Tips Don’t Ring True at This Number

Got a hot tip in the O.J. Simpson murder case? Please don’t call Teri Thomas in El Segundo.

Ever since Simpson’s attorneys announced they were setting up a toll-free phone line--(800) 322-3632--to take tips in the case, Thomas says her phone has been ringing off the proverbial hook. That’s because Thomas’ phone number is (310) 322-3632--just an area code away from O.J.’s.

After more than 200 calls in less than 24 hours, Thomas, a 39-year-old mother of two young children, is getting more than a little tired of it.

“It ruins your whole day,” Thomas said, wearily, during an interview that was interrupted four times in five minutes by O.J. calls. After one such call, she said, “He (the caller) said he thinks he knows who killed her. I told him to call the 800 number.”

Some sample calls from Thomas’ answering machine:

* “I love O.J., O.J. is my man!” one caller said--over and over--in a rap song cadence.

* “I’d like to speak to O.J. Simpson’s lawyer about those two people who climbed over the fence,” said a man calling from the Philadelphia area. “I think I seen one of them drop a glove.”

* “Man, I sure would hate to have this number,” said another caller who obviously realized that he had the wrong place.

So far, at least, Thomas said, no one has confessed to committing the murders. And she hasn’t collected any interesting tips from callers. Fact is, she’s not that interested in the Simpson case.

“I’m aware of the basics, but I haven’t really been following it,” she said.

The phone calls started coming Wednesday night after news reports about the Simpson 800 number. Thomas and her husband, Bruce, a G.M. Hughes Electronics engineer, weren’t aware that the Simpson number had the same seven digits as their number.

“A woman called from New York and said she had a tip on O.J.,” Thomas said. “I said, ‘Why tell me?’ ”

After that the calls came pouring in, until finally the Thomases unplugged their phone. They thought they were just harassment calls until Thursday morning when they heard the Simpson 800 number on the news and realized that, except for the area code, it was their number too.

Some callers apparently tried calling the 800 number, couldn’t get through and then tried the seven-digit number in Los Angeles’ three area codes. (In the 213 and 818 area codes, the number is not in service.)

“We changed the message on our answering machine,” Thomas said. “It used to say, ‘Hi, thanks for calling.’ Now it says, ‘If you’re calling for (Simpson attorney) Robert Shapiro, please hang up and call the 800 number.”

That has helped a little, Thomas said. But she still has to listen to the calls on her answering machine so she won’t miss any important calls--important to her, not O.J.

In between incoming phone calls, Thomas made a call of her own--to Shapiro’s law office. She got an answering machine.

“I left a message telling him I thought it was really inconsiderate to do that (set up the 800 number) without checking to see if it was anybody else’s number,” Thomas said. “I asked him to call me back.”

She’s still waiting for that call.