Simpson Trial on Sept. 19; Police Talk to Prowler

A Los Angeles judge on Friday set Sept. 19 as the date for O.J. Simpson’s murder trial to begin, while police detectives interviewed an admitted burglar who defense lawyers contend has information that could cast doubt on the case against the former football star.

In another development, grand jury documents reviewed by The Times provided new details about Simpson’s statements to police on the day after the killings. Previously undisclosed testimony from that proceeding reveals that detectives said Simpson told them he had last been at his ex-wife’s house about a week before the murders but had not cut himself there.

That statement could be important to the case because police analysts have said that blood found near the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman matches Simpson’s in several respects. If DNA analysis confirms that finding, Simpson would have to explain how his blood got there.

Although that could prove problematic for Simpson, his attorneys spoke publicly for the first time Friday about a witness they believe may have evidence that could help clear their high-profile client.

“There is at least one witness who police have talked to some time ago, and are apparently talking to him even as we speak,” Simpson attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. said during a brief and unusually amiable court hearing Friday. That witness, Cochran added, “has given testimony or evidence that is totally inconsistent with the theory of a lone assailant and is entirely inconsistent with the fact that Mr. Simpson is that assailant.”

Neither side identified that person during Friday’s hearing, but the mystery witness told The Times in a series of interviews that he is a part-time burglar who has been to prison three times and who claims to have been casing houses in Brentwood on the evening that Nicole Simpson and Goldman were murdered. Police interviewed him for more than three hours Friday and took him to the scene of the crime.

In his interviews with The Times, the prowler said he noticed two burly, bearded white men dressed in dark clothing near the back gate of Nicole Simpson’s condominium about 9 p.m. on Sunday, June 12. Then, more than an hour later, as he was approaching a house across the street, the prowler said he heard a woman yell.

“Just as soon as I was going inside, off the sidewalk, I heard a lady, I heard a commotion,” said the man, who lives several hundred miles from Los Angeles in Northern California. “Something was going on there, and I heard a lady’s voice going: ‘No.’ ”

The prowler said he ducked behind a hedge and moments later saw the same two men he had spotted earlier. This time, they were running from the front of Nicole Simpson’s condominium, the man said, adding that one was carrying a bag, possibly a small laundry bag. The man said he overheard one of the men saying something about slicing or slashing a woman.

He added that he did not see anyone resembling Simpson in the area but said he cannot be sure whether anyone entered and left Nicole Simpson’s property from the rear while he was scouting out houses in the front.

Members of the defense team have interviewed the prowler on several occasions. They said they find him credible despite his history of breaking the law and his admitted participation in previous scams.

Although police had spoken with the man before, on Friday they took him to the crime scene, where they had him re-enact the events of June 12, questioning him closely about what he saw and about the times of various events. The man said later that police seemed skeptical of his account. Detectives, who spent more than three hours with the prowler, would not comment.

The man conceded that he was not wearing a watch on the night of the murders but said he is reasonably sure he heard the scream and saw the men run away shortly after 10 p.m. because he ran back to his car at that point and noticed the clock. That clock, he added, is 1 hour and 12 minutes slow, but he said he remembers doing the addition and concluding that it was about 10:15 p.m.

The man asked that his name not be published, but he supplied it and other biographical information to The Times. Law enforcement sources confirmed details he provided regarding his criminal history--including three trips to prison and a long string of arrests, mostly for burglary and theft.

The man, who came forward to Simpson investigators before a reward was offered, said he does not want any money for his information.

“This is very serious,” the man said. “I feel sorry for Simpson. For me to take his money would be like taking money from somebody who’s disabled. . . . It ain’t right. I don’t care if they find him guilty or not, there’s always two white guys who left that scene.”

In court, meanwhile, Deputy Dist. Atty. William Hodgman said that prosecutors were attempting to comply with the defense’s sweeping request for pretrial discovery and that he thought much of it could be worked out informally. He promised to collect reports regarding burglary calls from the area around Nicole Simpson’s home and to turn over other information once Simpson’s lawyers clarify their requests.

But Hodgman said some of the requests were too broad--such as one for records of anyone who was treated for a dog bite at an emergency room near the crime scene within 24 hours of the murders.

“The defense is not permitted to engage willy-nilly in some sort of fishing expedition,” Hodgman said. “If the defense wants to go fishing, on this particular one they’re going to have to use their own pole and their own tackle box.”

Unlike previous sessions in the Simpson case, Friday’s hearing was subdued and sometimes almost jovial. Hodgman and Cochran pledged to work together on sharing evidence, and Cochran at one point emphasized his trust in his former colleague in the district attorney’s office.

Judge Lance A. Ito also showed flashes of humor, announcing that he had received a number of letters regarding the case--”some are more interesting than others,” he said wryly. Ito added that a number of people unconnected to the case have filed legal briefs. One, he said, was inexplicably accompanied by a $12-million check.

“Did the check clear, your honor?” Cochran asked.

“I wouldn’t be here if it did,” Ito responded, prompting members of the audience to laugh. Simpson, who appeared animated and relaxed during Friday’s session, smiled slightly.

Although Simpson’s lawyers did not get immediate access to some of the information they had sought, legal experts credited them with scoring significant points during the brief hearing.

“It was a great day for the defense,” said UCLA law professor Peter Arenella. “The defense used the hearing to float a theory of reasonable doubt. . . . This will be a reasonable doubt case, and today we learned one potential foundation for reasonable doubt--namely, the possibility that two assailants of a different ethnic identity than Mr. Simpson were involved in the killing.”

One of the hearing’s final items of business was for Ito to set a trial date in the fast-moving case. He selected Sept. 20, which he said appeared to be the final day available to him under Simpson’s right to have a trial within 60 days of his arraignment.

Robert L. Shapiro, Simpson’s lead attorney, urged Ito to pick an even earlier date, suggesting Sept. 2. Shapiro explained later that Simpson wanted a quick trial so that he could return home as soon as possible.

“The environment that he is in is not the environment he prefers,” Shapiro said outside court. “He’d like to return to his family.”

Late Friday, after recomputing the number of days from Simpson’s arraignment, Ito moved the trial date to Sept. 19. Although that is later than the date sought by Shapiro, the case nevertheless is moving at extraordinary speed. Many murder cases can take more than a year to come to trial, and some take much longer.

The Simpson trial is expected to blend physical evidence--most notably bloodstains discovered at the crime scene, at Simpson’s Brentwood estate and on his Ford Bronco--with testimony from an array of witnesses.

A hint at the scope of the case comes from grand jury files reviewed by The Times on Friday. Those files reveal that 17 witnesses testified in that proceeding before it was halted because of the extensive publicity surrounding the case. Testimony at the grand jury fills 460 pages of transcripts and is accompanied by 30 photographs, two diagrams, a chart and a photo display.

Among the witnesses was Detective Philip L. Vannatter, a veteran Los Angeles police detective who is one of the lead investigators in the case and who interviewed Simpson shortly after the football Hall of Famer returned from Chicago on the morning after the murders. After waiving his Miranda rights, Simpson was questioned about a cut on his left hand--a potentially significant injury because police are focusing much attention on bloodstains, including some they believe Simpson left at the scene of the crime.

Vannatter told grand jurors that Simpson acknowledged having cut himself but said he could not remember how he did it.

“He said he didn’t know,” Vannatter testified. “He said he didn’t remember how he injured himself. He says he might have injured it sometime that evening while he was preparing for his trip.”

Vannatter said Simpson told investigators that his cut could be responsible for blood found in his car and his Brentwood estate. But he did not offer any explanation for blood found at his ex-wife’s condominium.

“He said he had last been at her residence, he believed, about a week prior and had been in her house maybe five to seven days prior,” Vannatter told the grand jury. “And we asked him, ‘Were you injured or anything while you were over there? Could you have been dropping any blood?’ And he said, ‘No,’ he wasn’t injured and he couldn’t have been dropping any blood.”

Blood drops later discovered at Nicole Simpson’s home contain characteristics that matched Simpson’s and that a police expert said could only have come from 0.43% of the population--or roughly 40,000 to 80,000 people in Los Angeles County. Police believe that Simpson was hurt during a struggle and that he dripped blood from his cut hand as he left the scene of the crime.

Detective Tom Lange, Vannatter’s partner, also testified before the grand jury, describing the bloody scene of the crime as he found it in the early morning hours of June 13.

“It was apparent to me that a violent struggle had ensued between a suspect and the two victims, so violent a struggle that it was entirely possible the suspect himself would have been injured,” Lange said. “There was an extreme amount of blood.”

While Simpson’s case raced toward an early trial, prosecutors elected for now not to go ahead with charges against the ex-athlete’s best friend, Al (A.C.) Cowlings. Cowlings was arrested along with Simpson on charges of harboring the Heisman Trophy winner when he disappeared and failed to surrender to authorities for six hours.

When Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Craig E. Veals asked Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Darden on Friday whether his office was ready to file charges, Darden answered: “We are not. We are continuing our investigation of this matter.”

Veals then “exonerated” Cowlings’ $250,000 bond and told Cowlings that prosecutors have up to three years from the date of the offense to file criminal charges.

Outside court, Cowlings’ attorney Donald Re called the district attorney’s office’s decision to leave the case open “disappointing.” He said he had hoped that prosecutors would have decided by now not to file charges. Legal analysts and Simpson’s lawyers have speculated that prosecutors may be keeping the case open in part to discourage Cowlings from taking the stand on Simpson’s behalf during his upcoming trial.

“A.C. is in good spirits,” Re said afterward. “A.C. realizes that he has done nothing wrong. He would like to get this behind him.”

Times staff writer Edward J. Boyer contributed to this report.