250,000 Tipsters Deluge Hot Line in Simpson Case

Encouraged by the promise of a huge reward or the chance to contribute to a historic investigation, 250,000 callers have flooded a newly created defense hot line with tips about the O.J. Simpson murder case, while similarly besieged police have designated a full-time “clue chaser” to run down the leads coming to them.

“It’s beyond belief,” Simpson attorney Robert L. Shapiro said Wednesday of the hot-line deluge. Shapiro, who disclosed the number of calls in an interview with The Times, said they have become so overwhelming that the operators have had to install a special backup recording system to keep up with the crush.

Tipsters have included private investigators with clues based largely on news reports, amateur detectives with theories implicating other possible suspects, and people claiming to have witnessed the events involving the grisly slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.

Although some of the tips are seemingly credible, many appear to be the products of overactive imaginations. One Maryland woman has called repeatedly to tell of dreams in which she sees another killer. To her frustration, Simpson’s camp has not gotten back to her.

“We’re hearing from every psycho and every crazy person,” said Bill Pavelic, an investigative consultant working with the Simpson team. “But if I get one call in a hundred that’s a good lead, it’s worth it.”

Rising to that thin promise, investigators on both sides of the case are painstakingly chasing down each lead, reluctant to pass up any information that could prove important.

The onslaught of tips has convinced some Police Department officials that Simpson’s camp may be fueling the fires in part to occupy detectives who might otherwise be building a case against Simpson.

Any tip that is not checked out could be used against the prosecution at trial. Simpson’s camp already has made clear its intention to attack the thoroughness and competence of the investigation into their high-profile client.

“There’s people that are giving us theories, there’s psychics, that kind of thing,” said Detective Dennis Payne of the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division. “And then there’s people who have information. We’re checking it all out.”

Some officers say they’re braced for Simpson’s team to show up someday with a basketful of leads, wondering whether all of them have been thoroughly investigated.

“They’re absolutely right to be concerned,” said Pavelic, a retired LAPD detective now at odds with his former colleagues. “We’re getting calls from people who are saying they’re being kissed off by the Police Department. If they don’t interview these people, they’ve got a problem. We’re going to ask: ‘Why not?’ ”

With the stakes so high for both sides, police detectives and Simpson investigators are simultaneously pounding the pavement. In fact, Simpson’s crew and LAPD detectives have occasionally run into one another at the crime scene and other locations.

According to sources in both camps, the most recent wave of tips has featured several from eager private investigators trying to uncover clues in the case.

Paul Katz of Los Angeles-based Katz Investigations hooked up with a pair of Colorado private eyes last week to take a crack at the case. They scoured the area near Nicole Simpson’s condominium and found red spots resembling blood in an alley close to the crime scene. They photographed the spots, as well as some intriguing tire tracks, and forwarded the pictures to police, who are investigating.

Katz said he has rejected tabloid offers of money for the story and added that neither he nor his colleagues are interested in the reward. They are just trying to solve a mystery that has preoccupied much of the country, he said, and hope to get credit for their efforts.

“This is something that was missed by O.J.’s team and by the LAPD,” said Robert S. Hatch Jr., one of the Colorado investigators who flew to Los Angeles at the behest of some Colorado businessmen interested in the Simpson case. “It’s potentially important evidence, and we found it.”

Hatch said he and his colleagues also turned up a witness who purportedly saw Nicole Simpson arguing with someone--he’s not sure who--on the morning of the killings. Having uncovered those tidbits, Hatch and Salvador C. Torres, another Colorado investigator, headed home this week, leaving Katz to continue hunting for clues.

“We didn’t really expect to come up with too much,” Hatch said. “When we turned up what we turned up, we were amazed.”

They are not alone. Private investigators from throughout the region and some from beyond have descended upon the crime scene in recent days. They are quick to tout their finds.

One investigator forwarded information to both sides that he says will shed new light on Nicole Simpson’s character, while others have offered thoughts on the police and medical examiners involved in the case. Scores of calls to the hot line, meanwhile, come from people who say they have information about Simpson, his ex-wife or Goldman that could help the case one way or the other.

Although most of the tips--founded and unfounded--are about the principal players in the celebrated whodunit, many come from people with a dizzying array of thoughts on other issues. One Santa Barbara woman hypothesized that a large dog might have carried a bloody glove to Simpson’s home.

She called police and Simpson’s hot line Wednesday, urging both sides to demand a test of the glove to determine whether it had saliva that could be matched to a large white Akita owned by Nicole Simpson. So far, neither side has complied.

Then there’s the self-professed burglar who says he was casing houses in Brentwood on the night of the killings, looking for some quick jewelry and cash. He came forward within days of Simpson’s arrest and said he heard a woman scream and saw two white men fleeing the crime scene about the time the killings took place.

The two men, according to the prowler, were carrying a bag or a pillowcase and fled Nicole Simpson’s home by running out the front of the condominium property, not out the back gate, as police and prosecutors have theorized that Simpson did.

Although Simpson has offered $500,000 for information leading to the arrest of the “real killer or killers,” the prowler says he wants no part of the reward.

“I just want to straighten this out,” he told The Times.

The prowler, who asked that his name not be used, has been interviewed by Simpson’s investigators, who said they find him credible. He also has spoken with detectives over the phone and is scheduled for a formal interview later this week.

It won’t be his first face-to-face encounter with the detectives. When he was being videotaped at the crime scene by Simpson investigator Pavelic, LAPD Detective Tom Lange happened by. According to Pavelic, Lange asked who the witness was, but Pavelic said he brushed him off.

Police are reluctant to disclose their investigative efforts, but law enforcement officials say both police and prosecutors have received a stream of calls and letters from across the nation and even other countries. The pace of tips slowed down a bit after Simpson’s preliminary hearing, officials said, but picked up again after the Simpson camp opened its toll-free tip line.

“That seemed to make everyone out there feel like they were Deputy Dan,” said one law enforcement source. “Our phones started ringing and the letters started arriving.”

* REVERSING FIELD: O.J. Simpson’s lawyers told a judge their experts will not participate in DNA testing of crime scene blood samples. B1