THE SIMPSON DEPOSITION : Comparing the Versions

O.J. Simpson did not testify during the criminal trial that ended with his acquittal on charges of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman. However, Simpson’s voice has been heard publicly since the murders were discovered June 13, 1994. Transcripts of his interrogation with police float across the Internet. His post-trial interviews with Black Entertainment Network, Larry King, the New York Times and Associated Press have heartened his supporters and enraged his accusers. Now he has spoken under oath in a deposition taken last month in connection with wrongful death lawsuits brought by the parents of Goldman and the estate of Nicole Simpson. Transcripts of the partially completed deposition have been obtained by The Times. Here are some of Simpson’s deposition answers, along with supporting and conflicting statements from other people involved in the case.

TOPIC 1: Domestic Violence and Nicole Simpson

THE DEPOSITION

Simpson said, “Never once did I ever hit her with my fist, ever. . . . Never once have I ever slapped Nicole.” Nonetheless, he acknowledged making her black and blue. “I rassled her. . . . That means I had my hands on her, and I was trying to force her out of my bedroom. . . . She fell when she was outside.” He also discussed a 1985 incident in which he cracked her windshield with a baseball bat during a “discussion” about setting a wedding date. “I don’t know if it was an argument. I wouldn’t characterize this as an argument. . . . She wanted me to set a date, yes, and I was vacillating.” Additionally, Simpson denied an allegation lodged in a January 1995 prosecution brief that he had beaten Nicole and locked her in a wine closet while he watched television. “Never happened,” Simpson insisted four times during the deposition. Simpson also said that although he has a wine closet he believes he did not have one at the time of the alleged incident--which was undated in the prosecution brief.

OTHER ACCOUNTS

Simpson told police investigators the day after the murders that he had wrestled with Nicole Brown Simpson once after she hit him, but he insisted he did not slap or punch her. In his Black Entertainment Television interview, he again contended that he physically abused his wife just once, during a Jan. 1, 1989, incident in which he was charged and pleaded no contest to spousal battery. A month after the incident, Simpson submitted a letter to Nicole through his lawyer stating: “If I ever willfully inflict physical injury on you hereafter, I hereby agree that the prenuptial agreement between you and me shall be null and void.”

Police reports about that 1989 incident alleged that Simpson had slapped his wife so hard that a handprint was left on her neck. Prosecutors alleged in court papers that this incident was one of many in a pattern. “Abuse and control was the dominant attribute of the relationship between defendant and victim,” prosecutors said in their January 1995 brief.

IMPACT AT TRIAL

In his opening statement, prosecutor Christopher A. Darden told jurors that the Simpson/Goldman murders were the final act in an abusive, 17-year-relationship. Judge Lance A. Ito allowed jurors to hear about many of the alleged instances of domestic violence, but prosecutors did not present them all. After the trial, several jurors said they were not impressed by this evidence.

TOPIC 2: The Question of Stalking

THE DEPOSITION

Simpson says he “never” followed his ex-wife or stalked her. Asked about reports that Nicole’s neighbors saw him looking inside the windows of her house, Simpson replied: “If they said that, they’d be lying.” His response to an inquiry about whether he tried to question other family members on her whereabouts: “No. No, no, no.”

OTHER ACCOUNTS

Keith Zlomsowitch, a former boyfriend of Nicole Brown Simpson, testified to the grand jury that Simpson once spied on his ex-wife and him through a window as they engaged in a sex act on the living room couch. Simpson acknowledged in the deposition that he did see the sex act through the window.

IMPACT AT TRIAL

During the trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lydia Bodin said Nicole Brown Simpson told a battered-women’s shelter that her ex-husband was stalking her. According to prosecution papers, she reportedly told her mother: “I’m scared. I go to the gas station, he’s there. I go to the Payless shoe store, and he’s there. I’m driving and he’s behind me.” But Ito ruled that improper hearsay and did not allow the jury to hear it.

TOPIC 3: The Timeline Issue

THE DEPOSITION

Simpson said that he was home between 9:36 p.m., when he returned from a trip to McDonald’s with Kato Kaelin, and shortly before 11 p.m., when he rendezvoused with limousine driver Allan Park before leaving for an 11:45 flight to Chicago. (Authorities believe the murders occurred between 10:15 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.) Asked if anyone could account for his whereabouts during that time, Simpson responded, “No.” Simpson said that after he and Kaelin returned from McDonald’s, Kaelin went to his room and Simpson went outside and chipped golf balls in his front yard until sometime after 10 p.m. After going upstairs, Simpson said he sat on his bed for “10, 15 minutes.” When he noticed on his bedroom clock that it was 10:35 or 10:40 p.m., he realized he had to finish preparations for his trip. He said he got up, went to the bathroom, “jumped in the shower” and “started finishing packing my suitcase.” Simpson said he was in the shower when he first heard the phone call from the limousine driver at one of his exterior gates.

OTHER ACCOUNTS

At trial, Park testified that he arrived at Simpson’s home at 10:25 and first rang the intercom buzzer at 10:40 p.m. Park testified that he rang the buzzer three or four times and when he got no answer, he called his supervisor’s voice mail to get advice on what to do. He testified that he buzzed several more times without success, and finally got his boss on his car phone. “I told him I thought nobody was home,” Park said. Then, sometime after 10:55 p.m., Park told his boss, “Somebody’s here,” shortly after he “saw a figure come into the entranceway of the house just about where the driveway starts.” Park said that person was black, about six feet tall and 200 pounds and wore “all dark clothing.” Park said he waited 30 more seconds, hoping someone would open the gate for him. When that didn’t happen, Park said he rang the intercom again. “This time there was an answer, which was Mr. Simpson. He told me that he overslept.” At the deposition, Simpson denied telling Park he had overslept.

IMPACT AT TRIAL

Park was considered the prosecution’s key witness for establishing their belief that Simpson was not home when the murders were committed.

TOPIC 4: ‘Weird Thoughts’ and Dreams

THE DEPOSITION

Simpson was asked if he had told police investigators that he had “weird thoughts” about his ex-wife Nicole. He responded that “I may have said something to that effect in answering a question they asked me.” Simpson added, “I believe it was in relation to maybe taking a lie-detector test. I’m not sure.” Pressed by plaintiffs’ attorney Daniel M. Petrocelli as to what he meant, Simpson said, “Well, I’d been married for 17 years, and from time to time in those 17 years you have thoughts.”

OTHER ACCOUNTS

During Simpson’s 32-minute taped interview with Los Angeles Police Dets. Tom Lange and Philip L. Vannatter, they asked him his thoughts about taking a polygraph examination. He responded, “I’m sure eventually I’ll do it, but it’s like I’ve got some weird thoughts now. . . . You know when you’ve been with a person for 17 years, you think everything. I’ve got to understand what this thing [lie-detector] is. If it’s true blue, I don’t mind doing it.”

During the trial, Ronald G. Shipp, a former police officer and self-described Simpson friend, testified that the day after the murders Simpson told him, “You know, to be honest, Shipp . . . I’ve had some dreams of killing her.” He said that Simpson told him that he was reluctant to take a polygraph test because he feared his dreams of killing his ex-wife would cause the machine to interpret his denials of murder as a lie.

IMPACT AT TRIAL

Simpson’s statement was not introduced during the criminal trial. Prosecution sources said they were reluctant to put it in evidence because they felt much of it was self-serving and it would give Simpson an opportunity to present his spin on events without being cross-examined. However, several analysts said they thought this was a serious prosecution error, a point they reiterated Saturday, saying that if the statement had been introduced it would have bolstered Shipp’s credibility, among other things.

TOPIC 5: The Cuts

THE DEPOSITION

Simpson said he cut his hand on a glass in the bathroom sink of his Chicago hotel room after he possibly broke the glass while talking to police over the telephone. “I was-- I don’t know. I was out of it, and I was doing a few things and the glass broke. . . . Maybe I slammed it down. Maybe I knocked it over. I really don’t know.” He also said he didn’t remember telling police about a previous cut on his hand because he didn’t know how he received it.

OTHER ACCOUNTS

In an interview the day after the murders, Simpson told police that he cut his left hand on a broken glass in the bathroom of his Chicago hotel after police informed him about his ex-wife’s murder. “I just kind of went bonkers for a little bit.” Then Simpson quickly added that he thought he reopened a wound he might have previously suffered while rushing out of his house to catch the flight to Chicago. “I think I just opened it again, I’m not sure . . . ,” he told investigators. “I recall bleeding at my house.”

IMPACT AT TRIAL

Witnesses called by the defense during the trial said they had not seen any cuts on his hands hours after the murders. Limousine driver Park testified that he had the opportunity to see Simpson’s hands the night of the trip to the airport and noticed no cuts or bandages. Kaelin testified that he had seen Simpson’s hands that night as well and that neither appeared to be injured. Prosecutors alleged that Simpson’s hand was cut during a struggle with Goldman.

TOPIC 6: The Bronco Chase

THE DEPOSITION

Simpson said he tried to visit his ex-wife’s grave on June 17, 1994, but that a police car blocked the cemetery entrance. He also said that while he and his longtime pal Al Cowlings were driving around Southern California during the low-speed chase watched around the world, he took out a pistol and thought about suicide because “I was feeling a lot of pain, and I wanted to stop it.” The cause of the pain, he said, was the loss of Nicole Simpson and the fact that people were “implying that I possibly could have taken a human being’s life.” But Simpson never cocked the gun and eventually turned himself in to the police.

OTHER ACCOUNTS

While Simpson and Cowlings were temporarily missing, another Simpson friend, Robert Kardashian, publicly read on national television a letter the former football hero left behind. “I think of my life and feel I’ve done most of the right things. So why do I end up like this? I can’t go on,” Simpson wrote. “No matter what the outcome, people will look and point. I can’t take that.”

IMPACT AT TRIAL

For reasons never publicly explained, prosecutors did not introduce any evidence involving the letter and chase. Asked about that toward the trial’s end, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said: “We believe the evidence that has been presented to the jury by both sides is sufficient.” Some analysts--including Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted Charles Manson--said prosecutors should have introduced evidence about the chase because Simpson’s flight showed “consciousness of guilt.” But others said prosecutors were smart to avoid the incident because it might have made Simpson seem heroic because of the crowds cheering him from freeway overpasses.

TOPIC 7: Relationship with Paula Barbieri

THE DEPOSITION

Simpson said he first dated Paula Barbieri for about a year, starting in May 1992, but then stopped after Nicole Brown Simpson pleaded for a reconciliation that later failed. “Nicole just told me she loved me and she hated what was going on in her life, and she wanted to get back with me,” he said. Simpson said he later resumed dating Barbieri and described their relationship as monogamous for “three to four weeks” before the murder night. Simpson denied that he had received a message from Barbieri just before he left for Chicago that said she wanted to break up. He had “no idea at all” about it, he said.

OTHER ACCOUNTS

According to Mark Peacock, an attorney representing the Nicole Brown Simpson estate, Barbieri testified in recent depositions that she broke up with O.J. Simpson via answering machine the day his ex-wife and her friend were slain--information that the jury in the murder trial never heard. “His girlfriend gives him some bad news the day Nicole is killed,” Peacock said recently. “I think it’s pretty significant.”

IMPACT AT TRIAL

Legal experts criticized the prosecution for failing to call Barbieri to the stand, saying her testimony could have provided a motive for fueling Simpson’s alleged anger.

--Researched by Times staff writers Larry Gordon and Henry Weinstein