On Thursday, I went to South Bundy Drive in Brentwood, where the double murder occurred. OJ Simpson was died at the age of 76. And that famous scene of violence was strangely quiet on a sparkling spring day in Los Angeles.
I writing for nearly 30 years previously about the brutal murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in her apartment as well as the infamous trial that delved into the most sensitive parts of the national psyche, exposing conflicting views about race, policing, celebrity and legal equality.
There are strange elements in OJ Simpson’s “trial of the century,” from witness Kato Kaelin, the guest with the icy wig who starred in the comedy “Beach Fever,” to Judge Lance Ito, a camera addict so narcissistic that he became known as Judge Itomaniac.
But I always considered it a great American tragedy. It has echoes of “Othello,” the most profound work ever written about the fatal flaw of jealousy.
Othello was a hero, a black man loved for his exploits on the field, a man who conquered racial setbacks, fascinated his fans and rose to great heights .
He is married to a beautiful young woman. But, thanks to Iago – a deputy who is jealous of being passed over for promotion in favor of another aide-de-camp – Othello is poisoned by jealousy, unable to deal with the demons in his head.
Desdemona, his wife, is confused because Othello is criticized for false information. Her servant, Emilia, explains that jealous people “are never jealous because of a cause but jealous because they are jealous. It is a monster, born of itself, born of itself.”
Othello murdered Desdemona while still in love with her.
One year after OJ’s murder trial, i line up behind football legend Johnnie’s lawyer “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit” Cochran at Bill Clinton’s second inauguration. Cochran, who acts as if the Simpson case is as much a civil rights fight as Brown v. Board of Education, will soon have his own show on CourtTV.
A stream of excited men and women approached Cochran, wanting to take pictures with the lawyer who had evicted OJ.
Celebrities trump all. Or almost all of it.
OJ escaped in the criminal trial but not in the civil trial, although he never paid the fine or expressed any penance.
However, he did not escape criticism from many in America, who thought he got away with murder.
In 1995, when an OJ was acquitted of plotting to reform himself, I had the feeling that the victims were lost in the circus.
I drove an hour outside of Los Angeles to Ascension Cemetery in Lake Forest. There were bougainvillea, carnations, sunflowers and chrysanthemums piled on top of the plain black marble headstone at Nicole Brown Simpson’s grave. People left behind teddy bears and rosaries.
A boy wrote a note promising that he would never be mean to women when he grew up. One mother wrote a letter assuring Nicole that her two children would be fine: “Your children’s guardian angels will take care of them.”
I spoke to a woman named Teresa Myers, who stood staring at the grave for a long time. “Maybe she’s better now because she’s at peace,” Myers speak to me. “But maybe she didn’t because now she knows that no one can touch him.”
As I left South Bundy on Thursday, I said a little prayer for the victims and their families. Fred Goldman, Ron’s father, said when he heard of OJ’s death: “There is no great loss.”
I feel like that.
