Breaking News: Police Are Testing a Knife Found on O.J. Simpson's Property

By Cindy Davis | Celebrity | March 4, 2016 |

By Cindy Davis | Celebrity | March 4, 2016 |

In more of today’s Is-This-Is-Really-Happening news, I stumbled across a celebrity site that was questioning whether TMZ had been pranked about a decades old piece of evidence from the 1995 Goldman/Brown Simpson murder just coming to light. Turns out it was NOT a prank at all.

The L.A. Times and CNN confirm that police are testing a buck knife found by a construction worker years ago. That worker turned it over to an off-duty cop on the street at the time he found it; the cop then TOOK THE KNIFE HOME AND KEPT IT.

No, I’m not making this up, truly. Under what circumstances could this officer not see the importance of turning it in?

From TMZ:

We’re told a construction worker found the knife years ago — we have heard several different stories, ranging from “several years ago” to 1998, when the house was demolished. The weapon is a folding buck knife.

Our law enforcement sources say the construction worker took the knife to the street, where he saw an LAPD cop. He told the officer where he found the knife and the cop took it.

Turns out the cop — who worked in the traffic division — was off duty at the time, working security for a movie shoot at a house across the street on Rockingham. Our sources say the officer took the knife home and kept it … kept it for years.

In late January of this year, after the cop retired from the LAPD, he contacted a friend who worked in LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division (RHD). The cop told the friend about the knife and said he was getting it framed to put on his wall. He wanted his friend to get the DR (Departmental Record) number for the Nicole Brown Simpson/Ronald Goldman murder case, which he planned on engraving in the frame.

We’re told the friend was indignant, and told his superiors. The brass was outraged and demanded that the retired cop turn the knife over, which he did.

Our sources say the knife is currently being tested for hair and fingerprints. It will be moved to the Serology Unit next week, where it will be tested for DNA and other biological evidence.

Though TMZ said the investigation was “top secret,” that covert operation was quickly uncovered, as evidenced by the Times’ report.

A 15-inch knife with a retractable blade that Simpson purchased at Ross Cutlery in downtown Los Angeles briefly tantalized prosecutors in his criminal trial. They thought it might be the murder weapon, and even asked a coroner to compare that type of blade with the slicing, stabbing wounds in the killings. The fact that no one could locate the knife only added to the intrigue.

But the defense produced the knife — in an envelope that became known as the “mystery envelope” in the preliminary hearing. Forensic tests later revealed that the knife was in pristine condition, with no scratches or bloodstains to suggest it had been used in the vicious June 12, 1994, double homicide.

That this is happening now, while FX’s American Crime Story is reenacting the trial, is mind-bogglingly freaky. CNN live report by LAPD.

*Updated: Yes, of course Double Jeopardy applies, but as confirmed by the press conference, the Brown Simpson/Goldman murder case is still open. It would be huge to solve and close the case.

Cindy Davis, (Twitter)