LAPD On Discovery Of Knife Found At OJ Simpson’s Home: Blade Isn’t The Murder Weapon

On Friday, the LAPD released a statement on the discovery of a knife found at OJ Simpson’s former Brentwood, California, home: it is not the murder weapon that was used to kill OJ’s wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, in 1994.

A construction worker allegedly made the discovery of the small buck knife in 1998 when OJ Simpson’s home was being demolished. The construction worker gave the weapon to a retired police officer, who reportedly claims that after receiving the knife, he attempted to hand it over to LAPD, who wanted nothing to do with it, says Trent Copeland attorney for the retired officer, George Maycott. Maycott reportedly called the LAPD regarding the discovery of the knife on OJ Simpson’s property, but the department told him there was nothing they could do with it, reports Global News.

“Someone put him on hold, that person came back several minutes later, said he spoke to a supervisor who said ‘Double jeopardy is attached to this case, O.J.’s been acquitted. If that knife had blood on it there’s really nothing we can do about it, so we don’t want anything to do with this.’ “

The weapon then sat in Maycott’s garage for more than a decade, until he called the LAPD in February of this year, asking for the Simpson case number, hoping to engrave it on the blade of the knife. Copeland said Maycott had hoped to frame it and keep is as a sort of souvenir to “pretend it’s a relic.” The knife was then handed over to the LAPD, who decided to do forensic testing on the blade in order to see if it was, in fact, the murder weapon used in the Simpson/Goldman murders.

On April 1, LAPD confirmed that forensic testing done on the knife discovered on OJ Simpson’s property was not the one used in the grisly double murder case, said LAPD Captain Andrew Neiman.

“We don’t know if it’s a hoax but there’s no nexus to the murders, based on the testing we’ve done.”

This isn’t the first time a discovery of a possible murder weapon has been made, and subsequently ruled out. Six weeks prior to the Simpson/Goldman slayings, OJ Simpson purchased a 15-inch stiletto knife, but it was eventually dismissed as the murder weapon by LAPD detectives. Another potential murder weapon similarly dismissed were parts of a knife discovered in a waste storage tank at O’Hare Airport in Chicago — Simpson had flown there on the night of the murders.

Like the discovery of every other knife that has been ruled out in the case, this latest one was just “another non-development in the heartbreaking case” for Fred Goldman, Ron Goldman’s father, according to New York Daily News.

“Even if someone uncovers a home movie of him committing the crimes, it won’t matter. I never believed that it was anything. Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change.”

Despite the fact that Fred Goldman blasted the retired officer for not bringing the discovery of the knife to the attention of LAPD officers sooner — in March, Goldman said Maycott “obviously wasn’t doing his job,” accusing him instead of trying to keep the weapon as memorabilia — Copeland says that his client has been incredibly forthcoming and has been cooperating with LAPD officers every step of the way.

“He’s been unbelievably cooperative and unbelievably gracious, despite the fact he didn’t appear to get much backing from LAPD.”

Though a murder weapon has never been recovered in the case — and, more than two decades on, it’s getting more and more unlikely that one ever will — the discovery of the blade on OJ Simpson’s former property left many of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman’s families holding out hope. Confirmation from the LAPD that the knife was not the murder weapon has once again dashed that hope of families who just want to gain some sort of closure nearly 22 years after their loved ones were brutally murdered.

[Photo by AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File]