Emotions Spill Forth in Letters Sent to Simpson

The emotions, spilled single-spaced across five pages of ruled yellow paper, are heartfelt, almost raw. The earnestness borders on the desperate.

“Never . . . have I felt so much empathy for anyone in my life,” begins the letter, one of tens of thousands sent to O.J. Simpson as he sits in a Los Angeles County jail cell. “I pray God will let this letter reach you.”

Typical of the personal, even intimate tone of many of the letters, the 48-year-old Vermont woman matter-of-factly refers to her 13 years as a battered wife and describes the happiness she found with her fourth husband, her childhood sweetheart. She tells the former football player and movie actor about her four children, one of whom once finished third in a beauty contest, and her two surgeries for cancer.

Finally, she invites Simpson to visit when he is out of jail and to bring his children. “You will feel loved and unencumbered,” the letter says.

Although Simpson has not yet seen that letter, his attorneys have been delivering a small fraction of his mail each day to his cell, where he awaits trial in the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman.

Since the murders more than a month ago, the Simpson case has been a collective experience for the American people, with millions of people getting caught up in the drama of a charismatic sports hero who had been welcomed into their living rooms for years.

The letters reveal the emotional depth those events have plumbed in the psyches of people ranging from a convict in a Florida prison who addresses Simpson as “brother” to a Long Island, N.Y., nun who sent the wealthy former athlete a $10 check to help cover legal bills; from a 6-year-old Pasadena boy who said he prayed for police to find the true killer to a Miami woman who wrote that “even if you did commit the crime I am still in support of you.”

Some letters, mostly from men, urge Simpson to confess. The vast majority of the letters are from women. Some proselytize. In one, the writer wonders if Simpson recalls running into him when the writer was getting off the No. 15 bus on Kearney Street in San Francisco in the late 1970s. Most reveal profound loneliness, sadness, religious zeal and love.

With the permission of Simpson’s defense lawyer, The Times was allowed to read several hundred missives at random from a small mountain of mail that included 25 cardboard boxes and nine large-sized garbage bags--only a small part of all that has come in. The mail included numerous Bibles, inspirational books, videotapes, recorded cassettes, photographs, drawings, a set of pressed cotton handkerchiefs and birthday cards from all over the United States and some foreign countries.

The U.S. Postal Service Terminal Annex in Downtown, where mail comes for prisoners throughout the county jail system, is receiving 1,500 to 2,000 pieces a day for Simpson, requiring one or two extra clerks for processing, a spokesman said. The volume is so great that jail officials turn all of the mail over to Robert L. Shapiro, Simpson’s attorney, rather than delivering it to him in his seven-by-nine-foot cell.

Mail addressed to Simpson is also going directly to Shapiro’s office, to the San Francisco 49ers, the last team Simpson played for, and to the Los Angeles Police Department, some in care of Chief Willie L. Williams. The proper address is O.J. Simpson, No. 4013970, Los Angeles County Jail, P.O. Box 86164, Los Angeles, Calif. 90086-0164.

Some letters, Shapiro said, are from investigators, attorneys and even experts in dog behavior who want to help in the defense effort. Others purport to offer evidence in the case. The mail has to be sorted, he said, because “there might be one person who saw something who is writing a letter” that might provide helpful evidence.

Five law students have been enlisted to help with that task, after which all but the small percentage of letters that attack Simpson are given to him a few at a time to read. Some of the letters, such as one that was unsigned without a return address, urge Simpson to “Be a Real Man. Tell the Truth.” One demands the death penalty if he is found guilty. Some are obscene. A few attack Shapiro.

One letter sent from Arizona recounted a dream in which the writer saw a “mean-looking white man” with a “dirty, stubbly face” fighting with Nicole Simpson. A Mailgram from Gary, Ind., says ominously that “your freedom may rely on contacting me.”

Most letters, however, are written as if to an old friend. Some are tinged with hopes of romance.

“It’s me again,” starts a letter from a woman in Montgomery, Ala., who enclosed blank paper and an envelope in hopes of receiving a reply. She asks Simpson, at his next court appearance, to “show me your beautiful smile a little more . . . or a wink at the camera would be even better.”

Halford Fairchild, a social psychologist who teaches at Pitzer College in Claremont, said that most people who write such letters are troubled.

“Because our own lives are, for the most part, comparatively empty, without direction and meaningless we obtain gratification . . . vicariously” by reaching out to celebrities, said Fairchild. “How can any rational person expect O.J. to come visit them?”

The response is particularly strong in the case of Simpson, he said, because he has projected a positive image during his various careers as an athlete, actor, sports commentator and pitchman.

“When we see O.J. going through these very troubling times . . . we see ourselves, just regular folks, going through some troubling times” as well, Fairchild said.

Indeed, many of the letters recount tales of woe that would have caused Job’s faith to waver.

An Alabama woman, explaining her letter, writes that “I wanted to share with you a little of what I have been through and let you know there is a mighty force that can help you.”

She and her husband founded a sausage factory that was generating $6 million annually in sales when he was hit by an electric shock. Depression and the loss of the business followed. Then the couple’s son contracted leukemia and eventually died. The family lost its 7,000-square-foot mansion and moved into public housing.

“It was hard, I mean extra hard,” she writes. “If we had not had Jesus . . . we would be dead and buried today.”

In one four-page handwritten letter, a mother from Stamford, Conn., describes how her son was arrested for beating his wife. “The problem was that he was too sensitive and too kind to her. That was his only crime.”

Dr. Edward Stainbrook, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at USC and an expert in the cultural influences on behavior, said the letters to Simpson are overwhelmingly positive because those who write identify with him.

“All of us have . . . an unspoken sin in our lives . . . and so we tend to identify with someone who has been apprehended for something sinful or wrongful,” he said.

Another aspect of it, he said, is that the writers perceive that “this is somebody who is getting a raw deal . . . and therefore you are going to help” by writing.

That comes through in the way the various characters in this drama are portrayed in most of the letters. The prosecutors are condemned. Simpson and his attorneys are beloved, as is Al Cowlings, who was accused of abetting his escape the day he was arrested.

Not all of the letters are emotional.

A July 4 letter from Boston is one paragraph and includes a crisp $5 bill. “Your Independence Day is closer than you might think,” it says. “On the Day You Are set free, Please have a beer on me.”

A letter written by a woman from the Bronx expresses simply the fascination felt by many.

“I can’t seem to get you out of my mind,” she writes. “I’m finding it difficult to focus on anything.”