Bill Dear's Jason-Did-It Theory: Some Very Big Problems

 

I have long thought that Bill Dear's book implicating Simpson's son Jason, as the murderer who called his father after allegedly committing the crime, was completely absurd.  One of the key features of Dear's argument is that Jason Simpson's timecard indicates that Jason lied about his whereabouts during his civil deposition and that his timecard proves that he had left work earlier than he had stated.  But this theory is preposterous on its face for numerous reasons.  

First, I would recommend two sources on this issue:

1) Tony Ortega's article Bill Dear is Full of It and I Can Prove It.  The article explains in particular why the timeline is nearly impossible.  It also gets into some of the logical problems of having Simpson's DNA at the crime scene (I have my own issues with Dear's repeating of discredited defense DNA theories...but I will cover this later).

2) Another source is the Investigation Discovery special in which Dear was involved.  It specifically shows why the timecard theory has major problems, some of which I will summarize and expand upon here.

So here goes:

1.  The fact that the written part of the timecard goes from a Sunday to Sunday (just according to Dear) is very odd. The date written in would more likely be a Monday and not a Sunday. Of course we know the murder happened on the Sunday. In Dear's book, he claims that Simpson did not work that Monday, though.

2. Jason almost certainly would not have been working two days after the murder of his step-mother. And then again the day after that. According to his deposition, he had taken time off from work right after the murder and moved into Rockingham. This of course makes total sense. It seems like this would be something very easy to corroborate (and through video footage we actually know that Jason was already at Rockingham on 6/18/94).

3. The Side B of the timecard was not included in Dear's book. We know that the period ending of the timecard is 6-19-94, so it stands to reason that the date written in the timecard could very well be 6-6-94 and not 6-12-94.  Dear never presented both sides of the timecard, and the timecard itself does not show the dates.  It looks like Dear is assuming the dates he wants the days of the week to follow.

4. The timecard, according to the person who provided it to Dear, was brought one or two days after the murder. Yet the next Saturday and Sunday after the murder are typed up, meaning Jason showed up to work those days!  Obviously this is an impossibility if the card were already brought to the person who provided it to Dear.  Did this not raise giant red flags to Dear?

But let's take this a step further, shall we? If Dear's timecard date is correct, and Jason worked on 6/12, then that means he worked Saturday 6/18. So the day after the Bronco chase, when the SWAT showed up to OJ's house, and Jason came up to the Bronco with guns pointed on him as he tried to talk down his father, he then showed up at work at 2:37 pm the next day?!!?

Dear's whole theory basically operates on astonishingly improbable situations like this.  If he wants to ignore or not trust Jason Simpson's civil deposition, fine.  But he is basically making up situations and then presenting them as fact. 

Nicole Brown and the Domestic Violence

I often hear people downplay the domestic violence aspect of this case.  Of course an abuser doesn't always commit murder, but when analyzing the the totality of evidence, one should never discount its relevance.  I believe that it is highly relevant to OJ's motive.  Here are numerous pieces of evidence (culled from the trial testimony itself, commentary of the detectives and lawyers involved in the case, and Nicole's personal diary).  

1) The famous New Year’s incident of 1989 where police were called to the residence, in which Nicole ran out of the house screaming “He’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me!” to the officer on the scene.

2) Nicole’s 911 phone call in which she claims Simpson broke in the back door (though at that point she said that he had not yet hit her).  Nicole said in the phone call,  “I don’t want to stay on the line he’s going to beat the shit out of me.”

3) According to Officer Terry Schauer of the West LAPD Division, he had received a “screaming woman-call” on Mulholland from Marquerite Simpson, who refused to press charges even though she was beaten by her husband, OJ.  Another LAPD officer, Richard Deanna, had a similar story as far back as 1969 with Marguerite.

4) In 1993, Brown told Kris Jenner, “Sooner or later, he’s going to kill me.”  Brown allegedly wanted Jenner to help her make a tape recording of his behavior and put it in a safe-deposit box.

5) In 1990, Brown told Jenner (after she encouraged Brown to leave OJ), “I can’t leave…If I leave, he’ll kill me.”

6) D’Anne Purcilly-Lebon, a close friend of Nicole, recounted to detectives in 1993 that Brown had said to her, “Everywhere I go, he shows up.  I really think he’s going to kill me.”

7) Denise Brown testified that once at Rockingham, in the mid 80’s, OJ had picked up Nicole, threw her against the wall, and then picked her up and threw her out the front door.

8) When the LAPD informed Lou Brown’s death, Denise, in the background, immediately begins to scream, “I knew he’d do it! I knew that motherfucker would kill her!  I knew it! OJ did it! OJ killed her! I knew that son of a bitch was going to do it!”

9) Three weeks before the murders, Nicole told Juditha Brown, “He’s following me again, Mommy. I’m scared.  I go to the gas station, and he’s there. I go to Payless shoe store, and he’s there. I’m driving, and he’s behind me.”

10) Judith also claimed that a month before the murder, Nicole had said that Simpson had told her, “If I ever see you with another man, I’ll kill you.”

11) According to Denise Brown, two weeks before her death, Nicole said that Simpson was continuing his threats said, “I need to get a recorder or put this down on paper.”  She claims that Simpson additionally said to her, after their most recent breakup, “I have no reason to live now.”

12) In her safety deposit box, Nicole kept a series of pictures of her bruised face and her diary.  Her diary contains the following statements.  There were many more than what is listed here.

* “OJ threw me against the wall in our hotel and on the floor.  Put bruises one my arms and             back.”

* “..beat me for hours as I kept crawling from the door.”

* “smashed my car with a baseball bat after visiting Tammy Hughe.”

* “Chased me, grabbed me, threw me into walls - threw all my clothes out window.  Bruised             - Al Cowlings calmed you down.”

* ”Pipson Idea…OJ hit me off sofa at Pips.  Wine closet - beat me so bad.”

* “Called me whore.  Hit me while he fucked me.”

On Brian Heiss' new OJ video

 

Brian Heiss, the popular video blogger who believes that OJ is innocent, has put up a new video. I have just watched through it and naturally I have my issues with what I believe are misleading statements.  Direct quotes from his videos are in green with my responses below.

When Mr. Simpson was examined and photographed by LAPD on June 13th 1994, there were no bruises anywhere on his person.  

This is incomplete, however.  The LAPD did photograph the cuts on his hands.  And Simpson’s personal physician, Robert Huizenga, testified to seeing 3 cuts (in two parts) and 7 abrasions on his hands and arms area on June 15th, less than 72 hours after the murder.  I believe that if the assailant were attacking Goldman with a knife, his hands and wrists areas would be precisely the places where wounds would be, not his torso, head or other part of the body. If someone were attacking me, where would I try to stop them from? Probably the hands/wrist area.  This would be consistent with Simpson's wounds. 

Now, is it possible that because Vannatter and Peratis did not see the abrasions/bruises the day after the crime, that OJ was wounded between then and the time Huizenga analyzed him?  Possibly, but I feel like it's probably more likely that Vannatter and Peratis just missed them.  After all, how would Simpson have gotten the wounds during that time period?  And I suspect bruises are easier to miss than a couple of medium-sized cuts.

...travel home without getting any blood in his Bronco, there was only 1/8th of one drop of blood ever found in Mr. Simpson’s Bronco, 

There were no less than 12 blood stains collected and tested from the Bronco, with OJ’s, Ron’s and Nicole’s all positively identified with PCR and RFLP testing.  And these were only representative stains; obviously a criminalist does not collect every single stain in a situation like this. There were stains collected from the driver door interior, the instrument panel, the carpet, the steering wheel, and the center console.  This is exceptionally incriminating.  As for the amounts (1/8 of a blood drop), I am curious about the source on this claim.  Heiss has continually noted the minute DNA amounts in nanograms, though there are also problems with this analysis.  

and the world’s most renown criminalist agree that the assailants would have been covered in blood.  

This is pure speculation, in my opinion.  Even Henry Lee, the defense star witness, acknowledged with a "yes" under cross-examination when asked if there is a lot of scientific literature that suggests that “you can’t really say that someone didn’t participate in a crime just because they are not covered in blood even if it is something like a stabbing.” 

And Herbert MacDonell, another blood expert for the defense (!), wrote about this in his own paper the Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence: “The complete absence of bloodstains on a defendant or his clothing is frequently assumed by many to be definitive evidence that the defendant did not directly participate in a violent act.  This misconception is fostered by those who have insufficient knowledge and experience in bloodstain pattern interpretation or by those who hope that such an opinion would aid in their client’s defense.”

However, there was no blood found in Simpson’s plumbing washing machine drain traps…where did the blood go?

There was a positive result for blood with the phenolphthalein test in the sink and drain and on the lip of the circle of the washbasin in Simpson’s bathroom.  Does this not qualify as “plumbing”? In a prior video, Heiss concluded that there was “no blood in pipes in OJ’s bathroom” after mentioning the negative result of the sink trap.  Is that supposed to exculpate him?  Remember, Simpson's blood was found at the Bundy murder scene, in OJ's Bronco, on a sock in his bedroom, on the Rockingham glove, on the Rockingham trail, in the Rockingham foyer, and in the master bathroom floor (item 14)!  But somehow blood not being in a sink trap suggests he wasn't bleeding?  

On F. Lee Bailey's new book: The Truth about the OJ Simpson Trial

I have just finished the Kindle version of Bailey's new book.  While well-written and interesting in parts, there were quite a few mistakes that he made regarding the evidence.  A few examples:

“Given the amount of blood that had hemorrhaged from Nicole, the assailant would have been drenched in blood.”  A common talking point that is pure speculation and was even rebuked by a defense team witness, Herbert MacDonnell, who famously suggested (and wrote a forensic essay on) the notion that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  We simply have zero proof that Simpson (or any other assailant) was covered in blood.

“The best, but not only, example of this (evidence being planted) was a certain sock which was recovered from Simpson’s bedroom carpet, and those blood samples found to contain EDTA.”

False and has been thoroughly discredited numerous times.  I wrote about it here.

It’s funny, because Bailey suggests that this is the strongest evidence supporting deliberately planted evidence, yet he spends less than two paragraphs in the entire book covering it. 

Later in the book he says, “Marcia Clark tried to diffuse Dr. Rieders’s testimony in this case by showing that he made a mistake in an old case.”   No, she diffused his testimony by attacking the specific issue.  Say what you will about Marcia Clark, but she went into detail about why Rieders’ argument had significant problems, notably getting him to admit that the unpreserved and preserved samples had the same amounts of EDTA (ppm or less…meaning likely none at all that could be technically detected).  

“Dr. Henry Lee testified that it looked to him as if the blood evidence appeared to show tampering.”  This did not happen, and it is an incredible stretch to suggest that Lee’s “something wrong” comment indicates this.  I believe that Lee was very cautious about how he worded his answers during this trial.

While talking about the sock evidence, Bailey repeats the notion that the Willie Ford “videotaped Simpson’s bedroom at 4:13 but the police evidence collector said he picked up the socks at about 4:30 or 4:40 pm.”  Again, this was fully discredited, even in part by a defense team witness!  Bailey of course doesn’t mention that.

In regards to the vial sample that Vannatter took to Rockingham, Bailey writes, “Why would a veteran detective return to the scene with evidence incriminating a suspect?”  Because the lead detective is supposed to give the evidence to the criminalist so that he can inventory it if he doesn’t have a Divisional Record number yet.   It doesn’t matter if he was at Rockingham, Bundy, or the Parker Center.

And here’s one that makes me think Bailey was sleeping during the trial.  It was in regards to the sock blood which contained Nicole’s DNA.  Bailey writes, “Cellmark didn’t submit its findings until November 17th.  This raises the question: How could police investigators know in the September that the blood drop on the sock would belong to Nicole?”  Because Gregory Matheson did PGM testing on the socks on September 20th and the results were leaked to the press where Tracie Savage reported on it the next day.

Sorry to wank on…but I’ll add more later.

Why Fuhrman pleading the 5th isn't the "Gotcha!" moment you think it is...

Inevitably when discussing the Simpson case with somebody I will hear the phrase, “But Mark Fuhrman pleaded the 5th when asked if he had planted evidence!”  Clearly the implication is that Fuhrman is indirectly admitting his criminal behavior.  To be clear, I am not a fan of Mark Fuhrman, so this isn’t a defense of him personally.  I, for one, think his involvement in the case is way overstated since Robbery-Homicide took over shortly after he was on the case.  But here is the video of what happened:    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isDPecYKEjM

But there are several reasons as to why this means absolutely nothing if you think that he actually planted the evidence, in particular the Rockingham glove.

1) Watch Fuhrman’s reactions as he receives each of the defense team’s questions.  His lawyer is telling him not to answer each of these questions and that he should invoke his 5th amendment right.  It is not just the question about planting evidence; it is every question he is being asked.  He is clearly shutting down and refusing to play ball any more.  And all of this happened after he got busted lying about using the n-word and the screenplay tapes came out. It’s absolutely clear, because Fuhrman had brought Darryl Mounger along with him to the stand, that he was going to answer none of the questions.  So to suggest that him not answering that one question means he planted evidence makes little sense.

2) According to former Los Angeles D.A. Vincent Bugliosi, “a witness can’t pick and choose, an answer to one question being a waiver of the witness’s right under the Fifth to refuse to answer any others connection to the transaction or incident about which he testified.”  Furhman has also stated that this was one of his reasons, though there is some grey area about witnesses actually doing this and answering some questions (and possibly facing penalties for perjury, for example).  Do I suspect he was more influenced by what his lawyer was telling him to do in this situation than his own awareness of that particular law?  Yes, probably.  But it's still a good reason to plead the 5th down the line instead of picking and choosing which questions to answer.

3) Let’s say Fuhrman did plant evidence.  It would be the most serious and heinous of crimes if so, but then why would he take the 5th when asked about it?  This is why the “he took the 5th” argument falls apart completely.  Why in the world would Mark Fuhrman be worried about perjuring himself in court if the crime he was accused of and actually did was far worse?  What possible motive would he have to incriminate himself in the crime by tacitly admitting it when there wasn’t a single eyewitness to corroborate it or piece of forensic evidence tying him to the crime?  At that point in the trial, the only thing the defense team really had against him was that he had lied about using the n-word.  

Fuhrman has said, “Once the tapes came out, I might have been beyond rehabilitation for the prosecution.  But other witnesses could corroborate my investigation and evidence.  In that case, that was essential.”  Now, if you don’t believe this and think that Fuhrman was doing this to save his own ass, I think that’s actually quite reasonable.  But in the end, his behavior on the stand, where the jury wasn’t even in the room for that episode, simply does not indicate anything about him planting evidence.  Never mind that the defense team never once proved that the Rockingham glove had been planted, or had a single witness to support the allegation. Fuhrman ended up pleading guilty to perjury to lying about using the n-word, but the defense team's allegation about him planting evidence was only that: an allegation.  

Were OJ's socks planted by the police? A deep look into the defense team's argument.

One of the main arguments that Simpson's defense team made to show that their client was innocent was to suggest that the socks found in Simpson's room, which had his and Nicole's blood on them, were planted by the police.  But is it true?  Absolutely not, and I will demonstrate why.  First, we have to look at what Cochran and Scheck argued. They made several big claims that they believed supported the theory, but each of them has major problems.

1) The black socks were not seen in Willie Ford’s video of OJ’s room. The defense believed that because the socks were not on the video, that the police must have planted them later. This, however, was fully discredited when Fung and Ford acknowledged during the trial that Ford had taped the room AFTER Dennis Fung had collected the sock evidence. The confusion had started as a result of the timer on the video camera being off and rough estimates of their relative times of being in the room, but when both men acknowledged the order that they were in the room, it eroded the defense team’s argument. Not only that, but a defense team witness, Det. Bert Luper, acknowledged that he in fact saw the socks in the room that very morning!

2) Nobody saw the blood on the socks for weeks, and then suddenly there is blood on there, therefore it must have been planted later. Sounds somewhat reasonable, except that when you break down the circumstances of who saw the socks and in what conditions, it just doesn’t hold up. The people who looked at the socks initially weren’t looking carefully at the items, and have testified as to such. Remember, we are talking about dark red blood on a pair of black socks, which might be difficult to see. Even members of OJ’s defense acknowledged this – both Henry Lee and Herbert MacDonell explained that it would have been hard to see under normal lighting (July and August 1995 testimonies). Defense team member Michael Baden wasn’t even allowed to touch or move the socks when they were initially shown to him. On June 29, Yamauchi was with Greg Matheson and Michelle Keslter and they had looked briefly at the socks without noticing any blood. They made a note to inspect them more closely later on, which is exactly what happened on August 4when Yamauchi examined them closely for the first time and found the presence of blood. The socks were then tested by Matheson, and eventually the DOJ. Both Nicole and OJ’s blood were found on them.

3) There was EDTA on the sock. No, there wasn’t. It is a theory that has been debunked for a variety of reasons, but primarily for two. First, the amount of EDTA “found” was in the parts per million or less, and this does not match police vial levels. I stress the word “found” because the liquid chromatography/mass spec testing used could not detect limits in the ppm, which is why the FBI said that the amounts were in “the parts per million or less” - they had to hedge their numbers as to not completely eliminate the possibility. Furthermore, in order to identify the EDTA compound, three ions and a particular ratio have to be found, and the FBI could find only two of these in their test. While the defense team claimed to have found this third ion (132), there are very large problems with their claim (more on this later). Just remember, when Fredic Rieders, the defense team’s forensic specialist, was asked about the EDTA, he actually acknowledged that it was in the parts per million or less. That right there should have effectively ended the debate.

4) The blood soaked through the sock from surface two to surface three, so that means the only way it could have been there is for it to have been placed there. The defense team tried to argue that there was only one way for the blood to get on the third side of the sock, but this just doesn't make sense. The blood could have been transferred by either Nicole's own hand at the crime scene, or by Simpson's own hand when he pinched surface 2 next to surface 3 when he took the sock off. Or maybe when the socks were dropped on the floor, surface 2 was left in contact with surface 3. Or another explanation could be that in the course of the phenolphthalein test, the blood on the sock was rewetted with a swab and the manipulation of the swab over the sock caused the transfer of small amounts of blood. The list goes on, and the defense team never effectively excluded these possibilities. I would recommend Rod Englert's book "Blood Secrets". He was a part of the DOJ who personally analyzed the socks. He was very clear that the stains were medium-velocity impact stains and it would be incredibly difficult to plant those stains the way the defense team suggested. The stains were also consistent with the splash marks on Ron Goldman's pant cuffs (meaning they occurred when OJ was stepping through the puddles of blood and it was splashing on the socks). When a blood spatter expert analyzes the evidence and is adamant that the stains did not appear planted, I think we should listen.

5) But Detective Vannatter had carried the vial blood to Rockingham that day instead of booking it at the Parker Center! He did so to not disrupt Fung’s Divisional Record (DR) inventorying system, and Fung has confirmed this. But there is a bigger problem with this scenario. The defense team argued that there was no blood on the sock for weeks after it was collected...so why would it be relevant that Vannatter brought the vial to Rockingham? According to the defense, there was no blood on the sock at that point anyway!

6) Nicole's blood must have been degraded on the sock, right?  Nope! Nicole's blood on OJ's sock was fresher than her blood in her reference vial.  Dr. Robin Cotton found that the autopsy vial contained the more degraded blood, and it is obviously impossible for degraded blood to become fresh again.  So where did the blood on the sock come from?  Obviously it came from the crime scene.

More on Stephen Singular....

Because Singular is a vocal advocate in the belief that Simpson was framed, I will at times respectfully engage with his Twitter and will challenge his ideas. I will post more in-depth looks at those ideas here.  Let's look at a recent post regarding one of his main theories.   I responded, though yet haven't seen a follow-up.  

This is an odd take, so let's break down this tweet.  First, the argument over EDTA in OJ's blood samples is a moot point.  Why Stephen?  The argument is central to the thesis in your book, Legacy of Deception.  If it's moot, why include it at all?  

Does he provide a reason for it being moot?

The FBI was called in to refute this allegation.   True.  Roger Martz was contacted to "refute" this allegation.  This is from the letter he received from Rockne Harmon:

"We would like you to test these items for the presence/absence of EDTA in order to refute the possibility that the stains on the sock, item 13, could have come from Nicole's reference sample, 59 or 72. Similarly, we would like you to test item 117 to refute the possibility that it could have come from Simpson's reference sample, no. 17."

Some have interpreted this as meaning that Martz had an obligation to refute it.  He did not, and explicitly said so in his testimony.  Should the letter perhaps have been worded differently? I think so, but I'm guessing that it was sent like this because the very idea of EDTA being in the samples seemed very unlikely in the first place.  

If they had been able to do that, the prosecution would have called FBI Agent Roger Martz as a witness.  

What? The EDTA argument was the defense team's argument.  Why in the world would the prosecution call a witness to rebut a position that they never advocated for in the first place?  And regardless of who called Martz as a witness, his report prior to taking the stand explained that he did not identify EDTA.  His testimony subsequently supported this as well.  Does the fact that he was subpoenaed by the defense and not the prosecution mean he was lying? How? Martz had already met with Marcia Clark prior to his testimony and explained that there was no EDTA in there, so this makes zero sense.

They couldn't do that because EDTA was in the blood.

They...couldn't call Roger Martz as a witness because EDTA was in the blood?  Well, except, you know...he said the exact opposite and all when actually put on the stand.

Game over.

Indeed Stephen. But maybe not in the way you think it is.