then, as he was waiting for someone to come to the door, Park said, he saw a figure stride across Simpson’s driveway toward the house about 10:55 p.m.

Although Park could not identify that figure--even to say for sure whether it was a man or a woman--he did say it appeared to be a black person about 6 feet tall and about 200 pounds. Moments after that person disappeared inside, Simpson answered the buzzer, apologizing for having overslept, Park said.

Simpson attorney Robert L. Shapiro, who has generally treated witnesses gently, aggressively attacked Park’s testimony, opening his questioning by asking the limousine driver whether he understood the importance of the court proceedings and continuing to challenge Park’s recollections throughout.

At one point, Shapiro reminded Park that they had spoken over the phone and that Shapiro had recorded the conversation, though Park said he had been unaware that he was being taped. Park conceded that his account in court Tuesday differed slightly from what he told a grand jury last month: There he testified that it was a man he saw walking quickly across the driveway but he defended his current recollections as the more precise.

Although more than a dozen witnesses have taken the stand during the highly charged preliminary hearing, Park was the first to testify about seeing Simpson in the hours after the killings. He declined to offer an opinion about Simpson’s behavior, however, saying he did not know the superstar well enough to judge whether he was acting strangely.

Park was followed to the stand by Kaelin, a friend of Simpson’s who had seen the celebrity off and on during the day of the killings but who also demurred when asked whether Simpson’s behavior seemed unusual that evening--saying only that Simpson appeared in a hurry to catch his plane.

Kaelin, a little-known actor who fidgeted and laughed nervously on the stand, said he had known Nicole Simpson since meeting her in Aspen, Colo., in late 1992 and had lived in a guest house on her property until earlier this year. When she moved to the condominium where she would later be murdered, O.J. Simpson suggested to Kaelin that it was inappropriate for the young actor to live in such close quarters with her while the couple was trying to reconcile, Kaelin said.

According to Kaelin, O.J. Simpson instead suggested that the actor move into a poolside bungalow on the athlete’s Brentwood estate. Kaelin took Simpson up on the offer and said he has lived there rent-free for several months.

On the night of the slayings, Kaelin testified, he spent the early evening with Simpson after the athlete returned from a recital by his daughter. He said the two chatted for a while, with Simpson commenting on the tightness of the dress his ex-wife had worn. Kaelin said he and Simpson then headed for a McDonald’s restaurant. They went in Simpson’s Rolls-Royce, picked up food at the drive-thru window and returned about 9:45 p.m., Kaelin testified, adding that he then went to his room to eat.

After finishing his food, Kaelin said, he called a few friends but was startled about 10:40 p.m. by three loud thumps on an outside wall of his room. One was so sharp it knocked a picture loose, he said. Police would later discover a bloody glove lying on a walkway in that area.

Kaelin, whose account was bolstered by a friend of his--a young woman who said she had been speaking with him on the phone at the time--said he went out to investigate the source of the noises and ran into Simpson on the other side of the house. That was about 11 p.m., Kaelin said, and it was the first time he had seen Simpson since the two parted after their fast-food dinner.

With their testimony, Park and Kaelin helped sketch the broad outlines of the case against the Hall of Fame athlete, establishing key times as prosecutors attempt to show that he had the opportunity and means to commit the brutal homicides. They have yet to show that Simpson was at the scene, but police expect physical evidence--in particular, blood samples recovered from the murder scene--to fill in that gap.

“So far, they’re effectively establishing a story line,” said Peter Arenella, a UCLA law professor who is monitoring the hearing, of the prosecutors. “They’re attempting to show that Mr. Simpson could have committed these crimes.”

As part of that effort, prosecutors hope to establish that several scratches and cuts to Simpson’s hands and arms were suffered during a struggle at the murder scene. In questioning Kaelin on Tuesday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark repeatedly asked him whether he had seen any injuries to Simpson during the day of the murders.

Kaelin said he had not, testimony that could narrow the window in which Simpson might have gotten those cuts. His lawyers have said Simpson received at least one of them when he smashed a glass in a Chicago hotel room upon receiving the news of Nicole Simpson’s death, but that explanation would not account for any blood matching Simpson’s that turns up either at his house or at the murder scene.

In addition, prosecutors hope to establish that Simpson had a motive to commit the crime. Police sources have said authorities believe that Simpson killed his ex-wife after she told him that she would never get back together with him, and Tuesday’s hearing featured the first testimony supporting that theory.

Under questioning Clark, Kaelin said he had talked with Simpson on the afternoon of the killings and that Simpson had offhandedly mentioned that he and his ex-wife had abandoned hopes of reconciling.

According to Kaelin, Simpson said something to the effect that “it was over, that the relationship was over. They were not together anymore.”

Even as those witnesses added details to the case against the internationally known athlete-turned-actor, prosecutors aggressively contested a move by Simpson’s attorneys to limit the evidence against him. The defense motion, filed last week, seeks to suppress evidence seized during a search of Simpson’s home and the grounds around it hours after the killings--evidence that includes a bloodstained glove and blood samples recovered from inside and outside his Ford Bronco, which was parked on the street in front of the estate.

Simpson’s lawyers say the police improperly jumped his fence and that, once on the property, they searched for evidence without a warrant. They also maintain that the warrant the police eventually secured was obtained only after officers misrepresented the reason for Simpson being out of town, saying he was “unexpectedly away” when they allegedly had reason to know that he was on a planned business trip.

In defense of the police actions, prosecutors called Detective Mark Fuhrman, a 19-year LAPD veteran who works in the department’s West Los Angeles station. Fuhrman spent nearly three hours on the stand Tuesday, testifying that detectives went to Simpson’s house to notify him or any relatives about the murders and to find someone to care for the two children whose mother had just been killed.

Once they arrived at Simpson’s home about five hours after the bodies were found, the detective said he spotted a small mark on the Ford Bronco that he believed to be blood and that he also spied a shovel and a folded sheet of heavy plastic inside the vehicle. Combined with several other observations, what he called “the totality of the circumstances,” Fuhrman said those discoveries led investigators to believe that there might be more victims inside the house.

“I said: We got a real--we got an emergency. We got a problem,” Fuhrman testified that he told a colleague at the scene. “We don’t know if we have people inside that are in danger, dying, bleeding to death. We have to do something. I don’t care whose house this is. We have to do something.”

Fuhrman’s testimony was challenged by Simpson lawyer Gerald Uelmen, a former law school dean and former federal prosecutor who suggested that the real reason investigators entered Simpson’s property without a warrant was because they believed he had committed the crime and were eager to gather evidence against him. The distinction is crucial because police officers may only enter private property with a warrant or under special circumstances such as the need to prevent a crime from being committed.

Uelmen attempted to raise doubts about whether Fuhrman could have deduced that the small red mark on the Ford Bronco was blood as opposed to any other red substance. Does blood, Uelmen asked with a hint of sarcasm, “look different than dried taco sauce?”

“I don’t take too much note of dried taco sauce, so I couldn’t really say,” Fuhrman said.

In their written statement opposing the effort to suppress the evidence seized under the search warrant, prosecutors stressed that under the circumstances police had not only the right but the obligation to enter the property.

“It would have been a dereliction of duty,” prosecutors wrote, “had the officers not conducted an additional investigation, including an entry onto the premises, to notify defendant Simpson of the murder of his ex-wife, the necessity to place his young children in the custody of a relative, and to determine whether or not there were additional victims, hostages or suspects at the location.”

Despite the questioning by Uelmen, Fuhrman stood fast in his insistence that detectives only jumped the fence and let themselves onto Simpson’s property because they believed there could be other victims or crimes being committed.

“We had an emergency situation,” Fuhrman said. “We had exhausted every attempt to reach anyone inside. We could not just let somebody die.”

Once on the property, they found two guests in bungalows along the pool--Kaelin and Simpson’s daughter Arnelle. Fuhrman said he struck up a conversation with Kaelin, and when Kaelin mentioned the thumping sounds he had heard, the detective inspected the area behind Kaelin’s quarters. It was there, Fuhrman said, that he came upon a dark brown glove lying on a walkway and matching one found at the murder scene.

Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell adjourned Tuesday’s session with the search warrant issue still being discussed, so it is likely to lead off today’s session as well. Assuming that she rules on the issue of the search warrant’s validity, she could determine whether the bloody glove and other evidence--such as blood-red stains found on the driveway and in Simpson’s bedroom and bathroom--will be admissible during this hearing or at a trial, should one be ordered.

In their motion Tuesday, prosecutors said they do not intend to use any information seized under search warrants at the preliminary hearing, which is intended to decide whether Simpson should stand trial, not whether he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But some of the items recovered from his estate were spotted before a warrant was issued--others, such as the blood found on the Ford Bronco, were found outside the property.

Legal experts disagreed over whether the wording of the prosecution motion means that government lawyers will avoid introducing all of that evidence during this hearing.

Most agreed, however, that prosecutors probably were signaling that they do not intend to use items taken from inside the house, but that they still would reserve the option of using other items found outside the house, such as the bloodstains on the Bronco.

Times staff writer Henry Weinstein contributed to this report.

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At the Simpson Estate

Here is what limousine driver Allan Park testified he saw at O.J. Simpson’s Brentwood home the night that Simpson’s ex-wife and a friend were murdered two miles away. The time frame is crucial because Simpson has said he was at home waiting for the limousine at the time the victims were stabbed to death.

THE LIMO DRIVER

1) 10:25 p.m.: Park arrives at Rockingham Avenue gate. Does not remember seeing a Ford Bronco.

2) 10:40 to 10:50 p.m.: At Ashford Street gate, buzzes intercom several times. No response.

3) 10:55 p.m.: Calls his boss at limo company.

4) Shortly before 11 p.m.: Sees a person “six feet, 200 pounds, black, wearing dark clothes” walking across a driveway toward the house.

5) About 11 p.m.: A man (Brian Kaelin) emerges from a path at the side of the house and waves. About 15 or 20 seconds later, Park again buzzes the intercom and Simpson answers.

6) 11 to 11:15 p.m.: Simpson helps load five bags into limo.

7) 11:15 p.m.: Limo exits Rockingham gate bound for LAX, where they arrive at 11:35.

THE GUEST HOUSE TENANT

Brian (Kato) Kaelin, who was staying in one of Simpson’s guest apartments, says he was talking to his friend on the phone the night of the murders. Here is his testimony.

A) 10:40 p.m.: Hears three “thumping” sounds outside that he believes to be an earthquake or a prowler.

B) About 11 p.m.: Goes around front of the house to check on noise. Spots limo driver at gate. Continues around front of house to check on thumping noise.

C) 11 to 11:15 p.m.: Helps load baggage into limo.

Source: Times staff and wire reports