Denise Brown Makes Case Against Spousal Violence

Denise Brown, sister of murder victim Nicole Brown Simpson, pleaded with area residents Thursday to come up with ways to end domestic violence in their communities.

“Don’t think there is nothing we can do about domestic violence,” Brown told about 350 people at a forum at the Ritz-Carlton hotel. “We’ve been quiet much too long.”

The $50-a-seat event, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Laguna Niguel, raised funds for the Nicole Brown Simpson Charitable Foundation, which was established after her death and supports programs for battered women.

In her first Orange County speaking appearance, Brown, who frequently broke into tears and wore her angel pin, urged people to actively prevent abuse in the home so her sister “will not have died in vain.”

Nearly a year ago, the bodies of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman were found outside Brown Simpson’s Brentwood apartment. Prosecutors in the double-murder trial of O.J. Simpson contend that a pattern of domestic violence played a part in her death.

The trial has cast a spotlight on the legal system and fueled the public’s concern about domestic violence, but interest in the issue has waned, some domestic violence professionals said.

“Every TV station has their legal expert on the O.J. case, but they don’t have their abuse expert,” Carol Lindquist, a Cal State Fullerton psychology professor, said. “Does society understand battering any better as a result of O.J.? I don’t think so.”

Lindquist, who studies ways to teach violent spouses to control their anger, said publicity about Nicole Brown Simpson’s murder has helped some women realize that their own relationships may be dangerous, but she doubts it has caused violent spouses to question their own actions.

An increasing number of abused women and children have sought services in Orange County in the past few years, experts said.