Simpson Defense Dealt Setbacks on Two Fronts : Courts: DNA tests tentatively link blood on ex-wife’s gate to defendant. Key defense witness disappears.

O.J. Simpson, battling charges that he murdered his ex-wife and her friend, was dealt two setbacks Wednesday as a potentially important defense witness disappeared and prosecutors announced that more blood from the murder scene has tentatively been matched to Simpson.

The announcement about the blood came from a morning session with DNA legal experts on both sides, who squared off to debate evidence sharing.

In the course of that discussion, Deputy Dist. Atty. Rockne Harmon, the lead DNA legal specialist for the prosecution, said that blood from the back gate of Nicole Brown Simpson’s condominium has been tested and matched to O.J. Simpson’s blood. Although Harmon did not say in court what kind of test had been performed on the blood, he said later that it was a so-called PCR test, a form of DNA analysis.

The latest results had just recently been shared with the defense and he added that a highly sensitive type of DNA test known as RFLP analysis began this week.

That analysis already has been performed on blood drops found to the left of a row of bloody footprints leading away from the bodies of the two murder victims, Nicole Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. Simpson, who has pleaded not guilty to those killings, had a cut on the middle finger of his left hand on the day after the murders.

According to prosecutors, the analysis performed thus far has suggested a genetic match between Simpson’s blood and the drops leading away from the bodies. Results of testing performed on the blood from the gate had not previously been disclosed. Linking that blood to Simpson would bolster the prosecution contention that he committed the murders and then left the crime scene through the back, getting in his car and driving home.

Outside court, however, defense attorneys minimized the significance of the three blood drops found on the fence, saying that they were not recovered or photographed until weeks after the murders, leaving ample opportunity for the blood to have become contaminated.

“There’s a real question about the integrity of the evidence,” said Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., Simpson’s lead trial lawyer.

Harmon acknowledged that the sample had not been recovered until July 3 but declined to explain the delay. “We’ll address that when the testimony unfolds,” he said during a news conference.

Although the blood represents the latest piece of physical evidence implicating Simpson in the June 12 murders, an equally troubling development for the defense was the apparent loss of a witness who Cochran has told the jury would testify in support of Simpson’s alibi.

That witness, Rosa Lopez, purportedly told defense attorneys that she saw Simpson’s car outside his house about the time the murders were committed, but Lopez’s lawyer said Wednesday that she has disappeared and possibly left the country.

Carl Jones, the lawyer for Lopez, said she failed to show up for a scheduled meeting with him Saturday and has not been heard from since. According to Jones, Lopez told her employer last Friday that she was quitting and would not be back.

“Her announced destination was El Salvador,” Jones said in an interview. “I have no other way to contact her.”

Cochran told reporters Lopez was being harassed and was fearful of possible repercussions if she testified.

Defense lawyers will try to interview Lopez in El Salvador if she can be located there, Cochran said.

“If she left the country, we’re going where she is,” he said. “She’s important.”

Other defense attorneys were less sure, however, with one saying he was wary of Lopez and her account. Prosecutors have not interviewed Lopez, but sources inside the government team said they too had recently become aware that she apparently has dropped out of sight.

According to Jones, Lopez, a maid who worked at the house next door to Simpson, was deluged by media attention after Cochran mentioned her in court and was frightened by the recent arrest of another potential defense witness, Mary Anne Gerchas. Gerchas surrendered to face criminal fraud charges unrelated to the Simpson case after Cochran mentioned her in his opening statement, and she was arrested again last weekend.

“The first arrest upset her,” Jones said of his client. “I can only imagine what the second one did.”

Prosecutors have announced that they are investigating the backgrounds of potential defense witnesses mentioned by Cochran in his opening statements. There are no indications, however, that Lopez is in any trouble with the authorities.

Other defense lawyers said they remain hopeful that Lopez may still return but also stressed that their case does not rest on her testimony. Other witnesses will challenge the police investigation and bolster Simpson’s version of events, according to the defense attorneys.

The dual blows to the defense--the DNA disclosures and the possible loss of a witness--made for a trying day for the Simpson camp. But legal experts said both developments also raise questions that the Simpson lawyers may be able to turn to their advantage.

“If the police identified what they thought was blood that night, and in any way delayed their analysis of it, then they risked the integrity of the sample,” said Marcia Morrissey, a Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer. As for Lopez, she added, “we don’t know why Miss Lopez fled, but it’s highly likely that the prosecution’s tactics played a part in her decision. I also think it’s a safe bet that we won’t see many other witnesses coming forward on O.J. Simpson’s behalf.”

As testimony continued Wednesday, Detective Ron Phillips took the witness stand, becoming the first Los Angeles Police Department detective to testify before the jury.

Under questioning from Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark, Phillips testified about the scene of the crimes and about what he said were the efforts of police to notify Simpson of his ex-wife’s death. During last summer’s preliminary hearing, Detective Mark Fuhrman testified about that information, but since that time Fuhrman has become the central focus of the defense assault on the police investigation.

Simpson’s attorneys have accused Fuhrman of being a racist and have said that he may have planted a bloody glove outside their client’s Brentwood home.

Faced with what is expected to be a searing attack on Fuhrman when he takes the stand, prosecutors are trying to limit the scope of his testimony. As a result, it was Phillips instead of Fuhrman who described the actions he and his colleagues took in the early morning hours following the murders.

Of special importance are the reasons that officers have given for traveling from the crime scene to Simpson’s house in the wake of the discovery of the two bodies. Defense attorneys have suggested that overzealous officers went to Simpson’s estate to arrest him and jumped a fence after they failed to get an answer to their calls.

But Phillips said the officers had only gone to the Simpson home to tell him of his ex-wife’s death and to let him know that his children were at the West Los Angeles Police Station.

Phillips said LAPD Cmdr. Keith Bushey insisted that he make every effort to find Simpson and notify him as quickly as possible.

“He wanted to be sure that I notified him, as a courtesy to him,” Bushey said. “He did not want Mr. Simpson to learn about it in the media.”

Once at Simpson’s house, officers were alarmed when Fuhrman discovered what turned out to be a small spot of blood on Simpson’s Ford Bronco, which was parked in front of the house. Concerned that something might be wrong inside the estate, the detectives decided to jump the fence and enter without a warrant, Phillips said.

The detective is expected to face pointed cross-examination about that decision when the trial continues today. Wednesday, he only answered questions posed to him by Clark.

Phillips took the stand after a colleague, Sgt. David Rossi, finished a long cross-examination by defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey, who sought to show that the sergeant had failed to do his job. At one point, Bailey even suggested that Rossi had committed a misdemeanor by not calling the coroner, but when Bailey presented the detective with a copy of the LAPD manual to support his contention, the sergeant pointed out that the section referred to the duties of an investigating officer, not a watch commander such as himself.

When it was her turn to question the officer again, Clark posed a series of quick questions. With them, Clark established that Rossi was not supposed to notify the families of victims, direct the investigation, take photographs, collect evidence or perform other jobs that are the purview of detectives.

“What is your job when you doing a crime scene?” Clark asked.

“As a watch commander, my job is to ensure that the crime scene is secure and that any evidence is protected and to make the necessary notifications to the detectives and to my command staff,” Rossi said, adding that he had done all those things.

Although the testimony of the two officers occupied the entire part of the court day that unfolded in front of the jury, the debates over scientific evidence were waged outside the panel’s presence. During Wednesday’s session, Ito ruled that prosecutors may proceed with a special test of some samples intended to show that police could not, as defense attorneys have suggested, stained evidence with blood taken from Simpson and from the body of his ex-wife.

The samples taken from the suspect and victim were laced with a preservative known as EDTA, and prosecutors want to test the evidence to see whether that preservative is present in any of the samples. If not, it would prove that police could not have stained the samples as part of an effort to frame Simpson for the murders.

Defense attorneys complained that the new round of tests would postpone their access to the evidence samples. With the physical evidence on the verge of being presented in court, Simpson’s lawyers want immediate access to that evidence so that they can prepare to question prosecution witnesses.

But prosecutor Harmon belittled the defense objections. “Sounds like they really don’t want us to find out what’s in these two items, doesn’t it, your honor?” Harmon asked.

Ito ruled that the tests should begin as soon as possible. The FBI’s crime lab has agreed to perform the analysis, which will be conducted on Monday.

Times staff writer Tim Rutten contributed to this article.

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