Fred Goldman, whose son Ronald was stabbed to death beside O.J. Simpson’s estranged wife, Nicole, said Thursday that the disgraced football star’s death means nothing to him or his family.
Goldman told The Daily Beast over the phone from his Arizona home, “The only thing that is important today are the victims, and it’s just a reminder for myself and my family that Ron has been gone all these years—and that we continue to miss him all these years.”
Goldman, 83, stated that Simpson’s death from prostate cancer “has nothing to do with closure.”
“There is no such thing,” he said.
Initial reports of Simpson’s illness surfaced in February. On Thursday, his family announced his death at the age of 76 via X, previously known as Twitter.
“On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer,” they said in a statement. His children and grandchildren surrounded him. During this time of transition, his family requests that you respect their privacy and grace.”
The shocking double murder that led to the so-called Trial of the Century, which saw the mutilated bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and her friend Ron Goldman, a waiter just weeks shy of his 26th birthday, discovered outside her Los Angeles home on June 12, 1994, will forever overshadow Simpson’s football accomplishments.
Simpson, the leading suspect, first promised to turn himself in to authorities but left five days later with friend and former teammate Al Cowlings in Cowlings’ soon-to-be-infamous white Ford Bronco. Officers led the two on a low-speed pursuit down Interstate 405 for nearly eight hours, broadcast live to nearly 100 million spectators.
The chase concluded at Simpson’s Brentwood estate, where he surrendered barely two miles from the crime scene.
His trial became a televised spectacle, with a so-called dream team of defense lawyers that included Johnnie Cochran, F. Lee Bailey, and Kim’s father, Robert Kardashian. The live televised court procedures of Simpson, akin to the pursuit in the white Bronco, attracted tremendous viewership.
Despite Simpson’s eventual acquittal in a surprise not-guilty judgment, the Goldman and Brown families sued him over the killings, and a judge granted them $33.5 million, deeming Simpson accountable for the double murder.
However, Simpson’s triumph was mainly pyrrhic, as he avoided paying any substantial damages. He continued to deny any involvement in the deaths of Goldman and Brown Simpson, finally writing a “hypothetical” biography called If I Did It that detailed how he would have killed the pair if he had been so inclined.
Simpson would subsequently spend nine years in a Nevada jail for a failed kidnapping and armed robbery in a Las Vegas hotel room. Following his release, Simpson established himself in Las Vegas and started sharing frequent updates about his life on social media.
Upon the discovery of his illness three months ago, Simpson vehemently refuted the accusations that he was receiving hospice care.
“I know who put that out here,” he remarked in a video shared on X. “You can’t trust the media.”
