‘That Is Not The Knife:’ Cops Find No Evidence Blade Was Used In O.J. Simpson Murders

The mystery knife found on O.J. Simpson‘s Brentwood estate in 2003 is not the weapon used to kill his wife, Nicole, and friend Ron Goldman, a decade earlier.

This confirms rumors leaked in mid-March, when sources close to the investigation told TMZ that the knife wasn’t the Simpson murder weapon. Now, it seems, that conclusion has been formally reached, a Los Angeles Police Department source told The Los Angeles Times.

“That is not the knife. There is no evidence related to the crime … there was no blood on it.”

After a retired cop came forward with it in February, the knife has created renewed interest in the O.J. Simpson case as the mini-series The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story played out the decades-old murder mystery on FX.

It also led to speculation that at long last, the missing murder weapon used in the O.J. Simpson murders in 1994 had finally been found. Those hopes have now been sunk.

The department performed a battery of forensic tests on the knife, described as a “rusty 5-inch fixed blade,” and compared it against Nicole and Ron’s wounds. It also underwent DNA and hair sample analysis, ABC News reported.

Knife found at OJ Simpson's property ruled out as murder weapon https://t.co/GkaCCQmqRr pic.twitter.com/pCe1Q1Kiyg

— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) April 2, 2016

From the get-go, investigators were skeptical that it was blade they’d been looking for. A county coroner testified at the criminal trial against O.J. Simpson that the weapon that killed the victims sported a 6-and-a-half-inch blade.

Several blades were found in O.J. Simpson’s neighborhood in the years following the murders, but none revealed any evidence linking them to the crime. Investigators examined a 15-inch retractable blade O.J. Simpson bought himself, a kitchen knife stained with blood and wrapped in a blouse found near his estate, and a broken carving knife found at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.

Allegedly found on O.J. Simpson’s property a decade ago, the knife’s history is spotty, The Inquisitr previously reported. A construction worker reportedly found it on the grounds of his former home in L.A. in 2003 and then handed it over to a retired cop, identified as George Maycott. Maycott then called the LAPD.

The LAPD reportedly brushed him off, telling him that the O.J. Simpson case was over because he’d been acquitted and double jeopardy applied.

'OJ Simpson knife' not a murder weapon https://t.co/ErXgFsgSwG

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 2, 2016

“He thought it had no evidentiary value,” the attorney said and he therefore, chucked it in a toolbox, where it remained for 10 years.

Maycott’s attorney, Trent Copeland, said his client feels his name has been dragged through the mud since coming forward with the knife. Now that it has been ruled out as the murder weapon in the O.J. Simpson case, he feels vindicated.

“Because what he said from the start turned out to be true. Although this was a knife that was allegedly found on the property, it was clearly not the knife connected to the murders. This is a retired police officer, a 70 year old man, who didn’t ask for this attention and did what he thought was the right thing back in 2003. And that was to call the LAPD and to let them know that he had a knife that was allegedly recovered on the property. And the fact that they chose not to act on that… can’t be directed negatively towards him.”

O.J. Simpson, the former football player turned actor and announcer, was acquitted of the murders in a high-profile trial. He was later held accountable in a civil trial and ordered to pay $33 million. In 2007, he spear-headed a robbery in Las Vegas, organized to steal his own sports memorabilia, at gunpoint. That crime landed him in prison, where he is now serving out a 33-year sentence.

[Photo By Ethan Miller/Getty Images]