Police are examining an item — an “alleged knife” — that was said to have been found by a citizen at the Los Angeles-area estate once owned by former football star O.J. Simpson, possibly when the estate was being demolished, Los Angeles police Capt. Andy Neiman said Friday. Police learned only within the last month that a former LAPD officer received the item from the person who found it, he said. Authorities don’t know necessarily that it is a knife, and it is being examined for forensics — including DNA and hairs — at a lab, Neiman said.
The knife was found on Simpson’s former estate in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles.
The weapon used in the stabbing deaths was described as a long, serrated knife. It was never found.
At the high-profile murder trial, Allen Wattenberg, owner of Ross Cutlery store, testified that his employee sold O.J. Simpson a 15-inch stiletto knife on May 3, 1994. He said Simpson asked that the knife be sharpened.
Prosecution witness Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran told the jury that he believed the killings were done with a single-edged knife.
During cross-examination, however, the doctor said he could not be positive.
Flanked by his all-star legal team, Simpson was found not guilty in the two killings on October 3, 1995.
Testimony in the trial took about nine months, encompassing about 120 witnesses, 45,000 pages of evidence and 1,100 exhibits.
In September 2007, Simpson was arrested in connection with a robbery at a Las Vegas hotel room. The ex-athlete said at the time he was retrieving personal items that had been stolen from him and were being sold as memorabilia.
He was booked him on six counts of robbery, assault, burglary and conspiracy.
In October 2008, Simpson was found guilty on 12 counts, including kidnapping and armed robbery. He later was sentenced to at least 33 years in jail, with parole eligibility after nine years.
